Ukraine Conflict - "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

[rjshae]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

What's so surprising about that ? The US is their chief adversary and the real might in NATO.  Is the EU offended they're not being mentioned ?

It's in Russia's interest to separate the US from the other members of NATO, so there is probably an element of psyops in the communications.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Brutality and atrocities are nothing new in warfare. England tried deliberately to maximize civilian casualties in Germany from 1943 and onwards, I think most of us know how civilians fare in the wars in the Balkans after the break up of Yugoslavia, Spain during the civil war in the 30's, Moroccan troops have been particular savage against the population in West Sahara... sometimes (like the first case), it's deliberate government politics, sometimes it's the men on the ground venting their frustration, anger, fear etc. by turning into monsters and take it all out on the weakest groups they can find. Usually POW's and local civilians. It's not unique, it's not the first time and sadly probably also not the last time armed forces acts this way.

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).

[BruceVC]

35 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Yes definitely one of the better options. And Isreal has now lifted its earlier block on Baltic states and other NATO states transferring Israeli military hardware to Ukraine, which is what prompted the latest crazy out of Lavrov that Israel was helping neo-nazis in Ukraine. I'm still holding out hope that the US will transfer Patriot to Ukraine. It's been the Administration's pattern thus far to initially wring their hands and whine about something but then eventually cave to pressure and change their mind.

How effective is Patriot, what can it do?

[xzar_monty]

39 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Yes definitely one of the better options. And Isreal has now lifted its earlier block on Baltic states and other NATO states transferring Israeli military hardware to Ukraine, which is what prompted the latest crazy out of Lavrov that Israel was helping neo-nazis in Ukraine.

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.

[Malcador]

10 minutes ago, rjshae said:

It's in Russia's interest to separate the US from the other members of NATO, so there is probably an element of psyops in the communications.

Yes, I think I've read some seeing it as US and NATO lackeys, heh.  But seems pointless really, not going to get much traction in the non-US NATO members.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Yesterday Zakharova accused Israel sending mercs to fight along Azov (https://www.timesofisrael.com/moscow-israeli-mercenaries-fighting-with-far-right-ukrainian-unit/), some time earlier she said Ukrainians are faux-nation of meanie poopooheads because they're gatekeeping borscht (beetroot soup popular both in Russia and Ukraine)

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.

[kanisatha]

16 minutes ago, rjshae said:

It's in Russia's interest to separate the US from the other members of NATO, so there is probably an element of psyops in the communications.

Yeah this is the true goal of Russia's strategy and policy in Europe: to try and push the US out of Europe. Everything else is merely an extension of this, including this war. Putin's powerplays in the months before his invasion were all about trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the US, and only when all of that failed did he feel forced to carry out his invasion because the only other alternative was to look foolish and weak and to lose face. What Putin truly hoped for with his invasion threat was to have Europe break from the US and cut some sort of separate deal with him that left out the US and aligned Europe with Russia, even if only symbolically at first. And given the extensive pro-Russia ties that already existed between Germany and Russia (and ditto for Italy), Macron's ego-fueled desire to be viewed as some great European statesman, and Britain--the only major European power refusing to play footsie with Russia--now out of the EU and politically isolated in Europe, Putin can't be blamed for believing the time was finally right to make his powerplay to push the US out of Europe.

The US presence in Europe is the only real obstacle to Russia (in its perception) dominating Europe. And so, if not for the US presence in Europe, even Ukraine wouldn't matter to Russia (other than in the whole cultural and sociological sphere of "the Ukrainians are not their own separate people from Russians" nonsense).

[kanisatha]

29 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

How effective is Patriot, what can it do?

Details of the current versions are of course classified but the US feels comfortable it remains superior to Russia's S-400 and even S-500 systems. The main issues in the context of this war are that (a) it has long range, enough to target Russian aircraft well within Russian airspace, and (b) is reasonably resistent to Russian jamming.

[kanisatha]

18 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

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.

Yeah as I said in a post a long while back, Putin, Lavrov and co. have literally taken themselves back mentally and emotionally to 1940, and seem to now actually believe they're living in that timeframe. I'm sure there is some psychological term for this sort of detachment from reality.

[xzar_monty]

8 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

The US presence in Europe is the only real obstacle to Russia (in its perception) dominating Europe.

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".

[xzar_monty]

9 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Yeah as I said in a post a long while back, Putin, Lavrov and co. have literally taken themselves back mentally and emotionally to 1940, and seem to now actually believe they're living in that timeframe. I'm sure there is some psychological term for this sort of detachment from reality.

