Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Hindsight was 2020]

Something seems to be going down in Bakmut

[John Dule]

Eww, don't quote him. From Wikipedia:

During the Kosovo War, Biletsky and a group of other Ukrainians attempted to join the Yugoslav Army as volunteers to fight against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), but the war ended before they arrived at the front.

In 2010, Biletsky said that the Ukrainian nation's mission is to "lead the white races of the world in a final crusade...against Semite-led Untermenschen". Biletsky denied ever making such remarks and said that it was a fake quotation fabricated by Sergey Lavrov to defame him.....

....The Independent reported in 2022 that Biletsky is also known as White Leader. In 2013 he wrote a brochure called The Word of the White Leader. According to a 2021 paper by political scientists Umland and Fedorenko, he had been known as white leader before 2014, but has subsequently claimed that "if someone called me white leader face-to-face, [that person] would have been beaten".

As of 2014, the BBC, The Independent and The Moscow Times have described Biletsky as a white supremacist. As of 2014 he had been accused of neo-Nazi views by sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko.

In 2018, The Guardian reported that Biletsky "has toned down his rhetoric in recent years". Freedom House initiative Reporting Radicalism reported as of 2022 that he has not publicly made racist remarks since 2014, but he does "invoke anti-LGBT+ rhetoric frequently". Umland and Fedorenko wrote in 2021 that he still publicly objects to multiculturalism, but has stated "to be a Ukrainian nationalist today is to believe in values, not racial prejudice", and announced that his party does not use ethnicity to define who can, or cannot, be part of the nation Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Biletsky

[Hindsight was 2020]

The interesting part is this progress today in Bakmut for Ukraine isn’t in the city itself but outside on the edges. It looks like Ukraine might be nibbling around to find an opening in the flanks to take a bite out of

[lfromnj]

A bakhmut encirclement would be interesting . I dont think the Russian MOD would do much to save trapped Wagner troops.

[AndyHogan14]

A bakhmut encirclement would be interesting . I dont think the Russian MOD would do much to save trapped Wagner troops.

I would assume most would flee if there was any real risk of encirclement and Ukraine would just walk into the parts of the city that they have taken. They certainly would not hold out as long as they did in Lyman. With that said, it would be glorious if the ZSU were able to encircle the city without Wagner mercenaries being able to retreat...

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Threaten to (effectively) desert and get rewarded with supplies which were presumably bound for other units. Wagner has a particularly high profile, but it's still a bit surprising they pulled this off.

It may have implications for other Russian army units and mercenary groups. Pretty much all of them want more supplies and might be willing to play this kind of dangerous game to win them, which would be bad news for the military as a whole.

The absurdity of the situation is that for mercenarism Wagner falls under Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If Wagner were not a de facto secret unit of the FSO, then the only thing Prigozhin could demand was to reduce his criminal term.

[Hindsight was 2020]

So pics of captured Russian pows are surfacing online that is confirming the previous reports
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1656058706889515008?s=12

(Also before a certain Russian simp says anything yes Ukrainian troops shouldn’t be doing this as taking pics of pow is a Geneva violation)

[certified hummus supporter 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

So pics of captured Russian pows are surfacing online that is confirming the previous reports
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1656058706889515008?s=12
(Also before a certain Russian simp says anything yes Ukrainian troops shouldn’t be doing this as taking pics of pow is a Geneva violation)

Idk man, that guy looks so happy to get his picture taken tho

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Bakhmut Bob has been mostly silent for once. I take it Comrade Pigozhin and his band of assorted nazi losers aren't doing well?

[Hindsight was 2020]

Bakhmut Bob has been mostly silent for once. I take it Comrade Pigozhin and his band of assorted nazi losers aren't doing well?

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1656067341753413632?s=12
No not doing well at all

[NOVA Green]

RE: May 9th Moscow Parades:

Read the role of Honor shame (anybody got the full list?)

Putin attended the commemoration in Red Square with a small group of foreign leaders, mostly from former Soviet states such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kazakhstan. Wearing a black coat with a St. George ribbon pinned to his chest, he greeted World War II veterans and said, “We are proud of the participants of the ‘special military operation,’” referring to the war in Ukraine. “The future of our statehood and our people depends on you.”

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/phillipspobrien/status/1656286307922919425?s=12
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1656256203432013824?s=12

[Torie]

Wagner gets thinned out, and regular but incompetent draftee Russian forces have to fill in the gaps, and upon their arrival, promptly flee, sensible chaps that they are.

"Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, made the comments in a post on Telegram.

It comes as Ukrainian forces claim to have routed a brigade of thousands of troops in Bakhmut.

He said: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers.

”It was the competent conduct of the defensive operation that exhausted the trained forces of the ‘Wagner’ PvC and forced them to be replaced in certain directions by less well-prepared units of the Russian regular troops, which were defeated and left.”

