Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Rektsanwalt said:
that's a lot easier said than done and I understand it fully. The situation for the russian people needs to worsen a lot more for them to do anything meaningful in that regard
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Of course it is easier said than done, that is the whole point. The "easy way" for Ukraine would have been to lay down their guns and become a puppet state like Belarus. But they didn't, they are fighting for their freedom and f-ing earning it.

I have so far seen this war as Putin vs. Ukraine, not Russia vs Ukraine. In my eyes, Russians and Ukrainians are friends, colleagues and family. But if nothing substantial happens soon, I will be questioning that stance. Are they going to stand up for their friends and family? Or is this war actually Russia vs Ukraine?
 
At the risk of starting WWIII and ending all human life I wanted to spread this bit of gossip.

This former MI6 chief and associate of Tony Blair fields a question about whether the UK will be looking into clandestine ways to directly help Ukraine that will fall short of escalating broader armed conflict, and mentions MI6 and "cyber-capabilities".

He responds, "Its the sort of question I find hard to answer, and I hope you'll understand my reasons for that. It's important we don't allow Putin to frame this as the west trying to topple his regime, and some of the things you mention could come close to that."

 
esmufc07 said:
Interesting thread

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I obviously won't argue against her knowledge of Russia. But these analyses that simplify everything to the extreme and state things in absolutes always irk me.
For example she describes oligarchs and strongmen almost as if they were a single person and Putin is the only person who could ever be in charge for them.
It's similar to others, who state that the public will never make a difference, because of the oppressive police force.

I think reality is so complex with so many interconnected moving parts, that you can't really predict it in such a short text (or maybe at all). For example they must be playing the blame game internally, who knows what people will do when they have to fear that it will be them, who have to carry the weight for certain failures? Some generals must be absolutely livid, seeing the logistical failures and the loss of (Russian) life and equipment, as well as the Russian army's reputation in general. Some strategist must be livid that over night Russia made the rest of Europe rally around Nato and Germany arm itself / push to emancipate itself from Russian energy. The economic consequences of sanctions, combined with friends and family getting locked up will see public discontent grow over time. Someone will have to (indirectly) pay for this war and the sanctions, they will be pissed off.

Any of these factors can probably be explained away on its own, but who knows what happens when they combine with each other? For example she says herself that it will only be a matter of weeks, before the state can't pay its employees anymore. What would that mean for the effectiveness of the police state that is the reason why strong men won't desert Putin, according to her own words? How would that play into protests? How would these potential protests exert pressure on middle management? How would middle management deal with that pressure?
 
Eurotrash said:
It is time for the Russian people living in Russia to step up. Sure, the repercussions are scary, but that is still nothing compared to what the Ukrainians are going through. What kind of society do you want to live in? Get out and fight for it.
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To my surprise there were Russians publicly voiced their complaints on live TV shows and Youtube vids. I didn't know about Russia very much before this war. I thought they were still in an era where if you said something bad about the government, you or your family member will disappear. But most would rather shut up I reckon. It's easy to say this from the outside but if you live there you probably wouldn't take the risk.
 
UpWithRivers said:
This is what I dont get about these dictators. They are dumb as fk. The West tried this dictatorship and oligarchs sht - we just called it Kings, Queens, colonialism, elites, billionaires etc. We already figured it all out years ago. No point keeping slaves just pretend they are free and give them minimum wage. No point colonizing a country just loan them a sht load of cash they cant repay, move in your companies to build their infrastructure at ridiculous rates, move in your mining companies and plunder their natural resources, affect their politics either by straight out bribery or infiltrating politicians etc, make them westernized by sending them our movies and food etc. This whole dictatorship is so old school. They didnt need to bomb the sht out of Ukraine. They just needed to offer a better deal than the West for their resources.
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Spark said:
China is a step ahead of Russia with this. Issue with the last part is that Russia is unable to offer a better deal than the West and likely don’t want 3m Russian speakers on their direct border being exposed to supposed Western ideals (higher wages and democratic elections relative to the Russian system). Russia is inherently unequal and that suits the current power structure massively. Just massively unsustainable in the long term.
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I was thinking this earlier.

