Russia-Ukrainian War

[glider3834]

this interview is worth listening too - analyst Michael Nance has spent a lot of time on the ground in Ukraine and with their defence forces & studying tactics - his perspective is interesting unlike most Western analysts he actually thinks Ukraine has a chance of beating Russia.

 

Now this is not in interview but just a few thoughts I have - I am actually more in the camp of economically sustainable & targeted sanctions (rather than just complete blanket sanctions that are hurting a lot of Russian people who have absolutely no say over what Putin is doing) & focusing energy on helping Ukraine to resist & defeat the Russians is the better strategy. Putin needs to be defeated in the field IMHO - that will be more destabilising for his leadership & it will also act as a greater deterrent on future conflict. Sanctions were tried after Crimea & it didn't stop Putin having another go! 

 

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

1 hour ago, Xerxes said:

LOL ... Yes, i do indeed like my lattes

in fact, i love coffee, that first sip in the morning kills me !  

 

Damn, i hope that does not mean that I am projecting myself and actually that it is me who up just woke and realized the world is one big ugly place. 

 

Seriously though, some of those scenes that you see, where black people (students or otherwise) trying to leave Ukraine, and they are being held back by Polish or Ukrainian police at the border really pisses me off. I dont see much coverage of that. Granted I dont have full context but I assume this is not the time to let or not let people to escape to safety based on the color of their skin. This crisis has really shown the best and the worse of us.

 

The ordeal of lacks and other foreigners has been covered in Sky News quite a bit. There is also a bunch of Indian students stranded in Northern Ukraine that seem to have been forgotten a d who have no way out.

 

On a related note, anyone knows what game Modi is playing in all this? Modi always strikes me as an enigma.

[adesigar]

46 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

The ordeal of lacks and other foreigners has been covered in Sky News quite a bit. There is also a bunch of Indian students stranded in Northern Ukraine that seem to have been forgotten a d who have no way out.

 

On a related note, anyone knows what game Modi is playing in all this? Modi always strikes me as an enigma.

 

India buys over 50% of its defense equipment from Russia. They have China on one side. They have Pakistan which is funded by the US on the other side. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

[Blugolds11]

Anyone have any input on this thought I had? 

 

I understand that Russia is censoring western media, FB etc. cutting the people off from any info that may describe this "military exercise" as War/Invasion...I also read that Anonymous has hacked things in Russia to expose the people to what is really happening, and reports say that 17k people have been arrested for protesting...

 

But lets assume that there is a significant portion of the population that is still unaware of what is going on, there were videos of captured soldiers phoning home and relatives they spoke to didnt even know they were in Ukraine or what was going on...

 

My question is...how does the Russian gov explain the sanctions? You can snowball people for so long until they notice none of their social media works anymore, they cant order Nikes, Disney is unavailable, the Ruble is crashing, the markets are crashing etc...what is their explanation for that? Sooner or later Russian people have to notice that they are being cut off from the rest of the world? 

 

Maybe it doesn't matter, as Putin and his gov have such a tight grip on the population and the penalties are so stiff for even saying anything that I dont think there is much the people could do even if they were aware and mad about it. 

 

My view is that Putin wont stop until Ukraine is a pile of rubble, you dont have to occupy a pile a rubble. Destroy everything so that it takes a generation to rebuild. I dont know that there is anything the Russian people could do to stop it either, he says Ukrainians are the same people and he has no problem sacrificing them, an uprising in Russia would likely yield the same result I suspect. 

[Dinar]

6 minutes ago, Blugolds11 said:

Anyone have any input on this thought I had? 

 

I understand that Russia is censoring western media, FB etc. cutting the people off from any info that may describe this "military exercise" as War/Invasion...I also read that Anonymous has hacked things in Russia to expose the people to what is really happening, and reports say that 17k people have been arrested for protesting...

 

But lets assume that there is a significant portion of the population that is still unaware of what is going on, there were videos of captured soldiers phoning home and relatives they spoke to didnt even know they were in Ukraine or what was going on...

 

My question is...how does the Russian gov explain the sanctions? You can snowball people for so long until they notice none of their social media works anymore, they cant order Nikes, Disney is unavailable, the Ruble is crashing, the markets are crashing etc...what is their explanation for that? Sooner or later Russian people have to notice that they are being cut off from the rest of the world? 

 

Maybe it doesn't matter, as Putin and his gov have such a tight grip on the population and the penalties are so stiff for even saying anything that I dont think there is much the people could do even if they were aware and mad about it. 

