All Things Russia & Ukraine

[jhu72]

Chinese media instructions for reporting on the Ukraine - Russia conflict.

[CU88]

Where do you consider beyond the Soviet Union?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma ... _names.svg

I don't interpret it as meaning this :

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/m ... mpire-1914

but your and my opinion don't matter a hill of beans.

It's whatever Putin chooses to pretend he believes.

You guys need to think like Putin. That's why we're in this mess.

What do you think I've been doing ?

What are Putin's territorial ambitions ? imho -- to recover control over as much of the former USSR as he can.

I'll go out on a limb & predict that Putin would be satisfied with a puppet regime in Kyiv, like he has in Minsk, & to then bring Russia, Belarus & Ukraine together via the Union process already in place. He might eventually try to unite them in a Greater Russian Confederation. He could name it Rodina.

imho -- no NATO nations are at risk, nor are Finland & Sweden. Georgia may be a target again in the future, if they push for NATO membership again.

Now turn over the RISK game board.

And that means we may as well give up on China deciding it wants to annex not just Taiwan but any country with ancient Chinese at its root.

Authoritarians should be able to just decide to do what they want. We should just shut up.

...ancient China ? Putin's just going back to 1991 when the USSR came apart.

So 1991 is The Year that all nation boundaries were made Official?

Thanks for letting us all know is Fact, you sure could have saved a lot of lives around the world if you had told us sooner.

[runrussellrun]

Wondering why anyone cares about any of this? We should care about this as much as most posters care about the communist state to our north.

you all are only caring because you are TOLD to care. such a joke.

war mongers....why you are called "pretends".

[admin]

People, no personal attacks...

[Farfromgeneva]

Is it personal if he assaults everyone all the time?

[dislaxxic]

Wherein, with Russia's best laid plan to install Pauley Manafort as Cheeto's Chief of Staff thwarted, Putin must use tanks now to achieve what their WH mole might have done in a Trump White House...

...the musings of a well-informed, and agenda-less, journalist...

Ukraine has been a part of that and starting in 2010, Paul Manafort was useful to giving his puppets the patina of legitimacy. After Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, Ukraine was useful as a testing ground for various kinds of hybrid warfare, most spectacularly with the NotPetya attack in 2018.

Ukraine — the partnership of Konstantin Kilimnik and Oleg Deripaska, along with their leverage over Paul Manafort — was also whence Russian launched its 2016 attack (I need to find the reference, but they knew they could place Manafort as campaign manager before the end of 2015). As I have written (in a piece on my understanding of the role of using the Steele dossier as a vehicle for disinformation), Russia’s interference in 2016 is best understood as a win-win. If Hillary won, Roger Stone would have rolled out the same Stop the Steal plan that was used in 2020 back in 2016. Trump’s win was an unexpected bonus.

As part of the 2016 operation, Russia also did unprecedented damage to the NSA (through the Shadow Brokers operation) and the CIA (in the way that WikiLeaks rolled out the Vault 7 release).The failure of Russia’s attempt to blame its interference on a false flag thwarted Russia’s best laid plans — which would have involved Kilimnik calling in the quid pro quo made with Manafort on August 2, 2016 and getting Trump to help carve up Ukraine in the same way Russia is currently doing with tanks.

Even still, the Russian investigation paid huge dividends and, given Putin’s long game, to date has surely more than worth it. That’s because the FBI-led investigation into Trump’s cooperation with Russia, over time, came to train Republicans to trust Putin more than they trust Democrats.

Republicans genuinely believe, falsely, that the FBI deliberately attempted to take Trump out (entirely memory holing Jim Comey’s role in getting Trump elected, much less that the FBI Agents running informants on the Clinton Foundation during the election were explicitly anti-Hillary). The dossier disinformation project proved so wildly successful that most Republicans genuinely believe, falsely, that there wasn’t abundant proof of cooperation between Trump and Russia, including communications directly with the Kremlin during the election that Michael Cohen lied to hide. Republican members of Congress genuinely came to believe — because they had to! — that Trump’s refusal to spend the money in support of Ukraine they had appropriated was just another Democratic attack on Trump and not an attempt to save the integrity of American democracy. All this culminated in Stop the Steal 2.0, a literal attack on American democracy; Republican fealty to Trump forced them — more reluctantly at first and driven in large part by real terror — to defend an assault on Congress.

