Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Shalcker]

Letting them have their sovereignty dictated to them by a fascist state is still not a preferable alternative, habibi.

"They have to die so that our principles stay pure", yeah, typical Western "help".

Once again; why have you not been able to offer a sufficiently attractive alternative to NATO to the point you have to hold guns to people's heads to stop them from joining? Is there, I dunno, some sort of reason that those countries might be hesitant to trust you?

Have you considered that you actually failed to get Ukraine and had to support coup to get "your guys" into government?

Why would you need to if you're so obviously superior?

- - - Updated - - -

I love how you consistently refer to Ukraine as a nation without sovereignty or agency. It makes it very, very obvious what the Russian view of the country is.

You can see my position from 2014 upthread. It didn't change.

[Elegiac]

I love how you consistently refer to Ukraine as a nation without sovereignty or agency. It makes it very, very obvious what the Russian view of the country is.

To underscore the point:

The central contention of Putin’s speech on Monday is that Ukraine and Russia are, in historical terms, essentially inseparable.

“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” he said, per the Kremlin’s official translation. “Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians.”

What we now call Ukraine, he says, “was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik Communist Russia.” In this questionable narrative, a trio of early Soviet leaders — Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev — carved land away from Russia and several nearby nations to create a distinct and ahistorical republic called Ukraine. The creation of Ukraine and the other Soviet republics was an attempt to win the support of “the most zealous nationalists” across the Soviet Union — at the expense of the historical idea of Russia.

This illustrates what Putin means by “the virus of nationalism.” Ukrainian nationalism, in his view, is an infection introduced to the Russian host by the Bolsheviks; when the Soviet Union collapsed, and republics from Ukraine to Estonia to Georgia declared independence, the virus killed its host.

In reality, these countries have longstanding ethnonational identities distinct from Russia. But Putin does not accept this, treating the former Soviet republics — and, above all, Ukraine — as parts of Russia stolen from the motherland as a result of communist machinations.

“Radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong,” he says. “The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of Bolshevik and Soviet leaders ... the collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.”

As a result, Putin cannot see post-Soviet Ukraine as a real country; in his view, it has no real history nor national tradition to unite it. Instead, he sees it as a playground for oligarchs who deploy anti-Russian demagoguery as a smokescreen for their corruption. “The Ukrainian authorities — I would like to emphasize this — began by building their statehood on the negation of everything that united us,” he says.

But Putin’s narrative is twisted history.

For one thing, it is simply incorrect to say that Ukraine has no independent national identity separate from Russia. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was built centuries before Moscow. At the end of World War I, Ukraine declared independence from Russia; it was put back under Soviet rule by force.

“Putin is no historian,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale University historian of Eastern Europe, writes in the Financial Times. “Ukraine has its own distinct and fascinating history and Ukrainians have as much a right to a future as anyone else.”

It is not merely manipulation by elites that led people in former Soviet republics, from Estonia to Ukraine to Georgia, to attempt to exit Moscow’s orbit in the 1990s — it was real anger with Soviet repression and colonialism. And it’s Putin’s behavior, not some kind of elite Ukrainian manipulation, that has driven up support among Ukrainians for a tighter link with the West.

Yet Putin’s belief in the notion of Russian victimhood depicted in the speech appears to be sincere, consistent with his long public record.

It's much more a function of Putain wanting to punish Ukraine so as to send a message to people in Russia that any western-aligned dissident movement cannot and will not succeed. They are not the beliefs and actions of a confident and secure leader - it's the same playbook we've seen in declining autocracies for centuries now.

"They have to die so that our principles stay pure"

They wouldn't be dying if you weren't invading them.

Have you considered that you actually failed to get Ukraine and had to support coup to get "your guys" into government?

No, because that's not what actually happened in the real world. Nor is it just a phenomenon restricted to Ukraine; every one of your former subject states is turning away from you save the ones where you fund dictators to suppress protests (i.e. Belarus).

[beanman12345]

Putin's never gonna have sex with you, boyo.

[Mihalik]

How the hell is Shalcker still here even? This is beyond absurd now.

This. /10char

[Easo]

How the hell is Shalcker still here even? This is beyond absurd now.

Mods have ignored this question. They also surprisingly have ignored the repeated requests for permaban, which normally would lead to infraction about "discussing moderation, PM a mod if you disagree with something".

On one hand you need someone "on the opposite side" to have an actual discussion. But I think most of us here know Shalcker and others are not here to discuss anything (though Waffles has been sent to vacation yet again, and Shalcker's turnip brother has gone silent).

[Elegiac]

How the hell is Shalcker still here even? This is beyond absurd now.

Shitty and performative moderation. Next question.

Mods have ignored this question. They also surprisingly have ignored the repeated requests for permaban, which normally would lead to infraction about "discussing moderation, PM a mod if you disagree with something".

