Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[tim]

Not all Ukrainians are Nazis not all Russian soldiers are Nazis and not all claims about atrocities by those on the other side in a conflict are true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...or-hoax/35b1e882-f796-4acb-a106-9280a7dda521/

 

[LDC]

Not all Ukrainians are Nazis not all Russian soldiers are Nazis and not all claims about atrocities by those on the other side in a conflict are true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...or-hoax/35b1e882-f796-4acb-a106-9280a7dda521/

I absolutely fucking knew you were going to post about that.

 

[teqniq]

Thread and sub thread in which it is postulated that Russia is employing a deliberate policy of leaving vital infrastructure in ruins when it it leaves or is forced to leave occupied territories thus causing Ukraine maximum long-term economic damage. The main thread is expounding the idea of targeted assassinations of high-ranking military personnel as a deterrent:

 

[Dogsauce]

That’s just fantasist bollocks. They’re not going to be able to make a meaningful dent in Russian command structure and will just invite reprisals. Risk to those carrying out such operations is also huge.

A better bet is just to stir shit between rival power groups (e.g. Wagner/MOD) and let them do it to themselves.

 

[tim]

I absolutely fucking knew you were going to post about that.

Clearly, great minds think alike.

 

[The39thStep]

I absolutely fucking knew you were going to post about that.

Any idea on the lottery numbers this Saturday?

 

[LDC]

Well this whole reporting about prisoners being castrated and women being sexually tortured is just hilarious, what a laugh. Although tim clearly has just dismissed it all as a hoax, so he can safely laugh with his insider knowledge of it all being fake news.

 

[teqniq]

That’s just fantasist bollocks. They’re not going to be able to make a meaningful dent in Russian command structure and will just invite reprisals. Risk to those carrying out such operations is also huge.

A better bet is just to stir shit between rival power groups (e.g. Wagner/MOD) and let them do it to themselves.

The offered solution may well be fantasist bollox (I posted it to see what people thought), but I suspect the Russian motive may be very real.

 

[tim]

Well this whole reporting about prisoners being castrated is just hilarious, what a laugh. Although tim clearly has just dismissed it all as a hoax, so he can safely laugh with his insider knowledge of it all being fake news.

Like you I have no insider knowledge.

Presumably, is this some cross thread beef because I called your attempts to to rehabilitate the reputation of the eco-fascist, Unabomber terrorist, Ted Kaczinsky.

 

[strung out]

Well this whole reporting about prisoners being castrated and women being sexually tortured is just hilarious, what a laugh. Although tim clearly has just dismissed it all as a hoax, so he can safely laugh with his insider knowledge of it all being fake news.

Should also remember that there has already been one confirmed video of Russian soldiers castrating a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

I've no idea whether the reports of it happening at scale are true, but it has happened.

 

[LDC]

Like you I have no insider knowledge.

Presumably, is this some cross thread beef because I called your attempts to to rehabilitate the reputation of the eco-fascist, Unabomber terrorist, Ted Kaczinsky.

I didn't even notice that or if I did it really wasn't on my mind, I had to look back to even see what you meant tbh.

My objection to your post (no 'cross thread beef' get over yourself ffs) was the first thing you post to comment on reports of sexual torture by Russian soldiers was to effectively deny it.

 

[Dogsauce]

The offered solution may well be fantasist bollox (I posted it to see what people thought), but I suspect the Russian motive may be very real.

Yes, it’s been said openly by them in the past about Ukrainian infrastructure, that if they can’t have it nobody else can. Which obviously leads to concerns about the nuclear plant - at the very least they will leave it inoperable, possibly permanently, you just have to hope that doesn’t lead to containment loss. This is one contested area where I think there should potentially be some kind of UN/Neutral party taking control of security, but I can’t see a mechanism for that to happen or how it could be perceived as ‘neutral’.

 

[Riklet]

Honestly fuck those Russian conscripts that got shelled waiting for their general. And fuck any Russian soldier in Ukraine. The more that die the better and the sooner this war will end. You cant negotiate from a point of weakness only from strength. Even conscripted you have agency as an adult sent into battle. Not like the civilians in Bucha or the tens of thousands missing in Mariopol or the millions displaced by sudden war on their doorstep. Many killed or brutalised before they had any idea what was happening.

Hundreds of people dying is not funny. It is tragic. Poor bastards after all. But every Russian casualty is a step in a more positive direction in this conflict. You can't win a war any other way. And the alternative is much worse.

