Politics Will Russia Attack Ukraine?

Riverman said:
The whole story of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union was a completely different thing. With the attitude you are displaying we're heading towards a totally unnecessary nuclear war. Russia showed absolutely no intention to ever threaten a current NATO member. Its just about the NATO having crossed various red lines and the Ukraine becoming a hostile neighbour, primarily due to massive propaganda in the country, with ambitions to join NATO in its current borders. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians didn't play fair and nice. Ukraine is just a completely different thing from other Eastern European countries, not comparable.
And Selenski and his regime did do a lot in the last years to change everything to the worse, together with the USA and UK supporting a war course of the country. Russia is not better, that's not it, but playing the card of Ukraine did everything right and the Russians were just the bad guys all the years is just one sided. Nobody should start a war over Ukraine if Selenski and his guys want a prolonged, dirty, costly, inhumane war and neither showed nor show any intention to come to a peaceful and diplomatic solution with Russia. Both Putin and Selenski are gamblers which seem to not care about human suffering and losses. They need to pushed to the negotiation table, both of them!
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Get your historical references straight, please. I'm talking about Czechoslovakia during the pre-Second World War Era, when that appeaser Chamberlain thought he had achieved "Peace For Our Time".

To quote Churchill on that occasion:

“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war."



Second of all, stop with all the same old talking points. This had little to do with any recent "provocations" by the west or Ukraine. Putin has NEVER accepted the dismemberment of the Russian Empire, and he never will, and he's been planning this foray for years.

Russia promised in 1994 to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and then invaded it, not to protect the break away provinces as you insisted for so long, but to incorporate the whole of Ukraine.

Ukraine could sign an agreement with NATO TOMORROW never to join and IT WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE.

Who are you, anyway, to advocate giving away the right of a sovereign state to join NATO if it so chooses. It's their only defense against being put behind an Iron Curtain again.

You know what? Forget it. Both you and Malaparte are going on ignore. I don't have discussions with apologists for war criminals.


Ed. Don't know why I can't get rid of all the bolding.

@Northener,
I apologize for the curse word; I spent too much of my professional life in what was then a "man's" job, and associating with cops and criminal defense attorneys, who have mouths like sewers. I did pick up one particular curse word, which when really angry I do occasionally let out, although mostly in writing with asterisks and not in person, thank goodness.
 
Northener said:
@Riverman this is not business this is power politics. Both sides don't want to deal now. Putin doesn't want to give concessions he is only interested in surrender. Zelenski has not given up the fight so only he can do is formulate such demands (if this is true), of course he knows that Putin doesn't do anything with it.

The only thing both can say is we are not only fighting but there is a 'negotiation'. As such not unimportant because if the things chance drastically then they meet again... It's a kind of sur place now.
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Russian doctrine, unlike the American approach, is to conduct war and diplomacy at the same time. War for the Russians is a means to achieve the ends of diplomacy. Maybe the Russians have read Clausewitz, but it is more likely that Clausewitz's thought was shaped by his service in Tsar Alexander's army during the struggle against Napoleon.
 
aalexa said:
The demented terrorist of humanity after forcing the young Russians under the pretext of participating in military applications, began killing Ukrainian civilians by systematically destroying villages and towns, now Endangers the whole of Humanity by bombing the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant! This is a Global Threat to the Health and Life of All Mankind that includes both NATO and Russia! In the event of an explosion at this reactor, the largest in Europe, the entire earth would be radioactively contaminated, killing millions of people without discrimination!
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You might want to be a touch more skeptical of the news reports next time.
 
Malaparte said:
Russian doctrine, unlike the American approach, is to conduct war and diplomacy at the same time. War for the Russians is a means to achieve the ends of diplomacy. Maybe the Russians have read Clausewitz, but it is more likely that Clausewitz's thought was shaped by his service in Tsar Alexander's army during the struggle against Napoleon.
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Yes and there is much which reminds me of Czaristic times.....
 
