ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

yeah, those people in the WTC were servants of capitalism etc.

Guessing ppl making that argument are 100% onboard with everything their govts are up to? Or if not, working tirelessly every day to topple them, as they are aware that not doing so makes them complicit?

xposts

I believe this is the Death Star Janitors argument

It's the Ward Churchill 'little Eichmanns' argument

It's an absurd discussion to be having six days into a war that it's not even clear Russia's citizens know about or understand.

being that the US has a history of having humongous chunks of our population full-throated cheerleading our wars, I assume McFaul will be issuing his personal apology for the last 200+ years

Kasparov, meantime, is running out of patience.

Putin's war on Ukraine has entered its next phase, one of destruction and slaughter of civilians. It is also a part of Putin's World War, a war on the civilized world of international law, democracy, and any threat to his power, which he declared long ago. 1/13

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) March 2, 2022

check!

Good piece on NPR this afternoon on not only the curiously slow, almost cautious advance of Russia that counters their formidable reputation, but also on how Putin's full-force disinformation campaign (especially in Ukraine itself) seems to have failed everywhere but at home.

Ukraine’s intelligence says Putin might consider imposing martial law in Russia on March 4.
Absolute maniac has pit himself in a death trap with his own stupid lunacy.

— Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) March 2, 2022

might consider, hmm

sounds pretty solid

what other options does he have after that michael mcfaul tweet

I’m not sure he’s read it yet

Ukraine’s intelligence says Putin might consider imposing martial law in Russia on March 4.

He might consider many things that day. Who is to say he won't?

Don't mock the guy, i'm gonna bet English is not his first language.

If you think he is trying to say something different, then, what would that be?

Big If True transcends language barriers

Some more general info (second tweet explains his technical background for this)

This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.🧵

1/ pic.twitter.com/LmxW43v6gy

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022

Apparently people are leaving fake restaurant reviews for Russian restaurants on Tripadvisor - the reviews are bits of news about the Ukrainian situation that run counter to the propaganda being churned out by Russian media.

Armchair war punditry on Twitter is the worst. 'Looks like a thermobaric rocket explosion to me!' says a random guy at home who didn't know they existed before last Friday.

twitter or anywhere really

Small but I believe not symbolically insignificant point: should we mod request to get the second "the" removed from thread title?

https://www.city-journal.org/putins-bet

Basically argues that the Russian army is built around artillery, and that for all the talk of Russian military unpreparedness they're well equipped to win that way. Depressing to think about the implications for ordinary Ukrainians.

the idea that the russians are not going to win is a total dream

Yeah there's never been any question that they can roll over the country eventually. But there are lots of different kinds of "winning." Seems clear they're not winning the way they initially hoped, which would have been quick and exacted less toll on either the Russian army or Ukrainian people. The cost in global and domestic pushback is probably already higher than Putin wanted. And the long-term consequences are probably worse too. If the goal was to emerge with Russia looking stronger, that may already be unachievable.

yeah I guess I'm just coming around to what people mean when they mention Grozny. leave no stone atop another etc. not just some tanks rolling in. grim.

Small but I believe not symbolically insignificant point: should we mod request to get the second "the" removed from thread title?

I was thinking the same thing over the past couple of days. Changed.

Nice.

It will still show up as the old way in bookmarked "new answers" alerts, nothing to be done about that.

Thanks, WmC.

I don't believe for a second that Putin will fall or that the country will "turn on him" or "overthrow him." As such, I am wondering: at what point do sanctions materially weaken Russia's military capabilities? Is that a matter of months? Years?

