Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

You might be right, Josquius, or you might not. What's your source?

[Josquius]

You might be right, Josquius, or you might not. What's your source?

For Ukrainian attitudes?
I worked with several Ukrainians and its the vibe I get from them. Then looking at the issues with military recruitment, people fleeing the country, etc... Plus just general understanding of human psychology.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fighting-until-victory.aspx

This poll shows around 2/3 : 1/3 fight till the end vs. seek peace ASAP, though I do think here the binary question is quite difficult to engage with and will encourage people to say the 'correct' answer. Most will land somewhere in the middle.

[Sheilbh]

I do think in the west we get quite an overstated message of how devoted Ukrainians are to the war. A huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over.

I'm not sure. I think if anything we underestimate Ukraine and overestimate our importance. We matter materially in changing the type of war Ukraine is able to fight. But I'm not sure we are significant in the likelihood or willingness of Ukrainians to fight.

But I think this is an anti-imperialist war of national liberation for Ukraine - and I think you just need to look at other conflicts like that. I think Ukrainian identity was fluid and porous with Russia until 2014 - I think that transformed everything and hardened a strong Ukrainian identity that is formed against Russia. And like those conflicts, I think the longer they go on the more they entrench - it's more difficult to surrender even one inch of territory after such a cost.

I've mentioned before but I remember going to Ukraine in 2018-ish and walking round Maidan with the heavenly hundred heroes and the graffitied column, but also every town and city I visited having a board somewhere in the centre with laminated pictures of local boys killed in fighting Russia in the "frozen" stage of the war. It was unlike anything I've seen before and must have been like what happened in the UK or elsewhere after WW1 before the official monuments were built - but I remember thinking with that "imagined communities" idea of nationalism. You only saw stuff about Bandera or the OUN in the West - but those local boys in Ukrainian uniforms, killed by Russian bullets were everywhere from Odessa to Lviv. It made me think of the huge shift in attitudes in Ireland from pre-1916 to after the British executed those "vivid faces" - which went from parliamentary home rule to radical physical force republicanism.

I also remember having dinner with and speaking to a Ukrainian friend who worked for the German aid agency - he was educated in Germany and had always worked for that body all over the world but never Ukraine. In large part because he felt there was no point and he went back after 2014 precisely because on the visits he got a sense of actually something might now be possible.

It's also maybe a paradox: Putin was maybe halfway right on the hisorical identity of Ukraine, but only so long as he didn't act on it. That semi-permeable, fluid situation in Ukraine could only survive as long as it wasn't crystallised.

[Barrister]

I do maintain the best outcome for the war would be a proper referendum with international oversight for those regions, and of course plenty of rules about people who were there pre-2014, media monitoring in the lead up, and that sort of thing.
Russia is indeed the main blocker in doing this. They'd never agree to something fair or withdrawing to Russia. Though there undoubtedly is a Ukrainian nationalist element that would oppose it too.


I do think in the west we get quite an overstated message of how devoted Ukrainians are to the war. A huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over.

A referendum is impossible.  Or, at least, deciding who would vote in a referendum would entirely decide who wins the referendum.  There has just been too much displacement of people.  How on earth would you limit a vote only to people who resided in an area 10 years ago (since you'd have to go back to 2013)?

The idea that Ukrainians are ambivalent about flags and borders was probably true pre-2014.  If you go back to previous Ukrainian elections the vote was pretty evenly divided between pro-western and pro-Russian voters.  Sometimes the pro-Russian candidate would win (such as Yanukovych), sometimes the pro-Western side would win (like Yuschenko).

But that changed in 2014, in part from the Maidan Revolution of Dignity, but also from the Russian invasion and 9 years of war.  The war has had a profound effect on Ukrainian self-identity.  I think you will find very few Ukrainians who "don't give a toss about flags".  They know very well what Russian rule would mean.

