Really the only place the ultra pro Putin press could go is “we are victorious if Ukrainian civilians are suffering” because that is literally the only objective Putin can actually achieve here. They know they can’t beat the Ukrainian armed forces, not in any decisive way, but what they can do is kill civilians and brutalise the population
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
I covered the intent, see paragraph 4 of my post (not counting the quote) that's literally the casus belli.
That is 110% the intent. To destroy Ukraine as a people, to return them to being plain ol Russians, because Ukrainians are a myth that must be destroyed.
So clearly there's something else missing for some people and I'm really curious as to what
This guy, already posted several times in earlier threads, is summarizing some stuff:
THREAD: Russian state-owned propaganda outlet RIA published the new programmatic article with the title "What Russia must do with Ukraine". The article reveals a detailed plan for a genocide, starting from full elimination of Ukrainian state. Details below.
1) it calls almost every Ukrainian a Nazi who deserves death. "Nazis who took weapons, must be killed in numbers as much as possible... Not just the elites, the most of the people are guilty, they are passive Nazis, Nazi enablers. They supported these elites and must be punished"
2) It foresees tyrannic approach to culture. "Further denacification of the mass of the population is to be reached through ideological repression (oppression) of Nazi ideas and through harsh censorship: not only in politics, but in culture and education areas".
3) it foresees economic and political destruction of Ukraine: "Ukraine must pay for its guilt towards Russia. It must be treated as an enemy, and therefore may develop only in dependency to Russia. No "Marshall plan" may happen. No "neutrality" both ideological or practical".
4) A tyrannical future emerges: "Personnel providing denazification in new denazified republics (plural! - Sumlenny) cannot act on another way but only with direct military-police and management support from Russia. Denazification must be a Deukrainisation".
5) Ukraine is the enemy: "The history has proven: Ukraine may not exist as a national state. Any attempt to create it leads to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construct... De-banderisation is not enough... Denazification of Ukraine must be De-Europeazation of it".
6) Deliberate targeting of civilians: "The Bandera-elites must be liquidated, they cannot be re-educated. The social "swamp" who supported them must experience terror of war and learn the lesson, and pay for its guilt".
That's definitely a call for genocide if ever there was one, crikey
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
I like how after spending hours debating whether or not this was actually genocide with folks Russian media pretty much screamed “WHOO LET’S GET OUR GENOCIDE ON!!!”
Entirely because we can stop giving Putin the benefit of the doubt and engaging in mental gymnastics over specific terminology.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
I like how after spending hours debating whether or not this was actually genocide with folks Russian media pretty much screamed “WHOO LET’S GET OUR GENOCIDE ON!!!”
Entirely because we can stop giving Putin the benefit of the doubt and engaging in mental gymnastics over specific terminology.
I like your optimism.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
RIA is part of the media group Rossiya Segodnya, which is headed by the Putin appointed Dmitry Kiselyov,
I think maybe the best you could say is that this op-ed might not be where the Russian government is currently, but I'll bet a fat stack of cash that it where their policy is going, and likely very quickly too. More likely is that this article is there to rile up the domestic audience and get them willing to dismiss any negative news about Ukraine (either as Western lies, or necessary steps because NAZIS) and also foster acceptance of and resentment to the West for any and all sanctions, because again, NAZIs.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
I like how after spending hours debating whether or not this was actually genocide with folks Russian media pretty much screamed “WHOO LET’S GET OUR GENOCIDE ON!!!”
Entirely because we can stop giving Putin the benefit of the doubt and engaging in mental gymnastics over specific terminology.
I like your optimism.
At this point I’m ready to just straight up mash the report button for them the same way I would for some theorizing that 6 million Jews are just playing a -really long game of hide and go seek- and as such it’s we can’t just go impugning the reputation of a certain Austrian painter.
I don't really have anything constructive to add after the last couple of pages other than... fuck.
And also I guess, I understand why sometimes certain people (you know who you are) might feel the need to be contrarians, or to play devil's advocate, or to wait until further evidence appears before picking a "side", but this is not one of those times. This is one of those rare cases where, if you're actually paying attention, things are actually pretty fucking black-and-white.
And also, and I cannot stress this enough, the devil doesn't need a fucking advocate.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I think maybe the best you could say is that this op-ed might not be where the Russian government is currently, but I'll bet a fat stack of cash that it where their policy is going, and likely very quickly too. More likely is that this article is there to rile up the domestic audience and get them willing to dismiss any negative news about Ukraine (either as Western lies, or necessary steps because NAZIS) and also foster acceptance of and resentment to the West for any and all sanctions, because again, NAZIs.