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.

Edited May 5, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705985

Putin apologized to Bennett for Lavrov's remarks.   Probably not going to change too much, I feel.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Malcador

[213374U]

6 hours ago, bugarup said:

That's not irrelevant, just inconvenient for your "Russia is not aggressor here" stance. Also, while you're at Minsk docs, do they include booting out Moscow puppet "governments" along with their little green men out of of "disputed territories"? 

No, it is irrelevant. In fact, your whole discussion of Minsk has boiled down to bringing up irrelevant stuff to distract from the fact that you somehow didn't know that the agreements did not involve any loss of sovereignty for Ukraine at all. The Minsk agreements were drafted with Ukraine as a signatory, as a starting point for a negotiated exit out of the war in Donbas. Whether "Russia is the aggressor" isn't factored in the agreements because the scope of application is Donbas, not Crimea.

Also, where have I said that Russia isn't the aggressor? In fact, I have actually said the opposite. You really need to stop seeing enemies in everyone that disagrees with you, guy.

 

6 hours ago, bugarup said:

Maybe it would be good to stop flipping arguments like pancakes so that they always land in a way that supports your opinion? Because I vaguely remember someone regularly whatabouting  the US getting involved in affairs that are not exactly geopolitical. Also, EU's territorial integrity is not the same as France and Germany's territorial integrity. 

"Regularly whatabouting"? You mean expecting the west to abide by the same principles they demand others adhere to? Ah yes, such a unforgivable crime. I'll stop pointing out hypocrisy and double standards from the west now -- only Russian lies, hypocrisy and brutality are fair game.

The EU is very much France and Germany's territorial integrity at this point. Open borders, a common economic space and single decision making apparatus make an aggression on a member as compelling a reason for military response, in fact, as a mutual defense treaty -- even more so considering that we were discussing a hypothetical scenario where both would be in place.

And yeah, the US rarely gets involved in stuff where its geopolitical interests aren't at stake, that's the thing. Power politics. But we are talking a scenario where the calculus is "interest" vs "credible existential threat".

 

6 hours ago, bugarup said:

Well then how fortunate it is that internet forums do not make important decisions in foreign politics, don't you think? I'm sure that people who do are pragmatic enough and know better than use suchlike rhetoric in negotiations; meanwhile, on our here niche internet forum I am going to insult the poor man's Hitler and his Darkspawn as much as I please. 

Knock yourself out. Don't cry though when you get called out for coming up with simplistic arguments, or on your lack of understanding of the topics you are "discussing". Cf. Minsk.

 

6 hours ago, bugarup said:

Also, it's such a convenient thing to fuse two rather different statements, namely "Russia never stopped being the Soviet Union and always aimed to take over" with "the reason for this is that they are stupid and insane", because then whenever someone tries to point out signs of revanchistic Sovietistan nostalgia rising as soon as tiny dictator plopped its scrawny arse on the metaphorical throne, you can smugly dismiss everything by countering that second part about "stupid/insane", which is considerably easier to do, yes I know I am extrapolating. 

You mean you haven't repeatedly done both? I'm happy to discuss each claim and event separately, but it's hard when it seems all you are interested in is going on furious rants and hurl insults at Russians in a forum where, to my knowledge, there are none. We get it. You don't like Russians. But no one really cares because no one here is Russian or works for Russians or even likes Russians that much. Settle down.

 

6 hours ago, bugarup said:

Flattering as it is for you to say that denizens of assorted internet hangouts such as reddit or this very forum have the power to infect decision-making people with exercises in frivolous name-calling, I'm afraid you are slightly overestimating their influence.  

Nah. When a narrative becomes widely accepted by the people, decisions justified by that narrative become acceptable. Dehumanizing the enemy and oversimplifying matters to make expedient political decisions more palatable are the oldest tricks in the book. Even more so in the context of nominally democratic societies where making unpopular decisions can have serious consequences short term.

Edited May 5, 2022 by 213374U

[pmp10]

14 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705985

Putin apologized to Bennett for Lavrov's remarks.   Probably not going to change too much, I feel.

But only in a private conversation.
The Israel thing is so weird, it was clearly not an accident or meant for a domestic audience as Lavrov interview was for Italian TV station and they doubled-down afterwards.
I see absolutely no purpose or advantage to it. 

