Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Alben Barkley]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/11/biden-ukraine-us-russian-invasion-winter-olympics

It’s happening.

[Alben Barkley]

Reminder that Trump defended this.

Reminder that Putin worked to help Trump become president.

Reminder that Republicans literally are polled as preferring Russia over Democrats.

Trump and his supporters are traitors. Every last one of them.

[Alben Barkley]

Surrendering Russian troops? Thousands of protesters on the streets of Moscow? Angry oligarchs and businessmen as the Russian economy plunges?

Did Putin really f--k up and go too far this time?

Can't rule out a coup!

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496871285917470720?s=21

Wait... horseshoe theory is true?

Always has been.

[Alben Barkley]

Russia is getting their asses handled to them.

Winter War 2?

Big difference between an army that has everything to lose and one that has nothing to gain, maybe that's what we're seeing here.

I'm also seeing anecdotal reports that young Russian soldiers in particular are laying down their arms in decent numbers, saying they don't want to kill or die for Putin. One idea may be for Western nations to offer amnesty and asylum to any Russian soldier who doesn't want to fight (many are drafted and don't wanna be there).

No morale, no economy, international pariah, military humiliations, unrest at home? If it all goes just right this may backfire way worse than Putin could ever have imagined. Fingers crossed...

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/GlasnostGone/status/1497273163146801158

Based Boris.

Maybe a little Churchill in him after all...

[Alben Barkley]

Putin's daughter has reportedly separated from her Western husband:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10587477/Putins-girls-daughters-Russian-president-taking-world-WW3.html

Way to go Vlad! Getting rid of your neighbors AND your son-in-law in one blow I see!

[Alben Barkley]

In the event Belarus does invade Ukraine, what does Zelenskyy have up north to counter them?  

Pretty sure Ukraine has enough Javelins alone to easily blow the entire Belarusian military to shreds in like five minutes.

There is a reason Lukashenko has been dragging his feet on actually committing forces. He knows the moment he does it will be an absolute disaster, and in his precarious position in which he came extremely close to being ousted until Putin bailed him out, that could very easily lead to his swift downfall well before Putin meets the same fate.

[Alben Barkley]

So much disinfo and wishcasting. It's okay to condemn Russia but let's be honest about this situation.

You make a mockery of everything America stands for.

By all means, surrender your passport and emigrate to your dream country of Russia or Belarus, traitor.

Isolationist paleocons disgust me, especially when they don't even have a remotely coherent ideology and try on political ideals like they are new sets of pajamas each day the way you do.

I hope to hell you are just a kid going through some stupid edgelord phase. If you are an adult with a supposedly developed mind, you are beyond saving. Literally the type of motherf--ker who would have sided with Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, and the other "America First!" Nazis over FDR and the rest of the US. All of these people should have summarily had their citizenship stripped and been deported as far as I am concerned.

[Alben Barkley]

So much disinfo and wishcasting. It's okay to condemn Russia but let's be honest about this situation.

You make a mockery of everything America stands for.

By all means, surrender your passport and emigrate to your dream country of Russia or Belarus, traitor.

Isolationist paleocons disgust me, especially when they don't even have a remotely coherent ideology and try on political ideals like they are new sets of pajamas each day the way you do.

I hope to hell you are just a kid going through some stupid edgelord phase. If you are an adult with a supposedly developed mind, you are beyond saving. Literally the type of motherf--ker who would have sided with Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, and the other "America First!" Nazis over FDR and the rest of the US. All of these people should have summarily had their citizenship stripped and been deported as far as I am concerned.

How can I be a traitor to Poland or France if I'm in America?

Why should Americans born in America who don't want to be involved in adventures overseas be stripped of citizenship?

The war machine is clearly manufacturing consent for a proxy war. Look no further than the pathological liar Churchill fanning the flames of despair.

We should dislike Germany for the economic terrorism they're committing. Not getting involved in regional territorial squabbles.

Unlike you, I learn from history.

You are a traitor for parroting the propaganda of a nation that has been the de facto archenemy of the US for several decades.

