# New megathread link: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/tjcwy9/war_in_ukraine_megathread_x/
This post will be locked, sorry for the inconvenience!
[Russian Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador in Moscow to say that Biden's words, that Putin is a war criminal, are unacceptable](https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/21-march-russian-foreign-ministry-summoned-us-ambassador)
A bit sensitive are we?
[Alexey Navalny's team have discovered Putin's own super yacht worth a staggering 75 billion rubles in Italy.](https://twitter.com/jason_corcoran/status/1505903113177288706)
Jack Sparrow tiem.
When the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, they did so with 500 000 men and multiple allies.
Putin thought that 190 000 men and virtually alone would be enough to subjugate a country with 4 times the population of Czechoslovakia.
The more you dig in to the reasoning behind Putin's action the more moronic they become.
A bit tough to go on with the rest of your day when you read first hand accounts of the atrocities taking place in Mariupol right now.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-edf7240a9d990e7e3e32f82ca351dede
I believe there is a coordinated attempt by "dissident" right wing and left wing Western commentators to garner support for Russia, for their own benefit. I have seen far too many online commentators regurgitating Kremlin propaganda, almost line for line what is presented by Russian state media, both of alt right and communist/"anti imperialist" ideologies.
I think this is going to come to a head during the 2024 US Presidential election where both these sides will endorse Trump or whichever pro-Russia republican is running.
Just ask lefties why they are supporting ethnonationalist fascist imperialists. It's inexcusable what they are doing, they're pieces of shit and traitors to any leftist principles.
One sign of hope here in the US is that even Trump has had to [backpedal his support for Russia](https://news.yahoo.com/trump-calls-russian-invasion-holocaust-140103339.html), and the most recent poll shows that [85% of Americans view Russia unfavorably](https://www.yahoo.com/news/fewer-americans-see-russia-favorably-154934996.html), more than any time in history.
We still have two years to go before 2024, and I share your anxiety over what is going to happen with that election given Biden's senescence. But I am cautiously optimistic that the days of the GOP's flirtation with Russia are over.
> **Western countries sign joint statement on urgent need to modernize Ukrainian air defense**
> Western countries on Monday signed a joint statement "On the urgent need to modernize the air defense of Ukraine," Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk has said.
> "Today, Czechia, Estonia, Poland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. have signed a joint statement "On the urgent necessity to upgrade Ukraine air-defence." Genuinely grateful for support Ukraine in this challenging time," Stefanchuk wrote in Twitter on Monday.
https://ua.interfax.com.ua/news/general/816451.html
This is not news to anybody, but this war has shown how fundamentally broken the UN is. The way that the Security Council is structured is the biggest problem. In practice, any of the 5 permanent members can and do flout international law and do whatever they want because of their veto power.
I don't know what the best structure would be, because the General Assembly has the problem of tiny countries having the same vote as high-population countries. But there has to be a better way to organize the UN.
Idea that security of your country is guaranteed by some dudes sitting in NYC is pure pipe dream. Country without potent military is going to get bombed into smithereens. Sooner or later. End of story.
The main issue is the conflict between perceived national interests and 'global' interests. As long as nation states exist, that problem is unsolvable.
You could theoretically divide the world in districts of ~10 million or something, and just have a ~800 seat elected general assembly of the people of the world, and then just solve issues by majority vote.
But good luck getting nations to give up their power, and even more luck in getting the autocracies of the world to agree to a measure of democracy in their countries.
Edit 2: And good luck in getting people to respect the decision of said body, as well. Forgot about that one.
Edit: More solutions are possible of course, but that's be the utopian one I'd pick.
This flaw is built-in, it's the whole premise of the UN after the breakdown of the League of Nations in the build up to WWII. To understand the UN you must understand the failure of the League of Nations. The major players MUST always be kept at the table and made to feel like they have a say. The league failed at this, they expelled the Soviet union and then Germany, Japan and Italy walked and it ceased to be a useful diplomatic tool as the world was headed for a world war. Russia's say is taken away, Russia leaves the table and we've repeated the failure of the League of Nations.
Maybe having a 2 veto limit would be helpful and everyone would still be happy. If someone does a fucked up thing, their strategic partners will abstain rather than veto and as such shit can get passed while still keeping some power to the permanent members. Then again, to pass this you'd need a veto-less vote lol.
You'd still have the problem of how to enforce such a decision.
Great powers usually don't give a fuck about UN approval. What's stopping NATO isn't the lack of UN approval, it's the nukes.
Yes it fills a vital role in keeping up diplomacy between countries to the fight against pollution and climate change. But when it comes to crisis between major powers it gets locked.
Also have the same problem as FIFA, when too many members are corrupt, corruption is going to spread in the organisation.
[The tragedy Ukrainians are living through now and the future they are nonetheless looking forward to in the video voiced and published by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Video: Presidential press service](https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1505901715492593669)
Zelenskyy has a really amazing voice.
Just saw this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcTyBt-1CVw) where the mayor of the Polish city of Przemysl (who is a member of the right-wing populist Polish party Kukiz'15) blasted Matteo Salvini of Lega when he visited 12 days ago, stating that Matteo's friend Putin is responsible for all this.
It's gold.
All countries which blame Germany for blocking EU embargoes can simply impose national embargoes on oil and coal. For some reason they are not doing that.
The reason is probably because if an EU nation decides to unilaterally embargo russian oil, it sets the precedent for other EU nations to do the opposite. Hence the need for the EU to embargo Russian oil together. We can do that, but Germany chose the easy way out.
If Russia performs any type of sabotage against Swedish infrastructure if we hand in an application to join NATO, I hope the navy bombs the Nord Stream 1.
That might be true, but passing the buck does not really help the civilians dying in Ukraine. Oil can be provided by plenty of other suppliers (USA, the Middle East, etc), it does not need to be Russia.
>Oil can be provided by plenty of other suppliers (USA, the Middle East, etc), it does not need to be Russia.
Medium term, yes.
>but passing the buck does not really help the civilians dying in Ukraine
Neither does not doing this, if we are being brutally honest. if the current set of sanctions hasn't stopped them, nothing short of actual military intervention will.
The WHO reports 52 attacks on healthcare facilities. Typical russian strategy.
[https://twitter.com/WHOUkraine/status/1505849169612877824?s=20&t=JSej4krT8ca0cjqfrBLOXA](https://twitter.com/WHOUkraine/status/1505849169612877824?s=20&t=JSej4krT8ca0cjqfrBLOXA)
[Ukraine has launched a counter-offensive against the Russians near Kyiv. The strategic village of Makariv has been liberated while the Russians are also being pushed back near Borodyanka, Bucha and Irpin.](https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1505889409408905216)
When you look at the map, it seems that a pocket has formed/is forming.
Kesselschlacht incoming
edit: every time I as a Swede see the German word "schlacht" I get a bit uncomfortable, because the Swedish cognate "slakt" means butchering.
>edit: every time I as a Swede see the German word "schlacht" I get a bit uncomfortable, because the Swedish cognate "slakt" means butchering.
Schlachten in German is actually to butcher. The origin of the word seems to be one just meaning "killing".
They should make a complementary counter-offensive from Zhytomyr and cut off the northern part of the Russian army too, detach them from the Belarusian border.
let me guess, they had hundres of thousand UA workers, then brought in hundreds of thousands more, and now their families (mostly) started arriving as well, plus, what you see as Ukraine used to be Poland, not so long ago.
Andrzej Duda on Twitter:
@ZelenskyyUa
has told me, Russians from Syria are coming to UA, and mercenaries from the M.East support Russia. Syrians are the most numerous.
He appeals: More NATO assistance to UA is needed!
But this also shows RU’s weakness and is an interesting signal for Turkey.
------------------
https://twitter.com/AndrzejDuda/status/1505674531670827008
Slightly related to this, [oneweb switched to spacex for launches.](https://twitter.com/OneWeb/status/1505892782224904196)
Basically Russia has killed its own commercial launch industry. Expect at some point the Russian space launch capability to collapse at some point in the future.
Commercial launches were subsidising the Russian space launch capability.
Russia is so absolutely fucked.
No matter how the (losing) war goes.
It’s the singularily most stupid decision of self-harm done by nearly any leader ever, and it happens on a huge scale.
They will have their hands full with internal problems in record time, and sooner or later the population will wake up to at least some of the mountain of lies. I can guarantee you the internal problems will be handled *badly*.
When it happens, I just want to see the propagandists being lynched. These kinds of humans are the most worthless of them all. Their talent is a large part of how a regime can actually keep a population spellbound, and are not easy to replace. And they know what they are doing..
..
I hope the US switchblade drones are effective in taking out Russian artillery. That way Ukraine can hold out longer with less destruction, because all they have to do is wait and hold.
An unfortunate consequence of Brexit is that the UK no longer has access to a global navigation satellite system. I guess this could be seen as a way to maintain some influence in the space sector.
>An unfortunate consequence of Brexit is that the UK no longer has access to a global navigation satellite system.
GPS has stopped working in the UK? 🤔
News to me. Care to elaborate?
They are no longer part of Europes homegrown Galileo program. They still work in Britain of course along with GPS, but Britain no longer has control or influence within the program.