[xzar_monty]

54 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Putin apologized to Bennett for Lavrov's remarks.   Probably not going to change too much, I feel.

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.)

Edited May 5, 2022 by xzar_monty

[pmp10]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

@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.)

I'd say vast majority of their actions can be explained by following Russia's own logic, imperial policy or a result of evident screw-ups.
Deliberate appeal to Italy's antisemitism seems to fit none of these.

[kanisatha]

Today seems to be a really good day for some very insightful and informational articles on Ukraine. Here are three that are especially great reads:

https://cepa.org/us-lend-lease-russia-gets-nervous/

https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/ukraine-putins-war-change-world  (on Putin's state of mind)

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/05/a-heart-to-heart-with-russias-elites-a77587

[Zoraptor]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

What's so surprising about that ? The US is their chief adversary and the real might in NATO.  Is the EU offended they're not being mentioned ?

Thing is, Russia has never really had a problem with the EU, just NATO. They were fine with Ukraine joining the EU back in 2014 when Yanukovich was in charge, and they're fine with Ukraine joining the EU now.

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

Brutality and atrocities are nothing new in warfare.

This, really. People talk about Bucha as if it's uniquely brutal when we're well within living memory of something like My Lai, which was nowhere near as much as an aberration as people would like it to be- which shows the level of killing you can get if it's deliberate policy. And where at least the perpetrators were punished for their crimes via... 3 years house arrest for Lt Calley was it? We're within living memory of British troops gelding suspected Mao Mao rebels in Kenya too, for which no one has been punished either. Then there's the French in Africa training the Hutus for example, and god forbid any mention of Belgians in the Congo.

You have a situation where the civilians are 'the enemy' then every country ends up targeting them, whether it's deliberate policy to or not. That's especially true when you have a bunch of guys fighting out of uniform. Which is of course why you're meant to wear them, and why fighting out of uniform is itself against the GC- and that did happen a lot in the early stages in Ukraine. The whole thing is a classic vicious circle of escalation.

Perhaps the best recent example is actually Afghanistan. The primary problem there was that every step taken to target the Taleban negatively effected civilians- and indeed, most of the Taleban's actions got blamed on the occupier too. Yeah, the incompetence and corruption of people like Ghani didn't help, but the ultimate reason why the whole house of cards collapsed before the US even formally left was that for all the 3.4tn dollars spent what the majority of Afghans got from the coalition was people being randomly blown up, randomly detained, randomly stopped etc etc and all the old problems too. Doesn't really matter if every single incident involving civilian casualties actually were an honest mistakes instead of heinous warcrimes to the people who were on the receiving end. Good luck trying to tell your troops to sit back and take it though, but as soon as you respond incidents like those involving the Australian SAS are absolutely inevitable; and just as inevitably they make a bunch more civilians see you as the enemy.

I mean, we here had a highly publicised incident involving civilian casulaties in Afghanistan. It probably didn't involve deliberately killing civilians, but that didn't matter to the guy whose 3 year old daughter got killed. Indeed, years later they still absolutely loathed us when interviewed, and it's impossible not to accept it as justified loathing. All that and we didn't even verifiably get a single Talib. We just killed 6 people, injured 20 more and blew up a dozen of their houses. Why? Because we had a guy killed by an IED and Something had to be Done, and that was Something. No matter that it actually made things worse...

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Today seems to be a really good day for some very insightful and informational articles on Ukraine. Here are three that are especially great reads:

https://cepa.org/us-lend-lease-russia-gets-nervous/

https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/ukraine-putins-war-change-world  (on Putin's state of mind)

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/05/a-heart-to-heart-with-russias-elites-a77587

Great reads, especially https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/05/a-heart-to-heart-with-russias-elites-a77587

Interesting quote from the link

The government's economic section has a special position today. Technocrats are in high demand because they are supposedly saving the economy from the endless stream of new sanctions. In actual fact, their task is hopeless. About 70% of goods manufactured in Russia have imported components, and it is impossible to replace them. There are endless meetings in the government, says a well-known financier and former high-ranking official. The director of a factory that makes Russian aircraft comes in. He’s got a problem: his engines are imported. He promises that he will build his own — if they give him money and lots of it. Then he can make it in two years — if he can make it. A financier tells me, "I haven’t met anyone [in the economic section of the federal government] who supports it [the war in Ukraine]. They all know it’s a catastrophe. But they are all trying to figure out how to comply.”

