[Mentalist]

Another meeting of the Normandy 4 advisors ended with nothing. Which is good, because Zelensky's advisor Yermak is a known Russian sympathizer, so each time he's sent to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine everyone holds their collective breath, expecting him to make some terrible concessions.


So now we continue waiting to see if the Russians actually withdraw their troops after the exercises.

Edit: and now the US and UK are saying VVH made up his mind to invade. Well, fuck.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 11 February 2022 - 07:25 PM

[Mentalist]

Biden's gonna chat with VVH tomorrow.

US intelligence is saying Russia might commence their bombings Tue-Wed.


On Monday, Duma is going to discuss asking VVH to formally recognize the Terrorussian republics. If they do, that basically buries the Minsk agreements (which is sorts what Ukraine has been trying to do), and means that Russia is looking for a new format one that would probably require a Ukrainian capitulation.

Not gonna be a fun week, that's for sure.

[Cyphon]

Mentalist are you going to be safe?

[Mentalist]

Cyphon, on 12 February 2022 - 07:22 PM, said:

Mentalist are you going to be safe?

I'm in Canada, so unless the truckers topple the government, I'm presuming I'll be fine. I'm just an on and off activist with minimal social media presence, who writes about this stuff in a few places on the web, educate people I know IRL, and occasionally disprove some Russian propaganda online. So even though my face was all over the first Euromaidan rally in Toronto in 2013 (I showed up early and they made me hold the big banner, lol), I would guess I'm way down the FSB's imaginary shit list,

My family is back home. In the western part of the country, closer to the Polish border, in areas which even the most diehard Russian imperialist don't want to deal with and would rather Poland annex us; so I'm relatively confident they won't bother bombing my home city, as it's far from any potential front lines and has next to 0 remaining military manufacturing capacity; tho being "the capital of Ukrainian nationalism" it could get hit as part of shock and awe campaign, I suppose.

But I'm far more concerned about potential power/heat outages and food shortages. My elderly grandparents aren't particularly mobile, and 2 of my cousins have young kids. Plus Covid is still a thing, and my grandmother is still recovering from Omicron.

So much conflicting info. The uncertainty is killing everyone, but at the end of the day, that's also the point. It's a mind game to force Ukraine to make concessions without fighting... Until suddenly it isn't. People there are either panickingpn ignoring this, or already got a response's plan and are just carrying on until something happens. There does not appear to be any widespread panic yet--largely because over the past 8 years they've been through these scares a few times, and there's a decent chunk of "boy who cried wolf" effect going on here.

So really, all I can do, as an interested bystander, is wait. And post stream on consciousness responses on the internet.

[Cause]

I still dont understand this, isnt the whole point of Nato that the USA + eastern europe should be able to smack down russia 20 times over. Ignoring nuclear intervention.

I dont understand why every country doesnt just put 100 of their soldiers as advisors in every ukrainian military target and dare putin to target them.

I guess its more complicated than that, I just dont know why

[Aptorian]

I'm no NATO expert but the Russian arguments for why they're pressuring Ukraine and in turn Europe are actually pretty cogent.

The Eastern Block used to be a buffer between Russia and the West. Much of Eastern Europe already joined the EU. If Belarus and Ukraine, etc. make deals with Europe and NATO, then it threatens Russias defenses. Imagine if Russia started building bases and moving equipment in to or around Canada and Mexico (Or Cuba) and started making favorable trade deals and getting political concessions that favor Russia over the US. How would the USA react?

All of this is of course a distraction from all the bullshit Russia gets into on a daily basis but there are legitimate Russian concerns in this as well.

We could try to strong arm Russia but then what? Russia cuts of the natural gas for Europe. Trade with Russia dries up hurting European business and voters. Nobody wants a war because wars cost money and lives. And Wars with Nuclear super powers is unattractive.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 14 February 2022 - 10:39 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 14 February 2022 - 10:37 AM, said:

I'm no NATO expert but the Russian arguments for why they're pressuring Ukraine and in turn Europe are actually pretty cogent.

