Unit2Sucks said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Interesting take on the foreseeability of Russian aggression against its neighbors and how little it has to do with NATO.
hps://twitter.com/WPReview/status/1585013645993451543

Quote:

---

But the Western finger-wagging continued unabated. These countries should accommodate Russian interests, they were told, by giving privileged language and citizenship rights to Soviet-era settlers stranded by the Soviet Union's collapse, even as the military occupation by Russian forces continued until the end of August 1994.

In 1993, Sergei Karaganova foreign policy hawk and Kremlin adviserargued that Russia should use military and other means to protect "Russian-speakers" in the Baltic states and elsewhere. Yet "Russian-speaker" is not a political category; to see the absurdity of what became known as the "Karaganov doctrine," one might imagine Britain intervening in India on behalf of "English-speakers."

---

More and more we are seeing pushback on Putin from within Russia. I suspect more people will find themselves defenestrated but it's not going to be enough to stop word from getting out about how poorly Russia's military is doing in this war.
hps://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1584839114569949185

hps://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1584725196581523456

---

Not surprisingly, the biggest russian warhawks are not the US or UK, it is the baltics and Poland, or the countries that would be invaded next if Russia succeeds.

---

You're kidding, right?

Exactly how much westward progress did Russia make in its "imperial expansion" before the 2008 Bucharest Summit??

How much did NATO expand from the 1990s to 2008??

---

The only connection to NATO is that Putin and his yes men badly miscalculated NATO's strength. They thought NATO was weak and would allow them to take Ukraine with no support for Ukraine's sovereignty and they were wrong. Putin is going to pay the price, along with the hundreds of thousands who will die in this war of needless aggression.

You can continue to blame NATO all you want, but this is Putin's war and is 100% on him. All he's done is strengthen NATO and increase its membership.

---

This attempt by Putin defenders to equate NATO membership with actual military occupation is just baffling to me. If the argument is that Putin FELT like these things were the same, then so what? It just means he's being unreasonable. You don't let the one crazy guy on the block rule everyone else's behavior.

NATO could have chosen to keep applying the Minsk II Agreement, which was the good work of Angela Merkel and former French president Hollande in 2014, preserving peace in the Donbass and Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine was armed to the teeth and used as a bulwark to weaken Russia in the Great Game, destroying that country in the process. Ukraine has increased its repression of rebel territories in the east, killing 11,000 civilian Russophones in 8 years of civil war between the Ukrainian regular army and rebels from the Donbass, most of whom were UA who switched sides, forming the LPR and DPR armies.

(If you don`t know what the Great Game is, aren't familiar with Brzezinski's work or Mackinder, you will be poorly equipped to understand the current geopolitics and history of the region.)

Ukraine would have, at several stages of this war, accepted a settlement with the rebel provinces and Russia, and this war could have been averted, or ended after the Istanbul talks last April, without the intervention of NATO warmongers like Boris Johnson.

So now that NATO is all in, there are three possible outcomes:

1- Russia wins, conquers/annexes "Novorossiya", Russian-speaking 35%-40% of southern and eastern Ukraine, forces Ukraine into a settlement. Parts of western Ukraine are absorbed into Poland and Hungary.
Another 250,000+ dead
~65% chance of this outcome happening

2- Stalemate along roughly the current borders, both sides nearly exhausted in a WW1-like artillery war.
another 250,000-500,000 dead, on top of the current 250,000+
~30% probablity

3-Ukraine wins back Kherson, attacks Crimea.
World War III starts; 500,000 - 100,000,000 dead, depending on escalation dynamics
5% probability

This is what we're looking at.

The "Putin is a Bad Hombre" school of geopolitics advocating continued warfare and military escalation has been in charge of US/NATO policy, which will lead to one of the three outcomes above by the end of next year.

Poland has historic claims over parts of western Ukraine, while the Rusyn and other natives in Transcarpathia, the SW corner of Ukraine, are culturally and historically tied with Hungary. In the event of a continued war of attrition, Ukraine would become a failed state, which could lead to its peripherial regions being absorbed by its stable neighbors.