This is where we’re at: a Russian investment expert pulls out a bottle on live television to toast the end of the country’s capital markets and says he’s going back to working as a dress-up Santa Claus https://t.co/9wAFSSd1QQ

— Joshua Yaffa (@yaffaesque) March 3, 2022

Full translation: pic.twitter.com/n5C1rnwrkq

— Dmitri (@mdmitri91) March 3, 2022

lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FM3Ar-RXIAQF9Fk?format=jpg&name=large

to tipsy- yep, but the question should be, for any good even understanding it will do, what does "winning" look like here to Putin

the more i read (not much tbh) on rounding up schoolteachers for fodder the more i wonder to what extent soldiers on the frontline were all a show here

on that point, I was reading about Grozny and apparently Russia there also started their invasion with small detachments of less capable soldiers to sniff out enemy positions. So it's possible that's what happened here too. And I think it's also possible that, in spite of that, Russians are genuinely having difficulties and getting bogged down with logistics, mud, underestimation of Ukrainian resistance, etc.

I imagine the challenge of being an invading superpower is the ability to pretty much achieve any goal you want, yet limitations (both internal and external) of how to go about it. So yeah, a "win" is not in question, it's what kind of win, how much of a win, how soon a win, at what cost, etc.

yeah they may be able to occupy the big cities for a while but like...then what? are they really gonna be able to install a puppet government? they are hemorrhaging money, equipment, and men. how long are they gonna be able to last? the Ukrainians don't look like they're gonna just capitulate.

I don't see why Russia wouldn't be able to install a puppet govt tbh. If Kyiv falls, it falls. At some point whether you're "going to capitulate" isn't really a choice anymore, the war is lost.

I don't think Russia is really "hemorrhaging equipment and men" at this point either. Even if they have lost 5000 troops, which is possible, they have an army of 900,000. If this keeps up for another two weeks and they have lost 10,000 or 15,000, that's a bloody nose for Russia, but I hardly see it preventing their immediate aims in Ukraine. It would probably be unacceptable losses in a modern democracy for this kind of war, but we aren't dealing with a modern democracy where public outcry is going to change the outcome of the war. At least not for a very long time. The US lost 17,000 soldiers in Vietnam in 1968 and protest was, for the most part, widely allowed. The economic sanctions eventually change the picture but there's a question of how long Russia is willing to hold out for what it sees as longer term strategic gains.

Installing a new president, let alone one that was already kicked out, would achieve ... what? No one would recognize him as the president, and he would be treated every bit the pariah as Putin.

Another problem with Russia's goals in Ukraine is that Ukraine's infrastructure and industry is being destroyed. Where will the reconstruction funds come from? Russia's economy is in crisis, and, an insurgency will be even more likely if Ukrainians can't find jobs. https://t.co/BucYlJURht

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 3, 2022

Installing a new president, let alone one that was already kicked out, would achieve ... what? No one would recognize him as the president, and he would be treated every bit the pariah as Putin.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:06 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, ask Chechnya?

Invading to ‘undo the coup’ seems like something that might have had a chance of limited success in 2014 but looks completely ridiculous after eight years of hardening public opinion.

Chechnya has 1m people, was always divided in terms of public opinion and has cost Russia a vast amount of money to keep onside. Ukraine has 44m with a clear majority opposed to occupation. Russia can’t do what it did with Crimea and flood it with cash. Some kind of attempt at partition, as in Moldova, might be more realistic.

just out of curiosity does culture or ethnicity have any bearing upon the chechnya question? (hope not)

I think there are a few main differences with Chechnya in terms of how the West has responded - it’s unambiguously recognised part of Russia, it’s a Muslim-majority region and it was seen very much as an Islamist uprising that would have wider consequences for other regions if successful.

Chechnya was largely seen as a civil conflict within Russia rather than an invasion of a sovereign nation. To the west it was just part of the messiness of the end of the USSR--ethnic hatreds long repressed, etc.

lol

If you’re wondering why McAdams is the top trend in India — watch this and stay with the shouting to get to the good part at 1.52 mins 😏pic.twitter.com/YOv8Pr1mOY

— Shilpa  (@shilpakannan) March 3, 2022

never mind

But for whatever reason do Ukrainians feel separate enough from Russians to stand up (and I am guessing the answer is yes) and how will this effect their view of a puppet government over time and what does this mean for nation states and empires and the lines along which borders are drawn?

"But sir, Mr. McAdams was the name of his dog!"