 

My view is that Putin wont stop until Ukraine is a pile of rubble, you dont have to occupy a pile a rubble. Destroy everything so that it takes a generation to rebuild. I dont know that there is anything the Russian people could do to stop it either, he says Ukrainians are the same people and he has no problem sacrificing them, an uprising in Russia would likely yield the same result I suspect. 

The government's explanation will be really simple:  The world hates Russia and Russian people, and this is why the West is doing it.  After all, look at what the US did to: Serbia, Libya, Iraq, et all, and there were no sanctions.  There is a double standard, you see.  There was an old joke when I was little: an American President says to Brezhnev, your people are starving; the response is: in the US blacks are discriminated against.  I lived in the USSR for a dozen years, trust me, you can explain anything and everything.  Also, it does not really matter if the people believe it or not, until they rise up in an armed revolt, nothing will change.   This is the wrong forum, but sadly in the US today and western world, there is tremendous censorship of unpopular ideas, or at least ideas that are not in vogue with the left wing of the Democratic party.  There was always censorship in Russia/USSR but to see this in the US scares me.  I am an American citizen who lives here, and this is the only citizenship that I have, and I am beginning to see parallels to my childhood.  People are afraid of expressing opinions, even opinions that were expressed by President Clinton twenty years ago.  We should take our cue from Elon Musk who refuses to censor unpopular opinions (even the ones that represent the view of the Russian government and make me want to vomit.)  Once we lose the freedom of expression, what is to stop us from becoming the next Russia or China?  

[thefatbaboon]

Ive been wondering over the last days whether sanctions ever work?  These are all the main countries sanctioned by America - some for more than half a century.  Haven't all these countries' leaders consolidated and grown old in power, often even establishing dynastic dictatorships for brothers, children etc?

 

iraq (removed only after invasion)

iran

cuba

venezuela

syria

north korea

russia

 

Seems obvious that sanctions work to impoverish a people and keep a country economically and militarily weak but never to help the country "rise up" and escape from under a dictator.  No idea why every politician and media pundit goes on about sanctions punishing dictators.

 

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

4 hours ago, thefatbaboon said:

Ive been wondering over the last days whether sanctions ever work?  These are all the main countries sanctioned by America - some for more than half a century.  Haven't all these countries' leaders consolidated and grown old in power, often even establishing dynastic dictatorships for brothers, children etc?

 

iraq (removed only after invasion)

iran

cuba

venezuela

syria

north korea

russia

 

Seems obvious that sanctions work to impoverish a people and keep a country economically and militarily weak but never to help the country "rise up" and escape from under a dictator.  No idea why every politician and media pundit goes on about sanctions punishing dictators.

 

 

 

 

I guess the sanctions do work in the way that they ruin their economy and thus makes these countries much less of a threat. They won’t remove dictators  - this is something the people need to do themselves, or the passing of times does it.

[Xerxes]

I disagree with that statement. Sounds like we are saying that, "we are doing all the hard work of choking you to death, but you got to do some legwork and remove the guy we dont like". 

 

Sanctions are stupid and work only to create an entire generation people that know nothing but misery, The moment sanctions goes up, at that very moment, almost instantiously, black markets comes into business. And whoever controls the border and ministries and flow of goods, controls the black market.

 

We are making headlines about going after Oligarch yachts and mansions, but at this very moment, we are creating a new class of oligarch in Russia. We do not know the names of this new class of enterprising Russians that will circumnavigate the sanctions, because they are being created at this very moment. But you will know them and hear their stories 15 years from now.

 

[mcliu]

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/mar/07/impossible-bolshoi-music-director-tugan-sokhiev-quits-over-calls-to-denounce-ukraine-invasion

I suspect this cancel/anti-Russia movement across the West is backfiring and making even moderate/West-leaning Russians become more anti-West and stand firmer behind Putin.

 

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-700677

Putin's offer, Zelensky's dilemma: What is going on in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine?
According to sources privy to details about Bennett's trip to Russia, the negotiations are much more serious than what the West has been saying – and Zelensky faces a tough decision.

[elliott]

17 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Absolutely. 100% the media is scum of the earth. An enemy just like Putin except they effect more Americans than he does.

 

unfortunately, I dont think thats US exclusive.

another thing that strikes me about all this, and which the media has a lot to do, is the suppression of diversity of thinking. for example, if you have business in Russia and dont leave the country, you have become evil. so companies must leave Russia even when their actions are only going to hurt the Russian population, not Putin and company.

 

this may deviate from the topic too much, but I think this conflict has made this so much clear. the media has taken their side, and either you are on theirs or you are on the enemys. there is no other option.

 

[mcliu]

It's like how Westerners think Russians only sees one side of the story. Except it's also the same in the West.

The difference is in the West, you're allowed to see the other side, just that no one really cares to.

