Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1498912341060165635

[Storr]

Very interesting statement on the war from GM Alexander Grischuk (Russian chess grandmaster).  I've always thought of Grischuk as being kind of a moron when it comes to politics, he gave some interview a decade or so ago where he said that 9/11 was fake and he seriously believes Tupac is still alive.  But this statement was very interesting and thought-provoking.

"I'm very sad, very pained with what is going on. I will not use the word 'war' because it's prohibited in our media, and I want them to be able to quote me. You know, I was... I would support Russia in.. I don't know, 99% of international conflicts, but this time I cannot manage to do this. In my view what we are doing is very wrong, from both moral and practical view. And maybe our government, our president, they think that if they stop what's going on they will have to resign... And maybe, if they really think about the future of Russia... They think that it will bring big shocks in Russia, maybe it will make Russia potentially break into pieces, some regions maybe get separated... Russia broke into pieces several times in its history but it always resurrected. Russia is like liquid terminator, it all comes together... If we know that the truth is on our side, if we're feeling that we're with the truth, with god, with justice. And now, at least me, I'm losing this feeling with every day of what's going on, with every victim, with every bombing of the civil objects. It's extremely painful for me, and I really hope it would stop."

This was delivered ad-hoc in an interview, and he was rudely interrupted by the interviewer in the middle, thus the messy syntax.

GM Dmitry Andreikin, also of Russia, was sitting next to him and looked awkward the entire time.  Although this may be due to the fact that Andreikin had just defeated Grischuk.

"If we know that the truth is on our side, if we're feeling that we're with the truth, with god, with justice. And now, at least me, I'm losing this feeling with every day of what's going on, with every victim, with every bombing of the civil objects. It's extremely painful for me, and I really hope it would stop."

To myself, as an American, I immediately thought about how that quote could have easily been about American military mistakes, namely Iraq and Vietnam. I remember as a kid (I would have been 6) seeing the statue of Saddam fall and being proud that the US was on the side of freedom and democracy. Then as the weeks went by, with bloody "liberations" where those we were supposedly liberating didn't seem all that happy we were there, and ever mounting casualties without a clear mission to even consider accomplishing in sight, I quickly lost faith that what we were doing in Iraq was the right thing to do. Maybe relatively few Russians are feeling that increasing unease, I don't know. But, it's not only Alexander Grischuk.

[pppolitics]

Putin's biggest cheerleaders on social media are all Indians (and I don't mean Native Americans)

[Meclazine for Israel]

Ukrainians despise the Russian government, they will never accept a Russian imposed regime. There is nobody who will support it. Former Yanukovych voters are now diehard anti Russia hardliners. They will fight a guerrilla war forever if that is what it takes.

So you are saying that Ukraine with a 'puppet' Government installed by Russia after the military invasion is doomed for failure from within, let alone the pressure from the Western World.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Ukrainians despise the Russian government, they will never accept a Russian imposed regime. There is nobody who will support it. Former Yanukovych voters are now diehard anti Russia hardliners. They will fight a guerrilla war forever if that is what it takes.

So you are saying that Ukraine with a 'puppet' Government installed by Russia after the military invasion is doomed for failure from within, let alone the pressure from the Western World.

Yes?

The last pro-Kremlin president was forced out by popular protest and that guy was actually elected. Imagine what’s going to happen when a puppet is installed at gunpoint.

[GeneralMacArthur]

To myself, as an American, I immediately thought about how that quote could have easily been about American military mistakes, namely Iraq and Vietnam. I remember as a kid (I would have been 6) seeing the statue of Saddam fall and being proud that the US was on the side of freedom and democracy. Then as the weeks went by, with bloody "liberations" where those we were supposedly liberating didn't seem all that happy we were there, and ever mounting casualties and no end in sight, I quickly lost faith that what we were doing in Iraq was the right thing to do. Maybe relatively few Russians are feeling that increasing unease, I don't know. But, I doubt it's only Alexander Grischuk.