For fairly objective reporting of the military facts on the ground, I suggest the Military & Foreign Affairs channel on YouTube ===

 
aalexa said:
Why does an "American" with Calabrians origin like you... endure this !?
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#1 -- it's a violation of balance of power politics 101 to war against Russia when the true enemy is China
#2 -- I do not trust the Davos crowd who are driving the West off a cliff
#3 -- I would prefer a multipolar order where an independent Russia closely cooperates with Carolingian Europe than a bipolar order where a much reduced West is set against China + Russia + most of Eurasia
 
Malaparte said:
For fairly objective reporting of the military facts on the ground, I suggest the Military & Foreign Affairs channel on YouTube ===

Click to expand...

Excellent channel and report. Yes, the Western media doing deliberately a one sided propaganda war, without even trying to understand the Russian standpoint - at least publicly, the services do know, of course.

As for democracy in Ukraine, its essentially an Oligarchic state, most of the media being now controlled by the state (Selenski regime) and a few oligarchs which supported him. There was kind of a cleansing in the recent years, with any dissenting and especially pro-Russian voices being shut down, which also explains the current attitude of the population, in part. The difference to Russia, in this respect, is not that big at all.

Three pro-Russian TV channels have gone off the air in Kyiv after pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a Ukrainian security council decree imposing sanctions for five years on eight media and TV companies.
The Kyiv stations affected were ZIK, NewsOne, and 112 Ukraine.
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Zelenskiy's spokeswoman Iulia Mendel said: "These media have become one of the tools of war against Ukraine, so they are blocked in order to protect national security," adding that evidence had emerged of their being funded from Russia.
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A prominent opposition figure allied with Kozak, Viktor Medvedchuk, also condemned the sanctions imposed.
The head of the Ukrainian Union of Journalists, Nikolay Tomilenko, said: "The deprivation of access to Ukrainian media for an audience of millions without a court ... is an attack on freedom of expression."
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He was voted for by the Ukrainian population to end the conflict (peacefully):

President Zelenskiy, formerly a comedian and actor, was elected in 2019 on a pledge to end the conflict. Both sides, under European mediation, agreed to a ceasefire last July.
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https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-tv-stations/a-56438505

If anything, the West should have pressed harder, again both sides, to accept a peace in negotiations in the last years! That was a missed opportunity, but especially the USA and UK didn't want a compromise anyway, but backed up a hardliner Ukrainian position.

The main reason why Selenski is still able to hold this together, even though he got voted for with false promises of peace and reconciliation with Russia, is that the nationalists have no other one in charge, he became he face of the resistance, a political hardliner - from a leftist-humane comedien, for which most people voted, to a hawkish and irreconcilable hardliner which won't go for any compromise with the Russians.

Another issue is that people have to think about the position of the USA in the past and now. Just imagine that both Canada, Mexico and Cuba would have ally up with Russia, spread hostile propaganda and get Russian forces to support them, including missiles. And now, in a time of weakness, Texas breaks off. Soon after they got their independence, they start to spread anti-US propaganda, make the population hostile, get delivery of arms and want to join the new Russian alliance, while there are still military bases in Texas, some of which are of great strategical importance. You also know, that a large fraction of this Texan population is still pro-US American, and gets suppressed by the new government.
Now imagine such a situation, the rest of the USA being surrounded by rather hostile states, all allied up and upgraded, while your state got a weak period, and now some of the states which belonged to your country not just break away, but join, after being manipulated and corrupted by your foes, the new alliance.

The USA did do much worse for much less, all the time. But since its Russia, it just has to accept the "sovereignty" of a state and all its decisions and watch, even if the opposing government shows no good will at all and threatens to join the hostile alliance as soon as possible and then kick all your allies and friends out of the country, taking away the bases you got for centuries, just like that and posing a threat in your flank, what they even told you.
Its just hypocrisy if the USA, from a comfortable own position, tell other powers to abide the law, while they constantly broke it themselves whenever they "needed to".

A more balanced coverage would be great, but is again not in the interest of the Western establishment. Like all the Ukrainian propaganda videos, even some of the worse ones with mistreated Russians, being broadcasted, while the Russian side is no longer allowed to even correct some fake news on their own, because they can't reach the audience any more.
In fact, that policy of censorship and cancel culture being now spread one wave after another, from the USA to the rest of the "Free World". And now its just about Russia, that's a complete phasing of the mass media, its no free press any more. Sure, Russia is worse, yet its in a state of war and they don't even claim otherwise. But in the West, the freedom gets narrowed down as well, and this is yet another great example of this big manipulation without any dissenting voices left, or at least fewer and fewer remain.

