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Ukraine II

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PsB said:
Interesting view from Shanghai:
https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/
Possible Outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s Choice
The author, an academic and former PRC mandarin, argues China has to come off the fence and cut its links to Putin to avoid getting dragged down by his inevitable failure.
Click to expand...

Yes, interesting. He is not clear, though, if China eventually gets Taiwan or not. Probably easier if they come out of this as "good guys" and amid the general relief that a nuclear war has been avoided (fingers crossed, wood touched, etc.)
 
Partial translation of an article from the Basler Zeitung:
City under enemy control

Cherson shows what fate awaits the rest of Ukraine

The city near Crimea was the first to be conquered. This shows how Moscow wants to secure the occupied territories and break the will of the population.

Cherson did not withstand the Russian onslaught from the neighboring Crimean peninsula for long. In early March, Russian soldiers occupied the city, which is only 30 kilometers from the Black Sea. Today the Russian flag flies there. It was the first Ukrainian city to fall. And while bitter fighting continues elsewhere, in Cherson it is now clear that Russia does not want to use soldiers to secure the conquered areas and cities.

Just a few days after conquering the city with 280,000 inhabitants, the Russian troops left Cherson and have been forming a blockade ever since. In their place, members of the Russian National Guard moved into the city. At home, they are responsible, among other things, for the brutal break-up of demonstrations and report directly to President Vladimir Putin. They have now taken on the role of police and control the area.

There are reports of violent demonstrations in the region. In the city of Cherson itself, they have so far allowed people to do as they please, there are protests almost every day. On videos, demonstrators shout slogans like: “We don’t have to be liberated! We want to live in our own country and we are against everything that Russia is doing in our country."

Apparently, there are many Ukrainians among the men in the Russian National Guard. They once belonged to the notorious Ukrainian special unit Berkut, which used brutal force against the protesters in the 2014 demonstrations on the Maidan in Kyiv. After the change of government in Ukraine, the former elite unit was disbanded and the men faced criminal charges, some of them murder. Many therefore fled to Russia or to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. Years later, one of their leaders was seen in Moscow dispersing young demonstrators who had heeded the call for protests by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

"They are full of hatred for the Ukrainians"

Now these men are apparently returning to Ukraine with the Russian army. "Cherson is under the control of the Russian National Guard," Sergei Khlan, deputy head of the Kherson regional parliament, said in an interview. “These are Berkut people who fled Ukraine after the 2014 revolution. Now they come back. And they are filled with hatred for Ukrainians."

Although there has been electricity again in Cherson since the army left, the city remains cordoned off, nobody is allowed out, says a local journalist in an interview with the independent Russian platform "Meduza", and there is hardly anything left to buy in the shops. And poorer parts of the population in particular could not have stocked up on enough food in advance.

"Humanitarian aid" is now being offered from Crimea, which people have rejected. "The logic of the occupiers is simple: we will be violently peaceful, we will not touch you, we will simply wait until you are so hungry that you accept our help," explains the journalist. "And then we will take photos and we will use them for disinformation campaigns like this: Cherson wants to be part of Russia."

Parallel to the blockade, Moscow is trying to set up a pro-Russian administration. The mayor of Cherson remained in office, while in other cities unruly politicians were kidnapped. He advised people not to move in groups, not to provoke the Russian soldiers to stop immediately if asked to do so. Chlan, deputy chief of the regional parliament in Cherson, says local MPs are now being called one after the other to urge them to cooperate. They would have refused. But they were threatened with shooting if they didn't cooperate.

With Cherson, Kyiv would lose another part of the country to Russia.

The plan, according to Chlan, is to hold an independence referendum in the Cherson region, which is almost entirely under Russian control, as was done in 2014 on the annexed Crimea peninsula. The plan of the new Russian administration is to create a "Cherson People's Republic" based on the model of the breakaway "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent last month and is now issuing an ultimatum to Kyiv to give up the regions. With Cherson, Kyiv could then probably lose another part of the country to Russia.

