Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[TopCat]

lol. this is untrue.

Plenty think West is almost the whole world.

 

[Pickman's model]

Plenty think West is almost the whole world.

and many think it's even less, hence the baseball world series which encompasses but part of the north american continent

 

[discokermit]

.

 

[agricola]

Plenty think West is almost the whole world.

Including the West itself.

 

[xenon]

It's actually more like none of those concerns come anywhere near to justifying the invasion.

Russian regeme had serious concernsabout Nato member countries coming closer to their borders. So er, had to invade a huge country in between them and Nato meaning they could have a border with one... Finland and Sweden would probably have stayed out of Nato too. This all been said several times a couple of years ago though.

 

[discokermit]

Russian regeme had serious concernsabout Nato member countries coming closer to their borders. So er, had to invade a huge country in between them and Nato meaning they could have a border with one... Finland and Sweden would probably have stayed out of Nato too. This all been said several times a couple of years ago though.

having a dozen cia bases on their border might have pissed them off a bit,
The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin

The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.

web.archive.org

 

[Ax^]

of course Putin getting on a bit and wanting to leave a legacy for himself has helped things along

"historically russian territories" being his bad shite idea on how to achieve it

 

[tim]

Plenty think West is almost the whole world.

Whatever it is, Russia has been part of it for three decades.

 

[maomao]

Whatever it is, Russia has been part of it for three decades.

Have they moved the meridian?

 

[emanymton]

Have they moved the meridian?

Would you not consider Australia to be part of "The West"?

 

[tim]

.

Here's what a professor of history at Yale University and the author of many books on fascism, totalitarianism and European history says: .

We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.​

https://archive.ph/iZCnu

I don't think we should be in awe of anyone because they happen to be a professor at Yale or any other supposedly elite University. Academics can be as partisan as anyone else. Schneider knows a lot about Ukraine but he's also a close associate of Yelenski, so hardly neutral.

 

[Fez909]

Russia seems pretty isolated to me. Especially if you look at the definition of "international isolation" - it basically means sanctions etc. To say they're not isolated is mental.

 

[tim]

Have they moved the meridian?

I don't think so. However, I live East of it myself. I do work in West Greenwich which might redeem me, even if I do teach quite a few Russians who have come in from the cold.

 

[Dogsauce]

Many other govt including China, Brazil, South Africa, India don’t support arming either country. A position that attracts derision and attacks from some people on the thread.

Ukraine is using Indian and South African artillery ammunition, and China is supplying Russia with military uniforms and vehicles (desertcross all-terrain vehicles, currently the battle taxi of choice because the armoured stuff is running out) and drones to both sides. So whatever their publicly stated opinions, they’re not doing that in practice.

 

[Dogsauce]

• Russia claimed that Ukraine attacked the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for a third day with a drone but Ukrainian officials denied that Kyiv had anything to do with the attacks. Ukraine has denied it is behind a series of drone attacks on the plant over the past three days, including three on Sunday, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said had endangered nuclear safety. The recent drone fell on the roof of the training centre, it said. No one was injured.

Is it not possible that drones are flying over the plant and being shot down? Russia does have a lot of military equipment (even had vehicles inside the plant, using it as a shield) so there are targets in the wider area that are fair game. I suspect Ukraine may be targeting stuff nearby and Russia may be trying to discredit them by placing debris on reactor buildings. It wouldn’t be the most clumsy bit of propaganda they’ve done if this is the case

 

[Spymaster]

Russia seems pretty isolated to me. Especially if you look at the definition of "international isolation" - it basically means sanctions etc. To say they're not isolated is mental.

View attachment 419449

"Voted no" ... Otherwise known as The Cunt Quintet.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Was confused by this for a moment...




Who's the country that voted no? It's not a view you often see, but there you go, fucking NATO creeping up to Russia's border.

