Ukraine Invasion: Part 17

[MagicFox]

A new place for us to convene, thread 17.

Just caught up and a couple of things come to mind:

The media has concentrated largely on the humanitarian aspects of the invasion of Ukraine. There are a couple of reasons for that - they can verify what's happening more easily than what's happening militarily and it's relatable.

As for the whataboutery, let's put it this way: there is corruption in the UK although we are quite a lot lower on the international corruption scale than Ukraine (and Russia). I can't stand corrupt Boris and his Tory government. They're out of touch with the lives of most people and self-serving. I think Brexit was the most stupid thing to have happened in a generation and the ramifications will be far reaching. However, this is a developed democracy. Despite the issues, I have a vote which I use and I enjoy freedoms many around the world dream of. I wouldn't and couldn't support an invasion by another power which promised to reverse the things I don't like because it wouldn't be right. It's important to question politicians who purport to serve us, the general population, and hold them to account. When you are stopped from doing so, there are huge problems.

I wonder in military training if very young soldiers, who start out innocent, are taught that inside all of us there can be a rage and violence that could come in an uncontrollable surge that you wouldn’t know you were capable of especially if you were exhausted, hungry and possibly drugged up on amphetamines - and you had already broken the taboo against killing. Are any in the U.K. forces taught how to know this lurks and what to do to stop it erupting?

Violence lurks deep within many people, especially males, usually heavily kept in check by social rules and in some people ethical standards. I imagine battle releases huge adrenaline surges which can override normal social inhibitions. Plus like Japanese soldiers in China in WW2, a lot of these conscripts seem to have been brutalised. Brutality flows downhill from the strong-and-stressed to the weaker and less able to defend themselves.

Put anyone in the wrong circumstances for long enough and they will act completely differently from whom they were a year ago (Have seen it).

@blueshoes

1dayatatime thanks for the tank analysis. If that is the case, why did Zelensky recently call on NATO allies to provide planes and tanks to Kyiv to defend itself. That said, he seemed more keen on planes.

Leaving aside the possible issue that might be troubling some politicians - that tanks/fighters can very much be offensive weapons there are some real practical issues with just giving tanks and planes..

1dayatatime mentioned training issues if different tanks were imported..that training issue gets even more severe in the case of fighters, especially if the Ukrainians don’t get given fighters of exactly the same type, variant, then sub variant and even upgrade state from those Ukrainian pilots have already flown…

Muscle memory is a strong thing and in the heat and in stress of battle it would be a shame if Ukrainian pilot saw a missile headed towards them, pressed the button he/she usually pressed to launch counter measures but instead it started a reconnaissance camera running or released a bomb….

There’s also the issue of compatibility or possible lack of it of wiring/piping built into foreign a foreign MiG-whatever if it given to the Ukraines for use in a ground attack role.

I think the reason we keep hearing the pleas for “tanks and planes”…because it is a nice sound bite, it’s an attempt to pressurize the west, and it’s an attractive thought to many because it’s along the lines of “just give us the tools, we will do the job”….

It sounds like an easy, almost trivial thing to do but the reality is much more complex..

Oh, but don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame him for asking..

Absolute basic, indisputable facts, Russia is currently bombing the shit out of a neighbouring sovereign country and thousands of people are dying and millions being forced to flee as result. This appauling situation could be ended today if Russia fucked off back to whence it came.

Arguing over proganda, agendas, media goading or 'poking the bear' or calling people bullies and flouncing off doesn't change those basic facts. Nazi battilions in the Ukraine army? Fuck all to do with Russia. Official language in Ukraine? Fuck all to do with Russia. Ukraine wanting to join the EU? Fuck all to do with Russia. Ukraine building stronger ties with USA/UK/Any other country? Fuck all to do with Russia. Any other decision made by the people of Ukraine on how Ukraine is run and what direction it moves in? Fuck all to do with Russia.

@Ijsbear
Recruits are not taught rage and violence. These emotions are embedded in us all, to different degrees. The teaching should be how to control aggression and know when and how to use it in the most limited of circumstances. Good soldiers are not raging, murderous psychopaths. Russian conscripts won't be. But war tests character. For some people it is like a drug. Having killed once, they kill again and seek out killing for the sake of it. Good commanders will remove those from the battlefield - eventually.

Excellent post @BringBackCoffeeCreams

@Adesignforstrife

Apropos of nothing: “I don’t know what to believe anymore”. This has literally been the aim of Russia’s political interference for years. They will happily fuel both sides of an argument just as long as everyone keeps arguing and allegiances fragment. Read “Nothing is true and everything is possible” by Peter Pomerantsev. Also going to recommend “The Puppet Master” on BBC Sounds again.

