How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

"Culture changes over time"

Why is nobody trying to tell that to Israelis about their Arab neighbors?

I also don't see anyone crying "racism" when somebody criticizes Israeli Arab neighbors putting burqas on women and pulling heads off men?

Pretty sure Israel should just wait a few more centuries and everything will be OK.

Or maybe cutting off heads is unacceptable, but cutting off penises, hands, legs off of still alive human being who was deemed to be unworthy because he isn't a part of a superior russian race - is perfectly valid.

Shooting children on the beach with naval guns is perfectly acceptable (or journalists when they report for the other side), or slowly annexing and occupying a state which doesn't exist. 

I guess better not to include Israel/Arab in this discussion.

[kraze]

34 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Come on, noone said anything like that. Noone blames any Ukrainian for hating the guts of every Russian soldier who commits war crimes. Or any Russian soldier in Ukraine for that matter. Hell, I'd probably hate the whole of Russia myself in that situation. That was never point and noone is being called a racist for that.

What some of us take exception to is when it comes to the point of somehow every Russian being a (real or potential) murderer and rapist because that is just how they are and what they can never ever change. Maybe I can even find that humanly understandable. But I don't have to condone it and I can and will say (because I have the luxury of being able to think more calmly about!) that it is factually (!) wrong and leads nowhere good.

 

So what you are saying is that they have a very hard filtering for their soldiers to make sure only rapists, looters and murderers get into the army and the other, "good" russians stay away?

Or, you know, maybe it's the whole culture, the whole nation that gives birth to these - starting with their parents, continuing with their schools and ending (hopefully in the very first combat) with their army instructor?

This war isn't even the first war this "not-USSR" wages. Since 1991 it's what, 10th? And every time russian soldiers do exactly the same things - rape, loot, murder. So we are talking THREE generations here who do exactly the same thing. And literally every single generation before that who did exactly this in USSR and in whatever their empire was called before that.

So either only absolutely barbaric criminals are exclusively and perfectly filtered into the army for centuries or... it's the NORM in Russia.

Whatever makes you feel warmer I guess.

Edited September 20, 2022 by kraze

[Lethaface]

1 minute ago, kraze said:

So what you are saying is that they have a very hard filtering for their soldiers to make sure only rapists, looters and murderers get into the army and the other, "good" russians stay away?

Or, you know, maybe it's the whole culture, the whole nation that gives birth to these - starting with their parents, continuing with their schools and ending (hopefully in the very first combat) with their army instructor?

This war isn't even the first war this "not-USSR" wages. Since 1991 it's what, 10th? And every time russian soldiers do exactly the same things - rape, loot, murder. So we are talking THREE generations here who do exactly the same thing.

So either only absolutely barbaric criminals are exclusively filtered into the army or... it's the NORM in Russia.

Whatever makes you feel warmer I guess.

The thing is about guilt by association as you seem to lay on everyone who had the fortune(?) of being born in Russia or to Russian parents.

[poesel]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

I remember Europe in the fifties naming Germans as Boche (French) or Moffen (Dutch) was perfectly socially correct. It sounded worse than the English Kraut. It took two generations to wear off. 

It wore off? I think not, but it's now less insulting and more bantering. Try to translate 'Tulpenlutscher'

56 minutes ago, kraze said:

 Humans are inherently good,

No, they are not (for whatever definition of 'good'). But humans are the same. Everywhere, all the time.

What differs is culture.

48 minutes ago, keas66 said:

Personally I think Russia needs to be "de-natizfied" in the same way Germany was cleansed after world war 2

Well, they chopped off the heads of the big ones and killed all the monsters they could get hold off. But for the majority, it was 'don't ask, don't tell'. The real denazification came with the education of the following generations and the death of the previous ones.

You cannot change adults much, you can only train them to behave better (in public). So any hopes for a better Russia are 30 years down the road if everything runs extremely well.

[Huba]

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

We need to be very careful here, before the thread is torn in half by opposing camps, fighting needlessly over a definition. 

Im not denying @kraze et al's anger (I'm 100% comfortable calling it hate, and agreeing that it's fully justified) but I'm also extremely leery of approaching racism -  @Butschi

did a nice note there.

But I don't see fighting over the differences as relevant to this thread.  

It'll just disrupt the flow of thought, news and analysis that has made thread so great (such an addiction for me!). 