The Eastern Block used to be a buffer between Russia and the West. Much of Eastern Europe already joined the EU. If Belarus and Ukraine, etc. make deals with Europe and NATO, then it threatens Russias defenses. Imagine if Russia started building bases and moving equipment in to or around Canada and Mexico (Or Cuba) and started making favorable trade deals and getting political concessions that favor Russia over the US. How would the USA react?

All of this is of course a distraction from all the bullshit Russia gets into on a daily basis but there are legitimate Russian concerns in this as well.

We could try to strong arm Russia but then what? Russia cuts of the natural gas for Europe. Trade with Russia dries up hurting European business and voters. Nobody wants a war because wars cost money and lives. And Wars with Nuclear super powers is unattractive.

Putin still has more than enough nukes to dissuade NATO from invading Russia. IDK how paranoid Putin may be, but does even he really think NATO would launch a military strike against Russia (with the possible exception of small clandestine operations)?...

Wonder if the threat of Putin cutting off the natural gas could spur Europe to accelerate the transition to clean(er) energy (it would be ironic if they were trying to switch to nuclear ASAP and Putin, perhaps suffering from dementia, or finally driven to drink, unleashed the nukes... but don't worry, I'm sure he'd get us in the US too---probably toss in the UK as well if they follow through on going after the oligarchs' holdings).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 February 2022 - 03:20 PM

[Mentalist]

Counterpoint: if Estonia and Latvia weren't in NATO, we would've seen "little green men" there a decade ago. Because both countries have sizeable Russian minorities that constantly scream bloody murder about being "repressed"

NATO isn't "expanding". It's accepting those who are running the F away from Russia.

Maybe if Russia stopped cribbing from Hitler's speeches about "divided peoples" and foment separatist movements among its neighbors, they wouldn't be so eager to run away?

The only point Russians may have (open to debate) is Kosovo. But considering Russian 14th Army has been parked in Transnistria since 1992, plus the assistance it's been providing to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there's loads of pot calling the kettle black vibes here.

The security argument is pretty ludicrous, considering the distance from the Lithuanian border, which is where NATO has been chilling for over a decade now. Even if Ukraine WAS to join NATO (which is far from inevitable now, and was even further before the war in 2014), practical implications wouldn't have changed. No one was going to invade Russia as long as it had nukes. So the only threat to Russian "security" would be "threat to Russia's ability to bully its neighbors to distract the populace from domestic economic disasters". Which would certainly be a hill to die on.

[Mentalist]

So we survived the night of the 16th with no invasion.
But now Terrorussians have started shelling Ukrainian positions all over Donbas. Shot up a kindergarten in a town north of Luhansk, and a school in a Ukraine - controlled suburb west of Donets'k. No kids hurt, but in the second case a woman was wounded on a bus stop.

VVH expelled American Deputy Ambassador from Moscow and is going to be addressing the Fed Council.

UN Security Council is buzzing, the useless thing that it is (and Russia is in charge, this month).

Clock's ticking. On Saturday Russia is supposed to send its extra navy out of the Black Sea; once they do, they greatly reduce their ability to hit from the South.

[amphibian]

In terms of how the US media is treating this, it's a confused mess. There's been alarmist stuff that has exhausted some level of public attention, some people who are actively working for the Russians and others who are carrying their water for free, and some outlets who are trying to explain the POV of or listen to Ukrainian people speak on what they see and experience.

I'm certainly hoping for no war, but given how brutish and dumb VVH has been for decades, I don't have a lot of hope for that.

[Mentalist]

There are 2 most common interpretation of the Western media hype as follows:

1) The West and Russia would like to make a deal to bring Russia on board against China. This requires the West to push Ukraine to accept Minsk-2 the way Russia wants. So Russians are creating the threat, and the West is drumming up panic to lead Ukraine to surrender. This clearly isn't working, since Ukrainians reply far calmer than expected and are basically daring the Russians to make a move. This forces the West to put their money where their mouth is and actually stand firm against Russian pressure.

