ok what the fuck is happening in 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.

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.

Copy the URL for the tweet in question, but when you paste it into the posting window, change the prefix from https to http. This will cause the tweet to appear as a tweet.

Same thing goes for embedding YouTube videos, btw, for future reference.

It is difficult to keep track of the developments in the occupied territory. Here are observations from the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which I like many others monitor closely. A thread 🧵 /1

— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 25, 2022

Thank you. The ones I've posted have been showing for me as "real" tweets even with https, and as soon as I registered on ILX I started seeing other members' shared tweets as "real" tweets instead of just the text, so I didn't know any better.

Meantime...

This is really remarkable. Russia has now committed 70-75% of its entire military to the war, not just its BTGs. And they have failed to secure their original strategy. That’s why the maximalist strategy is now finally over, without the construction of a whole new army. https://t.co/lqg4wpdM1a

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 29, 2022

Moomin, yesterday:
Ihe 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

And according to "Odesa Residents Brace for Russian Invasion," an Associated Press report by Yesica Fisch and Cara Anna, Odesa residents say "Putin would be insane" to treat this city like he has so many others, but, "The only thing we're afraid of is that the other side has no principles whatsoever, " so thousands of people are declining to leave, and learning to use guns. Seems they're hoping he'll still try to come in with boots on the ground, overland or sea,sparing historical buildings the bombs and missiles at least.

...Odesa residents watch Russian warships coming closer, in provocation. Western officials call the Russian ships a mix of surface combatants and the kinds used to put naval infantry ashore.
The seizure of Odessa and the strip of land further west also would allow Moscow to to build a land corridor to the separatist Trans-Dniester region of neighboring Moldova that hosts a Russian military base.
A senior U.S. defense official said last week the U.S. didn't see indications that ships in the Black Sea were firing on Odesa as they had last weekend.
..."It's difficult to know what this indicates," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said of last week's bombardment. "Is it the prelude to an assault on Odessa? Is it a diversionary tactic to sort of hold and fix Ukrainian troops in the south so they can/t come to the relief of their comrades in Mariupol or Kyiv?"

Notable thread:

What do we definitely know about #Russian military casualties in #Ukraine? BBC in-depth research of verified military losses found some interesting tendencies \1

— Olga Ivshina (@oivshina) March 28, 2022

Reports of explosions and fire at arsenal near Belgorod https://t.co/JoHiexbaEt #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/ApNOyggwfa

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) March 29, 2022

Could be sabotage by Ukrainian SSO/SOF, who have allegedly conducted operations in Russia over the past few years, but we should also keep in mind that there have been several explosions at Russian ammo depots in recent years due to lax safety standards. https://t.co/MN8Bykc4f9

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 29, 2022

Russian fuckups with ammo are common enough that a stressed situation likely got way worse

Yeah, some of you may remember this military depot explosion in Siberia from a few years ago:

http://i.imgur.com/BBTIarM.jpg?1

xpost@dow

There are no reliable sources for this, but about a month ago there was a big to-do about an amphibious assault on Odesa, followed shortly by the Russian ships and air support simply...leaving.

There was a spate of stories about a "MUTINY!!!" but without much verification; it may be that Russian soldiers refused to attack a Russian-speaking city, or that they quite rationally saw the attack on a well-defended position as a death sentence and refused to carry it out.

The (excellent) independent Russian journalist Farida Rustamova has published Ukraine’s proposed ten-point peace proposal here:

https://faridaily.substack.com/p/ukraines-10-point-plan

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

Same

Yes. You've come a long way baby! (ancient cig ad slogan)

(See because his first post, as he says, was not so hot, but he's yeah)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/europe/russia-reduce-assault-kyiv-plan-intl/index.html

Russia says it will reduce military operations around Kyiv following talks with Ukraine

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/world-news/kyiv-under-attack-hours-after-23538589

Kyiv under attack hours after Russian vows to scale back war in west of Ukraine

Heavy MLRS fire on #Kyiv Oblast tonight. pic.twitter.com/cKP2fovVEV

— Doge (@IntelDoge) March 29, 2022

"The invasion is going to facilitate a strong right-wing wave, which will greatly narrow the space for the Left in both Eastern and Western Europe. We shouldn’t disarm ourselves and open ourselves up to right-wing attacks. The vast majority of the European Left condemns Russian imperialism and understands that the invasion is leading to disaster, just like the American invasion of Iraq."

