Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

I'm seeing reports that the OECD has shut down the Russian application negotiations permanently, and are shutting down their office in Moscow. Also the Council of Europe has suspended Russia.

[OttoVonBismarck]

NATO has deployed parts of its response force to its eastern flank, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine extends Moscow's military power to the borders of several of the alliance's member states.

It is the first time the treaty's response force has been used for collective security, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Friday.

"We are deploying elements of the NATO Response Force on land, at sea and in the air to further strengthen our posture and to respond quickly to any contingency," Stoltenberg said, adding that countries bordering the conflict in Ukraine are "extremely concerned."

"This goes far beyond Ukraine," Stoltenberg said. "This is about how Russia is actually challenging, contesting core values for our security."

President Joe Biden was among the NATO heads of state who met Friday morning to coordinate the treaty organization's next moves as Russian President Vladimir Putin pushes forward with his full assault on his western neighbor. Russian forces encircled and entered Kyiv on Friday, prompting Ukrainian citizens to take up arms and braced for an intense battle. The NATO deployment along its eastern flank also comes as the U.S. warned that Moscow's ultimate goal is "decapitating the government" in Kyiv and establishing a Russian-backed government in Ukraine's capital.

NATO said it will continue to deploy troops as necessary to "ensure strong and credible deterrence and defence across the Alliance, now and in the future."

"Our measures are and remain preventive, proportionate and non-escalatory," the statement said.

Stoltenberg didn't specify the number of troops who would be deployed in this first round but said he's talking about "thousands of troops." NATO's response force, comprised of 40,000 troops, has tripled in size since 2014, the year Putin first invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

Biden approved the deployment of an additional 7,000 U.S. troops to Germany on Thursday, bringing the total of American forces sent to Europe to 12,000 this month. The troops will include an armored brigade combat team with "associated capabilities and enablers," the Defense Department said Thursday. The president has repeatedly said he's not sending American troops to fight in Ukraine, but instead that the U.S. soldiers will be in place to reassure NATO allies.

Stoltenberg also said NATO allies during Friday's summit said they were ready to continue providing military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

[Sheilbh]

Another reason for allowing Finland and especially Sweden in is, if both neutral countries were occupied by Putin, that would fatally undermine to defences of two existing NATO members, Norway and Denmark.

Yeah I think practically speaking NATO already would defend them because they're an essential flank of the alliance - I think Finland would also make any defence of the Baltics very difficult. So in a way they're already true free-loaders

[OttoVonBismarck]

The weird thing about Sweden at least is they're a freeloader whether in or out of NATO, there isn't really any situation in which the Swedish military would be useful in any conflict in which NATO was fighting.

[Jacob]

Another reason for allowing Finland and especially Sweden in is, if both neutral countries were occupied by Putin, that would fatally undermine to defences of two existing NATO members, Norway and Denmark.

As a Dane I'd be pretty uncomfortable with a Russia controlled Sweden, yeah.

[Berkut]

The Association of European Journalists has called for a ban of RT across Europe.

I'm a little dubious on that because - as we saw with Deutsche Welle - the immediate and obvious response is for Russia to expel Western journalists.

I think the propaganda impact of RT is limited to negligible in comparison to the value of having Western correspondents reporting in Russia.

I think this kind of consideration is very much missing the forest for the trees.

We should be looking for punish Russia, not trying to carefully get into debates about whether or not a punishment is going to rebound in some tit for tat manner.

We should ban RT because they are the mouthpiece of a authoritarian regime that doesn't deserve a platform to spread Putins propaganda.

What Russia wants to do about Western media is their call.

[DGuller]

Hopefully Sweden and Finland won't dick around if they do decide to go for NATO membership, while the shock is palpable and the Russian military is busy elsewhere.  Historically, there is a 100% probability of Russian invasion for countries which declare their intention to join NATO without actually joining NATO.

[Zanza]

What is there to see? 

Nothing. The internet armchair diplomats like to pile on Germany right now, partially well deserved of course. This particular faux outrage  though is meaningless drivel. Gov spokesperson is asked a hypothetical and gives vague answer. Nothing else.
Considering we housed Navalny, quite a few other Russian opposition members, Chechen leaders and gave asylum to like a million people from various regions in the world the last decade, is there any doubt that Zelenski would also get asylum if he needed it?

[Jacob]

Hopefully Sweden and Finland won't dick around if they do decide to go for NATO membership, while the shock is palpable and the Russian military is busy elsewhere.  Historically, there is a 100% probability of Russian invasion for countries which declare their intention to join NATO without actually joining NATO.

Yeah hopefully Sweden and Finland can align internally and with NATO without too many loud statements, and then move through the decision making and joining process quickly (and with real commitments to improving capabilities - something which I think all existing NATO countries, exept the US, should be doing as well).

[Admiral Yi]

Considering we housed Navalny, quite a few other Russian opposition members, Chechen leaders and gave asylum to like a million people from various regions in the world the last decade, is there any doubt that Zelenski would also get asylum if he needed it?

I would like to think there is no doubt, but I would also like to take the words of a government spokesman seriously.  Which should I choose?

