Politics regarding struggle for Ukraine

[ML]

I am starting a new thread.

Please limit postings here to the broader political struggle being played out with Ukraine as the beginning move.

Stay away from current military actions.

A friend just sent me a Wall Street Journal article which seems to be 'right on the nail.'

"Russia, China and the New Cold War"  WSJ March 18, 2022

http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-china-and-the-new-cold-war-ukraine-xi-putin-bloc-dictators-alliance-invasion-11647623768?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

The article requires subscription (or someone can send via PDF which I now have if someone wants to send me their private email address in a PM to me)

It is too long to copy and past here, but some snippets:

Oooops, this article is really locked to prevent copy and paste.
I have to go eat now, but will try to unlock later.

[Trenchcoat]

A good idea ML, I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a separate topic for each major issue such as the Coronavirus Ukraine, etc for broader political issues related to it that way it avoid threads going off on a tangent and overly cluttered through both on topic and off topic postings.

Well like I said in my Odessa thread I don't have a lot of time for a lot of talk on broader political issues and will tend to keep to that thread as my main thread. I will venture on this topic though so as to make this post relevant that I see Putin's actions in Ukraine more in keeping with the Cold War backdrop. Putin is a KGB guy, it's the times he grew up in and worked in. I really see the Invasion as a continuation of his Cold War thinking, I see all the talk of Hitler and Nazi's as not so relevant and more about mud slinging out there. At the moment they all seem to be calling each other Nazis for various reasons, Putin calling Ukrainians Nazis, Ukraine & the West likening Putin to Hitler, the Azov battalion being called Neo-Nazis, etc, etc.

[BC]

The war in Ukraine is only a symptom of the disease that ails Russia.

[ML]

OK, I was able to 'decode' some of the WSJ article.

Russia, China and the New Cold War             Wall Street Journal March 18, 2022

Ukraine is analogous to Korea, a 'hot opening salvo' in a global conflict between the free world and a bloc of dictatorships.  Those who think this is only about Ukraine are sadly mistaken and will pay a huge future price if Russia prevails.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought death, destruction and debate over historical analogies. Is this the summer of 1914, with great powers stumbling into a horrific global conflict? Or is it the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939? What about Moscow's 1939-40 Winter War against Finland? Will Putin's gambit end like the Soviet Union's 1979-89 misadventure in Afghanistan?

Putin's attempted conquest, and his burgeoning partnership with China's Xi  reminds more of the Korean War. In 1950, Stalin, Mao and Kim badly miscalculated how easy the invasion would be and miscalculated American resolve, much as we're seeing today.  The roles are now reversed, with Xi playing the role of Stalin and Putin playing Mao sending his troops to the slaughter. It's even conceivable that this war may end in a similar fashion, with some kind of a stalemate in a divided country.

The analogy extends to the free world. Although the Cold War began in 1945, it really took several more years for public attitudes in the West to catch up to what strategists like Winston Churchill and George Kennan knew about the nature of the Soviet Union. With the Korean conflict, the Cold War crystallized in the public imagination in the West.  Today, it's really hard to avoid the conclusion that these developments reflect a new cold war that Xi and Putin have initiated against the West.

In this view, Ukraine is the hot opening salvo in a cold war pitting Washington and its allies against a fragile but increasingly powerful bloc of dictatorships. The logic of the earlier Cold War will provide us with explanatory and predictive value. It'll help us understand and anticipate the moves by Putin and Xi and the other dictatorships that play supporting roles in their global strategy, such as Iran.  We would be remiss not to learn lessons from the original Cold War, not least because we won.

In recent decades American policy makers tried and failed to convert Beijing into a responsible contributor to the U.S.-led international order. Today there is a bipartisan consensus that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest external threat to American security, but much of Washington was slow to accept it.

In a November 2021 address Xi gave a preview to his thinking.  He said the Korean War was an act of enormous strategic foresight by Comrade Mao.  Xi laid out a case for preemption that ‘Mao in that war had the strategic foresight to start with one punch so that 100 punches could be avoided.' He talked about how Mao had the determination and bravery to adopt an attitude of not hesitating to ruin the country  that is, China internally, in order to build it anew.

The personal relationship between Xi and Putin has become central to China's conflict with the West. It is an unnatural partnership in many ways, because it's not deep and wide, society to society, economy to economy, nation-state to nation-state. But it is extremely meaningful from the standpoint of two men. Those two men happen to be the dictators that make all of the important decisions in their respective systems. And these two guys have a mind meld that we've not seen between a Chinese and Russian leader since Mao and Stalin met six months before the North Korean invasion of South Korea.

