Zoraptor

It could be, but doesn't really pass the smell test. Why would Russia even ask? They haven't even activated CSTO with Belarus. Checked and it's confirmed false, they were never asked for troops. It was also initially associated with a definitely false rumour that Syrian militia were going to be sent to Ukraine to help Russia. Probably both came from the same source which hoped to piggyback the Syrian rumour alongside the Khazak one; I'd bet pretty much anything that it's Turkish source since (1) the militia was meant to be from Raqqa, which is controlled by the US aligned Kurds and (2) Turkey hated the 'rumours' (not really rumours, very little doubt there) about them using Syrian mercenaries in Libya and Arsakh and (3) it amuses me to think of the typical Turkish nationalist reading 'Tengri news'. I wouldn't necessarily say that I would expect large scale defections now, but it's pretty much inevitable that there will have been some defections. Historically, a big chunk of the Ukrainian naval staff at Sevastopol defected in 2014 for example- including, rather embarrassingly, the newly appointed head of the Ukrainian navy and the previous acting head. More generally accusations of 5th Columns and Perfidy are extremely common in confused situations. Somewhat relatedly, I am rather nonplussed by the number of media comments talking about the Russians being behind schedule and bogged down. At the equivalent point of Gulf War 2 the US and friends were still struggling to take Umm Qasr, a couple of km inside Iraq with a population of 100k. I can't see any way there was an expectation to have taken Kiev or any other major city by this point, by anyone. I'd have said they were top end of expectations, not bottom.

The Ukrainians never took it back pretty much for sure*. As for what actually happened... who knows. I was surprised they even tried taking it permanently, but it seems to have worked and it seems that that is where the Russians in north Kiev are coming from. Other sources like the Brits have Russian land forces ~50km from Kiev still (which may be wrong too, who knows). *There's a rather weird video I saw from there yesterday morning of a random Ukrainian in a car asking some very confused Russian Paratroopers where the Russians had run away to, and there were no signs of the VDV troops being at all worried about imminent fighting. To be frank, that's probably psyops. "Run away from the Mongol Chechen horde or Chengghiz Han Ramzan Kadyrov will use your skull as a drinking vessel. Where are they? Well they're all over the place, you never know where they'll be: so you'd better run away wherever you are just to be safe, eh?" The Ukrainians have been asking for a summit for at least a day, I wouldn't take a press secretary saying there is going to be one at face value. Especially so when it's Pomarenko doing the translating/ interpretation, his connection with reality is pretty shaky. Believe it when both sides are saying it, not just one.

I guess the snarky answer is that they didn't win against the goat herders anyway. But really, any small country is going to have issues with the military because they're really expensive, especially if they're western style. If you have issues with the Czech military having a point imagine what it's like for New Zealand. Our combat airforce consists of 60 year old Orions/ Hercules with some antiship missiles bolted on. In terms of fighters we've got half a dozen spitfires and mustangs plus about a dozen kittyhawks, and a few decommed jets in private hands. Our armed forces literally only exist to bring aid to Tonga when there's a volcanic eruption, monitor fishing and do regional peacekeeping. While it's 100% fake- and has also been labelled at very least as a Ukrainian Su27 shooting down a Russian Su25 as well in different sources- probably the most pertinent thing is that you can't actually tell who is who anyway. It could just have easily been a Russian jet shooting down a Ukrainian one as the reverse. Yeah. There's a massive disconnect between what social media 'says', and what social media 'shows'. If you go by what it says Ukraine is if not actually winning inflicting massive casualties, they're standing their ground and counterattacking, morale is high and thousands are spontaneously taking up arms. If you go by what it shows the picture is nowhere near as rosy. The amount of stuff that is posted because people want it to be true is ridiculous, and a lot of it comes from people who ought to know better (not singling out anyone here for that, it's mostly aimed at reporters and analysts posting every random claim as fact). A lot of people especially on twitter seem to think that posting complete rubbish is good for Ukrainian morale. It isn't, the average Ukrainian couldn't care less and certainly isn't glued to their phone waiting for the latest from [at]keyboardwarrior69420 before picking up their AK and leaping into the fight after seeing a dozen imaginary Russians gunned down in ARMA3. Most of it is a masturbatory or commercial search for more follows by saying what people want to hear, along with a solid dollop of deliberate misinformation. (if anyone wants the prime example look up Ghost of Kiev. Completely made up by someone wanting to sell merchandise, repeated as fact all over the place because people want a Ukrainian pilot to have shot down 6 Russian planes)

It's a good game and well worth a purchase for anyone who hasn't played it.