Yes, the propaganda machine is running full speed and nobody has any idea how to stop it now. After heating up support "to destroy Nazis" how do you claim any victory when Ukraine still exists? Suddenly tell "well, there are no Nazis in whatever territory Ukraine still holds" ? So guess current idea is to deny its existence as a state, so you can claim "return of your rightful territory as victory" and continue to block and deny everything about "illegitimate" Western Ukraine. Then Putin can try Part 2 in a few years down the road.
That being said - this is indeed just another piece by propagandist rather then policy maker. Not the worst I've seen, which says lot about state of Russian media tbh
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Media has been playing up divide into "prosecuted" Eastern Ukraine and "banderan" Werstern Ukraine, I do not even want to guess where this was heading before offensive was stopped
The general take right before the invasion here was a lot of "An invasion seems unlikely, because the russians don't seem to have prepared for an invasion"
particularly focused on the fact that they hadn't started priming the russian populace for an invasion - essentially, an essential part of preparation would be to publish stuff like "what russia must do with ukraine" before they do it. A lot of the surprise wasn't simply due to our naiveté, it was looking at the preparations, both political and military preparations, and concluding that Russia wasn't properly preparing for an invasion.
Which with hindsight does seem to have been the case. The unexpected part was that the russian government didn't see that.
My impression from the attack towards Kyiv, especially with the airborne troops seizing the airport, is that it was supposed to overwhelm and take the city quickly to capture or paralyze ukrainian leadership.
One aspect: the forces advancing towards Kyiv including so much OMON and similar - more militarized riot police than actual military units - seems to me to be less about gathering every warm body that they could, and more that the plan wasn't to have to fight their way into the city, it was to go in and take control, and they were there to keep control of the city after the fact. That's exactly the kind of task they are meant for.
Quick aside: I found this analysis of russian logistics fascinating especially since it's from november 2021, more about a hypothetical quick attack on the baltic states - since it's not looking at events now and drawing conclusions from that. Instead how the invasion went seems to be according to predictions made by it.
The TL;DR of it is that it is looking at a situation where the russians aim to very quickly take control of all or a large part of a Baltic State, before NATO reinforcements arrive, leaving a fait accompli situation where the NATO response would be a counterinvasion rather than defending - and if the russian armed forces had the capability to execute such a plan
with the main point being: No, they don't. Their logistics are heavily based on railways, and are deficient in trucks, so they have limited ability to supply forces advancing beyond a railhead.
The hypothetical plan in this - and, seemingly, the actual plan for Kyiv - relies on overwhelming force applied quickly. If you don't have enough logistics capability, you can either advance quickly with a much smaller force, leaving it unable to overwhelm the enemy, or go more slowly with a sufficient force, which means the defenders get to mobilize and establish defensive lines. Either will ruin the plan.
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
And also...
45k isn't enough for a genocide. 45k is a "moderately hot but over pretty quick" war's death toll. A nice quick Gulf War sorta war.
If you wanna make the argument for genocide - or even just mass killings as strategy - there's waaaaay better arguments to make. There's a good reason nobody outside of twitter is bothering to talk about a few thousand body bags in Russian storage. There's no there there. It's conspiracy-like thinking, trying to take all the data points on a board and tie them all together into a singular reason.
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Man, remember back in ancient history, a week ago, when people were posting in here that maaaaaybe the Ukrainians might kinda sorta hafta let the Russians just keep that big chunk of south eastern Ukraine in order to reduce the loss of life?
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
Except we’re being told by multiple sources that the Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop.
I mean, sure, maybe they ordered bodybags and forgot to tell their units to actually use them.
Man, remember back in ancient history, a week ago, when people were posting in here that maaaaaybe the Ukrainians might kinda sorta hafta let the Russians just keep that big chunk of south eastern Ukraine in order to reduce the loss of life?
Not so much now I guess.
I'm still not super optimistic about that.
I've been worriedly pessimistic this whole time, because, well: all we get is about russian forces and next to nothing about the ukranians.
Like, I knew the russian advance towards Kyiv had stalled, and got to know more about russian military tyre maintenance than I ever thought I would, but I never stopped remembering that I have no idea how desperate the situation may have been on the Ukranian side. If the russians manage to get their slow logistics going again, could they push in, or are the Ukranian positions so strong that the russians have no real hope of continuing to push? AAAAH
While I am now slowly starting to actually believe that Kyiv's not going to fall I'll not be remotely certain that Ukraine can push Russia out entirely until it starts happening. And their grip on the east and southeast seems to be much greater than it was in the north.
