According breaking reports: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Odesa, Boryspil just attacked too.
Also, just over my house flew some military aircraft in direction Kropyvnytskyy
N.B. I'm Ukrainian living in central Ukraine, here is my statement for Hacker News:
> To be clear, I and my family would stay and resist — I has no plans to leave Ukraine; I would defend if it would be needed as long, as possible.[1,2]
NATO expansion is viewed by the Russians as a violation of previous alleged agreements and assurances by the West, and a HUGE sore point with the Russians, to the point that hardliners there believe this to be an existential crisis.
So yes, in the higher Russian circles they do truly believe that this is all America's fault, and in truth America absolutely did harm relations with Russia and for better or worse knowingly intimidated them to the point that lashing out became likely.
However, one cannot attack another and then blame someone else for one's own violence. This is not an acceptable response to such grievances; it's how an abuser reacts.
But people don't like complicated explanations, so we settle on "Russia is bad" vs "America is bad" and then pick sides to sling mud from.
It's just the way of things. The only way to keep aggressors at bay is to project power, which is why every nation has police forces to ensure order. But there's no world police force, so nations must make do in other ways. And so the more powerful nations decide on the rules that all must in theory follow, and they also decide when they themselves can break those rules. It's why so many nations want their own nukes.
The "big boys" involved in the Ukrainian issue are America, Russia, and Germany. Germany is still too timid to act (owing to the war), and America and Russia still have ideological cold warriors in their government apparatus.
Ukraine should have kept the nukes[1]. Whether NATO is in violation of an agreement or not, Russia is definitely in violation of the Budapest Memorandum.
I can't even fathom what this means. Ukraine is not a significant trade partner of the US, nor is it in NATO or even the EU. They don't store our missiles as part of a strategic defense system the way Poland and Turkey do.
Edit: Thinking about it more: what could it mean for this to be a negative thing? It's presumably not even about Ukraine's autonomy, since Carlson seems okay with said autonomy not existing under a Russian imposed state.
Trump speaks well of Putin, so the right-wing commentators also speak well of Putin. They also feel he was maligned unfairly by the Steele Dossier Russia stuff, so to "own the libs" as revenge they embrace the dictator Putin.
Discarding the truth value of these claims: this doesn't explain why Ukraine is characterized as a "State Department client state." Hunter Biden is not a member of the executive branch.
I don't understand which decades are in question, since Ukraine has only been independent for about 3 of them. Ukraine entered a partnership with NATO in 1994 (mirroring a similar partnership with CIS), and the US has been palpably hesitant to advance their formal military commitment beyond that level.
This is of course in contrast to annexation of Crimea and the Donbas.
I'm referring to the actions of the State Department in Ukraine, as evidenced by "Cablegate" and by later reporting and leaks regarding the Maiden revolution and subsequent elections. I'm sure HN will be full of experts within a few hours, if the speed of new armchair virologists the last few years are any indication.
It is partisan, in the opening moments of a terrible war, to look to use said war as a way to attack your local political opponents, or to deflect blame from your political allies.
His show is watched by 1.5% of the US population and is the single most watched cable news show. I would find his comments abhorrent whether they were on Fox or MSNBC.
And he thinks that's a bad thing? Isn't Tucker Carlson/Fox News supposed to be unapologetically pro-America? This position from the right makes no sense if you think about it for a minute. Bizzaro world.
If you've been paying attention to the crap that Trump and his sycophants have pulled you'd realize it makes total sense. These people are not patriots to America in it's current form. They are wholly on board for a new authoritarian far right nationalist America, in bed with the Russian state to further their goals.
It's not one man. A lot of people in Russia, unfortunately, share the insanity spewed by Putin, and itch to show those dumb Ukrainians that they do not deserve to be anything but subjects of the Great Russian Empire. That's one of the reasons he's doing it - because he knows a lot of people want him to.
"Reaffirming the importance of the exercise by the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the duty of the permanent members to seek unanimity and to exercise restraint in the use of the veto, ...
"Conscious that failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities on behalf of all the Member States… does not relieve Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibility under the Charter to maintain international peace and security,
"Recognizing in particular that such failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security, ...
"Resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
Yes, the Uniting for Peace resolution is a framework for UN collective action in face of veto-power obstructionism, but it doesn't create either the capacity or the will to wage war against a major nuclear power. It works when the malefactor is a diplomatically protected client of a veto power, and maybe if it was one of the lesser (though still nuclear armed) veto powers, but turning back the main force of the military of the USA, Russian Federation, or PRC on their own doorstep? Uniting for Peace is a sideshow for that, it mainly is going to rest on whether one or both of the others of the major powers is willing to commit fully to the fight, and willing to accept the potential of escalation to a major strategic nuclear exchange.
(That doesn't mean it's useless; UfP could be used for coordinated action that isn't direct application of armed force, including a globalized sanctions regime.)
I watched the meeting. The Russian representative said things like, "Acting as the current president of the Security Council, I thank the gentleman from Ukraine for his remarks. Acting in my capacity as the representative from Russia, Ukraine blows goats, and here's why," before launching into a confusing list of nonsensical reasons why Ukraine really belongs to Russia.
Nobody, but nobody, was buying what he was selling, and you could tell he didn't much care if they did or not.
The statement from the Kenya delegate was particularly moving, worth a watch if you can find the video.
Unfortunately this is more like back to old norms. I hope the US and EU have the stomach to deal with this, but the rhetoric is not heartening. I'm not hearing leaders preparing us for sacrifice. And I don't mean war, I mean I don't see leaders with the stomach to handle $5 gas or natural gas shortages.
