ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Thank goodness Putin is only invading with peacekeeping forces.

well, i'll be the first admit that i am not an expert on contemporary military conflict in eastern europe, if i had to take a wild guess, i'd think they're going to try to do an annex - bloodless or not, i have no idea - of the two puppet states they established a few years back. "peacekeeping force", but establishing a presence on the newly expanded borders into ukraine and trying to spread influence (or trigger a counterattack strong enough to justify further expansion) from the there.

putin's speech earlier today was pretty chilling

If you want to know how Ukrainians react to Putin's speech, here's a glimpse: moms on Facebook discuss putting stickers on their children's clothes, when they go to school, indicating their blood type. Make no mistake: this speech was perceived as a declaration of war on Ukraine

— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) February 21, 2022

he certainly offered a lot of food for thought on the topic of Ukrainian history

Good I've cleared a lot of work off my desk just in time for WWIII.

xpost

Is that a famine joke

We're completely overestimating the importance of London to Putin. On the one hand, financial centres are global. Losing access to the City would be as great a blow to Russia as losing access to the Channel Islands to the UK.

— Dan Davies (@dsquareddigest) February 22, 2022

safe to say the British media are always overestimating the importance of London to any world event really

It would do more damage to the City of London though. Sanctions are not going to work here but let's carry on pretending Putin is shitting himself over them.

Paul Mason is in Ukraine.

Going after Russians in the UK would make the Tory party poorer.

Paul Mason is in Ukraine.

and Stoya?

watching american journalists recommend which other american journalists american journalists ought to listen to about ukraine and russia, still waiting to see anybody from russia or ukraine mentioned

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) February 22, 2022

idk, presumably the criterion here would be people with direct, ongoing links to the Russian government, not necessarily people who nicked a bunch of money in the 90s and emigrated shortly after. Xps

Stoya, come to Latvia

Nord Stream 2 has, understandably, been suspended. idk how much Putin values having troops officially in a territory they were unofficially in already but it’s hard to see any positives for Russia if this is where it stops.

It's hard to see many clear positives if it escalates or progresses, too. Unless Putin just wants to fully rebrand as international baddy and pariah.

I heard a very amusing exchange when the bbc correspondent suggested to Russian spokeswoman (Natalia something, didn't catch her name properly) that there are rumours that Putin is mentally ill. OMG! she replied, look at your foreign minister Elizabeth Truss, there are anecdotes about her illiteracy ... something something ...a symptom of the degradation of the Western elites!

As if to prove that point I saw your old nemesis Barry Sheerman rise to his feet in the Commons to encourage Boris to be as tough as possible with these Russians.

1/16 Yesterday I watched the “session of the Security Council”, this gathering of dotards and thieves (it seems to me that our Anti-Corruption Foundation has done investigations into the corruption of every single one of them).

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) February 22, 2022

Trump says Putin's military move on Ukraine is "genius."

"Putin is now saying, 'It’s independent,' a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper... We could use that on our southern border."

"Here’s a guy who’s very savvy." pic.twitter.com/8vk9SWm3QO

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 22, 2022

stay golden, ponyboy

amazing

you really have to “hand it to” putin

I am actually impressed. He managed to squeeze in a reference to a rigged election, high praise for Putin, shade for Biden and his usual healthy dose of self-aggrandizement in three paragraphs.

He could have mentioned Hunter Biden 7.3/10

I love how conservatives were lining up to say an invasion didn't happen during the Trump years because he was so strong and scary and unpredictable, and then he just comes out with over-the-top Putin ass kissing

I heard Susan Glasser (New Yorker staff writer and CNN global affairs analyst) on the Brian Lehrer show yesterday, and though of course she had nothing positive to say about Trump's constant kissing of Putin's ass, she actually endorsed the idea that Putin may not have wanted to make his move on Ukraine with Trump in office because he (Trump) was too unpredictable, i.e. Putin couldn't count on him to act along lines of US's rational self-interest.

