Ukraine and Russia: Answering common questions and issues

[WhatsGoingOn2022]

Hi, I am starting this thread due to the amount of misinformation and speculation I have seen on the boards around what is happening with Russia's war on Ukraine.

While I am by no means a leading specialist, I have a master's degree focusing on the defence and economics aspect of international relations, I work today in politics and have a lot of links in the area. Anything I can't answer I can at least point you to the people who can-- I naturally follow this incredibly closely.

I thought it might be helpful if myself and others with specific knowledge in this area could help to answer any questions you have, on anything from the war, to sanctions, to Russia's actions, to the fallout.

Thanks for this thread, it's really interesting. I wondered whether you had any thoughts about this article today? www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-to-start-talking-about-nuclear-war-crlrkf9bg

If I'm reading it right, it's saying that Putin may care more about the glory of Russia than the possibility of them being wiped out in a nuclear war, in the same way as suicide bombers act.

@theDudesmummy

I don't believe the BBC (or the NY Times, who have just pulled out of Russia for the first time in 100 years) have actually been banned from reporting at all. But were they to report actual reality the reporters could face 15 years in jail. Not sure what the BBC is planning to report now they say they are back.

This is yesterdays bbc report form Moscow. They’re being very careful with wording. I hope they manage to stay safe and keep reporting on the effects of sanctions etc in Russia. I wonder if any other news stations will be starting reporting again too. mobile.twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1501329175784955905?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

@theDudesmummy

I don't believe the BBC (or the NY Times, who have just pulled out of Russia for the first time in 100 years) have actually been banned from reporting at all. But were they to report actual reality the reporters could face 15 years in jail. Not sure what the BBC is planning to report now they say they are back.

The exact situation with the BBC is a bit complex I think: Russia has blocked their website and if you want to read/stream/listen to it in Russia you now need to go to the dark web, or via short wave radio. But Russia is geographically huge and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the situation was different on the ground across the country.

www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/04/bbc-website-blocked-in-russia-as-shortwave-radio-brought-back-to-cover-ukraine-war

Now they seem to be saying they are going to do some English-language reporting from Russia. Exactly what this means I don't know, it sounds more like interviews and footage from Russia rather than broadcasting to a Russian audience:
www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/08/bbc-resume-english-language-reporting-russia

thanks @Onceuponatimeinalandfaraway I hadn't seen that!

Shows exactly the value they have on the ground there. Hope it can continue

Russia was asking the chief of telegram for evidence of who their users supported and when he declined to give it, he was fired.

I can't trust any polls taken to gage Russian peoples feelings.
They may say whatever to Keep who ever is watching them happy.

Rather like Brexit.
It became so vicious that people kept their true feelings to themselves

Agree this plane stuff is embarrassing unless it's orchestrated.

Yes I wondered that about Russia and BBC. It says English language reporting. I still think that could be incredibly difficult and not sure what that looks like. Mind you the news article is filed under Enterainment Arts so perhaps it has more of a domestic focus.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60667770.amp

@Reallybadidea

Thanks for this thread, it's really interesting. I wondered whether you had any thoughts about this article today? www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-to-start-talking-about-nuclear-war-crlrkf9bg

If I'm reading it right, it's saying that Putin may care more about the glory of Russia than the possibility of them being wiped out in a nuclear war, in the same way as suicide bombers act.

This is my fear BUT I think (maybe it’s an inane hope) that he won’t go for all out war. Despite what people are saying I don’t for one minute think he’s lost his sanity. He won’t want Russia itself to take much damage, and he wants the resources to survive. I suspect he will use something nasty in Kyiv, whether that’s biological or tactical nuclear. Either of those would potentially get president Zelensky and reduce morale of those left in Ukraine. I also wouldn’t put it last him to choose a native country to make an example off, and demonstrate his willingness to use nasty things there as well and make sure all of nato are shown how much they risk by daring to support those challenging him. Or he will force an accident at one of the nuclear plants, and let that be a warning to everyone.

Does anyone have a share token for that Times article please?

@Tigersonvaseline

Russia was asking the chief of telegram for evidence of who their users supported and when he declined to give it, he was fired.

I can't trust any polls taken to gage Russian peoples feelings.
They may say whatever to Keep who ever is watching them happy.

Rather like Brexit.
It became so vicious that people kept their true feelings to themselves

Agree this plane stuff is embarrassing unless it's orchestrated.

This actually isn't factually correct. If you want to know why the Brexit polls were 'wrong': actually they were roughly within the margin of error, and it was due to turnout predictions/miscalculations in the weighting.

