The State of Affairs in Russia

[mongers]

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The missing piece is properly cracking down on money-laundering/facilitating corruption which is essential. Tom Tugendhat has done a big piece on this and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee is launching an investigation into it so hopefully that leads to some reform as I think everyone recognises it's a problem.
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I thought about this a couple of days ago having watched a piece on Ukrainian militia/homeguard volunteers training in a Kiev park/woodland area, they had nice brand new modern rifles with scopes, rails and so forth, whereas the earlier item I saw about Ukrainian troops on the Donbass frontline showed them making do with well used AK47/AKMs. 

Will the good weapons get through to where they're needed?

[Sheilbh]

Worth pointing out the MoD is downplaying what's implied by that flight-patch and denying any of that:

Shashank Joshi
@shashj
UK ministry of defence plays down German airspace issue. They tell me: "Germany have not denied access to its airspace as the UK did not submit a request, there has been no dispute between the UK & Germany on this issue". (I am no clearer on why UK did not submit a request).

[Tamas]

Still, I am worried because Russia does seem to hold Germany by its gas-fueled balls. It also has a Trojan horse within NATO in the form of Hungary.

[The Brain]

Worth pointing out the MoD is downplaying what's implied by that flight-patch and denying any of that:

Shashank Joshi
@shashj
UK ministry of defence plays down German airspace issue. They tell me: "Germany have not denied access to its airspace as the UK did not submit a request, there has been no dispute between the UK & Germany on this issue". (I am no clearer on why UK did not submit a request).

Answering a different question than the relevant one is never sus.

[Berkut]

I think they are concerned about a nuclear attack - they would be crazy not to.

That isn't what I am talking about though.

The idea that the West would, under any conceivable circumstances, invade Russia is ridiculous, and they know that as well as we do.

If you think nuclear war is on the table, than surely everything else is as well.

Sorry, I just now saw this point about invading Russia, so I'll add a comment here. Hope you don't mind.

I suspect that were we talking in the blessed 80s, someone would have said that "The idea that the West would, under any conceivable circumstances, invade the USSR is ridiculous." And yet, today — 40 years later — we have NATO military bases on the territory that used to be USSR, and NATO military infrastructure in Ukraine.

Did the West "invade" the USSR? Not in the same sense as the Axis invaded it in 1941 or the Napoleon's coalition invaded it in 1812. Yet, the result is more permanent.

What Russia is trying to prevent with its latest actions is having NATO troops stationed in Moscow 40 years later.

NATO is now in Kiev, one of our historical capitals, the spiritual center of our civilisation. I'm just stating facts, the actual outcomes, without any ideological colouring.

Hardly anyone plans expansion these days in the same terms as 100 years ago. Doesn't mean that the said expansion isn't happening.

That is a rather fucked up and twisted way to look at things. But utterly and completely misses my point.

I was saying that Russia and the USSR used the imagined threat of military invasion to justify their own military expansion. That they don't at all actually fear NATO invading Russia, but what they do fear is NATO hampering THEIR ability to invade their neighbors militarily (as they in fact have done).

Saying that NATO has in fact expanded doesn't address my point in any way at all. It can be true, under your tortured imagination (and in direct contravention to your previously stated claim that Russia is motivated by their concerns for other countries sovereignity and the UN Charter), that NATO has expanded but that doesn't address my claim that their fear of actual invasion is made up - in fact, it reinforces my argument. Appreciate the help.

Also, btw, NATO is not in Kiev. Ukraine is not part of NATO. I thought you were all about "facts"? Is "OMG NATO IS IN KIEV!" one of those "truths" where it doesn't actually matter if it is true, as long as you feel like it is true?

[Malthus]

You know trouble is here when someone refers to another nation, one with which they are in fact engaged in various types of hostilities, as the "spiritual centre of our civilization".

This reinforces the point I was making before: all of this talk of the rights and wrongs of this or that action has no effect on Russian opinion, because that is based on an emotional and ethno-nationalist set of motivations: to "reunite" the "Russian people", whether they want to be reunited or not.

