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Topic: Tripe about Ukraine (Read 228795 times)

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #901
Rubbish Frenzie.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #902
Russia Ukraine incident: Duma 'to honour ship seizure troops'
The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament plans to give state awards to the border guards who fired on and seized three Ukrainian vessels and 24 sailors a week ago, Russian media say.
Mainly posting this for the neat map of the incident



Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #904
Independence decree presented to Ukrainian Orthodox bishop
Bartholomew I, considered first among equals in Orthodox patriarchy, announced the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has become the 15th independent Orthodox church. He argued Ukrainians “desired ecclesiastical independence” for centuries and never accepted that they were part of the Russian church.

[...]

Following Bartholomew I’s October decision for independence, the Russian church severed ties with Istanbul, the center of the Orthodox world.

“Instead of healing the schism, instead of uniting Orthodoxy, we got an even greater schism that exists solely for political reasons,” Archbishop Kliment, a spokesman for the Russia-affiliated church in Ukraine, said Sunday.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I, who was elected last month by Ukrainian Orthodox leaders to head the new church, will take the decree to Kiev, where it will be displayed Monday at the Sophia cathedral complex in downtown Kiev.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #905
NotPetya, an episode in the Crimea war.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KODpP29AHD4[/video]

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #906
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Former Russian spy takes ‘moral responsibility’ for downing of plane
A former colonel in Russia's FSB security service says he takes "moral responsibility" for the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, but insists that his men did not down the passenger jet.

Igor Girkin was leading Russia-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine when the passenger plane was shot down and crashed in the region on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

Girkin and three others have been charged in absentia by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
In my opinion it is criminal that EU refrained from going in to investigate when the airplane was downed. It could have put an end to the whole separatist war thing for once.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #907
The "separatist war" would not have ceased that easily at all. Ukraine had a terrible indictment on the Ukrainians who had very directly supported the SS in World war 2 . They also took up activity in that lot and even in modern times have had events to mark leaders lost supporting the SS, etc.  Many in the east of the country were well aware of wartime going ons and brought about the distancing of those "rebel provinces." Strong Russian backgrounds existed in the south hence the plebiscite and connecting to the Russian Federation. Many of those violent politicians who marched in the capital were hardly democratic nor considerate for the east or south. Indeed they had a neo-Nazi style that increased issues in the 2 provinces I mention.
"Quit you like men:be strong"


Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #909
Another fine performance by Joaquin Phoenix.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #910
A comedian as President is probably quite appropriate for such a country as that. :faint:
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #911
Lukashenko calls the war in Ukraine a war (a big deal, since according to Putin there is only a "special operation") and wants a seat in negotiating ceasefire https://www.hallandsposten.se/nyheter/v%C3%A4rlden/lukasjenko-kallar-kriget-ett-krig-1.69629223

I think this only gets Lukashenko further marginalised. He should be careful, if he does not want to suddenly vanish from public view.

By the way, our older exchanges are an interesting read https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=194.msg25355#msg25355

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #912
Moscow sank but the crew is safe. Without their flagship, Russia's Black Sea fleet does not really need to be in Sevastopol. They can move to the nearby backyard of Putin's palace.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #913
Dave Bowman had a serious (if rambling) take on the sinking...

And I agree, the previous discussion does indeed make good reading! Thanks for the link.
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
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Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #914
Le Pen vows to keep Russia close to prevent an alliance with China

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said today that, if she were president, she would engage with Russia after the war in Ukraine to ensure Moscow doesn’t create an alliance with Beijing.
Very clever. About as clever as John Mearsheimer (a lecture just after Crimea).

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4[/video]

John Mearsheimer, too, lists all the benefits of being friends with Russia and, by implication, he suggests that Ukraine should accede to some finlandised role. By the end of his lecture, he clarifies that such arrangement is necessary because the real threat is China and it's better to smash China with Russia on "our" side.

However, I am cleverer. By now it should be clear that by the force of Russia's own internal character, namely by virtue of it being *Putin's Russia*, which is the same as Ivan the Terrible's and Catherine the Great's Russia, there can never be any alliance between West and Russia, certainly not on West's terms.

West cannot play the fool as if being potential friends with both Ukraine and Russia at the same time. For Ivan the Terrible, there cannot be any Ukraine. For Catherine the Great, there cannot be any Poland either. For Putin, there cannot be a finlandised Ukraine. There can be either a belarussified Ukraine or no Ukraine.

So, when we accept that Russia is the way it is and this will not change, the West has the following options:
A. Preserve Russia (and sacrifice Ukraine)
B. Preserve Ukraine (and crush Russia)

Whoever thinks that they can negotiate with Putin to have an independent Ukraine at Russia's border is deluded.

