Ukraine-invasion-part-15

[Ijsbear]

Next part.

Caveat to my post above: apart from a piss poor response on helping Ukrainian refugees.

Emine Dzhepper @eminedzhepper
Ukraine Government Official
For the third day in a row, activists on #Polish-#Belarusian border have been blocking trucks heading to #Belarus & #Russia. They call for end to trade with #Russia - a war criminal. For now the traffic jam from the trucks reaches 50 km.

twitter.com/trenttelenko/status/1506006447116718085?s=21

Additional logistics analysis from Trent Telenko.

I've just seen this morning Zelenskey saying he's ready to compromise on Nato with Putin. But won't talk about crimea and donbass until a ceasefire is taking place.

I thought this may end up the case. Hopefully Russia may agree. Putin can still claim a victory on the Nato issue and the bloodshed can stop. Not that I think an agreement would happen anytime soon on the disputed areas. Guess maybe the Russians could just retreat to those areas while talks are taking place.

Guess it all depends on if Putin believes his invasion is currently successful which we all know it isn't.

@Tuba437 he also said anything would have to be ratified by a referendum - how?! I can't work out if the peace talks are completely hopeless and just for show or not

Watched the BBC news this morning where the reporter was talking to some of the victims families- a woman whose Ukranian soldier son was blown in two, a man who lost his wife. And a mortuary train with Russian soldiers.
There are just no winners here are there.

I share your fears about the peace talks, Magic. Putin has crossed so many lines, how would all those actions be addressed in peace talks? For example, the allegations of people forced into Russia. Would they just be forgotten about? What about all the rhetoric around war crimes and Putin and others ending up at The Hague? Putin is hardly likely to agree to any deal if there is a danger of that coming to fruition. So it would all have to be brushed under the carpet.

I think this war is going to go on for a long time, and we will be hundreds of threads in before there is a resolution. I hope 🙏 I am wrong, though.

agreed, there are no winners at all. Not even at this stage Putin.

It's been six days since the bombing of the theatre.

About the peace talks, I don't think we can get away from the fact that Putin lies and lies and lies. I am so afraid, with a lot of reason I think, that there will be no good faith in a settlement from his side unless he is driven right back to Russia's borders.

Wheat. If there is no wheat, then lots of young foreign men will become both desparate and available. Men for wheat becomes an equation that may appear. Remember young hungry men protest or riot

There has already been price controls introduced in Egypt as the price of bread has rocketed.

I'm not sure that there is a link between Russian wanting to get untrained young men to fight and wheat?
More likely will be used to sanction bust and get hard currency.

But again, i don't really understand why we are not going into the Black Sea?
To prevent this and we owe it to the peoples of Odesa to stop them being killed and to keep Ukraines access to their coast line.

Once Russia gets Odesa, it wont be giving any of it back, a retired US military was on WS today suggesting that in his opinion, this war will go on for many years.... of course who knows?

@Ijsbear

About the peace talks, I don't think we can get away from the fact that Putin lies and lies and lies. I am so afraid, with a lot of reason I think, that there will be no good faith in a settlement from his side unless he is driven right back to Russia's borders.

Putin has zero intention of seeking any peace deal, he has never sought peace before in his other wars until he gets what he wants, which in ukraines case, we don't know what they are.

All of Ukr ? some of it? ambitions further into Europe?

Its always been a diversion.

someone said on the news, weeks ago @ClaudineClare, that this was likely to be a marathon and not a sprint

i dont understand about the black sea, but i believe there are russian ships and submarines there,

Biden warns that Russia is showing clear signs it’s considering chemical weapons use in Ukraine. He has warned Putin of “severe consequences because of the United NATO front” if those weapons are used.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/22/clear-sign-putin-is-weighing-up-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-ukraine-says-biden

@MrsLargeEmbodied

i dont understand about the black sea, but i believe there are russian ships and submarines there,

I’ll stick this link up again….

www.justsecurity.org/80384/the-russia-ukraine-conflict-the-black-sea-and-the-montreux-convention/

Russia will however have a considerable interest in getting the Ukranians and the international community bogged down in talks - tie up time/effort into negotiations for local humanitarian convoys? Spin out other ceasefire talks endlessly, and watch ceasefire erode and end within days (possibly hours)

thanks @notimagain
@Alexandra2001

Doesn't prevent the US from going into the Black Sea if it wished, i mean its hardly as if the Russians are bidding by international treaties is it?