2) The West genuinely believes that Russia is going to make a move and is trying to pre-empt any reasoning Russians may put forward by making all their potential plans public and put Russia in a position where they have to constantly provide excuses and reasons for all of their actions.

Scenario 1 feels far more pragmatic, but we are seeing a lot of evidence for 2 as well. So it's hard to be sure either way.

[Mentalist]

Terrorussian ordered evacuations of DNR and LNR civilians.
Car bomb in Donetsk and gas pipeline explosion in Luhansk

Bien states VVH made up his mind to escalate the war.

Head of Russian Communists sating VVH will make a statement on the 20th. Which is the day the Olympics end.

Zelensky is flying to the Munich Security Summit tomorrow. Rumors of a pro-Russian coup, with "kill lists" of all pro-ukrainian politicians and activists, which are to be targeted if Russians capture Kyiv.

Tense situation, to say the least.

[Gorefest]

Sounds like it is hotting up quickly now. Russia claims (obviously blatantly untrue) that five Ukrainian army saboteurs were killed while crossing the Russian border from the Luhansk region. It is such an obvious piece of fake news, you wonder who the Russians are trying to fool. I imagine it must be their own citizens, as I cannot really see anyone else buying this.

[Aptorian]

I really don't understand Russia's actions or lack thereof. If they were going to invade Ukraine or parts of Ukraine, surely they would have done so by now? Any tactical advantage of a taking the enemy unprepared is lost at this point.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Putin's Hall of Mirrors


The Russian president sees the world through the lens of maskirovka and provokatsiia.

Putin likes to associate today's Russian Federation with the old Russian Empire[...] the most repressive state of its era, with the most refined state police: the Okhrana. Russian revolutionaries, [...] who would establish the Soviet state, were educated by its methods. It did not simply hunt them down; it ensnared them, often without their knowledge, in a complicated dance of incriminating their comrades. It specialized in provocations. It knew how to make its enemies do the work for it.

Intelligence work means finding things out. Counterintelligence means making this difficult for others. At the far fringe of counterintelligence are operations designed not just to confuse the world but to change it: in Russian, maskirovka or provokatsiia. [...]

[...] the habit of maskirovka, or deception, came with terrible costs. If all one does is provoke, then all one sees is provocation. [...]

[...] Thanks to social media, Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was a triumph of postmodern provocation. If you were on the left, you heard that Ukraine was Nazi; if you were on the right, you were told that it was gay; if you were on the far right, you were told that it was Jewish. Such stories prevented people in the West from seeing the simple truth: one country had invaded another, taken its territory, and killed and displaced its civilians. Encouraged by success in Ukraine, Russia applied the same techniques to the Brexit referendum and an American presidential election, with similar results. [...]

The 2014 invasion was also rich in traditional provocations. [...] Putin let slip the kind of warfare that was planned: "And let's see those [Ukrainian] troops try to shoot their own people, with us behind them—not in front, but behind. Let them just try to shoot at women and children!" [...] Having provoked the Ukrainian army to shell a Ukrainian city, Russia recruited more irregulars from among those who suffered, and blamed everything on the Ukrainians. Something very similar can be expected now.


Provocation can become a necessary condition to action. Putin has massed Russian forces at the Ukrainian border, but he has no story (yet) for the Russian people as to why he would invade. Russians seem not to believe that an invasion is in the offing, and there is little sign that many of them would support such a thing if they believed that their side was the aggressor. [...] If Putin really does want to invade, he will have to deliver some effective illusion before doing so, one that allows Russians to think that something besides a war of aggression is going on.

[...] He may be lost in his personal myth of Russian-Ukrainian unity, and truly imagine that he will gain immortal glory by invading Russia's neighbor on the logic that it is Russia's brother[...] One can imagine such crashing naivete as a fitting companion of a career of provocation: When you believe nothing else, what remains is childish fantasy.'

https://www.theatlan...Vfs94P4mk0GxkIs

[amphibian]

Aptorian, on 21 February 2022 - 05:18 PM, said:

I really don't understand Russia's actions or lack thereof. If they were going to invade Ukraine or parts of Ukraine, surely they would have done so by now? Any tactical advantage of a taking the enemy unprepared is lost at this point.