It's the classic online debate war,  where if in theory one side wins, ok yay, well what do you get?  A parade?  Trumpets? Cake? (Mmm caaake).  After we're done laying waste to pages of potential useful insight, well then what? It'll be a wasteland, not the vibrant jungle we have now. How can we talk further without everyone having a rhetorical knife behind their back, waiting to go stabbby-stabby on posts they disagree with?

That's not a discussion thread, that's an arena. 

As we all know and all say to each other -  opening another thread is free and easy!  Go, create and God bless. And I'd actually read that thread. 

But one doesn't poop where one eats 

Except for my useless cat. She sh*ts everywhere.

 

 

 

 

I'm with you on this, this discussion is moot and only makes the thread more cluttered. Especially today there's plenty of much better discussion fodder, for example:

I read that Putin's speech is to air during the upcoming hour, the tension is raising... 

Edit:

Also, a very short but insightful thread:

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

24 minutes ago, Huba said:

Didn't they? Some sources claim they already passed all the laws.  Could you be so kind and confirm/ disprove that? 

Yes, you are right - I was looking at morning news headers.

 

[kraze]

25 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Shooting children on the beach with naval guns is perfectly acceptable (or journalists when they report for the other side), or slowly annexing and occupying a state which doesn't exist. 

I guess better not to include Israel/Arab in this discussion.

Why not? Israel is a good example of exactly that - a nation, which defends itself against extremely barbaric neighbors, that went through centuries of occupation and genocides - is now deemed bad by some because it gets what the root of a problem is. Even Palestine fits well here - because it is just another faux "LPR/DPR" with a flag eerily reminiscent of a certain Israeli extremely genocidal neighbor, which directly supports Palestine, while actively denying it (also too busy with its country deservedly disintegrating - something lacking in Russia thus far, unfortunately). And Israel retaliates against this "people's republic" a lot calmer and slower than what Ukraine is forced to do.

When you are threatened with a very very violent extermination by whole generations of barbaric enemies - it's very hard to roleplay that it's just a token Hollywood movie with evil dictators and good people suffering under them.

By all means I'd more than happily return to the unicorn-infested world of being civilized - the moment russians are not a threat, preferably due to violently cutting off each other's penises in wars of succession.

Edited September 20, 2022 by kraze

[Lethaface]

13 minutes ago, kraze said:

Why not? Israel is a good example of exactly that - a nation, which defends itself against extremely barbaric neighbors, that went through centuries of occupation and genocides - is now deemed bad by some because it gets what the root of a problem is. Even Palestine fits well here - because it is just another faux "LPR/DPR" with a flag eerily reminiscent of a certain Israeli extremely genocidal neighbor, which directly supports Palestine, while actively denying it (also too busy with its country deservedly disintegrating - something lacking in Russia thus far, unfortunately). And Israel retaliates against this "people's republic" a lot calmer and slower than what Ukraine is forced to do.

When you are threatened with a very very violent extermination by whole generations of barbaric enemies - it's very hard to roleplay that it's just a token Hollywood movie with evil dictators and good people suffering under them.

By all means I'd more than happily return to the unicorn-infested world of being civilized - the moment russians are not a threat, preferably due to violently cutting off each other's penises in wars of succession.

So what is the root of the problem? Arabs? Russians? And you have a final-solution in mind for that root cause?

Edited September 20, 2022 by Lethaface

[keas66]

6 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

So what is the root of the problem? Arabs? Russians? And you have a final-solution in mind for that root cause?

Well - why don' t you make some sort of suggestion  since you obviously don't agree with Kraze . Please  I'm all ears - make a suggestion to fix  the problems in the Middle East . Maybe  you'll have  better luck than Jared Kushner .

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by keas66

[Lethaface]

30 minutes ago, poesel said:

It wore off? I think not, but it's now less insulting and more bantering. Try to translate 'Tulpenlutscher'

The serious usage of the word wore off here, although during football matches against Germany of course everything is on!

30 minutes ago, poesel said:

No, they are not (for whatever definition of 'good'). But humans are the same. Everywhere, all the time.

What differs is culture.

This. Culture and experiences. And we all have both good and evil in ourselves. The question is whether we let it out or not.

[Zeleban]

10 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

So what is the root of the problem? Arabs? Russians? And you have a final-solution in mind for that root cause?

The ultimate solution for any nation is to resolutely defend itself against any aggressive encroachment.

This is what Kryze tells you in almost every message he has. But for some reason you do not want to understand it.

