The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[dudalb]

We might not be at war with Russia, but Russia has been waging hybrid war against us for at least a decade.

I think it's an all measures short of actual war situation..something like what was between Nazi Germany and the US between The summer of 1940 and Dec 11, 1941 when Hitler declared war on the US. THe US was using every thing in it;s power to battle Hitler except actual military operations. And even then,there was a sort of undeclared war at Sea going on.

 

[dudalb]

And it seems the oligarchs are getting really worried:

Chelsea: Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell club

I'm sure its pure coincidence this happened right after questions were asked in parliament about why he hadn't been sanctioned.

WHy do I think Russian Oligarchs are going to become the default Villians for a lot of TV shows and Movies?

 

[theprestige]

What strikes me as bizarre about this whole situation is the weird way that the western media (I'm looking at you BBC) and even the experts are treating the Russian incompetence so far. They all seem to be convinced, absolutely convinced, that any day now Russia will get its act together and use that incredible military might to roll over the Ukrainians. Any day now they will fix their logistics and their troops will no longer be starving, poorly supplied conscripts with zero morale and no fuel. Any day now that "armoured column" will roll right into Kyiv and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be captured or killed.

No one seems to consider the increasingly likely possibility that they won't fix their "mistakes" because they aren't mistakes. The Russian military is just that flat out rubbish. They won't get their logistics in order because their logistical corps are corrupt, inefficient and not fit for task. They won't bring that huge military might to bear because it isn't actually there. Sure they have loads of tanks and IFVs, but they don't seem to have any fuel for them, do they? Sure they have loads of bodies to throw into the meat grinder, but those soldiers don't seem to have enough food to even hold their territorial gains let alone expand.

I don't understand why no one is even considering that the Russians are failing because they were always going to fail. That they haven't achieved their objectives not because of mistakes and bad luck but because they aren't actually capable of doing it.

How many days of Russia basically faceplanting over and over again will it take for people to realise that they can't do any better?

I tend to agree with your analysis. I fervently hope it's correct. But I think we would all be well served not to assume it's the case. Hitler's Wehrmacht completely botched the initial occupation of Austria. And they absolutely failed to destroy the British Army at Dunkirk. And their Blitzkrieg in France quite often ran out of momentum as it outran its supply lines. And Operation Sealion was never going to be a thing. And yet...

I won't believe that Kiev is truly safe, or that we can relax about Russian aggression in Ukraine, until Putin agrees to a cease-fire and starts pulling troops back from occupied areas. Until then, I think we really need to assume "that any day now Russia will get its act together and use that incredible military might to roll over the Ukrainians. Any day now they will fix their logistics and their troops will no longer be starving, poorly supplied conscripts with zero morale and no fuel. Any day now that "armoured column" will roll right into Kyiv and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be captured or killed."

ETA: I think it's an open question whether the Ukrainian military is in much better shape than their Russian counterparts. If they're not - and why would they be? - then this probably comes down to who has deeper reserves. And that's probably Russia. If Russia can keep feeding crap conscripts and crap tanks into the meatgrinder, and Ukraine can't... Well.

 

[Jimbo07]

Really wiling to sell other peopple down the river, are we?

I'm not

FUnny, that was tried in the 1930's and did not work.

I don't think that appeasement works, in general. In fact, I don't think it would work this time. Your only hope is that with NATO parked right on his doorstep, Putin gets too old and dies, before he can try anything again.

Seriously. What's your military alternative? The conventional military advantage enjoyed by NATO is being exposed here, but if even half of his nukes work, that's it.

That's really, really it. There's no you to type "that was tried in the 1930's and did not work." Even if you have a backyard bunker (I don't know you), I don't, so there probably wouldn't be a me to read it. Worse, it would all happen in about 30 minutes. There was nothing comparable in 1939. Aruguably, there wasn't anything like it in all of history before the Trinity test in 1945.

