The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here... [Archive] - HungAngels

Stavros

07-21-2020, 06:09 PM

The report into the claim the Russans interfered in the Referendum on Scottish Independence in 2014, on the EU Referendum of 2016, and subsequent General Elections in the UK, has concluded that the most outstanding fact, is that the British Government neglected its duty to scrutinize Russian activities. It is rather like that catchphrase, 'Am I bovvered?' to which the answer seems to have been 'no'.

In addtion, the Goverment has decided not to pursue these investigations any further, notably into the EU Referendum. But just as they say one thing, and then something contradictory on Covid 19, so the Government appears to acknowedge the Russians are a threat, and that they don't intend to do much about it -but who knows what the Intelligence Servies think and know, when their evidence to authors of the Report amounted to six pages?

The Russians are here, that is the point. They have a presence -legal- in Social Media. They have a presene -legal- through their investments in property, in commerce- legal-, and in the provision of fine dining for members of the House of Lords -legal-. As for 'I say, anyone for tennis?' as far back as 2014 it was reported-

"A game of tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) has been sold off by the Conservative party for £160,000 to the banker wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin's government."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/03/tennis-cameron-johnson-160000-tory-fundraiser

Here is the problem, as itemised by Martina Hyde (she ought to have included the attack on the UK using nuclear-weapons materials, resulting in the death of Alexander Litvinenko)-

"Russia brings down passenger planes and lies about it (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/mh17-trial-russia-keen-to-thwart-investigation-says-prosecutor); it uses nerve agent to poison UK citizens in our historic market towns, then sends the would-be assassins on TV (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/russian-television-channel-rt-says-it-is-to-air-interview-with-skripal-salisbury-attack-suspects) to give deadpan interviews about spire heights. The Russian state’s troll farms (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house) and high-level hacks are well documented, as is the Russian state’s hack and leak (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-russians-hacked-the-dnc-and-passed-its-emails-to-wikileaks/2018/07/13/af19a828-86c3-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html) on the US Democratic party. London, meanwhile, is awash with sensationally questionable Russian money (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/25/how-britain-let-russia-hide-its-dirty-money) and people who service it, including those in the House of Lords (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/tide-of-russian-money-in-britains-house-of-lords/news-story/f4350f90a2653ed0c6e480c1bf854f91)."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/russia-report-revelation-britain-state-whitewash

How did this all come about? It dates back to the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and she declared the UK 'open for business'. Lifting controls on the circulation of capital, the ownership of property and the right to invest in UK firms and infrasructure, many 'foreign capialists' flooded London with cash. For 'Conservative' Anne Phillips, this resulted in the Arab money that transformed previously moribund Edgware Road into 'Londonistan' -a succession of groceries, Middle Eastern eateries (most owned by the same Lebanese businessman), and the cafes frequented by wannabee or actual 'Jihadis' (as Phillips might claim), while Mayfair and Chelsea went Russian.

The Chinese came later, but splashed the cash to the enduring gratiude of estate agents and 'businessmen' too lazy or indifferent to invest in their own country, so now (let[s not mention Huawei) China owns-
-25% of North Sea oil production
-Chinese steel company Jngye now owns British Steel
-Hong Kong based MTR owns 30% of South Western Railway and a % of Crossrail
-owns 30% of Hinckley Point C nuclear power station (which refurbished will provide 7% of UK energy).

So much for free trade, given that few other states, such as the US allow foreign direct investment to own at the levels the UK allows -now the UK is being asked to give the US 100% access to UK markets in exchange for what, in the US -5% access?

The fundametal problem is that we don't know if this 'clean money' or if the UK has just become a giant laundry for money stolen from the people of Russia/Ukraine/China/Azerbaijan -name the rest as you please.
And its not as if the majority of the British people see any benefit from this 'trade'.

But the money is all that matters, which is why the Russians get away with it, like Putin's Appentice in the Oval Office, deepening divisions in the US at home, weakening the USA's influence abroad, for who else benefits? And who, remkind me again, is Felix Sater?

For a relatively minor economic power with a lot of land and nuclear weapons, Russia exerts an extraordinary influence on world affairs -but only Russia is better off as a result of its intrepid trips.

Stavros

01-18-2022, 10:53 PM

A lot of speculation in the media about Russia's military,100,000 strong we are told, massing on the border with Ukraine, and not just for the 'war games' they held there over the weekend. NATO went to Moscow for talks with the Russian Foreign Ministry, though both sides seem to talk down an actual war. Putin views Ukraine as a 'Domestic' issue in the same way that China views Taiwan, and it is no secret that Russia does not want neighbouring States such as Ukraine and Belarus in NATO, though at one time early on in his first phase as Russian President, Putin did consider taking Russia into NATO.

The news has pointed out that with oil over $43 a barrell, Russia can afford to fight a short war, but would find extra sanctions difficult in the long term. Russia has decreased its dependency on foreign direct investment and has built up its Gold reserves, but the real questions are what a full invasion of Ukraine would achieve, and how an 'integrated' Ukraine would be managed if the majority of the population are opposed to it.

So there are still unanswered questions, and maybe Putin is just arsing about to see how 'we' react.

Anyone think there will be a war? Or some Russian moves on Ukraine?

filghy2

01-31-2022, 11:41 AM

Nick Danger

01-31-2022, 12:36 PM

filghy2

02-01-2022, 10:10 AM

Obviously, it's all Biden's fault, but they can't seem to agree on whether it's because he's been too weak or because he's provoking Putin by backing Ukraine.

We have a President spoiling for war with Russia to bring his approval rating up to nominal

You know what Reagan or Bush Sr. would have done? They'd have pulled Ukraine into NATO in defiance of Putin, and put so many Air Force bases there that Russia would be begging us to stay out of Crimea. Trump might have done something similar, but more on base impulse than wise counsel. But now maybe you're starting to see the problem of having a laughably weak President. Suddenly it's a problem for Europe too. To quote Stavros, funny ol' world innit?

And sometimes they can't even agree within the same mind. Or is this 1362905

I see that Putin's poodle is claiming this would not be happening if he was still President. No doubt that's right because he would have given Putin what he wants.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10455193/Trump-calls-Russia-Ukraine-crisis-European-problem-Biden-vows-deploy-troops.html

Nick Danger

02-01-2022, 12:31 PM

And sometimes they can't even agree within the same mind. Or is this 1362905

I see that Putin's poodle is claiming this would not be happening if he was still President. No doubt that's right because he would have given Putin what he wants.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10455193/Trump-calls-Russia-Ukraine-crisis-European-problem-Biden-vows-deploy-troops.html

Your brain is fried, Flighty, you've been locked down too long. Obviously the aggressive move would be the way to AVOID war - make it impossible for Putin to invade Ukraine without declaring war on the entirety of Western civilization. Maybe in your school days you remember something called the Cuban Missile Crisis? Appeasement is the path to war. Resolute action and clear boundaries render all threats untenable.

Putin will get what he wants. He's playing chess, Biden's playing patty-cake.

Stavros

02-01-2022, 05:15 PM

I have no idea what is going to happen in Ukraine, but it going to be fascinating to see the contortions on the Republican side given Trump's history of sycophancy towards Putin. Obviously, it's all Biden's fault, but they can't seem to agree on whether it's because he's been too weak or because he's provoking Putin by backing Ukraine.

You have to wonder about the mentality of someone like Tucker Carlson who appears to have more sympathy for a ruthless, bullying autocrat than for the smaller and more democratic country he is threatening. Not surprising though, given he's a big fan of autocrats as long as they are white nationalists. There's no doubt that this guy thinks race should take precedence over economics.

Someone on the radio argued that Putin is not much of a chess player, and says he is more like a poker player. The point being Putin has short term strategic aims but no long terms ones, and thus plays a hand and often seeks to deceive his opponents.

I think there is a broader issue here, which is why Putin thinks Russia is threatened by the US and Western Europe or NATO if you prefer. Does he think there is an invasion plan -as if the record of Napoleon and Hitler has not put that into the dustbin of hisory? During the Cold War, the scenario presented to NATO allies was of an aggressive USSR prepared to march out of East Germany and Czechoslovakia with no deep thinking as to how the USSR was going to both achieve this and maintain its rule. The idea that local Communist Parties would spring into action betrayed an ignorance of their support in key countries, such as Italy and France, so I never understood the argument having any coherence, other than providing the Military with a Strategic Plan that required Government spending on arms.

The irony is, and Putin knows this, that the 'invasion' happened on Yeltsn's watch, and took the form of global corporations investing in Russia's dilapidated infrastructure. By 1991, the oil and gas industry was barely at the level the UK and US had been in 1970, with untold riches under the earth, the Russians had no option but to accept the billions that Exxon, Shell and BP could pour into the country. The Oligarchs who bought existing Russian companies at the time had zero interest in the industry, but purchased these assets on the basis someone else would develop/overhaul them and reap even more money than they made from lending each other cash on the basis of some future return. And this is a key fact: Putin welcomed the investment.

The problem emerged after the industry had been dragged into the 21st century and Putin saw vast profits being repatriated to the US and Europe. Moreover, the changes that had been taking place in Russian society made his political position insecure, hence his relentless pursuit of opposition politicians. Like many leaders who have been in office too long, he became reluctant to give up his power, was probably integrated into organized crime -predating the collapse of the USSR- and felt the need to 'break out' of Russia in the same way Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler felt Germany had been compressed into Europe but had lost out elsewhere in the world.

Crucial to this turn too, was Putin's belief he had been deceived by NATO through the overthrow of Qadhafi in Libya and was determined not to let the West do the same to Asad in Syria. He felt Russia had been made to look llike the weak link in global security, and threw in his lot with one of the most vicious regimes in the world, but in doing so extended Russia's reach into the Middle East, where it remains an expensive project with no apparent outcome so far other than the permanent subsidy of Asad's criminal government.

So to some extent, the NATO allies provoked Russia, and Russia has responded. I am not sure NATO needs to take Ukraine into its fold, it can hardly be expected to pay its share given the state of its economy. Finland has not joined NATO and enjoys the reputation for being the nicest state in Europe if also one of the coldest, in Winter. For all his bravado, I think Putin is in the weakest position, because while the oil price remains high enough to fund his adventures, it can't last, and the Russian economy has suffered from sanctions, and Putin would not want to become dependent on China at any level.

So the prospect of a war seems fraught with too many costs and unknown outcomes. That said, I think Putin enjoys seeing NATO dancing to his tune.

As for Carlson, he is one of those Americans who has given up on the Constitution and the Separation of Powers, and believes only strong leadership in the US can defeat the left, the 'radical' left, the Marxists and whoever else keeps him awake at night. Or it just bullshit, he knows it is bullshit, but loves, like Putin, to see his critics dancing to his tuneless rants, the only sound he enjoys being the jingle of coins in Murdoch's pocket, where Carlson seems to live.

filghy2

02-02-2022, 05:32 AM

Obviously the aggressive move would be the way to AVOID war - make it impossible for Putin to invade Ukraine without declaring war on the entirety of Western civilization. Maybe in your school days you remember something called the Cuban Missile Crisis? Appeasement is the path to war. Resolute action and clear boundaries render all threats untenable.

I'm sure you didn't learn this at school, but the reason the Cuban missile crisis was resolved was that Kennedy secretly agreed on a quid pro quo with Krushchev where the US would withdraw it's missiles from Turkey in return for the Russians pulling their missiles out of Cuba. It was the previous US deployment of these missiles that prompted the Russians to send missiles to Cuba. So arguably it was resolved by appeasement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/

Perhaps you didn't read the link I posted, but your man Trump does not seem to agree with your viewpoint.
"Former President Donald Trump said the US should not be involved in the Ukraine-Russian crisis, calling it a 'European problem' after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to hold talks with Germany, France and Ukraine while Joe Biden said he would deploy troops to the area 'in the near term' without backing from NATO.

Speaking with conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Saturday, Trump said the US should keep out of Europe but doubted Germany could help broker a peace agreement due to its gas dependence with Russia through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal."

filghy2

02-02-2022, 11:21 AM

Someone on the radio argued that Putin is not much of a chess player, and says he is more like a poker player. The point being Putin has short term strategic aims but no long terms ones, and thus plays a hand and often seeks to deceive his opponents.

Surely his objective is to recreate the Soviet sphere of domination, and thereby go down in history as a great man? It also helps divert attention from domestic problems that are weighing on his popularity. Rather than a fragile economy hampering his ambitions, I think it actually increases the incentive to take more risks.

Maybe it's not a realistic goal, but the reason history is full of examples of over-optimistic expansion plans is that people don't learn the lesson. There seems to be something in the psychology of autocrats that they can't be satisfied with dominating only their own country.

Nick Danger

02-02-2022, 03:03 PM

I'm sure you didn't learn this at school, but the reason the Cuban missile crisis was resolved was that Kennedy secretly agreed on a quid pro quo with Krushchev where the US would withdraw it's missiles from Turkey in return for the Russians pulling their missiles out of Cuba. It was the previous US deployment of these missiles that prompted the Russians to send missiles to Cuba. So arguably it was resolved by appeasement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/

Perhaps you didn't read the link I posted, but your man Trump does not seem to agree with your viewpoint.
"Former President Donald Trump said the US should not be involved in the Ukraine-Russian crisis, calling it a 'European problem' after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to hold talks with Germany, France and Ukraine while Joe Biden said he would deploy troops to the area 'in the near term' without backing from NATO.

Speaking with conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Saturday, Trump said the US should keep out of Europe but doubted Germany could help broker a peace agreement due to its gas dependence with Russia through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal."

I didn't read that, but it's interesting. On the other hand who knows what Trump would do. Right now he's out there on his own with no advisors just hamming it up. I don't really have a preference here, it's just a game of brinksmanship between Putin and Biden, which Biden will lose. Far as Ukraine itself goes, they're a raw materials country, iron and steel and such, and we don't need anything from them, nor do we have any cultural ties there. I mean hell, much as I hate to admit it, Trump may be right. On the other hand, if I were in Eastern Europe, I'd probably have very strong opinions about whether we should allow Putin to waltz right in there.

Sovereignty is a funny thing. Some people's sovereignty seems to matter to the international community, others not so much. The key factor always seems to relate to whether or not they produce oil.

Stavros

02-02-2022, 04:20 PM

Surely his objective is to recreate the Soviet sphere of domination, and thereby go down in history as a great man? It also helps divert attention from domestic problems that are weighing on his popularity. Rather than a fragile economy hampering his ambitions, I think it actually increases the incentive to take more risks.

Maybe it's not a realistic goal, but the reason history is full of examples of over-optimistic expansion plans is that people don't learn the lesson. There seems to be something in the psychology of autocrats that they can't be satisfied with dominating only their own country.

Indeed, the Eurasian Economic Union has been in development since 2015, and while Ukraine was not initially part of it, I think we must assume Putin wants Ukraine inside rather than out. And unless Ukraine thinks it can 'stand alone' or grow closer to the European Union, I assume it faces a dilemma in terms of its own economic development. But if this is the case, it begs the question -why use military force? If there is an economic/trading logic to being part of the Eurasian Economic Union, it would not need guns and bombs to achieve. But maybe Ukraine doesn't see itself as a 'Eurasian' country?

"The Eurasian Economic Union is an institution formalized in January 2015 for the purpose of regional economic integration; it includes five countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, and may include Mongolia and Tajikistan in the future. With a GDP of $1.59 trillion in 2015, an industrial production of $1.3 trillion in 2014, and population of almost 200 million as of 2016, the EEAU could represent a geopolitical success that supports both Putin's ambitious political agenda and the Union's economic prospects. Although the efforts of this Union are ongoing and long-term success is not certain, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union can be considered a hybrid half-economics and half-political “Janus Bifrons” that serves as a powerful illustration of what Putin envisions for the post-Soviet space. Despite promising steps so far, more should be done toward the achievement of economic development (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/development-of-economics) and balanced opportunity for all Eurasian countries. Russia's longstanding role within the Union, as well as its power and political motivations, are all considerations that must be accounted for."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879366517300258

filghy2

02-03-2022, 10:29 AM

You know what Reagan or Bush Sr. would have done? They'd have pulled Ukraine into NATO in defiance of Putin, and put so many Air Force bases there that Russia would be begging us to stay out of Crimea. Trump might have done something similar, but more on base impulse than wise counsel. But now maybe you're starting to see the problem of having a laughably weak President. Suddenly it's a problem for Europe too.

I didn't read that, but it's interesting. On the other hand who knows what Trump would do. Right now he's out there on his own with no advisors just hamming it up. I don't really have a preference here, it's just a game of brinksmanship between Putin and Biden, which Biden will lose. Far as Ukraine itself goes, they're a raw materials country, iron and steel and such, and we don't need anything from them, nor do we have any cultural ties there. I mean hell, much as I hate to admit it, Trump may be right.

That reminds me of this article
https://theconversation.com/americans-on-the-right-and-left-change-their-minds-after-hearing-where-trump-stands-130370
"Participants were asked whether they supported the current policy, which was that the U.S. would take no additional military action against Iran. While 70% of Democrats agreed, only 37% of Republicans concurred.

Those surveyed were then told that the policy of refraining from additional military action was Donald Trump’s decision. Support for the policy of restraint fell among Democrats to 58%, but jumped to 81% among Republicans once they learned it was what Trump wanted."

Funny ol' world innit

Nick Danger

02-03-2022, 04:07 PM

That reminds me of this article
https://theconversation.com/americans-on-the-right-and-left-change-their-minds-after-hearing-where-trump-stands-130370
"Participants were asked whether they supported the current policy, which was that the U.S. would take no additional military action against Iran. While 70% of Democrats agreed, only 37% of Republicans concurred.

Those surveyed were then told that the policy of refraining from additional military action was Donald Trump’s decision. Support for the policy of restraint fell among Democrats to 58%, but jumped to 81% among Republicans once they learned it was what Trump wanted."

Funny ol' world innit

Well Flighty, unlike you, I'm not going to act as if I know what the best foreign policy is. You seem to be trying to convince me that I've contradicted myself somehow, when all I'm doing is speculating about how other world leaders would handle this situation. As I'm sure you'll agree, there is 100% no telling what Trump would do. At this point he's simply going to contradict everything Joe Biden does, if he were President he might do something completely different, ALTHOUGH, his "America First" policy trope would agree with keeping hands off Ukraine.

The problem isn't what Trump would do or what leaders from the past would do, it's what Biden is actually doing right now. The guy is totally clueless, is he going to intervene, is he going to allow a certain level of incursion (you surely remember that famous gaffe), and if he does intervene is it going to be economically or militarily? I'll tell you right now, he doesn't know. Because he doesn't have a plan, he has made zero decisions, which is fine if you want to allow the situation to degenerate into a clusterfuck. Does he give a shit what happens to Ukraine or not? And if so or if not, what action is he going to take or not going to take? That's the exact opposite of leadership, what he's doing right now. Literally the entire planet is waiting for him to simply make up his fucking mind. What a fucking loser.

1363181

filghy2

02-04-2022, 10:43 AM

At this point my sole interest is in griping about everything Joe Biden does. I don't care if I know nothing about the issue and have no coherent viewpoint. I'm boring and limited, so what else do you expect?

Noted, and I'll try not to forget again. It looks like nobody else is interested in responding to you, so I guess that's it from you.
1363297

Nick Danger

02-04-2022, 07:10 PM

Noted, and I'll try not to forget again. It looks like nobody else is interested in responding to you, so I guess that's it from you.
1363297

Yeah that's twice you used the "canceled" joke, Flighty, which is reminiscent of the rest of the garbage you regurgitate straight off CNN. I'll be leaving for Germany in a couple days, so you probably are rid of me, I don't intend to spend my hard-earned leisure time arguing with you lot of foreign instigators. But don't go acting as if I've been shut down by your liberal enlightenment here, Flighty, or I'll come back to haunt you. I haven't heard much that makes even a little sense from any liberal on this board, which reflects the problem with the larger liberal community - being 100% full of shit.