Kryze, as far as I remember, never called for the total elimination of the Russians

[Lethaface]

17 minutes ago, keas66 said:

Well - why don' t you make some sort of suggestion  since you obviously don't agree with Kraze . Please  I'm all ears - make a suggestion to fix  the problems in the Middle East .

Well ethnical cleansing / genocide surely isn't something you hear me suggesting. But I have an idea: 

* Abolish both states.
* Call the country Israel/Palestine and reverse the order yearly. The one who goes first gets decided by a coin toss.

* Take Finnish law and put it in place (no apartheid, every religion has same status, etc)

* Have UN German troops police the country for a decade

Anyway I don't need to suggest no fix in order to recognize that someone calling all Arabs/Russian as 'root problems' is ... not in a good place to put it mildly.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Lethaface

[BFCElvis]

 Folks we need to reel this back. I can issue vacations if you can't do it yourselves. 

[Lethaface]

8 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

The ultimate solution for any nation is to resolutely defend itself against any aggressive encroachment.

This is what Kryze tells you in almost every message he has. But for some reason you do not want to understand it.

Kryze, as far as I remember, never called for the total elimination of the Russians

Just to be clear, the 'final solution' was a reference to this plan https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Endlösung.

You misrepresent my point. I never ever said that Ukraine (or any country or people) doesn't have the right to fight for it's own existence. And with that I also mean 'gloves off' fight without remorse. 

And no he didn't literally call for the total elimination, but he describes the problem in a way as such that is the only option to fix the 'root cause'.

 

[sross112]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

I think we have a common understanding of what ****show RU mobilized army will be, but I wonder what the immediate advantages for RU might be:

- sending in the conscripts that already serving their term

- no more refusniks

- forceful mobilization of all the refusniks/ people who left the army recently

I'd think it might constitute a substantial injection of manpower that isn't completely 'green' ( morale/ motivation being another matter...). I guess that is going to help out in the short term, or am I missing something here? 

I can see how Girkin and others think that by increasing the numbers they increase the probability of success, but I think reality will be hard on them in the end. Our discussions here have laid out why mobilization isn't a magic bullet for Russia but personally I think it will backfire in a lot of ways.

First if you drag those that left recently or refused to fight I can't imagine they will have an epiphany and go gayly into the assault. More like the POW numbers will go way up when these new replacements reach the front. 

As for the conscripts I just don't see them being the wonder weapon that saves the RA. It is like those talking heads in Russia think that throwing endless bodies at a problem might fix it like WWII, or they have heavily invested in zinc and see this as a great pay off. 

Lastly, the referendums to make LPR/DNR part of Russia doesn't flick a switch and make millions of Russians willing to die for them. It doesn't somehow turn this into a defensive war of survival for Russia that galvanizes the population. The population doesn't see this as another Great Patriotic War and will not see it that way. 

I see mobilization or partial mobilization only doing two things; putting more moving targets on the battlefield for the UA and raising the butcher's bill for the RA. Really don't see any effects other than that.

[Grigb]

Just now, Lethaface said:

* Have UN German troops police the country for a decade

I fully support this idea. We should try it in RU. Though there is a risk of spontaneous combustion of butts on unprecedented level that result in global warming like never before.

 

[sross112]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

I fully support this idea. We should try it in RU. Though there is a risk of spontaneous combustion of butts on unprecedented level that result in global warming like never before.

 

Oh, Oh!! More fun yet. Have UN Chinese troops garrison all the nuclear facilities in Ukraine!! Like to see Russia play the nuclear terrorism card on their buddies.  

[Seedorf81]

The way the debates are going makes me wonder if we'll reach page 1400.

Would be a real shame if this thread gets closed.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Seedorf81

[sburke]

1 minute ago, Seedorf81 said:

The way the debates are going makes me wonder if we'll reach page 1400.

Would be a real shame if this thread gets blocked.

 

Elvis to the rescue!

[Grigb]

Ok, guys, big article of RU opposition media regarding Kremlin decision on referendums and mobilization (I ma getting vibes that Kremlin is scared ****less - something is really wrong in RU).

Quote

The "war party" won - The Kremlin decided to "immediately" annex the Ukrainian territories — and is already seriously planning to mobilize. Medusa found out how this decision was made

The pro-Russian authorities of the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, as well as the occupied territories of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, hastily and one after another announced that they would hold "referendums on joining the Russian Federation" in the near future. The LPR and the DPR added that the vote will be held this week, from September 23 to 27.

