ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

i have a Ukrainian friend in the US who is very depressed and cynical about all of this. she says this has been planned for years, the NY Times was just saying what was obvious to everyone, she says Putin is immune to sanctions, they don't work, and he will take all of Ukraine, and Belarus and Moldova.

Putin Very Bad but honestly can’t imagine a world where his hard-on for Ukraine portends anything worse for the avg citizen there than the US’

I see this is a team effort.

My daughter texted from school yesterday to ask if I thought this was going to start WWIII and I said "no." But honestly, these days? "Maybe." It's already somewhat akin to the start of WWII, that's for sure.

aka in hindsight it's easy to say things were inevitable. we have already had big essays explaining why brexit had to have unfolded the way it did, which is plainly bonkers as it could have gone a million different ways at a million different moments.

It’s a lot to take during a pandemic. Thinking of all the parents who have to explain this situation to their children.

er not that sort of naval. navel.

https://i0.wp.com/slimanmansour.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/18x18-in_0005_2021-overlookinng-an-Orange-Grove.jpg?fit=1100%2C1100&ssl=1

_I see this is a team effort.

not to be typically myopically american about it but i feel kinda the same today as i did then!

Most people will, myself included, I do not believe it is whataboutism, it’s a similar feeling of seeing something historically atrocious happening.

also wonder if a guy like Putin would be in power now if Russia hadn’t been treated like a hotel mattress by the west during the 90s.

Based solely on reading several Svetlana Alexievich books, I say yes.

who's going to die mad about it? how many ILXors supported the invasion of Iraq?

Can't really square this feeling of seeing something historically atrocious happening with running victory laps c&ping posts that got it wrong but ok.

fair enough eephus. again, I’m an idiot. I’ll bow out of this thread.

if the US decides to get involved beyond sanctions (which don’t ever seem to really do the trick), maybe this time it will we better than not. <-not snark, because obviously anything can happen

*be better than not

l’m a certified idiot sure but it’s hard to say US interests have done much good for former USSR countries since 1991. also wonder if a guy like Putin would be in power now if Russia hadn’t been treated like a hotel mattress by the west during the 90s.

I believe no matter your understanding of US influence on ex-soviet and warsaw pact countries, it is up to the citizens of these countries to decide of their future and that includes who they want to align with.

in the same manner that the US has always given the freedom to South American countries to align with whomever they want to, yes.

absolutely US/UK/western media failed to hold their respective governments to account for the invasion of Iraq, for the most part. but what is the relevance? should they just be on team invasion going forward because a good faction of them turned a blind eye to the US or UK's misdeeds (not just Iraq, but many of their past actions)? or keep silent? i don't think criticism of Russia is dependant on having been perfect in the past. real lives are going to be lost – thousands... possibly millions. Russia deserves condemnation from all corners.

Because of past shitty US foreign policy, I for one think, for consistency’s sake, they should only be allowed to show support for the shitty foreign policy of other countries.

My biggest concern:

Energy prices aren’t the only ones soaring. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, and, together with Ukraine, it accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s total exports. Wheat futures were up nearly 6 percent on Thursday, bringing the year-over-year increase to 37 percent. The price increase will hurt developing nations, where people spend bigger fractions of their incomes on food, the most.

From the NYT live thread.

XP I remember a lot of dancing on Russia’s putative grave by the US pundit class in the 90s and even at the time thought, “wow you’re really dumb.”

Whoops way XP to Will

The modern era of bloodless/borderless attacks does not portend positive outcomes:

New: Senate Intel chair Mark Warner tells CNN he’s concerned about Russia launching cyber attacks against US and NATO, which could bleed into Poland in “what could potentially be viewed as an Article 5 attack.”