Historically, those regions have often changed hands and the borders have shifted frequently.

Cal88 said:

---

This is what we're looking at.

The "Putin is a Bad Hombre" school of geopolitics advocating continued warfare and military escalation has been in charge of US/NATO policy, which will lead to one of the three outcomes above by the end of next year.

---

Yes, let's just continue to blame the U.S. and NATO for Putin invading Ukraine.

By the way, your previous predictions on this thread have not fared well.
Not well at all.

Even as recent as 2.5 months ago with this ridiculous claim:

Cal88 said:

---

In response to posts above - I don't think Russians are committing a lot of war crimes, for the simple reason that the territories they've moved into are largely populated with pro-Russians.

---

sycasey said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Interesting take on the foreseeability of Russian aggression against its neighbors and how little it has to do with NATO.
hps://twitter.com/WPReview/status/1585013645993451543

Quote:

---

But the Western finger-wagging continued unabated. These countries should accommodate Russian interests, they were told, by giving privileged language and citizenship rights to Soviet-era settlers stranded by the Soviet Union's collapse, even as the military occupation by Russian forces continued until the end of August 1994.

In 1993, Sergei Karaganova foreign policy hawk and Kremlin adviserargued that Russia should use military and other means to protect "Russian-speakers" in the Baltic states and elsewhere. Yet "Russian-speaker" is not a political category; to see the absurdity of what became known as the "Karaganov doctrine," one might imagine Britain intervening in India on behalf of "English-speakers."

---

More and more we are seeing pushback on Putin from within Russia. I suspect more people will find themselves defenestrated but it's not going to be enough to stop word from getting out about how poorly Russia's military is doing in this war.
hps://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1584839114569949185

hps://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1584725196581523456

---

Not surprisingly, the biggest russian warhawks are not the US or UK, it is the baltics and Poland, or the countries that would be invaded next if Russia succeeds.

---

You're kidding, right?

Exactly how much westward progress did Russia make in its "imperial expansion" before the 2008 Bucharest Summit??

How much did NATO expand from the 1990s to 2008??

---

The only connection to NATO is that Putin and his yes men badly miscalculated NATO's strength. They thought NATO was weak and would allow them to take Ukraine with no support for Ukraine's sovereignty and they were wrong. Putin is going to pay the price, along with the hundreds of thousands who will die in this war of needless aggression.

You can continue to blame NATO all you want, but this is Putin's war and is 100% on him. All he's done is strengthen NATO and increase its membership.

---

This attempt by Putin defenders to equate NATO membership with actual military occupation is just baffling to me. If the argument is that Putin FELT like these things were the same, then so what? It just means he's being unreasonable. You don't let the one crazy guy on the block rule everyone else's behavior.

---

The fundamental disagreement here between you and me is the fact that the rebel regions feel that they had been under military occupation by the Ukrainian central government. This disagreement is IMHO based on your lack of information about the situation on the ground in the Donbass.

I would suggest this documentary, from 2016, made by an independent French journalist, about the situation in the Donbass (Engl. S/T available):

https://player.vimeo.com/video/696528534?h=b6a324c5d7

DiabloWags said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

This is what we're looking at.

The "Putin is a Bad Hombre" school of geopolitics advocating continued warfare and military escalation has been in charge of US/NATO policy, which will lead to one of the three outcomes above by the end of next year.

---

Your previous predictions on this thread have not fared well.
Not well at all.

Even as recent as 2.5 months ago with this claim:

Cal88 said:

---

In response to posts above - I don't think Russians are committing a lot of war crimes, for the simple reason that the territories they've moved into are largely populated with pro-Russians.

---

---

Yeah, there's no reason to keep listening to Cal88.

The "Minsk Agreement" argument is horses**t. Russia never abided by any of those terms, so there would have been no point in NATO sticking to them either.

sycasey said:

---

DiabloWags said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

This is what we're looking at.

The "Putin is a Bad Hombre" school of geopolitics advocating continued warfare and military escalation has been in charge of US/NATO policy, which will lead to one of the three outcomes above by the end of next year.