 

[JoeMorgue]

As far death/injury ratio the biggest factor is halfway decent field hospitals you can get someone to with "the magic hour."

I don't see where/how Russia has anything like that setup in Ukraine yet.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I hate the idea of dying in a nuclear war.

I hate the idea of just letting someone like Putin get his way because of my fear of dying in a nuclear war.

If anyone has found a way to square that circle share it with the class.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Also, to add a wrinkle if I were Putin the "Oh noes we have to give Putin everything he wants or else" is EXACTLY the narrative I'd be hoping for the most.

 

[Oystein]

Oh yea, you had that election didn't you? ...

Yup, a while ago since December 08.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is SPD, minister for finances is Christian Lindner of the FDP, minister for foreign affairs Annalena Baerbock of The Greens. So we have a center-left "traffic lights" coalition, so named after the colors of the three parties, red (SPD, social democrats), yellow (FDP, liberal in the actual, not US, meaning of the word), green.

There is an interesting parallel to February/March 1999, when the new and first SPD-Greens coalition under Chancellor Schröder (sworn into office in late October 1998) had to decide and act on NATO plans to military action against Serbia in support of Kosovo, the first time NATO used military force outside a UN mandate and also outside its own charter - a highly controversial war, especially since the Greens had originally grown out of a strongly pacifist movement and had not few prominent members who questioned the legitimacy of NATO.

 

[crescent]

They don't need to fix their problems. If the war goes on like this, Ukraine will run out of supplies earlier, and even if they don't, the shelling wears them down eventually.

Russia has the upper hand in the East and all around Crimea, and is steadily advancing, taking city after city. Defenders in Mariupol are cut off already.

Russia may never turn itself into a refined wielder of Samurai swords. But their blunt hammer will do the job.

That fits with what I am thinking. Russia will keep pushing forward as long as Putin is in power, and he'll be in power as long as he's alive. He'll bleed Russia white and push every last rusted crap tank and every untrained reservist into battle, use every outdated weapon system. He'll level the cities with WWII tech rockets and artillery.

I mean, there are reports he's bringing in AN-2 airplanes. They might be converted to function as drones, or being uses as decoys to draw out and locate anti-aircraft facilities. These are biplanes. People used to think that it was odd that the British used biplanes to attack the Bismarck in 1940, but he's Vladimir Putin using them 80 years later.

He'll just grind them down with the bluntest tools. If that doesn't work, he'll add foreign fighters and chemical weapons to the mix.

But he'll never stop because Ukraine won't stop either. If Russia stops, it shows Ukraine as winning. Putin won't survive that - literally, his subordinates would kill him. We can only hope his subordinates kill him sooner than that, but Putin was a spymaster. He knows how to keep himself alive, how to avoid being poisoned (he arranged poisoning of other people and therefore has great familiarity with the subject).

 

[jimbob]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/us/politics/russia-ukraine-war-deaths.html

Anonymous are offering $52k worth of bitcoin for every surrendered tank

https://cryptopotato.com/anonymous-...-of-bitcoin-for-each-surrendered-tank-report/

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I hate the idea of dying in a nuclear war.

I hate the idea of just letting someone like Putin get his way because of my fear of dying in a nuclear war.

If anyone has found a way to square that circle share it with the class.

It's not like nothing is being done in retaliation. It's just being done with the important caveat in mind that direct confrontation is something likely to rapidly spiral to nuclear exchange.

It's too early to say yet, but I really think this invasion, and the consequences, are going to be a net negative for Putin. Not as satisfying as NATO troops bombing the bejesus out of the Russian supply lines and combat units, but certainly not nothing either.

 

[Oystein]

Can't you? Is this a Belgian thing? I'm also in the EU, and I have no problem accessing the site.

I can open it, too.
All a bit strange:
First, I saw a message for a moment saying my browser is being "checked" before it gets redirected.
Then I get an RT page, but the articles have a rather neutral, if not pro-Western slant: For example, one article reports the closing of Russian news outlets - and what some criitics say about this ("...beginning of sensorship"), another article faithfully reports the result of the vote of the UN General Assembly, and uses the word "invasion" several times.