Gah, the uncertainty is awful.
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited April 2022
If Ukraine gets utterly solid security guarantees that makes another invasion prohibitively dangerous for Russia, and zero demilitarization clauses (save for something like "No artillery or missiles stationed where they can reach Russian territory") in exchange for losing Donbas and avoiding that war of attrition, that's likely good enough. Germany and Europe would not stop cutting off Russian oil or gas over time and many sanctions would remain in place, while the rest of Ukraine would be turned into a porcupine. Any Ukrainians in Donbas would be free to leave of course.
Yes it would suck for Ukraine, but it definitely would be more dissatisfying for Russia who almost went all-in on this. They would have no "easy targets" left in Europe and their main cash sources are going to disappear over time. Look at where their gas and oil extraction sites and pipelines are going - they wouldn't be able to turn towards China without significant expenditures.
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
Except we’re being told by multiple sources that the Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop.
I mean, sure, maybe they ordered bodybags and forgot to tell their units to actually use them.
That's misunderstanding the sources. "The Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop" may be true in certain instances, but we've got more than enough testimony from Belarusian funeral homes (where a lot of the war dead are getting stored before returning home) and from Russian funeral announcements to know that many Russian dead are, indeed, getting transported.
There's a difference between something happening and that being the official policy. Lots of countries prefer not to leave their war dead if they can help it, but if conditions on the ground get hot enough - or logistical support gets bad enough - war dead will inevitably be left behind, at least in the short term.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
Except we’re being told by multiple sources that the Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop.
I mean, sure, maybe they ordered bodybags and forgot to tell their units to actually use them.
The orderly retreat is a concept that is universally a lot harder to do in practice than in planning.
But with less levity: Russians leaving dead soldiers behind means the body bags were not intended for them means that the body bags is hard evidence that genocide was being planned is absolutely terrible logic.
conclusions cannot be drawn from that. That is ridiculous.
There is a good reason that no-one is reporting about these things - and the thing about army specifications for the construction of a mass grave - except Twitter.
Actual journalistic sources are looking at the actual evidence that does point towards possible genocide. Not this nonsense.
Russia literally cannot afford to do genocide. This isn't a Nazi Germany scenario where Hitler can claim his booming population needs more land. (and even then, they never ever got close to settling enough people in the occupied lands) Russia, population wise is declining, and even with those resources that Ukraine has, Russia can't afford to rebuild, and make good use of it, if they continue down their war crime path.
This is not an argument that genocide isn't happening. This is just another example of Putin and his cronies shooting themselves in the foot.
There is still matter of Russian economy and tech sector. All current prognosis point towards no more then a couple of month before total collapse. With Russia relaxing its position in talks it seems saner heads did manage to make Putin have second thoughts. As such I do not expect full collapse of Ukrainian state, just the question how much land Russia will manage to gran before war of attrition wears it down.
P.S. There are regular think pieces on news how Poland is intending to invade Western Ukraine or make it its satellite. Which supports the "push to grab as much land in the East and South as you can and freeze the conflict" so at least some sanctions may stop
There is still matter of Russian economy and tech sector. All current prognosis point towards no more then a couple of month before total collapse. With Russia relaxing its position in talks it seems saner heads did manage to make Putin have second thoughts. As such I do not expect full collapse of Ukrainian state, just the question how much land Russia will manage to gran before war of attrition wears it down.
P.S. There are regular think pieces on news how Poland is intending to invade Western Ukraine or make it its satellite. Which supports the "push to grab as much land in the East and South as you can and freeze the conflict" so at least some sanctions may stop
I take it that Poland remembers the last time a certain country invited it to join in on dividing the spoils of a invaded country,(Czechoslovakia) and how quickly they ended up as the next course for the Nazis.
There is the caveat that this comes from an "op-ed", not official government documents signed "V. Putin". However, it is from Russian state-owned media, and when someone tells you who they are, maybe believe them.
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
And also...
45k isn't enough for a genocide. 45k is a "moderately hot but over pretty quick" war's death toll. A nice quick Gulf War sorta war.
If you wanna make the argument for genocide - or even just mass killings as strategy - there's waaaaay better arguments to make. There's a good reason nobody outside of twitter is bothering to talk about a few thousand body bags in Russian storage. There's no there there. It's conspiracy-like thinking, trying to take all the data points on a board and tie them all together into a singular reason.