---

Your previous predictions on this thread have not fared well.
Not well at all.

Even as recent as 2.5 months ago with this claim:

Cal88 said:

---

In response to posts above - I don't think Russians are committing a lot of war crimes, for the simple reason that the territories they've moved into are largely populated with pro-Russians.

---

---

Yeah, there's no reason to keep listening to Cal88.

The "Minsk Agreement" argument is horses**t. Russia never abided by any of those terms, so there would have been no point in NATO sticking to them either.

---

Agreed.
As if Russia would have ever abided by any of those terms.
I think I'm finally adding him to my IGNORE list.

Unit2Sucks said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Interesting take on the foreseeability of Russian aggression against its neighbors and how little it has to do with NATO.
hps://twitter.com/WPReview/status/1585013645993451543

Quote:

---

But the Western finger-wagging continued unabated. These countries should accommodate Russian interests, they were told, by giving privileged language and citizenship rights to Soviet-era settlers stranded by the Soviet Union's collapse, even as the military occupation by Russian forces continued until the end of August 1994.

In 1993, Sergei Karaganova foreign policy hawk and Kremlin adviserargued that Russia should use military and other means to protect "Russian-speakers" in the Baltic states and elsewhere. Yet "Russian-speaker" is not a political category; to see the absurdity of what became known as the "Karaganov doctrine," one might imagine Britain intervening in India on behalf of "English-speakers."

---

More and more we are seeing pushback on Putin from within Russia. I suspect more people will find themselves defenestrated but it's not going to be enough to stop word from getting out about how poorly Russia's military is doing in this war.
hps://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1584839114569949185

hps://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1584725196581523456

---

Not surprisingly, the biggest russian warhawks are not the US or UK, it is the baltics and Poland, or the countries that would be invaded next if Russia succeeds.

---

You're kidding, right?

Exactly how much westward progress did Russia make in its "imperial expansion" before the 2008 Bucharest Summit??

How much did NATO expand from the 1990s to 2008??

---

The only connection to NATO is that Putin and his yes men badly miscalculated NATO's strength. They thought NATO was weak and would allow them to take Ukraine with no support for Ukraine's sovereignty and they were wrong. Putin is going to pay the price, along with the hundreds of thousands who will die in this war of needless aggression.

You can continue to blame NATO all you want, but this is Putin's war and is 100% on him. All he's done is strengthen NATO and increase its membership.

---

Yes, Putin clearly miscalculated. He underestimated Zelensky/Ukraine's resolve, and U.S./NATO's ability to rally public opinion against his invasion.

What astonishes me is how so many people miss the obvious projection here. Americans pointing at Putin's "imperial expansion," and his "war crimes" are missing (and dismissing) the very well documented U.S. imperial expansion and war crimes over the decades since the Vietnam debacle.

The idea that Putin's attack on Ukraine might be an attempt to stop U.S./NATO imperial expansion would require a level of introspection & assessment that we, as a nation, refuse to take on.

The top priority of U.S. foreign policy is the management and relentless expansion of a global military empire. The U.S. mission is to be the lone global superpower. Any rivals to our unipolar hegemony must be opposed and defeated.

U.S. taxpayers pay nearly $1Trillion per year to maintain & expand this global military empire -- from which they derive no tangible benefit. This spending is unlimited and unquestioned. No one asks, "How are you going to pay for that?"

So we continue down the path of escalation after escalation with a nuclear superpower, with the clear intention of removing Putin from power. There's apparently no thought about what Putin does when he's on the threshold of defeat or surrender.

Apparently, this is where the projection stops. If the U.S. was invaded by conventional forces, and U.S. leaders were facing the choice of defeat or surrender, does anyone have any doubt that our nuclear arsenal would be used to defend our nation & our people? We would hope & expect that they would do this, rather than submit to a hostile foreign power.

Yet somehow, we expect that Putin will calmly submit to the same U.S. empire that forced Boris Yeltsin on their nation, imposed economic "shock therapy," and devastated the Russian economy for years.