1363383

Stavros

02-05-2022, 05:02 AM

Although I allowed this thead to morph from Russia's 'dirty money' in the UK into the current situation threatening peace in the Ukraine, I think the original issue is now back on the front page, given the warning to Russia's Oligarchs by 'Luxury' Liz Truss, our Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs-

"On Monday, Liz Truss warned (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/liz-truss-vows-nowhere-to-hide-for-putin-allies-if-ukraine-invaded) Russia’s oligarchs that there will be “nowhere to hide” their dirty money in London."

Rather than waste time contrasting the ineffective 'Right is Might' tactic posd against a supposedly 'Liberal' 'let's talk' one when dealing with the Russians (and neither Republicans nor Democrats in the US can claim their tactics have changed the world), we end up following the money.

From the quote above I recommend this examination, with the fun fact that on my way to work in the City of London all those years ago, I passed the Moscow Narodny Bank on the north side of London Bridge, and that with my first wages, I opened an account with the Midland Bank.
https://unherd.com/2022/02/how-britain-became-putins-playground/

As for Boris, a man who demonstrably loves to spend other people's money, how serious is he going to be if it denies him all-expenses paid holidays in other people's villas, dinners in other peope's luxury homes, and links to the really big money that swivels his eyeballs into dollar signs?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/24/boris-johnsons-russian-oligarch-problem/

Stavros

02-22-2022, 09:41 AM

If I link the above with the OP, then the issue at stake will be the sanctions that the US, the EU, the UK and their allies impose on Tsar Putin. The problem is that according to the opposition leader of Belarus, Putin has been building cash reserves of $600 billion, so my guess is that his response to the question -What are you going to do if I formally annexe Luhanks and Donetsk into Russia -sanctions?' would be, 'So what?'.

There is a theory in international relations that stretches back to those other days of Empire -the British one in particular- when two apostles of capitalism argued that states that trade with each other don't war with each other. It took a cenury for this justification for Globalization to materialize, but as in the 19th century the political ambitions of the Germans undermined Cobden and Bright's 'Capitalism as Peace', so the benefits of Globalization in the late 20th century appear to have been traded away, so to speak, for the poitical ambitions of Tsar Putin, and those two other Emperors of the blind -Xi in China, and Modi in India.

Putin is sore because so many non-Russians made staggering sums of money from their investment in what, in 1990, was a technologically backward, financially chaotic, politically repressed and economically underdeveloped country. Indeed, Putin himself when he took over from Yeltsin welcomed this investment, for the simple reason that he helped himself to a lot of it, becoming according to some people, the richest man in the world, richer even than Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the sort of man who can pay $1,000 for a kahwa and it doesn't bother him.

At some point, probably in the wake of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein but developing in nuclei before that, an idea occurred to him -Russia First! (Hmm that sounds familiar...).
The Munich Conference in 2007 is now taken to be the moment when Putin indicated Russia was not going to honour the various agreements that had been signed, either by Gorbachev in the declining days of the USSR, or by Yeltsin and indeed, himself. A useful overview of this can be found here-
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/18/putin-speech-wake-up-call-post-cold-war-order-liberal-2007-00009918

What puzzles me is that while Putin can use the 'Defend Russia!' argument for domestic consumption, he may never feel the impact of sanctions, but the Russian people will. Moreover, what is the point of annexing territory if the people there don't benefit? I am not sure if the residents of the Crimea are happier now to be in Russia than the Ukraine, but the Russians have not invsted much in Transnistria or South Ossetia or Abkhazia (the latter two in Georgia) which they annexed, so the irony is that where Trade was seen as the motor of a beneficial relationship rather than politics, it appear that it is the Politics which is in Command, as Mao once put it, and nothing else matters.

China, we can assume, will support Putin because his annexations of the Ukraine which he says is really Russia anyway, is no different from Xi claiiming Taiwan is merely an island off the coast of China, rather like the Isle of Wight is to the UK. Modi in India may jump the wrong way too, as his priority in India has been to do all he can to obliterate the Muslim presence there short of the mass extermination of Muslims, though quite a few get bumped off in rural areas by Hindu Nationaists for whom there is no distinction between India and the Hindu, with equally negative consequences for India's Christians.

So maybe the apostles of Trade -and later, in the US, Global Interdependence (Keohane and Nye) were right, and Nations that Trade with Each Other Don't War With Each Other. But if Trade is either relegated to a secondary position, or used itself as a weapon of war, as Trump tried to do, then the era of peace is over, and we are at war again, even if it is not a shooting war and we don't say goodbye to sons and daughters at the airport, the train station or the Docks.

And what is it all for? Money? Pride? Territory? As Israel has had to learn, there is no triumph, no benefit in annexing territory for the state if those living in it don't benefit and loathe the state that has taken over. So we don't yet know how this will evolve, how far Putin will go to extend Russian power, but we do know sanctions will follow, and that the only people who will suffer most from those sanctions will be the very same people 'we' don't want to hurt.

Stavros

02-22-2022, 12:13 PM

Here is another thought. When following the Russian money trail, which runs through Switzerland and the City of London, one inevitably ends up in Trump's pockets. It may have begun in the 1980s, it certainly was cemented with Trump's relationship with Felix Sater, while both Trump Jr and Skittles have both confirmed the crucial role played in their wealth by the Russians, as the latter stated -
“We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/eric-trump-russia-investment-golf-course

More here-
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-said-money-pouring-in-from-russia-2018-2?r=US&IR=T

We know that the Trump campaign held over 100 meetings with Russians close to or supporters of Putin in 2016, that the Trump campaign knew that the US was under attack from the Russians, but instead of informing the FBI and the CIA of these known facts, chose to support the Russian attack on the US, Trump himself begging the Russians twice in one day to attack his country proving beyond doubt that he not only broke US election law, but that he was and remains a traitor to the USA.

Question now is, what did Trump and Putin discuss in their private meetings, the records of which have never been made public. Moreover, even if there is a US transcript, Trump may have -illegally- destroyed it to cover up his knowledge of Putin's intentions, and indeed, because it confirms that breaking the global supply chain of commodities in order to 'repatriate' production and jobs from Asia to the US, is part of the economic nationalism on which both Putin and Trump agree. Trump also thinks he can destroy or hoard as many Presidential documents as he wants to, having absolutely no interest in maintaing the rule of law in the US. In this instance, rather like Putin in Russia, one can almost hear Trump say out loud I am the Law.

Trump may well be having a good laugh at Biden's predicament, knowing in advance it was going to happen, that he supported it, and that to protect the flow of Russian money into his pockets, he has chosen to go with the money rather than his country, and that concept, the one that makes Trump go red with rage, freedom. After all, he was himself prepared to bribe and bully the Ukraine for his own political ends. Looks like those ends just met in the Middle.

Don, meet Vlad. And here's ten bucks for your taxi fare.

Stavros

02-23-2022, 09:22 AM

Right on cue, here come the judge-

"Mr Trump said in an interview on Tuesday that he admired "tough cookie" Mr Putin, describing his latest move as "genius".
"Putin declares a big portion of Ukraine as independent (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/21/vladimir-putin-orders-russian-forces-maintain-peace-ukraine/). That's wonderful. How smart is that? This is genius," he told The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
"I knew Putin very well. I got along with him great. He's got a lot of great charm and a lot of pride. He loves his country."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-hails-vladimir-putin-231334390.html

Charm? Of all things people have said about Putin, Charm never made it before.

So, Don, you 'know him very well'...care to exand on that?

Stavros

02-24-2022, 10:27 AM

"Moments after Russia (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/russia) announced a military operation in Ukraine (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/ukraine), former US president Donald Trump (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/donald-trump) once again praised president Vladimir Putin’s move as “smart” at an event in Florida and subsequently appeared on Fox News to blame the invasion on a “rigged election”.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-under-fire-fox-news-062006966.html

- Would it not be more relevant to say that Putin has regarded Brexit weakening, and dividing Europe against itself? It is not as if Boris Johnson has imposed tough sanctions on Russia. The Swift banking arrangements are in place, the Russians who fund the Conservative Party are not at risk because they are on the UK Electors Register -how did they get there? Er....jingle-jangle...

-So Putin says the leaders of the Russian backed 'autonomous' regions of Luhansk and Donetsk appealed for Russian help to stop Ukraine attacking them. It might not be 'Genocide', but is it strange that Ukraine attack these two fragmets of the Ukraine that was seized with military violence that has not stopped since it started in 2014?

-I can see the miitary logic of occuping an extended area west of Donetsk and Luhansk, but does Russia intend a full annexation of Ukraine or use its military might to force a change of regime in Ukraine, with Zelensky replaced by a compliant servant of Putin?

-Could Putin conceivaby ask Donald Trump to move from Florida to Kyiv and be his Man of the Moment? The job comes tax-free, which should be music to Don's ears.

Stavros

02-24-2022, 03:07 PM

A useful if limited overview of the Rusian economy, which doesn't mention Russia's other mineral resources such as Palladium and Platinum which feed European and American industry (see second link). In the long term, decreasing the role fossil fuels have in our economies will to some extent undermine this important source of Russian wealth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/23/why-a-swift-economic-victory-against-russia-unlikely-sanctions

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/precious-metals-chug-higher-amid-russia-ukraine-tensions-203055180.html

Stavros

02-26-2022, 03:08 PM

Another thoughtful article on sanctions and the Russian economy (you may need to sign in to read it)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/western-powers-have-realised-russia-is-largely-immune-to-sanctions-ukraine-putin

If Putin's objectives run into Ukrainian resistance, this may only lead Putin to increase his assault, using Thermobaric missiles, which some consider to be just a notch below nuclear-(if it asks you to register just refresh the page)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-putin-thermobaric-rockets-b2023880.html

broncofan

02-26-2022, 03:35 PM

The loss of life that results from any military conflict is seriously concerning but there is an additional layer of concern. I heard someone put it this way: Russia is a nuclear superpower but they aren't a superpower in terms of conventional military power (state of the art weaponry, training, and tactics). When they realize that they can't easily take Kyiv or break the will of the Ukrainians they will have to turn to more desperate measures to achieve their objectives. This means carpet-bombings of civilian areas and thermobaric missiles as you point out. In short, a worsening array of war crimes.

I'm not convinced that Putin is any kind of mastermind or tactician but he is ruthless and desperate and looking and sounding increasingly unhinged. Chechnyan leader Kadyrov is said to be sending in more than 10,000 Chechnyan soldiers to assist Putin. We'll see what each day brings.

Stavros

02-27-2022, 08:30 AM

I heard someone put it this way: Russia is a nuclear superpower but they aren't a superpower in terms of conventional military power (state of the art weaponry, training, and tactics). When they realize that they can't easily take Kyiv or break the will of the Ukrainians they will have to turn to more desperate measures to achieve their objectives. This means carpet-bombings of civilian areas and thermobaric missiles as you point out. In short, a worsening array of war crimes.

Good points, because what puzzles some commentators in the press, is not just the apparent failure of Putin to secure a quick victory in Ukraine, even with the help of Belarus, but that if he does succeed in his objectives, the assumption is that the Ukraine will become 'ungoverable' without a permanent military presence and that this involves great costs financially as well as politically, not least because he does not appear to be winning the propaganda war back in Russia. But if he does not stamp Russian power on Ukraine without force, including the lethal force you refer to, how will he be able to hold onto it?

One interesting aside, is the extent to which your fellow Americans are blaming Biden for this crisis, citing the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Biden's appearance as a 'weak' President and thus a 'weak America'. One notes that the same President who refused to support Zelensky and in effect, attempted to bribe him by withholding military assistance to Ukraine, now says he supports him, but other than brag about his own non-achievements, he hasn't told the US what in fact he would do to end this crisis. And this from a man who says he knows Putin 'very, very well'.

But if you live in the UK, whatever role Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan might have played, it is the European perspective that matters most.

Looking west, Putin will have seen a Germany less certain of itself now Angela Merkel has retired, we may even speculate he waited for her to leave before acting because, as one might say, he 'knows her very well' and might have calculated she would be tougher on Russia than Scholtz. He would also have seen an EU divided against itself in regard to its internal disputes with Poland and Hungary, though Orban in Hungary has not only not supported him but advocated a strong EU response. Whether or not he waited unti

And he will have seen an EU weakened by Brexit, with the UK declining into an isolated, weak and divided country irrelevant to his European ambitions. In addition, perhaps even crucially, he twice attacked the UK with chemical weapons, and the response was a manageable bunch of sanctions none of which deterred him from annexing the Crimea and two eastern Provinces of Ukraine, murdering or attempting to murder his opposition in Russia.

Thus, to your Republican whining about Biden, I offer you the worthless garbage that Boris Johnson said in the House of Commons last Wednesday, just days after bragging about the UK's record on Covid without mentioning the catastrophic deaths of the elderly in care homes, for which so far nobody has been held accountable; the higher fatality rate from Covid per capita compared to our European neighbours, for which there has been no accountability; and the staggering sums of money that Covid cost, something like £4-5 Billion paid out to 'firms' that no longer exist, if they ever did, whose names we are now told we may never know. Rather like Trump telling CPAC one day he will reveal what he and Putin talked about in Helsinki, as if it the US was in such a dire condition 'it can't handle the truth' rght now. Two men, both of them cowards. Is it any wonder Putin felt emboldened to act now?

So if you blame Biden, I can blame Boris.

But is it not, in the end, Putin convinced he can get away with anything without any serious repercussions that has led him into the Ukraine, and that it is his Hubris that may have started the beginning of the end of his tenure in the Presidency in Russia? Instead of being remembered in history as a 'Great Russian', he risks becoming just another loser. The sooner the better.

natina

03-02-2022, 01:11 PM

The Russian are losing badly and taking huge catastrophic losses

Beware lots of Russian Dead bodies, burned bodies , mutilated Bodies from antitank missiles ect..

https://thisvid.space/NoseWintry

136705613670591367058136706113670571367060

Stavros

03-02-2022, 06:32 PM

So far the Russians are facing a level of resistance they did not expect, but they are not losing. Their war has only just begun. Given how they laid waste to Chechnya, their record in Syria, what hope is there for any restraint in Ukraine. Not least when the Russians describe the country having been taken over by 'Nationalists' and 'Nazis' -? The latter term being particularly insulting when Zelensky is Jewish, and the attack on Kyiv yesterday was on a TV mast overooking Babi Yar -coincidence?

Yevtusheko wrote a stunnng poem on it, Shostakovich set it to music in his 13th Symphony, and here is the historical record-

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/babi-yar-75-filling-the-blanks-ukrainian-history

Yevtushenko's poem-

https://www-tc.pbs.org/auschwitz/learning/guides/reading1.4.pdf

Stavros

03-03-2022, 02:26 PM

David Edgerton, author of a provocative (in a postive sense) book -The Rise and Fall of the British Nation (2018 ), has written an article that argues convincgly that 'Sanctions' are another form of war. I don't think there is much controversial about that.

I also think it is important to think more deeply about sanctions, because sometimes they work, but at other times they do not, and as he points out, the current sanctions on Russia do not affect their sales of oil and wheat, though that might be due to the even more negative impact such sanctions would have on the price of oil and food, as well as disruptions to an already 'challenged' global supply chain.

For example, when the British Government imposed sanctions on Iran in 1951 as punishment for the nationalization of the country's oil and gas industry, the impact was devastating -but that is because the sanctions were so effective Iran could not sell its oil on world markets, smaller than today and controlled at the time by the 'Seven Sisters' of which Anglo-Iranian (later, BP) was one- and because the country had no other source of income comparable to its petroleum, for which some blame can be made to nationalist leader Musadeq.
Sanctions against South Africa did not prevent it from importing oil from the Gulf, just as sanctions against Sadddam Hussein actually enabled him to make money from illegal sales, whlle the sanctions against Venezuela or Cuba have merely led to them form economic relations outside the 'capitalist west', admittedly at great cost, and with little regard by the leaders for the fate of their citizens.

Thus Russia can to some extent survive if China steps in, and right now that is the major issue, one that Edgerton does not consider, indeed, how China acts could be crucial to Putin's survival, as some commentators suggest China be asked to mediate in 'peace talks' designed to stop the war, and find a 'face-saving' formula that Russia can accept. Pakistan's trade deal with Russia is hardly going to change the world, let alone South Asia.

Sadly, Edgerton's intellect does not impress me on one point, and it is odd for an economic historian to make -

"Russia too has been sanctioned since 2014. But sanctions have probably not been the worst causes of economic collapse. Russia, after 1989, lost perhaps half its GDP per capita, which did not return to Soviet levels until around 2005. This economic catastrophe created Putinism."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/03/russia-west-financial-war-sanctions

This is rubbish. When Yeltsin took over from Gorbachev in 1991 the Russian economy was on its knees after decades of economic mismanagement. The three independent oil companies that moved in to take stakes in the Russian industry -Exxon, Shell and BP- were invited in, and were desperately needed because the Russian industry had not been modernized, it was still using equipment that was built in the 1930s. Yes, in return for their capital investment in the upstream and downstream resources, these three companies made fabulousn profits -but the lion's share went to their Russian partners, so that when Putin took over from Yeltsin in January 2000, he was keen to ensure this partnership continued, creaming off how much from the profits we don't know. At some point, I think around 2009-10 Putin decided enough was enough and with the Russian industry robust enough, forced the three Anglo-Dutch-American companies to halve their stakes, but here is the key point that undermines Edgerton's -

The Russian owners of the oil and gas industry, and indeed the other industries, made enough profit to completely overhaul Russian infrastucture and society. By 2005 there were no excuses for the failure of these men to invest in their own country, but what did they do? They shipped much of their wealth out of the country into real estate or football clubs in Europe or the US, or parked billions in offshore accounts.

What created 'Putinism' was Putin, and it is hypocrtical of him to complain about the staggering wealth of the Oligarchs when he is the richest of them all.

Think about it -everyone around Putin was making money, and then Ukraine in 2014 had enough of the corruption and mismanagement of their country, and the 'Maidan Revolution' changed the game. It was not sanctions that created Putin, but Putin who created santions. It was Ukraine's adoption of democracy that threatened Putin, as well as the attempt to squeeze the balls of the Oligarchs all of whom needed to even craved Putin's blessing to operate in Russia. The result was the annexation of the Crimea, the chopping off in eastern Ukraine of 'Donetsk' and 'Luhansk' which Russian apologists will tell you were regions where 'ethnic Russians' were being discriminated against, even tortured and killed by the 'regime' in Kyiv, the same one which Donald Trump attempted to bribe for his own personal reasons.

And would Donald Trump ever have become President without Russia, or Putin, or both?

This is why this is called a war of 'Putin's Choice'. If there were genuine problems with Ukrainians and Russians in the east, was war and violence the only solution? No, this is Putin with all the money in the world, deciding the time has come to become a God, like Caesar Augustus, not satisfied with mortal rewards, just as Peter the Great built his city and left Russia and the world one of its most beautiful, which the Nazis could not destroy, but which Putin has dragged into the dirt.

broncofan

03-05-2022, 08:18 PM

It seems to me the reason that there's fighting right now is because there is no diplomatic option if things are the way they appear. I don't believe Russia was merely concerned about NATO having borders with Russia or any kind of encroachment on its sovereignty. But Putin does not recognize Ukraine as sovereign, does not respect its territorial integrity, and would not stop if he is allowed to annex Ukraine which he should not be allowed to do. He believes he is entitled to annex any former Soviet country.

I am of course frightened of the possibility of nuclear war, which any rational person should be, but a cynical person can use the threat of an apocalyptic war to get one concession at a time and expand its territory. The world cannot repel a nuclear country without some risk of doom. And it cannot simply allow a nuclear country to annex one country after another. It's worse that this country is Russia and it offers nothing to the world except creeping totalitarianism which it is imposing within its own borders. There's nothing there but misery for its own citizens and any country it occupies.

