From Finnish stand point that speech is also remarkable and worrying. Finland is one of those countries that got their independence in 1917 thanks to Lenin.
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
- Start date
Can you link this stuff about the OSCE saying shells are mostly landing on separatist areas, and the bit about no Ukrainian attacks at all? I've tried to find corroboration for both, but can't.
I've found the OSCE's most recent map, showing more ceasefire violations on the separatist side of the line, but that explicitly includes outgoing attacks.
The difference between troops being in one's own country, and troops marching into another country, is "arbitrary"? Absolutely incredible take.
Can I assume from this that you don't respect a country's right to have borders?
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No matter what Ron Perlman says, war has changed. And I wouldn't call that beating. We survived long enough by the skin of our teeth. It was more of a Rocky 1 type of situation.
Ukraine – Who is firing at whom and who is lying about it? | MR Online
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has an observer mission along the line of control between the government and rebel side in south east Ukraine.
mronline.org
The bit about "no credible reporting" of Ukrainian attacks at all was from NPR yesterday (somewhere between 12 and 20 hours ago). I'm not going to try to find the segment.
edit: incidentally, this map from 2021 is interesting https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/2/a/511327.pdf
Borders are indeed arbitrary. And whether you recognize a border-- or a country-- is also arbitrary. Donetsk and Luhansk have borders, after all. An army moving against another army is not so arbitrary.
You simply cannot seem to resist overinterpretation. But no. And thanks for asking this time.
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You should not be surprised by that line coming from a person who believes nation states should be abolished.
Also helps that a bit before that Stalin was worried about the Soviet military being a threat to him, and took steps. As "competent officer" and "threat" tended to overlap, disposing of the threats caused all sorts of problems with the military.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/WHZR7GTCSJLNXKFB2ISHJ27G7E.jpg)
Estonia calls on Europe to wean itself off Russian gas
Europe should develop green energy and import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce its dependence on Russia, Estonian Prime Minster Kaja Kallas told Reuters on Tuesday as the West braced for the possibility of a big Russian assault on Ukraine.
www.reuters.com
I have trouble understanding Russia's action from a rational point of view. It makes perfect sense to me if I attribute wounded pride as the driving force of their action, but not rationality. Or out otherwise, Putin's action in my eyes fit more our Wilhelm no. 2 than a David Xanatos.
That map is one of a type that is quite frequently produced by the OSCE. I'd recommend actually going to the source, because they make clear that those spots are not just "impacts". They're ceasefire violations. Including outgoing ones.Ukraine – Who is firing at whom and who is lying about it? | MR Online
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has an observer mission along the line of control between the government and rebel side in south east Ukraine.
The bit about "no credible reporting" of Ukrainian attacks at all was from NPR yesterday (somewhere between 12 and 20 hours ago). I'm not going to try to find the segment.
What self-serving tripe. The borders are whatever helps the Russian government at whatever time, then, their own previous international commitments and legal agreements be damned. I'm sure you'll remember that next time the US arms an insurgency overseas and then parachutes its troops in: borders are meaningless! They've got as much right as anyone else!
Eh, ain't got a patch on you, with the moon-logic strawman interpretations you've made of other people's positions recently.
So you respect a country's right to hold borders... and simultaneously the right of another country to march right over them, because they're arbitrary. That respect doesn't go very far, then.
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The best I can offer Putin is this.
There is a line of opinion that In the 1990s, Russia had ideas of integrating more with the West. Given Russia's power, attitudes, historical relations and significant systemic issues, it was a difficult ask, but the USA in particular was not accommodating and Russia began to abandon this route.
Feeling shut out, Russia increasingly decided it needed to restore itself as a power. By this time, lots of its old area of influence had long since departed to the West. It's quite a comedown for Russia (as the USSR) to own a load of places, and within a generation find they're basically sort of "the enemy", and even more galling that they willingly left. Russia, like many imperial powers, has unpopularity issues with its ex-territories. Russia's been losing influence over these states because it doesn't really have anything to offer. It's got a large army, gas supplies, and nothing. If these countries wanted to develop, stronger ties with the West were always the way. As far as I can see, Russia's attempts to keep Ukraine aligned or neutral have been heavy-handed and threatening, and probably only accelerated Ukraine's desire to look elsewhere. Russia has failed to keep Ukraine in line with gas, so instead it's used its only other tool: the military.
Thus in a sense Putin feels Russia is cornered. Ukraine was a final straw: a huge state with a lot of border, a major trade partner and major supplier of resources to Russia. This does not excuse Russia trashing Ukraine, but it might explain: Ukraine decisively turning towards what Putin regards as a hostile state is an intolerable threat, and so if Ukraine cannot be kept within Moscow's sphere of influence, then it needs to be paralysed or neutralised.
Starts to look a fair bit like the British Empire. Loss of numerous territories over a short period of time; national status and importance on the world stage diminished; attempt to aggrandise and restore past "glory" by aggressively reasserting control.