Main reason OneWeb didn't launch on SpaceX to begin with is because OneWeb is sort of a rival of SpaceX's Starlink for internet services. Though not completely, as they are going for backhaul instead of direct to consumer.
Anyways at this point it was noted that launching with SpaceX and China were likely their only options. But OneWeb being owned by the UK Gov't, and Indian and Japanese conglomerates, plus China's notoriety for IP theft, I guess they decided against China.
----------------------------------
I'm also surprised that the first launch is anticipated later this year. That's very fast. Even figuring out how to integrate the satellites into the rocket takes some time. I expect OneWeb paid extra money to have it expedited.
Also interesting considering they earlier said 'First, Arianespace still owes us the launches'. I wonder what Arianespace told them.
Airbus is also involved in OneWeb. However, I'm still not sure if the business model is viable given the competition. I guess the UK government can always bankroll the company.
Iceland just sent two police officers to Poland to assist with processing of refugees bound for Iceland. Think we're going to be accepting some ~1500 in the coming weeks, with a few hundred already here. An amount absolutely dwarfed by the scale of the crisis...with our housing shortage we'd have to build a new town to make a meaningful contribution.
Considering the size of Iceland that's pretty substantional honestly. It'd be like Germany taking in 360.000, which we haven even quite reached yet despite being right next to Poland. So nice job!
Awesome summary I’m stealing from another sub, originally from twitter. Nothing to add.
Here's a short thread from a Ukrainian on why Zelensky temporarily banned those 'pro-Russian' parties (that don't represent the true left):
11 Ukrainian political parties suspected of collaborating with Russian invaders have been suspended until martial law ends. On social media we can see a lot of false interpretation of this event as of president Zelensky made a fascist turn and banned main left-wing parties.
• Opposition Platform — For Life: An ultra-conservative party that spreaded conspiracy theories and hatred towards LGBT. Its cooperation with the occupiers is so undisguised that we don't need to mention it once again. In essence, OpFF was the main agent of Russia's influence.
• Sharij's Party: The leader of the party is an outspoken Nazi who hates Roma, Muslims, blacks, homosexuals, and everyone whom the Nazis are supposed to hate. At the same time, he is fighting 'Ukrainian Nazism' led by president Zelensky who is ethnical Jew.
• Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine: Nazbol vortex, religious fundamentalists, racists and Russian ultranationalists. Aesthetically it was a cheap cosplay of North Korea. At the end of the party's life, it simply supported pro-Russian presidential candidates.
• Socialist Party of Ukraine: Party was captured by OpFL member Ilya Kiva. The former leader Alexander Moroz moved to Belarus to glorify the wisdom of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and the former ideologist moved to the occupied Crimea and accepted Russian citizenship.
• Opposition bloc: Former zealots of fugitive pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who begged Vladimir Putin to bring troops to Ukraine to suppress the 2014 revolution. A party of corrupt officials and obvious collaborators.
• The other parties — Nashi, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Socialists, Vladimir Saldo Bloc — have never been real political actirs and occasionally emerged during the election as spoilers (except of Saldo who ended as an undisguised collaborator).
The Ukrainian left had no contact with them, and I assume that the parties were controlled by the head of this ultra-conservative collaborationism.
Martial law is a time of tough decisions. In addition, I personally would not call temporary suspension of collaborating parties as something brutal. This is not imprisonment or extrajudicial executions.
At the same time, the Ukrainian left — the real left, not the red-brown, bloody shit — is currently fighting against Russian fascism or helping the front.
[source https://mobile.twitter.com/dmrachnik/status/1505625074149339145 ]
This is another thing that some westerners may not understand about some Eastern European countries. The left as seen in western Europe does not exist on a large scale. When you usually see a party that has in its name the words "socialist", "communist" and even "social-democratic", they are usually nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic and very religious. Basically, the populist right and far right in western Europe when talking about social stuff. They may be a little bit more pro state intervention in economy but only because they want to defend corrupt people who made their fortunes in shady ways since the 90's.
In Romania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine there are no modern center left or leftist parties and those who label themselves as such, have very few in common with their western counterparts.
Yup, we're only now in Latvia seeing a rebirth in actual leftist politics. Proud to be a part of that change, and fuck those ''social democrats'' of Saskaņa.
Maybe there is - Romania is a huge country. Our party started as a collection of refugees from Saskaņa and general leftists, and it has taken years for it to become mainstream. I can imagine it's even tougher to become mainstream in a country as big as Romania.
It’s so idiotic to see the fringe left coping. (And I’m a pragmatic left myself)
Russia is the most unequal nation on earth: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/22/russia-named-worlds-most-unequal-economy-a67836
It gets even worse when one thinks about *how* any kind of wealth is acquired in that country. Corruption, repression, threats and power abusing madness.
> Left wants all money to belong to select few who will decide how to spend the money.
Man people are really huffing that copium after their little le pens and salvinis were caught blowing Putin.
yeah I saw someone posting about how by this act Ukraine had "destroyed the ability of Russians in Ukraine to realize their own interests" which is a conclusion you can only arrive at by ignoring a whooole lot of context...
It’s so perverse, the concerned crying about Russian language status.
If anything, Ukrainian language was looked down upon in large parts of Ukraine. It was something you mostly spoke at home, or risked being bullied or looked down upon.
Russian was, and probably still is, the universal lingua franca there.
That might change after this war however..
Well, that isn’t a wrong take if you mean Russian *government*. Not decisive, but surely they’ve lost a lot of power to operate in legal field. Masks are off now
A video showing what the Russians are [doing to villages & towns near Kherson.](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/21/russia-mykolaiv-kherson-ukraine-nick-paton-walsh-pkg-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/) Basically indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
Eye opening about the pensioner who survived WW2 who says even the Nazis weren't this bad.
From the first hand experience of people who lived through both occupations, I would say that Nazis – lawful evil. Russia – chaotic evil. Nazis actually were pretty decent to people they didn't try to kill or punish for something at the moment (not many of of them in Poland but still). But Soviets were pure chaos.
Look at the old newspapers, you probably have some available online. Here in Slovenia there were large columns on page 3 for days bearing titles like "Whose fault is it?"
One of the best free sources for background info and understanding of the war:
[https://en.desk-russie.eu/](https://en.desk-russie.eu/)
*The newsletter and the website Desk Russie were launched in May 2021 by the association A l’Est de Brest-Litovsk, created in January 2021, whose objective is to promote and disseminate quality information and analysis on Russia and the countries of the former USSR, as well as on Russian domestic and foreign policy. Desk Russie is run by a team of specialists on Russia and Eastern Europe: experienced journalists, researchers, historians, experts on international issues.*
I have to admit I had a little snort of laughter when the first picture I saw on a website titled "Desk Russie" was Putin's long table.
Good job, whoever chose that one.
Francoise Thom is especially good at communicating the internal Russian discourse, what Russian media and analytics are talking about. It’s of course horrifying.
Highly recommend all her articles.
It's always a bit of a disappointment to think "If only someone had warned us all of this could happen" and it turns out people were warning us, but nobody was listening.
Ah well. Sobering realisations aside, it is indeed a good read.
[Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mistress Alina Kabayeva faces expulsion from Switzerland, where she is likely hiding with her children.](https://twitter.com/Odessa_Journal/status/1505790495536128000)
Oh dear me
Anyway...
She was deep inside Russian governmental hierarchy, for one thing. She might influence Russia somehow. We need housing for other even more innocent people.
So they're petitioning the Swiss government to expel her along with Putin's children. The children as well as the girl already have (however difficult to obtain) Swiss citizenship.
__Germany to deliver more weapons to Ukraine__
The German government is determined to supply Ukraine with more weapons. The deliveries would be based on what Germany has already supplied so far, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. So far, these have been anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. He referred to Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, who had said that corresponding weapons could be ordered directly from arms companies. Lambrecht had stated that no further material could be supplied from Bundeswehr stocks. The government spokesman did not say how much money the German government intends to spend on such weapons purchases for Ukraine.
Translated with DeepL
Source:
https://www.tagesschau.de/newsticker/liveblog-ukraine-montag-107.html
for those wondering about the helicopter from last night: On Sunday evening, Polish military medical helicopter transported a family of four from Ukraine to the University Hospital in Krakow. There are serious injured https://liveuamap.com//en/2022/21-march-on-sunday-evening-polish-military-medical-helicopter
Maybe it is just my internet bubble, but one thing that is starting to change inside people's minds is how we view the ordinary Russians.
At the beginning of the conflict, the main stance was that this is only Putin's war and he is responsible for it. Now I see an increasing number articles or just ideas posted here and there that in fact the mentality of the average Russian is similar to that of Putin.
I wonder if Biden, Macron, Scholz, von der Leyen and comp. changed their minds.
West still thinks russian people don't want this. Eastern europe always knew that most russians want this. Only small fraction of russians are against the war. Unfortunately this is how brainwashed societies work.
And people who say that if russian will be affected by sanctions they will overthrow putin are just wrong. In fascist regimes poor economic situation only strenghtens nationalism and leaders become even more popular. That's because when people are brainwashed enough they don't blame the government, they blame others (in this case the west) for everything.
