Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Hnv1]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

Montenegro has far fewer issues than Ukraine, and they applied over 13 years ago.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yeah...there are a few not very subtle hints that it was Germany:

"On the first day of the war, Feb. 24, Ukraine's ambassador to a very influential European country attended the office of the secretary of state of some ministry and said: "Help us, the war has begun. Help us with this and that." That person smiled sympathetically and answered: "My dear, let's be honest, why we should help you if everything ends in a maximum of 48 hours and a new reality comes." This is a specific episode that took place in an extremely influential EU country."

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1505352215782989826?s=20&t=oth05F...

Well as related before, that it would all be over in a few days was close to a consensus at the time. That is why much of the talk of helping Ukraine then related to aiding any possible insurgency.

[Estrella]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

As far as I understand it, it's only for the duration of the state of emergency.

[Middle-aged Europe]

You can call me what you want. But the fact is, I am expressing the views broadly held by 1.4 billion people, 1.3 billion or so have a government whose actions up to now are indistinguishable from China's, and as described by Red Velvet earlier in this thread, hundreds of millions live in countries that either sympathize with the alternate viewpoint ....

a) How did you come up with such completely random numbers? Did you personally poll the world's population over the weekend or is it just an ass-pull on your part?

b) Making outlandish statements like "I represent the opinions of billions of people" comes across as an expression of either delusions of grandeur or of feelings of insecurity and inferiority on your part. In any case you're trying to make yourself sound bigger than you are. Kind of like Donald Trump actually.

I thought this was a political forum to discuss all viewpoints, and normally it is, but for some reason on this issue it is a complete echo chamber.  

Well, you haven't been banned from this forum yet, haven't you? Freedom of expression always goes both ways and that means you're not actually entitled to get only praise for your opinions from others, but instead other people have strictly speaking the right to tell you that your opinions are nonsense.

As for the "echo chamber" thing: It's not really true that everyone here holds the same opinion on everything. There's a majority opinion though and I think you managed to get the message across now that you don't like that majority opinion.

I would say that there are of course some political issues which are highly controversial and other political issues where large consensuses exist. The Ukraine war tends to be more of the latter. The fact that there is such a large consensus on something is not bad in itself but perhaps only goes to show that it happens to be one occasion where it is rather clear-cut what the morally sound position is to take. I mean when someone says "slavery is evil" you also wouldn't expect many people to say that "this place is becoming an echo chamber on the opposition to owning people as property, we need to hear both sides of the story".

[Antonio the Sixth]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

Banning organizations that actively collaborate with a hostile power that's currently invading your country is perfectly consonant with democratic values.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

As far as I understand it, it's only for the duration of the state of emergency.

Why would one ban the opposition party?

Seems a little bit misguided when you are singing for your supper to the left woke media.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Zelenskyy bans the biggest opposition party, will the EU reject UA admission request due to democratic backsliding?

As far as I understand it, it's only for the duration of the state of emergency.

As I have said before in this thread, Ukraine would be years away from actually being admitted to the EU in any case. At best they would be granted EU candidate status now. A status that has been held by Turkey for over two decades now and that hasn't been revoked yet despite all of Erdogan's shenanigans.

I have not enough information at this point to make a full assessement on the decision to suspend Opposition Platform — For Life' activities (neither do I have information what "suspending activites" actually entails in practice). Obviously it would be both sad and ironic - and in a sense a realization of Putin's strategic goals - if the invasion by an increasingly oppressive Russian regime would cause Ukraine also to become increasingly oppressive in a "he who fights monsters" kind of way.

The decision to suspend might be related to the fact that Yuriy Boyko serves as the Opposition Platform's chair and Boyko had previously been reported as Russia's choice for prime minister that they wanted to impose on a post-war Ukraine. Applying such an "enemy agent" status could be justified or could be excessive, but as I indicated it requires further reading on my part.

[Storr]

If the Russians are resorting to using experimental tanks...

https://twitter.com/loogunda/status/1505397537536102402?s=20&t=hEMQRFg4iGfUA...

[Storr]

Very big if true. Izyum is on the highway linking the Donbass and Kharkiv, roughly halfway between the two. The Russians must take the city in order to incircle Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv and/or the Donbass.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505508287189499904?s=20&t=di1lxzaFz...