They saw an opportunity in signals of weakness from President Biden: When Biden came into power, one of the first things he did was end the negotiation over New Start the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and merely gave Putin the five-year extension that Putin was seeking. He eased off on restrictions on Nord Stream 2 Russia's gas pipeline to Europe and he also began to restrict lethal aid to Ukraine.   At the same time, the administration began negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which President Trump left in 2018. We're not actually even negotiating directly, but using Russian and other diplomats as a go-between.  Israel and Arab states see a Biden administration that's more eager to cut deals with our common adversary than to engage meaningfully with longstanding partners.

Does all that suggest Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Mr. Trump had won in 2020? We'll never know.   Putin and Xi probably thought there was a genuine unpredictability about President Trump and what he might or might not do, and that may have, more frequently than people appreciate, caused them to delay some of their plans.  It is likely that Putin saw Trump's play with NATO as more clever than Trump's adversaries at home and within NATO understood it.  That is, by threatening to leave NATO unless other members started contributing their share, Trump forced the reinvigoration of NATO through increased investment by tardy members and by a coming together of many members through their mutual dislike of Trump.

Trump's record isn't viewed with enough nuance. President Trump's statecraft, as idiosyncratic as it was, was a lot more sophisticated than either the press or even American adversaries really understood. That approach can be summed up as a close and respectful diplomacy at the top, but also his willingness to knee his counterparts in the groin. In Russia's case that included Trump's opposition to Nord Stream 2, hard bargaining on New Start, supplying lethal aid to Ukraine, expulsion of Russian spies and diplomats, and sanctions.

Russia's aggression has discredited the idea that the U.S. can divert its attention from other regions while confronting China. The war in Ukraine underscores why we cannot compartmentalize our cold war strategy to a specific geography or even to a specific player. There's no question that Beijing is the mother ship of authoritarianism in the world now. But if we fail to see how these adversaries are linked with one another and how they are increasingly coordinated with one another, we run the risk of making big blunders.

While Putin and Xi may share an antipathy for the democratic West, their countries aren't natural allies. The logic of national interest will eventually reassert itself over the interests of two dictators who drew up this pact. That'll take time to play out, but in many respects, it'll be only downhill from here between Moscow and Beijing.

[ML]

Russian elites plan to assassinate Putin.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russias-elite-plan-kill-putin-26513008

Are they doing this at the urging of Lindsey ? 

[krimster2]

there is MAJOR stuff happening in Moscow

this is a Covid mass grave that suddenly sprung up when existing cemetaries were full....
Moscow covid death toll was ENORMOUS!!!!

and now war and sanctions (grocery prices up >20% in last 30 days)
a lot of government people haven't been paid on time
going from one emergency to another
the mood has gotten a lot darker

[Patagonie]

there is MAJOR stuff happening in Moscow

this is a Covid mass grave that suddenly sprung up when existing cemetaries were full....
Moscow covid death toll was ENORMOUS!!!!

and now war and sanctions (grocery prices up >20% in last 30 days)
a lot of government people haven't been paid on time
going from one emergency to another
the mood has gotten a lot darker

I heard around one milliion, don't know if this is exact.

[krimster2]

No one knows the actual figure…

deaths were more frequent in the 50+ age group

this group comprised the top senior level of the Russian “technocracy”, all the managers, directors, who got their education in the SOVIET period!!

the people born in Russia after that in the 90s have less education and experience than these Sovieticus ludie, but…
as the Russian economy heads into a massive tailspin, THEY are now the managers and directors

Welcome to the firing squad wall, comrades, please turn and face the wall, ‘spossiba POW!
NEXT!

smart Russians are sitting some place warm right now and taking on-line classes in English!!  slovo to yur mama!
personally, I think the Dagestani mothers who are sending their idiot "pridorik" sons to war in hopes that THEY WILL get killed
just so that they can collect the insurance money
these women are, in my opinion, the worst possible kind of mother that there could be!!

[Trenchcoat]

Fuel prices have gone up here a lot of recent from about £1.44 per litre at the start of the conflict to about £1.64 per litre now. Add onto that inflation is set to rise possibly to 8 per cent from the around 4 percent it has been so interest rate will be rising though have been quite low so could be worse. On top of that the weapons we have been giving Ukraine will cost the taxpayer money, money originally and money to replace, guess the government's arms dealer pals will be doing nicely out of it.

