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On March 01 2022 00:18 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2022 21:44 Sbrubbles wrote:On February 28 2022 21:16 Mafe wrote:
So assuming the vague hope that Putin will be removed from power internally doesnt come true: How could we get him to retreat in a way that doesnt make it look like a defeat (because I'm not convinced he would simply accept that)?
Ofc this depends on his true motives, about which there seems a to be some amount of uncertainty. Given that he most likely sees NATO as a genuine enemy, and that he wants to "unite the russian people" (my wording), then I guess he wont do without some kind of success in these areas. Do you think any of the following options would be acceptable for either side:
-Ukraine gets to join EU, but NATO formally guarantees it wont accept Ukraine. No EU soldiers from other EU nations are allowed to be stationed in Ukraine. In return, Russia keeps Belarus nuke-free. Maybe russia even retreats soldiers from there and NATO reduces presence in the Baltic states in return?
-The two "peoples republics" become independant (I dont see how Putin would ever accept any less), but are "demilitarized" and anyone still living their is free to join the rest of Ukraine. Imo their fate could be the biggest issue, and yes, it's basically letting an aggressor "win", which I'm not comfortable with at all, since it could actually encourage him to try something like that again in a few years.
-Ukraine reopens the water supply to crimea, in return crimea, dunno, lets Ukraine participate in exploiting the nearby oil fields?
Now that I've written this, I'm not really happy with the overall picture. I dont think the ukrainians deserve any of this. But atm I cant come up with anything better...
PS: If this post is too speculative, feel free to take it down. I was having similar thoughts, but it's hard to know what's even on the table. I would guess some agreement on DNR/LNR independence and acceptace of Russian sovereignty over Crimea? Would the Ukrainian people accept such terms? I really have no idea. There might be some Ukrainian promises of joining "just" the EU or some sort of NATO-without-foreign-troops, but after the current debacle, these promises might be of questionable value once the dust has settled (plus, they obviously don't depend on just Ukraine). Belisarius said it well that a middleground solution would be far more than Putin deserves and far less than he would accept, but still, gotta have hope that there's some acceptable solution out there for an immediate end to hostilities. I just want to mention Russia doesn't mind NATO, Russia minds the NATO infrastructure. WHich in this context probably mean other than the own countries army bases? Not sure. Russia addressed this multiple times and every time they said NATO infrastructure. Currently they're against the NATO joining because that means the risk of NATO infrastructure getting closer. This is kinda foggy as during the postSoviet time there were some promises around this and as it appears they were kinda iffy on both sides. Even in the Putin's speach it said NATO infrastructure. And again, I have no idea what that exactly means, but recently Russia told to Czech republic that we have nothing to fear as we have 0 NATO infrustructure here.
They've been ultra-prissy about the Aegis Missile Shield. There's one operational in Romania and another one in construction in Poland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System#Aegis_Ashore
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On March 01 2022 01:31 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2022 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
The only comforting fact is that there isn't an EU Army yet. Because all it would take is for say one French soldier to be shot followed by Article 5 being invoked and WW3 started. Also no idea if the EU would even allow Ukraine to become part of the EU right now.
Is their law system in compliance with the EU? IIRC it took years for ours to pass this check. Without the law system I can't see them being rushed through this. I'd view it more as the EU expressing support for Ukraine, and not like a serious fast track to get them fully joined while this conflict is ongoing.
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Since the start of the Cold War a whole bunch of American soldiers have died by the hands of Russians and vice versa, an EU army would not be the catalyst for World War 3.
Russia still doesn't have full air control, not even the most optimistic US agency predicted that one before the start of this whole thing.
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On March 01 2022 01:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2022 01:13 Erasme wrote:
Did anyone confirm the low stockage of ammunitions on the russian side? Where did you read that? I would doubt they are that badly prepared but at that point….
I'm on my phone rn but I believe someone linked a twitter thread from an ukr official yesterday, which is why i'm looking for confirmation.
So far this offensive reeks of miscalculations and lack of preparation. I wouldn't be surprised if they were running low on missiles for exemple.
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On March 01 2022 01:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2022 01:13 Erasme wrote:
Did anyone confirm the low stockage of ammunitions on the russian side? Where did you read that? I would doubt they are that badly prepared but at that point….