Another thing nobody is criticising is that all Ukrainian males between 18-60 being drafted and are not allowed to leave the country. Where are all those peace activists and anti-war, anti-draft people from the West and their outcry? Why should any male in the Ukraine being happy to serve as cannon fodder for Selenski? Where is the difference to the poor Russian soldiers which have to fight? But its being presented, even in our leftist and Liberal mass media, as if every Ukrainian would be happy to die for this war and all Russians are unwillig to fight from the start. That's again, just like many other "details", nothing but propaganda. This kind of 180 degree turn in the media is really telling, it really is. Just like it was with Covid restrictions and the ban on demonstrations, the parallel is there indeed. Suddenly being critical or unadapted became a crime and people got imprisoned for just demanding their rights, unlike in all the other cases in which it was being promoted.
I know it was a special situation, I wasn't against all measures at all and am vaccinated myself, but the sheer speed of the turn was amazing, and it was just phased media manipulation.

There are even doctors in Germany saying "No Russians, Ukrainians welcomed":
Die am vergangenen Freitag verschickte Mail hatte f?r Aufsehen gesorgt. Sie ging an eine Agentur, die russischsprachige Patienten in Deutschland vermittelt. Die Behandlung russischer Patienten w?rde ?aufgrund der schweren V?lkerrechtsverletzung durch den offenbar geistig gest?rten Autokraten Putin? ab sofort grunds?tzlich abgelehnt, hie? es darin. Ukrainische Patienten seien willkommen.
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https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-03/04...llkommen?utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/

Are they insane? That's just like, "we don't treat patients which didn't get vaccinated", and stuff like that.

Suddenly all those "nice people" can beat on a nation, on a group, can support cancel culture and censorship, can discriminate, and its not just ok, but informers being welcomed. Its disgusting.

They already talk about the next wave of censorship, to do a "crackdown on Russian propaganda". And who decides what's still allowed and what's not? Just another precedent for the upcoming suppression in another sphere.
 
The rivalry of the future will be between the Western world and China. And Russia acts as if we were in the 20th century, with Cuba full of Soviet missiles aimed at the United States. What is Putin trying to do with the current war? Russia cares about Ukraine, when in East Asia on the borders between Russia and China, there are a few million people on one side, and hundreds of millions on the other? I have seen Chinese maps, where territories are claimed that "should" belong to China, among which there are large parts of Russian East Asia. China is the world's second largest economy, and Russia barely approaches the economy of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Will they pretend to become an annex of China?
 
italouruguayan said:
The rivalry of the future will be between the Western world and China. And Russia acts as if we were in the 20th century, with Cuba full of Soviet missiles aimed at the United States. What is Putin trying to do with the current war? Russia cares about Ukraine, when in East Asia on the borders between Russia and China, there are a few million people on one side, and hundreds of millions on the other? I have seen Chinese maps, where territories are claimed that "should" belong to China, among which there are large parts of Russian East Asia. China is the world's second largest economy, and Russia barely approaches the economy of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Will they pretend to become an annex of China?
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Russia still has time. Just some years ago, China needed to get trained for operating Russian type jets. Then, they copied, almost 1 : 1.
Now they just begin to produce on the same level on their own.
China catched up, but its still not ahead. China needs both resources and tech from Russia to get to the next level.
The longer Russia would have waited, the more imbalanced the relationship will become. I think Putin was pushing himself to create facts in his lifetime.
And the counterpart of Selenskyj helped to come to this risky and brutal conclusion, because he offered no acceptable alternative in time.
Two egomaniacs got out of control and am pushing each other at the expense of the people on the ground. That's indeed stressful.
 
aalexa said:
Loooong live the Bolshevik empire, but the dream of dementia will be shattered anyway.
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Keep the faith.

See:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ex...tent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

It's bipartisan. The extremists on both sides and the West European fellow travelers, if they're not actually Russians, be damned.

"Some 80% of Americans - including solid majorities of Republicans and Democrats - said the United States should stop buying Russian oil, according to the poll. An equally bipartisan 74% of Americans said the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine.
 