 

[tim]

I didn't even notice that or if I did it really wasn't on my mind, I had to look back to even see what you meant tbh.

My objection to your post (no 'cross thread beef' get over yourself ffs) was the first thing you post to comment on reports of sexual torture by Russian soldiers was to effectively deny it.

I didn't deny anything either effectively or ineffectively.

 

[The39thStep]

I think the original article in which the two castrations are mentioned is this very useful one about Ukrainian women's reproductive and sexual healthcare needs in the war published in mid May.

“If the war wasn’t happening, we would have this baby"

Russia’s invasion has impacted women in many ways, from pregnancy care to sexual violence as a weapon of war

www.opendemocracy.net

 

[andysays]

Honestly fuck those Russian conscripts that got shelled waiting for their general. And fuck any Russian soldier in Ukraine. The more that die the better and the sooner this war will end. You cant negotiate from a point of weakness only from strength. Even conscripted you have agency as an adult sent into battle. Not like the civilians in Bucha or the tens of thousands missing in Mariopol or the millions displaced by sudden war on their doorstep. Many killed or brutalised before they had any idea what was happening.

Hundreds of people dying is not funny. It is tragic. Poor bastards after all. But every Russian casualty is a step in a more positive direction in this conflict. You can't win a war any other way. And the alternative is much worse.

I think it's just about OK to find some bleak humour in the fact that these Russian soldiers were killed while waiting for a morale boosting speech from their General.

I think it's less OK to condemn all Russian conscripts in the way you and others appear to be doing.

It's doubtful how much genuine agency many of them had, and if they were waiting to go into battle it's quite possible that some/all hadn't actually seen battle yet, and therefore hadn't had the opportunity to kill anyone or commit any atrocities.

Indeed your sentence about

Many killed or brutalised before they had any idea what was happening.

may well apply almost as much to them as to the Ukrainian civilians you're referring to.

 

[Riklet]

I think it's just about OK to find some bleak humour in the fact that these Russian soldiers were killed while waiting for a morale boosting speech from their General.

I think it's less OK to condemn all Russian conscripts in the way you and others appear to be doing.

It's doubtful how much genuine agency many of them had, and if they were waiting to go into battle it's quite possible that some/all hadn't actually seen battle yet, and therefore hadn't had the opportunity to kill anyone or commit any atrocities.

Indeed your sentence about


may well apply almost as much to them as to the Ukrainian civilians you're referring to.

Maybe. But 15 months into brutal a war, less so.

And as a grown man recruited or conscripted into the military, likely months after this war started, you do have more agency than a 14 year old girl stuck in Bucha in Marcha 2022. That's just a fact.

Anyway I dont even know these soldiers were conscripts I'm just assuming they were. But that doesn't change much really. I'm not condemning them at all, theyre human beings and normal people like you and me. But if it was me or them I know who I'd choose. And if its hundreds of Ukranian civilians or them, I know who I'd choose. No hesitation.

 

[andysays]

Maybe. But 15 months into brutal a war, less so.

And as a grown man recruited or conscripted into the military, likely months after this war started, you do have more agency than a 14 year old girl stuck in Bucha in Marcha 2022. That's just a fact.

Anyway I dont even know these soldiers were conscripts I'm just assuming they were. But that doesn't change much really. I'm not condemning them at all, theyre human beings and normal people like you and me. But if it was me or them I know who I'd choose. And if its hundreds of Ukranian civilians or them, I know who I'd choose. No hesitation.

just in case you've forgotten what I was responding to

Honestly fuck those Russian conscripts that got shelled waiting for their general. And fuck any Russian soldier in Ukraine...

 

[Riklet]

just in case you've forgotten what I was responding to

Fair point. I did mention conscripts.

War is hell. I'm not against Russia or Russian people or Russian culture or even Russian soldiers. I'm going to keep reading Tolstoy and listening to Russian music. But if more Russians in Ukraine had died in the first month or two of the war, let's face it it would probs be over by now.

To me it seems even more black and white than the Vietnamese resisting US imperialism in Vietnam. Things were much more complex there. The US didn't unilaterally invade and instsntly start shelling cities etc on day 1.

