Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[PJL]

And I think what's threatened seems like a proportional response.  If you use nuclear weapons we will directly hit you with conventional forces.

Maybe the west takes out the Black Sea Fleet,or hits airbases in Crimea, or puts NATO troops inside Ukraine for training purposes.  Definitely escalatory, but proportional to Russia's actions - and not responding in kind.

If there is a conventional nuclear attack, I would expect NATO would do a proportionate nuclear strike, nothing less. Anything else would invite escalatory action.

[mongers]

And I think what's threatened seems like a proportional response.  If you use nuclear weapons we will directly hit you with conventional forces.

Maybe the west takes out the Black Sea Fleet,or hits airbases in Crimea, or puts NATO troops inside Ukraine for training purposes.  Definitely escalatory, but proportional to Russia's actions - and not responding in kind.

If there is a conventional nuclear attack, I would expect NATO would do a proportionate nuclear strike, nothing less. Anything else would invite escalatory action.

Where, on Russia proper?

As targeting Russia forces in Ukraine would require Ukrainian consent, which given Chernobyl, would be unlikely to be given.

[mongers]

This article's title/by-line is a good summation of Putin's approach to war/genocide:

Russia's atrocities in Ukraine, rehearsed in Chechnya

Moscow's invasion has echoes of the tactics it employed in conflicts in the North Caucasus, experts and survivors say.

Kyiv, Ukraine – As Maryam watched an online video recorded in Ukraine of a Russian attack, the memories came flooding back.

She heard the wailing of a diving Russian plane, and yanked the headphones out of her ears, peeked at the sky above her and fell on the floor in shock.

"I haven't heard this sound since the war," Maryam, a Chechen refugee settled in a Western country, told Al Jazeera by phone.

She withheld her last name and other personal information because she still has family in Chechnya.

It was not just the sound.

The way Russian missiles, bombs and artillery appeared to deliberately target residential areas and the accusations and evidence that Russian soldiers tortured and killed civilians in occupied territories reminded Maryam of what she and many Chechens went through.

Human rights groups and analysts have said the brutality and alleged war crimes in Ukraine, a nation of more than 40 million, began in Chechnya, a mountainous, Qatar-sized province whose current population is 1.5 million.

"In this war, many observers see echoes of previous atrocities under [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a rights watchdog, told Al Jazeera.

"Especially for Chechens, the indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure is reminiscent of the attacks on [Chechnya's administrative capital of] Grozny in 1999," he said.

The Kremlin's military strategies and tactics used in Ukraine were tried and tested in Chechnya, military analysts said.

"Possibly, the most important thing is that [in Chechnya] the Russian army and law enforcement really got used to warring and killing," Nikolay Mitrokhin, a historian with Germany's Bremen University, told Al Jazeera.

Even the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-1989, let alone previous military conflicts communist Moscow had taken part in, were not massive enough for such practices to take root, he said.

For decades, the Soviet military mostly had theoretical knowledge about warfare – and imitated it during drills.

"And here – a direct experience all or almost all land and air force units were involved in" both Chechen wars, Mitrokhin said.
.....

Full article here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/20/russias-atrocities-in-ukraine-rehearsed-in-chechnya?traffic_source=KeepReading

[celedhring]

On a lighter note, in an attempt to make Prigozhin look ridiculous, the Russian police has released some photos allegedly found at his Moscow apartment.

They have succeeded.

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1676709862753853443

[Syt]

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/07/03/-vladimir-putins-useful-idiots

Vladimir Putin's useful idiots

Too many European politicians are failing to confront Russia

In early may Russia's ambassador to Germany threw a party to honour Soviet victory in the second world war. Guests at the embassy, a Stalin-era colossus that occupies more German territory than the nearby parliament building, included a host of dignitaries. The last boss of communist East Germany, Egon Krenz, now 86, mingled under the chandeliers with Gerhard Schröder, chancellor of united Germany from 1998 to 2005 (and, more recently, a lobbyist for Russian energy firms). Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of Alternative for Germany (afd), a far-right party, sported a tie in the colours of the Russian Federation.

The event earned a bit of scorn in the German press, but little other notice. Seventeen months into Russia's war on Ukraine public opinion here, as across Europe, overwhelmingly views Russia as an aggressor to be shunned, and Ukraine as a defender deserving help. Whatever their weight in the past, varied purveyors of Russian influence now stand diminished. Mr Schröder, for instance, chaired the board of the now-closed Nord Stream pipelines that addicted Germany to Russian gas. Last summer Russia shut the pipes, which mysterious saboteurs then blew up. The ex-chancellor has been bumped from clubs, disinvited from his Social Democratic Party's functions (though he remains a party member), and stripped of government-provided office facilities. As for Mr Chrupalla, the afd leader's cosiness with Russia did not just annoy German tabloids. Leaked messages revealed dismay among his own party's MPs.