I'd imagine all "kingship" and elite "nobles" are started and led by a figurehead who is persuasive to both the close elite and the wider population. And any decent salesman or psychologist would tell you that persuasion is in using nuances in language to allow the listener to uncover the "truth" themselves. He must be doing this in Russian to Russians.

To start a movement with a locked in figurehead, that figurehead has to be eloquent in the different types of persuasion for both the "elite" level and at the "pleb" level, and when Putin did his switch between President and PM and back again, he declared himself to be, and was accepted as, the locked in figurehead.

You could say he was coronated as "King" for life, not by hailing him, but by not revolting enough when he usurped the throne.

So, if he got himself to "King" status, he must have had have that unique persuasion style for both the "elites" and the "plebs", in Russian, so we don't know to what degree he has his elites enthralled.

I think we have to stop looking at Russian as anything other that the Putinian Empire, a monarchy with supreme power.

I don't know the chain of command between him and the red button, but he's had time enough to position his most fanatical, zealot supporters into those positions.
 
Don't know if this remix of a Ukrainian folk song has been shared here. Amazing listen and all royalties go towards supporting Ukraine

 
do.ob said:
I obviously won't argue against her knowledge of Russia. But these analyses that simplify everything to the extreme and state things in absolutes always irk me.
For example she describes oligarchs and strongmen almost as if they were a single person and Putin is the only person who could ever be in charge for them.
It's similar to others, who state that the public will never make a difference, because of the oppressive police force.

I think reality is so complex with so many interconnected moving parts, that you can't really predict it in such a short text (or maybe at all). For example they must be playing the blame game internally, who knows what people will do when they have to fear that it will be them, who have to carry the weight for certain failures? Some generals must be absolutely livid, seeing the logistical failures and the loss of (Russian) life and equipment, as well as the Russian army's reputation in general. Some strategist must be livid that over night Russia made the rest of Europe rally around Nato and Germany arm itself / push to emancipate itself from Russian energy. The economic consequences of sanctions, combined with friends and family getting locked up will see public discontent grow over time. Someone will have to (indirectly) pay for this war and the sanctions, they will be pissed off.

Any of these factors can probably be explained away on its own, but who knows what happens when they combine with each other? For example she says herself that it will only be a matter of weeks, before the state can't pay its employees anymore. What would that mean for the effectiveness of the police state that is the reason why strong men won't desert Putin, according to her own words? How would that play into protests? How would these potential protests exert pressure on middle management? How would middle management deal with that pressure?
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Yeah I agree, the fact that she says they won't be able to pay the police or military as if that won't have any effect on Putin or his allies is a bit bizarre. The assumption that the elites control everything and that can never change no matter how extreme the social and economic circumstances get has been proved wrong time after time throughout history. Ok technology advances and insurgency might arguably be more difficult now but eventually if the people are poor and unhappy and continue to get moreso, eventually the people you rely on to enforce your authority will turn.
 
sglowrider said:
Do people use Tot browsers in Russia or just VPNs to bypass the authorities?
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Depends on your technical prowess & previous experience with technology. Most use VPN.
 
harms said:
I would imagine that his post suggests an earlier intervention by China.
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I think the main problem with this reasoning, is that while true that China is now immensely important when it comes to Russian economy, if Putin and his cabal are happy lightning up the world, then economy is not something they care about, thus Xi/China cannot do much about it.
 
hellhunter said:
Unconfirmed reports that missile came out of Transnistria
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I was struggling to work out how they would have otherwise reached there unless Russia managed to get a plane in closer, ditto with Ivano-Frankivsk on the first day. Surely Moldova have to be readying their small own army to attack should Transnistria enter the war. US SOS Blinken is currently in the country at the US Embassy.

Lviv airport, completely redeveloped for Euro 2012, will likely be in their sights soon. That will be emotional.

Edit:

Not sure it did come out of Transnistria though.

 
harms said:
I would imagine that his post suggests an earlier intervention by China.
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I wonder if China will not doing anything, until the Olympics had fully finished.

Then it could be a different story perhaps.
 
VorZakone said:
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He didn't really admit a mistake, it would be a mistake if they were looking at the same informations. The important quote is that the US only shared their informations the night before the attack.
 
