Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Minsky Moment]

Re. the Nordics:

Jason Groves
@JasonGroves1
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova warns Finland and Sweden they would 'face some military and political consequences' if they tried to join Nato

Well we now know what the consequences are if you *don't* join NATO.  Seems like an easy call.

[Tamas]

https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/ebu-statement-russia-2022

[Sheilbh]

https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/ebu-statement-russia-2022

I've been following that all day and it was actually great. EBU's initial position was Russia would still participate. Then all day today you've had act after act from across Europe say they refuse to perform in a competition with Russia, so the EBU were forced to move.

[Duque de Bragança]

https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/ebu-statement-russia-2022

I've been following that all day and it was actually great. EBU's initial position was Russia would still participate. Then all day today you've had act after act from across Europe say they refuse to perform in a competition with Russia, so the EBU were forced to move.

Take that Putin! 

[Zanza]

The 5000 helmets Germany promised are finally on the way. Will be given to the Ukrainians outside Ukraine to avoid danger for the Germans. This shit is beyond ridiculous. 

[Sheilbh]

Russia announcing restrictions on accessing Facebook in Russia - again it feels like the attitude/mood of the Russian people is key here.

[Threviel]

The 5000 helmets Germany promised are finally on the way. Will be given to the Ukrainians outside Ukraine to avoid danger for the Germans. This shit is beyond ridiculous.

Perhaps time to put a generator on Wilhelm II's corpse?

[Duque de Bragança]

The 5000 helmets Germany promised are finally on the way. Will be given to the Ukrainians outside Ukraine to avoid danger for the Germans. This shit is beyond ridiculous.

Pickelhauben are lethal weapons! 

[Maladict]

The 5000 helmets Germany promised are finally on the way. Will be given to the Ukrainians outside Ukraine to avoid danger for the Germans. This shit is beyond ridiculous.

Horns on the outside?

[Savonarola]

China weighs in (from CNN)

As war breaks out in Europe, China blames the US
By Simone McCarthy and CNN's Beijing bureau

Updated 11:02 AM ET, Fri February 25, 2022

(CNN)As Russian missiles flew through the Ukrainian sky Thursday and world leaders decried an invasion spreading across the country, China refused to condemn Russia's move outright, while appearing to levy blame on the United States and its allies.

Beijing finds itself in a complex position as Russia's invasion of its neighbor intensifies, needing to balance a close strategic partnership with Moscow with its seemingly contradictory policy of supporting state sovereignty.

A Chinese government official Thursday sidestepped questions over whether it would condemn Russia's actions or consider it an "invasion."

Instead, China's Assistant Foreign Minister Hua Chunying -- who repeated staid lines about seeking peace through dialogue and said the situation was "not what we would hope to see" -- was quick to point the finger at the US, implying that Washington was a "culprit" for "fanning up flames," referring to US warnings in recent weeks of an imminent invasion.

"China has taken a responsible attitude and persuaded all parties not to escalate tensions or incite war...Those who follow the US' lead in fanning up flames and then shifting the blame onto others are truly irresponsible," she said.

The comments echoed those made a day earlier, prior to the invasion, when Hua blamed the crisis on "NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep."

"Did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" she said.

The presence of Hua at the briefing both days was itself unusual, as the veteran spokeswoman had not been at the podium in such briefings since she was promoted to assistant minister for foreign affairs in October.

Her comments were widely disseminated across China's official state media and social media platforms, where talk of Ukraine dominated coverage and conversation

'War is not funny'

But while state media reflected the official government line, top trending topics on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, included a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin with more than 360 million views, as well as others looking at how Ukrainian citizens were reacting, such as a post on people lining up to donate blood with 62 million views.

The topic "Ukraine President says Western countries completely give up on Ukraine," topped the list in the morning, raking up over 1 billion views throughout the day and tens of thousands of comments.

Many of those comments on the highly moderated platform mocked Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelensky for being "pro-West" and cheered for Russia and Putin.

But others pushed back: "War is not funny at all," wrote one user, whose post was liked over 60,000 times. "It makes me feel physically sick to see all the jokes about war."

Elsewhere online, homepages of China's major state media outlets took a measured approach, citing statements and news from both the Ukrainian and Russian side, while putting focus on sanctions leveraged by other countries against Russia.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily highlighted comments from China's Foreign Ministry pointing to how the US had been "increasing tensions and hyping up war."

A glimpse of the kind of guidance that state media may be under emerged Tuesday, when what appeared to be an internal memo from Chinese state media Beijing News directing its employees not to publish news reports "negative to Russia or pro-West" was mistakenly published on the outlet's official social media account.