 

[teuchter]

Putin & his enablers have started something that is devastating Ukraine but is also going to devastate the lives of many many Russians and make it an even more messed up and brutalised place to live than it already is. The effects will remain in both countries for generations. Anyone watching this wants to express their hatred and anger at what's happening but I don't think conscript soldiers are a good focus for those feelings. There are reasons there's a whole lot of stuff about POWs in the Geneva convention and it's worth trying to remember all the horrific things that have happened to POWs throughout history. "Fuck the Russian conscripts" is at the beginning of a number of steps that ends up with that kind of stuff happening.

 

[_Russ_]

Po-faced crap.

Something can be funny within a tragic event. An aspect of a tragic event can be funny.

I think it's fucking hilarious that 18 months into a war where Artillery and ISTAR has been the main vehicle of destruction on all sides, a divisional commander (30 years of training and experience) thinks it's fine to park his HQ in the open for two hours while they wait for him to deliver a speech.

It's dumber than a fucking housebrick. It's also funny as fuck because it says some very bad things about the mentality of this particular individual.

It's funny as fuck that I shit myself in a sleeping bag in a FOB in Afghanistan - I'd been out on a OP job for 3 weeks eating nothing but biscuits and pouch meals. I'd got back to the FOB, sorted my gear out, had a wash, scoffed a load of watermelon as my first fresh food in weeks, went to bed and an hour later my eyes flashed open. There was a terrible pain in my belly and before I could move my hands to the zip of my sleeping bag a hose of wild, uncontainable explosive diarrhea shot out of my arse. That's funny. I was laughing my head off while washing myself down with a bucket of water and a cloth - I burned my sleeping bag.

One of my closest friends was dead within an hour of that. It was a devastating tragedy and an absolute waste of a wonderful, loving, kind man who would set off uncontrollable giggles in everyone he met simply with a grin, or a wink.

The day was funny, and tragic. It's quite possible for both of those things to be true at the same time.

Odd to give an example of 2 completely separate events that just happened on the same day to illustrate how a single event can be both tragic funny though I do agree on the point you're tying to make

 

[The39thStep]

African delegation with Putin

 

[Flavour]

I am going to enjoy 30 seconds of fantasizing about an alternative universe where the Africa Peace Initiative led by Cyril Ramaphosa is able to bring Putin to his senses and end the war with a settlement favorable to Ukraine and which sees restablishment of pre-2014 borders and Russian reparations in the hundreds of billions of USD. Lovely

 

[existentialist]

Can't have been his call, that's green troops on a very sharp learning curve

Vertically sharp, as it turns out...

 

[existentialist]

Does anyone know when we can expect British Challenger tanks to be active in theatre?

Do you think that if anyone here was in the privileged position of knowing that, they would be foolish enough to say anything about it?

 

[existentialist]

Like you I have no insider knowledge.

Presumably, is this some cross thread beef because I called your attempts to to rehabilitate the reputation of the eco-fascist, Unabomber terrorist, Ted Kaczinsky.

Nice try. Perhaps it's actually about your own {often, frankly, peculiar) posts in this thread.

 

[weltweit]

Do you think that if anyone here was in the privileged position of knowing that, they would be foolish enough to say anything about it?

Don't be silly

I am only asking weeks months or years not for any secrets or for anyone to be foolish

honestly

 

[Pickman's model]

Fair point. I did mention conscripts.

War is hell. I'm not against Russia or Russian people or Russian culture or even Russian soldiers. I'm going to keep reading Tolstoy and listening to Russian music. But if more Russians in Ukraine had died in the first month or two of the war, let's face it it would probs be over by now.

To me it seems even more black and white than the Vietnamese resisting US imperialism in Vietnam. Things were much more complex there. The US didn't unilaterally invade and instsntly start shelling cities etc on day 1.

You're comparing the wrong war - against Iraq, which set so many precedents for this one, the Americans very much did bomb cities on day 1.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

You're comparing the wrong war - against Iraq, which set so many precedents for this one, the Americans very much did bomb cities on day 1.

That was "good" bombing though as they used smart munitions.

 

[Fez909]

That was "good" bombing though as they used smart munitions.

Correct. It was too good, even.

According to National Geographic researcher Bijal Trivedi, "Even after several days of bombing the Iraqis showed remarkable resilience. Many continued with their daily lives, working and shopping, as bombs continued to fall around them. According to some analysts, the military's attack was perhaps too precise. It did not trigger shock and awe in the Iraqis and, in the end, the city was only captured after close combat on the outskirts of Baghdad."