Extremely sad to see how everyone has gone so deep into post-truth and magical thinking of "if I don't think about it won't be real", that a cool-headed assessment of facts is now a "blunt rhetoric".
Who is the "we" here?
Edit: To make an attempt at preventing flamebait, I'm asking who the "we" is that is being asked to sign up to fight back directly against Russia, and whether or not there is a proper democratic feedback mechanism in place to support such a fight. I've seen war, and wish to see this one deescalate.
Not to mention the risk of nuclear extinction which is very high. I’ve read that most mechanisms developed to avoid exactly such a scenario were dismantled and the Russian and US government aren’t even on speaking terms. WTF are US and EU politicians thinking?
The rhetoric was purposefully shaped into into an absolute victory or death, but the more realistic outcome would have been victory or end up like Belarus/Georgia.
To give an analogy that Americans might understand: imagine that a drug cartel imposed martial law on USA. Constant torture, living in fear, millions of wasted lives. That's literally the situation in occupied territories(since 2012).
I don't understand how people can think there will be less violence imposed on Ukrainians if they stop fighting. There is plenty of bloody evidence from Russian conflicts since 1990.
Your analogy is wrong, but some border towns might see it as familiar. The analogy you're looking for is more like if Mexico (as a Nation) declared war on the just the states in the US that used to be Mexican territory, and then used their internal drug cartels (that they tacitly let exist, and allow to force project into the continental United States) to help finance and facilitate the war. There's still a ton of things wrong with that analogy, but it's closer to what I think you mean if I'm steel-maning it.
Only correction would be that a legalized form of the cartel runs the government in Mexico too
My main point is that the legal system and various consequences in occupation are close to those in cartel land.
That's not the real question at hand. There are no deathcamps or slavery IRL and everyone who is not exulted by propaganda and actually has to care for their own skin understands that.
> There is plenty of bloody evidence from Russian conflicts since 1990.
Like what?
I don't understand how people can think there will be less violence imposed on Ukrainians if they are supported by a certain someone with actually plenty of bloody evidence of staging, escalating and participating in wars all over the world.
See bit about all working age men in LNR/DNR being thrown poorly equipped into battle. There is also evidence of farmers being forced to work occupied land for free. What do you call that if not slavery?
>> There is plenty of bloody evidence from Russian conflicts since 1990.
> Like what?
Already mentioned this elsewhere in thread.
That's not deathcamps. Same argument could be made for Ukrainian conscripts being thrown into battle just as poorly equipped. And it still wouldn't be deathcamps.
> There is also evidence of farmers being forced to work occupied land for free.
A solid one? I've already seen enough "evidence" of Russians eating babies and stealing asphalt and toilets.
> Already mentioned this elsewhere in thread.
Sorry, if there are no specifics, I won't be trying to guess.
Post-Soviet military frictions due to completely idiotically handled dissolution process are so full of myths and legends and are such a complex topic, that in practice most people have no actual idea.
Take for example Georgia of 2008, for which the "common knowledge" is so vastly different from the UN investigation conclusion.
Please post proof of “deathcamps” in Ukraine where families are being systematically murdered. I’m aware of filtration camps: https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/09/01/we-had-no-choice/filtr...
Most detailed content on war is in Russian and Ukrainian though you might find something in NYT or WSJ. They work directly with sources on ground.
International officials are preparing a report on Izium. They give previews in YouTube Livestreams so far ala https://youtu.be/2N696dD2NmY
Here is a text report in cleansing operations in Kherson https://nv.ua/ukraine/events/hersonskiy-zhurnalist-konstanti...
I don't mean a geographically restricted Nazi deathcamp. I mean whole country will be ruled by a mafia that executes you and your family when they don't like something in your past or present.
In general occupation is less violent than a war by definition. I don’t doubt that they would purge the military and administration, but the outcome would be more or less “Russia” for the majority of the people. Corruption, poverty, abuses of power.
Regarding your link, I don’t believe Ukrainian or Russian sources. They are propaganda organs of the state. When Amnesty International dared criticize Ukrainian war crimes it came under a torrent of abuse, one can imagine what kind of retribution a critical article from a local organization would receive…
AFAIK foreign journalists don’t get any access either and have to make do with what they’re told.
Abhasia, LNR, DNR have all been clensed of opposition.
LNR and DNR males are being forced into military operations like indentured servants of Russian empire.