..

[DocBarrister]

nope, he went further back...you aren't, but he is. And does it matter what year Russia committed to assurances that various independent states would be sovereign and be permanently recognized as such?

I read the entire transcript of his speech yesterday & his entire op-ed of July 21.
Lengthy, detailed, slow going. Lots of historical context, but no specific territorial aspirations stated or implied.
His most specific grievances are with the 1991 dissolution of the USSR & NATO expansion.
What do you predict that he will try beyond controlling Ukraine & uniting with Belarus ?

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828

I read that quite differently from your summary.

Lots of historical discourse, justifying the reclaiming of what was "historically Russia" which he is very broad in describing.

He differentiates this "historically Russia" from specifically during the Soviet Union, blames the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, all making "mistakes" and then of course the "mistakes" in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But the claim, both explicit and implicit, is that Russia has a right to any and all of the territories that are "historically Russian", which is in reality anything he says it is. Including whatever the prior reach of the Russian Empire was, at a minimum. There's really no limit to what could be claimed under this ideology as it's entirely subject to Orwellian propaganda.

F the international order and rule of law.

All of that historical discourse is focused on the Ukraine -- to establish that the Ukraine is a part of the 'original" Russia.
It is not to lay a predicate to regain every bit of land that was ever a part of the Russian Empire.

It is “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. And yes, that distinction is important.

DocBarrister

[MDlaxfan76]

nope, he went further back...you aren't, but he is. And does it matter what year Russia committed to assurances that various independent states would be sovereign and be permanently recognized as such?

I read the entire transcript of his speech yesterday & his entire op-ed of July 21.
Lengthy, detailed, slow going. Lots of historical context, but no specific territorial aspirations stated or implied.
His most specific grievances are with the 1991 dissolution of the USSR & NATO expansion.
What do you predict that he will try beyond controlling Ukraine & uniting with Belarus ?

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828

I read that quite differently from your summary.

Lots of historical discourse, justifying the reclaiming of what was "historically Russia" which he is very broad in describing.

He differentiates this "historically Russia" from specifically during the Soviet Union, blames the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, all making "mistakes" and then of course the "mistakes" in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But the claim, both explicit and implicit, is that Russia has a right to any and all of the territories that are "historically Russian", which is in reality anything he says it is. Including whatever the prior reach of the Russian Empire was, at a minimum. There's really no limit to what could be claimed under this ideology as it's entirely subject to Orwellian propaganda.

F the international order and rule of law.

All of that historical discourse is focused on the Ukraine -- to establish that the Ukraine is a part of the 'original" Russia.
It is not to lay a predicate to regain every bit of land that was ever a part of the Russian Empire.

It is “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. And yes, that distinction is important.

DocBarrister

It is, but many of Salty's generation struggle with it; I think Panetta in an interview today slipped on it if I'm not mistaken (interestingly, Trump did so, then caught himself obviously remembering prior scoldings)...that said, we've commented previously on this and it at least seems to be a choice now to flip the bird by inference. Subtle.

[old salt]

So 1991 is The Year that all nation boundaries were made Official?

Thanks for letting us all know is Fact, you sure could have saved a lot of lives around the world if you had told us sooner.

No need to get personal. MD & I are discussing what we think Putin's final objective is.
My guess is -- bringing Belarus & as much of Ukraine as he can into a Union with Russia.
MD thinks he has wider aspirations.
Thanks for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion.

[old salt]

nope, he went further back...you aren't, but he is. And does it matter what year Russia committed to assurances that various independent states would be sovereign and be permanently recognized as such?

