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Ukraine IV

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If you try to stop us murdering Ukrainians and stealing their country, it’ll force economies round the world into fossil fuel price recession and people will starve (cos we’ll destroy the crops). We’ll also threaten you with nuclear attack.
And we will endlessly complain about being "canceled." It's SO unfair!
 
I’m very pessimistic about how this will eventually end. Putin has stripped democracy out of Russian politics and made himself effectively President for life, crushing all protest and political opposition. He has railed against the values based system in Europe, the creation of the European Union and the expansion ( ie European countries voting with their feet) of NATO. He believes that Russia is a great power, one that gets to dictate terms to its neighbours inside ‘its sphere of influence’.

He handed a list of demands to the U.S in December telling them effectively to leave European countries to his mercy, as if those countries’ populations had no legitimate say in their own future- itself indicative. Sweden and Finland were threatened directly with “military technical” consequences if they dared join NATO.

He has created this, first by stealing Crimea and occupying parts of eastern Ukraine, now he’s come back for the rest. The slaughter he conducted in Chechnya now falls on Ukraine. The United Nations condemned his war of aggression and Western leaders have spelled out the consequences to him.

He’s going to throw more lives onto the fire before he’s stopped. The fate of Milosevic in front of an international war crimes court must have crossed his mind. He’s going to take Russia down with him and he’s going to try to destroy a lot more than Ukraine on the way.
 
milosevic is a very bad comparison, he was a very minor and benign "dictator" (if) in comparison with putin deeds
he had a proper opposition, strong free and independent media (i used to work for) and eventually he lost elections a mere year after the '99 NATO bombing
still a number of the mistakes the west committed with milosevic is something they better not try to afford in case of russia
much much harder and complicated case in comparison, i can imagine some MSM offering this but it's a road to hell. i see noone in the west having a capacity to do in russia what is needed to do to avoid long time tragic consequences. i anyway believe the end game of the war is moscow, not kiev.
 
Thanks. Always good to read Pankaj Mishra.

Not so keen on the other link you shared though. ;)

Instead, here's Adam Tooze with an interesting historical comparison:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-lend-lease-act-ukraine-1941-second-world-war

I'm no historian so I'd be interested to hear what others make of this.
Agree with much of it, except I am surprised at that claim that "Most historians today would argue that the president’s intentions [to go to war with Germany] were more uncertain." I've read Roosevelt's orders to the Navy regarding Atlantic convoy operations in the Lend-Lease period. They amounted to 'fire on the Germans with the least excuse.' The desire to provoke a war-starting incident was palpable. In addition to, as Tooze notes, 'horror' in Russia and Britain when the US declared war on Japan, there was common thought in Washington that we were suddenly stuck in 'the wrong war,' until Hitler straightened the problem out. After that, the decision was promptly taken to tackle "Germany first."

And I literally scoff at the notion that it was a central strategy to lay waste to Germany with atomic weapons. Sure there were air power enthusiasts who put forward ideas of winning the war with strategic bombing, but such notions never displaced the strategy of defeating Hitler's armies in Europe, and a build up of sufficient ground forces was laid on. I doubt if any of the air-partisans were even privy to the closely-held Manhattan Project, nor was it ever certain, until late in the war, if or when working bombs would be obtained. A strategy of devastating Germany with dozens of A-Bombs would have been a disastrous gamble, which would have failed as no such numbers of bombs would have been available. I doubt that anyone in the war planning establishments, other than the highest commanders and dedicated special task groups, even knew of the existence of the atomic weapon program, and those commanders were surely aware of the actual test and delivery schedule as it became clear: three bombs in second half of 1945, slow production thereafter. So I do not think we ever had any such plan.

While a policy of totally de-industrializing Germany after the war, making it a 'pastoral' nation that could not again threaten war, was publicly discussed, with some adherents in the government and military, it was never adopted as policy. Its implications of a co-committent depopulation of Germany were of course ghastly.
 
Interesting that Putin evoked the Cuban missile crisis as he sent his list of demands to the US in December. He effectively wanted NATO guarantees of security removed from Poland, the Baltics and the Balkans by the physical removal of NATO. In response he received an offer of diplomacy around intermediate missile reductions, advance notice of drills and other confidence building measures which he rejected. Cuba was of course a memorable capitulation- for Russia.

In the end he carried out his military technical threat as promised and invaded Ukraine which NATO had accurately predicted and is probably one of the reasons several senior FSB goons were rounded up. Ukraine is just his current victim. He’s declared war and he’s looking to see if America capitulates before moving onto his next victims where eventually he comes up against Article 5.
 
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FWIW there is no threat to russia in balkans by current NATO member states. none of the members there is addressed to russia. i think russian concern was montenegro but US put their foot into the door faster.

not that it is anyhow important but it was mentioned so for a sake of factual accuracy ;)
 
a bizzare fact - as i don't have a telly (or a cable fwiw) in my summer cottage at limnos island where i'm now, i was watching real-city match with a help of bootleg channels.

as the match was progressing, all the channels crashed, except for - a russian one

i ended watching arshavin comments, though i have zero understanding of russian.

why do i mention this? so far about sanctions against russia and putin.

a life couldn't look more normal than it did this evening.

we shall see in 10 years or so.
 
