Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Woody]

Making Belgorod the primary thrust for a counter-offensive could have let Ukraine not only seize significant territory to leverage in future negotiations..

So you're suggesting hostage taking then? Because that's what terrorists do.

"Man, why won't NATO let me use their stuff to conquer Russian cities and use their citizens as bargain?"

What do you think happens in war? You're acting like this is something else. Perhaps some game where Ukraine just gets bled out indefinitely by its much larger neighbor, who has no rules or decency? If Ukraine could up its chances of liberating their own people by occupying Russian border areas, and / or using those border areas to bypass hardened defensive lines in Ukraine, why shouldn't they?

Perhaps you would have a different opinion if a foreign enemy was slaughtering your people and showed no signs of leaving. Let's see how long your creative interpretations of war last then.

I don't know how old you are, but I remember the Chechen wars from the late 90s/early 2000s.

Chechens tried the same: Budyonnovsk, Stavropol, Nazran, Kizlyar, Dagestan, etc. Every time it backfired spectacularly and the Russian public opinion about the wars skyrocketed. Ukrainians also have to station valuable reserves to hostile territory. These 2 villages we are talking about are populated in the dozens right now. Belgorod itself is a city of 400k and 20 miles away from the border. You know this is psychotic right? Because at that point it's not a strategic play, you're looking for hostages.

And again, I don't know what's the deal with subtle Nazi dog-whistles that goes on in some Ukrainian circles, but at the very least you probably shouldn't be sending real fascists to do the invading part. That's not helping your cause, and might make some Russians get flashbacks to you-know-when.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Kinda weird how Bakhmut Bob loves to compare Ukraine to terrorists whenever Russia suffers a pr black eye. Like when he compared the Ukraine military to ISIS when they blew up the Crimea bridge and now invading Belgorod would apparently be the moral equivalent of the Chechen rebels?  

[GoTfan]

https://twitter.com/ForeignPolicy/status/1659763384248676353

If there is one glaring failure on the part of the West, it's the total neglect of a major diplomatic presence in the Global South, particularly Africa.

[Woody]

"Let's invade Russia proper, what could go wrong?"

https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1661029547481899008
https://twitter.com/Spriter99880/status/1661050184648867840?cxt=HHwWgIC-ofSVno0u...

[Farmlands]

Sending Nazis to die fighting fascists makes Zelensky the greatest anti-fascist.
https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1660772959621873664
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1660980457993822209

"Putin's justification for this war is to de-nazify us, how do we dispel this?"

.."I got it! Let's invade their country with actual Nazis!"

They don't need to disprove sh-t, practically everyone knows that line used by the Kremlin to justify the invasion was made up on the go, including most of Putin's backers.

[Woody]

The governor of Belgorod Oblast has announced the end of the "counter-terrorist" operation. The remaining AFU DRGs who survived has retreated from the Oblast.

Now that it is over, what exactly was achieved here again?

https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1661020682472546307?cxt=HHwWhoDT9dPgkI0uA...

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1661054984614559748?s=20

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1661049097141489668?s=20

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1661065846049980429?s=12
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1661066753479262212?s=12

[Storr]

It's telling how much the Kremlin focuses on the past. There is no vision for the future. Their propaganda never talks about the future, only about returning to some vague glorious past. Are they returning to the Soviet era or Imperial Russia? It's never made clear presumably because Putin's Russia is so ideologically bankrupt it doesn't really matter. At least the Soviet Union talked about a utopian classless future. Even if that utopia was never going to actually happen, at least there was some vision of the future for the country.

Rest of tweet: "United States did not exist either. Italy did not exist. Germany... Most European countries of today did not exist then."

https://twitter.com/k_sonin/status/1661052565516357633?s=20

[Woody]

Copesight is 2020 needs to stop spreading misinfo. The Russian authorities today established 100% control of the border villages. The AFU also had visual losses, including NATO-issued armor.