[DGuller]

I do maintain the best outcome for the war would be a proper referendum with international oversight for those regions, and of course plenty of rules about people who were there pre-2014, media monitoring in the lead up, and that sort of thing.
Russia is indeed the main blocker in doing this. They'd never agree to something fair or withdrawing to Russia. Though there undoubtedly is a Ukrainian nationalist element that would oppose it too.


I do think in the west we get quite an overstated message of how devoted Ukrainians are to the war. A huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over.

That is a very bad outcome.  Having a referendum, even a perfectly legitimate one, is going to accomplish two things:  it's going to reward Russia for an act of aggression, because there wouldn't be a referendum without it, and it's going to legitimize a nonsense idea that people wanted to be part of Russia in Donbas.  Rewarding and legitimizing "facts on the ground" strategy is exactly what you don't want to do if you want to discourage acts of aggression.

As for the last part, the way you put frankly sounds insulting and dismissive.  For Ukrainians, the war is not about flags  , it's about their right to truly be an independent country.

[Barrister]

Some Ukrainian battlefield comedy for your enjoyment:

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1701191976563929335

(Not sure where the original video comes from, but this is the english subtitled version)

[grumbler]

You might be right, Josquius, or you might not. What's your source?

For Ukrainian attitudes?
I worked with several Ukrainians and its the vibe I get from them. Then looking at the issues with military recruitment, people fleeing the country, etc... Plus just general understanding of human psychology.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fighting-until-victory.aspx

This poll shows around 2/3 : 1/3 fight till the end vs. seek peace ASAP, though I do think here the binary question is quite difficult to engage with and will encourage people to say the 'correct' answer. Most will land somewhere in the middle.

That's not at all what the poll shows.  It shows that 70% support "Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war" and 26% support "Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible."  That's a pretty overwhelming majority, and flatly contradicts your assertion that "a huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over."

[Barrister]

You might be right, Josquius, or you might not. What's your source?

For Ukrainian attitudes?
I worked with several Ukrainians and its the vibe I get from them. Then looking at the issues with military recruitment, people fleeing the country, etc... Plus just general understanding of human psychology.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fighting-until-victory.aspx

This poll shows around 2/3 : 1/3 fight till the end vs. seek peace ASAP, though I do think here the binary question is quite difficult to engage with and will encourage people to say the 'correct' answer. Most will land somewhere in the middle.

That's not at all what the poll shows.  It shows that 70% support "Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war" and 26% support "Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible."  That's a pretty overwhelming majority, and flatly contradicts your assertion that "a huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over."

I feel like you're probably have gotten similar numbers in the US/UK during WWII if polling was done, and I've always considered that support in both nations for the war was pretty overwhelming.  (I would hesitate to say the same for Canada just because support in Quebec was more ambivalent).

[Zoupa]

It's not about whose flag flies above city hall you moron. It's about what happens when the russian world comes to town. Murders, rape, pillaging, loss of freedom, your kids being kidnapped, etc etc ad nauseam infinitam.

You can see it in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts for the past 9 years. It's a giant shithole. If the dead civilians in Bucha and Izyum mass graves or the hundreds of kids murdered in the Mariupol theater bombing could tell you, I bet they'd say "we very much prefer the Ukrainian flag flying over over city".

[Josquius]

I'm not sure. I think if anything we underestimate Ukraine and overestimate our importance. We matter materially in changing the type of war Ukraine is able to fight. But I'm not sure we are significant in the likelihood or willingness of Ukrainians to fight.

But I think this is an anti-imperialist war of national liberation for Ukraine - and I think you just need to look at other conflicts like that. I think Ukrainian identity was fluid and porous with Russia until 2014 - I think that transformed everything and hardened a strong Ukrainian identity that is formed against Russia. And like those conflicts, I think the longer they go on the more they entrench - it's more difficult to surrender even one inch of territory after such a cost.