This is made worse now by cancel culture.

Edited March 8, 2022 by mcliu

[thefatbaboon]

I agree with Xerxes. I had never really thought about it before but when I went through the sanction history they don't seem to have helped - not once.  Cuba must be 6 decades under sanctions and it's been Fidel Castro and his brother.  NK -  father and son. Iran - a couple of ayatollahs. Venezuela - Chavez and Maduro...etc.

 

I guess if you find a ghetto, rife with crime, controlled by mafia bosses, would you increase or decrease the population's chance of getting out from under their crime lords by "ghetto-izing" the area even more?

 

It is politically popular to talk about "punishing".  Punishing crime and drug lords, punishing international malefactors. It is sad that more thought doesn't go into to this. 

 

There are 40 million Ukrainians whose lives and country is getting destroyed.  There are 150 million total isolated Russians who's net worth has been obliterated over the last week, can't fly out of their country, who have no access to most of the daily goods and services that we all take for granted.  And there are hundreds of millions of of average Europeans and Americans who's costs of living are soaring. 

 

Also, another thought I had, if we don't buy Russian energy don't we have to buy someone else's energy?  And if we buy someone else's energy then that country is not selling it to whoever they were selling it to before we bought it and that entity who can't buy it from whomever they were buying it before will have to buy it from.... Russia...no one has 10 million bd of hydrocarbons sitting in their cupboard. 

 

Anyway, the peace deal of neutrality/demilitarization and handing over Crimea and the Donbas looks good to me.  Not perfect but the alternatives are worse.  Hopefully they agree it because both War and Sanctions are lose/lose propositions.

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by thefatbaboon

[thefatbaboon]

25 minutes ago, mcliu said:

It's like how Westerners think Russians only sees one side of the story. Except it's also the same in the West.

The difference is in the West, you're allowed to see the other side, just that no one really cares to.

This is made worse now by cancel culture.

 

You say that we are allowed to see the other side but has anyone else been shocked how quickly Russian news sources like RT have been forbidden?  

 

Not that he will care about my appreciation - I am a nobody -  but Elon Musk went up in my opinion when he said that he would have to be threatened by a gun to ban Russian news on his Starlink and that all news is to some degree propaganda.

 

 

[Gregmal]

Musk is a national treasure 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

49 minutes ago, thefatbaboon said:

I agree with Xerxes. I had never really thought about it before but when I went through the sanction history they don't seem to have helped - not once.  Cuba must be 6 decades under sanctions and it's been Fidel Castro and his brother.  NK -  father and son. Iran - a couple of ayatollahs. Venezuela - Chavez and Maduro...etc.

 

I guess if you find a ghetto, rife with crime, controlled by mafia bosses would you increase or decrease the population's chance of getting out from under their crime lords by "ghetto-izing" the area even more?

 

It is politically popular to talk about "punishing".  Punishing crime and drug lords, punishing international malefactors. It is sad that more thought doesn't go into to this. 

 

 

Yup. They are successful in that they make the entire nation more dependent on centralized powers.

 

And in a lot of cases, I almost imagine it makes things worse. It's people who are desperate who most often resort to violence.

 

Do you think you'd have ISIS or the Taliban if all their foot soldiers were middle class with jobs and families at risk? Impoverishing a nation just makes for entire generations that hate the West and have little to lose by fighting against it. 

 

 

[mcliu]

NATO instructors training Ukrainian neo-nazi Azov battalion on NLAW.

Seems like the West isn't concerned about far-right ideology anymore?

 

 

[Xerxes]

Cycles of violence. Worth looking at the history Franco-German conflicts. Same year might be off.

 

- 1806: Napoleonic invasion and subjugation of Prussia

 

- 1815: Battle of Waterloo: everyone knows about Duke of Wellington, little people know that there would be no Waterloo without Blucher and his Prussian seeking revenge.

 

- 1870-72: Creation of German Empire and the elevation of King of Prussia to Kaiser. This was done in the famed Hall of Mirrors in the Versailles Palace in France, after Otto von Bismarck had Napoleon III on the run. Loss of Alsac-Lorraine territories

 

- 1914-18: French re-took the Alsac-Lorraine territories. In 1918, Maraschal Foch and his German counterpart sign the armistice in his train carriage (which i believe was his warcarriage). Treaty of Versailles few years later (1921?) and subjugation of Germany. The treaty was signed in the very same hall of mirrors where German Empire was proclaimed.

 

- 1939-40: German conquest of France. French surrended signed in the very same train carriage that Foch took German's cease-fire. After that Hitler had the train carriage destroyed and in his mind the shame was forever removed.