I read the entire transcript of his speech yesterday & his entire op-ed of July 21.
Lengthy, detailed, slow going. Lots of historical context, but no specific territorial aspirations stated or implied.
His most specific grievances are with the 1991 dissolution of the USSR & NATO expansion.
What do you predict that he will try beyond controlling Ukraine & uniting with Belarus ?

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828

I read that quite differently from your summary.

Lots of historical discourse, justifying the reclaiming of what was "historically Russia" which he is very broad in describing.

He differentiates this "historically Russia" from specifically during the Soviet Union, blames the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, all making "mistakes" and then of course the "mistakes" in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But the claim, both explicit and implicit, is that Russia has a right to any and all of the territories that are "historically Russian", which is in reality anything he says it is. Including whatever the prior reach of the Russian Empire was, at a minimum. There's really no limit to what could be claimed under this ideology as it's entirely subject to Orwellian propaganda.

F the international order and rule of law.

All of that historical discourse is focused on the Ukraine -- to establish that the Ukraine is a part of the 'original" Russia.
It is not to lay a predicate to regain every bit of land that was ever a part of the Russian Empire.

It is “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. And yes, that distinction is important.

DocBarrister

It is, but many of Salty's generation struggle with it; I think Panetta in an interview today slipped on it if I'm not mistaken (interestingly, Trump did so, then caught himself obviously remembering prior scoldings)...that said, we've commented previously on this and it at least seems to be a choice now to flip the bird by inference. Subtle.

It is accurate to refer to it as THE Ukraine before independence, which is the time frame Putin was writing about.
It is a way to distinguish the region & the Soviet Republic from the independent nation (since 1991).

Leon Panetta (several times), Bob Gates & other fellow cold warriors still use that accurate terminology.

Do you have any preferred pronouns for the Ukrainians ?
Thanks for focusing on substance.

[DocBarrister]

nope, he went further back...you aren't, but he is. And does it matter what year Russia committed to assurances that various independent states would be sovereign and be permanently recognized as such?

I read the entire transcript of his speech yesterday & his entire op-ed of July 21.
Lengthy, detailed, slow going. Lots of historical context, but no specific territorial aspirations stated or implied.
His most specific grievances are with the 1991 dissolution of the USSR & NATO expansion.
What do you predict that he will try beyond controlling Ukraine & uniting with Belarus ?

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828

I read that quite differently from your summary.

Lots of historical discourse, justifying the reclaiming of what was "historically Russia" which he is very broad in describing.

He differentiates this "historically Russia" from specifically during the Soviet Union, blames the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, all making "mistakes" and then of course the "mistakes" in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But the claim, both explicit and implicit, is that Russia has a right to any and all of the territories that are "historically Russian", which is in reality anything he says it is. Including whatever the prior reach of the Russian Empire was, at a minimum. There's really no limit to what could be claimed under this ideology as it's entirely subject to Orwellian propaganda.

F the international order and rule of law.

All of that historical discourse is focused on the Ukraine -- to establish that the Ukraine is a part of the 'original" Russia.
It is not to lay a predicate to regain every bit of land that was ever a part of the Russian Empire.

It is “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. And yes, that distinction is important.

DocBarrister

It is, but many of Salty's generation struggle with it; I think Panetta in an interview today slipped on it if I'm not mistaken (interestingly, Trump did so, then caught himself obviously remembering prior scoldings)...that said, we've commented previously on this and it at least seems to be a choice now to flip the bird by inference. Subtle.

It is accurate to refer to it as THE Ukraine before independence, which is the time frame Putin was writing about.
It is a way to distinguish the region & the Soviet Republic from the independent nation (since 1991).

Leon Panetta (several times), Bob Gates & other fellow cold warriors still use that accurate terminology.

Do you have any preferred pronouns for the Ukrainians ?
Thanks for focusing on substance.

There’s never been a proper use of “the Ukraine” in any context. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was never formally “the Ukraine”. It’s a pejorative term that Russians use for Ukraine.

Most importantly, it is very telling that you do not consider the distinction between “Ukraine” and “the Ukraine” to be one of “substance.”

