Ukraine Conflict - "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

[Mamoulian War]

On 11/11/2023 at 8:24 PM, pmp10 said:

Washington Post is openly saying Ukraine bombed Nord Stream.
Supposedly Zelensky was not consulted, might be because his administration is thought to be soft and compromised by the Russians. 
Interestingly even US objections were ignored.

Timing on this news is a little suspicions as well.
Winter bombing of Ukrainian energy infrastructure is expected to start soon and they threaten retaliation on Russia’s oil and gas.

And again, article based on anonymous sources, which according to some people here should be frown upon, as it is a “symptom of shoddy journalism”  But yeah, I bet no one would object their reliability this time

I would like to point out again to the fact, that Russia last year dismissed the theory, that Ukraine was the culprit of the sabotage as laughable Said by Putin himself  

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/15/putin-calls-ukraine-role-in-nord-stream-blasts-sheer-nonsense

 

[Zoraptor]

The main issue with anonymous sources is that they can tell you what they want you to hear whether it's true or not- with zero repercussions for being wrong or outright lying. If they're telling you something that runs counter to their interests it's a lot more difficult to come up with a scenario where they're deliberately lying or over exaggerating. A 6' guy on Tinder ain't going to list himself as 5'8, the reverse, not so much. The secondary issue is knowing whether the source has been vetted properly, or even exists.

So 'Russia is running out of missiles' says anonymous source in April, May, June, July, August.. of 22 is not exactly credible. It's saying what someone wants to be true, it's been said and been wrong multiple times before and the person(s) saying it haven't even had the consequence of being ignored since it kept on getting repeated.

You have a bunch of things different in the Time article. No one disputes that Time was there and talked to people. So we know they had sources. They don't have a reason to make things up, they don't have a reason to make things look bad for Zelensky, it isn't what they 'want' to be true. It's written by Time of NYC, not Vremya of Moskva. It also fits a bunch of ancillary evidence- there were plenty of rumours at the time of things like refusals to launch frontal assaults from frontline commanders, it failed expectations etc. Similarly, neither WP nor Der Spiegel have any intrinsic reason to blame Ukraine for Nordstream and would obviously 'prefer' it to have been Russia. Personally, I am extremely skeptical about aspects of their story- mostly there being zero external help- precisely because it's anonymously sourced and if there was external help it'd be even more politically embarrassing than Ukraine doing it. There's also a bunch of ancillary evidence there too such as not allowing an independent investigation, its generally stalled nature and that if they had evidence it was Russia they'd have leaked like an overpressure $2 hose.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-13/under-siege-on-the-ukrainian-front-line-of-avdiivka-russians-are-more-prepared-for-war-and-to-die.html

 Nothing too shocking, more dakka is needed, Death Korps of Kreig should have Russian themes, etc.

[Gorth]

I'm not going to search for my old posts, but I did mention a long time ago, a few articles claiming the Swedish government found forensic evidence of who was behind the Nord Stream 2 attack and decided to put a lid on the whole thing. Sadly, the only decent link I could find is to an old 2022 article from WSJ, which leads to paywall...

Supposedly 4 explosions in total, spread over Nord Stream 1 and Nord Steam 2 took place (my assumption being, Nord Stream 1 got blown up too, so it couldn't be used as a backup for a sabotaged Nord Stream 2)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/26/nord-stream-pipeline-blasts-key-details-revealed-by-scientists

 

[xzar_monty]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

I'm not going to search for my old posts, but I did mention a long time ago, a few articles claiming the Swedish government found forensic evidence

It has been said in Finland that the Swedish police probably couldn't find Gothenburg, so I'm not so sure about the Swedish government...  (The reputation of the Swedish police was made by Palme and others.)

Anyway, and seriously speaking, I can see someone putting a lid on the discovery if it's unpleasant.

[xzar_monty]

On 11/13/2023 at 12:54 PM, xzar_monty said:

Difficult to analyze the situation as of yet, but it's interesting to note that more and more people seeking asylum are now beginning to appear on Finland's eastern border, and apparently these are people who look more like "folks intended to cause logistical and other problems to the Finnish authorities" than "folks oppressed in Russia that seriously need to get out" (as the latter group would likely have been detained on the Russian side).

To quote myself and to add a nice little detail to the story: the asylum seekers keep arriving on the Finnish border on brand new bicycles. Like straight out of a shop. Children's bicycles included, too. There's no question that it's a Russian operation, petty and insignificant of course, just intended to cause annoyance. Great country!

Edited November 15, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

27 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

To quote myself and to add a nice little detail to the story: the asylum seekers keep arriving on the Finnish border on brand new bicycles. Like straight out of a shop. Children's bicycles, too. There's no question that it's a Russian operation, petty and insignificant of course, just intended to cause annoyance. Great country!