 

In Sept 1984, severn decades after the start of the First World War, German Chancellor Kohl and French President Mitterrand held hands. That is 178 years from the Napoleonic invasions.

 

Think of everychild now in Ukraine and one of them is thinking ....

 

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

I'm all for not punishing the Russian people and agree with this sentiment.

But do we really not want to punish the Russian government and just sit by & reward them

for destroying Ukraine?  And then make them richer - and let them do it again?

 

[Spekulatius]

44 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

I'm all for not punishing the Russian people and agree with this sentiment.

But do we really not want to punish the Russian government and just sit by & reward them

for destroying Ukraine?  And then make them richer - and let them do it again?

 

It's not about punishing the Russian people although they inevitably will feel the pain. It's about destroying the Russian war machine via their Achilles heel which is their weak economy. The assumption is that Russia simply can't keep war machine  going for long if the economy is in taters.

 

Make no mistake - we are at war with Putin& Russia. We chose our weapon to fight back - finance and trade / tech where we have got the machine gun, and they got a pocket knife (economy the size of Texas). The alternative is either doing nothing, or fight a real war with troops on the ground. We don't want the latter and quite frankly doing nothing at this point is like doing nothing when Hitler moved into Poland.

 

Personally I think the Russian economy will be in total taters in a month or two, We are talking shortages everywhere, high tech parts difficult to get and their army running out of spare parts. I think it is well possible that their tanks will be just sitting there broken in a ditch with no spare parts and the Russian soldiers pack up and take the bus or walk home. Maybe I am smoking something. Worth a try, imo.

[cubsfan]

^^ No - I totally agree. My response was questioning those that are claiming sanctions are unfair 

to the Russians. I've no interest in punishing innocent Russian citizens. They are, in essence, 

collateral damage to a egomaniac. Unfortunately, just like North Korea.

[adesigar]

35 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Personally I think the Russian economy will be in total taters in a month or two, We are talking shortages everywhere, high tech parts difficult to get and their army running out of spare parts. I think it is well possible that their tanks will be just sitting there broken in a ditch with no spare parts and the Russian soldiers pack up and take the bus or walk home. Maybe I am smoking something. Worth a try, imo.

 

China manufacturing <---> Russia Energy.

Edited March 8, 2022 by adesigar

[hellowod]

Why would China even dare to help Russia directly on its war effort?

[Xerxes]

14 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

^^ No - I totally agree. My response was questioning those that are claiming sanctions are unfair 

to the Russians. I've no interest in punishing innocent Russian citizens. They are, in essence, 

collateral damage to a egomaniac. Unfortunately, just like North Korea.

 

There is no such thing as unfair or fair in war. In a war, you set out to win & completely obliterate your oponenent and then hire bunch of latte-sipping analysts re-write history. Like how Israel done it. They got the Arab lands (fair and square through wars of conquest, IMO), and they can write their own narrative. Several decades later, only the bravest Westerner is allowed to critize Israel, before being called an anti-semitic and shamed into going back on what they said. And even when they critisize Israel, they have to bow and dance and explain themselves. 

 

For every geoplitical action there is an equal or greater geopolitical reaction (a bit different then Newtonian mechanics). So

only a fool would dismiss the long term liabilities of a certain action that we are taking now with Russia. It is a gamble. If it works and somehow Russia get rid of Putin in a not too distant future that is great. But it can also backfire and backfire badly.

 

I would remind everyone, that it was not long ago (last August) when U.S. made a complete mess in Afghanistan, and now it is Russia who is the one making a mess, and sleepy Joe is beaming in pride. Situation changed in a matter of six months. Things that may look very clear now, may look very different 5 months from now. Putin rolled the dice, gambeled and in my opinion lost big time (even if he reduces Ukraine to ashes). Credit goes to Zelensky (who IMO signed his own death warrant with his heroism). Right now we are the one rolling the dice and keep getting double-sixes.

 

 

[cubsfan]

^^^ It's fun listening to you whine about Israel - a sliver of land surrounded by religious fanatics devoted to destroying them. So much for protecting yourself. Is it any wonder that the 1M or so Arabs that live

in Israel have no interest in leaving to live in the hellhole Arab nations around them?

 

Talk about re-writing history..

[etai]

1 minute ago, cubsfan said:

^^^ It's fun listening to you whine about Israel - a sliver of land surrounded by religious fanatics devoted to destroying them. So much for protecting yourself. Is it any wonder that the 1M or so Arabs that live

in Israel have no interest in leaving to live in the hellhole Arab nations around them?

 

Talk about re-writing history..

This is true.

As an Israeli... they do not have any interest whatsoever of living in other Arab countries.

They have a great quality of life here.