Now imagine if China decided to annex a few nations...
Literally nothing would be done beyond some meaningless squabbling. No politicians would sacrifice their career and likely life to make that point
Is it the same United Nations where Russia is now chairing the Security Council and has an absolute veto power over any decision there? Or we have another one which we could use in cases like that? Where did we put it? It's time to get it out.
I honestly thought it wouldn't get to this point. Like what is the upside here (for Putin)? They can't expect to occupy Ukraine. Regime change?
The US and NATO won't want to get into direct military conflict with Russia so Ukraine looks like they just have to take an L and Russia gets hit with more sanctions.
The sad part (beyond the obvious tragedy of war) is that Russia actually had a point: if the tables were turned, the US wouldn't accept a hostile military alliance on its border so why should Russia? Worse, the US and NATO didn't really want Ukraine in NATO either because they don't want to get dragged into a war (as they would now be if Ukraine was a NATO member) but they don't want to say that or make that concession.
But that doesn't matter now. Any legitimate points Putin had are irrelevant because they don't justify invasion.
Only because I didn’t know and was curious about context, Biden is more popular now (as judged by aggregate approval rating ala 538) than Trump was at this point in his presidency (43% vs 39%). He’s about the same as Trumps average approval rating for the rest of his term until the end when Trumps rating tanked.
Biden is lower than any other candidate they’ve tracked at this point but Clinton had a lower period earlier and Truman had a lower period very soon after this point in his presidency.
I mean the prediction he made about the Taliban impossibly invading Afghanistan well there's that and most certainly that went well (!). Now you have them pleading and begging to Putin on a weak foot after those events.
Looks like war it is. All thanks to the Biden administration. Oh dear.
> Yet despite these humbling failures, the present crisis reveals there is still a reflexive tendency to assume the United States has the right, responsibility, and (most important of all) capacity to dictate political arrangements all over the world, even in regions that are more important to others than they are to the West. The United States didn’t have that capacity at the height of the unipolar era, and it certainly doesn’t have that capacity today.
Here is the key point:
> When your opponent has local military superiority and cares more about the outcome than you do, resolving a dispute typically requires some adjustments on your part. This isn’t a question of right or wrong; it’s a question of leverage.
That aside, Biden and the Democratic Party just don't have the appetite for protracted conventional war with a nuclear superpower as evidenced by the lack of such appetite in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Crimea is not the same. I really wish people would stop repeating that. Even if you ignore the referendum (which is fair), repeated polls by the West and NGOs have found the annexation by Russia is hugely popular in Crimea so you get into a question of the rights of self-determination [1].
Yeah I was/am wrong in this statement and take it back. At the time I wrote it, troops were entering the Donbas and my assumption was Russia would limit themselves to occupying this region.
But it's clear now they intend on military occupation of all of Ukraine, "regime change", and turning Ukraine into a puppet state like Belarus.
Leaving the door open to Ukraine joining NATO has been US policy since 2008 [1]:
> Then, in 2008, at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, President George W. Bush crossed that Rubicon, committing NATO to bringing in Ukraine and Georgia—another former Soviet republic left out of the previous decade’s enlargement—at some point in the undefined future.
My suspicion is neither Europe nor the US actually wants Ukraine in NATO but dangling that possibility keeps a pro-Western regime in Ukraine.
60% of russias export is energy by way of natural gas, to Europe, across two pipelines, belerus, and ukraine.
Ukraine currently leases the rights to Russia, but the threat of Ukraine joining the EU could largely change those economics.
Putin could be banking on the fact that since Russia is the large supplier of natural gas to Europe, the west will have no choice but to continue to purchase from Russia.
Currently the US is backstopping Western Europe with Liquid Natural Gas, but it's possible that Western Europe will feel additional energy crunch and have to break away from US Sanctions.
> Ukraine currently leases the rights to Russia, but the threat of Ukraine joining the EU could largely change those economics.
I have tow big issues with this argument.
Firstly, an inevitable consequence of invading Ukraine is sactions that will disrupt oil and gas exports. This is Russia's biggest export.
Second, if Ukraine joins the EU (which is a big if), I haven't seen a compelling argument why this would hurt Russia's interests. Most notably, as an EU member,U Ukraine would lose a certain amount of autonomy to negotiate thing slike this. Do you think Ukraine as a future EU member could effectively cut off the gas supply to other EU members? I just don't see how that could happen.
It's possible that the EU's reliance on Russian oil and gas exports will weaken their resolve. I guess we'll see.
> I honestly thought it wouldn't get to this point. Like what is the upside here (for Putin)?
Dismantling Ukraine by solidifying the breakaway regions and installing a pro-Russia regime in the rump Ukraine in the near term, annexing at least the breakaway regions on the intermediate term.
But, the war is a loss. The actual goal of the escalation was to get much more operational freedom by capitalizing on years of efforts to exacerbate divisions within and between the Western Allies, the establishment of propaganda conduits within them, etc., to get NATO to fail to hold together, crack, and fold, either abandoning or simply failing to adequately reassure it's Eastern flank, and leaving many of the existing NATO countries in the shadow of arbitrary Russian threat and influence.
Propaganda support for Brexit was part of that. Support for separatist efforts in Catalonia (and, though with less effect, California) was part of that. Support for various political factions in the US (notably the right and Republican Party, including the financing and influence channel developed through the NRA, but also propaganda support for—not, in most cases, collusion with—ideologically opposed groups, like the candidacy of Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, as well as a bunch of divisive non-candidate groups of various types) was part of it. That was the prep work.