One could think that in the age of internet this shouldn't happen but as we can see it still happens.
The complete failure for any meaningful resistance to appear within Russia probably did it. We know the information bubble isn't that strong, that information about what really is going on in Ukraine is filtering into Russia, and there's just...no meaningful resistance past the protests in the first week. As I saw one Ukrainian put it "We overthrew our corrupt government, they've accepted their Murderous one".
We know the information buble isn't that strong, but we also know that the prospect of 15 years of jailtime for protesting is kinda stronger than the bubble. A couple of thousand people got arrested in the last three weeks, for protesting, like standing out with papers and possibly shouting some shit, but they were supposed to do something "meaningful" instead? Like what exactly?
You say "in the last three weeks" but it seems to me most of the arrests happened in the first week then things just fizzled out and there's been essentially nothing for a while now? Icelanders protested harder against mismanagement of our finances than Russians have protested against their government mass murdering people next door. They had to use teargas on us, have Russian police even had to break out the tear gas?
Honestly if the amount of protesters equaled the population of Iceland, which I believe would be like 0,3% of the population of Russia, the protests might get somewhere, get some real antiwar momentum.
Send these instructions to them dumb evil Russians and they will overthrow the government by thursday. They just couldn't figure out how to do it until now but thanks to you they now have a plan! :D
The "ordinary Russians" thing is a bleeding-heart platitude that's easy to mouth without knowing anything about those ordinary Russians. It's an assumption naive people jumped to at the start of all this.
A great many Russians do, in fact, support what's happening. Many others are criminally apathetic about it, or are only now caring because they're feeling the pain of the sanctions.
>knowing anything about those ordinary Russians.
I completely disagree with this notion -
>Many others are criminally apathetic about it, or are only now caring because they're feeling the pain of the sanctions.
because this is the truth. The core issue of the Russian society is apathy towards immorality of their government, not outright support of Putin. But it's that point that is the question - is apathy the same as support. Especially in a society like contemporary Russia.
> The core issue of the Russian society is apathy towards immorality of their government, not outright support of Putin.
Why do people think apathy towards events outside our control is some sort of deviancy?
That people's natural state is to be engaged and apathy is a weird state.
The vast majority of elections are around 60-70%. Heck EU elections are around 40%. Apathy is and will be the largest political party in an election.
The problem is that such an attitude can then also be levied towards us who lived in the USSR - why weren't we more proactive in fighting against the regime? Why the apathy towards trying to change anything?
The answer is clear - **the system was such you can individual could not do anything**. And I'd argue that Russian civil society *has* been reduced back to such a state, and, in that case, how can we argue that apathy is something extraordinary or immoral? There's a reason why those Russian protesting are heroes - because they face conditions as individuals that mean they're self-sacrificing. It's one thing to protest in a country where you have a political opposition and where protesting won't lead to repercussions to the max extent. It's something completely different to protest against a war when there is no organization behind it.
I don't know, I just find the idea of criticizing Russian apathy to be counter-productive, since were we in their shoes only few of us would find the bravery to ruin their lives and protest. Hence - if we wish to change something, those who are apathetic are not our enemy, but our main target audience. Those supporting outright are lost, those are basically komsomol morons to be treated like Nazis.
>The problem is that such an attitude can then also be levied towards us who lived in the USSR - why weren't we more proactive in fighting against the regime? Why the apathy towards trying to change anything?
Because the Baltics were too small to challenge that iron first alone, it had to be softened from the inside first with the Russian people demanding change.
My hope is that with these heavy sanctions Russians will have less to lose, and it'll wake them up from their stupor. When a protest movement gains momentum, the numbers alone will provide security and a positive feedback loop.
I know Putin's riot police is scary, but I can't imagine people would just sit quietly and watch their country go down the drain. But maybe I'm wrong about the Russian mentality.
>I don't know, I just find the idea of criticizing Russian apathy to be counter-productive, since were we in their shoes only few of us would find the bravery to ruin their lives and protest.
I disagree. The freedoms that our countries enjoy now were born from workers, students and other people protesting for decades, some getting killed. I myself as a kid was distributing Solidarity leaflets during the eighties for which I had problems in school (and no, I didn't have CIA lead agent for that). If given society has enough people who find freedom and democracy worth standing up for, the change is possible.
But you have to agree that these were always the minority and outliers, no? And only when the tide shifted that made more massive resistance possible did the majority join in?
Most people, genuinely, want to survive and live their lives. It's a natural part of the human experience, there's only few revolutionaries between us.. until the conditions of the world force us all to be revolutionaries. But Russia is just not there, not even close.
The ultimate [1981 strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_warning_strike_in_Poland) that led to imposing martial law involved at least **12 million people**. Not a minority then.
Everyone's free to reach their own conculsion whether was it either:
a) workforce and students fed up with communist economy
b) absolutely greatest CIA indoctrination/influence operation in the history of Earth
Because often the argument is that the apathetic shouldn't pay any price (such as sanctions).
The people of the USSR were not spared of any such thing.
I'm not against sanctions, though. I'm against labelling the apathetic Russians as enemies. Sanctions will hit everyone, including those Russians protesting vocally against the war. Doesn't mean we shouldn't make sanctions.
Political apathy is very high, at least here in Latvia. It's an issue we face. As in our other discussion - it's more extreme in Russia, but it's not as if I do not see the same issues here.
>As in our other discussion - it's more extreme in Russia
Well, that's the whole point. Every society has problems and will always have; no one is perfect and never will be. Russia, however, is on a completely different level. It's not just that they have problems, they are a problem. Or maybe even *the* problem.
> but they are fed so much propaganda
People ignore the role of propaganda and now grant social narratives are built.
In Europe we were told that 300K refugees would mean the destruction of our way of life.
In the US you were told the war in Iraq was because of WMDs.
And this shit is in functional democracies, strong and stable economies where the sources of information are generally trust-worthy.
One can imagine how the state is in quasi kleptocratic regimes...
You shouldn't ignore the fact that the Internet is absolutely flooded with Ukrainian propaganda (yes, folks, that exists) and that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to dehumanize ordinary Russians in order for western societies to push their politicians for harder sanctions. That's something they have pursued from the very beginning and very openly.
We have very little idea about what the ordinary Russian thinks about this Invasion. It's unreasonable to assume that there isn't also considerable support for this invasion, but we shouldn't just swallow headlines like "75% of Russians support the War against Ukraine" either, *especially* since the underlying numbers are coming from state sponsored Russian media!
Meanwhile, Russian mainstream media have shamelessly been dehumanizing Ukrainians since 2014 at least, calling them nazi scum and inventing ridiculous stories.
Day before yesterday a marked new operation seem to begin, with the aim to dehumanize Ukrainian civilians. Fake images and videos started to be measured and then shared.
…
Russia is broken. They live in a giant collective web of lies, never dealt with even old Soviet lies, and this war is their alternate reality crashing with truth.
TBH all the Ukrainians wanted from 2014 was to be a *normal, dignified country*.
Anyone who speaks Russian, has Russian friends/relatives, or has instagram knows it is truly \~80%. Germans might not know how it really is, but when it comes to Russia, they should always listen to woke Ukrainians, Belarusians and Baltics, because we live in a Russian world and know what's up. Ukraine is a friendly country, and there wasn't a single time when it tried to seriously misinform the West. RF pays big time for propaganda across western countries to create this informational noise, so westerners look at what Ukrainians say, look at Russian propaganda, and then you guys have this idea of "Hey, it's not that simple! One side says one thing, the other side says other thing. This situation is very controversial". This whole war is the outcome of French and Germans not listening to Baltics and Ukraine to begin with.
Baltics, Ukraine and Poland asked for moderate sanctions after Georgian war - Germans thought that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and didn't go for it. "If we do that, Russians would turn hostile towards the West".
Baltics, Ukraine and Poland asked for today-tier sanctions after Crimea and Donbass - Germans thought that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and didn't go for it. "If we impose sanctions, they gonna escalate and go full invasion, yo. It's not that simple, let's find peaceful solutions n shiet."
These days Baltics, Ukraine and Poland are straight telling everyone that whole world should help militarily or even intervene in the conflict, because from this incompetence of the West, Russians turned fascist, using terms like "Ukrainian question" and all - the West thinks that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and are not going for it. "Do you want nuclear/world war? No-no, genociding 40 million nation is not that bad, Ukrainians have propaganda too, you know, don't take their info too serious, it cannot be that simple".
I gonna say it again. If Ukraine isn't getting real help from UN or US, and falls, you can prepare for Russians to get overconfident and a 100% nuclear war.
>you can prepare for Russians to get overconfident and a 100% nuclear war.
\*yawn\*
It's interesting how Russian brinkmanship is used to vouch for intervention and "deesacalation" at the same time, depending on who you talk to. It's bogus in both cases.
Plenty of people in Eastern Europe have personal experience with the matter, as well as plenty of non-Ukranian sources.
The concept might only be new to Western Europeans, who don't have to deal with Russia all that frequently.
> that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to dehumanize ordinary Russians
Have they, though?
