How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[RandomCommenter]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

“Prior to the Revolution of Dignity, the politics of the region were dominated by the pro-Russian Party of Regions, which gained about 50% of Donbas votes in the 2008 Ukrainian parliamentary election. Prominent members of that party, such as former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, were from the Donbas.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas

I have zero doubt there was Russian influence, however, I would say the issue is far from clear.  You and I do not need to see a “legitimate right” for these regions to explore separation - it is implied within the framework of a modern free democracy.  Or are we selling something else?

In the end this is not a debate about whether or not these regions have the ‘right’ or not, it is about their freedom to chose to do so.  If you are saying that they are not entitled to this because…well why are you saying they do not have that right?  What is a “legitimate right” then?  And who gets to determine that?  If the majority of people in this region after reintegration want to explore separation are you proposing a prison state where that option is removed?  The only thing I have heard is that is may not be allowed in the Ukrainian constitution; but that is a slippery slope post-conflict.

In fact if they are not afforded that right, is not Ukraine risking another civil conflict in the future?
 

Wow! This thread is brutal. I go do my Spanish class and make dinner for my family and then I find myself three pages behind already!

So again I say what do we mean by "democracy"? Rule of the people. And what is the "demos"? How narrowly do we draw it? The block? The neighborhood? The region? The nation?

And so we come to the key Russian reason for the attempted genocide of Ukraine. They see it as a wayward region of the greater Russia that is not a "proper" nation and should be brought to heel. Same as Ukraine sees DPR/LPR separatism. Which is why in March Lavrov exploded when asked if he would accept independence for DPR/LPR as an end state. He said "that would mean we lost Ukraine". Impossible for a boyar from Muscovy to accept that Kievan Rus was outside their dominion.

Now personally I believe in democracy. I want to see a pluralistic, democratic Ukraine within the EU and NATO. And I wish the EU had better tools to deal with semi-democratic regimes in the neighborhood like Hungary, Poland and the UK.

But that does not mean that local criminal warlords in Donetsk or Luhansk or Sevastopol can create their own pseudo countries out of thin air. A rigged plebiscite in Kherson or Melitopol does not make them part of Russia instead of Ukraine.

Just look at history. In 2003 the party of the regions lost power. But they got it back 2-3 years later.

It is hard. Personally I would love a world where we all speak Esperanto and national differences get watered away. Which is why if we could have Russia and Ukraine in a kind of EU or UN where we could allow people to be RUssian or Ukrainian or both it would be better. Like in Northern Ireland people were British or Irish or both.

 

But then the real world intervenes. Russia invades Ukraine. Brexit happens and an English nationalist Tory party takes control in the UK. so we fall back on national identities. 

 

So fundamentally I agree with NamEndedAllen above. The battlefield gets a big vote. Unfortunately war decides the fate of nations. If Russia had crushed Ukraine in February and March then future historians would look at Putin's essay / vomit of last year as very incisive. Oh there is no Ukrainian nation. But look at what we have seen. From five days in when we saw the ordinary people in Ukraine Russian speaking or Ukrainian speaking filling glass bottles with petrol instead of submitting, we knew, the Ukrainians will never be conquered. 200k soldiers can never subdue 44 million risen people.

 

(I am thinking here of Jim Larkin "the great appear great because we are on our knees, let us rise").

 

If / when Ukraine wins this thing our goal, in my opinion, should be victory. Total victory. Ukraine back to 1991 borders in NATO and in the EU. And frankly I could not give two sh*ts what Russia thinks about that. Someone said many pages back (with no disrespect intended to Liechtenstein) that Russia should have as much say in the future security architecture of Europe as Liechtenstein gets. I agree with that sentiment,

This is war. This is the premier league. Russia is mobilizing now. No more "special military operation". And we in the West need to reciprocate. No more "off ramps" for Putin. No more "referendums" in areas that Russia has carved out and driven the Ukrainian population out of and installed planters in their stead. No.

We need to win this. And end Russian imperialism.