As Medusa previously reported, immediately after the successful counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops in the Kharkiv region, Moscow decided to "put the referendums of joining on hold" — and postpone them indefinitely. According to two sources close to the presidential administration (AP) of the Russian Federation, at the end of last week, the Kremlin's internal political bloc was not going to force the holding of "referendums". After the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Kremlin political strategists who worked in the Kharkiv and Zaporozhye regions left for Russia, preparations for voting in the Kherson region were curtailed, and campaigning in the LPR and DPR practically did not begin at all.

However, the situation has changed in just a few days. Now the interlocutors of Medusa confirm that the "referendums" should take place this week: "There is a mood to do everything very quickly." Sources close to the Kremlin stressed that the Russian authorities do not intend to create even an "illusion of legitimacy": "It will be important to hold some kind of vote and report on the result." Among other things, it is planned to use electronic voting (which observers consider to be a tool that helps the authorities manipulate elections within the Russian Federation).

Medusa's interlocutors associate the change of plans with the lobbying efforts of the so—called war party - a group of high-ranking Russian officials and security officials who advocate further escalation of the conflict with Ukraine, including mobilization in Russia (Kiev mobilized immediately after the outbreak of the war; now Ukraine has a numerical advantage at the front). "They influenced [Putin now] — and [everything] started, the emergency [has begun]," said one of the interlocutors close to the Kremlin.

The interlocutors of "Medusa" explained that there are two reasons for "avral" [emergency mode]. The first is the position of some "civilian" representatives of the Russian authorities (including in the AP), concerned about the mood in the occupied territories after the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

In Kherson and Zaporozhye, there were very serious fears among pro-Russian citizens before that Ukraine would return and punish them. The DPR and LPR were unhappy that the referendums were being delayed. After the Ukrainian counteroffensive, these fears multiplied, and fears appeared in the DPR and LPR, where they were not widespread.

Medusa's interlocutors gave names Andrei Turchak, Secretary General of United Russia, and Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, among the supporters of this point of view. Andrey Turchak and Dmitry Medvedev's representatives did not respond to Medusa at the time of publication.

According to Medusa's sources, these figures and their entourage united in attempts to influence Putin with some security forces (in particular, with the head of the Rosgvardiya Viktor Zolotov), who are sure that for a successful war with Ukraine, Russia needs the mobilization of citizens (this is the second reason for the "emergency" decision). Zolotov's representatives did not answer Medusa's questions.

At the same time, according to the interlocutors of Medusa, Vladimir Putin himself wanted to hold "referendums" as soon as possible: he does not intend to reduce the military activity of the Russian Federation. One of the sources explained: at the recent SCO summit, the heads of several states at once — among them Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev — allegedly told Putin that "the war must end." The Russian president, according to the source, reacted to these proposals "very conflictively." Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not answer Medusa's questions at the time of publication of this material.

Three Medusa sources close to the Kremlin stressed that, according to the plan of the Russian authorities, the "referendums" are designed to stop the advance of Ukrainian troops, who allegedly "will not dare to attack the territory of Russia" (at the same time, the border regions of the Russian Federation are regularly shelled already now). Official Kiev has already stated that it considers the upcoming voting to be a "fiction" that will not change anything.

If the counteroffensive continues, the Russian authorities intend to carry out partial mobilization in Russia and impose martial law, according to the interlocutors of Medusa. According to them, in connection with these "new conditions", reshuffles in the leadership of the presidential administration and the Ministry of Defense are likely.

Amendments to Russian legislation, including on mobilization, were adopted on the same day when the decision to immediately hold "referendums on joining Russia" was announced in the occupied territories. Not a single State Duma deputy opposed these amendments.

 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

russian atrocities

These are not just atrocities. This is a genocidal campaign to erase the Ukrainian state and people.

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

.After 6 months, this goes beyond 'angry.'  It's an ideological programme, aimed at justifying the violent expulsion of Russians, or anyone deemed to be Russian, or 'disloyal' or 'maybe disloyal' (all those are the same btw), from Ukraine.

It is important to recognize that there is rot in a society when it engages in genocide. Genocide is not a act of individual undertaking but of collective violence. Russia has a society where it is acceptable to erase Ukrainian identity, to eradicate Ukrainians. In Nazi Germany, the extermination camps were manned by volunteers. Any soldier, any German working in those camps who decided to leave the manning of the camps was in the vast majority of cases, completely free to do so without severe punishment.

