Russian invasion of Ukraine

Found this post on r/ukraine that I thought was worth a read re escalation, NATO, china etc

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t6ggx2/stop_advocating_for_a_nato_direct_attack_you_do/

It's more about tactics, both political and military. If NATO and the Allies fall for Putin's provocations it's exactly what he is looking for, it will give immediately pretext to declare war on NATO and the Allies and China to jump in the conflict. By playing the defensive card and non-direct intervention, NATO is basically writing history as we speak and changing the discourse in favor of public opinion.

So much for actually free country, free from western media lies and so on

Russia has passed a new law meaning citizens who spread what it
described as "fake" information about the military can be jailed for
up to 15 years.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-latest-russia-law-b2028440.html

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1499657224293167110

President Zelenskyy survives 3 assassination attempts in past week, could face another before weekend. Mercenaries from Kremlin-backed Wagner group and Chechen special forces thwarted after Ukraine tipped off by Russian FSB sources opposed to the invasion.

Full story in the Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/zelensky-survives-three-assassination-attempts-in-days-xnstdfdfc

I just found the original and can confirm that the Abbott video is real.

What tooling did you use?

Putler

I prefer Assputin

Can you share a link to the original?

Sure, when at desk later, but if it helps the full video is on a video of a stop the war livestream on their web site. Talknews then posted a cut version of it on their YouTube channel, and it appears somebody has taken that abridged version and chopped it up some more.

In fact he makes a point that total occupation of Ukraine would be the worst outcome. But I suppose that's where the argument over how best to prevent that starts.

I think that's a really important point. It's also where there is a divergence between the interests of Ukrainian people and western governments. Western governments would be quite happy for Russia to be stuck in an Afghanistan type occupation, where they can't get out without losing everything, so they have to stay at massive human and financial cost, until putin gets deposed or however else it ends. But that is not a good way for Ukrainian people to live for the next decade.

Good outcomes involve negotiation ASAP and Russia withdrawing straight away. I don't know that it matters anything like as much to the average person in Ukraine exactly what the terms of the peace are, as that it comes quickly.

A bad outcome could be Western governments giving Zelensky enough help to enable him to prolong the war indefinitely. In the short term it will make the Russians more violent and destructive (Chechnia). And it makes the hell of war last longer.

Cheers for this! I think I largely understand their sentiment and generally think they're right about NATO's avoidance. But it's a weird take in a way - the writer makes it sound like the west is itching for a fight, but don't want to be the ones to start it. Not sure I'm into that part.

Good outcomes involve negotiation ASAP and Russia withdrawing straight away. I don't know that it matters anything like as much to the average person in Ukraine exactly what the terms of the peace are, as that it comes quickly.

@frank9755 Yeah it's quite hard to imagine what the preference would be, or even if there is one overriding opnion amongst Ukranians. The strength of resistance (including civilians) suggests to me that acceptable terms of peace wouldn't give too much, if anything, to Putin/Russia. But who knows how long that opinion (if held) would last.

Interesting press conference with captured Russians.

https://youtu.be/LD_4Y2TQotA

The strength of resistance (including civilians) suggests to me that acceptable terms of peace wouldn't give too much, if anything, to Putin/Russia. But who knows how long that opinion (if held) would last.

I think international opinion will be quite important here. Ukraine's government can argue for whatever settlement they feel strikes the right balance, but I think international opinion will be strongly against conceding anything at all (and I wonder if negotiations might be used to revisit the question of Crimea). The relative inaction by the West to the annexation of Crimea is quite shameful, but it was the response to a (arguably) rational act of Russia expanding to gain a warm-water port. This invasion is, in contrast, completely unjustified in terms of strategic objectives and is clearly solely politically driven by Putin. As such, I can't see any of the gains that it has made being allowed to stand if it comes to negotiations.

Can you share a link to the original?

Here you are chap. https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/watch-no-war-in-ukraine-stop-nato-expansion/

Of course We have manage to live with Tony blair, Bush jr and others that have caused great deal of anguish, but they haven’t actively pointed a nuclear weapon in our face. Either the russian people dispose of assputin or we will be living our lives just waiting for new Mainila shelling.

