ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

only straight cycles are allowed in Russia, no bi

Alperovitch on the Russian MOD briefing and his take on how it probably plays out from here:

Quick thread on today's very important developments from the Russian MOD briefing

Essentially we are reaching - as they themselves acknowledged today - the new phase of the war and it is a combination of #1 and #2 of my predictions below 🧵 https://t.co/TR3OUg8n40

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) March 25, 2022

In unconfirmed Ukrainian intelligence news: mass panic and property selloffs continue in Crimea among FSB and government officials.

Meanwhile, in totally normal and cool Russian news: traffic closings along the Sevastopol-Kerch highway, first on a bridge in Sevastopol itself, then along the center of Simferopol (coincidentally right before another bridge), as well as the army takeover of the "Gelendzhik Radiocentre" on the other side of the Kerch bridge. Could all add up to nothing, or could be preparation to move armed forces out of Crimea and block the Kerch bridge to deny Russian civilians a way out, as the rumors hold.

The Krasnodar branch of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "UVO of the Ministry of Transport of Russia" took under protection the bridge over the Belbek River on the Simferopol-Kerch highway, as well as the Gelendzhik radio center of the Azov-Black Sea basin. This was announced by the director of the FSUE Krasnodar branch Vyacheslav Bury..

In the capital of Crimea, restrictions on the passage of vehicles in the very center will be introduced.
According to the mayor's office of Simferopol, from 6 am on March 29 to 3 am on April 3, the passage on Sevastopolskaya Street will be closed - between the intersections with Kozlov Street and Kirov Avenue.

For those who may be wondering what does Gelendzhik, across from the Crimea, have to do with all this? Location, location, location.

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

that linked assessment by alperovitch seems accurate to me. the public briefing today by the Russian military brass was not setting the stage for a big escalation of the war, but instead clears the way for cutting their losses, pulling back and retrenching.

the real world effect of the west's financial sanctions against Russia seems much harder to predict now than the military outcome does. how Putin weathers this disaster is anyone's guess.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-jk-rowling-cancel-culture-b2043978.html

The leader went on to liken “cancel culture” Nazis trying to burn books in the 1930s, a theme he has returned on a number of times during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“We remember the footage when they were burning books,” he said.

“It is impossible to imagine such a thing in our country and we are insured against this thanks to our culture.

Inconceivable, even.

https://i.imgur.com/o7v5ArM.jpg?1

(Government status for our native Russian Language)- Bloc of Natalia Vitrenko"

Vitrenko is the Chairwoman of the recently suspended Progressive Socialist Party.

Jan. 25, 2022 (EIRNS)—On Jan. 19, the Central Committee of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) issued an Open Letter ripping apart the fraud of those pushing for confrontation with Russia on the pretext of allowing the people of Ukraine to “write their own future.”

https://i.imgur.com/pc70Xsu.jpg?1

The Kremlin stashed away billions before invading Ukraine. China helped them hide it. NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with economist Benn Steil about his investigation into Russian assets.

They may be making the classic mistake of ascribing to espionage that which can be explained by malice and cupidity.

That story of Putin sitting in the KGB office in Dresden... Moscow is silent while East Germany collapses around him. It's a good story, but the background surrounding the Dresden office was that it wasn't particularly a prestige espionage gig compared with Berlin. Dresden was instead central to several major smuggling/black market networks, organized crime, etc. The only takeaway I've ever had from seeing Putin *ugh* ascend through the years is that his actions have only been that of an organized crime boss. Irrational, lashing out. In three moves, any one of them would have smashed that 4th-dimensional chess set to pieces.

Elvis, I was referring to the Russian tv show presenter's assumption that Tucker would have to "run away" from America, presumably because he's either a Russian op guy, or would be chased out by enraged Americans. If only.