The Budget in the UK is due early April and many are hoping for around a 5p reduction in fuel duty to offset the rise. Though I think really more sources of oil around the world will need taping into, fracking old sites, etc.

Electricity and gas are also way up, my estimate I received just a few days ago for next year had about doubled from last year!!! May get some solar panelling after all lol.

So like it or not Britons are contributing to countering Russia as I'm sure people in most western nations are through higher bills and economic impact. I think it's biting Russia the hardest though so let's just hope it helps.

[ML]

Yale University Professors have compiled, and are keeping up to date, a listing of companies that have refused to stop doing business in Russia or have only partially reduced.

F_____ over these companies all you can.


http://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-400-companies-have-withdrawn-russia-some-remain

[Boethius]

Anonymous has stated that starting tomorrow, they will start hacking activity against companies continuing to do business in Russia.

[ML]

Anonymous has stated that starting tomorrow, they will start hacking activity against companies continuing to do business in Russia.

I am torn regarding this.

[krimster2]

Dva Question of the day!

Kiev or Kyiv?
Quo Bono?

[ML]

Quo Bono?

Nulla salus bello.

[ML]

Why hasn't russia targeted major cultural and government sites in Kyiv?
Churches, Monuments, Parks, Government offices, etc.

[Nightwish]

Why hasn't russia targeted major cultural and government sites in Kyiv?
Churches, Monuments, Parks, Government offices, etc.

Partly because they have not been close enough to use artillery, yes I know they also have cruise missiles, but they are incredibly expensive and in limited numbers so I would guess they use them for more important targets.

Partly because Kyiv is a cultural important city even for the orcs (russians). It's the birthplace(?) for the Russian orthodox church or at least of very high importance.

And it was something more I don't remember right now, I got a lecture about it the other day from a babushka  

[ML]

TIME MAGAZINE.                  ELLIOT ACKERMAN   MARCH 25, 2022

Ukrainians Don't Blame Just Putin For the War. They Blame Russians.

(Note: We often hear US government leaders and ordinary US citizens wail that it is not the Russian people at fault, rather only their leader.  This is B.S.  The Russian people fully support Putin’s actions. The author projects this same idea in softer terms.)

(Below are excerpts from the author’s conversation with some Ukrainians)

I noted to Andrii that it seemed some Russians had chosen to stand with the Ukrainian people. To emphasize my point, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova and her interruption of the Russian nightly government news. Andrii cut me off. “Do you think she’s a hero?”

“I think she’s brave.”

“She was fined 30,000 rubles, that’s less than 300 dollars. She was then immediately released. Are we really supposed to applaud her even though until a few days ago, she was happy to dispense false propaganda while Russia waged its war?”

The war was only a few weeks old, and I remarked that sometimes it takes people time to find their conscience. Andrii could hardly contain himself. “Really? A few weeks old? Don’t forget, this war has been going on since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, or at least since it took the Donbas in 2014. Should it take eight years to find one’s conscience?”

For Andrii, a narrative that categorized both the Ukrainian and Russian peoples as victims of Putin’s war absolved Russian citizens of decades of complicity. “I am sick of reading media stories pitying liberal Russians emigres who’ve fled to Helsinki or to Istanbul to work their tech jobs remotely as they cry about their devalued rubles. Their complaint is always that they have no future in an authoritarian Russia, not that a genocide is occurring inside Ukraine. They say Stop the War. They don’t say Save Ukraine. They would be happy to see Ukraine destroyed and annexed into Russia. It’s only the means of that annexation they object to, a method of war that has made them pariahs. The end in Ukraine is fine with them, just as it was fine in Crimea, in Georgia, and in Chechnya. Did any of them leave Russia after those successful invasions? No, of course not. It’s failed wars they’re against, not Ukraine they’re for; there’s a difference.”

I had often been taught that people who live under autocratic regimes are never the enemy; rather it’s the regime itself.   But can this be true where these people have repeatedly voted in and enthusiastically embraced the autocratic leader?   Western strategy seemed to hinge on two variables: the resolve of the Ukrainian people to endure and fight; and the resolve of the Russian people to resist and reject Putin. If either faltered, the Ukrainian people would be subjected to genocide, a term often used in hyperbole, but the definition of which fit: “the deliberate and systemic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”

But obviously the Russian people are not resisting or rejecting Putin’s genocide against Ukrainians, so are everyday Russians complicit? While polling inside Russia is unreliable, multiple independent polls show strong majority Russian support for the war in Ukraine. So if a majority of Russians support the war is a Western strategy that relies on internal Russian pressure against Putin fundamentally flawed?