Absolutely.

Part of our weakness to this is because of our failure to adhere to the principles we say we believe in. Which means there is enough to plant seeds of doubt and mistrust in other things said.

Russia atm is very much trying to draw lines of false equivalence to justify its actions.

Therefore 'proof of war crimes' by Ukraine means that it can (falsely) say that Ukrainian leaders are war criminals. Therefore accusations levelled at Russia for being war criminals is merely hypocrisy.

Which frankly is pathetic. And misses this key element of systematic abuse from senior levels.

As I say, I do believe Ukrainians have committed war crimes. Its the nature of the beast of war. I won't excuse it, and I do hope its addressed as its necessary.

However you must look at scale, the range of crimes, the victims of those crimes and whether they were ordered or spontaneous actions too.

The actions of the Ukrainians and the Russians are very obviously not directly comparible to anyone with half a brain cell. The false equivalence making which idiots pick up in their bullshit whatabouttery shows an appalling lack of critical thinking and certainly are not showing any understanding of the concept of war crimes nor considering the victims.

@BringBackCoffeeCreams

Absolute basic, indisputable facts, Russia is currently bombing the shit out of a neighbouring sovereign country and thousands of people are dying and millions being forced to flee as result. This appauling situation could be ended today if Russia fucked off back to whence it came.

Arguing over proganda, agendas, media goading or 'poking the bear' or calling people bullies and flouncing off doesn't change those basic facts. Nazi battilions in the Ukraine army? Fuck all to do with Russia. Official language in Ukraine? Fuck all to do with Russia. Ukraine wanting to join the EU? Fuck all to do with Russia. Ukraine building stronger ties with USA/UK/Any other country? Fuck all to do with Russia. Any other decision made by the people of Ukraine on how Ukraine is run and what direction it moves in? Fuck all to do with Russia.

@BringBackCoffeeCreams Well put.

Really appreciate the posts on the psychology of war/violence too, thank you to those who are writing about that.

This has literally been the aim of Russia’s political interference for years. They will happily fuel both sides of an argument just as long as everyone keeps arguing and allegiances fragment.

Excellent point.^ This is how the odious and equally dangerously-eloquent Farage was spawned into UK politics.

Arguing over proganda, agendas, media goading or 'poking the bear' or calling people bullies and flouncing off doesn't change those basic facts...Fuck all to do with Russia.

Another excellent post. Don't lose sight of the wood for the trees.

@Adesignforstrife
@BringBackCoffeeCreams

@RedToothBrush Thank you for keeping your pencil sharp and the array of info you are brining to this thread. It is so helpful.

However @BringBackCoffeeCreams Russia doesn't agree with you.

So what, other that railing against why it shouldn't happen, should one do to deal with the aftermath of it actually happening?

I wonder in military training if very young soldiers, who start out innocent, are taught that inside all of us there can be a rage and violence that could come in an uncontrollable surge that you wouldn’t know you were capable of especially if you were exhausted, hungry and possibly drugged up on amphetamines - and you had already broken the taboo against killing. Are any in the U.K. forces taught how to know this lurks and what to do to stop it erupting?

Reminds me of my mum, who in an era when corporal punishment (the belt) was still allowed, refused ever to use it (used detention or additional homework exercises instead).

She said (and this is the relevance to the debate about young soldiers) that in most cases they were used to used to violence at home so were therefore inured to it.

She refused to deal with violence with violence as it didn't work with those young people who were already damaged.

She nevertheless didn't suffer from discipline in her classes: she was really strict in the first months of the school year and didn't stand for any nonsense. The young people were clear about her boundaries.

[quote TargusEasting]@Ijsbear
Recruits are not taught rage and violence. These emotions are embedded in us all, to different degrees. The teaching should be how to control aggression and know when and how to use it in the most limited of circumstances. Good soldiers are not raging, murderous psychopaths. Russian conscripts won't be. But war tests character. For some people it is like a drug. Having killed once, they kill again and seek out killing for the sake of it. Good commanders will remove those from the battlefield - eventually.[/quote]
I know that! :) I was answering another poster.

I'm well aware that a lot of the training of soldiers is to learn the necessary techniques and very much to -keep- discipline

Whoops. I misquoted you, sorry!

I think Vietnam needs to be stressed here in terms of how it changed war reporting and the effect it had on the West.

It made the West have to think about the home front because they were accountable for actions abroad and journalists were the ones that brought that accountability. Western journalists.