But you're right, Putin seems to be, or act like, a local organized crime guy who made it big. Dresden was no Berlin, but he still enjoyed all the perks that came with being a trusted member of the Party, and the KGB. He was also much closer to the West - and those alluring brand names that took on almost a mythical quality for many Soviet citizens. He may not have been a millionaire, but he was certainly far from the material realities of internal Soviet life in the 80's. It seems like his Dresden days served him in good stead when he made it back to Russia, too, where he quickly made a small fortune for himself through a deal where he took the money, but never delivered the goods.

His more recent obsession with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on idiotic things like yachts, palaces, and Italian furniture also seems to stem from this earlier period, as though he never quite got over the thrill of being able to buy expensive brand name goods from a foreign country. Sad!

From a certain angle, Putin's purported fascination with Dugin, Ilyin, and back into the Cosmists has no more depth than the mafia boss who pays off the Catholic church who excuses him from whatever it is he is going to do anyway.

no more depth than the mafia boss who pays off the Catholic church who excuses him from whatever it is he is going to do anyway.

Basically:

https://i.imgur.com/qaOilkA.jpg?1

So, after Friday's "We're going back to our roots on the new album"(Dombas), today they announce they're using all abandoned tanks as bait around Kyiv, and then, for the first time, bomb central Lyiv, also apparently taking out fuel depot, judging by color of smoke, says MSNBC field correspondent. This while Biden and other NATO leaders a few 100 kilometers away in Poland. This fuck you stuff is all Gen. Putin is good at, that and kidnapping, incl. now mass in Maripoul, and it's bad enough.

Moving to the Nixon-Cambodia solution (was he satisfied?):

A British intelligence report said Russian forces were relying on indiscriminate air and artillery bombardments rather than risk large-scale ground operations, a tactic the report said could limit Russian military casualties but would harm more civilians in Ukraine.

Underscoring how seriously Wagner considers its role in the conflict in Ukraine, senior Wagner leaders are expected to deploy to the separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk to coordinate efforts on behalf of Russia, the U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential operational assessments.

Wagner is relocating not only some of its mercenaries in Libya and Syria to Ukraine, but also artillery, air defenses and radar that the group was using in Libya, the official said. The Russian military is supporting these transfers by providing military cargo aircraft to relocate personnel and equipment.

While Wagner’s numbers are tiny compared with the more than 150,000 troops that Putin amassed on Ukraine’s borders and eventually sent into the country, their presence is an indication that Putin is taking a page from his playbook in 2014, when the Kremlin deployed Russian mercenaries, mostly veterans of the Russian military, to augment the forces of rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Western intelligence services detected the first small groups of Wagner mercenaries leaving Libya and Syria and arriving in Russian-controlled Crimea. From there, they filtered into the rebel territories.

But their initial performance on the battlefield was decidedly inauspicious, as they faced stiffer-than-expected resistance from Ukrainian soldiers. As many as 200 Russian mercenaries had been killed as of late February, the U.S. official said.

The initial purpose of the deployment of the mercenaries was the subject of debate. Some European and U.S. officials said the mercenaries were positioned in the rebel territories to engage in sabotage and stage false flag operations intended to make it seem as if Ukrainian forces were attacking civilian targets.

But a Ukrainian military official said just before the invasion began that the mercenaries were primarily brought in to fill out the ranks of the separatist forces, to make it seem as if local fighters were leading the charge.

Now the mercenaries are taking on a more direct combat and leadership role in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. official said.

topical:

Гражданская оборона (Гроб)* - "Винтовка Это Праздник"
Civil Defense*- "A Rifle is a Holiday " (turn on subtitles)

*their acronym spells out "Coffin" in Russian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuZYj5o7_8

"Sign in to confirm your age"? No thanks.

Ukraine is willing to become neutral and compromise over the status of the eastern Donbass region as part of a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, even as another top Ukrainian official accused Russia of aiming to carve the country in two.

Zelenskiy took his message directly to Russian journalists in a video call that the Kremlin pre-emptively warned Russian media not to report, saying any agreement must be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum.Zelenskiy spoke in Russian throughout, as he has done in previous speeches when targeting a Russian audience.
Zelenskiy said Russia's invasion had caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, and said the damage was worse than the Russian wars in Chechnya.

"Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point," Zelenskiy said.
...Zelenskiy said Ukraine refused to discuss certain other Russian demands, such as the demilitarisation of the country.
Speaking more than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelenskiy said no peace deal would be possible without a ceasefire and troop withdrawals.

He ruled out trying to recapture all Russian-held territory by force, saying it would lead to a third world war, and said he wanted to reach a "compromise" over the eastern Donbass region, held by Russian-backed forces since 2014.

But even as Turkey is set to host talks this week, Ukraine's head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said Russian President Vladimir Putin was aiming to seize the eastern part of Ukraine.

"In fact, it is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine," he said, referring to the division of Korea after World War Two. Zelenskiy has urged the West to give Ukraine tanks, planes and missiles to help fend off Russian forces.

Zelensky did not go there (but maybe thinking of supporting an insurrection in post-agreement East, as US Gov might be)(will be very tricky though, re Vlad)

The repercussions of Russia's catastrophe are coming. Armenia had banked for years on Russia providing them some support. Azerbaijan seems to think they can now do what they want. God help us, I hope there is not another war. https://t.co/EqPFJejgSs

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 26, 2022

I think this is the Zelensky interview referenced above (with English subs):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0jyxLQ2Z5o

Unfortunately the English subs cut out at 47 minutes in.

A view from another angle

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/27/fled-moscow-american-journalist-putin-00020470

xp MoominTrollin - i was thinking of another GROB song recently, “Everything is going according to the plan”..

Thanks RC, great read.

@scanner_darkly

Another banger.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffer-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-11648480493?mod=mhp

A while ago, a co-worker came up with the challenge of "tuning into NPR halfway through them interviewing a band, and trying to figure out which band it was amidst the cliched answers being thrown around."

I imagine those cliched, all-too-familiar quotes are very similar to the decision-making process behind this latest operation.

"Nobody was more disappointed with our last effort than we were, and we realized we had to go back to basics and really take some time to re-evaluate ourselves as a group."

"It's not easy to start again at square one, but we had to remember why we started doing this in the first place."

"We sat down and had a lot of hard, earnest conversations about how we got here; we took a good look at the aspects of our past where we succeeded, and decided to build on those foundations."

"We hope that you, the audience, enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it."

TLDR: their earlier stuff was better.

https://i.imgur.com/S9d3dwr.jpg?1
https://i.imgur.com/RcrHECl.jpg?1

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/17/russian-flag-appears-on-salisbury-cathedral-year-on-from-novichok-attack

“We wanted to get back to the sound of four guys in a room …”

Speaking of xpost Russian flag, cathedral, anniversary---

From a recent WaPo piece by David Ignatius: Putin’s crusading in national and personal historical context, including his own remix:

...Putin’s mindset was on display at a stadium concert last week, as he invoked a Russian Orthodox warrior-saint who spoke of his own battles as “thunderstorms” that would “glorify Russia.”
“This is how it was in his time; this is how it is today and will always be,” Putin said of Fedor Ushakov, an 18th Century admiral reputed never to have lost a battle and canonized as a saint in 2001, shortly after Putin became president.

...Putin’s mother, Maria, was a “deeply religious” woman, according to biographer Steven Lee Myers, who survived the siege of Leningrad in World War II after moaning for help amid a pile of corpses. When her son Vladimir was born in 1952, she “secretly baptized the boy, “Myers writes.
Putin is said to wear a small aluminum cross that was given to him by his mother, according to a 2012 biography by Chris Hutchins and Alexander Korobko. He didn’t display it while serving in the KGB, but when he went to Israel in 1993, according to their account, Putin claimed, “put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off.”

...in a rambling essay he wrote in July 2021...Putin noted that the roots of his faith were in Kyiv, where St. Vladimir in 988 converted from paganism to Orthodoxy. The Orthodox faithful were often repressed over subsequent centuries but they persisted in Russia and Ukraine, Putin wrote. “We are one people. “ he proclaimed.

