ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

but maybe there iwll be some sort of miracle transformation.

VS.

http://alumni.imsa.edu/~data/images/autographs/yankovic.jpg

Powell warned "there will be consequences" for the United States' relationship with Ukraine as a result of the developments in the former Soviet bloc nation.

Powell spoke shortly after election officials in Ukraine declared that Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych won the election over opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. The announcement raised fears of violence in Kiev, where tens of thousands of demonstrators have been demanding that the results be overturned.

orange is a wicked colour

argh i was reafing baout the ddrug they think was used on him, it is something with "chlor" in the name, and accelerates acne to a massive extent or something.

I mean, until they turn 30 and immediately turn super-dumpy

i really wanna go to kiev

2006?

There are no reports the death is linked to Mr Yanukovych's defeat by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in Sunday's presidential poll re-run.

Yeah, right.

http://www.eyecandyforthebrokenhearted.com/ukraine.jpg

nice pics of timoshenko. whats with the c.17th thing? is this some ukrainian nationalism schtick? national dress a gogo?

A Stratfor note today:

---

Ukraine made a radical policy adjustment on Thursday by essentially ending its bid for NATO membership. The move, which would have been unthinkable as recently as a month ago, probably resulted from external forces, namely Russia. Ukraine’s abrupt departure from its long-standing bid indicates the ominous involvement of Moscow. In its effort to maintain its security buffer, Russia probably employed its FSB security services.

Economic tools can include fostering closer integration, raising or lowering barriers to trade, embargoing another country, threatening to undermine a country’s financial stability by mass sales of its currency, or by simply shelling out cash. In the case of Ukraine –- and by extension, Western Europe –- Russia frequently has employed natural gas cutoffs.

Political tools are varied, and focus on finding political weak spots for later manipulation. The options include promoting closer integration among citizens with a common heritage found in both of the countries in question. These ties can then be manipulated later. For example, one country can threaten to intervene in the other to protect an allied ethnic group from alleged discrimination. Russia could employ this tactic in relation to ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

Military tools to influence another state’s behavior include the threat of invasion, conspicuously aiming weapons — anything from artillery to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)— at the other country, or providing military assistance to the government or the opposition groups in the other country. Russia’s Feb. 12 threat to aim ICBMs at foreign forces that might deploy in Ukraine falls in this category.

The 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s subsequent loss of influence in its near abroad and in the West laid the foundation for Russia’s current geopolitical trajectory. Russia’s resurgence under President Vladimir Putin has involved a strong effort to regain the influence, respect and national security it believes it is due. Moscow’s desire is especially keen given previous Russian humiliations — particularly those suffered by the government of the late Boris Yeltsin, when the West encroached on what Russia perceives as its prerogatives. Russia, however, lacks many of the tools the Soviet Union had at its disposal for compelling other countries’ behavior. This complicates Putin’s effort to satisfy the Russian geopolitical imperative of establishing hegemony in its near abroad.

The Russian resurgence took a potentially fatal hit over Kosovo’s Feb. 18 secession from Serbia. This was an issue of minor importance to the United States and most Western European countries, but a major threat to Russia’s effort to demonstrate its return to major power status. For Russia and Putin to survive the Kosovo insult, retribution elsewhere in the Russian near abroad was expected — namely in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

Ukraine’s dramatic about-face on NATO comes in the context of Kosovar independence. Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko — who came to power in his country’s 2004 Orange Revolution — was clamoring as recently as a month ago for NATO membership, despite a lukewarm reception from the alliance. Rumor has it that Yushchenko’s sudden change at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels occurred after the Russian president literally ordered him to withdraw Ukraine’s NATO bid, probably reminding him of the aforementioned Russian economic leverage over Ukraine.

Putin likely did not rely on economic coercion alone, however, and we can assume the FSB helped change Ukraine’s mind on NATO. The FSB is quite good at pressuring individuals using threats, intimidation, enticements and even sophisticated assassinations. Yushchenko knows the capabilities of the secret service underworld well, having barely survived a poisoning while seeking office in 2004.

Russia and the FSB probably decided that bringing the existing Ukrainian leadership in line would be easier than introducing a new leadership, allowing Moscow to avoid the pitfalls of Ukrainian politics. Given the lukewarm reception to Ukraine’s membership bid, Kiev could simply have let its application fall by the wayside. Instead, it made an active policy reversal. Compelling Yushenko’s U-turn on Ukraine’s NATO bid thus represents a significant Russian achievement, one that others — particularly Georgia — will observe closely.