And I would argue not just in the Donbas and Crimea but also Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abhkhazia.

Then, if in 20 years time a peaceful group of people want to discuss decession of Donetsk and they have  peaceful democratic process to want to do that maybe we can talk then. But now? Under military threat of Russia? No way.

[FancyCat]

Had the West told Russia to get the hell out of Ukraine, and backed up Ukraine in 2014, in hindsight, this whole freaking conflict could have never occurred. 

Instead, we sat back on the sidelines, let Russia think it could do what it wanted in Ukraine, and prolonged a conflict that today we see the shameful results of Western inaction where in 2022, Russia thought it had the ability to swallow one of the largest European states without regard for international outcry. 

The initial aggression by Russia was in Ukraine in 2014. Instead of actually slamming the brakes shut, we let two puppet republics entrench themselves in the Donbas and Putin enjoy the fruits of his Crimean seizure. Had we actually cared about the principles of territorial integrity, those republics should have been ended via force of arms and for its trouble of promoting the uprising and filling the ranks of the separatists with men and equipment, Russia should have gotten back the body bags containing Girkin and the rest of those "separatists" to be buried in Russia. Instead, now cannon fodder Russian citizens are about to join their fellow cannon fodder of the republics to give their lives wholesale simply for Putin to try and hold some part of Ukraine forevermore.

Why Ukraine must be made whole boils down that this conflict started in 2014, in Crimea and Donbas, and Russia has used them to be a cancer on Ukraine and its people, nearly killing both a few months ago. (please, let us not get caught up in me referring to Russia and the republics as a cancer considering Putin, who's power only grew more and more since 2014, is currently prepping to pile the bodies of poor Russians in a bid to choke Ukraine in Russian blood)

It does not sit right with me we "need" to acknowledge these 8 year old conquests as deserving a special place and special consideration (nuclear red line or any other red line or any division between 2014 and 2022 borders) when the West refused to acknowledge Soviet legitimacy over the Baltic states for 51 years until they finally restored themselves in 1991. 

I mean, imagine a scenario where Ukraine does not get to the February 2022 borders (still quite possible), is there a imagery 8 year timer before Russia gets to lump them together with the republics and Crimea and tell Ukraine "this is ours now"? and the West needs to caution Ukraine to not rock the boat, or we get nuked? Can we not make the connections between the West's collective actions since 2014 to now, and not recognize the pattern of accommodation of Putin and Russia that has led to this invasion, this outright attempt to place a country of 44 million under Russian boots? With such disdain towards the UN that they barely bothered to set up the pretexts needed to invade (no apartment bombings here...), where they probably spent more time making sure that all the missiles they fired after Putin's speech declaring war did so while the UN Security Council meeting was ongoing.

I mean look at Azov, they spent years calling them war criminals, nazis, people who tortured the Russian speakers of the Donbas, touted their crimes, pledged to have their heads, to bring holy justice on these Nazis....and Putin ****ing sends  Denys Prokopenko and co to Turkey with barely a acknowledgement to the criticism and outcry of outraged Russians. 

A tower of lies and slander promising only righteous death to true enemies of the Russian people and it just tumbled to the ground like nothing. I'm not promising Crimea will be the same, I'm just saying we don't need to bring up nukes every time someone suggests landing some troops on a Crimean beachhead or entering the pre-war borders of the LNR and DPR or that Crimean Russians will shoot from every open window, I'm saying there is a context to Russia and Ukraine and the West, it began in 2014, and I may be bold in saying, acting like the West can be good and happy for helping Ukraine get to the 2022 borders, no, that is not enough, 2014, restoring the complete territorial integrity of a state is still something the West can do today. 

(im preempting any nuclear escalation comment by noting its only been 8 years, are you really saying Russia gets to wave a nuke to keep non-internationally recognized territory by waiting only 8 years? Sorry there's nothing deeculatory about that.)

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

Douglas MacGregor is a hack, an appeaser and an all around toerag. Print that article off and use it as toilet paper. It's about what it's worth.

