article went up on 26th. Invasion started on 24th. There is a good chance that it was actually supposed to start at 22nd but got delayed (all putin speeches were recorded at 21st).
Also there is political "clown" called Zhirinovsky, who somehow always says stuff that happens later. In speech that he gave in december he said that on February 22 at 4am Russia will become great again and world will change forever.
When i saw this speach two weeks ago i knew that shit will hit the fan.
Or it does reveal that Putin has no intention to have a war. Only wants Ukraine to surrender and sign something that says they will be neutral in the future and not join NATO
> Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia
> Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world.
> This is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world
The whole pamphlet makes me want to vomit. But still ~nice~ (no, totally wrong connotation)... revealing(?) to get some more insight into the... whatever one should call that kind of thinking.
It's literally what a bunch of population really believe in. i been couch surfing livejournal (which is mostly russian those days). it's real believe and desire of many russian people. right now a bunch of them saying "he made a right call, we need to go all the way through it, and sanctions will make us stronger and independent".
and no, it's not trolls for hire. it's people that been posting this kind of stuff for 15 years
Just had a call with a colleague with Russian passport. Essentially: Yes. He described as people he knew being essentially manipulated and outright brainwashed into believing that shit since. With the efforts going on for well over a decade now. The whole "foreign agent" method to squash the remaining opposition is really just the tip of the iceberg.
was just talking with my coworker who recently moved from russia to states because he wanted to save his family from russian reality. he spent last few days talking with his friends and family "back there". he says that most of them totally brainwashed, say that everything that west shows about ukraine it's fake and propoganda. total misunderstanding of the fact that russian economy pretty much ended over the weekend. sure that everything is good and they "liberate republics for neo-nazi junta".
I can imagine, that's got to be absolutely terrible.
Long ago I had a similar situation with the parents of my partner who were in a completely different reality, 'their main tactic was head down and ignore it all, be grateful that you are alive and shut up'.
If I would have read something like that for the first time, I think I would have felt merely uncomfortable and puzzled, like "they're either kidding or insane". But 90 years ago my country essentially redefined the meaning of the word "atrocity". And when we disseminated those decades in our history lessons, we read some of the speeches given back then. The topics are a bit adapted to Russia, its history and the modern geopolitical environment; but the rhetoric, logic and tone is essentially the same. This is what makes me feel sick.
The fact that it makes you feel sick is a good thing: it means that you haven't lost your humanity. And this is the really dangerous thing right now: the fact that many people are starting to see 'Russians' and not 'Russia/Putin' as the problem. Obviously Russians have some agency, but not to the degree that many think they do. They could do a lot more, but for people who have not lived under the jackboot of a dictator for the whole of their lives this may seem a bit simpler and less dangerous than it really is.
Even so: the only real change can come from within Russia.
Note that NATO encirclement wasn't a motivation at all or a minor one at best.
The Kremlins true motivation is to create a Greater Russia. Russia will not allow for an independent Ukraine. This is consistent with Putins speech before the invasion on how Ukraine isn't really a country.
Ukrainians understand this and that's why they are begging to join NATO. They are not trying to unnecessarily provoke Russia, but they already understand that Russia is an existential threat to them now.
Some argued before that Ukraine should become a neutral buffer state, but that is simply not an option with the current Russian ambitions.
That's my interpretation as well. As I said elsewhere, I recall the last maniac to promise a "Greater $nation" in Europe did cause an immeasurable amount of suffering while trying to establish what was basically an empire built on lies and deception. It's difficult to believe that in this iteration the aggressor might be "saturated" after invading the first country and everyone lives happily ever after. (sry for the /s in the end, but it makes the thought more bearable).
//Edit Appendix, historical background: I'm alluding to Nazi Germany that tried to "re"establish a mixture of the German Empire (which existed in one form or another for nearly a millennium from 962 to some time in the early 19th century) and the Roman Empire; hence the name "3rd Empire" and the aspiration for it to last another millennium. After invading Poland the popular opinion was that Hitler was "saturated" and would leave the rest of Europe alone (I tried to fact check this, but I can't easily find a reference; though I'm pretty sure that this was discussed in our history books - so take this with a grain of salt). I believe history shows how fatally wrong that assessment was. But maybe as a German I am just a tiny little bit sensitive regarding dictators assaulting their neighbors and claiming nationalistic BS.
Im not afraid of that at all. Looking at the Russian performance, they stand no chance against NATO, even without the US. The Russians barely have the logistics to invade Ukraine, let alone Europe.
