Ukraine Invasion: Part 34

[MagicFox]

Welcome all 🇺🇦

Thank you RedToothBrush

I really appreciate that, and largely agree.
However, I keep remembering that the citizens of Germany knew about the concentration camps.
They ignored the truth for the sake of their own lives, and their families. I do suspect a lot of the city population of Russia are doing the same.

I can see also that we are not truthful in our own lives, nor encouraged to be. Re. climate change, for instance. It's 17 degrees here. It will be 40 in the summer. I have been surveying for Natural England for many years now. It's happening and accelerating and our governments know it. And yet still we are conditioned to consume, discard, desire better tech., more flights, forget common sense. The shops are at present full of Halloween and Christmas single use consumables that we will buy in good faith for the children we adore, unable to acknowledge that we are collectively destroying their future.

So, I guess we are all Putin, in our way.

I have worked with several Russian's in the past, and my sister worked with the charity that brought children from Chernobyl over to the UK every summer. I understand that in both countries there is a very different culture. I remember in particular a young Russian woman. She had a degree in concrete engineering. I was in environmental science, that's how we came in contact. She made life very hard for herself by insisting on telling the truth, everything from the car park regs. to the management's efficiency came up for her loud, persistant and brutal commentary. Her phrase was, 'In Russia we say it as it is.' She was very likable, she could not have been typical.

Nothing in the world could have brainwashed her, or the others I met, and the young visitors from Chernobyl, I gather, were in general a refreshingly hard nosed lot.

MagigFox I find this very depressing, I'd felt that China were starting to distance themselves from Russia up until this:

New strong (!) wording on 🇨🇳 support for 🇷🇺, an indication of how post-CCP Congress relations with 🇷🇺 may look like

I think the idea of a singlar truth is false.

In recent years the idea of multiple competing truths has been pushed a lot - significantly by Russian troll farms and other sources of disinformation to discredit others and blur the ability to identify truth.

I prefer to use the term 'in pursuit of the truth' in the full knowledge that its a bit like chasing rainbows and you will never find the pot of gold at the end of it, but you will have glimpses of it and you know the science of rainbows and can see a rainbow if conditions are right. In this way you know it to be completely real and unfabricated even though you can't touch it.

When I was a child I wanted to work for the BBC one day because I had this idealistic notion about chasing the truth. It didn't happen for various reasons but I still believe in the concept and I think my 15 year old self wanting to 'chase the essence of the truth' is the best way to explain the whole concept of truth. It's not about absolutism, it's about the principles you use to seek the truth in the fairest way and to eliminate bias and obvious falsehoods.

In this sense whilst the fog of war hides the truth in ways you don't see elsewhere due to the level of propaganda you have, war journalism can also be the rawest and purest form of truth because it shows the grimest of realities than no one wants to bear witness too and often admit. There has been some exceptional reporting in Ukraine along these lines. It's a paradox I've always found extraordinarily fascinating and compelling, and one of the reasons I find myself drawn to trying to understand what is really happening in a war for people living through it on the ground. I've seen war correspondents describe their work as addictive despite the trauma many end up suffering and I do think its an understandable point of view.

When you start to phrase it as the pursuit of truth, it allows room for error, but the principles which guide you remain consistent and unchanging and thats the foundation and important bit.

Science demonstrates this well. We have things which are undiscovered. X + Y = cure for cancer for Z% of people. It already exists but we have not found it yet. We need to research and follow principles to discover this. It is an imperfect cure because not everyone will benefit from it and it may have side effects (including the possibility that the cure itself might shorten your life, so may not be worth using, so you have to check this too!). The point is the discovery is a journey which is ever evolving and your understanding changes with each new piece of information you gather to build up a mosiac which is your overall image of a concept. It's not a photographic replica of the world, it's a representation of ideas. If you get it wrong or pick an explanation which does not cover the majority well, it's like the picture is blurred and distorted so your comprehension falls short. You need enough detail to be able to say its a fair and honest representation which accurately reflects the world but may not capture everything. (in which case you may need rules to explain exceptions). The value is then based on how well you represent ideas, concepts, feelings, fact etc which you will never fully be able to say 'this is the truth', you can only say 'this is the best understanding that we have based on the information we currently have available to us'.

I think its hard to get your head around, especially in a world of social media where there is a desire to distort to gain power over others or to over simplify where inappropriate to hide inconvenient details of truth.

All this shit about differences of opinion on what is the truth is a way to try to legitimise opinions and ideology over the unpinning principles of truth finding. That's authoritarianism raising its head to tell you what to think rather than liberalism which encourages you to explore and seek the truth by critical thought and examination of the information you have available to you in a way which isn't predetermined.

It isn't a easy process. Nor a simple concept.

I'm rambling again, but I hope that makes some sense.

Matthew Light Twitter thread:

twitter.com/mattlightcrim/status/1585752243348930560?s=61&t=T49ZZzdGYOWryzt2ddM16A

Those calling for negotiations between Biden and Putin usually expect Russia to retain control of much of Ukraine, presumably assuming a stable territorial division is possible. Apart from its immorality, this premise is fatally flawed, because the invasion is not about land.