Putin's war in #Ukraine will foster a strong right-wing wave that will severely narrow the space for the Left in both Eastern and Western Europe. @Novossti spoke with @Volod_Ishchenko, one of the most prominent intellectuals on the Ukrainian Left https://t.co/OKOBBZSc6c

— Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (@rosaluxglobal) March 26, 2022

The (excellent) independent Russian journalist Farida Rustamova has published Ukraine’s proposed ten-point peace proposal here:

https://faridaily.substack.com/p/ukraines-10-point-plan

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

A few remarks in that interview align with the points in the proposal around EU membership and yet a neutral position overall.

@xyzzzz

After 2014, the story I kept hearing was that right wing movements got a boost because they were one of the few groups who were organized and ready to go when the Maidan protests turned violent.

After this war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers with differing political views, and millions of non-combatatans will all have had the unifying experience of fighting or living through the war. No right-winger or fascist will be able to honestly say, though they will try, that somehow they "saved" the nation on their own, or that their efforts mattered more.

Left, right, center, the only people who will be marginalized are not leftists, but pro-Russia parties or individuals. Even there, we've got cases of former pro-Russia politicians who either changed their stripes during wartime, or else were so insufficiently quisling that they were kidnapped by Russian occupiers after refusing to cooperate:

Earlier this week, we learned that the Russian military abducted Alexander Ponomarev, a 🇺🇦 MP, who locals call the "shadow master of Berdyansk". His case is an example powerful member of the local elite, who refused to cooperate with the Russians. /14https://t.co/sWyh82xn3d

— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 25, 2022

You've posted several interviews with, or articles referencing the same person, Volodymyr Ischenko. I read some of his articles and found his descriptions of incomplete "Maidan"-like color revolutions interesting, but here's another take on him:

https://www.nihilist.li/2021/02/22/volodymyr-ishchenko-and-his-smear-campaign/

So while in theory Ishchenko advocates for a left-wing alternative to both Maidan and Anti-Maidan, in practice his support for the Anti-Maidan camp goes up to the point of whitewashing a notorious hatemonger. The united left built according to Ishchenko’s recipe would have a distinctly tankie face and a pro-Kremlin orientation, toeing the political line of stronger pro-Russian forces. Such a love for the ousted faction of Ukrainian kleptocracy from a leftist is beyond my comprehension.

Another plausible explanation is that Volodymyr may sympathize with pro-Russian right-wing populists and kleptocrats because of certain shared cultural conservatism, as this passage from his Globalizations paper may hint:

«The final source is the postmodernist turn of the left to the politics of identity, reconciling symbolic emancipation of the minorities with the unchallenged basis of the globalizing neoliberal capitalism. The agenda-setting article...firmly takes the side of progressive globalization against the conservative Russian nationalist project. Indeed, within the ‘bourgeois revolution’ narrative about Ukrainian conflict, (neo)liberals and the global capital are not the enemies of the left. Instead, they are allies against the local conservative reactionaries.

"The united left built according to Ishchenko’s recipe would have a distinctly tankie face and a pro-Kremlin orientation, toeing the political line of stronger pro-Russian forces. Such a love for the ousted faction of Ukrainian kleptocracy from a leftist is beyond my comprehension."

Nothing tankie from what I've read so far. Sounds pretty ludicrous. But again as Ishchenko says, any left-wing ideas could be smeared as pro-Russian in future.

any left-wing ideas could be smeared as pro-Russian in future

FTFY

If you don't want to read that nihilist article, here's the Ishchenko piece I found most useful, a rundown on post-Soviet Ukraine's incomplete revolutions:

https://lefteast.org/contradictions-post-soviet-ukraine-failure-ukraine-new-left/

and another interview:

https://theintercept.com/2022/03/05/deconstructed-ukraine-history-identity-russia-invasion/

the nihilist article reads like a smear, it does nothing to back up its assertion of ishchenko being a "pro-kremlin tankie". opposing banning opposition parties on civil liberties grounds is hardly "whitewashing" them, he's not advocating for them as leftist allies. there's clearly longstanding beef there

& i don't think someone secretly pro-kremlin would be repeatedly suggesting that eu membership would be a good outcome for ukraine and should be on the table

http://i.imgur.com/8g4NUze.png

@ufo, this is from Feb. 20, 2021. Ishchenko states that the Opposition Party For Life "channeled dissatisfaction with the government of 30-40% of Ukraine's population," but that's not borne out by most polling data, really at any time in the last few years:

https://europeelects.eu/ukraine/

They barely clear 20% even as the Servant of the People party takes a years-long nosedive after the 2019 elections. But let's be charitable and take a look at other polling, mostly between then and now, to see if it's any better (links to all sites at the end):

December 30, 2020:

23.1% of respondents are ready to vote for the Opposition Platform - For Life party. Servant of the People with 20.9% follows.