"Where can I go?" says another top-ranking bureaucrat, also horrified by what is happening, and one of the few who is not yet under sanctions. "They won’t let me leave." 

 

[xzar_monty]

@kanisatha: Very interesting articles, thanks a lot!

[bugarup]

13 hours ago, 213374U said:

You really need to stop seeing enemies in everyone that disagrees with you, guy.

Why do you think I'm seeing enemies, and in internet strangers of a nerdy forum in the first place? I don't even post angry and only drunkposted once or twice. Not that I mind, you building me a persona is oddly flattering. 

13 hours ago, 213374U said:

Don't cry though when you get called out for coming up with simplistic arguments, or on your lack of understanding of the topics you are "discussing". Cf. Minsk.

Wouldn't dream of it. 

13 hours ago, 213374U said:

 You don't like Russians. But no one really cares because no one here is Russian or works for Russians or even likes Russians that much. Settle down.

I wouldn't say I don't like Russians. One particular pathetic waxy excuse of a russian? Hate him like nobody before. Russian foreign and also domestic policy? Guilty as charged. Orcs responsible for Bucha? Absolutely. Russian officials of any sort? Presume everything they say is a lie and will keep on doing so. Random dudes who might come here to post about videogames? Nah I don't think I do. Feel free to come and school me on how it's totally the same thing, though. 

 

[bugarup]

...Ahem. To make up for offtopiccy but fun ****posting above, some interesting translated reads from Meduza:

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/05/it-s-a-reference-to-the-ussr-to-its-return - on continuing accelerating soviet renaissance;

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/05/everything-here-smells-like-the-dead-now - pensive slice of life type article "from the other side";

https://meduza.io/feature/2022/05/03/rossiyskaya-vneshnyaya-politika-eto-kupanie-pyanogo-vedeveshnika-v-mirovom-fontane - interview with Dmitry Glukhovsky of Metro 33 fame, no translation, but Google does decent enough job. I really liked reading this one. 

On the Funny Stuff Cantina front today we have a poster from an oncoming Russian film about wartime cameramen in WW2. Naturally it didn't take long for runet denizens foreign agents to notice it totally looks like "Russian soldier is carrying a miniature washing machine out of warzone" (washing machine recently became a memetic symbol of russian army's indiscriminate looting in Ukraine). 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by bugarup

[Mamoulian War]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Thing is, Russia has never really had a problem with the EU, just NATO. They were fine with Ukraine joining the EU back in 2014 when Yanukovich was in charge, and they're fine with Ukraine joining the EU now.

There are a lot of indications, that NATO was always a scapegoat, and the primary issue was always EU, especially in Eastern Europe, due to politicians which are elected by democratic means are not as lightly influenced by Russian bribes as autocratic leaders (see Orban). That's why all the funding from Russia to EE is funneled to Neonazis and populists with autocratic tendencies. For a lot of people at Kremlin, the imagination of Ukraine people (which are not a nation in their eyes) having free elections, and the possibility, that their common people getting more wealthy while integrating into EU structures is the direct threat to Russian way of governing and holding their own people on the leash.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Mamoulian War]

Ukraine officialy launched counter-offensive on Kharkiv and Izyum axes yesterday.

quote from ISW:

"Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zalyzhnyi stated on May 5 that Ukrainian forces are transitioning to counteroffensive operations around Kharkiv and Izyum, the first direct Ukrainian military statement of a shift to offensive operations.[13] Ukrainian forces likely intend to push Russian forces out of artillery range of Kharkiv city, force Russian units to redeploy from the Izyum axis, and potentially threaten Russian lines of communication. Ukrainian forces did not make any confirmed advances in the last 24 hours but repelled Russian attempts to regain lost positions. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted an unsuccessful assault on Stary Saltiv (approximately 40 kilometers east of Kharkiv City) on May 5, after Ukrainian forces liberated the settlement on May 2.[14] Russian forces also reconnoitered Ukrainian positions and continued to shell Ukrainian positions in the northeastern outskirts of Kharkiv City.[15] Pro-Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces blew up a bridge near the occupied settlement of Cherkaski Tishki, approximately 25 kilometers northeast of Kharkiv City, which could indicate an ongoing Ukrainian counterattack in the area targeting the bridge to interdict Russian movements.[16]"

[BruceVC]

https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/05/06/russian-navy-warship-admiral-makarov-reportedly-sunk-by-ukrainian-missiles/

Another Russian warship may have been hit by Neptune missiles and is damaged\sinking