For outsiders, it’s hard to understand how interconnected Russia and Ukraine are culturally, socially and historically. The upshot is a war between two countries that share much in common including deep, emotional bonds.
Seems as though pootie and the r’s are very comfortable with fratricide. Who could have guessed?
the danzig defense
This invasion is a little like what it would have been like had the CSA won the Civil War and succeeded in seceding and becoming a recognized sovereign country, and then 150 years later invaded the USA to take back West Virginia and DC. These attempts to rewind the clock to correct alleged past injustices and restore some mythical proper order of things is psychotic, akin to trying to go back to the 11th grade because that’s when you were most popular and powerful.
Russia has to be defeated and driven out of ALL of Ukraine, not just the parts it invaded and seized this past week, and the rest of the situation ante bellum is no longer tenable. Putin is forever a war criminal and persona no grata, and there can be no future regular order dealings with him. He must either step down and face charges, in Russia or the ICC, or die, or Russia will be treated like Iran, Syria or North Korea, a pariah state that must be endured but not accepted.
Putin delenda est.
Historically, Russia would take soldiers from a different region to fight their wars so as to avoid situations such as these. Are they not doing that anymore?
There are surely some of the Russian troops who have relatives and friends in Ukraine. I have to wonder if they, having been sent there by the madman under false pretenses, are going to be willing to wage war on their friends and family.
not as many “regions” to draw from in the Russian Federation
as there were in the soviet union?
or they didn’t feel the need they grossly miscalculated and thought it would be over in a day
Eventually this war will be everybody against Putin, hopefully sooner rather than later. He is in the process of trashing two countries.
Josh:
Thanks for your knowledge, expertise, energy, and tireless, dogged dedication. Can’t think of a better-equipped Stateside reporter for this beat. You’re performing invaluable service here.
He is taking soldiers from Belarus, though that is more an act of desperation.
“Ukraine War Pits Families Against Families.”
Hell, it’s dividing families in America, as everyone’s crazy uncle bombards them with Fox talking points.
If nothing else, Putin will be remembered as the guy who undermined the GOP, their one-term joke of a puppet president, and millions of voters who knew better.
The world’s in a helluva fix at the moment, but when it’s all over, I can’t wait for the criminal reckoning, not just for Russian war criminals, but for their willing assets among the Murdoch moles, Facebook insiders, and Republican collaborators – including a full blown investigation of why and how the 2016 Republican platform quietly deleted military support for Ukraine against Russia invasion.
(And, G-d forbid, any of those domestic traitors get caught in flagrante delicto before this ends, then may the hammer of American justice crush their treasonous testes.)
Kharkiv now
Cluster bombs?
multiple rocket launchers, i think
The Ukrainians had a successful first week of the war, but now things get harder this week. A desperate Putin and Russian army are resorting to using heavier weapons in civilian areas to essentially raze towns, villages and occupy cities. They have occupied at least 2 cities in the South, Berdiansk and Mariupol. The Ukrainian army has provided limited resistance as they are focused more on the north/northeast and because the Russians have a tactical advantage in the South as they can stage invasions from Crimea, the Sea of Azov and they have more friendlies in the Donetsk/Luhansk region.
The West has to accelerate supplies to Ukraine. The goal needs to be to destroy the larger Russian convoys outside Kiev and Kharkiv and then work their way South to chase the Russians out of the country. Russia’s heavy use of Belarus as a staging ground is complicating matters.
All that said, if the Ukrainians can withstand this week, Putin gets weaker, not stronger. His military has taken heavy losses. His economy has turned into a crisis state over night. His banks are cut off from the financial system. There really isn’t a substitute for Ukraine beating Russia on the battlefield if the goal is to see Russia pushed back and Putin ousted.
There is another issue regarding the risk of nuclear war and more direct NATO engagement. NATO is so far treating this as if this were akin to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. They let Russia occupy Afghanistan and gave aid to Afghan groups to win a war of attrition over many years. This is being managed in the traditional Cold War model, more or less, with very tough sanctions and direct aid. The reason for that is perfectly sensible: we don’t want to waltz into a situation where we are in a direct military conflict with another nuclear power. It’s problematic.
However, in Putin we have a fellow with openly stated Hitler like aims for territorial and racial domination, but with nukes. He is also displaying a willingness to get more aggressive and first strike curious with nukes, as he has strong armed Belarus to move nukes there. We’re talking only about 500 miles from Berlin and 250 mi or so from Warsaw. If the West allows Putin to overwhelm Ukraine, does he stop there? Or, does the West believe that he will claim a victory against all odds, ramp up his global propaganda machine, weaken western governments from within and attack or create client states by other means? By not intervening directly now against a guy who is already signaling his willingness to use nukes, are we simply deferring conflict to a time when Putin may be stronger (if he overwhelms Ukraine despite their bravery)?
It seems that there are reasons to think through whether the old Cold War model still works here. Annihliating entire countries and races from existence are really what triggered allies to go to war vs Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and demand unconditional surrender. The difference between this and Crimea is that Putin cast his ambitions in a more limited, irredentist scope and Ukraine still had its post-Yanukovych democracy mostly intact. It was very much in the tradition of the smaller conflicts of the Cold War era, and maybe even more parochial than those. This is different. The world doesn’t tolerate or stomach Putin’s aims, because he has expressly stated that it is about racial and territorial supremacy. In addition, Putin isn’t a passive player in the domestic politics of western countries. He aids and cultivates politicians and far right groups. If he wins in Ukraine, all of those folks will be out there celebrating him as a victor and influencing politics to align with him. He’ll be the undisputed leader of the far right around the world. Do we really want that situation? Putin, fresh off a win in Ukraine, is potentially pretty dangerous because of his ability to interfere in the domestic politics of the western alliance. He has Trump, after all.
So, it might be time for some out of the box thinking, because Putin is clearly out of his box. I don’t think I can stress enough how strong arming Belarus into putting nukes on its soil is a very aggressive move that the world should be much more alarmed about. In a way, we’re already in a new Cold War with Russia that is burning a bit hot because of Putin’s desperation.
They also stationed soldiers far away from home within the country. On my first visit to the Soviet Union (Moscow) I noticed that uniformed soldiers (a common sight) appeared Asian or otherwise “non-white”.
I was told that was done purposefully. If there was ever a rebellion that had to be suppressed non-white soldiers would be less likely to balk at shooting whites and vice versa in other regions in the Soviet Union.
Putin is a monster!
When this country previously did ‘no fly’, the opponents were the Iraqis, the Serbs and the Libyans.
Yes, NATO could declare a no fly zone regarding military aircraft, However, unless there’s a plan to keep this stage on the conventional level, it’d be crazy to institute ‘no fly’, because Putin is the new Hun (Tatar).
How do you tell a mother or father that Putin needs to send your kid to fight to restore the Soviet Union?
