Ukraine Conflict - Das Himmelfahrtskommando

[bugarup]

33 minutes ago, 213374U said:

You are creating an arbitrary divide (issue X and issue Y), where it's really one and the same issue -- civilians killed in wars of aggression. If you view it differently based on who caused it, it's a textbook application of double standards. Remember: it's you who's calling into question the character of someone else.

 

I  disagree that preference to talk about the war that is going right now and for some people right here rather than war that is over for some time already and annoyance at near constant "But what about Iraq???" derails is double standards at all. Plus it can lead to further derails with things like "I see your Iraq and raise you Chechnya" etc. Anyway, while I'm ready to forever disagree with you on this and some other points such as how Russia is so, so, SO much worse than 'murica in every way possible, like, I don't think the States could be this horrible if they wanted to, I am aiming for your opinion, not your character. I'm sorry if I slipped here and there, this topic is literally close to home, will strive to use less personalized expressions in the future.

P.S.: Russia is incomparably more horrible than the States. Always were, still are, possibly will be.

[Darkpriest]

20 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

On this issue I read somewhere a couple of points (from financial experts which I am certainly not). One, the contracts are already in force, so this would be a breech of the contracts which clearly specify the use of dollars or euros for the transactions. So any such requirement would effectively nullify existing contracts and new contracts would need to be negotiated. And two, European states don't have to buy rubles only from Russia's central bank. They can buy them from any source of rubles in the world, including countries such as India that may have rubles, as well as private financiers.

Yes, it might be a breach, but if you have broken your deals in a one sided way as well and seized property etc., do you really think they care? What and how will they execute on this breach beyond what is already in place? Ultimately it is Russia that hold the resource. 

 

Sure, they can buy Rubbles from Chinese or India, but that only strenghtens ties between those countries and China, and leads to reducing the weight of EUR and USD as reserve currencies. 

 

[BruceVC]

7 minutes ago, bugarup said:

I

P.S.: Russia is incomparably more horrible than the States. Always were, still are, possibly will be.

QFT, Putins autocracy and policies are worse than the US on almost every level. In fact I cant think of a single "  bad thing " demonstrated by the US in the last 100 years  that Russia doesnt do worse or hasnt done worse?

Seriously not one 

Edited March 28, 2022 by BruceVC

[Darkpriest]

9 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

QFT, Putins autocracy and policies are worse than the US on almost every level. In fact I cant think of a single "  bad thing " demonstrated by the US in the last 100 years  that Russia doesnt do worse or hasnt done worse?

Seriously not one 

Atomic bomb? 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

51 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Then what would I read on this forum?

The anime thread's groupwatch of Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.

[BruceVC]

9 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Atomic bomb? 

Yes, good point. The US used nukes to defeat the Japanese in WW2. Russia hasnt used nukes in war 

[Darkpriest]

Btw, RUB almost back to unchanged valuations. 

While Yen got pummeled. 

Meanwhile US goes full throttle into a recession... 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Zoraptor]

12 hours ago, Gorth said:

The Russians advanced along more axes than they could sustain in the first part of the conflict, and are now in a position where they can only resource one axis at a time. At the moment, their priority seems to be to defeat Ukrainian forces in the Donbas if they can. Once they finish in Mariupol, they're likely to reinforce the axis against Kharkiv to the north of the Donbas.
 

They're a lot more likely to go for the Kramatorsk/ Slavyansk/ SveroDonetsk urban area first. It's already in a salient, and taking that area both rationalises the front line and allows Putin to say that he's 'liberated' all of Donetsk/ Lugansk as a war aim.

11 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

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.

That's the statement of the Presidential spokesman, and good on him for it.

The official position of the Ukrainian Defence Forces is (well, was as of last time I checked) that the footage is faked (so there's nothing to investigate).

6 hours ago, kanisatha said:

No. Let's be clear on how things happened. You posted numbers for civilian deaths in both Iraq and Ukraine, with no source attribution to the claimed Iraqi number. I then posted calling you out on your numbers, very clearly laying out my rationale for why those numbers are suspect and lacking credibility. Then, someone else decided to grossly mischaracterize that as my saying ALL civilian deaths anywhere are not really civilians, completely ignoring that I said what I said very specifically about civilian death numbers in Iraq, in the 2003 war and not even the 1991 war, and not any place else.

In the 2003 Iraq war, about a day or so after the war started, Hussein issued a proclamation broadcast openly on all Iraqi military and media communication sources, ordering his military forces to remove their uniforms, put on civilian clothing, and mingle within the civilian population while attacking US forces. This is widely known, and well documented.

