ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

I'm only really aware of Musk because of the Teslas and the Starlink thing he did in Mariupol, and then he was the most prominent person suggesting de-escalation so I wasn't all that aware of anything else about him. If his plan is unsuitable, what about Chomsky's?

Have you considered googling or reading a book or anything

I am deeply envious if that's really all you know about Elon Musk

what is Chomsky's plan?

FUCK ELON MUSK

FUCK LISTENING TO CEOS ABOUT ANYTHING

Chomsky’s plan seems narrow but well founded

Hi Karl, the most recent comments about about a peace plan that I've found are from a Sept. 22 interview, when he mentions this one. Is it what you're referring to:

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the major establishment journal, Fiona Hill and Angela Stent — highly regarded policy analysts with close government connections — report that:

According to multiple former senior US officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement. The terms of that settlement would have been for Russia to withdraw to the positions it held before launching the invasion on February 24. In exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.

On dubious evidence, Hill and Stent blame the failure of these efforts on the Russians, but do not mention that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at once flew to Kyiv with the message that Ukraine’s Western backers would not support the diplomatic initiative, followed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who reiterated the official U.S. position that Washington’s goal in the war is to “weaken” Russia, meaning that negotiations are off the table.

Whether such initiatives continue, we do not know. If they do, they would not lack popular support, not only in the Global South but even in Europe, where “77 percent of Germans believe that the West should initiate negotiations to end the Ukraine war.” Surprisingly, more than half of Slovaks are reported to favor a Russian victory.

On dubious evidence, Hill and Stent blame the failure of these efforts on the Russians

sorry dow, i was just joking that chomsky's plan was what brimstead posted directly after me. sorry for any confusion!

but thank you for looking into it all the same!

And thank you for getting me to look it up.

Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.

*from* a number of countries.

Maybe Putin didn't feel motivated to settle then, thinking he could get what he wanted militarily, or close enough. Also maybe thinking Europe would basically go along because of energy dependence.

― dow, Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yeah seems like it, worth noting too that it was general consensus amongst experts governmental media and otherwise was that russia would easily occupy ukraine so its not like he was the only one who thought it was a good plan, this turning into a successful proxy war is really beyond natos wildest dreams

im sympathetic to those who argue that nato unnecessarily exacerbated the situation, obvs they did and were just doing their typical extremely callus geopolitics, but also the idea that there was some way to mollify putin with a reasonable proposal aka the musk doctrine seems pretty absurd on its face, its a tough situation! russia was already occupying two of its neighbors and had publicly stated that a bunch more land was rightful theirs which is not a super open and welcoming negotiating position, obvs you could argue that the wests posture is was caused russia to go nuts on this issue but idk its not normal behavior

of course now russia is prob more open to negotiating but i mean the grant them the territory theyre on the verge of losing and give them time to build up their military will prob not find too many takers amongst anyone who is in any sort of position to accept that offer

dont want to talk too much about musk cause obvs hes a clown and a bad person to boot but lol at him talking to putin and then tweeting out better just give him what he wants, what a rube

im sympathetic to those who argue that nato unnecessarily exacerbated the situation

Yeah, if it's true that Ukraine was willing to negotiate and the US put the kibosh on that to further weaken Russia, as that War On The Rocks excerpt says ... that's fucking monstrous.

On the other hand, people acting like this is just a proxy war, ignoring Ukraine because the REAL STORY is the US vs Russia ... can also go fuck themselves.

yeah has anyone thought of asking ukrainians how they feel about all this

pretty sure they dont want to live in russia, and with good reason seeing as russia is currently forcibly relocating many of them, which if you follow that thought to its logical conclusion re peace plans the big problem is theres just very little reason to trust russia to not keep doing bad things in the future

Apologies for further Musk, but it's not impossible that he's cosying up to Putin and Xi for no greater geopolitical purpose than to get barred from buying Twitter.

yeah has anyone thought of asking ukrainians how they feel about all this

I don't think we're going to hear any voices coming out of Ukraine in favor of negotiations any time soon, for the reasons you outline. I think the idea behind negotiations was to prevent escalation (ie the conflict spilling outside Ukraine's borders).