John Mearsheimer predicted that Putin would "wreck" Ukraine, and that's precisely what he's doing. He's penalizing Ukraine for aligning with the U.S. As we continue to escalate, Putin will detonate 'dirty bombs' in Ukraine.

Is Putin going to go beyond Ukraine and invade NATO countries? No way. Acts of war against NATO member countries would provoke all-out direct war with the U.S., and the U.S. would simply wipe what's left of the Russian military from the face of the earth. We wouldn't stop at the Russian border, either. Putin isn't that stupid.

Our inability to understand ourselves and our foreign policy stands in the way of understanding our enemies. This will not end well for anyone unless we wake up & acknowledge the risks.

cbbass1 said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Interesting take on the foreseeability of Russian aggression against its neighbors and how little it has to do with NATO.
hps://twitter.com/WPReview/status/1585013645993451543

Quote:

---

But the Western finger-wagging continued unabated. These countries should accommodate Russian interests, they were told, by giving privileged language and citizenship rights to Soviet-era settlers stranded by the Soviet Union's collapse, even as the military occupation by Russian forces continued until the end of August 1994.

In 1993, Sergei Karaganova foreign policy hawk and Kremlin adviserargued that Russia should use military and other means to protect "Russian-speakers" in the Baltic states and elsewhere. Yet "Russian-speaker" is not a political category; to see the absurdity of what became known as the "Karaganov doctrine," one might imagine Britain intervening in India on behalf of "English-speakers."

---

More and more we are seeing pushback on Putin from within Russia. I suspect more people will find themselves defenestrated but it's not going to be enough to stop word from getting out about how poorly Russia's military is doing in this war.
hps://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1584839114569949185

hps://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1584725196581523456

---

Not surprisingly, the biggest russian warhawks are not the US or UK, it is the baltics and Poland, or the countries that would be invaded next if Russia succeeds.

---

You're kidding, right?

Exactly how much westward progress did Russia make in its "imperial expansion" before the 2008 Bucharest Summit??

How much did NATO expand from the 1990s to 2008??

---

The only connection to NATO is that Putin and his yes men badly miscalculated NATO's strength. They thought NATO was weak and would allow them to take Ukraine with no support for Ukraine's sovereignty and they were wrong. Putin is going to pay the price, along with the hundreds of thousands who will die in this war of needless aggression.

You can continue to blame NATO all you want, but this is Putin's war and is 100% on him. All he's done is strengthen NATO and increase its membership.

---

Yes, Putin clearly miscalculated. He underestimated Zelensky/Ukraine's resolve, and U.S./NATO's ability to rally public opinion against his invasion.

What astonishes me is how so many people miss the obvious projection here. Americans pointing at Putin's "imperial expansion," and his "war crimes" are missing (and dismissing) the very well documented U.S. imperial expansion and war crimes over the decades since the Vietnam debacle.

The idea that Putin's attack on Ukraine might be an attempt to stop U.S./NATO imperial expansion would require a level of introspection & assessment that we, as a nation, refuse to take on.

The top priority of U.S. foreign policy is the management and relentless expansion of a global military empire. The U.S. mission is to be the lone global superpower. Any rivals to our unipolar hegemony must be opposed and defeated.

U.S. taxpayers pay nearly $1Trillion per year to maintain & expand this global military empire -- from which they derive no tangible benefit. This spending is unlimited and unquestioned. No one asks, "How are you going to pay for that?"

So we continue down the path of escalation after escalation with a nuclear superpower, with the clear intention of removing Putin from power. There's apparently no thought about what Putin does when he's on the threshold of defeat or surrender.

Apparently, this is where the projection stops. If the U.S. was invaded by conventional forces, and U.S. leaders were facing the choice of defeat or surrender, does anyone have any doubt that our nuclear arsenal would be used to defend our nation & our people? We would hope & expect that they would do this, rather than submit to a hostile foreign power.

Yet somehow, we expect that Putin will calmly submit to the same U.S. empire that forced Boris Yeltsin on their nation, imposed economic "shock therapy," and devastated the Russian economy for years.

