Current Affairs Ukraine

[Deleted member 48881]

I’m sure you would

I would if I can, unfortunately it is more than 1000KMs for me. Poles should fancy

 

[Kev The Rat]

True, but it's always the ordinary person who suffers.

Having said that, cutting off swift should have been done as soon as one soldier put a toe inside Ukraine and it would be in place now and its effects already felt.

No idea how this resolves itself now. Russia needs a way out with a way back into normal relations without acrimony that festers and makes this situation occur again. So far I can only think of a coup and a bullet in Putin's forehead by Russian hand as the way out.

Exactly this is a conflict between 2 states, not some terrorist organisation.

My worry is the rhetoric - on both sides - has escalated this beyond what should be a diplomatic solution.

I spoke yesterday about the likelihood of a coup and Putins removal - my conclusion is that it is virtually nil, once you examine the power structures in Russia over which he has total control.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

"Regrettable for the masses" is a rather throwaway phrase that minimises the inhumanity of the decision in my view.

It is going to be punishing ordinary people for doing nothing wrong. A shameful act, and in time will be viewed as a very very negative in my view.

How likely do you think it is that it may work to Putin's advantage? "Look at what they ('The West') have done to us, you, the Russian people?"

A great deal has been said in here about propaganda - I guess much depends on how pro-Putin everyday Russians are and how effective the stranglehold on media and propaganda is. There's been focus on protests in Russia, but how representative or widely reported they are remains open to question.

Having said all that hunger and desperation are powerful forces.

 

[tsubaki]

if that source-spouting harris ends up being a casualty of this I will be delighted

 

[Martin Alvito]

An economic Dresden.

This is where I refer you to Machiavelli's argument that a prince cannot afford conventional morality, because doing things that way causes more human suffering than it prevents. It is a very persuasive qualitative analysis, all the more so for predating the scientific method and modern scholarship.

This stuff is fundamentally dirty, because life is dirty. Our governments are run by people that, by and large, did dirty things to get there. Short of us all rising up collectively as one and saying, "No more!", which is hard to arrange, things will continue on in this manner.

If there's a silver lining to social media, it's that it makes something like that easier in addition to making things like the Capitol riot easier.

 

[Kev The Rat]

How likely do you think it is that it may work to Putin's advantage? "Look at what they ('The West') have done to us, you, the Russian people?"

A great deal has been said in here about propaganda - I guess much depends on how pro-Putin everyday Russians are and how effective the stranglehold on media and propaganda is. There's been focus on protests in Russia, but how representative or widely reported they are remains open to question.

Having said all that hunger and desperation are powerful forces.

Let’s put it this way.

You cannot post an anti war message on social media in Russia because if the FSB find out about you will be arrested.

The protestors in Moscow and and St Petersburg were arrested in their thousands the day after, most of these will not see the light of day for possibly years.

A leading anti corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny is currently serving years of hard labour in some far flung place, after he was the victim of a failed poisoning by a Putin. Putin himself refuses to refer to Navalny by name.

The danger is we apply our own vision of what society is to Russia, and in doing so, completely misunderstand it.

This is not a country where you want to be sticking your head above the parapet if you are even an ordinary citizen.

 

[Kev The Rat]

This is where I refer you to Machiavelli's argument that a prince cannot afford conventional morality, because doing things that way causes more human suffering than it prevents. It is a very persuasive qualitative analysis, all the more so for predating the scientific method and modern scholarship.

This stuff is fundamentally dirty, because life is dirty. Our governments are run by people that, by and large, did dirty things to get there. Short of us all rising up collectively as one and saying, "No more!", which is hard to arrange, things will continue on in this manner.

If there's a silver lining to social media, it's that it makes something like that easier in addition to making things like the Capitol riot easier.

Not in Russia it doesn’t. It’s actually made it easier for the government to clamp down on political debate.

 

[maccavennie]

Any news on how things went overnight?

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

We're going to see if these sanctions work. If they're angry enough to cut off the gas, we'll know....

I hope all these weapon deliveries are not just seized by the Russians. As I understand it, Kiev is cut off of the West...

 

[Martin Alvito]

The danger is we apply our own vision of what society is to Russia, and in doing so, completely misunderstand it.