Imperialism poisons a country's sense of self, and then once that country becomes a post-Empire nation, a lot of the people find it impossible to accept the idea that the self-determination of other countries is equal to their own. The insufferable, arrogant hangover of imperialism.
I don't think that's quite right. If you look at the selection of maps (in one image) I directly linked from them that summarize the whole period from 2016 to 2021, they've separated explosions from ceasefire violations and their ceasefire violation map notably does not include explosions. So we're dealing with at least three types of map relating to ceasefire violations and explosions (not including the ones on FOM restrictions and other stuff). The one in the article I linked appears to be an amalgam of the explosion+ceasefire violation map types and while it marks incoming and presumably outgoing ceasefire violations in red, orange and yellow shading like a macabre weather map, it also marks explosions-- where they, y'know, exploded-- separately as their own icons.
Also, if you look at the map I linked, for at least the five years it represents there's a pattern regarding the placement of ceasefire violations and explosions that are very deep in either territory. Both sides of the line of contact have ceasefire violations that are far away from it (with no apparent attribution) while the separatist side has a monopoly on explosions that are far away from the line of contact (presumably all of them the responsibility of the Ukrainian military). It's not altogether clear what precisely that means, but it is interesting.
To be clear: you're defending news outlets for being utterly silent on Ukrainian troop positions and movements near its Russian border including their active engagement in hostilities against separatists while these media outlets at the same time sound klaxons about Russian troop positions.
What is arbitrary about borders is where they are, and more importantly to this discussion whether they are recognized, and who recognizes them. That Ukraine is engaged in an attempt to crush people who refused to accept the Euromaidan coup is certainly relevant to that whole situation there, its military buildup along the line of contact in Donestk and Luhansk regions is certainly also relevant. But we have only analysis and description of the Russian troop positions and movements as if the Ukrainian military simply doesn't exist and isn't to be thought of as a potential concern or, indeed, something Russia could possibly be reacting to. So we treat, whether accurately or not, Russia as the only entity with any agency or even any presence in the situation, a framing which all but directly poses the question: how are WE going to intervene? Because obviously no one else is even there!
I've made the same analogy myself. Russia is where the UK was postwar: having to get used to the fact it's no longer a major global player, and taking it badly.
On the OSCE maps of that kind, the colour tends to represent frequency, and explicitly includes explosions. There's usually a separate table, but not a separate visual indicator, for explosions.
If you want to make a case based on OSCE data, then you'll need to provide something from the source, context and key and all. Having it passed through the filter of a third-party which we already know isn't accurately reporting the meaning of the data isn't helpful.
The OSCE has quite consistently shown frequent violations perpetrated by both the Ukrainian military and the separatists (both in the hundreds). I don't think it's terribly meaningful either way, honestly, to try to claim one as a more prolific violator than the other. Nothing I've seen from the OSCE (and I check their own site fairly often atm) shows the narrative that third party site wants to sell.
Nope, but I appreciate you providing another example of yourself leaping to over-interpret someone else's post. It does help to illustrate what I was saying before.
Yes, who recognises them. So: if one country unilaterally recognises borders that nobody else recognises, does that convey a justification to invade?
If so, then borders have no meaning, and convey no security. For any sufficiently powerful body could simply decide to recognise whatever is convenient for itself, and then act accordingly, riding roughshod over weaker nations.
This being very much what Russia is doing. The Donbas in its entirety was recognised by Russia as Ukrainian territory for 7 years, until 2 days ago, when it became convenient for them not to, a few short hours before they marched in. So it's very clear this isn't a matter of principle. Official recognition shifts as soon as they need it to be something else.
And in truth, the only thing allowing Russia to do this is the relative military strength of Russia and Ukraine. You're respecting the right of a country to unilaterally rewrite the borders of another country. Which... only serves whichever is the most powerful of those two. Imperialism in essence; might makes right, and fuck the weak.
Er, there's a key on the map image?
Yes, that perfectly describes the image I linked directly. But on the image in the article, there is a separate visual indicator for explosions. It is listed in the key at the bottom.
Nobody else other than the people who have had military control over that area for the past several years, you mean? Russian soldiers including their vanguard came in by bus on main roads-- hardly a blitzkrieg.
But anyway, you will of course agree that the United States recognizing the Kurds and providing military support was an invasion of Syria, flagrant violation of international law, and every other alarming descriptor possible. And of course you very much agreed with Donald Trump when he withdrew that very illegal and suspect support.
Alert: Putin warns any foreign attempt to interfere with Russian action would lead to 'consequences they have never seen'
MOSCOW (AP) — Putin warns any foreign attempt to interfere with Russian action would...
Did this guy seriously threatened Nuke on anyone who helped Ukraine?
Putin has lost his god damn mind.
Salami tactics, I never took Putin for a Brit-com fan.
I know this is in bad taste but if you don't laugh you weep I guess.