You are being too kind.  Why the conservative press is so interested in giving this nutjob a platform is beyond me.  If I were running any one of the organizations that repeatedly put this numbnuts front and center, I'd be deeply concerned that someone might find my organization moronic by my viewers.  Doesn't seem to be an issue, which either means the people in charge view their viewers as even more moronic than MacGregor, or the people putting the spotlight on him are moronic.  Yesh, or both?  Blech.

Steve

[akd]

 

[Kinophile]

55 minutes ago, sburke said:

This one I am gonna have to say no way on.  Armed insurrection against their own government eliminates their right to expect the same freedoms enjoyed by other Ukrainian citizens.  They have crossed the line to sedition and criminal acts. How the Ukrainian gov't deals with this is their decision but I don't see an argument that these folks can just lay down their arms and immediately have all the same rights as the people who paid such an awful price for this war.

Sure, the initial volunteers. But the forcibly mobilized conscripts? The guys snatched from work, day cares etc after 8 years of not being part of the armed forces?

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, akd said:

 

my eyes!  My eyes!  Not even a warning @akd?

[JonS]

59 minutes ago, sburke said:

How the Ukrainian gov't deals with this is their decision but I don't see an argument that these folks can just lay down their arms and immediately have all the same rights as the people who paid such an awful price for this war.

I believe the US can offer some precedent here?

[Kinophile]

33 minutes ago, RandomCommenter said:

(I am thinking here of Jim Larkin "the great appear great because we are on our knees, let us rise").

Ahhhhhh Big Jim Larkin.

I've not thought about him in a long, long time. I read one of his speeches, talk about a firebrand! 

Funnily, that line really spoke to me during secondary school, when I was being bullied. It really resonated with me, because I fundamentally knew I wasn't small or useless or stupid. They had convinced me of it, or more accurately had convinced me to convince myself. It was a long journey out of that particular psychological ravine, but that line was with me all the way.

Thanks Jim.

Slán abhaile leat.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Kinophile

[sburke]

1 minute ago, JonS said:

I believe the US can offer some precedent here?

yeah but not a good one.  

[Kinophile]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

my eyes!  My eyes!  Not even a warning @akd?

LOL

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Even tried a threat that Aragorn and LongLeftFlank might pay him a persuasive “visit”.  

@Aragorn2002 

Interesting tag team lol.

We shall threaten to meme him (whomever he is, I missed it) a second time!

[NamEndedAllen]

5 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

Anyone want to give odds these poor serfs, and they really might as well BE serfs, show up at the front in summer uniforms? just in time for some nice cold fall rains? Of course I am optimistically assuming they will have any uniforms at all...

“A mob with guns”. 
iirc, that was a ret. USA General’s assessment of the Russian Army much earlier in this debacle.

[sburke]

ouch!  

“Russian diplomats flee almost as aptly as Russian soldiers,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said when he spoke after Lavrov’s departure.

[Fenris]

This was apparently filmed in Rostov Oblast

 

[Offshoot]

11 minutes ago, Fenris said:

This was apparently filmed in Rostov Oblast

 

This guy is claiming that a train with T-62s was hit near Donetsk city. Did the train complete it's journey - tiketty-tokkity tiketty-tokkety?

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Offshoot

[RandomCommenter]

49 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Ahhhhhh Big Jim Larkin.

I've not thought about him in a long, long time. I read one of his speeches, talk about a firebrand! 

Funnily, that line really spoke to me during secondary school, when I was being bullied. It really resonated with me, because I fundamentally knew I wasn't small or useless or stupid. They had convinced me of it, or more accurately had convinced me to convince myself. It was a long journey out of that particular psychological ravine, but that line was with me all the way.

Thanks Jim.

Slán abhaile leat.

Man I'm sorry you had that experience. I had it too actually. And in our school the school motto was "Is fearr bás ná náire" (death is better than shame). They meant it as a nationalist thing. Those guys who died rather than submit to English rule were heros and all. But as a bullied kid it was also "so should I commit suicide now I am being bullied remorselessly and shamed every day?".

