Russia-Ukraine

[Arkitect]

Interesting:

China blames NATO for pushing Russia-Ukraine tension to 'breaking point'

Moves by U.S.-led NATO have pushed tension between Russia and Ukraine to a "breaking point", Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

That has been their official line from the start.

Neutral, but with a hefty side helping of "Blame Nato/USA".

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Top lawmakers reach deal on Ukraine aid, $1.5T spending

Congressional leaders have reached a bipartisan deal to provide $13.6 billion to help Ukraine fend off its invasion by Russia and assist European allies coping with the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

apnews.com

Um. No words, except don’t tell me "But this is different. We can afford this no problem."

 

[Thomas Veil]

Huh. Does the "Z" on the Russian vehicles mean that they think they are going up against зомбие?

It means Putin thinks of himself as

while he’s actually proving himself to be

​

 

[lizkat]

He kinda blew through the bit about the grain, which seems important if true.

Ukraine has had around 10% of global wheat market. And what is certainly true is that this is EXACTLY the normal time in Ukraine of preparing and sowing the grain fields. These few weeks, that's it for best prospects of a good harvest. Also, neither Russia nor Ukraine is likely to follow normal pattern for their substantial exports of fertilizer, due to Putin's invasion and the ensuing sanctions and manpower issues. This will affect costs of farmers around the world. While the American and other farmers may have better markets for their own grain harvests this year, first they have to spend (and borrow) to plant and nourish those crops.

 

[lizkat]

That has been their official line from the start.

Neutral, but with a hefty side helping of "Blame Nato/USA".

I think China is trying to split the baby... blaming "US-led NATO" will morph into blaming "NATO" because China can't afford to see Russian economy collapse AND risk further deterioration of Chinese-USA supply chain and other commercial relationships. Words matter. Emphasis matters.

Biden might want to build everything in America, but that will never happen with magic-wand effect because the USA is still a nation full of price-driven consumers and only a recent hat tip to the idea of paying workers a decent wage.

Yeah, sure, we like cushy bath towels like the ones used to be made in New England and then in South Carolina, but we gave those up 30 years ago for cheaper everything including groceries (and then, duh, lower wages) at Walmart.​

​

Yesterday i paid 99c a can for two cans of beets at a supermarket because not sure could get my next Walmart staples bulk order delivery (55c a can for those beets) before next snowdump. But Walmart is about to have pricing issues on a raft of things, the same as other grocers.​

​

Bottom line all the supply chains are up in the air, this time over more than just covid-related logistics. Right now consumers are mainly focused on gas prices because oil is the leading edge of reaction to sanctions. But we ain't seen nothin' yet on price jacks thanks to Putin-related sanctions. It's not just cheap toys and pricey electronics get made or processed for the west in China.​

And as for China's outlook, it was certainly never counting on Putin going for full regime change in Ukraine. Crimea one thing, Donetsk-Luhansk maybe another couple things (maybe they all look like Taiwan to China), but western Ukraine a bridge too far. This war instantly threatens the Chinese-Russian economic partnerships AND the supply-chain and other commercial interests China has enjoyed with the USA. OK "enjoyed" is too strong a word there: so, "engaged in and to mutual profit"...

I mean it had to be brutal for Xi to wake up two weeks ago and realize that the Russian end of the Sino-Russian economic arrangements had just became thoroughly unreliable, AND days later to realize that way past human rights issues in China, the USA was furious that China would even be trying to walk the fence on Putin's behavior versus Ukraine.

See China was trying to bake a nice cake for itself with the separate help of two countries now totally distracted and making a proxy war with each other in Ukraine while so far not using nukes. And "short" means only short of whatever Russia would like to do with Chernobyl, where it could decide to enrich uranium instead of just minding the radioactive waste levels there. China and the US may both wonder about that right along with Europe.

China still needs the USA and we still need China. It's nice to talk about making everything in America. That's not going to happen by next week, by end of quarter or end of 2022 or 2024 either. Xi knows that, the Biden WH knows that, but Putin's in a tunnel looking at his private and expanding map of Russia. Easy for him to glance up for a minute and say yeah the US sucks big time but see we have them over a barrel in Europe now.

China's trying to say to Vladimir uh, you got a mouse in your pocket? Who is "we"??

But all Putin hears is "US-NATO are to blame" and that sounds to him like justification to keep trying to subdue Ukraine, even as he loses hardware and personnel to Ukrainian resistance and thus thrashes his own country's economy even before considering the bite of western sanctions.