The decoupling of the Russian people from the regime that acts in their name is an exercise Americans and the West seem more interested in than Ukrainians, whose resolve against Russia remains incredibly high, with nearly eighty percent rejecting any territorial concessions, to include Crimea and the Donbas.

Hrytsak, like Andrii, believed it wasn’t possible to decouple the war in Ukraine from the Russian people. "You see, the Russian identity is a spiritual one, in which Russia believes it is the savior of the world..”
From Napoleon to Hitler, Russia is the one that saves the world from the West and its depraved fascist tendencies. Russia defeated Napoleon. Russia defeated Hitler. And Putin will defeat current Western leaders.”

“Over five hundred years there have been many attempts to emancipate Russian society. Every attempt collapses with a ruthless autocrat. Why do the Russian people choose unfreedom? The answer is Russian culture. If Russia is indeed the savior of the world, that would mean its suffering has meaning, that its suffering is synonymous with its piety. That’s why the sanctions won’t work. Could you convince a Christian to become godless by making him suffer? No, of course not, his suffering only draws him closer to God. Russia has enjoyed periods of freedom, but always it returns to this condition of suffering. It’s important to understand that it’s not Putin who took Russia, but rather Russia which gave itself to Putin, and Putin has used Russia’s history of suffering to consolidate his power.”

The Third World War, according to Hrytsak, had already begun. Russia, like Germany at the end of the First World War, had suffered a humiliating defeat at the end of the Cold War. He used the term “Weimar” to describe Russia’s post-Cold War government in the 1990s. He noted how Putin, like Hitler, mined nuggets of grievance out of a selective, flawed interpretation of history, then refined those grievances into political power, enough power to sell this narrative we were seeing now, one in which Russia would liberate brother Ukrainians from their Nazi government led by a Jewish president.

“The Russian people have made a bargain with Putin, and it’s one they’ve made throughout their history. They have allowed a despot to take away their freedom, but in exchange he has offered them glory.”

“The reason the Russians are here trying to destroy Ukraine,” Melaniya added, “is we succeeded in getting our freedom after the Maidan, in 2013. They hate us for it.”

What about the possibility of a Russian Maidan, or colored revolution?
“Whether it’s a colored revolution, or anything else, it’s already too late. No protest movement can undo their crimes against us. Over the last eight years of war, the Russian people have done nothing to try to help Ukrainian people.”

Once again, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova.

“So what? Now some propagandist comes on T.V. with a sign and we’re supposed to thank her? She worked at Channel One spewing false propaganda against Ukraine for eight years . . . eight years!”

That evening, I had a meeting scheduled with Dmytro Potekhin, a journalist and one of the organizers of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned the corrupt result of that year’s presidential election. If the Russian people were to mobilize, it would likely be in a color revolution like the one Dmytro participated in. He was on the phone with me from Kyiv, and like everyone else I’d spoken to, Dmytro wasn’t optimistic. “Do I think a colored revolution is possible in Russia? Perhaps. Theoretically Russia could be democratic, though historically it hasn’t happened.”

Dmytro explained how, in 2005 and 2006, he’d traveled to Russia and trained their dissidents in the strategies and tactics of non-violent resistance. So why had those dissidents failed in Russia? “The problem is cultural,” he said. “Russian culture expects a single leader. Other societies are flatter. They are not vertical, like Russia. Every time the Russians create a movement it evolves into a vertical organization, one with a boss on the top. Look at Navalny. He could have created a great anti-corruption movement, but instead a vertical organization was built around him. I tried to teach Russians to build decentralized networks, but always they built organizations with a boss on the top and officers in the regions. Once the guy on the top is detained and once the regional offices are raided, the organization is stopped.”

[ML]

Elliot Ackerman notes that USA spent much more time and money trying to prepare the Afghan Army and Afghan Government to fend for themselves than they did to prepare Ukrainian Army and Ukrainian Government.

Yet the Afghan Army and Afghan Government collapsed in a matter of days (if not hours) while Ukraine has held firm in the face of much stronger challenges.

