Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[GeneralMacArthur]

What is the timetable again for NATO air defense systems to be in place to protect Ukraine's essential infrastructure?

Behind the doomed to fail effort to terrorize and demoralize the Ukrainian population, does anyone have an opinion on just how effective Russia's attack on Ukraine's power sources is from a military standpoint?

My opinion is that Russia has not really started to attack the Ukraine energy system.  These attacks seems to be more about learning how Ukraine repairs the damage to attacks to understand where Ukraine energy system have single points of failure.  I also think Ukraine is exaggerating the impact of these attacks to try to get more collective West military and economic aid.

As for NATO missile defense systems, having them in place might be, from a Russia point of view, a feature and not a bug.  These kamikaze drones cost only $20K each. If Russia can exhaust NATO anti missile systems trying to shoot these drones down it is a net economic gain for Russia in this war of attrition.   

Russia will not be able to win a spending war with the west.  America's military budget alone is 50% of the entire Russian GDP.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Ukraine is winning the war.  Why should they give up anything?

Ukraine can join NATO if it damn well pleases.  Why should Russia get a say in the foreign affairs of Ukraine?  NATO is a purely defensive alliance and poses no aggressive threat to Russia.  It is not a reasonable ask for Ukraine to create a constitutional amendment saying they will only ever join alliances that Russia allows them to join.

All the Russian-conquered territories are part of Ukraine.  Donbas is part of Ukraine.  Crimea is part of Ukraine.  Russia took all these territories by illegal military force, committed ethnic cleansing and population transfers on a massive scale, and held phony referendums to try and justify their annexation.  None of this deserves to be given an ounce of credibility by the international community.  Ukraine has the absolute right to re-conquer and re-annex all of those territories under the doctrine of self-defense.

It is ridiculous for Russia to make any sort of demands from their current position of weakness but especially for them do demand spoils of war from a war that they have lost.  If Russia wants to end the war, then complete withdrawal and surrender of all illegally-occupied territory and a guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty are the bare minimal baseline.  What Russia should be negotiating is whether or not sanctions get lifted and whether or not their leaders and soldiers are granted immunity from war crimes, not whether or not they get to keep the territory they stole.

And even if Russia does keep Crimea in the end, it's utterly ridiculous to suggest that Ukraine should completely cut itself off from the Sea of Azov, as well as major port cities such as Meriupol, Melitopol and Berdyansk, by granting Russia a contiguous land-link between Crimea and Russia. 

[GeneralMacArthur]

70% of this 800-page thread is just the two pro-Russia posters talking to each other via Tweet embeds from pro-Russia accounts.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Rare Chinese W?

They'll say one thing and do another.  If China actually opposed what Russia is doing then they wouldn't have just made a big show of supporting Russia and providing whatever Putin needs to continue his genocidal war of conquest and extermination.

China and Russia know that westerners, especially Americans, are contrarian, neurotic, self-loathing suckers who are constantly looking for excuses to oppose their own country's foreign policy positions.  And they know that right-wing parties, such as the Republican Party, are on their side because they have a joint interest in destroying the current western-liberal-globalist world order.

So they offer the flimsiest, most transparent veneer of integrity, morality and justifiability imaginable, and rely on right-wing politicians and pundits to glom onto those talking points and promote them ad nauseum to their idiot followers.  And as an added bonus, the "anti-war left" will follow suit, without even needing the right-wing celebrity layer in between.

All this to while getting away with policies and practices that would trigger massive riots in the streets if ever attempted by a western leader.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://www.ft.com/content/d68b4007-4ddf-4320-b29a-f2eee2662d6e


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   https://www.ft.com/content/d68b4007-4ddf-4320-b29a-f2eee2662d6e

   Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times.

The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April.

“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said, referring to Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive.

First blink .

Doesn't sound like a blink?  Sounds like "we'll wait until we have our gun down Russia's throat, then we'll start negotiations."

[GeneralMacArthur]

Posting the rainbow plane meme or saying stupid both-sides American imperialism crap should get you permanently banned from public discourse.  It's such a stupid thing to believe, much less publicly post about.  Yet we not only tolerate our celebrity betters engaging in this behavior, sometimes they're even celebrated for it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Why are you guys still talking about BRICS lmao.  Do you really think Russia and South Africa are in any way economically comparable to India and China?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Russia invaded and annexed internationally recognized Ukrainian territory. What was Ukraine supposed to do, pretend none of that happened and pursue a good relationship with Russia?

Actually yes.  I would give the same advice to Mexico in 1848.

Not at all inherently bad advice.

