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.

Do we have much of an idea of how much population transfer there has been in Mariupol over the last year? My assumption is that most of the people that have been moved into Russia were moved out of Mariupol and that this is also where resettlement and replacement from Russia has been concentrated - especially with it being the only major city under Russian control that is out of the originally occupied territories

I don't really have a handle on just how many people currently living in Mariupol are settlers in comparison to the pre-2022 population, because that seems a massively complicating factor

Strange chess game going on here

Ukrainian special forces are reportedly operating in Sudan in support of the country’s army against Russian Wagner mercenaries aligned with the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to a video released on Monday... it has surfaced following months of speculation that Ukrainian forces are operating in Sudan as part of an emerging campaign by Kyiv to strike at Russian interests far beyond the Ukraine war’s frontlines.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/06/ukrainian-special-forces-sudan-russian-mercenaries-wagner

Ukraine is reportedly struggling to train enough troops for its own front lines and keep them supplied. Sending some of their best trained troops to Sudan seems like a strange tactic, if that is true.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well... their expertise would seem to be more useful on the home front

Not sure what the strategy is here

theyre fighting russia

i think thats the basic idea, as to why they would choose to fight them in sudan specifically my guess would be russias african operations are a big profit center and a fairly soft target so they are maybe thinking they can inflict some damage on russias bottom line without that much effort

much more detailed reporting here:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/africa/ukraine-military-sudan-wagner-cmd-intl/index.html

that footage of the pickup is crazy

CNN--Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence claims it has confirmed the use of Starlink satellite communications by Russian forces in occupied areas.

It says it has intercepted conversations which indicate the Starlink terminals are being used to provide internet access to Russia’s 83rd Air Assault Brigade operating in the Donetsk region.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which owns Starlink, says it does not do business of any kind with the Russian government or its military.

“If SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed,” the company said in a statement.
Starlink, which uses a network of satellites to provide broadband, says its service will not work in Russia, although the statement didn’t address whether it would work in occupied Ukraine.

The service plays a crucial role in Ukrainian battlefield communications. Last year, Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate, said “absolutely all front lines are using them.”

Ukraine’s claim follows revelations about the satellite system’s use in the war made in a biography of Starlink’s owner Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson.

According to an excerpt from the book, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.

A more detailed quote in Reuters. coverage:

"Cases of the Russian occupiers' use of the given devices have been registered. It is beginning to take on a systemic nature," the Ukrainian defence ministry's Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) quoted spokesman Andriy Yusov as saying.

Situation worsening in Avdiivka. Media attention is more focused on funding and support rather than situation on ground right now, but fairly intense at the moment and potentially quite consequential

Situation in Avdiivka getting the most media attention, but Kupyansk looking bad as well now, Ammunition shortage starting to bite. I don't know just how consequential this is, but I presume this starts to make Kharkiv more vulnerable?

Not sure where the last few posts went but anyway here's Perun's look at what's actually in the aid package and what impact it may have

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/11/victoria-nuland-state-department-diplomat-interview-00157408

Pretty innocuous interview, doesn't really say anything of note. She's kind of a strange in that certain articles or circles she's made into a kind of Soros type figure, where invocation of name alone is enough to convey all sorts of information

her demonization could be an after effect of Trump's first impeachment over his "perfect" phone call to Zelensky

I can't really tell whats happening with Russia's new Kharkiv offensive. It doesn't look they've anywhere near enough personnel to be able to take the city, which leaves either buffer zone or diversion to fix Ukrainian troops as possible reasons

But fixing troops here also involves diverting Russia's troops too

The only thing I can think is maybe getting a bit closer to the city might bring it within more reachable tube artillery range, making strikes both more effective and more cost-effective and potentially induce the population to leave, as apparently many have moved back home over the last 12-18 months, and the population isn't that far off what it was in 2021, back above a million again

Though It might be there isn't a specific plan and its more of a speculative approach

getting a bit closer to the city might bring it within more reachable tube artillery range, making strikes both more effective and more cost-effective

As speculations go, that's quite plausible. Also, the pipeline of US military aid that just started back up recently hasn't had much time to backfill the shortages caused by the long wrangle in Congress.

Its not all that clear what Russia prefers to do with the population of Kharkiv. Getting closer to it would increase its ability to shell it with lower cost munitions which would presumably pressure inhabitants to start leaving again for safer locations.

But with Mariupol Russia seemed reluctant to let the population leave, though eventually they replaced some of the inhabitants via population transfer (I'm unclear on how large this transfer was but given the reported numbers I presume the majority of these were from Mariupol, maybe Melitopol)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=829nvzjbPPA

Perun's take on the current situation in Kharkiv, listened to on my run this morning, not really any clear answers., though one interesting angle is the idea that bringing Kharkiv within tube artillery range would lead to increased headlines in the West about Russian advances, with possible idea of persuading voters in Europe and the US that a Russian victory is inevitable and therefore its best to stop supplying Ukraine.

Difficult to know if that would have any real effect or not, apparently one poll in Europe from Feb of this year had "A Russian victory is most likely outcome" at 20% (he does cite his sources but I was listening not watching so I don' have source to hand)

If the war comes down to a long stalemate and its attendant attrition then Russia, by dint of its sheer size advantage, has a clear but very costly and bloody path to victory.

https://news.sky.com/story/sir-rod-stewart-booed-by-german-crowd-while-making-show-of-support-for-ukraine-13154166

Okay but why?

