Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[tim]

From the point of view of the invaded country though, existing is a win.

It's people who are ceasing to exist not countries.

 

[emanymton]

From the point of view of the invaded country though, existing is a win.

If Ukraine manages to push Russia out and maintain it territorial integrity. I certainly would not fancy walking up to a Ukrainian and explaining how they lost the war really.

 

[kabbes]

From the point of view of the invaded country though, existing is a win.

In that case, Ukraine has won to date and continues win so long as Russia hasn’t planted its flag in Kyiv, regardless of what happens in the rest of the country. What a victory.

 

[two sheds]

But if someone broke into my house & tried to steal my stuff and at the end of the altercation they buggered off empty handed you could but probably wouldn’t call it a draw.

Unless they'd set fire to it on the way out

But yes it's a bit meaningless to talk of win or lose at the moment.

 

[bimble]

In that case, Ukraine has won to date and continues win so long as Russia hasn’t planted its flag in Kyiv, regardless of what happens in the rest of the country. What a victory.

It’s a war not a sport, im not sure what your point is tbh. Of course everyone loses when an army invades their country, lives years their homes. But that doesn’t mean that only the invader has a chance of victory.

 

[kabbes]

It’s a war not a sport, im not sure what your point is tbh. Of course everyone loses when an army invades their country, lives years their homes. But that doesn’t mean that only the invader has a chance of victory.

My point is that we construct our reality through the meaning of the words that we use to describe it. The language of winning and losing creates a narrative within which it is all seen as a grand chessboard. That understanding of how the world works makes it all more likely to happen again.

 

[andysays]

Kind of interesting article here on the reluctance a lot of people have to acknowledging that, as he puts it, Ukraine is winning. Not a dovish voice.

Why Can’t the West Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?

America has become too accustomed to thinking of its side as stymied, ineffective, or incompetent.

www.theatlantic.com

It might look like "winning" from the perspective of a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a former Counselor of the Department of State, but I doubt it looks much like it from the rubble of Mariupol.

There may some value in some of what he writes, but it appears to completely ignore the terrible effect this invasion has had, and will continue to have, on ordinary Ukrainians and others.

 

[dilute micro]

It's people who are ceasing to exist not countries.

It would be both people and Ukraine. If you lose sovereignty, lose the ability for self determination and having a military defend it then you're not a country. You may have a flag and a national identity but you're a zombie nation.

 

[emanymton]

It might look like "winning" from the perspective of a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a former Counselor of the Department of State, but I doubt it looks much like it from the rubble of Mariupol.

There may some value in some of what he writes, but it appears to complete ignore the terrible effect this invasion has had, and will continue to have, on ordinary Ukrainians and others.

This is absolutely true.

But it is also true than winning for Ukraine looks like 1 Mariupol not half a dozen. It is thousands forcibly moved to camps in Russia not tens of thousands (or more?).

 

[Spymaster]

But if someone broke into my house & tried to steal my stuff and at the end of the altercation they buggered off empty handed you could but probably wouldn’t call it a draw.

Unless they trashed the house and killed your kids.

 

[andysays]

This is absolutely true.

But it is also true than winning for Ukraine looks like 1 Mariupol not half a dozen. It is thousands forcibly moved to camps in Russia not tens of thousands (or more?).

I guess there are degrees of loss or something. I agree that things could still get far worse for the people of Ukraine.

What I was reacting to was the seemingly callous use of the word "winning" which, as has been noted, makes it sounds a sports event rather than what it really is.

And for what it's worth, I completely agree with your post above

They will never do anything of real substance because at the end of the day to them the lives of people in Ukraine are nothing next to money and the accumulation of wealth. A single billionaire has more worh in their eyes than a million ordinary Ukrainians.


Good I am so depressed by this. On the one hand I want to step back a bit and follow this less closely, bit on the other that feels like a betrayal of people in Ukraine who don't have that choice.

Take care of yourself.

 

[Pickman's model]

Unless they trashed the house and killed your kids.

And the neighbours for the hell of it

 

[emanymton]

I guess there are degrees of loss or something. I agree that things could still get far worse for the people of Ukraine.

What I was reacting to was the seemingly callous use of the word "winning" which, as has been noted, makes it sounds a sports event rather than what it really is.

And for what it's worth, I completely agree with your post above



Take care of yourself.

I don't disagree with you.