Thats why any voices for de-escalation and negotiations are more likely to come from the US or Germany (and to a lesser extent France, UK, maybe Greece). For that to happen Ukraine would need to stop receiving material support from the West (or reduced), which is why winter in Europe and the midterms would be factors (not clear by how much in latter case). Thats where we'd probably start to see more calls for negotiations if there were domestic pressures in the west, far more likely than from within Ukraine (where it already is escalated). This might be some time off though and in case of Europe maybe changes in government if it came electoral issue

"I don't think"
"I think"
"more likely"
"not clear"
"probably"
"more likely"
"might"
"maybe"

what is the point of posting like this? gyac otm, read a book or something

Apologies for further Musk, but it's not impossible that he's cosying up to Putin and Xi for no greater geopolitical purpose than to get barred from buying Twitter.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, October 14, 2022 4:16 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol do like this theory

there’s gotta be a better way

he tried the bot thing what else is there

I don't get much out of anvil's posts, but the use of qualifiers ix appropriate if you're gonna muse about the future (but yes, read a book, cite sources from somewhere other than anonymous voices of etc who talk bullshit)

Sweden bails out of the Nord Stream investigation.

The Nordic country does not want to share results of its own investigations with other countries, according to the report. The exact security concerns that have resulted in Sweden dropping out of the joint investigation are unclear.

re the nukes

Did Russia threaten to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Not really. At least not yet. I've put together some of my thoughts in this op-ed in @MoscowTimes. Some key points (which you have seen here already) https://t.co/aXmj7KzVKz

So far, all 'treats' were against the West... 1/

— Pavel Podvig (@russianforces) October 18, 2022

In a late-night address posted on Telegram, Russian-installed Kherson official Kirill Stremousov calls for people to "evacuate the city as quickly as possible" and says Ukraine "will begin an offensive on the city of Kherson very soon" pic.twitter.com/NBOvy1zJCo

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) October 18, 2022

“The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month...

Huh.. now why would they do that?

I'll save discussion of the U.S. political dimensions of this for the U.S. politics thread, but worth noting here.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy “signaled that additional aid to Ukraine, now in the ninth month of war with Russia, is unlikely if Republicans have a House majority.” https://t.co/cpoO0bdYTH

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) October 18, 2022

we're all gonna fucking die lol

cmon republicans arent gonna stand in the way of a defense industry sales

They'll just redirect the defense money printer to arming Taiwan, everyone* ends up happy.

*in DC

Every so often, Tooze just opens fire and it's great. Today's target: the Centre for Economic Policy Research and its monstrous (but Zelensky-approved) plan to use a patriotic war to entirely deregulate the Ukrainian state. https://t.co/hxKc4ltPJ0

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) October 22, 2022

Zelensky is fighting a patriotic war he cannot win without massive infusions of advanced weapons and war materials from nations who will extract their pound of flesh in return.

Anyone been following the Willy Beating Cancer channel on YT? He's been in Ukraine since beginning of Feb just before the invasion. Has done a couple of interviews with the 2 British POW's who were in Azov Steel Plant in Mariupol

What's really striking is how different their outlooks are from each other, it seemed Aslin had a worse time than Pinner but some of that seems to be Pinner's personality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3TOLAChq7Y

This one is Pinners

interesting thought experiment about what russia will do if it loses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=268zZqs-rvI

fwiw this guy was ahead of the curve in recognizing that russia was losing, this video for instance is from may

If that was may, and he has instituted a call up, to what extent is he already near option 2? where is “mass mobilization” vs now?

seems like its kind of borderline it was billed as a "partial mobilization" of reservists, def has brought the war home to russia in a way that it hadnt before but while still allowing the leadership to be pretty selective in who they draft, if they do it again it will be unambiguously a mass mobilization where the russian political apathy will be really tested one would think

to the extent that putin is hoping that a cold winter will put pressure on europe through energy shortages/price hikes, this seems like good news:

In many parts of Europe, energy use peaks in the winter with the onset of cold weather. A lot of the heating demand, along with some demand for electricity, is met by burning natural gas, and Russia is a major supplier for the continent. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European sanctions initiated a series of threats and then curtailments in Russia's delivery of natural gas, ultimately ending with the apparent sabotage of one of the most significant natural gas pipelines.