It is important to recognize the agency of Russians in refusing to enter Ukraine. Part of the reason why it is so bad for the invasion is the exact refusal of soldiers to enter Ukraine on a individual level. Yet enough of them still enabled the war. Still fuel the war though their acceptance of the war, despite the very present reality of being able to leave the war!

There is a clear visible rot in Russia when Russians ignore the war, justify the war, in that they justify the position of Russia as free to erase Ukraine. Part of that justification is just lying about acts of anti-Russian sentiment.

To accuse that there is a campaign of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine seeking to expel Russians from Ukraine, as Ukraine is seeing Russia scour occupied Ukraine of Ukrainians, of seeking to take over Ukraine by deliberate methods of ethnic cleansing is just some victim blaming to say the least.

If your going to sit and pine about the inability of Russians to fight back against their repressive system that enables genocide and then demand that Ukraine try not to stay alive against such a system, I have to question your judgement.

Now, if we get down to the nitty gritty. Of course Ukraine shouldn't kill collaborators or Russians who surrender, they have a legal system to process them and their punishments which capital punishment is banned. If those collaborators or Russians find it better to move to Russia than face justice, so be it. If your asking what crime did these collaborators or Russians do, (carve out circumstances and etc, Ukraine should make room for that), assisting in treason, assisting in having your neighbors be killed or suppressed, it's obvious. If your asking why Russian is sideeyed as a language, deprioritized in Ukraine, consider the Russian state's suppression of Ukrainian language in occupied territories and recognize that prioritizing Ukrainian language is to protect and restore Ukrainian identity against erasure.

Recognize that many of the Russians moved into the Donbas or Crimea, did so through the suppression of Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and their ousting, and the seizure of their property.

I would like Ukraine to not expel people, but the return of lost property and the allowing of return of those due to Russia's seizure must occur. Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea must be enforced.

 

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, Seedorf81 said:

The way the debates are going makes me wonder if we'll reach page 1400.

Would be a real shame if this thread gets blocked.

 

Oh the thread will survive, it must until this war is over and then it needs to be archived somewhere.  Now whether some members join John Kettler in the outer-darkness is another question.

My view is that this thread is a collective analysis and assessment of the war and its conduct.  It is crowd sourced from open source intelligence and brings together a very broad set of skillsets and points of view.  I would argue that it is also one of the most objective/apolitical, thorough, and accurate exercises of this type on the internet right now.

However, our efforts must adhere to that analysis and assessment focus, we can and will drift on occasion into areas that are "less than helpful", but this must not devolve into an argument of one point of view over the other - no one can win an argument here - these are not Reddit games.  One can provide useful analysis, assessment and information, and yes, even opinions.  We are not going to solve  anything here, that is not how these things work.  All we can do is remain objective/apolitical, thorough, and accurate as we try to separate mis/dis information from reality as this thing unfolds.

An opinion, however, differs from a position.  Opinions, informed by education and experience lead to sound judgement, which is very helpful.  A position is a dogmatic and entrenched set of beliefs that very often defy reality - that is less helpful and is better served elsewhere in this big wide Internet where every position possible is out there for you to rage against or join in: 

Go nuts.

There is a standing list of topics that we will simply not solve here, nor should be waste our time trying to.  And by rolling hard into these topics all people do is generate noise, while we are looking for signal.  Nearly 1400 pages in, these flare ups happen at intervals - normally in a lull in activity in-theatre - and I suspect is more an emotional outburst as things get pent up.

Hopefully we have it all out of our systems now and may move on.

[Bulletpoint]

Please don't lock the thread before we get the explanation of what "Tulpenlutscher" means

[Lethaface]

4 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Please don't lock the thread before we get the explanation of what "Tulpenlutscher" means

I guess it means something like 'tulip sucker', with sucker in this case referring to blowjobs 

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Recognize that many of the Russians moved into the Donbas or Crimea, did so through the suppression of Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and their ousting, and the seizure of their property.

I would like Ukraine to not expel people, but the return of lost property and the allowing of return of those due to Russia's seizure must occur. Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea must be enforced.

Expecting that UA will allow any russians that moved into occupied territories after 2014 to stay is just mad, they deserve a kick in the arse and a bill for 8 years of unlawful use of properties.