Moscow is likely to proceed similarly in other Ukrainian regions and thus attempt to effectively tear the Ukraine apart. Moscow has already demonstrated in Donetsk and Luhansk that such individual parts can be controlled by the army and police, even against the will of the population. With at least a third region occupied, the spoils of war for Putin would be substantial, even if he might not bring Kyiv under his rule.

Collaboration warning

Now as many local politicians as possible should be persuaded to support the "People's Republic". The Russian National Guard is blackmailing local politicians and MPs and wants to force them to cooperate, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

This makes the "sad experience of the formation of pseudo-republics" again. Zelensky warned the Ukrainians in the occupied territories against working in a Russian administration. They face the same fate as the 12,000 Russian soldiers who, according to Ukrainian sources, have been killed in the war so far.
 
tones said:
Partial translation of an article from the Basler Zeitung:
City under enemy control

Cherson shows what fate awaits the rest of Ukraine

The city near Crimea was the first to be conquered. This shows how Moscow wants to secure the occupied territories and break the will of the population.

Cherson did not withstand the Russian onslaught from the neighboring Crimean peninsula for long. In early March, Russian soldiers occupied the city, which is only 30 kilometers from the Black Sea. Today the Russian flag flies there. It was the first Ukrainian city to fall. And while bitter fighting continues elsewhere, in Cherson it is now clear that Russia does not want to use soldiers to secure the conquered areas and cities.

Just a few days after conquering the city with 280,000 inhabitants, the Russian troops left Cherson and have been forming a blockade ever since. In their place, members of the Russian National Guard moved into the city. At home, they are responsible, among other things, for the brutal break-up of demonstrations and report directly to President Vladimir Putin. They have now taken on the role of police and control the area.

There are reports of violent demonstrations in the region. In the city of Cherson itself, they have so far allowed people to do as they please, there are protests almost every day. On videos, demonstrators shout slogans like: “We don’t have to be liberated! We want to live in our own country and we are against everything that Russia is doing in our country."

Apparently, there are many Ukrainians among the men in the Russian National Guard. They once belonged to the notorious Ukrainian special unit Berkut, which used brutal force against the protesters in the 2014 demonstrations on the Maidan in Kyiv. After the change of government in Ukraine, the former elite unit was disbanded and the men faced criminal charges, some of them murder. Many therefore fled to Russia or to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. Years later, one of their leaders was seen in Moscow dispersing young demonstrators who had heeded the call for protests by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

"They are full of hatred for the Ukrainians"

Now these men are apparently returning to Ukraine with the Russian army. "Cherson is under the control of the Russian National Guard," Sergei Khlan, deputy head of the Kherson regional parliament, said in an interview. “These are Berkut people who fled Ukraine after the 2014 revolution. Now they come back. And they are filled with hatred for Ukrainians."

Although there has been electricity again in Cherson since the army left, the city remains cordoned off, nobody is allowed out, says a local journalist in an interview with the independent Russian platform "Meduza", and there is hardly anything left to buy in the shops. And poorer parts of the population in particular could not have stocked up on enough food in advance.

"Humanitarian aid" is now being offered from Crimea, which people have rejected. "The logic of the occupiers is simple: we will be violently peaceful, we will not touch you, we will simply wait until you are so hungry that you accept our help," explains the journalist. "And then we will take photos and we will use them for disinformation campaigns like this: Cherson wants to be part of Russia."

Parallel to the blockade, Moscow is trying to set up a pro-Russian administration. The mayor of Cherson remained in office, while in other cities unruly politicians were kidnapped. He advised people not to move in groups, not to provoke the Russian soldiers to stop immediately if asked to do so. Chlan, deputy chief of the regional parliament in Cherson, says local MPs are now being called one after the other to urge them to cooperate. They would have refused. But they were threatened with shooting if they didn't cooperate.

With Cherson, Kyiv would lose another part of the country to Russia.

The plan, according to Chlan, is to hold an independence referendum in the Cherson region, which is almost entirely under Russian control, as was done in 2014 on the annexed Crimea peninsula. The plan of the new Russian administration is to create a "Cherson People's Republic" based on the model of the breakaway "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent last month and is now issuing an ultimatum to Kyiv to give up the regions. With Cherson, Kyiv could then probably lose another part of the country to Russia.