As both are NATO members, the US has huge influence over Turkey.

the choice is simple here, we either stop Russia destroying Odesa or we don't.... we can then hand wring and talk about never going to happen war crime trials on Invasion thread 54 :(

But again, i don't really understand why we are not going into the Black Sea? To prevent this and we owe it to the peoples of Odesa to stop them being killed and to keep Ukraines access to their coast line.

And once again, I explain about the Montreux Convention which means that in a war situation, Turkey stops all military vessels going through the Bosporus & Dardanelles Straits into the Black Sea, unless they are based there. They have already stopped three out of a group of four Russian military vessels and the fourth decided it didn't need to go back to base after all

But it also means that no other country can send in military vessels.

It's arguable that Turkey could/should have invoked it early, while Russia was building up its resources in the Black Sea - but at least it now means that Russia can't add to it.

I've done links before. I can't be bothered again. Look up the Montreux Convention yourselves.

@prettybird
you have been beaten to it, upthread

[quote prettybird]As a counter to those few posters who try to use the existence of the Asov Battalion as a justification for the “need” for Russia to invade in order to “de-nazify” Ukraine quite apart from the fact that both the President and the PM are Jewish , this is useful to put the so called "risk" into perspective:

In the 2019 Ukrainian elections, the far-right nationalist electoral alliance, including Svoboda, National Corpss^, Right Sector, Azov Battalion, OUN, and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalistss^, underperformed expectations. In the presidential electionn^, its candidate Ruslan Koshulynskyii^ received 1.6% of the vote, and in the parliamentary electionn^, it was reduced to a single seat and saw its national vote fall to 2.15%, half of its result from 2014 and one-quarter of its result from 2012.

Quote is from Wikipedia but I’ve checked the sources and I’ve seen the same info across a range of analyses - Wikipedia just puts it the most succinctly.

This article also makes a similar point (although you have to get to near the bottom of it). Genuine Nazi and far-right support is probably higher in other countries - like the USA, Hungary, Poland, France, Belgium, Italy, Sweden….. and so on

[[https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukraine-russia-history]][/quote]
Crap. In the last Swedish election the genuinely descended from nazis party got 12.9% of the vote and 49 seats. No wonder he's threatening us too.

That was supposed to mean 'oh crap!' not that what you posted is crap.

@Alexandra2001

Doesn't prevent the US from going into the Black Sea if it wished, i mean its hardly as if the Russians are bidding by international treaties is it?

As both are NATO members, the US has huge influence over Turkey.

the choice is simple here, we either stop Russia destroying Odesa or we don't.... we can then hand wring and talk about never going to happen war crime trials on Invasion thread 54 :(

The rule of law matters. Taking US ships into the Black Sea would flagrantly break it.

Plus on a pragmatic level it'd give yet more fuel to anti - US sentiment.

Once Russia went to war there was always going to be huge civilian casualties. That's how they make war (and a good Iraqi friend reminded me yesterday that Bush targeted hospitals and schools in the 2nd Iraqi war. The first one was justified, she thinks, but not the second and not how it was done. And the reconstruction was -shit-)

@prettybird

I've read the links and knew about the 'treaty before.

So the yanks, who aren't signatories, have no influence over Turkey and a piece of paper is going to allow 100s of '000s of people to die and hand Russia "victory" over Ukraine, because once they get Odesa, Putins work is done, he can control everything once he has the coast.

Too much "oh we can't do this" and not enough "..can do"

One side isn't abiding by international norms and treaties.......