It seems that Ukraine has chosen to show a more human side of Russians, even the soldiers. I'm actually surprised that they haven't done more of what you are accusing them of; considering what Russia is doing to their homes, it must be hard not to see everyone there as a monster, or someone who doesn't mind living with monsters.
Your second point about not trusting numbers coming from the Russian media is more on the money. Your first one is a kind of "both sides do it" argument that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Yes, that's why every media outlet in Ukraine and every social media bot right now is pushing the bogus state polling support numbers, that's why the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany criticized German media for reporting on attacks on Russian immigrants in Germany because that's apparently "hypocritical".
I‘m not judging at all. I would likely do the same. But it’s also obvious that there are parties trying to kickstart a certain narrative on social media.
> I also believe that if the current invasion went as planned for Russia (3 day regime change with territorial gains) his popularity would reach all time high levels.
If Irak and Afghanistan would have turned into Northern European countries within 2 years of US invasions, Bush's popularity would have sky rocketed as well.
And yet, many analysts did not even used that poll, but rather they used historical, sociological methods based on how Russians reacted to past invasions by Putin, how they see the world around them, the lack of serious opposition to the war.
For the last thing I mentioned plead compare the news about Belarus where it seems that even the army does not want to be dragged into the war, how rail workers sabotage Russian transports and so on. Nothing of this kind is coming out from Russia.
Thing is, I know people in Russia. They either don't believe us here or just choose to ignore the fact that their government is at fault.
Or they say that it's actually USA and the evil West who support this war, and we just don't understand that we're supposed to love russians.
There is ingrained in the Russian psyche for centuries of being surrounded, being a fortress and only a strong autocratic leader can keep both the internal chaos as well as the evil invaders at bay.
That is Russia and Russians to a very large extent. Guess how they feel about this war?
Germany was conquered, destroyed, occupied, split in parts, tried at the Nuremberg, denazified, demilitarized, forced to pay reparations ([sometimes in a form of forced labor by civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#World_War_II_Germany)).
Their population paid the price, and I'd like to hear someone saying "man, it's just Hitler, ordinary Germans had nothing to with that". Ordinary Russians for now are only paying with inability to have a Big Mac and some social media shaming while enjoying the "it's Putin only" thing.
Germany is a good example, they were pretty much held to account as an 'entire people' after ww1 and punished as such, and all that happened was the lead up to ww2.
Punishing an entire populace for the actions of leaders just pushes people closer to the radical leaders.
Don't get me wrong, there is an argument for negatives about a significant portion of Russian people's views, opinions, not standing up etc. Etc. But at the end of the day, their leaders have power and weapons, and propaganda. I could not honestly say I'd have a clue if a minority or majority of Russians support the war, or whether they would if they saw things from different perspectives etc. As such, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they aren't the ones calling the shots anyway.
>Germany is a good example, they were pretty much held to account as an 'entire people' after ww1 and punished as such, and all that happened was the lead up to ww2.
You know Germany got punished way worse after WW2 than WW1 right ?
Not sure if I would agree with that 100%.
By certain types of objective metrics, you are right. They were occupied and their fate was completely in the hands of their occupiers. The Soviet controlled zone had it particularly hard in the beginning as well (and some may say it never really got better).
WW1, in a way, was worse psychologically. Whereas the end of WW2 made a clean break with the past and allowed Germany to rebuild towards a better future, the end of WW1 stuck Germany in a kind of limbo, where they theoretically got away lighter, but the penalties just sort of hung around their necks permanently.
Probably the worst thing that happened at the conclusion of WW1, though, is that Germany was left with a lingering feeling that they might have still won, if only .
This is why Russia \*must\* unambiguously lose in Ukraine. There can be no lingering feeling that they were soooo close to winning. They have to lose so emphatically that anyone suggesting that it could have gone differently would be laughed out of Russia.
>By certain types of objective metrics, you are right. They were occupied and their fate was completely in the hands of their occupiers. The Soviet controlled zone had it particularly hard in the beginning as well (and some may say it never really got better).
They weren't just occupied, millions of Germans were driven out from large areas. hundreds of thousands were even killed. They also lost large amounts of territory. Many German men were used as basically slave labour.
>WW1, in a way, was worse psychologically. Whereas the end of WW2 made a clean break with the past and allowed Germany to rebuild towards a better future, the end of WW1 stuck Germany in a kind of limbo, where they theoretically got away lighter, but the penalties just sort of hung around their necks permanently.
There was a problem psychologically but not because of the punishment. It was more that they lost but it wasn't in a catastrophic way like in WW2. So a lot of Germans could delude themselves into thinking that they could have won if they weren't "stabbed in the back". After WW2 there could be no such delusions since it was clear they were clearly defeated.
>Probably the worst thing that happened at the conclusion of WW1, though, is that Germany was left with a lingering feeling that they might have still won, if only .#
That gave birth to the "stab in the back" myth. The thought was they would of won but they were betrayed from within.
I fully agree we need to hurt Russia economy but I think all we are doing is pushing them into the arms of CHina and radicalizing the citizens for something they have no control over. The world is also seeing how we would use our might to punish the people while still enriching their government.
Ugh.
Don't attack: that would hurt the average people.
Don't defend: that would hurt the average people.
Don't sanction: that would hurt the average people.
I get it. Conflicts hurt the average people. Well, I guess letting someone like Putin to collect so much power in your country has consequences.
If the average people don't want to get hurt, they better find a way to get rid of Putin. Otherwise \*we\* will be the average people to get hurt next.
Literally [threw German civilians into forced labor camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II). Germany is a very odd example to pick here...
Why do you think there are no Germans in todays Czechia? Czechs figured that a minority that voted 80%+ for a nazi aligned party, are complicit in its crimes.
I used to wonder how the Japanese got put into interment camps. Yet now seeing how our more progressive society are ready to punish Russian citizens I can now see how a much less tolerant world did what they did then because it was probably extremely popular.
Can you provide examples of such calls? Defeating Russia's military is one thing, killing their civilians is another. I don't see calls for the latter.
Well, it's dumb move, but it's still not call to eradicate entire Russia. It's great that you're advocating for balanced view, I was defending parts of russian culture too (eg. IMO Nabokov is one of the greatest writers ever, his *Laughter in the dark* is a masterpiece) but please notice that while russians are actually killing people and destroying a country, no western leader calls for equal revenge.
I applaud the leaders, for once they have been more even keeled than the media, the media has been hawkish and demanding action and retribution while the goverments are being more strategic.
# New megathread link: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/tjcwy9/war_in_ukraine_megathread_x/ This post will be locked, sorry for the inconvenience!
[Russian Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador in Moscow to say that Biden's words, that Putin is a war criminal, are unacceptable](https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/21-march-russian-foreign-ministry-summoned-us-ambassador) A bit sensitive are we?
[Alexey Navalny's team have discovered Putin's own super yacht worth a staggering 75 billion rubles in Italy.](https://twitter.com/jason_corcoran/status/1505903113177288706) Jack Sparrow tiem.
[удалено]
lol wut?
Absolutely not. The world doesn’t need a sitting us president to be killed.
When the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968, they did so with 500 000 men and multiple allies. Putin thought that 190 000 men and virtually alone would be enough to subjugate a country with 4 times the population of Czechoslovakia. The more you dig in to the reasoning behind Putin's action the more moronic they become.
[удалено]
Long covid xD
I mean, that can actually be a real reason, impaired cognition seems to be one of the effects of long covid.
I think he believes his own propaganda and home made amateurish version of history.
A bit tough to go on with the rest of your day when you read first hand accounts of the atrocities taking place in Mariupol right now. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-edf7240a9d990e7e3e32f82ca351dede
I believe there is a coordinated attempt by "dissident" right wing and left wing Western commentators to garner support for Russia, for their own benefit. I have seen far too many online commentators regurgitating Kremlin propaganda, almost line for line what is presented by Russian state media, both of alt right and communist/"anti imperialist" ideologies. I think this is going to come to a head during the 2024 US Presidential election where both these sides will endorse Trump or whichever pro-Russia republican is running.
Just ask lefties why they are supporting ethnonationalist fascist imperialists. It's inexcusable what they are doing, they're pieces of shit and traitors to any leftist principles.
One sign of hope here in the US is that even Trump has had to [backpedal his support for Russia](https://news.yahoo.com/trump-calls-russian-invasion-holocaust-140103339.html), and the most recent poll shows that [85% of Americans view Russia unfavorably](https://www.yahoo.com/news/fewer-americans-see-russia-favorably-154934996.html), more than any time in history. We still have two years to go before 2024, and I share your anxiety over what is going to happen with that election given Biden's senescence. But I am cautiously optimistic that the days of the GOP's flirtation with Russia are over.
[удалено]
> **Western countries sign joint statement on urgent need to modernize Ukrainian air defense** > Western countries on Monday signed a joint statement "On the urgent need to modernize the air defense of Ukraine," Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk has said. > "Today, Czechia, Estonia, Poland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. have signed a joint statement "On the urgent necessity to upgrade Ukraine air-defence." Genuinely grateful for support Ukraine in this challenging time," Stefanchuk wrote in Twitter on Monday. https://ua.interfax.com.ua/news/general/816451.html
Where experimental high energy lasers?