So, I guess we are all Putin, in our way.

We all have a desire for the 'safety' of authoritarianism (or authority) where the world is simple and very black and white.

In reality the world is very complex and full of chains of interlocking things which, if you follow through, can lead to some unpleasant and inconvenient truths we don't want to face up to.

I do think we are undergoing something of an exploration of some of these things because of political instability atm which is forcing us to reexamine some of our beliefs.

Certainly consumerism is one of these because its unsustainable in it present form, and this is something we have known for considerable time because we know certain resources are finite.

Our reviewing of our history of slavery is another good example.

We should be prepared to confront inconvenient truths head on, as they always catch up with us eventually.

Agree @DesdamonasHandkerchief

@RedToothBrush not a ramble but a thought provoking presentation of ideas. I loved the analogy of the rainbow, the intangible yet crystal clarity of a moment. I think I see truth as a singular concept that is multifaceted.

When I first attended church it was my safe house but, after a number of years, it became my mad house because I am a critical thinker and the absolutism (and the morality therein) was very destructive. I left. I miss the 'certainty' to a degree but the freedom to think, to speak, to doubt, to be wrong, to just not know has been liberating.

Very interesting programme last night on the opposition to the war from inside Russia.

www.itv.com/hub/inside-russia-putins-war-at-home/10a2812a0001

@RedToothBrush
It's not about absolutism, it's about the principles you use to seek the truth in the fairest way and to eliminate bias and obvious falsehoods.
Yes, exactly. I lost respect for a fairly eminent (in his field) historian when I discovered just how much he cherry-picked his info to allow him to push his chosen line.

There is a fundamental difference between being unwittingly blinkered versus deliberately distorting the information, but it can be difficult, from the outside, to know what exactly is going on.

Unconfirmed report of Israel destroying Iranian drones 🤞

https://twitter.com/maksnafoofella/status/1585936335826731008?s=46&t=YiZmFL5pp-C5QMtu6dQsQ

@RedToothBrush thank you for your thoughts and input as ever.
I can see a lot of similarities between the woman from Mariupol and my family. I am currently visiting my mother who left Donetsk for USA back in 1999 but all her friends and family are still there. Although she has access to the truth here in the West, she chooses to listen to her friends and family in Donetsk, and is of similar mind set. She doesn’t think for herself. I wonder if it’s generational thing, certainly quite a few of my Ukrainian friends who are my age (40’s) have pro Putin parents even though they have lived in the independent Ukraine all these years. It’s really hard for me personally. I have always been close to my mum although we live so far apart, and it’s really hard for me not to have her moral support on Ukraine. We tip toe around the subject and talk about first world nonsense to fill the silence.
When I think about what must go on in her head, I feel like she has two conflicting realities. She just can’t choose the one that is the truth even though she knows Russia is the bad guy here, she just can’t accept it.

Latest Lawrence Freedman essay:

samf.substack.com/p/general-winter-knocks-at-the-door

The mindset though is quite extraordinary. One of the more surreal events in my life was when I was doing a six month course at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (long time ago, 1984). One of the requirements of being a student at the university was to do "shmira" (guard duty) - very similar to what parents at Jewish schools and members of synagogues have to do here in the UK - ie you do not take the place of the professionals, who are there as well, but the theory is that because you know the area/members etc better, you can spot things that aren't right before they can (or else just to augment the manpower, although I don't know how to hold a gun and never have, and being small and female, really not convinced of my usefulness if anything happened). Anyhow it is usually done in pairs, and I was paired with a fairly newly arrived Soviet immigrant. And of course most of the time it is dark and there is nothing to see, so you spend the time talking. And he was obssessed with the might and power of Russia/Soviet Union and how that was the right way to be. I did say to him - "well if Russia is so great, why are you here?" - and his response was that it was no good to be a Jew in Russia, and he had to get out (not because he was in any way interested in or wanting to do anything religiously or culturally Jewish, in fact he didn't like any of this stuff, but because simply being labelled as a Jew on his internal passport made life difficult for him). But the really bizzarre thing was that he didn't seem able to see that if it was not good to be a Jew in Russia, maybe it was not good for anybody to live in Russia or anywhere near Russia. It was kind of like he had absorbed the brainwashing and really would have liked to identify as fully Russian, and while he could see that he couldn't no matter how hard he tried on an individual level, he wasn't able to make the leap to see this as problematic more universally, even though he can't have been stupid given that he was doing some sort of science degree at the Hebrew University. Maybe age and wider exposure out of Russia will have changed him - but I did think to myself it is probably good that you he was likely too old and too fat (he was rather stout) to be conscripted - I wouldn't have liked him anywhere near a gun - but a friend of mine said that if he had been conscripted, he would probably have ended up as a cook in the army - my friend said (and he had some experience) that all the cooks in the army he ever came across were right wing nutters, and he didn't think that was a coincidence. If you conscript people, you end up conscripting everybody, and you have to then think about how you deal with the full spectrum.