AfD supporters? War fatigue? Apparently the Germans are dragging their heels over natural gas sanctions too.

The AfD does pretty well in Leipzig so that possible. War fatigue maybe but to some extent its dropped out of the news in recent months in some countries, not sure when on Germany though. There have also been some attacks on Ukrainians recently in Germany, including the murder of a 9 year old recently, coincidentally also just outside Leipzig

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/us-germany-foiled-russian-assassination-plot

This is pretty wild.

Trump's pick of Vance for the VP slot doesn't look good. Vance has been one of the most strident voices against US aid to Ukraine in the Republican party.

Ukrainian soldiers have crossed over the border into the Kursk region of Russia... this wasn't special forces but at least 300 regular soldiers

Pretty ballsy, Putin convened a meeting about it

This incursion into Russia is something else... I'm not sure what the strategy is, but it's a bloody nose, I'll take it

Cf. Lee's Maryland campaigns

Putin is nervously calling it terrorism rather than an invasion and allegedly only using FSB personnel and raw recruits to counter it to little effect. Ukraine have set up a Kursk commandant's office to police something like over a 1000 square miles of Russian territory, that's not really terrorism by any stretch. God I really hate getting into this because all war is shit, but it is an interesting development.

its a special military operation i suppose

Ukraine needs to have something to negotiate with if talks ever happen.

I don't imagine they expected it to be so easy and rapidly successful, maybe originally it was a tactic to draw away troops from defensive frontlines. But now they've Big Sam in!

That but also maybe to normalise actions on RU territory to loosen conditions on what and when Ukraine are allowed to do with western kit

Although Russia's actually this is not really a big deal response is interesting. Putin seems reticent to move troops to defend it, could potentially leave it as is for time being even. The response and evacuations are more like that of an occurrence of a flood or natural disaster

Russia seems like a macaroon, hard on the outside, soft on the inside.. once you're in, you have the run of the place

China should annex Siberia, perfect timing

I would say its probably relatively brittle in terms of structure, but at the same time although I think this weakens Putin to some degree and not an insignificant degree the fact defending Kursk isn't seen as a priority by Putin (or even by anyone else?) is telling.

This is not good.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/29/russia-north-korean-troops-ukraine-war

there's a history of Russia using N Koreans as slave labour so this feels like an extension of that

cannon fodder

I didn't realize it was that many troops

It's extremely bad. The speculation is that North Korea is receiving Russian tech and weapons in return. NK recently amended its constitution to declare SK a hostile state and blew up the roads and railways to show they are now against reunification.

allegedly, the Russian casualty rate from deploying suicidal "meat assaults" has been averaging around 1200 a day. In that grisly context they might last a week. I'd assume N Korea are sending prisoners, because even evil totalitarian dictators are going to be reluctant to sacrifice great numbers of their own military that cheaply.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/biden-missiles-ukraine-long-range-trump-b2648654.html

lads i think i might have a panic-induced heart attack can somebody sensible tell me WWIII isn't about to kick off?

blimey, fuck knows!

Since the advent of nuclear weapons, but especially the mass deployment of hydrogen warheads on ICBMs, the necessity of abandoning Clausewitz's concept of Total War and sublimating it into proxy wars and regional conflicts has become obvious to the war planners in the nuclear club. The idea of a WWIII fought globally, but strictly with conventional weapons is very implausible. Putin's saber rattling over tactical nukes in Ukraine is 98% certain to be a bluff. But if it were 100% certain it wouldn't work as a bluff, so... there you go.

It’s a licence for limited strikes in a specific border region where Russia is mobilising thousands of North Korean soldiers, from the reports I’ve seen. As far as I can tell, it’s not even meant to address the ongoing complaint that Ukraine can’t target the Russian missile launchers on Russian territory that are attacking Ukrainian cities.

Vlad won't start a world war because he knows he can get everything he wants from Trump

I don't think he'll start a world war but not necessarily for that reason. I don't think a world war is in China's interests right now, and Putin's options for escalation are pretty limited, and reaching for the nuclear button is fraught with personal danger. I feel like Putin is in a weird spot where neither de-escalation nor escalation are viable options, and permanent long term war is the safest option, both personally and for the restructured economy

We've also seen many of Putin's red lines crossed and him not do anything about it, including the first foreign invasion of Russian territory since WW2, with almost no reaction whatsoever, with Putin treating it more like a flood or earthquake than an invasion

As for getting whatever he wants from Trump, you would think so, I would think so too, but it's unclear whether Putin thinks that. Russian state media's response to Trumps victory was to broadcast old nude photos of Melania, he took 2 days to call Trump, deny the call ever happened, and make cryptic remarks about what Trump owes Putin. Which all seem like veiled but ultimately empty threats. The idea that he has some kind of kompromat or leverage now seems more fanciful or at least long past its sell by date

I don't know that it's guaranteed that Trump is going to roll over for Putin, even with some of his administration picks. Trump is in a much stronger position than he was in 2016 and in a stronger position than Putin is too. He'll also be aware of both of these things. The power dynamic has changed.

Also factor in Putin's mix of cautiousness and opportunism, he tends to escalate when he senses weakness or opportunity