This is a point which is missed time and again, especially by the Western media who bring their own biases to the table when providing coverage. The Americans playing the spy game or drilling for war against the Soviets had enormous respect for them, because they studied them closely enough to understand them. Most observers just project us onto them, and don't understand the hows or the whys behind the differences.

There's also the problem of the audience changing when something like this becomes a massive story. I largely backed out of the thread for a few days, other than the odd brief observation. This was because the thread blew up. It was as though we had all been following a pre-Netflix TV show since the beginning and having a great discussion, and then the show got really popular and a bunch of people came flocking in. They made a bunch of uninformed observations due to lack of context, then largely changed channels to the next big thing.

Today, most people would binge watch a bunch of the show before opening their mouths, but they don't go get that context with news for some reason.

The newcomers that stayed tended to be the types that listen, and learn, before leaping. Welcome. Enjoy your stay, insofar as that is possible, under the circumstances. Post loads.

 

[tsubaki]

Let’s put it this way.

You cannot post an anti war message on social media in Russia because if the FSB find out about you will be arrested.

The protestors in Moscow and and St Petersburg were arrested in their thousands the day after, most of these will not see the light of day for possibly years.

A leading anti corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny is currently serving years of hard labour in some far flung place, after he was the victim of a failed poisoning by a Putin.

The danger is we apply our own vision of what society is to Russia, and in doing so, completely misunderstand it.

This is not a country where you want to be sticking your head above the parapet if you are even an ordinary citizen.

TBF I am not sure that is true - it is certainly what successive Tsarist / Soviet / Russian governments think is true, but the lesson from history over there is that when you criminalize / suppress legitimate protest to such an extent that they are stifled it often results in a buildup of pressure, not people giving up whatever they were concerned about and blithely accepting it.

I mean the Tsarist state was overthrown by protest, the Soviets and their satellites were overthrown by protests, pro-Russian governments in Ukraine have twice been removed by protests and its not beyond the realms of possibility that these protests could remove Putin, too.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Not in Russia it doesn’t. It’s actually made it easier for the government to clamp down on political debate.

Debatable. Facilitating political discourse in a public way facilitates cracking down, due to the blabbermouths that can't stay off social media.

It follows that the solution is to get rid of the blabbermouths, and now there's a way for the dissidents to identify them and plug some of the security leaks.

In the near term, you are undoubtedly correct. Whether that holds in the long term remains to be seen.

 

[Kev The Rat]

Debatable. Facilitating political discourse in a public way facilitates cracking down, due to the blabbermouths that can't stay off social media.

It follows that the solution is to get rid of the blabbermouths, and now there's a way for the dissidents to identify them and plug some of the security leaks.

In the near term, you are undoubtedly correct. Whether that holds in the long term remains to be seen.

Yes I meant in the near term.

In the longer term it could be used in dissident favour.

 

[cooperman]

TBF I am not sure that is true - it is certainly what successive Tsarist / Soviet / Russian governments think is true, but the lesson from history over there is that when you criminalize / suppress legitimate protest to such an extent that they are stifled it often results in a buildup of pressure, not people giving up whatever they were concerned about and blithely accepting it.

I mean the Tsarist state was overthrown by protest, the Soviets and their satellites were overthrown by protests, pro-Russian governments in Ukraine have twice been removed by protests and its not beyond the realms of possibility that these protests could remove Putin, too.

Yes. A general strike by the people managed to overthrow the hard liners within the USSR.

 

[Kev The Rat]

TBF I am not sure that is true - it is certainly what successive Tsarist / Soviet / Russian governments think is true, but the lesson from history over there is that when you criminalize / suppress legitimate protest to such an extent that they are stifled it often results in a buildup of pressure, not people giving up whatever they were concerned about and blithely accepting it.

I mean the Tsarist state was overthrown by protest, the Soviets and their satellites were overthrown by protests, pro-Russian governments in Ukraine have twice been removed by protests and its not beyond the realms of possibility that these protests could remove Putin, too.

As some of you have probably guessed I have connections in Russia, not all of whom support the war and I’ve been told that the situation is very extreme there, Putin retains full control and the idea that it’s moving towards a near term change is implausible.

It’s now akin to North Korea in terms of freedom of speech/association.

One of the main reasons that the Soviet Union collapsed was economic - while sanctions may bite it will take years to bring Russia to its knees - we may even end up taking ourselves down with it.