 

[Olmstead]

I can also not read RT.com's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/rt_com.

I quote:


Which EU's country are you in?

Slovenia. Twitter and Youtube are gone, but the main site is still accessible and readable.

 

[Oystein]

We might not be at war with Russia, but Russia has been waging hybrid war against us for at least a decade.

Is that war, or is that not war?
By "war" I mean the extra-ordinary state that would/might justify censorship where otherwise censorship is forbidden by constitutions.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm sure the dead Ukrainians care a lot that it's not a war, it's just a sparkling military action.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Dunno if it's that horrible. The Russians running out of artillery shells before they reach their objectives would be a pretty positive outcome, all things considered.

It's horrible that they will run out of shells because they bombarded too many cities.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Is that war, or is that not war?
By "war" I mean the extra-ordinary state that would/might justify censorship where otherwise censorship is forbidden by constitutions.

the WMD attack on Britain (using military chemical weapons on UK soil) was an Act of War by any definition.

 

[JoeMorgue]

"You see, killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down. Kif, show them the medal I won."

 

[Andy_Ross]

As far death/injury ratio the biggest factor is halfway decent field hospitals you can get someone to with "the magic hour."

I don't see where/how Russia has anything like that setup in Ukraine yet.

If they have it at all.

 

[Oystein]

...
I'm capable of looking at world events and deciding for myself if I think there's a war on.
...

So am I and next chap on the street, and so we will at all times have a multitude of opinions on that.
Your opinion is not being cited as legal grounds for restricting RT, and I am glad it isn't.

I don't think you need a formal declaration of war from your parliament, to be at war in practical terms.

Like I said: Government has a leeway and a duty to react, fast, but also a duty to get parliament involved ASAP.
Anything else is approving the way politics in done in Russia.

Propaganda is part of warfare. Economic actions are part of warfare.

But is it always, automatically warfare when you have propaganda and economic actions? That would soften the term "war" so much it would be essentially useless, wouldn't it?

Is there EVER a time without propaganda and economic action?

Intimidation and deterrence are a part of warfare.

It's deterrence if you have armed forces trained and active.
Is it ALWAYS war when you have a military?

I think your country would do well to recognize that Russia has a geographical, existential conflict with Europe, that this conflict sometimes goes into remission but never actually goes away, and that there are always some elements of a cold war with Russia in play.

Ah. So we have, literally, always been at war with Eurasia (since Peter the Great at least), and thus censorship is always okay.
Or not?

I also think that the invasion of Ukraine is a moral and existential insult to all of Europe,

Is an insult a legitimate reason to implement censorship?
Like, is that a standard you wish to uphold consistently, always, everywhere?

and a precursor to open hostilities with other nearby European nations, and that it would be wise for those nations to even now consider what preemptive strikes they can make against Russian power without risking an escalation for which they are currently unprepared. (Things like striking down Russian propaganda outlets for example.)

And I think that Europe should not let itself long remain unprepared. I think war is happening in Europe, that escalation is possible, even likely, if European nations do not recognize that war is afoot, and that they need to be on a war footing.

I agree with that. We should be ready for war.
Doesn't mean we are at war.
Which levels of preparedness legitimize restricting basic rights?

None of that makes the question any more difficult for me to answer. Your parliament hasn't declared war, which keeps these matters in the realm of the courts, but I still see them as matters of military necessity, and justified on that basis.

I think it would be a very grave mistake to take parliaments and courts out of the action. And the fact is: We are not at war, yet, and thus the full provisions of the constitution are in effect, including the prohibition on censorship.

IANAL, but I believe there are legal routes to restrict communication (incitement of violence, ..., general rules of broadcasting regulation), and my impression is that these are being tried, and contested.