xzar_monty

But surely this can't be a quick solution. It's going to take quite some time for this to have an effect, should he choose to take this route. I actually don't know about this stuff, but I'm fairly sure mobilization doesn't work fast -- it'll be a matter of months. @Zoraptor can probably shed some light on this.

I agree. But in my view, that's not a discussion worth considering or essentially even talking about (and again, I'm contradicting myself by saying this). Discussion at that level has always existed, but social media has brought it to the fore and in a "printed" format, whereas it used to be just babble in pubs and locker rooms and whatnot. The fact that it's out there and sort of "written down" tends to give it a veneer of, I don't know, something worth attending to, but clearly almost none of it is worth anything. It's quite a shame that respectable media and all that babble exists sort of side by side on the internet, which can also render them an illusion of equal weight, or something, which of course is not true. (And I'm not saying that all the "respecatble media" coverage is good -- of course it's not, and it never has been.) Yeah, you knew all this already, so apologies for stating the obvious.

No, although of course that doesn't help. Let's start with the fact that Boris Johnson is an inveterate liar who is not to be trusted with anything. Once you have someone like that as prime minister, the credibility of your government is very seriously undermined. The UK government has made a pretty decent response in many respects, but given what it's up against, that was essentially the least anyone could expect. In my view, it has been quite some time since the UK had good leadership. To witness Boris Johnson in his element, flippantly denying the reality around him, just watch this very short clip. It's horrifying.

There's this, but then there's the fact that the day is huge in Russia, and there's this tremendous build-up for it. So, the journalist in me is inclined to say that it's going to be interesting -- because you can use that word to signify pretty much anything.

I don't have much respect for the current UK government(*) and I'm also a fan of carnivalization, but I can't really apply it to situations where civilians are actually raped, killed and so on. I've worked for about a year in an orthopedic hospital where they brought (mostly) children from the former Yugoslavia, mostly children with zero to three limbs left, and after experiences like that, wholesale slaughter tends to lose its funny side. I heartily recommend something similar to you as well! (Not the slaughter, but the experience of dedicating your time and effort to helping others.) As for Sky Sports, I understand the first requirement is a PhD in Wafflology. (*) But then I don't see much point in focusing on it, either.

My take is the same as my take on transfer rumours in football (soccer, for those who wish to have it that way), i.e. let's see what has happened once May 9 (or transfer deadline day) is over.

Why?

I am somewhat puzzled by this, so could you perhaps clarify? There is a clear criticism implied here ("not properly"), but what exactly would you want the game to do? In my view, one of the most interesting things about RPGs is that your choices matter, so you may find that something becomes either available or unavailable because of a choice you have made somewhere along the way. But, and here's we may differ considerably, I would certainly not want the game to tell me this beforehand. What would be the point? If the game gives me two choices, I want to choose on the basis of the character I am playing, not on the basis of what the game tells me the choices will do.

I listened to a lecture by a former intelligence officer on where Russia and Ukraine have succeeded and failed so far. While the failures of Russia are fairly evident ("nearly everything"), this officer pointed out an interesting Ukrainian failure. Zelenskyi & co failed to strengthen their military positions and prepare adequately before the war started, because they wanted to avoid provoking Russians. But as the officer pointed out, "not provoking Russians is impossible, so this was a big failure from Ukraine. If all else fails, Russia will simply fabricate a cause for war." As people interested in military history will remember, the Winter War did indeed start from a Russian fabrication, an event called the Shelling of Mainila. So I would agree that Ukraine was naive in this regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila Also, on a different topic, it was interesting to read on how various countries have come to Ukraine's aid. Inside the EU, it was particularly interesting to see some numbers concerning countries furthest away from the war. For example, Portugal has assisted Ukraine ten times more (per capita) than Spain has. I have no idea as to why this may be, but the difference is interesting. Both of them have given less than peanuts per capita compared to countries like Estonia, and while this difference is easy to explain, the difference between Portugal and Spain is not, especially if you know as little about those countries' internal politics as I do. (From among the countries mentioned in the list I saw, Spain was one of the worst helpers.)

@kanisatha: Very interesting articles, thanks a lot!

Good luck to anyone wanting to hit that A5.

