Russia, Ukraine and NATO 2022

[MFS62]

Do you think the average Republican realizes that?
Let innuendo work for both parties.

Later

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, Russia not being communist really undermines the commie-shaming operation.

I kind of just got the realization that the social media misinformation campaign that got the US to elect perhaps the worst possible president is also going to make a great platform for President Putin's international propaganda war.

[Lefty Specialist]

Yeah, Russia is a kleptocracy these days. And it is an inspiration to Republicans in that sense.

Ukraine will inevitably fall, but so far it's not going as smoothly as the Russians (and everybody else) expected. Even once they get control, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[MFS62]

From the Toronto Globe and Mail (paywall).

The conflict in Ukraine is really two wars: the war of arms and the war of ideas. With his overwhelming advantage in troops and firepower, Vladimir Putin seems likely to win the first. The second, he has already lost.

The moment his missiles started landing with a thud around Ukrainian cities, the world recoiled in shock, outrage and disgust. Whatever shreds were left of his tattered mask as a civilized world leader were torn away, exposing him not just as a liar who had claimed to have no intention of invading Russia’s independent neighbour but as a raving conspiracy theorist who saw Nazis hiding under the bed.

Instead of extinguishing the flame of Ukrainian nationalism, he rekindled it. Citizens of the nation he claimed should not even exist rushed to the blue-and-yellow flag, united in their determination to resist and endure. His attack left many of his own people embarrassed and appalled. Russia’s reputation, already so tarnished by his annexation of Crimea, his Olympic cheating, his murderous repression of dissent and his attempts to undermine Western elections, now bears a bright scarlet stain.

None of this may matter much to Mr. Putin now. He seems impervious to shame. But reputation matters. Ideas matter. The Soviet empire whose collapse he so regrets fell apart not just because its superstructure was rotten but because it lost the battle of hearts and minds. The Berlin Wall may have kept East Germans from fleeing to the West, but it showed the world that the Soviet system was a dismal failure, unable to retain its subjects except by penning them in.

Ukraine is Mr. Putin’s Berlin Wall. Military victory there, if it comes, will carry a cost far greater than any ground he may gain.

For let’s be clear: This attack is about far more than Ukraine. It’s part of a larger struggle between democracy and its enemies. Mr. Putin and his allies in that struggle, notably China’s Xi Jinping, say that they have an alternative to the fractious complexity of democratic life. They say that, with wise and powerful figures such as them in charge, citizens can enjoy prosperity, stability and national pride without the bother of changing leaders every few years.

Mr. Putin’s reckless gamble exposes the critical flaw in that claim. Strongman rule promises order, but it often ends in violence and chaos. Without the democratic checks on their power, strongmen grow isolated, arrogant and often unstable. Mr. Putin is a classic of the type. Surrounded by lackeys, ensconced in his Kremlin echo chamber, he has come to believe himself the messiah of the Russian nation, the only one who can save it from the encroachment of a corrupt and decadent West. Mr. Xi shows the same messianic tendencies.

For a good while, their argument seemed to be carrying the day. Russia came out of its post-Soviet malaise. Mr. Putin fought off challenges from liberal opponents and became a popular symbol of Russian resurgence. Mr. Xi’s China grew rich and powerful without free elections or a free press. Strongmen from Turkey to the Philippines looked on with admiration.

Democracy was in retreat. Even some of the oldest democracies were embroiled in internal divisions: Britain’s over Brexit and the United States over Donald Trump.

Ukraine could be a turning point. The world’s democracies, so weak for so long, are more united than they have been for years. NATO has a new lease on life. Even American politicians are for once on the same page.

The Putin attempt to crush Ukraine has reminded us both of the dangers of the unbridled strongman and of the value of democracy, still by far the best guarantor not just of freedom but of order. The reminder is overdue. Too often, we have taken our system for granted or succumbed to doubt about its merits. Too often, we have wondered if its opponents are right when they say they have found a better way. Didn’t Mr. Putin have a point when he said Russia had been humiliated by the West? Wasn’t Mr. Xi correct to say the Communist Party had delivered lasting peace and wealth?

Mr. Putin’s attack has clarified things. It is hard to see it now, as the bombs fall in Kyiv and Kharkiv, but Mr. Putin may have done the democratic cause a great favour.

Later

[Willets Point]

Alright, apparently there is at least one prominent Insurrectionist Party member who still thinks Russia is communist.

