Ukraine

[Dalisclock]

Russia entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb Ukraine and nobody was going to bomb them back.

I think the fact they took over Crimea in 2014 and the world pretty much did nothing gave Putin the impression he could just finish the job and expect the same response. Unfortunately for him, his impression of how stronk Russia is and how stronk Russia actually is was quite far apart, as well as his belief in how much of a fight Ukraine would put up.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Russia entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb Ukraine and nobody was going to bomb them back.

Russia's military being revealed as, if not a paper tiger, then a soggy cardboard one can't have done Putin's ego nor any dreams of conquest he might have any favors.

 

[Agema]

True. We don't know who caused it, and since Russia has shown itself to be full of liars on this war, we shouldn't believe anything they say.

It's also the fact that they announced it was a Ukrainian woman from the Azov reg. (of course!) with a 12-year-old child who promptly departed off across the border into Estonia in a car where she regularly changed the plates. Oh sure. Like they'd work all that out in 2 days.

Unless they already knew she was some sort of agent and had been tailing her to see what she'd do and somehow missed her planting a bomb, in which case their intelligence services are kind of incompetent.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

...a Ukrainian woman from the Azov reg. (of course!) with a 12-year-old child....

Like your job never had a "bring your child to work day".

 

[Dalisclock]

in which case their intelligence services are kind of incompetent.

I mean that would be totally on brand for Russia at this point

 

[Agema]

I mean that would be totally on brand for Russia at this point

To be fair, there is plenty of evidence that they are incompetent.

Apparently you can buy info from black market hawkers around Russia - normally these are account lists scooped from companies and so on, but occasionally they'll have stuff from or even about their intelligence agencies. Apparently, someone even found sensitive, confidential info on the head of the FSB this way. So they leak like a sieve. Secondly, as the UK poisonings revealed, never mind the two guys responsible were identified, from that someone realised that the FSB had handed out literally hundreds of fake passports with consecutive passport numbers to spies. A rookie error meaning that all of these are now known to foreign countries if they'd travelled abroad. Ouch. There are also rumours they are severely compromised at numerous levels by organised crime.

But maybe that's the handy thing about operating in a place as corrupt and unfree as Russia. They don't really need to be that good, because the ability to fabricate results makes it far less necessary to achieve anything.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Russia's military being revealed as, if not a paper tiger, then a soggy cardboard one can't have done Putin's ego nor any dreams of conquest he might have any favors.

Putting aside the horrendous humanitarian implications of what is currently going on, it's an interesting exercise in propaganda. A lot of people on both sides of the political fence, both in Russia and abroad, seem to have been very invested in the idea of Russia as a military near-peer to the US (with some online military strength aggregators rating Russia above the US) and it's become incredibly, abundantly clear how untrue that is. Again, Russia is a country that plays at being a superpower, it plays on the memory of the Soviet Union and the fear of Western journalists and political analysts who grew up under the threat of annihilation at the hands of the Soviet military, and I think the only explanation for what is currently happening in Ukraine is that some of the people in positions of command either bought into the reality they manufactured or fundamentally misjudged the situation in some other way.

Of course, Russia is fighting with one hand behind its back right now. In an actual, formally declared war in which Russia was allowing itself to mobilize its reserves, an eventual and complete Russian victory would be pretty much assured short of some massive Western fuckery, but even then the fact that Russia isn't using reserves means many of the units they are using are supposed to be the best, they're meant to be up to the standard of the professional volunteer NATO armies, capable of handling the kind of complex, combined-arms offensive operations that conscripts aren't trained for, and in this regard they've performed abysmally.

Corruption is definitely a huge factor. It might seem like a small thing, but if you think about the compounding influence of layers and layers of corruption within not just the military itself but the military industrial complex, the ministry of defence, all kinds of third party contractors, neo-Nazi mercenaries and so-forth, all the people at every level finding ways to appropriate a bit for themselves adds up to a lot of money lost, and it's not surprising that what you end up with is a rotten institution where nothing works.

It's interesting to compare it with China. China and Russia have both been undergoing a pretty big military overhaul and modernization in the past couple of decades, and China has also had huge corruption problems, but it's also placed a massive effort into combating corruption, and when you look at how much China is now spending on defence and what it is getting for the money, it's kind of ridiculous.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Corruption is definitely a huge factor. It might seem like a small thing, but if you think about the compounding influence of layers and layers of corruption within not just the military itself but the military industrial complex, the ministry of defence, all kinds of third party contractors, neo-Nazi mercenaries and so-forth, all the people at every level finding ways to appropriate a bit for themselves adds up to a lot of money lost, and it's not surprising that what you end up with is a rotten institution where nothing works.

And then add to that the abject terror of having to tell Putin something that he doesn't want to hear, and you get a structure that can't get out of its own way and can't react properly when things go wrong.