Turnout is the hardest thing to judge in polling as people can't accurately gauge if they will vote or not, so how can the pollsters? So how can they get the perfect weighting, when in reality sometimes elections are lost because eg it rained on the day so less committed voters were discouraged.

Mobilising turnout is one of the most important things in politics, had Brexit been a star poll of the general population rather than something where people registered, went to booths and voted, results would have been very different. As is the case for all elections.

SO: people who say: "the polls are wrong!" are usually just showing that they don't really understand polling. In particular as we are NOT talking about a vote in Russia (where we would need to weigh for turnout) but instead about the general public opinion.

I can't trust any polls taken to gage Russian peoples feelings.
They may say whatever to Keep who ever is watching them happy.

This would be true about some, yes. Some would be indifferent as Russia has always done the same thing over and over again. Some would believe it's a good thing as their views are similar to VP. Some would not support it and try to change things actively. Now, I'm not minimising how risky this is, to be clear. The fear of repercussions is completely understandable. However I think coming from a country that has always fought for freedom, I just cannot accept the Russians' passive stance for over 20 years. With this number of people it cannot just be explained by fear, but rather by indifference or acceptance from large groups.

Rather like Brexit.
It became so vicious that people kept their true feelings to themselves

I'd strongly disagree on this. There has never been a fear of repercussions for voicing your views in this country which makes it fundamentally different. Some people couldn't be bothered to argue, many don't like confrontation so they gave up. Many thought it wouldn't happen. Many didn't understand it or were misled and didn't participate. The passive approach might be similar but it's set in very, very different conditions because of the difference in repercussions here (none) and in Russia (serious).

Fundamentally, it's about asking yourself a question, every individual: would you stay silent or would you protest if your leaders were committing atrocities abroad for 20+ years? Or would you be active underground to undermine the regime? Or would you move abroad to talk about things openly, educate? Protesting openly knowing this may hurt you or your family is a difficult choice but resisting
a regime comes in different forms, not just demonstrations. That's what it comes down to. It's a choice, a difficult one, but a choice.

@ClaudineClare

Does anyone have a share token for that Times article please?

There's this www.thetimes.co.uk/article/38d813b6-9efc-11ec-b38e-10b333e9179b?shareToken=d130e7534770d9e04cf640d83bf99d5b

But DH tells me my share tokens never work...

My personal thoughts after reading this thread over the past few days, are that Putin might get to the stage where he'd rather see Russia in ashes, but he would have to feel that it would be the better option in some way and that we're some way off that.

@strawberriesarenot

Thank you Down Native

Perhaps this could be the beginning of the 'off road' that Putin needs?
Or is that much too hopeful?

It seems to me impossible that Ukraine can be given air cover, I understand why Zelensky is still asking. I don't understand how he can see such suffering and still carry on as he is. The brutal fact is, that in a choice of losing everything cf. Soviet occupation the lesser of the two evils would be the occupation. And hope that it wouldn't outlast Putin.

Strawberriesarenot,

It very much looks to me like Ukrainian partition was part of Putin's plans all along. It's a Plan B in the event he fails to:

A) Take all of Ukraine

B) Fails to install a pro-Russia puppet government.

In 2018, Russian State owned TV were quite far in "discussion" on the partition of Ukraine. If I recall correctly, they based their idea of partition on election results. If that is Putin's Plan B, well.....he really needs his army to advance much further than it actually has.

It's unlikely right now Putin will achieve the degree of partition he wants.

But Russia does currently hold:

1. Donetsk
2. Luhansk
3. Crimea

As it stands, the UK army doesn't have the ability to push the Russian army out of those three areas. Especially since Russia has held Crimea since 2014 without too much difficulty.

Zelensky calls those areas "pseudo republics" which means he's reluctant to recognise them as independently separate from Ukraine.

In the same breath, he's prepared to discuss what to do with them with Putin. That is significant because it shows Zelensky knows his army cannot just take them back.

What Zelensky knows his army can do is greatly slow the Russian advances into the rest of Ukraine.

However, this gives Putin political leverage in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Its highly unlikely Putin will want to give those three territories up to Ukraine in future.

Especially since Putin claims there's an anti-Russia view in Ukraine.

Zelensky isn't being selfish in continuing to fight on though. Every day they can resist the Russian advances is a day that makes Ukraine's position in any negotiations with Putin stronger.

Occupation by Russia over Ukraine is definitely NOT the lesser of two evils.

Partition of Ukraine is the lesser of two evils. That is, the parts of Ukraine that has a pro-Russian majority.

But Zelensky cannot simply just agree to any degree of partition without reaching an agreement with Putin on what would happen with the Ukrainian minority in those specific areas. What sort of civil rights would they have? What legal protections is Putin willing to give them?

