After Ukraine, what’s next?
- Thread starter MrCurry
- Start date
Probably a wise decision to condemn Kosovo for provocative actions (apparently for forcibly bringing the officials elected on 4% turnout into public buildings blocked by protestors, if my understanding is correct).
Wagner is definitely present in the region and trying to inflame things. Doing anything to make this easier for them is a bad idea.
That predominantly Serbian area of Kosovo should probably just go back to Serbia really.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
Yes its good to hear from the experts here, you can probably sleep soundly now
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
We're just awaiting your pronouncements on the issue...
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Still waiting for his list of walts
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Might as well expect him to compose a waltz
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
waltz for walts
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
He has a list of walts?
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Yup
- Post #22,119
- Apr 3, 2023
- Forum: Ukraine and the Russian invasion
- Post #22,905
- May 4, 2023
- Forum: Ukraine and the Russian invasion
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
He might be doing it in two stages, the panel vote and then the audience vote.I need to find out if I made it into the next round ffs.
keybored
Well done. You remember cat good.
Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
no, it wasn't. now, you may be thinking of the major operations. but that wasn't the war, was it, just one campaign in it. Nah, cobs. Iraq invaded and occupied in short order, Ba'ath party fucked, Sadaam dead. That was "The War". What happened after that wasn't.
www.urban75.net
Those would be the links but still no definitive list, sadly.
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
no, it wasn't. now, you may be thinking of the major operations. but that wasn't the war, was it, just one campaign in it. Nah, cobs. Iraq invaded and occupied in short order, Ba'ath party fucked, Sadaam dead. That was "The War". What happened after that wasn't.
Those would be the links but still no definitive list, sadly.
TYFYS.
teqniq
DisMembered
I have no idea how reliable this guy's analysis is or what his agenda is either so any thoughts would be appreciated:
threadreaderapp.com
Thread by @sumlenny on Thread Reader App
@sumlenny: THREAD Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin threatens sovereignty of Poland, questioning Poland's borders and calling the current shape of Poland "a Stalin's gift to (ungrateful) Poles". Why it is extremely i...…
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The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
I have no idea how reliable this guy's analysis is or what his agenda is either so any thoughts would be appreciated:
Thread by @sumlenny on Thread Reader App
@sumlenny: THREAD Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin threatens sovereignty of Poland, questioning Poland's borders and calling the current shape of Poland "a Stalin's gift to (ungrateful) Poles". Why it is extremely i...…
Interestingly enough one of the contributors to this chaps 'consultancy business Ben Hodges commanded the battalion during Iraq invasion that suffered the first fragging court martial since Vietnam.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
It’s really hard to overstate how nonsensical this post is.
Look, I'm not claiming to be an expert on the region, I'm just saying how it looks to me. Like pretty much everyone else here. If you've got something enlightening to say then I'm happy to learn something. I even qualified my statement with "if my understanding is correct" and "should probably". The only thing I said with confidence was the presence of Wagner, reported here:
Kosovo sanctions Wagner group amid fears it operates in region - Euractiv
Kosovo has implemented US sanctions on the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, de facto designating them a significant transnational criminal organisation, as fears about the group being active in the region remain. In January, the US Treasury Department enforced sanctions against...
www.euractiv.com
What it looks like to me is that tension in the predominantly Serb parts of Kosovo is something that could be exploited by Russia to cause divisions and prevent the integration of former Yugoslavia into the EU/distract from support to Ukraine. What it also seems to be is that the Serbs in that region of Kosovo have reasonable cause to be dissatisfied and some sort of compromise helps to de-escalate the situation.
Are you going to explain to me why that is so nonsensical that it can't be overstated? I am very open to the possibility that I've missed something important. Perhaps in future you can simply tell us what that is instead of being pointlessly rude. I don't know if you have a problem with me personally or if you're just like this. I did have you blocked for a while but then unblocked because you sometimes post interesting things about Belarus but every time you've interacted with me you've been awful. If you have nothing constructive or informative to say please just don't reply to me.
Also The39thStep , how come you liked my original post but then also liked the one calling it nonsense?
Perhaps you might also appreciate an explanation of why it is so nonsenical, seeing as you seemingly didn't think so when I first posted it?
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steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
All whining liberals like you deserve is ‘pointless rudeness’ to be honest. If you don’t know what you’re talking about then is it really so much to ask to, well, not comment?
Kosovo is the one functioning democracy in the ex-Yu region, not currently in the EU. It is being sanctioned as it will not bend to EU / US demands that they basically allow a Republika Srpska type entity on their territory, having learned the lessons of how that’s worked since 1995 and how it is working to undermine the territorial integrity and statehood of BiH now.
Russia doesn’t need to exploit anything. Wagner has fuck all to do with it and you may have noticed is a little bit busy elsewhere. The EU and US have decided to cede control of the region to local autocrats- Vučić, Plenković et al- as they have judged, wrongly, that they have much bigger fish to fry in Ukraine and with China.
Kosovo thinks otherwise. As for the idea that they just hand over territory to Serbia because someone who has not the first idea what they’re talking about thinks its a good idea then great, yeah.
Ah I see. You're someone who represents the interests of the proletariat but thinks anyone who lacks an encyclopedic knowledge of every topic lacks the right to speak and deserves nothing but pointless abuse. The point of a forum as I see it is to learn, through discussion. Almost 99% of the content on this forum is based on unqualified impressions by non-experts. Urban75 is not an academic journal.