Wouldn't that require some sort of logistics and planning, which Russia has shown itself in short supply of the last year or so?

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The main issue with anonymous sources is that they can tell you what they want you to hear whether it's true or not- with zero repercussions for being wrong or outright lying. If they're telling you something that runs counter to their interests it's a lot more difficult to come up with a scenario where they're deliberately lying or over exaggerating. A 6' guy on Tinder ain't going to list himself as 5'8, the reverse, not so much. The secondary issue is knowing whether the source has been vetted properly, or even exists.

So 'Russia is running out of missiles' says anonymous source in April, May, June, July, August.. of 22 is not exactly credible. It's saying what someone wants to be true, it's been said and been wrong multiple times before and the person(s) saying it haven't even had the consequence of being ignored since it kept on getting repeated.

You have a bunch of things different in the Time article. No one disputes that Time was there and talked to people. So we know they had sources. They don't have a reason to make things up, they don't have a reason to make things look bad for Zelensky, it isn't what they 'want' to be true. It's written by Time of NYC, not Vremya of Moskva. It also fits a bunch of ancillary evidence- there were plenty of rumours at the time of things like refusals to launch frontal assaults from frontline commanders, it failed expectations etc. Similarly, neither WP nor Der Spiegel have any intrinsic reason to blame Ukraine for Nordstream and would obviously 'prefer' it to have been Russia. Personally, I am extremely skeptical about aspects of their story- mostly there being zero external help- precisely because it's anonymously sourced and if there was external help it'd be even more politically embarrassing than Ukraine doing it. There's also a bunch of ancillary evidence there too such as not allowing an independent investigation, its generally stalled nature and that if they had evidence it was Russia they'd have leaked like an overpressure $2 hose.

Yes the main issue with anonymous sources is how we  selectively believe  them  when they  suit our ideological  views or biases   

Its the same as the media,  when they post articles we like then we believe them and use them as confirmation of  the "truth" . On Codex there are  people who  posted  the Washington Post  article as "evidence "  of Ukraine being responsible but on  any other issue or story the WP is considered deep state\CIA\Jewish propaganda  and you cant  believe "anything they say " 

Edited November 15, 2023 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Wouldn't that require some sort of logistics and planning, which Russia has shown itself in short supply of the last year or so?

Fair point. But logistics and planning can both exist and not at the same time. Case in point: when Russian paratroopers landed near Kiev right at the start of the war in February 2022, they were supplied with maps. But the maps were from 1992. So, the places they tried to seek cover from no longer existed as such, and consequently they were easily mowed down.

[xzar_monty]

And so the most recent development on the Russian border situation in Finland is that our president has made a statement that we must strengthen our borders in the name of national security, even if it means that the individual human rights of some people (i.e. the refugees) will be cast aside. He did stress that this is a dilemma (i.e. security vs. rights) not a lot of people want to face or even talk about. Apparently Russia is seriously planning to start a refugee crisis on its Finnish borders, perhaps something like the situation between Poland and Belarus, for instance.

In the winter, it's a lot colder in Finland than it is in Poland, so if Russia leaves the refugees in no man's land, many of them are going to die. Russia is currently helping ID-less people get to the Finnish border, providing them with bicycles and just letting them go.

It's not great, but it's classic Russia, so that's where we're at. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine and Finland not playing along with it.

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

And so the most recent development on the Russian border situation in Finland is that our president has made a statement that we must strengthen our borders in the name of national security, even if it means that the individual human rights of some people (i.e. the refugees) will be cast aside. He did stress that this is a dilemma (i.e. security vs. rights) not a lot of people want to face or even talk about. Apparently Russia is seriously planning to start a refugee crisis on its Finnish borders, perhaps something like the situation between Poland and Belarus, for instance.

In the winter, it's a lot colder in Finland than it is in Poland, so if Russia leaves the refugees in no man's land, many of them are going to die. Russia is currently helping ID-less people get to the Finnish border, providing them with bicycles and just letting them go.

It's not great, but it's classic Russia, so that's where we're at. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine and Finland not playing along with it.

Yes and you need to strengthen your border security because  of  course Russia will take advantage and abuse the reality  of immigration 

And Russia is lucky because very few  immigrants want to immigrate to Russia. The main immigration destination is always Western countries 

An  idea could be UN funded refugee camps  or Finnish\EU  funded refugee camps like we see throughout Africa and the ME? People are safe but they cant  leave  unless they have resources.

 

[xzar_monty]

32 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

And Russia is lucky because very few  immigrants want to immigrate to Russia. The main immigration destination is always Western countries

I used to think this, too, but it's just not true.