Riverman said:
Excellent channel and report. Yes, the Western media doing deliberately a one sided propaganda war, without even trying to understand the Russian standpoint - at least publicly, the services do know, of course.

As for democracy in Ukraine, its essentially an Oligarchic state, most of the media being now controlled by the state (Selenski regime) and a few oligarchs which supported him. There was kind of a cleansing in the recent years, with any dissenting and especially pro-Russian voices being shut down, which also explains the current attitude of the population, in part. The difference to Russia, in this respect, is not that big at all.








He was voted for by the Ukrainian population to end the conflict (peacefully):



https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-tv-stations/a-56438505

If anything, the West should have pressed harder, again both sides, to accept a peace in negotiations in the last years! That was a missed opportunity, but especially the USA and UK didn't want a compromise anyway, but backed up a hardliner Ukrainian position.

The main reason why Selenski is still able to hold this together, even though he got voted for with false promises of peace and reconciliation with Russia, is that the nationalists have no other one in charge, he became he face of the resistance, a political hardliner - from a leftist-humane comedien, for which most people voted, to a hawkish and irreconcilable hardliner which won't go for any compromise with the Russians.

Another issue is that people have to think about the position of the USA in the past and now. Just imagine that both Canada, Mexico and Cuba would have ally up with Russia, spread hostile propaganda and get Russian forces to support them, including missiles. And now, in a time of weakness, Texas breaks off. Soon after they got their independence, they start to spread anti-US propaganda, make the population hostile, get delivery of arms and want to join the new Russian alliance, while there are still military bases in Texas, some of which are of great strategical importance. You also know, that a large fraction of this Texan population is still pro-US American, and gets suppressed by the new government.
Now imagine such a situation, the rest of the USA being surrounded by rather hostile states, all allied up and upgraded, while your state got a weak period, and now some of the states which belonged to your country not just break away, but join, after being manipulated and corrupted by your foes, the new alliance.

The USA did do much worse for much less, all the time. But since its Russia, it just has to accept the "sovereignty" of a state and all its decisions and watch, even if the opposing government shows no good will at all and threatens to join the hostile alliance as soon as possible and then kick all your allies and friends out of the country, taking away the bases you got for centuries, just like that and posing a threat in your flank, what they even told you.
Its just hypocrisy if the USA, from a comfortable own position, tell other powers to abide the law, while they constantly broke it themselves whenever they "needed to".

A more balanced coverage would be great, but is again not in the interest of the Western establishment. Like all the Ukrainian propaganda videos, even some of the worse ones with mistreated Russians, being broadcasted, while the Russian side is no longer allowed to even correct some fake news on their own, because they can't reach the audience any more.
In fact, that policy of censorship and cancel culture being now spread one wave after another, from the USA to the rest of the "Free World". And now its just about Russia, that's a complete phasing of the mass media, its no free press any more. Sure, Russia is worse, yet its in a state of war and they don't even claim otherwise. But in the West, the freedom gets narrowed down as well, and this is yet another great example of this big manipulation without any dissenting voices left, or at least fewer and fewer remain.

Another thing nobody is criticising is that all Ukrainian males between 18-60 being drafted and are not allowed to leave the country. Where are all those peace activists and anti-war, anti-draft people from the West and their outcry? Why should any male in the Ukraine being happy to serve as cannon fodder for Selenski? Where is the difference to the poor Russian soldiers which have to fight? But its being presented, even in our leftist and Liberal mass media, as if every Ukrainian would be happy to die for this war and all Russians are unwillig to fight from the start. That's again, just like many other "details", nothing but propaganda. This kind of 180 degree turn in the media is really telling, it really is. Just like it was with Covid restrictions and the ban on demonstrations, the parallel is there indeed. Suddenly being critical or unadapted became a crime and people got imprisoned for just demanding their rights, unlike in all the other cases in which it was being promoted.
I know it was a special situation, I wasn't against all measures at all and am vaccinated myself, but the sheer speed of the turn was amazing, and it was just phased media manipulation.