Except by every account we have, including the initial activity like dropping paratroopers to grab the Kyiv airport and the OMON forces rushing ahead to Kyiv, Plan A was a rapid strike on the capital combined with payoffs to various generals to forestall any resistance, followed by disposing of the current government and setting up a puppet regime to officially surrender the country, likely to be followed at some point by a referendum to join Russia. That's not something that would take 45k body bags. And it's not as though Russia appears to have put any effort into having a Plan B, so I feel pretty confident that the original use for those body bags was to fill them with members of the government, civilian law enforcement, their families, and frankly anyone who might possibly make trouble in any way. They also made a point of capturing, and murdering, government members in cities and regions that they did manage to capture.
I might be wrong, but every bit of information and Russian behavior fits with this theory, and I'm not aware of anything that would contradict it other than the hope that the Russians couldn't possibly be that horrible and the awe inspiring incompetence of their entire campaign.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Why would sanctions stop if Russia slices Ukraine in half and occupies it? Who would be for lifting sanctions under that condition? I wouldn't.
Yep, as I said in the previous thread, especially with the reported acts done and continuing to be done, any western leader (either government or leading opposition) that proposes removing sanctions, especially on anything to do with luxury goods/services, needs to be immediately challenged. Especially as long as Putin remains in office.
War was enough to invoke the sanctions. Atrocity is enough to not revoke them. No oligarch/high functionary should see western profits or polite society (or a moment's peace, at least outside Russia) for what they've allowed to happen.
Man, remember back in ancient history, a week ago, when people were posting in here that maaaaaybe the Ukrainians might kinda sorta hafta let the Russians just keep that big chunk of south eastern Ukraine in order to reduce the loss of life?
Not so much now I guess.
Not really, the same basic cost-benefit analysis is still in play now.
Ukraine has managed to fight the Russians off of Kyiv but that still doesn't mean they're capable of pushing through the open in a full counterattack to take back a region that the Russians already effectively control. Russia's weakness has been poor morale, organization, and cooperation, which led to lots of Russian vehicles driving into urban ambushes and lots of infantry running right back out again. But Ukraine's weakness is that they're outmatched by artillery and especially air support - even with as underwhelming as Russia's vast numerical air superiority has ended up - as most of their forces are light regional infantry. They're good at retaking outlying areas and suburbs, but how're they supposed to actually assault Russian held regions?
If possible it may be in Ukraine's interest to make peace after really blooding the Russian invaders, before the Russians are able to re-organize and start focusing down one urban area at a time with long-range artillery and bombing, one Mariupol after another. Just because the Russians were expecting a fast win doesn't mean Putin's unwilling to grind down Ukraine over a year of siege warfare. Even if a peace treaty means the risk of another future Russian invasion... Things change. Leaders get sick. Domestic politics creates distractions. Allies provide more aid. Sanctions might continue to weaken the Russian state. A lot of reasons to consider playing for peace now, saving as many lives as you can, even though it's not a glorious victory.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Why would sanctions stop if Russia slices Ukraine in half and occupies it? Who would be for lifting sanctions under that condition? I wouldn't.
Not all sanctions. Obviously only the most deluded warmongers still think "we'll be welcomed as the victors on the world stage". But if Russia goes "see, I stopped bombing cities", I do see some sanctions going away. It makes sense both politically (as in "sanctions were and are a way to stop military aggression not a to to destroy states", to put clear connection "violence - more sanctions, no violence - we are willing to at least talk)" and pragmatic (currently it is unavoidable cause Ukrainian situation takes precedence, but is Europe otherwise willing to deal with consequences of Russia suffering total collapse? )
Side note: could you art least support avoiding sanctions that keeps those who want to GTFO out of Russia effectively trapped? Still not giving up on finding job in EU yet...
CrazyP on
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
Finland (maybe Sweden), the Baltics and Poland in particular will simply not allow the balance-sheet-stroking frow-burrowers in Germany to lift the sanctions too quickly. They will threaten the EU with much worse headaches if that kind of talk starts.
Why would sanctions stop if Russia slices Ukraine in half and occupies it? Who would be for lifting sanctions under that condition? I wouldn't.
Once a permanent ceasefire or peace treaty is signed there would be a lot less pressure to maintain sanctions.
And who knows how Ukraine will look then - a total victory by either side seems rather unlikely.
I don't know which EU countries' economies are or will be hurting from their own sanctions, though. I'm in Norway (we're not EU but as far as sanctions go, we are) and sanctions against russia mostly doesn't matter to our economy - the one area where we do have something to do with russia, where we have a long history of slow and fragile cooperation, is fisheries, and that hasn't been touched by anything yet) and I don't really know enough about individual economies.