Related to this is a new guarantee of security for the rest of Ukraine.

In short, there is an extremely long way to go and the war will NOT be ending any time soon.

I don’t think a poll on Brexit is comparable to “should Putin bomb fleeing refugees?”.

And to add to my previous posts, it's not just the fight against the atrocities abroad. It's also understanding that you're fighting for yourself and your family, for your human rights, freedom of expression, fredom of thought, free market economy and lack of discrimination. You need to value these things first to fight for them.

Reallybadidea it worked, thank you!

For those who saw the reports the last few days that Russia has been placing mines in their 'humanitarian evacuation corridors': what they are using are Butterly mines (also known as Petal mines), not the classic buried land mine.

They look like little green-brown plastic toys, you can drop them from airplanes to cover whole areas, and they blow up when anyone goes near. Obviously enough they're not legal. They are also particularly attractive to children, although Russia denies this was a reason for the design. However in Afghanistan they led to large number of child casualties as they were mistaken for toys and picked up.

twitter.com/deangloster/status/1501149968358281217

@Aristalese

And to add to my previous posts, it's not just the fight against the atrocities abroad. It's also understanding that you're fighting for yourself and your family, for your human rights, freedom of expression, fredom of thought, free market economy and lack of discrimination. You need to value these things first to fight for them.

So many here now take these things for granted. With every war over the last twenty years I’ve thought it would take bombs on our doorstep to make people sit up and pay attention. I’ve seen someone on another thread actually say that’s why she’s worried now, it’s closer to home. Despite the “lest we forget” and Poppy Day annual services, despite the VE Day celebrations on the 75? Anniversary people have forgotten the horror of war. It’s easy to ignore things happening far away especially if you “don’t like the news because it’s distressing ”. With the availability of non news channels 24/7 it is nowadays easy to avoid news and ignore horrors. At least when we only had a few channels news often accidentally came on because you hadn’t turned over quickly enough at the end of the previous program. Now we have to actively choose to watch the news and pay attention to world affairs. With this blindness, and the willingness to listen instead to add believe “fake” people on you tube claiming to be whatever will persuade you they’re right instead of actually searching for proper sources and answers we ended up with brexit, with lots of normally rational people refusing covid vaccines, with some of us feeling like we live in a country of idiots. This war may make a lot more people realise what they’re doing by keeping quiet about things like the police and crime bill which will ban protests as we know them. Russia at the minute is hopefully not were government being able to make laws that better suit them in keeping the vocal people quiet would end up but we need to stop taking our freedoms for granted and stop letting them get away with changing things that will or could affect our right to think freely.

@Tigersonvaseline

Down native, that sound's interesting.

And one dares to feel slightly hopeful?
The idea of a compromise between not being part of NATO but.... having security guarantees sound's like a more open proposition? If it was agreed of course ideally troops must be stationed along Ukraine border inside Ukraine so the people feel safe with full air force etc.

The sooner this can end the re build needs to start!

In my view, it's definitely far, far too early to feel even slightly hopeful. Any negotiations between Ukraine and Russia has a very long way to go.

The longer Ukrainian resistance continues, the more they strengthen their hand at the negotiation table. Yet Ukraine still lacks the military capability to push Russia out of Ukraine completely.

That gives Russia a certain degree of bargaining power.

The idea of non-NATO security guaranteed arrangements for Ukraine is not new and has been done before - the Budapest Memorandum.

Russia repeatedly broke that agreement whereas the United States, United Kingdom and, to a lesser degree, France have not kept their side of the Security defence.

Neither has China who, along with France, didn't agree to do as much as Russia, USA and UK.

Putin's view is he blames various countries for the problems in Ukraine - USA, UK, Poland and even Lithuania. He really, really does not want the main western powers involved in Ukraine in any way.

Right now, I can't see him agreeing to it. He might well do if Russia is hurt enough economically, but that will take months to really bite.

By then, a lot of death and destruction will have occurred. As of this moment, Putin believes he can either take Kyiv OR raze important Ukrainian cities to the ground in a scorched earth policy.

Very difficult to see how a new security arrangement can or will be agreed right now.

How different would it fundamentally be from the failed 1994 Budapest Memorandum?

Russia has form for breaking such agreements. And now, the West has form for failing to properly live up to its own obligations.

My post should have said "Ukrainian Army" and not "UK Army".

Talking at cross purposes.

Re speaking out in Russia.
Quite frankly would I respond honestly to any polling? No.
Would I rather take others action to bring him down, absolutely.
But I wouldn't declare my hand in poll where the given spies on you.

Re Brexit I was referring to it being hard to gage in general not polls because it's sort of a given that polls are free for expressing here.