There is a good opportunity for B, because right now Russia is completely alone, bogged down in Ukraine and helpless (even Kazakhstan declined military support to Russia). But I think that the West, being led by corruptible puppets, will eventually lean towards A.

Both morally and geopolitically, B would be the correct thing to do. Save Ukraine. Let Russia collapse and fall apart. Crush Russia and start picking it up piece by piece. This would also send the signal to China: Don't touch Taiwan. And China would think twice, because see what happened to Russia when Russia tried to take Ukraine. Anyway, China is not even very eager to take Taiwan. China has never, as in never ever, made any expeditions outside own borders. Between China and Russia, the aggressor to neighbours has always been Russia, starting with Tiraspol. Now is the opportunity to smash all the little miniwar zones that Russia has been artificially fomenting all these decades. Those who think that China is the "real threat" have little clue what a threat looks like.

However, after this first wave of solidarity wanes, the West will more likely start working towards A, like e.g. Macron has tirelessly been doing. This due to FUD of what sort of entities might emerge from a shattered Russia. And also for commercial reasons, since between Ukraine and Russia, Russia is the bigger market - and an even bigger market after Ukraine is fed to Russia. Thus China will receive the signal: Western "values" are - as the more perceptible already noticed - just hot air, the West is ultimately led by market interests, and Taiwan (and more) is available for the right price. And this way the West will end up with two real threats.


[Le Pen's] National Rally party — formerly the National Front — is also strongly linked to Russia. Between 2014 and 2015, the National Front received €11 million of Russian financing, according to French investigative outlet Mediapart.
No comment.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #915
The desirable long-term (now very long term) outcome for the relationship with Russia is a friendly one. There is no reason why that shouldn't happen eventually. It would be beneficial for Russia, and it would be beneficial for Europe.

There are factors in Russia that favours a destructive rather than constructive role, but these are not permanent. Before Russia had this role of being irretrievably bad, Germany did. And before Germany France.  That said, while that should be the long-term outcome, that is not the state of Russia we have today.

While I certainly don't agree with Mearsheimer, Finlandization in itself can often be the best available option. Your country wouldn't have full sovereignty, as the neighbour gorilla would limit the scope of your foreign policy. However that is a fairly modest price to pay, compared with the alternatives: mostly vassal state or being a forward base of enemy-gorilla-of-neighbourhood-gorilla. Both parties would have to know the constraints. The finlandized country must know how not to upset the gorilla, and invest enough in defence not to make an attack worthwhile. The gorilla must know his limits as well. Finlandization can be a cheap way to use your power for political gain, but too much interference and the finlandized country would look for other alternatives.

Finlandization worked fine for Finland during the Cold War. Of course it was never the preferred alternative, but Finland could do about as well as neutral Sweden or NATO Norway. Could finlandization been a path for Ukraine. Possibly, but not with Putin. It is pretty much the state of Kazakhstan. 

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #916
The desirable long-term (now very long term) outcome for the relationship with Russia is a friendly one. There is no reason why that shouldn't happen eventually. It would be beneficial for Russia, and it would be beneficial for Europe.
What if Russia has a completely incompatible idea about "beneficial"? And how long term is long term according to you? I say it is as long into the future as Russia's history hitherto, i.e. basically forever. Russia will never change to something that can partner with the West.

You may think that I am going overboard when I attribute personality traits to countries and nations. I understand that it is not fashionable or politically correct these days, it can be perceived racist and xenophobic and whatever. However, as long as it pragmatically works to provide substantial insights, there is no reason to give up the thinking that countries and nations have a more or less permanent character like personalities do.

The character of Russia has been the same all along from the beginnings of Muscovite Russia: Centralising and centralised, expansive colonial. Russia views certain lands as "ours" and will never back down from trying to acquire them. For Ivan the Terrible, the lands include everything from Arkhangelsk to Constantinople (Moscow being the Third Rome, superseding the Second Rome). For Catherine the Great, the lands also include everything from Poland to Alaska (or California, why not).

Putin is explicitly after everything ex-USSR, but silently his ambitions involve everything and everyone anti-West/USA and non-aligned. Luckily Putin is not going to get his wishes because he does not have as good advisors and military/diplomatic strategists around him as Catherine and Ivan had. His entourage is just lackeys enjoying some loot and spoils. To his misfortune, there's not a single statesman.