Germany's big pain point will be russian gas, in the medium term, the work to end dependence on russian gas has been accelerated a lot, but still, they'll have a lot of problems without russian gas, oil and coal*. The Baltic states are more reliant on the russian economy than anyone else, but their fervor for sanctions also seems unmatched by anyone else. At least when it comes to gas.
Basically I have no idea what's going on outside of petroleum.
edit: good point for sanctions that make it harder to leave - we don't want to prevent brain drain in russia now do we?
*Russian gas is the majority of their gas supplies, to make up for the loss of that in power generation Germany would have to use more coal, and a lot of the coal Germany uses also comes from Russia. And of course the gas isn't just used to generate power, they use a lot of gas to heat homes, and a lot of industries need the gas itself, not just electricity, so they do have a proper headache.
Title of Article: Italy will support EU sanctions against Russian gas
Text: Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Mayo said that after the atrocities in Bucha, Italy will support sanctions against Russian gas.
He said this after meeting with colleagues from Croatia and Slovenia in Zagreb, European Truth reported, citing Ansa.
"Italy will not veto Russian gas sanctions," he said.
Let's hope other countries follow suit, while no one will hit Russia militarily, if anyone get get onboard the gas sanction action it will be massive.
Was good to see Lithuania already announce they have. Definitely they are a smaller piece of the pie, but it's something.
Having Twitter translate my Ukrainian acquaintance's tweets, and hearing them refer to Russian soldiers as 'orcs' makes me wince and hope its a translation error, but I can't help understand where they're coming from.
Having Twitter translate my Ukrainian acquaintance's tweets, and hearing them refer to Russian soldiers as 'orcs' makes me wince and hope its a translation error, but I can't help understand where they're coming from.
Nope, this is indeed nickname given to Russian army by Ukrainians after the war started
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
Having Twitter translate my Ukrainian acquaintance's tweets, and hearing them refer to Russian soldiers as 'orcs' makes me wince and hope its a translation error, but I can't help understand where they're coming from.
Tweeter: Bianna Golodryga Senior CNN Analyst
Text: @USAmbUN
in Romania responds to the horrific images out of Bucha: “In close coordination with Ukraine, European countries and other partners at the UN, we are going to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council.”
Again why it's important to get the information of the genocide out.
My friend has also referred to Russian soldiers as "orcs"
And after she described to me (spoiler contains Really Heinous Shit)
the female population of a village, stripped naked, raped and mutilated, then hung to death, their corpses left hanging for the Ukrainian forces she was a part of to discover as part of that counterattack out of Kharkiv
I honestly cannot blame her. I'm not about to tone-police someone who has been actively fighting against that. If Russian soldiers don't want shitty epithets applied to them, they can not do things worthy of them.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Finland (maybe Sweden), the Baltics and Poland in particular will simply not allow the balance-sheet-stroking frow-burrowers in Germany to lift the sanctions too quickly. They will threaten the EU with much worse headaches if that kind of talk starts.
I think you might be able to add the Czech Republic and Slovakia to that list too. Between 1968 and the fact that Ukrainians are now (including refugees) likely around 5% of the population, and benefiting (for better and worse) from having a 'model minority' stereotype image here, I think the Republic at least will help keep the pressure on.
And in trolling news, the address of the Russian embassy in Prague is now: Ukrajinských hrdinů 36, 160 00 Praha 6-Dejvice. That translates to Ukrainian heroes. This comes after the embassy changed their listed address because the city named the square it was on after Boris Nemtsov.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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That's definitely a call for genocide if ever there was one, crikey
The reason I believe it’s at least where they’ll want to go is because it’s literally the only way that the Russian state can look “in charge” and “victorious”. All other scenarios will be seen as a “humiliation”. Ie even if they just focus on the east, they’ll want to really brutalise and punish it to show the Russian people that Ukrainians are being “punished” for resisting them. Like there’s no scenario where occupied territories are going to be treated well any more, because why would you treat nazis or nazi sympathisers well? And as long as Russian soldiers are being killed, they have to explain that those responsible are “nazis”
Said image (content warning, satellite image of a mass grave)
Entirely because we can stop giving Putin the benefit of the doubt and engaging in mental gymnastics over specific terminology.
I like your optimism.
RIA is part of the media group Rossiya Segodnya, which is headed by the Putin appointed Dmitry Kiselyov,
I think maybe the best you could say is that this op-ed might not be where the Russian government is currently, but I'll bet a fat stack of cash that it where their policy is going, and likely very quickly too. More likely is that this article is there to rile up the domestic audience and get them willing to dismiss any negative news about Ukraine (either as Western lies, or necessary steps because NAZIS) and also foster acceptance of and resentment to the West for any and all sanctions, because again, NAZIs.
