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Yes they are [probably,technically], and... ?
Edited.
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Control the media, control the narrative
As Ukrainians deal with the devastation of the Russian attacks in their homeland, many are also encountering a confounding and almost surreal backlash from family members in Russia, who refuse to believe that Russian soldiers could bomb innocent people, or even that a war is taking place at all.
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A lot of the shot up Russian units belong to the Rosgvardiya, I didn’t know who they were but Wikipedia tells me they are Internal Security Troops reporting directly to Putin and he had 340,000 of them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_Russia
They seem analogous to the old KGB troops except the KGB was balanced by the army and the party so no one person could have too much power.
Putin might just be using his most loyal units but if they get badly mauled?
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First time I have seen anything on Russia attempting to Govern
Melitopol under its new head Vladimir Rogov:
- Debt jubilee
- Gas/utilities prices lowered to Russian levels
- Temp tax holiday
- Russian market opened to farmers
- Local militia to support Rosgvardiya
Suggests Russia is here to stay; Novorossiya, at the least, will be annexed.
- Debt jubilee
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Looks like Putin is getting ready to lift the drawbridge on internet access
Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet. No later than March 11, all servers and domains must be transferred to the Russian zone
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Why a coup would be difficult
https://twitter.com/adam_e_casey/status/1500517532280700932 -
The problem with replacing him is that he's killed or jailed or exiled his opposition and he's had 20 years to fill his administration with obedient lackeys and old mates and vicious thugs. A real regime change would take a massive public uprising. If the police/security services/army are loyal to him, he would kill thousands of the public as 'terrorists'.
He does fear assassination. Here's a tabloid account of his security. https://nypost.com/2022/03/04/heres-how-putin-protects-himself-from-assassins-and-coups/
As for motivation, I think he really believes he can restore Russia to somewhere near the status it had in Soviet times. Living standards have gone up a lot under his rule, but the influence and prestige and respect have shrunk. He wants to go down in history as a national hero. I think the unhinged rants are crafted to scare the West and his parliament, and they certainly work.
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I think the unhinged rants are crafted to scare the West and his parliament, and they certainly work.
They certainly work for me. The theory of nuclear deterence, once known as MAD or mutually assured destruction, assumes that those in charge of the nukes are sane; if they're insane they won't reliably be deterred.
I hope we've all seen the film Doctor Strangelove:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
Happily, this story never came to pass, but there are three characters who seem to be bonkers: Strangelove himself, General Jack D. Ripper, who thinks the communists are polluting his bodily fluids, and the bomber pilot who sits on his own bomb as it is released.
If you've watched this you won't want to play nuclear chicken with madmen.
As for assassination, it has been pointed out that Russia has some similarity with Rome (no effective constitution) . It was fairly common for Roman Emperors to be killed by their praetorian guard - obvously the guards were very well paid, but even so there comes a point when they decide their boss is off his rocker and it would be in their own interest to have someone saner.
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It's also possible that they have the ability to think for themselves, don't want to occupied by Russia, and would rather fight than surrender. If the people of Ukraine ask for assistance it would be patronising in the extreme to tell them that this isn't really want they want.
Which people? Zelensky and his associates are asking for help to enable them to fight more effectively but we don't know what the average Ukranian wants because no-one is asking them.
But there was some fascinating polling the other day from the US. It showed that, the more you earned the keener you were on war. The poorer people, who were likely to have to do the actual fighting, the dying, the losing their families, their homes and their livelihoods, etc are not very keen on it at all. Why would it be different in Ukraine?
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we don't know what the average Ukranian wants because no-one is asking them
the average Ukrainian is either on their way to refuge in neighbouring countries or has an ak-47 in their hands or making molotovs and stuff. From the resistance Russia faced, I'd think quite a lot of average Ukrainians chose to defend their country.
But there was some fascinating polling the other day from the US
Keep in mind that differently from the US, Ukraine was occupied by the Soviet Union for half of the century and regained their independence merely 30 years ago. The wound is still fresh, therefor the attitude might be different. Also the poll you mention asks people if they'd support military involvement (not themselves).
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If the people of Ukraine ask for assistance
What do we do if the people of Palestine ask for assistance? Or the people of Yemen?
What we do is ignore them and sell arms to the people who are opressing them and killing them. We, or more precisely, our government, has a choice when it is asked to do something and it exercises it based on what it thinks is our, or its, interest.
There is no grand principal of helping the opressed to fight back against a bully and there never has been.
The UK practically used the freedom to choose how to respond based on pure self-interest without any discernible principle as the main plank of its foreign policy for a hundred years up to the start of the first world war. 'Perfidious Albion', etc - because the French in particular, whenever they did anything to try to contain the threat they saw from Germany, never knew whether we were going to support them or oppose them.
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we don't know what the average Ukranian wants because no-one is asking them
In the absence of any IPSOS-Mori polling...
https://time.com/6154068/ukrainian-citizens-fight-russian-troops/
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OK, yes - lots of things are different but not everything. It has been a common theme throughout history that the ruling classes have been more keen on war than poor people. It makes sense because the rich have more to lose - power, status, wealth, etc. The very poor have nothing to lose.
Until we get to the Chechnya scenario where it is a long war, then everybody loses. But that's what sending arms Ukraine makes more likely to happen.
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Those stories are part of a narrative. They show that there is some basis for it but don't prove that it is true.
In Syria and other war zones people with money and connections used them to get out, while others who couldn't get out were paid to fight. It would take more than these kind of press reports to convince me Ukraine was different from elsewhere.
What would you do? If I could, I'd get away. I wouldn't get jingositic about wanting to give the Ruskies a bloody nose with my Molotov cocktail against a tank
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I wonder if Frank would 'get away' to Russia or Belarus, allowing the Russian's to create the narrative of people fleeing Ukraine to Russia, currently the only option being made available to get out with your children, if you don't want them shelled to pieces.
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Some quality victim blaming going on this morning.
This is probably just going to reflect poorly on me, but I am contstantly suprised how a conversation on an internet forum that is discussing what people might be feeling and the choices they may or may not have in front of them can be categorized as victim blaming. I don't agree with Frank9755's PoV but it feels a long way from victim blaming.
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What would you do? If I could, I'd get away. I wouldn't get jingositic about wanting to give the Ruskies a bloody nose with my Molotov cocktail against a tank
And yet people are preparing to do exactly that. Not only that, people are returning to the country to fight, so your inclinations here don't really carry much weight. If you're bemoaning them having to fight tanks with Molotov cocktails presumably one solution is to arm them better.
War is shit. Fighting one isn't necessarily the worst thing though.
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I don't agree with @frank9755, but he's not shit-stirring, it's useful opinion to see.
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About
Russian invasion of Ukraine
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Just out of interest, like, can we think of anyone who has been convicted of a war crime committed during a war which his side won?