What news sources do you believe?
Other countries like Eastern Germany, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, etc were under Soviet occupation for decades. I believe that the absolute worst case would have looked like in those countries. The more likely case would be a coup, purge of political apparatus and military bases.
I believe you’re talking about conscription in regards to the LPR and DPR. Yes, that’s bad, but to answer your question in the sibling comment… that’s war. Men have to fight whether they want it or not, unfortunately.
Where can one read from an impartial organization about what happened in the DPR and LPR? Does cleansed mean killed, or that they fled or were arrested? According to https://mondediplo.com/2022/09/09donbass life is as one would expect during war. Terrible…
This is despicable indeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oles_Buzina
Assassinations are common in Russia too, as are false flag operations.
See apartment bombings that led to second Chechen war.
The Second Chechen war had started in August 1999 when Chechen militants invaded neighboring Dagestan (Russian territory), with random skirmishes starting as early as May 1999
The bombings you are referring to had happened in September 1999, like a month after the conflict had already escalated into a war.
It's not hard to check the facts and timelines. Parroting every random legend or a conspiracy theory without critical thinking won't do you any good.
Furthermore this could be an assassination by Russian foreign killers similar killings in UK
> Furthermore this could be an assassination by Russian foreign killers similar killings in UK
That’s what ukrainian investigators are refusing to establish, even though the family of the victim is demanding the official verdict, with no success:
> The head of Ukrainian MIA Arsen Avakov has blamed a Ukrainian nationalist in the murder. All suspects were later released from custody with two (A. Medvedko and D. Polischuk) being placed under house arrest and one - cleared from all the charges. By April 2017 no progress was made in the murder investigation. On 28 November 2017, the case was forwarded from prosecution office into court, even though on 11 July 2016, it was reported a lot of major evidence, including photo robots of the suspects made by eye witnesses, CCTV footage and cell phone monitoring, has been lost from case materials.
Sounds awfully absolutist.
What's it like to tell victims of agression how they should feel about it?
What has the West done that will reduce the amount of suffering? Who is suffering less thanks to the US's efforts to make the war more brutal?
It isn't even that obvious that the Ukrainians would be badly off in some hypothetical world where they were conquered by Russia. They will definitely be worse off now that there is a partly mobilised army heading towards their territory. Russia is ramping up the destruction that they are going to unleash. In a predictable fashion, responding to actions by people who aren't interested in reducing suffering, calming things down or promoting peace.
I don't fault the Ukrianian's for defending themselves, but the US deserves a lot of heat for the strategic mess they're manoeuvring in to.
Excuse my Russian but idi nahui with that kind of thinking.
It was unavoidable because despite what Russia says they likely started this war over natural resources in Ukraine, they saw that Ukraine was going to become a massive provider of natural resources to the EU and saw that as a threat.
Because, if its really over NATO, why isn't Russia invading Finland?.
Ehh, "likely". Seems to me like there were quite a lot of much more pressing factors.
> Because, if its really over NATO, why isn't Russia invading Finland?.
Why would it? Russia had warned Finland of repercussions of deploying NATOs military infrastructure.
NATO does not exist in a vacuum and we are not playing magical alchemy here:
Finland is a stable country with solid governmental and social institutions, that cares for the long-term prosperity of its citizens and generally doesn't base its identity on anti-russian rhetorics.
Ukraine, on the other hand, recently had a revolution, collapsed all the stability institutions that it had managed to grow after the SU dissolution, has a government relying on populist anti-russian militant rhetorics and has a president dumb enough to seriously and openly discuss deploying foreign nukes or making their own (Ukraine's atomic industry could produce dirty bombs).
Finland in NATO is sad, but at least it's not immediately dangerous, as Fins are unlikely to be willing to pose as human shields for the US military infrastructure.
Nowadays Ukraine in NATO is a total disaster and at its best would be a repetition of Turkey-Cuba missile crisis, except this time there would be no Cuba and no deterrent.
How is Finland in NATO sad?, Finland has joined the largest defensive military alliance in the world, and they clearly felt as a country that had been invaded by the USSR in the past that they needed more protections.
Russia won't even breathe in the direction of Finland now, because Russia cannot handle NATO and Russia knows it.
I was talking about Russian perspective.