The moment for Putin to get the entire Ukraine was 2014, when there was no government in Ukraine and the West was stunned to incapacity. Putin got scared due to the Malaysian airplane incident, which prompted the West to threaten to step in, even though they eventually did not. Over the following years, Crimea and the Donbass "republics" started to create bad blood between Ukraine and Russia and they provided Ukraine with a good training ground for the inevitable upcoming hot conflict, the war which is at hand now.

Russia has already lost this war. The logic of the events per se dictates that Russia must be now over and out, which is good for every neighbouring country, and there would be some potential to create a new country with a different character that perhaps could partner with the West. But this is not what the West wants. The West does not give a rat's ass about what's best for Russia's neighbours. Probably the number one concern of the West is nukes. Nuke cowardice dictates that Putin must be able to preserve some dignity (i.e. the already occupied parts of Ukraine) and Russia as it currently is must be held on artificial respiration. The second concern of the West is to keep laundromats going, despite all the consequent security problems (spy activity, poisonings with polonium and novichok, cyberattacks and fake news, oligarchs screwing up the real estate market in London and luxury resorts etc.). Other concerns, such as integrity and safety of Russia's neighbours, are far down on the list.

Russia's character is not only embodied by Putin. The conflict zones in Tiraspol and Abkhazia emerged under Yeltsin. Also the first Chechen war was waged during Yeltsin. Putin's profile took shape in the second Chechen war and has remained unchanged ever since, which is unsurprising because the profile is fully in line with the character of Russia as a country. Had it been any different, Putin would have been replaced with someone else who'd fit the character. The point is that this behaviour has been Russia's character all along, throughout USSR, throughout Czarist Russia. It's not too different from the old Muscovia with its history of absorbing neighbouring principalities, centralising the power to the Czar of "all Russias" and its doctrine of Third Rome.

If you really want a partner for the Western Europe, you should be ready to erase this Russia and let something else take its place. Otherwise you are only going to get what you already have - a partner in the crime of laundering Russia's natural resources. And this brings me to the character of the Western European countries, but I'm not going to elaborate on that today.

Where does China stand in the grand scheme of things? China is observing and learning from the relations of Russia and the West. Other than that, China does not worry about Russia at all. China would let Russia peacefully collapse and probably not even pick up any spoils, except that at least Mongolia and Kazakhstan would need to orient (i.e. get finlandised) towards China. Be there Russia or no Russia, China has absolutely its own independent relations with the West, i.e. the lessons that China draws from Russia-West relations are primarily lessons about the character of the West, not about Russia. Russia's character is easy-peasy to understand, there's really nothing to learn or study. Only the wilfully blind and incorrigibly corrupt do not see it.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #917
Russia has already lost this war. The logic of the events per se dictates that Russia must be now over and out, which is good for every neighbouring country, and there would be some potential to create a new country with a different character that perhaps could partner with the West.
Is that in any way a realistic expectation?
Your analysis is convincing and compelling. And -I hope- correct, especially regarding the outcome of this "current conflict"...
If you really want a partner for the Western Europe, you should be ready to erase this Russia and let something else take its place. Otherwise you are only going to get what you already have - a partner in the crime of laundering Russia's natural resources. And this brings me to the character of the Western European countries
Who, exactly, should be ready?
but I'm not going to elaborate on that today.
I await your continuation: You've hit your stride, as a commentator! Please, when you find time and energy, continue.
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
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Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #918
If you really want a partner for the Western Europe, you should be ready to erase this Russia and let something else take its place. Otherwise you are only going to get what you already have - a partner in the crime of laundering Russia's natural resources. And this brings me to the character of the Western European countries
Who, exactly, should be ready?
When we are talking about erasing Russia, then everybody should be ready. And everybody should be determined. There is no room for detractors and cowards and traitors. Which means it is not going to happen. There's way too much Putin-enabling going on in Nato and the EU.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #919
Here too, I'm afraid... Good morning to you; and good night, to me... :)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #920
You may think that I am going overboard when I attribute personality traits to countries and nations. I understand that it is not fashionable or politically correct these days, it can be perceived racist and xenophobic and whatever. However, as long as it pragmatically works to provide substantial insights, there is no reason to give up the thinking that countries and nations have a more or less permanent character like personalities do.

The character of Russia has been the same all along from the beginnings of Muscovite Russia: Centralising and centralised, expansive colonial. Russia views certain lands as "ours" and will never back down from trying to acquire them. For Ivan the Terrible, the lands include everything from Arkhangelsk to Constantinople (Moscow being the Third Rome, superseding the Second Rome). For Catherine the Great, the lands also include everything from Poland to Alaska (or California, why not).