[Woody]

meanwhile in the real world

https://twitter.com/MikaelValterss1/status/1656336851534503936?cxt=HHwWgIDTgejlv...

[Hindsight was 2020]

Wagner gets thinned out, and regular but incompetent draftee Russian forces have to fill in the gaps, and upon their arrival, promptly flee, sensible chaps that they are.

"Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, made the comments in a post on Telegram.

It comes as Ukrainian forces claim to have routed a brigade of thousands of troops in Bakhmut.

He said: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers.

”It was the competent conduct of the defensive operation that exhausted the trained forces of the ‘Wagner’ PvC and forced them to be replaced in certain directions by less well-prepared units of the Russian regular troops, which were defeated and left.”

Piggy also confirmed the news via another drunken rant this morning on telegram
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1656336297353691138?s=12

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/Sinnaig/status/1656307869766111235

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1656364845296386048

War against Ukraine is breaking Russia's reputation, even in the Global South.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Well-written reminder by Michael Kofman and Rob Lee as to the importance of taking the long view in the war: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-war-beyond-ukraines-offensive

This goes for the commentators but also the policymakers. They believe a relative lack of long-term planning on the part of Ukraine's allies has created (potentially false) hope for Russian leadership re: a war of attrition and a decline in foreign support for UKraine.

[Storr]

Well-written reminder by Michael Kofman and Rob Lee as to the importance of taking the long view in the war: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-war-beyond-ukraines-offensive

This goes for the commentators but also the policymakers. They believe a relative lack of long-term planning on the part of Ukraine's allies has created (potentially false) hope for Russian leadership re: a war of attrition and a decline in foreign support for UKraine.

Yep:

"It is critical that Ukraine’s Western partners develop a long-term theory of victory for Ukraine, since even in the best-case scenario, this upcoming offensive is unlikely to end the conflict. Indeed, what follows this operation could be another period of indeterminate fighting and attrition, but with reduced ammunition deliveries to Ukraine. This is already a long war, and it is likely to become protracted. History is an imperfect guide, but it suggests wars that endure for more than a year are likely to go on for at least several more and are exceedingly difficult to end. A Western theory of success must therefore prevent a situation in which the war drags on, but where Western countries are unable to provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage."

[Torie]

Well-written reminder by Michael Kofman and Rob Lee as to the importance of taking the long view in the war: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-war-beyond-ukraines-offensive

This goes for the commentators but also the policymakers. They believe a relative lack of long-term planning on the part of Ukraine's allies has created (potentially false) hope for Russian leadership re: a war of attrition and a decline in foreign support for UKraine.

Yep:

"It is critical that Ukraine’s Western partners develop a long-term theory of victory for Ukraine, since even in the best-case scenario, this upcoming offensive is unlikely to end the conflict. Indeed, what follows this operation could be another period of indeterminate fighting and attrition, but with reduced ammunition deliveries to Ukraine. This is already a long war, and it is likely to become protracted. History is an imperfect guide, but it suggests wars that endure for more than a year are likely to go on for at least several more and are exceedingly difficult to end. A Western theory of success must therefore prevent a situation in which the war drags on, but where Western countries are unable to provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage."

Yeah, particularly since I keep reading article after article stating the obvious, that any deal or cease fire or anything is impossible as long as Putin is in power. So either it is resolved by retaking conquered territory by force or Putin's exit.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1656414302834663425?s=12
🤞

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/GerardAraud/status/1656398490270826497

[KaiserDave]

I saw this discussed earlier so I thought I'd throw some of my thoughts in.

Andriy Biletsky is a deplorable fascist and a Neo-Nazi. He has softened his rhetoric in the past few years but this is cosmetic. He’s also on the deep fringe of Ukrainian politics and has never had success.

There are far-right formations in both Ukraine and Russia. Far-right, fascist, racist, antisemitic, ultranationalist armed formations have been operating on both sides since 2014. On the Russian side, these include

• Russian Orthodox Army
• Russian Imperial Movement
• Sparta Battalion
• Rusich Group (Part of PMC Wagner)
• DShRG Ratibor

And this is just a limited sample of groups with explicitly far-right ideology. It's interesting how we hear endlessly about Azov Battalion but never about this lot. Now let's talk about Azov. Azov Battalion was founded in 2014 as almost an armed wing of Social-National Assembly, a far-right party connected to Right Sector and Patriot of Ukraine. At this point, the Ukrainian state was in a state of inertia, in the midst of reconstructing its institutions, including the military, after the Revolution. Azov was one of many "volunteer battalions" that were sent into Donbas to stop the total collapse of order in Luhansk and Donetsk. Azov consisted of far-right activists and football hooligans, and its emblem at this time included a Black Sun. It operated far-right summer camps, and were absolutely a far-right organization. Since 2014, the Azov Battalion was incorporated into the National Guard, where a lot of far-right personalities were removed for political reasons, or were killed in the fighting. To say the Azov of 2022 is the same as that of 2014 is grossly misleading. And perhaps most importantly of all, this is just one regiment with a few thousand people!