Who's going to stop them? No one in the US – Biden won't go to war over it, and 3/4 of the Republicans will listen to Trump and believe that this is an admirable move by Putin.
“But here’s a guy that says, you know, ‘I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent’ – he used the word ‘independent’ – ‘and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
Decades of NATO encroachment and "Fuck The EU" Policy has people envisioning nuclear volleys… perhaps putin should have convinced mexico and cuba to host their military bases first ;)
To think of all the ops from the MIC that have been running out of Ukraine since the Obama years might just go up in smoke… good way to get rid of a pay-per trail if you ask me…
This won’t become WW3 - not if it’s ‘only’ Ukraine - but it could become a bloody proxy war. If it spread to a NATO country then it would likely escalate towards WW3.
I hate how weakened the term Hitler has become, being thrown around for slight grievances. This is not one of those times and it deserves more impact. Putin is the closest to our contemporary Hitler, all the way down to the fabricated invasion pretexts like Operation Canned Goods.
As strong my opinions are on this, there are both sides on this site and we should avoid pointless arguments that can’t go anywhere.
A much more interesting topic is how anything can be done to help those in need escape war, provide for their families, reduce casualties, or push for de-escalation.
This isn’t about military alliances. It’s about self-determinism. The people of Ukraine don’t want to live under Russia’s boot anymore. They want a chance to prosper as their neighbors have as part of the EU. They want the right to decide the future for their children. That is enviable and worthy of support.
Stop fearmongering. There is no visible Chinese military build up near Taiwan. Furthermore, China can't just waltz into Taiwan as it is seperated by sea.
An invasion of Taiwan would require a months long military build up just like we've seen with this conflict. If China was preparing an invasion it would already be all over the news. The buildup would be visible even with the open source intelligence available to Twitter accounts.
Well, Putin has very, clearly, plainly told us he’s going to start genociding several groups in Ukraine.
He has also said any foreign military that attempts to intervene in this Russia-Ukraine conflict is going to be facing nukes.
So we’re either going to watch a genocide & invasion happen in real time & do nothing meaningful about it, or we’re going to be possibly headed towards a world war if we do decide to do something meaningful about it.
You forgot to mention that we could blabber something about how dearly we hold human rights and have empathy and thoughts and prayers and other such kal.
From the perspective of someone completely naive to the situation: what's going on, and WHY is this happening?
I partially ask "why?!" plaintively, because this is senseless. But I do also want to understand the... rationalization ("logic" is the wrong word) behind this action so I can be better informed, and I guess form some predictions about what might happen next, and maybe even get an idea about when this might end (?) :(
To be clear, I already don't agree with what's going on, this is not how to solve disputes and disagreements (especially when the attacker has nuclear capability). I'm just looking for facts and positions on the countries involved here - something something editorialization and signal-to-noise ratio.
The one mildly good thing I can think of right now is that the general commoditization of technology (TV, radio, phone, internet) hopefully means lot of people are aware of what's going on and, also hopefully, able to take decisive action and even collaborate and work together. Hopefully Ukraine prioritizes reinforcing the cell network :/. And if this is all-out war then hopefully extraordinary maneuvers are acceptable and supported to help innocent people stay far away from the line of fire. This doesn't feel like when the US occupied Afghanistan :(
Russia doesn’t want its sphere of influence to decrease. Ukraine has wanted to detach from Russia for a long while. Russia has responded with assassinations, destabilization by supporting rebels, propaganda, and now a full blown military invasion. This is about power. Your question is like asking why the Roman Empire expanded. Because they wanted to and they could.
> I partially ask "why?!" plaintively, because this is senseless
Neither imperialist conquest nor the manufacturing of external crisis and conflict as an attempt to rally domestic support behind a leader are senseless; they both have internal logic and a whole lot of historic precedent of usefulness to the faction pursuing them.
"Why" is simple. Putin wants Ukraine, and he thinks the West is too weak, divided and dependent on Russian resources to do anything substantial about it.
Russia isn't doing as well as Europe economically. Ukraine sees its future with the West, and democracy. Putin can't stand a culturally-near democracy next door, one that rejects him and wants Europe instead. I don't think it's so much that it wounds his pride. It's more that it shows Russians an alternate path, and he's terrified that they might choose it (and reject him).
And I speculate that he might have genuine fears for his life if he's removed from power. Some of the oligarchs are not nice people, and they have lots of power and long memories.
All the rest is just BS rationalizations designed to provide the flimsiest attempt at a justification for what he's decided to do to stay in power.
(Anyone else notice that the way he provides "historic justifications" for what he's doing sounds a lot like the way Hitler gave historical smokescreens for why he had to attack Russia?)
When's it going to end? When Putin decides it's enough. Either that he's taken enough territory (which may be all), or he's forced the fall of the government in Ukraine and installed a puppet that will turn them toward Russia, or he's taken too many casualties, or the economic sanctions are biting too hard.
The "why" is a complicated question that goes to the core character of the nations involved.
Russia by nature feels insecure about her borders, and always has. There's a long history of invasion that has left a trauma to this day. The one thing that Russia fears more than anything else is encirclement.
To this end they have over the centuries embarked on numerous territorial expansions and treaties to create buffer zones between themselves and potential enemies, the most recent of which was the USSR (which proved too costly to maintain).