> the largest defensive military alliance in the world
Putting aside the question of whether large military alliances are a good or a bad thing, NATOs "defensiveness" and peacefulness is nothing more than a marketing slogan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations
One surely doesn't use toxic depleted uranium munitions for defense.
> they clearly felt as a country
What exactly is implied by "as a country"? Cuz I remember how some Fins were upset that there wasn't any specific voting process, but only a decision of politicians.
> invaded by the USSR in the past that they needed more protections.
If you are referring to the Winter war some years after the collapse of the Russian Empire (of which Finland had been part of), this has all been resolved a long time ago, and all the political will for conflict and related frictions had died out before any of us was born.
> Russia won't even breathe in the direction of Finland now
Did it though? There were no frictions up until Finlands decision to join NATO.
> because Russia cannot handle NATO and Russia knows it.
Russia already feels like it's handling NATO in Ukraine with all those NATO instructors and NATO weapons. Besides, I think by now it should be clear that "I dare you, watchagonnado" politics doesn't bring you to good places.
Russia says they are fighting NATO itself in Ukraine as a way to try and justify there armies poor performance in Ukraine, I dont think the Russian military actually think its fighting NATO in Ukraine and knows that NATO itself would wipe the floor with Russia, considering the performance of Ukraine using only some second hand NATO weaponry.
Says who? Cuz this awfully seems like western propaganda talking points, where it's always "we best, they worst"
It is an established fact that Ukraine's army was trained under NATO's instructors and since weapons are not clothing, being second hand doesn't really make it less effective.
(Un)fortunately there isn't really a benchmark against which one can compare Russia's successes or failures, all recent modern conflicts boiled down to hit and run tactics of safely bombing the complete shit out of some far away backwards country, assuming control of the flaming ruins, and then just dropping it for it to deal with the consequences by itself with no fear of repercussions, as it's just too far away.
Take Afghanistan for example: 20 years of campaign undone in like a week and it's not even a real problem for the US, as it all happens to be far away on another continent - they don't even have to deal with Tliban, unlike everyone else around.
Its obvious, if you think the Ukrainian military really represents the might of NATO you are kidding yourself.
> It is an established fact that Ukraine's army was trained under NATO's instructors and since weapons are not clothing, being second hand doesn't really make it less effective.
Yes but Ukraine does not have the numbers, nor the latest weaponry at all. Ukraine is pushing back Russia with a hand full of HIMARS and old Russian and Soviet aircraft that have been jerry rigged with HARM missiles and Russia and Soviet tanks, when Ukraine gets F16's and Ambrams tanks the difference will be even starker.
> (Un)fortunately there isn't really a benchmark against which one can compare Russia's successes or failures, all recent modern conflicts boiled down to hit and run tactics of safely bombing the complete shit out of some far away backwards country, assuming control of the flaming ruins, and then just dropping it for it to deal with the consequences by itself with no fear of repercussions, as it's just too far away.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq is comparable, it latest 26 days and was conducted thousands of kilometres away from the participants.
Russia cannot take a city that is less than 300km from their border in 6 months.
Thats the comparison.
I think it is a representative fraction of NATOs might.
You also probably don't assume that LNR/DNR soldiers with mosins assisted by Russian special operation corps represent Russian Armed Forces might, do you? I am not even considering CSTO here.
We have only fractions, but these fractions seem to be more or less on par.
> Yes but Ukraine does not have the numbers
Ukraine has overwhelming numbers, compared to LNR/DNR forces and Russian operation forces combined.
> when Ukraine gets F16's and Ambrams tanks the difference will be even starker.
And so Russia starts "partial mobilization" to match it, so will have to see how it plays out.
> The 2003 invasion of Iraq is comparable.
I don't know why some think it is comparable as it was yet another "bomb a backwards country" and run kind of war. Completely different goals, completely different methods, completely different repercussions.
The state of Iraq army was a joke compared to modern Ukraines, less in size, extremely poorly equipped virtually no air defense, key Iraqi army officers were surrendering or even declaring that they won't oppose the invading force.
The US had simply leveled the whole of Iraq, purged all the infrastructure and what they caputed was already reduced to a stone-age rubble, what a feat!
And the US couldn't care less what happens next with all the people, the territories, with bandits and other paramilitary groups. They just hit and then they simply ran to a safe haven beyond the ocean.