On one hand you need someone "on the opposite side" to have an actual discussion. But I think most of us here know Shalcker and others are not here to discuss anything (though Waffles has been sent to vacation yet again, and Shalcker's turnip brother has gone silent).

Well said. There's a difference between even vehement disagreement and outright bad faith bullshit.

[Easo]

And we just lost him. Hip hip hurray?

Couple of Turkish A400's are flying to Ukraine (one is already in airspace) - one more small sign that maybe war is at least another day away...

Basurin, the dude who is speaker for "Donetsk National Militsia", just said that DNR will try to return their lands peacefully, but "everything can change if Ukraine attacks". So make up your damn mind, then, is "Kiev hunta" attacking or not?
I have a feeling that this is yet another step in the "plan" cooked up in Moscow. Plus Ukraine is loosing cash as of now, with closing of airports and all, which I too assume was planned.

P.S.
About the "Ukraine is not a country". Trust me when I say this - it is not the only country I have heard this term being applied to by our dear big neighbour in the east. Add Baltic states to it, for example.

[Vampiregenesis]

I think Putin's speech about Ukraine was pretty bad and it certainly didn't feel like the real "serious" Putin, it felt like some random far-right guy. Russia has the right to attack Ukraine if it thinks that it poses a threat to its security, this is something that many states of the west do already, eg. Israel attacks neighbor states out of fear of Hezbollah, the US attacked Iraq and so on.

The real problem here is that Putin's speech made it feel like this is not just an invasion to prevent a serious threat but rather an expansionist invasion that would secede Ukraine to Russia, his point about a possible nuclear threat from Ukraine was good but that was mixed with other points where he pretty much said that Ukraine should not be an independent nation that can take its own decisions, that was pretty bad and clearly not right no matter how related the people of these countries are, you can't force anyone to be with you if he doesn't want it.

Keep in mind that Ukraine could make the same points for Russia, if Russia has the right to secede Ukraine because their people are similar and share the same history then the opposite is true as well, Ukraine has the right to secede Russia and Ukraine has the right to feel endangered by Russia's might.

So again, I would agree with a Russian invasion but not for many reasons that Putin stated. Ok, this might feel weird but Putin felt like he was possessed by something bigger, this was clearly not the real Putin. He pulled a Garrosh right there, who knows, maybe a Sha is controlling him and he has lost his mind. He was really angry and out of place in his speeches.

[Rozz]

1. Chill out. The way the topic has been discussed has gotten out of hand.
2. Use reports. There is no circumstance in which it is necessary to start publicly demanding bans. That only makes the thread environment worse, gets yourself entangled, and derails the topic.

[Corvus]

Easo beat me to the Turkish AF flying cargo planes to Ukraine. No word on what military equipment they are supplying. Maybe more drones? Funny, certain people kept saying that Turkey wasn't going to take sides in this. That is no longer the case. Agreeing with EU sanctions, telling Russia to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and now arms supplies.

Right now I'd say Ukraine probably has a better understanding of exactly where all the Russian units are than the other way around. Civilians have been able to track a lot of the Russian units and I have no doubt the US probably knows exactly where everything is an is feeding that straight to the Ukrainians. There have been daily flights of global hawks over Ukraine making big circuits and keeping an eye on things and yesterday there was not one but two big surveillance planes (Rivet Joints) loitering over Ukraine, one from the UK and the other from the US.

[Arrashi]

You guys can complain about shackler but god damn, the sheer amount of russian trolls in Polish internet is absurd in past month or so. Some people say that all anti-vaccine troll farms repurposed to shit out any amount of anti-Ukraine propaganda.

[jonnysensible]

Putin: I am going to invade Ukraine because I want it. I think it belongs to Russia. We used to control it and I miss controlling it.

Shackler: clearly Russia has been provoked by NATO

Zelenskyy : We want peace

Shackler : He is provoking us to war not our fault

Enjoy your holiday.

[Gorsameth]

I think Putin's speech about Ukraine was pretty bad and it certainly didn't feel like the real "serious" Putin, it felt like some random far-right guy. Russia has the right to attack Ukraine if it thinks that it poses a threat to its security, this is something that many states of the west do already, eg. Israel attacks neighbor states out of fear of Hezbollah, the US attacked Iraq and so on.

The real problem here is that Putin's speech made it feel like this is not just an invasion to prevent a serious threat but rather an expansionist invasion that would secede Ukraine to Russia, his point about a possible nuclear threat from Ukraine was good but that was mixed with other points where he pretty much said that Ukraine should not be an independent nation that can take its own decisions, that was pretty bad and clearly not right no matter how related the people of these countries are, you can't force anyone to be with you if he doesn't want it.

Keep in mind that Ukraine could make the same points for Russia, if Russia has the right to secede Ukraine because their people are similar and share the same history then the opposite is true as well, Ukraine has the right to secede Russia and Ukraine has the right to feel endangered by Russia's might.

