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.

Thank you so much for your answer. I really appreciate your insight!

Also thought I should share this one: a thread from an academic on where Russians stand on the war, also has lots of interesting discussion in the comments:
twitter.com/samagreene/status/1500163777878188034

@Cookiecrumble22

It seems alot of countries are against what putin is doing. So why is he still breathing? And what would happen if he was killed ? Is his life even in danger ?

Putin is ex-KGB and has extreme security measures in place. The rumour is that he hasn't let anyone within 15 metres since the start of Covid. Assassinating him would certainly not be easy, and if you failed the things they would do are pretty unimaginable. Also if a foreign country tried it would be an act of war, and they have nuclear weapons.

So it certainly would be a solution, but not exactly easy!

The argument that NATO is purely defensive doesn't stand up.

NATO didn't have the backing of the UN Security Council when they bombed Serbia. And NATO also didn't claim a state was being attacked by another state.

All NATO members are bound by the UN charter which legitimises military action for two reasons:

1. authorisation by UN Security Council
2. Self-defence against another state

Neither of these was present when NATO decided to bomb Serbia. In short, NATO acted very much in an offensive manner - not defensive.

This shows NATO isn't always defensive minded and CAN be offensive minded.

Indeed, some NATO members have acted militarily independently of NATO and the UN Security Council. The United States of America, the United Kingdom and France are three examples.

To make it worse, the Budapest Memorandum was meant to guarantee the security of Ukraine in addition to Belarus and Kazakhstan which was signed by the United States of America, United Kingdom and the Russian Federation amongst others.

It contained SIX obligations on the signatories:

1. Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

2. Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.

4. Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".

5. Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

6. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.

Russia has broken the terms of the Budapest Memorandum and yet the West hasn't responded militarily.

Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a breach of this as well.

@LongSummers

I’ve just seen that the FCDO have updated their travel advice regarding Russia “to advise British nationals whose presence in Russia is not essential to consider leaving by remaining commercial routes” - what do you think the FCDO are predicting will be happening within Russia to trigger this update?

Any of them who are still there should get the hell out ASAP--if you know any I would say that loud and clear.

Firstlythe laws they have in place in terms of imprisonment for critiquing the war, calling it a war, supporting sanctions, spreading information about the warlots of western journalists fled recently, I have seen tweets from loads of Moscow correspondents saying they have landed safely. BBC and others have pulled their staff, I've seen companies doing the same.

There is a very good chance that hostage taking and recriminations will happen. Putin doesn't have a whole lot of tools at his disposal so British citizens in Russia are a target. If you look into topics like Putin and assassinations, you will see they are far from rare. Last thing Britain wants is a load of hostages and to be forced to negotiate their release

Thank you so much for this thread, it is by far the calmest, most rational and informative one that I have seen on Mumsnet.

A query from me, please:

• You've discussed how Putin's approach is to destroy things if he can't have them. I wonder how this applies to NATO - does he view NATO as an adversary which needs to be irradiated (in the same sort of vein that ISIS treats the West) or is it just a case that they're an obstacle to getting what he wants so as long as they stay out of the way he's not bothered by them, but if they get in his path he'll try to remove them? And of the NATO countries are there any particular ones he has on more of a hit list than others?

@DownNative all v good points

I will say one thing regarding sanctions and the Russian society.

There have (rightly) been many comments across UK social media praising those Russians who protested against the war in the last week and a half. Of course they risked their health, freedom or maybe even their lives at the time anyway, and now it's even worse as Putin's regime is ramping up its efforts trying to cut its own citizens off from information and penalising them harshly.

However. Few protests is not enough. Let's not forget how huge Russia is as a country. And its people are not stupid, with or without Western media, they know there's a war. They are used to Russia's imperialistic views and wars however and there is a large number of people who either share these views or are quietly used to them and they just get on with their lives. If they wanted to organise an en masse uprising against Putin's regime, they had plenty of opportunities over the years. Russia's neighbours fought against the Soviet regime and prior to that against the Russian Empire for centuries. The repercussions against these brave nations were huge as a result, but it never stopped them.

But rising up against Putin en masse wasn't beneficial to the Russians, so they didn't do it. It will become beneficial to them once they become poor though. And as brutal as it sounds, I believe there would then be an uprising/civil war and a coup. Historically, this would be the usual, ruthless Russian cycle.

