Ukraine Forever

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Oh good catch—Kiev is how Russians and those who sympathize with its fascist government spell the Ukrainian capital.

Yes, it is.

[polishgenius]

The only reason the collapse of the Russian state would be as bad as it will be would be because of chaotic circumstances set up by the Russian state itself. bws is essentially saying that Europe and the US are not allowed to do anything to oppose Russia because they need to be able to keep fucking up the world to distract just enough attention from the domestic bullshit to keep from being overthrown.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

 Even Florida isn't this inane.  That's the juxtaposition.

I see what you're doing there. By using smart words you very subtly point out that you are not actually from Florida. How very clever of you. And so not Florida.

[DMC]

49 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The only reason the collapse of the Russian state would be as bad as it will be would be because of chaotic circumstances set up by the Russian state itself.

Yup.  Obviously this discussion never got off the ground because of all the other bullshit, but I'm really wondering how regime change would be worse than the current state for Russian citizens.  Would it be chaotic?  Of course, at first.  But that's a general rule for regime change.  And frankly, since the revolution over a century ago now, it really hasn't been that bad in Russia (ETA:  Meaning regime change causing chaos).

I'd also like to know how returning Ukraine's territories to their rightful owners will cause a Russian 'collapse,' but obviously that answer isn't coming.  However, another aspect is the obvious benefit regime change and/or Putin ending the war would elicit -- the sanctions would almost certainly be lifted.  Perhaps not immediately and totally, but it'd definitely start to help the Russian economy.  

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Oh good catch—Kiev is how Russians and those who sympathize with its fascist government spell the Ukrainian capital.

I noticed from about April that supermarkets and restaurants have been calling it “Chicken Kyiv”.

[butterweedstrover]

I yield, Jesus Christ stop filling my notifications.

Yeah I’m not going to engage with a bunch of people who think I’m a garbage human and instead spew ridiculous allegations.

Seriously you wanted me gone and I am gone. What is the point of talking to people like this, you wouldn’t want to do it either. 
 

I don’t think saying Russia is better off today than in the 90s makes me fucking stupid but people like DMC can throw around trash and get away with it because moderators like @mormont allow people to get away with it, because they do it themselves. 

Calling people a fascist for being wary of a military solution in Crimea or Donetsk is probably easier on the internet than in real life. 
 

But… I apologize if I helped create an environment where this vitriol could be spread. Obviously I have a different perception about the UAF and their political aims as well as the situation within the Russian government (and the importance of Sevastopol to their political stability) but I can’t lie and say I’m not angrier than usual. This thread has made me incredibly frustrated with some people and I’ve said things I regret. 

I was discussing with another member whether or not Putin intended initially to annex Donbas all along or if it was compensation for the failure of Minsk. This person mocked me and I said some things I probably shouldn’t have. 
 

Anyways, whatever I think of some specific users here, I don’t feel emotionally prepared to discuss it with some of them as I’m sure they wouldn’t want to do it with me.
 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

I yield, Jesus Christ stop filling my notifications.

Yeah I’m not going to engage with a bunch of people who think I’m a garbage human and instead spew ridiculous allegations.

Seriously you wanted me gone and I am gone. What is the point of talking to people like this, you wouldn’t want to do it either. 
 

I don’t think saying Russia is better off today than in the 90s makes me fucking stupid but people like DMC can throw around trash and get away with it because moderators like @mormont allow people to get away with it, because they do it themselves. 

Calling people a fascist for being wary of a military solution in Crimea or Donetsk is probably easier on the internet than in real life. 
 

But… I apologize if I helped create an environment where this vitriol could be spread. Obviously I have a different perception about the UAF and their political aims as well as the situation within the Russian government (and the importance of Sevastopol to their political stability) but I can’t lie and say I’m not angrier than usual. This thread has made me incredibly frustrated with some people and I’ve said things I regret. 

I was discussing with another member whether or not Putin intended initially to annex Donbas all along or if it was compensation for the failure of Minsk. This person mocked me and I said some things I probably shouldn’t have. 
 

