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Ukraine V

anubisgrau said:
Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he's up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war. What's more, he said, Russia cannot allow NATO to establish a presence in Ukraine. The time has long passed when Russia might have been able to conquer Ukraine, or install a friendly regime. Had Russia won a quick victory, that might have been possible, but it's hopeless now. Therefore, said Orban, Russia's goal is to make Ukraine an ungovernable wreck, so the West cannot claim it as a prize. At this, they have already succeeded. "It's Afghanistan now," he said. "The land of nobody." (Meaning: No Man's Land.)

The West doesn't understand that time is on Russia's side in Ukraine. Russia is a huge country, and can mobilize a vast army. Ukraine is already running out of troops. When that happens, then what?

"We are in big, big trouble," he said, of the West. If Russia's coming spring offensive proves successful, then the NATO countries are going to be faced with the question of do we send in soldiers to fight for Ukraine? This is not something Orban thinks the American people are considering, but it is front to mind among a growing number of Europeans, whose countries stand to be devastated if war spreads.

Really? NATO troops fighting Russians in Ukraine?

Yes, said Orban. It sounds crazy today, "but if you look at the tendency of how we got to this point today, it can't be ruled out."

"We are in a war with Russia. That's the reality," he said. "Every day we are moving further in."

To be clear, Viktor Orban doesn't want the West to be in a war with Russia. But he says that far too many Westerners are deluding themselves about what's really happening -- and what could happen. A journalist asked the prime minister if he thought the war could go nuclear. "I can't exclude that they would use it," he said, of the atomic bomb. He clarified that he was talking about tactical battlefield nukes, not mushroom clouds over Warsaw and Berlin -- "but I can't exclude that either." If Ukraine somehow, using Western weapons, gets to the point of crossing the border into Russian territory, then the future of the world will be so bright the West will have to wear shades.

Someone pointed out that the Russians have had a sorry battlefield performance to this point. Yes, said Orban, it's true. But if you look at Russian history, this is how it goes with the Russians at war. They start out poorly, but after a while, they figure things out, and then become hard to stop. He expects that will be the case this time. He also mentioned at the start of the session that Russia's being pushed into an alliance with Iran is extremely dangerous for Israel, and expressed hope that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, whose adult son was sitting at the table, could become a peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine. Though Ukraine has had some amazing successes against Russia, Orban said in the long term, he can't see that we in the West are on the winning side, especially considering Russia's manufacturing capacity.
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Orban is a Putin stooge and a prick.
 
anubisgrau said:
Though Ukraine has had some amazing successes against Russia, Orban said in the long term, he can't see that we in the West are on the winning side, especially considering Russia's manufacturing capacity.
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I think the opposite, especially considering Russia's manufacturing capacity.
 
anubisgrau said:
Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he's up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war.
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Is Orban actually delusional? How can Putin lose an election when he has neutered or completely dismantled any opposition? The changes in the Russian election system ensure that he can stay in power for as long as he wants. Not to mention the fact that the Russian media all sing from the same song sheet. And of course he can't lose a war, because he is not actually fighting a war, but engaging in a local limited police action.

I have a friend who is studying Russian. He tells me that his teacher is amazed at the reaction of her friends in Russia when she telephones them - they have bought completely the story that Ukraine needs to be cleansed of Nazis and are fully supportive of the limited police action to rescue brother Ukrainians from the clutches of these nefarious low-lives.
 
Well, every side in this war buys the story that is presented by official politics and mainstream media. Not much difference to the West. Especially if there are no dissonant voices there.

Meanwhile, troubles in paradise:

"Too many Muslims, too many people with different skin colours." Andrea, a host for the #HomesForUkraine scheme, tells
@darshnasoni
how "shocked" she was at how difficult a Ukrainian refugee found adjusting to ethnic diversity & cultural values in the UK.

https://twitter.com/Majstar7/status/1618653655892381697
 
anubisgrau said:
Well, every side in this war buys the story that is presented by official politics and mainstream media. Not much difference to the West. Especially if there are no dissonant voices there.
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Respectfully disagree - dissonant voices are not silenced, like this example in today's NYT:

Russia continues to stifle the free press and outlaws Meduza, a leading independent news site.

Russian officials continued their campaign to stifle press freedom on Thursday, labeling the independent news website Meduza an “undesirable organization” and effectively outlawing its content. The move made Meduza the latest journalistic outlet to fall victim to the Kremlin’s efforts to suppress criticism.

The Russian prosecutor general’s office said that Meduza’s activities posed “a threat to the foundations of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order and national security,” according to the Interfax news agency.

Over the past year, Moscow has ramped up its attempts to control coverage of the war in Ukraine. In March, President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law effectively criminalizing any public opposition to or independent reporting about the war.

Announcements about the new law pushed some Russian independent news media outlets to shut down even before it was enacted. The Russian government has also cut off access to Facebook and to the BBC and other news sources.

“Russian authorities are showing that they will do anything to impede the work of one of the leading independent Russian-language media outlets,” Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Central Asia coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a press watchdog organization, said in a statement.

Meduza, a popular Latvia-based outlet that publishes news about Russia in both Russian and English, often reports critically on the war in Ukraine. It posts on its website and to over one million subscribers on Telegram, in Russia and elsewhere.

The website was blocked in Russia last year at the start of the war, but the new “undesirable” designation has even more far-reaching consequences. Now, anyone in Russia who goes to the site, “likes” any of its social media content or shares a link to an article could face fines or jail time.