I don't want to get into a debate about the Iraq War (which I opposed) but I continue to see comparisons drawn between Iraq and Ukraine as though the two are similar, and I want to clarify that the United States were the good guys in Iraq, while Russia are the bad guys in Ukraine.

That does not mean we should have been in Iraq, or even that our being in Iraq was a net good (although as I posted earlier in this thread, Iraqis polled believed by a substantial margin that life was better under America than under Saddam, even though they hated Americans).  But many Iraqis held totally false beliefs about American motives -- that we were there to plunder Iraq, that we were there to colonize Iraq, that we were there to destroy Islam and force them all to become Christians, beliefs like this spread like wildfire among the Iraqi population whose culture we never understood.  And of course even for Iraqis who did not believe this, the more educated Iraqis, they still often felt that life under Saddam was better because it was more stable than life under America -- even if that instability was because of insurgents constantly trying to blow up hotels and hospitals, which was not our fault and in fact was what we were trying to stop.

There was a lot of blood spilled in Iraq, but if America had had its way there would not have been any blood spilled.  A large assortment of insurgent groups -- many of them led by former military officers from Saddam's army, and/or affiliated with al-Qaeda -- saw Iraq as an excellent opportunity to kill Americans or drain American resources, or fantasized about defeating America establishing an Islamic caliphate or reforming the Ba'ath state.  Many more saw an unstable Iraq as an opportunity to create crime networks or become kingpins, and they all fought amongst each other.  Still others saw Iraq as a potent battlefield for personal sectarian conflicts, like Zarqawi, who was mainly there to kill shi'ites.  These are the people who were killing civilians.  And killing each other.  And killing civilians while trying to kill each other.  And killing Americans.  And killing civilians just to lure Americans in so they could kill Americans.  Or killing just for fun.

All the killing was done by these guys.  Yet today, it is America who has the reputation as the killers.  Even though 99% of our fighting was in an attempt to defeat these killers and stop the killing.

And of course there are many who became so anti-war that they sympathized with the insurgents, not realizing they were falling in love with those who were responsible for there being any war at all.  "Oh they are defending their country from American imperialism."  No they're not.  They're killing each other to fight for who is going to take over the country after America leaves.  Will it be the guy who wants to kill all the Shi'ites, or will it be the guy who wants to kill all the Kurds?

I am certainly not saying we should have been there or that we did a net good by going there.  But we were not the killers.  It was our enemies who were the killers.  In this conflict, it is Russia who are the killers.  America did not bomb hospitals, orphanages, schools, trying to murder children.  It was the insurgents who did that, and we killed to try to stop them.  And now it is Russia who is doing that.

[Meclazine for Israel]

.....they **still** haven't taken Kharkiv, Sumy, or Mariupol.

It's a very big country.

It might not be fast enough for Tik Tok or Twitter enthusiasts who are spinning around in circles.

It's best with these situations to realise the first casualty of war is the truth.

Take the Sarajevo market bombing in the Bosnian War. Serbian artillery commanders used a live feed from CNN to target the Muslim markets in the centre of town.

And how many Vietnam War media reports were total garbage?

Just not getting any good visibility of the facts yet.

[AndyHogan14]

.....they **still** haven't taken Kharkiv, Sumy, or Mariupol.

It's a very big country.

It might not be fast enough for Tik Tok or Twitter enthusiasts who are spinning around in circles.

It's best with these situations to realise the first casualty of war is the truth.

Take the Sarajevo market bombing in the Bosnian War. Serbian artillery commanders used a live feed from CNN to target the Muslim markets in the centre of town.

And how many Vietnam War media reports were total garbage?

Just not getting any good visibility of the facts yet.