Yeah, the main problem with looking at anything that is happening and pointing to that as indicative of russian aims is that the one thing that is very clear is that what has happened so far in no way went according to russian plans
And also I guess, I understand why sometimes certain people (you know who you are) might feel the need to be contrarians, or to play devil's advocate, or to wait until further evidence appears before picking a "side", but this is not one of those times. This is one of those rare cases where, if you're actually paying attention, things are actually pretty fucking black-and-white.
And also, and I cannot stress this enough, the devil doesn't need a fucking advocate.
The original plan involved 45k body bags for an operation they though would take a week, tops. However their plan has gone off the rails, killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians after they had conquered the country was always in the cards.
Yes, the propaganda machine is running full speed and nobody has any idea how to stop it now. After heating up support "to destroy Nazis" how do you claim any victory when Ukraine still exists? Suddenly tell "well, there are no Nazis in whatever territory Ukraine still holds" ? So guess current idea is to deny its existence as a state, so you can claim "return of your rightful territory as victory" and continue to block and deny everything about "illegitimate" Western Ukraine. Then Putin can try Part 2 in a few years down the road.
That being said - this is indeed just another piece by propagandist rather then policy maker. Not the worst I've seen, which says lot about state of Russian media tbh
Okay, like this one bothers me. (Not as much as "The primary language of Ukraine is Russian" but Ima leave that one aside for now.)
It's like toilet paper. Do you want "not enough" toilet paper or "whoops, guess that was a lot ha ha" toilet paper?
They're small, packable, non-perishable, and easy to transport, and "not having enough" is spectacularly worse than "having too many". Some military/quartermaster/supply type just actually did something reasonably sane, operationally speaking. Even if you hate a guy, you don't assume his buying the Costco pack of toilet paper means he's planning on constantly shitting himself all week.
There's enough obviously shitty stuff to focus on, random shit like "a supply sgt actually did their job" doesn't even rate.
Media has been playing up divide into "prosecuted" Eastern Ukraine and "banderan" Werstern Ukraine, I do not even want to guess where this was heading before offensive was stopped
particularly focused on the fact that they hadn't started priming the russian populace for an invasion - essentially, an essential part of preparation would be to publish stuff like "what russia must do with ukraine" before they do it. A lot of the surprise wasn't simply due to our naiveté, it was looking at the preparations, both political and military preparations, and concluding that Russia wasn't properly preparing for an invasion.
Which with hindsight does seem to have been the case. The unexpected part was that the russian government didn't see that.
My impression from the attack towards Kyiv, especially with the airborne troops seizing the airport, is that it was supposed to overwhelm and take the city quickly to capture or paralyze ukrainian leadership.
One aspect: the forces advancing towards Kyiv including so much OMON and similar - more militarized riot police than actual military units - seems to me to be less about gathering every warm body that they could, and more that the plan wasn't to have to fight their way into the city, it was to go in and take control, and they were there to keep control of the city after the fact. That's exactly the kind of task they are meant for.
Quick aside: I found this analysis of russian logistics fascinating especially since it's from november 2021, more about a hypothetical quick attack on the baltic states - since it's not looking at events now and drawing conclusions from that. Instead how the invasion went seems to be according to predictions made by it.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
The TL;DR of it is that it is looking at a situation where the russians aim to very quickly take control of all or a large part of a Baltic State, before NATO reinforcements arrive, leaving a fait accompli situation where the NATO response would be a counterinvasion rather than defending - and if the russian armed forces had the capability to execute such a plan
with the main point being: No, they don't. Their logistics are heavily based on railways, and are deficient in trucks, so they have limited ability to supply forces advancing beyond a railhead.
The hypothetical plan in this - and, seemingly, the actual plan for Kyiv - relies on overwhelming force applied quickly. If you don't have enough logistics capability, you can either advance quickly with a much smaller force, leaving it unable to overwhelm the enemy, or go more slowly with a sufficient force, which means the defenders get to mobilize and establish defensive lines. Either will ruin the plan.
And also...
45k isn't enough for a genocide. 45k is a "moderately hot but over pretty quick" war's death toll. A nice quick Gulf War sorta war.
If you wanna make the argument for genocide - or even just mass killings as strategy - there's waaaaay better arguments to make. There's a good reason nobody outside of twitter is bothering to talk about a few thousand body bags in Russian storage. There's no there there. It's conspiracy-like thinking, trying to take all the data points on a board and tie them all together into a singular reason.