Apparently, that is why Mark Milley felt the need to reassure the Chinese we weren't going to attack them.

it's wonderful, we should do it "south of the border," and it would never have happened if he were still in office.

the "Mad Idiot" theory

I think there's something to that actually

Yes, the crazy uncle.

Can we get an update whether all this is still just “saber rattling“?

You can feel free to reread the post I made about the five days ago if you like.

This one?

after being bombarded 24/7 with 🚨 BREAKING, PUTIN TO INVADE ANY MINUTE NOW 🚨 only for the situation to be gradually de-escalated is probably the clearest sign you'll get that the press are just stenographers for imperialist interests. add it to the chart next to WMDs

— pez 🇬🇭 (@periuspb) February 16, 2022
a more accurate take
― mardheamac (gyac), Wednesday, February 16, 2022 10:09 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t think you understand the disputed regions, but please, I’m sure this thread needs to get worse.

Please explain?

I explained what I thought five days ago, nice linking a tweet (not written by me) six days ago on the basis of the situation as it looked then though. It’s on the basis of understanding that Russia is pretty unlikely to roll tanks into Kyiv and mount a full scale invasion, it doesn’t benefit them to engage in an all-out war (which is the worst possible outcome) so they are unlikely to do it, the regions that Russia have officially sent troops into are ones they’ve been fucking around with for years already. In any case, as I explained already, Russia’s position both geographical and economical proximity to Europe means that a certain amount of fuckery will be tolerated. The sanctions announced early today are fine, but there’s really not much that can be done, all the options apart from deescalation are bad. Sanctions tend to be bad for citizens.

US politics are very weird these days. Pro-Trump wing of GOP basically saying that what Putin does in Ukraine is none of our business, and then you have Bernie Sanders making hawkish noises:

Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers. There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it. pic.twitter.com/PUNIJSZMEk

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 22, 2022

doesn't seem hawkish to me - he's talking sanctions and stepping up on the refugee support (which would be an interesting turn of events after afghanistan and the redistribution of afghani funds to 9/11 victims)

very much appreciate that last sentence

we'll see if trump takes a hit or whatever. as with every other time, i doubt it, and if i had to guess, it's because conservatives don't care about europe, and in fact a lot of them have a longheld but barely explained feeling that they don't like europeans. why? beats me, i'm just telling you what i heard, what i feel. i think for a lot of them it has to do with the united nations and a longheld but barely explained feeling that they don't like the european union. America First might be a slogan for some of this large group of conservatives who think maybe, who the fuck cares about what's going on over there. was it that bad when trump abruptly left syria? sure, there was some news about that, but not on any of tho shows they followed, so either way it didn't mqtter.

also, now there is a whole generation, maybe more, of young republican turning point usa pricks that grew up post-cold war. don't get me wrong, i think that they could be reoriented to battle the great loom communism threat again, given a couple years of Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia kind of reprogramming. but right now, pre-reprogramming, i don't think they really care about russia or what they do, and that they do probably putin because he rode a horse with no shirt on and pulled it off

"Sanctions tend to be bad for citizens"

99.9% of US foreign interventions of the last 70 years has been bad for citizens somewhere. Yet here we are with American posters rallying around their murderous, lying military industrial complex against another *bad regime* thousands of miles away from their homeland again. The sooner the Yellowstone caldera goes pop the better imo.

who is rallying around them? just making sure you don't mean me. is bernie sanders rallying around them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzsmciMNAGU

xp
no not personally directed towards you, just the widespread US riff-raff consensus on here

i guess i'm just not sure what the consensus is here, anyway. there is more of a discernible consensus in the media and, as usual, a bi-partisan coalition of hawkish senators (100% of the GOP, I believe, and probably 50% of the Democratic ones? I'm guessing), more than enough to pass whatever gigantic defense bill they want, year after year until it all goes boom. that's a kind of consensus.

i don't see that here but i haven't read every single word

The sooner the Yellowstone caldera goes pop the better imo.

You cite this as if it would be a US catastrophe and not a global one.

yeah but at least we could have a few street parties before the negativel climate and crop effects kicked in