Speaking of preparations, most of the Russian soldiers didn't even know they were going to war. There are screenshots of messages taken from dead Russian soldier's phones with their parents. Parents completely clueless, asking where to send the package in Crimea etc. and soldier replying that he's not in Crimea any more, they were moved to Ukraine and told they'd be greeted there but instead people are calling them fascists, won't let them pass and are throwing themselves in front of their vehicles. They are told to kill everyone and anyone and the soldier feels absolutely horrible about it.
This is really messed up if you ask me, when you're sending your soldiers to war without even telling them about it. Although Russia is quite well known for throwing their obsolete armor and fresh recruits as a first wave to soak up enemy fire before sending in their actual forces.
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United States41548 Posts
Someone on askhistorians a while back wrote a really good essay about how our western popular conception of penal battalions, commissars, and waves of underequiped Soviet infantry is a product of the reliance on Wehrmacht war memoirs. The defeated German generals got to write the western narrative for the eastern front and painted a picture of conscripts forced forwards at gunpoint by political officers with no rifle and orders to pick up the rifle from the man ahead of them when he died.
The conclusion was that it was basically whitewashing and propaganda to explain their defeat by numerical superiority alone. The reality was that the Soviet army was, in the later years at least, well equipped, trained, disciplined, and professional while the Wehrmacht relied on horse and cart to supply poor equipment to a demoralized army.
Something to keep in mind when imagining Russian failures as part of a historical pattern going back to Soviets. You might better imagine Ukrainian successes as part of a historical pattern going back to Soviets.
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Russia has been banned from the World Cup. UEFA gas also banned Russian teams from the tournament.
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Considering how awash FIFA is in Russian money and influence, it's a notable turn. Hell, the country went from hosting a World Cup four years ago to banned. Not even North Korea is banned from qualifiers.
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No wonder Roman Abramovich is leading the push for peace talks.
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On March 01 2022 02:39 PhoenixVoid wrote:
Considering how awash FIFA is in Russian money and influence, it's a notable turn. Hell, the country went from hosting a World Cup four years ago to banned. Not even North Korea is banned from qualifiers. well they had to do something after the other 3 teams in the pool came together and stated they would refuse to play Russia.
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United States41548 Posts
It was basically a choice between banning them and watching them win after an undefeated run of sides refusing to play them.
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On March 01 2022 02:50 KwarK wrote:
It was basically a choice between banning them and watching them win after an undefeated run of sides refusing to play them.
Or worse more teams would join in and then decide they won't attend the World Cup. That would have been a disaster on an insane scale, so would not be surprised if Qatar basically gave the go ahead for the ban.
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Looks like Russia wasn't expecting Germany's recent actions, their ministry of foreign affairs basically just called them nazis. Can't find an English source yet.
+ Show Spoiler +
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Various things said by Russian state news within the past 12 hours that would be of interest here.
1. Ukrainian-Russian peace talks on Ukraine/Belarus border concluded after what looks like a full day. Both sides made statements suggesting they were productive and there were points of agreement. Plan is to take talks back to leadership, seek conditions that would lead to a ceasefire, and schedule follow-up talks on the Belarus/Poland border (looking at a map my guess is somewhere between Brest and Warsaw).
2. Putin had a call with Macron. Lot of stuff about reducing harm to civilians which I can only assume is related to objections to the situation in Kharkov (probably elsewhere too but that one has been pointed out both here and elsewhere as a big deal). Putin mentioned three conditions - recognition of Crimea, "demilitarization and denazification", and Ukrainian military neutrality. DNR/LNR recognition isn't mentioned as a goal.
3. Some talk from the Russian representative to the UN about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. He said that occupation of Ukraine is not a goal, that they are working to reduce impact to civilians in ongoing operations, and that any war crimes that occur should be investigated even if they come from Russian citizens.
4. The Russian Central Bank is doing a lot of monetary intervention to combat inflation. They're taking some pretty interesting measures there, basically a reverse policy of the Fed in that they're pulling out all the stops to stop inflationary rather than deflationary (i.e. recession) pressures.
Obviously the source is biased, so take all of those as you will.
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On March 01 2022 03:34 LegalLord wrote:
Various things said by Russian state news within the past 12 hours that would be of interest here.
1. Ukrainian-Russian peace talks on Ukraine/Belarus border concluded after what looks like a full day. Both sides made statements suggesting they were productive and there were points of agreement. Plan is to take talks back to leadership, seek conditions that would lead to a ceasefire, and schedule follow-up talks on the Belarus/Poland border (looking at a map my guess is somewhere between Brest and Warsaw).