Stavros

03-06-2022, 05:35 AM

I am of course frightened of the possibility of nuclear war, which any rational person should be, but a cynical person can use the threat of an apocalyptic war to get one concession at a time and expand its territory. The world cannot repel a nuclear country without some risk of doom. And it cannot simply allow a nuclear country to annex one country after another.

I wonder if there are strategic minds in Washington DC who are actively looking at an engagement, on the basis that it is precisely what Putin believes, or gambles on not happening. The view may be emboldened by the apparent failure of the Russian military to execute a 'lightning strike' leading to a relatively painless and inexpensive takeovee of Ukraine, given that most of the damage so far has been inflicted by long range artillery and aerial bombardment. For most of his tenure in Moscow, Putin has tested the resolve of the European and Americans to see how far he can go before they react, and though the sanctions now are far more extensive and damaging than he probably expected, he remains sure that this is as far as the 'west' will go. The problems for the 'west' is that the longer it goes on, the more desperate Putin may become, both in terms of the savagery of his attack on the Ukraine, and the potential for the conflict to spill ove into, say, Finland or Poland or a neighbouring state.

So, is it militarily possible for the US/NATO to strike Russian targets on the basis Putin will not be prepared and that if it comes to it, the reality of using strategic or even tactical nuclear weapons would be too much for Putin to bear? He seems to have boxed himself into a 'no way out' mentality which is why it is hard to see what a diplomatic solution would look like, given that I don't think either Zelensky or the US would accept a compromise where the war ends, but with more segments of Ukraine 'independent' under Russian control.

Would you support the US extending its support for Ukraine into an 'active mission' there?

broncofan

03-06-2022, 07:05 AM

Would you support the US extending its support for Ukraine into an 'active mission' there?
I think not. I don't think Putin is suicidal but I don't want to test it either. I'm not all that confident about what should be done. I do think Putin has decided to play this dangerous game and can't be allowed to do whatever he wants but I still worry about escalation and think an active mission into Ukraine by the US might do that.

Maybe we get lucky and the sanctions combined with Ukraine's tougher than expected resistance have Putin looking for an off ramp.

Stavros

03-06-2022, 05:06 PM

But if war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means, are sanctions not the continuation of war by othe means? In other words, the US/NATO is at war wth Russia, just not using military ordnance.

I have read the argument that negotiations which lead to Ukraine declaring itself neutral will satisfy Russia, but I don't think so. I think in Putin's mind, 'neutralizing' Ukraine means destroying it, that is, levelling its buildings, smashing its infrastructure to pieces, killing and injuring its men, women and children, rendering it incapable of being anything other than a giant graveyard. Why should he care about the place? It will still be on the map when it is all over.

Moreover, as I have argued before, creating a refugee crisis is a positive result for Russia if it sows division in eastern Europe, and by extension the European Union, which Russia successfuly destabilized with its influence on the Brexit Referendum, through the agency of Nigel Farage, Aaron Banks, Andy Wigmore and Cambridge Analytica.

Farage seems to have trouble remembering when he praised Putin, as he now thinks the end is nigh for his Russian idol. This has also become a problem for Americans like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, whose political judgments have exposed what nauseating hypocrites these men are, whereas Marjoie Taylor Greene did not stray into Nick Fuentes' New Wave Fascist rally where they chanted 'Putin! Putin!' by accident. She chose that particuar pigsty, because Putin is the fearless champion of the 'anti-woke' world in which she wants Americans to live. Presumably supporting the laws in Florida and Texas that ban abortions even when the pregnancy was the result of rape and incest. In what morally pure America does incest get a free pass, where Rapists have Rights that Pregnant American citizens do not?

I have wondered if the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with all its baggage of Nationalism, its 'anti-woke' crusade, has taken this spectrum of 'alt-right' zealots to a place they did not expect to go, just as January 6th exposed to the US the practical reality of extending Trump's ani-Government agenda, and his relentless promotion of himself as the definition of 'America'. On the one hand, now, suddenly some people are standing back and saying 'that's not us', but the logic of Trump's campaign is little different from the campaign of Nick Fuentes to 'purify' America, to 'cleanse' it of its 'radical leftists', its Muslims, its Immigrants. On the other hand, I don't see any chastened reversals in Texas or Florida, where Putin's agenda is no different from the one promoted by His Holiness the Abbott, or by the ridiculous Ron not-so Sanctis Santis.

Russia may fail, Ukraine may become a graveyard state, like Chechnya, but the 'war' goes on in the US. How many times, and in how many places are these people going to smash and destroy what has been built up over generations, out of the resentment of losers and lunatics like Trump, Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin? So many miles to go before we can sleep, without fear.

Stavros

03-07-2022, 05:52 PM

The Russian Government has set out its four conditions of peace with Ukraine. These are-

-Ceasing all military action
-A change to the constitution to enshrine neutrality
-Acknowledgement of Crimea as Russian territory
-Recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/07/russia-ukraine-latest-news-war-putin-refugees-nato-invasion/

Of these four, neutrality could be acceptable, but is loaded with problems, the most obvious being that Ukraine might declare itself a neutral country, but even if it secured a guarantee from Russia that it would respect this neutrality, the record shows that Putin is unreliable.
It would be a 'giveaway', just as it is absurd to think Ukraine would simply wish away portions of its territory because they had a majority Russian speaking or 'Ethnic Russian' population, which is common across Ukraine and the Baltic region, and because it would be a reward for Russian aggression. Moreover, what would Ukraine ask for itself in these negotiations, with the likelihood that their proposals for peace would be unacceptable to Russia?

First put your enemy in a weak position, then extract the highest price. But what of the legacy of bitterness and resentment that Russia has created in Ukraine? To live under harsh condtions imposed against the will of the people is not a recipe for peace. It merely delays to a future date the retribution many Ukrainians may want.

Verdict -a clear statement from Russia, but one that makes an honorable peace impossible.

Stavros

03-10-2022, 07:31 AM

I have been thinking about some of the similarities between Putin and other Dictators, and how they become insulated from reality, rely for their information on sycophants and hangers on who may have their own agenda, be protecting their jobs and income, but supply the Boss with glowing tributes and reports of success and popularity even where none exists. Saddam Hussein thus believed, or was led to believe the US would not oppose his annexation of Kuwait in 1990, and was thus shocked by the 'Coalition of the Willing' that he felt had turned against him, given that, with the exception of Syria, they had supported his war against Iran.

Here again, one notes that in 1990 Iraq had the fourth largest land army in the world, battle-hardened after 8 years of war, yet incapable of taking on the US and its allies to any effect, just as there are reports that for all its volume and fire-power, the Russian military is having multiple problems with equipment and communications, and with a young cohort of soldiers who don't really know what fighting is. And, again, as with 2003 in Iraq, there are claims the 100,000 strong force assembled by Putin is too small to win a war in a country the size of Ukraine.

Trump and Thatcher are also parallels -toward the end of her tenure, Thatcher's press secretary made sure she never saw the newsapers but edited cuttings which he chose if they supported her policies, though she seems to have been surprised at the hostility to the Poll Tax which so alienated her Cabinet colleagues, they turned against her. Donald Trump not only surrounded himself with 'Yes Men', so fierce is his temper even honest men and women were terrified of telling him the truth. Moreover, though he was a constant user of Twitter, he seems to have no interest in the World Wide Web and maybe has never even used it, thus insulating him from the extensive ridicule with which he is held across the US and the World, notwitstanding the 30-odd percent who adore him.

And, just as at the end, Qadhafi's closest aides deserted him, I wonder if the assumption Putin is impregnable, that he has his own private army (as was true of Saddam), that the Generals are committed to his agenda in the Ukraine, the time might come when in fact they turn against him, to save the Military as well as their own skins, and that we might wake up one day to find Putin has 'disappeared' and that a troika of men, mostly military are in command.

On the on hand, Russia does have friends, even if they are the dictatorships in Belarus, China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the latter two refusing to engage with the US, presumably keen to see the oil price rise or at least remain around $100 a barrel. Israel is stuck between them, led by a nasty Fascist who nevertheless seems reluctant to either condemn or support Putin's ambitions- but if this war drags on, and Putin uses chemical weapons and relentlessly pounds civilians as Russia did in Syria, and still does, can these half-hearted friends break with Moscow? Belarus looks the most solid ally, but could Lukashenko's support lead the opposition there to have another attempt at regime change from within?

If this ends badly for Russia, they could be back where they were when the USSR was dissolved in 1990-91, that everything that has been achieved over the last 30 odd years was all for nothing, the complete opposite of what Putin wants, with his grand vision of an Empire Restored to Glory. For this is a tragedy for Russia, as well as the Ukraine.

broncofan

03-10-2022, 10:58 AM

Dictators can insulate themselves from bad news but Russia also has sophisticated (and not so sophisticated) mechanisms for insulating its public from the truth. Russia Today runs an alternative reality narrative, Russia has imprisoned over 10,000 protesters of the war, and Russia has in the West affiliates who do its bidding with a not so subtle combination of whataboutism and moral relativism. Still it's not enough as most people know that Russia's pretext for war was bullshit and the whataboutism doesn't work when anyone is still free to oppose imperialistic actions by western countries.

Putin's war is inflicting horrendous damage on Ukraine but it doesn't seem plausible it can ever hold the country. Russia's economy is being destroyed, the ruble is practically worthless, and Russia is currently just carpet bombing civilian buildings. If Putin hasn't lost it completely and isn't suicidal then maybe there's a way out of tis before more damage is done and lives are lost.

Stavros

03-10-2022, 05:17 PM

One of the threads that the Russians are promoting is that they are engaged in the 'De-Nazfication' of Ukraine. Today, at the talks in Turkey, Sergei Lavrov claimed the maternity hospital bombed by the Russians had been taken over by the 'Azov Battalion' who movd out the patients, thus-

"It is not the first time we see pathetic outcries over so-called atrocities by Russia," Lavrov said. He said the hospital building was being used as a base by an "ultra-radical" Ukrainian battalion."
https://www.ibtimes.sg/russias-lavrov-says-ukraine-used-childrens-hospital-base-ultra-radical-azov-battalion-63298

""As for the maternity ward, it is not the first time that we see the shouting in relation to so called atrocities of the Russian military."He claimed that hospital had been taken over by the Azov battalion - a volunteer group fighting alongside the Ukrainian army - "a long time ago" and that all pregnant women had been taken out of the building."
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-russian-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-claims-all-pregnant-women-were-moved-out-of-bombed-mariupol-maternity-hospital-12562163

The Azov Battalion was indeed an extemist group that was formed in 2014 as a response to Russia's annexation of the Donbas region (they also make a lighning appearance in Oliver Stone's fantasy film on Ukraine); it denies it is Neo-Nazi, many of its volunteers are of Russian origin, it has never exceeded more than 2,000 or so some of whom are foreign (at least two from the UK, members of National Action), and it was incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard in 2015. Did they occupy the Maternity Hospital and remove its patients? I don't know, but why would they if there were concerns, and there were, that the Russians are targeting civilian buildings such as hospitals? No need to defend these people when they are not that important.

The problem is that the Nazi narrative is part of the Russian/Soviet history of the Second World War, when those Ukrainians, and Russians who had never liked the Communists, took sides with the Germans, though some may have done for survival, and some out of ideological sympathy with Hitler's theories of race -because these were common throughout the Russian Empire before Hitler was even born. The Revolution of 1917 did not give birth to a generation of Marxist-Leninists, 'the people' in the 1940s were not so different from the People of 1900.

Thus Putin has a problem when he dreams of reviving the Empires of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and whicheve Tsar takes his fancy, because the violent anti-Semitism that reached its crescendo in the 1940s was a follow-up to the Pogroms of the 19th century that are an indelible stain on Russian history, with the last Tsar, Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra the most obnoxious anti-Semites even by Russia's low standards.

One also associates Russia with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the Black Hundreds who, when they lost to the Bolsheviks, moved to Germany, Munich in particular where their vicious anti-Jewish beliefs were instrumental in the development of Hitler's ideas and his party.

It is impossible to deny the influence the Jews of the Russian Empire had on Russian/Ukrainian culture and history, if you are not sure, you can hear it in the music of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Shostakovich; the first committed Zionists to leave the Russian Empire and settle in Ottoman Palestine in the 1880s were from Kremenchuk in central Ukraine.
Over a million Jews are believed to have been murdered in what is now the Ukraine in the Second World War, so that today the Jewish population is relatively small but a visible presence in cities such as Kyiv and Odesa. But if the Neo-Nazis are so important to Putin as a cancer in Ukraine, it doesn't explain the aparrent absence of any significant anti-Jewish campaigning when Zelensky was running for the Presidency and getting over 70% of the vote. There is a useful historical overview here-
https://jewishunpacked.com/who-are-the-jews-of-ukraine/

It appears that Putin has created a narrative, and he is sticking to it. Needless to say, Russia is the Victim, and those opposed to Russia's independence and ambitions are 'drug addicts', 'Nazis', and whatever else can be plucked from the history of Russian Demons, the irony being that were this 1892, the Jews would be right up there. But don't tell Vlad that, or you will be impaled.

So there's your Shalom, without much Aleichem.

Stavros

03-14-2022, 02:36 PM

Just in case you didn't know what reckless fools and hypocrites we have in the UK Government-

"Sajid Javid, the health secretary and the minister giving interviews on behalf of the government this morning, said that if a “single Russian toecap” were to step on Nato territory, that would be considered an act of war."

But if the Russians poison people in London and Salisbury with fatal consequences, we will slap the Russian wrist, and leave it at that.

Because the Party is soaked in Russian cash, and you know what is said 'Follow the Money'. Warning: you may end up in Boris Johnson's arse, and even his (ex?-) Russian girlfriend Olga Kholodnaya didn't get that far.

https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-tories-russian-money-oligarch/

Fiddler on the Hoof-
https://twitter.com/imincorrigible/status/1399279679622766593?lang=en-GB

Stavros

03-20-2022, 07:12 PM

When Putin says Ukraine must be 'De-Nazified' it appears he is using the concept to summon up the demons of the past, though it is not sure if the younger generation really understand the link. The sick irony in this is that, though it was not initially created by his Government, the Russian Imperial Movement [RIM] is now operating in Ukraine, having first gone into action in the annexation of Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The point being that the German Nazi movement was heavily influenced by the Russians who fled the Revolution in the aftermath of 1917 and the failure of the 'White Armies' to defeat 'the Reds'.

Russia was one of the crucibles of the violent anti-Semitism that reached its climax in the Holocaust. The notorious 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' was a Russian publication sanctioned by the Jew-hating Romanov Tsar and his wife, and the the three pillars of their dynastic rule over Russia were described as the Autocracy of the Tsar, the Orthodoxy of the Church, and the Nationalism of the people. These three were in effect re-habilitated by the Bolsheviks even before Lenin's death, thus giving to what became the USSR, the Autocracy of the Communist Party, the Orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism, and the Nationalism of the people, most obviously expressed in Stalin's slogan for the 1941-45 conflict as 'The Great Patriotic War'.

Thus the RIM represents the resurrection of the project dear to Putin's heart, and it is no surprise that anti-Semitism is a constant feature of their narratives on the Ukraine. There are obvious differences in ideology with the Nazi's, but the national and international reach of the RIM is one potent factor in the violence in the Ukraine which may be easier to sustain than the conventional military, which as Petraeus has been pointing out is badly run, ill-equipped, and actually losing on the battlefield, reduced to having only missiles as their most effective weapon.

This suggests that along with the Wagner Group and mercenaries hired from Syria, a form of guerrilla warfare could drag on for some time in Ukraine, with peace negotiations likely to stall as guarantees are hard to confirm.

Israel thus finds it is both sympathetic to the Jewish oligarchs, many of whom have Israeli citizenship and property in the country, presumably to which they can or wish to retire, while the State has hedged its bets by not condemning the Russian war, perhaps because Naftali Bennett sees in Putin's claim that Ukraine is part of Russia, his view that Palestine is a fiction and that the 'West Bank' can only make sense as being part of Israel, while the violent tactics of the Russians in Ukraine are not so different from tnose of the Jewish Settlers in the Palestinian territories, supported by Bennett, who rip up orchards and olive groves, and attack Palestinians on a regular basis. The scale may be different, the aims are the same. And further proof, as if it were needed, that Naftali Bennett is just another Israeli Fascist unfit for public office.

But we are living through an era when Fascism is being revived, when Democracy is being held up to ridicule as an ineffective form of government, and in practical terms being undermined, not just in Russia, but in the UK and the USA.

Which is one reason why the stakes are so high in Putin's poker game.

Two articles on RIM here-
FSI | CISAC | MAPPINGMILITANTS CISAC - MMP: Russian Imperial Movement (stanford.edu) (https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/russian-imperial-movement)

The Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) and its Links to the Transnational White Supremacist Extremist Movement - ICCT (https://icct.nl/publication/the-russian-imperial-movement-rim-and-its-links-to-the-transnational-white-supremacist-extremist-movement/)

Stavros

03-27-2022, 01:51 PM

You have to wonder what Putin and Medvedev are using for brains when they talk such nonsense, and even worse, one has to assume they believe it too.

"Mr Medvedev said that relations between the West and Russia were now worse than even during the Cold War.
“The state of relations between the Russian Federation and the Western world, the Anglo-Saxon civilisation in the broad sense of the word, led by the United States of America, is worse than, probably, in 1960-1970, this is beyond any doubt,” he said."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/kremlin-contradicts-russian-generals-military-201647029.html

By coincidence last night, I watched part two of Robert Bartlett's splendid presentation of The Normans -that's the people from across the way who sent the Anglo-Saxons into the dustbin of history....I guess William the Conqueror is not the man of history he once was. Maybe one day people will look back at the history of Russia and compare Putin to Boris Godunov? Think about it! Or don't.

You can watch The Normans here if you have access to the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tfdsk/the-normans-2-conquest

filghy2

03-28-2022, 11:31 AM

But we are living through an era when Fascism is being revived, when Democracy is being held up to ridicule as an ineffective form of government, and in practical terms being undermined, not just in Russia, but in the UK and the USA.

There has been an increasingly common view that autocracies have an inherent advantage over democracies because they can act decisively without having to worry about legal/legislative constraints or public opinion. Putin's Ukraine debacle seems to be demonstrating that the lack of checks and balances on the dictator's whims is actually the weakness of autocracies, combined with the unwillingness of subordinates to tell the leader anything they don't want to hear.

I suspect the only competence of autocracies in the long run is repression. Competence requires accurate information to assess the implications of different courses of action and willingness to listen to different viewpoints. None of this is possible in a dictatorship, which is why they ultimately screw up and rely on increasing repression and external aggression. It might be said that the economic success of China is a counter-example, but I think the shift from collegiate leadership to one-man rule under Xi Jinping may ultimately prove to be their undoing.

Stavros

03-28-2022, 02:10 PM

There has been an increasingly common view that autocracies have an inherent advantage over democracies because they can act decisively without having to worry about legal/legislative constraints or public opinion. Putin's Ukraine debacle seems to be demonstrating that the lack of checks and balances on the dictator's whims is actually the weakness of autocracies, combined with the unwillingness of subordinates to tell the leader anything they don't want to hear.

I suspect the only competence of autocracies in the long run is repression. Competence requires accurate information to assess the implications of different courses of action and willingness to listen to different viewpoints. None of this is possible in a dictatorship, which is why they ultimately screw up and rely on increasing repression and external aggression. It might be said that the economic success of China is a counter-example, but I think the shift from collegiate leadership to one-man rule under Xi Jinping may ultimately prove to be their undoing.

You make valid points that I agree with, and would only ask if the Generals who one assumes assured Putin the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick victory, believed it themselves, whereas we have seen the shambles that the Russian armed forces are in the field. Were they aware of the sub-standard equipment they had, or were they so ill-informed that they did not know the ineffective armed forces of Ukraine in 2014 had been overhauled with new equipment and a more obviously motivated soldiery? You have to wonder why any Russian would start a war in winter, and now with the ice and snow melting, the roads will in some cases become rivers of mud. But as you say, the hubris that accompanies Dictatorship often form the basis of their collapse, if not yet in Russia.