Looks like Ukraine never actually recaptured Hostomel airport. You can send troops, NATO membership doesn't completely override foreign policy- they just wouldn't be covered by NATO Article 5 (ie 'collective defence'). The Russians knew they could bomb Turkish soldiers in Syria without danger from NATO for the same reason; they were combatants outside Turkey in the interests of Turkey and not in the service of the UN or NATO.

Yeah, that's a very big and very sustained fireball for a Su-27, though it's definitely distorted perception wise by it being night and presumably illuminating its own smoke. OTOH, it being a tanker would be ludicrous, in terms of tactics. Edit: It's definitely a Ukrainian Su-27, there's some fuselage wreckage and it's Ukrainian colours.

Fog of war in full effect. Russian bomber --> Cruise missile 10 minutes later --> now Ukraine has accidentally shot down one of their own planes. For what it's worth the photo associated with it is almost certainly debris from a Kalibr cruise missile engine, but there also seems to be footage of flares being deployed which a Kalibr wouldn't do... so yeah. Has to be said, just about every photo of a destroyed vehicle is being labelled as Russian, often when it demonstrably isn't. eg: Only two things wrong. (1) That isn't a T-72, it's a BMP (and it's really obvious given there's a BTR next to it for scale, and you can see the tiny turret/ gun to the side of the wreck) and (2) you can tell from the camo it's Ukrainian, not Russian. You'd hope it also wasn't destroyed by a Javelin, given the last fact.

Apparently it's very widespread, enough that Reuters specifically fact checked it, it turns out. (In terms of fact check it's probably more than just 'miscaptioning', at least for whoever used it first. Most of the subsequent ones will be people repeating something incorrect and not knowing better, but the first use must have been deliberate)

Yeah. The US definitely penetrated SWIFT, and Russia stole all the CIA's hacking tools and documentation. That almost certainly involved SWIFT and other relevant things like Intel's Management Engine. A hacked SWIFT with Russia and China not using it would be a disastrous own goal. Only 50%? I've seen at least 3 separate people claiming footage of something as well known as the Tianjin explosion was in Ukraine. Can't trust almost anything, especially when they are both using similar and in some cases the same equipment. The Kamov shoot down seems genuine, since Ukraine has none of those unless they inherited a prototype or something. Are those destroyed BMPs Russian or Ukrainian though? Is it footage from Slavyansk in 2014? Can't tell, unless you're willing to invest way too much time in it. Yes, it's delayed. Yes, it is. If nothing else Russia doesn't operate T-62s or T-55s any more, while Syria still has heaps. Drones are pretty much useless without air superiority. You don't even have to shoot them down, the wake of a jet will bring most of them down. Should also be noted that despite all the Turkish footage put out in Syria they achieved none of their stated goals of reversing Syrian army gains, and actually lost the strategically critical Saraqib despite the drones. I'd be skeptical of them being attempts to permanently seize airports at this point. Send in special forces, blow up planes, SAMs, radars and other infrastructure, leave. A lot more effective if you want things done quickly and effectively than bombing etc. The cruise missile only attack by the US on Shayrat in Syria for example didn't even stop it being used for a day. They'd more likely be special forces attacks like the Pebble Island raid, from the Falkland's War. The airport near Kiev might be an exception, though it's difficult to see why you'd take it if you're expecting ground troops there in a few hours. Far better to take any bridges etc that can be blown up. You can't land planes there if there's artillery about, but you can land helicopters anywhere.

The outright 'rational actor' perspective would be that Putin (and by extension Xi) are looking to take down or seriously degrade western prestige permanently, and think they've got the ability to do so. A direct challenge that succeeds achieves that goal. On balance, it's probably better to hope that it's just an irrational fit of pique though. But, they'd have some support for that from others who'd stand to gain, and not just the obvious ones like Iran. India would probably be fine with it, and indeed their comment so far has been of the 'both sides should deescalate' type (no doubt with a slight reminisce about sides picked during the East Pakistan crisis also...). They'd love a permanent seat on the UNSC, especially Britain's, and the only way they're going to get that is if there's a major rearrangement of the status quo.