Indeed, it is arguably at the heart of this entire crisis. “Ukraine” is an independent nation of a distinct people and culture. Meanwhile, “the Ukraine” is a belittling term used for a purported region of Russia and home to, from a Russian perspective, a subordinate subset of Russians. THAT is the heart of this dispute.

Your complete failure to recognize that as an issue of “substance” reveals either a comprehensive pro-Russian bias or a an absolute ignorance of the unique history and people of Ukraine.

DocBarrister

[MDlaxfan76]

nope, he went further back...you aren't, but he is. And does it matter what year Russia committed to assurances that various independent states would be sovereign and be permanently recognized as such?

I read the entire transcript of his speech yesterday & his entire op-ed of July 21.
Lengthy, detailed, slow going. Lots of historical context, but no specific territorial aspirations stated or implied.
His most specific grievances are with the 1991 dissolution of the USSR & NATO expansion.
What do you predict that he will try beyond controlling Ukraine & uniting with Belarus ?

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828

I read that quite differently from your summary.

Lots of historical discourse, justifying the reclaiming of what was "historically Russia" which he is very broad in describing.

He differentiates this "historically Russia" from specifically during the Soviet Union, blames the Bolsheviks, Lenin, Stalin, all making "mistakes" and then of course the "mistakes" in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But the claim, both explicit and implicit, is that Russia has a right to any and all of the territories that are "historically Russian", which is in reality anything he says it is. Including whatever the prior reach of the Russian Empire was, at a minimum. There's really no limit to what could be claimed under this ideology as it's entirely subject to Orwellian propaganda.

F the international order and rule of law.

All of that historical discourse is focused on the Ukraine -- to establish that the Ukraine is a part of the 'original" Russia.
It is not to lay a predicate to regain every bit of land that was ever a part of the Russian Empire.

It is “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine”. And yes, that distinction is important.

DocBarrister

It is, but many of Salty's generation struggle with it; I think Panetta in an interview today slipped on it if I'm not mistaken (interestingly, Trump did so, then caught himself obviously remembering prior scoldings)...that said, we've commented previously on this and it at least seems to be a choice now to flip the bird by inference. Subtle.

It is accurate to refer to it as THE Ukraine before independence, which is the time frame Putin was writing about.
It is a way to distinguish the region & the Soviet Republic from the independent nation (since 1991).

Leon Panetta (several times), Bob Gates & other fellow cold warriors still use that accurate terminology.

Do you have any preferred pronouns for the Ukrainians ?
Thanks for focusing on substance.

So...you were simply adopting Putin's terminology not actually using it yourself?

Doc is correct, "the Ukraine" is a Russian/Soviet invention, intentionally claiming that all of Ukraine is actually part of Russia...which is patently false.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... d1d880e9d3

Instead of being connected to Russian Moscow, all of what is now Ukraine instead for centuries was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 1300s, and later of the Union of Poland and Lithuania, a vast multilingual, multiethnic state whose territory encompassed almost all of what is now Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine (and parts of what is now Russia.)

In its eastern and southeastern regions, the union’s dominant languages were Polish and Ruthenian, the predecessor to modern-day Ukrainian and Belarusian. The population included Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Jews and Tartars.

Uprisings by an army of Ukrainian Cossacks against Polish lords and landowners in the middle 1600s led to a Cossack alliance with Moscow and eastern Ukraine breaking off from the Polish-Lithuanian Union and pledging loyalty to the czar in 1654. Western Ukraine remained part of the Polish-Lithuanian Union for another 150 years, until Poland was partitioned for the final time in 1795 and erased from the map of Europe.

Poland rose again after World War I and fought a territorial war with Soviet Russia between 1919 and 1922, winning back much of Ukraine. Those lands returned to Soviet control a generation later during and after World War II, but after the war Ukrainian nationalist partisans fought on against the Soviets in a guerrilla resistance for several years.

The “great famine” or Holodomor imposed on Ukraine by Stalin in the early 1930s had led to millions of deaths and seeded lingering Ukrainian bitterness toward Soviet Russian rule.