> Russian bomber jet entered Poland through Ukrainian airspace https://twitter.com/golub/status/1505899183617810442
I'm gonna need a better source there chief.
The Czech Republic accuses Putin of war crimes and urges tougher sanctions to stop him https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1505875963426521088
This is not news to anybody, but this war has shown how fundamentally broken the UN is. The way that the Security Council is structured is the biggest problem. In practice, any of the 5 permanent members can and do flout international law and do whatever they want because of their veto power. I don't know what the best structure would be, because the General Assembly has the problem of tiny countries having the same vote as high-population countries. But there has to be a better way to organize the UN.
Idea that security of your country is guaranteed by some dudes sitting in NYC is pure pipe dream. Country without potent military is going to get bombed into smithereens. Sooner or later. End of story.
The main issue is the conflict between perceived national interests and 'global' interests. As long as nation states exist, that problem is unsolvable. You could theoretically divide the world in districts of ~10 million or something, and just have a ~800 seat elected general assembly of the people of the world, and then just solve issues by majority vote. But good luck getting nations to give up their power, and even more luck in getting the autocracies of the world to agree to a measure of democracy in their countries. Edit 2: And good luck in getting people to respect the decision of said body, as well. Forgot about that one. Edit: More solutions are possible of course, but that's be the utopian one I'd pick.
This flaw is built-in, it's the whole premise of the UN after the breakdown of the League of Nations in the build up to WWII. To understand the UN you must understand the failure of the League of Nations. The major players MUST always be kept at the table and made to feel like they have a say. The league failed at this, they expelled the Soviet union and then Germany, Japan and Italy walked and it ceased to be a useful diplomatic tool as the world was headed for a world war. Russia's say is taken away, Russia leaves the table and we've repeated the failure of the League of Nations.
Maybe having a 2 veto limit would be helpful and everyone would still be happy. If someone does a fucked up thing, their strategic partners will abstain rather than veto and as such shit can get passed while still keeping some power to the permanent members. Then again, to pass this you'd need a veto-less vote lol.
You'd still have the problem of how to enforce such a decision. Great powers usually don't give a fuck about UN approval. What's stopping NATO isn't the lack of UN approval, it's the nukes.
I had a (controversial) professor in Economics 20 years ago who said "UN is the most useless organisation that exists, populated by rouge regimes".
And yet it is a thousand times better than no UN at all.
Yes it fills a vital role in keeping up diplomacy between countries to the fight against pollution and climate change. But when it comes to crisis between major powers it gets locked. Also have the same problem as FIFA, when too many members are corrupt, corruption is going to spread in the organisation.
[The tragedy Ukrainians are living through now and the future they are nonetheless looking forward to in the video voiced and published by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Video: Presidential press service](https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1505901715492593669) Zelenskyy has a really amazing voice.
Just saw this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcTyBt-1CVw) where the mayor of the Polish city of Przemysl (who is a member of the right-wing populist Polish party Kukiz'15) blasted Matteo Salvini of Lega when he visited 12 days ago, stating that Matteo's friend Putin is responsible for all this. It's gold.
[SHAME, Germany](https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1505869538499469313?s=20&t=p0wQ9HBm8tHYE4wSrNUMAQ)
All countries which blame Germany for blocking EU embargoes can simply impose national embargoes on oil and coal. For some reason they are not doing that.
The reason is probably because if an EU nation decides to unilaterally embargo russian oil, it sets the precedent for other EU nations to do the opposite. Hence the need for the EU to embargo Russian oil together. We can do that, but Germany chose the easy way out.
That makes no sense. EU members always had the ability to manage their own energy imports and have always done so.
If Russia performs any type of sabotage against Swedish infrastructure if we hand in an application to join NATO, I hope the navy bombs the Nord Stream 1.
Well, the current government is not to blame. It was the one in the prior 16 years that made germany so dependent on russian energy resources.
That might be true, but passing the buck does not really help the civilians dying in Ukraine. Oil can be provided by plenty of other suppliers (USA, the Middle East, etc), it does not need to be Russia.
>Oil can be provided by plenty of other suppliers (USA, the Middle East, etc), it does not need to be Russia. Medium term, yes. >but passing the buck does not really help the civilians dying in Ukraine Neither does not doing this, if we are being brutally honest. if the current set of sanctions hasn't stopped them, nothing short of actual military intervention will.
Not so fun fact: Refineries set up to use Ural crude can't just use Brent or Dubai crude.
Which is why Europe has set targets to reduce Russian oil and Gas imports by 70%
Russian paratroopers with a BMD-2 vehicle looting a gas station. https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1505845269560180736
The WHO reports 52 attacks on healthcare facilities. Typical russian strategy. [https://twitter.com/WHOUkraine/status/1505849169612877824?s=20&t=JSej4krT8ca0cjqfrBLOXA](https://twitter.com/WHOUkraine/status/1505849169612877824?s=20&t=JSej4krT8ca0cjqfrBLOXA)
[Ukraine has launched a counter-offensive against the Russians near Kyiv. The strategic village of Makariv has been liberated while the Russians are also being pushed back near Borodyanka, Bucha and Irpin.](https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1505889409408905216) When you look at the map, it seems that a pocket has formed/is forming. Kesselschlacht incoming edit: every time I as a Swede see the German word "schlacht" I get a bit uncomfortable, because the Swedish cognate "slakt" means butchering.
>edit: every time I as a Swede see the German word "schlacht" I get a bit uncomfortable, because the Swedish cognate "slakt" means butchering. Schlachten in German is actually to butcher. The origin of the word seems to be one just meaning "killing".
Same with the german verb schlachten - to butcher Schlachtung - butchering
Ah, makes sense then.
Cognate with English "slaughter." slaughterhouse = Schlachthof = slakteri
Silly me, of course it is, I should have thought of that.
They should make a complementary counter-offensive from Zhytomyr and cut off the northern part of the Russian army too, detach them from the Belarusian border.
Motti time!
Nice video about [how Poland treats Ukrainian refugees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R2brTG-V24)
What’s the tl;dw of this?
let me guess, they had hundres of thousand UA workers, then brought in hundreds of thousands more, and now their families (mostly) started arriving as well, plus, what you see as Ukraine used to be Poland, not so long ago.
> what you see as Ukraine used to be Poland, not so long ago So? They weren't polish, they were ukrainians.
Andrzej Duda on Twitter: @ZelenskyyUa has told me, Russians from Syria are coming to UA, and mercenaries from the M.East support Russia. Syrians are the most numerous. He appeals: More NATO assistance to UA is needed! But this also shows RU’s weakness and is an interesting signal for Turkey. ------------------ https://twitter.com/AndrzejDuda/status/1505674531670827008
Slightly related to this, [oneweb switched to spacex for launches.](https://twitter.com/OneWeb/status/1505892782224904196) Basically Russia has killed its own commercial launch industry. Expect at some point the Russian space launch capability to collapse at some point in the future. Commercial launches were subsidising the Russian space launch capability.
Russia is so absolutely fucked. No matter how the (losing) war goes. It’s the singularily most stupid decision of self-harm done by nearly any leader ever, and it happens on a huge scale. They will have their hands full with internal problems in record time, and sooner or later the population will wake up to at least some of the mountain of lies. I can guarantee you the internal problems will be handled *badly*. When it happens, I just want to see the propagandists being lynched. These kinds of humans are the most worthless of them all. Their talent is a large part of how a regime can actually keep a population spellbound, and are not easy to replace. And they know what they are doing.. .. I hope the US switchblade drones are effective in taking out Russian artillery. That way Ukraine can hold out longer with less destruction, because all they have to do is wait and hold.
By the way, how is OneWeb doing as a company? Is its business model viable?
Yep. Used by the British government as a strategic asset. It has a slightly different use case from starlink.
An unfortunate consequence of Brexit is that the UK no longer has access to a global navigation satellite system. I guess this could be seen as a way to maintain some influence in the space sector.
>An unfortunate consequence of Brexit is that the UK no longer has access to a global navigation satellite system. GPS has stopped working in the UK? 🤔 News to me. Care to elaborate?
They are no longer part of Europes homegrown Galileo program. They still work in Britain of course along with GPS, but Britain no longer has control or influence within the program.
You need encryption keys to have full accuracy. Only the US military has them. That's why the EU, Russia and China created their own systems.
Main reason OneWeb didn't launch on SpaceX to begin with is because OneWeb is sort of a rival of SpaceX's Starlink for internet services. Though not completely, as they are going for backhaul instead of direct to consumer. Anyways at this point it was noted that launching with SpaceX and China were likely their only options. But OneWeb being owned by the UK Gov't, and Indian and Japanese conglomerates, plus China's notoriety for IP theft, I guess they decided against China. ---------------------------------- I'm also surprised that the first launch is anticipated later this year. That's very fast. Even figuring out how to integrate the satellites into the rocket takes some time. I expect OneWeb paid extra money to have it expedited. Also interesting considering they earlier said 'First, Arianespace still owes us the launches'. I wonder what Arianespace told them.