Also I'm not a liberal, I'm a socialist. But I'm sure gate keeping socialism to exclude anyone who doesn't subscribe to the dustiest and most priggishly narrow minded doctrinaire Marxism is working very well for you.
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Why do EU/US want them to have a Republika Sprska like entity on their territory?
Also I would like to point out that my post is several months old, long before the Wagner mutiny, and it was widely reported that they were active in Bosnia and Kosovo. I don't think it was unreasonable of me not to dismiss those media reports from seemingly credible sources.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Where have I ever, ever claimed to "represent the interests of the proletariat"?
No shit, people actually read urban75 sometimes
LOL. At very best you seem a soft-right liberal. I'm not even a "Marxist". But keep flailing about in the dark.
Google is your friend. Read this and this and this to begin with. The West wants to be friends with Vučić to annoy the Russians and are willing to overlook virtually everything to acheive that goal. Vučić meanwhile is playing the old Tito card of taking from both the West and Russia and playing one off against the other.
And sorry, when someone parrots right wing nationalist talking points (bolded below), in a stentorian voice, & a whole load of other fantasy bullshit, and then claims to be "just asking questions" months later, I have the right to treat it with utter contempt.
"If my understanding is correct" is hardly a stentorian voice.
And get over yourself.
The fact is that my political views are likely closer to yours than more than 99.5% of this country. That you think this means I'm a right winger for expressing a vague hope for some sort of compromise to avoid an escalation of violence says far more about your intolerance and ego than it does about me. I was thinking about my own family experiences as Northern Irish Catholics if you must know where I was coming from.
Edit - in fact I have never once seen you take a political stance here that differs significantly from my own. Disagreements I've had with you are this, where you seem to be reading way too much into what I was saying, and elsewhere on the EU where I don't really understand what your disagreement with me even was but apparently we both voted Remain anyway. You seem to object to my style of speaking or something, which I'm sorry for because I've nothing against you apart from the times you've been abusive towards me.
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steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
I doubt we'd have much in common politically or in any other sphere. I react pretty badly to passive-aggressive indivduals like yourself. The clumsy application of solutions from the North of Ireland to the Western Balkans from the mid 90s onwards has done a lot of damager in Bosnia in particular, not that this is relevant to the subject at hand.
Amusing that you accuse me of ego and intolerance whilst finishing with a focus on you. Better to leave others to bother engaging with you.
I don't intend to come across as passive aggressive. I just don't like confrontation and I'm usually trying to be polite and to find a middle ground. I think you've misunderstood me.
Anyway let's just leave it at that.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Briefly- as you added this in a later edit- of course I have no problem with you. I have no idea who you are, and no interest in finding out - you're just a collection of pixels on a screen. Likewise I’m not sure why you’d give a shite if I did have some problem. We'll never meet.
I do have a problem with what you've said on two separate occasions and expressed that very robustly. I make no apology for it.
It's not all about how you feel, and you don't get to police how people respond to your words, either.
Finally- if you can imagine someone contributing to a thread on the North of Ireland and stating "probably those six counties should just go back to Ireland" as though it was that easy, reducing an extremely complex and difficult problem that has existed since at least Versailles to a glib sentence- you might get a sense of how annoying it is to people who through family and friends actually have some insight and "skin in the game".
The only people who think Kosovo handing back territory to Serbia is a good idea are right wing Serb nationalists / thugs, authoritarians from elsewhere who cheerlead Vučić and his criminal gang of a government, clueless foreigners, and, at various times, the US / EU.
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steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
I have no idea how reliable this guy's analysis is or what his agenda is either so any thoughts would be appreciated:
Thread by @sumlenny on Thread Reader App
@sumlenny: THREAD Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin threatens sovereignty of Poland, questioning Poland's borders and calling the current shape of Poland "a Stalin's gift to (ungrateful) Poles". Why it is extremely i...…
He is a respected commentator but I am not going to pretend to know his background or politics.
On his thread itself, a lot of speculation and what-ifs, and very little hard evidence.
As mentioned there, Lukashenka has been complaining theatrically to Putin in televised meetings, that the Wagnerites in Osipovichi are itching to go and attack Poland and are causing mischief on his territory. There's been no evidence of any Wagnerian crimes / outrages from the channels I follow, but then most of those have been preoccupied with a marathon fundraiser this weekend in support of Belarusian political prisoners (they raised over 570,000 euros from donations all over the world).
I wouldn't read an awful lot into the Belarusian helicopters buzzing the Polish border. The Belarusian military has no real desire to fight anyone and support for the war in Ukraine is low even amongst regime loyalists. The Belarusian military's greatest achievement in the last few years has been scrambling a helicopter to shoot down some red and white balloons that had drifted across the border from Lithuania during the 2020 protests. They have also "donated" an awful lot of their better kit to the Russian army. In my view they are in no position to play an active part in any conflict. Their sole use is in defending the regime.
It may be that some deranged Wagnerites are keen to go after the Suwalki gap but that really is a one way ticket and I am not sure how it will play domestically in Russia (such an action may raise Wagner's standing further, which is not in Putin's interests) and heat up the frozen conflict with NATO in very unpredictable ways. So I think it unlikely. This Russian raid from Belarusian land- repulsed with casualties- seems a little more significant.
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