The willingness of right-wing analysts to suggest that personal threats by the FSB against the Ukrainian government were probably behind the policy change, while completely omitting to mention the saleient fact that Gazprom did in fact cut gas supplies to Ukraine beginning on Monday and only restored full flows on Thursday... well, you're smart guys I'm sure Stratfor, but don't pretend you have less of a policy agenda than Putin does.

I imagine anybody writing about Russia who doesn't themselves work for the Kremlin is likely to have on about fifteen tinfoil hats as regards the FSB/GRU apparatus, and with perfectly understandable reason

it has come to...trebuchets

http://rt.com/news/ukraine-clashes-kiev-molotov-907/

can someone with more geopolitical smarts explain what's happening to me?

the american MSM seems to painting this as a peaceful-freedom-fighters vs. entrenched-corrupt-government thing, but I get the feeling it's more complicated. for one thing reading the foreign press tells me that some ultra- right-wing groups (whose nationalist distaste for Russia apparently trumps reservations they might have about the EU) with a distinctly anti-Semitic bent (and some soft-right groups who have connections to the ultra-rightists) are taking an increasingly visible (and increasingly violent) role in the Kiev protests.

but you know, I don't really know anything about all this. so 'splain me.

some discussion here - Rolling European Politics Thread

maybe this will help: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-ukrainian-smears-and-stereotypes/2014/02/20/450b8d62-9a72-11e3-b88d-f36c07223d88_story.html

the protesters are fascists trying to impose the EU on a country that doesn't want it

xpost

i think that washington post thing is a little pollyanna-ish (pollyanish?) about the nature of the protest movement(s), it's true.

but i honestly don't know what to read/who to believe.

I'll break it down as i see it.

Yanukovich indicated that he wanted to sign a provisional agreement with the EU to liberalise trade relations. He's not on good terms with Putin and Russia's decision to keep charging Ukraine high fees for gas (which is partly Ukraine's fault for reasons i won't go into) has wrecked the Ukrainian economy. He took the view that opening up Ukraine to the EU would have some short term difficulties (cheap EU products competing with domestic Ukrainian goods, etc) but it was worth it for the potential long term gains. The EU prevaricated over exactly what was on offer, didn't give a clear indication that full membership could be on the cards in the future and wasn't willing to provide financial assistance to help compensate for short-term hardship.

At the same time, Russia did what Russia always does. They said that if you don't want to have a special relationship (in this case preferring the EU over a post-Soviet trade agreement) then you can't expect special favours. Russia started imposing the kind of border checks on Ukrainian traffic into Russia that Poland always has on the other border and stopped giving Ukrainian companies preference on government contracts over Indian, Chinese, etc firms. Ukraine's eastern side is economically reliant on Russia and trade income went down by about 30% over the course of two or three months.

Ukraine also owes Russia a stack of cash for gas it hasn't paid for. The Ukrainian government was very close to defaulting until Russia offered to defer billions of dollars worth of loans in return for signing their trade agreement. Yanukovich didn't really have much of a choice other than accepting.

This went down very badly with a wide range of people, from EU-minded liberals to hardline neo-Fascists and ended up highlighting deep political, regional and ethnic splits in the country that go back decades. Bear in mind that Stalin was responsible for starving millions of Ukrainian peasants and Ukrainian nationalists later collaborated with the Nazis to murder hundreds of thousands of Russians and Jewish people. Western Ukraine remains strongly nationalist - both in the soft sense of wanting to make sure that the country is free of Russian control and in the less soft 'Mein Kampf displayed in bookshop windows' sense. The nationalists are not all violent right-wing extremists, as the Russian press would like to have it, but some of them certainly are. On the other hand, lots of the East of the country, and Crimea, retain a strong Russian identity.

There is no unified protest movement. Some are hardline nationalists, some are liberals, some want to be part of the EU, some want to be free of Russian control, some want to split the country in two, some want to unite it. There are a million positions in between each. The protests are also equally about the economy. Ukraine has been in a massive slump for several years, partly as a result of the oil situation, and people are sick of it.