Peter van der Gea said:
I was thinking this earlier.

I'd imagine all "kingship" and elite "nobles" are started and led by a figurehead who is persuasive to both the close elite and the wider population. And any decent salesman or psychologist would tell you that persuasion is in using nuances in language to allow the listener to uncover the "truth" themselves. He must be doing this in Russian to Russians.

To start a movement with a locked in figurehead, that figurehead has to be eloquent in the different types of persuasion for both the "elite" level and at the "pleb" level, and when Putin did his switch between President and PM and back again, he declared himself to be, and was accepted as, the locked in figurehead.

You could say he was coronated as "King" for life, not by hailing him, but by not revolting enough when he usurped the throne.

So, if he got himself to "King" status, he must have had have that unique persuasion style for both the "elites" and the "plebs", in Russian, so we don't know to what degree he has his elites enthralled.

I think we have to stop looking at Russian as anything other that the Putinian Empire, a monarchy with supreme power.

I don't know the chain of command between him and the red button, but he's had time enough to position his most fanatical, zealot supporters into those positions.
Click to expand...

Persuasive use of language obviously helps, but I'd imagine that most "kingships"/"chiefdoms" etc began when a one man saw that if he could band together under his direction a group of even a few other men, preferably big and physically strong men, then they could use physical force (or the threat of this) to take power over everyone else in the tribe/clan and declare themselves king/chief.

Putin (and all dictators) is this approach writ large: use the military, police, security apparatus to threaten/beat/imprison/kill all opponents.
 
The UK has a special brand of idiocy. Our extremists, of both left and right, are pathetic in comparison to those elsewhere.


 
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harms said:
Looking at the language on the map ("liberated cites", "special military operation" etc.) I would imagine that it was taken from some Russian site, so yeah, it's hardly reliable.
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That makes perfect sense coming from him. Dreher is a far right "intellectual" who got himself a several month trip to Budapest where he talked about how great Orban is and the white, Christian utopia that is Hungary. He spent no time investigating what Orban has actually done re: trying to rig elections, state management of the economy, etc. so he's the perfect useful idiot for Putin's propaganda.
 
JPRouve said:
He didn't really admit a mistake, it would be a mistake if they were looking at the same informations. The important quote is that the US only shared their informations the night before the attack.
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I don't believe that
 
For what its worth, Putin is a madman, if he's losing badly he might get nuclear.

Does it really matter what's the stipulation, or technicalities, or "We're not helping, just sending bats to hit you with", bottom line is that the NATO / US are sending in waves of guns shipments, and Sanction that actually hurts Putin. For him it's all the same in his eyes.

Like Tsun Tsu said, never forced an enemy into a no way out situation, always give them some little corridor to escape, then they'll only think about escaping and not fighting to the death.
 
rpitchfo said:
Everyone keeps talking about nuclear Armageddon like china is passively going to watch the end of the world...
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Right, if it really happens, nukes will be directed towards them too, wouldn't be surprised if both sides did it also.
 
Sky1981 said:
For what its worth, Putin is a madman, if he's losing badly he might get nuclear.

Does it really matter what's the stipulation, or technicalities, or "We're not helping, just sending bats to hit you with", bottom line is that the NATO / US are sending in waves of guns shipments, and Sanction that actually hurts Putin. For him it's all the same in his eyes.

Like Tsun Tsu said, never forced an enemy into a no way out situation, always give them some little corridor to escape, then they'll only think about escaping and not fighting to the death.
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He will not go nuclear. The thought that he will just destroy the entire planet and civilization including Russia itself because he screwed up is just unrealistic when he can put whatever spin he likes in front of his own country. That is much more likely. They’ve even stopped mentioning nukes for the last week because everyone knows that threat isn’t real at all.
 
Sarni said:
He will not go nuclear. The thought that he will just destroy the entire planet and civilization including Russia itself because he screwed up is just unrealistic when he can put whatever spin he likes in front of his own country. That is much more likely. They’ve even stopped mentioning nukes for the last week because everyone knows that threat isn’t real at all.
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You're obviously right, but you changed your tune quite a bit during this invasion :wenger:
 
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