You don't deserve your citizenship because you are an insanely selfish, small-minded individual who apparently believes that "F--k you, got mine!" is a way of life, and that being privileged enough to be born a citizen of the world's greatest superpower comes with no responsibilities to match. Who also apparently believes that his own perceived personal comfort is vastly more important than the lives of millions around the globe.

Nothing more dishonorable or disgraceful on the planet to me. Especially now that we KNOW better, precisely BECAUSE we saw the horrors of WW2. Nothing sickens me more than those who actively refuse to learn from history when the facts are right there in front of them, plain to see.

[Alben Barkley]

Wikipedia is calling the Battle of Kyiv over with a Ukrainian victory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kyiv_(2022)

[Alben Barkley]

Literal Nazi stuff now. Or hell, just the Red Army marching through villages murdering every civilian man and raping every civilian woman.

F--k Russia.

[Alben Barkley]

The bitterest of confirmations. Is anyone surprised at how Russia has acted in Ukraine? This is how they’ve been acting for the past twenty to thirty fucking years!!! Syria, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, the CAR, South Sudan, and even more places. A thing I hadn’t gotten around to posting yet involves a question in Freedom House’s calculations: “Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?” It’s an additional question under Political Rights, Functioning of Government. It’s basically the Ethnic Cleansing and/or Genocide Question. Russia is guilty multiple times - South Ossetia, Crimea, the Eastern Donbas, and a bit further back in Abkhazia and Transnistria directly, and participated a little less directly in Syria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and further back in Bosnia. Most of the other cases involve their buddies in China (both Tibet and in Xinjiang), Myanmar (the military government), Sri Lanka, the Sudan…all such sterling examples of human rights.

You know something else they have in common? They keep getting away with it, because it was deemed too costly to ever do anything about it. Some of us have been sounding the alarm since at least 2008*, only to be mocked and scorned by vile people from the left and right alike. But inaction is an action all its own. Many of you aren’t old enough to remember the Rwandan Genocide, where action could’ve saved some of the victims. Or Bosnia, where the killing only stopped when action was finally taken. Or ‘peace at any price’ applied to North Korea in 1994 - that sure worked out well**.

But it’s easy to turn your heads away when it doesn’t affect you personally, huh?

Well, wake up chucklefucks, because the people behind all of these atrocities are out to destroy democracy worldwide. Or have you not goddamned noticed the Russian and Chinese*** money and influence spread worldwide aimed at displacing both Western influence and Western values in order to replace them with something far grimmer****. That includes the support of anti-democratic forces in democratic countries, or have the examples of, say, Fidesz and the GOP not made that clear*****?

You think this world conflict can be avoided by appeasement? That’s what’s led to where we are now! The autocracies of the world will not stop until either democracy dies or autocracy is shattered. The options are surrendering or resisting. But holy shit do some people not get that. Or else they do get it, and welcome surrender, whether out of hate for the Western system that gives them the freedom to act like prats, or out of the belief that peace is worth any price, even global autocratic subjugation.

You can see what a world of autocracies would be like. Just start reading some human rights reports. Then apply that to everyone. Is this what you want? Because if not, then the democracies of the world are going to have to take a stand against their enemies both within and without.

I’m sure plenty of people are already dismissing me as an alarmist or a warmonger or a chickenhawk or whatever bullshit terms come to mind. But I’ve been right about this. Which is the bitterest confirmation of all, because cowardice and confusion and sociopathy and fear have led us all into an abyss that I worry will only be escaped from when it’s filled with the corpses of millions of innocents.

*I saw that thread on Russia invading Georgia from 2008 and yup, I was right. Unfortunately.
 **Yes, I would’ve supported intervention instead. How many millions of North Koreans have died of starvation and oppression since 1994? I bet it’s a LOT more than would have if the North Korean regime had been toppled at its weakest point. But blah blah money blah blah invincible North Korean military blah blah fuck the North Korean people amirite?
***And others. Usually under the rubric of opposing the West. This includes both the Saudis and Iranians. Plus their willing supporters.
****Unless you like the jackboots as long as you get to wear them? Looking at tankies and Trumpists alike, here.
*****Yes, the GOP is a clearly authoritarian party now, riddled with Russian influence. I guess after subverting the Greens the Russians decided to go big.