They're also sick of corrupt, criminal politicians. Pretty much everyone who has held a political post in Ukraine since independence is a corrupt criminal, though, so Yanukovich is not unique in that regard. There's a chance that Klitchko might be different though which is why a lot of people are uniting behind him.

that's the sanest, most even thing i've read about the situation since i stopped listening to the BBC pretending to be impartial

I think that's about right, although the geographic split being talked about doesn't seem to be working out so much in reality -- my Ukrainian pals are all Russian-speaking Easterners, and are supporters of the protests. Yanukovich is also widely considered to be the worst of a bunch of idiots -- this is an "enough is enough" moment in many ways. There are neo-fascists in the protest movement, but I have seen no sources that are not Russian-friendly that suggest that they are the majority or growing, and there sure as hell are neo-fascists in Yanukovich's troops as well. There are agents provocateurs at work as well. For the people on the ground this is primarily and simply anti-government protest, but of course there is far more going on than just the people on the ground.

in the context you folks describe the way the west (esp. US) is dealing w/ this is kind of embarrassing.

we all know john mccain is an idiot, but appearing with some of the right-wing protest groups and calling for "freedom" was one of his more embarrassingly credulous photo ops.

what about those folks that briefly came into power after the "orange revolution"? my understanding was that they were both crooks _and_ victims of political show trials.

The elite political class in Ukraine is a disaster -- the lack of a central strong figure leading the protests is both a result of and a reaction to that.

Yes, Yushchenko (who was president) is a minor crook, his son is a fairly major one. Tymoshenko (who was Prime Minister) stole several billion dollars worth of gas from Russia while people on both sides of the border were dying in poverty. Her reinvention as a St Joan figure is laughable.

Yushchenko and Yanukovich were both PM under Leonid Kuchma, the journalist-murdering crim who was Ukraine's first independent President, so the idea of a major political difference between the two is somewhat overstated.

Ukraine is generally though of as more corrupt than Nigeria. All politicians are required to state their income on electoral forms. There was one election in the mid-2000s where every single candidate but one claimed that their only source of income was their government salary of £5,000 - £13,000. All had BMWs, plush Kyiv apartments and massive country dachas. The one candidate who didn't claim to be living off his stipend ran with the campaign tagline "i'm too rich to need to be corrupt!". He didn't win.

Much of Ukraine's economy is carved up between a small number of oligarch factions and they bankroll everything. Some are pro-Tymoshenko, some are pro-Yanukovich. Quite a few are in favour of EU membership as they think it'll stop future governments from trying to reclaim the money they've stolen, some are against it as they think it'll prevent them from stealing more.

The oligarchs tend to be worse than the politicians. Ukraine' richest man, Rinat Akhmetov (who's more famous as Chairman of Shakhtar Donetsk), for example, was a prominent member of the Donbass Mafia and acquired most of his wealth when his boss (and former Chairman of Shakhtar) died in a bomb attack at a football match.

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

What's likely next

The Russian missile screw-up that ended up killing two Poles will result in NATO invoking article 4 not article 5 (see below). The consultation will probably result in more support for Ukraine, particularly air and anti-air power. Will give Poland some real influence. pic.twitter.com/n92JHvFqGv

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) November 15, 2022

russia just needs to say oops my bad within the next 12 hours

Polish reporter on blasts tonight: My sources in the services say that what hit Przewowo is most likely the remains of a [Russian] rocket shot down by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. https://t.co/h4B8wjgT7U

— Paul Cunningham (@RTENewsPaulC) November 15, 2022

Hello ww3 ! Just in time for www3

xpost reminds me of reports that the Russians have been aiming right up to the border:

Russian Strikes Hit Lviv, Kharkiv: Officials
By AFP - Agence France Presse
November 15, 2022

Ukrainian cities of Lviv in the west and Kharkiv in the east were attacked by Russia on Tuesday, officials said, following strikes on the capital Kyiv.

"There are explosions in Lviv," mayor Andriy Sadovy said in a statement on social media, calling on residents to stay in shelters, while Kharkiv's mayor, Igor Terekhov, said there was a "missile attack" on the city and that information about any casualties was being determined.

(Duh.)

🚨 Polish President Andrzej Duda: “Most likely, this was an unfortunate accident.”

He added that the missile was probably part of Ukraine’s air defense.

— annmarie hordern (@annmarie) November 16, 2022

The head of Belarus' Border Committee complained this morning about Ukraine's hostile actions: "They have mined the border area, blown up almost all the bridges in the Gomel and Mozyr regions. Now they are destroying all the bridges in the Volyn region. All roads are impassable." pic.twitter.com/oW8r4ms7Xs

— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) November 16, 2022

check out the hat on this guy!

v silly hat

why is it all military uniforms east of the danube and west of the pacific ocean look like this

cmon that hat rules

It is hat of strength

doesnt seem like hes wearing it with the right uniform tho

https://i.imgur.com/lMCwNHm.png

They have blown up the bridge to his wardrobe (now why would they do that w all those bridges? Just because Belarus in so tight w Russia)

this interview goes hilariously off the rails

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war

baffled but grateful that anyone ever agrees to be interviewed by isaac chotiner

2nd time for this guy!

heads of state always tell the truth to each other, except for Hitler, who lied three times” is the greatest take I have ever read thank you

this reads like a play

I know Orbán said that the “hope for peace is named Donald Trump,” and suggested him as a mediator in terms of bringing the war to an end.