One curious detail I discovered yesterday, is a 2013 agreement between Ukraine and China with the latter pledging to support Ukraine in the case of threat and or use of nuclear weapons, thus making it difficult for China to give Russia its complete support, while there is the longer term case of China having to subsidize Russia. Here is the key paragraph in the 2013 agreement-

"China pledges unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear Ukraine, and under the conditions of Ukraine suffering an invasion using nuclear weapons or suffering the threat of such kind of invasion, to provide Ukraine with corresponding security guarantees."
In 2013, China pledged to defend Ukraine in the event of a nuclear attack - Mothership.SG - News from Singapore, Asia and around the world (https://mothership.sg/2022/03/china-defend-ukraine-nuclear-attack/)

Stavros

04-02-2022, 07:12 AM

Putin's Folly -failing to win his war in days....now I suspect he will park his troops in the Donbas and leave them there for years in the hope that the Ukrainian govt accepts this 'temporary' arrangement in exchange for some kind of peace. But will the people, if asked in a referendum, accept such terms?

"Vladimir Putin (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/vladimir-putin/) risks running out of viable tanks, missiles and fighter jets because the components they use are made in Ukraine, The Telegraph understands.The engines for all Russian helicopters, ships and cruise missiles and a substantial portion of fighter jet engines and ground-to-air missile and tank components (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/14/end-tank/) are made in Ukrainian factories, which no longer supply Mr Putin’s forces."
Vladimir Putin ‘running out’ of missiles – because parts are made in Ukraine (yahoo.com) (https://uk.yahoo.com/news/vladimir-putin-running-missiles-because-155921121.html)

Stavros

04-04-2022, 05:28 PM

A desperate, pathetic response by the Russians to the massacres in Bucha and surrounding villages. The demonization of Ukraine as a place so rife with Nazis the place doesn't just need to be 'de-Nazified' but also 're-educated' begs questions -such as, why would a Ukrainian be a Nazi when the Nazi policy of 'Lebensraum' required the elimination of well, Ukrainians so the 'Aryan Race' could populate the 'vacated' land? One can understand why some Ukrainians in the 1940s supported the Germans -because they hated Stalin's Russia (as did a lot of Russians!) but those days are past, and there are probably as many Jew-hating Ukrainians as there are Russians.

Also, why should the Third Reich be the historical event by which contemporary events are to be judged? And is there some reverse Psychology at work, when the Russians use as a tool, the very example of mass murder that they are perpetrating? There are other examples in history to use, but positive ones, should the Russians choose to use them.

Have Ukrainians done bad things to Russians? I would say yes. I had a conversation with someone close to some Russians who complained that nobody has anything to say about 'the other side'. I argued that if the discrimination against Russians in the Donbas region had been so bad before 2014 we would have the evidence, but I haven't seen it, and anyway would military occupation have been the only means to combat such things? Moreover, if the Russians could provide hard evidence of what Ukrainians have done to them, even if they are defending their country, the balance of argument would at least facilitate debate.

Instead, all we get is abuse, violence, and a complete lack of contrition, or compassion -so the killings will go on, and on, and on.

"“The Guardian says Russia troops brutalised civilians in Bucha while regrouping, using kids as human shields – without proof, taking word at face value,” said an NTV news presenter on Sunday evening.While Russian state media categorically denied any links to the atrocities, leading news agency RIA on Monday published an op-ed titled “What Russia should do with Ukraine” by a pro-Kremlin political commentator in which the author called for the “denazification” and “re-education” of a large part of Ukrainian society.
“The name Ukraine can seemingly not be retained as the title of any fully denazified state formation on the territory liberated from the Nazi regime,” the pundit Timofei Sergeitsev wrote."
(1) Russia-Ukraine war latest: Biden calls for Putin to face war crimes trial after atrocities in Bucha – live (theguardian.com) (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/apr/04/russia-ukraine-war-latest-zelenskiy-calls-russian-forces-butchers-after-civilian-mass-graves-found-around-kyiv-live?page=with:block-624aee2a8f085eeae32a8708&filterKeyEvents=false)
-posted at 13.51

Stavros

04-09-2022, 08:19 AM

A few random thoughts.

This may become another 'forever war'. Having over-estimated the abilities of his military, I suspect that Putin as a minimum expects to consolidate Russia's annexation of the Donbas region, which will end the current level of hostilities, and in effect return Russia-Ukraine relations to the 'low-level warfare' that existed between 2014 and February 2022. It means, if it can be done, he can declare some sort of 'victory' on May 9th- and NATO relax the intensity of its support. But this may create a crisis in the leadership in Ukraine, if compromise undoes Zelensky's coalition, another potential gain for Putin.
Sitrep: Putin 'desperate' to celebrate victory on 9 May (forces.net) (https://www.forces.net/russia/putin-desperate-get-something-out-war-may-9)

The scale of violence and destruction in Ukraine is genuinely distressing, but is no worse than the combined Syrian-Russian demolition of life and property in Syria, while the full detail of the Saudi Arabian offensive in Yemen has not been covered in the media. The prospects of any Russian being held to account in a Court of Law for offences in Syria or Ukraine is close to zero. I may not want that to be the case, but it can only happen if most of Russia's formal and informal allies abandon Putin, much as changes in Serbian politics enabled the arrests of Milosovic, Mladic and Karadzic. I don't see that happening, not as long as Putin can rely on the Gulf Arabs and Saudi Arabia to maintain the oil price at a level even diminished Russian exports remain an important source of revenue.

If the current phase of the war ends, will NATO and allies lift sanctions against Russia? I don't think so, but I also think the urgency of the transition away from fossil fuels to break the dependency on Russia, has not gained momentum, not in the UK, where Boris Johnson, making up policy on a day to day basis is claiming the UK will develop nuclear power stations, without telling us where, or what the cost is going to be, or who is going to pay for it, let alone build the stations. The Germans are in a difficult position because like Japan they are a major industrial power without the core energy sources to make their economies less dependent on external providers.

Can Putin stay in power? He has changed personnel at the top of the military, but there is no sign of an internal coup, though in the absence of any intelligence on the matter, who knows?

When I was a student of Russian history and politics, many years ago I admit, we learned that the foundations of Imperial Russia were the Autocracy of the Tsar, the Orthodoxy of the Church, and Russian Nationalism. The post-Imperial USSR evolved into one whose foundations were the Autocracy of the Communist Party, the Orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism, and Russian Nationalism. Soviet 'Internationalism' as defined by the Comintern was never more than an external means to maintain internal power.

It seems to me that since 1991, the Autocracy has been re-established by Putin after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, and Russian Nationalism is as toxic and destructive now as it has been since the 19th century. What seems missing to me is a binding ideology, an 'Orthodoxy', because I don't think the concept of Russia as Eternal Victim is sufficient to create the solidarity Putin needs to defend himself and his supposed vision of Russia as a great power restored.

Russia has been let down by the billionaires who shifted most of their wealth out of the country, rather than invest in it. Most of the troops on the ground in Ukraine seem to be from the Far East where poverty rather than Patriotism is the motive for joining the forces. What the generation growing up think about their country, when they have no personal experience of the USSR is not clearly established.

I feel sorry for Russia on this level, it is an amazing place to visit, but someone I know who lived there for a year came to hate the ease with which he was robbed by the police on a regular basis, a level of corruption that too many Russians get used to living with. It suggests to me that whether he stays or goes, Putin is President of a dysfunctional state with no opposition, which has no practical solution for its problems, the ones that existed before the crisis created by the war. Just as one wonders if life really is better under Russian rule in South Ossetia, or Transnistria, or Luhansk and Donetsk, I don't see the quality of life in Russia itself improving in the short to medium term. Will Russians conclude Putin is to blame for their situation?

Putin is in effect, destroying his own country. And for what? The absurd need to be a Great Man? But for years we gave this little prick what he wanted, and his Hubris and its destructive consequences is as not something we can, in the UK in particular claim we played no part in nurturing. The deaths of Alexander Litvinenko, and the Salisbury poisonings should have been the 'red line' that ended Russian saturation of the UK economy and the Conservative Party. They got a slap on the wrist, the City of London billions of dollars.

Russia is going down, and taking with it more than its own crooks and swindlers. But to clear out our own filthy backyard, we need a more robust media prepared to expose Boris Johnson and his Party for the catastrophic incompetents that they are. It is going to take time, though, and time is not on the side of those people dying every day in the Ukraine, seeing everything they lived for trashed by yet another Governing machine that treats people and their property with contempt.

Ni slavom uniat', ni platkom uteret'

filghy2

04-10-2022, 11:59 AM

Unfortunately, Russia is reverting to historical type as a backward, isolated country whose leaders rely on brute force and keeping their people ignorant rather than on competence. While there have some great Russian contributions to culture and knowledge, it does seem like the civilised virtues have always been a veneer rather than something that has put down deep roots.

None of this speaks well of the various Western leaders over the past three decades. First, they assumed naively that democracy and free enterprise would take root despite the absence of any historical foundations. Instead, the end of Communism simply crashed the economy and allowed insiders to loot previously public assets, which discredited the democratic project in the eyes of most Russians. Then they indulged Putin's behaviour and ignored the warning signs on the assumption that he would not go too far and thereby lose the benefits of Russia's integration into the global economy. That was a category error because it assumed that someone like Putin actually cares about his peoples' wellbeing.

Will we finally learn the lesson this time? I had assumed that one good thing to come out of this would be the discrediting of populist politicians who had been Putin enthusiasts. However, I see the recent polls are suggesting that Marine Le Pen has a chance of winning the French Presidential election. Apparently, she has been running hard on the rising cost of living. The key question is what the voters will care more about ultimately - defending another democracy from a brutal dictator or bringing down energy prices?

Stavros

04-11-2022, 05:39 AM

Thank you for your thoughtful post, which I agree with. Marine Le Pen has had to destroy campaign literature which was printed before Russia's invasion, which featured her photographed with Putin, just as it is widely known her party received loans from a Russian bank. That said, and as your post indicates, the domestic situation in France appears to appeal to voters more than Le Pen's shady past, and it seems the emergence of two candidates even further right than she has enabled her to look more moderate.

That said, I am not sure she can win the second round, and the question with Hungary is not so different from the question asked of Luhansk and Donetsk -is life better there than it was before? In the latter case, Ukraine stopped paying pensions in the breakaway 'Republics' and the leadership there is now firmly part of the Russian system, so it is hard to see those regions being re-incorporated into Ukraine; but is life itself actually better than it was before, and will the people in Hungary feel their lives have improved over the next five years if they continue to test the EU's resolve on a range of issues, and, for example lose access to EU loans?

Were Le Pen to become President, I think it would be more divisive than the French have experienced for some time, rather like Trump treating the Constitution and the Rule of Law with contempt and, so far, getting away with it. Not sure about Johnson as the negative drip-feed of illegal parties, non-dom Tax benefits and 'Golden Visas' for Russians won't go away, just as Brexit continues to seep into the economy like poison.

I offer a link to an analysis of Ukraine and Russia with the chilling prediction- “There’s seven bad years ahead, but then we’ll have our hundred years of empire.” , and an interesting point about Putin's view that he aims not to re-create the USSR, but a vertically structured Empire in which he is Tsar in all but name.

Article also criticises Zelensky's various positions, though the actuality of war has changed a lot of perspectives, so while there is an assumption Russia has the capacity to spend years grinding Ukraine into dust, it leaves them with the prospect of control over a territory in which the remaining population is a permanent source of division and conflict, similar to Israel and Palestine. With the equally grim view that just as Israel has been able to maintain its illegal siege of Gaza for 15 years, so the Ukraine-Russia sore will seep for years to come because external parties are not going to intervene to change it. Unless something dramatic happens and I am proven wrong.

A Ukrainian Socialist Explains Why the Russian Invasion Shouldn’t Have Been a Surprise | Спільне (commons.com.ua) (https://commons.com.ua/en/volodymyr-artiukh-war-jacobin/)

Stavros

04-16-2022, 02:26 PM

Easter Hymn
by A. E. Housman

If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,
You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night
The hate you died to quench and could but fan,
Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,
At the right hand of majesty on high
You sit, and sitting so remember yet
Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
Your cross and passion and the life you gave,
Bow hither out of heaven and see and save.

Stavros

04-23-2022, 07:38 PM

An interesting analysis of Russia's 'strategic mistakes' in Ukraine, derived from its campaign in Syria.

As Fortress Russia crumbles, the global economy faces a new world order (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fortress-russia-crumbles-global-economy-082411068.html)

Stavros

04-29-2022, 04:53 AM

The letters in this link are critical of 'Luxury' Liz Truss, aiming to be the most expensive Foreign Secretary in British history, and apparently as useless at the job as Boris Johnson was. The key point is that the only conceivable 'end' to the crisis in the Ukraine will not in fact be an 'end' but a compromise which leaves Russia in control of some territory in the east of Ukraine, thus allowing Putin to claim 'victory' even if the reality is that even Russians realise their military is not that good, the leadership even worse. This may be Putin's last stand, if he is as ill as some footage indicates he is.

That said, he is also keen to lob cruise missiles into Kyiv, really just to let 'us' know he can do it, just as I expect him to provoke Moldova and in effect, keep begging NATO to attack Russia so he can say to the Russians 'See, I told you they are out to get us'.

After all, next month sees the 15th anniversary of the start of Israel's siege of the Gaza District, a crime for which there appears to be no solution as no external party is willing or even able to coerce Israel into lifting the siege, or for that matter engaging in peace talks to end illegal settlement building in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, on the basis that 'facts on the ground' are what matter, just as 'the West' is again, neither capable nor willing to pressure Israel into ending the daily assault on Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Charter of the United Nations makes the acquisition of territory by force illegal, but there is no agreed mechanism to reverse it.

The letters are in this link-
Liz Truss’s careless talk fans the flames of war in Ukraine | Letters | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/28/liz-truss-careless-talk-fans-the-flames-of-war-in-ukraine)

MrFanti

05-01-2022, 07:12 AM

Interesting perspective out of Germany...
Merkel's Legacy on Russia Casts a Shadow over Her Party
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-few-sanctions-and-that-was-it-merkel-s-legacy-on-russia-casts-a-shadow-over-her-party-a-45130c68-05f4-4161-8d23-982574b15b28

MrFanti

05-01-2022, 08:21 PM

And....(from Germany again)....
Germany and France Must Drive Effort for Credible Deterrent Against Russia
https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/difficult-questions-a-773f2a0e-3d34-46fa-884c-052c0a508ef5

Stavros

05-13-2022, 03:52 AM

An article in today's Guardian concerns the lack of fight in Russian soldiers, some of whom have refused to do so, being protected by the legal fact that Russia has not formally declared war on the Ukraine. The real point of interest is how it intersects with a report that was on the Wednesday edition of BBC-2's Newsnight, which looked at how the Ukraine campaign has exposed the changes taking place to warfare.

Just as the Russian soldiers don't want to fight, the logic of a land army taking possession of territory seems to have become, for the time being, marginal to Russian intentions. Initially it seems the idea was that strategic targets in Ukraine would be knocked out, the Russians arrive and take over, appoint their representatives, and integrate Ukraine into Russia. The resistance from the Ukraine and the shambles that the Russian military has become, has done two things.

First, to continue prosecuting the war, the military has shifted from being land-based to being almost solely air-based, but not with the Air Force, but in the Russian case, air attacks with land-based artillery fired from within Russia, and in the Ukraine's case, the effective use of Drones, as both delivery vehicles for bombs, and as aerial intelligence to identify targets. The key point is that while Air Power has been the darling of strategy for some time now, these days it is not manned airpower that is proving to be effective, just as tanks and armoured vehicles are proving to be a liability when they get stuck in the mud, or are in such a poor shape they break down, with spare parts somewhere in a distant warehouse in Russia, or because the vehicles are old and crap anyway.

This suggests that war is being fought almost as a form of 'remote control' -an officer sitting in Moscow ordering a missile strike on Mariupol or Kyiv or anywhere, the ferocious bombardment not being met with an incoming wave of troops, just destruction for the sake of destruction, creating a wasteland of ruined buildings and urban areas with no running water, gas or electricity, a Nihilist's dream. One wonders if any Russians genuinely want to go and live in Mariupol. It may become a ghost city -with only a functioning port the sign of life.

The terrifying logic of this remote sensing, is that using a Nuclear Weapon becomes a matter of simple logic when all else fails. And yet, from what we know, is the Russian nuclear capability, well, capable? Not sure anyone wants to find out.

‘They were furious’: the Russian soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine | Russia | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/12/they-were-furious-the-russian-soldiers-refusing-to-fight-in-ukraine)

Stavros

05-13-2022, 03:56 AM

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, the original import of this thread concerned Russian funding of, and links to Boris Johnson and his 'Conservative Party', and not so shocking news the party is reluctant to publish the report into the circumstances in which Evgeny Lebedev became The Noble Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia...yep, though the formal title is a bit longer.

Read all about it!

Boris Johnson Delays Publishing Secret Lebedev Advice Due to ‘Security Challenges’ – Byline Times (https://bylinetimes.com/2022/05/12/boris-johnson-levgeny-ebedev-advice-delayed-mps-mi5-mi6-security/)

Stavros

05-17-2022, 08:14 AM

If Sweden and Finland were to become members of NATO, it would be another failure in Putin's security plan for Russia, being the opposite of what he has claimed he wants, or the confirmation of his paranoia that Russia is under threat from the corrupt, transgender-lovin' West (huh?).

Putin appeared to threaten Finland and Sweden if they join NATO, but yesterday he seemed to scale the rhetoric down, but the real story here is whether or not Turkey will use its veto to prevent Sweden and Finland from becoming full members. Some have argued that with an election looming, Erdogan is using the issue to buff up his image of a strong leader, claiming that Sweden hosts Kurdish 'terrorists' and that Turkey is being unfairly treated because it has purchased arms from Russia.

Turkey became a member of NATO during the Cold War, but has more than once acted against the interests of the Alliance, without being held accountable, perhaps because the logic of the politics is that Turkey ought not to be a member of NATO. The two most obvious problems are with Turkey's illegal occupation of northern Cyprus, which began in 1974 and continues today, an occupation that set back hopes of a peace deal that would give Cyprus its independence, and continues to be a block today.

The other is Turkey's illegal occupation of northern Syria -described by some as a 'new Gaza'-, which has only been possible because the same Kurds Erdogan claims are 'terrorists' were the main force that broke the back of Daesh and led to its demise as an 'Islamic State'.

Turkey has form here, having annexed the Sanjak of Alexandretta in 1938 following tactics similar to what one finds with the Russians in Ukraine, there being little that is new about politics and the military when a dictatorship or even a democracy chooses to change 'facts on the ground' -my view being Turkey was one of the first Fascist states to emerge after the First World War, becoming a 'Fascist Democracy' -in other words, you can have a democratically elected Government, but only if the voters identify as Turks.

Anyway, two links -the first on Turkey's Gaza in Syria, the other to the fascinating if depressing story of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, and how a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state became an almost entirely Turkish province. (If you can find it, there is an article on Alexandretta by Robert Satloff, which would normally come with a health warning given his political affiliations, but on this occasion an intriguing analysis -it is from the journal Middle Eastern Studies in 1986 but is only available through subscription).

A new Gaza: Turkey’s border policy in northern Syria – European Council on Foreign Relations (ecfr.eu) (https://ecfr.eu/publication/a_new_gaza_turkeys_border_policy_in_northern_syria/)

Sanjak of Alexandretta - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjak_of_Alexandretta)

Stavros

06-10-2022, 09:23 PM

I see Putin was at it again, plucking morsels from history from which to make a meal celebrating, indeed justifying his war against Ukraine. This time, Peter the Great is recruited to confirm the fiction that Ukraine is really just Russia, so Putin is 'Taking Back' what was lost -lost by whom? Well, that would be Communists -bear in mind he was a Communist for most of his life before succeeding Yeltsin.