[ugabug]

Just how large is the VDV since it seems they've been taking severe losses this entire war.

[Torie]

NYT says stalemate, Russia cannot take Kiyv and Odessa, so Russia is now digging into and fortifying the real estate that it has taken, and is blasting away at the cites from afar, that Ukraine cannot stop.*

*today to add to yesterday's destruction of the theater where 1,300 were taking refuge, it was a drama school were 400 were hiding

"Here are the latest developments in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate after more than three weeks of fighting, with Russia making only marginal gains and increasingly targeting civilians, according to analysts and U.S. officials.

“Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research institute, said in an analysis. Russians do not have the manpower or the equipment to seize Kyiv, the capital, or other major cities like Kharkiv and Odessa, the study concluded."

...

"With Mr. Putin determined to pummel Ukraine into submission, Russia’s failure to achieve its initial objectives could presage an even deadlier phase of the war defined by large-scale casualties."

...

"Ukraine continued to effectively hold its airspace, British defense ministry said, forcing Russia to largely rely on weapons launched from the "relative safety of Russian airspace."

Another story farther down in the updates is that Ukrainian opinion is not limited to hating Putin, it is also anti-Russian. They perceive that Russians support this. Whatever Russia holds will be very hard to govern absent mass deportation. And then there is the fleeing of young Russian professionals by the hundreds of thousands, many to Armenia and Georgia, perceiving that their escape window might close at any time.


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/20/world/ukraine-russia-war

[Hnv1]

NYT says stalemate, Russia cannot take Kiyv and Odessa, so Russia is now digging into and fortifying the real estate that it has taken, and is blasting away at the cites from afar, that Ukraine cannot stop.*

*today to add to yesterday's destruction of the theater where 1,300 were taking refuge, it was a drama school were 400 were hiding

"Here are the latest developments in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate after more than three weeks of fighting, with Russia making only marginal gains and increasingly targeting civilians, according to analysts and U.S. officials.

“Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research institute, said in an analysis. Russians do not have the manpower or the equipment to seize Kyiv, the capital, or other major cities like Kharkiv and Odessa, the study concluded."

...

"With Mr. Putin determined to pummel Ukraine into submission, Russia’s failure to achieve its initial objectives could presage an even deadlier phase of the war defined by large-scale casualties."

...

"Ukraine continued to effectively hold its airspace, British defense ministry said, forcing Russia to largely rely on weapons launched from the "relative safety of Russian airspace."

Another story farther down in the updates is that Ukrainian opinion is not limited to hating Putin, it is also anti-Russian. They perceive that Russians support this. Whatever Russia holds will be very hard to govern absent mass deportation. And then there is the fleeing of young Russian professionals by the hundreds of thousands, many to Armenia and Georgia, perceiving that their escape window might close at any time.


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/20/world/ukraine-russia-war

Seems more like the Russian will on most front wait out the mud season and launch a new offensive by late May. Seems prudent considering their inability to advance merely on the highways at the moment

[compucomp]

You can call me what you want. But the fact is, I am expressing the views broadly held by 1.4 billion people, 1.3 billion or so have a government whose actions up to now are indistinguishable from China's, and as described by Red Velvet earlier in this thread, hundreds of millions live in countries that either sympathize with the alternate viewpoint ....

a) How did you come up with such completely random numbers? Did you personally poll the world's population over the weekend or is it just an ass-pull on your part?

b) Making outlandish statements like "I represent the opinions of billions of people" comes across as an expression of either delusions of grandeur or of feelings of insecurity and inferiority on your part. In any case you're trying to make yourself sound bigger than you are. Kind of like Donald Trump actually.

I thought this was a political forum to discuss all viewpoints, and normally it is, but for some reason on this issue it is a complete echo chamber.  

Well, you haven't been banned from this forum yet, haven't you? Freedom of expression always goes both ways and that means you're not actually entitled to get only praise for your opinions from others, but instead other people have strictly speaking the right to tell you that your opinions are nonsense.

As for the "echo chamber" thing: It's not really true that everyone here holds the same opinion on everything. There's a majority opinion though and I think you managed to get the message across now that you don't like that majority opinion.