Moscow is likely to proceed similarly in other Ukrainian regions and thus attempt to effectively tear the Ukraine apart. Moscow has already demonstrated in Donetsk and Luhansk that such individual parts can be controlled by the army and police, even against the will of the population. With at least a third region occupied, the spoils of war for Putin would be substantial, even if he might not bring Kyiv under his rule.

Collaboration warning

Now as many local politicians as possible should be persuaded to support the "People's Republic". The Russian National Guard is blackmailing local politicians and MPs and wants to force them to cooperate, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

This makes the "sad experience of the formation of pseudo-republics" again. Zelensky warned the Ukrainians in the occupied territories against working in a Russian administration. They face the same fate as the 12,000 Russian soldiers who, according to Ukrainian sources, have been killed in the war so far.
Click to expand...

it was inevitable that they would bring in pro-Russian Ukrainian militias to carry out violent repression against the population. The prospect was always there of rigged referendums concluding that the majority of the Ukrainian population has always wanted to be liberated from itself.

Russian voting machines arriving:


K0nUmwX.jpg
 
PsB said:
Interesting view from Shanghai:
https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/
Possible Outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s Choice
The author, an academic and former PRC mandarin, argues China has to come off the fence and cut its links to Putin to avoid getting dragged down by his inevitable failure.
Click to expand...
Always interesting to see views from other than ourselves. Basically Saying Putin has dug a hole deeper than he can jump out of and so no point in China offering him a ladder. We just have to hope Xi isn’t cut from the same cloth: Tsar=Emperor sort of thingy.
 
MUTTY1 said:
Always interesting to see views from other than ourselves. Basically Saying Putin has dug a hole deeper than he can jump out of and so no point in China offering him a ladder. We just have to hope Xi isn’t cut from the same cloth: Tsar=Emperor sort of thingy.
Click to expand...
I worry about China's calculation here; clearly it is not about helping the west deal with Putin, it's about the benefit, or otherwise, to China of an axis with/without Russia, and the extent to which Putin is a help or a hindrance to China's objectives. In this case, it's a very good example of 'the enemy of my enemy is not my friend'. If China withdraws support for Russia because it judges its options will be greater with Putin out of the picture, we should not rely on China to tip the balance in our favour over Ukraine, because it will only do so if it judges that China will emerge stronger and more influential.
 
sean99 said:
Not even the majority. I’m firmly of the opinion that the 5% who are psychopaths cause 99% of the misery on this planet.

They are our universal enemy, and unfortunately our complex modern society is a perfect environment for them. Assuming we can’t get rid of them the only approach that I’ve seen suggested that seems feasible is to greatly limit the power of individuals in all settings- corporate and governmental.
Click to expand...
My thought now is that this is a call for everything to be either mandatory or forbidden, and the cure becomes worse than the disease. But the angels may be in the details; the disease is pretty bad.

Perhaps it's time to revisit Thomas Moore's Utopia.
 
matthewr said:
Carole Cadwalla on the right wing crazy cat lady conspiracy meme that now looks increasingly sketchy as well as misogynistic and how it links to Russia and reporting on Russia.

https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1503313740267151364
Click to expand...

I really hope the rank stench of GB News never leaves Andrew Neil. He’d given up being a journalist a long, long time before that, but it has to be the tombstone on that career. A badly lit red-faced man spreading obvious propaganda on a channel of his own creation with less viewers than a Welsh-language children’s program.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I worry about China's calculation here; clearly it is not about helping the west deal with Putin, it's about the benefit, or otherwise, to China of an axis with/without Russia, and the extent to which Putin is a help or a hindrance to China's objectives. In this case, it's a very good example of 'the enemy of my enemy is not my friend'. If China withdraws support for Russia because it judges its options will be greater with Putin out of the picture, we should not rely on China to tip the balance in our favour over Ukraine, because it will only do so if it judges that China will emerge stronger and more influential.
Click to expand...
No idea. I just find it interesting. Trump was obviously in awe of Putin, I doubt Xi is. But he has this similar dictator projection given his action the last few years, just less further down the road?
 
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