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Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

Started by mongers, August 06, 2014, 03:12:53 PM

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Crazy_Ivan80

Odd to think that Russia could be crippled for a generation or two, maybe even longer.

The Larch

These kind of news are good to read, IMO, for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that Russia was so ill-prepared for things not going their way that they didn't even plan a partial mobilisation properly and have unloaded most of the responsability on regional governments that don't really know what to do. Secondly, it shows that internal dissent is growing, even amongst those favourable to the Putin regime. At this rate this mobilisation will end up doing much more harm than good to Russia.

QuotePutin allies concerned over mobilisation drive 'excesses'
Russia's two most senior lawmakers have expressed concern at the way the mobilisation drive is unfolding in the country.

Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of Russia's upper house, the Federation Council, said she was aware of reports of men who should be ineligible for the draft being called up.

"Such excesses are absolutely unacceptable. And, I consider it absolutely right that they are triggering a sharp reaction in society," she said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

In a direct message to Russia's regional governors – who she said had "full responsibility" for implementing the call-up – she wrote: "Ensure the implementation of partial mobilisation is carried out in full and absolute compliance with the outlined criteria. Without a single mistake."

Vyacheslav Volodin, another Putin ally and speaker of the State Duma, Russia's lower chamber, voiced his views in a separate post.

"Complaints are being received," he said. "If a mistake is made, it is necessary to correct it ... Authorities at every level should understand their responsibilities."

Legbiter

Quote from: Zanza on September 25, 2022, 09:36:30 AMInteresting thread on possible demographic impact on Russia from the mobilization and emigration of the 20-35 year old cohort of men. More devastating than Covid for Russia.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1573962833049665538

Interesting.
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OttoVonBismarck

I saw on Twitter protesters in Makhachkala were being arrested by police and the local crowd just pulled all of the arrestees away from the cops instead. Dangerous when the public start to realize they outnumber the police 6000:1 across the country.

The Larch

Also, it seems that this mobilisation is also taking place in Russian occupied Ukranian territories outside od the Donbass, with apparent mobilisation drives taking place in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as in Crimea, where it is apparently being targeted mostly at Tatars:

Quote'A way to get rid of us': Crimean Tatars decry Russia's mobilisation
Members of ethnic group, which has largely opposed Russian rule since 2014, say they are being disproportionately targeted

Rights activists in Crimea say Russia's mobilisation drive in the occupied peninsula is disproportionately targeting Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group that has largely opposed Russian rule since the area was annexed in 2014.

"Everywhere, in every town, I am hearing that the majority of those mobilised are Crimean Tatars, and we know they are particularly targeting settlements with predominantly Crimean Tatar populations," an activist from the group still living on the peninsula said in a telephone interview.

"This will be a catastrophe for us that will take years to heal."

Vladimir Putin announced "partial mobilisation" on Wednesday in an attempt to bolster Russia's flagging invasion of Ukraine with new troops. Across the country, families have said goodbye to men who have been called up to fight. There have been reports of disproportionately high numbers mobilised in poor regions populated by ethnic minority groups, such as Buryatia and the republics of the North Caucasus.

The largely Muslim Crimean Tatars make up about 13% of Crimea's population. There is no official breakdown of who has been mobilised but extensive anecdotal evidence suggests Crimean Tatars have been targeted disproportionately. Crimea SOS, a Ukrainian rights organisation, estimates that 90% of mobilisation notices have been given to Crimean Tatars.

"This is a conscious effort to destroy the Crimean Tatar nation," Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said during his nightly video address on Saturday.

Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskiy's top representative for Crimea, also said she believed Russia was targeting the group deliberately. "Crimean Tatars are the least loyal segment of the population to Russia, and it was clear they were very buoyed by recent Ukrainian military successes. Now they are being punished," she said.

Tasheva, who is Crimean Tatar, said she had received dozens of reports from members of her ethnic group of police arriving in their towns or villages and handing out summons.

"People are panicking, they don't know what to do," she said. She is advising those mobilised to try to surrender to Ukrainian forces at the first possible opportunity. "But of course, we're worried they'll just be shot in the back by the Russians."

Asked if arming thousands of opponents was a strategy that could backfire for Moscow, she said: "Unfortunately, the Russians are not stupid enough to put all the Crimean Tatars together in the same regiment."

Others also reported a sense of helplessness and panic in the community, with people attempting to flee Crimea.

With the nearest operating international airport hundreds of miles from Crimea, persistent rumours that Russia could close the bridge over the Kerch strait that links the peninsula to Russia and huge queues at Russia's remaining open land borders with other countries, fleeing is not easy.

"Right now, it's the only topic of discussion. How to flee, how to hide, how to get out of Russia. Yesterday I was at a birthday party and nobody was talking about anything else. There are no smiles, no happiness. Everyone is depressed, the women are in tears," said the activist.

