xzar_monty

Speaking of the cruel treatment of Russian prisoners of war: a Ukrainian representative has said that if it turns out everything is true, it will be dealt with, as it is not acceptable. Note the huge cultural difference to Russia: Russia will not admit to anything, and it lies about everything. In my estimate, it would be unheard of for Russia to acknowledge that a) their men might have done something wrong and that b) if so, they will be dealt with. After all, Lavrov still maintains the lie that Russia has not attacked Ukraine.

It's very bad (didn't watch it and don't intend to) but these are people who have unlawfully attacked a sovereign country and whose mission is to kill both soldiers and civilians. It's not as if anyone has entered Russian soil with similar intentions.

Contrast this with the idea (expressed here, too) that Russia is trying to avoid civilian casualties, and things don't add up neatly at all. Speaking of contrasts, I think it's psychologically both fascinating and terrifying that Russia is both an extremely cruel aggressor and the most childish whiner you've ever seen. Just look at Kreml's / Lavrov's / Putin's comments on how the naughty west is not being kind to them at all.

This is particularly true in the military and other jobs that pertain to life and death situations (firefighters, lifeguards, etc.). The standards should absolutely be the same for everyone.

Just the other day, in Moscow, on a stadium, Vladimir Putin was ranting against the evils of the West, dressed in extremely expensive Western clothing. So there you have it.

This is extremely interesting, by the way. Read the recent comments from anyone at Kreml. Lavrov, whomever. There's this paradox: at the level of actions, Russia is an aggressor. But at the level of words, Russia whines more than anyone in international politics. It's astonishing. It's nothing but moaning and whining, with the occasional threat thrown in. Also, note how Russia says that NATO is out to get it. But actually, even Russia itself doesn't believe it. Russia's western front is effectively empty now. Because Russia knows that NATO has no intention to attack.

I agree it's not likely. Romania, for example, had the comparative advantage that its communist repression had not lasted that long. Russia has been extremely authoritarian and particularly oppressive for over a thousand years, with only about two brief periods of something resembling an attempt at democracy. Interestingly, some of the earliest references to (future) Russians mention that these people a) can't be trusted and b) don't even trust each other. We shouldn't read too much into that, but it's interesting nevertheless. (More info in Peter Frankopan's book The Silk Roads.)

I don't think it makes much sense to speculate. But yeah, anyone following the war will probably speculate at least a little. People's uprising in Russia is a possibility. It's also possible that Putin slips on a soap in a particularly Russian manner. It's impossible to say how likely these scenarios are.

Precisely. It becomes harder and harder to envisage a scenario where he could back down (in any sense) in a way that enables him to save face (in his own view). That's quite concerning.

I am not going to go that far, but you might enjoy this: the Russian patriarch Kirill created quite a furore after he was seen wearing an extremely expensive luxury watch. So, the watch was airbrushed out of the photo... but its reflection on the table was not. Like, how amateurish can you get in your attempt to cheat? More here, including both photos: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/in-russia-a-watch-vanishes-up-orthodox-leaders-sleeve.html

But given the state of democracy in Sweden, the blame does not lie entirely on the politicians. After all, all of them were voted in, and the elections were fair. I am not trying to be clever or cruel, by the way.

This is a rather abrupt change from Sweden's very recent military policy, which essentially didn't exist. Good for Sweden, though. A Swedish friend of mine pointed out that Sweden has been extraordinarily naive in military (and some other) matters. At least part of it is probably due to the fact that for Sweden, WW2 was not a war but a business opportunity: no fighting, but an awful lot of iron sold to the nazis for extremely good money. This helped create a culture of complacency.

They are forced to attack their neighbours, with whom many of them have close ties. Low morale is extremely understandable. The paradox related to this is that civil wars, i.e. when countries attack their own, are notoriously vicious.

In a way, you do have a point, but that's not all there is to it. For instance, when the Soviet Union attacked Finland in 1939, Christopher Lee (of Saruman and Dracula fame) was one of the people who went to Finland and tried to get to the front. They were kept away from the fighting and sent home after about two weeks, probably for a good reason. It's not as if they knew what they were doing. You can read about this in his autobiography.

This is a fascinating and terrifying point by the way. Mariupol is the city that has been shelled the most. According to its most recent census, 44% of the population are ethnic Russians. This reveals an attitude: Putin is neither concerned about getting his own people killed (i.e. soldiers doing strategically foolish things), nor about killing his own people (see above).

Snowden has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, which means that there is no chance he will get what is called a fair trial in the US. This is something that a lot of people don't appear to know (for more information, you can google "snowden fair trial espionage act" or something). Please note that I am not saying anything about what might happen. Just that there is no way he would be able to defend himself as people generally are when they are charged of a crime. (Some years ago I did quite a bit of work related to the Snowden case and, for instance, Glenn Greenwald's handling of it. It was both extremely interesting and hair-raising.)

I also bought it, just to support this genre (my favourite). Don't know when I'm going to give it a go, though.

This one is coming out today. It will be interesting to see whether it amounts to anything good and worthwhile. I very much hope so.

To demonstrate how right you are and how odd things can be, here's a follow-up: the game seemed to get even slower, although not by much, until all of a sudden the mouse froze. And not only within the game, either, but totally. That's strange, I thought. So, I went and unplugged my (wireless) mouse's connector from the computer, waited a bit and put it back. The mouse worked again, and the game looked significantly faster again. There must have been something resembling a memory leak somewhere.

I wonder if we can put ANY HOPE AT ALL in the fact that the majority of Russian leaders behind this war are former KGB men in their very late 60s and that there's at least the possibility of a newer generation coming through fairly soon. Let us keep in mind that Russia has handled its affairs so remarkably well that life expectancy there is significantly shorther than in many other places.

It's not as if the current events in Ukraine make sense, either. I am unsure as to what the next target countries might be, but I also think that if the Ukraine war ends in a way that Russia considers to be a military victory, the probability of Russia continuing its attacks will be 100%.

My knowledge of military affairs is pitiful at best, so I probably shouldn't comment at all, but I wonder how easy it is to carry out a surprise attack in today's world, given NATO's forthcoming endless vigilance towards Russia.

Incidentally, an otherwise not entirely convincing historian once pointed out that 1945 was the year when the world lost a kind of innocence: up until that point, it was not possible for "one bungling idiot" to do that much irreversible damage. But then, it all changed.

Russia has never had any qualms when it comes to slaughtering its own citizens. After all, the most important Russian of the 20th century earned his reputation by describing a whole gulag archipelago dedicated to precisely this. Unfortunately, my knowledge of history is not what it should be, and so I cannot comment on how unique (or not) Russia is in this respect.

This seems to be the crux of the matter. The only thing keeping "the West" from launching a full-scale counter-attack and demolishing the Russian troops is the threat of nuclear war. When you look at the possible permutations of how that might go, it doesn't really matter which way it does, because they are all quite rotten. So, the question is: can a nuclear power do anything it wants to its weaker neighbours? The answer, unfortunately, would seem to be yes.