Ukraine - somebody explain to me

[myboynoah]

Uh oh.

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[falafel]

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[SeattleUte]

Why everybody is up in arms over Russia's involvement.

Background: The largest ethnic component of me is Ukrainian. I do have some understanding of the geopolitics and situation. Moreover, I grew up with at least a portion of the ethnic pride that is apparent - you never made the mistake of calling my Baba's food "Russian" twice, or mistaking which language she spoke. Cardiac will be far better versed than I am, however.

So, at any rate, my understanding is that (1) a large portion of the Crimeans are of Russian ethnicity, so much so that they were semi - autonomous already, (2) they effectively declared independence from the Ukraine, and (3) the Russian Black Sea fleet is stationed permanently in Crimea and has been for years. If that's the case, why wouldn't we expect Russia and Putin to be involved?!? I'm not exactly seeing the surprise. Concern is obvious because nobody wants to have a bloody war with people dying of course.

(1) Stalin ethnically cleansed the Crimea.

(2) This was done in response to a hasty plebiscite at gun point as Russian troops had suddenly infiltrated the Crimea and a barrage of propaganda. Hitler did the exact same thing in Austria.

(3) It's a big deal because Ukrainians want to be liberal democratic and Russia is fascist and totalitarian. Why must some people try to read into this eight year long war more into it than this? It's always comforting to rationalize, oh, they're different, they have their age-old issues that are theirs not ours, and we don't get. No, Ukrainians are like us. They don't want any part of Russia.

[Bo Diddley]

Holy crap.

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[Bo Diddley]

Now reports of 300 dead in that theater bombing. So much waste and destruction. This madness needs to end.

[Bo Diddley]

Russian commanders are dropping like flies. Sometimes by their own troops.

Two more senior Russian commanders have been killed - one of them apparently died after being attacked by his own men, a Western official has said.

[Commando]

Putin needs to be locked in a cell at the Hague. Or at least shot in the face by some Russian official trying to salvage the future of the country.

[BigPiney]

That BBC headline is interesting and seems like what could be the endgame for Russia. "Russia has said it will now focus on the complete "liberation" of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region."

They pull back from the rest of the country and just "liberate" Donbas, just like they did Crimea as a way to save face.

[BlueK]

That BBC headline is interesting and seems like what could be the endgame for Russia. "Russia has said it will now focus on the complete "liberation" of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region."

They pull back from the rest of the country and just "liberate" Donbas, just like they did Crimea as a way to save face.

More deaths in one month than their entire ten years in Afghanistan. And now starting to get pushed away from Kyiv by the Ukrainians. So it may make some sense they look for a save face right now. What an evil, senseless disaster. It may take a little while but I no longer think it's unlikely Putin gets pushed out. If true they pull back now it may be a sign Putin feared a revolt from the military. Like any other dictator, he doesn’t do anything except for what he thinks helps him stay in power

[BlueK]

Here is a good summary of what led up to war in Ukraine.

(CNN)The Russian invasion of Ukraine didn't just happen out of nowhere.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with the West for the better part of the last decade -- he annexed Crimea, meddled in US elections, poisoned an ex-spy on British soil, and more. Nearly every step of the way, former President Donald Trump parroted Kremlin talking points, excused Russian aggression and sometimes even embraced it outright.

It's easy to forget that a few years ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn't known for his steely wartime leadership, but for getting dragged by Trump into the US political scandal that led to Trump's first impeachment.Experts say Trump's actions weakened Ukraine, divided NATO, emboldened Putin and helped get us to where we are today. And even with Trump no longer in office, his impact lives on in the form of Putin-friendly commentary in conservative media and from some Republican lawmakers.