2. Putin had a call with Macron. Lot of stuff about reducing harm to civilians which I can only assume is related to objections to the situation in Kharkov (probably elsewhere too but that one has been pointed out both here and elsewhere as a big deal). Putin mentioned three conditions - recognition of Crimea, "demilitarization and denazification", and Ukrainian military neutrality. DNR/LNR recognition isn't mentioned as a goal.
3. Some talk from the Russian representative to the UN about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. He said that occupation of Ukraine is not a goal, that they are working to reduce impact to civilians in ongoing operations, and that any war crimes that occur should be investigated even if they come from Russian citizens.
4. The Russian Central Bank is doing a lot of monetary intervention to combat inflation. They're taking some pretty interesting measures there, basically a reverse policy of the Fed in that they're pulling out all the stops to stop inflationary rather than deflationary (i.e. recession) pressures.
Obviously the source is biased, so take all of those as you will.
This:
On March 01 2022 03:32 Dan HH wrote:Looks like Russia wasn't expecting Germany's recent actions, their ministry of foreign affairs basically just called them nazis. Can't find an English source yet. + Show Spoiler +
Makes me think that "denazification" means "becoming a Kremlin vassal state". Once you reach the point where current day Germany looks like a nazi state, there isn't really a lot left.
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On March 01 2022 02:28 KwarK wrote:
Someone on askhistorians a while back wrote a really good essay about how our western popular conception of penal battalions, commissars, and waves of underequiped Soviet infantry is a product of the reliance on Wehrmacht war memoirs. The defeated German generals got to write the western narrative for the eastern front and painted a picture of conscripts forced forwards at gunpoint by political officers with no rifle and orders to pick up the rifle from the man ahead of them when he died.
The conclusion was that it was basically whitewashing and propaganda to explain their defeat by numerical superiority alone. The reality was that the Soviet army was, in the later years at least, well equipped, trained, disciplined, and professional while the Wehrmacht relied on horse and cart to supply poor equipment to a demoralized army.
Something to keep in mind when imagining Russian failures as part of a historical pattern going back to Soviets. You might better imagine Ukrainian successes as part of a historical pattern going back to Soviets.
You really shouldn't take information on this from some weird essay. The issue is well studied and not contested. There are records from allied armies (for examples, Polish forces fighting on Russian side of Eastern front) or even from Soviet archives. There are interviews with veterans and survivors from Red Army. You really think they lost 8,6-11,4mln soldiers compared to German (4,4-5,3 on all fronts) because they were well-equipped and trained?
Also, this is totally off-topic.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 01 2022 03:32 Dan HH wrote:Looks like Russia wasn't expecting Germany's recent actions, their ministry of foreign affairs basically just called them nazis. Can't find an English source yet. + Show Spoiler +
Eh, statement is a little more pointed than that. It complains specifically about them being delivered to "Banderite groups" i.e. the paramilitary groups that praise Stepan Bandera. Then a jab at Germany for saying "if that's who you deliver weapons to, did Germany ever really denazify itself?"
A little bit underhanded but it's not trying to say "you're Nazis for sending weapons to Ukraine."
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Google translate of the twitter says: The supply of German weapons to the ideological heirs of the Nazi accomplice S. Bandera makes one wonder - how comprehensive and complete was the process of denazification in Germany itself after the defeat in World War II?
Seems pretty obvious that Russia is trying to connect modern Germany to Nazis. Ironic considering current events. Is Putin going to order the invasion of Germany next?
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On March 01 2022 03:41 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2022 03:32 Dan HH wrote:Looks like Russia wasn't expecting Germany's recent actions, their ministry of foreign affairs basically just called them nazis. Can't find an English source yet. + Show Spoiler + Eh, statement is a little more pointed than that. It complains specifically about them being delivered to "Banderite groups" i.e. the paramilitary groups that praise Stepan Bandera. Then a jab at Germany for saying "if that's who you deliver weapons to, did Germany ever really denazify itself?" A little bit underhanded but it's not trying to say "you're Nazis for sending weapons to Ukraine."
It's roundabout, yes. But in the context that "denazification" is one of the main pretexts for their current invasion to suggest that Germany hasn't been sufficiently denazified on an official channel of the MoFA is absolutely mental. These are strange times in diplomacy.
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Russia to keep it's exchange closed for Tuesday as well.
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EPT