I was actually mostly keeping Iraq in mind when I said that all the previous modern conflicts were kinda meh. No one had fought an actual real modern army before, no one cared about infrastructure (and likely Russia won't be too, judging by recent Zelensky's speech), no one had to care about really controling, managing and restoring captured territories, didn't have to care about reinforcing own borders against retaliations, didn't matter how loyal or opposing the local population would be in a long term, and there was always an option to just run back to a far away safe haven, which they always ended up using. Zero real opposition from other key global players also seems kinda tengible.
Completely and totally incomparable.
So we agree that a small fraction of NATOs power that represents likely less then most of each seperate country is capable of holding back and likely defeating Russia.
> And so Russia starts "partial mobilization" to match it, so will have to see how it plays out.
Russia started a mobilisation (there’s no word of partial in the actual decree) because they are losing. But I’m sure that a bunch of conscripts in T62s will fare better then the current professional soldiers in T72s and T80s who lost close to a couple months gains in less then a week.
> I don't know why some think it is comparable as it was yet another "bomb a backwards country" and run kind of war. Completely different goals, completely different methods, completely different repercussions.
Iraq was a modern army at the time with dug in defences, they where also half a world away requiring a heavy amount of logistics and planning.
Ukraine is on the border of Russia.
> The state of Iraq army was a joke compared to modern Ukraines, less in size, extremely poorly equipped virtually no air defense, key Iraqi army officers were surrendering or even declaring that they won't oppose the invading force.
Doesn’t look like air defence is doing much for Russia in Ukraine either “what air defence doing” is literally a recent meme that mocks Russias poor air defence.
> The US had simply leveled the whole of Iraq, purged all the infrastructure and what they caputed was already reduced to a stone-age rubble, what a feat!
This is exactly what Russia does except with added rape and torture of civilians
And without the military progress either.
> And the US couldn't care less what happens next with all the people, the territories, with bandits and other paramilitary groups. They just hit and then they simply ran to a safe haven beyond the ocean.
I don’t think that the people digging mass graves for civilians care what’s happening to them either.
> No one had fought an actual real modern army before, no one cared about infrastructure (and likely Russia won't be too, judging by recent Zelensky's speech)
Russia has been bombing infrastructure and civilian targets from day 1, they don’t care about infrastructure either.
> Completely and totally incomparable.
Id still say it’s pretty comparable given it’s distance. But I can understand why others wouldn’t.
It kinda makes Russias army look pathetic, but then again that’s what they are.
Consider that quite a lot of what you hear is a wartime propaganda and everyone is lying. But, one could treat this as kind of a poker game and infer quite a lot from it: e.g. in his last speech Zelensky accused Russia of attacking infrastructure. But why would he do that if that was supposedly true from day 1? Why the sudden change of rhetoric on what is supposed to be non-news and yet-another-day-of-the-same-thing? Maybe cuz this time Russians had actually started doing this on purpose, rather than as random collateral?
Same for all the "evil Russians rape and torture" - Zelensky ended up firing the official who was pushing this narrative. Why? Maybe cuz their latest ramblings became so incoherent, it might have caused suspicion and could have hurt the public image?
> Id still say it’s pretty comparable given it’s distance.
Distance to what? IMO, the most comparable thing to Iraq would be Russian campaign in Syria.
Perfect timing, you can now read the independent UN report that says Russian troops raped and tortured children in Ukraine.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/09/update-chair-ind...
ill quote it for you.
"The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.".
> Distance to what? IMO, the most comparable thing to Iraq would be Russian campaign in Syria.
Its distance from the countries fighting the actual war, in Iraq countries where fighting a war thousands of kilometres way from them, in Ukraine Russia is fighting on its doorstep and still failing.
Would be curious to compare it with Ukraine's normal numbers.
> Its distance from the countries fighting the actual war, in Iraq countries where fighting a war thousands of kilometres way from them, in Ukraine Russia is fighting on its doorstep and still failing.
Ok, clearly, you haven't read all the parts where I describes the difference of "hit and run" and fighting near the border. The US can't even secure it's border against civilians and had to build a wall. Even it's border patrol is a branch of customs, rather than a branch of military. I feel like you ignore the difference between simple "hit and run" and complex territorial defense on purpose.
How exactly are more modern weapons making the war more brutal? More precise weapons are strictly less brutal than barely targetted crap Russians use. Longer range weapons can be used to destroy stockpiles of this barely targeted crap before it's used, etc.
Spinning this to a problem caused by the West is extremely naive.