This probably isnt the case for that guy but I do think we need to abstract it a bit. How else can you analyse what is going on and stay sane.

And I think people talk of winning sometimes, because winning is hope, winning is optimistic and I imagine a lot of people (especially in Ukraine) need hope right now.

Sorry I keep sounding like I am arguing with you, but I don't really want to I do agree with you for the most part.

 

[Pickman's model]

its the appetite from the West to feel like Someone Is Winning like its a sport that annoys me - the reality is so much more complex and shit than that. When the peace deal is finally signed everyone will have lost

Everyone has already lost. Never mind all the dead and wounded, what's already happened is an environmental catastrophe. Not just the breaking of links among climate scientists at a time when both poles are 30+ degrees above normal. Not just the doubling down on fossil fuels which will travel to Europe from all over the place. But also all the shit that should be in buildings that's been released, all the asbestos and fuck knows what released by their destruction. And loads of other shit too.

 

[Flavour]

Chomsky makes the good case that the US won that war - they achieved their broadest political objectives.

Vietnam still run by Communist party today, as is neighbor Laos. Cambodia fell to mad weirdo Khmer Rouge and killed a quarter of their own population, finally being stopped by... Communist Vietnam. Myanmar still in hands of a military dictatorship that are most definitely not US lackeys. Only Thailand remained firmly on the American side of the Cold War.

Chomsky is wrong.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Ukraine isnt "winning" but the Russians are definitely losing. At the start of the war the general assumption was that Ukraine couldn't possibly withstand the Russian onslaught and the discussion was about how the occupiers would cope with a long term insurgency against whatever regime the Kremlin installed in Kiev.
Nobody is talking about that now. Bar taking the heap of corpses and rubble formally known of Mariupol when they have finished annihilating it - I cant see the Russians making any further gains and they will probably have to pull back from the more exposed areas under its control. At some point in the near future we may even see their army collapse - such is their rate of losses, its supply crises, its low morale and the seeming increasing ability of the Ukrainians to launch counter attacks. It is entirely conceivable that Putin will keep pushing his army on and refusing to withdraw well past the point where it becomes reckless and utterly self destructive - cos that does seem to be how that cunt rolls.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ukraine isnt "winning" but the Russians are definitely losing. At the start of the war the general assumption was that Ukraine couldn't possibly withstand the Russian onslaught and the discussion was about how the occupiers would cope with a long term insurgency against whatever regime the Kremlin installed in Kiev.
Nobody is talking about that now. Bar taking the heap of corpses and rubble formally known of Mariupol when they have finished annihilating it - I cant see the Russians making any further gains and they will probably have to pull back from the more exposed areas under its control. At some point in the near future we may even see their army collapse - such is their rate of losses, its supply crises, its low morale and the seeming increasing ability of the Ukrainians to launch counter attacks. It is entirely conceivable that Putin will keep pushing his army on and refusing to withdraw well past the point where it becomes reckless and utterly self destructive - cos that does seem to be how that cunt rolls.

It's a very bold stance, to say the Russians won't make any more gains.

 

[tim]

It would be both people and Ukraine. If you lose sovereignty, lose the ability for self determination and having a military defend it then you're not a country. You may have a flag and a national identity but you're a zombie nation.

I'm not convinced that I have either Sovereignty or Self-determination and I live in a state which is, arguably, less dominated by kleptocrats than either Russia or Ukraine. As to having an army, both sides are dependent on conscripts with Ukrainian men under 60 banned from leaving the country. I am just about under 60 and would not be willing to be sent to die pointlessly by the British state.

 

[dilute micro]

Ukraine isnt "winning" but the Russians are definitely losing. At the start of the war the general assumption was that Ukraine couldn't possibly withstand the Russian onslaught and the discussion was about how the occupiers would cope with a long term insurgency against whatever regime the Kremlin installed in Kiev.
Nobody is talking about that now. Bar taking the heap of corpses and rubble formally known of Mariupol when they have finished annihilating it - I cant see the Russians making any further gains and they will probably have to pull back from the more exposed areas under its control. At some point in the near future we may even see their army collapse - such is their rate of losses, its supply crises, its low morale and the seeming increasing ability of the Ukrainians to launch counter attacks. It is entirely conceivable that Putin will keep pushing his army on and refusing to withdraw well past the point where it becomes reckless and utterly self destructive - cos that does seem to be how that cunt rolls.

Actually the Russians can make gains if they use chemical weapons to force a surrender.