Reading this you might think it a Private Eye spoof but it’s RIA Novosty,this month 2022, part of Russian state controlled media, reorganised by Putin in 2014. It’s as though the Soviet Union of 1945 never ended and explains why so many corpses of Ukrainian civilians are being found pushed down wells or left on the streets with a bullet to the head. Note the language- liquidation, forced labour, the death penalty and imprisonment.

https://ccl.org.ua/en/news/ria-novo...article-what-russia-should-do-with-ukraine-2/


liquidation of armed Nazi formations (which refers to any armed formations of Ukraine, including the Armed Forces of Ukraine), as well as the military, information, and educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
— the formation of bodies of people’s self-government and the police (defense and law enforcement) of the liberated territories, protecting the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups;

— deployment of the Russian information space;
— withdrawal of educational materials and prohibition of educational programs at all levels containing Nazi ideological guidelines;
mass investigations to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the spread of Nazi ideology and support for the Nazi regime;

— lustration, publication of the names of accomplices of the Nazi regime, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (from among those who will not be subject to the death penalty or imprisonment);
 
a bizzare fact - as i don't have a telly (or a cable fwiw) in my summer cottage at limnos island where i'm now, i was watching real-city match with a help of bootleg channels.

as the match was progressing, all the channels crashed, except for - a russian one

i ended watching arshavin comments, though i have zero understanding of russian.

why do i mention this? so far about sanctions against russia and putin.

a life couldn't look more normal than it did this evening.

we shall see in 10 years or so.
'Arshavin'...is that like a 'hollywood'?
 
I guess that Arsenal supporters remember him.

But it was irrelevant who sat in the studio, I was absolutely shocked with a normality of life routines on Russian sport TV channel. Just like nothing happens a few hundred kilometers away.

Sanctions to Yugoslavia were introduced in May 1992.

Milosevic was topped in October 2000.

It took 8 years for a country without any natural resources comparable to Russian ones.

I'm very curious to see the effects.
 
What's really worrying is the exercises in Kaliningrad. If annexing the Crimea was a start to 'reconnecting' Russians, the land bridge to Kaliningrad is a whole new ballgame. The fact that Poland and Lithuania are in NATO probably counts for very little.

That Kaliningrad should be part of Russia is like reunifying Ireland, or giving Gibraltar back to Spain, or the Falklands to Argentina. Makes geographical sense, but a bit tricky otherwise.
 
What's really worrying is the exercises in Kaliningrad. If annexing the Crimea was a start to 'reconnecting' Russians, the land bridge to Kaliningrad is a whole new ballgame. The fact that Poland and Lithuania are in NATO probably counts for very little.

That Kaliningrad should be part of Russia is like reunifying Ireland, or giving Gibraltar back to Spain, or the Falklands to Argentina. Makes geographical sense, but a bit tricky otherwise.
Kaliningrad is an aberration that only dates to 1945, there because it’s the only ice free port the Russians have in the Baltic. They have rights of land access to it through its neighbours.
 
I'm pretty confident that NATO has solid plans for Kaliningrad in case of a wrong Russian move in the area.

I'm expecting this territory to belong to someone else at the end of this war, whenever it happens.
 
As much as I have a hard time seeing Russia accepting returning Crimea to Ukraine, it seems even more unthinkable for it to give up Kaliningrad. Gaining and holding secure warm water ports have been a grand strategy for Russia since the 18th century. It's why Catherine the Great conquered Crimea in 1783 - despite being a very large country, Russia has always been in a situation where it can be partially isolated from the world trade by blockading a fairly low number of ports.

So if we get to the point where Russia has to negotiate about keeping Kaliningrad, I am sure World War 3 is in progress or just ending at that time.
 
... here's Adam Tooze with an interesting historical comparison:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-lend-lease-act-ukraine-1941-second-world-war

I'm no historian so I'd be interested to hear what others make of this.

I read that piece yesterday but he had nothing but the common name adopted. Thin and silly. "Invoking a name" - and empty made up jargon at that - doesn't support the heavy lifting he wants it to. Besides things are very different now so Tooze's comparison with 1941 is largely pointless.

Perhaps what it does do is signal to Russia that the US are not going to tire of this soon and would be happy to see this bring a strategic defeat for Russia. They've been making other noises to that effect too. I see it as a way of pressuring Putin to seek terms by suggesting he has more to lose than he might have originally supposed rather than signaling a real Biden strategic goal. Of course for it to work Putin has to be given cause to wonder and at some point circumstances or happenstance can convert bluff into reality. It pays the US to at least appear less concerned about that than they were at the start.

The more interesting "lend-lease" angle is the terms for US help. How much is gifted, how much is loans, what prices are set for the equipment and delivery and what is the repayment terms. That has implications for Ukraine assuming it survives as a nation state and offers clues to the terms that will be offered for help with rebuilding. And implications for geo-politics, not unlike China's road and belt initiative.

US military aid has in the recent past ranged from large cash donations with few if any strings attached (Israel) to very deliberately so expensive it could not be accepted (mooted AU intervention force in Rwanda 1994). In the middle are all kinds of arrangements that help the recipient or profit the US in varying proportion. Tooze would've had a more interesting article if he'd written about where on that continuum the help for Ukraine sits.
 
Looks like Putin’s own government has broken international law by sending those from captured populations like East Ukraine / Crimea to the invasion of Ukraine . Will he declare war on May 9th and start a draft? There’s already a lot of conscripts MIA and in Ukrainian captivity.
 
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