I would say that there are of course some political issues which are highly controversial and other political issues where large consensuses exist. The Ukraine war tends to be more of the latter. The fact that there is such a large consensus on something is not bad in itself but perhaps only goes to show that it happens to be one occasion where it is rather clear-cut what the morally sound position is to take. I mean when someone says "slavery is evil" you also wouldn't expect many people to say that "this place is becoming an echo chamber on the opposition to owning people as property, we need to hear both sides of the story".

China and India have clearly rejected the Western view and both look to continue business with Russia. As far as we can tell this is supported by the population of both countries. There's the 1.4 billion and 1.3 billion. As Red Velvet described, other large developing countries like South Africa and Brazil are publicly adopting parts of the alternative view like NATO provoking the war or American biological labs in Ukraine, and even US allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel have refused to endorse fully the Western view and/or are trying to evade sanctions. So there clearly is solid support in the world for the range of non-Western view points on the war. If I were optimistic I might even say it is close to 50-50 in terms of population. Yet in this thread all we hear is the Western viewpoint and I am called all sorts of things for presenting an alternative viewpoint, not even the Russian viewpoint mind you; I have never said that Ukraine is not a real country or that the place is full of Nazis. Debate on this issue should be similar to say a debate on the level of taxation or government regulation, not a one sided echo chamber.

[Person Man]

I wonder how he died. The Russian Navy has mostly been uninvolved. Its primary role in the war was going to be the amphibious landing at Odessa. But, that's been indefinitely shelved due to the Army's lack of progress westward in the South.

Edit: there are twitter rumors that he was at Kherson Air Base when the 8th Army's commander was killed during Ukrainian shelling.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1505333532876488705?s=20&t=m2d-r0S-ZsdZ0E3_Fse08g

Important note though, he is NOT the deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet! I'm not 100% sure what his role is (some sources say he is in charge of training) but the deputy commander of the Fleet is this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Pinchuk

According to google translate his title is: "Deputy Commander of the Black Sea Fleet for military-political work", Captain 1st Rank Andrey Nikolayevich Paliy. So I can see where people assumed he was the Deputy Commander of the whole fleet.

https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1505267350647586823?s=20&t=wJ3fKqdDXhc...

That sounds like the Russian navy equivalent of G9 (civilian-military cooperation), which is still a high level staff officer.

O-9 or GS-9?

[Torie]

China and India have clearly rejected the Western view and both look to continue business with Russia. As far as we can tell this is supported by the population of both countries. There's the 1.4 billion and 1.3 billion. As Red Velvet described, other large developing countries like South Africa and Brazil are publicly adopting parts of the alternative view like NATO provoking the war or American biological labs in Ukraine, and even US allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel have refused to endorse fully the Western view and/or are trying to evade sanctions. So there clearly is solid support in the world for the range of non-Western view points on the war. If I were optimistic I might even say it is close to 50-50 in terms of population. Yet in this thread all we hear is the Western viewpoint and I am called all sorts of things for presenting an alternative viewpoint, not even the Russian viewpoint mind you; I have never said that Ukraine is not a real country or that the place is full of Nazis. Debate on this issue should be similar to say a debate on the level of taxation or government regulation, not a one sided echo chamber.

The above paragraph makes no sense to me. China, India, South Africa and Brazil not sanctioning Russia is a fact. There is nothing to debate.

One can debate just how effective those countries would/will be in propping up Russia's economy, while the major industrial economies move towards cancelling Russia, how effective the sanctions will be, etc. Those are technical economic questions that are ultimately for the wonks. And yes, one can debate the merits of Russia's position, or Putin's, but one thing I am quite confident about, is that nobody's opinion will be changed at all by that.

The most productive posters here provide information, for posters to use as they will, or discuss its reliability or veracity, etc.

As to yourself, I get the impression that you just want to pick a fight, and I salute most posters for not taking that bait. Not that it matters, but I also opined in the Cave that you should be left alone. As far as I am concerned, you are free to pound the keyboard as you will. While it may waste bandwidth, I find it basically harmless, particularly given the self restraint of most posters here regarding it.

Oh, Meet the Press thinks based on the Biden call with Xi, and an in person meeting of Blinken and the Chinese ambassador, that China will not be providing economic or military aid to Russia and is trying to distance itself from the civilian slaughter in Russia. Just the opinion of the panelists there of course. They could be wrong.

[Storr]

Just how large is the VDV since it seems they've been taking severe losses this entire war.

