Ukraine War Watch Thread

[caltrek]

^^^I presume the reference to 2013 is concerning the events described below:

(Wikipedia) The Revolution of Dignity (Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Maidan Revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych's refusal to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU) at a meeting of the Eastern Partnership in Vilnius in Lithuania. These protests continued for months. In February 2014, clashes between the protestors and the Berkut (special riot police) became violent, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 130 people, including 18 police officers. On February 21, an agreement between President Yanukovych and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition was signed that called for early elections and the formation of an interim unity government. The following day, Yanukovych fled from the capital ahead of an impeachment vote. The protesters proceeded to take control of the capital buildings. On the same day, the parliament declared that Yanukovych was relieved of duty in a 328-to-0 vote (out of the Rada’s 450 members).

Yanukovych said that this vote was illegal and possibly coerced, and asked the Russian Federation for assistance. Russia considered the overthrow of Yanukovych to be an illegal coup, and did not recognize the interim government. Widespread protests, both in favor of and against the revolution, occurred in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, where Yanukovych previously received strong support in the 2010 presidential election. These protests escalated, resulting in a Russian military intervention and the establishment of the self-proclaimed proto-states Donetsk and Luhansk.

The interim government, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, proceeded to sign the EU association agreement. Petro Poroshenko became the president of Ukraine after a landslide victory in the 2014 presidential elections. The new government restored the 2004 amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that were controversially repealed as unconstitutional in 2010 and initiated a large-scale purge of civil servants who were associated with the overthrown regime.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

So, again, Putin is to be accepted as the sole arbiter of the internal affairs of Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine must be seen as a part of Russia, and only Russia. Disagreement with these propositions is to be met with brute force as a matter of "self-defense."

[joe00uk]

Just noticed:

By the way, welcome back.

Thank you, but no. My sudden comeback was rather a hyper-emotional reaction after reading this (oh, so objective!) thread. Immature from my side and for my age, yes. The more that response was 100% predictable.

Already fed up, already regret. Go your way, guys, I'll go mine. And let's hope those roads never ever cross irl.

I disappeared myself for a while, but if you're who I think you are... it might be time to return for a little while. I've missed you man. Welcome back!

[Certain Russian user]

Just noticed:

By the way, welcome back.

Thank you, but no. My sudden comeback was rather a hyper-emotional reaction after reading this (oh, so objective!) thread. Immature from my side and for my age, yes. The more that response was 100% predictable.

Already fed up, already regret. Go your way, guys, I'll go mine. And let's hope those roads never ever cross irl.

I disappeared myself for a while, but if you're who I think you are... it might be time to return for a little while. I've missed you man. Welcome back!

Yes, man, I am who you think I am. But in the post you quoted I meant exactly what I meant. So, I'm afraid you will soon be disappointed.

[joe00uk]

As mentioned, I've had a long absence from this forum myself. I've been busy. Life's going well. But of course, history keeps moving - sometimes with very sudden and very violent lunges.

The Russo-Ukrainian War isn't exactly new. Like Phoenix said, this has its roots in the crisis of 2013-14 with Euromaidan, the annexation of Crimea, and the War in Donbass. An escalation like this, in the long term, was perhaps inevitable (but of course hindsight is 20/20). Russia was not going to tolerate such a large hostile country on its borders forever. Ukraine was never going to settle down and become the next Estonia or Latvia. The question wasn't whether Russia would intervene to replace the Euromaidan regime at all, but when and how that was going to happen. I, for one, was somewhat sceptical over the last few months as to whether or not now would really be the time but I reckoned there was a 50/50 chance, and here we are. It happened. If we're going to be honest, this war isn't really so unfathomable. If Mexico or Canada were cosying up to Russia and China with aspirations of joining a military alliance with them in the near future, I don't think many of us would have doubts about what the Pentagon would do (or at least attempt).

America's imperial project may be ending, but it wasn't all that long ago that Western countries were the ones invading and subjugating sovereign nations for their own purposes. The shrieking hysterics from Washington, London and the rest of Europe are hypocritical at best, regardless of whether Russia is right or wrong to invade Ukraine. Personally, I also don't think an invasion like this is a good idea. Moscow would have been better advised to stick with the long game, just like China does with regard to just about all of its concerns. NATO was wrong to break its promises not to expand eastwards in the 1990s, but I think Russia feels more threatened by NATO than they ought to be. This isn't the 1980s anymore. The West is weak, and NATO is a paper tiger. All Russia had to do was wait for NATO to wither away, which was already in the process of happening de facto, if not de jure. The US, which provides the bulk of finances and resources for the alliance, was increasingly coming to question a project they had to subsidise so heavily at a time of mounting domestic troubles which are only continuing to worsen today. Russia will probably win the war in Ukraine, but now NATO spending is coming to the forefront of Western priorities and security problems associated with it will only worsen.