[Alben Barkley]

After this and "war criminal" remarks, I really can't imagine how he'd stand next to Putin at the G20 summit later this years or the ASEAN summit.

He should stand next to him and then kick him in his right leg. Many of us are curious and would like to find certain things out.

He should do what he said he'd do to Trump: Take him behind the locker room and beat the hell out of him!

[Alben Barkley]

This kind of trash journalism why people make fun of "the left" and "liberals".

https://twitter.com/arawnsley/status/1510743893830246407?s=20&t=FoVJDN6x2tuW...

WTF is this? I'd expect to see that crap from Jacobin or The Intercept, but The New Republic?

Should go without saying, but even if somehow that image was fake because "OMG the satellite maker is part of the MiLLiTaRy InDUStRiAL CoMpLEx!!!" or whatever, how about the countless photos and videos from right on the ground?

Utterly asinine to even waste time talking about this crap.

[Alben Barkley]

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1511035183650295812

https://mobile.twitter.com/AFP/status/1511039450855452677

https://mobile.twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1511088094728048649

Okay, mini-Putin, give us your best shot.

Mini-Putin lol. Now I can't stop thinking about Putin and Medvedev doing this:

[Alben Barkley]

Based Biden.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1510996562394103808

I'm all for. once Bush faces them over Iraq.

I hate Bush as much as anyone but piss off with the false equivalence 🤬

> Russia has done more in Ukraine in 6 weeks than Bush did in Iraq in 6 years and that was with Bush actually being able to take Iraq over.

> There was actually a good reason to invade Iraq but instead Bush lied about the causus belli. I originally favored it and still do in principle, but the corruption and incompetence quickly illustrated that it was a failed operation. Bush and members of his administration should be held responsible for the negligence and fraud that they committed and the unnecessary mercurial violence they encouraged in regards to Iraq.

> The only reason Russia invaded Ukraine was because they wanted  back the territory they lost during the dissolution of the USSR.

> Let's talk about the here and now instead of someone else kind of doing the same thing and getting away with it.
 

That argument would have had more credibility outside the west if it was actually talked about rather than swept under the rug with "whataboutery" being one of the things keeping it in the public conciousness.

In this thread, the issue has been raised and the differences pointed out repeatedly by multiple people. The ones bringing it up both in this thread and in other places are doing it to try and score cheap political points against the West in general and the U.S. in particular while dodging answering any of the questions posed by their tepid to nonexistent support of Ukraine. They’re not interested in an honest examination of the issue, but in using “what about Iraq/Afghanistan” as a deflection from their morally bankrupt stance.

You my friend are incredibly based.

[Alben Barkley]

Despite all of the attention focused on Bucha, we are starting to see information come in from other places under Russian Occupation that are now liberated.

This is just a fragment, but the article talks about what effectively amounted to torture of civilians in Russian custody, investigations of a mass grave of six nearby, a wounded member of the territorial defense who has disappeared after being held in Russian custody, etc...

It's a decent length article and well worth a read for anybody interested who has a subscription or hasn't used up their monthly freebies yet.

Badly frightened and hungry, residents of Nova Basan, a town east of Kyiv, emerged from their cottages and farmhouses on Monday, and described living through the terrifying ordeal of the Russian occupation — detentions, threats and a strict curfew that confined them to their homes with no outside communication for more than a month.

Nova Basan, about 60 miles east of the Ukrainian capital, is one of a stretch of towns and villages retaken from Russian control after battles through the last week of March, and just now coming back to life.

“It was terrible,” said Mykola Dyachenko, the official responsible for the administration of the town and surrounding villages. “People were not expecting such things.” He said he was among some 20 men who were held prisoner by Russian troops for 25 days during the occupation.

He looked exhausted, his face waxy and pale. He said he had been put through what he called a mock execution 15 times while being questioned about local Ukrainian territorial defense forces and ammunition stored in the area.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/ukraine-nova-basan-russia.html

See now if Russia is doing this EVERYWHERE, not just one isolated and particularly awful massacre (horrific as that alone would be), THAT might constitute the actual definition of genocide.