Not so much now I guess.
Except we’re being told by multiple sources that the Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop.
I mean, sure, maybe they ordered bodybags and forgot to tell their units to actually use them.
I'm still not super optimistic about that.
I've been worriedly pessimistic this whole time, because, well: all we get is about russian forces and next to nothing about the ukranians.
Like, I knew the russian advance towards Kyiv had stalled, and got to know more about russian military tyre maintenance than I ever thought I would, but I never stopped remembering that I have no idea how desperate the situation may have been on the Ukranian side. If the russians manage to get their slow logistics going again, could they push in, or are the Ukranian positions so strong that the russians have no real hope of continuing to push? AAAAH
While I am now slowly starting to actually believe that Kyiv's not going to fall I'll not be remotely certain that Ukraine can push Russia out entirely until it starts happening. And their grip on the east and southeast seems to be much greater than it was in the north.
Gah, the uncertainty is awful.
Yes it would suck for Ukraine, but it definitely would be more dissatisfying for Russia who almost went all-in on this. They would have no "easy targets" left in Europe and their main cash sources are going to disappear over time. Look at where their gas and oil extraction sites and pipelines are going - they wouldn't be able to turn towards China without significant expenditures.
That's misunderstanding the sources. "The Russians are just leaving their dead where they drop" may be true in certain instances, but we've got more than enough testimony from Belarusian funeral homes (where a lot of the war dead are getting stored before returning home) and from Russian funeral announcements to know that many Russian dead are, indeed, getting transported.
There's a difference between something happening and that being the official policy. Lots of countries prefer not to leave their war dead if they can help it, but if conditions on the ground get hot enough - or logistical support gets bad enough - war dead will inevitably be left behind, at least in the short term.
The orderly retreat is a concept that is universally a lot harder to do in practice than in planning.
But with less levity: Russians leaving dead soldiers behind means the body bags were not intended for them means that the body bags is hard evidence that genocide was being planned is absolutely terrible logic.
conclusions cannot be drawn from that. That is ridiculous.
There is a good reason that no-one is reporting about these things - and the thing about army specifications for the construction of a mass grave - except Twitter.
Actual journalistic sources are looking at the actual evidence that does point towards possible genocide. Not this nonsense.
This is not an argument that genocide isn't happening. This is just another example of Putin and his cronies shooting themselves in the foot.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
P.S. There are regular think pieces on news how Poland is intending to invade Western Ukraine or make it its satellite. Which supports the "push to grab as much land in the East and South as you can and freeze the conflict" so at least some sanctions may stop
I take it that Poland remembers the last time a certain country invited it to join in on dividing the spoils of a invaded country,(Czechoslovakia) and how quickly they ended up as the next course for the Nazis.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Except by every account we have, including the initial activity like dropping paratroopers to grab the Kyiv airport and the OMON forces rushing ahead to Kyiv, Plan A was a rapid strike on the capital combined with payoffs to various generals to forestall any resistance, followed by disposing of the current government and setting up a puppet regime to officially surrender the country, likely to be followed at some point by a referendum to join Russia. That's not something that would take 45k body bags. And it's not as though Russia appears to have put any effort into having a Plan B, so I feel pretty confident that the original use for those body bags was to fill them with members of the government, civilian law enforcement, their families, and frankly anyone who might possibly make trouble in any way. They also made a point of capturing, and murdering, government members in cities and regions that they did manage to capture.
I might be wrong, but every bit of information and Russian behavior fits with this theory, and I'm not aware of anything that would contradict it other than the hope that the Russians couldn't possibly be that horrible and the awe inspiring incompetence of their entire campaign.
Yep, as I said in the previous thread, especially with the reported acts done and continuing to be done, any western leader (either government or leading opposition) that proposes removing sanctions, especially on anything to do with luxury goods/services, needs to be immediately challenged. Especially as long as Putin remains in office.
War was enough to invoke the sanctions. Atrocity is enough to not revoke them. No oligarch/high functionary should see western profits or polite society (or a moment's peace, at least outside Russia) for what they've allowed to happen.
Not really, the same basic cost-benefit analysis is still in play now.
Ukraine has managed to fight the Russians off of Kyiv but that still doesn't mean they're capable of pushing through the open in a full counterattack to take back a region that the Russians already effectively control. Russia's weakness has been poor morale, organization, and cooperation, which led to lots of Russian vehicles driving into urban ambushes and lots of infantry running right back out again. But Ukraine's weakness is that they're outmatched by artillery and especially air support - even with as underwhelming as Russia's vast numerical air superiority has ended up - as most of their forces are light regional infantry. They're good at retaking outlying areas and suburbs, but how're they supposed to actually assault Russian held regions?