No, historicism has a dismal track record, except for being useful in war propaganda. So in WWI the Germans were "Huns", a remarkably unhistorical historicism, but fidelity or clarity has never been the goal, but to get an idea across. There is an echo in the Muscovite invaders being described as Mongolians by the Ukrainians. That has slightly more truth to it, but on the whole about as accurate as the German Huns.

There are many threads, ideas and groups that make up a nation. Putting it down to Putin is obviously a gross oversimplification, though in this case the responsibility for the invasion is down to one man, it was teamwork that led up to it. Putin had reason to believe that his actions would be popular, and they probably would have if they were successful. Success has turned out to be wildly more popular than failure, not only in Russia, but in every other country, in the past as in the present.

Russia is at the end of an empire. This is a period where empires often did stupid things because the leaders' upbringing and mindset is at odds not just with the current situation, but even more so with future developments. It will be up to a new generation to reassess.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #921
No, historicism has a dismal track record, except for being useful in war propaganda.
There's a right way to do historicism, and also the wrong way. Your way, which is the dismissal of historicism, is wrong.

War propaganda is not even wrong. War propaganda is deliberately deceptive. For internal purposes, the point of war propaganda is to foment biases, to motivate towards a given action. It does not even pretend towards any correct analysis of the past or a grounded prediction of future events.

The claim of analytical historicism is that there are lessons in history and there's a way to learn from them. If this claim were insubstantial, then history would not be a science. But history is science and historians are scientists.

A historicist or historicising approach is particularly relevant wrt Putin, who is deeply into history himself. See his takes on WWII, collapse of USSR, and relations of Russians and Ukrainians. There were those who were able to see Russia's ambitions to reclaim at least USSR borders (which was not hard to see as the ambitions were spelled out clearly enough), and there were those who were not able to see the relevant accumulating signs. The latter were wrong. They failed to see what was clearly there. Now the question is whether they haughtily continue in their wrong-headedness or are able to correct themselves and prevent further disasters.

The approach is also relevant to Russians as a people insofar as they believe in a specific destiny or historical mission of their country. The approach equally applies with regard to Americans, who also believe that their country has a unique messianic mission.

A historicising approach is also relevant wrt Germany. When (West) Germany became again a force to be reckoned with, the earlier Drang nach Osten was reformulated into Ostpolitik, which aims to charm Russia with the benefits of mutual trade. The policy "worked" for half a century because the trade - gas to the West and money to the East - was ever increasing. But this policy has now unambiguously failed - if the aim was to pacify Russia and if Ukraine matters, which was the aim rhetorically but not quite truly, I think. More obviously, Germany has ignored the corruptive effect that goes along with any lucrative business - corruptive to both Russia and Germany. Germany's historical instinct is to continue with the same activity still in some form, because purely in terms of the policy there was no failure - the trade was always following an upward trend and this by itself qualified as Russia having been charmed. Ukraine does not necessarily have to get in the way of the sweet juicy trade.

Russia and USA absolutely follow their historical instincts and are thus quite predictable countries in terms of historicism. Germany lost its aggressiveness in the unconditional surrender of WWII, but not the tendency to sideline everyone who stands between Germany's Russia-relations. And when the tendency is pointed out to Germany, the aggressiveness may easily return. Special relations with Russia are just too important to Germany and, historically, when Germany and Russia are in a special agreement, bad things happen to everyone in between.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44[/video]

 

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #922
The current issue of The Spectator has quite a few clear-headed columns concerning Ukraine, Putin, Europe and U.S, policy, and more... Let me know if you want snippets and links. (I'm reading the print edition now.) :)
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
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Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #923
[Zelensky:] “It’s inappropriate for world leaders to suggest I should make certain sacrifices in terms of Ukraine’s sovereignty, in order to allow Putin to save face.”

[...]

“Emmanuel (Macron) should refrain from making certain diplomatic gestures; I welcomed his (recent) re-election,” the President said.
So, it is not hidden what Macron was doing. There are in fact a bunch of (geo)political commentators and advisors who still see finlandisation for Ukraine as a good option. It would be good for Putin, yes. And it is supergood for Putin to have someone like Macron carrying the message of what's good for Putin to Zelensky, so as to increase pressure on Ukraine from both sides.

It's how it's been for a long while. Schröder and Merkel too ordered eastern EU members around with what was suggested by Putin. The EU will likely not be able to unrot its head.

Re: Tripe about Ukraine

Reply #924
likely not be able to unrot its head.
(While not an Americanism, and arguably not even English: The coinage is both apt and cogent!  :up:  But might I suggest "un-rot"?)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)