Ukraine

[Tom from Rubicon]

Re: Ukraine

I have skin in this game, $100 to UNICEF for refugee relief and another $100, 50/50 arms and mine mitigation.


Tom

[dutchpp]

Re: Ukraine

The ISW Russian offensive campaign assessment, June 4.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-4-2023

Key Takeaways

• Elements of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) conducted another limited raid into Belgorod Oblast on June 4 and are reportedly continuing to operate in a Russian border settlement.
• Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov responded to a RDK and LSR demand to negotiate for the exchange of captured Russian prisoners of war (POWs).
• The dissonant Russian responses to and reporting about the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast continue to suggest that the Russian leadership has not yet decided how to react to these limited cross-border raids.
• The limited raids and border shelling in Belgorod Oblast are increasingly becoming the current focal point for criticism against the Russian military leadership.
• Russian forces again targeted Ukraine with Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles on June 4 making it the fourth consecutive day of strikes across Ukraine.
• Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on June 4 that Ukrainian forces may have regained positions in southwestern Bakhmut, supporting repeated Ukrainian reports that Ukrainian forces maintain positions on the southwestern outskirts of the city.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces both claimed to have made limited territorial gains on the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut and Marinka.
• Ukrainian forces conducted local ground attacks and reportedly made limited tactical gains in western Donetsk Oblast and eastern Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) submitted a draft government decree that will no longer require an individual’s presence at an enlistment office for military registration.
• Russian officials continue to use rest and rehabilitation schemes to deport Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia.

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Ukraine

Russia for right or wrong believes there is an existential threat on their doorstep as evidenced by the huge military buildup of the Ukrainian army since 2014 clearly aided by the US and GB in pursuit of their interests, moreover Nato on its border of Russia was a red line. Any cursory reading of history and invasions over the Ukrainian plains will illustrate why they are so fearful. The Russian federation made that position crystal clear, again for right or wrong. This is analogous to the US accommodating Russia and China building up the Mexican military- not going to happen ever.

Russia does not believe that there is an "existential threat" on their borders.

Russia has made it patently clear over many years that they they believe that (1) Ukraine is not a "real country, (2) that it has not right to exist, and (3) it is, by their lights, properly a part of Russia.

Ukraine joining NATO and/or the EU would . . . complicate Russia's plans for Ukraine.

you can read Putin's — and Russia's — position on Ukraine here, straight from the horse's mouth.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

[skuthorp]

Re: Ukraine

Military aid to Ukraine is continuing unabated. NATO, the EU, most of the worlds advanced nations have sworn to see it through. Finland has declared herself ready for war. Poland already has fighters at the front. Russia has already lost. A lot more people will die before it's over but it will end with Russia defeated and humiliated. Putin is to blame. He must be removed and punished. The only openly vocal critics of Putin on Russia's media seem to be hard liners who want him replaced for being too soft. They want Ukraine smashed to oblivion. But getting rid of Putin isn't the end of it. Sanctions and reparations need to cripple Russia for years to come. Hard times for the citizenry, but they can't be allowed to rearm and try again in the foreseeable future. The punishment must fit the crime. Russia needs to change course. I don't think the world had been so united for a single cause in my life time. Size and bluster don't always triumph- I wonder what China is thinking about the global response to Putins expansionist dreaming. JayInOz

Revenge is probably popular, but a short term solution. With that we got WW1 part 2 some years later. My father wanted that after his experiences rescuing prisoners of the Japanese and I understood why. But it's a short term fix, and Ukraine would be foolish to invade over the old borders no matter how tempting a buffer zone may appear. As I have said before Russia may be defeated in this affair, but 'we' could never 'win', it's too big, and unless we can bring them along with us and change our own attitudes as well we will be doomed to another round in just a few years. China is another story, they could in time actually 'win' against Russia, but it might be ruin for both and I'm sure they know this.

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Ukraine

Paul G,
Get your facts right, NATO has been on Russia's borders for DECADES, in the Baltic and along the Norwegian border. All these nations ASKED to join NATO for fear of Russian aggression, the Baltic states more recently, and Norway from memory of the Russian occupation of the north in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

no "fear of Russian aggression" in the Baltic States — they are victims of Russian aggression. My family checked out of Latvia in 1944 after the Russians invaded. They took ship for Nazi-occupied Poland and Germany because, having been under Nazi occupation, while the Nazis were bad, the Russians were miles worse. My grandfather was both educated and a member of Latvia's National Guard. That put him on the Russian death list twice.

