Russia and Ukraine

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Editorial today in The NY Times from former Obama official, now at Georgetown University. He proposes terms for a compromise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/opini...ation.html

Sooner rather than later, the West needs to move Ukraine and Russia from the battlefield to the negotiating table, brokering a diplomatic effort to shut the war down and arrive at a territorial settlement. A hypothetical deal between Russia and Ukraine would have two main components. First, Ukraine would back away from its intention to join NATO — an objective that has for years provoked strong Russian opposition. Russia has legitimate security concerns about NATO setting up shop on the other side of its 1,000-mile-plus border with Ukraine. NATO may be a defensive alliance, but it brings to bear aggregate military power that Moscow understandably does not want parked near its territory.

Second — the harder part — Moscow and Kyiv would need to arrive at a territorial settlement. A reasonable starting point for negotiations would be to aim for a Russian withdrawal to the “line of contact” that existed before Russia’s invasion began in February. Diplomacy could then focus on the ultimate disposition of Crimea and the chunk of the Donbas that Russia occupied in 2014. Both sides would need to compromise: Moscow to abandon its recently announced intention to annex a major slice of eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv to settle for an outcome that could entail less than regaining all its land.

This would be slightly worse for Ukraine than if they had adhered to the original Minsk agreements. But it would bring peace.

The Pentagon has admitted that there are American boots on the ground in Ukraine now. These are "advisors" etc., but we all know what that meant in Vietnam. In addition, there are many reports that evidence has emerged showing that Britain was behind the pipeline attack. People here will believe this or not depending on their prior commitments.

But as NATO countries are more and more directly implicated, chances for dangerous escalation increase, and a peace compromise becomes more urgent.

(bold mine)

Then riddle me this: Since NATO is a defensive alliance, why does Russia not want it parked there? I'll save you the trouble of searching for a justification: Because Russia wants carte blanche to do whatever it wants in Europe.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Fucking the minsk chicken is the height of hilarity. Yanukoyvich runs, and russia occupies crimea within days. Russia then stirs up separatist militias in eastern ukraine while engaging in it's little green men bullshit, but never manages to convince even the ethnic russians in the occupied areas that joining russia is a good idea. It's after this that ukraine launches it's first military operation..with no military to speak of, and no money to outfit one...due to having been looted and plundered by the russian puppets who recently fled. They beat the russian irregulars ass, bad. So russia launched an invasion with regular forces and retook the territory ukraine had just liberated. It's at this point that ukraine wanted to make a deal with russia, and was willing to sacrifice territory to do so..not that they had much of a choice, what with the armed forces of a much larger and wholly belligerent nation already occupying those areas. This was the minsk agreement, in which donbas and luhansk would hold regular elections under ukranian law and russian forces would leave. They did not. Russian forces are still there. Russia set up a sham referendum. Russia also took advantage of this situation to capture even more ukranian territory.

Russia, not ukraine, blew up the minsk agreements, which were extortion to begin with.... because russia..not ukraine, never intended to adhere to them in the first place. So here we are, talking minsk, years later, like this shit is even remotely hard to look up. Imagining, I'm sure, that there's some other side to this story..but there isn't, not even from russia. Some people will believe anything except the truth, apparently. Vladimir Putin launched a wholly voluntary war of territorial acquisition, and fucked it up badly. End of.

People who bullshit themselves or others about this because they have some axe to grind about some other thing need to take stock of the contents of their minds. I'm absolutely certain that they can make all the batshit complaints their hearts desire without dragging ukranian bodies into it, because they were making those same complaints before ukranian bodies started piling up. Ukranians are under no obligation to negotiate with the terrorists currently attempting to murder civilians in order (or so they seem to believe) to break the will of an army they can't defeat on the field. Not just because they have our weapons now, but before as well, when they had jack shit and no one to fling it. The us may be the great satan, but ukraine is not. Ukraine does not have a nazi problem. Ukraine does not have a satanist problem. Ukraine does not have a nato problem. Ukraine has a russia problem...and we, the us, have a dingus problem.

Here's to hoping our dingus problem doesn't add to their russia problem, but this being the worst possible timeline, I wouldn't bet my life on it. The Bels of the world aren't even the worst of us, and consider how much shit ukraine would have to eat if they made policy.

[Deesse23]

NATO may be a defensive alliance, but it brings to bear aggregate military power that Moscow understandably does not want parked near its territory.

Its understandable that Jeff Dahmer drugged and killed young men, given his necrophilic disorder. That does not justify eating people.
Its understandable that NATO troops near Russian territory is of Russians concern. That does, in no way, justify invasions of other countries.

What world would we live in where everyone could excuse his invasions with Bels faulty arguments?

Still cant believe i have to say stuff like this. 

[Deesse23]

Kyiv to settle for an outcome that could entail less than regaining all its land.

Yeah, aiming to regain all its land, lost by an invasion, that is just about to fail miserably. How....unreasonable!