That the Bolsheviks recognized Ukraine as a separate socialist republic when the Soviet Union was created was no accident.

It addressed the reality of Ukraine’s separate history and identity, poised somewhere between Moscow and the West for most of its existence, but never given the chance to rule itself until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

[old salt]

I've been referring to the region & the Soviet Republic as THE Ukraine since my undergrad courses on Russian & Soviet history, as did my professors & classmates. That was followed by 20 years of reading about THE Ukraine in intel reports & tactical documents.
When we targeted Sevastopol & Odessa, we did not refer to them as part of "Ukraine".
I plan to continue to use THE Ukraine to make the distinction to which I am referring.

[Brooklyn]

Ukraine Declares State of Emergency for 30 days Over Russian Threat


https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... hreat.html


Ukraine has declared a state of emergency for 30 days from midnight tonight. The Ukrainian Parliament adopted the relevant presidential decree this evening, with 335 MPs voting in favor in the 450-seat house.

The reason for the state of emergency is Russian aggression against the country and the possibility of invasion.

Restrictions on the population will not be introduced immediately, but will depend on specific situations and necessity, local media outlets reported.

It introduces personal document checks and gives the government power to impose a curfew if needed.

And it means military reservists will not be allowed to leave the country.

The declaration affects all of Ukraine apart from the two eastern regions which have been in a state of emergency since 2014.







Now watch for all those draft dodgers from both countries drifting into NYC.

[DocBarrister]

I've been referring to the region & the Soviet Republic as THE Ukraine since my undergrad courses on Russian & Soviet history, as did my professors & classmates. That was followed by 20 years of reading about THE Ukraine in intel reports & tactical documents.
When we targeted Sevastopol & Odessa, we did not refer to them as part of "Ukraine".
I plan to continue to use THE Ukraine to make the distinction to which I am referring.

You’re not even bothering to hide your pro-Putin bias anymore.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

Ukraine Declares State of Emergency for 30 days Over Russian Threat


https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... hreat.html


Ukraine has declared a state of emergency for 30 days from midnight tonight. The Ukrainian Parliament adopted the relevant presidential decree this evening, with 335 MPs voting in favor in the 450-seat house.

The reason for the state of emergency is Russian aggression against the country and the possibility of invasion.

Restrictions on the population will not be introduced immediately, but will depend on specific situations and necessity, local media outlets reported.

It introduces personal document checks and gives the government power to impose a curfew if needed.

And it means military reservists will not be allowed to leave the country.

The declaration affects all of Ukraine apart from the two eastern regions which have been in a state of emergency since 2014.







Now watch for all those draft dodgers from both countries drifting into NYC.

You know, isolationism kind of went out of vogue with WWII.

DocBarrister

[ardilla secreta]

Now watch for all those draft dodgers from both countries drifting into NYC.

That’s for sure.

There’s already plenty of Russian immigrants here filling jobs in the sciences as Americans are to lazy to study in that field in sufficient numbers. Tech field too.

In the near future America will be flush with Ukrainian and Taiwanese immigrants. Everybody should brush up on their Mandarin so you can get better job assignments.

[Typical Lax Dad]

I've been referring to the region & the Soviet Republic as THE Ukraine since my undergrad courses on Russian & Soviet history, as did my professors & classmates. That was followed by 20 years of reading about THE Ukraine in intel reports & tactical documents.
When we targeted Sevastopol & Odessa, we did not refer to them as part of "Ukraine".
I plan to continue to use THE Ukraine to make the distinction to which I am referring.

Undergrad Days!!

[Brooklyn]

You know, isolationism kind of went out of vogue with WWII.

DocBarrister

Well, you know what they say, when it comes to war, the profit motive is always the best motive.

[DocBarrister]

You know, isolationism kind of went out of vogue with WWII.

DocBarrister

Well, you know what they say, when it comes to war, the profit motive is always the best motive.

Well, you know what they say, the profit from appeasement is Peace in our time.

DocBarrister