ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

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

if y'all could stop speculating on this thread, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate it

There's a discussion about this on the slack #threadcop channel, eh?

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

You asked for it, you got it!

what the fuck is happening in Russia?

What are your thoughts on the Ukraine war? We need more POVs.

On this thread? No chance.

There's a discussion about this on the slack #threadcop channel, eh?

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Tfw you cop on cops.

always gratifying to know that when one scents one's internet territory being pissed in by the wrong dogs, one can always fling out an 'interesting' or 'telling' rhetorical thinkyface

Is this the same sleeve who shit a brick because non-Americans were posting to the US politics thread or another sleeve?

lads

ILX is all about who will be permabanned next these days.

always gratifying to know that when one scents one's internet territory being pissed in by the wrong dogs, one can always fling out an 'interesting' or 'telling' rhetorical thinkyface

― imago, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Can always count on you to post bollocks.

Financial Times running an article that is 60-80% apologia for neo-nazism and then including a couple of paragraphs about how it's making liberals nervous. Of course the Henry Jackson society makes an appearance. pic.twitter.com/Mi73X1yGUH

— Luke's tweets delete themselves (@LukasMukasPukas) March 29, 2022

I don't know poster MoominTrollin, but I find their posts here to be of good quality.

yeah, I don't get the pushback.

⚡️Россия не против вступления Украины в Евросоюз - Мединский

— РБК (@ru_rbc) March 29, 2022

Interesting positioning from the Russian negotiators - that there are no objections to Ukraine joining the EU as long as NATO is off the table. Potentially makes it much easier to sell neutrality via constitutional amendment, with or without a referendum.

The big question is how the EU responds, I guess. There has been pushback on the idea of a fast-track process from the Netherlands, Germany and others, which is arguably fair enough given the extent of the reforms that would be required to bring Ukrainian institutions into line with EU norms, but there has to be some kind of light at the end of the tunnel and idk whether there is appetite for even considering it from the more fiscally conservative members.

xp Because we're a circular firing squad sometimes.

That's a good way to put it.

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 11:09 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

gyac otm

― bad milk blood robot (sleeve), Wednesday, February 16, 2022 11:18 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink'

Clearly this is the kind of high-quality, well-informed commentary we need more of. Fewer posts from well-informed folks who are actually from the region and have followed its politics their whole lives, more from posters who don't remember the end of the Cold War but just heard a cool podcast about NATO expansion and also have you heard of the Azov battalion?

Yes, very foolish of us to think that the thing most actual doing it as a job analysts weren’t anticipating occurring would occur. Please, let’s leave this thread to people posting endless unformatted Twitter links and grievances with other posters that date back years.

"actual doing it as a job analysts" except for the ones actually watching troop movements on the ground. But yeah, chin-stroking didn't help predict this outcome, nor did wishful thinking.

You’re right, I’m absolutely delighted this happened and not devastated at seeing the damage to Ukraine and its people, a country I have visited on multiple occasions. What was your point beyond score settling?

this thread is stuck in a time loop like groundhog day

lads

A little something for us ILXnauts

The ILX slack channel is out of control:

https://i.imgur.com/mXFU9b7.jpg?1

All kidding aside:

I appreciate the people defending me...but after my original, ill-advised guns-blazing entrance here, I'm trying to start less fights and be a productive contributor. If anyone has constructive criticism please don't hesitate to share.

I'm not sure if this is aimed at me or someone else, but gyac raises an interesting point. Is there a way to post *formatted* twitter links as opposed to unformatted, and if so, what is the difference, and which one is better? Asking for a friend.