It's interesting to note that the Republic of Texas was not the only quasi-independent state to separate itself from Mexico.  Most of Central America today is composed of countries that were part of the arbitrarily-carved-up chunk of the Spanish empire that became Mexico in the early 1800s, but declared independence and set off on their own.  Most of the Yucatan tried to become independent around the same time, and there was a "Republic of the Rio Grande" to complement the Republic of Texas, which was composed of much of modern-day Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas.  A lot of this was in response to the authoritarian rule of Santa Ana... these territories did not want to be part of the nascent Mexican state.

America, of course, allowed Texas to become a state after the independence movement succeeded, while the others eventually became independent countries or decided to remain part of Mexico after all.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I don't understand why Putin thinks it benefits him to starve more people to death in the poorest of the poor nations by cutting off Ukrainian grain. It is not as if Ukraine needs the cash, with Biden writing it big checks. It is as if Putin wants Russia to be universally hated by everyone other than Assad, and Kim Jong Un and whatever psycho is running Iran these days. Just bat sh*t crazy it seems to me.

Putin simps will still make excuses for him no matter what.  Including the entire nation of India.  So why not do something horrible that will just make people miserable?  It's what gets him off.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Why is this forum so quiet right now?

It's going poorly for Russia, so our blue avatar friends are waiting for a new status quo to be stabilized before they return to their usual trolling.

[GeneralMacArthur]

God this is so awesome 🥳

Is the world finally coming around on The Grayzone and their ilk after I've spent the last eight years sounding the alarm?

[GeneralMacArthur]

So, more about this offensive that isn't getting anywhere?

They're breaking through more and more Russian lines every day, what do you mean it isn't getting anywhere?  There's been a lot of progress over the last week.

A lot of people are acting like this is all about the amount of territory seized.  It's not.  In a war of attrition, it's about the number of lines busted.  Once they break through the Russian defenses, all the territory behind the lines is up for grabs.  Just like in World War 1, where the Germans surrendered when allied forces hadn't even crossed the French border yet.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The case for peace with the Confederacy
injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

The military industrial complex would love nothing more than for this great civil war to long endure.  Every dead soldier is another dollar in their pockets.  The only ethical thing for Mr. Lincoln to do is to end the war as fast as possible, reach a peace settlement with the southerners and find a way to live in harmony.

This is the only way to avoid the continued loss of life.  Every northern boy who lies bleeding on the battlefield must also lie on President Lincoln's conscience, for it is only thanks to Lincoln's refusal to accept peace, his willingness to allow the great Wall Street war machine to lead him by the nose, that we continue to suffer these unnecessary casualties.  An entire generation of American men sacrificed because Lincoln refuses to sue for peace.

The most galling aspect of this lies in its racial injustice.  Mr. Lincoln has chosen to recruit negros for his war, taking the very boys he claims to protect and shoveling them into the meat grinder.  How many thousands of negros would still be alive today had Mr. Lincoln sued for peace, rather than sending them to die on the battlefields of Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Petersburg?  And yet he comes before Congress and begs for ever more funding for these negro battallions.  Enough is enough.  We must reach a diplomatic conclusion to this endless war, for the sake of the negros, if for nothing else.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Cuba announced it has uncovered a Russian human trafficking ring which was recruiting Cubans into the war against Ukraine.

You know you're winning when you're:

• assassinating your top field commander
• begging an impoverished ally that hasn't fought a battle in 40 years for their antiquated military equipment
• kidnapping and impressing people from another ally with 1/10th your population to compensate for field losses
• all this while watching your most critical defensive lines get overrun by an enemy with 1/3 your population and 1/8th of your GDP

hell of a week for Putin

[GeneralMacArthur]

1. Creating a special subdivision of the state-owned "Russian Agrarian Bank" and connecting it to SWIFT, this circumventing sanctions.

Oh man remember 18 months ago when the entire internet and media revealed themselves to be lifelong Ph.D experts in SWIFT because there was an opportunity to criticize Biden for not doing something with it (and after he did it, for not doing it fast enough of course)

[GeneralMacArthur]

When asked about the Ukraine War, this is the response he gave. Extremely smart to poke at the Western hypocrisy in the middle of all this while still condemning the invasion of Ukraine.

Oh, well, if a Hollywood celebrity says so

[GeneralMacArthur]

Comrade bilaps has decided to pick up where comrade Woodbury left off

bilaps gets the Vatnik of the Month award

jaichind has 10 of the last 35 posts in this thread, about half of the remaining 25 posts are people responding to his posts, and he constantly posts enormous tweets or image embeds that dramatically interrupt the flow of conversation.

Now that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have killed SirWoodbury, jaichind has to work overtime to make up for the trolling deficit.

And he's not even adding any commentary he's literally just spamming inflammatory headlines and links to try and wreck the thread.  This is a very familiar trolling tactic but you guys always bite on it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Fully 1/3 of the posts in this thread over the last month are by one person, who does not even write proper posts, he just does a daily dump of every single link/image/tweet from his news feed.

