Russia and Ukraine

[The Architect Of Fate]

He sounds conciliatory, suggesting that at some (unspecified) point in the future relations with Russia should be repaired. He points out, correctly, that Russia is a European country.

The propaganda ever since the Cold War has tried to paint Russia as alien. But anyone who has read the literature sees how its culture is European. The upper classes in Dostoevsky, for example, speak French at home. (And some English translations put the Russian into English while leaving the French -- assuming we'll be able to read it.) Nabokov's memoirs of his childhood show how connected his family was to the rest of Europe -- vacationing on the Mediterranean, employing English- and French-speaking nannies for him and his brother.

Tell that to Russia 

Inter-European wars have been pretty common, but eventually the businessmen want to re-establish trade. Russia has too much oil and gas to ignore forever.

They done a good job not taking tainted oil so far 

I suspect that when the military industrial complex finds another shiny object to dangle in front of us, Merz and others will walk away from Ukraine (as Trump seems to want to do) and it will be left to its fate. Just as the US did with Afghanistan.

Just in your dreams, Kremlin Gremlin

[Leonardo17]

Belaqua:
 
“It's cool that Denmark and Ukraine have a mutual defense pact.
If the US attacks Greenland, Ukraine is legally obliged to assist with the defense. That could be fun.”
 
That’s not funny. Yesterday a symbolic number of soldiers mainly from France and Germany were deployed to Greenland. Trump is about to get the US kicked out of NATO because of polar bears (nobody wants it but that’s where we are heading).
 
/Yes the US is almost as strong as everyone else combined. But Europeans still have enough military power to defend themselves against anyone else if it becomes necessary.
 
The main question here should be: Why is D. Trump putting an almost century old alliance with Europe at risk?
 
- You know when this feeling of mutual trust and friendship is broken, you can’t just restore it as you would restore a broken object.
 
BrianBoru:
 
“Where did you get the notion that Denmark and Ukraine have a mutual defense pact that includes such an obligation? I've looked and can't find it. I see that Danes have allowed Ukraine to establish weapons production in their country and a degree of integration between the two countries' defense systems, but nothing like what you're describing.”
 
- And that is also true. I haven’t heard of such a pact either
 
Belaqua2:
 
- Germany is ramping up its military spending and has set the goal of making the German Armed Forces combat-ready by the end of this decade.
 
And this doesn’t change the fact that the war in Ukraine is without a clear objective:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/depriv...03988.html
 
I like Putin’s rhetoric about “Being the only country to resist western imperialism”. But Russia is no longer the communist bloc. And it’s not about power struggle between two empires either (the Russian Empire is also gone in October 1917, with the whole family of the Tsar being executed and their bodies being burned.
 
This is not a nationalist war because the Ukrainians have a separate ethnic and even religious identity.
 
And read this: Yes, they have a common history with Russians and the two countries have a lot of basis on which they could build up some sort of mutual friendship and alliances but all of this potential is gone with the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.
 
And this NATO rhetoric is also being used in Georgia. Moscow-friendly populists there are saying that “NATO wants to turn Georgia into a missile base”.
 
I really don’t understand this rhetoric. I’m not a military expert but there are US nuclear missiles in Ramstein / Germany. What difference does it make if NATO built two other bases (one in Georgia, one in Ukraine) against Russia?
 
- I’m asking because I really don’t know.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don’t know if the us is as strong as everyone else combined. Maybe fighting the last war…that all these generals and procurers spent their lives planning. The next one? Well, look at Ukraine. You have a small Soviet army fighting a large Soviet army…and winning.

I’m sure that people are working long nights to take the last few years of conflict and alter our tactics and procurement…but they’re fighting institutional and logistical inertia.

If a small nato defense force absorbed current Ukrainian tactics we could likely be repelled or at least fought to a costly standstill that the American public is much less likely to endure than the Russian public has been.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Leo, the base business has always been nonsense…and even if that were the actual goal and a meaningful concern the Russo Ukrainian war has not lead to less conceptually unfriendly borders…but more.

[Fake Messiah]

A Russian schoolteacher secretly filmed his own workplace as it was turned into a war propaganda machine. That footage is now part of a documentary shortlisted for an Oscar. The movie is called ‘Mr Nobody in Russia’ and there is a trailer on YouTube.

Everything changed after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Within weeks, schools were ordered to implement a new “patriotic” curriculum designed to normalize war and loyalty to the state.