Do I really need sourcing for the Iraqi numbers? (1) it's peripheral and (2) I'd presume you at least would know what one of them was from- Iraq Body Count. Whose methodology you can argue with, but you can most definitely argue that they underestimate by using only verified media accounts of deaths as well as overestimate.

The lower figure was a hospital polling by the AP, iirc, and was consistent with a later estimate from a US think tank. The hospital polling is, iirc, the same measure the UN uses for casualties in Ukraine and is where their ~1200 deaths comes from. That is of course an underestimate, in some cases significantly so where the health system isn't functioning like Mariupol, but then the Iraqi health system wasn't really functioning in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion either as they quickly got swamped, and due to islamic custom a lot of people were buried ~immediately, in ~place, rather than being taken to hospital first.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Zoraptor

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Yes, good point. The US used nukes to defeat the Japanese in WW2. Russia hasnt used nukes in war 

Yes, a lot of really horrific acts get justified during war time, including this one. I think if Russia does use nuclear weapons to avoid defeat, that will significantly increase the likelihood that a future NATO-Russian conflict will rapidly go nuclear as well. I'm picturing a Putin attempted land grab of the Baltic States where there is little likelihood of stopping the Russian advance, seeing the use of nukes to stop the lead columns.

[CAIN]

I'll take the dropping of two nukes to save the lives of American service men and the millions of lives of Japanese civilian and soldiers.

[Gorth]

The BBC, always a bit late but eventually arrived at the conclusion many others arrived at, that eastern Ukraine is going to be "cleansed" Chechen style to create a new, Russia friendly demographic in the occupied areas...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60894142

Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.

A Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: "All of us were taken forcibly".

Some Ukrainian officials describe Russia's actions as "deportations" to "filtration camps" - an echo of Russia's war in Chechnya, when thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.

 

Despite a hard domestic crack down on free speech and an attempt at total control of information, Russian anti special military action protesters still succeed at drawing attention to the death and suffering

(Jeebus, that substitute for the word 'war' is going to linger for many years as a bad, bad meme)

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60900595

A Russian artist covered herself in fake blood and repeated the phrase “my heart bleeds” in a protest in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

Yevgenia Isayeva stood on the steps of the municipal assembly for the anti-war demonstration before police came and took her away.

She also put a canvas at her feet with an appeal to passers-by not to support the bloodshed in Ukraine.

Click link for video of the performance. Quite graphic if only with special effect blood

 

 

[InsaneCommander]

4 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

Atomic bomb? 

Well, they made a bigger atomic bomb, which is bad considering what it can do. So atomic bombs is another thing Russia did worse.

[kanisatha]

35 minutes ago, Gorth said:

The BBC, always a bit late but eventually arrived at the conclusion many others arrived at, that eastern Ukraine is going to be "cleansed" Chechen style to create a new, Russia friendly demographic in the occupied areas...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60894142

Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.

A Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: "All of us were taken forcibly".

Some Ukrainian officials describe Russia's actions as "deportations" to "filtration camps" - an echo of Russia's war in Chechnya, when thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.

 

Despite a hard domestic crack down on free speech and an attempt at total control of information, Russian anti special military action protesters still succeed at drawing attention to the death and suffering

(Jeebus, that substitute for the word 'war' is going to linger for many years as a bad, bad meme)

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60900595

A Russian artist covered herself in fake blood and repeated the phrase “my heart bleeds” in a protest in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

Yevgenia Isayeva stood on the steps of the municipal assembly for the anti-war demonstration before police came and took her away.

She also put a canvas at her feet with an appeal to passers-by not to support the bloodshed in Ukraine.

Click link for video of the performance. Quite graphic if only with special effect blood

 

 

Yeah this is what I was talking about from that article I linked. Same interview with the vice PM of Ukraine. These are all blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions re. the handling of people under one's occupation. Would even qualify not just as war crimes but as crimes against humanity which is a step higher.

And let's not forget that in the Crimea the Russians did the same thing to the local ethnic Tartar population after 2014, rounding them all up and deporting them to isolated locations in central Siberia and then replacing them in the Crimea with ethnic Russian settlers brought in.

