Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Legbiter]

Personally, I kind of fear that Kyiv might become the new Sarajevo.

Worse. Aleppo in Syria.

[Tamas]

Yeah I think it's likely to last for some time and only get worse.

Personally, I kind of fear that Kyiv might become the new Sarajevo.

It's a terrible thing because the only way for it not to become that is for Ukrainians to give up and surrender, validating Putin's approach and causing great risk to the Baltic States. It is in Europe's interest that they resist but if they do it is going to be an unimaginable horror for so many people.

Fuck Putin.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah that's it. The Ukrainian resistance is incredible and the only thing that is stopping them from being Belarussified and keeping their country "one, free and sovereign" (as I think the chant today in occupied Melitopol goes). But I'm also aware that the longer it goes on the worse it's going to get in the damage to civilians - see the footage from Chernihiv today.

It's heartbreaking.

[Habbaku]

So far, the 2020s haven't been a particularly great time.

Trump lost!

Imagine this shit with a Trump administration. Those people in Atlanta might have saved the world.

What can I say but you're welcome?

[Syt]

Yeah that's it. The Ukrainian resistance is incredible and the only thing that is stopping them from being Belarussified and keeping their country "one, free and sovereign" (as I think the chant today in occupied Melitopol goes). But I'm also aware that the longer it goes on the worse it's going to get in the damage to civilians - see the footage from Chernihiv today.

It's heartbreaking.

BBC has an article about a young woman from Kharkiv whose mom is in Moscow. Her mom doesn't believe her when she tells her how things are going with the Russian attack and basically believes the official representation of the war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487

[FunkMonk]

Yeah that's it. The Ukrainian resistance is incredible and the only thing that is stopping them from being Belarussified and keeping their country "one, free and sovereign" (as I think the chant today in occupied Melitopol goes). But I'm also aware that the longer it goes on the worse it's going to get in the damage to civilians - see the footage from Chernihiv today.

It's heartbreaking.

BBC has an article about a young woman from Kharkiv whose mom is in Moscow. Her mom doesn't believe her when she tells her how things are going with the Russian attack and basically believes the official representation of the war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487

The degree of complicity of the average Russian in Putin's fascist state is going to be interesting to study in the years to come.

[The Minsky Moment]

Isn't Wagner Group still active in Africa?  It would be a real shame if something happened to their cadres there. 
Plausible deniability is a 2 way street.

[DGuller]

Yeah that's it. The Ukrainian resistance is incredible and the only thing that is stopping them from being Belarussified and keeping their country "one, free and sovereign" (as I think the chant today in occupied Melitopol goes). But I'm also aware that the longer it goes on the worse it's going to get in the damage to civilians - see the footage from Chernihiv today.

It's heartbreaking.

BBC has an article about a young woman from Kharkiv whose mom is in Moscow. Her mom doesn't believe her when she tells her how things are going with the Russian attack and basically believes the official representation of the war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487

This is a much more common theme in my experience than the naive "if only they heard from a source other than propaganda" nonsense.  Russian propaganda, in both Russia and US, works by convincing the recipient vegetable that anything not conforming to their propaganda sources is a lie.

[OttoVonBismarck]

In my experience most people that believe propaganda want to believe whatever it is the propaganda is selling.

[Admiral Yi]

A no fly zone is a pretty silly idea.  It made sense in Khurdistan because the Khurds didn't have an air force or air defenses and Saddam did.  We would be flying fighter cover for Ukrainian air strikes.  That's going to war.

And there haven't been a lot of reports of the Russian air force ripping up the Ukrainians.  What Ukraine needs is a no missile and no artillery zone.

[DGuller]

In my experience most people that believe propaganda want to believe whatever it is the propaganda is selling.

I agree.  In this particular case, I also think that people in the West do not appreciate how much of a chip on the shoulder Russians have, and how utterly belligerent they are on a personal level (again, typically, obviously there are exceptions). 

I remember back to my World of Tanks days, when I would play on a beta server that had US, EU, and RU players all together (normally they're not), and the vitriol of the Russian players towards non-Russian players was palpable.  A lot of it was expressed in Russian to each other, so they didn't think that someone with a "US" tag would be able to understand it.  I know a lot of people would write it off as typical shit-talking by kids playing multiplayer games, but it really wasn't typical, and it was all one-way.  US and EU players really didn't disdain RU players just because they were RU players.  That was almost 10 years ago, I think, so definitely before Putin escalated his conflict with the West.

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW I have always disdained Russians for being Russian, but I grew up in the Cold War military.

[Habbaku]

In my experience most people that believe propaganda want to believe whatever it is the propaganda is selling.

