Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[GeneralMacArthur]

Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine shortly after 90%+ of Ukrainians voted for independence in the 1991 referendum.  In the Budapest Memorandum, Russia guaranteed the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

So yes, it should exist, even if we are just going by Russian considerations, for which there is absolutely no justification anyway.  The rest of the world -- and certainly Putin's victims in Ukraine -- need not be hostage to Russia's own delusions of empire.  Russia has no right to Ukraine, plain and simple, regardless of Putin's false pretensions or weak excuses for ignoring his own state's previous agreements.

If Russia thinks Ukrainian independence was never an agreement, then Ukraine ought to counter that surrendering their nuclear stockpile was never an agreement, and we can just have a nuclear war in Eastern Europe.  Putin's decision to take advantage of Ukraine's 1994 decision to return their Soviet-era nukes will be cited for decades to come by small nations with nuclear programs as justification for refusing to surrender their own stockpiles.  I mean good luck getting Pakistan to give up their nukes now that they've seen what happened to Ukraine.  Who's to say India won't simply tear up any signed treaty 25 years later and re-annex Pakistan?  If the world allows Putin to get away with this with little consequences then it's a perfectly reasonable fear.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Could we get a megathread/tracker for announced sanctions against Russia?  Feels like countries are announcing new sanctions every hour or so and it's tough to keep up.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If Putin wants to recreate the Russian Empire, he should start not by invading the Ukraine, but by resigning to make way for the restoration of the Romanovs.

BEND THE KNEE

[GeneralMacArthur]

Well, American intel was 100% on the money.  4 AM exactly.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If you support Russia's attack, I do not want to hear from you. Silence.

Is there a single person here who does support it though? Didn't get that impression tbh

Kander2020, BigSerg, compucomp and Vaccinated Russian Bear have been our pro-Putin contingent.

VRB seems like he may be having a bit of buyer's remorse as he's just been posting updates instead of crowing like you would expect.

Then we have a much larger coalition of "I'm not a Putin fan but..." folks.  Mostly the usual assortment of Chapo leftists and Tucker rightists.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1496472039108009987

Ethnic minorities? As in Russians?

I'm a bit skeptical of that.

Jon Cooper doesn't know anything and has repeatedly made s--t up in the past.  Please don't let him give "U.S. intel" a bad name by just making up nonsense and attributing it to them.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Does Ukraine have any sort of WMD’s or no

Ukraine famously gave them up following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in exchange for security assurances.

Yeah this is one of the basic facts people ought to know about this war.  Russia literally had to promise not to do exactly what they've spent the last 8 years doing to get Ukraine to give back their USSR-era nukes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#Budapest_Memorandum

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://twitter.com/MatinaStevis/status/1496831724038377479?cxt=HHwWjsC-_beh6MUp...

Europe starting to man up.

As for SWIFT, since we're talking long-term damage to Russia's economy, I don't have any problem taking a more measured approach to kicking them out to ensure short-term stability for all their stakeholders.  Just saying Russia is banned from SWIFT will have the same effect as actually doing it, even if it takes a few weeks to actually fully implement the ban.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So is this Zelensky's master plan? Arming the citizenry and expecting people to turn their cities and towns into all-out war zones? Do the users in this thread promoting this idea understand the misery and destruction that insurgencies bring?

I'm not saying the people of Ukraine should give up without a fight, but there has to be a limit to what you expect of civilian populations.

This is the pretty standard method of combatting an occupation by a more powerful nation.  Surely we as Americans have learned this over the last 30 years.  Zelensky wants a Black Hawk Down type situation in Kiev.  The damage that would do to Putin would be worth far more to Ukraine than the dozens/hundreds of lives lost.

[GeneralMacArthur]

To the people saying it's a lot to ask of civilians – no duh. They're not being compelled to fight afaik, and I certainly wouldn't blame any who chose to flee or submit. But I certainly think it's incredibly admirable for those who can fight to do so.

I agree with this.

We saw during Euromaidan that there are plenty of Ukrainians more than willing to lay down their lives opposing Russia, and that was with a lot less at stake than the current situation.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I know this is small potatoes in the scale of the conflict, and that all Russia’s justifications for war are fabricated.

But Putin’s claim that he plans to ‘denazify’ Ukraine are particularly galling when you acknowledge that Zelensky is the one of only two Jewish heads of state in Europe*, and lost family in the Holocaust no less.

*(Latvia being the other).

F#%k, what a gut-punch. Imagine losing family members to an apocalyptic genocide, then being called a Nazi, and baselessly accused of committing a genocide yourself.

It would just be the loony ravings of a far-right dictator to us if not for the fact that 30% of zoomers derive their political views from Hasan's twitch streams.