Yet even if Russia's effort to project persuasive power across Europe has not quite succeeded, neither has it completely failed. A subculture of what Germans dismiss as Putinversteher—sympathisers who "understand" the Russian leader Vladimir Putin—thrives outside the mainstream. Throughout Europe their whispering forms a leitmotif in the rumble of complaint about seemingly unrelated troubles such as inflation, crumbling public services, overbearing regulations and fears of immigration. The grumblers have only just begun to challenge the scale of their governments' generosity to Ukraine, which by February this year amounted to more than €60bn ($65bn) in economic and military aid from Brussels and the eu's individual members (and €70bn if Britain is added, a sum roughly equal to America's contribution). But if Ukraine's fight goes on too long or goes wrong, there are plenty waiting in the wings to take up the blame game.

The spectrum of Europe's Useful Idiots, a cold-war term for unwitting allies of communism, is wide. In politics, parties on both the far right and far left disagree on much; but over Ukraine these extremes have often converged in demanding an instant "peace" that would in effect reward Russian aggression with land. In media and academe, intellectuals still seem happy to ignore evidence of Russia's imperial intent and its drift into criminality, and instead bemoan European entanglement in what they parse as a proxy war between America and Russia, or perhaps, speculating more grandly still, between America and China. And in the world of business, despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions, Russia still has plenty of "friends" too.

Mr Putin's enablers include several European governments. Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary since 2010, has been the most obvious. The populist strongman has repeatedly criticised Western support for Ukraine and continued Hungary's imports of Russian gas. His government also refuses to allow the transit of weapons given to Ukraine by Hungary's fellow members of nato and the eu. Next-door Austria has, more quietly but equally profitably, largely sat out the struggle, too, citing its non-membership of nato and self-appointed role as a bridge between East and West, offering little aid to Ukraine even as its trade with Russia has surged.

Greece, another eu member, is complying with the eu's sanctions, but has balked at tightening any further those on shipping Russian oil, perhaps because Greek firms happen to pocket so much from the trade. Only recently and under heavy American pressure did Cyprus, an offshore financial haven, shut down some 4,000 local bank accounts held by Russians. Facing less pressure, non-eu countries such as Turkey and Serbia don't even bother to disguise the lucrative back-door service they provide to Russia.

Some countries have twisted seemingly noble intentions into policies that warm Mr Putin's heart. Citing its vaunted neutrality, Switzerland has wielded arcane local laws to block the supply of arms to Ukraine, including 96 mothballed Leopard tanks sitting in Italy that happen to belong to a private Swiss firm. Scoring repeated own-goals with freedom of speech principles, police in Sweden have green-lighted public burnings of the koran. Not only has this hugely irked Muslim-majority Turkey, which wields a veto over Sweden's bid to join nato. Mr Putin himself gleefully trolled the Swedes. On a trip to Dagestan before the Eid holiday at the end of June, Mr Putin had himself filmed tenderly holding a koran, as he explained that under Russian law it is a crime to desecrate holy things.

Yet even solid-looking bricks in the would-be European wall of support for Ukraine can crumble. Slovakia, for instance, has been a vital conduit for Western aid and recently pledged its fleet of 13 Soviet-era Mig-29 fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force. But polls show that the party of Robert Fico, a Russophile leftist who has blamed "Ukrainian Fascists" for provoking Mr Putin, looks likely to win national elections scheduled for September.

France is a linchpin of both nato and the eu. But a French parliamentary panel recently scolded Marine Le Pen, the closest challenger to President Emmanuel Macron in last year's election, for parroting Russian propaganda following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Ms Le Pen strenuously denies that her defence of Mr Putin had anything to do with the €9m in loans her party received that year from Russian-controlled banks. She has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but last October, seven months into the war, she declared that sanctions on Russia are not working.

In Italy, although the hard-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is a strong supporter of Ukraine, Matteo Salvini, who leads the second-biggest party in her coalition, is another opponent of sanctions and, at least up until the invasion, was a declared fan of Mr Putin's.

Germany, like France, seems a strong pillar. Yet the afd, bluntly described by the head of the country's internal intelligence agency as a propagator of Russian narratives, has been surging in polls of voter intent. It is now in a dead tie for second place with the ruling Social Democrats. At the opposite political pole Sahra Wagenknecht, a telegenic leftist and at-all-costs-peacenik, says pollsters tell her she could win 19-30% of a German national vote. Although public support for helping Ukraine remains strong, the trend is drifting downwards.