It is clear from this that things have gone horribly awry for Russia. It seems that the expectation was that this would be a quick job with the West more or less shaking their fist.
The situation has devolved into near complete economic isolation for Russia with a West more united than ever and most of Russia's allies distancing them.
Plan A has failed. I do not know what the gains from any Plan B are (if there is one). I can't imagine they would be a net positive. Even in the most optimistic scenario I can't imagine this will be anything but a catastrophe for Russia.
> Even in the most optimistic scenario I can't imagine this will be anything but a catastrophe for Russia.
The danger now is that Putin may be irreversibly committed, backed into a corner. Doesn't matter that it was a situation of his own making--it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Ukrainians are rightly Russians as he claims, then what he's done is proven in spectacular fashion that Russian culture is capable of building a modern, progressive, and democratic national identity to which the population is willing to give their lives. That undeniably poses an existential crisis for the Russian regime and more generally it's entire historical political self-identity.
I know some people have argued that this is why Putin invaded in the first place. But I believe Putin, like most Russians, simply believed that the political culture was incapable of democracy. And most of the West strongly suspected that as well. IMO, Putin merely wanted to consolidate what he considered to be areas of natural cultural affinity, to Russia's geostrategic benefit, of course.
If Ukrainians continue to put up a good fight and maintain strategically significant control, the risk of a nuclear war increases. With Western weapons flowing into Ukraine, Putin might do something extreme as a scare tactic. I doubt there's much increased risk of a nuclear volley; if Putin did do the unthinkable, the West would almost certainly cease the flow of arms. But that still constitutes a nuclear war, leaving behind a far bleaker and far more unpredictable legacy.
I don’t know what the west would do but I can’t imagine they’d stop. I can’t imagine it would be as simple as, “they used a nuke, we all better go home”.
ukraine has metallurgical industry. it can use some scrap.
and whatever left in kinda good shape: they can learn from Israel about repurposing old soviet hardware in creative ways
From one side yes, from the other side in russia there is total blackout on information. News only about victories in LNR/DNR areas and that's it. They close media outlets that call it war and not "special operation". It's forbidden to publicize non-official information and amount of casualties not disclosed and classified.
It allows to have "mission accomplished" moment any time internally and be done with it. All what they need it's some kind of concession from Ukraine in order to show de-nazification/de-militarization that was promised
People keep saying that Putin is threatened by democracy in Ukraine, but I find it unconvincing. Democratic countries had no problem making friends with dictators - just think of America's former (and current) allies. Conversely, those same dictators had no problem cozying up to their democratic allies.
These talks of "being threatened by democracy/authoritarianism/whatever" usually sound pretty close to Orientalism or its mirror image.
After all, it would be a piss-poor dictator who can't turn its neighbor's political system into a self-serving rhetoric, whatever the system is.
I think from the western perspective we have this all wrong.
Russia only wants to annex the eastern parts of the country, and do to rest of Ukraine what the US and NATO did to Afghanistan and Iraq. With this perspective they're very much on track with what they want to accomplish.
Russia is going to leave most of western Ukraine in a power vacuum and instability and let the world deal with it.
It's telling that people are not calling for kicking Saudi Arabia off of SWIFT. Or explaining how NATO has been used to bully and attack weaker countries. Iraq comes to mind.
They were hoping for a nice buffer puppet state between them and NATO. It makes a lot of sense, and in Putin's position, it may well have been the call that would lead to the most peace in the future. Now... Not so much.
People unironically writing about "solution to Ukrainian question" invade Ukraine claiming it is "nazi". Truly, psychological projection is the best tool to understand someone's soul.
Russian state disinformation 101 is projecting whatever they're doing to the other side. They want to flood the Russian and weaker-minded western spheres with conflicting reports of the same thing, wearing them down into helpless cynicism. Because that's all they can hope rather than actually convince them of the total opposite.
It took 5 days to conquer the Netherlands in WW2 (and that was after bombing a major city). Two days for a country the size of Ukraine seems delusional. Did they really anticipate to be greeted as liberators?
> Did they really anticipate to be greeted as liberators?
In a nutshell, yes. They apparently believed their own bullshit, which is hard to grasp but that seems to be the case. More and more evidence of extremely unrealistic timetables and tons of under-estimations regarding supply lines and required resources are surfacing. Initially the theory was that this was part of some grand plan but more and more the picture that emerges is one of extreme optimism compounded by old materiel, demotivated troops and outright incompetence.