Bad, bad Ukrainians!!! Defending themselves when being invaded! What about "turning the other cheek"!? Nobody thinks of the Russians!!!! Nobody likes Putin!!! Everybody ganging up on Russia!! Russia even has to sell its natural resources for below average prices now. What about all the destroyed and abandoned armor?! Ukraine should pay for compensation! Ukraine destroyed all that hardware!!! Ukrainians all brought it up on themselves! Sluts! They asked for it!!!! Should not occupy such nice lands which would fit Russia so nicely!

How unfair!!!

[Belacqua]

Consistent talk of escalation which could end up with Americans and Russians shooting at each other.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...coalition/

Today, the Biden White House appears to be considering the use of a multinational force aimed at Russia. The NATO alliance is unable to reach a unanimous decision to intervene militarily in support of Ukraine in its war with Russia. But as signaled recently by David Petraeus, the president and his generals are evaluating their own “coalition of the willing.” The coalition would allegedly consist of primarily, but not exclusively, Polish and Romanian forces, with the U.S. Army at its core, for employment in Ukraine.

The article points out that at least so far, what the US mission would be in Ukraine is not well defined.

First, what is the aim of the coalition? Is the aim to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory? Is the aim to reinforce Ukrainian defense lines and achieve a ceasefire for negotiations? Or is the coalition merely a device to drag the rest of the NATO alliance into a war with Russia that very few Europeans will support?

The article lists several other issues about such a coalition that are as yet unclear.

Meanwhile, the US is still having trouble putting together a multi-national force to invade Haiti again.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/31/hai...d-nations/

Canada and Mexico are said to be the most likely candidates to join, but these countries are aware, of course, of how badly things like this have gone in the past. And there are serious questions about how helpful such a coalition would prove.

The Mexican army has been trained, financed, and equipped by the United States under the so-called Mérida Initiative, aimed at ending that country’s ongoing drug wars—which would fit the definition of “deep, necessary experience required for such an effort,” at least from the State Department’s point of view.

But as Michael Paarlberg has argued, the Mérida Initiative is a prime example “of dysfunctional U.S security cooperation arrangements with foreign governments” that foster corruption and violence instead of lessening them. In Mexico’s case, that is likely because it ignores the core U.S. involvement in narcotrafficking: providing a market for drugs headed north and a seemingly unlimited source for the weaponry heading south.

In Haiti—which has its own obvious problems with narcotrafficking—the U.S.-supported rot runs even deeper, to the democratic vacuum that a century of U.S. invasions, occupations, and interference has left in its wake. Sending an armed force to do battle with one Haitian gang and its sponsors may briefly win the de facto government (or Chérizier’s other rivals) access to the fuel port, but it will do nothing to make Haiti a safer or more stable place for its people to live in the medium or long term.

The article has a good short summary of US involvement in Haiti since 1915.

I suppose how much people support a direct US invasion of Ukraine would depend on what they think about their chances of winning are. Some information sources are still reporting that the Russians are losing badly, that they are nearly out of weapons, and that the 80,000 troops they've just deployed, out of the 300,000 called up, are so poorly trained as to be useless.

Naturally, other sources say that Ukraine is losing hundreds of soldiers every day, that most of them weren't that well-trained to begin with, that Russia is making slow but steady progress from the East.

If the US is seriously considering direct intervention it does seem to indicate a lack of confidence that the Ukrainians can do it on their own.

Zelensky is quoted as saying that a nuclear war would not be that bad. But I think any move which brings us closer to direct US/Russia war, and makes it harder for the macho men to back down, is insane.

[The Grand Nudger]

Full on pants off lunatic shit.

[arewethereyet]

I see we are back to discussing Haiti on the Russia and Ukraine thread.

Perfect.

[The Architect Of Fate]

The American Conservative. Bel's ability to pick fringe nutter sites continues

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, not just the american conservative...but a trumpy nut. Not just any trumpy nut, a frequent contributor to rt. Not just any contributor to rt..but one that made up his story whole cloth out of an easily sourced interview knowing that a dingus like bel would never read it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ignoring the fact that one warhead of 500 kg may well be able to damage more than one target. Say, for instance, the Russians targeted a water-treatment facility, and in the ensuing explosion, an electrical substation was hit. There's two vital pieces of infrastructure damaged by one missile.

Or, perhaps, the knock-on consequences from one target being hit by one missile caused an untargeted, unhit facility to take damage as well.

Another thing is that "what goes up must come down", so some of the damage initially attributed to these Russian strikes may be a result of anti-aircraft misses coming back to earth. These things happen regularly in aerial warfare. It's not as clear-cut as you'd like to portray.

And, as I mentioned earlier, Bel is studiously ignoring the detritus factor. The explosive device that cost me an eye was 18 kg. I was about 100 feet away from the blast. Imagine how far 500 kg of explosive could launch debris.

Boru

In the USAF, I once pulled fire stand-by on a 750-lb bomb that had hung on a rack and then dropped to the ground. EOD went and blew it up the next day. It's one big boom.