I do think that looking back at history we have a tendency to exaggerate such things to fit the victors narrative too. A whole "everybody was in the French resistance" romanticisation of events.

I read a story the other day about a farmer who lost a tractor on a landmine and refused to be taken to hospital for his injuries.
So many of the comments on this were painting him as some super chuck norris type who just spat out shrapnel and got on with it like a bad ass....
In reality he's a guy in a already economically iffy line of work suffering several times over from the Russian army passing through twice, an occupation, probably being looted, fucked up access to the export market and now damage to a very expensive piece of equipment. Is he really going to risk a hefty hospital bill and some days off work when he's the only one keeping his family warm and fed?

It's always forgotten that whilst wars are being fought people are still trying to live their lives (another article iirc on the BBC lately about Ukrainians choosing whether to have kids or wait) And there's this huge event standing in the way of them having something like a normal life let alone thriving. So soon after a lesser big disruption in covid too.
War exhaustion is a very real thing. A sheer sense of tiredness.

I've mentioned before but I remember going to Ukraine in 2018-ish and walking round Maidan with the heavenly hundred heroes and the graffitied column, but also every town and city I visited having a board somewhere in the centre with laminated pictures of local boys killed in fighting Russia in the "frozen" stage of the war. It was unlike anything I've seen before and must have been like what happened in the UK or elsewhere after WW1 before the official monuments were built - but I remember thinking with that "imagined communities" idea of nationalism. You only saw stuff about Bandera or the OUN in the West - but those local boys in Ukrainian uniforms, killed by Russian bullets were everywhere from Odessa to Lviv. It made me think of the huge shift in attitudes in Ireland from pre-1916 to after the British executed those "vivid faces" - which went from parliamentary home rule to radical physical force republicanism.

I also remember having dinner with and speaking to a Ukrainian friend who worked for the German aid agency - he was educated in Germany and had always worked for that body all over the world but never Ukraine. In large part because he felt there was no point and he went back after 2014 precisely because on the visits he got a sense of actually something might now be possible.

It's also maybe a paradox: Putin was maybe halfway right on the hisorical identity of Ukraine, but only so long as he didn't act on it. That semi-permeable, fluid situation in Ukraine could only survive as long as it wasn't crystallised.

I don't doubt this.
A majority of Ukrainians absolutely don't want to be part of Russia. This is far more firm than it was before.
However the initial upsurge in fevor of 2021 to hold the line seems to have somewhat dissipated.
Few want to live under Putin... But for most Ukrainians that isn't something that is likely to happen now. They increasingly want life to get back to normal.

One thing I found interesting with the polling was the way it was those on the front line who were most eager for peace ASAP whilst in safer parts of the country there was more support for the war.... This again is a reflection of the sort of thing you see online. Way too little consideration for Ukrainian people in the hope of Russia being crushed whatever it takes.

I would love Putin out and Russia dismembered into a bunch of democratic states... But the world isn't such a simple black and white place. The actual outcome I can see falling some way short of this. Come next year's offensive the price of complete victory might be judged too high.
Just looking at some of the replies here let alone on the cesspool social media sites, there's so much basic dehumanisation of Ukrainians.

[Josquius]

I do maintain the best outcome for the war would be a proper referendum with international oversight for those regions, and of course plenty of rules about people who were there pre-2014, media monitoring in the lead up, and that sort of thing.
Russia is indeed the main blocker in doing this. They'd never agree to something fair or withdrawing to Russia. Though there undoubtedly is a Ukrainian nationalist element that would oppose it too.


I do think in the west we get quite an overstated message of how devoted Ukrainians are to the war. A huge number really don't give a toss about flags and just want it over.

That is a very bad outcome.  Having a referendum, even a perfectly legitimate one, is going to accomplish two things:  it's going to reward Russia for an act of aggression, because there wouldn't be a referendum without it, and it's going to legitimize a nonsense idea that people wanted to be part of Russia in Donbas.  Rewarding and legitimizing "facts on the ground" strategy is exactly what you don't want to do if you want to discourage acts of aggression.

