I grew up during the Yugoslav war, and I saw stuff on tv that’s still with me today. They were shooting kids in the street, just for fun apparently.
When this started one of my thoughts was “At least it isn’t Yugoslavia” but obviously the more Russia moves to grind cities into dust, the closer we get to that.
(Syria was extremely bad too, I’m sure that’s gonna be a lot of kids’ Yugoslavia)
Fair comment. I think I was too zoned out during that conflict. But what must have happened to a large number of people just now in Kharkiv justifies a very irrational and illogical response. Seriously. The people who ordered this action are entirely corrupted by evil.
Much red wine later am calming down. Just checked Micheal Kofman’s twitter feed and it may well not have been a) thermobaric or b) city centre Kharkiv. I stress may not.
Trump as Cheeto Mussolini makes even more sense now.
I guess Bolsonaro can be Tojo.
How the hell did we so quickly get to a point where Erdogan is somehow not one of the baddies?
vyshka
4942
Only thing I can think of is maybe the readiness bde is somewhere in Eastern Europe. Or Lukashenko is a mudak.
Social media.
Thermobaric weapons were used in Syria against civilian populations. It was invisible and just “sad” then. Victims not being white helped too probably.
This time every twitter video paints a black&white picture almost impossible to ignore.
It’s wartime. Everyone has different priorities right now. That doesn’t make him a goodie.
If we get back to peacetime, just wait.
Yeah, thought I saw it earlier and then couldn’t find it. Sorry.
Still, it’s amazing if true.
The last time I had any bloodlust was the Paris attack in 2015. (I had to look it up – it feels much older than that.) Since then I’ve mellowed and I try to take the emotion out of it.
One strategy that helps me is to envision the worst case scenario if Ukraine simply surrendered immediately. There’d be purges and dissent would be crushed. There’d be a new puppet government or the country would be broken up. There’d probably be a resistance movement or a new revolution at some point. Russia will probably build up forces on the border of NATO countries and we’ll be back to the negotiating table. Putin will die off eventually and Russia will move out of the dark ages.
It’s not the end of the world – literally – and it helps me to think of it that way. Ukrainians think differently, of course, but I can’t hold a group therapy session for them right now.
@Valambrian yes we are talking past each other.
I thought you were daying the Ukrtainians should be talking/negotiating now, to which I said they already were and seriously why should they when Russia is in the wrong, and is losing really.
And Ukraine has nothing to lose here but more of what it has already lost (lives, territory) and everything to gain. If they force Russia out, which I now think is actully possible, then they can take back eastern Ukraine.
You were, however, from what I understand, saying Ukraine had failed to negotiate with the eastern regions before this phase of the conflict, and that this supposed failure was a direct cause of the current situation.
There may be some merit to that position but I respectfully disagree, but some one else here has linked to negotiations carried out, so I have nothing useful to add to that.
I apologise for being rude earlier.
I listened to that yesterday, and I’ll second it. Also some nice refresher / background on how Putin came into power (involving a few apartment buildings and some FSB explosives), as well as a harrowing lead-in story about a woman feeling from Kiev to Poland.
Re: the thermobaric explosion…it wasn’t.
Thing about “separatists” is, it makes us have to define what we mean by “nation” and “sovereignty.” Our whole international system is built on respect for the sovereignty of recognized nations. At the same time, there is also a strong belief, reinforced by things like the UN’s Human Rights declaration, that there are some universals that should apply to any population, regardless of sovereignty. Those universals are however made rather ambiguous, given that the international agreements that try to govern them make allowances for religious, cultural, and legal exceptions to many things others folks might consider non-negotiable rights.
All of this comes into stark relief when the issue of self-determination comes ups. Ever since Wilson’s 14 Points, “self-determination” has been controversial. At any given time, a nation might be adamant that some group in some other nation deserves to be be independent, but rarely if ever does a nation ever agree that separatists within it’s own sovereignty deserve to be free of the central government. Self-determination is in direct opposition to the principle of sovereignty, unless you get into the realm of qualifying those terms with modifiers like “legitimate” and “justified.”
So, groups who want to separate from Kiev’s rule–by one perspective, they are exercising self-determination; helping them is good. By another, they are rebels undermining the legitimate sovereignty of Ukraine and anyone helping them is doing the same; helping them is bad.
In the end it sort of comes down to a messy sort of pragmatism or utilitarianism, I guess. Which means, unfortunately, who ever has the will and the means to enforce their viewpoint wins.
It gets legal very quickly, or rather the language does, to try to take the strain. So, International Armed Conflict versus Non International Armed Conflict. As if the defining of things helps limit them.
Maybe it would help for you to think about how you would feel if it was your home that was invaded by a hostile power and their success meant you have to live in a police state with greatly curtailed freedoms and probably an utterly broken economy.
This is incredible and unwarranted optimism I’m afraid…
If you were the chap who shot that video of a tank firing a shell directly at him, which he clearly survived, you’d be an optimist. Must have been the wings of the dove that spared his life.
In the meantime the Russians can be forced out if their troops continue to coordinate so poorly. I don’t think it’s unwarranted to believe that. Had we not seen all the abandoned gear and discovered they cannot communicate I’d think differently.