I know more than a few Ukies. T'aint none of them consider themselves Russian in any way, shape or form, outside of sharing most of an alphabet with them.

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Ukraine

For the USA conspiracy theorists, have a listen to this young Russian woman from about 3mins 30secs in.
At about 4:50 she gets into her stride and lays it out - matter of fact.

She certainly has got gronicles of brass.

[skuthorp]

Re: Ukraine

Well…. I suppose it depends how long they wish the war to continue………….. America has been fighting, with a few hangers on, wars since Korea, and arguably since WW2.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Re: Ukraine

https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/june-3-day-465-proud-patriots-frontier-frolics-the-beat-goes-on-salacious-lukashenko-a555f4a43688

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Re: Ukraine

ua-nato.jpg

[Edward Pearson]

Re: Ukraine

As a Pole, what are Belorussian people like? Do they want to be European or Russian? We saw the protests at the last election and could see the Pres. is hanging by a thread there. Looks like he's on his way out.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Re: Ukraine

As a Pole, what are Belorussian people like? Do they want to be European or Russian? We saw the protests at the last election and could see the Pres. is hanging by a thread there. Looks like he's on his way out.

May I echo Edward’s question?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Re: Ukraine

Perun’s latest offering; rather a thoughtful one:

https://youtu.be/fWKGYnO0Jf4

[Gerarddm]

Re: Ukraine

Ukraine must make 'major concessions' to Russia so US can focus on China: Vivek Ramaswamy (yahoo.com)

Meanwhile, back in the US a wannabee blink-and-you'll-miss-him GOP presidential aspirant publicly shows what a fool he is.

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Re: Ukraine

Vienna doesn’t want to be seen openly supporting Moscow, but it’s also wary of doing permanent damage to a relationship that has been quite lucrative for the country for decades. While Austria was hardly the only country to have eagerly embraced Russia in the run-up to Putin’s full-scale assault last year, no member of the EU has had more difficulty in letting go (Hungary doesn’t seem to be even trying).
Even as Austria has supported Ukraine with substantial humanitarian aid, taken in scores of refugees, endorsed European Union sanctions against Russia, and publicly criticized Putin for violating international norms, behind the scenes the commercial ties between the two countries remain firmly intact, especially in the areas of energy and finance.

(...)

Indeed, the most striking aspect of the political links between Austria and Russia is the extent to which they stretch across party lines.
Almost every living former Austrian chancellor, for example, looked east for employment after leaving office. Wolfgang Schüssel, ex-chancellor for the center-right People’s Party, joined the boards of Russian mobile telecommunications operator MTS and oil giant Lukoil. His Social Democratic successor, Alfred Gusenbauer, went to work for the “Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute,” a pro-Russian think tank set up by a Putin crony. Christian Kern, another Social Democrat, went on the board of the Russian state railway RZD.

(...)


The extent to which Austria’s leaders had painted the country into a corner with Russia became clear in during a state visit by Putin in 2014, just weeks after he’d annexed Crimea and triggered a war in eastern Ukraine.
On a sunny June day, the Russian president sat center stage in the opulent art nouveau hall of Vienna’s chamber of commerce, cracking jokes at the expense of his host, chamber president Christoph Leitl.
(...) Earlier that day, Fischer had received the Russian president with full military honors in the Hofburg, the former imperial palace of the Habsburgs.

The joking may have come to an end since Putin’s full-scale assault, but the underlying economic relationship has survived largely unscathed.

https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-russia-vladimir-putin-alpine-fortress-ukraine/

[sandtown]

Re: Ukraine

. , having been under Nazi occupation, while the Nazis were bad, the Russians were miles worse. .

You have written that previously, and it is fractally incorrect.

I refer you to Field Marshall Paulus's confession at Nurnberg - The Nazi plan from the get-go was to scour the earth clean of Slavic people.

The Generalplan Ost (German pronunciation: [ɡenəˈʁaːlˌplaːn ˈɔst]; English: Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide^[1] and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be undertaken in territories occupied by Germany during World War II. The plan was attempted during the war, resulting indirectly and directly in the deaths of millions by shootings, starvation, disease, extermination through labor, and genocide. However, its full implementation was not considered practicable during major military operations, and never materialized due to Germany's defeat.^[2][3][4