John Mearsheimer predicted that Putin would "wreck" Ukraine, and that's precisely what he's doing. He's penalizing Ukraine for aligning with the U.S. As we continue to escalate, Putin will detonate 'dirty bombs' in Ukraine.

Is Putin going to go beyond Ukraine and invade NATO countries? No way. Acts of war against NATO member countries would provoke all-out direct war with the U.S., and the U.S. would simply wipe what's left of the Russian military from the face of the earth. We wouldn't stop at the Russian border, either. Putin isn't that stupid.

Our inability to understand ourselves and our foreign policy stands in the way of understanding our enemies. This will not end well for anyone unless we wake up & acknowledge the risks.

---

This is all umm interesting but it's not why Putin invaded Ukraine. His popularity is flagging at home and he wanted an easy win. Of course he was very wrong, but that doesn't change why he did it.

Remember how far the narrative has shifted from propagandists and apologists. They used to say this was about de-nazifying Ukraine and reuniting Russian speaking people with their home. Would that be a justification for Mexico annexing southern california or texas? I doubt it. And it wasn't for Putin either. This was a craven attempt to leverage the BS mother russia narrative as well as the genocidal notion that Ukraine shouldn't exist. We've seen that parroted here in various forms.

We've learned a lot about Russia and this war. First - we've learned that so many of the "experts" were wrong. They were wrong to claim that Russia's military was well-trained, well-equipped and effective. What we've seen couldn't be further from that narrative. Now Russia is forced to get arms from Iran because it can't competently produce anything that works. Without arms from Iran and NK, Russia wouldn't have made any noise in the last few months. Nor do they have functional logistics. They're sending middle-age conscripts to the front line without any training or equipment. This has been amply documented and will only get worse as we get deeper into the cold Ukrainian fall and winter. We will continue to see Russian military abandon their country and ask for asylum because the vast majority have no interest in dying for a stupid unprovoked war over nothing.

So let's stop pretending that NATO incursion is even remotely responsible for Putin's ridiculous war. Putin is under no threat of attack from NATO and if he was - guess what, Ukraine won't save him. All Putin has proven over the last 8 months is that his military is nowhere near competent and that he can't defend his country without nukes. Pretty clear at this point that the US, China and Iran are all well above Russia in terms of military might. Still an open question as to which other militaries could beat Russia.

And some assert a peace deal was at hand months ago, before Boris Johnson (Blinken?) put a stop to it.

Speaking of Iran, the country Obama wants to give nuclear capability to. Why?

Unit2Sucks said:

---

This is all umm interesting but it's not why Putin invaded Ukraine. His popularity is flagging at home and he wanted an easy win. Of course he was very wrong, but that doesn't change why he did it.


We've learned a lot about Russia and this war. First - we've learned that so many of the "experts" were wrong. They were wrong to claim that Russia's military was well-trained, well-equipped and effective.

So let's stop pretending that NATO incursion is even remotely responsible for Putin's ridiculous war. Putin is under no threat of attack from NATO and if he was - guess what, Ukraine won't save him. All Putin has proven over the last 8 months is that his military is nowhere near competent and that he can't defend his country without nukes. Pretty clear at this point that the US, China and Iran are all well above Russia in terms of military might. Still an open question as to which other militaries could beat Russia.

---

Bingo.
Great post!

Unit2Sucks said:

---

We've learned a lot about Russia and this war. First - we've learned that so many of the "experts" were wrong. They were wrong to claim that Russia's military was well-trained, well-equipped and effective. What we've seen couldn't be further from that narrative.

---

Don't forget that they also told us that Putin had no interest in invading Ukraine or trying to take Kiev . . . right up until the moment he rolled his tanks in. People who argued otherwise were just warmongering U.S. State Department shills.

Now of course the story has to be that it was really just because he was provoked so much. LOL.

Cal88 has been the most wrong and most off base on this thread and yet he still posts as though he is the leading expert here, without humility or interest in considering and learning from others, and with the same adamance that his sources and analysis is spot on and scientific.

blungld said:

---

Cal88 has been the most wrong and most off base on this thread and yet he still posts as though he is the leading expert here, without humility or interest in considering and learning from others, and with the same adamance that his sources and analysis is spot on and scientific.

