Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Iormlund]

The West should start playing our own propaganda game.

I think casting a Russian-Chinese alliance as the modern Axis would be a good start. And not terribly inaccurate either.

That's not really an alliance, though.

China can and will dictate terms to Russia.

[Berkut]

I don't think it really matters.

It's not like the people doing this are relying on a coherent narrative for their story.

I mean, we had someone just tell us how the EU claimed that Georgia started that war.

We have people who still say that the airliner was shot down by Ukrainians, or was full of mannequins, and any story to the contrary is not to be trusted because "you can't trust the mainstream media".

The lies don't really have to make sense, apparently.

[Berkut]

The West should start playing our own propaganda game.

I think casting a Russian-Chinese alliance as the modern Axis would be a good start. And not terribly inaccurate either.

That's not really an alliance, though.

China can and will dictate terms to Russia.

So what? Was Germany Italy really an alliance?

I don' think a sober analysis of the relative strengths and who is calling the shots is really the point.

[Jacob]

I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the US/Western campaign of constantly publishing Russian intentions has seriously discombobulated the Russian propaganda strategy.

Even the usual useful idiots in the West are having trouble parroting Putin's various lies this time around. It is just a weak effort, perhaps because it has been constantly wrong-footed.

Yeah I concur.

[The Brain]

Russia/Putin looks weak. The whole thing seems to be a desperate push by an over-the-hill fighter. The Chinese character for "crisis" also means "myth", so this could definitely be an opportunity. If Russia gets slappped around enough (hopefully by just economic warfare means instead of armed conflict means) it might break again.

[The Brain]

The West should start playing our own propaganda game.

I think casting a Russian-Chinese alliance as the modern Axis would be a good start. And not terribly inaccurate either.

That's not really an alliance, though.

China can and will dictate terms to Russia.

So what? Was Germany Italy really an alliance?

[DGuller]

Two thoughts:

1) A bit surprised at the weakness of the propaganda effort.  It really shouldn't be that hard in that confused neighborhood to foment some fig leaf excuse for intervention, especially for a well-trained ex-KGB operative, but the effort has been completely mailed in.  Either Putin and his coterie aren't the geniuses they've been made out to be (and make themselves out to be) or for some reason there is time urgency at play.

2) This could be the beginning of the end of Russia's position in the Pacific region.  If Western sanctions are imposed, Russia will have to lean hard on Chinese support.  They can and will get it, but likely at the price of selling off chunks of Siberian-Pacific resources to Chinese interests.

I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the US/Western campaign of constantly publishing Russian intentions has seriously discombobulated the Russian propaganda strategy.

Even the usual useful idiots in the West are having trouble parroting Putin's various lies this time around. It is just a weak effort, perhaps because it has been constantly wrong-footed.

I'm coming around to that impression as well.  It does seem like the US intel airing tactic caught them off guard, and KGB is not the type of entity to react swiftly to unplanned contingencies.  It may also have intimidated some useful idiots in the West into keeping quiet, because even if Russian diplomats have no problem trolling without any shame at all, some of the Western useful idiots have to operate under higher standards of plausibility.

[Sheilbh]

I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the US/Western campaign of constantly publishing Russian intentions has seriously discombobulated the Russian propaganda strategy.

Even the usual useful idiots in the West are having trouble parroting Putin's various lies this time around. It is just a weak effort, perhaps because it has been constantly wrong-footed.

Yeah.

I'm really unsure about this. There's two sides one is the information war and I think on that the US/Western strategy of publishing their intelligence agencies' assessments of what Russia's up to has been relatively successful. But I think the other piece was to try and use it to prevent actual war - hopefully it can still succeed there but possibly not. I think the goal of all of these information war approaches is to affect the real world, not win the discourse, and I think we're closer than we were but I'm not sure this strategy will work fully either.

I think it's part of it but I think there's something to MM's points and I really wonder about the covid/isolation point with Putin. It's not just that they're discombobulating and wrong-footed. It's just weird at points - the security council meeting with them all sat twenty feet away from him and as a propaganda event to justify the start of something Putin just looked utterly bored. There may be some element of the Kremlin being misfooted but as MM says it looks mailed in. It's really weird going through the motions because that's what you do.