Bombing airfields is most definitely a direct assault on the armed forces. Not usually a high casualty direct assault like bombing barracks, but it's still a direct assault. Whether Ukraine will fight is an open question. They've certainly talked a good game, however they did very poorly against a fraction of the force 8 years ago; and Georgia lost very badly in 2008. Ukraine is nothing like Afghanistan, terrain wise it's very flat steppe and plain; Ukraine also hasn't spent the past 40 years in a constant state of warfare. They aren't the Taleban or Muhajedin, and they aren't the Houthis. Once the troop numbers got up to 180,000 the idea that it was all a bluff got increasingly unlikely. Claiming 'imminent invasion' when there was 100k troops was ridiculous, 180k is about the minimum required and the Russians now have a bit over that. They'll probably have more by the time they launch any all out invasion. If they go for a land bridge it's right down to Transnistria, and Odessa is 90% of the way there. No point with anything less. Don't see how it could be just regime change. That would basically require getting to Kiev anyway, and a collapse of the Ukrainian military, and if you've got those the full land bridge part is trivial. From the Russian perspective, they've got a lot of valid complaints but it's a dumb- and likely highly counterproductive- way to resolve them, even if they felt backed into a corner. Decent chance that they won't actually resolve them either, but make them worse. They'd also better hope that China isn't going to stab them in the back because politically Europe won't be able to buckle now even if it means they literally freeze next year- but they probably won't. Russia joining a US containment strategy of China was their worst nightmare, and that's gone now, permanently. As for Ukraine: should have implemented Minsk. You might have grumbled, but in retrospect it'll be so much better than the alternative.

Dude, your own sources had the plan you used as evidence being made after Japan had surrendered. Which was... after the collapse of their forces in Manchuria, duh. That was demonstrably proven, by you. Your source had them launching the invasion from ports they didn't hold- and didn't even plan to hold, according to your own source, until after the invasion date- using troops that obviously weren't there, at odds of at best 1:10, without enough ships or logistics. You've got a fringe position that you'll defend to the death by making claims the facts in your own sources don't support. If your own sources counter your claims I have zero need to provide counter evidence. Not only that, that was the second time you'd done the exact same thing, and the second time I'd debunked a different source. That's why you switched to the ludicrous claim about me thinking Manchuria was insignificant. Blix was a diplomat, diplomats are obligated to be 'nice'*. If he describes coercion or lies then that is what it is- actually stating it outright is Undiplomatic**. He's multiple times said that they lacked 'critical thinking' or similar, certainly, and then gone on to describe incidents that go well beyond that. No one is disputing that Bush and some others genuinely believed what he was saying (well, at least in the broad sense that they Believed Saddam had wmds, and it didn't matter about the details of proving it), the only question is whether you can excuse yourself from lying by deliberate misinterpretation, removal of all equivocation and the like. If I say "I know for a fact that Joe Bloggs' IQ is 70" it's a lie, even if I genuinely believe it. Because while it may be based on evidence, I don't actually know it for a fact. And there were multiple instances of US officials using that sort of statement, and not just Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush. There's simply no way those weren't lies. *He was 'nice' about Saddam too. Don't think I'd be drawing too many conclusions about Saddam based on Blix saying he was cooperative in 2003, did have genuine security and prestige concerns about inspections, and wasn't lying about having disposed of his wmds- especially as he also clearly thought he was a brutal dictator from other things he said. That's just being diplomatic. **did you know that no politician has ever lied in the NZ parliament? It's true. Not because they've never made deliberate falsehoods though. Or for that matter look at the response to Obama being told 'you lie' during that SotU.