 

[Agema]

Of course, Russia is fighting with one hand behind its back right now. In an actual, formally declared war in which Russia was allowing itself to mobilize its reserves, an eventual and complete Russian victory would be pretty much assured short of some massive Western fuckery

Some comment I have read is that Putin's regime relies on large scale disengagement of Russian people from (serious) politics. The Russian people's tolerance of the conflict is partly a sort of expectation it doesn't affect them and they don't have to think about it too hard. A war declaration and full mobilisation would fundamentally alter that: make it impossible to avoid, intrude heavily into people's lives, force them to ask questions, and engage with governance in the way a mendacious, corrupt crypto-dictator really does not want.

Nor could Russia anymore hide lots of aspects it has wanted to pretend: it's avoiding (to the point of criminalising) the term "war". "Special military operation" makes it sound like policing, or peacekeeping. War however makes Russia an aggressor: against Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a people, not just some decapitation of an allegedly illegitimate regime or defending Russian citizens over the border. Russians might also then need to ask why Russia needs to declare war on people they like to (patronisingly) think as their brothers: what has gone so far wrong in Russian-Ukrainian relations? If Ukrainians switched loyalties towards the West... does that not imply Russia is weak, or made some mistake?

 

[Seanchaidh]

Ukraine passes laws wrecking workers’ rights

Zero-hours contracts set to be legalised and 70% of workforce exempted from workplace protections

www.opendemocracy.net

Somehow I doubt this is what the Ukrainian people want.

Some comment I have read is that Putin's regime relies on large scale disengagement of Russian people from (serious) politics. The Russian people's tolerance of the conflict is partly a sort of expectation it doesn't affect them and they don't have to think about it too hard.

A completely unique situation that is not sounding at all familiar to this US citizen.

If Ukrainians switched loyalties towards the West... does that not imply Russia is weak, or made some mistake?

Not especially given that there was a foreign-backed putsch that has banned hostile media and political parties and prompted civil war.

 

[Satinavian]

To be fair, there is plenty of evidence that they are incompetent.

Apparently you can buy info from black market hawkers around Russia - normally these are account lists scooped from companies and so on, but occasionally they'll have stuff from or even about their intelligence agencies. Apparently, someone even found sensitive, confidential info on the head of the FSB this way. So they leak like a sieve. Secondly, as the UK poisonings revealed, never mind the two guys responsible were identified, from that someone realised that the FSB had handed out literally hundreds of fake passports with consecutive passport numbers to spies. A rookie error meaning that all of these are now known to foreign countries if they'd travelled abroad. Ouch. There are also rumours they are severely compromised at numerous levels by organised crime.

But maybe that's the handy thing about operating in a place as corrupt and unfree as Russia. They don't really need to be that good, because the ability to fabricate results makes it far less necessary to achieve anything.

And don't forget how Putin fired 150 agents working with the Ukraine when the war started because :
- They had been given and used many millions to buy collaborators who then didn't turn up (and signifant portions of the money might have been embezzeled instead)
- They told him only what he wanted to hear about the state of the Ukrainian army and the nostalgia of its population for the Soviet Union.

Putin relied really heavily on the FSB and made it extremely powerful. To then find out it is plagued with corruption as well and has so many yes-men that he doesn't even get halfway accurate intelligence reports, must have hurt.

 

[Agema]

Not especially given that there was a foreign-backed putsch that has banned hostile media and political parties and prompted civil war.

And don't forget how Putin fired 150 agents working with the Ukraine when the war started because :
- They had been given and used many millions to buy collaborators who then didn't turn up (and signifant portions of the money might have been embezzeled instead)
- They told him only what he wanted to hear about the state of the Ukrainian army and the nostalgia of its population for the Soviet Union.

Putin relied really heavily on the FSB and made it extremely powerful. To then find out it is plagued with corruption as well and has so many yes-men that he doesn't even get halfway accurate intelligence reports, must have hurt.

I think Putin is probably experiencing what many autocrats do: the more that systems depend on currying favour with the boss, the more its employees tend to work to that rather than doing their job properly. Lack of honest discussion and critical feedback in government degrades both departmental function and decision-making - including of course the policies of the autocrat themself.

 

[Hades]

Not especially given that there was a foreign-backed putsch that has banned hostile media and political parties and prompted civil war.

Or there was a successful Russian attempt to parade the Ukrainian president around as their puppet. Had Russia not gone around poisoning Ukrainian presidents, meddling in their affairs, forcing them to cancel lucrative trade deals then none of this would have happened. The only foreign putsch prompting civil war is the Russian one.

 

[Terminal Blue]

A completely unique situation that is not sounding at all familiar to this US citizen.

It shouldn't sound familiar at all.

The US could declare war on Ukraine itself and the US population would barely notice, economically or politically.

 

[Seanchaidh]

It shouldn't sound familiar at all.