Tatars have called Crimea home for centuries, but became a minority after Russia took over the region in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. Joseph Stalin had the entire population deported to Central Asia during the second world war, wrongly smearing the group as Nazi collaborators. Most were only allowed to return to the peninsula in the 1980s.

This long experience of persecution led many Crimean Tatars to be extremely hostile to the Russian annexation in 2014. Russian authorities subsequently tried to co-opt Crimean Tatar leaders, but most refused to collaborate. A campaign of harassment and persecution against active community leaders began, and Russia outlawed the mejlis, the Crimean Tatar representative body. Many of its members were banned from entering the peninsula and are now based in Kyiv or elsewhere.

Dozens of Crimean Tatars are recognised as political prisoners, and there has been an increase in arrests and pressure since the war began in February, with Russian authorities on the lookout for sabotage and plots among a population it considers disloyal.

Crimean police detained six wedding guests and the venue owner earlier this month after the DJ played a pro-Ukraine song at a wedding, and Russian authorities have said anyone displaying pro-Ukraine sentiment is liable to arrest.

Tasheva said: "First they tried to buy us, then they tried to repress us and now they see mobilisation as a way to try to simply get rid of us."

Ukraine would do well to make it well known that deserters from the Russian army will be received with open arms.

Jacob

Quote from: The Larch on September 25, 2022, 11:15:05 AMUkraine would do well to make it well known that deserters from the Russian army will be received with open arms.

I've seen a number of statements (or maybe the same statement repeated) from Zelenksy saying just that, including promises that no one would be repatriated to Russia unless they consent to it and the circumstances of the surrender would not be revealed to Russian authorities.

The Larch

Quote from: Jacob on September 25, 2022, 11:27:12 AM
Quote from: The Larch on September 25, 2022, 11:15:05 AMUkraine would do well to make it well known that deserters from the Russian army will be received with open arms.

I've seen a number of statements (or maybe the same statement repeated) from Zelenksy saying just that, including promises that no one would be repatriated to Russia unless they consent to it and the circumstances of the surrender would not be revealed to Russian authorities.

Yeah, and more could be done too for residents of the occupied territories as well, given that they can still be considered Ukranian nationals for all intents and purposes, press-ganged against their will into the Russian army.

Zanza

I guess their idea is that if they can't genocide Ukrainians, they can at least genocide their own minorities...

Legbiter

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PDH

Not sure of the veracity of the reports, but twitter has some saying that conscripts are already being shipped to the front.  Supposedly, wives of the conscripts are reporting their husbands are already in the Ukraine.

If true then the Russian command must have used the fictional conscripts charging scene in Enemy at the Gates as a primer.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

Legbiter

An interesting experiment. The Russians are just going to use mass and nothing else to try and hold on in Ukraine.  All they'll do is give Ukrainians neat, tightly-packed targets as well as strain the already bad logistics. :hmm:
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Tamas

Kazakhstan declared they'll refuse recognising the annexation of the "separatist" territories by Russia.

I guess none of the former Soviet -stans are going to be enthusiastic about this whole thing, after all the only difference between their status and Ukraine's is that the attacking Russian soldiers wouldn't be asked to massacre  close relatives.

Crazy_Ivan80

Quote from: Tamas on September 26, 2022, 05:20:34 AMKazakhstan declared they'll refuse recognising the annexation of the "separatist" territories by Russia.

I guess none of the former Soviet -stans are going to be enthusiastic about this whole thing, after all the only difference between their status and Ukraine's is that the attacking Russian soldiers wouldn't be asked to massacre  close relatives.
Given that the Kazak border regions are at risk, despite the country going from just 40% Kazak to 70% Kazak since 1991, I'm not surprised by their stance. Especially since Russia has demonstrated its current lack of military capability.

Tamas

Youtube recommended me this guy, lives in Moscow streams often apparently and has a lot of subscribers, this video expresses well how hopeless it must seem for people who are against the war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StmYvEYg-ng

He is trying to stay careful and not have himself sent straight to jail, but in this video and a more recent one he alludes to how he feels society is approaching a boiling point now that the mobilisation has brought the war home for many who thus cannot ignore it any longer. Let's hope he is right.

OttoVonBismarck

I think the opposition of Kazakhstan and the mild reprimands from India, China etc is showing that while there is a huge amount of tolerance for massively manipulating and stretching the rules-based order, there is very limited support for blatantly and massively just breaking it. Crimea was probably the furthest level of monkey business that you could push without breaking.

I think this is because all these other quasi-pro Russian entities just benefit too much from the existing order (including, even, China, because many of their assertions of territorial claim rest on rules based arguments), not to mention countries like Kazakhstan and India just have really good reason to be against normalizing territorial annexations that are so blatantly seizures of land that almost everyone agreed doesn't belong to Russia--because Kazakhstan has to worry about its own integrity with regard to Russia and India has a decent bit of contested land around its margins as well, that it would likely prefer to settle through diplomacy versus stuff like this going on between it and China or Pakistan.