To remind, according to the poll...from December 16 to 23, 23.8% of respondents are ready to vote for Opposition Platform - For Life. The party is followed by Servant of the People – 21.9%.

Earlier, the Democratic Initiatives Foundation published its poll results...22.5% of the respondents voted for Opposition Platform - For Life. Servant of the People follows with a significant margin – 17.3%.

How did they do in July of 2021?

According to the poll...23.1% are ready to support the Servant of the People party, 17.5% - Opposition Platform - For Life

How about a survey in fall 2021?

the Servant of the People party would receive the greatest support (14% of all respondents or 22% of those who will take part in the elections and have already made their electoral choice). Another 10% and 16% of respondents, respectively, are ready to vote for the European Solidarity. Some 8% and 13%, respectively, would cast ballots for the Opposition Platform - for Life

At the same time...against late July - early August...electoral support of the ruling Servant of the People party decreased from 17% to 14% among all respondents. Compared to January 2021, the level of electoral support of the OPZZh party dropped from 14% to 8%, which can be partly explained by the emergence in the poll of the Nashi party, which focuses on the same target audience as the OPZZh.

I don't know where Ishchenko is getting his 30-40% figure from but it doesn't seem to correlate with these polling numbers or the overall trends linked to at: https://europeelects.eu/ukraine/

As for Anatoli Sharii, he seems less complicated: an outright terrible person not worth examining in this much detail. But I'd be happy to look into him if anyone asks.

Ishchenko claims the Opposition Platform For Life "was not that hard oppositionist and way less 'pro-Russian' as it is usually presented." Their erstwhile leader Medvedchuk was the guy whose with the "golden train carriage." Putin is his daughter's godfather. The OpPlat guy in Berdyansk was looked to as a caretaker for a Russian occupation government, even though he declined the job and was subsequently kidnapped. Another member was kicked out after welcoming the invasion. Same as Sharii: if anyone wants a deep dive on this party, I can check them out more exhaustively.

Keep in mind that Facebook post of his was from February of LAST year, so his somewhat hyperbolic reaction was not him talking about THIS year's more serious events, the suspension of those 11 parties mentioned upthread.

I'm not ready to write him off as a Kremlin shill or a bad faith actor, but he seems to have his own...perspective on the situation, and it's a perspective overly charitable to OpPlat. Maybe he doesn't like neo-liberalism, though I'm not sure how OpPlat would be any different from Zelensky's guys in this respect. Also, given the USSR's legacy in Ukraine, a lot of these "leftist" parties are more conservative and traditional than they seem, looking back to a glorious/imagined Soviet past rather than the kind of racially, sexually, culturally inclusive future that modern Western communists espouse.

And as always, we have to remember that the Russian govt. does not have, or tolerate, "pro-Ukrainian" parties, Ukrainian language or viewpoint television stations, or pro-Ukrainian protests, even in the border regions with mixed Russian/Ukrainian populations. This is usually taken for granted but in light of all the hand-wringing about Zelensky kicking these parties to the curb, we should at least acknowledge the glaring disparity.

http://zagittya.com.ua/en/news/novosti/oppozicionnaja_platforma_l_za_zhizn_javljaetsja_bezuslovnym_liderom_sredi_vseh_parlamentskih_politsil_l_rezultaty_treh_sociologicheskih_oprosov_v_konce_dekabrja.html

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-conference/756944.html

http://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3339409-poll-reveals-ukrainian-parties-with-highest-support-rate.html

http://ca.topnews.media/ukraine/the-russians-in-berdyansk-kidnapped-the-deputy-from-opzzh-his-enterprises-stopped-work/

introduction to podcast:

It’s not just Vladimir Putin who has staked his reputation on the war in Ukraine. The Chechen warlord and leader Ramzan Kadyrov has also led his own forces into Ukraine in lockstep with his firm ally Putin.

It’s an unlikely alliance that dates to the late 1990s. Following the implosion of the Soviet Union and the bitter and brutal Chechen wars, Kadyrov’s father Akhmad gave up fighting for the separatists and instead formed an alliance with Putin as he rose to power.

It was a grand bargain that gave him complete power over Chechnya and to stamp out separatist and Islamist militants as well as massive riches. In exchange for all this power, Putin demanded total loyalty: and a promise to remove Chechen separatism as a live issue for the Russian federation.

When Akhmad Kadyrov was killed in a car bomb, his son Ramzan took over the Chechen leadership where he has remained ever since.

