Ukraine 12: When is this an existential threat?

[Toth]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If true… this is interesting.  Why the change of tune?  Trying to get the Russian people behind a big push over anger at their losses?

 

I have a really bad feeling. I find it crazy that immediately after the Bucha revelations Ria posted that article about 'denazifying' Ukraine from their national identity through total, crushing, humiliating defeat and how Lawrow at the same time announced that Zelenskyy's offer of letting the occupied territories vote (even with the high likelihood of them then going to Russia) is not in Russia's interest.

I agree totally with Werthead's assessment yesterday that wise thing for Russia would be to focus on the east and declare victory as fast as possible, maybe immediately after taking Mariupol, and  claim the coast between Donbass and Crimea in negotiations. This is what the Russian propaganda seemed to prepare last week when they started pulling back from Kyiv and declared they were only after the East after all. But right now the propaganda seems to pivot back to total victory and occupation of the entirety of Ukraine being the only possible choice.

So again: I have a really bad feeling. Still aiming for an utter surrender of Ukraine at this stage of the war is utter madness without full Russian mobilization or the use of nukes. So this all might be a sign they try to mobilize the population for the former. Fuck...

[broken one]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Can we get a more reputable news source than the effing daily fail?

 

just by the way - source of decent analyses on Eastern Europe and neighbourhood, texts in English have some delay, though

https://www.osw.waw.pl/en

[HoodedCrow]

I have read that Ukraine is rich in natural resources, so clear cutting is perhaps desirable for Russia. And then, they grow a lot of food.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

34 minutes ago, Toth said:

I have a really bad feeling. I find it crazy that immediately after the Bucha revelations Ria posted that article about 'denazifying' Ukraine from their national identity through total, crushing, humiliating defeat and how Lawrow at the same time announced that Zelenskyy's offer of letting the occupied territories vote (even with the high likelihood of them then going to Russia) is not in Russia's interest.

I agree totally with Werthead's assessment yesterday that wise thing for Russia would be to focus on the east and declare victory as fast as possible, maybe immediately after taking Mariupol, and  claim the coast between Donbass and Crimea in negotiations. This is what the Russian propaganda seemed to prepare last week when they started pulling back from Kyiv and declared they were only after the East after all. But right now the propaganda seems to pivot back to total victory and occupation of the entirety of Ukraine being the only possible choice.

So again: I have a really bad feeling. Still aiming for an utter surrender of Ukraine at this stage of the war is utter madness without full Russian mobilization or the use of nukes. So this all might be a sign they try to mobilize the population for the former. Fuck...

How effective will this be though?  Russians aren’t stupid.  They know when they’ve been lied to.  As such they have to see this for the obvious emotional ploy it is.

Don’t they?

[Toth]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How effective will this be though?  Russians aren’t stupid.  They know when they’ve been lied to.  As such they have to see this for the obvious emotional ploy it is.

Don’t they?

Nah.

[Werthead]

It should be noted this was in an interview with an English-language broadcaster (Sky). The external and internal messaging may still be different.

Also recall that Russia admitted more than a month ago to over a thousand deaths, so "thousands" a month later (which could be them admitting to just 2,000 losses) is consistent with that.

Ukrainian intelligence is saying that Russia is mustering large formations of tanks and mobile vehicles for the attack on Donbas, but also saying it has marshalled large reserves of its own heavy weapons and vehicles as well, and what we might might see in Donbas is a full-on WWII-style armoured and infantry clash that hasn't been seen since Kursk or Operation Bagration (though not remotely on that scale). They say it's going to be rough, which I think everyone was expecting.

[Maithanet]

Russia always has mixed messages.  More or less since the start of the war there have been people allowed to voice "maybe we should make peace" messages.  Likewise now when Russian setbacks make a negotiated peace more likely, they make sure that there are still warmongers out there spewing their garbage.  Putin likes it this way, it keeps his options open and he prepares the ground for whatever decision he wants to make. 

I don't personally worry too much about the warmongers continuing to talk about total victory.  I expect they will do that at least until the day a ceasefire is agreed, if not much longer. 