That doesn't mean that this is over, but it could have been a whole lot worse at this point in time. Unfortunately the future is still wide open.
There's a bit of a history of this; notably, the Germans really did seem to have extremely unrealistic expectations of progress vs the Soviet Union in WW2. At least in that case there was a lot of drinking their own koolaid going on; the anti-Soviet propaganda was so intense that the leadership started believing it.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 97.9 ms ] threadThey thought the war would last 2 days and prepared and article beforehand. The article reveals Putins ambition of creating a Greater Russia.
When i saw this speach two weeks ago i knew that shit will hit the fan.
> Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world.
> This is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world
The whole pamphlet makes me want to vomit. But still ~nice~ (no, totally wrong connotation)... revealing(?) to get some more insight into the... whatever one should call that kind of thinking.
dude is devastated
Long ago I had a similar situation with the parents of my partner who were in a completely different reality, 'their main tactic was head down and ignore it all, be grateful that you are alive and shut up'.
Even so: the only real change can come from within Russia.
The Kremlins true motivation is to create a Greater Russia. Russia will not allow for an independent Ukraine. This is consistent with Putins speech before the invasion on how Ukraine isn't really a country.
Ukrainians understand this and that's why they are begging to join NATO. They are not trying to unnecessarily provoke Russia, but they already understand that Russia is an existential threat to them now.
Some argued before that Ukraine should become a neutral buffer state, but that is simply not an option with the current Russian ambitions.
//Edit Appendix, historical background: I'm alluding to Nazi Germany that tried to "re"establish a mixture of the German Empire (which existed in one form or another for nearly a millennium from 962 to some time in the early 19th century) and the Roman Empire; hence the name "3rd Empire" and the aspiration for it to last another millennium. After invading Poland the popular opinion was that Hitler was "saturated" and would leave the rest of Europe alone (I tried to fact check this, but I can't easily find a reference; though I'm pretty sure that this was discussed in our history books - so take this with a grain of salt). I believe history shows how fatally wrong that assessment was. But maybe as a German I am just a tiny little bit sensitive regarding dictators assaulting their neighbors and claiming nationalistic BS.
The situation has devolved into near complete economic isolation for Russia with a West more united than ever and most of Russia's allies distancing them.
Plan A has failed. I do not know what the gains from any Plan B are (if there is one). I can't imagine they would be a net positive. Even in the most optimistic scenario I can't imagine this will be anything but a catastrophe for Russia.
The danger now is that Putin may be irreversibly committed, backed into a corner. Doesn't matter that it was a situation of his own making--it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Ukrainians are rightly Russians as he claims, then what he's done is proven in spectacular fashion that Russian culture is capable of building a modern, progressive, and democratic national identity to which the population is willing to give their lives. That undeniably poses an existential crisis for the Russian regime and more generally it's entire historical political self-identity.
I know some people have argued that this is why Putin invaded in the first place. But I believe Putin, like most Russians, simply believed that the political culture was incapable of democracy. And most of the West strongly suspected that as well. IMO, Putin merely wanted to consolidate what he considered to be areas of natural cultural affinity, to Russia's geostrategic benefit, of course.
1: https://t.me/uniannet/33675
I’m afraid that Putin can’t afford to lose face now that he’s started.
The west would not stop supplying arms, it would more likely ballistic missile all of Russia committed troops in Ukraine.
I suspect your reasoning isn't correct.
It allows to have "mission accomplished" moment any time internally and be done with it. All what they need it's some kind of concession from Ukraine in order to show de-nazification/de-militarization that was promised
These talks of "being threatened by democracy/authoritarianism/whatever" usually sound pretty close to Orientalism or its mirror image.
After all, it would be a piss-poor dictator who can't turn its neighbor's political system into a self-serving rhetoric, whatever the system is.
Russia only wants to annex the eastern parts of the country, and do to rest of Ukraine what the US and NATO did to Afghanistan and Iraq. With this perspective they're very much on track with what they want to accomplish.
Russia is going to leave most of western Ukraine in a power vacuum and instability and let the world deal with it.
In a nutshell, yes. They apparently believed their own bullshit, which is hard to grasp but that seems to be the case. More and more evidence of extremely unrealistic timetables and tons of under-estimations regarding supply lines and required resources are surfacing. Initially the theory was that this was part of some grand plan but more and more the picture that emerges is one of extreme optimism compounded by old materiel, demotivated troops and outright incompetence.
That doesn't mean that this is over, but it could have been a whole lot worse at this point in time. Unfortunately the future is still wide open.