The countries with the most foreign-born residents are, in order, the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK.

[BruceVC]

29 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I used to think this, too, but it's just not true.

The countries with the most foreign-born residents are, in order, the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK.

Thats fine,  then Finland can make a  reasonable demand that  Russia can absorb them?

One of the main  problem with the  US and SA immigration crisis is countries allow illegal immigrants to pass through and the immigrants dont want to immigrate to these countries

SA is currently overhauling its entire immigration laws because of massive flaws with how local laws integrate into international laws  and the unsustainable  resource burden  this places on SA 

https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-aaron-motsoaledi-release-white-paper-citizenship-immigration-and-refugee

We basically tired of being told  you have to accept illegal immigration and no other  African countries want to take any responsibility 

Oh and I just  did  a quick check about what countries take the most immigrants and Russia is not on the top 10 list? And Im talking about countries that people want to immigrate to

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/10-countries-that-take-the-most-immigrants?slide=10

Edited November 16, 2023 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

27 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Thats fine,  then Finland can make a  reasonable demand that  Russia can absorb them?

I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from with this. If Russia is intentionally directing refugees towards the Finnish border as a means of being a pest to Finland, do you seriously think that Russia will care a damn for what Finland says?

Edited November 16, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

15 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

In the winter, it's a lot colder in Finland than it is in Poland, so if Russia leaves the refugees in no man's land, many of them are going to die. Russia is currently helping ID-less people get to the Finnish border, providing them with bicycles and just letting them go.

It's not great, but it's classic Russia, so that's where we're at. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine and Finland not playing along with it.

Expect a certain percentage of those "id less" people to be working for GRU. They'll probably head back once the pain of the cold surpasses the benefits of their government paychecks.

[kanisatha]

Quite a few of you here will find this analysis to be very interesting and on point:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/putins-new-story-about-war-ukraine

[Mamoulian War]

According to Global Rights Compliance human rights group, Putin has been planning to starve out Ukraine with stealing all of their agricultural enterprises and their products and cause another "Holodomor" (which they actually did as one of the first things in the south). They started the preparation for it long before they invaded Ukraine and it is possible this will start another case against Putin and Russia in ICJ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-grain-theft-ukraine-russia-latest-b2447644.html

 

 

[HoonDing]

If Israel can do it, so can Russia

right?

Edited November 17, 2023 by HoonDing

[Zoraptor]

I'd put money on the Global Rights Compliance being a TLA front. Either that or they're idiots. There's zero chance of anything happening at the ICC over this, it's 100% propaganda. And not very good propaganda either.

Let's run through previous headlines, shall we. Ukraine is essential to feeding the 1 billion starving people of Africa- and let's not forget, depriving them of food is a War Crime per the Rules Based Order (not so much Palestinians though, eh?). Ukraine is also flooding Europe with cheap grain. Ukraine is still exporting despite drone attacks etc. Even western Ukraine is self sufficient agriculturally, indeed the main reason why Ukraine will never ever get into the EU is not corruption, territorial disputes or similar, it's that their agricultural sector would bankrupt the CAP.

Ukraine produces roughly 2 tonnes of grain, per person. That's ~4x the amount the EU does for all cereals, per person, and the EU feeds an astounding amount of that to livestock rather than eats it directly. Even western Ukraine is self sufficient. There's probably a case for Pillage due to Russia's annexations not being internationally accepted, but as always you run into the problem of western countries doing exactly the same thing. See Trump outright saying they were stealing Syria's oil- about as clear an example of Pillage as you can get, and from the US Commander in Chief too so not from some nebulous documents and recruiting patterns.

Quote

It is “highly likely” Russia will be found guilty, Catriona Murdoch, a partner at Global Rights Compliance, and if so Mr Putin could face another ICC arrest warrant to go with the one issued in March this year for the unlawful deportation of children from occupied Ukrainian territories.

So the ICC issue arrest warrants after finding someone guilty, do they? Guess Putin has already been found guilty of those previous charges then? No? Ho hum.

Quote

 

Beyond its impact on Ukrainian citizens, Russia’s invasion has affected millions around the world by increasing global food insecurity – Ukraine was the world’s largest wheat producer prior to the conflict.

 

Nerp. 6th, 2021 figures, and with less than a quarter the production of... China. It wasn't the biggest wheat exporter either though at least it was closer there.

And a stunningly small amount on the 'new Holodomor'. Are the farmers in Kherson etc starving? Is the general population? No? Well then. Crap article.

[Malcador]

https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2023/11/17/7429286/

No more country wide air alarms over Mig-31s.  Guess they took the latest news of the MiG-31s refueling as the Russians just flying them to screw with the Ukrainians.