Jesus Christ. Oh well... First mention of Blix is by me, certainly. It is, quoted directly except added emphasis "And we absolutely know that coercion was tried on Hans Blix and El Baradei, they're just not american so don't count." That was followed by near word for word Gromnir's spiel on how Blix said the US admin didn't lie, despite the assertion being of coercion, not lying. Which, of course, he didn't deal with in a classic example of the strawman argument, refuting something that wasn't actually said. For anyone interested the coercion assertion was based on this, as well as multiple other similar sources. Pertinent parts: "A Swedish diplomat, Hans Blix, was placed in charge and visited with Cheney on October 30, 2002. According to Blix, Cheney delivered a stern message: If inspectors failed to discover WMDs, the administration would discredit them. [..] For example, officials told Blix that two items found by inspectors—a balsa wood drone with a motorcycle engine and a rusted, decades-old bomb that amounted to little more than a massive paperweight—should be declared violations of the WMD restrictions. When Blix scoffed at this, administration officials anonymously leaked lies that misrepresented what the two items were, falsely declared that the inspection team thought they constituted violations of the U.N. weapons restrictions on Iraq, and attacked Blix for hiding the truth to prevent war. Ultimately, Blix found nothing. And, just as Cheney promised, the administration dismissed this strong intelligence as meaningless." So yes, coercion was definitely tried on Blix. Whole thing is a good read, since it pretty clearly illustrates how the source manipulation went well beyond mere 'lack of critical thinking' but was a deliberate policy to ignore, exclude and discredit anything they didn't agree with. Hence the assertion 2nd time around that the 2003 intelligence amounted to a conspiracy theory. That time Gromnir brought up Blix, out of context again since, let's be frank, the assessment above including those attributed to Blix are pretty classic conspiracy theory fare; start with your conclusion and work backwards. Did I ever say that Blix said that the Bush Admin lied? I'm not going to read every post, obviously, especially when it's Gromnir making the assertion and he loves a classic bit of gaslighting*. I certainly didn't say it in anything he's linked to though. My opinion is and always will be that you cannot exonerate yourself from lying by being willfully stupid and deliberately ignoring facts, and that making unequivocal statements of facts when the situation isn't unequivocal is lying for that reason. I can, uh, understand why Gromnir would like that to be true though. *Those with good memories might remember back a couple of weeks to when Gromnir insisted I'd said that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria didn't have an effect on Japan's decision to surrender, when I'd demonstrably said the complete opposite literally four posts up, and still on the same page.

Sure Gromnir, keep bleating on about Blix and trying the old gaslight route- at least this time you're aren't misrepresenting my views with something disprovable literally on the same page, I guess. Keep trying to defend statements like "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised" as being honest mistakes when there was an absolutely deliberate policy to remove any doubt; then accusing someone else of spin. If you say there's no doubt and there is, you're lying, and 100% deliberately removing every references to any doubts makes the lie worse, not better. That would be far closer to the Russian Empire, run by him. Putin isn't actually a big fan of the USSR or communism, that's more Zyuganov's dream. Putin even got grumpy at Lenin for 'creating' Ukraine in his big speech the other day. (Not that Lenin had much choice, the Germans wanted Russia broken up after their surrender in WW1 and it was a requirement of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)

Well, I mean Gromnir doesn't even think things like Rumsfeld's "we know where [the wmds] are.." line were lies, when he obviously didn't know where they were and couldn't since they didn't exist. Hence the fixation on Blix. Not sure a 'they were just effing morons' excuse is great anyway, but I guess you take what you can.

Big news, Nordstream 2 approval has been paused. Oh yeah, it was actually paused months ago, just not formally. SWIFT is a private consortium based in Belgium rather than being Belgian in the governmental sense. That's one of the problems, cutting someone off from SWIFT renders them less important and has other potential problems per below, and they don't like that idea at all. The ultimate problem is that SWIFT is not secure, the US at very least has penetrated it. Considering the Russians stole all the CIA hacking tools and documentation it's entirely possible that they have hacked it too. At present, no one has a motive to damage SWIFT though as it would do economic damage to everyone. But that makes using SWIFT as a lever very dangerous for Europe as Russia (and China) definitely have an alternative and if they aren't on SWIFT they also have no motive not to ruin it for everyone on their way out. Parvenu Lord of Flies. Accept no imitations. Unfortunately Gromnir has a bit of a habit of this. He's about the only person in existence who believes there were no lies from the US about Iraqi WMDs, they were just 100% honestly mistaken in their conservative and well researched attributions. Perhaps more pertinently he thought sanctions would drive Russia bankrupt in 6 months, in 2014. When they didn't it just became an interesting academic point he was raising. Instead they've got more reserves now than then. So when the US said that an invasion would be launched on the 16th at 3am and it didn't happen that wasn't wrong and sensationalist, it was just, hmm, differently right. Similarly when they went from ready to invade any day to 70% ready despite bringing in more troops that wasn't evidence of sensationalism, that was just being differently responsible. I mean, Joe Biden just said that the invasion was going to go a lot further than he'd previously indicated. He'd previously indicated a full scale invasion. What's further than a full scale invasion? And that would be Russia's wet dream and a success beyond imagining. They'd love a NATO2, even tacit, as it would ruin OG NATO. No France, no Germany, No Turkey. Almost certainly not even all of eastern Europe either, hard to see Bulgaria or Hungary joining. Depends on whether we're talking about what would be given up theoretically, and what could be done practically. Theoretically, the status of Donbass is already part of MInsk (which I see the US has suddenly discovered, now that it's largely irrelevant) but plain couldn't be implemented politically in Ukraine; and that was probably the most minor of the demands. Giving up Crimea and pledging not to join NATO could also be agreed theoretically. Demilitarisation is pretty clearly intended to be dropped as part of negotiations as it's the one thing that simply couldn't be agreed. Politically none of them can be implemented as it currently stands. It's as much a pipe dream as western pressure getting Putin to return Crimea. Even if Zelensky/ Putin decided to do it he'd face anything up to open insurrection trying to implement it. Zelensky has been a bit erratic, but it's entirely understandable given the pressure applied from both sides