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 24, 2022

XP I remember a lot of dancing on Russia’s putative grave by the US pundit class

Finding it difficult to get a handle on what the situation is right now or whats likely over the next 12 or so hours till dawn. It looks a bit more stable than it appeared a few hours ago? Kharkiv holding out ok from what I can tell, contradictory information tho

yeah one thing I hadn't considered about a war in the modern era is how quickly videos from 5, 10, 20 years ago would make the rounds on Twitter under the guise of "this is happening right now"

plus I guess we are gonna see some dangerously deep fakes

Everything horrible about today’s society will figure out a way to be a feature in this war yeah.

the Monuments Men but they're NFTs

On a related note, Denis Pushilin, head of the DNR, was big into this a few years back:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)

According to contemporary Western press reports, most investors were aware of the fraudulent nature of the scheme, but still hoped to profit from it by withdrawing money before it collapsed.

what the hell

.@reuters: UKRAINE PRESIDENT SAYS RUSSIAN OCCUPATION FORCES ARE TRYING TO CAPTURE THE CHERNOBYL PLANT

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) February 24, 2022

Yeah, was about to post. There was a passing report that Russians bombed a waste disposal site, too.

It’s a pretty straight line from Belarus to Kyiv through the exclusion zone.

So what happens if/when serious western sanctions hit/kick in and Russia calls that a further provocation and threatens more military action?

This situation might be worse than the Iraq War, starting with the fact that no opponent of the war defended Saddam Hussein; the dictator had no partisans on the most highly rated cable news show praising his strategic vision. Plus, instead of an army emasculated by the Gulf War and a decade of sanctions the Russian armed forces look formidable.

So what happens if/when serious western sanctions hit/kick in and Russia calls that a further provocation and threatens more military action?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, February 24, 2022 10:16 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Are you suggesting american imperalism? How dare you?

(From what I understand and I may be 100% wrong, the Red Line would be actual NATO countries)

I'm hearing from both Ukrainian and Russian immigrants I know irl and while the Ukrainians have the expected outrage, some of the Russians (even the ones who dislike Putin) are basically like, "Fuck the Ukrainians. They helped the Nazis murder my family."

Many xposts, but thanks for the links, SV. I added them all to my feed.

How far does anyone want to go back? Because fuck the Russians, they're why my family left what is essentially Ukraine around the turn of the (last) century, to escape anti-Jewish pogroms and conscription.

This situation might be worse than the Iraq War

I think the situation might be worse than anything we've seen since WWII. I can only think of a couple of outcomes: 1) an expanded armed conflict, worst case scenario as prelude to a broader war 2) expansionist-minded Russian occupation marking a return to cold war status quo, or 3) either or both of the above and the eventual election of a collaborationist US government that further bolsters Russia and accelerates or amplifies 1 or 2. Oh, and everyone is nuclear now, too.

to be fair to everyone itt nobody has come out with a take even comparably stupid to that of tracer hand's colleague

putin is a psychopathic gangster villain madman obv, a real end-stage symptom of the post-industrial tendency towards unrestricted technocratic feudalism, and the sooner someone (preferably one of his own) sticks a bullet through his head the better

wait a second, are we pushing the conversation to the new thing that definitely won't happen now

i think we need to round up the stagecoaches and maybe do some consolidating, maybe review the recent past and then do the hard work of moving the goalposts of previous 100% confidence predictions so that we can claim we were 50% right

the USA day shift is here; our thread police are the fucking worst and it's me

Many xposts, but thanks for the links, SV. I added them all to my feed.

― o. nate, Thursday, 24 February 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Kofman is a good follow. Really holds on from wider speculation as to where it's going, no comparisons to Iraq or WWII. We could use that here.

Anti-war protest in St Petersburg https://t.co/6eNQVPrQln

— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) February 24, 2022

the USA day shift is here; our thread police are the fucking worst and it's me

― dig your way out of the shit with a gold magic shovel! (Karl Malone), Thursday, February 24, 2022 11:16 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nah it’s not you Karl (it’s never you), and I do think posts of predictive nature is fine, if only because it helps with anxiety, it’s just that some will insult or demean people who don’t agree with their predictions and it’s gross.

Can't really square this feeling of seeing something historically atrocious happening with running victory laps c&ping posts that got it wrong but ok.

yes otm

thread police is not rly it lads its have a fucking word with yrself police which isnt policing its someone saying to u have a word with yrself

Another one to follow on Twitter. He's not an analyst or a journalist but he posted a very prescient thread back in December, correctly analyzing Putin's intentions (which I linked in the original thread revive):

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch