Ukraine

[Gingerbeard]

At this moment in time, I don't believe we know whether this is a legitimate pull-back or a relocation of the military to other areas of the border. I am happy to be corrected if things have changed as I haven't see the latest news

 

[TheDecameron]

At this moment in time, I don't believe we know whether this is a legitimate pull-back or a relocation of the military to other areas of the border. I am happy to be corrected if things have changed as I haven't see the latest news

It seems to be overplayed. It has been suggested that a large scale cyber attack would precede invasion,

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...l-russian-pullback-ukraine-border-2022-02-15/

Though who really knows what’s going on? The Americans seem keen to shoot Putin’s fox but I doubt that’ll stop him shooting Ukrainians if that’s his intention.

 

[robs]

IMHO this is all and simply about Nordstream $$.

 

[MUTTY1]

Putin has always seems to me very disciplined. I think he has extracted maximum effect and there is nothing more to be gained without actual invasion. There is still some more dangle time to be had and he has given his troops a good workout into the bargain.
Defence spending in Europe has been rising since Trump threw a spanner in the works five years ago. And this episode, once over will not favour Russia in the long run. This moment, was a good time for Russia to try a gambit but it always looked a bit thin.

 

[TheDecameron]

The bottom line is that Putin hasn’t used diplomacy, he’s used coercion. A false pretext such as existing Russian accusations of ‘genocide’ against Russian speaking Ukrainians would be his justification for seizing more territory. He’s previously lied about Russian troops fighting inside Ukraine ( their squaddies’ social media geolocation activity giving the game away) and the bringing down of a passenger jet with a missile system brought over the border from Russia.

 

[Hook]

Might not be the case but I’ve heard this isn’t really such a big story in Russia itself.

I wonder might the threat of world war have been a bit over-egged in the U.K. by our war-friendly liberal press and our reckless, cynical political leaders.

Reporters are in a no-win situation. If they report on the satellite images, and interpret them as preparations for war (which they certainly appear to be), then they are criticized as fear mongers. If they ignore what’s happening on the ground, and instead publish a strictly Russian POV, then they are Putin puppets. Very hard for them to be consistently fair, balanced and objective.

I have no idea what is going to happen next, but I am pretty sure that anyone thinking this is destined to end peacefully is guilty of wishful thinking. Hopefully the direction of events becomes clearer in the coming days. Fingers crossed that diplomacy works and Putin pulls his troops back, but I have doubts. I can not see the US and NATO agreeing to his demand that Ukraine be prohibited forever from joining.

 

[NeilR]

Seems rather odd that some people are talking about this in the past tense. It is most certainly not over.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Did I hear some vague reports of major cyberattacks on Ukranian institutions this morning? I was half asleep, but I'm sure something was mentioned.

 

[Barry123]

Did I hear some vague reports of major cyberattacks on Ukranian institutions this morning? I was half asleep, but I'm sure something was mentioned.

Yesterday morning and still ongoing apparently

 

[Spraggons Den]

It feels to me like the rhetoric from Russia yesterday was just that and an advance into Ukraine is imminent. The west is paying the price for not responding adequately to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. You should never appease a tyrant.

 

[Warren]

Of course it does. Denying sovereign nations a choice of security options is exactly that. Plus, Russia currently occupies large pieces of three sovereign nations that it's attempting to deny sovereignty to.

NATO is a giant cash cow, a totally unnecessary money racket often used to destroy countries, see Yugoslavia, Libya etc. It was agreed that after the fall of the Soviet Union it would not spread one inch further east, but it did and the last straw from Russia's point of view was the US went about bringing Ukraine into it, on Russia's border.

This is just as unacceptable to Russia as Russia having a military presence in Cuba, or Mexico, or Canada would be to the US. Or do you think the US was wrong to deny sovereign Cuba its wishes with regard to security options in 1962?

Whether people dislike the Russian government or not shouldn't obscure this very fundamental fact, that Russia feels just as threatened by the NATO presence close to it as the US would were the tables turned, and this is a concern that must be addressed, but the narrative is cowboys v Indians, cops v robbers, goodies v baddies etc, and that's all many people think in terms of.

 

[matthewr]

This idea that Russia is somehow threatened by Ukraine or that NATO would want anything to do with them if it were not for the threat of a literal war is the stupidest take ever. It's Kyle Kulinski level youtube tankie thinking. I understand the right wing authoritarians supporting Russia in this but not left wing millenials.

This is naked imperialism by Russia and every bit as bad as if America did something similar and massed 100,000 troops on the Mexican border. If there is a major expansion to the current war then despite some miscalculations from Zelensky and failings from the West in regard to intelligence and diplomacy it will be down to Putin. The only person who has any interest in a major war here is the Russian imperialist dictator and those of us on the left should see that for exactly what it is.

It's awful when America does it and just as bad when Russia does it and people should resist it with everything we have no matter how futile.

FWIW I am no fan of Ukraine (it's full of the literal Nazis) or its government and certainly not of NATO.

 

[Seeker_UK]

It was agreed that after the fall of the Soviet Union it would not spread one inch further east, but it did...

No it wasn't - Boris Yeltsin wrote to Bill Clinton stating that Russia did not see NATO and expansion as a threat (in fact it was recognised as inevitable).

Putin has framed a 1991 statement from Secretary General Manfred Wörner that NATO forces would not be stationed “beyond the territory of the Federal Republic”, but is (a) not a formal undertaking / treaty and (b) taken of context (Page 3 of https://www.baks.bund.de/sites/baks010/files/working_paper_2018_03.pdf if you want the detail). Putin chooses to use such things to continually promote a "betrayed by the West" narrative to shore up support at home (having an external enemy is a crude tool to ensure national unity - see 1984) and a justification to behave as they do and justify it as a legitimate response.

 

[PsB]

NATO is a giant cash cow, a totally unnecessary money racket often used to destroy countries, see Yugoslavia, Libya etc. It was agreed that after the fall of the Soviet Union it would not spread one inch further east, but it did and the last straw from Russia's point of view was the US went about bringing Ukraine into it, on Russia's border.

This is just as unacceptable to Russia as Russia having a military presence in Cuba, or Mexico, or Canada would be to the US. Or do you think the US was wrong to deny sovereign Cuba its wishes with regard to security options in 1962?

Please point out the treaty where this was agreed and ratified. Time saving clue for you: there isn't one.

Russia, on the other hand, did sign and ratify* an international "memorandum on security assurances" in 1994 pledging to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity** in order to reassure the Ukraine government that was about to agree to the destruction of the nuclear warheads that were stationed there. So Russia is the party that has massively breached its international commitments here, and has done so continuously since 2014.

* along with the USA and UK ** the same assurances were given to Belarus and Kazakhstan

 

[DimitryZ]

NATO is a giant cash cow, a totally unnecessary money racket often used to destroy countries, see Yugoslavia, Libya etc. It was agreed that after the fall of the Soviet Union it would not spread one inch further east, but it did and the last straw from Russia's point of view was the US went about bringing Ukraine into it, on Russia's border.

This is just as unacceptable to Russia as Russia having a military presence in Cuba, or Mexico, or Canada would be to the US. Or do you think the US was wrong to deny sovereign Cuba its wishes with regard to security options in 1962?

Whether people dislike the Russian government or not shouldn't obscure this very fundamental fact, that Russia feels just as threatened by the NATO presence close to it as the US would were the tables turned, and this is a concern that must be addressed, but the narrative is cowboys v Indians, cops v robbers, goodies v baddies etc, and that's all many people think in terms of.

Thank you for presenting the Russian viewpoint. Being a Russian-American who reads the Russian "press" I am well familiar with it.

It's mostly nonsense. Putin wants to be in Russian history books as "the gatherer of Russian Lands" and views the disolution of the USSR as a great evil. His main goal is to reestablish Russian sphere of influence by force over his neighbors and create a new world order, where the countries are divided into West, East and Russian blocks.

The reality is that Russia can't offer anything other than force to maintain it's sphere of influence. It's economically backwards, corrupt and lawless regime based on fealty to one leader and his personal enrichment. All the former Soviet republics other than Belorussia and Kazakhstan (both with corrupt authoritarian rulers) are eager to protect themselves from "Russian Hug" by all means necessary. If there were an extraterrestrial security alliance they would apply to join it, too.

And there has been no agreement after the fall of the USSR that NATO will not expand.

 

[k90tour]

I can't see anything other than the biggest threat to Russian security is Putin himself. Of course there's the chance of surrounding nations considering the Nato possibilities if Russia is ready to take chunks back of its previous state. But with western countries and Russia backing opposing sides in conflicts that have little to do with them directly, we have a very sad and dangerous world.

 

[Warren]

Thank you for presenting the Russian viewpoint. Being a Russian-American who reads the Russian "press" I am well familiar with it.

It's mostly nonsense. Putin wants to be in Russian history books as "the gatherer of Russian Lands" and views the disolution of the USSR as a great evil. His main goal is to reestablish Russian sphere of influence by force over his neighbors and create a new world order, where the countries are divided into West, East and Russian blocks.

The reality is that Russia can't offer anything other than force to maintain it's sphere of influence. It's economically backwards, corrupt and lawless regime based on fealty to one leader and his personal enrichment. All the former Soviet republics other than Belorussia and Kazakhstan (both with corrupt authoritarian rulers) are eager to protect themselves from "Russian Hug" by all means necessary. If there were an extraterrestrial security alliance they would apply to join it, too.

And there has been no agreement after the fall of the USSR that NATO will not expand.

That reads like a copy and paste from the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN etc.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

That reads like a copy and paste from the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN etc.

Given the stuff you posted upthread has been debunked, what do you think is wrong with Dimitry’s comments?

 

[DimitryZ]

That reads like a copy and paste from the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN etc.

Actually, that's what the Russian political opposition says.

But you are clearly with the other guys.

I find it curious that at least in the US, both far right and far left (Tucker Carlson and Christine Van den Heuvel, for example) argue along with Putin that Ukraine should be left to the Russia's tender mercies.

 

[es.klopfte]

FWIW I am no fan of Ukraine (it's full of the literal Nazis).

Blooming eck, whatever gave you that idea? Have you been to Ukraine?

I am from the Russia-speaking part of Ukraine that's supposed to be oppressed by the nazis, but instead all I've seen is Russian-speaking locals enlisting to defend against the Russian invaders.