So again, I would agree with a Russian invasion but not for many reasons that Putin stated. Ok, this might feel weird but Putin felt like he was possessed by something bigger, this was clearly not the real Putin. He pulled a Garrosh right there, who knows, maybe a Sha is controlling him and he has lost his mind. He was really angry and out of place in his speeches.

The Ukraine is not a threat to Russia, which should be clear for obvious military reasons.

What Ukraine wants is protection of their sovereignty. They had this with the Bucharest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia, UK and US.
Russia broke that when its annexed Crimea.

There are only 2 ways Ukraine can protect itself from an aggressive Russia. NATO or nukes. Which is why the Ukraine brought up nuclear development in a speech. It wasn't realistic for Ukraine to develop nukes, and the international community would not have allowed it. But it served to highlight the situation Ukraine is in. Its NATO, Nukes or Russian annexation.

The reason Russia is supposedly scared of Ukraine (NATO) is the same reason why Ukraine desperately wanted to join NATO. Russia is a clear and direct threat to all its neighbours simply based on recent history. If Russia feels your moving out of its sphere of influence you become the enemy and you need a way to protect yourself from Russian aggression.
And countries leave Russia's influence for the West because of the obvious prosperity that comes from doing so.

If Russia was not aggressive towards its neighbours, those neighbours would not feel the need to join NATO to protect themselves from Russia. Its a self feeding cycle that Putin uses as justification for his desire to reform the USSR.

[Corvus]

Russian vehicles are now being spotted with foliage attached to them.

[Easo]

Easo beat me to the Turkish AF flying cargo planes to Ukraine. No word on what military equipment they are supplying. Maybe more drones? Funny, certain people kept saying that Turkey wasn't going to take sides in this. That is no longer the case. Agreeing with EU sanctions, telling Russia to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and now arms supplies.

Right now I'd say Ukraine probably has a better understanding of exactly where all the Russian units are than the other way around. Civilians have been able to track a lot of the Russian units and I have no doubt the US probably knows exactly where everything is an is feeding that straight to the Ukrainians. There have been daily flights of global hawks over Ukraine making big circuits and keeping an eye on things and yesterday there was not one but two big surveillance planes (Rivet Joints) loitering over Ukraine, one from the UK and the other from the US.

Yeah, Turkey toed the line, but the staredown in Syria might have something to do with it, as it clearly screwed with wannabe sultan's plans. Someone like Orban did too (someone did mention in this thread that Orban, after all things are considered, is a small fry in the grand scheme of things).

As for info - USA/UK are clearly feeding data from Global Hawks, RC-135's and all other things flying around, but it won't change the power balance much, Ukraine just doesn't have the firepower. Il-20's and A-50U's were flying around today too - read Russia knows things as well, plus Russia has the advantage of military sattelite formations - which Ukraine doesn't aside from what is fed to them by West.

As for cargo - probably more munitions or supply equipment. I don't remember any more Bayraktars which would be supposed to be delivered around now.

Russian vehicles are now being spotted with foliage attached to them.

IIRC wasn't this already making rounds in the evening, with some sunlight still left on that column (if it is the same one)?

P.S.
That's it, gotta go to sleep. Hopefully I will wake up to no war, at least today.

[Corvus]

As for info - USA/UK are clearly feeding data from Global Hawks, RC-135's and all other things flying around, but it won't change the power balance much, Ukraine just doesn't have the firepower. Il-20's and A-50U's were flying around today too - read Russia knows things as well, plus Russia has the advantage of military sattelite formations - which Ukraine doesn't aside from what is fed to them by West.

If Ukraine isn't being fed intel direct from US military satellites I'd be surprised and I have little doubt the US ones are better. Even a little bit can help.

One thing I have been noticing is that Russia has just been parking its helicopter and aircraft fleets out in the open a lot, often parked closely together. If i was Ukraine I'd have those targeted already by their own missiles ready to fire the moment Russia starts anything. After all, it is a use it or loose it matter for them. Even a few getting through could do a lot of damage to. It would be a good test of Russia S-400s at the very least.

IIRC wasn't this already making rounds in the evening, with some sunlight still left on that column (if it is the same one)?

The spetznaz formation? Probably.

[YUPPIE]

if not nukes, what happens if Russia does something like Pearl Harbor? Launching missiles upon somewhere like Florida as a warning to the US

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Hopefully this war unites the world under one banner or three

[DarkTZeratul]

if not nukes, what happens if Russia does something like Pearl Harbor? Launching missiles upon somewhere like Florida as a warning to the US

Because if there's one thing Pearl Harbor is famous for, it's how well it worked for the Japanese.

[Corvus]

if not nukes, what happens if Russia does something like Pearl Harbor? Launching missiles upon somewhere like Florida as a warning to the US

No they wouldn't do that. Not only would it be an instant Article 5, the US would have no way of knowing it was non-nuclear.

Besides, Putler wouldn't attack is GOP supporters. He'd go for a a blue state.