The difference lies in Moral Resolve and Superior Motivation.

Ackerman has great insight and I think we will be hearing more from him.

[Chelseaboy]

TIME MAGAZINE.                  ELLIOT ACKERMAN   MARCH 25, 2022

Ukrainians Don't Blame Just Putin For the War. They Blame Russians.

(Note: We often hear US government leaders and ordinary US citizens wail that it is not the Russian people at fault, rather only their leader.  This is B.S.  The Russian people fully support Putin’s actions. The author projects this same idea in softer terms.)

(Below are excerpts from the author’s conversation with some Ukrainians)

I noted to Andrii that it seemed some Russians had chosen to stand with the Ukrainian people. To emphasize my point, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova and her interruption of the Russian nightly government news. Andrii cut me off. “Do you think she’s a hero?”

“I think she’s brave.”

“She was fined 30,000 rubles, that’s less than 300 dollars. She was then immediately released. Are we really supposed to applaud her even though until a few days ago, she was happy to dispense false propaganda while Russia waged its war?”

The war was only a few weeks old, and I remarked that sometimes it takes people time to find their conscience. Andrii could hardly contain himself. “Really? A few weeks old? Don’t forget, this war has been going on since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, or at least since it took the Donbas in 2014. Should it take eight years to find one’s conscience?”

For Andrii, a narrative that categorized both the Ukrainian and Russian peoples as victims of Putin’s war absolved Russian citizens of decades of complicity. “I am sick of reading media stories pitying liberal Russians emigres who’ve fled to Helsinki or to Istanbul to work their tech jobs remotely as they cry about their devalued rubles. Their complaint is always that they have no future in an authoritarian Russia, not that a genocide is occurring inside Ukraine. They say Stop the War. They don’t say Save Ukraine. They would be happy to see Ukraine destroyed and annexed into Russia. It’s only the means of that annexation they object to, a method of war that has made them pariahs. The end in Ukraine is fine with them, just as it was fine in Crimea, in Georgia, and in Chechnya. Did any of them leave Russia after those successful invasions? No, of course not. It’s failed wars they’re against, not Ukraine they’re for; there’s a difference.”

I had often been taught that people who live under autocratic regimes are never the enemy; rather it’s the regime itself.   But can this be true where these people have repeatedly voted in and enthusiastically embraced the autocratic leader?   Western strategy seemed to hinge on two variables: the resolve of the Ukrainian people to endure and fight; and the resolve of the Russian people to resist and reject Putin. If either faltered, the Ukrainian people would be subjected to genocide, a term often used in hyperbole, but the definition of which fit: “the deliberate and systemic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”

But obviously the Russian people are not resisting or rejecting Putin’s genocide against Ukrainians, so are everyday Russians complicit? While polling inside Russia is unreliable, multiple independent polls show strong majority Russian support for the war in Ukraine. So if a majority of Russians support the war is a Western strategy that relies on internal Russian pressure against Putin fundamentally flawed?

The decoupling of the Russian people from the regime that acts in their name is an exercise Americans and the West seem more interested in than Ukrainians, whose resolve against Russia remains incredibly high, with nearly eighty percent rejecting any territorial concessions, to include Crimea and the Donbas.

Hrytsak, like Andrii, believed it wasn’t possible to decouple the war in Ukraine from the Russian people. "You see, the Russian identity is a spiritual one, in which Russia believes it is the savior of the world..”
From Napoleon to Hitler, Russia is the one that saves the world from the West and its depraved fascist tendencies. Russia defeated Napoleon. Russia defeated Hitler. And Putin will defeat current Western leaders.”

“Over five hundred years there have been many attempts to emancipate Russian society. Every attempt collapses with a ruthless autocrat. Why do the Russian people choose unfreedom? The answer is Russian culture. If Russia is indeed the savior of the world, that would mean its suffering has meaning, that its suffering is synonymous with its piety. That’s why the sanctions won’t work. Could you convince a Christian to become godless by making him suffer? No, of course not, his suffering only draws him closer to God. Russia has enjoyed periods of freedom, but always it returns to this condition of suffering. It’s important to understand that it’s not Putin who took Russia, but rather Russia which gave itself to Putin, and Putin has used Russia’s history of suffering to consolidate his power.”