Anyways, whatever I think of some specific users here, I don’t feel emotionally prepared to discuss it with some of them as I’m sure they wouldn’t want to do it with me.
 

 

You still haven’t directly answered the very simple question… was Ukraine wrong to seek to liberate Kherson, Lyman, Izyum, and Kupiansk?  You’ve obfuscated, you’ve danced around it, but you have yet to answer the question.  

The Capital of Ukraine is Kyiv.  Not “Kiev” that is the spelling used by the nation invading Ukraine… the one you claim to “not support”.

[Spockydog]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Capital of Ukraine is Kyiv.  Not “Kiev” that is the spelling used by the nation invading Ukraine… the one you claim to “not support”.

Tbf, it's also the spelling that has been used by basically everyone for my entire lifetime.

Calling anyone who still uses it a fascist or a Russian sympathiser is a bit silly.

 

 

[polishgenius]

Begging people to stop disagreeing with you while simultaneously castigating them for supposedly refusing to allow disagreement is certainly a choice.

 

 

ps your claim that Merkel 'admitted Minsk was drafted as a ruse' is some spin on what she said, which is that they knew Russia would attack again but they hoped the Minsk protocols would at least give some breathing room before they did.

 

pss it's probably true that Putin didn't intend to literally annex Donbas in this particular instance, but his change of stance had (1) nothing to do with the failure of Minsk, which he'd already collapsed when he made that decision and (2) doesn't make his initial goals any less evil, since the only difference is that he went from wanting Donbas to be a sattelite state only semi-officially controlled by Russia to trying to make it a piece of Russian territory. And he only made the change so he could send reservists to the front under Russian law.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

34 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Tbf, it's also the spelling that has been used by basically everyone for my entire lifetime.

Calling anyone who still uses it a fascist or a Russian sympathiser is a bit silly.

 

 

[edit to remove my pouty response] 

I take your point.  It is @butterweedstrover unwillingness to engage in good faith discussion and squarely respond to simple questions that make me question his purposes here more than his spelling of Kyiv.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

I don’t think saying Russia is better off today than in the 90s makes me fucking stupid but people like DMC can throw around trash and get away with it because moderators like @mormont allow people to get away with it, because they do it themselves. 

Calling people a fascist for being wary of a military solution in Crimea or Donetsk is probably easier on the internet than in real life. 

LOL!  Appreciate the shout out.  Sorry for responding to, ya know, what you said.  I never called you a fascist, and I don't think you are.  I did compare you to a troll, because you consistently ignore what other people are arguing AND cast aspersions on the same people in a classic strawman fashion.  That's just not cool. 

You're not the only one, btw, I've gone after for doing this.  @Fire and Jace likes to admonish the entire board as well in a way that is pathetically stupid, and I don't like that either.  Maybe grow up and and don't start off trying to discuss controversial issues by questioning the motives of your entire audience.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Yup.  Obviously this discussion never got off the ground because of all the other bullshit, but I'm really wondering how regime change would be worse than the current state for Russian citizens.  Would it be chaotic?  Of course, at first.  But that's a general rule for regime change.  And frankly, since the revolution over a century ago now, it really hasn't been that bad in Russia (ETA:  Meaning regime change causing chaos).

Things in Russia are still pretty grim. The big cities, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg - the only Russian cities, along with maybe Sochi, that a lot of outsiders visit - are relatively clean, modern, well-developed and on the surface as advanced as Berlin or London, with good-paying jobs and good amenities. However, not that far below the surface you can see serious crime problems, not to mention a much heavier, constant security presence and people keeping a careful eye on visitors.

Almost everywhere else in Russia, there's been a lot of under-investment, and most of the oblasts have been left to manage things by themselves with varying degrees of government help. There's plenty of villages in Russia where they barely have running water, and only have electricity because they jury-rigged some hook-up to the nearest big town twenty miles away through some local horse-trading over resources. The BBC went to talk to the families of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and were a bit shocked that they were way out in the sticks (and remember that way out in the sticks of Russia is a level of remoteness even Americans in Texas might be slightly daunted by; maybe Alaskans can relate, but even their infrastructure is vastly superior) and it was like being back in the 1970s or worse in terms of amenities. There also seemed to be quite a lot of anger over facts like the local school was in a miserable state and the nearest decent hospital was four hours' travel away.