[Lefty Specialist]

Putin appeals to Republicans because he's white, pays lip-service to religion while being irreligious himself, and hates all the things Republicans do- Hillary Clinton, gay people, education, Muslims, a more diverse world in general. He's even trying to protect his southern border in ways Republicans can only fantasize about. To the rest of the world he's a monster, but to them he's Andy from Mayberry.

The most stunning thing that's happening here is that they're LOSING the messaging war. When Ukranians capture soldiers, they let them call their mothers back in Russia to let them know they're OK. That's genius. The fact that they've held out this long is pretty remarkable, but Putin's pissed now and he's going to double down. He was pretending to avoid targeting civilians up to this point. That may be coming to an end and it'll be more bloody from here on in.

The line in Shakespeare is: 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.' Mr Zelinskyy falls into that last category. He's been like Churchill rallying his country and it's quite amazing to watch. He's got a price on his head though, and the Russians either want him dead or making a public confession after being tortured. But for now, he's showing he's got big brass balls.

[Edgy MD]

I think we probably wrote history too self-aggrandizingly when we claimed to have won The Cold War. A new regime replaced the Soviet Union, but if we had truly won, we'd have disarmed the enemy instead of letting a new regime seize their arsenal.

[kcmets]

Of the four dozen disturbing things about the events of the last five days, what
I find most disappointing and sad is how many times I've heard people rally around
this as a Biden failure and how America would be better off today if Trump was still
in the White House this morning. The hook, line and sinker brainwashed that we share
a country with is just fucking mindboggling.

[Willets Point]

As I noted earlier, Putin timed the invasion during the Biden Presidency because he knew it would hurt a Democratic President in just this way.

[metsmarathon]

As I noted earlier, Putin timed the invasion during the Biden Presidency because he knew it would hurt a Democratic President in just this way.

yes. exactly.

he had no need to invade during trumps presidency because trump's presidency was making any such invasion easier.

[Edgy MD]

He was too busy invading the US during the Trump years.

[Lefty Specialist]

He wouldn't have invaded in 2020 because it would have interfered with Trump's re-election. He thought Biden and NATO were weaker than they actually were. The real story is how the Biden team got an incredibly diverse group of nations to sanction Russia. Even Switzerland is enforcing sanctions. Sweden is sending weapons, Germany is doubling defense spending and Sweden and Finland are now contemplating joining NATO. Putin had hoped for a 'shock and awe' quick capitulation of Ukraine, and the West being too divided to take effective action. He grossly miscalculated on both counts.

Biden does not get enough credit for the effective, unified western response. It simply doesn't happen without him, and not enough people realize this.

These sanctions are going to bite, and bite hard. The ruble is tanking, and he won't be able to use his foreign currency reserves to stabilize it. The only friend he has right now is China, who will probably quietly help him a bit, but not enough to offset losing the entire West.

The typical Russian is going to have a rough couple of months. The real question is how much will the oligarchs feel it, and what will they do when it starts to hurt.

Oil is over $100, so things are going to be a bit dicey on that front. It'd be nice if the Saudis helped out by increasing production, but they're Putin fans, too.

[kcmets]

Biden does not get enough credit for the effective, unified western response. It simply doesn't happen without him, and not enough people realize this.

Well, it's only been FIVE days.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Trump: "Putin is a genius!"

The orange dirtbag sociopath is so under Putin's thumb, that if Putin wanted to, he could probably make Trump eat his own shit turds on national TV.

[Lefty Specialist]

Biden does not get enough credit for the effective, unified western response. It simply doesn't happen without him, and not enough people realize this.

Well, it's only been FIVE days.

True, but once committed, it's hard to un-commit. Sure, there'll be 'leaks' and countries willing to help you get around sanctions. Iran didn't collapse when we put sanctions on them, but they did come to the table about their nuclear program (another thing destroyed by Trump). Putin won't be brought to his knees in 5 days or even 5 months. But these sanctions are pretty tough, and they're going to cause a lot of unrest among the regular people and oligarchs alike. And the longer they're on, the more they'll hurt.

Imagine what the Trump response would have been. He'd have turned a blind eye to it all and continued messing with NATO (which he wanted to withdraw from in his second term). Sanctions, if any, would have been piecemeal. Fox News would cover other things, like the disaster of Critical Race Theory in our kindergartens. And Vlad would have been laughing all the way to Kyiv.

[ashie62]

Nukes....On the table?

[Lefty Specialist]

Nukes....On the table?