 

[Dogsauce]

Nobody's really bothering to rebut my comparison. It's all very well to talk conspiratorially about "who's funding each side" [OMINOUS MUSIC SWELLS] but I'm more interested in what's actually happening in terms of



and how that compares to other, similar conflicts eg. Israel in Gaza

(I think I'm setting myself up for disappointment even asking tbf)

I think more pertinent comparisons could be made with how the US behaved towards South America in the 80s, an area they regarded as their back yard and how they would fuck any kind of government that pivoted away from them by funding/arming opposition groups. Seems Russia views their near neighbours in the same way and will interfere as they please. They’re just forty years behind the times.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Several scholars have posited that Russia has transformed into a fascist state, or that fascism best describes the Russian political system, especially following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ruscism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Russian fascism: the six principles of Putin’s nationalist ideology

Putin’s ideological propaganda leans heavily on Russian history

theconversation.com

Here's what a professor of history at Yale University and the author of many books on fascism, totalitarianism and European history says: .

We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.​

https://archive.ph/iZCnu

What do you think? Do you agree with him? If so, why? Maybe a short paragraph to show your thoughts? Or a choice paragraph to quote?

Otherwise, someone else finds a scholar who says different, and where are we? It's not much of a debate, is it?

 

[tim]

Is it not possible that drones are flying over the plant and being shot down? Russia does have a lot of military equipment (even had vehicles inside the plant, using it as a shield) so there are targets in the wider area that are fair game. I suspect Ukraine may be targeting stuff nearby and Russia may be trying to discredit them by placing debris on reactor buildings. It wouldn’t be the most clumsy bit of propaganda they’ve done if this is the case

That's the least probable answer to the quandary of whose drones they are. Do you think the Russians employ Bolshoi Theatre set designers to fake the damage that those drones would have caused?

 

[agricola]

I think more pertinent comparisons could be made with how the US behaved towards South America in the 80s, an area they regarded as their back yard and how they would fuck any kind of government that pivoted away from them by funding/arming opposition groups. Seems Russia views their near neighbours in the same way and will interfere as they please. They’re just forty years behind the times.

I am not sure the two are comparable TBH - there is certainly an aspect of interfering in neighbouring countries (and further afield), but I think this is a lot more existential an issue to the Russian government than what happened in the Western hemisphere post-war was to the US.

By that I mean that they know that friendly governments in the region are - for a variety of reasons - vulnerable to opposition movements for a variety of genuine reasons (overall corruption and poor quality of life, as well as external support for the opposition). They've seen the friendly Ukrainian government be overthrown, and they know that Lukashenko would have gone in 2020 without considerable help. The instability this causes is something that urgently needs to be managed; certainly I don't think the EU have yet understood how threatening expanding the EU is to a wide variety of actors, near and abroad - just imagine for example what would happen if the EU invited Russia in.

 

[Pickman's model]

Several scholars have posited that Russia has transformed into a fascist state, or that fascism best describes the Russian political system, especially following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ruscism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Russian fascism: the six principles of Putin’s nationalist ideology

Putin’s ideological propaganda leans heavily on Russian history

theconversation.com

Here's what a professor of history at Yale University and the author of many books on fascism, totalitarianism and European history says: .

We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.​

https://archive.ph/iZCnu

Have you read any of his many books?

 

[editor]

.


I don't think we should be in awe of anyone because they happen to be a professor at Yale or any other supposedly elite University. Academics can be as partisan as anyone else. Schneider knows a lot about Ukraine but he's also a close associate of Yelenski, so hardly neutral.

I wasn't asking anyone to be in 'awe' of the author, but he's hardly alone in considering Russia to fascist/damn near fascist.

What does this look like to you?

Russia in 2022 seems to embody the darkest elements of 20th-century fascism. Led by a supposedly miraculous leader, it is a place where an array of ahistorical and quasi-religious thinking, imagery, and myths support a total militarization of the state, the reconquest of a lost empire, and a mission to wipe out a racial enemy—the Ukrainian people. Denunciations and free-speech crackdowns are becoming more public and more violent. The last independent media are gone, and everybody lives in fear of arbitrary arrest and beatings, afraid to speak their mind on what is still not officially called a “war.” One acquaintance tells me his elderly, decrepit mother was arrested by the FSB—today’s incarnation of the notorious KGB—in the first week of the Ukraine war for sharing a social media post merely reporting on an anti-war protest.