Well, originally it was Scythia. That was ~1000BC though, so of limited relevance except that it was unlikely Stalin killed the original inhabitants (as is the way of things, it was probably the Sarmatians/ Scythians killing whoever was there before them). Ironically, if you go by historical precedent/ longevity the best claimant is probably Iran- or Ossetia- since the Alans were there for ~800 years and the Sarmatians (Scythians) ~1000 before that. Then about 500 years of turkic Cumans and Tartars. Can't give that to Turkey though, as they're almost entirely greeks/ armenians/ anatolians/ kurds or in Erdogan's case georgian who just larp as turkic. You'd have to give it to one of the independent 'stans, or tartaristan. Donetsk and especially Lugansk were ethnically East Slav early though, as they just didn't have very big populations of anyone. The Cossacks of the Sich/ Hetmanate were East Slav*. Most of Lugansk oblast was near continuously part of Russia since the early 16th century (Vasili III) and not part of the Sich. Donetsk was first taken by Ivan Grozny, but lost later (and was part of the Sich). There's essentially zero historical link to Ukraine prior to Brest Litovsk in 1918; they weren't part of the Kievan Rus and they weren't part of the East Slavic P/LC areas either. Kind of early for my biennial rant on ethnicities, so I'll limit myself to saying that the East Slav ethnic divisions are particularly stupid and arbitrary. There's no objective difference between Belarussians/ Russians/ Ukrainians. *not Ukrainian, though as above the distinction is entirely subjective. Indeed, they regarded the modern Ukraine with a fair bit of disdain due to them being under the yoke of catholic poles.

Zelensky did say that Ukraine would potentially look to reacquire nukes at the Munich conference last week- in context, if it couldn't get into NATO. That isn't a new position either, first(?) floated last year. (Probably not a serious proposition but designed to put pressure on NATO/ the west. Also probably not a sensible way to do it, since it hands Putin an extra stick to beat them with)

It's unlikely that they'll join Russia, at least in the short term. The 1991 referendum formed the legal basis of the Crimean decision and for whatever international law is worth was legal since all the i's were dotted and t's crossed in terms of Ukraine approving it. Legally, Crimea left Ukraine then. Which is, of course, why it never gets mentioned in the media and they like to pretend that the only referendum was the 2014 one as they can legitimately complain about that one. What exactly the media think the 1992 constitution was that was referenced in the 2014 referendum and how/ why that option meant independence from Ukraine without referencing the 1991 referendum, who knows? Lugansk and Donetsk are at this point equivalent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, intended primarily as leverage* in that they can ask to join Russia and be approved, but haven't. If they joined Russia it would be irreversible, as it stands it's still eminently reversible. Russia would probably still be happy with Minsk being implemented, but... Fundamentally the problem is that Minsk was signed when Ukraine was losing badly, and froze the conflict before it was decided outright. Of course Russia got most of what it wanted in those circumstances, since they could have just taken what they wanted. Now, Ukraine has had 8 years of being told how much better its armed forces are and how they'll get support from US/ UK/ Poland and Russia will have its economy destroyed if the conflict resumes; and domestically 8 years of being told how unfair Minsk is and how it was made at gunpoint. Any pressure from France and Germany to get it implemented is cancelled out by the support from others for it not being implemented. The only way it gets implemented is if there's enough pressure, and if there's a difference between the pressure required for outright war or pressure required for implementation it's very fine. From Russia's pov recognising independence gives Russia the benefits of Minsk without having to implement their side and increases pressure on Ukraine to fold on other issues. It's also gives a lot of difficulty to the west in terms of response; the hawk side will want a robust response** that promotes escalation (or to be more charitable, a desire to show strength in the supposed belief that it will de-escalate, somehow), the dove side will want a weaker response that leaves diplomacy open. *it's also unclear if the recognition is for the full oblast or just controlled areas. About half of each is controlled by Ukraine. That decision obviously provides further potential leverage **ironically, that's generally had a detrimental effect on Ukraine despite supposedly being supportive, which is why Zelensky has repeatedly tried to get the rhetoric turned down. It's all very well the US and UK shouting from the sidelines, it's not going to cost them anything being inflexible and inflammatory.