Two separate bits of information coming in today about the Eastern Front.

Firstly unconfirmed reports that Ukraine have now taken control of part of the P66 highway between Svatove and Kremina and that there is 'no communication between Svatove and Kremina'. This will have an effect on the ability to both supply or evacuate where necessarily. This would be consistent with geolocated information which showed Ukrainian forces very close to the road a day or two ago, so I think its likely credible and we'll start to hear more on this soon.

The second piece of information is about just North of Svatove.
www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/28/2131855/-Ukraine-update-Reports-of-advances-near-Svatove-vastly-undermanned-Russian-positions-in-Kherson?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=trending

Its being reported that the Ukrainians have been advancing towards Nyzhnia Duvanka which is North, North East of the city and have taken control of the road there. To explain; there are two main roads from the North which go into Svatove, the first which goes North, North West, the Ukrainians had already taken. The second road runs through Nyzhnia Duvanka making it a crucial point to reach. Again this is short of the proper confirmation, but it does fit with Russian reports on social media and the rumoured intended Ukrainian plan to do this before making any kind of advance on the city.

The first and second pieces of information potentially mean that 3 of the 6 routes out of Svatove have either been blocked by Ukraine or are very close to being shut down by Ukraine. Only one of the three left is of much size, which is significant going into winter, as the smaller roads will not be very suitable for heavy traffic.

As I say, this is still at the rumour stage, but does fit with what has been happening in the area and seems to be taken as reliable information. What footage there is from the area, also shows its very firmly mud season there now. Slowly does it.

I'm not sure if anyone replied to the question on why '1991 borders'. They are the ones at the declaration of independence in August 1991 and are those of the Ukrainian SSR of the USSR. These borders, in a de facto sense, held until the events of 2014.

Different might have existed on alternative timelines, especially as a result of the later years of World War One though the Russian Civil War.

Slicing Chugrov and Diligensky a little, when they were wrapping up 'The West' in Russian Mentality (2000):

[An] ambivalent situation [in Russia] is a self-propelled conflict between [a]
traditionalistic cultural trend, which demonstrates certain inertia, adherence to old stereotypes and myths, on the one hand, and pragmatic needs and motivations nurturing the modernization tendency, on the other. This or that tendency may dominate in the consciousness of different subcultural and demographic groups, but rather often they coexist in the consciousness of the same social and individual actors.

Which reminds me of summer visits to my Russian-speaking at home relatives in Ukraine in my middle and later childhood. During what we have called the War of the Three Grandmothers (one is step, living with my paternal grandfather), my brother and I were sent to stay with them on some sort of mysterious rotation, generally separately rather than together, for three weeks or so in Ukraine, Ireland, or Spain. From the first I picked up a lot of hope for a modernising land while lamenting aspects of the passing of the Soviet era; from the other two I gained more knowledge of generational Civil War wounds than I could really make much sense of. And I was proudly shown off while also pitied for not being a proper [insert nationality]. Dnipro grandmother also took me to Russia - it's complicated - and I also went there a few times in my student years and as part of my work before the events of 2014. I've always felt that I have had a foot in many doors, but they have never truly opened for me. However, I have seen competing values, desires and mindsets coexist in the consciousness of many and think that acknowledging this helps to make some sense of the reactions to the war of many in Russia.

@MMBaranova were you to write an account of your family and childhood I would find it fascinating.
My own mixed Irish and (Catholic) Northern Irish heritage is rich and complicated, but nothing in comparison to yours.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63424569
Russia ends civilian pull-out before Kherson battle

Russian officials say they have completed an operation to move civilians out of the occupied southern city of Kherson ahead of an expected battle with advancing Ukrainian forces.

At least 70,000 civilians are said to have crossed to the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river, in what Ukraine has called forced deportations.

"We're preparing Kherson for defence," one Russian militia commander said.

The Kyiv Independent AT KyivIndependent
Governor: Strategic highway in Luhansk Oblast ‘almost under Ukraine’s control.’

Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhii Haidai made the announcement on Oct. 28 regarding the Svatove-Kreminna highway in Luhansk Oblast.

Looks like Ukraine are officially claiming some of the reports made above in previous post this afternoon.

The disposition of Ru forces in Kherson is a bit unclear now. Some seem to be leaving and others moving in. My gut tells me that the regular troops are being evacuated and mobniks being put in, but there's not much firm intel.

mobile.twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/1586099405064577024 we know who our enemy is

Placemarking with a sense of some trepidation.

Thanks all for the regular, informed and sometimes calming updates.

As always highly recommend Ukraine the Latest from yesterday. Really insightful discussion with a historian about the significance of Potemkin to Putin’s view of the World and quite why his body might have been taken. Won’t regurgitate here as it’s quite complex and goes into the history of the Russian and Ottoman empires.

Also well worth a listen is the latest Doomsday Watch podcast, talking about the future for the world following the Ukraine war and the rise of China.

Media reporting serious threat from Russia to UK gas supply pipeline from Norway. That would really hurt