No. It's bluster, and Biden didn't fall for it. Even on regular alert, our nuke forces and theirs get up to speed pretty quickly.

[seawolf17]

Seems like a terribly unsafe place to keep your nukes.

[MFS62]

Nukes....On the table?

No. It's bluster, and Biden didn't fall for it. Even on regular alert, our nuke forces and theirs get up to speed pretty quickly.

This Russia expert doesn't take nukes off the table: (long, but offers a complete picture of Putin and how he thinks)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... e-00012340

There’s lots of danger ahead, she warned. Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones. It’s important not to have any illusions — but equally important not to lose hope.
“Every time you think, ’No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course. It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Pat Robertson says Putin was ‘compelled by God’ to invade Ukraine to fulfill Armageddon prophecy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... a-ukraine/

Excerpt:

Televangelist Pat Robertson said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” in his decision to invade Ukraine, suggesting that Russia’s attacks are a precursor to an end-times battle in Israel.

___________

Who's gonna argue with Robertson? Pastors and ministers are always on the right side of history, so it has to be true. Also, God himself compelled me to write this post when he came over to my house for lunch yesterday and told me that he'd pay my cable tv bill for the next 12 months in return for this post. That was an offer I'd be nuts to refuse. I wonder if Robertson got the same deal from God to make that Putin statement. Anyways, what's good on Netflix this month?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Nina Khrushcheva, an international-affairs professor at the New School in New York and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, told me. She said the Russian leader [Vladimir Putin] appears to “have lost all grip on reality, more so than I was willing to admit only yesterday.” She added, “I didn’t think he was suicidal, but he clearly is, and is taking the world and us with him.” She described Putin as a “ruthless megalomaniac with a giant imperialist agenda” akin to Stalin and Mao.

Also:

Others compared [Putin] to Hitler. “There are many parallels between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who is now at Stanford University, tweeted on Thursday. Putin no longer appears to be a rational actor on the international stage, experts say. “I hate comparing people to Hitler, but Putin’s crazy talk is making it hard to avoid,” Stephen Sestanovich, a Russia expert at Columbia University, told me. “Did he think forcing all of his advisers to stand up on television and say, in such obvious discomfort, that they agreed with him would make the decision for war look careful and deliberate? My Russian friends suggest something different—is this guy losing it?”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-co ... r-criminal

________________

You don't have to commit mass genocide on the scale of millions to be rationally compared to Hitler. (As I was sayin' like ever since the orange piece of shit was, incredibly, elected US President in 2016.

[Fman99]

Others compared [Putin] to Hitler. “There are many parallels between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who is now at Stanford University, tweeted on Thursday. Putin no longer appears to be a rational actor on the international stage, experts say. “I hate comparing people to Hitler, but Putin’s crazy talk is making it hard to avoid,” Stephen Sestanovich, a Russia expert at Columbia University, told me. “Did he think forcing all of his advisers to stand up on television and say, in such obvious discomfort, that they agreed with him would make the decision for war look careful and deliberate? My Russian friends suggest something different—is this guy losing it?”

Reminds me of a super cringeworthy cabinet meeting that took place sometime during the orange shitbag era. Where they all kissed his ring.

[ashie62]

Nukes....On the table?

No. It's bluster, and Biden didn't fall for it. Even on regular alert, our nuke forces and theirs get up to speed pretty quickly.

This Russia expert doesn't take nukes off the table: (long, but offers a complete picture of Putin and how he thinks)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... e-00012340

There’s lots of danger ahead, she warned. Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones. It’s important not to have any illusions — but equally important not to lose hope.
“Every time you think, ’No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course. It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”

Later

I read this piece by Fiona Hill also. She is certainly no crackpot and it did unsettle my stomach some.

[MFS62]

My home telecom provider Frontier Communications just sent out an email to customers saying that all phone calls to Ukraine will be free.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Assassination plot against Zelensky foiled and unit sent to kill him ‘destroyed,’ Ukraine says

Excerpt:

A recent alleged assassination plot against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was foiled over the weekend and the Chechen servicemen sent from Russia were “destroyed,” a Ukrainian security leader said Tuesday.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said during a broadcast marathon airing on Ukrainian TV channels that officials were recently tipped off that a unit of Kadyrovites, elite Chechen special forces, was on its way to kill Zelensky. After Ukrainian officials were informed by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the Chechen special forces were killed Saturday on the outskirts of Kyiv, Danilov said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... pt-foiled/