...His July essay blasted blasted the Soviets for creating a false sens of a separate Ukrainian identity, enshrined in a separate republic carved out of Mother Russia. “The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments.”

…In place of communism, Putin proposed what Yale professor Timothy Snyder has described as “Russian fascism.” Its ideological guru is Ivan Ilyan, who fled Russia in 1922, after the Bolshevik Revolution, and visited Italy, before settling down in Germany. Ilyan admired Mussolini…(and) saw Russia as the perpetual victim of the West that needed a “manly” leader who would become “the living organ of Russia,” according to Snyder.

Putin embraced this mystical Russian ideal. “Beginning in 2008, Putin began to rehabilitate Ilyan as a Kremlin court philosopher,” Snyder wrote. He brought Ilyan’s remains back to Russia, placed flowers on his grave and cited him in articles, such as a 2012 essay that explained that “Russia as a spiritual organism served not only all of the Orthodox nations...but all the nations of the world.”

...In Putin’s view, the “Euro-Atlantic countries have lost their spiritual anchor, according to biographer Myers. “They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual,” Putin said in a 2012 speech quoted by Myers.

Autocrats have a habit of directly announcing their intentions to the world. Studying what Putin says he wants to accomplish gives plenty enough insight into his aims without all the fuss and bother of dissecting what it might mean that he wears an aluminum crucifix given him by his devout mother or that he lays flowers on someone's grave.

Yeah, he pretty much announced his intentions, yet wrapped in delusions and justifications pretty obviously meant to attract like minds around the world, no muss and fuss required: that kind of ambitious, righteous old man, in the tradition of certain traditionals, and suggesting that he can't be deflected or negotiated with so easily---but even if he does consent to make a deal, in his mind and those of his fans, he's already won, by bloody assertion of/on the Eternal Road.

So not just the stone-cold rationalist/Machiavellian hipster/greed machine that I for one tended to think of him as before this crazy eyes invasion.

I'd read that he cultivated Church connections, presented himself as old school, even something about lessening the penalties for wife abuse, but thought of it as cynical and received, didn't realize he was really into it(although maybe he's just ginning himself up in recent years, before going for the Big Score, but after a while degrees of sincerity may become irrelevant)

The other thing I saw yesterday: links (with amazed-to-enthusiastic descriptions) to pix of Ukraine soldiers allegedly abusing Russian prisoners (I didn't open)---also a brief mention of such reports on a news site I was surfing by---think it will surface soon.

Russia as the perpetual victim of the West that needed a “manly” leader who would become “the living organ of Russia”

abramovich raided the ukrainian negotiation team's buffet lunch

— joolsd (@joolsd) March 28, 2022

Putin does seem to have a certain kind of obsession with Orthodox religion and Russian culture, in his own way:

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/putin-meeting-ukraine-war-2082708

What stands out most is the fervor with which Putin spoke about Russia’s “unparalleled cultural legacy.” It was bewildering to hear the Russian President discuss great repositories of artworks, sounding more like a parent boasting about a gifted child than the dispassionate politician I had seen on the news.

According to a Ukrainian ministry, at least one million archaeological artifacts were transported from Crimea to Russia in the years following the invasion. A coordinated looting effort of that magnitude would have likely required Putin’s approval.

Donetsk...is home to over 140 museums. The Donetsk Regional Art Museum alone contains rare Byzantine icons and numerous later icons that employ Byzantine iconographic style. From my limited interaction with Putin, I’m fairly certain he will want those treasures on Russian soil.

My impression then, as now, is that Putin fundamentally views the wonders of Russian museums as indisputable evidence of his nation’s superiority. And I wholeheartedly worry he will enrich them with treasures seized from Ukraine with a sense of entitlement.