I don’t know that.

Orbán tweeted, “The #liberals have got it all wrong - that’s the bottom-line of our great conversation with Prof Mearsheimer today. We–”

Look, I don’t want to talk about Orbán. You told me that we were going to talk about Ukraine.

I don't even think Chotiner goes that hard here, but dude sure did have an utter self-induced nervous breakdown when the topic shifted to Hungary

foreshadowing

How was the Hungary trip?

It was actually fascinating. I learned a great deal. I was there for five days, Monday to Friday. I had a three-hour meeting with Viktor Orbán.

I’ve heard of him.

"Yesterday, December 8, 2022, the Russian military broke into the premises where the ZNPP's Department of Social Programs is located and, in the presence of other employees, severely beat the head of the department, Oleksii Trubenkov, and his deputy, Yurii Androsov. After a severe beating, the invaders took them out of the premises and drove them away to an unknown destination," the Energoatom press office said in a Telegram post on Friday.

"Through such actions, the occupiers are trying to gain loyalty from the courageous pro-Ukrainian staff," the statement continued. "Nevertheless the invaders fail to do so because the personnel resist."

..."The Russians have intensified their efforts in Donetsk and Luhansk. They are now in a very active phase of attempting to conduct offensive operations. We are advancing nowhere but, rather, defending, destroying the enemy's infantry and equipment wherever it tries to advance," Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a video message.

...Zambian Foreign Affairs Minister Stanley Kakubo said on Friday that a 23-year-old student who died in Ukraine, Lemekhani Nyirenda, had been pardoned for a drug offense and released from a Russian prison in exchange for fighting.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and Kremlin-ally known as "Putin's Chef," confirmed that Nyirenda was fighting in his Wagner private military force.

In an intelligence update posted to Twitter on Friday the British Ministry of Defense claimed the Russian military has likely resupplied its stock of Iranian Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 drones after running out of the previous batch.

"For the first time in three weeks, there have been reports of attacks by Iranian-provided one-way attack (OWA) uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). These events remain to be verified, but it is likely that Russia exhausted its previous stock of several hundred Shahed-131s and 136s and has now received a resupply," read the update...

Left this out of the first part:

Additionally, Energoatom said Russian forces have placed rocket launchers at the nuclear facility "violating all conditions for nuclear and radiation safety."

Was struck by reporting in The Daily last week: Soviet-era grid (ca. 1968 version) is essentially the same, and Ukraine gov. "is convinced" that Moscow is just reading the old maps, w pinpoint precision re targets:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/podcasts/the-daily/russia-ukraine-winter-power-blackout.html Nevertheless, people are coping, so far.

I'm wondering to what extent two can play at this game. Drones are a cheap, asymmetric form of warfare that should theoretically favor the weaker combatant. If Russia can buy a bunch of cheap drones from Iran and fire them at energy infrastructure, then shouldn't Ukraine be able to do the same?

Iran wouldn't be interested in selling them to Ukraine. They already have a buyer in Russia they wouldn't want to alienate. NATO nations would hesitate to supply them without strong assurances about how they'd be used. But I bet Israel wouldn't mind being their supplier.

I think the recent attacks in Russian interior airfields show that Ukraine is in fact using drones extensively - they likely have domestic drone production going on, but have been pretty quiet about it

The Iranian drones use cheap Chinese-produced two-stroke motors (almost like lawn mower engines); it would sure be helpful if the Chinese would stop shipping them. But the Iranian drones are slow and ineffective, unless you send ten at a time. The Ukrainians have been shooting them out of the sky like passenger pigeons

rumour is that ukraine is modifying old tu-141 spy drones into medium range cruise missiles. but they only have 100 or so

as if things weren't bad enough over there, now they got another visit from Boris :-/

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-64363761

If they love him so much they can keep him.

the radiolabs pod on smuggling abortifacient pills into ukraine is kinda fascinating 'life during wartime' stuff, crossing with polish natalist/absolutedogma factors. not really sure the best way to post that link so i'll just

https://www.stitcher.com/show/wnycs-radiolab/episode/ukraine-under-the-counter-210997700

i cannot imagine how it is safe to podcast this unless the ring is totally broken up by now, which after listening to ep 1, it is. ?