[Zorral]

35 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How effective will this be though?  Russians aren’t stupid.  They know when they’ve been lied to.  As such they have to see this for the obvious emotional ploy it is.

Don’t they?

Why in the world would you think Russians propagandized by state media, etc. -- and with the aid and assistance of Tucker Carlson etc. -- are any smarter than the USians propagandized by Faux Noose, Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance, etc.?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Zorral said:

Why in the world would you think Russians propagandized by state media, etc. -- and with the aid and assistance of Tucker Carlson etc. -- are any smarter than the USians propagandized by Faux Noose, Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance, etc.?

I get it.  I do.  But Russian cynicism is legendary.

[Zorral]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I get it.  I do.  But Russian cynicism is legendary.

That's why they believe this shyte -- just like the authoritarian insane fascist followers here in the US do.  Pedophile Hillary Pizza for them every damned time.

[Zorral]

40 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I get it.  I do.  But Russian cynicism is legendary.

Scot -- you might find this of interest or some use.  I think one gets one or two reads a month for this site.

‘Russia Is Completely Depoliticized’ A sociologist from Moscow explains how the nation learned to deny reality.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/sociologist-greg-yudin-how-russia-learned-to-deny-reality.html

Quote

 

The photos from Bucha are hard to ignore. In image after image, bodies line the streets and shallow graves, each one proof that Russian soldiers are committing atrocities on Ukrainian soil. While the evidence they offer appears to be incontrovertible, the Kremlin has called them a “monstrous forgery” designed to smear its soldiers. It is tempting to believe the photos could undermine Moscow’s propaganda and help turn Russian public opinion against the war.

The sociologist Greg Yudin believes that’s unlikely to happen. A professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Yudin said in an interview this week that most people under Vladimir Putin’s rule passively support his “special military operation” in Ukraine because Russian society has become thoroughly “depoliticized.” It’s been difficult to gauge how Russia’s war is playing at home after the country abolished the last of its free press and outlawed speech critical of the war, but Yudin — who is also an expert on public-opinion research — says two decades of authoritarian rule have made the Kremlin’s line easy to accept. If the war lasts for longer than a few months though, the mood may change, and Putin may be tempted to escalate.

Q: The images out of Bucha have shocked the world, but how are they received in Russia? Is there any chance they will undermine the propaganda that’s coming out of the government? 

GY: I don’t think so. The dominant attitude is to preserve your everyday life. A Russian citizen might say, “What am I supposed to do?” It’s impossible to imagine what would be the response to that. And of course, the government gives them the story line and the talking points to reject it, and they’re willing to believe it, not because they believe the propaganda — Russians don’t believe anything and anyone — but because it reconciles them with the reality that helps you protect your everyday life. I haven’t seen anyone so far saying, “I was kind of supporting this war, but now there’s just too much.” ....

 

 

[Werthead]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Scot -- you might find this of interest or some use.  I think one gets one or two reads a month for this site.

‘Russia Is Completely Depoliticized’ A sociologist from Moscow explains how the nation learned to deny reality.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/sociologist-greg-yudin-how-russia-learned-to-deny-reality.html

 

Interesting, and it ties in with how pro-war protestors are being arrested and even beaten up like anti-war ones are. Putin likes the bulk of Russians being passive and not GAF about anything, and pro-war protestors are to be treated with suspicion because people out rallying for you one day might get used to rallying and protesting, and suddenly they're rallying against you and that's a bad thing.

I do think the "this is going to last a few months and then it will end and things will be back to normal" attitude is prevalent in both Russia and I think outside of it in some places as well, and Putin is banking on that, and what happens when it becomes clear it won't be will be a tough question.

[Zorral]

Additionally, this playbook for destabilization of political democracies is ever-more zealously followed by the reichlicans by turning candidates and elections into 'A Fracas of  Fools' w/figures standing for election who are Russian versions of Crawley, Vance, Greenberg, ad nauseum.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/sociologist-greg-yudin-how-russia-learned-to-deny-reality.html

Quote

 

.... This is how his [Putin] system worked for quite a long time because everyone knows that Putin and his party always win the elections. But very few people know how they do it, technically. Turnout is very low because people are persuaded that it makes more sense to tune out at the elections.

