not-bono-ever
meh
Don’t engage with the night shift
Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
- Thread starter kebabking
- Start date
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hiraethified
While accepting that most Russian citizens are spoon fed a load of propaganda bullshit, I think it's going to be interesting how the younger generation squares the government's claims of Ukraine aggression with the sudden and total disappearance of just about every major international firm from their shopping centres and online services.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
What a very silly thing to say.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
thought the same about this
never mind eh, boil it down to some black and white argument where you can dismis the conflict to a sarcastic "we made him to do it" and endlessly repeat. no nuance to talk about. boo at the bad man.
Russia has invaded Ukraine and is busy committing war crimes. Where is the room for nuance there? I think most of here already recognise that NATO could have done better in the past, even if the details of what that entails might differ from poster to poster.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
I think this point can't be emphasized enough. There is a younger generation - who are networked and through those networks have a developed and embedded worldview which is fundamentally incompatible with the actions and underpinning motivations and assumptions of Putin.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
I can easily imagine this applying to the younger generation in the cities, but would this hold for the rural areas, which make up the bulk of the regime's support?
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
How much agency do these young people have? Everyone who could form the bedrock of an opposition is leaving if they have the means. Those brave souls who stay and protest are buying themselves a one way ticket to a stretch in Russia's worst penal colonies. I've seen telegram videos of young folks singing in the back of an autozak on their way to "processing" by the FSB. Heartbreaking.
800 people were arrested n Minsk in Belarus this weekend (effectively Belarus is now an autonomous western republic of the Russian Federation). People in the vicinity of the notorious Okrestina jail reported terrible screaming for most of the night.
The repression will be savage, cruel and relentless. Belarus has already had a taste of it since August 2020, and in some ways their opposition movement was more coherent in its demands than the various groupings in Russia.
The headroom and oxygen that a disciplined and viable opposition needs to grow support and presence will be denied ruthlessly.
Short of an outright Russian economic collapse and descent into Civil War in the coming months, it seems fanciful to think that a viable opposition could grow in the current circumstances.
I wish the admirable idealism and courage of Russia's young people would meet with a better reward but I cannot see it in the short-medium term.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Erm, yes, that was my point. There are rules, and sometimes those rules do get broken. Some countries/armies don't 'play by the rules' which is indicative that the civilian population, hospitals, schools, places of worship, ceasefires on humanitarian evacuation routes, journalists are considered fair game and so it's not a 'red herring' to address the issue of what type of weapons are being used and where, because in that kind of situation, the situation is worse - if that's imaginable.
Some people seem to be putting words in my mouth and projecting on me a kind of attitude of 'that's all right then' regarding the use of conventional weapons against civilians. No, of course it's not all right, ffs. I mean, I've been on urban for more than a decade now, and shouldn't have thought I'd have a reputation as a right-wing neolib who eschews morals and legalities when it comes to humanitarian causes and crises. So does what's being projected onto me track with my track records on these boards?
The type of weapon being used and where is highly relevant in that use of these non-legitimate weapons - NB: I didn't make the rules, didn't write the Geneva Convention - means that what's already a fucked up situation is inestimably worse for civilians, the risks they face to their lives are much higher than they would otherwise be.
My point is that it's not irrelevant, and it's not a matter of 'that's all right, then' if only conventional weapons are used, it's that if/when these other weapons are used it's indicative that all bets are off and things like war crimes and genocide are now afoot, where civilians aren't just 'collateral damage' but actively targeted, and the humanitarian crisis is going to be much worse and, no, by pointing that out that doesn't mean I think that's all right, in fact I think the opposite. Sheesh.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
If there's one thing that grinds my gears more than most things, it's the lazy, arse-covering "they're all as bad as each other" bullshit that inevitably seems to go on, usually from people who think they're being smarter or cleverer than the rest of us.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Not now, Japan.Russia getting twitchy that Japan might take advantage of their military's weakened state to retake the disputed Kuril Islands?
Talk in Pravda of nuclear defence being used if they try it.
Training exercises on mock enemies
Japan may try to see Kuril Islands from Russia amid Ukraine crisis
It is only a nuclear attack that will be able to stop Tokyo from implementing its plans to seize the Kuril Islands from Russia.english.pravda.ru
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
iirc, didn't they infamously invade another country and instead of suffering losses they came back with a headcount of +1 because they'd made a friend, or something like that?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Now that it isn’t 1.30am and the effects of alcohol have worn off I can find the actual statement I was objecting to:
Stop the War opposes any war over Ukraine, and believes the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns.
But those two things are not equal,and could be contradictory. It may be practical realpolitik, but that wasn’t what STW was set up for. Russian security concerns should be no more important than US or Saudi ones.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no issue with strong criticism of NATO or demanding the UK quits it, just fuck russias ‘security concerns’
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
they're all shit but some of them are diarrhoea and some of them are more solid.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
even for the swtc (are they still a coalition or are they just stop the war now?) that's really poor politics.
#57varieties
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
Of course there's nuance and of course there's things to talk about but I just get a bit sick of the hand wringy approach some people have. 'ooh we must learn from this' or 'ooh if only we hadn't poked the Russian bear we'd all be fine now' and it's just tedious as fuck. It comes across as a willy waving 'look how more clued up I am about imperialism than you are.'thought the same about this
never mind eh, boil it down to some black and white argument where you can dismis the conflict to a sarcastic "we made him to do it
Your posts have been interesting to read for the record I just heard the phrase 'we should learn from this' once too often is all.