So sanctions are absolutely needed and ignoring Russian produce is needed too.

This, I should add, is my personal view and experience. It is however rooted in the history of Russia and CE countries.

Afterwards, a new, more balanced leadership may emerge in Russia, however it will be temporary and its imperialistic aspirations will likely return again during our lifetime, certainly our children's lifetime. So there needs to be a strong long term strategy regarding Russia that does not involve sacrificing CE countries to appease them, but rather being inclusive of all of them in the context of NATO in particular to stand firm together. Otherwise there will be a permanent risk of Russia hoping to recreate the Soviet Union or a risk of another cold war, it will never end. In my view, the West didn't get its strategy right post the Orange revolution in Ukraine and this is, unfortunately, the consequence which was never far removed for anyone originating from that part of Europe.

Thank you for this thread.

@HelpMeHiveMind

Thank you so much for this thread, it is by far the calmest, most rational and informative one that I have seen on Mumsnet.

A query from me, please:

• You've discussed how Putin's approach is to destroy things if he can't have them. I wonder how this applies to NATO - does he view NATO as an adversary which needs to be irradiated (in the same sort of vein that ISIS treats the West) or is it just a case that they're an obstacle to getting what he wants so as long as they stay out of the way he's not bothered by them, but if they get in his path he'll try to remove them? And of the NATO countries are there any particular ones he has on more of a hit list than others?

Personally on the destroying NATO front I think as a whole it's more about destroying the organisation itself than the individual member states, although there are ones that the Kremlin would like back within their sphere of influence (to put it in the very Cold War terms, which is how the Kremlin frame it).

NATO has arguably weakened naturally over the last decade or sothis might be controversial amongst some but from my perspective they have adopted a policy of excessive appeasement towards Putin and others, which is partly behind this decision to invade Ukraine. It's why I don't have time for any people who try to argue there was any self defence aspect to this invasionit was a case of spotting a weakness, not a case of feeling cornered.

I very much think this attack on Ukraine was both (a) taking advantage of weaknesses and (b) meant to humiliate NATO, and demonstrate their weakness. It's backfired on both accounts, instead exposing the weaknesses in the Russian army and boosting both the need for NATO, their military spending, and also pushed NATO regimes that were close to the Kremlin further away.

While I wouldn't necessarily agree with his arguments for what to do next (there may be other options still on the table) I would broadly agree with the analysis in this piece: tenzerstrategics.substack.com/p/this-is-our-war?utm_source=twitter&s=r

I know I'm linking mainly to blogs or twitters of academics/foreign policy specialists but these are genuinely considerably better than most articles in giving analysis rather than just narrative

Fascinating post.

What’s up with Putin’s health? I missed that.

Also why now?

Do you think there is an increased chance of terrorism and if so what would this look like?

When will it all go away?😭Do you have a crystal ball?

@Aristalese I agree with every word you said. Russia's imperialist ambitions are the issue here, it is a foreign policy of aggression and akin to the regime of Germany in the 1940s, or Stalinist Russia. It has been a long term issue and accepted for too long.

@WhatsGoingOn2022 Thank you, that's very kind of you. I agree, knowing the reality is making me very unsettled. I hope you are keeping as well as you can, too. Sending you a big hug, it sounds trivial, but what else is there to say now. I sobbed for hours yesterday and then couldn't sleep so am not in a great place today, but then we're made of tough stuff and that blać thinks he'll finish us off, he has another thing coming.

On the Neo Nazi topic, I've just seen that the Wagner Group (the Russian specialist militia led by an actual Neo Nazi) have set up a base in a Russian city (Rostov-on-Don) to recruit further mercenaries to attack Ukraine

[quote Aristalese]@WhatsGoingOn2022 Thank you, that's very kind of you. I agree, knowing the reality is making me very unsettled. I hope you are keeping as well as you can, too. Sending you a big hug, it sounds trivial, but what else is there to say now. I sobbed for hours yesterday and then couldn't sleep so am not in a great place today, but then we're made of tough stuff and that blać thinks he'll finish us off, he has another thing coming.[/quote]
I feel this so much, I have been the exact same. It's too much, it just is. I also have fits of crying, didn't sleep for a week. Sending a big hug too

This might be a very naive question, but what is life like in Ukraine and Russia now for the average person?
The cities outside of those being bombed, are people going to work and school?
How about in Russia?