---

He was the same way with climate change. Even after obvious and clear evidence that he had been flat lying about one of his sources (the Time Magazine articles), he just kept on going like he was still trustworthy. Nothing fazes him.

And very condescending as well. Like a know-it-all.

blungld said:

---

Cal88 has been the most wrong and most off base on this thread and yet he still posts as though he is the leading expert here, without humility or interest in considering and learning from others, and with the same adamance that his sources and analysis is spot on and scientific.

---

My take of the big picture on Ukraine is very much the same as that of Mearsheimer, Chomsky or Kissinger.

I do very much appreciate the fact that you are genuinely concerned about the plight of Ukrainians (and thanks for reaching out with your PM, which I will answer, I have a crazy workweek till Friday), and that is something I share with you, unlike your average neocon who is rooting for this war to go on for all the wrong reasons, people like Lindsay Graham, who are very happy to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.

By now it's pretty clear that there is a wide gulf between us as far as our assessment of what has been going on over there, gap which I am trying to narrow. The conversation so far has been outright Rashomonesque, we basically disagree about central items like what went down with the Nordstream bombing, or the very nature of the Donbass rebellion, so it's almost impossible to find common ground.

I think Cbass above has made some excellent points, points which I have been trying to articulate, mainly:

Quote:

---

What astonishes me is how so many people miss the obvious projection here. Americans pointing at Putin's "imperial expansion," and his "war crimes" are missing (and dismissing) the very well documented U.S. imperial expansion and war crimes over the decades since the Vietnam debacle.

The idea that Putin's attack on Ukraine might be an attempt to stop U.S./NATO imperial expansion would require a level of introspection & assessment that we, as a nation, refuse to take on.

... Our inability to understand ourselves and our foreign policy stands in the way of understanding our enemies. This will not end well for anyone unless we wake up & acknowledge the risks.

---

Cal88 said:

---

blungld said:

---

Cal88 has been the most wrong and most off base on this thread and yet he still posts as though he is the leading expert here, without humility or interest in considering and learning from others, and with the same adamance that his sources and analysis is spot on and scientific.

---

My take of the big picture on Ukraine is very much the same as that of Mearsheimer, Chomsky or Kissinger.

I do very much appreciate the fact that you are genuinely concerned about the plight of Ukrainians (and thanks for reaching out with your PM, which I will answer, I have a crazy workweek till Friday), and that is something I share with you, unlike your average neocon who is rooting for this war to go on for all the wrong reasons, people like Lindsay Graham, who are very happy to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.

By now it's pretty clear that there is a wide gulf between us as far as our assessment of what has been going on over there, gap which I am trying to narrow. The conversation so far has been outright Rashomonesque, we basically disagree about central items like what went down with the Nordstream bombing, or the very nature of the Donbass rebellion, so it's almost impossible to find common ground.

I think Cbass above has made some excellent points, points which I have been trying to articulate, mainly:

Quote:

---

What astonishes me is how so many people miss the obvious projection here. Americans pointing at Putin's "imperial expansion," and his "war crimes" are missing (and dismissing) the very well documented U.S. imperial expansion and war crimes over the decades since the Vietnam debacle.

The idea that Putin's attack on Ukraine might be an attempt to stop U.S./NATO imperial expansion would require a level of introspection & assessment that we, as a nation, refuse to take on.

... Our inability to understand ourselves and our foreign policy stands in the way of understanding our enemies. This will not end well for anyone unless we wake up & acknowledge the risks.

---

---

Maybe I was against the 2nd US invasion of Iraq AND I am against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I dont think that statement requires introspection on US policy over the last couple of decades.

golden sloth said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

blungld said:

---

Cal88 has been the most wrong and most off base on this thread and yet he still posts as though he is the leading expert here, without humility or interest in considering and learning from others, and with the same adamance that his sources and analysis is spot on and scientific.

---

My take of the big picture on Ukraine is very much the same as that of Mearsheimer, Chomsky or Kissinger.