When the Russians couldn't keep their "union" going, they entered into negotiations with Western powers about what would happen with these now-free states. This is where things get a little murky, because the Russians insist that they'd received assurances that NATO would not expand into former Soviet states, whereas the West emphatically maintains that no such assurances were given. The higher ups in the Kremlin firmly believe that the West broke its word, and is thus untrustworthy.
As NATO expanded further and further Eastward, Russia's insecurities intensified, and the Ukraine was considered to be the last bastion of resistance to encirclement. This is why Russia has spent the past decade meddling in Ukrainian affairs, and why they've stepped up meddling in American politics (Trump is an isolationist and nationalist, which is why Russia favored him).
As to what triggered this latest move, that's anyone's guess. Maybe they got some intel that the Ukraine really was going to gain full NATO membership. Maybe not, and they just got a little too worried about it... We'll probably never know. But either way, this current invasion is a drastic effort to keep the Ukraine out of any military alliances with the West.
to answer "Why?!" especially with the exclamantion point. I am shocked that so many people do not understand, that the words "Minsk Agreements" are rarely mentioned, and that it's only been 8 years and yet the world has no idea. Also that no one compares to Yugoslavia's or Czechoslovakia's post-Soviet split into multiple countries.
In 2014, Prime Minister of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, led his government to reject a deal to put Ukraine on a path to EU and NATO membership.
This immediately let to the Euromaiden protests, the Ukrainian Revolution, and attacks on ethnic Russians within Ukraine. leading to the divisions internally between the Donbas region and the rest of the country.
Crimea, which was part of Ukraine but ethnically Russian, was taken by Russia at this time. Look on a map for Crimea and the Sea of Azov, and you will see why this was so easy to accomplish.
The parties within Ukraine agreed to stop fighting and the resolution was the Minsk Protocol. The Minsk Agreements were immediately violated by both sides. Both sides were brought back to the table to draft another cease-fire agreement, known as Minsk 2.
The second Minsk Accords were also immediately violated and people have been dying in that area ever since.
The real question is: Why did the UN never move to stop these killings? Why is the West focused on Russia instead of the problem that has been at their doorstep for literally eight years now.
People in Eastern Ukraine have been dying every month for eight years. The opportunity for diplomacy has been rotting on the vine for eight years.
The borders of Ukraine were created during Soviet times by the U.S.S.R., not by the people of Ukraine. The Post-Soviet countries of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia similarly suffered from borders that forced people who speak different languages and come from different cultures to live together.
Yugoslavia fought a bloody and costly internal war over this before separating into multiple countries. Czechoslovakia fared somewhat better before it split into multiple countries.
Ukraine is now splitting into multiple countries. The UN for eight years did nothing to enforce the Minsk Accords to stop the fighting and allow that to happen peacefully, so Russia decided enough is enough.
Modern war is waged on many fronts. Internet is one of them. Here we are witnessing it. Less deadly than Putin's bombs and rockets, but adds poison of lies to the info-sphere, in hopes to cause people to show weakness when confronted with evil.
Ukraine is not "splitting" into anything. It's being murdered. By Putin and Putin's Russia.
It has never been true. The whole thing is a pile of baloney - everything that has happened in Ukraine, from Yanukovich rule to Donetsk takeover by a band of thugs to continued fighting - has been inspired, incited, controlled and instigated by Russia. It didn't "happen" by some magic - it happened because Russia made it happen. And Russia made it happen because it wants Ukraine to be their subject, and failing that - at least it be as miserable, poor and suffering as possible, do demonstrate to Russians - this is what happens when you refuse to submit. Pretending like it's something natural happening, as I said, is baloney.
A lot of people in threads a few days ago like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335610 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30405782 were terribly wrong. This wasn't just Russia's annual war games in the region. This wasn't the US and media pushing for a war. If anything, this was the US declassifying things in real time to tell the world what was happening to prevent war.
Major US media (and not just the ones usually perceived as hostile the current President’s party), has been openly mocking Administration descriptions, and scare-quoting “invasion” in headlines about the administration response as recently as today.
Now, if you want to say actively undermining the effort at deterrence is pushing for war, sure, they were pushing for war, but...
I wish US security services didn't spend last 6 years working hard on having their credibility on anything regarding Russia sacrificed to near-sighted political goals. I wish US politicians didn't use "Russia" as a cheap smear to throw around when they couldn't think of anything better. Maybe if they didn't spend 6 years crying wolf, when the real wolf came, we'd be a bit more ready.
>I wish US security services didn't spend last 6 years working hard on having their credibility on anything regarding Russia sacrificed to near-sighted political goals. I wish US politicians didn't use "Russia" as a cheap smear to throw around when they couldn't think of anything better. Maybe if they didn't spend 6 years crying wolf, when the real wolf came, we'd be a bit more ready.
Heck, you still have dragonwriter elsewhere in this discussion connecting this war with Brexit, Trump, and even Catalonian separatism. Catalonian separatists will be amused to hear that they are all Russian stooges, or something.