Russia’s Frighteningly Fascist Youth

A new generation of Russians glorifies war, death, and Vladimir Putin.

foreignpolicy.com

Russia — the epitome of an atomized polity — illustrates the possibility of a modern fascism. Certainly, organically, the Russian government does not resemble that of Mussolini’s Italy, either in its rise to power, nor in the political structures that define it today.

Politically, however, it has come to reproduce core attributes of it: the current system has emerged out of a liberal-consumerist one, without any apparent political rupture. It has come to reject liberalism since 2012, accusing it of having allowed for the destruction of the “natural social order.” Ideologically, it also aims to resurrect this “natural order” in morality and geopolitics.

The current government has reproduced, if not strengthened, the most repressive aspects of Soviet morality, for example the persecution of homosexuality — although what was originally attacked as “antisocial” is now directly addressed as a perversion of morality and social order. The decriminalization of male domestic violence signals acceptance of violence, committed not only by the state but also by individuals, as the expression of the “natural order” and social hierarchy.

Russia Shows How Fascist Ideas Can Triumph Over an Atomized Society

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt demonstrated the conflicts within Russia’s elite — but also the great political passivity of the general population. In today’s Russia, a fascist cult of violence has taken root in an atomized, demobilized society.

jacobin.com

 

[ska invita]

Whatever it is, Russia has been part of it for three decades.

This is an interesting topic.... How did the different western establishments attempt to play along with post USSR Russia go so utterly fucked. It was fucked from day one tbh when they pushed them into creating the oligarchal system but even so it's a bizarre ride, wasnt long ago Gazprom sponsored the football and Britain was flogging it's newspapers to the dodgiest Russian billionaire they could find.

I don't think it was ever a genuinely integrated part of the west though

 

[ska invita]

.


I don't think we should be in awe of anyone because they happen to be a professor at Yale or any other supposedly elite University. Academics can be as partisan as anyone else. Schneider knows a lot about Ukraine but he's also a close associate of Yelenski, so hardly neutral.

Totally....Yale particularly is far from neutral and runs a particular liberal intellectual agenda

I do think Russia in 2024 is a form of fascism though.

 

[The39thStep]

I am not sure the two are comparable TBH - there is certainly an aspect of interfering in neighbouring countries (and further afield), but I think this is a lot more existential an issue to the Russian government than what happened in the Western hemisphere post-war was to the US.

By that I mean that they know that friendly governments in the region are - for a variety of reasons - vulnerable to opposition movements for a variety of genuine reasons (overall corruption and poor quality of life, as well as external support for the opposition). They've seen the friendly Ukrainian government be overthrown, and they know that Lukashenko would have gone in 2020 without considerable help. The instability this causes is something that urgently needs to be managed; certainly I don't think the EU have yet understood how threatening expanding the EU is to a wide variety of actors, near and abroad - just imagine for example what would happen if the EU invited Russia in.

I think EU expansion has all sorts of challenges and potential problems . Having said that Germany managed to start 2 world wars and still get in the EU .

 

[Ax^]

hmm Germany no longer want to expand it's empire slight different between the country and Putin's Russia

 

[discokermit]

Russia seems pretty isolated to me. Especially if you look at the definition of "international isolation" - it basically means sanctions etc. To say they're not isolated is mental.

View attachment 419449

so who are they doing business with? their economy is growing. also aren't they chairing brics at the moment, which has expanded to include egypt, ethiopia, iran and the uae with saudi considering its membership? doesn't sound very isolated, whatever that vote.

 

[Pickman's model]

Russia seems pretty isolated to me. Especially if you look at the definition of "international isolation" - it basically means sanctions etc. To say they're not isolated is mental.

View attachment 419449

You're living in the past, look at the date of that graphic. We're in 2024 now and things have moved on. Oh the Queen died too.

 

[ska invita]

hmm Germany no longer want to expand it's empire slight different between the country and Putin's Russia

You say that but if there's one big winner from the EU it's Germany... It's the head of the EU