I do very much appreciate the fact that you are genuinely concerned about the plight of Ukrainians (and thanks for reaching out with your PM, which I will answer, I have a crazy workweek till Friday), and that is something I share with you, unlike your average neocon who is rooting for this war to go on for all the wrong reasons, people like Lindsay Graham, who are very happy to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.

By now it's pretty clear that there is a wide gulf between us as far as our assessment of what has been going on over there, gap which I am trying to narrow. The conversation so far has been outright Rashomonesque, we basically disagree about central items like what went down with the Nordstream bombing, or the very nature of the Donbass rebellion, so it's almost impossible to find common ground.

I think Cbass above has made some excellent points, points which I have been trying to articulate, mainly:

Quote:

---

What astonishes me is how so many people miss the obvious projection here. Americans pointing at Putin's "imperial expansion," and his "war crimes" are missing (and dismissing) the very well documented U.S. imperial expansion and war crimes over the decades since the Vietnam debacle.

The idea that Putin's attack on Ukraine might be an attempt to stop U.S./NATO imperial expansion would require a level of introspection & assessment that we, as a nation, refuse to take on.

... Our inability to understand ourselves and our foreign policy stands in the way of understanding our enemies. This will not end well for anyone unless we wake up & acknowledge the risks.

---

---

Maybe I was against the 2nd US invasion of Iraq AND I am against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I dont think that statement requires introspection on US policy over the last couple of decades.

---

Yeah, that's just it. I'm well aware of the bad actions of the US over the years (especially in Latin America and the Middle East). It's because I have some familiarity with those things that I can see that our actions in Ukraine don't fit the bill. Russia's sure do, though.

And another little fact, Russia is shipping Ukranian children to Russia to be raised as Russians. Current estimates are between 150k and 200k kids have been relocated.

That is one way to address a demographic shortfall.

https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6

Cal88 said:

---

NATO could have chosen to keep applying the Minsk II Agreement, which was the good work of Angela Merkel and former French president Hollande in 2014, preserving peace in the Donbass and Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine was armed to the teeth and used as a bulwark to weaken Russia in the Great Game, destroying that country in the process. Ukraine has increased its repression of rebel territories in the east, killing 11,000 civilian Russophones in 8 years of civil war between the Ukrainian regular army and rebels from the Donbass, most of whom were UA who switched sides, forming the LPR and DPR armies.

(If you don`t know what the Great Game is, aren't familiar with Brzezinski's work or Mackinder, you will be poorly equipped to understand the current geopolitics and history of the region.)

Ukraine would have, at several stages of this war, accepted a settlement with the rebel provinces and Russia, and this war could have been averted, or ended after the Istanbul talks last April, without the intervention of NATO warmongers like Boris Johnson.

So now that NATO is all in, there are three possible outcomes:

1- Russia wins, conquers/annexes "Novorossiya", Russian-speaking 35%-40% of southern and eastern Ukraine, forces Ukraine into a settlement. Parts of western Ukraine are absorbed into Poland and Hungary.
Another 250,000+ dead
~65% chance of this outcome happening

2- Stalemate along roughly the current borders, both sides nearly exhausted in a WW1-like artillery war.
another 250,000-500,000 dead, on top of the current 250,000+
~30% probablity

3-Ukraine wins back Kherson, attacks Crimea.
World War III starts; 500,000 - 100,000,000 dead, depending on escalation dynamics
5% probability

This is what we're looking at.

The "Putin is a Bad Hombre" school of geopolitics advocating continued warfare and military escalation has been in charge of US/NATO policy, which will lead to one of the three outcomes above by the end of next year.

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So you are now admitting there is 0% chance that Russia takes over Ukraine and installs a puppet government. It took some time to convince you, but even you can see how poorly this has gone for Russia. They thought they would be in Kyiv by now. Now they are simply hoping to hold onto the territory they already occupy.

They're going to take over 40% of the country and ply the remainder into compliance. People in central and western Ukraine are hostile to Russia, the Russians can't absorb them, and won't even try.

