Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Sir Mohamed]

Following a New York Times interview in which he refused to either criticize Putin or his own role with regards to Russia, SPD co-chair Saskia Esken has called upon former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to leave the party.

https://mobile.twitter.com/thorstenbenner/status/1518497932290723840

How would Germany behave if this dude was still in power? Or would he be removed/forced to resign?

[Sir Mohamed]

Less and less countries buying Russian oil, working on banning Russian gas, Finland and Sweden about to join NATO. While not a single objective in Ukraine met despite 15k lost troops... this must be Mr. Putin's strategical mastermind.

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/Frizenhop/status/1519673087368876032

Wouldn't Russia just lose too much revenue? The Russian state is de facto already bankrupt as a result of this stupid war.

Of course that would assume Mr. Putin has any rationality left, which I'm no longer sure of. He'll probably just look for the PRC to bail him out.

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1521113120042885121?s=20&t=Y7xe2vwYfG7O...

Once again, one has to wonder if sabotage, incompetence, or a lack of replacement parts taking their tole on those industries ordered to produce as fast as possible.

Possibly sabotage, similar to the destroyed railways in Belarus. I don't think this is an accident.

[Sir Mohamed]

LOL

https://twitter.com/HuffPost/status/1522199667127242752

LOL, if that doesn't upset Putler? Basically an admission that the "special operation" doesn't go all too well.

[Sir Mohamed]

Putin didn't use today to drop a nuke, then?

How surprising.

Today's speech and parade implied that Putin really hasn't much of a plan going forward.

He obviously doesn't want to to withdraw from Ukraine, but he apparently also doesn't want to escalate (he didn't even threaten to use nukes today) or start with a general mobilization. So things seem to be frozen in the status quo for the time being.

Yup, I guess he'll focus on Donbas and cut off Ukraine off the Black Sea coast and declare victory, while a continued hybrid warfare against the remaining Ukraine keeps going.

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1525072069435740164

Turkey is making a fuss about NATO expansion (Sweden does have a large Kurdish populations and some PKK-sympathizing politicians, but this is comical exaggeration). Going from their previous behaviour, they will ratify after some posturing for an internal audience and some nominal "concessions" by the other members (see their veto threats against the NATO defense plan for Poland and Baltics at the London summit over Syria).

That said some of the things happening with Turkey in regards to the War have been a bit concerning. It has been overshadowed by the (very important and good) sales of Bayraktars to Ukraine. Turkey is the only NATO member not to impose any sanctions, which is perfectly understandable given their dire economic situation, but you have also had for example the Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu saying in an Interview that "some NATO states want to prolong the Ukraine war so Russia gets weaker" (alluding to the US), which regurgitating just plain Russian propaganda. And this does have an effect on public opinion: In a Metropoll poll only 34 percent of Turks held Russia responsible for the war in Ukraine, while 48 percent blamed the United States and NATO. Of course the latent anti-Americanism in Turkish society and the fantasies of nationalist circles who see the country's future in a Eurasian bloc, precedes Erdogan by a mile, but by posturing to them like this he is also fueling them.

How about we take Sweden and Finland in and throw Turkey out?

[Sir Mohamed]

There is still the question if Russia will even let some of the surrendered Azov fighters leave/be exchanged. Already calls from some in the Russian side for detaining them indefinitely, or outright execution:

However, Russia's TASS news agency quoted the speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, as calling the Ukrainian fighters "Nazi criminals" that should not be exchanged.

Another lawmaker, Leonid Slutsky, said that although Russia had a moratorium on the death penalty, it should "think carefully" about capital punishment for the Azov fighters.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/azovstal-evacuate-mariupol-ukraine/31854197.html

You would expect them to have a desire for prisoner exchanges? At least that's what has been done numerous times since the war begun.

[Sir Mohamed]

Russian priorities in Mariupol:

https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1534076982522265600

Horrible. Hopefully Ukraine will soon be able to retake Mariupol.

[Sir Mohamed]

Awful.
https://twitter.com/OSINT88/status/1534897134146883584

Ugh.

I thought Russia doesn't have the death penalty?

[Sir Mohamed]

Some Nazi sh*t:
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1535029213862023169

This is totally what "liberators" do, right?

It's not just a form of war crimes, Russians also use psychological warfare with this kind of cr*p (just like rape etc.). I pray I'll ever get to see the day Putler appears before an international court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[Sir Mohamed]

Is the train much safer than govt airplanes these days? Noticed that all Western leaders paying visits to Kyiv arrive and leave by train.

[Sir Mohamed]

The European section of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) ranked Ukraine 39th out of 49 European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights... better than Bulgaria (40), Romania (41), Poland (44), Belarus (45), and - obivously - Russia (46).

https://rainbow-europe.org/country-ranking

Somewhat off-topic here, though this is hardly a surprise given religion and church play a bigger role in societies of Eastern Europe compared to Central, Western and Northern Europe. Support for SSM has always been significantly lower in states of the former Warsaw Pact.

[Sir Mohamed]

They must have run out of schools and hospitals to bomb.
https://twitter.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1541420721204772864

This kind of stuff really makes me angry. With the G7 summit going on, I hope they quickly manage to speed up and increase delivery of heavy weaponry to Ukraine. Take the missiles down before they do harm and start massive counter attacks against Russian facilities that fire them.