I think international opinion will be quite important here. Ukraine's government can argue for whatever settlement they feel strikes the right balance, but I think international opinion will be strongly against conceding

That, for the Ukranian people, is the trap they could fall into. Essentially that involes the West using them as pawns to be sacrificed to extract concessions from the Russians.

There are also jump cuts in there and she comes across like some loony villain from the Hunger Games.

That is on the Stop the War page, so I think we can now assume that is what she meant to say.

Shocking as I find it that she was suggesting the partition of Ukraine, I found the next speaker (Richard Sakwa) even more shocking. He explicitly supports the foreign policy statements of Xi Jinping and Putin.

IMO, the reason you see these points of view platformed at Stop the War events is because they are opposed to the model of market-based democracy, so they can't understand why anyone (i.e. the Ukrainian people), would fight for it.

I'm not trying to silence their speech or narrow the parameters of debate. I'm just saying my opinion is that they are profoundly wrong on the history and the politics.

Maybe she meant the separation of the Ukraine from the USSR ?

I still think that Nato should hold firm on Ukraine becoming a member.
Nato are not interested in invading soviet territory so they are not an invasion threat and essentially any sovereign country should be free to apply if it so chooses, maybe a no-nuke concession as it is already.
Putin will not like it but tough shit, he can’t have it all his own way ‘give them an inch’ etc.
or agree not to and then a year later just announce they have joined. what’s he going to do? invade again? no chance as Russia will be trying to rebuild it’s economy and the sanctions start again immediately.
The puffed up shitehouse will hopefully be dead soon anyway.

Accenture pulling out of Russia including letting go of 2300 employees with “generous severance packages”. How will they pay them? Bitcoin?

50 million rubles each or £25, whichever is higher

The quote was:

We need to find peaceful solutions to a complicated conflict of identities and national rights. This was done elsehwere in Eastern Europe as countries peacefully seperated.

Best case you could try and squeeze that into meaning implementing Minsk II, but that didn't envisage the seperation of Ukraine, AIUI.

Would they be better off splitting the Russian business and just giving it to the employees? “Here you go, you’re on your own now”

I don't think that most Ukrainians would see the return of (at least) the territory invaded during this conflict as a "concession" from the Russians. Even the withdrawal of support from militias in the Donbas would barely be a concession, it's just falling into line with basic, modern, functional statehood i.e., not laying claim to the territory of other states.

There's a strange undertone in this thread of deploring the Stop the War stance, while still seeming to know exactly what is best for Ukrainians. It may not be possible to reclaim Crimea and parts of the Donbas from effective Russian control, but it's still abhorrent to say "it's ok, you've only got to give up these additional sections of your country that have just been seized."

Like it or not, international pressure will be very hard to ignore, since sanctions seem to be effective in that they're doing severe damage to the Russian economy. Third-parties including the EU and the US, could still keep these in place, even if Ukraine and Russia did negotiate a cease-fire, but it's likely that future actions on that front would be discussed with Ukraine.

What worth would the negotiations have?
Isn’t this already a breach of the previous agreement? It doesn’t seem to me at least that the invasion has come from a breakdown of the relationship.

The Russians don’t need an agreement to leave.

Western governments would be quite happy for Russia to be stuck in an Afghanistan type occupation, where they can't get out without losing everything, so they have to stay at massive human and financial cost, until putin gets deposed or however else it ends.

Is there any evidence for this? The west has been extremely comfortable with Putin's Russia for the last couple of decades. Reliance on Russian energy in Europe, gobs of oligarch cash juicing local property markets, political parties etc. Do you really think western governments want the second largest nuclear power, led by a questionably adjusted autocrat bogged down in a bloody war on Europe's doorstep? I'd bet every one of them would take a quick Russian withdrawal to 2014 lines and a staged reversal of sanctions in a hot minute. Betting on regime change happening organically in Russia is a pretty out of the money option, especially without the sort of turbulence that would deleteriously affect western European interests in the short term.