Ukraine War discussion

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#2897768 6-Apr-2022 18:29

Russia revving things up in Transnistria.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3449832-enemy-getting-ready-for-new-offensive-airfield-in-transnistria-being-prepared-to-receive-aircraft.html.

Russian state media releases report outlining chilling plan to fully eliminate Ukraine
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2022/04/russian-state-media-releases-report-outlining-chilling-plan-to-fully-eliminate-ukraine.html

""
"Nazis who took weapons must be killed in numbers as much as possible... Not just the elites, most of the people are guilty, they are passive Nazis, Nazi enablers. They supported these elites and must be punished," the report said.

The report goes on to say "Ukraine must pay for its guilt towards Russia" and foresees economic and political destruction.
""

Pretty much says 'kill everyone' in Ukraine who opposes the invasion, not just combatants, passive enablers.

Its the old story of suppressing and eliminating the population, lets have a vote that we control, with no passive enablers.
None of those pesky monitors even if we have loaded the dice.

Russia has its own Nazis, but they serve the state.
Historically Fascists' and Nazis did seem to get on together.

Putin’s fascists: the Russian state’s long history of cultivating homegrown neo-Nazis
https://theconversation.com/putins-fascists-the-russian-states-long-history-of-cultivating-homegrown-neo-nazis-178535

Batman

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#2898067 7-Apr-2022 12:58

Zelensky says UN should kick Russia out or dissolve

I agree

What is Russia doing on the Security Council vetoing everything

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#2898176 7-Apr-2022 16:26

I find this account from Mariupol particularly disturbing:

The NY Times - Nine Accounts of Surviving a Russian Siege

April 6, 2022 (extract)

I'm in a dark, cold room without windows or a glimpse of light. I am on my knees in front of my terrified kids, who are crying and saying that they are afraid to die.

I am trying to explain to them that death is not scary, that the most important thing is that we are together. We are in Mariupol, and our building is being shelled.

We can hear a plane followed by an explosion, all mixed in with blasts from artillery shelling. The walls and the floor are shaking.

Every explosion takes more civilian lives. The brain is fumbling through thousands of potential escape options, but there are none.

Nothing depends on me: My family and I are “being liberated” from Ukraine and our simple, laid-back life.

I cannot perceive that we are in the epicenter of the war and every hour of our lives can be the last one.

The kids are hungry, and they are asking me for water, but we cannot leave the shelter: The explosions continue.

- Kristina Khodunova, 28

(If this is just propaganda, then it is very well-written propaganda.) 😶

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tdgeek

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#2898274 7-Apr-2022 18:28

Batman:

Zelensky says UN should kick Russia out or dissolve

I agree

What is Russia doing on the Security Council vetoing everything

The West seems scared of Russia. From what Im seeing, its horrific, abuse, rape, torture. Russia needs to be exited from the UN, until there is a leadership that is acceptable. While its "fine" that Russia will end up as isolated as PRNK, what does the average Russian citizen think? Hard to know based on propaganda.

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#2898352 7-Apr-2022 23:46

Ukraine using Russia’s own weapons against them.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrainian-troops-use-russians-own-blazing-sun-thermobaric-weapon-against-them-lzhppql50

It’s paywalled but first bit can be read.

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#2898365 8-Apr-2022 04:48

https://www.reuters.com/world/un-vote-suspending-russia-human-rights-council-over-ukraine-2022-04-07/

Russia has been suspended from the U.N Human Rights Council.

”Russia had warned countries that a yes vote or abstention will be viewed as an "unfriendly gesture" with consequences for bilateral ties, according to a note seen by Reuters.”

24 countries voted No, 93 in favour, 58 abstained.

tdgeek

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#2898366 8-Apr-2022 06:24

consequences for bilateral ties? Well, Russia is doing all it can to be isolated, so bilateral ties is going to not exist anyway until they get real and get a new leader and a new direction

SJB

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#2898452 8-Apr-2022 09:16

tdgeek:

While its "fine" that Russia will end up as isolated as PRNK, what does the average Russian citizen think? Hard to know based on propaganda.

The majority of countries in the world will continue trading with Russia. The countries implementing sanctions are a small minority, although significant in terms of the Russian economy. For China and India for example it's business as usual.

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#2898454 8-Apr-2022 09:25

SJB:

tdgeek:

While its "fine" that Russia will end up as isolated as PRNK, what does the average Russian citizen think? Hard to know based on propaganda.

The majority of countries in the world will continue trading with Russia. The countries implementing sanctions are a small minority, although significant in terms of the Russian economy. For China and India for example it's business as usual.

Doesnt matter.

1. Significant as you say

2. Oil and Gas are on the way out, although thats not an overnight thing

3. Long term, that's key

rugrat

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#2898559 8-Apr-2022 12:31

SJB:

The majority of countries in the world will continue trading with Russia. The countries implementing sanctions are a small minority, although significant in terms of the Russian economy. For China and India for example it's business as usual.

The countries that continue trading with Russia as normal will be risking Secondary sanctions.

Looks like a decision is upcoming on weather to sanction India against their dealings with Russia, though they are important to the US in countering China.

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/qz.com/india/2137583/what-the-us-sanctions-on-india-because-of-russia-could-look-like/amp/

ezbee

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#2898568 8-Apr-2022 13:05

India vote again at UN.
This is disappointing after support for India in the attacks against them by China's CCP.
Many have called this out, and the denigrating comments about India on state censored media in China.

The complete lack of any empathy for what is happening in Ukraine.
Modi and his party seem to be very special in not being able to see this.