Meduza’s editor in chief, Ivan Kolpakov, called the designation a “very bad event,” but said that “nevertheless, we were waiting for this to happen — and we tried to prepare ourselves.”

The site plans to continue to publish, although its future plans are unclear.

Even before the Ukraine invasion, Moscow had labeled Meduza a “foreign agent,” wiping out its advertising revenue and compelling it to shift to a crowdfunding model to stay in business. As a foreign agent, Meduza had to add a 24-word disclaimer about its new status to all of its Russian-language content, including social media posts. If it did not, the organization and its journalists could receive fines or jail time.

In June, the independent business news site VTimes shut down after Russia’s foreign-agent designation hurt its business and made it difficult for reporters to do their jobs. And in August, the government added TV Rain, long a top independent outlet, and the news site iStories to the foreign-agent list.

Other independent news sources have been feeling pressure from Moscow’s efforts to censor their coverage, even as they see a new urgency to provide unfiltered reporting.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a news network originally set up as a C.I.A. operation early in the Cold War, is an example. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February both shook up Radio Free Europe’s operations and highlighted its mission’s importance.

Within days of the invasion, the organization suspended its operations in Russia. It had faced years of growing pressure from Moscow and had already evacuated most of its staff to Prague and other offices even before the war broke out.

Jamie Fly, the broadcaster’s president and chief executive, said his organization had long been in firefighting mode.

“The challenge we’re facing now, and the invasion of Ukraine, is just the latest iteration,” Mr. Fly said in an interview late last year. “We are increasingly getting pressure when we’re operating in these environments, and in some cases, we’re getting pushed out of countries. That’s always been a challenge for us.”

I'd be interested in examples of Western dissonant voices ending up in jail.
 
OK, nothing compares to Russia today. Maybe Iran or North Korea and that's all. I have no clue how this can be changed, this is one of the worst cases in human history.
 
tones said:
I have a friend who is studying Russian. He tells me that his teacher is amazed at the reaction of her friends in Russia when she telephones them - they have bought completely the story that Ukraine needs to be cleansed of Nazis and are fully supportive of the limited police action to rescue brother Ukrainians from the clutches of these nefarious low-lives.
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This also makes it possible for Putin to paint the West, in supporting Ukraine, as Nazi-sympathisers and enablers.
 
When Poland and other countries joined the EU and their citizens came to work here quite a few who I worked with had to move out of London because 'too many coloureds'. That part of Europe has no history of colonising parts of the world where the locals look very different and it was a real culture shock for them on arrival here. That Ukrainians display the same reaction doesn't surprise me. Although there is no excuse I would be the same when confronted with Martians.
 
LecsonQuad said:
... I would be the same when confronted with Martians.
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Don't you mean "Little Green Men"? :)

_73507107_troops.jpg
 
tones said:
Is Orban actually delusional? How can Putin lose an election when he has neutered or completely dismantled any opposition? The changes in the Russian election system ensure that he can stay in power for as long as he wants. Not to mention the fact that the Russian media all sing from the same song sheet. And of course he can't lose a war, because he is not actually fighting a war, but engaging in a local limited police action.

I have a friend who is studying Russian. He tells me that his teacher is amazed at the reaction of her friends in Russia when she telephones them - they have bought completely the story that Ukraine needs to be cleansed of Nazis and are fully supportive of the limited police action to rescue brother Ukrainians from the clutches of these nefarious low-lives.
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The propaganda machine in Russia is very effective. And it's easier to go along with it than spend a few years in prison (now an even more dangerous option in light of Wagner's recruiting strategy).
 
Kirk said:
The propaganda machine in Russia is very effective. And it's easier to go along with it than spend a few years in prison (now an even more dangerous option in light of Wagner's recruiting strategy).
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Is it though?

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022...ing-tells-us-about-support-for-the-war-a79596

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_anti-war_protests_in_Russia#February

100% support for those brave souls.

For comparison:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-continues-support-britains-role-ukraine-conflict

So around 70% support in Russia for the invasion actually looks pretty weak to me, given the homogeneous media environment and the potentially harsh punishment for dissent.
 
tones said:
I have a friend who is studying Russian. He tells me that his teacher is amazed at the reaction of her friends in Russia when she telephones them - they have bought completely the story that Ukraine needs to be cleansed of Nazis and are fully supportive of the limited police action to rescue brother Ukrainians from the clutches of these nefarious low-lives.
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My brother in Law, formerly living in Kharkiv with his Ukrainian wife and family, now all in Germany has said exactly the same thing.

They will soon return to western Ukraine very near the Romanian border as they find Germany boring and expensive, though not as expensive as here when they came over at Christmas.
 
LecsonQuad said:
When Poland and other countries joined the EU and their citizens came to work here quite a few who I worked with had to move out of London because 'too many coloureds'. That part of Europe has no history of colonising parts of the world where the locals look very different and it was a real culture shock for them on arrival here. That Ukrainians display the same reaction doesn't surprise me. Although there is no excuse I would be the same when confronted with Martians.
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Sorry, there is no excuse, even when you are confronted with Martians. You would not be the same, racism is not a genetical disorder, it's a matter of social culture. I know it's not the best time to talk about it but someone has to say it (again). There were ugly racist incidents in the first days of war with people of color studying or working in Ukraine who couldn't evacuate easily, locals had priority. Not only those from Africa but local Roma who were badly mistreated and tortured in horrible incidents that would make BNP proud of.

But I'm not going to talk about it, I will be again accused of choosing topics of minor importance or trolling.
 
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