This leads into my next point, there is so much talk of these far-right militias in Ukraine (weirdly so little about Russia). But what matters is how this influences the Ukrainian state. Is the Ukrainian state influenced by ultranationalist ideology? Is it influenced by fascist theory? I have yet to see any compelling argument that this is true. After all, Zelenskyy is a Russian-speaking Jew who was elected as the de facto candidate of the east. The cabinet of Prime Minister Shmyhal is full of liberals, as is Zelenskyy's circle of advisors, many of whom are personal friends, or come from the liberal-dissident, color revolutionary scene. It is not exactly a hive of ultranationalists. Many of them are not even ethnically Ukrainian!

Far-right formations exist in Russia, the state has apparently given up on curtailing their extremism. In the past, Putin as coopted ultranationalist, xenophobic groups in his state blob, but these days he exhibits less control. Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence that suggests his motivations in Ukraine are motivated by ultranationalism, specifically Ivan Ilyin, an early 20th-century White emigré and fascist intellectual.

Ukraine is not a perfect liberal democracy. I've been very critical of Viktor Yushchenko and other Ukrainian liberal figures in my own writings. But the Ukrainian state is not influenced by ultranationalism or far-right ideology, Moscow, definitely more so.

And, I haven't even mentioned how PMC Wagner is totally filled with Nazis! It totally is! It is a modern Dirlewanger Brigade.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

meanwhile in the real world

https://twitter.com/MikaelValterss1/status/1656336851534503936?cxt=HHwWgIDTgejlv...

It's over folks the Russian nazbol juggernaut is unstoppable. Ukraine should surrender since this small advance on an uninhabited and destroyed road is clearly the end of the war.

[Storr]

I saw this discussed earlier so I thought I'd throw some of my thoughts in.

Andriy Biletsky is a deplorable fascist and a Neo-Nazi. He has softened his rhetoric in the past few years but this is cosmetic. He’s also on the deep fringe of Ukrainian politics and has never had success.

There are far-right formations in both Ukraine and Russia. Far-right, fascist, racist, antisemitic, ultranationalist armed formations have been operating on both sides since 2014. On the Russian side, these include

• Russian Orthodox Army
• Russian Imperial Movement
• Sparta Battalion
• Rusich Group (Part of PMC Wagner)
• DShRG Ratibor

And this is just a limited sample of groups with explicitly far-right ideology. It's interesting how we hear endlessly about Azov Battalion but never about this lot. Now let's talk about Azov. Azov Battalion was founded in 2014 as almost an armed wing of Social-National Assembly, a far-right party connected to Right Sector and Patriot of Ukraine. At this point, the Ukrainian state was in a state of inertia, in the midst of reconstructing its institutions, including the military, after the Revolution. Azov was one of many "volunteer battalions" that were sent into Donbas to stop the total collapse of order in Luhansk and Donetsk. Azov consisted of far-right activists and football hooligans, and its emblem at this time included a Black Sun. It operated far-right summer camps, and were absolutely a far-right organization. Since 2014, the Azov Battalion was incorporated into the National Guard, where a lot of far-right personalities were removed for political reasons, or were killed in the fighting. To say the Azov of 2022 is the same as that of 2014 is grossly misleading. And perhaps most importantly of all, this is just one regiment with a few thousand people!

This leads into my next point, there is so much talk of these far-right militias in Ukraine (weirdly so little about Russia). But what matters is how this influences the Ukrainian state. Is the Ukrainian state influenced by ultranationalist ideology? Is it influenced by fascist theory? I have yet to see any compelling argument that this is true. After all, Zelenskyy is a Russian-speaking Jew who was elected as the de facto candidate of the east. The cabinet of Prime Minister Shmyhal is full of liberals, as is Zelenskyy's circle of advisors, many of whom are personal friends, or come from the liberal-dissident, color revolutionary scene. It is not exactly a hive of ultranationalists. Many of them are not even ethnically Ukrainian!

Far-right formations exist in Russia, the state has apparently given up on curtailing their extremism. In the past, Putin as coopted ultranationalist, xenophobic groups in his state blob, but these days he exhibits less control. Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence that suggests his motivations in Ukraine are motivated by ultranationalism, specifically Ivan Ilyin, an early 20th-century White emigré and fascist intellectual.

Ukraine is not a perfect liberal democracy. I've been very critical of Viktor Yushchenko and other Ukrainian liberal figures in my own writings. But the Ukrainian state is not influenced by ultranationalism or far-right ideology, Moscow, definitely more so.

And, I haven't even mentioned how PMC Wagner is totally filled with Nazis! It totally is! It is a modern Dirlewanger Brigade.

Speaking of neo-Nazis:

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1656467468079046658?s=20