Thanks

OP the sports aspect is also very interesting

"Much of the Kremlin were not made aware of this plan--one key aspect of this is the economic modelling of war and sanctions, which were not done. "

So...they didn't work out how much it was likely to cost? At all?

Marking place for reading. Having to take it slowly.

Really informative. Thanks OP!

Are you an academic?

Why didn't Putin do this a couple of years ago when Trump was president given his desire to leave NATO? The pandemic would also have been potentially helpful. It seems to me that the West was far more divided then and he might have gotten away with it.

@HelpMeHiveMind

Thank you so much for this thread, it is by far the calmest, most rational and informative one that I have seen on Mumsnet.

A query from me, please:

• You've discussed how Putin's approach is to destroy things if he can't have them. I wonder how this applies to NATO - does he view NATO as an adversary which needs to be irradiated (in the same sort of vein that ISIS treats the West) or is it just a case that they're an obstacle to getting what he wants so as long as they stay out of the way he's not bothered by them, but if they get in his path he'll try to remove them? And of the NATO countries are there any particular ones he has on more of a hit list than others?

We can actually answer this one with conviction via those experts familiar with Putin's Russia.

In August 2017, Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University had an interview with award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy.

This excerpt from the interview provides the answer to your question:

"The goal is to keep the post-Soviet space within the Russian sphere of influence. In the case of Georgia and Ukraine, the goal is also to preclude a drift over to the West; in the Baltic States, to question the underlying principle of NATO, that countries like the US or Germany would be prepared to risk a war over a small country like Estonia. Large NATO countries don't have the answer to that dilemma yet, and Putin is trying to create a situation where the answer will be “no.” So it's great power politics, it's sphere-of-influence politics."

In short, Putin wants to seriously undermine the credibility of NATO and their willingness to defend countries such as Ukraine, Estonia and others.

He wants to expose NATO's insincerity vis a vis defending relatively small countries. As part of that, Putin violated UK sovereign territory in the Salisbury poisonings a few years ago.

He's repeatedly found military weaknesses within NATO and Western powers.

It's a power play with its foundation in Russian Nationalism and Russian Imperial Expansionism.

@titchy

Why didn't Putin do this a couple of years ago when Trump was president given his desire to leave NATO? The pandemic would also have been potentially helpful. It seems to me that the West was far more divided then and he might have gotten away with it.

Because now he can put this war at the altar of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, which will fuel right wing supporters in the US, democrats will lose the next election and the next US administration will be friendly towards him again. So he'll keep whatever he grabbed without repercussions. He was banking on that IMO, as well as on what OP said earlier, he thought NATO was weak and miscalculated the level of sanctions.

It makes sense that he waited till now - remember the pandemic hit Russia too although miraculously they've developed the Sputnik vaccine so quickly...perhaps with a nod from China, who knows. Anyway, the West has been economically decimated due to civid so it's theoretically perfect timing. Oh and yes, let's floor them further with a 40 million nation seeking refuge, too. I believe this was the thinking behind it but it didn't materialise.

Somewhat surprisingly, Putin severely underestimated the mood in Ukraine and the willingness to fight too. This admittedly is the only thing that surprised me. A man like him should've known better that there is one (and only) thing in common between the Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Baltic states (Lithuania and Latvia in particular), as well as the Balkans. And that thing is that we all fight until the end for what matters to us. However, our priorities aren't warped, unlike Russian.

This thread is brilliant. Thank you.

@DownNative and @WhatsGoingOn22 - Yes, interesting that you call out the Salisbury poisonings, Down, as an example of seeking to undermine Britain on their own soil. It is why I questioned whether Putin is more focused on any particular NATO countries over others, because I'm not aware of similar attacks in other NATO countries? Also, since this latest Ukraine war began, the Russian team have specifically called out Liz Truss (albeit not in name), and today stated they see London as the forefront 'agressor' re sanctions and provision of weapons. Despite the fact that other NATO countries have provided more weapons and sanctions.

Do Russia have a particular thorn in their side for England and, worse, are they sowing the seeds of a narrative to justify an attack. Or, are we in the UK just getting a biased reporting narrative and in fact if I was in, say, the US I'd be reading more about threats levelled at America. Ditto for France?