-3 American HMMWVs
-2 American MaxxPro MRAPs
-1 Ukrainian KRAZ COBRA
-1 Polish AMZ Dzik-2

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1661079179415175187
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1661081121763782656

[Woody]

Hindsight is 2020 in half a year:

>Ukraine will hold Bakhmut
>Kreminna will fall
>Svatove will fall
>Transnistria will fall
>Lukashenko and Kadyrov would die
>Ukrainians had crossed the Dniepr
>The Bakhmut flanks would collapse
>Ukrainians would take Belgorod

[Virginiá]

Kinda weird how Bakhmut Bob loves to compare Ukraine to terrorists whenever Russia suffers a pr black eye. Like when he compared the Ukraine military to ISIS when they blew up the Crimea bridge and now invading Belgorod would apparently be the moral equivalent of the Chechen rebels?  

It's amazing how we're talking about a major war of conquest and seeing a serious argument that it would be wrong to attack the aggressor country's territory.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1661090509199405057?s=12
Now Kursk 👀

[Virginiá]

The governor of Belgorod Oblast has announced the end of the "counter-terrorist" operation. The remaining AFU DRGs who survived has retreated from the Oblast.

Now that it is over, what exactly was achieved here again?

If it forces Russia to divert troops and resources to guard their border with Ukraine, then for a handful of armored vehicles, that is a bargain for Ukraine.

[Yeahsayyeah]

"wilderness" or "abandoned area" would probably be a better translation instead of "desert".

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1661108506072588298?s=12
Impossible I was told by very serious posters here that he was dead 😱

[Red Velvet]

Sending Nazis to die fighting fascists makes Zelensky the greatest anti-fascist.
https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1660772959621873664
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1660980457993822209

"Putin's justification for this war is to de-nazify us, how do we dispel this?"

.."I got it! Let's invade their country with actual Nazis!"

They don't need to disprove sh-t, practically everyone knows that line used by the Kremlin to justify the invasion was made up on the go, including most of Putin's backers.

Uhhhh not made up on the go at all. You can say it’s terrible justification to invade Ukraine yes, you don’t go around conquering countries just because there are neonazi groups inside (something different from the population). But Russian concern with Ukrainian neonazi groups threatening them is much older than 2022.

Since you are Portuguese, here are some news reports from 2020 - two years before the war and when Bolsonaro was in power - about Russia being concerned about the most radical groups of Bolsonarists (actual hardline Brazilian nazis who wanted to blow up the Brazilian Supreme Court and murder leftists) having strong ties with Ukrainian neonazi groups that they were concerned about:

UOL: Por que a Ucrânia, onde Sara Winter diz ter sido treinada, fascina os bolsonaristas?

“Why does Ukraine, where Sara Winter says she was trained, fascinates Bolsonarists?”

El País: Explícito nas ruas, bolsonarismo neofascista se inspira em extremismo e anticomunismo da Ucrânia

“Explicit in the streets, neo-fascist Bolsonarism is inspired by extremism and anti-communism in Ukraine”

Folha de São Paulo: Associação entre bolsonaristas e grupo neonazista da Ucrânia incomoda a Rússia

Folha sometimes has restricted access so here’s an alternative link

“Association between bolsonaristas and Ukraine bothers Russia”

As ligações de Sara Winter com o nazismo ucraniano e o Palácio do Planalto

“Sara Winter's links to Ukrainian Nazism and the Planalto Palace”

Intercept: Quem é Sarah Winter e seu plano de 'ucranizar' o Brasil

“ Who is Sarah Winter and her plan to 'Ukrainize' Brazil”

[Hindsight was 2020]

It was obvious at some point like all other various people who condemn the US giving aid as “prolonging the war” that Red Velvet would star spewing Russian talking points

[Red Velvet]

It was obvious at some point like all other various people who condemn the US giving aid as “prolonging the war” that Red Velvet would star spewing Russian talking points

I’m publishing what happened in MY country and how Russia was concerned about the association between these hardline Bolsonarist fascists and Ukrainian ones, affecting relationship with Brazil.

Like I said, it’s bad excuse to justify an invasion, some groups don’t represent an entire country, but these concerns are reportedly much older than 2022 so it’s not something “made up on the go”. It’s the people who are saying that who only started paying attention to this conflict in March 2022.