All indications are that Europe will face the winter without any significant imports of Russian natural gas. This led to a massive spike in natural gas prices and ensuing rises in consumer energy prices even during the summer when demand is low. Countries in Northern Europe started planning for emergency conservation measures, and a major surge in coal use was expected.

But things are no longer looking as bleak as they did earlier in the year. Germany, which is well into its planned phase out of nuclear power, ordered its last operational plants to remain open through at least the spring, cutting the amount of electricity that needs to be generated using natural gas.

High prices in Europe also spurred natural gas producers to liquify the fuel and ship it to the continent—to such a large extent that there is now a significant backlog of ships waiting to offload their liquid cargo at European ports. As a result of this and various conservation measures, the continent's natural gas storage facilities are now at roughly 90 percent of their capacity.

That supply, coupled with policy decisions like planned price caps, has led to a plunge in the price of natural gas in Europe, large enough to wipe out the spike in prices that had occurred earlier in the year. All of which is suggesting that, as long as reasonable conservation measures are taken and Europe avoids any extended cold snaps, it should make it through the winter without a major crisis.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/the-worlds-energy-situation-is-not-as-terrible-as-you-might-expect/

Putin has Europe by the energy balls

Zelensky is fighting a patriotic war he cannot win without massive infusions of advanced weapons and war materials from nations who will extract their pound of flesh in return.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 23 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink

It's not what piece is saying. No state is asking Zelensky to implement that policy. Biden isn't ordering MSF to provide healthcare to all of the Ukraine.

i'm not especially familiar with russian television but hopefully at least some people who saw this were stunned into some sort of reaction?

Meanwhile on Russia's state-funded RT, director of broadcasting Anton Krasovsky suggests drowning or burning Ukrainian children, makes hideous comments about the rapes by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, says Ukraine should not exist and Ukrainians who resist Russia should be shot. pic.twitter.com/BGIaBNok4v

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 23, 2022

i'm not sure how even the most duped person could watch that and reconcile it with "we're destroying the nazis"

Lukyanenko is booked as Guest of Honour at next year's Chengdu Worldcon (the big SF convention where they present the Hugo Awards), there's a huge amount of controversy going on about it in the SF world which I can't imagine this calming. Since the Chinese government like to stick their oar into the arts, and especially science fiction, it all has the capacity to blow up into god knows what.

Since i just read the dispossessed and since both interests are incredibly archist, nothing will be dine imo

My understanding is that Lukyanenko is famously and vociferously anti-Ukrainian.

Sorry, that may be common knowledge and that was your whole point, I posted while distracted by something!

This dirty bomb narrative (that Ukraine supposedly plans to use it) from Russia is escalating

First they had Shoigu call SecDefs of US, UK and France
Then Gerasimov called JCS Milley🇺🇸and CDS Radakin🇬🇧
Now Lavrov says he wants to raise it in the UN

Lots of worrying activity…

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) October 25, 2022

I still don't think Russia will go there, but if Alperovitch is worried then I'm starting to get worried.

i'm not sure how even the most duped person could watch that and reconcile it with "we're destroying the nazis"

Krasovsky used to be a liberal, pro-Ukraine, pro-LGBT, and came out as gay on Russian tv a decade or so ago but changed his mind a few years later . He has a track record for recommending drowning people also. He may be in something of a tight spot now if his usefulness has come to an end.

As to the nazi angle, partly depends how flexible the definition of nazi is, and the private/public face, I don't know how measurable this stuff really is

So it seems a Russian missile has landed in Poland killing a couple of people. Not good.

Yeah, posted in the US politics thread but probably belongs here. Or, potentially, in every thread.

i mean it was almost certainly accidental so this probably won't trigger Article V but still not the direction you wanna see this go in for sure