We, here, on this board or on the street can learn about how imperialist cunts behave all we like but I don't think it's going to matter much of a jot to said imperialist cunts. Yes it's a fatalistic position and yes it's a bit of goodies v baddies but fuck, I think it should be possible for people to be able to call someone who drops bombs on women in labour a vicious cunt without someone piping up with 'ooh but Russia's security.' We did it enough when Bush was bombing Iraq who, incidentally, used security as the argument for invasion so I think we can do the same on this occasion.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Just got off the phone with a very angry Russian woman, she's the same age as me, 49, she lives in Oxford and her mum lives in Chelyabinsk. She has seen her mum once in the last 2.5 years cos Covid, had a ticket to go last week on Aeroflot, that's now been refunded, she's looking at going to Ekaterinburg in April instead (she's aware that Russian Airlines will not be flying Boeing or Airbus from about a week's time and refuses to die on Russian made aircraft, can get to Ekaterinburg on Turkish Airlines). She's angry as fuck and says her mum is too; her mum usually comes to Europe once a year to have a holiday in the South of France with her, of course no visas are being issued and she just can't afford it as her Roubles are worth jack now. Chelyabinsk, whilst a decent size place is well removed from Moscow, her mum is late 70's, yet she is fully aware of what is going on and not cos her daughter's been telling her. So based on this exhaustive survey of one biased woman, older, more rural Russians may not as in the dark as we may think.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
tbh we ought to learn from this, and one lesson i've already taken is how this sort of thing can get started with very little backstory. very few of us know or knew much about what has been going on in those parts since 2014. perhaps we could take this lesson and rather than try and play catch-up in future to start informing ourselves on china (for example) now. and india. pakistan. brazil. and so on.
i hope that the war in ukraine is over soon. it may be. it may drag on for months, or even years. but please - PLEASE! - let it be a period in which we don't rely on tweets and op eds as a substitute for informed debate, let it be a period in which we educate ourselves not only on the area but also on the reality of modern warfare. some of us are more advanced than others on these learning curves: but let's not be found wanting again.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
It seems to me that the lack of propaganda preparation might turn out to be really inconvenient for the Russian government, who have suddenly thrust this "special military operation" upon the people. No idea exactly how big of a problem this might be, but it does seem to be another miscalculation.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
I think this is a critical point - that knowing about shit going south doesn't actually provide a solution to it - it requires knowledge of it, and then levers of power to do anything about it.
It's my pet hobby-horse at the moment, but during Stalin's purges in the 1930's the NKVD and GRU's strength of overseas officers and agents were not far off destroyed by the NKVD - the Soviet intelligence group in China had perhaps half of its members murdered. Barely any Soviet Officer or agent involved in the recruitment of British spies in the 1930's survived - but here's the thing: they all knew what was happening, they all knew that Moscow had gone mad, and that a recall to the Centre was a death sentence, but it didn't stop just because they knew.
bimble
floofy
all the people who have left Russia, which is a lot, will be in touch with people at home as well. The extreme repression measures they brought in last week are there for a reason, to try to crush any public expression of what people know but are not allowed to say.
As in previous times, it doesn't really matter what people know to be true as long as you can effectively terrify them into silence.
eta what kebabking said
As in previous times, it doesn't really matter what people know to be true as long as you can effectively terrify them into silence.
eta what kebabking said
ska invita
back on the other side
Here here
The learn from this content was posted directly at a poster who annoyed me by doing that "you made me do it" simplified comment one time too many. There's no point of discussing anything if people are prepared to reduce it that far. It's the kind of simplification that breeds conflict.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Having a child abroad and taking a holiday in the South of France puts you in a tiny minority of cosmopolitans, I'm afraid.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
between that and the absence of an air campaign to diminish and destroy ukrainian defences, command and control facilities, power stations etc - basically the same targets the americans hit in 2003 - the russians have shot themselves in the foot: and while every day brings the ukrainians new friends and supplies it loses the russians treasure and equipment and the inititative while increasing opposition to the war, and reasons for opposition to the war. time is on the ukrainian side.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh (the terror of the 30s worthy of a thread of its own) - the looniest thing was it was repression/execution by quota, be it librarians or the nkvd. utter lunacy. slowly rereading the great terror: a reassessment by robert conquest and it's mind-numbing with horror not boredom the story he tells.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Not as tiny as you might think honestly. It's more and more common for working and lower middle class Russians to go abroad to places like Turkey etc on a regular basis. And lots of Russians have gone to work abroad.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Fair enough, still be surprised if there's not a big chunk of people who've never been and would be sufficient to provide some sort of basis for the regime.
ETA Found some figures on a quick search that in 2014 it was 76 percent not been outside former Soviet Union, so even given increasing ease of travel expect that's still well over half: Why do Russians have 2 passports?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Sure. But part of putins popularity is that he's enabled more and more people to do stuff like go on cheap holidays overseas tho that used to be reserved for the very rich. You'd be surprised at what a big cross section of Russian society have done stuff like that. And loads of Russians are working abroad in stuff like the construction industry and sending money home.
If we aren't looking at a no-fly zone for Ukraine are we maybe looking at one for the NATO states in Eastern Europe?
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