I agree.  In this particular case, I also think that people in the West do not appreciate how much of a chip on the shoulder Russians have, and how utterly belligerent they are on a personal level (again, typically, obviously there are exceptions). 

I remember back to my World of Tanks days, when I would play on a beta server that had US, EU, and RU players all together (normally they're not), and the vitriol of the Russian players towards non-Russian players was palpable.  A lot of it was expressed in Russian to each other, so they didn't think that someone with a "US" tag would be able to understand it.  I know a lot of people would write it off as typical shit-talking by kids playing multiplayer games, but it really wasn't typical, and it was all one-way.  US and EU players really didn't disdain RU players just because they were RU players.  That was almost 10 years ago, I think, so definitely before Putin escalated his conflict with the West.

At least on the small scale, I can lob in another anecdote on that.

I play a game series (Here I Stand/Virgin Queen) that draws in players from all over the world. A friend of mine had their game recently erupt because the Russian player started spouting pro-Russian propaganda. When one of the other players bowed out over this, the Russian went full-crazy:

Well, the whole country (Ukraine) is practically a nazi fascist state, which has been conducting genocide against its own people for 7 years.
As long as they were firing heavy artillery shells against the civilians without any retaliation, it sure was fun for them, they never complained. Triumphant screams "Slava Ukraine! Geroyam slava" - which is actually a slightly changed "Sieg heil, heil Hitler" adopted for their country and translated to their language - were constantly shouted all over the country.
Problem is, if you act like Hitler, sooner or later you will end up exactly like him.
And now that they are finally getting what they deserved, and they suddenly started to pretend to be "innocent victims".
But don't worry - the Russians will take care of them. As history teaches us, the Russians are real good at fighting Nazis. They crushed the original Nazi regime back in 1945, they will do away with this poor imitation of the real thing soon enough. It won't take long.

The only one who should be worried right now is Mr. Zelenski. As a war criminal who authorized a genocide, he is certainly going to get "a short drop and a sudden stop" :-)

As I previously said, I spend a lot of time on business trips. Some of those trips are to Eastern Europe including Ukraine.
Russia today and other media have got nothing to do with it - I have seen it with my own eyes, I have watched the situation exacerbate over the years. I have watched thriving businesses shut down as the nazi government squeezed all the money from the economy and pour all of it into the military, bringing the country to the brink of social and economic collapse.
I speak as a first-hand witness.
And what have you seen? Some tv news? Some newspaper articles? A crowd of refugees? That's just some tiny part of the whole picture.
So, please, don't speak about things you have got NO IDEA about. You are making a fool of yourself.

The real reason (other player A) has left this game is because he is a weak player and because he lacks stomach.
When we started these games, in both HIB9 and Holy War he ended up as my opponent.
Perhaps he hoped for an easy game against a newbie. When he realized I am an experienced player, he became most toxic and resorted to name-calling, calling me "Heresiarch", calling my comments "blither" etc.
He never said anything about the facts I have provided. I doubt he can even show Ukraine on the map without Google's help.
And surely he has never been to the country. All he knows is tiny pieces of information from CNN. Which was called fake news by many people including former president D.J. Trump.
When (other player A) understood he has no chance to win, he was quick to seize the opportunity to abandon the game using my comments as a convenient pretext.
Same is true for (other player B), whose attitude to me was biased from the very beginning. During diplomacy, he answered some of my e-mails in an impolite way at the very end of Diplomacy phase and completely ignored the rest.
And now he removed me from the other game. Well, if the attitude towards me is this hostile, I will leave. If anyone wants to play HIS in the future, I am up for it. But this game will continue without me.
I've got nothing against (everyone else) but (B) and (A) are some of the most toxic and inadequate people I've ever met. I don't have the least desire to play with them. Thank you for understanding. Goodbye.

[OttoVonBismarck]

A lot of this is just the Russian mindset, during the Cold War almost the first thing a Russian would say if they got into a topic like this would be to attack the U.S. treatment of African Americans, even under the USSR the Russians knew a lot of things in their society were terrible and shit and that the United States was wealthier etc. But they had a thing they could attack that made them feel better about the disparity and that they could use to pain the US as no better.

[frunk]

So far, the 2020s haven't been a particularly great time.

Trump lost!

Imagine this shit with a Trump administration. Those people in Atlanta might have saved the world.

I've been thinking about this.  I wonder if Coronavirus saved us from that as well.  Putin seems to like to make these attacks during the Olympics, and the Tokyo Olympics got pushed back a year.  Would he have made his move August of 2020 otherwise?