But it became very polarised.

Are the Brexit boards still open? Perhaps a new thread there on this aspect to keep this thread free?

Thanks down native.

Re obligations I thought we had provided lot's of training and weapons before the attack?

Were we obligated to do more and did the other countries help.

For anyone interested in China or Chinese state propaganda on Ukraine, I thought this thread linked below was fascinating: It's from someone based in Australia, it's snippets of the group chat of some Chinese migrants.

Common items: Zelensky as hypocrite who wants to flee, claims that Russia has not been bombing cities wholesale, mock lack of weapons sent by US while also claiming US are warmongers, argue China should buy more from Russia to back them, share the Putin strongman pictures, say that western media opposition over Ukraine might make it harder for them to take Taiwan, loads of the classic 'whataboutism', discussions of democracy being a weak, laugh about how the west is too stupid to understand the long-term chess moves China is making, discussion of pro-Russian buyouts they are doing, accuse Chinese students stuck in Ukraine of faking it, posts to the effect of China are making India their bitch.

twitter.com/polijunkie_aus/status/1500418730341580801

[quote WhatsGoingOn2022]For anyone interested in China or Chinese state propaganda on Ukraine, I thought this thread linked below was fascinating: It's from someone based in Australia, it's snippets of the group chat of some Chinese migrants.

Common items: Zelensky as hypocrite who wants to flee, claims that Russia has not been bombing cities wholesale, mock lack of weapons sent by US while also claiming US are warmongers, argue China should buy more from Russia to back them, share the Putin strongman pictures, say that western media opposition over Ukraine might make it harder for them to take Taiwan, loads of the classic 'whataboutism', discussions of democracy being a weak, laugh about how the west is too stupid to understand the long-term chess moves China is making, discussion of pro-Russian buyouts they are doing, accuse Chinese students stuck in Ukraine of faking it, posts to the effect of China are making India their bitch.

twitter.com/polijunkie_aus/status/1500418730341580801[/quote]
Wow. Jaw-dropping!
Hopefully much of it is an echo chamber of people who sit in their bedrooms all day on social media.
But that’s exactly why I think it’s so important not to suppress opposing views. Otherwise both sides’ views drift further and further apart.

@LondonMummer

OP I wholeheartedly support sanctions and believe they are our best chance of making a real impact however I'm extremely concerned about the anti-Russian rhetoric and risk of xenophobia.

In my community a shop selling Russian goods was boycotted until it was pointed out it was run by Ukrainians. I worry about the Russian children at my children's school.

Outside of the 'baddie' oligarchs most people don't have a clue about the politics of Russians living in their communities and anti-all Russians today can easily become anti all sorts of 'foreigners'. How seriously do you think Western governments take this? Only occasionally do they underline that these actions are anti Putin not anti Russia

Look, I'm going to say this quite bluntly: I think if this is anybody's main takeaway then they are not paying attention. Yes there is a major issue in this country of not understanding even the most basic things about Eastern Europe that can lead to confusion. People should be sensible and rational, and call out stupidity.

On the shops labelling something as Russian when it's actually Ukrainian: yeah this is a common thing but they'll be rebranding now! As Ukrainian will be a draw. E.g. if you go to a 'Turkish' restaurant it's often not Turkish but a neighbouring state, or Indian is often Pakistani food, or Moroccan is often Algeria. It's often based on the (usually correct) idea that using a bigger name is just easier because the levels of understanding in the general public is pretty low.

I know a lot of Russians, most now living in the UK but also some still in Russia. Every single one of them is the kind of fundamentally decent person who is not only horrified by what their government is doing, but genuinely anguished, and they are all putting themselves out there to try to stop it, and to do anything they can to help. Frankly I think that's the bare minimum I would consider ok, were my country to be doing something like this (I'm actually not British before I get comments on that).

This here is very much my own personal views and morals: but I very much believe those who allow atrocities to be done in their name should also be considered reprehensible. I felt the same about South Africa. It's hard obviously for those living directly under the regime in Russia: they have a responsibility to do something but it comes at greater risk.

But for Russians living in the UK, who are not subject to media blackout or to direct threat from Russian police: I just don't think it's acceptable for them to shrug. In my mind it would be akin to Germans living in England in 1945 not taking a position on concentration camps.

I think we need to do everything we can to support Russians who are taking a stand against this. I saw earlier today that over a dozen university students at a Russian school were expelled for being involved in anti war protests, and some commentary that the west should ensure they can finish their studies elsewhere. I think we need more of this, and we all need to support our Russian friends who are doing everything to stop this. But I'm sorry, if it's a tight lipped Russian in the UK who doesn't care either way, yes I do think they should know exactly how we feel.