"One of the key reasons Putin probably felt comfortable launching the invasion of Ukraine was the extent to which the West has been weakened and destabilized, and democracy undermined, and political divisions sown, in the five years since he attacked our election in 2016," said Garrett Graff, a historian and journalist with expertise in national security and Cold War issues.

popular revolution in 2014 ousted the pro-Russia regime in Kyiv, which was led by President Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced it with a Western-leaning government. Russian troops soon invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, initiating the armed conflict that escalated this year.
Within weeks, Trump praised Putin for how he handled the takeover of Crimea and predicted that "the rest of Ukraine will fall ... fairly quickly." Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Trump said in a TV interview that the Crimean people "would rather be with Russia," a position he also pushed in private. One of his 2016 campaign aides falsely claimed that "Russia did not seize Crimea."
"Trump said that Crimea is Russian, because people speak Russian," said Elena Petukhova of Molfar, a Kyiv-based business intelligence firm, who called it an "absolutely pro-Kremlin" view. "According to this logic, the entire territory of the United States should belong to Great Britain."

When Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down a commercial airliner in 2014, killing 298 people, Trump sowed doubt about Russia's involvement. He embraced Putin's denials, even after US and European officials publicly concluded that Russia was complicit.
Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- who had spent a decade advising Yanukovych in Ukraine -- collaborated in 2016 with a Russian spy on a secret plan for Trump to help Russia control eastern Ukraine, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report. The proposal envisioned that Yanukovych would return to lead a Russian puppet state in eastern Ukraine.
This pro-Russian rhetoric didn't always translate into policy for the Trump White House. For instance, his administration said sanctions would continue until Russia returned Crimea. But the rhetoric gave Putin an unexpected cheerleader in DC and created tensions within NATO.

Throughout his presidency, Trump pushed a litany of false claims about Ukraine -- in public and private. He rarely missed an opportunity to criticize the country. A widely respected diplomat testified to Congress that Trump believed "Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of terrible people."
Trump's biggest lie was about the 2016 election. He rejected the reality that Russia interfered to help him win. Instead, he falsely claimed it was Ukraine who meddled, and that he was the victim. These lies, which he repeated dozens of times, were a double boon to the Kremlin: they downplayed Russia's brazen attack on US democracy, while simultaneously smearing Ukraine.
These views quickly became the party line for GOP lawmakers and conservative pundits, even though top Russia experts like Fiona Hill publicly warned that it was all Russian propaganda.

"When Trump muddies the water by praising Putin, or undermines Zelensky and spreads falsehoods about Ukraine, this has real implications for how this crisis plays out," said Jordan Gans-Morse, a Northwestern University professor who was a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine. "It shapes public opinion in ways that tie Biden's hands when he's a de facto wartime president."

Less than three years ago, Zelensky was a fledgling politician that Trump and his cronies took advantage of as part of a ham-handed attempt to smear candidate Biden. The US-Ukraine relationship was put on the backburner and replaced with Trump's personal and political needs.

Zelensky's top priorities were to get more shipments of American weapons and to meet Trump at the White House. Veteran US diplomats in Kyiv shared this goal. But they were smeared and sidelined -- and replaced by a band of Trump loyalists who made his demands clear: Zelensky could only get these things if he announced that Ukraine was investigating Biden for corruption.

"Zelensky had more than enough on his plate when he came to power," Gans-Morse said. "The country was already at war with Russia. He's a political novice. And then, on top of that, the most powerful person in the world essentially extorted him, and he had to devote time and energy to deal with that. It's unclear what the full impact was, but it definitely tested Zelensky."


https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/26/polit...ine/index.html

[SeattleUte]

Biden just gave a great speech in Poland, once a part of the Soviet empire, whose invasion by Hitler signaled the start of the Second World War, and is now a free, thriving democracy and bulwark against Putin's fascist Russia.

I was just thinking that I've followed Biden since he was a young senator and I was in college. Always seemed to me shallow with a pretty face. That seemed confirmed when the plagiarism scandal ended his first run for president. As Vice President he seemed a buffoon alongside Obama, and a has been. Then sometimes in the last election he seemed addled.

Now, at 79, he has reached the destination af his life's trajectory. And at this moment he's a great leader desperately needed by the world. Kind of like Churchill or Truman. Should be an inspiration to us all.