The Great Northern War with Sweden is in its details the Great Northern Bore, replete with Kings and Princes marching into this and that territory, claiming it for themselves. The irony is that when Peter the Great was first defeated by the Swedes, it was because his armed forces were weak, poorly equipped and mostly cavalry rather than infantry, and when he defeated the Swedes it was after he had modernized the forces -take note, Vladimir, because your lads are failing because you failed to modernize your army!

As for the fiction Ukraine is Russia, well maybe some parts once were, or were part of Poland, or Lithuania, or not really populated much at all. Take Luhansk and Donetsk -both of them founded as industrial towns...one by a Scot called Gascoigne, the other by a Welshman called Hughes, as the link tells you.
The surprising British origins of eastern Ukraine - The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/09/the-surprising-british-origins-of-eastern-ukraine/)

All of which begs the question, Vlad -if Ukraine is Russia, why are you bombing your own country into ash and rubble? And who is going to live in places like Mariupol when this is all over?

"There is no Ukraine": Fact-Checking the Kremlin's Version of Ukrainian History | LSE International History (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/)

IloveTransGirlz

06-12-2022, 09:56 AM

Sad :(

blackchubby38

06-14-2022, 12:54 AM

Either Biden is trying to rewrite history or he is laying down the groundwork for either cutting off aid to Ukraine or an eventual negotiated settlement between them and Russia. Because if I recall, it was the Biden administration that was downplaying an invasion and almost calling Zelensky, "an alarmist".

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/11/biden-zelensky-russia-invasion-warnings-putin/

Also, if the world's food supply was going to be threatened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wouldn't that have been a significant reason for NATO to get more involved.

Stavros

06-14-2022, 08:59 AM

Your post is bang on, Blackchubby, as it exposes the most dangerous issues right now.

I am not sure how to describe Biden's posture, which looks comatose, but so far must be described as caution. If the US were to get involved, what is the strategic aim, the end result? Given that most of the damage in Ukraine is being caused by artillery bombardments from inside Russia, could NATO get involved without bombing targets inside Russia?

The irony here is that Russia's land forces have been so so poorly organized and equipped, that bombing Russian targets may lead to a Russian defeat more clearly defined than the kind of war fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, which begs the question, does the US want Russia defeated in a war? It might remove Putin from the stage, but it doesn't mean an equally aggressive Russian nationalist will not replace him. These 'known unknowns' are exercising minds in the Pentagon, hence the restraint.

As you know, a Casus Belli has to be more precise for NATO to act on the basis of its charter, and so far, Russia has not provoked that kind of reaction. The military action has the political objective of establishing without question Russia's sovereignty over the region that comprises Ukraine in the West but which, because of historic Russian Imperial history could also include the Baltic States and parts of Poland. This on the basis that Belarus and Moldova are compliant to the extent that 'they know their place'.

The assumption is that if Russia were to face defeat or another year of fighting in the Donbas it would seek an escalation of its 'special operations' in the Baltic states, my view being Putin might try a single attack on one of them just to see if NATO does in fact act, or expose the perception it has that the US doesn't want to get involved in any more wars, so Russia can do what it likes.

For this reason, your reference to the food supply issues brings in the maritime aspect of this conflict which has not received much exposure, perhaps because it is more likely to provoke a direct confrontation with the Russians than threats to the Baltics.

Lawrence Freedman lays out the scenarios in the link below, noting that Russia's attempts -successful so far- to control the maritime links between the Sea of Azov via the Kerch Straits to the Black Sea and through the Dardanelles to the Mediterranean, are illegal but that an international maritime force designed to protect Odesa and facilitate its exports, would be the maritime equivalent of a 'no fly zone' over the air space of Ukraine that the US has explicitly said it will not enforce. Turkey's role in this too is hard to read, as Turkey tends to act in its own interests regardless of its NATO membership (cf Cyprus) and would have to agree to any maritime force protecting shipping in and out of Odesa.

Will the 'war at sea', if it happens, be the inevitable 'war with Russia'?

One rogue factor could be Boris Johnson, desperate to remain Prime Minister in the UK and perceiving Germany and Macron to be NATO's 'weak link', sending a Royal Navy vessel into the Sea of Azov- but let's just let that thought sink somewhere, given the state of our Navy as it is, let alone Johnson's declining powers.

For this reason, I think there is/will be pressure from the EU and NATO on Zelensky to at least negotiate terms for a Ceasefire, if Ukraine cannot stomach a treaty of any sort that cedes territory to Russia's control. Biden wants to avoid the US becoming involved in a military conflict anywhere, Putin knows this and is deliberately provoking the US, and I think Biden's posture remains committed to not getting involved, but while this appears to benefit Putin, it only does by forcing Ukraine to some kind of settlement that Putin can call a 'triumph' even if it means his original strategic vision has failed, along with the decimation of the officer class and substantial troop -and maritime losses.

So yes, either there will be a military confrontation at sea, or there will be a messy, unhappy compromise that forces Ukraine to concede to Russia, though whether that solves the question of grain exports I don't know, as Russia is stealing grain and selling it on the world market, and though Ukraine can, with difficulty export grain via rail and road through Poland, the disruption to the production and export of grain and other things will continue, pushing up prices, but an issue which Putin doesn't care about.

"Protecting commercial shipping is by no means a simple option. Escorts would need to include minesweepers. Accompanying warships can also suffer from mines. There would need to be unanimity in Nato to authorise the operation – Turkey in particular would need to sign up. Because of the Montreux treaty, it has an effective veto as it would need to authorise Nato warships moving through the Turkish straits from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. And Turkey’s actions are not always predictable."
Russia's Black Sea blockade causes food shortages for the whole world - New Statesman (https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/05/black-sea-blockade-crimea)

On Ukraine's exports-
Odessa official: Ukraine needs help to break Russian blockade | World Grain (world-grain.com) (https://www.world-grain.com/articles/17016-odessa-official-ukraine-needs-help-to-break-russian-blockade)
Russia has blocked 20 million tons of grain from being exported from Ukraine : NPR (https://www.npr.org/2022/06/03/1102990029/russia-has-blocked-20-million-tons-of-grain-from-being-exported-from-ukraine?t=1655186937785)

filghy2

06-15-2022, 10:23 AM

Either Biden is trying to rewrite history or he is laying down the groundwork for either cutting off aid to Ukraine or an eventual negotiated settlement between them and Russia. Because if I recall, it was the Biden administration that was downplaying an invasion and almost calling Zelensky, "an alarmist".

Your recollection is incorrect. US intelligence agencies were definitely warning that an invasion was imminent and Ukraine did express concerns that this was alarmist.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/24/us-uk-intelligence-russian-invasion-ukraine
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/shot-was-called-intelligence-and-russian-invasion-ukraine-200846

blackchubby38

06-27-2022, 12:11 AM

Stavros

06-27-2022, 11:47 AM

Again, you highlight the dilemma, namely direct confrontation with Russia, or an indirect one so transparent the Russians could say it is so, but also, can NATO call Russia's bluff? The weakness of the land forces Russia has in Ukraine and the losses it has incurred, along with the turmoil in the higher ranks of the military, suggest Russia is not as strong as it likes to project, but this also raises the stakes with regard to potential/threatened nuclear action.

If Russia is strategically overstretched, could NATO further undermine Russia by promoting Georgia's claim that Abkhazia and South Ossetia be 'returned' to Georgia, as they are considered 'fake' republics? The Russians have -or had- around 8,000 troops in South Ossetia, about 3,500 in Abkhazia, but the problem lies in Georgia where the population is divided on the Ukraine question, where it supports Georgia's aim to join NATO, and the so-far 'agreement' that the EU recognize its aspirations to join without yet becoming a Candidate Member (though this does raise the obvious question, is Georgia in Europe?), while some are pro-Russian.

Critically, so far Georgia has decided not to 'rock the boat' and has tended to side with the Russians, so it remains weak link. Earlier this month the UK Govt issued a statement calling for the reintegration of Georgia and a 'right of return' for the 160,000 odd people made refugees when this conflict began in 2008.

On the other side, there is little expectation that Moldova will attempt to re-integrate Transnistria into the country. There are approx 1,500 Russian troops there, but again, Moldova tends to be compliant when dealing with Russia, and as with Ukraine and Poland, gas supplies are an important leverage.

If you factor in Turkey as an unreliable ally, given its illegal occupation of Cyprus since 1974 and its negative impact on peace negotiations there, plus its illegal actions in Northern Syria, I would assume the US is unwilling to get involved because other than Ukraine, the Baltic States and Finland, it cannot rely on support from the Caucasus in the east, or Moldova in the west -Moldova is vulnerable in regard to gas supplies, Georgia with regard to the BTC pipeline which runs from Moscow-friendly Baku through Georgia to the Turkish coast.

So on the surface yes, a free shipping lane sounds possible -though both Ukraine and Russia have mined the waters- and would be considered a defeat for Putin, but he has other options, other allies, and as someone from the Brookings Institution said on the BBC last night, the US/NATO doesn't really have an 'end game' - repatriating eastern Ukraine looks too much to ask, but negotiating their official transfer to Russia remains unacceptable in Kyiv; and Putin may calculate that as long as his artillery in Russia can bomb targets in Ukraine, the war can go on until he runs out of ammo.

That may be why NATO is looking at further sanctions to weaken Russia economically, which so far is working, albeit slowly. A direct attack on the locations from which the bombardment takes place would be a direct attack on Russia, and so far that has been ruled out, as has, I think, a significant upgrade of Ukraine's air force -I don't know if Israel's Iron Dome would lessen the impact of Russia's bombardment, but Israel has so far sat on the fence, though Bennet may lose the upcoming election there, and I don't know what Netanyahu's position is, should he return to power.

Then there are the rumours of Putin's health, or of an inside cabal that wants to replace him and what's left of the Military High Command (Shoigu in particular). I think NATO and Biden are cautious for good reason, but the cost is mounting and a sense that 'something must be done' to at least bring the fighting and the bombing to an end, even if it then means years of inconclusive on-off negotiations. Putin, after all, can look at Donetsk, Luhansk, Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia -and Chehnya too- and see the Russians have achieved their objectives there, even if they are all poor, corrupt and young people leave as soon as they can. He really doesn't care.

Some links-
In Georgia, Calls Emerge To Retake South Ossetia, Abkhazia (rferl.org) (https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-abkhazia-south-ossetia-russia-ukraine/31746764.html)

Putin Is Failing in Ukraine, But Winning in Georgia - The Bulwark (https://www.thebulwark.com/putin-is-failing-in-ukraine-but-winning-in-georgia/)

Reiterating our deep concern over the continued illegal Russian presence in Georgia - GOV.UK ( (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/reiterating-our-deep-concern-over-the-continued-illegal-russian-presence-in-parts-of-georgia)www.gov.uk (http://www.gov.uk))

What you need to know about Transnistria | openDemocracy (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/what-you-need-to-know-about-transnistria/)

blackchubby38

07-20-2022, 02:57 AM

This guy did a better job at explaining what I meant in my last post:

Putin is already at war with Europe. There is only one way to stop him

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/17/putin-is-already-at-war-with-europe-there-is-only-one-way-to-stop-him

Stavros

09-19-2022, 05:15 AM

Corcoran's article on the more extreme nationalists in Russia and their criticism of Putin raises questions about Russia if Putin were to be removed from power, or die, or whatever. As is common with Autocracies, survival depends on crushing all forms of dissent, and while the one-party state that was created by Lenin and ended by Yeltsin has not been replaced Putin has in effect created, or tried to create a monopoly form of power, though it looks to some more like a personality cult than a one-party state. To that extent, the existence of other parties, mostly more Nationalist than Putin, suggests that Russia is likely to be weakened by internal disputes on top of the lamentable performance of its military in Ukraine.

So while some comment in the UK press has asked if Putin is going to be so desperate he might use tactical nuclear weapons, maybe the question is, if he is succeeded by even more extreme politicians, will they use them? But while they may cause trouble for Putin, how powerful are the Nationalists, and how much support do they have across Russia?

Russia's Hawkish Nationalists Who Want All-Out War in Ukraine (businessinsider.com) (https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-hawkish-nationalists-who-want-all-out-war-in-ukraine-2022-9?r=US&IR=T)

Stavros

09-21-2022, 04:50 PM

Yesterday we read that Erdogan claimed Putin wanted to end the war, today he has increased the escalation. He also says Russia is not bluffing when it says it will use all means to defend itself.

The man is either making a major strategic error, as with Saddam in Kuwait in 1990, or still gambling that over the long term, it is Ukraine and, crucially, its supporters in NATO and Europe that will weaken, and provide Russia with the agenda it can claim as 'victory' -even as the Russian annexed regions of Ukraine are less secure than they were in 2014. A lot does now rest on the willingness of NATO to continue its supplies of materiel to Ukraine, and to absorb the energy shocks Russia hopes will weaken any support Ukraine has across Europe.

I wonder if it were not for Russia's nuclear arsenal, NATO would have hammered Russia in Ukraine, though Desert Shield and Desert Storm were both backed by Security Council Resolutions. But maybe NATO should call Putin's bluff on nuclear weapons.

Jericho

09-22-2022, 04:45 AM

I wonder if it were not for Russia's nuclear arsenal, NATO would have hammered Russia in Ukraine, though Desert Shield and Desert Storm were both backed by Security Council Resolutions. But maybe NATO should call Putin's bluff on nuclear weapons.

Well that's fine for some of you old bleeders, knocking on deaths door anyway.
Meanwhile, some of us would rather not become crispy critters on the turn of a card in a game of global brag!

Stavros

09-24-2022, 03:22 AM

Well that's fine for some of you old bleeders, knocking on deaths door anyway.
Meanwhile, some of us would rather not become crispy critters on the turn of a card in a game of global brag!

Am I in the departure lounge? Maybe! The point I was trying to make was a matter of strategy, not what I want. When the war began earlier this year, the strategic aim was to slow the Russians down; Macron I think it was even said that NATO should not humiliate Putin. Fast forward to where we are now, and Putin is humiliated by his own strategic blunders, and by what to some is the amazing failure of Russian troops on the ground -poorly equipped, poorly managed, lacking in motivation -the parallels with the Iraq of Saddam Hussein are spooky, after all in 1990 Iraq had the fourth or fifth largest army in the world.

The Russian failures on the ground have led to Putin escalating his campaign. I assume he knows how badly it is going, but the nuclear threat, while real needs to be seen in context -the use is likely to be of tactical, or 'battlefield' nuclear weapons rather than strategic warheads -the point being that tactical nuclear weapons can 'take out' a moderate sized city like Kremenchug with minimal fall-out, and destroy much but probably not all of Kyiv. What the much-publicized Hypersonic missile can do is unknown, with the difficulty that on the one hand Russian armaments and delivery systems have been exposed as poor, but on the other hand as a new weapons system, Hypersonic might be very effective,

Also, in 1980 Saddam Hussein became an ally of the USA in its attempt to overthrow the Iranian government, ten years later, Saddam was the enemy and ten years after that, his son was plotting regime change in Iraq. NATO might not be plotting regime change in Russia, but it is no secret that people want Putin out of the way, though as I argued in an earlier post, we don't know who would replace him, and it might be someone even more reckless.

The referenda being held in regions of Ukraine is designed to integrate them into Russia so any attack on them is an attack on Russia, and other than Ukraine attacks on targets in Russia close to the border, there has been no serious attempt to take the war into Russia. Whether anyone outside Russia believes overnight these places can become Russia doesn't matter, it won't stop Ukraine from seeking to remove the Russian military presence there. Whether or not this does lead Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons is currently the great Unknown, and one can only hope it doesn't happen.

broncofan

09-25-2022, 05:25 PM

Am I in the departure lounge?
I checked the arrivals at the place above and the place below and they say they don't expect you. I agree with Jericho that NATO can't be calling bluffs with nuclear war.

That doesn't mean there's no way to oppose Russia, as I don't think they're totally suicidal, but there are terms of conflict that everyone has sort of accepted.

The war is particularly devastating for Ukraine and Ukrainians but they decided early on they do not want to surrender. The argument from some that the west is willing to fight "to the last Ukrainian" is based on the assumption that Ukrainians would surrender or that it would be less deadly to allow Russia to annex all of Ukraine. Russia has showed they commit summary executions, they don't reprimand soldiers for doing so, and that the only way for the bloodshed to end is for Russia to give up its illegal ambitions.

Sadly, there is no peaceful outcome unless Russia chooses it. Russia has to be defeated and it has to be defeated by western armaments and Ukrainian soldiers.

Stavros

09-26-2022, 04:29 PM

Sadly, there is no peaceful outcome unless Russia chooses it. Russia has to be defeated and it has to be defeated by western armaments and Ukrainian soldiers.

The question used to be 'what do we win when we win?', whereas your comment asks the question, 'what does defeat look like?'.

I am not sure either side can claim either victory or defeat. It doesn't look like Russia will succeed in annexing the Ukraine, which was the original mission. Not even with the mobilization of 'reserves' in Russia, including Ukrainians under Russian occupation in Luhansk and Donetsk. How those reservists will fight is not clear, but they can't be better than what Russia has offered so far. Russia has to hold on to parts if not all of Luhansk and Donetsk, otherwise this is a defeat of sorts, though I doubt their position in the Crimea will change.

But what would it mean for a Russian defeat in Eastern Ukraine, because if Ukraine regained sovereignty there, how will it treat the ethnic Russian and pro-Russian citizens who live there? Can we be so confident only Russia has committed war crimes against one side and other is squeaky clean?

I don't know if Putin can survive another year, but if he goes, a replacement is not going to simply withdraw from eastern Ukraine. The fighting war may fizzle out, and the situation revert to what it was between 2014-2022 with no resolution. If this enables both sides to claim a victory, then it is up to the spin doctors to make it work at home, though Russia has been more significantly damaged than Ukraine, and I think is heading for a decade of instability.

Territorial disputes can drag on forever -Palestine and Kashmir have been going since the late 1940s, the Korean peninsula remains divided since the 1950s, and I see no threat to the bogus republics created by Russia out of Moldova and Georgia. And in the end, can NATO or Russia afford to keep the war going?

So I see no conclusive defeat. Only a winding down of the war, and no desire to talk, and decades of dissembling punctuated by 'incidents'. In the end, people learn to adapt to chaos and instability. I wish it were not so, but I don't feel optimistic about this war.

broncofan

09-26-2022, 08:29 PM

While I can't be sure Ukraine is squeaky clean there's good reason to infer that most of the human rights violations are committed by Russia. First, the only people killed by Ukrainian soldiers have been soldiers, mainly because they're not in Russia or rolling tanks through Russian streets. Second, there's an enormous number of eyewitness accounts in Bucha and Mariupol that Russian soldiers are trying to kill all the survivors. There have been bodies found with hands tied behind the back and shot at close range. There's also the death toll at this point which is catastrophic in a short period of time. But we will know more eventually and if Ukraine commits atrocities they should be condemned.

Then there's the sequence of events. There was no actual threat to Russia. Maybe a threat to its influence but no attempt to kill its citizens or breach its border or invade the country. They decided one day they wanted to invade Ukraine on the grounds they're "Nazis". Yes, they saw the potential for inclusion as NATO as a threat but it wasn't a threat to their territorial integrity, an invasion, or anything that international law recognizes as an excuse for their actions.

The only way for Ukraine to win is to repel the Russians from their country or for Russia to decide they never should have invaded.

I'm not saying there can't be peace. But I don't see how it can happen if the country that led an expedition to conquer Ukraine doesn't leave the way they came.

broncofan

09-26-2022, 08:33 PM

They decided one day they wanted to invade Ukraine on the grounds they're "Nazis".
I'm also ignoring the revanchist claims to Luhansk and Donetsk because while there are Russian speakers it looks like a pretext to roll over Ukraine.