Anyway many years later and and as an American citizen as well as an Irish guy I can look back on those days as "growing pains".

Apologies to use this forum to reach out privately to Kinophile who I have been admiring from the shadows for six months (along with Steve and the Captn and Aragorn2000 and all you guys, Taranis and I am missing others).

Anyway my takeaway from today is the Azovstal defenders who have been released. It shows that we should never give up hope. What heros. I wish them many happy years ahead. 

 

 

[sross112]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Interestingly I have been wondering the same thing - what is the threshold?  Not a single household (it has been tried).  Is is a county, a township, I don't think so, a province or region seems to be on the table.

I do think a state has a right to establish territorial integrity; however, this is also contract between the people who live within it.  At some point, not entirely sure where, if they people wish it, that contract may need to be renegotiated.  I think removing that freedom is extremely dangerous, unless of course it is agreed to beforehand.

My concern here is that we are playing fast and lose with peoples rights and freedoms, largely because we might not like the answer.  Democracy says that power is derived from a mandate from the people - the only international bounds on that which I know of are laws with respect to human rights (and even here we play a little loose).  A state is free to determine how it is governed.  We even have an index for democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index).

So if you and others are saying Donbas or Crimea does not have a right to explore the question - of course when it can be established as free and fair - then who does and why?

According to @RandomCommenter Scotland does as it was an independent nation who joined a union and retained the right to leave - so it has to do with entry into the union?  What about places like Quebec, who were conquered and then as our democracy evolved so did their rights to separate? What about indigenous peoples, like Greenland?

Regardless, it may not even come to this; however, it is an issue worth considering, I do not think we can simply sweep it under the carpet.   

This secession question is such a hard thing just due to all the possible situations. It is hard to have a one size fits all answer. The best method I can think of is having the entire nation decide, not just the territory that wants to secede. It really is a question for the nation involved and the nation is made up of its people so therefore all the people should make the choice. Of course that could bring up the problem in the reverse with a forced secession. Say the rest of the US is just sick and tired of California and votes them out, then we have something like Survivor going on in a nation. 

The other thing is what about the people that don't want to secede? If the Donbas voted and 51% cast theirs to secede, what about the 49% that don't want to? Are they just stuck being Russian now? Seems like no matter what there will be those that are disenfranchised with the results. I'm all for democracy but I think Churchill said that true democracy (rather than a republic) was two wolves and a lamb discussing what was for dinner. 

There is just no way to do it where everyone wins and gets what they want.  

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Geeze man, you forgot to mention Russia has no officers to lead this rabble.  Even if they filter them into existing units, the existing units are already short on officers.  They might function OK now simply because they are also short on basic soldiers.  Adding one and not the other is a recipe for disaster.

Not only does the lack of officers preclude these units from being employed in any militarily significant way, it also ensures large chunks of these guys are going to simply walk over to the Ukrainian side at the first opportunity.  This will happen exponentially as things go from bad to worse at the front.

To summarize... these guys aren't going to get trained, they won't receive decent equipment, and leadership will be minimal at best.

Cannon fodder without a real purpose.

Steve

In the videos and pictures of the conscripts I see there are a significant number of older ones. I was thinking that these guys had to be specialists or former officers so that may be how they will try to fill the leadership roles. Can't think of any other reason for grabbing the 35+ crowd this early in the mobilization game.

[NamEndedAllen]

5 hours ago, billbindc said:

Douglas MacGregor is a hack, an appeaser and an all around toerag. Print that article off and use it as toilet paper. It's about what it's worth.

And with that, off to happy hour. Cheers. 