In subsequent wars it became increasingly obvious that the West had to think about the conduct of its military and how this played out domestically as much as it was successful on the battlefield.

The rise of Middle Eastern journalism has added another dimension to this. Media is a form of soft power and if its free and fair adds protection to its citizens. If its controlled by the state it becomes a tool of control by the state which works against its citizens.

I think in the West because we don't fully appreciate this, haven't valued our media and have let it degrade and not focus on evidence based journalism and instead have let it become too dominated by ideologically driven opinion writing which often undermines accountability.

We have a tendancy to see all media as equal and operating in the same conditions rather than asking the right questions about agenda and independence.

I've written a lot about the subject on mn over the years. For me war journalism has always encapsulated this problem in the most acute way - so perhaps its easier to identify and understand the importance of journalism. But its goes way beyond that.

If a patient has cancer you give surgery or chemotherapy to treat the cancer. You don’t worry about how the cancer might feel or how the treatment might affect the patient.

But in the longer term, it is helpful to ask how the cancer got there in the first place. And it’s not helpful to have billionaire cigarette or alcohol or sunbed companies ordering people to focus on treating the cancer and stop asking stupid questions.

@RedToothBrush
Thank you for your measured and informative responses.

[quote TargusEasting]@Ijsbear
Recruits are not taught rage and violence. These emotions are embedded in us all, to different degrees. The teaching should be how to control aggression and know when and how to use it in the most limited of circumstances. Good soldiers are not raging, murderous psychopaths. Russian conscripts won't be. But war tests character. For some people it is like a drug. Having killed once, they kill again and seek out killing for the sake of it. Good commanders will remove those from the battlefield - eventually.[/quote]
@TargusEasting nw!

About soldiers breaking loose - it was referenced on an earlier thread, A Woman in Berlin is a really interesting, if distressing read about what happens when an angry invading army occupies a city.

The full broadcast version of this was fascinating

and my memory of learning about Vietnam at school is seared with two iconic and truly disturbing pictures that I imagine a lot of people my age can also remember. (I idly wonder if they'd be in history books now ?)

@AngelsForever I think you got a bit of a rough ride here.

These threads are up to number 17 now and the same questions came up over and over again early on and it feels a bit like going back over the same ground again. But your questions were reasonable and you were very clear that Putin's aggression is not ok.

It's a disconcerting realisation when you grow into adulthood that the unquestioning faith you have when you're small that the Government is good and right and this is how things are and should be - well, that faith isn't justified. Questioning and applying a bit of skepticism is good.

In the early threads there were a number of suspiciously recently registered posters posting anti-Ukraine stuff, which Mumsnet tackled. People have become suspicious.

in the light of the story about clearview being used, here's a related story about LinkedIn being populated by thousands of people who don't exist

www.theregister.com/2022/03/28/ai_fake_linkedin_faces/

If LinkedIn actually mattered, it'd be a worry, but it opens up the question how many "people" on Meta Facebook and Twitter are real ? It would be ironic if it emerged that when people say "no one can be as stupid as Dominic Raab" they were actually right, because "Dominic Raab" is merely a waste of electrons and silicon.

Ive been busy in rl with ill children so not been keeping up with threads or the news, interesting development with the accusations of poisoning against abramavitch

Abramovich is at the 'peace talks' today

@blueshoes

"1dayatatime thanks for the tank analysis. If that is the case, why did Zelensky recently call on NATO allies to provide planes and tanks to Kyiv to defend itself. That said, he seemed more keen on planes."

++++

I did a post a while ago on what the implications would be of NATO imposing a no fly zone which would be a war between NATO and Russia through the shooting down of Russian planes and attacks on Russian soil through the bombing of Russian SAM sites across the border.

Given the firm rebuttal of Zelensky's request for a no fly zone he is now switched to asking for tanks. The ostensible rational for this is to break the siege of Mariupol. But Zelensky is smart he knows that it is not realistic to get Ukrainians trained up in time to use them.

In reality his real reason for both planes and tanks is to try and get NATO more directly involved in this conflict because that offers him the easiest and quickest solution in kicking Russian troops out of Ukraine.

The downside of course is that this then risks starting WW3 and a potential nuclear conflict. But in Zelensky's position with your country facing takeover and occupation anyway by the Russian aggressors that is a risk he is willing to take.

Or more simply "if I'm going down then I'm willing to risk taking you down with me".

Kyiv Independent is reporting that authorities eliminate 5 Russian bot farms since start of invasion.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine, the bot farms with more than 100,000 fake accounts were spreading disinformation, Russian ideology, and justifying the war.