Russia has now invaded Ukraine (Putin, Iran, Iraq, Mossad)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I bet Israel wouldn't want this as their national motto lol. Germany is another historical power just like Mongolia and Russia. But you know when powers start sinking they're ready to commit atrocities, I kid you not - just like the Ottoman empire/Turkey in the 19th century.
This guy is my favorite Ukraine war reporter. He reports stuff a few days before major news outlets report them. This video is a few days old. In the video he reported that Russian invaders proclaim the city of Kherson an independent Republic. Do Crimea and the Donbas regions bring a bell? Yep, that's how Russian invaders put up fake referendums and elections in regions they control.
How do they do it? They can do it a number of ways. Replace the population with Russians. Threaten the locals at gun points or by withholding food and water. Threatening to harm their family also do the tricks.
This guy is my favorite Ukraine war reporter. He reports stuff a few days before major news outlets report them. This video is a few days old. In the video he reported that Russian invaders proclaim the city of Kherson an independent Republic. Do Crimea and the Donbas regions bring a bell? Yep, that's how Russian invaders put up fake referendums and elections in regions they control.
How do they do it? They can do it a number of ways. Replace the population with Russians. Threaten the locals at gun points or by withholding food and water. Threatening to harm their family also do the tricks.
And here is an excellent analysis on what this actually means. I never thought I'd be sourcing Dailykos for military analysis but let's face it we are living in a crazy world right now.....these guys are doing a really good job on this particular subject. This is a great analysis on the the weapons needed for Ukraine to go on the offensive.
Obviously, tanks don’t do long-range artillery strikes. This is what happens when a journalist (and editor) who doesn’t understand the topic ends up writing about it. But what it does mean is that the US will help transfer old Soviet-made military equipment being phased out of Eastern European NATO countries, including tanks, artillery, and likely other gear as well.
This decisions follows in the footsteps of Germany allowing the transfer of 56 Czech-owned (but German manufactured) BMP-1 armored personnel carriers (with Swedish upgrades), and the United Kingdom sending artillery guns. These decisions broke the taboo against “offensive’ weapons, and now the floodgates are opening.
This guy is my favorite Ukraine war reporter. He reports stuff a few days before major news outlets report them. This video is a few days old. In the video he reported .....
Artur Rehi is one of my favorites. His English is pretty good and understandable by nearly everyone. And sometimes he is very, very funny.
Rehi, on YouTube, was the first person I saw to report the Russian communications problem, which everyone has now reported, as well as the fact that the US delivered some badly needed Russian made anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.
Apparently, he said, the US has a way of acquiring just about anything they want in order to take a look at it.
I am also reading that families are being denied compensation, since the soldiers did not die in a “war”.
Sad article. An interesting quote from it:
"In these shattered neighbourhoods around Kyiv, the Russian paratroopers were outmatched by the Ukrainians. And given that the defenders were in many cases simply local defence units or reservists, that speaks to a basic failure in the VDV's system of training and recruitment." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60946340
Local units, of course, have the advantage of situational knowledge, community support, and motivation. Earlier another poster mentioned the large sums of money the FSB paid to Ukrainians with no return. Ukraine did not welcome the invasion. He/she speculated the FSB pocketed it. A Bulgarian investigative reporter analysis: "Russia poured billions of dollars into the pro-Russian opposition only to find out that they simply embezzled the money without creating a meaningful electorate." @christogrozev
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidt1
This guy is my favorite Ukraine war reporter. He reports stuff a few days before major news outlets report them. This video is a few days old. In the video he reported that Russian invaders proclaim the city of Kherson an independent Republic. Do Crimea and the Donbas regions bring a bell? Yep, that's how Russian invaders put up fake referendums and elections in regions they control.
How do they do it? They can do it a number of ways. Replace the population with Russians. Threaten the locals at gun points or by withholding food and water. Threatening to harm their family also do the tricks.
Alexey Arestovich in 2019 (obviously three years earlier) predicted People's Republics would be proclaimed in Khakov, Sumy, Chernigov, Odessa, and Kherson, presumably with some degree of local support and the elites paid off. That did not happen, with the possible exception of Kherson that Ukrainians say 'fell too easily' then allowing Russians to fast-sweep out of the Crimea soon encircling Mariupol.
This comment on Kherson from a Russian newspaper: @MoRientalist
"Novaya's reportage from Kherson reveals the importance of local authorities in the war. Governor Hennadiy Lahuta & local law enforcement fled on the 1st day of war without a fight. Territorial defense forces were not formed at all. As simple as that."
And here's a thread unroll from a German Kyiv-based political analyst, Mattia Nelles, focused on (eastern) #Ukraine. Fascinating analysis that echoes one made earlier on how different Ukraine is in 2022 compared to 2014. Some snippets:
Quote:
From the Odesa mobster, to Kharkiv, Dnipro and the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhia no one switched sides [looks like he disagrees on Kherson]
... That wasn’t the case in 2014/15, especially in Donetsk and Luhansk, where some of the local and regional elites were sitting it out (like Akhmetov) waiting to see how the tide would turn.