Russia cannot feel safe and develop, exist without the constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine. Let me remind you that in 2000, 2005 we gave a military rebuff to terrorists in the Caucasus, we defended the integrity of our state, preserved Russia, and in 2014 we supported the people of Crimea and Sevastopol. In 2015, the armed forces were used to put a reliable barrier to prevent the penetration of terrorists from Syria to Russia. There was no other way we could protect ourselves. The same thing is happening now. You and I have simply not been given any other opportunity to protect Russia and our people except the one we will have to use today. Circumstances require us to act resolutely and immediately. The People's Republics of Donbass appealed to Russia for help. In this regard, in accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the approval of the Federation Council of Russia and pursuant to the Federal Assembly on February 22 of this year ratified treaties on friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic I made a decision to conduct a special military operation. Its goal is to protect people who have been abused by the genocide of the Kyiv regime for 8 years. And to this end, we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation. At the same time, our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we hear more often lately from the West that documents signed by the Soviet totalitarian regime that fixed the results of the Second World War should we not be implemented. What can we respond to that? The results of the Second World War, as well as the sacrifices made by our people on the altar of the victory over Nazism, are sacred. But this does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms based on the realities that have developed during all post-war decades. It also does not cancel the right of nations to self-determination enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter. Let me remind you that when the USSR was created after the Second World War, people who lived in certain territories included in modern Ukraine, no one ever asked them how they themselves wanted to build their life. Our policy is based on freedom of choice for all to determine their own future and that of their children.
I have initiated a call today with the president of the Russian Federation. The result - silence. Although silence should be in Donbass.
That is why today, I want to come with an appeal to all citizens of Russia. Not as President. I am appealing to the people of Russia as a citizen of Ukraine. We share more than two thousand kilometres of border. Around it, today, is your army: almost 200,000 soldiers; thousands of military units. Your leadership has approved their movement towards us. Towards the territory of another country. This step can become the start of a big war on the European continent. The whole world is talking about what can happen any day now. A reason can appear at any moment. Any provocation. Any spark. A spark that has the potential of burning everything down.
You are told that this flame will bring freedom to the people of Ukraine. But the people of Ukraine are free. They remember their past, and are building their own future. They are building it, not destroying it, as you are told everyday on TV. Ukraine in your news and Ukraine in reality are two completely different countries. The most important difference is that ours is real.
You are being told that we are nazis. But how can a nation be called nazist after sacrificing more than 8 million lives to eradicate nazism. How can I be a nazi, when my grandfather has survived the whole war as part of the Soviet infantry, and has died a colonel in an independent Ukraine. You are told that we hate Russian culture. But how can a culture be hated? Any culture. Neighbours are always enriching each other culturally. Yet, that does not make them one entity, and does not separate people into “us” and “them”. We are different, but that is not a reason to be enemies. We want to build our own history. Peacefully, calmly, and truthfully.
You are told that I am ordering to attack the Donbass. To shoot. To bomb without questions. Although there are questions: To shoot at whom? To bomb what?
Donetsk? To which I have been dozens of times. I have seen their faces and eyes.
Artema street? On which I have been on many walks with my friends in the past.
Donbass arena? Where I have been rooting with the locals for our boys during the Euros.
Shcherbakova Park? In which we were drinking together after our team has lost
Lugansk? The home of my best friend’s mom. The place where my best friend’s father is buried.
Note that I am now speaking in Russian, yet no one in Russia understands what these names, streets, and events mean. This is all foreign to you. Unknown. This is our land. This is our history. What are you going to fight for? And against whom?
Many of you have visited Ukraine in the past. Many of you have relatives here. Some of you studied in our universities. Befriended Ukrainian people. You’re familiar with our character, with our people, our principles. You know what we cherish the most. Look inside you, listen to the voice of reason, of common sense. Hear our voices. The people of Ukraine want peace. Ukrainian authorities want peace. We want it, and we make it. We do everything in our powers. We are not alone. It’s true, Ukraine is supported by many countries. Why? Because we are not talking about peace at any cost. We are talking about peace, and about principles, justice. About everyone’s right to define their own future, of safety, and everyone’s right to live without threat. All this is important to us. All this is important for peace. I know for sure that this is also important for you. We know for sure that we don’t want war. Neither cold, hot, or hybrid.
But, if we are threatened; If someone is trying to take away our country, our freedom, our lives. The lives of our children. We are going to defend ourselves. Not attack. Defend. By attacking us, you are going to see our faces. Not backs. Our faces.
War is a big distress, and it has a big price - in all meanings of this word. People lose their money, reputation, quality of life, freedom, and most importantl...
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 194 ms ] threadFollow for live updates on ongoing attack on Ukraine by Putin's Russia and Russian:
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> KHARKIV ATTACKED (by Russia)! [0]
According breaking reports: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Odesa, Boryspil just attacked too.
Also, just over my house flew some military aircraft in direction Kropyvnytskyy
N.B. I'm Ukrainian living in central Ukraine, here is my statement for Hacker News:
> To be clear, I and my family would stay and resist — I has no plans to leave Ukraine; I would defend if it would be needed as long, as possible.[1,2]
My Patreon: https://patreon.com/app4soft
P.S. God, what the hell?
[0] https://twitter.com/PashaXVI/status/1496684796176699395
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897
[2] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1495912197272313859
I'm in central Ukraine far away from big cities.
Ukraine AirForse already took off and on duty (saw them already over house)
Since yesterday evening there is Martial Law in action in Ukraine by Ukr Gov (from 22:00 to 06:00).
President signed general mobilization - all who has just a PASSPORT of Ukraine has right to get a gun from state & join territorial defence forces.
Cat[0] back to house at midnight, drinked water & immediately took the bed)
[0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1496980958448439305
Large Russian aircraft (and/or ballistic missile) just striked very close to Kyiv (particles falled on residual area).[0]
[0] https://twitter.com/Novynarnia/status/1497043935407091748
Multiple sources are now coming in with live video of explosions in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities, for example CNN's Matthew Chance:
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-02-...