So China is waking up and will count the dollars it's putting on the line by fence-walking. The ruble is already worthless. China has a quintessentially mercantile mindset. I would expect it to take a more vigorous approach to getting Putin to back off his world domination demo in Ukraine pretty soon. The world could use all the help it can round up to that end.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I can’t get into the average Russian’s head, but they weren’t exactly cut off from information like, say, North Korea. If our military setup an “operation” in another country and most of the globe turned on us and crushed our economy as a result I think I would at least entertain the possibility that our government is the bad guys in this scenario and I wouldn’t buy some narrative that they all decided to act on some hatred of us for no good reason.

And maybe this is also a result of having a free (but often biased) press, but if the same happened to the US when we invaded Iraq I would probably assume we are the bad guys in that one too. Even without that cause and effect, a lot of Americans already felt it was an unjust invasion.

But I guess it’s up for debate what exactly the population is willing/supposed to do when they have a government that likes to run around and slaughter people outside your borders. You shouldn’t exactly look at Americans for a good example of changing government actions on military operations.

 

[Eric]

I can’t get into the average Russian’s head, but they weren’t exactly cut off from information like, say, North Korea. If our military setup an “operation” in another country and most of the globe turned on us and crushed our economy as a result I think I would at least entertain the possibility that our government is the bad guys in this scenario and I wouldn’t buy some narrative that they all decided to act on some hatred of us for no good reason.

And maybe this is also a result of having a free (but often biased) press, but if the same happened to the US when we invaded Iraq I would probably assume we are the bad guys in that one too. Even without that cause and effect, a lot of Americans already felt it was an unjust invasion.

But I guess it’s up for debate what exactly the population is willing/supposed to do when they have a government that likes to run around and slaughter people outside your borders. You shouldn’t exactly look at Americans for a good example of changing government actions on military operations.

From the sounds of it, at least with what we know, the Russian people don't seem to support this war. Having a free press is essential, we can argue about MSNBC vs Fox News all day long but in the end we have the option to choose our source and that's what it's all about and the reason we were all informed about the Iraq war.

It sounds like Russians did have access as you say, but has since been cut off and now only gets state sponsored news. My guess is that change alone makes their people even more uneasy about it. I don't blame their people at all, they're just victims themselves. As long as we placate that maniac Putin he will sacrifice them all, both at home and Ukraine and then whatever nation he wants to invade next. If you want it to end you have to cut the head off of the snake.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

From the sounds of it, at least with what we know, the Russian don't seem to support this war. Having a free press is essential, we can argue about MSNBC vs Fox News all day long but in the end we have the option to choose our source and that's what it's all about and the reason we were all informed about the Iraq war.

It sounds like Russians did have access as you say, but has since been cut off and now only gets state sponsored news. My guess is that change alone makes their people even more uneasy about it. I don't blame their people at all, they're just victims themselves. As long as we placate that maniac Putin he will sacrifice them all, both at home and Ukraine and then whatever nation he wants to invade next. If you want it to end you have to cut the head off of the snake.

That's another thing I was going to mention, if all news got banned for going against the government narrative I would be highly suspect of our righteousness.

And this may not be a popular view, but I also feel bad for a lot of cannon fodder level members of the Russian military, aside from murderous knuckledraggers that always make up some percentage of any military. Most of them didn't sign up for this situation.

 

[Arkitect]

And this may not be a popular view, but I also feel bad for a lot of cannon fodder level members of the Russian military, aside from murderous knuckledraggers that always make up some percentage of any military. Most of them didn't sign up for this situation.

And some of them are conscripted… despite denials by Putin.

Russia has admitted that conscript soldiers have been sent into Ukraine and that some have been captured by Ukrainian troops.

The admission comes after President Vladimir Putin vowed that conscripts would not be deployed and that Russian forces would rely on professional troops.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that “unfortunately there have been detected several instances of the presence of conscript-service military personnel” with units in Ukraine but that “almost all” of them had been recalled to Russia.

He added that some conscripts were taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces while serving in a logistics unit and efforts are under way to free them. Konashenkov didn’t specify how many conscripts had served in Ukraine or how many were captured.

Link

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

And some of them are conscripted… despite denials by Putin.


Link

I saw some article about a Siberian politician getting a tongue lashing for sending members of their police to Ukraine. He had to come up with some diplomatic way to basically say “take it up with Putin”.