From this Russian perspective, whether the Ukrainian government was democratically elected or not is irrelevant. Sure, they will argue that it isn't, but ultimately they do not care - the Ukrainian government is "illegitimate" because it is not Russian, and in their minds, it is the inevitable destiny of Ukraine to be what it always "should" be: part of Russia. Thus, Ukraine not wanting to be part of Russia (and indeed flirting with being part of the West) is seen as essentially treachery against historical destiny. The talk about Russian fears of invasion is really a smokescreen for a much more potent emotional response, about "reunifying" mother Russia.

The parallels with the German "Heim ins reich" is pretty powerful - with this twist: in this scenario, every Ukrainian is considered basically "volksdeutsche", whether they believe it or not; and second, Ukraine used to be part of what amounts to the Russian empire.

[Berkut]

I agree Malthus, and that circle right back into my point about the grossly over-emphasized perceived risk of western "invasion".

You here this over and over again, and not just from Russians, but from sage westerners telling us how we have to understand Russia's security concerns in the context of Napoleon burning down Moscow and the German trenches sealing in Leningrad's population and watching them starve to death.

That is NOT "Hey, Lithuania joined NATO!". And trying to evoke the emotion of 20-30 million dead Russians to justify the response to Poland wanting to join NATO is fundamentally dishonest, *unless* you actually believe that Poland joining NATO increases the odds of there being some kind of actual repeat of June 6th, 1941. And not in some vague geopolitical sense, but in actual M1 Abrams and Leopards and Apache helicopters shooting at brave Russian soldiers desperately defending the Motherland from the invading hordes. You *have* to create the image of NATO as an *offensive* threat to justify the "right" of Moscow to ignore its neighbors sovereignity to stop them from joining NATO. If NATO is truly just defensive, and NATO being in Ukraine is not offensive threat to Russia, then that is a much harder to sell domestically and globally.

This is the standard propaganda trick of defining terms one way when you want to create an emotional response, then turning around and claiming you mean something completely different when asked to actual defend your actions in the real world and practical realities. This is done over and over and over again. It is propaganda 101.

Nobody with any actual power believes for a moment there is any risk of NATO tanks invading Russia. But they will most certainly evoke the image of the Grand Army burning into Russia and Nazi's rounding up and butchering civilians to justify their desire to have a military capable of invading and annexing the Crimea or crushing any efforts of Ukraine to show any kind of true sovereignty.

[Valmy]

Hey did you know Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro recently joined NATO? I had no idea. Well at least none of those countries border to Russia. We have so many Albanian Bunkers to wage war against Russia with now.

[HVC]

Hey did you know Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro recently joined NATO? I had no idea. Well at least none of those countries border to Russia. We have so many Albanian Bunkers to wage war against Russia with now.

hmm, didn't know that either. Serbia is gonna run a sequel and start WW3 aren't they?

[The Minsky Moment]

I love how Berkut believes that Putin is this totally smart, logical, rational guy who only acts based on real facts that he somehow has complete access to. When in fact Putin is living in a bunker which none of his officials have access to unless they undergo a two week quarantine first, and does not use smartphones or the internet.

The second sentence does not contradict the first.  Arguably, it bolsters it.

[viper37]

But they will most certainly evoke the image of the Grand Army burning into Russia

Actually, it was the Russian who did the burning themselves.  They usually don't need help to burn part of their country.  The parts that belong to the Motherland, but aren't filled with self-identifying 'ethnic' Russians.

[viper37]

Hey did you know Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro recently joined NATO? I had no idea. Well at least none of those countries border to Russia. We have so many Albanian Bunkers to wage war against Russia with now.

It's actually to have a better shot at Turkey the moment they dare leave NATO.  We'll teach them a lesson they'll never forget, and the Greeks will finally have their revenge for Manzikert!

NATO is all about agression and coercion, as we all know, since its founding.  All of its members joined the pact after being forced in it by British-US military might.