The level of corruption at every level in Russia is unbelievable. One of my Russian friends (who long since left) said it worked like you might grease the palms of a local official to help you out with some issue, but it's maybe 50-50 if he would or not, and in either case he then might come back and try to get more money out of you, and if you don't pay up he'd make your life a living hell, so you just avoided the situation in the first place.

The #1 complaint about Russia from everyone seems to be the lack of a genuine civil level of society. That entire strata of the nation just doesn't exist. It looks like it does, there's judges and civil servants and local government officials, but they either just do whatever the hell they want or whatever Moscow tells them to do, and it's often done on a whim of the moment then any actual recourse to the laws or statute books (although if the government does get involved, it will use the absolute letter of the law to destroy people, and amusingly in that context a good lawyer will use the law to fight back, leading to occasional, if rare, victories). That's not to say everyone is corrupt and there are decent people in authority positions throughout the country - they're often the rare competents ensuring the entire country doesn't collapse - but the situation is pretty dire. It does vary between oblasts and regions: the further away from Moscow, the less the regions seem to bank on help from Moscow and do their own thing, and in some cases run things much better. Tatarstan and Buryatia seem to be at least vaguely competently run (if only in relation to the rest of the country), but Chechnya is apparently chaotically random, with the government in Grozny doing jack shit about important issues for years on end, then Kadyrov realises he needs to put a show on and fires some corrupt arseholes and maybe gets some hand-out from Moscow for a new school or something to make him look good (obviously, his gold-plated mansion and its contents are left untouched).

The other thing that's bananas is that people are all very well aware of this, to the point that during Navalny's trial he was basically joking about the verdict being decided and how one-sided the evidence was and, after many months, the trial officials and judges and everyone were laughing along with him and all but agreeing the whole process was a joke but what can you do?

The thing is that none of this is irrecoverable, because this is what Ukraine was like for a fairly solid 10-15 years after independence, and some parts of it were still like it when the war started. But corruption, which was once horrendous, was going down at a rate of knots and there was large amounts of investment and infrastructure improvements going on (unfortunately one of the biggest beneficiaries was Mariupol, which obviously lost most of those upgrades in the battle for the town), and obviously the improvement in its military in just eight years was unbelievable. So if Ukraine can turn it around, so can Russia, if it is allowed to.

[SeanF]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Things in Russia are still pretty grim. The big cities, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg - the only Russian cities, along with maybe Sochi, that a lot of outsiders visit - are relatively clean, modern, well-developed and on the surface as advanced as Berlin or London, with good-paying jobs and good amenities. However, not that far below the surface you can see serious crime problems, not to mention a much heavier, constant security presence and people keeping a careful eye on visitors.

Almost everywhere else in Russia, there's been a lot of under-investment, and most of the oblasts have been left to manage things by themselves with varying degrees of government help. There's plenty of villages in Russia where they barely have running water, and only have electricity because they jury-rigged some hook-up to the nearest big town twenty miles away through some local horse-trading over resources. The BBC went to talk to the families of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and were a bit shocked that they were way out in the sticks (and remember that way out in the sticks of Russia is a level of remoteness even Americans in Texas might be slightly daunted by; maybe Alaskans can relate, but even their infrastructure is vastly superior) and it was like being back in the 1970s or worse in terms of amenities. There also seemed to be quite a lot of anger over facts like the local school was in a miserable state and the nearest decent hospital was four hours' travel away.

The level of corruption at every level in Russia is unbelievable. One of my Russian friends (who long since left) said it worked like you might grease the palms of a local official to help you out with some issue, but it's maybe 50-50 if he would or not, and in either case he then might come back and try to get more money out of you, and if you don't pay up he'd make your life a living hell, so you just avoided the situation in the first place.