[Azdeus]

13 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

so you can sleep well. It just hit our mainstream media

https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/zahranicni/ukrajina-video-rusti-zajatci-strileni-do-nohou-muceni-valka-rusko.A220328_103103_zahranicni_kha

So I guess now you have to ask how fighting for Mariupol is displayed on Russian side now

 

That's some impressive muzzleflashes, and I've yet to see Ukrainian forces with Hexagon handguards on their rifles

[ComradeYellow]

3 hours ago, CAIN said:

I'll take the dropping of two nukes to save the lives of American service men and the millions of lives of Japanese civilian and soldiers.

I don't know about that, I think I'd risk a bullet or a mortar shell than the slow agonizing death of radiation poisoning.  The lucky ones died instantly, the rest, well, just check out the horror stories somewhere on the web, hardly a worse fate.

Also, looks like Zelensky is coming to his senses and now serious about peace talks as the Western public that doesn't waste too much time dwelling on dark corners of the internet is getting a bit tired of the war and just wants a conclusion (literally everyone in the breakroom today was expressing disgust at both Ukraine and Will Rock constantly on the news to keep the ratings up).

I gotta say though, Biden has got to be the largest economic gutter to the world economy in history, from his Covid relief packages to his sanctions, it's like taking a machete and gutting a humpback whale of how fiscally reckless he is.

Edited March 29, 2022 by ComradeYellow

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

And let's not forget that in the Crimea the Russians did the same thing to the local ethnic Tartar population after 2014, rounding them all up and deporting them to isolated locations in central Siberia and then replacing them in the Crimea with ethnic Russian settlers brought in.

Citation Required.

[BruceVC]

17 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Citation Required.

Why you using such big words, dont you mean links ?

[Zoraptor]

Nah Bruce, it's just passive aggressive wikipedia notation. Wouldn't normally use it but I also know perfectly well I'm not going to get any proof, because the claim as written is... bollocks, so it's just wasting my time adding anything else.

To be fair, I certainly could get a response that it's a typo for 1944 when that did more or less happen after the Germans were ejected. Though Stalin was of course Georgian, not Russian, and they were in large majority exiled to Uzbekistan, not Siberia; so it still wouldn't be that accurate. Crimean Tartar population did drop to almost nothing then though.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Zoraptor

[rjshae]

Hypothetically speaking, suppose the Ukraine and Russia come to terms with some treaty terms and transfer of territory. What is to prevent Russia from spending the next five years fixing their armed forces and then just repeating the invasion?

[Bartimaeus]

31 minutes ago, rjshae said:

Hypothetically speaking, suppose the Ukraine and Russia come to terms with some treaty terms and transfer of territory. What is to prevent Russia from spending the next five years fixing their armed forces and then just repeating the invasion?

That's what I don't like the thought of either, especially because it doesn't really seem particularly likely that the EU will let them in given the complications of letting them join, although I could be wrong. I'm not really sure what the ideal outcome here is - well, besides Ukraine just straight up magically winning and throwing Russia out of its territory and Russia inexplicably not escalating any further.

[Darkpriest]

5 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Well, they made a bigger atomic bomb, which is bad considering what it can do. So atomic bombs is another thing Russia did worse.

Have they dropped it on another country and killed civilians with it? 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

Hypothetically speaking, suppose the Ukraine and Russia come to terms with some treaty terms and transfer of territory. What is to prevent Russia from spending the next five years fixing their armed forces and then just repeating the invasion?

The economic consequences and real sanctions  that are going to be with Russia for years is what will prevent them from doing it again

I know some people see this invasion in  a military sense and " how many civilians the Ruskies can kill...man they winning  " but wars and the sustainability of any government are about the economic reality and the funding of those wars 

And the long term economic consequences to this war havent even been felt yet by Russia. That will be the main reason for Putin pausing the next time he decides on an invasion of a sovereign country to recreate the Soviet borders as an unnecessary buffer to " NATO expansion " 

[Chilloutman]

personally i think its not even about economics. Its reputation Russia tried to build for last 30 years which is ruined for another 30. (well at least I hope)

[Darkpriest]

A bit more Russia leaning article, but it does point out a few things about general years long US policy of marginalizing Russia. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-predicted-kremlin-retaliation

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

A bit more Russia leaning article, but it does point out a few things about general years long US policy of marginalizing Russia. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-predicted-kremlin-retaliation

But once again if Putin wasnt obsessed with trying to recreate the Soviet borders and  hadnt invaded Ukraine we wouldnt be in this mess 

So Im not convinced by the argument " shame, Putin is a victim of the evil Capitalist,  West and he had no choice but to invade a sovereign country "