Elections are a masquerade. They were flooded with all kinds of ideas just to create repulsion toward politics. You had all kinds of porn stars, like complete kooks. And that, of course, created the impression that you shouldn’t show up. Then you have like 20 percent turnout, with 15 percent of those mobilized for your party. And that gives you 75 percent of support. And then nobody, of course, cares about looking at the turnout numbers. You have this perception that there is a vast majority for the president or for the ruling party. ....

 

You see this shyte playing out with elections in your nation, you know authoritarianism has arrived.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I do think the "this is going to last a few months and then it will end and things will be back to normal" attitude is prevalent in both Russia and I think outside of it in some places as well, and Putin is banking on that, and what happens when it becomes clear it won't be will be a tough question.

Yes, I've read several takes from people in Russia which says as much.  In addition, Russia is propping up the ruble right now with some measures that can only be maintained for a few months.  For example, the 20% interest rate at all banks basically means that nobody dares to take out a loan, which will crush the economy if held in place for any length of time. 

If Putin could get a timetable for lifting sanctions in the peace agreement, then maybe things could get back to normal in a few months.  But the photos of war crimes makes that much, much less likely.  I am not even sure that if Zelensky asked for that in the negotiations that Biden/NATO would grant it.  At the very least they would demand a long timeline (years) to ensure Russia suffers.

It will be a problem for Putin once the fiction of "in a few months things will get back to normal" becomes exposed.  It is very sad that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marked the end of a great many good things in Russia (the last vestiges of free press, western goods being readily available, an airline industry, etc). 

[Zorral]

Further -- I have made notice here on more than one occasion the tragedy this war also is for history and historical research of all kinds, for so many eras, since Ukraine is not only a cradle of grain growing, but of herding, of learning to use horses for everything from food to war, and so much else abut the development of human cultures. Yudin speaks about this in terms of scholarship of every kind, shutting off the schools and academies and science agencies from the rest of the world's scholars, researchers and scientists -- which mean shutting us off from them too.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/sociologist-greg-yudin-how-russia-learned-to-deny-reality.html

Q:  .... Can you expand on what the situation is like in universities? Has there been, for example, a chilling effect on research?

Quote

 

Oh, I think academic life is over. First of all, there’s a lot of ideological stuff now in the universities. Students are made to attend school lectures that are basically promoting Putin’s crazy views of Ukrainian history. Many universities are doing that, many schools are doing that, and even kindergartens. They’re basically imposing this theory on children. They have to pass the tests on this, and if you have to pass a test, that means that you are not free to make up your mind.

As for scholars, well, obviously the vast majority of the international connections are now broken. International scholars really depend on access to academic articles and papers, and some of the journals are now severing their dealings with Russian universities, and it’s impossible to work meaningfully without them. Many international partners have pulled out of Russian journals. This transformed the whole orientation of academic science. For instance, in almost all universities, one of the key indicators for scholars was to publish articles in the leading international journals. So now it is, of course, no longer possible. ....

 

 

[HoodedCrow]

In the Soviet era, one East German that I know of, was 8 when the Second World War was over. She participated in riots as a teen and she was not able to go into nursing because she would have too much influence. She was allowed to take a solitary, non medical, pursuit. 

[Kalbear]

I know this may not be real, but I so want it to be real

 

[kiko]

6 hours ago, Kalibuster said:

I know this may not be real, but I so want it to be real

 

Is there some context?

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, kiko said:

Is there some context?

It's a reference to the 1984 film Red Dawn, in which the United States is (implausibly) invaded by the Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaragua. A bunch of high school kids flee into the country and embark on a guerrilla campaign against the invaders. They call themselves Wolverines.

[Werthead]

This is either a looted and repurposed 1950s Ukrainian vehicle or, at best, a 1980s van from Kursk that's been repurposed for combat. As can be seen, they are really not designed for that and offer little to no protection to speak of.

(note: be careful of the replies, there's some graphic images of civilian casualties from other attacks)