The Third World War, according to Hrytsak, had already begun. Russia, like Germany at the end of the First World War, had suffered a humiliating defeat at the end of the Cold War. He used the term “Weimar” to describe Russia’s post-Cold War government in the 1990s. He noted how Putin, like Hitler, mined nuggets of grievance out of a selective, flawed interpretation of history, then refined those grievances into political power, enough power to sell this narrative we were seeing now, one in which Russia would liberate brother Ukrainians from their Nazi government led by a Jewish president.

“The Russian people have made a bargain with Putin, and it’s one they’ve made throughout their history. They have allowed a despot to take away their freedom, but in exchange he has offered them glory.”

“The reason the Russians are here trying to destroy Ukraine,” Melaniya added, “is we succeeded in getting our freedom after the Maidan, in 2013. They hate us for it.”

What about the possibility of a Russian Maidan, or colored revolution?
“Whether it’s a colored revolution, or anything else, it’s already too late. No protest movement can undo their crimes against us. Over the last eight years of war, the Russian people have done nothing to try to help Ukrainian people.”

Once again, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova.

“So what? Now some propagandist comes on T.V. with a sign and we’re supposed to thank her? She worked at Channel One spewing false propaganda against Ukraine for eight years . . . eight years!”

That evening, I had a meeting scheduled with Dmytro Potekhin, a journalist and one of the organizers of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned the corrupt result of that year’s presidential election. If the Russian people were to mobilize, it would likely be in a color revolution like the one Dmytro participated in. He was on the phone with me from Kyiv, and like everyone else I’d spoken to, Dmytro wasn’t optimistic. “Do I think a colored revolution is possible in Russia? Perhaps. Theoretically Russia could be democratic, though historically it hasn’t happened.”

Dmytro explained how, in 2005 and 2006, he’d traveled to Russia and trained their dissidents in the strategies and tactics of non-violent resistance. So why had those dissidents failed in Russia? “The problem is cultural,” he said. “Russian culture expects a single leader. Other societies are flatter. They are not vertical, like Russia. Every time the Russians create a movement it evolves into a vertical organization, one with a boss on the top. Look at Navalny. He could have created a great anti-corruption movement, but instead a vertical organization was built around him. I tried to teach Russians to build decentralized networks, but always they built organizations with a boss on the top and officers in the regions. Once the guy on the top is detained and once the regional offices are raided, the organization is stopped.”

They are correct.


Russians in general are an unpleasant,lying,corrupt,bullying people,although there are decent people among them,but they're fighting against the tide.


It was  Russians who put Putin in power,and it's Russians who've kept him in power for 22 years.


It's Russians who are bombing,shelling and killing civilians in Ukraine right now....and they take pleasure in it.


No doubt when this war eventually ends the full scale of the Russians atrocities will come out.


As i said on here before the war started,remember what occupying Russians did to German women ...they have a track record.


There are elderly people being interviewed on news outlets who were alive when the Germans invaded Ukraine and they all say these Russians are far worse than the Germans ever were.


If those Russians were not so unpleasant they could just refuse to do what they're doing and turn on their Generals en masse....but they don't .


What kind of people  kill and maim women and children ?


These cowardly Russians have proved to be useless at fighting men who are also armed and can fight back.,so they turn to killing unarmed civilians instead.


Of course,like all bullying unpleasant people,when they get caught,suddenly they didn't really want to do what they've been doing and start crying for their Mamas.


In another place there's an English bloke who lives in St Petersburg and he claims that many young Russian men are desperate to join the army and join-in with the slaughtering of Ukrainians...that says it all.

[Boethius]

In another place there's an English bloke who lives in St Petersburg and he claims that many young Russian men are desperate to join the army and join-in with the slaughtering of Ukrainians...that says it all.

So why isn’t he volunteering?  He’s always bragging about how superior Russia is, in every way, to the West. He should put his beliefs into practice.

[Patagonie]

Partly because they have not been close enough to use artillery, yes I know they also have cruise missiles, but they are incredibly expensive and in limited numbers so I would guess they use them for more important targets.

Partly because Kyiv is a cultural important city even for the orcs (russians). It's the birthplace(?) for the Russian orthodox church or at least of very high importance.

And it was something more I don't remember right now, I got a lecture about it the other day from a babushka

Correct, as soon as the Ukrainian army succeeds to maintain Russian artillery at least at 20 kilometers; they cannot shell the city. Kharkov has suffered more damage but the principle is the same.