Agreed. For me, the most interesting thing is Lavrov's future, although I don't think that's going to change much, either. Given that it's Lavrov, I doubt he'll be looking at seven rounds of strappado followed by a good ol' czarist abacination. A lesser henchman would almost certainly be in serious trouble. @pmp10: Fair point, although "I see absolutely no purpose or advantage to it" can be applied to a lot of decisions made by Russia(ns) recently. And therein lies another point: as a lot of commentators, both political and otherwise, have pointed out at least here in the north of Europe, Russia's actions don't necessarily stem from the kind of motivations we regard as purposeful or advantageous. (I've seen plenty of actions that I can't regard as reasonable from any motivations, but I'm not entirely sure about this one.)

Derealization is a different thing and doesn't apply here, although it sounds like it could. The closest I can think of is the classic "folie à deux" (which can involve more than two people and here certainly does) and its sub-category of "folie imposée" (with Putin being the inducer). I say "closest" because I don't think we can go so far as do describe this as outright psychotic behaviour, but it most certainly is irrational and irreal. As for your word "seem": it would indeed be interesting to know whether a) they themselves believe in this stuff or b) they are knowingly deceptive and just want other people to believe them.

I think here we see another example of how Putin's strategic gamble has completely failed, so far: Europe has rarely been more united than it is now, and it's happened in the past two+ months and it's against Russia. Yes, I know the conflict is not over, hence the "so far".

Wow! I hadn't seen that Azov thing. Zakharova, Lavrov and Peskov are all completely out there. Their claims and lies are so outrageous that it really does beggar belief. Some of it, such as that borscht claim, beggar belief simply in the sense that it's almost impossible to believe how anyone could come up with anything that stupid. (I know and love borscht, btw.) I don't know who it was that came up with the idea of going to the UN and making noise about the "humanitarian crisis" in Ukraine while completely ignoring the fact that it was this very same country that created this "humanitarian crisis" (also known as war) in the first place. At the international level, I can think of very few statements as callous and insulting as that. Worse deeds, sure, but statements that disregard reality and insult others to a similar extent? Hard to think of. Even the Russian foreign minister's words at the beginning of the Afganistan war in the 1970s were more truthful.

Israel is really a special case, and I wonder what they're doing now. They are particularly good at covert operations, and they are also a party that is not entirely trustworthy; indeed, one of the revelations that came to light with Snowden's leaks was the fact that while Israel was very keen to receive all it could gathered by the US intelligence, it was not keen at all to reciprocate -- which was duly noted by the US, and not in a happy way. And all of this was long after Israel's shady dealings in the Pollard case had come to light.

Sure. There's nothing to argue with in here, all of this is certainly true. It's still interesting to note that there was this massive(-looking) change, and it would be interesting to know whether there was a conscious policy decision behind it. That was more what I was getting at. Like: we couldn't bring down the country, now let's kill them all. As for what you say about venting, there's a potential but never-to-be-conducted psychophysical study project right here: how does the human organism tend to respond to war. I'm almost certain we can all agree that war is exceedingly likely to increase the production of various hormones, such as adrenaline, basically like nothing else can. In a war environment, the production of all this life-or-death stuff goes on lot longer than it ever has in the evolutionary history of the species (where these situations were instantaneous or almost instantaenous encounters with various natural baddies[*]). This sustained hormonal arousal can, in turn, quite possibly lead to what you describe as venting in quite horrifyng ways; indeed, I have read accounts of soldiers being extremely shocked by not what they have witnessed but what they themselves have done, to the extent that it leads to outright denial or that harrowing experience of "I can't live with what I've done". Some of this awfulness can be witnessed in other primates, too, such as chimps, whose group disputes can be gorier than a week at the slaughterhouse. [*] On a related note: As Sapolsky, among others, has noted: short-term stress and outright panic is completely harmless, the human body is extremely well-equipped to discharge it, whereas chronic psyhophysical stress, essentially non-existent for much of our evolutionary history, can be debilitating, even if it doesn't feel that terrible in any given moment (whereas panic most certainly does).

Hmm, if the Russian media is really talking about black magic, then it appears to have gone back to the middle ages, or something. Does it expect people inside Russia to take this stuff seriously? Well, of course the answer must be "Yes".