I'm getting deja vu here. 
This indicates that the pre invasion situation was broken rather than violence is rewarded.

Russia, Ukraine, any other nation...they don't matter at all in themselves. They're valid as the gestalt of their people but no more. They are meaningless as concepts detached from this.

If the people of a region of a country wants independence or to join another country then efforts should be made to accommodate democratic processes to confirm or reject this.

As for the last part, the way you put frankly sounds insulting and dismissive.  For Ukrainians, the war is not about flags  , it's about their right to truly be an independent country.

For some it is. The ones the Russian propeganda greatly exaggerates the influence of and who in other circumstances would very much be on putins side.
For others it's about the fundamental freedoms of the people who live in Ukraine and pursuing a progressive European future rather than being reabsorbed back into the mud of  neo fascist Russia.

[Josquius]

It's not about whose flag flies above city hall you moron. It's about what happens when the russian world comes to town. Murders, rape, pillaging, loss of freedom, your kids being kidnapped, etc etc ad nauseam infinitam.

You can see it in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts for the past 9 years. It's a giant shithole. If the dead civilians in Bucha and Izyum mass graves or the hundreds of kids murdered in the Mariupol theater bombing could tell you, I bet they'd say "we very much prefer the Ukrainian flag flying over over city".

Exactly you fucking moron.
Nobody wants this. Increasingly people want to get back to a normal life.
It's nice to dream of your flag winning but if it was a serious option to cut off crimea and guarantee the rest of ukraine could be free and unharassed by Russia, increasingly many would take this.
The issue is that Russia wouldn't agree to and definitely wouldn't follow such an agreement for long rather than any jingoistic belief in total victory as the only victory worth having.

[Valmy]

Yeah that is the main issue.

Russia already guaranteed Ukraine's borders in exchange for sacrifices made on Ukraine's part.

When they went back on that agreement in 2014 and 2022 they made it very difficult to have this war result in a negotiated peace. What? is Ukraine supposed to make further sacrifices in exchange for another guarantee by Russia? One that Russia has already shown is not worth the paper it is printed on (presuming they still print out things like this)?

No Russian guarantees are worth anything. That is the impasse.

[DGuller]

If the people of a region of a country wants independence or to join another country then efforts should be made to accommodate democratic processes to confirm or reject this.

As I said, there was no such want in the Donbas until Russians dressed as freedom fighters came to Donbas.  To grant a referendum based on a situation created entirely by an act of aggression is to reward said aggression, as well to legitimize a Russian fiction.

[Josquius]

As I said, there was no such want in the Donbas until Russians dressed as freedom fighters came to Donbas.  To grant a referendum based on a situation created entirely by an act of aggression is to reward said aggression, as well to legitimize a Russian fiction.

It's all elementary as it isn't happening but...
Key point is that Russia doesn't want a real referendum that they would certainly lose.
Creating a real referendum where Russia is pretending to care about what the people really want will provide solid evidence that Russia should just fuck off. It's delegitimising the fiction behind their invasion and legitimising the liberation.

This isn't rewarding aggression as under my view of how the world should work referenda should be allowed anyway. Invading to get one is just stupid.

Yeah that is the main issue.

Russia already guaranteed Ukraine's borders in exchange for sacrifices made on Ukraine's part.

When they went back on that agreement in 2014 and 2022 they made it very difficult to have this war result in a negotiated peace. What? is Ukraine supposed to make further sacrifices in exchange for another guarantee by Russia? One that Russia has already shown is not worth the paper it is printed on (presuming they still print out things like this)?

No Russian guarantees are worth anything. That is the impasse.

And the theoretical Barrister raised was if Russia could be trusted to hold to the pre 2021 borders would Ukrainians agree to that.
And I say yes. My impression is that despite the wailing and gnashing of many they probably would.