Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Zanza]

Pretty bad situation.

[Habbaku]

Christ, that's a grim read.

Yeah. "Thanks" for posting and correcting, Toni. 

[Jacob]

Fascinating read. I'm the kind of pessimist who expects a major war (and by that I mean a war that will tangible affect the civilian populations in the West) in my lifetime. I spend more time looking at China, but I think there are somewhat parallel dynamics there too with the ramping up of nationalism.

Two things, near the end of the article, stood out to me a bit:

This does not mean that there will necessarily be a war. This means that it will be inevitable if urgent measures are not taken to prevent it.

...

The world can still be saved, but it will take a lot of effort.

... Toni, do you know if the author has expressed what sort of urgent measures and significant effort he has in mind?

[Tonitrus]

... Toni, do you know if the author has expressed what sort of urgent measures and significant effort he has in mind?

The thing to remember is where this is written.  Novaya Gazeta is one of the very few publications, inside Russia, that can still be called independent, if not even oppositionist.

So the audience for this is Russians, not us.  And he suggests towards the end that one of the urgent measures is that the most important movement/angle of protest for Russians is an anti-war one (perhaps if not a pro-Navalny/democracy one).

Outside of that, not really besides that implied...that the West would have to show it is not paralleling the attitude of the historical comparison drawn with pre-WW2 Germany/Austria/Czechoslovakia. 

[Tonitrus]

The author is pretty gloomy in general though (he is Russian, after all!).  I've started on reading some other articles of his, to get a feel for his biases, and one he wrote on the fallout of the Belarus elections can summarized as saying that said fallout demonstrated that peaceful revolutions have been discredited by how that event ended up (showing such peaceful protests to be almost completely ineffective), and will lead to bringing back an era of bloody revolutions to Europe in the future.

[jimmy olsen]

Google-translating the original does a mostly readable job as well.

Total aside but the recent improvements in Google Translate are a modern miracle - it's incredible. Sort of unimaginable only a few years ago when it produced gobbledygook.

Still seems to only work well with Indo-European languages.

For Korean - individual vocab is usually correct. Simple sentences tend to be correct as well, but complex sentences, let alone paragraphs are disasters. Tenses and pronouns bounce all over the place.

Hell, even with Russian, when my wife uploads pictures on Instagram, the translator always translates male pronouns as female and female as male. Every time. 

[jimmy olsen]

https://www.world-today-news.com/there-is-little-hope-that-the-teachings-of-the-20th-century-will-be-taken-into-account-by-anyone/

Google-translating the original does a mostly readable job as well.

I thought this article was good, but this is not true. Biden proposed to raise it.

The call made by US President Joe Biden these days to reduce the US military budget can be seen in the Kremlin as a signal not to worry too much about the Western reaction. Instead of expressing "deep concern", "very deep concern" could be expressed. Would that be the so-called "high price" that Putin will have to pay? One can judge for oneself whether Putin is willing to pay this "price".

[jimmy olsen]

Anyways, we should not be going to war for the Ukraine, or any of the other former Soviet states, with the exception of the Baltics.

[Razgovory]

We can't just have Russia taking bites out of other people's countries every five or six years.

[grumbler]

I don't think it wise for the US to allow itself to be paralyzed by a label like "former Soviet state."  The US should make decisions based on its perception of its long-term best interests, and let labels fall where they may.

[mongers]

If Putin does move against the Ukraine, rather than just ratcheting up the number of ceasefire violations,then I'll be tempted to delete the '5' in the thread title and put a '2' in front of the remaining '1'

[Jacob]

If Putin does move against the Ukraine, rather than just ratcheting up the number of ceasefire violations,then I'll be tempted to delete the '5' in the thread title and put a '2' in front of the remaining '1'

You should let him know. It might deter him.

[mongers]

If Putin does move against the Ukraine, rather than just ratcheting up the number of ceasefire violations,then I'll be tempted to delete the '5' in the thread title and put a '2' in front of the remaining '1'

You should let him know. It might deter him.

Yes reckless thread retitling is method of last resort for nearly all Languishite; I however have a hair-trigger on the matter. 

[KRonn]

Having said that I've seen a few "both sides need to de-escalate" statements from Western government and I think it is worth remembering that we're talking about Russian troops moving within Ukraine

That was my beef with the comment from Kronn. It smacked of buying straight into the Kremlin propaganda of "well, both sides need to be reasonable!"

Horseshit. Only one side is creating and breathing air into this conflict.

I don't understand the buying into Russkie propaganda part. What's going on lately, the ramping up, is being reported in Euro and US sources. That's pretty much all I was saying earlier. I wouldn't be surprised that Russia is pushing more now to find some way to take a chunk of eastern Ukraine, and working with separatists in the east towards that purpose.

[Eddie Teach]

To Berkut, any hedging or qualification is a betrayal.