This is probably fair. Doesn't the fact that the US offered an escape route to Zelenskyi sort of point to a similar assessment? Btw, if your analysis on the initial strategy is correct, then that begs the question of where it all turned into a genocidal-seeming bloodbath, and how, and why. Doesn't it?

FYI, here's another example of Russia's barking-mad rhetoric: Maria Zakharova (so not just any Russian but a proper spokeswoman from on high) once again warns Sweden and Finland against joining NATO. Her claims are untrue to a hilarious extent, as she proposes that this is all a US / Brussels ploy that these two poor countries are falling for, not decisions made by these two countries themselves. This, incidentally, is one reason why negotiations appear almost entirely futile now: the lies(*) are so outrageous that there is no shared reality. https://tass.com/world/1440259 (*) "We have not attacked Ukraine", etc.

In Putin's case, the potential mental problems caused by the isolation are exacerbated by the fact that given the kind of leader he is and the kind of country he's leading, he has every real reason to be apprehensive to the point of being paranoid (about other people, about food, etc.). Over two years of almost total isolation in an apprehensive state of mind won't do anyone any good. Putin's overlong reign is also unlikely to have done him any good. There are many political reasons why term limits are a good thing, as are limits on power. But there are also psychological reasons. Putin has had very few limits and an overlong tenure, which is a bad combination in all sorts of ways. However, from this it doesn't necessarily follow that he has become seriously unhinged. This would have to be determined by more direct means, and that is obviously not going to be very probable. This is almost certainly the reason why the US, for instance, has refrained from making official statements about his state of mind (in a medical sense). Also, statements such as that wouldn't do any good, even if they were based on proper medical consultation.

Yesterday, Russia promised a three-day ceasefire in Azovstal so that civilians can escape. Today, Russia has already violated it by starting a new attack, and heavy fighting is going on. Provided that both of these reports are true (I have read them from various sources that I regard as fairly credible), that went precisely in the way that could have been predicted.

Well we are, to an extent, speaking of different things that don't rule each other out.

I admire your persistence but I don't think it'll pay off. That Newsweek article about Russia not doing all it can to destroy Ukraine is true: Russia is not in the process of nuking Ukraine, for example, nor has it committed to wholesale Dresden-style bombing. However, given what happened in Bucha and the fact that Putin gave awards / medals to precisely those troops responsible for the Bucha atrocities makes this point moot. Russia's policy is rape, pillage and destruction, these things will be awarded and there is no regard or respect for anything. Russian soldiers, with their faces covered, are gang-raping Ukrainian girls and women and forcing their families and relatives to witness it. This is what is happening right now, and this same country is committing airspace violation crimes against sovereign countries pursuing their own defensive interests, insisting that other countries' business is also its own business. This same country has established phone numbers and email addresses(*) in some of its embassies and encouraged its citizens to report commentary and behaviour that can be regarded as antagonistic to Russia's interests, which, to anyone who has looked at very recent history, looks like building ground for future military operations in ostensibly hostile countries. This same country is currently reporting on my country in a manner which would look amusing in a comedy show but which looks unbelievably stupid and childish in reality. This same country started a war, and once this action received condemnation, it went on and labelled dozens of countries as hostile to Russia, which has to be some kind of record in being both stupid and puerile. Calling all this pure and absolute madness is, in my view, completely justified, not in a mental health sense but in the sense where actions cruel enough or out of proportion enough are generally described as madness. Russia's comments on Jews, Swedish nazis etc. also qualify as madness in this sense. And many of these comments don't come from any old Russian, they come from on high, from people like Lavrov. The claim that Russia is not going all in is true. But when you go to Bucha and see someone who has been both raped and murdered, you don't say "Well at least the perpetrator didn't jump up and down on her ribcage, as it's perfectly intact", even if it is true. (*) This was not an intelligent move. According to the reports I have read, these email addresses received more input than they could handle. Well, I suppose anyone should have seen that, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could disagree.

Here's an interesting take on the rather horrifying religious side of this. I've read a better article but it's behind a paywall and not in a language folks here will be able to read. https://catholicherald.co.uk/russian-nuclear-orthodoxy/?fbclid=IwAR1RRTRZUG44qTXKSQ6R1vV8MdQerk1s484ARNH29pWbOzYsPcWZCKsd5Js