If Russia invades, they're generally going to win whether or not there's true surprise. The question is how much $ and resources does Ukraine lose while staying on alert vs what the Russians lose by building up. The Russians also have to decide how much they are comfortable with losing in terms of tanks and soldiers.

Think of it as schoolyard bullies and the kids they torment. The constant irritation and "will they attack or not" is a feature, not a bug. Putin is not a genius. He's basically the most successful thug in the last 200 years - more successful/self-enriching than Stalin or Hitler. He's driven by the warm water port wealth, fascist nationalism, and "because I can".

[Tiste Simeon]

amphibian, on 21 February 2022 - 06:20 PM, said:

Aptorian, on 21 February 2022 - 05:18 PM, said:

I really don't understand Russia's actions or lack thereof. If they were going to invade Ukraine or parts of Ukraine, surely they would have done so by now? Any tactical advantage of a taking the enemy unprepared is lost at this point.

If Russia invades, they're generally going to win whether or not there's true surprise. The question is how much $ and resources does Ukraine lose while staying on alert vs what the Russians lose by building up. The Russians also have to decide how much they are comfortable with losing in terms of tanks and soldiers.

Think of it as schoolyard bullies and the kids they torment. The constant irritation and "will they attack or not" is a feature, not a bug. Putin is not a genius. He's basically the most successful thug in the last 200 years - more successful/self-enriching than Stalin or Hitler. He's driven by the warm water port wealth, fascist nationalism, and "because I can".

Also by holding off they can claim they've tried to be reasonable? That they've tried to work on a solution?

[Mentalist]

Tiste Simeon, on 21 February 2022 - 07:47 PM, said:

amphibian, on 21 February 2022 - 06:20 PM, said:

Aptorian, on 21 February 2022 - 05:18 PM, said:

I really don't understand Russia's actions or lack thereof. If they were going to invade Ukraine or parts of Ukraine, surely they would have done so by now? Any tactical advantage of a taking the enemy unprepared is lost at this point.

If Russia invades, they're generally going to win whether or not there's true surprise. The question is how much $ and resources does Ukraine lose while staying on alert vs what the Russians lose by building up. The Russians also have to decide how much they are comfortable with losing in terms of tanks and soldiers.

Think of it as schoolyard bullies and the kids they torment. The constant irritation and "will they attack or not" is a feature, not a bug. Putin is not a genius. He's basically the most successful thug in the last 200 years - more successful/self-enriching than Stalin or Hitler. He's driven by the warm water port wealth, fascist nationalism, and "because I can".

Also by holding off they can claim they've tried to be reasonable? That they've tried to work on a solution?

Amongst the 7 or 8 "false flags" they've tossed out today, he ended his speech ordering Ukraine to immediately cease fighting back, "or they will be solely responsible for the bloodbath".

This basically spells out "there will be another false flag and more shooting".

Feeling like a wreck right now, after having read yet another passage about why Ukraine should never have existed.

[Mezla PigDog]

I don't understand much about Russia and Eastern Europe. Or geo politics for that matter. I'm too cosy on the Western side of the continent and too British so feel like things happening elsewhere won't touch me. Why is this happening now? Surely Putin has been wanting this for a long time. What's special about now?

[Tsundoku]

The perception after the Afghan pullout and 2 years of Covid that the USA is overstretched and over it.
Plus the sweetheart deal with China giving each other a free hand increases US and Euro reluctance to commit to action.
Russia and China also having those hypersonic missiles - fully working or not - strengthens their hand.

It's like what happens when the 2 biggest bullies in the schoolyard agree to either back each other, or at least not bother each other.
I've heard the phrase "Molotov-Ribbentrop deal" trotted out a few times, and I'd agree there are definitely shades of it.

It's a great time to be a dictator. Even with the amzing prevalence of real-time news and citizen-journalists showing exactly what is going on, them pulling out the term "fake news" works for them in confusing the Western response.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 22 February 2022 - 12:07 AM