As Russian deaths start piling up no amount of threats of being thrown in jail is going to keep their loved ones from protesting.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Rumor is that the whole Z thing in Russia is an attempt to create the equivalent of the MAGA hat or Swastika before the Nazi’s aspiration became apparent. It gives the intellectually lazy a sense that they belong to a group and want to advertise it. Sort of “My false flag attempt failed and all I got was this Z t-shirt”.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Rumor is that the whole Z thing in Russia is an attempt to create the equivalent of the MAGA hat or Swastika before the Nazi’s aspiration became apparent. It gives the intellectually lazy a sense that they belong to a group and want to advertise it. Sort of “My false flag attempt failed and all I got was this Z t-shirt”.

That’s kind of normal, tbh. There are countless symbols and such aimed at creating a team, including hammer and sickle.

 

[lizkat]

Rumor is that the whole Z thing in Russia is an attempt to create the equivalent of the MAGA hat or Swastika before the Nazi’s aspiration became apparent. It gives the intellectually lazy a sense that they belong to a group and want to advertise it. Sort of “My false flag attempt failed and all I got was this Z t-shirt”.

Yeah and per that updating AP News link from @Arkitect, all that Putin's getting at the moment-- despite his obsession with an imagined spectre of NATO missiles parked aggressively on the eastern edges of Ukraine-- is the actuality of a couple of US Patriot air defense batteries that have been moved from Germany into Poland, at Poland's request.

Wait, what? I can see Putin asking some generals.

Yeah. So there's that. He's stirred up the neighbors, who don't plan to become again or ever the satellites of Putin's fondly remembered USSR or its apparent wannabe successor-oppressor, the New Russian Empire that lives in his head.

Z might stand for zap, depending on how randy ol' Putin gets while fondling his new map of Russia before someone manages to sit him down at a table to make a mark on some paperwork that includes a map of his route back home.

 

[Deleted member 215]

That’s kind of normal, tbh. There are countless symbols and such aimed at creating a team, including hammer and sickle.

Or an Apple with a bite out of it.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Or an Apple with a bite out of it.

I have no idea what you’re referring to. No idea. Zero. Nada. I deny any implied allegation that I am addicted to products with the logo of a bitten apple on them. What a silly concept. You will hear from my lawyers.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Yeah and per that updating AP News link from @Arkitect, all that Putin's getting at the moment-- despite his obsession with an imagined spectre of NATO missiles parked aggressively on the eastern edges of Ukraine-- is the actuality of a couple of US Patriot air defense batteries that have been moved from Germany into Poland, at Poland's request.

Wait, what? I can see Putin asking some generals.

Yeah. So there's that. He's stirred up the neighbors, who don't plan to become again or ever the satellites of Putin's fondly remembered USSR or its apparent wannabe successor-oppressor, the New Russian Empire that lives in his head.

Z might stand for zap, depending on how randy ol' Putin gets while fondling his new map of Russia before someone manages to sit him down at a table to make a mark on some paperwork that includes a map of his route back home.

This brings me to a question for which I will use an analogy.

Let’s say on the sidewalk in front of my house there is a paper bag, pile of dog shit, and a book of matches. This is there as a deterrent in the ongoing dispute with these damn kids going on my lawn. At some point I hire a contractor to expand my house all the way up to the sidewalk. Do I then get to yell about the deterrent stockpile being right at my front door despite the fact that it never actually moved?

 

[yaxomoxay]

This brings me to a question for which I will use an analogy.

Let’s say on the sidewalk in front of my house there is a paper bag, pile of dog shit, and a book of matches. This is there as a deterrent in the ongoing dispute with these damn kids going on my lawn. At some point I hire a contractor to expand my house all the way up to the sidewalk. Do I then get to yell about the deterrent stockpile being right at my front door despite the fact that it never actually moved?

Ultimately, whoever has the best lawyers will be defined as “right”.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Russian Agent Maria Butina Claims Ukrainians Are Bombing Themselves

Maria Butina, the Russian agent who infiltrated the NRA, is pushing Putin propaganda by claiming Ukraine is bombing itself.

www.rollingstone.com

Hey, Putin found his My Pillow guy/woman! Complete with “tons of evidence”.

 

[lizkat]

Ultimately, whoever has the best lawyers will be defined as “right”.

Ah the rule of law again. Such a pesky notion.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Ah the rule of law again. Such a pesky notion.

Agreed. Completely.

For what it is worth, I've met (and worked with) senior Romanians who have told me (privately) that they deeply regret what happened to Nicolae Ceausescu following the Romanian revolution of 1989, for, they (now) believe that he should have been tried (and sentenced) in a properly constituted court of law, rather than face the form of summary justice that occurred at the time.