During the Iraq War, there weren't any influential talking heads going around repeating Baghdad Bob's talking points.  Now we have Fox News on the right and the Berniesphere on the left, both highly influential among the party bases, and both basically doing that with Putin's propaganda.  It's sickening.  And I've been warning about it for years.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Guys, we have a poll running on this right now and like 90% of Atlas agrees that China remains a bigger threat than Russia.  So you can stop wasting several pages of this thread trying to lionize Mitt Romney over a flippant exchange in a debate from a decade ago.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://mobile.twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1496861025194418179?cxt=HHwWhoC5...

Russia should be kicked out of all international organizations. A complete and total boycott and quarantine. His regime needs to be bankrupted, even at the cost of some economic pain for the West.

Sadly this seems to be why the west can’t respond properly to either Russia or China . We are so addicted with low prices that it hampers our ability to respond.

Would also help if we'd spent the past year expanding production instead of constricting it. Biden's foreign policy has been good but his domestic policy is a disaster across the board and this is an example.

This is a huge example :


https://mobile.twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1496579280091951111?cxt=HHwWjsC5...

Keystone XL wasn't even going to be operational for another decade and was not going to import additional oil.  It was just a shorter and more efficient route for Phase I which already exists, importing that same oil over a longer route.  Furthermore, even if you+Crenshaw weren't lying, that oil did not disappear.  It just remains in Canada, which is on our side in this conflict.  A pipeline just moves oil from place to place, it does not *produce* oil.  If we had 830,000 extra barrels of oil coming in from Canada every day, then that would be 830,000 barrels fewer that Canada has, and maybe they'd be the ones importing from Russia instead of us.

It's very tiresome that Republicans have seized on this as their way to undercut Biden in a moment when we should be having national unity, but also very frustrating because it's based on misinforming people.  And you ought to be better than getting behind these lazy Fox News cheap shots at a time like this.

[GeneralMacArthur]

S&P 500 now up 0.7 on the day !!!  I guess the fear of something bad is always worse than that bad thing itself.

What does this have to do with the thread?

It matters because economic sanctions are a big part of the current struggle between Russia and collective west.  Financial markets be it equities FX energy etc etc gives you a glance with the likely economic impact of these sanctions are likely to have on the various economic players.

Markets also give you a sense of how robust western economies are in the face of these sanctions, and thus how capable the western populations are of enduring their impact.  If you ask me, a 10% drop in our markets in exchange for a 50% drop in the Russian markets is something I'd happily accept.  But that's not the case for many people.  However, an 0.7% rise in markets?  Nobody's gonna complain about that lol

[GeneralMacArthur]

This isn't Iraq in 2003, that's for sure. The Iraqis weren't prepared to die for Saddam even if they weren't always fans of the US.

As an interesting data point, a poll taken in 2005 showed that 50% of Iraqis believed the country was better off then than it was under Saddam, with 27% missing Saddam and 23% not sure.  In 2019 the same poll was 47/35.

In spite of this:

However, polls soon indicated that 53% of respondents said the United States wanted to “occupy Iraq and plunder its wealth,” while 25% stated the United States wanted to fight Islam, 15% said the United States wanted to divide Iraq and 15% said the United States wanted to achieve democracy. By 2004, 84% of Iraqis participating in the survey said they considered the United States an “occupying force.”

Just shows how much Iraqis hated Saddam that they thought the country was better off being plundered by a crusader state than suffering under the Baath regime.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What is Putin's long-term plan, right now? Does anyone have anything but a vague idea? He's pointed out what he doesn't like about the status quo, but what does he intend to do with Ukraine? Does Putin himself even know yet?

This is a tough one to answer as the decision making process in the Kremlin is so opaque (and then there’s the impossibility of making a window into Putin’s soul). I’d assume that the ‘ideal’ outcome from Putin’s perspective would be a neutered Ukraine, with the door shut forever on the possibility of EU and NATO membership, alongside incorporation into Russian dominated regional structures (Eurasian Economic Union et al) and recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and of the independence of the Donbas republics. The problem is, in order for such a settlement to stick you’d need a reasonably pro-Russian government in what’s left of Ukraine, which seems very unlikely, so then that gives rise to the scenario of a permanent Russian military occupation in the country in order to prop such as government up, which I don’t think is ideal from Putin’s perspective. I think there’s certainly a big element of ‘making it up as he goes along’ here.

Ukrainian elections were polarized between pro-Russia and anti-Russia factions even with Crimea and the Donbas republics.  Take those away and the pro-Western factions will dominate.  It would be like Dems trying to win an election if we surrendered Illinois to Canada and California to Mexico.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Putin doesn't want NATO Troops so close to his border, views it as Security Threat!