The part about "the roots of his faith" in Kyiv, from the WaPo article linked by dow, may explain why he didn't do to that city what he's done to Mariupol and even the relatively "Russian" Kharkiv. Kyiv is an ancient city with enormous cultural and religious heritage. He can sign off on bombing civilians and apartment blocks there, and reducing its suburbs to dust, but so far it seems like churches are a no-go. Same with regards to the jewel city of Odesa, though it was built much later. Despite being in Ukraine, Odesa is a historically Russian city constructed during Catherine the Great's reign. It's an architectural showpiece of past imperial glory:

https://i.imgur.com/WhpjRDx.jpg?1

Putin likes to claim Kyiv as "the mother of all Russian cities," but it is Odesa which was an explicitly Russian project from the ground up:

https://i.imgur.com/Y1gVKXq.jpg?1

Then again, maybe the army doesn't have enough artillery/missiles for multiple cities, so he's been using them on the fronts he considers still winnable: Mariupol and Kharkiv. Elvis Telecom mentioned the possibility of using a tactical nuke on Kyiv, but aside from the international reactions, this would ruin Putin's big prize:

https://i.imgur.com/Eg04dmm.jpg?1

Still, he will probably keep escalating in one way or another. We've seen it recently with the introduction of thermite ordnance and the constant hints at a Ukrainian "false flag" chemical weapons attack that seem to foreshadow an excuse for the Russian army to use theirs. But if we don't buy the "insane Putin" theory there has to be a method to this madness. One way to see his position is: he's respecting what he sees as "Russian" heritage and cities, while destroying those of Ukrainians or borderline "Russian" cities that are insufficiently grateful for being invaded.

your posts are increasingly redundant and speculative, we get it, you hate Putin

also interesting that afaict you have literally not posted on any other ILX threads ever, after claiming years-long lurker status, do better.

his posts > your posts

xpost@sleeve

I was responding to the conversation about Putin's motives, his personal feelings re: Orthodox faith and Russian culture, that was going on for several posts above mine. I had had this article and some comments on it ready to go for a few days but hadn't posted it earlier because I figured it may indeed be redundant. Once people other than me started talking about it, though, I felt more comfortable posting it to hopefully add to the discussion. Plus, the pictures are very pretty.

If it helps you (or the other people implied by "we") to understand:

I (mostly) quit my day job very recently in order to pursue a history project that, whether or not it worked out, would save me from that midlife crisis of "if only I'd done X, things would have worked out differently." I was excited to follow my dreams, whether or not they worked out in the end. FINALLY, I'd have the time to do it justice, and was working on a rough draft of the first part of the series...when the war started in late February.

But here's the best part: the focus of this project, which I'd been thinking of/reading for/putting off for years up till now?

Russian history.

https://i.imgur.com/buLovyZ.png?1

MoominTrollin, have you read Timothy Snyder's book that's quoted in dow's post up there?

putin’s motivations are obviously important to trying to understand what’s going on, so i don’t see how they are redundant
but perhaps it’s time for a “what the fuck is happening in russia” thread

Yeah, it's not redundant to extend Putin's religious-historical visions or whatever into his treatment of the cities: I haven't seen any other comments about that, and it seems aptly speculative. Part of understanding this whole thing, as much as possible, is speculating, to some disciplined extent, and not just reacting to what's already happened, day by day.

xxpost@Slowsquatch

I saw some of his lectures on youtube after he published "The Road to Unfreedom," in 2018. I think that's the book mentioned in the article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/books/review/road-to-unfreedom-timothy-snyder.html

He frames current events through the two concepts of "the politics of inevitability" and "the politics of eternity." It was an interesting perspective on things like Russia after 2014, and Trump/Brexit in 2016. At the time, though, I'd mostly read him as a historian and not a commentator on current events. He was known for the book "Bloodlands" about Ukraine/Poland during the 30s and WW2.

if y'all could stop speculating on this thread, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate it, but hey I've only been here since 2005

There's plenty of news links. Yeah I've been here since '01, if you wanna compare wrinkled keisters. What are your thoughts on the Ukraine war? We need more POVs.

or Points of View, I reckon.

but perhaps it’s time for a “what the fuck is happening in russia” thread

I second this, think there are lots of questions and uncertainties now that don't involve Ukraine