As Julius Strauss tells Nosheen Iqbal, Ramzan Kadyrov makes no secret of his vast wealth and relish for violence. Now as Russian negotiators were saying they are moving their military operation away from Kyiv, Kadyrov was telling his followers on Telegram that he wanted to “end what had been started”.

Peskov fine-tunes previous statements about the role of nuclear weapons.

Peskov said "we have no doubt" Russia would achieve "all the objectives of our special military operation in Ukraine'' referring to the official Russian description of the war, "but any outcome of the operation, of course, is not a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon."

It seems pretty clear that Ishchenko is not talking specifically about Ukrainian domestic politics in that interview but about the broader impact on the European left in a climate where defence spending will rise, NATO will be boosted and elements of the traditional ‘anti-war / anti imperial movement’ will be marginalised and attacked. You can argue that elements of that movement, like the STWC in the UK have deeply embarrassed themselves over the last few weeks but, as he alludes to, there have also been bad-faith, factional attacks on unions, for example, as ‘pro-Putin’, even as their members have been refusing to unload Russian gas at the docks. It’s ambiguous but ‘we shouldn’t disarm ourselves and open ourselves up to right-wing attacks’ can be read both as ‘we shouldn’t abandon left-wing principles and cede ground with excessive self-criticism’ and ‘we shouldn’t do what the right-wing is going to accuse us of and take the kind of juvenile positions a small minority of the left has here’. Both would be correct.

Within Ukrainian domestic politics, it almost seems redundant to talk about the impact on the left at the moment. There is arguably going to be more space for a left to grow but no meaningful left-wing parliamentary force at present. I don’t see Zelenskiy shifting hard to the right, other than where required by the IMF, et al, as a condition of aid, but it it also seems fairly inevitable that there will be an organised, significant right-wing opposition to any government that agrees a peace settlement.

"If you don't want to read that nihilist article"

Why are you bringing such blatant smears from that 'nihilist' site in here, exactly? Especially when you've not engaged with the interview I've linked to, which as SV says talks about the wider situation in the left in Eastern Europe.

The Al-Jazeera piece I linked to here a couple of weeks ago was a measured assessment of the situation in regards of the banning of the parties.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties?

I think the point here is that they command some of the vote and others have no impact on the vote or on Ukraine's security so Ishchenko is probing as to why ban. An important question if there is an agreement soon. He is arguing for a democratic deficit in Zelensky's actions. That you've chosen to answer this with that stupid article from the nihilist site says a lot about you.

Ishchenko fairly informed analysis beats this fucking shit any day if the week. Lol, I'm going to fix this

xpost@dow

There are no reliable sources for this, but about a month ago there was a big to-do about an amphibious assault on Odesa, followed shortly by the Russian ships and air support simply...leaving.

There was a spate of stories about a "MUTINY!!!" but without much verification; it may be that Russian soldiers refused to attack a Russian-speaking city, or that they quite rationally saw the attack on a well-defended position as a death sentence and refused to carry it out.

― The Quantum Superposition Platform - For Life (MoominTrollin), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Lol @ calling this bullshit "good quality".

The mutiny part, as I pointed out, is unconfirmed and has no reliable sources. The buildup near Odessa is a different story and was pretty well covered March 2-4:

https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/russia-ukraine-war-russian-military-choppers-spotted-flying-low-in-odessa-watch-articleshow.html

Eight Russian amphibious landing ships have been filmed sitting right off the western shore of Crimea. These likely include some of those we tracked from the Baltic Sea leading up to the invasion. Clearly, this is an ominous sign. Many think Odessa will be their destination.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3418774-landing-group-of-russian-warships-moving-toward-odesa-coast-general-staff.html

Russian forces appeared to be moving to cut Ukraine off from the sea on Thursday via its key southern ports, claiming the capture of Kherson and tightening the siege of Mariupol, as a large amphibious taskforce threatened Odesa to the west.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/03/odesa-expecting-attack-russian-assault-ships-black-sea/

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-officials-predict-an-amphibious-assault-off-odesa

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/04/ukraine-russia-odessa-black-sea/

"The mutiny part, as I pointed out, is unconfirmed and has no reliable sources."

So why did you make that up?

There was a spate of stories about a "MUTINY!!!" but without much verification.

I didn't "make up" the stories about the "mutiny," but said that they existed, as well as cautioning that they did not come from reliable sources. Then I offered a one-sentence explanation that also cast doubt on the "mutiny" angle, but put the lack of an amphibious landing into some context (i.e. given the size of the attacking force relative to the preparation of defenses in Odesa, a beach landing would be a suicide mission).