[Sir Mohamed]

So another Russian "goodwill gesture" then. Strange these have all tended to be retreating/giving up territory, but I'm sure that is a complete coincidence

According to a recent statement by Putin, "everything goes according to the plan". Yup, sure.

[Sir Mohamed]

What's the risk of Putin cutting off gas exports to wide parts of Europe in the coming weeks and months? Some old friends from university texting me that.

[Sir Mohamed]

Good luck with that, given the losses they are taking.

Maybe they are OK with it even though they will lose probably another 40,000 men taking half of Ukraine and another 20,000 occupying it. That’s basically like 15% of their entire army and if account those who didn’t die but are now disabled, you are probably talking about a third of their army. Maybe they know what they are doing but this is really stupid. What the hell do I know, though?

Putler doesn't care as long as he gets something he wants. Unlike democratically elected leaders with a free press at home, he has little to fear even with such losses. For him it's still a net gain rather than going out with practically nothing accomplished at all.

I'm sure the original Russian plan was to take over all of Ukraine; now since it didn't work, the plan has seemingly changed to annex wide parts of the east and the south, to cut off the remainder of Ukraine from the Black Sea.

[Sir Mohamed]

Well, yeah, the ultimate point will be to see if the West is willing to endure minor economic pain longer than Putin is willing/able to let Russia endure major economic pain. It's been clear for a while that this is what the conflict will ultimately boil down to. And it is very much an open question, because Westerners' past attitudes to economic pain and their painfully short attention spans don't exactly inspire more confidence.

Still, at least for now, we are doing exactly what we ought to be doing (well, not enough, but still a lot). And the idea that this is "hurting us more than it's hurting Russia" is an active contributor to the propaganda that's helping to weaken our collective resolve. It's empirically, demonstrably false and those who spread it have a very clear motive for doing so.

Yup, that's a pretty good analysis.

I agree that it's overall hurting Russia much more, whose economy solely depends on energy exports and increasingly on the PRC, though Putin contrary to Western govts has the big advantage of public opinion at home. He can actively influence public opinion through state media propaganda and doesn't have to worry about being voted out of office. That's not the case in Western countries, and unfortunately there is no consensus across all partylines to stay the course. 20-30 years ago, that wouldn't have been much of an issue in America, today it is.

[Sir Mohamed]

Recent news about Russian warcrimes of the worst kind are breathtaking an absolutely makes you sick and tired. I also kind of feel the Western nations aren't doing enough to supply heavy weapons to Ulraine to punch back against these barbarians.

The likes of jaichind and bilaps should be ashamed of their stances on Russia. This is simply not about different viewpoints; we have a clear right and wrong here.

At least we know from Andriy he seems alright. Take care, friend.

[Sir Mohamed]

These people really are bastards:

 https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1552929952114286592?s=20&t=z9WAnYzRsI4z0L5uOK8HLg

Classical false flag. And totally what you would expect from the Russians.

Even if somehow Ukrainian strikes killed them, the Russians almost certainly used them has human shields. So basically what ISIS thugs are doing.

[Sir Mohamed]

That’s not a good thing. Sanctions only hurt civilians, not governments. Theres a reason why every country with an economy in “shambles” still has all the higher-ups in government living in palaces. The Russian people don’t deserve to be hurt, but that’s the only thing that comes out of sanctions.

The purpose of these sanctions was to cripple the Russian economy's ability to sustain the cost of a long war, not to provoke a regime change in the Kremlin. These are completely different from the US sanctions on (say) Cuba, which exist purely because a small group of sore losers are located in a swing state. This is the most important nugget in the article:

The study said Russian imports have largely collapsed since the war began, and that the country is facing stark challenges securing crucial inputs, parts, and technology.

"Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products and talent," the team found.

"The hollowing out of Russia's domestic innovation and production base has led to soaring prices and consumer angst," the authors added.

Maybe provoke regime change in the long run. That's still unlikely, though, because there's literally no free press in Russia and a majority of people just eat up what Kremlin propaganda channels tell to believe.

[Sir Mohamed]

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/

"UKRAINIAN FIGHTING TACTICS ENDANGER CIVILIANS"

Amnesty International which clearly is no friend of Russia gets around to complain about Ukrainian tactics

Russians can immediately end this by going back to Russia. Ukraine can't, because their country wouldn't exist anymore.

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1562435700204929025

[Sir Mohamed]

So this pretty much comes close to a general draft? Or anything Putin could do below that? I thought he wanted to avoid a general mobilization because it may risk more backlash?

The question also is what kind of forces these will be. Just a higher number of personell does accomplish little, especially with a lack of training. This is more than a numbers game. If they're untrained and sent into battle, it's basically just a suicide squad.

[Sir Mohamed]

I hope after the war is over the US, UK, Germany and France issue a defense guarantee to Ukraine.  They should have done it in 2014 after the Russian invasion of Crimea.

The US has said to China that they will defend Taiwan, they should do the same with Ukraine.

Yup, and set the path for admission to NATO. Ideally, the end of the war leaves Russia and its military in such horrible shape that they won't be in a position to attack anyone again.

And any potential help to stabilize Russia economically and with humanitarian aid afterwards should be conditioned on serious reforms. Putin and his gang no longer should be considered any dialogue partners beyond the absolutely necessary.