ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Naive question but what does Zelenskyy stand for in "normal times"?

I don’t think there is a clear answer to this. He’s deliberately run on ‘not being the other guy/s’ (less corrupt, less nationalistic, less tied to establishment factions, etc) rather than having an extensive policy agenda or defined ideology.

"less corrupt"

then it came out he was one of the dodgy fuckers mentioned in the pandora papers

"but if you're coming at the events in Ukraine from that perspective, you're missing the forest for the trees."

It sounds like you are far more into the Soviet Union angle than I am. I was purely putting out the item as data point on Zelensky and how he might utilise power if/when there is a ceasefire.

You chose to link to Libcom contributors as an example of leftist perspective you loathe when thet aren't into the nostalgia for the USSR you were describing. I'd take a rest rather than post.

I don't loathe LibCom contributors, xyzzzz. You're misreading this. I linked to that article FROM LibCom. The article is ABOUT leftist perspectives I loathe, and so (apparently) does LibCom. I made that very clear when I said you could search FOR the names of said leftists in an article ABOUT them. LibCom and I are in agreement when it comes to that article.

xxxxxpost@regarding Zelensky

Zelensky ran on a compromise peace platform in spring 2019, and after the summer of Trump's perfect phone call, tried to negotiate said peace - even against the wishes of many Ukrainians. Once that fell through in late 2019 and Covid started up, I'm pretty sure he swung around to his current position. He's by no means a rabid nationalist, nor consistently so, but this war has very, very obviously intensified both his and the country's opposition to a compromise peace.

This is not an isolated incident in Ukrainian history. When Bush made his ill-advised speech in 2008 (implying but not guaranteeing NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine), there were anti-NATO protests in the streets of Kyiv:

"In central Kiev, several hundred protesters defied a court ban and shouted anti-Nato slogans in Independence Square, the focal point of the 2004 pro-western "orange revolution" protests, which swept Yushchenko to power. A few thousand protesters were massed in the square today ahead of Bush's arrival.
For many Ukrainians, joining Nato is not a priority. Only 30% of respondents in the former Soviet state support the move."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia

As late as October 2013 66% of Ukrainians were against joining NATO. Even in March 2014 over half were against.

What happened between then and now to make them change their feelings is left as an exercise for the reader.

"I don't loathe LibCom contributors, xyzzzz. You're misreading this. I linked to that article FROM LibCom. The article is ABOUT leftist perspectives I loathe, and so (apparently) does LibCom. I made that very clear when I said you could search FOR the names of said leftists in an article ABOUT them. LibCom and I are in agreement when it comes to that article."

Lol ok it was a weird thing to bring up as a reaction to that news item.

I will give a read of this later.

Even by the devastating standards of Russia's war in Ukraine, what's going on in Mariupol right now is pure horror.@GuyChazan spoke to survivors – and his story is free to read https://t.co/NNsbJhNE7w

— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 20, 2022

Whether or not banning pro-Putin parties during the invasion is a good look, it might not mean that much, with so much else for Zelensky to focus on. Does he have /can he spare means for surveillance, enforcement? Maybe it's more a warning for when he does have means, if they try to line up for puppet gov.(Last I read, 17 officials have been kidnapped, though a few have been released via prisoner exchange.)

xp The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts.

Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines.

...“Battles took place over every street. Every house became a target,” said Olga Nikitina, who was embraced by her brother as she got off the train.

...“The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a briefing.

In a blunt assessment, the think tank concluded that Russia failed in its initial campaign to take the capital of Kyiv and other major cities quickly, and its stalled invasion is creating conditions for a “very violent and bloody” stalemate.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukrainian resistance means Putin’s “forces on the ground are essentially stalled.”

“It’s had the effect of him moving his forces into a woodchipper,” Austin told CBS on Sunday.
...Estimates of Russian deaths vary, but even conservative figures are in the low thousands.

Russia would need 800,000 troops — almost its entire active-duty military — to control Ukraine for a prolonged period, according to Michael Clarke, former head of the British-based Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank.

“Unless the Russians intend to be completely genocidal — they could flatten all the major cities, and Ukrainians will rise up against Russian occupation — there will be just constant guerrilla war,” Clarke said.

...
Mariupol's city council said Saturday that Russian soldiers had forcibly relocated several thousand residents, mostly women and children, to Russia. AP could not confirm the claim.

Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said Sunday that 2,973 people have been evacuated from Mariupol since March 5, including 541 in the last 24 hours.

More about Mariupol and other areas:
https://news.yahoo.com/zelenskyy-says-siege-mariupol-involved-060649180.html

More about Mariupol and other areas

I totally forgot that Mila Kunis was Ukrainian. She and Ashton Kutcher have apparently raised over $30 million for refugees, which is pretty cool.

rich US celeb actors are so fucking great, no limits to their selflessness and dedication to charity causes. So inspiring.

Yeah, I wish they didn't do it, right?

I just wish you kept your consistently garbage posts to somewhere else tbh

otmfm

man.

or at least, not every fucking thread on this board. it would be so much easier to ignore your loudmouth birdbrain persona if you could control yourself a little bit.

Hmm yes. Insulting and trash talking other posters. Definitely what I check into these threads for.

For people who moralize others regularly you two seem like real resentful pieces of shit. Xp

No sin worse than being normie, that’s what really matters in this world.

"Hi, I'm an adult posting on a message board who can't just ignore comments that are harmless but seem LAME to me because they CRAMP MY STYLE"

posting about US celebs on a Ukraine thread that's already saturated with US domestic politics. stfu dickhead and reel your posh US lib neck in!

There’s an adult way to express that feeling, and then there’s what you’ve been posting.

I, uh, have no idea why Josh is under attack right now

What if we all tried a little harder to treat each other like human beings here? The rest of the world might be an interpersonal shitshow but this message board doesn’t have to be

just fyi Kunis & Kutcher are huge NFT shills

To bring things back on track to a subject slightly less controversial and polarizing than ashton Kutcher… I agree that Zelensky banning a bunch of political parties does warrant some scrutiny. I know nothing about most these groups; but it does feel opportunistic given that I don’t see how this helps them fend off an invasion.
Would it possibly be to delegitimize a possible puppet party, if Kiev and most of Ukraine fall?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking he might be doing, and I don't see how or where he could legally enforce a ban, with no parliamentary sessions or elections coming up soon, as far as I know---but sending a message to possible puppets, anyway (although yeah it does feel opportunistic)

re: Zelensky

Just a wild guess, but it seems like having pro-Russia parties with pro-Russia politicians around, at a time when you're being invaded by Russia, is probably not helpful. Especially when said politicians are not merely "sympathetic" to Russia or vaguely "Russophile," but are friends of and/or have connections with Putin and Alexander Dugin (aka the Russian Nazi whisperer).

Once again, just a guess. It could be that Zelensky is showing his true face and cracking down on all leftist parties in Ukraine in a blatant attempt to use this war to consolidate his own power - a tactic he might have picked up from a certain long-serving Russian president.

Trying to envision a scenario in which a tactical nuke is not used on Kyiv…

xp Just a wild guess, but it seems like having pro-Russia parties with pro-Russia politicians around, at a time when you're being invaded by Russia, is probably not helpful. Especially when said politicians are not merely "sympathetic" to Russia or vaguely "Russophile," but are friends of and/or have connections with Putin and Alexander Dugin (aka the Russian Nazi whisperer). Think we're all on the same page with this---though as for the other option you mention: maybe that's true as well, to an extent---but meanwhile, not nearly the main concern, of course.

FWIW, many of the Servant Of The People episodes revolve around President Goloborodko (Zelenskyy's character) playing off one suspicious oligarch against other suspicious ones without crossing too many moral corruption boundaries. Someone's paid politician gets a promotion without authorization and in the ensuing fracas, Goloborodko's reforms get through.

I haven't figured out who Ihor_Kolomoyskyi is supposed to be in the series (if at all), but if you stick around long enough to get to the full-length Servant Of The Nation / Sluga Naroda 2 it's a full-on lesson in Machiavellian politics - only told as a slapstick Hope/Crosby On The Road movie through Ukraine.

Trying to envision a scenario in which a tactical nuke is not used on Kyiv…

Wouldn't it be Mariupol?

Kinda nervous about this 5 AM deadline

I hear you.

Sotsialniy Rukh comrades cut through the bullshit about the ban on some political parties in Ukraine.