Stavros

09-26-2022, 10:26 PM

I'm also ignoring the revanchist claims to Luhansk and Donetsk because while there are Russian speakers it looks like a pretext to roll over Ukraine.

It has been an old Nationalist tactic since at least the first decade of the 20th century when Serbian nationalists argued with regard to the 'ethnic mix' in the Balkans, 'wherever there is a Serb, there is Serbia'. Hundreds of thousands died in the Balkan Wars before the Serbian Nationalists murdered the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, the city hosting the kind of diverse range of people that drove Serbs mad with rage. That the creation of Yugoslavia after the War bottled up rather than dealt with the pre-existing Nationalism of the Serbs is now regarded as a cause of the wars of the 1990s.

You will be aware of the claims Nazi Germany made on the Sudetenland, so in this context, it is spooky that when Russia claims Eastern Ukraine is really Russia but has fallen to 'Neo-Nazis' who attack Russians there, the result is not so different from what happened in 1939.

Yes, it can be argued that there are historical links between what is now Ukraine and Russia, that the Kievan Rus of the 9th century is considered the fons et origo of the Russian State, but are we to believe nothing changes in a thousand years of history, that there is some sort of 'pure' condition the restoration of which will end all wars? Putin seems to think he can be the contemporary equivalent of Peter the Great, which gives some indication of how this distorted Nationalist narrative is used to justify his war, a war he fights from behind a desk. And Peter was at least Six Foot Eight or just over 2 metres tall, which makes the comparison even more ridiculous.

As ever, Nationalist extremes produce extreme results, soaked in blood, the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and businesses just part of the necessary actions taken to achieve some perfect world. On this basis alone, Putin is doomed to fail. But there is no guarantee Ukraine will win either. It is a mess, and it will remain a mess.

blackchubby38

09-27-2022, 03:46 AM

broncofan

09-28-2022, 06:30 PM

So my question is this, is this considered calling a bluff:

U.S. Warns Russia of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ if It Uses Nuclear Weapons

http://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/politics/us-russia-nuclear.html
I don't know what the right posture is bc unrestrained nuclear war can't really be threatened bc everyone knows that's civilization ending.

It has to be made clear to Russia and Putin that if Russia uses nuclear weapons it will be completely isolated. Maybe a good idea to try to get China on board here as well since they're a sometimes ally of Russia. They're already somewhat isolated from economic sanctions but using a nuclear weapon in a war to annex its neighboring country should make them a pariah state for a hundred years if we all last that long.

I don't think if Biden is asked to follow up on what "catastrophic consequences" means it could possibly mean a hundred ballistic nukes launched at Russia.

Stavros

09-29-2022, 06:29 AM

So my question is this, is this considered calling a bluff:

U.S. Warns Russia of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ if It Uses Nuclear Weapons

http://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/politics/us-russia-nuclear.html

Referrals to the use of Nuclear Weapons, tactical or otherwise, should bear in mind Russia has used chemical weapons in Syria, and twice in the UK to kill former members of the KGB/FSB.

I don't know if Putin would use chemical weapons in an attack, say, on Kyiv or a smaller place in areas Russia is still fighting for in the Donbas or around Kherson, but Putin could calculate that he has used chemical weapons before and got away with it -Obama declared a 'Red Line' in Syria, but when Putin crossed it, there was no response, though this might have been due to lack of support for it in Congress.

So a chemical weapons attack ought not to be ruled out.

What the US considers to be a 'Strategic' response is not clear, or whether it would be a response 'in kind', which is the great fear, or the intensification of alternative 'weapons' in terms of economics, trade and so on. Were Russia to claim the areas it has held Referenda in are now Russia and any attack there is an attack on Russia and thus justified retaliation, the US might then use this to open a deeper dialogue with China.

China is fixated on issues of Sovereignty and has a problem with Russia in Ukraine because of this. The US could attempt to put some distance between China and Russia, but China must surely see that a weak Russia enables China to become the only major player that can match the US globally, something Biden has argued since his inauguration. But rather than embolden China with regard to Taiwan, which I now think is lower down Xi's priorities, China must now see an advantage in increasing its interests in the Russian economy, with regard to oil, gas and minerals, but also a boost to its credentials across the Asian republics which have been part of Russia's orbit since Soviet days, but which may now see Russia as too weak to be of any real help outside energy pipeline deals and immigrant labour rights in Russia.

We may be seeing an end to the phase of Globalization which created supply chains locking the world's economy into a network of Chinese producers and western consumers, but China may not need it if it can maintain the growth of its domestic market and become the major supplier to a country that borders the Pacific in the East and Poland in the West.
But I doubt Xi can restrain Putin when it comes to military affairs.

Does the US have a list of targets in Russia? Yes, but it has always stopped short of attacking Russia directly, not just because of the potential military response, but because it might increase Putin's support among the people who, with a US attack realize Putin was right all along about 'the evil West' planning since the 1990s to render Russia just a footprint on European and American heels.

But, finally, this thought -once Putin uses either chemical weapons and/or nuclear weapons, what else does he have? It looks like a last throw of the dice, and this from a military machine that so far has been proven all but useless, its only effective weapons the artillery it lobs across the border at indiscriminate targets, often civilian. Does Russia still have an air force?

Kaliningrad for some is now the focus of intense US surveillance as it is believed Russia is pouring arms into the enclave, possibly including tactical nukes.

And if Russia uses sabotage on the Nordstream pipeline, can the US/NATO use sabotage on installations inside Russia with 'plausible deniability'?

Stavros

10-09-2022, 06:42 AM

The partial destruction of the bridge linking Russia to the Crimea is said by some to be a 'game changer' because the bridge was one of Putin's prestige projects which he claimed was indestructible.

Russia has the artillery to continue bombarding Ukraine and that will not stop. Whether or not the bridge incident leads to another form of escalation I do not know. I have suggested before Russia could just as much use chemical, as tactical nuclear weapons, but I don't see Russia having anything but a military response, even though so far it is the military that has been Russia's weakest component in the war, bombardments being the exception.

So more of the same, more destruction, more lives lost, people injured.

broncofan

10-18-2022, 02:35 PM

broncofan

10-18-2022, 02:50 PM

I think the claimed provocation is the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, despite assurances apparently given to Gorbachev in 1990. The are obvious problems in using this to excuse Russia's action.

1. NATO had not expanded into Ukraine. Although they had expressed a wish to join, there was no indication this was going to happen any time soon.
2. Self-defence hardly justifies attempting to obliterate another country, deliberate targeting of civilians, etc.
3. Russian aggression has obviously been counter-productive, given previously-neutral countries (Sweden and Finland) have now asked to join NATO and Ukraine has also now formally applied.
4. The argument implies that Russia's neighbours have no right to choose their own destiny. They can't choose to be part of the West just because Russian leaders are paranoid.
5. The self-defence argument ignores Putin's rhetoric about restoring the Russian empire and Ukraine not being a real country, as well as previous Russian aggression in Crimea and Georgia.

I know the anti-Western leftists will say that the US has also interfered in neighbouring countries against leftist governments, but I don't think they've done anything that compares with Russia's behaviour in Ukraine.
Thank you for this. I agree with all of your points. I can see why Russia sees NATO as a concern because maybe a border skirmish triggers some sort of collective obligation and this changes the balance of power in the region. But even the most generous yet still rational interpretation cannot view it as a threat to Russia's sovereignty or legally recognized territories.

I'm sure the analogy is inapt but imagine Mexico signed a collective security agreement with a bunch of countries that would obligate these countries to defend Mexico if the US or any other country attacked them. Mexico, like Ukraine, is considered the weaker military power and has never shown aspirations of engaging in the aggressive conquest of US territory. Would this be a "threat" in any real sense? I'm sure Republicans would pretend it is. They think people sneaking into the US to make a better life for themselves is an invasion though rational people know this is a product of their racism (though I'm not saying there aren't rational ways to object to illegal immigration). Sometimes a pretext for war is so flimsy it's barely rational which your points 4 & 5 address.

I know my analogy falls short because there's a greater history of belligerence and conflict between NATO and Russia/Soviet Union, but what is a threat? I would think that something is a threat if a neighboring country wants to conquer your territory and is willing to kill your civilians (either they have or they threaten to do so).

Stavros

10-18-2022, 04:04 PM

I was thinking of bringing the last couple of posts from the other thread in here because they're interesting, mostly on topic, and I have some thoughts.

One thing I think that needs to be addressed head on is how the world deals with nuclear brinksmanship. Now that Putin's army is seriously faltering, we face more explicit threats of nuclear blackmail than before. Russia threatening to use tactical nukes, and making veiled threats about what happens if they face serious peril. The problem with this last argument is that self-defense doesn't extend to cover military losses while trying to conquer another country.

So let's say NATO and Ukraine let's Russia have some of what it wants. Does this encourage Russia to use this tactic again and for further gains? They're not constrained by the truth at all. So it's not like they even need a plausible excuse to run over eastern europe if they can.

What would be the purpose of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons?

In theory it would be to bring the conflict to an end, with Ukraine -urged on by its allies- agreeing to peace talks that would give Russia the territory in Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea it has occupied since 2014. But to do this Putin has to maintain the contradiction of claiming Ukraine is really part of Russia, and destroying so many of its cities, towns and villages- inheriting a blasted landscape, tremendous loss of life, and people injured for life who are embittered and angry. Ukraine may have the natural resources Russia wants, but its human resources would be difficult if not impossible to manage.

It seems to me to return us to the place where we were before, where Russia in reality has no claim on Ukraine, other than the historical relations which have gone from familial and comradely to dismissive and violent.

in practice, then, using nukes is a lose-lose-lose result

-He loses the 'Ukraine is Russia' argument: Putin doesn't win any territory that wants to be part of Russia.
-He loses the weapons in the arsenal;
- He loses any trust other States have with Russia who are not already on its side, and may lose some who either are, or currently hedge their bets -such as China, Turkey and Israel.

For Saudi Arabia and Iran, it would probably accelerate their own nuclear developments, with the Russians and the Chinese aiding Iran, the US and Israel aiding Saudi Arabia (as the US already has under Trump) [though the long-term aim of the Wahabi Saudis is to unify the whole of the Middle East under their command].

Unfortunately, Putin is in a position where he loses whatever he does, as I don't think even using nukes will bring Ukraine to the negotiating table, and inside Russia, there must be calculations about the devastating impact the war is having on the military, on the economy, and on the wider society which has no voice owing to the crushing by Putin of civil society. How long Putin can survive on his own I don't know, but I also wonder if in military terms, the Nationalist Extremists who don't think Putin has gone far enough to win Ukraine, have a workable plan that would be supported by the military. Again, unfortunately, I think Putin consider Russian military intervention in Syria to be a success, which begs the question, what is success?

Unless the only outcome of all this is that Russia all but destroys enough of Ukraine to render it poor, disorganized, and dependent on external powers who, like Elongated Musk cannot finance it forever.

Rogue factor -would the new govt in Israel if it contains the extremists like the 'Religious Zionist Party' -a party that has said it wants to expel Arabs from Israel, directly attack Iran and be encouraged to do so if Putin used tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?
There is an assessment of the Israeli elections and a section on the RZP by the pro-Israeli Washington Insitute, here-
Israeli Elections, Round Five: A Game of Inches | The Washington Institute (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/israeli-elections-round-five-game-inches)

filghy2

10-19-2022, 03:40 AM

What would be the purpose of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons?

The problem is that you are trying to apply a rational calculus, but if Putin was using such a calculus he would not have invaded Ukraine in the first place.

I think the fear that is uppermost in Putin's mind is that his leadership won't survive if he doesn't get some kind of win out of his gamble. Losing power is hugely risky for brutal dictators.

The dilemma for the West is that giving in to nuclear blackmail to let Putin have his win will guarantee there is more of it in future. History is full of examples of outcomes that were in nobody's interest resulting from this kind of dynamic.

filghy2

10-19-2022, 04:14 AM

I'm sure the analogy is inapt but imagine Mexico signed a collective security agreement with a bunch of countries that would obligate these countries to defend Mexico if the US or any other country attacked them.

There was a somewhat analogous episode in WWI, although Mexico did not take up the German proposal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram

Anyway, we do have the real world example of Cuba, which was a Soviet ally. Although the US tried various measures to undermine the Cuban Regime, I don't think they ever attacked Cuba directly (apart from sponsoring the proxy Bay of Pigs fiasco). That said, they did threaten war when the Soviets tried to install nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. But they never attacked Cuba after that crisis was resolved, presumably because they were worried about the Soviet reaction.

Stavros

10-20-2022, 02:40 PM

The problem is that you are trying to apply a rational calculus, but if Putin was using such a calculus he would not have invaded Ukraine in the first place.

I think the fear that is uppermost in Putin's mind is that his leadership won't survive if he doesn't get some kind of win out of his gamble. Losing power is hugely risky for brutal dictators.

The dilemma for the West is that giving in to nuclear blackmail to let Putin have his win will guarantee there is more of it in future. History is full of examples of outcomes that were in nobody's interest resulting from this kind of dynamic.

I think it must depend on what Putin believes the end-result of his campaign will be. To that end, the submission of Ukraine to Russia, outside NATO, inside the Economic Zone which Putin has been trying to create to integrate the former Soviet Republics into their version of the EU, his actions have been rational. It matters nothing to Putin if cities, towns and villages and the people who live in them are destroyed, humans will create new ones, and it is Ukraine's resources, notably in agriculture that Russia needs. The rationality of his intentions has been undone by his mis-calculation of Russia's military abilities, and Ukraine's reformed military. One has proved to be useless on the ground, the other superior.

Putin could order a ceasefire pending a round of talks, and then present Ukraine as the obstacle to peace. I think on the basis of what happened in Chechnya and Syria, the bombing will continue as, at the very least, Putin wants to destroy as much of Ukraine's infrastructure as he can.

Rationality in Iraq meant the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 because Saddam did not believe it would be opposed -there is some argument he mentioned it to April Glaspie and she did not indicate hostility to the idea by President GHW Bush. The Argentine Junta authorized the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, on the basis the UK would not respond with military force. These, at the outset were all rational decisions, but factored in the lack of response which actually materialized. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 expecting a military response, but was able to use control of the canal to create enough of an international crisis that external powers did not support the Anglo-French-Israeli attack. In all these cases, the rationale contained a fatal risk, and either succeeded or failed. In all these cases, the self-confidence of the decision makers launched the actions they later suffered for.

By contrast, the USSR putting nuclear missiles on Cuba does seem crazy from every angle, and in that case led to Khrushchev losing his job.

Stavros

10-20-2022, 03:53 PM

Another example comes to mind with the news Liz Truss has resigned today. David Cameron made what he thought was a rational decision in 2015 to sponsor a Referendum on the EU, and it was supported by the Labour Party. Cameron calculated that to silence the EU critics in his own party, and to undermine the threat to Conservative election prospects posed by UKIP, an EU Referendum would settle the question because Cameron did not believe the public would vote to Leave, a calculation that was also made by Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party.

From that rational decision came the unexpected resulted, and six years of bitterness, division, economic decline and political instability, which shows no sign of being settled.

Cameron bet the house on the outcome, and lost. But the original decision was entirely rational. Putin is a thug from the slums of Leningrad -will Russia be a slum when he departs the scene?

Stavros

10-21-2022, 05:36 PM

I probably should have included in these arguments, the claim that Russia interfered in the Brexit Referendum campaign. This argument is based on the idea that Russia wanted the UK to leave the EU to divide that organization, and weaken the UK, two objectives that have been met. For while the relationship between the EU and Hungary and Poland was tense, since the Russian attempt to annex Ukraine, Poland has been less of a problem, whereas Hungary is seen as at least in the Russian penumbra, while outside the EU Russia appears to have some allies in the Balkans.

The complete picture of Russian interference cannot be drawn because the British intelligence services did not take it seriously, as the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons noted. It means that while no proof has been provided to link Arron Banks of Leave.EU campaign to Russian funding, the connections between Banks and the Russians (his wife is Russian, and he tweeted in 2017 'Ukraine is to Russia as the Isle of Wight is to the UK. It's Russian') has been confirmed, in addition to which he lost a libel action against the journalist Carol Cadwalladr. Why were there two Leave campaigns anyway?

That said, whatever Putin thinks benefited Russia as far as Brexit goes, he has lost in terms of NATO, which has not only -so far- been united in its support for Ukraine- but has played an instrumental role in defeating Putin's initial objectives in Ukraine. On this we are told that if Kevin McCarthy becomes Speaker of the House of Representatives after this year's mid-terms, he is likely to go Trumpy and reduce the US/NATO involvement in Ukraine to Russia's benefit, something Murdoch's marionette on Fox News, Tucker Carlson will presumably rejoice at, he being as pro-Russian as his idol Trump. He would also oppose more funding for Ukraine just out of spite, to obstruct everything the President wants to do.

An overview of the claims of Russian interference in the Brexit campaign-
Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum )

Banks losing his libel action-
Arron Banks loses libel action against reporter Carole Cadwalladr | Arron Banks | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/arron-banks-loses-libel-action-against-reporter-carole-cadwalladr-guardian-defamation-brexit-russia)

A legal analysis (contains the Banks tweet quoted above)-
Arron Banks and Carole Cadwalladr – what does it all mean? | Bindmans LLP (https://www.bindmans.com/knowledge-hub/blogs/arron-banks-and-carole-cadwalladr-what-does-it-all-mean/)

Stavros

11-10-2022, 05:30 AM

I read a review of Owen Matthews' book on Russia, out this week- Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine in the Telegraph yesterday but it has since disappeared behind their pay wall, which is a pity as it was a good one.

Matthews argues the root of the conflict lies in 1991 and the break-up of the USSR and Ukraine's independence, which seems to be a nonsense to Putin but also a means of weakening Russia that Yeltsin ought to have resisted. It also stresses the complete contempt which Putin and his advisers have for Ukraine to the extent that they literally care nothing for the people who live there, and also promote the argument that because Russians are used to hardship, they can endure whatever sanctions and poverty the 'West' condemns them to. None of which offers the basis for a diplomatic resolution to this war in the near future

A good example of Matthews' writing is in this link which offers a more exacting analysis of the impact of sanctions on Russia, something of a corrective to the 'sanctions don't work' brigades.

Sanctions are working – whatever Putin says | The Spectator (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sanctions-are-working-whatever-putin-says/)

The book is listed here-
Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine eBook : Matthews, Owen: Amazon.co.uk: Books (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overreach-Inside-Russias-Against-Ukraine-ebook/dp/B0B79FVY1J)

Stavros

02-21-2023, 07:10 PM

The ignorant prick from Leningrad has delivered his annual speech of lies and not disappointed. Russia will withdraw from the Nuclear negotiations treaty but it hasn't had much to do with them in recent times anyway. As for his war against the Neo-Nazis of Ukraine....well...for someone who blames the 'West' for enabling Hitler in the 1930s there was of course, no mention of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 that not only divided Poland into Russian and Nazi territories, but which led directly to the massacres in Poland by both Nazis and 'Soviet' armed forces. As usual, politicians select those pieces of history which suit them, and not the ones that don't.

Does he really think the people of the Ukraine want to be 'liberated' from their hostage takers? No mention of the people taken hostage he has killed in air strikes, or the millions who have fled Ukraine -or the Russians who have fled Russia.

Two links offer good overviews, though I take issue with Sean O'Grady in the second link where he claims-
"The opportunity for a real partnership envisaged by Mikhail Gorbachev was hardly explored in the chaotic Yeltsin years, and to that extent, the West let Russia down – and damaged its own long-term interests and those of world peace."
-But just in the case of the petroleum industry there was a partnership between Russian based firms and Shell, Exxon and BP who spent billions of dollars modernizing a clapped out industry and opening up new resources in Siberia and on Sakhalin, so he is wrong about that.