Students competed in grenade throwing competitions. They started attending weekly patriotic lectures — in one, a history teacher said that Russians who disagreed with the government were “parasites” who should emigrate. At a school assembly, mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary group taught students how to identify different types of mines and survive if their legs were blown off below the knee.

Mr. Talankin was behind the camera when a teacher delivering a prescribed lesson stumbled over the words “denazification and demilitarization.” Mr. Putin has falsely claimed that Ukraine is run by Nazis, and that his main objective is to oust them.

When teachers are asked to parrot Kremlin messaging, “it works,” said Mr. Talankin. Children have the same teacher from the first until the fourth grade, he said, so they have tremendous power to shape a child’s worldview.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/world...ganda.html

[Belacqua]

Belaqua:
 
“It's cool that Denmark and Ukraine have a mutual defense pact.
If the US attacks Greenland, Ukraine is legally obliged to assist with the defense. That could be fun.”
 
That’s not funny. Yesterday a symbolic number of soldiers mainly from France and Germany were deployed to Greenland. Trump is about to get the US kicked out of NATO because of polar bears (nobody wants it but that’s where we are heading).
 
/Yes the US is almost as strong as everyone else combined. But Europeans still have enough military power to defend themselves against anyone else if it becomes necessary.
 
The main question here should be: Why is D. Trump putting an almost century old alliance with Europe at risk?
 
- You know when this feeling of mutual trust and friendship is broken, you can’t just restore it as you would restore a broken object.
 

It turns out that I was wrong about the defense pact. Someone kindly corrected me. 

I think it's true that NATO has outlived its usefulness, and there's no real reason to keep it going. But Trump's method of poking it in the eye with a stick doesn't make any sense. 

Trump is the symptom, not the cause. America is in steep decline, it has lost the respect of most of the world. The danger is that it will lash out violently rather than cede power to stronger countries.

 
Belaqua2:
 
- Germany is ramping up its military spending and has set the goal of making the German Armed Forces combat-ready by the end of this decade.
 

Well, a re-armed Germany, at a time when its economy is in decline, there is widespread discontent, and increasingly popular right-wing parties, is maybe not something we want to see happen again. 

 
This is not a nationalist war because the Ukrainians have a separate ethnic and even religious identity. 
 
And read this: Yes, they have a common history with Russians and the two countries have a lot of basis on which they could build up some sort of mutual friendship and alliances but all of this potential is gone with the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014. 
 

Yeah, I think the ethnic and cultural differences are not that great. I remember speaking about it with a Russian woman before the current fiasco started, and she assured me that Ukraine was a sister, and had a peaceful bond with Russia. She was not an expert on all this stuff, but that's what she was raised to feel. 

Particularly in the eastern part of the country, many people consider themselves to be culturally Russian, though their passports are Ukrainian. Russian is commonly spoken in all over the country. Zelensky used to speak it, though now he won't. A lot of the people who fled from the war ran to live in Russia -- that's where they wanted to be.

Some people have been intentionally stirring up trouble.

[Fake Messiah]

I think it's true that NATO has outlived its usefulness, and there's no real reason to keep it going.

It does serve to protect the West from expansionistic politics of Russia, and since Russia is still invading other countries, NATO is still very useful.

Particularly in the eastern part of the country, many people consider themselves to be culturally Russian, though their passports are Ukrainian.

That is the usual propaganda of dictators who invade other countries: that they are the same nation anyway. Like when Hitler invaded Austria.

Some people have been intentionally stirring up trouble.

And his name is Putin, dumbass.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I think it's true that NATO has outlived its usefulness, and there's no real reason 

Nope, Russia is still an issue.

Particularly in the eastern part of the country, many people consider themselves to be culturally Russian, though their passports are Ukrainian.

Russian propaganda, along with any pro-Russian sentiments, is largely a product of Russian colonialism.

 
I remember speaking about it with a Russian woman before the current fiasco started, and she assured me that Ukraine was a sister, and had a peaceful bond with Russia. 

Russia has only ever viewed itself as a colony or a subordinate state. Never as an equal 

Some people have been intentionally stirring up trouble.

Those people are called Russians

[The Grand Nudger]

Maybe the ethnic and cultural differences weren't that great before russia started terror bombing ukraine. Something tells me there's a slight gap now...for some reason or another. Probably NATOs fault.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Nothing says "you're part of us" quite like a cruise-missile into the power-plant that's heating your home in January.