Then they cozy up so close to CCPs best friend with special relationship Putin.
They want to be part of a balance against CCP expansion, having suffered, yet they ...

I can understand if they 'have' to buy some energy, but they seem to have sold their soul in not calling out Putin.
Especially as Putin is quite dependent on those energy and equipment sales to make a point.
So hardly in danger as Putin needs the money more than ever.

Not 'yet' to Orban level perhaps, but on that journey it seems.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/13/modi-india-hindutva-hindu-nationalism-autocracy/

geekIT

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#2898664 8-Apr-2022 15:46

Why Dictators are ill-advised: (Robert Reich, see end)

Trump, Putin, Xi – these men aren’t stupid. What’s stupid is their systems for making decisions. They have no way of eliciting, recognizing, or assessing useful criticism. All are trapped in halls of mirrors that reflect back at them what they want to see and hear.

It appears that Vladimir Putin’s aides have misinformed him about the war, fearful of his reaction.

On Wednesday, American officials revealed that, according to American intelligence, Putin’s strict isolation during the pandemic and willingness to publicly castigate advisers have contributed to him getting incomplete or overly optimistic reports about the progress of Russian forces.

“We believe he’s being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions,” Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, told reporters. “Because … the senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth.”

As a result, the attack has been a catastrophe for Putin. He badly overestimated the Russian military and underestimated Ukraine’s capacity to resist.

Instead of weakening Nato, his attack has strengthened it. And now that the world’s democracies have cut off Russia’s access to the world banking system, Russia’s economy is in freefall.

Dictators like Putin are particularly vulnerable to inaccurate feedback. Instead of independent truth-tellers, they are often surrounded by truth-deniers.

Rather than experts and investigative journalists, their world is filled with pseudo-scientists and propaganda. In place of a free press, they have agitprop and disinformation.

The higher you rise in any hierarchy, the harder it is to get accurate feedback about your decisions because people are afraid to tell you the truth.

I’ve worked with several presidents. All have made big blunders. I’ve also known and written about CEOs of big corporations who have made terrible mistakes. In every case, they had flawed systems for getting useful, accurate and reliable feedback.

Donald Trump (whom I didn’t work with, but whose every move I watched) made among the dumbest decisions of any American president in history. Some might say this was inevitable; it was built into Trump’s character. But his key character flaw was his unwillingness to hear anything negative.

Trump surrounded himself with toadies and sycophants who didn’t dare tell him the truth. He demanded that everyone around him confirm his preferred self-image of invincibility. His White House was filled with fawning lackeys (he fired anyone who didn’t grovel). He refused to hear bad news. He rejected the validity of negative media coverage.

Trump could have accomplished any number of goals far more easily had he not kept digging himself into ever-deeper holes. He was his own worst enemy.

Look at China’s Xi Jinping. Why would he decide to enter into a “no limits” partnership with Moscow on the eve of Putin’s disastrous military campaign? Talk about blunders.

Xi’s alliance with Russia has undermined China’s reputation and aggravated concerns among its neighbors about China’s global ambitions. It has already prompted Taiwan to strengthen its defenses and pushed other regional powers such as Australia and Japan to declare their own interests in Taiwan’s security.

Trump, Putin and Xi’s advisors don’t include naysayers. The inverse relation between how high people rise in a hierarchy and the accuracy of the feedback they receive can be overcome if a leader aggressively seeks out dissenting views.

But it’s almost impossible to find dissenting views in a totalitarian system where dissent is often punished. One of the great virtues of a democracy is its multiple feedback loops – its many channels for expressing alternative viewpoints and voicing uncomfortable truths.

After all, American democracy stopped Trump from doing even more damage than he did.

Yet when people like Trump, Putin, and Xi make terrible decisions, the world suffers. The world could even be annihilated.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at substack.com

'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' Voltaire

'A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.' Edward Abbey

neb

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#2898707 8-Apr-2022 17:52

geekIT:
Dictators like Putin are particularly vulnerable to inaccurate feedback. Instead of independent truth-tellers, they are often surrounded by truth-deniers.

Rather than experts and investigative journalists, their world is filled with pseudo-scientists and propaganda. In place of a free press, they have agitprop and disinformation.

Strangely enough, one of the 20th century's best-known dictators, or at least his administration, was very well informed about the real state of affairs. Nazi Germany had a government department, Reichssicherheitshauptamt III, tasked with assessing the state of affairs within Germany: public opinion, food prices, feelings about the war, the state of the economy, later on damage from bombing, etc. Problem was that once things started going downhill these quite detailed reports were just ignored because they were inconvenient, even though Amt III continued its work up until the surrender in 1945.

Edited to add: Idi Amin also had a public opinion research group, the Special Services Brigade with their ever-popular house-to-house opinion polls.

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#2899007 9-Apr-2022 12:04

Japan, as the only G-7 member not to be part of NATO, risks being left behind as Russia's invasion of the Ukraine gives the trans-Atlantic renewed importance.

However Japan wants nuclear arms in their country, This could also lead to a nuclear exchange Russia

Why Russia is Fighting Japan Over These Islands

Sideface

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#2899009 9-Apr-2022 12:17

The Washington Post - Nine ways Russia botched its invasion of Ukraine

today

The ineptitude displayed by the Russian military in its initial attempt to overrun Ukraine has astounded military professionals.

[headings only]

Misjudging [underestimating] the Ukrainians

Not preparing their troops

Invading without enough supplies - or the right supplies

Not recognizing their poor logistics

Failing to take out Ukraine’s air defenses

Attacking on too many fronts

Using unsecured communications

Proceeding without clear lines of command

Failing to have a Plan B

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