But on this he may have a point-
"The uncomfortable truth is that Putin’s preoccupation with his country’s diminished status in the world, his nostalgia for the order and respect the old USSR commanded, and a deference towards even older Orthodox Christian traditional beliefs, is shared by many of his own citizens."

-But my guess is around 30% of the American public have also given up on Democracy and would prefer a white Dictatorship, not so far from MTG's silly remark that it is time for the 'Red' and 'Blue' States to divorce.

As for a 'Gender neutral God' -so God is a man? If so, who was his daddy?

Putin speech: Eight key claims from Russian leader – and the reality (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putin-speech-eight-key-claims-152419815.html)

Voices: The real surprise of 2023? That Putin is still standing (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/voices-real-surprise-2023-putin-133613959.html)

Stavros

02-26-2023, 01:50 PM

The link below is to an article that first appeared behind the pay wall in the Telegraph, an interesting speculation on the demographic consequences of Putin's war.

Russia stares into population abyss as Putin sends its young men to die (yahoo.com) (https://news.yahoo.com/russia-stares-population-abyss-putin-060000650.html)

Stavros

03-19-2023, 09:58 AM

If you can stay the course at just under an hour, this conversation between Bill Kristol and Anne Applebaum is most interesting. Applebaum does a good job at the start in explaining how Zelensky has captured the mood of the country, but also underlined that Ukraine was both more prepared for war than Russia, but that a form of local democracy has emerged in Ukraine that Putin sees as one of the biggest threats to his way of life. She underlines too how far the Russians have waged war against the People in the Ukraine not just through the demolition of their homes and businesses and hospitals and schools, but through rape, torture, child abduction and in effect, the same tactics of absolute punishment that Stalin's 'Red Army' practised in Ukraine through to Germany in the late 1940s as it consolidated the Soviet Empire, one which Putin firmly believes it is his right to recreate. Thus Applebaum points out that a Russian presence on the border of Poland is as logical to Putin as the Russian presence was in Dresden when he worked there for the KGB.

The later part concerns the US with much support for Biden, and the fear that while Americans support Ukraine when its winning, it might not when it loses. Applebaum also points out the folly of any negotiated settlement that does not push Russia out of Ukraine, but notes that until elites in Russia force changes there, the war will continue.

Lastly one notes that Bill Kristol, once Conservative 'Royalty' in the US, sidelined, if not made irrelevant by Trump, now sounds more like a Liberal.

Anne Applebaum on Ukraine: One Year into the War - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIPyFynxWpg)

filghy2

03-20-2023, 02:44 AM

Lastly one notes that Bill Kristol, once Conservative 'Royalty' in the US, sidelined, if not made irrelevant by Trump, now sounds more like a Liberal.

There's nothing specifically 'liberal' about helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. That's really a comment on how far the Republican Party has moved.

What the Putin appeasers cannot explain is why is why he would be interested in negotiating a genuine settlement if he thinks that Western support will weaken over time. The only way to change his mind is to make clear that support will continue as long as it takes.

Also, I suspect many of the Republicans claiming that the US has no interest in defending Ukraine would take a different view if China tried to invade Taiwan. What's the difference, other than that Russia is white and (supposedly) Christian?

Stavros

03-20-2023, 06:52 AM

What I meant by the use of the term, was the position Kristol now takes is one that is opposite to the one he advocated on Iraq and Afghanistan where it was 'boots on the ground, bombs in the air' -he has not suggested the US put troops into Ukraine, let alone go for the 'regime change' in Russia that he called for in Iraq. On this basis, he has I think compromised with the 'Liberal' President Biden (and Kamala Harris) whom he voted for.

You might say that existing divisions in the Republican Party were taken to their extremes by Trump, yet Kristol would have supported in principle the tax cuts and de-regulation of the Trump Presidency because they were policies he advocated when he was in the Nixon and subsequently latter Republican White House administrations. He has a personal hostility to Trump which might be laudable, given that Trump was never fit for public office because of his known association with criminals, but what has been striking about the way American 'Conservatism' has evolved since the emergence of the TEA Party, is how obsessed they are with so-called 'Cultural' issues which for them define what the US is as a country.

For this reason, the incoherence in American Conservatism is laid bare -those who think in terms of the USA's Global Role as the champion of Freedom and Democracy, thereby taking direct or indirect action to limit the success and spread of Dictatorship; and those who see in Putin their own battles, as Pat Buchanan wrote in 2013-

“In the culture war for mankind’s future, is he one of us?” Mr. Buchanan wrote (http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-one-us-6071), quickly answering his own question. “He is seeking to redefine the ‘Us vs. Them’ world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent West.”
Reverence for Putin on the Right Buys Trump Cover - The New York Times (nytimes.com) (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/us/politics/putin-trump-conservatives.html)

We have seen in the UK how Brexit has opened a gulf within Conservatism that existed before, as the Party was always divided over the UK's membership of the EU in its various forms, but what it has also done, with the 'culture wars', has made it hard to say what precisely it means to be a Conservative these days. One could level the same charge at Socialists, but Socialism has always been a mixed bag though one might argue the dividing line is over the extent of the State's presence in our daily lives.

So no support in the US for regime change in Russia, even though most commentators believe it is the only way to end the war, other than a military victory for Ukraine.

Stavros

03-21-2023, 07:26 AM

One wonders what China's motivation is at the moment. As far as I can make out, China is doing well in its investment strategy in Central Asia, but is not in a position to replace Russia as a dominant force. Many Central Asian people work in Russia and send money back -few if any work in China. China at the moment need only maintain is 'Belt and Road' strategy, investing in railways, oil and gas pipelines, and allow Russia to exhaust itself in Ukraine. Moreover, Xi must be quietly laughing at the desperation of Russia which, having lost its European energy markets, is selling oil and gas to China at knockdown prices.

China has the problem that it has always insisted Sovereignty is non-negotiable in international law/relations, and for this reason did not specify in its 'peace proposals' that territory legally part of Ukraine but occupied by Russia be returned as part of the process. I suspect Xi and China now realize that Russia is no longer a major power in International Relations, that the global 'order' insofar as there is one, is dominated by the US and China, economically, while there are doubts about the USA's commitment other than with materiel. The anniversary of the Iraq war and the fall-out from Afghanistan appear to rule out American 'boots on the ground' and this suits Xi, though it is not clear if this means he will go ahead with his stated ambition to 're-unite' Taiwan with China.

A curious but telling optic: Xi is taller than Putin, and that handshake did appear to be one between a superior and his inferior. Putin won't like that, and a lot of Russians won't either, but under Putin Russia has declined, and they have to deal with that. China will not do anything to upset the status quo in Russia, the Central Asian republics are loyal to Russia with no sign of revolutionary change there.

But, and this is crucial -China after the trauma of 1989 compromised in order to insert itself into the global economy, to develop its position in global supply chains, to insert itself into the African economy, and to develop a robust domestic economy capable of withstanding any shocks to the global economy, as indeed happened in 2008. But Xi is an activist Premier, a man who wants to change things and go down in history as a 'Great Leader', though he will not be fazed by Putin's failure, and can look across the border at Narendra Modi's long-term campaign to rid India of its Muslims and be satisfied that so far Modi has been able to achieve with sustained violence what in other countries would be condemned.

But can China claim to be a world leader if it does not compromise on global issues, and thus it remains to be seen if its support for Russia is going to materialize in weapons, or just vocal support -for otherwise, why should anyone trust China if it only delivers for itself?

Some links-

The Central Asian 'Stans' and China-
China’s Dominance in Central Asia: Myth or Reality? | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org) (https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/chinas-dominance-central-asia-myth-or-reality)

The US and Central Asia-
The Superpower and the “Stans”: Why Central Asia is Not “Central” to the United States - The SAIS Review of International Affairs (jhu.edu) (https://saisreview.sais.jhu.edu/the-superpower-and-the-stans-why-central-asia-is-not-central-to-the-united-states/)

At a high-stakes meeting in Moscow, China has to decide whether Putin's failure in Ukraine means it's time to cross a red line (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/high-stakes-meeting-moscow-china-121502763.html)

Why Xi can't solve Putin's Ukraine problem (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/xi-jinpings-ambition-global-peacemaker-164644741.html)

Stavros

03-31-2023, 03:27 AM

Some background on the arrest of Wall St Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

"The Journal piece, written by Gershkovich and Georgi Kantchev, catalogued Russia’s economic woes and its diminution into a kind of junior partner for China, whose economic assistance it depends on. The story described how sanctions prevent Russian airlines from obtaining spare parts and finance firms from updating software. New-car sales have plunged by 62% year-over-year. Investment in Russian oil and gas exploration is down 42%, which could lead to a long-term decline in Russia’s energy output.

That wasn’t the first story on Russia’s economic problems, but it was comprehensive and may have arrived just as Putin is feeling the rising heat of a failing war and a flatlining economy. Snatching Gershkovich on bogus charges probably reveals increasing desperation for Putin, yet it’s consistent with the bullying behavior of a dictator who has badly erred and blames the messengers. It won’t be the last of Putin’s aberrant behavior."
Putin’s getting nervous about Russia’s sinking economy (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putins-getting-nervous-about-russias-sinking-economy-201143630.html)

Stavros

06-07-2023, 06:06 AM

1) It did not make sense for Ukraine to blow up the dam; 2) the Russians could have done it to deter an attack by Ukraine across the Dnipro River; 3) it was an accident caused by a mine blowing up as the Reservoir level became unsustainably high.

But, a) it is the Russians who have laid mines all along the Dnipro River, and b) the Russians who allowed the water levels in the Reservoir to rise. And c) the Russians really don't care who dies or what is destroyed. It might be the case that Putin thinks Ukraine does not exist, that it is part of Greater Russia, but if that means him in effect murdering 'his own people' he wouldn't care about that either. This is nihilism in politics taken to depths of despair, with short, medium and long term consequences that reach beyond Ukraine, Crimea and Russia and could affect food poverty in those countries in Africa that rely on imports from what is now a flood zone.

Devastation from Kakhovka dam collapse could take decades to heal | Ukraine | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/devastation-from-kakhovka-dam-collapse-could-take-decades-to-heal)

Stavros

06-24-2023, 01:36 AM

Reports from Russia indicate that 'the Kremilin' is moving against Prigozhin. Whether or not this has come from the military -specifically Shoigu and Gerasimov- and/or the FSB, rather than Putin is not known. On one level this suggests Putin has suddenly lost control, given that he promoted and protected Prigozhin. On the other hand, he may have decided Prigozhin's time is up and agreed to have him arrested.

What is not clear is how much support Prigozhin retains in the Wagner outfit, or the regular army, as some of his associates have denounced him, but probably to keep their jobs, and crucially -for them and the leeches in Moscow, the benefits of the Wagner people in Africa stealing as much of the continent's minerals as they can carry away, killing any and everyone who gets in their way. Given the shrinking opportunities to make loadsamoney in Russia, Wagner's access to wealth suggest to me that while it might be forced out of Ukraine, its African robbery machine will be held in place, though this does also suggest a further setback for Russian forces in Ukraine.

A wilder scenario has supporters of Prigozhin moving against Shoihu and Gerasimov, but this suggests the loudmouth has more support in the Kremlin than he probably has.

Either way, it is a further indication of the mess Putin has created with his ambition to be remembered as the 21st Century version of Peter the Great.

Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia investigates ‘mutiny’ as Wagner chief says ‘evil’ military leaders must be stopped (theguardian.com) (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jun/23/russia-ukraine-war-live-russia-investigates-mutiny-as-wagner-chief-says-evil-military-leaders-must-be-stopped)

filghy2

06-25-2023, 04:21 AM

Letting another headstrong personality build his own private army - who would have thought that would lead to trouble? So much for Putin's reputation for cleverness.

Helvis2012

06-25-2023, 06:26 AM

Dude, Russians. Same shit generation after generation. Strong men and sheep.
Any questions?

Stavros

06-27-2023, 11:39 AM

Sergei Lavrov said yesterday Russian support for the Governments of Mali and the Central African Republic will continue, though it is not known how Wagner forces on the ground have reacted to their leader being sent into 'exile' in Belarus; nor is it clear why Russia would retain the services of a para-military group that was supposed to be integrated into the Russian Army. Because Wagner gave Russia 'plausible deniability' when Wagner was -and is- accused of summary executions, mineral theft and corruption -it needs a 'proxy' army in Africa but just as the FSB in Russia has dropped charges against Wagner as Putin said the perpetrators of the killings in Russia would be brought to justice, this is further proof that governance in Russia is an incoherent mess, or to put it another way: Putin hasn't got a clue what to do next.

This is a long article from the Brookings Institute in 2022 that gives a fair overview of Wagner/Russia's antics in sub-Saharan Africa-
Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure | Brookings (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/)

Wagner and Russia are here to stay in Africa, says Kremlin’s top diplomat – POLITICO (https://www.politico.eu/article/wagner-africa-mali-operations-will-continue-russia-sergey-lavrov-vows/)

filghy2

08-24-2023, 02:31 AM

The extraordinary bad luck of people who cross Putin continues.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/23/yevgeny-prigozhin-on-private-jet-that-crashed-near-moscow-russia-wagner

broncofan

08-24-2023, 04:45 AM

There's no phrase for backpedaling across the rubicon.

Stavros

08-24-2023, 08:42 AM

The man who fell to earth...

filghy2

08-25-2023, 03:13 AM

There's speculation that Prigozhin may not have been on the plane, but even if that was true his days are surely numbered. They will get him eventually.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/24/is-yevgeny-prigozhin-really-dead-not-everyone-is-convinced

The obvious lesson, which he should have known, is that if you move against Putin you must follow it through to the end. There's no negotiated compromise with this guy.

Stavros

08-25-2023, 08:14 AM

Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationalism -these were the pillars of Tsarist Russia under the Romanov. Leonard Schapiro argued that the Bolshevik Revolution against the Romanov's ended up replicating what it had replaced: the Autocracy of the Tsar became the Autocracy of the Communist Party. The Orthodoxy of the Church became the Orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism; Nationalism remained what it was before and after.

I see no change since Putin came to power. The Autocracy is just more crude but just as violent; the Orthodoxy a vacuous assembly of accusations that Russia's enemies are 'Neo-Nazis' and 'Degenerate'; while the Nationalism remains what it has always been.

MrFanti

02-07-2024, 04:31 AM

Ukraine: Is Europe starting to change its strategy?

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-is-europe-starting-to-change-its-strategy/a-68188384

Stavros

02-07-2024, 05:12 AM

Ukraine: Is Europe starting to change its strategy?

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-is-europe-starting-to-change-its-strategy/a-68188384

Here in the UK it has been pointed out that defence spending has been cut from around 5% to 2% of GDP. If there is an incoming Labour Govt or Coalition later this year, I would expect defence spending to rise, as Labour since the 1960s was seen as weak on defence, albeit of a nuclear aspect during the Cold War. Recruitment into the armed forces is down, but the other problem is that those having joined up don't stay to make it a life long career, so it may be that in the defence budget provisions are made for more perks for armed forces with regard to low cost accommodation.

But part of this is a manufactured fear by those supporting the broader arms business, given that the Ukraine project has exposed a critical weakness in Russia's armed forces which may be attempting to rebuild but is draining financial resources, much as it did under Brezhnev in the 1970s until it was laid waste in Afghanistan and led to regime change, mostly though death, in the Kremlin.

As NATO expands, so one assumes pressure will rise to meet the staple budget contribution, but in realistic terms, if Russia were to meddle in Finland, the Baltics or even Poland, it would be out of desperation. That doesn't mean we should not be too worried about Russian aggression, but place it in a context where at the moment, Russia is failing on every front.

Stavros

02-07-2024, 05:28 PM

Tucker Carlson's special pleading merely shows how out of touch he is. Putin has never been shy about declaring what his aims are in Ukraine, the speeches he has made are all widely available on the internet. The same goes for Americans who want to know what it happening in the Ukraine, the only caveat being that by now there is a lot of stuff to get through.

What Carlson seems to me to be doing is trying to create the same alternative narrative that he has been doing on domestic politics in the US. Or is he going to visit Bucha or Mariupol and ask the people there, or any survivors, what happened and who did it? Are the armed forces of Ukraine Saints? I doubt it, but if Carlson is really interested in the truth, he needs to do more than bend the knee to a man like Putin.

Tucker Carlson interviews Putin in Moscow after years of anti-Ukraine vitriol | The Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/tucker-carlson-putin-interview-russia-b2491724.html)

filghy2

02-11-2024, 04:02 AM

Latest outrageous statement from Trump
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-he-would-encourage-russia-to-do-whatever-the-hell-they-want-to-any-nato-country-that-doesn-t-pay-enough

Stavros

02-11-2024, 03:55 PM

Classic Trump:

"“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want,” Trump said.“You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills,” he added."
Trump Says He Might 'Encourage' Russia To Attack NATO Allies (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-says-might-encourage-russia-231453004.html)

From a man who never pays his bills but gets other people to do it for him.

Who laundered money for the Russian mafia in his New Jersey Casinos, and formed a business relationship with convicted racketeer and Russian Mafioso, Felix Sater?

Is the Republican Party now an adjunct of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -which is Putin's Russia in all but name?

filghy2

02-16-2024, 02:05 AM

Echoing credulous leftist visitors to the old Soviet Union, Putin's useful idiot Tucker Carlson has concluded that Russians are much better off than Americans, based on a visit to a ritzy grocery store and subway station in central Moscow.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/conservatives-roast-tucker-carlson-s-amazingly-stupid-portrayal-of-russia

If he believes this, why doesn't he emigrate?

Stavros

02-16-2024, 05:20 AM

Your link is dead, but this one should work

Tucker Carlson Says Trip to Russian Grocery Store Has 'Radicalized' Him Against US Leaders: 'Legitimately Angry' - TheWrap (https://www.thewrap.com/tucker-carlson-russian-moscow-grocery-store-radicalized-us-leaders/)

The man is an idiot. How much does he think Russians get paid? Not the same as Americans. I even wonder if he has ever gone grocery shopping in his own country.
If Carlson did move to Russia, either he would be a protected species with a nice apartment, a cleaner, a chauffeur and crucially the amusement of the Govt-or, if he lived like a local, would be on the next plane out of there.

filghy2

02-16-2024, 08:16 AM

According to this source the average income in Russia, adjusted for purchasing power, is only one-third of the average income in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income

His comment about crime was also clueless. Russia has an even higher murder rate than the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Stavros

02-16-2024, 04:02 PM

The other thing I meant to say is that Carlson estimated the bill for his groceries in the US would be around $400 and that this was to him the average weekly spend -but is it? I could not see precisely what he was buying -there was a loaf of bread, some cooked meats and what looked like packets of vegetables and so on, so I don't know.

This site says the average US family spends $270 a week, with children $331-
How much do Americans spend on groceries each week? See chart (usatoday.com) (https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/01/20/average-grocery-cost-per-week-us-states/72260684007/)

But note that these figures vary depending on the location, eg the State as some States are more expensive than others, but it is still much less than $400 a week.

This site claims the average weekly spend for a family of 3 in the UK is £102-
Average UK Household Cost of Food 2023 | NimbleFins (https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/average-uk-household-cost-food#:~:text=What's%20the%20average%20food%20bill, or%20ordering%20takeaways%20each%20week.)

Again this must vary, and, for example, does it include alcohol, takeaways and so on?

filghy2

02-17-2024, 01:05 AM

I'm sure Carlson lives in an upscale neighbourhood and, if he does his own shopping at all it would be at an expensive local shop.

According to this site, the average cost of living in the USA is 2.5 times the cost in Russia, and the cost of groceries is about 2.9 times. As anyone who has travelled should know, costs are lowest in the poorest countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-living-by-country

Anyway, there are more important things than the cost of living. I wonder what Carlson and the other Putin apologists will have to say about Navalny's death.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/16/europe/alexey-navalny-dead-russia-prison-intl/index.html

Stavros

02-17-2024, 06:39 PM

Anyway, there are more important things than the cost of living. I wonder what Carlson and the other Putin apologists will have to say about Navalny's death.

