Ukraine Invasion: Part 17

[MagicFox]

A new place for us to convene, thread 17.

Good article on current 'clash of civilisations' vis a vis established political theory: www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/opinion/ukraine-clash-of-civilizations.html

“RedToothBrush

The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent
UK not ready to give security guarantees to Ukraine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab says his country isn’t ready to become a guarantor of Ukraine’s independence as part of Kyiv’s proposed peace deal with Moscow.

“Ukraine is not a NATO member,” he said.

Genuinely surprised at this. I guess we dont want to do it alone...

I feel very concerned but not surprised given
how former Chief of Defence Staff was speaking on Newsnight last night posted by ‘Bore’. I couldn’t put my finger on it but he seemed to be bringing everything down to just being practical and realistic.

“BoreOfWhabylon

“Very interesting interview with former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lord Richards, on Newsnight (starts about 20 minutes in)
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015xrz“

@EsmaCannonball

Russia has made massive mistakes. They are badly informed, badly planned, badly supplied, badly equipped and badly staffed. My worry in all this is if they are not finished off now, and if there isn't regime change, they will not make any mistakes the second time around. There are plenty of regimes willing to support Russia and others that are far too short-termist in their approach (i.e. Germany). Not taking advantage of Russia's immediate weakness is a fatal mistake.

But what does being "finished off" look like? And what if China step in to prevent that?

Also, can't believe I haven't noticed your name before - good old Esma Cannon!

“EsmaCannonball

Russia has made massive mistakes. They are badly informed, badly planned, badly supplied, badly equipped and badly staffed. My worry in all this is if they are not finished off now, and if there isn't regime change, they will not make any mistakes the second time around. There are plenty of regimes willing to support Russia and others that are far too short-termist in their approach (i.e. Germany). Not taking advantage of Russia's immediate weakness is a fatal mistake.”

Yes, it does seem a worry. I feel worried that Russia will have yet again successfully grabbed some more chunks of Ukraine. We’ll all go back to normal, then they’ll come for more.

Not that I know the solution.

@EsmaCannonball

Russia has made massive mistakes. They are badly informed, badly planned, badly supplied, badly equipped and badly staffed. My worry in all this is if they are not finished off now, and if there isn't regime change, they will not make any mistakes the second time around. There are plenty of regimes willing to support Russia and others that are far too short-termist in their approach (i.e. Germany). Not taking advantage of Russia's immediate weakness is a fatal mistake.

Ive got exactly the same fear and with the increasing isolation and radicalization through media control, that the next generation, possibly generations, of Russians will grow up with the same attitude as the Soviet leaders and him.

Lewis Goodall
NEW: UN confirms that more than 4 million people have now fled Ukraine since the beginning of the war. That’s around 1 in 10 of the country’s pre-war population.

More than 2.3 million have entered Poland, alone

Neighbouring countries tend to absorb most refugee flows, as has been the case with 🇺🇦. Nonetheless the UK’s share of that 4 million is a very small one. The Home Office published figures today to say UK has taken 25,500. That’s about 0.63% of the total number who’ve left.

More than 50% of that 4 million are believed to be children. Millions upon millions more are displaced within Ukraine. It continues to be a humanitarian crisis of quite incredible scale.

.twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1509145111824936961?s=21

Military folk on here will correct me if I've got it wrong, but I understand army teaching is that the best First Aid you can render your pal is to secure the territory. If you stop to help them without doing so, you're probably just ensuring you both die.

I appreciate the posts above on the importance of distinguishing between the aims of:

1. peace in Ukraine
2. defeating Russia.

However I suspect that, in the same vein as the First Aid doctrine, reaching (1) without achieving (2) would pretty much ensure the "peace" was temporary.

Didn’t something like PerkingFaintly’s 1) but not 2) after The Gulf War lead to big trouble later?

Euromaidan Press @euromaidenpress
Scholz signaled "general willingness" about the role of security guarantor for Ukraine in a call with Zelenskyy,🇩🇪spokesperson told Mar 30

He added he did not want to speculate whether the security guarantor role would also include a military component

(I appreciate I'm basically repeating what ScrollingLeaves and Esma and loads of PP have said.)

Wtf, so we won’t militarily help Ukraine because they’re not in nato, and we won’t act as a security guarantor because they’re not in nato. We might as well stop any kind of support and let the war roll out. This feels morally wrong.

'Negotiating with Putin isn't like dealing with Hitler': very good article here on appeasement. Given the uptick in comparisons between Putin and Hitler amid increasing calls to escalate with Russia this seems v timely: unherd.com/2022/03/what-we-get-wrong-about-appeasement/

Jeremy Bowen @BowenBBC
The Russians destroyed a big food warehouse on the eastern side of Kyiv. Hit most likely by more than one missile.

More attacks on civilian targets rather than military

www.reuters.com/world/russias-lavrov-visit-india-supportive-despite-ukraine-crisis-2022-03-30/

Lavrov is busy building a business around the Silk Road. India is buying minerals while they can.

Max Seddon

Lavrov says Ukraine and Russia have made “significant progress” and “positive movement” in peace talks.

He says Ukraine has “recognized the need” to give up on NATO – but also that Kyiv understands “the issues of Crimea and Donbas are settled for good.”

That last point will be news to Ukraine – their negotiators said yesterday they would never make any territorial concessions.

twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1509199297484578816?t=2UTTlTpRmcOwgKZwuq_Jxw&s=19

There are plenty of regimes willing to support Russia and others that are far too short-termist in their approach (i.e. Germany).

I thought Germany played the long game. Didn't Germany 'win' WW2 in the end?

www.statista.com/statistics/959301/gdp-of-europes-biggest-economies/

Swedish television reporting that two Russian jets entering their airspace on March 16th were carrying nuclear weapons.

@EsmaCannonball

Swedish television reporting that two Russian jets entering their airspace on March 16th were carrying nuclear weapons.

That’s one hell of hell of a claim…they know that how?

@EsmaCannonball

Swedish television reporting that two Russian jets entering their airspace on March 16th were carrying nuclear weapons.

Wtf?!

Sabre rattling - at this point. More threats, really.

Ukraine's response to Lavrov

Lavrov demonstrates misunderstanding of the negotiation process. The issues of Crimea and Donbas will be settled for good after Ukraine restores its sovereignty over them. During the talks in Istanbul, the Ukrainian delegation presented its proposals on how to achieve this goal.
twitter.com/OlegNikolenko_/status/1509203536218935301?t=SCY8zVtmQAZKCPkkLIRSKw&s=19

Carrying nuclear weapons or nuclear capable?

@EsmaCannonball

Swedish television reporting that two Russian jets entering their airspace on March 16th were carrying nuclear weapons.

According to the DM (so I'll take it with a pinch of salt) this also happened on March 2nd. Assuming this is a separate incident?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10668961/amp/Russian-fighter-jets-violated-Swedish-airspace-earlier-month-equipped-NUKES.html

I think it's clear that Russia want those territorial gains and won't settle for less (along with neutrality). Would Russia really ever retreat in any way back from that? I can't imagine a situation where they will. Can Ukraine really push Russia back? If not it just feels like we're watching horror in slow motion.

In the meantime, the future looks shit for all of us. A scarily changing geopolitical landscape where Russia, China etc come together in competition with the US and EU/UK. Years of Cold War? God forbid a hot war. Apologies for my brain dump, I now have Covid along with existential anxiety.

The “nukes” carrying incident seems to be days after they threatened military action in Sweden and Finland, so would tie in with their intimidation strategy then. This isn’t a recent development as in the last few days.

I’m interested in whether it was carrying nuclear weapons or nuclear capable as that’s very different…