Not only is it spam, it also prohibits any real conversation by breaking up any attempt at dialogue with the clutter of a bunch of enormous images and tweet embeds.

Why do the mods continue to allow this?  It is just spam.  Endless, endless, spam.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Fully 1/3 of the posts in this thread over the last month are by one person, who does not even write proper posts, he just does a daily dump of every single link/image/tweet from his news feed.

Not only is it spam, it also prohibits any real conversation by breaking up any attempt at dialogue with the clutter of a bunch of enormous images and tweet embeds.

Why do the mods continue to allow this?  It is just spam.  Endless, endless, spam.

While I also find it annoying, blocking that specific poster is enough for me.

It's not really sufficient because his spam still has the effect of destroying this thread's capacity to support conversation, because unless everyone collectively blocks him, others trying to have a conversation will be filibustered into submission by his human wave attack of spam posts.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Wait, I thought the counteroffensive was over?  Weren't there a bunch of threads by our local traitors a couple weeks ago along the lines of "now that the Ukrainian offensive has failed, what comes next"?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Roses are red, autumn has arrived, coup is a coup and Ukraine is still stuck in Zaporožje.

I think when the day comes that Ukraine is no longer "stuck in Zaporizhzhia" that will be the day the war ends, since Kherson is completely indefensible without the land bridge from Russia.  Crimea/Luhansk/Donetsk were already separatist/annexations before the war so it would just be a question of if Russia, after what would undoubtedly be a monumental defeat on the battlefield, wants to continue trying to defend them in what would most likely be a losing effort given Ukrainian momentum and severe logistical issues.

It's pretty much impossible for me to imagine a future where Ukraine reaches the Sea of Azov in Zaporizhzhia and then loses the war.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Eight of the nineteen posts on this page are jaichind and most of them are just him posting huge screenshots of Russian agitprop.

When will it end.  What will it take for the mods to step in.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Russia is a major world power with an enormous amount of land, a nuclear arsenal protecting it from any threat of invasion, and vast swaths of natural resources, including the most strategically valuable natural resource in the world.  It's also a completely top-down authoritarian state with a sophisticated, well-armed state oppression operation against a largely impoverished and weak populace.  The country isn't going to collapse overnight, unfortunately.

However, they are stuck in a meat grinder stalemate in Ukraine that is draining their military capabilities and killing hundreds of young men every day.  They've tried to compensate by emptying out their prisons, but that will only last so long.  As long as America keeps the meat grinder running, killing one young able-bodied Russian man after another, Russian socioeconomic conditions will continue to decline, and their ability to not only project aggressive military force but even to defend against internal conflicts will degrade.  For instance, if there was another Chechnya, or an uprising in Georgia or Dagestan, Russia would have a serious military challenge on its hands.  Much less an actual attack on Russia by one of its neighbors.

You'd have to think that even without an attack, though, just the continued killing of its young men and the continued economic stagnation through lack of trade with Europe would be enough to eventually piss off the Russian people enough to spark protests, riots, and anti-state violence.  It's a lot to ask against Putin's oppression machine though.

At any rate, even if Russia isn't attacked, its military powers are so degraded at the current time that it couldn't possibly hope to even dream of winning a direct engagement with NATO, even if you do buy the hype about European military capabilities running dry.  For one thing, the United States has far greater industrial capacity than Russia, so we could re-arm in a matter of months if it proved necessary.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It really is frustrating that we had to go and invent nuclear weapons.  American forces are more than capable of wiping out this backwards, antiquated military dependent on irreplaceable 35-year-old airplanes.  But because Putin has nukes we can't just march into Russia and depose him, we have to do all this Cold War proxy war bulls--t.  If Venezuela acted the way Russia does, it would have been occupied by the United States a long time ago (of course, it would probably protect its ass by finding a nuclear power to back it up, same reason North Korea clings to power).

[GeneralMacArthur]

You should never take someone who likes Russia at their word.  If they pretend they care about humanitarianism or preventing bloodshed, and then you give them what they want, they'll just decide they care about something else.  Making even rhetorical concessions to appease them is just you being their dancing monkey.  At best they are brainless dogs who drool whenever Putin rings his bell and are incapable of independent thought (ironically, while believing themselves to be the most independent of thinkers).  At worst they are aspiring mini-Putins of their own, effortlessly lying and gaslighting to try and obtain respectability in polite company by spewing out a noxious cloud of rhetorical BS that obscures their actual position, which is just that they want Russia to win no matter what.

Whether they're actively doing Putin's bidding or just too stupid to realize that they're sock puppet NPCs, the ultimate goal is just to antagonize you and waste your time.  To even bother engaging in conversation with them is a complete waste because you are basically just talking to yourself, or talking to ChatGPT -- there is no persuadable party and their convictions are all fake.  To actually make concessions based on these totally fake positions they're pretending to hold?  That's just a surrender.  That just makes you a loser.