Wikipedia says the VDV is 45,000, but a significant number of those are ancillary forces (maintenance, signals, engineer, reconnaissance, transport,etc.).
I'd guess they're at least unable to conduct offensive operations.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548919375339521?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548926308564992?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

[AndyHogan14]

NYT says stalemate, Russia cannot take Kiyv and Odessa, so Russia is now digging into and fortifying the real estate that it has taken, and is blasting away at the cites from afar, that Ukraine cannot stop.*

*today to add to yesterday's destruction of the theater where 1,300 were taking refuge, it was a drama school were 400 were hiding

"Here are the latest developments in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate after more than three weeks of fighting, with Russia making only marginal gains and increasingly targeting civilians, according to analysts and U.S. officials.

“Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research institute, said in an analysis. Russians do not have the manpower or the equipment to seize Kyiv, the capital, or other major cities like Kharkiv and Odessa, the study concluded."

...

"With Mr. Putin determined to pummel Ukraine into submission, Russia’s failure to achieve its initial objectives could presage an even deadlier phase of the war defined by large-scale casualties."

...

"Ukraine continued to effectively hold its airspace, British defense ministry said, forcing Russia to largely rely on weapons launched from the "relative safety of Russian airspace."

Another story farther down in the updates is that Ukrainian opinion is not limited to hating Putin, it is also anti-Russian. They perceive that Russians support this. Whatever Russia holds will be very hard to govern absent mass deportation. And then there is the fleeing of young Russian professionals by the hundreds of thousands, many to Armenia and Georgia, perceiving that their escape window might close at any time.


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/20/world/ukraine-russia-war

Seems more like the Russian will on most front wait out the mud season and launch a new offensive by late May. Seems prudent considering their inability to advance merely on the highways at the moment

I don’t know. All waiting does is allow the Ukrainians to fortify even more and give the west more time to send in more weapons (hopefully offensive weapons too). Also, the political environment in Russia isn’t going to get better over time. In the end, however, Russia may have no choice but to wait it out until May considering how abysmally they have performed thus far.

[Storr]

Just how large is the VDV since it seems they've been taking severe losses this entire war.

Wikipedia says the VDV is 45,000, but a significant number of those are ancillary forces (maintenance, signals, engineer, reconnaissance, transport).
 
I'd guess they're at least unable to conduct offensive operations.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548919375339521?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548926308564992?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

This is an organizational chart of the VDV (from 2007, so some parts could be out of date) from wikipedia.

But if 1 of 2 Airborne Regiments in the 98th Division is literally wiped out....yeah things aren't going well for the VDV.

[jaichind]

New Russian fast food restaurant "Uncle Vanya" emerges

[Person Man]

Just how large is the VDV since it seems they've been taking severe losses this entire war.

Wikipedia says the VDV is 45,000, but a significant number of those are ancillary forces (maintenance, signals, engineer, reconnaissance, transport,etc.).
I'd guess they're at least unable to conduct offensive operations.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548919375339521?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1505548926308564992?s=20&t=l83jLZ7c7...

That level of pwnage is brutal.

[Storr]

Russia needs to be de-Sovietized. All it has been since 2004 (Orange Revolution) is lies, lies, and more lies.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1505558622889291795?s=20&t=z3vh0urZ...

[Middle-aged Europe]

German economy minister Robert Habeck went to Qatar and made a big f****ng gas deal. The Sheikhs were apparently very acommodating and we're happy to have found ourselves an autocracy that doesn't invade other countries.

https://mobile.twitter.com/andreas_krieg/status/1505524010850922499

[pppolitics]

German economy minister Robert Habeck went to Qatar and made a big f****ng gas deal. The Sheikhs were apparently very acommodating and we're happy to have found ourselves an autocracy that doesn't invade other countries.

https://mobile.twitter.com/andreas_krieg/status/1505524010850922499

That's the kind of autocrats that we like.

[Blue3]

Some Ukrainian celebrities have died recently, including ballet star Artyom Datsishin and actor Oksana Shvets
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ukrainian-ballet-star-dies-from-russian-shelling-colleagues-say_n_62348e69e4b009ab92f7a832


Putin has put his top spy, head of the FSB, under house-arrest
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trouble-kremlin-gulag-spy-boss-041049268.html