If Putin dares to do anything against Finland, NATO will attack nonetheless, in my view. Finland is a EU member, thus, if Russia attacks Finland, it's invading the EU and there's a cooperation treaty between NATO and the EU, so a military response to it would most likely happen.

I don't see EU moving without the U.S. France and Germany literally admitted in the last 48 hours their militaries are horrifically unprepared for an intense conflict.

If I'm Ukraine, and I see NATO come to the defense of Finland when they wouldn't come to the defense of me, I'm pissed.

I don't see Russia going into Finland, but a lot of people didn't see Russia going into Ukraine either (in spite of forces being stationed on the border for 3 months).

The chances of this going hot were underestimated precisely because people didn't like the thought of war to begin with. They wanted to comfortably retreat to "oh, this is mostly a bluff" or some other explanation besides "yes, Putin intends to send his troops into Ukraine".
It is probably most often the case the risk of hot conflict is overestimated; this is one of the times when the opposite is true.

To dumb down this whole conflict it's:

[Russia put troops all around Ukrainian border]
Ukraine: "What are you doing?"
Russia: "Give us these security guarantees. You're not living up to Minsk."
Ukraine: "No! West, step in here, we're going to do nothing for the next 3 months except berate you on how you're not properly supporting us."
Russia: "Okay. Give us these security guarantees on Ukraine."
West: "That's too much. We will not do it. Come back when you're being realistic."
Russia: "We have forces situated all around Ukraine."
West: "You're not going to invade. You're bluffing."
[Russia invades]
West: "What the hell?!?"

Bro we literally just lived through this.  At least wait a few weeks before starting in on the gaslighting.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's more like:

Russia:  Prepares to invade Ukraine
Western intel:  Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine
Ukraine:  Russia is preparing to invade us
Russia:  No, we are not going to invade Ukraine unless provoked

Russia:  All I want is to negotiate for my own territorial security.
West:  OK, let's sit down at the diplomacy table.
Russia:  You must 100% abandon all the countries I want to eat, also I get to invade Ukraine to stop them from invading me.  In return you get nothing.
West:  That doesn't sound like a serious offer.
Russia:  The West is making me invade, it's not my fault.

Western intel:  Russia is preparing a false-flag provocation as a pretext for invading Ukraine.
Russia:  No, we would never do that.
Western intel:  Russia is amassing troops on the Ukrainian border
Russia:  No, we would never do that.
Western intel:  Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine on February 23 at 4 AM.
Russia:  No, we would never do that.
Russia (a few minutes later):  Ukraine is a fake country run by secret nazis and pedophiles that is rightful property of the Russian empire.
Russia (a few minutes later):  Help, help, we are under attack by Ukraine!  We didn't want to do this, but we must invade to defend ourselves!
Russia (a few minutes later):  Invades Ukraine on February 23 at 4 AM.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Reuters/status/1497728184145514496

Should've been $351 million.  Unbelievable how weak this president is, never willing to go as far as he needs to to defend Ukraine.

Trump would have given them $352 million in aid and been on the front lines himself riding a tank into battle with a rocket launcher aimed right at Putin's dacha.

[GeneralMacArthur]

American intel has been absolutely elite so far in this war, I trust them to know exactly what's going on in Russia and know which buttons we need to press to end the war and (hopefully) get Putin fragged.

[GeneralMacArthur]

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.

[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.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Notable that Israel voted in favor of condemning Russia.  They've made a mess of things trying to appease both the west and Russia.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I guess Russia is hoping no one that can read Russian will fact check their English language government twitter accounts?

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1501525178051928065?s=20&t=T6jPPhrr...

Major throwback to how they handled the leaks of the Podesta/Clinton e-mails.  Russia (oh, sorry, "WikiLeaks") would just blatantly lie about what was in the documents, and it would seem authoritative and believable because they were claiming to source it to the e-mails.  And also because they took advantage of WikiLeaks' pre-existing credibility, and had a massive network of bots to reiterate these lies and create the impression of social proof.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The Russian economy has gotten so bad that you have to wait in line 6 or 7 hours just to withdraw the equivalent of $13.70 in cash.  One man named Yury was waiting for 3 hours in line to withdraw cash and it only moved a little bit.  He was getting more and more fed up as he stood there shivering in Novopushkinsky Square.  So he looked at his friend Boris and said, "I've had enough of this, I'm going to go kill president Putin."  And with that he sprinted off towards the Kremlin.  45 minutes later he came sulking back.  The line still hadn't moved at all.  "Did you kill Putin?" asked Boris.  "No", said Yury, "the line for that was even longer than this one."