It is indeed a big country, but none of those cities are particularly far away from Russia. Someone earlier compared the Russians' inability to take any of those cities to a theoretical American inability to take Tijuana, which makes some sense.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The thing that gets me re: Putin is that while he has always been a vicious authoritarian, his first two terms as President were by Russian standards, quite successful. His legacy in Russia would have easily been better than Yeltsin’s (admittedly not a high bar, but still). While I certainly don’t think Medvevdev was ever a serious successor, how can anyone who ever wanted Russia to be successful—let alone one of the world’s great powers, worthy of respect and deference—see Putin now as anything other than the man who made Russia a global pariah?

If I were personally invested in a notion of “ Russian greatness”, the kind that the current regime is so big on, I would see Putin and his cronies as ruinous mad fools who have thrown everything away. Their efforts to reassert Russian power and prestige have led them on to the path of North Korea levels of toxicity. Insane.

[Storr]

Maybe this is propaganda, but it's hard to act as genuinely nervous as these two look. Evidently they were told it was only a training exercise. If that is true, I can understand why so many lightly damaged and operable tanks have been abandoned by their crews for seemingly no reason. English translation from the video's comments below:

"Captured Russian tankmen. Kharkiv direction"

https://twitter.com/LazarSlutsky/status/1498931733718310914?s=20&t=X0K3v5ImN...

https://twitter.com/GeistRabbit/status/1498933220653821956?s=20&t=X0K3v5ImNj...

[Logical]

The thing that gets me re: Putin is that while he has always been a vicious authoritarian, his first two terms as President were by Russian standards, quite successful. His legacy in Russia would have easily been better than Yeltsin’s (admittedly not a high bar, but still). While I certainly don’t think Medvevdev was ever a serious successor, how can anyone who ever wanted Russia to be successful—let alone one of the world’s great powers, worthy of respect and deference—see Putin now as anything other than the man who made Russia a global pariah?

If I were personally invested in a notion of “ Russian greatness”, the kind that the current regime is so big on, I would see Putin and his cronies as ruinous mad fools who have thrown everything away. Their efforts to reassert Russian power and prestige have led them on to the path of North Korea levels of toxicity. Insane.

Quite baffling indeed. With NS2 and the signing of a "no limits" partnership with China, Russia's economic prospects in the short and medium term looked bright. Rather than building on it Putin decided to piss everything away in a mad gamble. Instead of being remembered as a leader who brought stability and prosperity he will now be remembered as someone who brought economic ruin.

[Omega21]

Maybe this is propaganda, but it's hard to act as genuinely nervous as these two look. Evidently they were told it was only a training exercise. If that is true, I can understand why so many lightly damaged and operable tanks have been abandoned by their crews for seemingly no reason. English translation from the video's comments below:

"Captured Russian tankmen. Kharkiv direction"

I really hope guys like this don't get captured by the right-wing paramilitaries. They're as much as Putin's victims as the Ukrainians.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If anyone's interested, every episode of Servant of the People is on YouTube. It's a decent show; good production quality and Zelensky is a very charismatic and sympathetic lead.

Episode 1:

Thanks for the idea.
The first episode was amazing.

[Storr]

Unfathomably based:

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1498945849258397696?s=20&t=I3x_KkmHRHmAi...


"Translation summary:

Mayor says RuAF have delivered an ultimatum. Either the town surrenders or RuAF offensive will include heavy artillery. Says he wants to fight.

A man interrupts to ask why the mayor did not want to fight yesterday? The mayor tells him to shut up.

He asks who is for fighting. Most people are hesitant, a few voices yell support for fighting.

He asks a few more times and people seem more enthusiastic, more yell support for fighting, but not all. A man yells out: "Just evacuate women and children and then we fight".

He says we have to all make the choice because Russian artillery is already aimed at them and that he himself wants to fight.

Video cuts off around there."

[Storr]

Unfathomably based:

<tweet snip>


"Translation summary:

Mayor says RuAF have delivered an ultimatum. Either the town surrenders or RuAF offensive will include heavy artillery. Says he wants to fight.

A man interrupts to ask why the mayor did not want to fight yesterday? The mayor tells him to shut up.

He asks who is for fighting. Most people are hesitant, a few voices yell support for fighting.