[Keyrock]

I mean, if I was a ludicrously wealthy megalomaniac autocrat I would absolutely use extremely expensive military equipment just to **** with my neighbors.

[Zoraptor]

The MiG 31 isn't very expensive, at least comparatively, the last one was made nearly 30 years ago now and they aren't particularly advanced or anything. The main point of using a MiG 31 for psychological stuff is that it has a big payload and can carry things like Kinzhal's, so them launching --> imminent air raid (or not, as case may be). And they are cheaper than the Tupolev's to run.

[Keyrock]

25 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

The MiG 31 isn't very expensive, at least comparatively, the last one was made nearly 30 years ago now and they aren't particularly advanced or anything. The main point of using a MiG 31 for psychological stuff is that it has a big payload and can carry things like Kinzhal's, so them launching --> imminent air raid (or not, as case may be). And they are cheaper than the Tupolev's to run.

To a lowly peon, like me, even a 50 year old fighter jet is extremely expensive. 

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I'd put money on the Global Rights Compliance being a TLA front. Either that or they're idiots. There's zero chance of anything happening at the ICC over this, it's 100% propaganda. And not very good propaganda either.

Let's run through previous headlines, shall we. Ukraine is essential to feeding the 1 billion starving people of Africa- and let's not forget, depriving them of food is a War Crime per the Rules Based Order (not so much Palestinians though, eh?). Ukraine is also flooding Europe with cheap grain. Ukraine is still exporting despite drone attacks etc. Even western Ukraine is self sufficient agriculturally, indeed the main reason why Ukraine will never ever get into the EU is not corruption, territorial disputes or similar, it's that their agricultural sector would bankrupt the CAP.

Ukraine produces roughly 2 tonnes of grain, per person. That's ~4x the amount the EU does for all cereals, per person, and the EU feeds an astounding amount of that to livestock rather than eats it directly. Even western Ukraine is self sufficient. There's probably a case for Pillage due to Russia's annexations not being internationally accepted, but as always you run into the problem of western countries doing exactly the same thing. See Trump outright saying they were stealing Syria's oil- about as clear an example of Pillage as you can get, and from the US Commander in Chief too so not from some nebulous documents and recruiting patterns.

So the ICC issue arrest warrants after finding someone guilty, do they? Guess Putin has already been found guilty of those previous charges then? No? Ho hum.

Nerp. 6th, 2021 figures, and with less than a quarter the production of... China. It wasn't the biggest wheat exporter either though at least it was closer there.

And a stunningly small amount on the 'new Holodomor'. Are the farmers in Kherson etc starving? Is the general population? No? Well then. Crap article.

Zora dont undermine the outrage,  remember we support the ICC now because several countries want Netanyahu to face  ICC charges  

The ICC matters and we must  all  support it when it has just jurisdiction or a member country is involved 

But on a serious note, the ANC has demonstrated probably its   greatest  example  of political and ideological  flip-flopping around foreign policy I have ever seen. Literally 3 months ago there were many ANC politicians saying things like "the ICC  should be ignored, SA must leave    the ICC again "   or " the ICC is irrelevant "  and that was because the ICC had issued the warrant for Putin 

Now those exact same politicians a mere 3 months later are  saying the ICC is credible and significant and suddenly the ICC "matters "  but of course Hamas shouldn't be charged at the ICC

You couldnt make this up if you tried 

 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

I'd have no problem with Putin being charged by the ICC if they were charging him with the correct crimes, eg waging aggressive war and pillage. The reason they aren't is of course that then they'd have to charge people like Tony Blair and Donald Trump as well and We Can't Have That.

Nothing inconsistent with being inconsistent about the worth of the ICC. They could prove themselves to be even handed and worthwhile by bringing charges against members of The Rules Based Order and other protected persons, in the future. 95% of the criticism of it would go away tomorrow if they applied the rules even handedly and did not give carte blanche to favoured nations with 'reliable' judiciaries to investigate themselves and inevitably find themselves not guilty (or simply not bothered, that's still enough for a country with a 'reliable' judiciary*). It's kind of naive to expect that at this point, clearly the ANC are full of positivity and hope though which is nice. Still you never know, might see Bush, Blair and Bibi in the dock sometime. Not going to be holding my breath though.

*Case in point, the guy who leaked the Aus SAS atrocities is currently on trial (actually changed his plea to guilty yesterday, it seems) in Australia for those leaks. Don't think a single SAS member has been charged for kicking Afghans off cliffs, shooting them because they wouldn't fit on a copter etc yet though. Makes you wonder which one Australia's reliable judicial system sees as the worse crime, eh.