[W:#23,579]Ukraine War Thread

[JANFU]

 

[Schrott]

The judgement of history is in, the Russian people and their culture is one of insatiable entitlement, paranoia, hostility, xenophobia and a proven inability to acquire anything like democratic and humanitarian values. You can't name a single fraternal, civic, or humanitarian organization with its origins in Russia. Russian history is barren of great humanitarians and organizations for a reason; there is no Nelson Mandela's, Albert Schweitzer's, Mother Teresa's, Gandhi's, Jane Adams, Florence Nightingales, Clara Barton's, Henry Dunant's or Oscar Schindlers. Indeed, Notably absent from the founding international convention for the red cross was Russia, although the rest of Europe embraced it. Russia, of course, had no interest in the first Geneva conventions either.

Equally alien to Russian culture is the whole notion of civic engagement and service organizations, thIe voluntary bonding of communities for doing good work. There never has been men's business lunches and women's afternoon teas that blossomed into national voluntary associations for public service, as happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Doing public good combined with private camaraderie in social clubs was a backbone of American life, focusing on schools, libraries, and parks which then federated with a national organization. The poor peasants and blue collars of Russia couldn't even conceive of such selfless service of good will, as such Rotary, Optimists, Kiwanis, Lions, etc. could never have existed.

Indeed, the notion of the rich oligarchy of Russia ever having the slightest interest in emulating the work of the foundations of Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, etc is laughable. Today 25 of the top individual donors in America (eg Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc) have given away $150,000,000 in charitable work - a public ethos rare or unheard of in Russian oligarchic culture.

No, the facts speak louder than all of the craven worm tongues of Russophile worship and their absurd propaganda. Russians are a barbaric and savage people, impossible to rule except under a top down and ruthless autocracy, a kleptocracy and Mafia state that uses mutual assassination as normal business

Why are you so blind to the obvious?

I add one more thing, There is no way marker in Russian/Soviet history, where they developed a social system, a philosophy of social systems like health care, retirement, unemployment, equality, the rule of law, division of powers. All those system where developed, thought about and in the end established in todays western world. The most important point, they came from the people, the pressure they created.
Lenin is a child of the West, but what he did not get, he used ideas and philosophies, that where not created by the people of Russia.
Russian people where never part of this revolution, which started with Luther, a rather long and rather bloody affair.
The seed of freedom, laid down in central Europe, hundreds of years ago, that never happened in Russia. It is not in their historical genes, its alien to them.

 

[justoneman]

"civil war."

"border dispute."

Russian propaganda.

What do you call it when two groups were fighting each other in the Donbas? It is a civil war and very obviously so.

 

[Litwin]

 

[Litwin]

Ukraine needs to get in touch with all the US private air force contractors. They could handle the job quickly.

 

[jpn]

It turned into a civil war after the coup when the Ukrainian Regime decided to attack people in Donbass,didn't you know that?

Simple-minded Russian propaganda.

The insurgency never would have gotten off the ground without massive Russian support. By the fall of 2014 the Russian military involvement in this war became so obvious that both Russian officials and separatist leaders claimed with a straight face that Russian soldiers had either accidentally crossed into Ukraine while patrolling the border or come over while on leave to fight for their fellow Russians in Donetsk on their own time.

 

[jpn]

What do you call it when two groups were fighting each other in the Donbas? It is a civil war and very obviously so.

No, it was a small number of Ukrainians allied with a large number of Russian insurgents.

While the post-Euromaidan government in Kyiv was unpopular in the country’s east, where two-thirds of respondents in a Pew Research Center poll in April 2014 thought the new leadership was having a “bad influence” on the way things were going in Ukraine, separatism had little appeal: Only 18 percent of the eastern population thought regions should be allowed to secede, and even among Russian speakers only 27 percent were in favor of allowing secession.

 

[JANFU]

 

[jpn]

Excellent article in the NYT on logistics. A few snippets [non-paywall link here]:

From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine​

In the first 10 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Washington to approve $33 billion in military aid so far, the United States sent Ukraine so many Stinger missiles from its own stocks that it would take 13 years’ worth of production at recent capacity levels to replace them. It has sent so many Javelin missiles that it would take five years at last year’s rates to replace them, according to Raytheon, the company that helps make the missile systems.​

​

If a large-scale war broke out with China, within about one week the United States would run out of so-called long-range anti-ship missiles, a vital weapon in any engagement with China, according to a series of wargame exercises conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.​

[...]​

That habit has also extended to European allies such as Poland, which has committed to buying F-35 fighter jets, which cost about $80 million a piece, but not enough missiles to use them for more than about two weeks in a war, said Mr. Hayes, the chief executive of Raytheon, whose Pratt & Whitney division builds engines for the fighter.​

​

“We spend a lot of money on some very exquisite large systems, and we do not spend or focus as much on the munitions necessary to support those,” Mr. Hayes said in December. “Nobody’s buying the weapons systems necessary to engage for anything other than a very, very short-term battle.”​

​

The article goes on to talk about how the DOD is trying to jettison a just-in-time philosophy of keeping inventory low and instead focusing more on production capacity. We're shifting from a mind-set in which we're keeping spending to a minimum to one of preparing for a long-term high-intensity war. It's interesting to think how in a few year's time NATO is going to be far more robust and equipped as a result of Putin's invasion. China may feel its window for invading Taiwan may be closing--the US is going to have far greater manufacturing capacity in a fairly short time. For example, the White House’s proposed budget just for Air Force missile procurement is set to jump to nearly $13 billion by 2028 from $2.2 billion in 2021--if the Republicans don't block it.