Meanwhile, our Republican senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are using Putin's playbook deploying a pedophelia smear against the first Black woman nominated as a Supreme Court justice, who in terms of her legal resume, academic as well as professional, is far more accomplished than either one of them.

A telling juxtaposition.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Biden just gave a great speech in Poland, once a part of the Soviet empire, whose invasion by Hitler signaled the start of the Second World War, and is now a free, thriving democracy and bulwark against Putin's fascist Russia.

I was just thinking that I've followed Biden since he was a young senator and I was in college. Always seemed to me shallow with a pretty face. That seemed confirmed when the plagiarism scandal ended his first run for president. As Vice President he seemed a buffoon alongside Obama, and a has been. Then sometimes in the last election he seemed addled.

Now, at 79, he has reached the destination af his life's trajectory. And at this moment he's a great leader desperately needed by the world. Kind of like Churchill or Truman. Should be an inspiration to us all.

Meanwhile, our Republican senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are using Putin's playbook deploying a pedophelia smear against the first Black woman nominated as a Supreme Court justice, who in terms of her legal resume, academic as well as professional, is far more accomplished than either one of them.

A telling juxtaposition.

The past month has been stuffed with extraordinary developments internationally, and I'm glad Biden has, overall, done a very good job of taking advantage of the moment. I really enjoyed this opening paragraph of a Brian Klass essay in The Atlantic:

In the span of a couple of weeks, Vladimir Putin—a man recently described by Donald Trump as a strategic “genius”—managed to revitalize NATO, unify a splintered West, turn Ukraine’s little-known president into a global hero, wreck Russia’s economy, and solidify his legacy as a murderous war criminal.

How did he miscalculate so badly? [Quick answer: Putin has fallen into the "dictator trap" of believing his own misconceptions and those of his sycophantic advisers]

Biden's speech today was another effective blow against Putin, bolstering our ties with Poland and the rest of NATO, while reassuring Russian citizens (the couple dozen who will have access to his speech) that they are not the enemy here,

[Jeff Lebowski]

This thread is well worth the read. Covers reaction inside Russia to the war. How Russians themselves feel like any kind of negotiated end would be a disastrous loss for Russia. And the really interesting part is the last half or so. Very detailed description of what the sanctions will do and how it will lead not to a coup, but to regional breakup/collapse of Russia.

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[Non Sequitur]

Biden just gave a great speech in Poland, once a part of the Soviet empire, whose invasion by Hitler signaled the start of the Second World War, and is now a free, thriving democracy and bulwark against Putin's fascist Russia.

I was just thinking that I've followed Biden since he was a young senator and I was in college. Always seemed to me shallow with a pretty face. That seemed confirmed when the plagiarism scandal ended his first run for president. As Vice President he seemed a buffoon alongside Obama, and a has been. Then sometimes in the last election he seemed addled.

Now, at 79, he has reached the destination af his life's trajectory. And at this moment he's a great leader desperately needed by the world. Kind of like Churchill or Truman. Should be an inspiration to us all.

Meanwhile, our Republican senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are using Putin's playbook deploying a pedophelia smear against the first Black woman nominated as a Supreme Court justice, who in terms of her legal resume, academic as well as professional, is far more accomplished than either one of them.

A telling juxtaposition.

The saddest part of the smear is the pedophilia angle, a not so transparent attempt to curry favor with the Q crowd. This Cruz/Hawley/Lee wing of the GOP is disgusting.

[Bo Diddley]

This thread is well worth the read. Covers reaction inside Russia to the war. How Russians themselves feel like any kind of negotiated end would be a disastrous loss for Russia. And the really interesting part is the last half or so. Very detailed description of what the sanctions will do and how it will lead not to a coup, but to regional breakup/collapse of Russia.

Wow. That's a pretty bold take. I'm left scratching my head over how inept Russia has been. Their performance doesn't match what I've been told all my life as a soldier.