Clearly cheese causing nightmares is not an urban myth, and those fatalities are caused by thrashing about during those nightmares, wrapping bed sheets about yourself and presumably your last thoughts being that you're getting throttled by an enormous anaconda*. Does being right handed make you more likely to get covid? The facts speak for themseves: 88% of people who have covid are right handed. Only 12% of people who have covid are left handed. That's an 8 fold difference. Quod erat demonstrandum, I think is the phrase I'm looking for. *no, people with dirty minds, not in the Sir Mixalot sense.

Elex 2's system requirements are really oddly put together. Do you actually need a RDNA AMD card in the 1070Ti class when a 1060 will do on the nVidia side? Why is a 2070 class 5700XT the rec for AMD but a 2060 on the nVidia side? You might explain the latter with dlss, but the 1060 doesn't have that- but it does have a garbage cut down 3GB version which is even worse comparatively, and they don't specify the 6GB version. Why specify a 9500F processor as a rec spec? It performs identically to a 9500 non F as the only difference is the presence/ absence of an irrelevant iGPU.

Elex 2 will be out this year, really. It's out in literally 9 days* (March 1st). Suppose I should even pre-order, since GOG will give me 10% off and I'll buy it for sure anyway. *I would have to admit I only found that out last week, and was pretty surprised myself it was so soon. And I thought I'd been following it pretty closely. They don't seem to have been exactly shouting the date from the rooftops.

Yep, though that's a different issue to the question of the legality of the intervention itself. And, since I have the figures at hand, and it rather illustrates the point... Civilian casualties, Battle of Aleppo, population ~2.2mn, 2016 (a little less than 12 months): ~3500 (all sides, for those specifically attributed it's ~40/60 split rebel caused/ government (inc Russian) caused, but I've included all of them) Civilian casualties, Battle of Mosul, population ~2mn, 2016-7, 9 months: 6000-10,000, With outliers of 2500 and 40,000 (which was also the latest one, and only one to include actual bodies actually recovered as a basis of the estimate) Civilian casualties, Battle of Raqqa, population ~400k, 2017, 4 months: ~1700 The higher estimate for civilian casualties in Mosul is greater than the death toll (including all combatants) in the entirety of Aleppo province (pop: just under 5mn), over the course of the Syrian Civil War from 2012-2018. You wouldn't know that going by the media coverage and governmental presentations made about the two though. When you take populations and length of time into account the 'indiscriminate' campaign actually caused by far the fewest casualties. Of course, the situations aren't directly equivalent (and can't be), but still, shows a pattern of demonisation that makes it hard to take claims of western good intentions at face value. And in order to be actual whataboutism the point made has to be irrelevant. If someone complains about being punched and the response is "but you punched the guy ten seconds earlier" then that person is not practising whataboutism, no matter how much the first person might shout it. Him punching the guy first is certainly relevant to him getting punched back no matter how much he might like the conversation to be about his unique and unjustified suffering and that alone.

Yeah, nah. I'm not saying that you're engaging in whataboutism because yeah, I brought up the comparison. But in order to be whataboutism it has to be comparing something irrelevant. I've had this argument before a lot, and the most common response to criticism of the legality of NATO's actions in Libya once you quote the actual Resolution in general is: 'well but what about Russians in Syria then!!!'. That is whataboutism because the intervention in Syria is legal, while regime change in Libya wasn't; so it's not actually a relevant comparison. I have a decent amount of sympathy for people who think it is because, basically, the press never questioned if the resolution said what NATO claimed it did, but has always portrayed the Russian intervention in Syria as illegitimate. If you only got your information from secondary sources then that's the picture you got. OTOH, my comparison was to the reactions to the two campaigns, despite one being legal and the other not. That's certainly relevant to whether Russia thinks it can trust the west or not- a deliberate policy of misrepresentation does not promote trust.

They don't need approval from the UN, since they were invited in by the recognised government*. It's kind of indicative that the West treats it like they did need its approval though, isn't it? And plenty of people think whataboutism only works one way... *unlike the US and friends. Position is Verhunka. Lots of people saying it's a Druzhba pipeline which is an export one and absolutely massive, but it isn't, judging by the pictures. That's a local line.