[Jacob]

I would like to think there is no doubt, but I would also like to take the words of a government spokesman seriously.  Which should I choose?

You could choose both. We will see at that time. And at that time, we will see that of course he will be granted asylum.

[Admiral Yi]

You could choose both. We will see at that time. And at that time, we will see that of course he will be granted asylum.

Come on dude. You know as well as I do that's not what "we will see" means.

[Jacob]

You could choose both. We will see at that time. And at that time, we will see that of course he will be granted asylum.

Come on dude. You know as well as I do that's not what "we will see" means.

Not sure I agree - depends on context - but I don't have a strong need to argue it.

[Jacob]

Reading Danish news of young Ukrainians in Denmark organizing travel back to Ukraine to help defend their country. I expect that's going to be the same in a lot of different countries.

[Savonarola]

I thought this explanation (from NPR) was an interesting explanation as to why Russia's leadership tends to sound like snarky teenagers rather than diplomats:

The strategy behind Russia's sarcastic tone toward the West

President Biden said Tuesday that Russia's decision to move troops into parts of eastern Ukraine was "the beginning of a Russian invasion."

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not characterize it that way at the time, but as the world watched for a possible invasion earlier this week, before the full-scale operation Thursday, Russia consistently deployed sarcasm in its messaging.

During a news conference last week, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, framed the idea of Russia invading Ukraine as an almost trivial idea.

"Good afternoon. Sorry for being a little late," Zakharova said on Feb. 16. "I was just checking whether we were invading Ukraine or not. Spoiler: we are not."

A sarcastic tone is a tool Russian officials often use, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who following a meeting with his British counterpart recently said, "I am truly disappointed that this is like the deaf talking to the blind, etc. Basically, nobody's hearing each other."

The strategy behind the sarcasm isn't new and has been used since Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, said Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale University.

"I remember very clearly President Putin saying at the time that there were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and if there seemed to be it was just people who had bought used camouflage from a local store," Snyder said. "It's a kind of postmodern cynicism, trying to put you on the back foot, trying to confuse you."

Taking this tone also allows Russia to assert power by declaring what's real and what isn't, while also trying to throw in some humor, Snyder said.

"It's like a cynical pose — 'Nothing is true. Nothing is real. We're more daring than you, because we're willing to say anything, and you're not willing to say anything,' " Snyder said. "But at the same time, it's also a way of buying time. It clouds things so that you spend your time trying to figure out what's going on, rather than just watching the simple facts on the ground."

Snyder spoke with NPR's All Things Considered before Russia invaded Ukraine about how the tone of Russian diplomats compares to their U.S. counterparts, the intended audience of this sarcasm and the underlying strategy beneath Russia's messaging.

On how this sarcasm compares to language from the Democratic West
It's very, very different. I mean, the contrast with the Americans or with the Germans is very striking. Diplomats in the West are generally earnest to the point of being boring. And I think, particularly when confronted with the Russians, they do their best to be extra factual and extra careful about the way they speak, because they want to avoid the trap of being drawn into, you know, some kind of comedy contest or some kind of sarcasm contest.

On whether the U.S. should be using a different tone to communicate with Russia
I think the U.S. is using a different tone. There's something historically new in what the U.S. is doing, which is that they are using intelligence openly to try to describe the things that Russia might be doing. And so far, they've hit the nail on the head. And that has clearly taken some of the fun out of it for the Russians. It's hard to be sarcastic about something that the other side correctly predicts that you're going to do, you know, and then you actually do it. So I think we should probably give some credit to this new development on the American side.

On who is the audience for this sarcasm

I think it's both domestic and foreign. [Russia is] trying to tell us that they're not afraid of us. They're willing to make fun of us. They're trying to show that they're an equal to any superpower and that they can put us in our place; they can make us feel humiliated.

For the domestic audience, the message is also the same. But in this particular case, they're also trying to tell the domestic audience that they're really not doing anything wrong. They're really not planning to invade Ukraine. And it's important to know that at this particular moment, that's what Russians believe. Russians don't think there is any chance that their country is going to invade Ukraine.

On how this messaging affects people's understanding of the situation
They're definitely trying to confuse you. I mean, there are two ways of doing this. You can do nothing and insist you're doing something, or you can do something and insist you're doing nothing. And right now, they're clearly doing something. They have units that should be in Asia, which are normally there to protect against China, all the way over in Europe. They're definitely doing something. And the combination of doing something and saying we're doing nothing is very confusing.

On why Russia is talking about ethnic cleansing, a refugee crisis and war crimes as it relates to Ukraine

Well, they need to have some kind of a pretext for invading. So, let's remember, the Russian people don't think there's a plan to invade. And therefore, the question of whether Russia should invade doesn't even come up. If there's going to be a major invasion, Russia has to gin up some kind of serious issue, which they can use to at least persuade their domestic constituency that something's going on.

Genocide is a code word here. Genocide stands for the Second World War. And it stands for anxiety about the future of Russians beyond the border of Russia. But the thing that worries me about their use of the word genocide is the odd way that the things that they accuse others of tend to be the things that they're about to do themselves.