What they're going to do is to keep grinding down the Ukrainian army and degrade Ukraine's ability to function as a country, starting with its power and transport grid. Russia can't conquer Kiev, but they can turn the lights off, cut off the heating and running water and make the city unlivable. They're going to start doing to central Ukraine in year 2 of the conflict what the US did to Iraq in day 1 of the invasion. Ukraine has already lost over a quarter million troops, while Russia is now fielding an army of half a million. They can raise an army twice that size, or more, if needed. There are 25 million male military veterans under 50 in Russia, they've mobilized less than 2% from that pool in their current first round of mobilization.



The point that is important to understand here is that Russia has complete escalation dominance over Ukraine. What NATO did in its all-out military assistance to Ukraine is to artificially raise their pain threshold way above what it would have been. Russia is going to keep ratcheting up their grip until that threshold is reached.

Ukraine is holding off some of its best troops in the main cities in order to clamp down on potential pragmatists, like the poor fellow who was part of their negotiation team last March who was summarily executed for being too accommodating.

golden sloth said:

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And another little fact, Russia is shipping Ukranian children to Russia to be raised as Russians. Current estimates are between 150k and 200k kids have been relocated.

That is one way to address a demographic shortfall.

https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6

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Of course you're going to take everything in that article at face value. There are two very basic elements that contradict their narrative:

1- nearly all families in the Donbass have relatives in Russia, so it would be normal for many children in war-torn regions to be sent ro safety there. There are somewhere around 3 to 5 million Ukrainian refugees in Russia today.

2- the great majority of these orphans whose fathers were killed were orphaned by the Ukrainian army. Ukrainian president Poroshenko himself said in a speech that the children of the Donbass "will live in basements" as a result of constant shelling by his army, in order for the rebel regions to submit to Kiev:



11,000 Donbass civilians were killed by the Ukrainian army between 2014 and 2021, including many children. At that point though, no one cared in the West.

Cal88 said:

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golden sloth said:

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And another little fact, Russia is shipping Ukranian children to Russia to be raised as Russians. Current estimates are between 150k and 200k kids have been relocated.

That is one way to address a demographic shortfall.

https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6

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Of course you're going to take everything in that article at face value. There are two very basic elements that contradict their narrative:

1- nearly all families in the Donbass have relatives in Russia, so it would be normal for many children in war-torn regions to be sent ro safety there. There are somewhere around 3 to 5 million Ukrainian refugees in Russia today.

2- the great majority of these orphans whose fathers were killed were orphaned by the Ukrainian army. Ukrainian president Poroshenko himself said in a speech that the children of the Donbass "will live in basements" as a result of constant shelling by his army, in order for the rebel regions to submit to Kiev:



11,000 Donbass civilians were killed by the Ukrainian army between 2014 and 2021, including many children. At that point though, no one cared in the West.

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Excellent point, Cal88.

The history of Ukraine & Russia didn't start in February 2022, as many of y'all seem to believe.

The only thing I would add is that it wasn't just the official Ukrainian military doing the killing in the Donbass; the Neo-Nazi militias, like Azov Battalion and Right Sector, were popular because they were free of whatever restrictions the Ukrainian military might have, and they could do what they wanted -- which was to terrorize and kill Russian-speakers and pro-Russian dissidents.

The 11,000 Donbass civilian deaths from 2014 to 2021, at the hands of the Ukrainian military and the Neo-Nazi militias, disappeared from the Western narrative when Putin started gathering troops & tanks at the border. Anyone who raised the issue of the neo-Nazi militias was dismissed, as if there were no Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, & as if 11,000 Donbass civilians hadn't died, with many more beaten & terrorized.

These murderers were turned into saints by Western media as soon as the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. It's understandable -- truth is the first casualty in war, after all -- but if we're going to find a way to end this conflict without incinerating the planet, people on every side are going to have to take their blinders off & come to grips with who they are.

I will go on record here saying that Poland will NOT invade and participate in a carve up of Ukraine. That's astonishingly nuts.

Can you please comment on the alleged Nazi extremists in Eastern Ukraine.