SR explains how these parties are not meaningfully left, but conservative apologists for imperialism. Nevertheless, SR opposes blanket bans as an attack on civil liberties. pic.twitter.com/SCdK5vtv7f

— Ben T (@IrateBen) March 20, 2022

And here is a machine translation of a message that was circulating through Ukrainian left channels today. pic.twitter.com/cUuStjmMlI

— nikita (@pidranok) March 21, 2022

takes from actual ukrainian leftists (ones who aren't conservative pro-russian soviet nostalgists) fwiw

Thanks for the links, ufo, this is really good to hear.

Most of it is covered in this thread. If some of the parties are small and "it's not clear why they were banned" then I wouldn't say that's so good to hear.

For international comrades on the banning of parties in Ukraine.
Thread

— Taras Bilous (@ahatanhel) March 20, 2022

takes from actual ukrainian leftists (ones who aren't conservative pro-russian soviet nostalgists) fwiw

Thanks for the links, ufo, this is really good to hear. To hear from, you know, from actual Ukrainian leftists, like ufo said.

I'd take a rest rather than post.

Take your own advice. Thanks for the Taras Bilous link, though - it's good to hear from another actual Ukrainian leftist.

And leave you to cheer on nationalism? No chance.

If you don't understand why I'm happier to hear from real socialists instead of pro-Russian shill parties, perhaps I can let the poet Mayakovsky explain:

https://i.imgur.com/UvJlYnf.jpg

"Don't waste words on 'Slavic brotherhood -
The brotherhood of the workers, or nothing!"

But you can willfully misread him too, if you want. It's not like he's going to kill himself over a communist for a second time.

"If you don't understand why I'm happier to hear from real socialists instead of pro-Russian shill parties"

You are not fooling anyone about what you are most happy about.

You are not fooling anyone about what you are most happy about.

You're really confused as to why a Russian raised in the Soviet Union would support Ukraine in this conflict, aren't you?

Probably because he's secretly a Ukrainian right wing nationalist, and not because he's tired of watching his country circling the drain while imposing itself violently on neighboring countries? Probably because he's a Nazi fanboy who you're vigilantly guarding this thread against, and not because this war is the biggest disaster for Russia in the last thirty years? Probably because he smiles at the thought of banning political parties, and not because his own homeland has thoroughly extinguished any real political opposition and is currently in a cultural suicide spiral while sending 20 year olds who've never seen the USSR to die in a foreign country for the imperial fantasies of a diseased old man?

I'd love to continue this conversation but there's not enough room up your ass for the both of us.

Don't talk about me being confused and then fantasize about things no one has said on this thread. Like I said, take a break.

And leave you to fantasize about what I think regarding a conflict between countries where I lived - countries you're too ignorant to know anything about - while telling me that I'm the one who's not "fooling anyone?" No chance.

Looks like it's roomier in here than I thought.

Thread and separate one-off comment by an analyst/researcher who’s been one of my go-tos.

What happens around Mariupol in the next few days should reveal alot about the state of the Russian Army--in a ghastly way. The 'demand' that the city be surrendered was really a plea. Saying to the Ukrainians, 'we really dont want to send our army into the town.' pic.twitter.com/hzoQyF7wzv

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 21, 2022

This repositioning by Russia makes sense. Failure of first strategy, dial down to seize parts of east and south Ukraine and demand Ukraine neutralization. The problem is that Ukraine can say no, and Russia is stuck in a long war with its economy in tatters. https://t.co/HfNT1GGSCw

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 21, 2022

No party with the word Socialist in its name could be that bad right

Ukraine can say no, and Russia is stuck in a long war with its economy in tatters.

The leverage Russia has in this 'long war' scenario is simple. The long war would be happening in Ukraine, not in Russia, so Ukraine would suffer profoundly and both its economy and its infrastructure would be in tatters. There is no scenario where Ukraine will invade or conquer Russia. Putin bet the farm. Now Russia and Ukraine are in a serious no-win situation, because, politically, Putin cannot choose to simply disengage and pull out without serious concessions which, politically, Ukraine cannot give him until both nations have been put through the meat grinder.

wut pic.twitter.com/zcREqwCJLA

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) March 21, 2022

Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin
I'm beggin' of you please don't take my land

Get all the hot topics in one tweet for maximum shares

we can all agree that Dolly Parton and Vladimir Putin have so much to learn from each other

they're like Islands in a Warm Water Port zone