Here is your answer, straight out of the Henry Kissinger book of Real Life is a Shit Sandwich. One wonders how many people did Nehru kill when he was Prime Minister of India, or how many people did Nelson Mandela kill when he was President of South Africa. I know not all of Canada's Prime Ministers have been saints, but what does the roster of killings look like in that country?

So I assume Carlson has a simple view: Strong Leaders Kill People, Get Over it.

Tucker Carlson criticised for praising Putin before Navalny death: ‘Leadership requires killing people’ (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/tucker-carlson-criticised-for-praising-putin-before-navalny-death-leadership-requires-killing-people/ar-BB1ioyZU?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=ACTS&cvid=4b4a7983ef8743b3ae2d433affa27760&ei=77)

filghy2

02-18-2024, 01:02 AM

Stavros

02-18-2024, 04:56 AM

He did say this, though without naming Putin:
"it's horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tucker-carlson-condemns-alexei-navalnys-death-as-barbaric-days-after-trumpeting-vladimir-putins-russia/ar-BB1ipl67

The other Putin fan who is actually running for President seems to have said nothing on the subject.

Carlson is a worthless hypocrite, cherry-picking his way through the corpses stacked up by his favourite dictators to condemn some while remaining silent on others.

He has interviewed Viktor Orbán on the grounds he shares the same 'family values' as he and the Republicans claim to share, and the importance of Christianity, and of course, The Nation as the foundations of a decent society. Only it now emerges that Orbán and his Fidesz colleagues are far from decent, and have had their grubby hypocrisy exposed, though we don't yet know if this will force Orbán out of office. He has another boyfriend in the US, Sebastian Gorka, a permanently hysterical bag-carrier for Bannon.

Can we hope this year sees the tide turn against these nauseating hypocrites who champion the very kind of politics that in other countries would land them in the Gulag?

This is the super-scandal that should bring down Viktor Orbán – and it’s far from over | Katalin Cseh | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/17/hungary-viktor-orban-scandal-president-resign)

Stavros

02-22-2024, 07:00 AM

Now the poor man is effectively defending Putin on the grounds that he would not have ordered the murder of Navalny when the Munich Security Conference was taking place, indeed anyone who says so is an 'idiot'-

"People who say Putin killed him are idiots,' Carlson said."
Tucker Carlson jumps to Putin's defense again after Navalny's death (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/tucker-carlson-jumps-to-putin-s-defense-again-after-navalny-s-death/ss-BB1iErXg?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=e938daa660104dd3a79da37dfedf178b&ei=10#image=1)

Historians now argue it was at the Munich Conference in 2007 that Putin indicated his patience with 'the West' was over and he was planning an expansion of his new Empire, so it actually made more sense to murder Navalny when the Conference was taking place to remind the delegates there he calls the shots in Russia. Whether or not he personally ordered the murder is not relevant, as the system he has created knows how to deal with any opponent of the regime.

The idiots are those who defend Putin -ask yourself, would they want in the US what the Russians have? Maybe that is a chilling thought.

Stavros

02-25-2024, 07:58 PM

Two years on, and the question might not be can Ukraine win, but can Russia be defeated? I doubt the latter, though on BBC Radio 4's World This Weekend (Sunday 25th) it was pointed out that a war economy can survive in the near future but stores long term problems for Russian economy and society. Production of weapons and the upgrading of old stock is giving people jobs, but it is a 'Kalashnikov economy', and the current weakness is on the Ukraine side with war fatigue and the prospect of it losing financial and military assistance from NATO and the US.

The real anxiety now has shifted to Moldova and the fake Russian Republc of Transnistria, as the Russians there will be seeking the formal integration into Russia, probably in the week ahead-

"Pro-Russia rebels in a separatist part of Moldova (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/15/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news1/) are preparing to ask Vladimir Putin to annex their region amid warnings that an emboldened Kremlin is trying to destabilise Europe."
Moldovan separatists to ask Putin to annexe their region (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/moldovan-separatists-prepare-ask-putin-163708413.html)

It would be another way that Putin does what he wants without regard for the consequences as long as it benefits him and undermines whatever 'the West' thinks it can do. When it comes to suffering, most people I think agree that Putin doesn't care about that. We shall see.

Stavros

02-29-2024, 05:50 AM

As expected-

Breakaway Moldovan region asks Russia for 'protection' (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/pro-russian-rebels-transnistria-hold-121340450.html)

Stavros

04-30-2024, 05:12 PM

Tucker Carlson out of his depth and bewildered by the philosophical ideas of Aleksandr Dugin, described as 'Putin' Brain', but a man who conjures up out of the 'Anglo-Saxon World' (!) a new Liberalism in which the minority rules the majority, where sex is optional, and the end state is the liberation from humanity into a singularity. When did this start? When the 'Anglo-Saxon World' broke away from the Catholic Church and began to emphasize individual rights over collective rights and identity, thus throwing some kind of temporary panic in Carlson's brain as he struggles to define individualism, and so on.

Spare a thought for the Normans who transformed Britain, indeed, became an Imperial power stretching from Ireland in the west to Sicily in the Mediterranean. As for the growth of Capitalism, class, the industrial revolution or the ideas of Hobbes, Locke and Mill....well I guess that is for another day.

And no discussion of what 'Putin's Brain' thinks is good for Russia, which spares us the recitation of the glories of Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationalism.

The interview is in this article

Tucker Carlson Posts Deranged Interview With ‘Putin’s Brain’ (yahoo.com) (https://uk.yahoo.com/news/tucker-carlson-posts-deranged-interview-121002081.html)

Stavros

05-31-2024, 03:44 PM

So much turmoil everywhere, one hopes people have not forgotten a most dangerous corner of the world, where

"The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a specific group.The destruction need not be accomplished physically – actions taken to destroy a group’s identity without killing all members of the group also constitute genocide. The Russian genocidal project includes horrific acts of violence, to be sure, including summary executions, sexual assaults, arbitrary detentions, and torture. It includes the forcible deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia, which the Genocide Convention explicitly specifies also constitutes genocide."
If Putin wins, expect the worst genocide since the Holocaust (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putin-wins-expect-worst-genocide-115708207.html)

Identity politics, not from the Left. But what in the long term does Putin think this will achieve? Hard to see how a blasted country with a demoralized population is going to be productive, whatever language they speak, or are forced to speak.

Ben

09-22-2024, 03:34 AM

The Madness of Antony Blinken
The Madness of Antony Blinken (consortiumnews.com) (https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/20/the-madness-of-antony-blinken/)

Stavros

09-22-2024, 09:32 AM

The Madness of Antony Blinken
The Madness of Antony Blinken (consortiumnews.com) (https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/20/the-madness-of-antony-blinken/)

I don't know who Joe Lauria is, but I think he might do better if he were to read a few books on Russia, or acquaint himself with Putin's version of PNAC, Project for a New Russian Century.

Putin on the one hand has weakened Russia, compared to where it was at the end of the 1990s. On the other hand, he has successfully used the fact of Russia's geography, its nuclear arsenal and most of all its alliances with China and India (fragile though these can be) to do what he wants and dare 'the West' -ie the US and the EU- to do something about it.

Putin can wage war against Ukraine for the next 50 years if his successor(s) decides to, much as the insurgent armies in Myanmar have been waging war with the various regimes in power since the late 1940s Low level most of the time, it makes resolution all but impossible, while creating a reservoir of bitterness and resentment as deep as any created by the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The dilemma for Biden and Blinken, is that the aggressive application of PNAC, crucially in Iraq and Afghanistan, has not just failed, but undermined the moral argument of the US as world leader at the very moment when it was needed to counter the Nationalist aggression of Putin, Netanyahu and Xi's ambition to 're-unite' Taiwan with the People's Republic. If there is a gap between Blinken on one side, and Biden and the US military on the other, it is because the US has not been able to sustain the Neo-Con strategy as a military project, while the rise of Nationalism as an antidote to Globalization enables someone like JD Vance to declare 'I don't care about Ukraine', which is why some people see the 2020s as a re-run of the 1930s.

Trump by contrast has at least replaced the National Interest of the USA with his financial interest- his deals with Xi were all based on China giving him the access to markets in China he was denied before he became President, it is not clear what China got in return.

The so-called 'Abraham Accords' were just a business deal that consolidated the Kushner/Trump family business/financial interests in Israel and the illegally-occupied West Bank with the promise that bringing the Gulf states into the relationship would release handsome volumes of capital investment (but not for Palestinians of course) and thus make Kushner and Trump even richer than they were before.

One of Bibi's inducements was to re-name the 'Golan Heights' (Jabal al-Jawlan if you prefer) 'Trump Heights'. That Israel acquired this part of Syria through force, as blatant a violation of international law as can be found in history, is apparently of no interest or importance, whereas Russia invading and annexing Ukraine has sent the world into meltdown.

Trump will fold when it is Putin he is dealing with, it is that simple. The Russian mafia laundered money through Trump's New Jersey casinos -he knew it, the IRS knew it, and it was one element of their collapse. Trump then formed a business relationship with another Russian Mafia link, Felix Sater, and then there is the notorious moment in July 2016 when Trump publicly called on Russia to help him attack the American candidate in the election. Given that the Trump campaign knew the Russians were attacking the US through their election interference, Trump siding with the Russians against the US makes him a Traitor, which may be why once he was President he launched investigations into several people after 2016 calling all of them 'Traitors' to deflect from his own treachery. And you can be sure that this cheap, vindictive little man will, if re-elected spend as much time having his 'enemies' investigated as he did before, and if it fails to prove anything but costs them hundreds of thousands or even a million dollars, that is also a form of 'job done' -to make them worse off than they were before defying His Imperial Majesty.

At some point perhaps someone might call Putin's bluff, or maybe he will do the same and either invade or attack NATO countries such as the Baltic states or Poland -what will NATO/US do then? Or this time next year, who knows next week, Putin will no longer be in power.

Don't ask Mr Lauria, he hasn't got a clue.

Stavros

09-26-2024, 04:47 AM

A few points about Russia's revised security doctrine.

1) Putin may be bluffing, but the scary thing is that a) he may use battlefield or 'tactical nuclear weapons', and b) there would be no response in kind from anyone else with nuclear weapons, which might encourage their wider use, eg China, India, Pakistan, NATO.

2) Nuclear Deterrence has been a so-far durable component of the international law of armed conflict, though it has been put under strain by Israel's refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Pact, while the logic of deterrence in the context of the Middle East suggests Iran must have a nuclear capability to deter an attack from Israel, which is also part of the Saudi Arabian defence argument.

3) Putin lists the conventional weapons that could be used for an attack inside Russia as the casus belli for the use of Nuclear Weapons as weapons of defence, but this would demolish the already fragile concept of 'Proportionality', weakened by Israel's retaliations against HAMAS and Hizbollah which are not, and never have been proportionate, though no State should be basing their defence policy on what Israel does, given that Israel's defence policy is a proven failure -citizens of Israel are no more secure now than they were at any time since 1948.

4) Putin does not offer international, or even regional talks to clarify Russia's new security policy in an effort to establish both a dialogue, for example with China, India and NATO, whereas in the past tensions were dialled down, by Nixon with the various SALT treaties, and since the 1990s when States, such as South Africa and Ukraine, agreed to decommission their nuclear arsenals. China and India may actually approve this if it means they can 'go it alone' though one wonders if this makes the world a more dangerous place. International Law has always been more of a moral and 'juristic' system, rather than the norm. The UN Charter has been the foundation of international law since it was founded, but has always been undermined by self-defence claims which have failed to deal with States that violate it.
Thus, the acquisition of territory by force is illegal in international law, but clearly this has not deterred Israel from acquiring territory by force, in 1948 and 1967, nor has it deterred Russia from its attempt to acquire territory by force in Ukraine, and so on.

5) Lastly, it was the breakdown of the Concert system of Diplomacy that enabled the Empires to go war in 1914, and the weakening of the League of Nations after it that enabled Germany to, initially, to run riot in Europe before brute force ended that experiment.
The political rhetoric of dangerous men such as Xi, Putin, Modi and Trump when realised in military policy can only mean war, just as Netanyahu and HAMAS rejected peace in 1993 and have dedicated themselves to the slaughter of men, women and children; the displacement of millions, the destruction of their homes, their hospitals and schools, their mosques and their churches, their playgrounds and cinemas, and the most basic infrastructure.

With nobody there to say No to Putin, who is going to stop him? Or should the rest of the world just say, go ahead, take Ukraine, take the Baltic States, take Poland, and so on -or make them vassal states of the last Christian Empire. Etc.

The madder it sounds, the more it might be made real.

Vladimir Putin warns west he will consider using nuclear weapons | Vladimir Putin | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/vladimir-putin-warns-west-nuclear-weapons)

Ben

09-30-2024, 04:56 AM

Do not risk calling Putin's bluff...
Do Not Risk Calling Putin’s Bluff | The Libertarian Institute (https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/do-not-risk-calling-putins-bluff/)

Stavros

09-30-2024, 05:40 AM

Do not risk calling Putin's bluff...
Do Not Risk Calling Putin’s Bluff | The Libertarian Institute (https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/do-not-risk-calling-putins-bluff/)

Was this written in Moscow before being emailed to the Libertarian institute? Putin's Special Military Operation was not supposed to last more than a couple of weeks or months at best. Instead the 'operation' revealed a clapped out military with a dysfunctional leadership -how many Generals has Putin had to replace? Russia thinks it can throw men into the field, but has had to recruit soldiers from Asia to help because apart from the Russians of fighting age who left for Georgia and Armenia and other places, the pool of fighting men inside Russia is dwindling.

The bigger question, and the one the West/NATO cannot verify, is the 'battle readiness' of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Given the wretched state of its conventional armaments, who knows if the Tactical Nuclear Missiles ordered to attack targets in Ukraine can even be wheeled out of their silos -and work? If the conventional weaponry is anything to go by, Putin himself might think he holds the Nuclear Ace, while on the ground the Generals know so many bits and pieces were sold in the Yeltsin years when Russians were impoverished, the truth is too bad to tell the Boss.

Look -Begin vowed to destroy the PLO in Lebanon, and failed. Netanyahu thinks he will destroy HAMAS and Hizbollah, and will fail at both. Putin thinks he can annex the Ukraine as part of his vision of a Christian, Russian Empire and a Euro-Asian trading bloc, and he will fail -are 30 million Ukrainians going to wake up one day soon and be Russians? Israel may have defeated the Arabs in 1967 and extended their sovereignty over the West Bank -how has that evolved since then? Maybe ask 2 million Palestinians, or ask 30 million Ukrainians what they want.

Libertarians really are morons. First decide all Govt is wrong, then try to figure out what happens next and whistle a happy tune. Pathetic.

Ben

11-10-2024, 04:54 PM

Why Should We Fight Wars for Ukraine and Israel?
Why Should We Fight Wars for Ukraine and Israel? - Antiwar.com (https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2024/10/21/why-should-we-fight-wars-for-ukraine-and-israel/)

Stavros

12-04-2024, 08:44 AM

Although it is too early to say what the Trump Presidency will do with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, this article speculates on what we know so far.

What is striking is that all of the proposed concessions are made by Ukraine. The US might increase arms to Ukraine if Putin shows no interest in ending the war, but there does not appear to be any attempt to reverse any of Russia's territorial gains, even though all of them are illegal. In any peace treaty, both sides concede something, maybe even a lot. But in the proposals seen so far, it looks to me like the Trump team is the one conceding -to Putin.

During the Cold War, one aim was for one side to make the other pay heavily for transgressions of the status quo. By not forcing any concessions from Russia, Trump is giving Putin a free pass. Something just ain't right here.

I am not sure Ukraine will get NATO membership, but if it does not, how will Ukraine be capable of self-defence against a Russian President who doesn't think Ukraine should be independent of Russia? I don't think Trump has a coherent plan, so this grim war I think will rumble on for some time yet.

Trump's plan for Ukraine comes into focus: Territorial concessions but NATO off the table (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trumps-plan-ukraine-comes-focus-060420062.html)

filghy2

12-04-2024, 10:09 AM

What is striking is that all of the proposed concessions are made by Ukraine. The US might increase arms to Ukraine if Putin shows no interest in ending the war, but there does not appear to be any attempt to reverse any of Russia's territorial gains, even though all of them are illegal. In any peace treaty, both sides concede something, maybe even a lot. But in the proposals seen so far, it looks to me like the Trump team is the one conceding -to Putin.

Sounds like another previous agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

No doubt Putin's 'concession' will be some kind of promise not to try to take the rest of Ukraine, but will that be worth any more than Hitler's word?

We shouldn't be surprised given that Trump has generally tended to blame Ukraine for the war rather than Russia. Territorial concessions and Ukrainian neutrality were what Putin was demanding before the invasion, so the obvious implication is that he was in the right to demand these things.

Stavros

12-04-2024, 04:03 PM

Fair points, to which one adds Trump's previous form with Ukraine. Does not look good, unless there is an unexpected event in Russia -?

Stavros

12-04-2024, 04:39 PM

Paladin

12-05-2024, 08:36 PM

Plus it is claimed that it is Tucker Carlson advising Trump. And he is off to Moscow again to be duped by Lavrov. No good can come of this.

James Carville Claims Tucker Carlson Is Behind Trump’s Wild Cabinet Picks: ‘One Person Is Driving This’ (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/james-carville-claims-tucker-carlson-095018646.html)

Tucker Carlson Returns To Moscow To Interview A Member Of Putin's Inner Circle (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tucker-carlson-returns-moscow-interview-122851644.html)

Well, this is still biden's weak assed fault. Putin (& iran & the chicoms, etc. ) all sniffed out biden's total hapless weakness and took whatever advantage they thought they could get out of it. The chicoms are apparently the smartest because they haven't been caught up in ground fighting, but they are still the most dangerous.

Stavros

12-06-2024, 09:24 AM

Well, this is still biden's weak assed fault. Putin (& iran & the chicoms, etc. ) all sniffed out biden's total hapless weakness and took whatever advantage they thought they could get out of it. The chicoms are apparently the smartest because they haven't been caught up in ground fighting, but they are still the most dangerous.

Can someone translate this into English? It makes no sense to me.

Paladin

12-08-2024, 08:20 PM

Can someone translate this into English? It makes no sense to me.

To put in your own words, you are just showcasing your ignorance.

Stavros

12-08-2024, 10:02 PM

To put in your own words, you are just showcasing your ignorance.

Indeed I am ignorant, of your patois.

Paladin

12-08-2024, 10:46 PM

That's because you live on the wrong side of the pond!

filghy2

12-15-2024, 09:59 AM

I would think any negotiations would start off with - what amount of Ukrainian territory would be ceded for guaranteed NATO coverage of the rest. That’s the starting line. There is no way to say how it should end after that, because it comes down to willing negotiations. However, this war can’t go on forever…no matter how much equipment, armaments or global commitments one side has over the other…someone’s going to simply run out of soldiers…period. So it has to start with a cease fire for negotiations. The negotiations are “the plan”.

How about we discuss this here, rather than divert the Middle East thread.

The big questions are, can Putin be trusted and how credible will any NATO guarantees be, given the views previously expressed by Trump and many of his offsiders about Ukraine and NATO?
The basic contradiction here is that the people putting up this plan are the same people who have been questioning whether it's in the US interest to continue to assist Ukraine.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/europe/trump-new-ukraine-envoy-analysis-intl/index.html

We are being asked to believe simultaneously that the US can't keep arming Ukraine now, but it will be prepared go to war with Russia in future if Putin does not stick to the agreement. Does that sound credible?

Maybe there are no good alternatives, but as Groucho Marx might have said, I'm not sure I would want to make any agreement with Putin that he would be prepared to accept.

PS: negotiations can't really be the plan because you can't have negotiations without some bottom line for what you would be prepared to accept or reject.