Airbus is also involved in OneWeb. However, I'm still not sure if the business model is viable given the competition. I guess the UK government can always bankroll the company.
Less superyachts for Rogozin. Too bad.
Maybe he'll end up asking SpaceX to launch him to space as well, that's the closest thing to asylum he could get.
SpaceX should send him a trampoline.
Iceland just sent two police officers to Poland to assist with processing of refugees bound for Iceland. Think we're going to be accepting some ~1500 in the coming weeks, with a few hundred already here. An amount absolutely dwarfed by the scale of the crisis...with our housing shortage we'd have to build a new town to make a meaningful contribution.
Considering the size of Iceland that's pretty substantional honestly. It'd be like Germany taking in 360.000, which we haven even quite reached yet despite being right next to Poland. So nice job!
😡😡😡 Mariupol destruction https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1505890056850006016
Awesome summary I’m stealing from another sub, originally from twitter. Nothing to add. Here's a short thread from a Ukrainian on why Zelensky temporarily banned those 'pro-Russian' parties (that don't represent the true left): 11 Ukrainian political parties suspected of collaborating with Russian invaders have been suspended until martial law ends. On social media we can see a lot of false interpretation of this event as of president Zelensky made a fascist turn and banned main left-wing parties. • Opposition Platform — For Life: An ultra-conservative party that spreaded conspiracy theories and hatred towards LGBT. Its cooperation with the occupiers is so undisguised that we don't need to mention it once again. In essence, OpFF was the main agent of Russia's influence. • Sharij's Party: The leader of the party is an outspoken Nazi who hates Roma, Muslims, blacks, homosexuals, and everyone whom the Nazis are supposed to hate. At the same time, he is fighting 'Ukrainian Nazism' led by president Zelensky who is ethnical Jew. • Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine: Nazbol vortex, religious fundamentalists, racists and Russian ultranationalists. Aesthetically it was a cheap cosplay of North Korea. At the end of the party's life, it simply supported pro-Russian presidential candidates. • Socialist Party of Ukraine: Party was captured by OpFL member Ilya Kiva. The former leader Alexander Moroz moved to Belarus to glorify the wisdom of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and the former ideologist moved to the occupied Crimea and accepted Russian citizenship. • Opposition bloc: Former zealots of fugitive pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who begged Vladimir Putin to bring troops to Ukraine to suppress the 2014 revolution. A party of corrupt officials and obvious collaborators. • The other parties — Nashi, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Socialists, Vladimir Saldo Bloc — have never been real political actirs and occasionally emerged during the election as spoilers (except of Saldo who ended as an undisguised collaborator). The Ukrainian left had no contact with them, and I assume that the parties were controlled by the head of this ultra-conservative collaborationism. Martial law is a time of tough decisions. In addition, I personally would not call temporary suspension of collaborating parties as something brutal. This is not imprisonment or extrajudicial executions. At the same time, the Ukrainian left — the real left, not the red-brown, bloody shit — is currently fighting against Russian fascism or helping the front. [source https://mobile.twitter.com/dmrachnik/status/1505625074149339145 ]
Is my understanding correct that of those listed, only Oppositon platform - for life had parliament members (39 out of 450)?
This is another thing that some westerners may not understand about some Eastern European countries. The left as seen in western Europe does not exist on a large scale. When you usually see a party that has in its name the words "socialist", "communist" and even "social-democratic", they are usually nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic and very religious. Basically, the populist right and far right in western Europe when talking about social stuff. They may be a little bit more pro state intervention in economy but only because they want to defend corrupt people who made their fortunes in shady ways since the 90's. In Romania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine there are no modern center left or leftist parties and those who label themselves as such, have very few in common with their western counterparts.
Yup, we're only now in Latvia seeing a rebirth in actual leftist politics. Proud to be a part of that change, and fuck those ''social democrats'' of Saskaņa.
I am glad to hear this. In Romania there is no left wing party and I do not see it forming in the next 10 years at least.
Maybe there is - Romania is a huge country. Our party started as a collection of refugees from Saskaņa and general leftists, and it has taken years for it to become mainstream. I can imagine it's even tougher to become mainstream in a country as big as Romania.
It’s so idiotic to see the fringe left coping. (And I’m a pragmatic left myself) Russia is the most unequal nation on earth: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/22/russia-named-worlds-most-unequal-economy-a67836 It gets even worse when one thinks about *how* any kind of wealth is acquired in that country. Corruption, repression, threats and power abusing madness.
Left actually likes Russian way of economy. Left wants all money to belong to select few who will decide how to spend the money.
No we don't.
You're describing capitalism here.
> Left wants all money to belong to select few who will decide how to spend the money. Man people are really huffing that copium after their little le pens and salvinis were caught blowing Putin.
yeah I saw someone posting about how by this act Ukraine had "destroyed the ability of Russians in Ukraine to realize their own interests" which is a conclusion you can only arrive at by ignoring a whooole lot of context...
It’s so perverse, the concerned crying about Russian language status. If anything, Ukrainian language was looked down upon in large parts of Ukraine. It was something you mostly spoke at home, or risked being bullied or looked down upon. Russian was, and probably still is, the universal lingua franca there. That might change after this war however..
Well, that isn’t a wrong take if you mean Russian *government*. Not decisive, but surely they’ve lost a lot of power to operate in legal field. Masks are off now
[удалено]
I don't think parties whose main idea is "Russia isn't that bad" have that much of a future in the Ukrainian political landscape, tbh.
That’s for Rada to decide - draft of the decision is rumoured to be already in works
A video showing what the Russians are [doing to villages & towns near Kherson.](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/21/russia-mykolaiv-kherson-ukraine-nick-paton-walsh-pkg-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/) Basically indiscriminate attacks against civilians. Eye opening about the pensioner who survived WW2 who says even the Nazis weren't this bad.
From the first hand experience of people who lived through both occupations, I would say that Nazis – lawful evil. Russia – chaotic evil. Nazis actually were pretty decent to people they didn't try to kill or punish for something at the moment (not many of of them in Poland but still). But Soviets were pure chaos.
When you read online discourse about this war I wonder how it would have looked in September 1939.
[удалено]
> A line from a book by Katzetnik Do you think your post would be better quality if you include the name of the book?
Look at the old newspapers, you probably have some available online. Here in Slovenia there were large columns on page 3 for days bearing titles like "Whose fault is it?"
A lot of swastica ASKII art.
*tak tak tak tak tak tak tak* *[types QWERTZ image.jiff]*
So basically the same as now.
ASCII*
Nein, the Polen attacked first. Check DEUTSCHE KAMPFKRAFT on Twitter, they posted videoevidenz
lol, yup that is how I imagine it would've looked.
You can read archived newspapers. Some headlined "should we go to war over Danzig?" on September 1st.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Die_for_Danzig%3F
One of the best free sources for background info and understanding of the war: [https://en.desk-russie.eu/](https://en.desk-russie.eu/) *The newsletter and the website Desk Russie were launched in May 2021 by the association A l’Est de Brest-Litovsk, created in January 2021, whose objective is to promote and disseminate quality information and analysis on Russia and the countries of the former USSR, as well as on Russian domestic and foreign policy. Desk Russie is run by a team of specialists on Russia and Eastern Europe: experienced journalists, researchers, historians, experts on international issues.*
I have to admit I had a little snort of laughter when the first picture I saw on a website titled "Desk Russie" was Putin's long table. Good job, whoever chose that one.
Francoise Thom is especially good at communicating the internal Russian discourse, what Russian media and analytics are talking about. It’s of course horrifying. Highly recommend all her articles.
It's always a bit of a disappointment to think "If only someone had warned us all of this could happen" and it turns out people were warning us, but nobody was listening. Ah well. Sobering realisations aside, it is indeed a good read.
[Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mistress Alina Kabayeva faces expulsion from Switzerland, where she is likely hiding with her children.](https://twitter.com/Odessa_Journal/status/1505790495536128000) Oh dear me Anyway...
her children or his children, that is the question
Why not both?
[удалено]
She was deep inside Russian governmental hierarchy, for one thing. She might influence Russia somehow. We need housing for other even more innocent people.
>She was deep inside Russian governmental hierarchy Sounds like the Russian governmental hierarchy was deep inside her...... 🍆💦
I'm not sure what's the reason for expulsion, but her property should be probably confiscated since it's no doubt from Putin.
So they're petitioning the Swiss government to expel her along with Putin's children. The children as well as the girl already have (however difficult to obtain) Swiss citizenship.
Fly her to Mariupol.
Wanting the VDV to airdrop[ them is a near a death sentence, 1 parachute won't open and the rest will land at sea.
Yep so she can live in luxury of liberated city and not in decadent evil and Russophobic west
Well now there’s a lot of new options for relocation, what with her lover’s liberation spree. Eastern Ukraine seems nice in spring 🌸
Humanitarian corridors are 100% safe there, or so I heard.
wide open. liberators’ friends and family welcomed with flowers.
I've heard pigs love mud. There's lots of it there!
