Ukraine 10: Lviv free

[Winterfell is Burning]

15 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

It would be difficult for the Ukraine War to continue to dominate headlines the way it has in the past month.  There is very little movement, a fair amount of fog of war and the battles are mostly for tiny villages.  Yes people are still suffering and dying, but there just isn't much for most people to latch on to right now.  Like what key things have occurred in the past week that an average American or Brazilian or Japanese person would care about?  You can report on the barbaric targeting of the civilians like the theater bombing that killed over a thousand people in Mariupol.  But that kind of story is pretty rough to report day after day. 

That's true, yet I don't think it will go away nearly entirely, like many other conflicts, it has too many things going for it:

• geography (much closer to Europe and the West);
• scale (quite bigger than most major conflicts by number of soldiers involved);
• refugees (biggest number since WWII arriving mostly in Europe, but also in other parts of the world);
• press covering the conflict (perhaps the highest number I've seen);
• the threat of spilling over and possibly becoming WWIII;
• very easy to identify heroes (Zelensky, the Ukranian resistance, etc, never mind how flawed they might) and villains (Putin specially is pretty much a Bond villain);
• quite clear consequences for the rest of the world (in inflation, as well as the nuclear threat, perhaps others);
• the fact that many people from around the world went there to help and to fight will alone make the conflict continue to gather attention (specially when some of these people die);
• Also, let's be honest, the fact that the victims are overwhelmingly white, Christian and European makes sure it gets way more attention than some place in Africa or the Middle East would (though is not the only one).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

While widespread interest in Ukraine is surely to wane, I'm not sure it matters much outside of popular attentiveness to providing charitable aid.  From an American perspective, appropriators will certainly stay on top of funding levels and be ready to politicize the issue if/when further funding is needed.  I think it's fair to assume that will be the case for most of Europe as well, if not even more so.

Yeah, my thoughts as well. The bigger problem will probably stem from pressure to reduce aid as this drags out, but I think we're still a ways away from that being a problem.

[Zorral]

It won't go very far away because the reichlicans will keep up yelling about Biden not doing enough or too much, while the very high Ukranian population in key states, including New York, because it has a very large Ukrainian population, Ohio and even North Dakota too, care so much.

These populations came long ago in Gilded Age era as farming immigrants -- bringing btw along with their sacks of Ukrainian seed grain the seeds for tumbleweeds, or so we were told in our Agriculture classes in jr High. ND has lots of volunteers in Ukraine already.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Might as well use variations on Bond movie films for thread titles.  Some of them don't even have to be altered:

• Lviv Another Day
• Lviv And Let Die
• You Only Kyiv Twice
• A View To A Kyiv
• The World Is Not Enough
• Never Say Never Again ()

-Octopooty

-Dnipro Say Dneiper Again

-The Lviving Daylights

 

Re: Worrying about the Russo-Ukraine War losing attention or relevance, I feel we're drifting into Conflict Investment a la Market Forces.  

 

[Corvinus85]

So Russia has admitted the combat death of the naval commander, Andrei Paliy, but around 0:28 of this video we may have a clue as to why.

[Wilbur]

Who had the brilliant idea to bring John Bolton on as a guest on RT?  It worked out poorly for them, as anyone with a working brain could have predicted, since he is one of the world's most irascible coffin-dodgers.

 

[Kalbear]

A worry about Ukraine fatigue is people not willing to accept higher gas prices or other disruptions and wanting it all to end. 

[karaddin]

Let me preface this by saying I currently have covid and I'm not feeling too great so I may be misunderstanding - if this was just a general point rather than directed at me then please ignore.

My point was twofold

1) dipshits on the Russian equivalent of Fox are banging the drum to take the conquest a lot further than Ukraine, it was them that mentioned East Germany and I was only referencing this. The fact that it was part of the Warsaw Pact not the USSR only reinforces my point that the historical reality is irrelevant to said belligerent dipshits on TV.

2) Given the existence of said belligerent dipshits I find fear among Russia's neighbours and other nations being mentioned by these guys to be highly sympathetic and I'm not going to criticise them for being scared, or for wanting more concrete demonstrations that NATO etc will not allow this to happen to them.

I didn't mention the republics to the south of Russia because we hadn't had people from those nations posting similar comments in these threads, nor would there be the expectation of protection from NATO given their lack of membership. That said, let me say this very clearly - I absolutely extend this same sympathy to anyone in any "neighbour" nation (quotes because even a small buffer may not prevent the fear) of Russia. Personally I am more concerned for Kazakhstan than the NATO members after they've been relatively up front with criticism of this invasion. But I'm a random person on the far side of the world and my concerns are largely irrelevant, I just try to avoid judging people for being concerned that their neighbour just launched a war a conquest against one of their other neighbours.

And just to be clear my concerns about precedent here do not come from a pro European point of view, rather I'm worried that if one of the European powers gets back on its bullshit it might inspire some of the others to follow suit.