Useful Idiot narratives are surprisingly resilient. Their main points—that nato "provoked" Russia's repeated attacks on and eventual invasion of Ukraine, that Ukraine is an artificial entity implanted on land that is rightfully Russia's, and that America gleefully pours oil on this fire to sell weapons and sustain its global hegemony—echo in various ways. One is what Italians call benaltrismo or whataboutery: nato attacked Serbia in 1999 and Libya in 2011, plus America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, so what's the big deal if Russia misbehaves? Another variety is dietrismo, the notion that there must be some "inside" story behind events: writing in the New Left Review Wolfgang Streeck, a German Sociologist, posits that the hidden purpose of the crisis is to set the stage for putting a fearful eu under the thumb of a pumped-up nato.

What seems to link Europe's far right, far left and "intellectual" opposition to Western policy is something simpler, however. It is a hoary, cold-war-style anti-Americanism. The East German-born Mr Chrupalla, for instance, insists the Amis have profited from Ukraine's war by forcing Germany to switch from piped Russian natural gas to costlier liquified gas shipped from America. But this is a trap, he hints, because imported American energy is so much more expensive that German manufacturers will have to shift production to America. Ms Wagenknecht, his left-wing rival, believes that America forced the war on Russia by attempting to pull Ukraine into its "sphere of influence".

At a recent political rally near Berlin Olaf Scholz, Germany's chancellor, found himself heckled by a chorus of beefy peaceniks shouting "Warmonger!" Normally polite, soft-spoken and unflappable, Mr Scholz roared back into the microphone that it was Mr Putin who wanted to destroy and conquer Ukraine. "If you loudmouths had even a little bit of brain, you would know the real warmonger!"

[Hamilcar]

On a lighter note, in an attempt to make Prigozhin look ridiculous, the Russian police has released some photos allegedly found at his Moscow apartment.

They have succeeded.

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1676709862753853443

Stills from the new Sacha Baron Cohen movie leaked...

[Admiral Yi]

The Sweden comment is crap.

[Hamilcar]

Some countries have twisted seemingly noble intentions into policies that warm Mr Putin's heart. Citing its vaunted neutrality, Switzerland has wielded arcane local laws to block the supply of arms to Ukraine, including 96 mothballed Leopard tanks sitting in Italy that happen to belong to a private Swiss firm

This is not about "arcane laws". Neutrality is a political third rail like guns in the US. You wouldn't call the second amendment an arcane law.

[The Brain]

The Sweden comment is crap.

I don't understand their reasoning behind the comment, it would be interesting to see them elaborate a bit.

[Syt]

The Sweden comment is crap.

I don't understand their reasoning behind the comment, it would be interesting to see them elaborate a bit.

The reasoning seems to be that it gave Putin an opportunity to curry favor in Turkey by doing the Quran thing.

[The Brain]

The Sweden comment is crap.

I don't understand their reasoning behind the comment, it would be interesting to see them elaborate a bit.

The reasoning seems to be that it gave Putin an opportunity to curry favor in Turkey by doing the Quran thing.

Which doesn't explain how they arrived at "Scoring repeated own-goals with freedom of speech principles, police in Sweden have green-lighted public burnings of the koran". The police cannot legally stop public burnings of the koran unless some very specific conditions are met, and foreign policy concerns isn't one of them. The police have in fact overstepped their legal authority in trying to ban burnings, but got slapped by the courts (the police knowingly acting in an illegal manner is a scandal I think, but The Economist probably approves).

And why does The Economist think that freedom of speech is only a "seemingly" noble intention, and not an actual noble intention?

[Admiral Yi]

The Sweden comment is crap.

I don't understand their reasoning behind the comment, it would be interesting to see them elaborate a bit.

"We are woke doofuses."

[Sheilbh]

This is not about "arcane laws". Neutrality is a political third rail like guns in the US. You wouldn't call the second amendment an arcane law.

Neutrality is also a bit of a third rail in Ireland too - they're currently doing a large national conversation about it (largely in the context of the EU) at the minute. But already you've had the President stepping well beyond his non-political role to warn against the "drift" to NATO and note that the Chair has accepted an honour from the British government (she's been Vice Chancellor of universities in the UK).

It's arguably even weirder than Switzerland as a lot of Irish neutrality is basically a myth. It's not in the constitution and practically speaking it was historically observed more in the breach, but it has acquired a totemic, mythic quality I think in part because it also resulted in arguably Dev's greatest moment slapping down Churchill after the war.

Edit: On the other hand, Dev going to the German embassy to offer his condolences after Hitler's death - which Ireland later discovered was not how other neutral states had responded much to their embarrassment.

[Josephus]

Do we know if the West has lined up any kind of response to Russia blowing up the nuclear plant?

We have a letter strongly condemning it pre-formulated and must just insert the date in the blank space.

And a firm addendum that should they do it again, there will be sanctions.

[Josquius]

Could be said blocking a business from selling something it owns because the buyer is at war is itself against neutrality, it's artificially interfering to help the other side in the war.