This is utterly insane, and the single worst news event of my lifetime.
https://twitter.com/realcandaceo/status/1496124028968394765?...
NATO expansion is viewed by the Russians as a violation of previous alleged agreements and assurances by the West, and a HUGE sore point with the Russians, to the point that hardliners there believe this to be an existential crisis.
So yes, in the higher Russian circles they do truly believe that this is all America's fault, and in truth America absolutely did harm relations with Russia and for better or worse knowingly intimidated them to the point that lashing out became likely.
However, one cannot attack another and then blame someone else for one's own violence. This is not an acceptable response to such grievances; it's how an abuser reacts.
But people don't like complicated explanations, so we settle on "Russia is bad" vs "America is bad" and then pick sides to sling mud from.
But really it's the steady pace of the Visegrád Group, Vilnius Group, and Adriatic Charter.
The Ukraine isn't one of the big boys on the playground, so anything they do needs the OK of the big boys.
The "big boys" involved in the Ukrainian issue are America, Russia, and Germany. Germany is still too timid to act (owing to the war), and America and Russia still have ideological cold warriors in their government apparatus.
[1] https://www.kalw.org/npr-news/2022-02-21/why-ukraine-gave-up...
Edit: Thinking about it more: what could it mean for this to be a negative thing? It's presumably not even about Ukraine's autonomy, since Carlson seems okay with said autonomy not existing under a Russian imposed state.
This is of course in contrast to annexation of Crimea and the Donbas.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1458614311413338121
"Why isn't the US on Russia's side in this?"
Also, my opinion about this situation: war has no place in 2022.
https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/top-cable-news-shows-of-2021...
He'd need to average another million viewers a night to get close to 1.5%.
I mean, look at this Reddit thread. Somehow, Trump was the deterrent for 4 years despite his ongoing infatuation with an authoritarian dedicator.
Enough is enough, if you pretend both sides are the same you are the problem.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/t009rq/breaki... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/22/trump-rea...
Our thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of Ukraine, stay strong.
(That doesn't mean it's useless; UfP could be used for coordinated action that isn't direct application of armed force, including a globalized sanctions regime.)
Nobody, but nobody, was buying what he was selling, and you could tell he didn't much care if they did or not.
The statement from the Kenya delegate was particularly moving, worth a watch if you can find the video.
This one? [0]
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZlaiuicYM
Unfortunately this is more like back to old norms. I hope the US and EU have the stomach to deal with this, but the rhetoric is not heartening. I'm not hearing leaders preparing us for sacrifice. And I don't mean war, I mean I don't see leaders with the stomach to handle $5 gas or natural gas shortages.
I honestly thought it wouldn't get to this point. Like what is the upside here (for Putin)? They can't expect to occupy Ukraine. Regime change?
The US and NATO won't want to get into direct military conflict with Russia so Ukraine looks like they just have to take an L and Russia gets hit with more sanctions.
The sad part (beyond the obvious tragedy of war) is that Russia actually had a point: if the tables were turned, the US wouldn't accept a hostile military alliance on its border so why should Russia? Worse, the US and NATO didn't really want Ukraine in NATO either because they don't want to get dragged into a war (as they would now be if Ukraine was a NATO member) but they don't want to say that or make that concession.
But that doesn't matter now. Any legitimate points Putin had are irrelevant because they don't justify invasion.
Biden is lower than any other candidate they’ve tracked at this point but Clinton had a lower period earlier and Truman had a lower period very soon after this point in his presidency.
Looks like war it is. All thanks to the Biden administration. Oh dear.
> Yet despite these humbling failures, the present crisis reveals there is still a reflexive tendency to assume the United States has the right, responsibility, and (most important of all) capacity to dictate political arrangements all over the world, even in regions that are more important to others than they are to the West. The United States didn’t have that capacity at the height of the unipolar era, and it certainly doesn’t have that capacity today.
Here is the key point:
> When your opponent has local military superiority and cares more about the outcome than you do, resolving a dispute typically requires some adjustments on your part. This isn’t a question of right or wrong; it’s a question of leverage.
That aside, Biden and the Democratic Party just don't have the appetite for protracted conventional war with a nuclear superpower as evidenced by the lack of such appetite in Iraq or Afghanistan.
[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/23/united-states-europe-wa...
They won't take all of Ukraine. Just these pieces. For now.
[1]: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/1919/wilson-self-d....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat...
But it's clear now they intend on military occupation of all of Ukraine, "regime change", and turning Ukraine into a puppet state like Belarus.
> Then, in 2008, at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, President George W. Bush crossed that Rubicon, committing NATO to bringing in Ukraine and Georgia—another former Soviet republic left out of the previous decade’s enlargement—at some point in the undefined future.
My suspicion is neither Europe nor the US actually wants Ukraine in NATO but dangling that possibility keeps a pro-Western regime in Ukraine.
[1]: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/putin-george-bus...
60% of russias export is energy by way of natural gas, to Europe, across two pipelines, belerus, and ukraine.
Ukraine currently leases the rights to Russia, but the threat of Ukraine joining the EU could largely change those economics.
Putin could be banking on the fact that since Russia is the large supplier of natural gas to Europe, the west will have no choice but to continue to purchase from Russia.
Currently the US is backstopping Western Europe with Liquid Natural Gas, but it's possible that Western Europe will feel additional energy crunch and have to break away from US Sanctions.
I have tow big issues with this argument.