Honestly, I never understood those who defend Russia by claiming NATO provoked them and isolated them by extending close to their borders.  There's nothing that would have prevented Russia from opening talks to join a reformed NATO and establish an era of peace and prosperity.  Many overtures were made to Russia since the 90s. 


They just couldn't stand the intervention in Serbia, no matter their crimes, attacking their fellow Slavic Orthodox was just a crime against humanity on par with the Nazi atrocities in Russia.

[Berkut]

How is all this talk about Russians not living in Russia in any way at all different from the exact same argument made about Germans in Austria and the Sudetenland?

GdM mentioned earlier that Putin once said Russia should join NATO.

Hell yeah! I am all for it! That would be awesome.

Here is the thing though. If you join NATO, if you join more broadly the coalition of nations that we call the "liberal West" there are some fundamental things that have to be true.

You have to accept that using military force to resolve a dispute is, mostly, no longer on the table, *especially within the order itself*. When the game of influencing who Ukraine wants to align with doesn't go your way, you don't get to use violence to settle the argument. When you think the Crimea really ought to be part of your country, you don't get to simply take it if the political debate doesn't end how you like, IF you want to be part of the internal liberal order that is characterized by NATO and the EU.

It's like we are all in a debating group, but one of the members pulls out a knife and stabs someone when they lose the debate. You don't get to do that and still be part of the club, nor do you even get to *threaten* to do that in order to try to scare the other debaters into letting you win.

It's not like Russia is some unique flower  with different historical precedents. They think Ukraine should be part of Russia? Too fucking bad. The Germans thought Austria should be part of Germany, and plenty probably still do. The Brits thought Normandy was part of Britain for a long time, and the French can make historical claim to damn near everything in Western Europe at some time or another. How many French speakers are in Switzerland? That way lies madness and chaos, because it is never, ever going to be resolved. For every Russian who thinks Ukrainians are really Russians, there are apparently a bunch of Ukrainians who think they are Ukrainian, and NOT Russian.

Get over it already. That is what this is fundamentally about. The world has moved on from regional powers defining their spheres of influence based on force and violence. That doesn't mean we aren't doing it in other ways, but those other ways have their own rules to play by, and you don't get to fall back on the violence thing when you don't get what you hoped for by those other rules. That is why Putin would never actually join NATO. By doing so, he would be giving up his ability to simply invade Georgia when they don't properly act like good little Russian vassals. He doesn't want what used to be the Soviet or Russian sphere of influence to actually be sovereign. He wants them to be vassals.

It is really pretty simple. He wants to go back to the 19th century model of how nations interact with one another, so that Russia can be the giant fish in the little pond, rather then just one of many medium sized fish in a much larger pond.

[crazy canuck]

Hey did you know Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro recently joined NATO? I had no idea. Well at least none of those countries border to Russia. We have so many Albanian Bunkers to wage war against Russia with now.

It's actually to have a better shot at Turkey the moment they dare leave NATO.  We'll teach them a lesson they'll never forget, and the Greeks will finally have their revenge for Manzikert!

NATO is all about agression and coercion, as we all know, since its founding.  All of its members joined the pact after being forced in it by British-US military might.

Honestly, I never understood those who defend Russia by claiming NATO provoked them and isolated them by extending close to their borders.  There's nothing that would have prevented Russia from opening talks to join a reformed NATO and establish an era of peace and prosperity.  Many overtures were made to Russia since the 90s. 


They just couldn't stand the intervention in Serbia, no matter their crimes, attacking their fellow Slavic Orthodox was just a crime against humanity on par with the Nazi atrocities in Russia.

Your memory is not that great.  the cooperation agreements between Russia and NATO ended over the invasion of Crimea.

[Valmy]

In the 1990s we desperately wanted Russia in the NATO club. I mean if the USSR had won the Cold War I bet the Union of Socialist North American States would have joined the Warsaw Pact.

But all that hope for the future of the 1990s is long past now. Now we all sit around waiting around to see which of the many doom trains rushing down the tracks at us will hit us first.