The US could declare war on Ukraine itself and the US population would barely notice, economically or politically.

it sounds like you're arguing the opposite

Or there was a successful Russian attempt to parade the Ukrainian president around as their puppet. Had Russia not gone around poisoning Ukrainian presidents, meddling in their affairs, forcing them to cancel lucrative trade deals then none of this would have happened. The only foreign putsch prompting civil war is the Russian one.

ludicrous apologia for the unconstitutional overthrow of an elected government followed by the violent suppression of opposition

 

[Avnger]

ludicrous apologia for the unconstitutional overthrow of an elected government followed by the violent suppression of opposition

You say this like its a bad thing when your personal political philosophy encourages doing exactly the same if not worse...

 

[Hades]

ludicrous apologia for the unconstitutional overthrow of an elected government followed by the violent suppression of opposition

Can a government be legitimate and a foreign puppet at the same time? I doubt it. If the president all but openly colludes with hostile power he's no longer fit for office. Besides with his extreme corruption, anti democratic conduct and him renegading on the promises that got him elected you'd be hard pressed to claim he was the democratic candidate.

Your defense of the Russian puppet remains weird.

 

[Agema]

Can a government be legitimate and a foreign puppet at the same time?

Yes: if a population has freely voted in a goverment expressly (or sufficiently implicitly) for that policy.

* * *

Seanchaidh's stance here is utterly disingenuous. I don't believe for a minute Seanchaidh actually believes that a democratic government, upon winning an election, magically has conferred upon it infinite legitimacy until the next election. It is a well accepted principle that governments that do something sufficiently catastrophic, outrageous or otherwise unpopular forfeit their democratic legitimacy - at least morally.

He can argue that the toppled president technically had legal legitimacy under the constitution. But this is a bust, because Seanchaidh otherwise doesn't appear believe in this sort of legitimacy of real-world democratic governments at all: view his outright contempt for that concept elsewhere (e.g. his attitude to the USA or Zelenskyy; oligarchs, plutocrats, etc.). Thus for him to claim it for Ukraine under Yanukovych is nothing but utter, grinding hypocrisy.

And that's without considering that even in a technical sense, Yanukovych was elected president as leader of the Party of Regions: in the legislature, this party both semi-collapsed and abandoned Yanukovych before he fled and was formally removed. One of the reasons the vote against him fell short of technical three-quarters required was because most of the party's MPs failed to turn up. However, it says a lot that the 30-odd that were there voted for his removal.

Thus it's an empty, pitiful, little rat's fart of a complaint.

 

[Terminal Blue]

it sounds like you're arguing the opposite

I'm arguing that this empty, completely uninvited comparison to the USA is meaningless, although at this point it is not unexpected. You've made it quite clear that as far as you are concerned the entire world only exists as some kind of peripheral extension of the USA.

But the situation in Russia has nothing to do with anything going on in the USA. Russia has a very different history to the USA. It has largely unrecognizable politics with very little relationship to those you are familiar with.

60 years ago, the US used a conscript army to fight a war in Vietnam. The backlash to this was very intense, and as such conscription was practically phased out of the US military in favor of the new ideal of a voluntary professional military. This military is by far the best funded in the world, and enjoys enormous support from both the political establishment and the US population. It is built from the ground up around the capability to launch global offensive operations practically anywhere on the planet, and has proven this capability multiple times.

The Russian military is essentially the rotted out husk of the Soviet military. The Soviet military, for much of the twentieth century, was near-peer to that of the US and similarly well funded after accounting for purchasing power. However, the Soviet military was in large part geared towards territorial defense with regional, rather than global, capability. Conscription was a core part of the identity of the Soviet armed forces, and was never abandoned.

There are countless other differences too. Russia is a managed democracy utterly dominated by a single party. The US is a liberal democracy with two dominant parties. The political elite of the US is drawn from the wealthy business elite, while the political elite of Russia is predominantly former members of the security services who have become a wealthy business elite by exploiting their political connections.

The situation in Russia is completely different to that in the US, so much so that the problem Agema described could not even exist in relation to the US. People in the US will tolerate their soldiers being sent to foreign countries to fight and will even tolerate them dying or being injured in significant numbers because those soldiers are volunteers, not conscripts. There is little economic or political fallout stemming from the US military being deployed in offensive operations because it is literally designed from the ground up to do that. Furthermore, the two party system in the US allows blame for unpopular decisions to be compartmentalized within the party or individual currently in power. In Russia, the party and individual currently in power never changes, so that doesn't happen. Finally, people who are unhappy with the US political system, even those who are quite wealthy, cannot easily leave the country and expect to find similar opportunities. The same is not true in Russia, where brain drain is a massive problem.

The political situation in Russia causes a lot of problems for many people living there and, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, they are not the same as the problems you face as an American. For the sake of argument, we can happily accept that America has the worst political system ever and those who live under it are the most cruelly oppressed people on earth, but it is still insulting and reductive to pretend that they are the same.

 

[Gergar12]

My dream.