[Patagonie]

TIME MAGAZINE.                  ELLIOT ACKERMAN   MARCH 25, 2022

Ukrainians Don't Blame Just Putin For the War. They Blame Russians.

(Note: We often hear US government leaders and ordinary US citizens wail that it is not the Russian people at fault, rather only their leader.  This is B.S.  The Russian people fully support Putin’s actions. The author projects this same idea in softer terms.)

(Below are excerpts from the author’s conversation with some Ukrainians)

I noted to Andrii that it seemed some Russians had chosen to stand with the Ukrainian people. To emphasize my point, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova and her interruption of the Russian nightly government news. Andrii cut me off. “Do you think she’s a hero?”

“I think she’s brave.”

“She was fined 30,000 rubles, that’s less than 300 dollars. She was then immediately released. Are we really supposed to applaud her even though until a few days ago, she was happy to dispense false propaganda while Russia waged its war?”

The war was only a few weeks old, and I remarked that sometimes it takes people time to find their conscience. Andrii could hardly contain himself. “Really? A few weeks old? Don’t forget, this war has been going on since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, or at least since it took the Donbas in 2014. Should it take eight years to find one’s conscience?”

For Andrii, a narrative that categorized both the Ukrainian and Russian peoples as victims of Putin’s war absolved Russian citizens of decades of complicity. “I am sick of reading media stories pitying liberal Russians emigres who’ve fled to Helsinki or to Istanbul to work their tech jobs remotely as they cry about their devalued rubles. Their complaint is always that they have no future in an authoritarian Russia, not that a genocide is occurring inside Ukraine. They say Stop the War. They don’t say Save Ukraine. They would be happy to see Ukraine destroyed and annexed into Russia. It’s only the means of that annexation they object to, a method of war that has made them pariahs. The end in Ukraine is fine with them, just as it was fine in Crimea, in Georgia, and in Chechnya. Did any of them leave Russia after those successful invasions? No, of course not. It’s failed wars they’re against, not Ukraine they’re for; there’s a difference.”

I had often been taught that people who live under autocratic regimes are never the enemy; rather it’s the regime itself.   But can this be true where these people have repeatedly voted in and enthusiastically embraced the autocratic leader?   Western strategy seemed to hinge on two variables: the resolve of the Ukrainian people to endure and fight; and the resolve of the Russian people to resist and reject Putin. If either faltered, the Ukrainian people would be subjected to genocide, a term often used in hyperbole, but the definition of which fit: “the deliberate and systemic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”

But obviously the Russian people are not resisting or rejecting Putin’s genocide against Ukrainians, so are everyday Russians complicit? While polling inside Russia is unreliable, multiple independent polls show strong majority Russian support for the war in Ukraine. So if a majority of Russians support the war is a Western strategy that relies on internal Russian pressure against Putin fundamentally flawed?

The decoupling of the Russian people from the regime that acts in their name is an exercise Americans and the West seem more interested in than Ukrainians, whose resolve against Russia remains incredibly high, with nearly eighty percent rejecting any territorial concessions, to include Crimea and the Donbas.

Hrytsak, like Andrii, believed it wasn’t possible to decouple the war in Ukraine from the Russian people. "You see, the Russian identity is a spiritual one, in which Russia believes it is the savior of the world..”
From Napoleon to Hitler, Russia is the one that saves the world from the West and its depraved fascist tendencies. Russia defeated Napoleon. Russia defeated Hitler. And Putin will defeat current Western leaders.”

“Over five hundred years there have been many attempts to emancipate Russian society. Every attempt collapses with a ruthless autocrat. Why do the Russian people choose unfreedom? The answer is Russian culture. If Russia is indeed the savior of the world, that would mean its suffering has meaning, that its suffering is synonymous with its piety. That’s why the sanctions won’t work. Could you convince a Christian to become godless by making him suffer? No, of course not, his suffering only draws him closer to God. Russia has enjoyed periods of freedom, but always it returns to this condition of suffering. It’s important to understand that it’s not Putin who took Russia, but rather Russia which gave itself to Putin, and Putin has used Russia’s history of suffering to consolidate his power.”

The Third World War, according to Hrytsak, had already begun. Russia, like Germany at the end of the First World War, had suffered a humiliating defeat at the end of the Cold War. He used the term “Weimar” to describe Russia’s post-Cold War government in the 1990s. He noted how Putin, like Hitler, mined nuggets of grievance out of a selective, flawed interpretation of history, then refined those grievances into political power, enough power to sell this narrative we were seeing now, one in which Russia would liberate brother Ukrainians from their Nazi government led by a Jewish president.