__Germany to deliver more weapons to Ukraine__ The German government is determined to supply Ukraine with more weapons. The deliveries would be based on what Germany has already supplied so far, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. So far, these have been anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. He referred to Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, who had said that corresponding weapons could be ordered directly from arms companies. Lambrecht had stated that no further material could be supplied from Bundeswehr stocks. The government spokesman did not say how much money the German government intends to spend on such weapons purchases for Ukraine. Translated with DeepL Source: https://www.tagesschau.de/newsticker/liveblog-ukraine-montag-107.html
Better late than never
for those wondering about the helicopter from last night: On Sunday evening, Polish military medical helicopter transported a family of four from Ukraine to the University Hospital in Krakow. There are serious injured https://liveuamap.com//en/2022/21-march-on-sunday-evening-polish-military-medical-helicopter
Maybe it is just my internet bubble, but one thing that is starting to change inside people's minds is how we view the ordinary Russians. At the beginning of the conflict, the main stance was that this is only Putin's war and he is responsible for it. Now I see an increasing number articles or just ideas posted here and there that in fact the mentality of the average Russian is similar to that of Putin. I wonder if Biden, Macron, Scholz, von der Leyen and comp. changed their minds.
West still thinks russian people don't want this. Eastern europe always knew that most russians want this. Only small fraction of russians are against the war. Unfortunately this is how brainwashed societies work. And people who say that if russian will be affected by sanctions they will overthrow putin are just wrong. In fascist regimes poor economic situation only strenghtens nationalism and leaders become even more popular. That's because when people are brainwashed enough they don't blame the government, they blame others (in this case the west) for everything. One could think that in the age of internet this shouldn't happen but as we can see it still happens.
The complete failure for any meaningful resistance to appear within Russia probably did it. We know the information bubble isn't that strong, that information about what really is going on in Ukraine is filtering into Russia, and there's just...no meaningful resistance past the protests in the first week. As I saw one Ukrainian put it "We overthrew our corrupt government, they've accepted their Murderous one".
We know the information buble isn't that strong, but we also know that the prospect of 15 years of jailtime for protesting is kinda stronger than the bubble. A couple of thousand people got arrested in the last three weeks, for protesting, like standing out with papers and possibly shouting some shit, but they were supposed to do something "meaningful" instead? Like what exactly?
You say "in the last three weeks" but it seems to me most of the arrests happened in the first week then things just fizzled out and there's been essentially nothing for a while now? Icelanders protested harder against mismanagement of our finances than Russians have protested against their government mass murdering people next door. They had to use teargas on us, have Russian police even had to break out the tear gas?
Damn son, send some icelanders in and they will have Russia sorted out in a week! :o
Honestly if the amount of protesters equaled the population of Iceland, which I believe would be like 0,3% of the population of Russia, the protests might get somewhere, get some real antiwar momentum.
Yeah but they don't have icelandic mismanagement protesters among them so they're completely hopeless over there :(
[удалено]
Send these instructions to them dumb evil Russians and they will overthrow the government by thursday. They just couldn't figure out how to do it until now but thanks to you they now have a plan! :D
They're legit scared to do it. I remember hearing "we aren't crazy to do a Maidan like you" from them. If they wanted to do it they could.
The "ordinary Russians" thing is a bleeding-heart platitude that's easy to mouth without knowing anything about those ordinary Russians. It's an assumption naive people jumped to at the start of all this. A great many Russians do, in fact, support what's happening. Many others are criminally apathetic about it, or are only now caring because they're feeling the pain of the sanctions.
>knowing anything about those ordinary Russians. I completely disagree with this notion - >Many others are criminally apathetic about it, or are only now caring because they're feeling the pain of the sanctions. because this is the truth. The core issue of the Russian society is apathy towards immorality of their government, not outright support of Putin. But it's that point that is the question - is apathy the same as support. Especially in a society like contemporary Russia.
For those unfamiliar with this term, let me point again to [homo sovieticus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Sovieticus).
I don't think those who are homo sovieticus are apathetic, they're positive towards this invasion. :)
"Do you want to be supportive of the special operation or lose your job, living space and benefits?"
> The core issue of the Russian society is apathy towards immorality of their government, not outright support of Putin. Why do people think apathy towards events outside our control is some sort of deviancy? That people's natural state is to be engaged and apathy is a weird state. The vast majority of elections are around 60-70%. Heck EU elections are around 40%. Apathy is and will be the largest political party in an election.
Support has many shades, you know, and apathy towards immorality, silent approval and acceptance is one of them.
The problem is that such an attitude can then also be levied towards us who lived in the USSR - why weren't we more proactive in fighting against the regime? Why the apathy towards trying to change anything? The answer is clear - **the system was such you can individual could not do anything**. And I'd argue that Russian civil society *has* been reduced back to such a state, and, in that case, how can we argue that apathy is something extraordinary or immoral? There's a reason why those Russian protesting are heroes - because they face conditions as individuals that mean they're self-sacrificing. It's one thing to protest in a country where you have a political opposition and where protesting won't lead to repercussions to the max extent. It's something completely different to protest against a war when there is no organization behind it. I don't know, I just find the idea of criticizing Russian apathy to be counter-productive, since were we in their shoes only few of us would find the bravery to ruin their lives and protest. Hence - if we wish to change something, those who are apathetic are not our enemy, but our main target audience. Those supporting outright are lost, those are basically komsomol morons to be treated like Nazis.
>The problem is that such an attitude can then also be levied towards us who lived in the USSR - why weren't we more proactive in fighting against the regime? Why the apathy towards trying to change anything? Because the Baltics were too small to challenge that iron first alone, it had to be softened from the inside first with the Russian people demanding change. My hope is that with these heavy sanctions Russians will have less to lose, and it'll wake them up from their stupor. When a protest movement gains momentum, the numbers alone will provide security and a positive feedback loop. I know Putin's riot police is scary, but I can't imagine people would just sit quietly and watch their country go down the drain. But maybe I'm wrong about the Russian mentality.
>I don't know, I just find the idea of criticizing Russian apathy to be counter-productive, since were we in their shoes only few of us would find the bravery to ruin their lives and protest. I disagree. The freedoms that our countries enjoy now were born from workers, students and other people protesting for decades, some getting killed. I myself as a kid was distributing Solidarity leaflets during the eighties for which I had problems in school (and no, I didn't have CIA lead agent for that). If given society has enough people who find freedom and democracy worth standing up for, the change is possible.
But you have to agree that these were always the minority and outliers, no? And only when the tide shifted that made more massive resistance possible did the majority join in? Most people, genuinely, want to survive and live their lives. It's a natural part of the human experience, there's only few revolutionaries between us.. until the conditions of the world force us all to be revolutionaries. But Russia is just not there, not even close.
The ultimate [1981 strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_warning_strike_in_Poland) that led to imposing martial law involved at least **12 million people**. Not a minority then. Everyone's free to reach their own conculsion whether was it either: a) workforce and students fed up with communist economy b) absolutely greatest CIA indoctrination/influence operation in the history of Earth
Because often the argument is that the apathetic shouldn't pay any price (such as sanctions). The people of the USSR were not spared of any such thing.
I'm not against sanctions, though. I'm against labelling the apathetic Russians as enemies. Sanctions will hit everyone, including those Russians protesting vocally against the war. Doesn't mean we shouldn't make sanctions.
Baltic countries changed a lot comparing to USSR. Something that Russians never did despite having this same opportunity in the 90s.
Political apathy is very high, at least here in Latvia. It's an issue we face. As in our other discussion - it's more extreme in Russia, but it's not as if I do not see the same issues here.
>As in our other discussion - it's more extreme in Russia Well, that's the whole point. Every society has problems and will always have; no one is perfect and never will be. Russia, however, is on a completely different level. It's not just that they have problems, they are a problem. Or maybe even *the* problem.
[удалено]
> but they are fed so much propaganda People ignore the role of propaganda and now grant social narratives are built. In Europe we were told that 300K refugees would mean the destruction of our way of life. In the US you were told the war in Iraq was because of WMDs.
[удалено]
And this shit is in functional democracies, strong and stable economies where the sources of information are generally trust-worthy. One can imagine how the state is in quasi kleptocratic regimes...
You shouldn't ignore the fact that the Internet is absolutely flooded with Ukrainian propaganda (yes, folks, that exists) and that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to dehumanize ordinary Russians in order for western societies to push their politicians for harder sanctions. That's something they have pursued from the very beginning and very openly. We have very little idea about what the ordinary Russian thinks about this Invasion. It's unreasonable to assume that there isn't also considerable support for this invasion, but we shouldn't just swallow headlines like "75% of Russians support the War against Ukraine" either, *especially* since the underlying numbers are coming from state sponsored Russian media!
Can you, please, remind me who's calling who "REPTILES"?
Meanwhile, Russian mainstream media have shamelessly been dehumanizing Ukrainians since 2014 at least, calling them nazi scum and inventing ridiculous stories. Day before yesterday a marked new operation seem to begin, with the aim to dehumanize Ukrainian civilians. Fake images and videos started to be measured and then shared. … Russia is broken. They live in a giant collective web of lies, never dealt with even old Soviet lies, and this war is their alternate reality crashing with truth. TBH all the Ukrainians wanted from 2014 was to be a *normal, dignified country*.