[RhaenysBee]

@karaddin Thanks for the details about your point. I understand and agree with what you meant. The observation that we shit on eastern post-Soviet countries (myself included - in general the things I complain about apply to me too, we are all human with the same human flaws in human thought patterns) was entirely general, an idea that your post just brought to my mind. Absolutely not something about or against you. And I’m so sorry about your covid, hope it’s not to bad and you feel better soon! 

[Toth]

As part of an effort to gather donations, Queen has uploaded a concert that they did in Kharkiv:

 

[Heartofice]

9 hours ago, Padraig said:

Looking back at it, Georgia is a good example of Western appeasement towards Russia (rather than anything else).  We let them do their thing because we didn't want to upset them.  And they had somewhat arguable reasons for the invasion (although this ignores the fact that they grabbed Georgian territory initially in the early 90s, which was the seed of this conflict.  As I said, appeasement).

Chechnya is a good example of a very brutal war.  But breakaway regions are very difficult to get involved in (above and beyond war between two sovereign nations).  Looking back at it, people will say that by letting letting Russia get away with such brutality that they were inevitably going to push the envelope further in future years.  But at the time I can see why people stayed well away from a "Russian sovereignty issue".

There are some clear reasons why Ukraine 2022 is different to Georgia and Chechnya and Ukraine 2014. Mostly it's that there was a level of disbelief that a country in the modern era would move it's tanks into its neighbours' territory. At this point though, it clearly seems to be part of a pattern, and that is shocking. Most people didn't think Putin would actually invade Ukraine this time, that it was all part of a plan to squeeze out more concessions. 

I also think that those previous wars could almost be viewed as civil wars to the outside world, maybe through a lack of understanding of the situation and history, and it isn't in the west's interest to get involved.

This current invasion however is a signal to the world that the rules of the game are changing. Putin is making everyone decide if we are ok with one country invading it's neighbour in a blatant territorial landgrab. That is a massive step away from the assumed order of the world we were all living under. We all thought that those days were done, we might all have our problems but we weren't going to have some aggressive country drive in and take over. That is why I think there has been such a strong response to events this time. 

[Padraig]

8 hours ago, Kalibuster said:

You're totally wrong on this; Georgia claims two territories are occupied. Russia claims both of those territories are independent states. This is almost precisely the same situation as Ukraine, with a very similar playbook. 

But Ukraine didn't invade Crimea or the Donbas provinces.  Georgia actually tried to reconquer its breakaway provinces in 2008, after over 15 years of "independence".  Even at the time, it was viewed as a very risky move.  And now its probably viewed as the stupidest invasion this century.  Saddam had more sense in the 90s.

At least Russia didn't conquer more Georgia by responding to the invasion.

8 hours ago, Kalibuster said:

I think we've seen exactly how much those sovereignty issues matter when it's Chechens or Syrians or Yemens, and how much they matter when it's Ukrainians. 

The West did ignore Ukraine first time round too.  But sure, the West has been reminded yet again that its "values" completely contradict its need for oil.

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Putin is making everyone decide if we are ok with one country invading it's neighbour in a blatant territorial landgrab. That is a massive step away from the assumed order of the world we were all living under. We all thought that those days were done, we might all have our problems but we weren't going to have some aggressive country drive in and take over. That is why I think there has been such a strong response to events this time. 

I'd agree.  There is a proximity bias present but I think you are right.

[Loge]

Meanwhile, people in Germany are hoarding again. Sunflower oil is the new toilet paper. 

[Toth]

1 minute ago, Loge said:

Meanwhile, people in Germany are hoarding again. Sunflower oil is the new toilet paper. 

In addition to toilet paper. Again.

[Loge]

And Putin now wants us to pay for his gas in rubles, which means we'll probably out of gas soon.

https://www.politico.eu/article/rubles-for-gas-russia-vladimir-putin-trolls-the-west-energy-economy/

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

From the port of Berdyansk west of Mariupol:

 

[Gorn]

Russian transport/landing ship Orsk was destroyed in port and two other ships were damaged, apparently by a Ukrainian missile strike. The explosions show it was full of ammo at the time.

The port and the unloading was shown on Russian state TV two days ago, and Ukrainians have publicly thanked them for the intel they provided.

[broken one]

According to Ukrainian intelligence people from occupied regions are being deported to underdeveloped parts of Russia, especially in the north and far east (Sachalin). Allegedly they are "offered" employment and get ban on leaving the place. Any similarities are not coincidental.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

49 minutes ago, broken one said:

According to Ukrainian intelligence people from occupied regions are being deported to underdeveloped parts of Russia, especially in the north and far east (Sachalin). Allegedly they are "offered" employment and get ban on leaving the place. Any similarities are not coincidental.

So, anyone want to take odds on when the Russian dictator grows a “Stalin stache”?

[broken one]

Ive read that Ukraine lacks tanks to effectively counterattack and regain territories, this may be true as Zelensky just asked NATO to give them 1% of alliance's 20k tanks. Technically this should be much easier than in case of planes but I wonder if there will be political will to pass any vehicles. Poland still has many T-72 and T-72 upgraded to PT-91 version.