“The Russian people have made a bargain with Putin, and it’s one they’ve made throughout their history. They have allowed a despot to take away their freedom, but in exchange he has offered them glory.”

“The reason the Russians are here trying to destroy Ukraine,” Melaniya added, “is we succeeded in getting our freedom after the Maidan, in 2013. They hate us for it.”

What about the possibility of a Russian Maidan, or colored revolution?
“Whether it’s a colored revolution, or anything else, it’s already too late. No protest movement can undo their crimes against us. Over the last eight years of war, the Russian people have done nothing to try to help Ukrainian people.”

Once again, I mentioned Marina Ovsyannikova.

“So what? Now some propagandist comes on T.V. with a sign and we’re supposed to thank her? She worked at Channel One spewing false propaganda against Ukraine for eight years . . . eight years!”

That evening, I had a meeting scheduled with Dmytro Potekhin, a journalist and one of the organizers of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned the corrupt result of that year’s presidential election. If the Russian people were to mobilize, it would likely be in a color revolution like the one Dmytro participated in. He was on the phone with me from Kyiv, and like everyone else I’d spoken to, Dmytro wasn’t optimistic. “Do I think a colored revolution is possible in Russia? Perhaps. Theoretically Russia could be democratic, though historically it hasn’t happened.”

Dmytro explained how, in 2005 and 2006, he’d traveled to Russia and trained their dissidents in the strategies and tactics of non-violent resistance. So why had those dissidents failed in Russia? “The problem is cultural,” he said. “Russian culture expects a single leader. Other societies are flatter. They are not vertical, like Russia. Every time the Russians create a movement it evolves into a vertical organization, one with a boss on the top. Look at Navalny. He could have created a great anti-corruption movement, but instead a vertical organization was built around him. I tried to teach Russians to build decentralized networks, but always they built organizations with a boss on the top and officers in the regions. Once the guy on the top is detained and once the regional offices are raided, the organization is stopped.”

It's even more complicated
Ukrainian is very vocal and emotional actually, which is totally normal considering the level of aggression they are suffering. 
 
They have observed last 8 years that their Russian relatives were at least indifferent, or denying their statements, or worse criticizing them to be victims of the US propaganda. A lot of Ukrainians have stopped maintaining relationships with these people. I think that the topic you bring back ML is largely coming from this fact. 
 
It shouldn't be forgotten the President of the Russian Federation saved their asses from the collapse of the USSR, Russia was about to become a third country. He saved her and for 20 years he really pushed Russia to the top countries. I consider that he messed everything up in 2014.
So “The Russian people have made a bargain with Putin, and it’s one they’ve made throughout their history. They have allowed a despot to take away their freedom, but in exchange he has offered them glory.” is inexact. 
 
However “The reason the Russians are here trying to destroy Ukraine,” Melaniya added, “is we succeeded in getting our freedom after the Maidan, in 2013. They hate us for it.” this statement has some perfume of truth. Except for a minority, Russians don't have any political culture, they don't have any political consciousness and for a majority (between 65 and 85%) EVERYTHING IS GOOD PROVIDED THAT NO ONE IS GETTING A BETTER LIFE AND SOCIAL OR ECONOMIC POSITION than us. This explains why they are quite happy when oligarchs, rich people and the real middle class in Russia are suffering. 
Sanctions bring back THESE people to the majority. And the majority is secretly exulting watching this. 
And they are totally indifferent to the fact that Ukraine, as a country, could have a better future. It's better if not, it's more comfortable, psychology, for the majority of Russian people. 
 
Yes there is a cultural problem here, and societies without any political education are more comfortable with a leader because they don't need to grow up by themselves.

[Steven1971]

Intimidation of Russian students by the state. Or why only the most committed protest

http://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1509627881948946432.html

[ML]

Correct, as soon as the Ukrainian army succeeds to maintain Russian artillery at least at 20 kilometers; they cannot shell the city. Kharkov has suffered more damage but the principle is the same.

This doesn't correspond to what has happened in Lviv.
Russia apparently uses long range missiles launched from their planes still in Russian territory.
So they could do the same with respect to bombing central Kyiv.

[ML]

More on the idea that majority of Russians support the terrorist invasion of Ukraine.

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/not-just-putin-most-russians-support-the-war-in-ukraine/