If possible it may be in Ukraine's interest to make peace after really blooding the Russian invaders, before the Russians are able to re-organize and start focusing down one urban area at a time with long-range artillery and bombing, one Mariupol after another. Just because the Russians were expecting a fast win doesn't mean Putin's unwilling to grind down Ukraine over a year of siege warfare. Even if a peace treaty means the risk of another future Russian invasion... Things change. Leaders get sick. Domestic politics creates distractions. Allies provide more aid. Sanctions might continue to weaken the Russian state. A lot of reasons to consider playing for peace now, saving as many lives as you can, even though it's not a glorious victory.
Not all sanctions. Obviously only the most deluded warmongers still think "we'll be welcomed as the victors on the world stage". But if Russia goes "see, I stopped bombing cities", I do see some sanctions going away. It makes sense both politically (as in "sanctions were and are a way to stop military aggression not a to to destroy states", to put clear connection "violence - more sanctions, no violence - we are willing to at least talk)" and pragmatic (currently it is unavoidable cause Ukrainian situation takes precedence, but is Europe otherwise willing to deal with consequences of Russia suffering total collapse? )
Side note: could you art least support avoiding sanctions that keeps those who want to GTFO out of Russia effectively trapped? Still not giving up on finding job in EU yet...
Once a permanent ceasefire or peace treaty is signed there would be a lot less pressure to maintain sanctions.
And who knows how Ukraine will look then - a total victory by either side seems rather unlikely.
I don't know which EU countries' economies are or will be hurting from their own sanctions, though. I'm in Norway (we're not EU but as far as sanctions go, we are) and sanctions against russia mostly doesn't matter to our economy - the one area where we do have something to do with russia, where we have a long history of slow and fragile cooperation, is fisheries, and that hasn't been touched by anything yet) and I don't really know enough about individual economies.
Germany's big pain point will be russian gas, in the medium term, the work to end dependence on russian gas has been accelerated a lot, but still, they'll have a lot of problems without russian gas, oil and coal*. The Baltic states are more reliant on the russian economy than anyone else, but their fervor for sanctions also seems unmatched by anyone else. At least when it comes to gas.
Basically I have no idea what's going on outside of petroleum.
edit: good point for sanctions that make it harder to leave - we don't want to prevent brain drain in russia now do we?
*Russian gas is the majority of their gas supplies, to make up for the loss of that in power generation Germany would have to use more coal, and a lot of the coal Germany uses also comes from Russia. And of course the gas isn't just used to generate power, they use a lot of gas to heat homes, and a lot of industries need the gas itself, not just electricity, so they do have a proper headache.
This is why we don't minimize the attrocities
EuroIntegration news article
Title of Article: Italy will support EU sanctions against Russian gas
Text: Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Mayo said that after the atrocities in Bucha, Italy will support sanctions against Russian gas.
He said this after meeting with colleagues from Croatia and Slovenia in Zagreb, European Truth reported, citing Ansa.
"Italy will not veto Russian gas sanctions," he said.
Let's hope other countries follow suit, while no one will hit Russia militarily, if anyone get get onboard the gas sanction action it will be massive.
Was good to see Lithuania already announce they have. Definitely they are a smaller piece of the pie, but it's something.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Nope, this is indeed nickname given to Russian army by Ukrainians after the war started
Tweeter: Bianna Golodryga Senior CNN Analyst
Text: @USAmbUN
in Romania responds to the horrific images out of Bucha: “In close coordination with Ukraine, European countries and other partners at the UN, we are going to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council.”
Again why it's important to get the information of the genocide out.
And after she described to me (spoiler contains Really Heinous Shit)
I honestly cannot blame her. I'm not about to tone-police someone who has been actively fighting against that. If Russian soldiers don't want shitty epithets applied to them, they can not do things worthy of them.
I think you might be able to add the Czech Republic and Slovakia to that list too. Between 1968 and the fact that Ukrainians are now (including refugees) likely around 5% of the population, and benefiting (for better and worse) from having a 'model minority' stereotype image here, I think the Republic at least will help keep the pressure on.
And in trolling news, the address of the Russian embassy in Prague is now: Ukrajinských hrdinů 36, 160 00 Praha 6-Dejvice. That translates to Ukrainian heroes. This comes after the embassy changed their listed address because the city named the square it was on after Boris Nemtsov.