[Hindsight was 2020]

The country who’s government employs the Wagner group doesn’t give a fig about “Nazis” and yeah the accusations are older than last year as Russia really invaded Ukraine in 2014

[Red Velvet]

The country who’s government employs the Wagner group doesn’t give a fig about “Nazis” and yeah the accusations are older than last year as Russia really invaded Ukraine in 2014

That is a different discussion. Whether the concern is real or a scapegoat to “justify” a full invasion is a different story and I tend to agree it doesn’t.

The point is, which you have already agreed here in this post of yours, that these concerns/narratives/discussions existed much before the 2022 invasion to a point it reflected even in dynamics with other places. So it wasn’t suddenly invented as invasion went by like the post I was responding to said.

This Brazilian 2020 TV news report about the neonazi sector of Bolsonarists who wanted to start a “revolution” even shows how they appropriated symbols from their Ukrainian counterparts as they looked up to Euromaiden as an example of what they wanted to achieve in here.

The CIA-backed “Colour Revolution” attempt just happened to fail in here. And mostly because it went out of control, away from what its organizers were expecting. The left had already been defeated in 2018, so the movement that eventually became organic didn’t know what to demand and be anger about anymore, culminating in their own self-destruction.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1661117972184703008?s=20

[Hindsight was 2020]

The country who’s government employs the Wagner group doesn’t give a fig about “Nazis” and yeah the accusations are older than last year as Russia really invaded Ukraine in 2014

That is a different discussion. Whether the concern is real or a scapegoat to “justify” a full invasion is a different story and I tend to agree it doesn’t.

The point is, which you have already agreed here in this post of yours, that these concerns/narratives/discussions existed much before the 2022 invasion to a point it reflected even in dynamics with other places. So it wasn’t suddenly invented as invasion went by like the post I was responding to said.

This Brazilian 2020 TV news report about the neonazi sector of Bolsonarists who wanted to start a “revolution” even shows how they appropriated symbols from their Ukrainian counterparts as they looked up to Euromaiden as an example of what they wanted to achieve in here.

The CIA-backed “Colour Revolution” attempt just happened to fail in here. And mostly because it went out of control, away from what its organizers were expecting. The left had already been defeated in 2018, so the movement that eventually became organic didn’t know what to demand and be anger about anymore, culminating in their own self-destruction.

So you try deny promotion Russian propaganda by throwing in more Russian propaganda

[Red Velvet]

The country who’s government employs the Wagner group doesn’t give a fig about “Nazis” and yeah the accusations are older than last year as Russia really invaded Ukraine in 2014

That is a different discussion. Whether the concern is real or a scapegoat to “justify” a full invasion is a different story and I tend to agree it doesn’t.

The point is, which you have already agreed here in this post of yours, that these concerns/narratives/discussions existed much before the 2022 invasion to a point it reflected even in dynamics with other places. So it wasn’t suddenly invented as invasion went by like the post I was responding to said.

This Brazilian 2020 TV news report about the neonazi sector of Bolsonarists who wanted to start a “revolution” even shows how they appropriated symbols from their Ukrainian counterparts as they looked up to Euromaiden as an example of what they wanted to achieve in here.

The CIA-backed “Colour Revolution” attempt just happened to fail in here. And mostly because it went out of control, away from what its organizers were expecting. The left had already been defeated in 2018, so the movement that eventually became organic didn’t know what to demand and be anger about anymore, culminating in their own self-destruction.

So you try deny promotion Russian propaganda by throwing in more Russian propaganda

In Brazil, I am pretty sure there was an attempt of Color Revolution in the 2010s yes. No Russian had to invent that propaganda, it’s history that taught me the patterns to identify one.

And Lula himself has always said this:

https://lab.org.uk/lula-speaks-from-prison/

“Other mistakes cited by the former President include not reacting properly to the June 2013 protests, which he and journalist Pepe Escobar categorize as an Arab Spring style color revolution, backed by the US.”

[pppolitics]

The governor of Belgorod Oblast has announced the end of the "counter-terrorist" operation. The remaining AFU DRGs who survived has retreated from the Oblast.

Now that it is over, what exactly was achieved here again?

...to show the world that Russia has left own territory undefended while most of its troops are in Ukraine

AFU could just drive into Russia and seize Belgorod if US and Europe gives the OK.