... Fast forward to 2022. Unlike Russia thought, there was no big pro-Russian local network ready to receive the “liberators”. Quite the opposite: local, regional & national elites usually bickering with each other have showed a remarkable unity and work together against Russia.
... Many of the local elites were first and foremost pro-themselves and the pro-Russia card was not a decisive factor in local politics.
... Lastly, the local elites in the south & east had 8 years to observe how the Kremlin and its functionaries treated the old local elites in Crimea & the occupied Donbas (as well as Russia proper)
... PS: this is a totally incomplete analysis not mentioning a strengthened local and national identity, the local and central state general administrative capabilities (including bigger investments into police, intelligence and army) as well as less corruption… https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...637297152.html
Putin, of course, grasps the power of local authorities and apparently thought he'd paid them off. Only to have gotten cheated. No wonder he so hates the Ukrainian oligarchy. He has his Russian oligarchs well under control.
As for public opinion, violence in the Donbas started slowly. An invasion gives the violence right up front in people's faces, and for all their grievances against the central government most simply do not want war. What sane person does?
Last edited by EveryLady; 04-02-2022 at 10:34 AM..
"Andrii Portnov [in Ukrainian Андрій Портнов, in Russian Андрей Портнов, in Polish Andrij Portnow] is a russian speaking Ukrainian historian, essayist, and editor. He is a Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina and a Director of the PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrii_Portnov
Once again: how hard it was to provoke violence within Donetsk and Luhans, which echoes the Strelkov complaint:
Quote:
The former head of the Luhansk SBU Oleksandr Petrulevych has asserted that the people behind the occupation of his former office were actually counting on the SBU to open fire on the protesters. This would have served, Petrulevich claimed, as a reason for Russian ‘peace-keeping forces’ to enter the region. ... Only Donetsk and Luhansk experienced the ‘diversion scenario’, in which activists fresh from the annexation of Crimea coordinated events on the ground in eastern Ukraine. [This would be Strelkov, of course, who is later named as Igor Girkin.] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...aine-was-lost/
I'd gotten the sense that much of Ukraine consisted "Donbas people" different, with certainly a higher number of ethnic Russians and a different history. This author goes there:
Quote:
Without a doubt, the moods of local populations and their specific histories played a role in all of the above. The rapidly developing coal industry defined the demographics of the Donbas throughout the 20th century. In turn, this socio-economic dynamic gave rise to a cultural identity: a mix of freedom and force, a characteristic respect for labour (particularly miners) and physical power, a rejection of ethnic exclusivity, a tolerant attitude to prison (explaining, for instance, why Yanukovych was not at all seen as an outcast despite his two terms in prison), a high percentage of pensioners and weak ‘creative class’. ...
We should also take into account the Donbas’ characteristically hostile and cautious attitude to Kyiv (and any other supraregional power), as well as its sensitivity to the discriminatory rhetoric that Ukrainian politicians and public figures have permitted themselves to use when speaking about ‘residents of the Donbas’. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...aine-was-lost/
This author also highlights the importance of the first deaths saying:
"On 22 January, 2014, Serhii Nigoyan and Mykhailo Zhyznevsky were shot on Hrushevsky Street in central Kyiv. For the first time in independent Ukraine’s history, people had been killed during a mass protest. " https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...aine-was-lost/.
This, of course, immediately followed Yanukovych's passing laws restricting civil liberty and freedom of speech laws then allowing "harsh enforcement" of them by the Donbas-based Berkut. Violence then started spreading.
Quote:
The war on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions arose through a combination of circumstances. Most importantly: the behaviour of local elites and paralysis of the police, Russian intervention (including military) and the indecisiveness, mistakes and miscalculations of Kyiv. In the cases of Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv, both the decisive and unmistakably pro-Ukrainian actions of local business and political elites and the tangibly reduced activity of pro-Russian forces were key factors for keeping these regions in Ukraine. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...aine-was-lost/
Portnov attaches a link to the Putin ‘Novorossiya’ project Putin announced on his ‘Direct Line’ show on 17 April, 2014, to include ‘People’s Republics’ in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXr-oLbT8Qc
It's in Russian but Putin is giving a history lesson, objecting to the Ukrainian oligarchy, naming the territories to be Russified. Google translated a few of the comments where some object to Putin's version of history with this one interesting if only because of the mention of Abramovich, who is deeply involved in this Putin project:
Quote:
And why didn’t the Chukchi ask why the hell did Putin send the oligarch Abramovich to us in Chukotka [a region in Siberia with restricted access]? And the rest of the regions in Russia also live under the oligarchs, no matter what the governor is, the billionaire is - and how is this to be understood? For some reason, the fact that the oligarchs are in power in Russia does not bother him, but he cares about Ukraine. How is it? Went completely out of my mind. The Soviet government was a million times smarter and it is not for this idiot to wonder why the Soviet authorities made such decisions. https://translate.google.com/? from above-cited Youtube video
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