Firstly, an inevitable consequence of invading Ukraine is sactions that will disrupt oil and gas exports. This is Russia's biggest export.
Second, if Ukraine joins the EU (which is a big if), I haven't seen a compelling argument why this would hurt Russia's interests. Most notably, as an EU member,U Ukraine would lose a certain amount of autonomy to negotiate thing slike this. Do you think Ukraine as a future EU member could effectively cut off the gas supply to other EU members? I just don't see how that could happen.
It's possible that the EU's reliance on Russian oil and gas exports will weaken their resolve. I guess we'll see.
Dismantling Ukraine by solidifying the breakaway regions and installing a pro-Russia regime in the rump Ukraine in the near term, annexing at least the breakaway regions on the intermediate term.
But, the war is a loss. The actual goal of the escalation was to get much more operational freedom by capitalizing on years of efforts to exacerbate divisions within and between the Western Allies, the establishment of propaganda conduits within them, etc., to get NATO to fail to hold together, crack, and fold, either abandoning or simply failing to adequately reassure it's Eastern flank, and leaving many of the existing NATO countries in the shadow of arbitrary Russian threat and influence.
Propaganda support for Brexit was part of that. Support for separatist efforts in Catalonia (and, though with less effect, California) was part of that. Support for various political factions in the US (notably the right and Republican Party, including the financing and influence channel developed through the NRA, but also propaganda support for—not, in most cases, collusion with—ideologically opposed groups, like the candidacy of Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, as well as a bunch of divisive non-candidate groups of various types) was part of it. That was the prep work.
> They can't expect to occupy Ukraine
Who's going to stop them? No one in the US – Biden won't go to war over it, and 3/4 of the Republicans will listen to Trump and believe that this is an admirable move by Putin.
-DJT, yesterday
To think of all the ops from the MIC that have been running out of Ukraine since the Obama years might just go up in smoke… good way to get rid of a pay-per trail if you ask me…
A much more interesting topic is how anything can be done to help those in need escape war, provide for their families, reduce casualties, or push for de-escalation.
He has also said any foreign military that attempts to intervene in this Russia-Ukraine conflict is going to be facing nukes.
So we’re either going to watch a genocide & invasion happen in real time & do nothing meaningful about it, or we’re going to be possibly headed towards a world war if we do decide to do something meaningful about it.
Quite the sticky situation, eh
I partially ask "why?!" plaintively, because this is senseless. But I do also want to understand the... rationalization ("logic" is the wrong word) behind this action so I can be better informed, and I guess form some predictions about what might happen next, and maybe even get an idea about when this might end (?) :(
To be clear, I already don't agree with what's going on, this is not how to solve disputes and disagreements (especially when the attacker has nuclear capability). I'm just looking for facts and positions on the countries involved here - something something editorialization and signal-to-noise ratio.
The one mildly good thing I can think of right now is that the general commoditization of technology (TV, radio, phone, internet) hopefully means lot of people are aware of what's going on and, also hopefully, able to take decisive action and even collaborate and work together. Hopefully Ukraine prioritizes reinforcing the cell network :/. And if this is all-out war then hopefully extraordinary maneuvers are acceptable and supported to help innocent people stay far away from the line of fire. This doesn't feel like when the US occupied Afghanistan :(
Neither imperialist conquest nor the manufacturing of external crisis and conflict as an attempt to rally domestic support behind a leader are senseless; they both have internal logic and a whole lot of historic precedent of usefulness to the faction pursuing them.
And I speculate that he might have genuine fears for his life if he's removed from power. Some of the oligarchs are not nice people, and they have lots of power and long memories.
All the rest is just BS rationalizations designed to provide the flimsiest attempt at a justification for what he's decided to do to stay in power.
(Anyone else notice that the way he provides "historic justifications" for what he's doing sounds a lot like the way Hitler gave historical smokescreens for why he had to attack Russia?)
When's it going to end? When Putin decides it's enough. Either that he's taken enough territory (which may be all), or he's forced the fall of the government in Ukraine and installed a puppet that will turn them toward Russia, or he's taken too many casualties, or the economic sanctions are biting too hard.
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
I had forgotten because it was so long ago, but the tl;dr is Feb 22nd 2014.
Russia by nature feels insecure about her borders, and always has. There's a long history of invasion that has left a trauma to this day. The one thing that Russia fears more than anything else is encirclement.
To this end they have over the centuries embarked on numerous territorial expansions and treaties to create buffer zones between themselves and potential enemies, the most recent of which was the USSR (which proved too costly to maintain).
When the Russians couldn't keep their "union" going, they entered into negotiations with Western powers about what would happen with these now-free states. This is where things get a little murky, because the Russians insist that they'd received assurances that NATO would not expand into former Soviet states, whereas the West emphatically maintains that no such assurances were given. The higher ups in the Kremlin firmly believe that the West broke its word, and is thus untrustworthy.
As NATO expanded further and further Eastward, Russia's insecurities intensified, and the Ukraine was considered to be the last bastion of resistance to encirclement. This is why Russia has spent the past decade meddling in Ukrainian affairs, and why they've stepped up meddling in American politics (Trump is an isolationist and nationalist, which is why Russia favored him).
As to what triggered this latest move, that's anyone's guess. Maybe they got some intel that the Ukraine really was going to gain full NATO membership. Maybe not, and they just got a little too worried about it... We'll probably never know. But either way, this current invasion is a drastic effort to keep the Ukraine out of any military alliances with the West.