One thing I keep thinking about is what happened in Kazakhstan where it looks like there were genuine protests but they got hijacked for an elite fight between Nazarbayev and the new President. The new President won and Nazarbayev is said to be somewhere else (I've seen so many rumours of where he's based now). Nazarbayev is one of the model kleptocrats - in charge since 91, few $100 million chateaus and castles dotted around Europe etc. Looking at that you can help but think Russia won't be a place where you can retire like Deng or other Chinese leaders, once you give up power chances are you won't be able to keep your clan protected from the new regime if they turn on you and you won't be able to keep your (in-country) wealth. I just wonder if that's had some impact on Putin because the combination of that and then the really weird atmosphere at the security council meeting - where he's making everyone sign up to what they're about to do publicly - combined with the likely sanction if they go ahead with this. It feels like a Pharaoh locking himself and his courtiers into a weird, isolated, Brezhnevite tomb - it was like everyone at that meeting realising there's no way out.

I'm coming around to that impression as well.  It does seem like the US intel airing tactic caught them off guard, and KGB is not the type of entity to react swiftly to unplanned contingencies.  It may also have intimidated some useful idiots in the West into keeping quiet, because even if Russian diplomats have no problem trolling without any shame at all, some of the Western useful idiots have to operate under higher standards of plausibility.

To be honest Putin's speech has been very helpful in that regards too.

The usual left/Trot anti-imperialist analysis seems to have foundered on Putin saying he wants the Russian Empire back

[Tamas]

The useful idiot narrative has solidly shifted even before the Putin speech on this being the West fault's because Ukraine is a Russian influence zone, and that it isn't really Russia's fault but the background moneys manipulating world politics to force Russia's hand.

[Malthus]

The narrative had to shift, because after a certain point the lies aren't just obvious - they are eye-rollingly impossible to sustain.

Like the various Russian false flag attempts. I mean, the car bombing was just painfully dumb.

Eventually, the line has to be that Putin is simply justified in invading Ukraine, because Russia deserves to own the place, it isn't a "real" country, he's got the power to do it, historical determinism, and if you try and stop him he'll go nuts and fling nukes around. In short, a sort of might makes right hodgepodge of a justification, larded with whataboutism, threats, and Russian manifest destiny.

Problem is, none of that is a palatable sell to anyone outside of Russia - even the usual useful idiots who can be relied on to hate the West reflexively will have trouble swallowing that.

[Josquius]

All I'm seeing is "Yeah but Ukraine has a literal nazi batallion in the army!" and attempts to say the BBC is just as bad as RT because reasons.

[Admiral Yi]

Has comrade Corbyn made a statement?

[Sheilbh]

Has comrade Corbyn made a statement?

He's retweeted the Stop the War statement today:

Stop the War Statement on Ukraine 22/02/22

Stop the War condemns the movement of Russian forces into eastern Ukraine and urges that they immediately withdraw, alongside the resumption of diplomatic negotiations to resolve the crisis.

This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions.  That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.

The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.

The British government has played a provocative role in the present crisis, talking up war, decrying diplomacy as appeasement and escalating arms supplies and military deployments to Eastern Europe.

If there is to be a return to diplomacy, as there should be, the British government should pledge to oppose any further eastward expansion of NATO and should encourage a return to the Minsk-2 agreement, already signed by both sides, by all parties as a basis for ending the crisis in relations between Ukraine and Russia.

Beyond that, there now needs to be a unified effort to develop pan-European security arrangements which meet the needs of all states, something that should have been done when the Warsaw Pact was wound up at the end of the Cold War.  The alternative is endless great power conflict with all the attendant waste of resources and danger of bloodshed and destruction.

We send our solidarity to all those campaigning for an end to the war, often under very difficult conditions, in Russia and Ukraine.  Stop the War can best support them by demanding a change in Britain's own policy, which can be seen to have failed.

An hour after Putin's tweet Corbyn also tweeted a video of himself in the Commons asking the Defence Secretary whether the UK would support and put its weight behind the Minsk agreement and if it would support de-escalation on all sides, including NATO troops withdrawing from Eastern Europe.

[Sheilbh]

Problem is, none of that is a palatable sell to anyone outside of Russia - even the usual useful idiots who can be relied on to hate the West reflexively will have trouble swallowing that.

Yes - I am seeing intra-left fights and the "Stop Some Wars" tag is being used by more than the usual suspects.

Edit: Although it is clarifying we're down to about 10-15 hard-core Corbyn loyalists still behind them with statements like that.

[Malthus]

The Stop the War statement is just embarrassing, and will probably grow more so as time goes on.

I love the notion that the crisis is "... not ... the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone ...".

Implying, first, an equivalency between them - as if this was a two-sided disagreement that got out of hand, and not a one-way predation.

Second, outright shifting the blame to the West, as per usual.