Even anti-trust regulators are getting into the act, with the Federal Trade Commission moving last year to block a $4.4 billion plan by Lockheed Martin to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne and prevent further defense industry consolidation.

 

[Luce]

Thats just racist tripe.

Russians are a race?

 

[justoneman]

No, it was a small number of Ukrainians allied with a large number of Russian insurgents.

While the post-Euromaidan government in Kyiv was unpopular in the country’s east, where two-thirds of respondents in a Pew Research Center poll in April 2014 thought the new leadership was having a “bad influence” on the way things were going in Ukraine, separatism had little appeal: Only 18 percent of the eastern population thought regions should be allowed to secede, and even among Russian speakers only 27 percent were in favor of allowing secession.

No it was the ethnic Russian majority population in the Donbas getting attacked by the other Ukrainians. It was and is a civil war.

 

[Luce]

Well i have seen no evidence of it just accusations usually from the Nazis in kiev,what i have seen is evidence of Ukrainian war crimes POWs tortured and murdered and civilians used as human shields.

Right on, comrade.

Too bad none of that is true.

 

[Luce]

No it was the ethnic Russian majority population in the Donbas getting attacked by the other Ukrainians. It was and is a civil war.

It's a foreign invasion.

 

[Luce]

No the Russian people are not a blood thirsty people. You are doing what is often done. You are demonizing who you perceive as your enemy. Unless you are Ukrainian, they are not even your enemy.

Which is why they bomb apartment buildings repeatedly and intentionally, and murder POWs.

 

[Luce]

Its called war and they are in the process of winning it.

Yes. Tens of meters, even. woohoo!

 

[Luce]

Sure the Ukraine army is formidable and they received billions and billions of dollars and arms from the west which most certainly has allowed the Ukrainians to fight longer than they would have.

And they're gonna get more. Dig deep, my dude.

 

[justoneman]

It's a foreign invasion.

Sure and the Iraq war was a foreign invasion too. The American revolution was a foreign invasion as well, with the French fighting alongside the American revolutionaries, against the British government oppressing them.

 

[justoneman]

And they're gonna get more. Dig deep, my dude.

Sure we are going to destroy our economy even further and the Ukrainians and the Russians are going to die by the 100s of thousands. It needs to stop.

 

[jpn]

No it was the ethnic Russian majority population in the Donbas getting attacked by the other Ukrainians. It was and is a civil war.

Nope. Mostly it was Russian agi-prop. Audio recordings of intercepted conversations between top-level Putin advisor Sergei Glazyev and various pro-Kremlin activists in southern and eastern Ukraine in late February and early March of 2014—widely regarded as authentic—show that the Kremlin was actively instigating and financing separatist unrest in cities across the region.

It was an insurgency heavily dependent upon support from Moscow.

 

[Luce]

Oh, hey, some good Russians.

 

[jpn]

Sure we are going to destroy our economy even further and the Ukrainians and the Russians are going to die by the 100s of thousands. It needs to stop.

Putin could stop it tomorrow. Just retreat to his internationally-recognized borders.

 

[Luce]

Sure and the Iraq war was a foreign invasion too. The American revolution was a foreign invasion as well, with the French fighting alongside the American revolutionaries, against the British government oppressing them.

So what?

Sure we are going to destroy our economy even further and the Ukrainians and the Russians are going to die by the 100s of thousands. It needs to stop.

So get the Russians to go home.

 

[Juin]

It turned into a civil war after the coup when the Ukrainian Regime decided to attack people in Donbass,didn't you know that?

And one is surprised Russians have to believe the west has gone mad?

Apparently all ethnic minorities in eastern Europe- Kosovans, Slovaks, ethnic Albanians- want out of the majority groups they are under; ONLY Russians as an ethnic group are somehow supposed to not fret at a Kyiv regime that each passing day since 2014 has shown its true colours in suppressing Russian culture and language, adulation of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, suppression of the Orthodox Church!! I dont know whether it is just the reigning chronic Russophobia that leads folks to embrace this caricature of Donbass Russians who are supposed to prefer a regime in Kyiv bent on destruction of their culture as opposed to reintegrating with Russia

 

[JANFU]

Sure we are going to destroy our economy even further and the Ukrainians and the Russians are going to die by the 100s of thousands. It needs to stop.

US defence industry is hiring in all areas. They are normally large complexes, many with cafeterias

 

[Juin]

Putin could stop it tomorrow. Just retreat to his internationally-recognized borders.

Or he can keep fighting to liberate from Kyiv the Russians of Donbass and Crimea