The post, which was swiftly deleted, also directed employees to "filter and release proper comments." Beijing government-controlled

Beijing News declined CNN's request for comment on the incident.

A relationship with 'no limits'

The Russian invasion comes on the heels of a meeting earlier this month between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Putin, who made a show of their strong bond with a highly publicized meeting ahead of the Beijing Olympics and declared "no limits" to their relationship.
But an outright backing of Russian moves would put China at odds with the West. It would also contradict China's usual vocal support for state sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In a phone conversation between Xi and Putin on Friday, Xi said China "decides its position based on the merits of the Ukraine issue itself," and that China supports Russia and Ukraine resolving their issue through negotiation, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

"China is willing to work with all parties in the international community to advocate a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept," Xi reportedly added.

The high-level call follows talks between China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov Thursday, in which Wang expressed understanding for Russia's "legitimate concerns" on security issues, but said "China always respects all countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to a statement by China's Foreign Ministry.

China has denied that it was complicit in Russia's moves, but Western leaders are paying close attention to the Moscow-Beijing relationship as events in Ukraine unfold.

As Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled new sanctions against Russia Friday, he said he was "concerned at the lack of a strong response from China."

Morrison said China's move to begin importing Russian wheat -- based on an agreement made earlier this month -- was "unacceptable" as Australia, the US, Europe, the United Kingdom and Japan acted "to cut off" Russia.

China hit back at the West's decision to slap a swath of economic sanctions on Russia in recent days. In her comments Wednesday, Hua pointed to China's position that sanctions are "never" effective.

"Will the Ukraine issue resolve itself thanks to the US sanctions on Russia? Will European security be better guaranteed thanks to the US sanctions on Russia?" she asked.

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

Zelenskiy posting a Telegram video showing that he and other senior leaders are still in Kyiv:
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1497257230286176262?s=20&t=b5g4fqrbxNDwImOjTNsK8g

He'd earlier said that from intelligence they'd seen he was the number one target for Russian forces - especially now Putin's directly appealed for a coup.

[Jacob]

F1 racing and international ski and tennis competitions in Russia are also cancelled. I expect we'll see all sport and cultural arrangement cancelled, with very few exceptions.

Open question about World Cup qualifiers where Russia was supposed to play Poland for a chance at qualifying.

[crazy canuck]

It should also be noted the theory that gained increasing popularity in the 1980s--that trading partners don't go to war, and that free trade leads to freer societies, is now as fully debunked as anything can reasonably be. Given that this theory was the justification for much of our opening up our societies to Russia and China, knowledge that it is a false hypothesis needs to inform our future decision making. With nuclear powers direct war is undesirable and best avoided, but there is no logical reason we have to open our societies up to the degree we have to Russian fossil fuels and cheap labor in China. There are other sources of cheap labor, and to be frank to some degree we have caused serious sociocultural problems in our own countries by gutting blue collar workforces in the highly developed West in favor of cheap blue-collar labor abroad. Covid also showed how fragile and weak global supply chains are. Goods and product being more expensive and being made locally, may need to become a norm, and we should probably reflect more honestly on how that would not be the end of the world. Our lives and happiness should not be linked to cheap shit when moderately higher priced products can be attained in other ways that are less politically and socially damaging.

I think the theory is more that western liberal democracies don't got to war, and that free trade is a path or the path to more freedom and democracy. I think the latter part is what we are realizing is not really true - certainly China is showing that it isn't necessarily true, anyway.

I wonder whether this theory was based on a pre-internet world.
Richer people do demand greater access to the media and other trappings of the developed world... though with the internet you can control the by far most convenient avenue for this a lot easier than in the days when everything worked on physical media or broadcasts.
Its a sort of situation where as things become easier and more convenient so much so that the old ways die, they also become easier to disrupt.
Trying to piece it together in my mind here but perhaps some variant of Dunning Kruger too?- the more surface integrated you are with the world, as in the internet, despite intense government filtering, the more you believe yourself to be actually free and don't grasp that you're not?

I think it was more to do with the belief that capitalism and liberal democracy are necessarily coupled.  Remember, this was at a time when everyone believed liberal democracy had won the ideological struggle and so all the previously communist countries would become capitalist and therefore liberal democratic countries.  All that was necessary, it was believed, was to create free markets and remove state controls and all would be well.  Of course that kind of simplistic right wing economic view of the world was dead wrong.  But people still cling to it.

[crazy canuck]

The 5000 helmets Germany promised are finally on the way. Will be given to the Ukrainians outside Ukraine to avoid danger for the Germans. This shit is beyond ridiculous.

The sort of response Putin counted on.  He guessed correctly that the West would huff and puff and then walk away.