 

[magneze]

Kind of interesting article here on the reluctance a lot of people have to acknowledging that, as he puts it, Ukraine is winning. Not a dovish voice.

Why Can’t the West Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?

America has become too accustomed to thinking of its side as stymied, ineffective, or incompetent.

www.theatlantic.com

It's interesting, but completely loses it in the last paragraph where the point of the article becomes clear. Apparently the "West" should "pile on".

 

[A380]

The Serb leadership presumably would do what Putin tells them, but would the layer of military and political leaders under them, and their soldiery act on that given it would be so much against their interests and they see that once they have expended their stores and money the Russians aren’t in a position to send them much if any support?

Add to that there are probably at least 7 NATO heads of government, including our own tousled haired twat, who would love the TV news to be full of pictures of ‘our’ aircraft finally bombing the fuck out of someone. Someone who doesn’t risk starting the next world war.

 

[teqniq]

Re: chemical weapons I’d like to think that would be a step too far, even for them. After all, as previous stated it was the Assad regime that used them on their own people, not the Russians.

 

[existentialist]

Re: chemical weapons I’d like to think that would be a step too far, even for them. After all, as previous stated it was the Assad regime that used them on their own people, not the Russians.

I have a horrible feeling that Putin would consider a chemical attack to be the "soft option" when compared to his nuclear posturing. And I think that makes it more likely that he would use them.

NATO's going to have a problem - how many red lines must Putin cross before a failure to respond looks like weakness, and encourages him to even greater atrocities?

 

[LDC]

Re: chemical weapons I’d like to think that would be a step too far, even for them. After all, as previous stated it was the Assad regime that used them on their own people, not the Russians.

But very much with Russian help and support, and also Salisbury remember - arguably more significant politically (and a bigger 'fuck you') than using some chemical weapons in a limited way in an ongoing war.

 

[teqniq]

Good points both.

 

[emanymton]

At the moment I think the main priority for Putin is mainting his own position and power. If he calculates that is best achieved by a peace agreement with some limited gains for Russia then there is a chance that could happen

If he thinks it is better done by continuing and widening the war then that is a real possibility. I have no doubt he wouldn't think twice about sacrificing the lives or hundreds of thousands, or more, just to stay in power a few years more.

 

[LDC]

If Russia uses chemical weapons, even in a limited way, it's hard not to see that it signifies that he's prepared and willing to accept a wider war in some way, either geographically or a serious escalation in the same area I'd have thought? If the Russian State does then I expect the global response will complicated by Russian denial, or saying it was a chemical factory explosion, or a Ukrainian 'false flag', so the response within Russia by the people there will be tied to that on some level won't it?

 

[emanymton]

If Russia uses chemical weapons, even in a limited way, it's hard not to see that it signifies that he's prepared and willing to accept a wider war in some way, either geographically or a serious escalation in the same area I'd have thought? If the Russian State does then I expect the global response will complicated by Russian denial, or saying it was a chemical factory explosion, or a Ukrainian 'false flag', so the response within Russia by the people there will be tied to that on some level won't it?

Absolutely as with so many things it will not change positions, just entrench them, I think.

 

[LDC]

If he thinks it is better done by continuing and widening the war then that is a real possibility. I have no doubt he wouldn't think twice about sacrificing the lives or hundreds of thousands, or more, just to stay in power a few years more.

I'm not so sure, I (from not knowing much and only reading a little bit) think he seems quite ideologically motivated as much as personal power motivated, I think he does see this as having an element of important 'Russian destiny' in taking back Ukraine, or if not destroying it as a threat to Russia, rather than solely as a personal power play. But fuck knows really!

 

[Cid]

I agree that the framing of winning/losing is too primary in that Atlantic article. But I don't think the people it cites fall into quite the same trap... You look at commenters like Phillips P. O'Brien (because it cites him) and they do talk about the humanitarian disaster being the most important thing here. But their wheelhouse is strategy, and what they're arguing against is a certain presentation of the war that is something akin to the constant refresh, poorly informed disaster scrolling that we're probably engaging in. That doesn't just obscure the strategic picture, it also creates a constant news cycle that doesn't really pause to consider the implications of its reporting, doesn't stop to properly think through e.g non-capitulation in Mariupol, forces a complex situation through a skim-reading journalist onto the front pages.

e2a: not to overly shit on journos, there obviously has been some really well thought out work too.