There are even doctors in Germany saying "No Russians, Ukrainians welcomed":


https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-03/04...llkommen?utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/

Are they insane? That's just like, "we don't treat patients which didn't get vaccinated", and stuff like that.

Suddenly all those "nice people" can beat on a nation, on a group, can support cancel culture and censorship, can discriminate, and its not just ok, but informers being welcomed. Its disgusting.

They already talk about the next wave of censorship, to do a "crackdown on Russian propaganda". And who decides what's still allowed and what's not? Just another precedent for the upcoming suppression in another sphere.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I would rather have a doctor openly refuse to treat me than "treat me" reluctantly.
 
This is the sort of thing that could make one into a conspiracy theorist. ("My dear lad, don't you know, only the poor conspire")

Ukrainian journalist Daria Kaleniuk works for the WEF

https://www.weforum.org/people/daria-kaleniuk

This is her "confronting" Boris Johnson earlier this week.
 
This is Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- subject of the second segment of "Russian Godfathers" documentary that I posted upthread -- interviewed on French tv about Putin two days ago -->>

 
italouruguayan said:
What is Putin trying to do with the current war? Russia cares about Ukraine, when in East Asia on the borders between Russia and China, there are a few million people on one side, and hundreds of millions on the other? I have seen Chinese maps, where territories are claimed that "should" belong to China, among which there are large parts of Russian East Asia. China is the world's second largest economy, and Russia barely approaches the economy of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Will they pretend to become an annex of China?
Click to expand...

You have stated in plain terms why Russia is the natural ally of the West in the current age. Instead, we have driven her into the arms of China, which carries the danger, for Russia, of its eventual servitude to China. That Russia has chosen this dangerous path speaks to the West's utter hostility to Russia. It is a tragedy for Russia.
 
Malaparte said:
Russian conductor of Munich Philharmonic fired for "refusing to denounce" Putin.

This is absolutely shameful. Thomas Mann must be turning in his grave.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/arts/music/valery-gergiev-fired-munich-ukraine.html
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If you are "unable" to denounce someone like Putin, should others be forced to work with you?
Musicians need to be able to respect their conductor.
Anti-fascism laws are pretty strict in Germany and not limited to the persona of Hitler.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mayor of Munich Dieter Reiter stated that he would remove Gergiev as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic unless Gergiev publicly condemned the Russian invasion. Similarly, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra said that it would drop Gergiev from its September festival if he did not stop supporting Putin. Milan's La Scala also sent a letter to Gergiev asking him to declare his support for a peaceful resolution in Ukraine or he would not be permitted to complete his engagement conducting Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. This follows an announcement by New York City's Carnegie Hall that it had canceled two May performances by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra that were to be conducted by Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic dropped Gergiev from a five-concert tour in the U.S. that was to start on 25 February.[30][31][32]
Click to expand...
 
firetown said:
If you are "unable" to denounce someone like Putin, should others be forced to work with you?
Musicians need to be able to respect their conductor.
Click to expand...

That's nothing but Gesinnungsterror ("conviction terror") in German and its really shameful. You could argue if they make active propaganda for Putin/the Russian war, that this might be inacceptable. But that they need to actively denounce their president, country and people, in such a dire situation, just for keeping a job which has absolutely nothing to do with the war and dispute, and all of this only because they are Russian citizens, this is shameful indeed.
Again, I would probably understand if people have troubles with an active Putin supporter, but that there is sort of a Generalverdacht (general suspicion) and pressure on the people in the sense of Gesinnungsterror, to "confess openly" and speak bad about Russia, just because of their citizenship or ethnicity, it speaks for itself. If people defend such measures already, they shouldn't speak about human, liberal and democratic values. That's hypocrisy.
 
Malaparte said:
You have stated in plain terms why Russia is the natural ally of the West in the current age. Instead, we have driven her into the arms of China, which carries the danger, for Russia, of its eventual servitude to China. That Russia has chosen this dangerous path speaks to the West's utter hostility to Russia. It is a tragedy for Russia.
Click to expand...

I always thought that Russia is the eastern end of the Western world. The problem is that with Putin, the concept of the Soviet Union has returned. Putin faces 21st century problems with a 20th century mentality. And the Russian government is not a poor victim... it has enough nuclear weapons to want to impose its views...
 
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