The #1 complaint about Russia from everyone seems to be the lack of a genuine civil level of society. That entire strata of the nation just doesn't exist. It looks like it does, there's judges and civil servants and local government officials, but they either just do whatever the hell they want or whatever Moscow tells them to do, and it's often done on a whim of the moment then any actual recourse to the laws or statute books (although if the government does get involved, it will use the absolute letter of the law to destroy people, and amusingly in that context a good lawyer will use the law to fight back, leading to occasional, if rare, victories). That's not to say everyone is corrupt and there are decent people in authority positions throughout the country - they're often the rare competents ensuring the entire country doesn't collapse - but the situation is pretty dire. It does vary between oblasts and regions: the further away from Moscow, the less the regions seem to bank on help from Moscow and do their own thing, and in some cases run things much better. Tatarstan and Buryatia seem to be at least vaguely competently run (if only in relation to the rest of the country), but Chechnya is apparently chaotically random, with the government in Grozny doing jack shit about important issues for years on end, then Kadyrov realises he needs to put a show on and fires some corrupt arseholes and maybe gets some hand-out from Moscow for a new school or something to make him look good (obviously, his gold-plated mansion and its contents are left untouched).

The other thing that's bananas is that people are all very well aware of this, to the point that during Navalny's trial he was basically joking about the verdict being decided and how one-sided the evidence was and, after many months, the trial officials and judges and everyone were laughing along with him and all but agreeing the whole process was a joke but what can you do?

The thing is that none of this is irrecoverable, because this is what Ukraine was like for a fairly solid 10-15 years after independence, and some parts of it were still like it when the war started. But corruption, which was once horrendous, was going down at a rate of knots and there was large amounts of investment and infrastructure improvements going on (unfortunately one of the biggest beneficiaries was Mariupol, which obviously lost most of those upgrades in the battle for the town), and obviously the improvement in its military in just eight years was unbelievable. So if Ukraine can turn it around, so can Russia, if it is allowed to.

Unfortunately, that’s how Russia has been run since the time of the Mongol invasions. Everyone puts the squeeze on the person below them.  

Without the Mongols, Russia would be like Scandinavia.

The money that the Russian government received from rising commodity prices, after 2010, could have been used to transform the place.  Instead, it went to line the pockets of the elite or was thrown away on this wretched war.

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The thing is that none of this is irrecoverable

Yeah certainly not.  I think that should be emphasized because I hear the opposite a lot with friends/colleagues too.  Russia can survive Putin's ouster and probably will, whenever it happens.  There should be more focus on what that looks like.

[Which Tyler]

 

[Padraig]

It does seem that butterweedstrover has convinced themselves that the Russian regime is too big to fail.  The regime has caused untold misery for the Russian people but it has also insured there is no viable opposition.  If it fails, there probably will be a certain amount of chaos. 

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Russia can survive Putin's ouster and probably will, whenever it happens.

Ironically, in the end, butterweedstrover advocates further misery for the Russian people (with Putin staying in power) because they have no faith that the Russian people can find a less noxious solution to the Putin problem.

2 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

Calling people a fascist for being wary of a military solution in Crimea or Donetsk is probably easier on the internet than in real life. 

Everyone here is "wary" of a military solution in the Donbas.  That is why we want the Russian army to leave.  I don't think most people here think you are garbage though.  Just misled.  There may be some truth in what you know but your overall narrative is so full of propaganda that its quite difficult to find a place to start an actual discussion.  One needs an agreed set of basic truths.

[polishgenius]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Without the Mongols, Russia would be like Scandinavia.

I know you don't mean it this way and are (I assume) mostly joking, but you gotta be careful with lines like this, especially in context of the current time of Russia using 'we'd be fine if not for those Buryat-and-other savages' as a propaganda line, both in general and about the war crimes currently.

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I know you don't mean it this way and are (I assume) mostly joking, but you gotta be careful with lines like this, especially in context of the current time of Russia using 'we'd be fine if not for those Buryat-and-other savages' as a propaganda line, both in general and about the war crimes currently.

Fair enough, and it’s a huge generalisation.

I do think though, that a lot of how the Russian state operates does derive from those times.

[Werthead]

What

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

What

Hoping you're a Maiar doesn't make you one.