 

Insult to toilet paper. Fine softwood trees died for that vital product! His opinions…

Edited September 23, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[cesmonkey]

This article:
https://news.yahoo.com/congress-pushes-dod-rule-gray-202919149.html
Congress pushes DoD to rule on Gray Eagle drone delivery to Ukraine

offers this interesting quote from General Atomics spokesman C. Mark Brinkley

Quote

“If you think HIMARS [the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] changed things, put some Gray Eagles in the air and see what happens next,” Brinkley said. “No one wants to see the significant gains made by the Ukrainians erode due to inaction.”

 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

This one I am gonna have to say no way on.  Armed insurrection against their own government eliminates their right to expect the same freedoms enjoyed by other Ukrainian citizens.  They have crossed the line to sedition and criminal acts. How the Ukrainian gov't deals with this is their decision but I don't see an argument that these folks can just lay down their arms and immediately have all the same rights as the people who paid such an awful price for this war.

There are no good answers, it is why you shouldn't have the war in the first place. And I reiterate that the supposed causes for this one are the worst excuse for a casus belli since the Confederacy,. And at least then they were just being greedy, immoral BA@@^^@@, not lying, amoral, and greeedy BA@@^^@@. And if the sociopaths in the Kremlin keep doubling down, they may yet manage to run up a similiar butchers bill, at least on their own side.

10 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

This article:
https://news.yahoo.com/congress-pushes-dod-rule-gray-202919149.html
Congress pushes DoD to rule on Gray Eagle drone delivery to Ukraine

offers this interesting quote from General Atomics spokesman C. Mark Brinkley

 

General Atomics has noticed that Lockhheed can quadruple Himars/GMLRS production a still need a decade to make a dent in the order book. That said, I hope it works as advertised, and it should have been there months ago. Moments like these are why you keep  defense contractors around. The Pentagon's  belief that the Chinese haven't stolen their secrets is somewhere between daft and sort of cute, or it would be if Ukrainian solders weren't dying every hour. The real crown jewels are the production technology where the CAD files are insufficient to copy it. Chinese semiconductors being exhibit A, or rather the lack of them is.

What he said, smash these bleeps so hard they quit, there is no other way. Smash them so hard they don't have any choice.

[Sojourner]

Macgregor: there's been a lot of loose talk about the viability of waging a limited nuclear war against Russia, using the so-called tactical nuclear weapon…

 

eeewww, I feel dirty just pasting that, but WTF???

Who the hell is talking loosely about using nukes against Russia?

 

[dan/california]

Macgregor is a vatnik

 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Macgregor is like so many sports "journalists".

Lots of bombastic hyperbole to generate clicks and attention.

He probably doesn't even believe anything he says, either.

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Macgregor is a vatnik

And yet he keeps getting booked on shows that have the clout to book just about any conservative voice out there.  They certainly have the resources and obligation to make sure whomever they select isn't a nutjob.  And yet, this dolt keeps making the rounds and often on the same show.  It's happened too many times for it to be accidental or out of ignorance, which is disturbing.  I wish the audience that watches such shows would realize why I'm disturbed by it and join me in being, er, disturbed.

I'm all for having a variety of voices out there to listen to, but they should at least have some credibility.  Macgregor does not, therefore I am being DENIED hearing a contrary voice worth listening to.  I also find that disturbing.

Disturbingly yours,

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, Kraft said:

From whom? The widows and USSR flag waving babushkas against OMON agents and Putin thugs?

"Protests" look like what the green party does every weekend in my city, when its raining. https://i.imgur.com/T7OWiI6.mp4

I did not expect much but this is pathetic. More police cars burn in Europe when G7 leaders meet or when the french unions decide to improve their wages. Iranians are dying in the streets right now, Russians: "what can you do?" ...

7 months of war, 50k KIA, untold economic damage and a total destruction of any political reputation and goodwill. And a couple hundred chant on the street. Not to mention what damage and suffering they have caused, not like they care or else we would have seen "protests" before their own skin got in the game.

Precisely. All this talk about collapse and uprising is wishful thinking. Military setbacks, yes. Economical crisis, yes. But nothing more. Not yet anyway. Perhaps next year, when the dying really starts.