READ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
In 2014, Prime Minister of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, led his government to reject a deal to put Ukraine on a path to EU and NATO membership.
This immediately let to the Euromaiden protests, the Ukrainian Revolution, and attacks on ethnic Russians within Ukraine. leading to the divisions internally between the Donbas region and the rest of the country.
Crimea, which was part of Ukraine but ethnically Russian, was taken by Russia at this time. Look on a map for Crimea and the Sea of Azov, and you will see why this was so easy to accomplish.
The parties within Ukraine agreed to stop fighting and the resolution was the Minsk Protocol. The Minsk Agreements were immediately violated by both sides. Both sides were brought back to the table to draft another cease-fire agreement, known as Minsk 2.
The second Minsk Accords were also immediately violated and people have been dying in that area ever since.
The real question is: Why did the UN never move to stop these killings? Why is the West focused on Russia instead of the problem that has been at their doorstep for literally eight years now.
People in Eastern Ukraine have been dying every month for eight years. The opportunity for diplomacy has been rotting on the vine for eight years.
The borders of Ukraine were created during Soviet times by the U.S.S.R., not by the people of Ukraine. The Post-Soviet countries of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia similarly suffered from borders that forced people who speak different languages and come from different cultures to live together.
Yugoslavia fought a bloody and costly internal war over this before separating into multiple countries. Czechoslovakia fared somewhat better before it split into multiple countries.
Ukraine is now splitting into multiple countries. The UN for eight years did nothing to enforce the Minsk Accords to stop the fighting and allow that to happen peacefully, so Russia decided enough is enough.
Ukraine is not "splitting" into anything. It's being murdered. By Putin and Putin's Russia.
This is what politicians do for a living. I don't understand your outrage.
Seems a concession, if not directive, to Russia to invade Ukraine.
A lot of people in threads a few days ago like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335610 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30405782 were terribly wrong. This wasn't just Russia's annual war games in the region. This wasn't the US and media pushing for a war. If anything, this was the US declassifying things in real time to tell the world what was happening to prevent war.
Make no mistake, they were absolutely pushing for war.
Now, if you want to say actively undermining the effort at deterrence is pushing for war, sure, they were pushing for war, but...
Heck, you still have dragonwriter elsewhere in this discussion connecting this war with Brexit, Trump, and even Catalonian separatism. Catalonian separatists will be amused to hear that they are all Russian stooges, or something.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30057769
[0] https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1496695058850107400
I have initiated a call today with the president of the Russian Federation. The result - silence. Although silence should be in Donbass.
That is why today, I want to come with an appeal to all citizens of Russia. Not as President. I am appealing to the people of Russia as a citizen of Ukraine. We share more than two thousand kilometres of border. Around it, today, is your army: almost 200,000 soldiers; thousands of military units. Your leadership has approved their movement towards us. Towards the territory of another country. This step can become the start of a big war on the European continent. The whole world is talking about what can happen any day now. A reason can appear at any moment. Any provocation. Any spark. A spark that has the potential of burning everything down.
You are told that this flame will bring freedom to the people of Ukraine. But the people of Ukraine are free. They remember their past, and are building their own future. They are building it, not destroying it, as you are told everyday on TV. Ukraine in your news and Ukraine in reality are two completely different countries. The most important difference is that ours is real.
You are being told that we are nazis. But how can a nation be called nazist after sacrificing more than 8 million lives to eradicate nazism. How can I be a nazi, when my grandfather has survived the whole war as part of the Soviet infantry, and has died a colonel in an independent Ukraine. You are told that we hate Russian culture. But how can a culture be hated? Any culture. Neighbours are always enriching each other culturally. Yet, that does not make them one entity, and does not separate people into “us” and “them”. We are different, but that is not a reason to be enemies. We want to build our own history. Peacefully, calmly, and truthfully.
You are told that I am ordering to attack the Donbass. To shoot. To bomb without questions. Although there are questions: To shoot at whom? To bomb what?
Donetsk? To which I have been dozens of times. I have seen their faces and eyes.
Artema street? On which I have been on many walks with my friends in the past.
Donbass arena? Where I have been rooting with the locals for our boys during the Euros.
Shcherbakova Park? In which we were drinking together after our team has lost
Lugansk? The home of my best friend’s mom. The place where my best friend’s father is buried.
Note that I am now speaking in Russian, yet no one in Russia understands what these names, streets, and events mean. This is all foreign to you. Unknown. This is our land. This is our history. What are you going to fight for? And against whom?
Many of you have visited Ukraine in the past. Many of you have relatives here. Some of you studied in our universities. Befriended Ukrainian people. You’re familiar with our character, with our people, our principles. You know what we cherish the most. Look inside you, listen to the voice of reason, of common sense. Hear our voices. The people of Ukraine want peace. Ukrainian authorities want peace. We want it, and we make it. We do everything in our powers. We are not alone. It’s true, Ukraine is supported by many countries. Why? Because we are not talking about peace at any cost. We are talking about peace, and about principles, justice. About everyone’s right to define their own future, of safety, and everyone’s right to live without threat. All this is important to us. All this is important for peace. I know for sure that this is also important for you. We know for sure that we don’t want war. Neither cold, hot, or hybrid.
But, if we are threatened; If someone is trying to take away our country, our freedom, our lives. The lives of our children. We are going to defend ourselves. Not attack. Defend. By attacking us, you are going to see our faces. Not backs. Our faces.
War is a big distress, and it has a big price - in all meanings of this word. People lose their money, reputation, quality of life, freedom, and most importantl...