[Alben Barkley]

To make some unfounded speculation, does anybody else think part of the reason for the war crimes is to provoke Ukrainian war crimes and scare Russian soldiers away from surrendering, along with making as many officers as possible complicit thereby tying them further to Putin? Or is the Russian army really that bad?

To make some unfounded speculation, does anybody else think part of the reason for the war crimes is to provoke Polish war crimes and scare German soldiers away from surrendering, along with making as many officers as possible complicit thereby tying them further to Hitler? Or is the German army really that bad?

[Alben Barkley]

To make some unfounded speculation, does anybody else think part of the reason for the war crimes is to provoke Ukrainian war crimes and scare Russian soldiers away from surrendering, along with making as many officers as possible complicit thereby tying them further to Putin? Or is the Russian army really that bad?

To make some unfounded speculation, does anybody else think part of the reason for the war crimes is to provoke Polish war crimes and scare German soldiers away from surrendering, along with making as many officers as possible complicit thereby tying them further to Hitler? Or is the German army really that bad?

I was pretty honest that I was pulling a conspiracy theory out of my ass was I not? I am fine with being wrong, but I have done nothing against you personally and do not deserve your snark.

Uh, if it was just a joke all along, no reason to be offended by a counter-joke?

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1510695804750766093

 He is  Rabid nationalist disguised as a Christian. Surely if Jesus's injunction against the wicked using his name in the furtherance of evil is true, then there's a special place in h*** for Kirill.

I have said for years if I'm going back to the Church it's either Catholic or Orthodox cause I frankly think Protestantism makes no sense.

This solidifies Catholicism for me.

[Alben Barkley]

Based Boris!

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1512818337415372802?s=20&t=Fn1yKXh5R...

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1512733846911041541

Cartoonishly evil.

S--t like this makes me glad I'm not POTUS, because I probably would have hit the "NUKE MOSCOW" button immediately after I read it.

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1512733846911041541

Cartoonishly evil.

S--t like this makes me glad I'm not POTUS, because I probably would have hit the "NUKE MOSCOW" button immediately after I read it.

I mean, if this is real, this is like a Nazi propaganda poster about the Russians made flesh and blood.

I have some bad news for you: "Nazi propaganda" about Russians even in WW2 was not always false.

The rape of German women during WW2 by Russian soldiers is probably the greatest mass rape in human history.

When Churchill said we were making a deal with "the Devil" (referring to Stalin) to fight Hitler, he wasn't kidding.

Russians are and always have been absolute barbarians. Obviously there are exceptions. But the sad, cold, hard, reality is their culture has scarcely advanced from the pillaging and plundering of the Mongols, let alone their own Imperialist 18th and 19th century history.

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1512733846911041541

Cartoonishly evil.

S--t like this makes me glad I'm not POTUS, because I probably would have hit the "NUKE MOSCOW" button immediately after I read it.

I mean, if this is real, this is like a Nazi propaganda poster about the Russians made flesh and blood.

I have some bad news for you: "Nazi propaganda" about Russians even in WW2 was not always false.

The rape of German women during WW2 by Russian soldiers is probably the greatest mass rape in human history.

When Churchill said we were making a deal with "the Devil" (referring to Stalin) to fight Hitler, he wasn't kidding.

Russians are and always have been absolute barbarians. Obviously there are exceptions. But the sad, cold, hard, reality is their culture has scarcely advanced from the pillaging and plundering of the Mongols, let alone their own Imperialist 18th and 19th century history.

You might be right, unfortunately. I just wish those who wanted to repent were given the opportunity.

They have the opportunity. Right now. They can lay down their arms, surrender, and refuse to keep slaughtering innocent men, women, and children for an evil unjustified cause at any time. They can certainly not watch as their comrades rape toddlers, film it, or laugh as it happens. Let alone participate it in themselves. If I was one of them, I would personally have shot and killed the rapist, come hell or high water. Any Russians who do take such actions deserve commendation.

But those who choose to engage in or encourage that kind of behavior? I HOPE there is a Hell for them. I really do. There have been some Russians who have admirably defected and refused to keep fighting for an evil cause. I hope they get the best treatment possible. Unfortunately they seem to be a tiny minority however.