He asks a few more times and people seem more enthusiastic, more yell support for fighting, but not all. A man yells out: "Just evacuate women and children and then we fight".

He says we have to all make the choice because Russian artillery is already aimed at them and that he himself wants to fight.

Video cuts off around there."

More video from the same situation/"negotiation" in Knotop:

Note the Russian car's rear tires were slashed. It doesn't seem like the residents are wanting to surrender.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1498955188811583492?s=20&t=gKmMHLs...

[ugabug]

Updated battlefield situation:

Russians are still slow & ineffective, but slowly gaining ground and encircling areas with stiff resistance.

https://twitter.com/TruthsUnchained/status/1498806054418845701

So much for Kyiv falling within the 72 hours of the start of the war.

[T'Chenka]

Visser Three from Animorphs

Not a reference I was expecting to see on Atlas...

[Meclazine for Israel]

Ukrainians despise the Russian government, they will never accept a Russian imposed regime. There is nobody who will support it. Former Yanukovych voters are now diehard anti Russia hardliners. They will fight a guerrilla war forever if that is what it takes.

So you are saying that Ukraine with a 'puppet' Government installed by Russia after the military invasion is doomed for failure from within, let alone the pressure from the Western World.

Yes?

The last pro-Kremlin president was forced out by popular protest and that guy was actually elected. Imagine what’s going to happen when a puppet is installed at gunpoint.

I don't know. A guy raised it with me in conversation today. He said the invasion was the easy part.

Trying to maintain Ukraine as a Russian state will be next to impossible was the advice he provided.

The economic backlash against Russia looks to be the main issue.

[T'Chenka]

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1498815833681891332

Bu... but Comrade Putin has said in Soviet Russia you don't need large banks and financial institutions.

The Western sanctions against Russia are stronger then even Germany in WW2. The allies did not sanction the German central bank.

As a note, apparently the primary person who was pushing to sanction the central bank was Chrysta Freeland, Canadian foreign minister and Trudeau’s right hand woman.

She is the Finance minister (but she has been the foreign minister at a point and seems to pretty much run the government by herself). She is also half-Ukrainian.

fixed, thanks

You alluded to it but I'm not 100% sure if you know, she's basically the Vice President (but in Canadian terms). If Trudeau were to fall seriously ill or die, she would be the Acting Prime Minister until the Liberal Party decided to choose a new leader. And apparently it's "Chrystia" with an two "I"s. I'm embarassed to say that I thought it was "Christina" until right now, but in my defense, Canadian politics is really boring and hard to pay attention to most of the time.

On-topic: awesome stuff. Glad to see Canada not being overly silent or inactive here.

[Storr]

"the 2nd best army in the world"

https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498943189138685952?s=20&t=XVrdRV54sk...

[Astatine]

https://twitter.com/iaeaorg/status/1498949520515907584?t=vLWqeG18wrPpJOFrGYzu2g&...

[jaichind]

Money market guru global head of short-term interest rate strategy at Credit Suisse AG Zoltan Pozsar gave a talk about the fact the current set of sanctions on Russia will accelerate dollarization trends.  He sees global central banks now will accelerate their moves away from USD as for their reserves.  He points out that Russia has $120 billion in gold reserves and will most likely add to it leading to the possibility that in the long run Russia might move to a system of RUB being backed by gold.

[jaichind]

Russia said it captured the port city of Kherson, Interfax reported, though the government in Kyiv didn't confirm the claim. At the same time, the Kremlin said it's ready to resume talks tonight but added it's not clear if Ukraine is ready.

[Yoda]

"the 2nd best army in the world"

https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498943189138685952?s=20&t=XVrdRV54sk...

If Russia didn't have nukes we could have them in the Stone Age in a week, jfc.

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

"the 2nd best army in the world"

https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498943189138685952?s=20&t=XVrdRV54sk...

If Russia didn't have nukes we could have them in the Stone Age in a week, jfc.

Maybe they are bluffing about their nukes LOL