Of course, when it comes to this war, lot of public opinion and commentary in the West reduces this down very crudely to some one-dimensional battle between Putin, the cruel Russian despot who wants to destroy the world for no reason other than because he's so evil, and the heroic Ukrainians fighting for freedom and democracy. A lot of people really think this is like some Marvel movie. There's uncritical repetition of Ukrainian military propaganda, which is obviously designed to raise morale, but it's actually very blatant and low-effort. It doesn't take a genius to distinguish video game footage (for example), and real life. Because of all these theatrics, a lot of people are basically at the point of thinking half the Russian army's been wiped out and that they'll soon have no choice but to retreat back home. What we really see is that the Russians keep advancing day after day and capturing more and more land. They're not at the point of capturing major cities yet (remember it's only Day 5), but encircling them and what we'll start to see over the coming weeks is that they'll simply place these cities under siege and wait for them to surrender. Russia doesn't actually want to destroy Ukraine (they're not like the Americans in Iraq, or the Germans in Poland). They want to capture the country intact and instigate regime change. They don't want apocalyptic damage or hundreds of thousands dead, because they know they can't occupy the whole of Ukraine for long. They want a stable puppet regime to which the majority of Ukrainians will be indifferent and to which resistance is more trouble than it's worth. If Russia wanted to truly destroy Ukraine, they would already be doing so, but a puppet regime installed by them wouldn't last long before Euromaidan 2.0 came. In the end, the goal for most of Ukraine is simply a reversion its arrangement between 2010-14 under the pro-Russian President Yanukovych. With some modifications, of course. Crimea will remain part of Russia (which makes sense upon a reading of its history and demography) and either independence for the Donbass republics or maybe absorption into Russia. I'd prefer referenda over military force to decide these matters, but sadly that's probably not to be.

[Yuli Ban]

As I mentioned in the status update, if this doesn't end in nuclear war (something I'm increasingly sure is the case), we're definitely going to look back at this as the first post-modern war.

Russia and China, if they have any military ambitions past this, really and truly do need to start focusing on militarized robotics and AI. It's no longer science fiction or Terminator-speak, I genuinely do mean this is something that has to be done. Drones could very well be in the same place tanks were at this point in WWI.

Edit: Increasingly sure it's not going to end in mushroom clouds, I meant. Looking past the comments of "He's gone insane" and "He's going to do it," I realized Putin's playing into Madman Theory. Biden seems to have understood this because he's gone out of his way to de-escalate the USA's involvement (to the chagrin of our bloodthirsty media), but the common proles haven't.

[andmar74]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60551140

Would Putin press the nuclear button?

One option for him is to cut gas supplies to Europe, hoping that will make the Europeans climb down. Another option is to explode a nuclear weapon somewhere over the North Sea between Britain and Denmark and see what happens."

Now this I don't like. Let's say it detonates somewhere in the middle. That could be just 350 km from where I live ( 220 miles).
According to this I should be ok:

[Yuli Ban]

Well, we're not going to be able to avoid this discussion forever it seems.

So my thoughts on it haven't changed since my Walpurgisnacht panic attack back in 2014: do hope that one of three things is the reality if nuclear war breaks out—

• Most nuclear weapons are defective, intercepted, and small-yield. Nuclear winter fails to materialize. Agriculture, though reduced, remains. An exchange of less than 1,000 working warheads total, with the vast majority being Hiroshima-sized or smaller, would be devastating but survivable for humanity and possibly even civilization. It'd irreversibly change us, but in the end, life would indeed go on. It would be of vital importance for all humankind that a certain number of companies (you know which ones) survive largely unscathed. If that's the case, you can even rejoice— now they get to act with even fewer restrictions and hold-ups. I call this the "Accelerant Theory," as I thought about it back in 2016-2017 while working on Mother Meki (remember that one?) and realized that there is a sliver of possibility, small but undeniably there, where nuclear war is destructive but not civilization-killingly so in a way that actually forces post-modern and futurist concepts to life faster. If you'd like me to explain this, just ask.
• You live in a place that will be bombed. I'm not so lucky, as I live in nondescript small city (less than 25,000 people) away from military installations, missile silos, or important targets. I'll almost certainly just lose electricity and hear the dull thump of civilization falling around me. I don't even live in the fallout zone. If it's a full exchange and it's clear that most companies like DeepMind, OpenAI, Microsoft, Baidu, etc. have not at all survived, I'll probably just off myself and get it over with if I feel there's no point. But if you are lucky to live in cities like London, Moscow, New York City, Boston, state capitals, or near big military bases, congratulations! Your end will almost certainly be quick unless you live outside the instant-kill zone. In which it'll be horrifyingly slow. Otherwise, get used to living in the 1800s for a good long while. Maybe the 1950s in places with generators and quickly-reinstalled electricity. It won't last forever.
• The USicans or Ruskies were being naughty naughty little children and developed things they shouldn't have. Things like cobalt bombs. In which case, I speak no hyperbole when I say "everyone dies." In that case, we won't worry about our end for long. I call this one "Clean Slate Theory" because it means that those in power decided that, should nuclear war happens, we ought to just start Earth off as a clean slate again. In which case maybe the birds, octopi, or chimps will develop civilization again someday.

For whatever reason, the US intel doesn't think nuclear war is happening though. They're not buying into the idea Putin's actually gone MAD.

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]