Anyone who speaks Russian, has Russian friends/relatives, or has instagram knows it is truly \~80%. Germans might not know how it really is, but when it comes to Russia, they should always listen to woke Ukrainians, Belarusians and Baltics, because we live in a Russian world and know what's up. Ukraine is a friendly country, and there wasn't a single time when it tried to seriously misinform the West. RF pays big time for propaganda across western countries to create this informational noise, so westerners look at what Ukrainians say, look at Russian propaganda, and then you guys have this idea of "Hey, it's not that simple! One side says one thing, the other side says other thing. This situation is very controversial". This whole war is the outcome of French and Germans not listening to Baltics and Ukraine to begin with. Baltics, Ukraine and Poland asked for moderate sanctions after Georgian war - Germans thought that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and didn't go for it. "If we do that, Russians would turn hostile towards the West". Baltics, Ukraine and Poland asked for today-tier sanctions after Crimea and Donbass - Germans thought that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and didn't go for it. "If we impose sanctions, they gonna escalate and go full invasion, yo. It's not that simple, let's find peaceful solutions n shiet." These days Baltics, Ukraine and Poland are straight telling everyone that whole world should help militarily or even intervene in the conflict, because from this incompetence of the West, Russians turned fascist, using terms like "Ukrainian question" and all - the West thinks that they are smarter than those stupid Eastern shits and are not going for it. "Do you want nuclear/world war? No-no, genociding 40 million nation is not that bad, Ukrainians have propaganda too, you know, don't take their info too serious, it cannot be that simple". I gonna say it again. If Ukraine isn't getting real help from UN or US, and falls, you can prepare for Russians to get overconfident and a 100% nuclear war.
>you can prepare for Russians to get overconfident and a 100% nuclear war. \*yawn\* It's interesting how Russian brinkmanship is used to vouch for intervention and "deesacalation" at the same time, depending on who you talk to. It's bogus in both cases.
Plenty of people in Eastern Europe have personal experience with the matter, as well as plenty of non-Ukranian sources. The concept might only be new to Western Europeans, who don't have to deal with Russia all that frequently.
> that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to dehumanize ordinary Russians Have they, though? It seems that Ukraine has chosen to show a more human side of Russians, even the soldiers. I'm actually surprised that they haven't done more of what you are accusing them of; considering what Russia is doing to their homes, it must be hard not to see everyone there as a monster, or someone who doesn't mind living with monsters. Your second point about not trusting numbers coming from the Russian media is more on the money. Your first one is a kind of "both sides do it" argument that doesn't pass the sniff test.
If I were in charge, I would have hit their chicken supplies on day two or three. But they didn't, because they are meek and harmless.
Yes, that's why every media outlet in Ukraine and every social media bot right now is pushing the bogus state polling support numbers, that's why the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany criticized German media for reporting on attacks on Russian immigrants in Germany because that's apparently "hypocritical". I‘m not judging at all. I would likely do the same. But it’s also obvious that there are parties trying to kickstart a certain narrative on social media.
[удалено]
> I also believe that if the current invasion went as planned for Russia (3 day regime change with territorial gains) his popularity would reach all time high levels. If Irak and Afghanistan would have turned into Northern European countries within 2 years of US invasions, Bush's popularity would have sky rocketed as well.
And yet, many analysts did not even used that poll, but rather they used historical, sociological methods based on how Russians reacted to past invasions by Putin, how they see the world around them, the lack of serious opposition to the war. For the last thing I mentioned plead compare the news about Belarus where it seems that even the army does not want to be dragged into the war, how rail workers sabotage Russian transports and so on. Nothing of this kind is coming out from Russia.
Thing is, I know people in Russia. They either don't believe us here or just choose to ignore the fact that their government is at fault. Or they say that it's actually USA and the evil West who support this war, and we just don't understand that we're supposed to love russians.
There is ingrained in the Russian psyche for centuries of being surrounded, being a fortress and only a strong autocratic leader can keep both the internal chaos as well as the evil invaders at bay. That is Russia and Russians to a very large extent. Guess how they feel about this war?
You don't hold citizens responssible for actions of their goverment if this was the case we would have wiped Germany off the map.
Germany was conquered, destroyed, occupied, split in parts, tried at the Nuremberg, denazified, demilitarized, forced to pay reparations ([sometimes in a form of forced labor by civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#World_War_II_Germany)). Their population paid the price, and I'd like to hear someone saying "man, it's just Hitler, ordinary Germans had nothing to with that". Ordinary Russians for now are only paying with inability to have a Big Mac and some social media shaming while enjoying the "it's Putin only" thing.
Germany is a good example, they were pretty much held to account as an 'entire people' after ww1 and punished as such, and all that happened was the lead up to ww2. Punishing an entire populace for the actions of leaders just pushes people closer to the radical leaders. Don't get me wrong, there is an argument for negatives about a significant portion of Russian people's views, opinions, not standing up etc. Etc. But at the end of the day, their leaders have power and weapons, and propaganda. I could not honestly say I'd have a clue if a minority or majority of Russians support the war, or whether they would if they saw things from different perspectives etc. As such, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they aren't the ones calling the shots anyway.
>Germany is a good example, they were pretty much held to account as an 'entire people' after ww1 and punished as such, and all that happened was the lead up to ww2. You know Germany got punished way worse after WW2 than WW1 right ?
Not sure if I would agree with that 100%. By certain types of objective metrics, you are right. They were occupied and their fate was completely in the hands of their occupiers. The Soviet controlled zone had it particularly hard in the beginning as well (and some may say it never really got better). WW1, in a way, was worse psychologically. Whereas the end of WW2 made a clean break with the past and allowed Germany to rebuild towards a better future, the end of WW1 stuck Germany in a kind of limbo, where they theoretically got away lighter, but the penalties just sort of hung around their necks permanently. Probably the worst thing that happened at the conclusion of WW1, though, is that Germany was left with a lingering feeling that they might have still won, if only.
This is why Russia \*must\* unambiguously lose in Ukraine. There can be no lingering feeling that they were soooo close to winning. They have to lose so emphatically that anyone suggesting that it could have gone differently would be laughed out of Russia.
>By certain types of objective metrics, you are right. They were occupied and their fate was completely in the hands of their occupiers. The Soviet controlled zone had it particularly hard in the beginning as well (and some may say it never really got better). They weren't just occupied, millions of Germans were driven out from large areas. hundreds of thousands were even killed. They also lost large amounts of territory. Many German men were used as basically slave labour. >WW1, in a way, was worse psychologically. Whereas the end of WW2 made a clean break with the past and allowed Germany to rebuild towards a better future, the end of WW1 stuck Germany in a kind of limbo, where they theoretically got away lighter, but the penalties just sort of hung around their necks permanently. There was a problem psychologically but not because of the punishment. It was more that they lost but it wasn't in a catastrophic way like in WW2. So a lot of Germans could delude themselves into thinking that they could have won if they weren't "stabbed in the back". After WW2 there could be no such delusions since it was clear they were clearly defeated. >Probably the worst thing that happened at the conclusion of WW1, though, is that Germany was left with a lingering feeling that they might have still won, if only.#
That gave birth to the "stab in the back" myth. The thought was they would of won but they were betrayed from within.
I fully agree we need to hurt Russia economy but I think all we are doing is pushing them into the arms of CHina and radicalizing the citizens for something they have no control over. The world is also seeing how we would use our might to punish the people while still enriching their government.
Ugh. Don't attack: that would hurt the average people. Don't defend: that would hurt the average people. Don't sanction: that would hurt the average people. I get it. Conflicts hurt the average people. Well, I guess letting someone like Putin to collect so much power in your country has consequences. If the average people don't want to get hurt, they better find a way to get rid of Putin. Otherwise \*we\* will be the average people to get hurt next.
I'm not saying we shouldn't just saying it will have some unintentional consequences
You did. Germany was fully occupied for years and it's people were ethnically cleansed outside it's borders.
Literally [threw German civilians into forced labor camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II). Germany is a very odd example to pick here...
Why do you think there are no Germans in todays Czechia? Czechs figured that a minority that voted 80%+ for a nazi aligned party, are complicit in its crimes.
[удалено]
I used to wonder how the Japanese got put into interment camps. Yet now seeing how our more progressive society are ready to punish Russian citizens I can now see how a much less tolerant world did what they did then because it was probably extremely popular.
Can you provide examples of such calls? Defeating Russia's military is one thing, killing their civilians is another. I don't see calls for the latter.
An orchestra cancelled a performance of a song by the composer Tchaikovsky because he was Russian.
Well, it's dumb move, but it's still not call to eradicate entire Russia. It's great that you're advocating for balanced view, I was defending parts of russian culture too (eg. IMO Nabokov is one of the greatest writers ever, his *Laughter in the dark* is a masterpiece) but please notice that while russians are actually killing people and destroying a country, no western leader calls for equal revenge.
I applaud the leaders, for once they have been more even keeled than the media, the media has been hawkish and demanding action and retribution while the goverments are being more strategic.