See reply to Schad, but it is significant as the rhetoric we are told is very different. Unless you happen to be in one of the areas they are fighting in, not much has changed at all. Even their local news which we follow is totally different to what the mainstream stuff says. It isnt just grain, literally nothing has stopped, as far as we can tell. Even banking in Ru has barely stopped in the way it was reported to have done so, and their economy has done pretty well all things consisered. One of my relatives was going to purchase property in Ru, and cant afford it now due to the exchange rate. It is significant as we are led to believe it has changed, that it is anything but business as usual, and loads of lives across the world are dominated by stuff we are told is or isnt happening - see food prices, oil etc
Do I believe we should intervene in every conflict? Absolutely not. Do I believe we should intervene in this conflict? Absolutely. Amoral isolationism is not a solution even if it helps a person sleep at night, comforted by the fact that they didn't get their hands dirty. Still haven't answered what, in Ukraine's position, you would give up for yet another tenuous peace, by the way.
I'd also note that the countries that have been the most aggressive in supplying arms (to the extent they can) aren't noted warmongers. They are countries like the Netherlands and Poland, who know what it is like to be occupied and dominated by a regime that commits war crimes en masse. And they are countries like the Baltics that know what life under Russian yoke is like (and know they might be next). And as the Ukrainians want to fight, they are countries that are not going to deny the Ukrainians the ability to do so.
I've not asked what you would tell the Ukrainians to do. I've asked, given your penchant for peace at all costs, what action would you have taken at the start of March? How do you prevent bloodshed at the point Russia has invaded? Please assume in your answer that I'm vaguely sentient and understand that the causes are complex and that you really don't need to cover that ground again. I'm not asking about binary thinking, I'm not dismissing anything. I'm not presuming anything. I'm not displaying a colonial mindset or any other sand you're trying to throw in our eyes. Please just stop. It's March 2022. Russian tanks are moving in on the outskirts of your capital city. Shells and missiles are landing in your major cities. What do you do?
I think when (in the words of Jack Matlock, the former US ambassador to the USSR) "[the USA] in effect, supported an illegal coup d’etat that changed the Ukrainian government in 2014, a procedure not normally considered consistent with the rule of law or democratic governance." Russia decided they couldn't be sure the existing agreements on Crimea would be adhered to. Negotiating an agreement is one thing, sticking to it is another. Russia is plainly a guilty party but Ukraine has made it clear it has no intention of honouring the Minsk II agreement, which required a new constitution for Ukraine and more autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Here is a 2018 report from a Ukrainian source: https://www.unian.info/war/10391709...kraine-without-minsk-deal-breach-adviser.html "not a single provision of the Minsk deal has been implemented by 100% as of today." In the lead up to Russia's invasion the Ukrainian parliament proposed a law on "the reintegration of Crimea and the Donbas", which if passed would have breached the Minsk II agreement. These sort of things aren't sensible or helpful. These questions over Crimea and the Donbas aren't new either. This a news agency report from August 1990: "Russia warned neighbouring Soviet republics on Monday that it would not let them secede from the Soviet Union taking large Russian-inhabited areas with them. A statement issued in Russian President Boris Yeltsin's name said the Russian Federation reserved the right to review its borders with any adjacent republic which left the Union. His spokesman, Pavel Voshchanov, who signed the statement, told reporters at the Russian parliament this referred mainly to northern Kazakhstan and to the Donbass region and the Crimea in the Ukraine." Yeltsin eventually backed down but it's clear Russia had concerns about borders and Russian populations in Ukraine even before the dissolution of the USSR. On Crimea specifically, in the early 90s there were a series of referendums where the people of Crimea repeatedly voted against being part of an independent Ukraine. Even before the break up of the USSR Crimea had voted to secede from Ukraine. In February 1992 the autonomous Crimean parliament voted overwhelmingly (118-28) to declare independence from Ukraine. The Ukrainian government responded quite ruthlessly, with The Times reporting that they had declared the vote unconstitutional and banned a proposed confirmatory referendum on independence. A spokesman for Leonid Kravchuk, the Ukrainian President, said "If we cannot solve this through political dialogue, the situation will resemble that of Northern Ireland in terms of the violence involved." So this is not simply a question of Vladimir Putin suddenly finding an excuse to expand his empire. All of this has brewing for a very long time, there have been bad choices on all sides and there are very real, very difficult questions here about nationality, self-determination and language in some parts of Ukraine (if Canada treated its French speaking population the way Ukraine treats its Russian speakers there would be absolute uproar) that are not new or created out of thin air by Putin. If the question is what should be negotiated, Minsk II has to be the starting point. Ukraine would need to concede more autonomy for its Russian-speaking regions and agree to reform of language laws in Ukraine for starters. Russia would probably also like the US military to leave Ukraine. Russia would obviously need to withdraw troops and there might have to be some attempt to address the various dreadful things that have been done in Ukraine. Crimea is likely the biggest problem because it's never been at all clear whether the people of Crimea want to be part of Ukraine. Ideally you'd have a free and independently-monitored referendum to decide the future of the region but I doubt that's practical. That can would probably get kicked down the road again.
The Ukrainian government massacred protesters. The parliament then voted unanimously to impeach the president. There was no "illegal coup". Ukraine did actually pass legislation allowing for increased autonomy in the Donbas. "Not 100% implemented" =/= "not implemented at all". , The actual 1991 referendum saw every oblast in Ukraine vote in favour of independence. Crimea had the lowest percentage, at 54.19%. Donetsk and Luhansk at 84%, Kherson at over 90%. Crimea in 1992 voted in favour of independence, not in favour of being subjects of Russia. This is largely because there are a lot of Tatars in Crimea (or were, at this point), and the Tatars really didn't want to be under anyone's yoke after the past, I don't know, three centuries or so. Less of a problem now, because Russia has spent the last eight years ethnically cleansing Crimea of Tatars. You might want to check in on those Russian-speaking Ukrainians these days. They didn't exactly greet the Russians as liberators. Remember the old woman telling them they would be sunflower fertilizer? Want to guess what language she was speaking? I'm sorry, that's not even remotely realistic. You think that Russia is going to withdraw in exchange for some legal protections, and increased autonomy for Russian speakers? They already annexed 20% of Ukraine's territory!
Nice piece Puck. I’m definitely no expert but I do recall the USSR “fears” after the union breakdown. I think the then western politicians were rather naive in their forward thinking. Easy to say with hindsight tho.
Honestly? First, I'd do everything I could to get my family as far from harm's way as possible. Then I'd go to that big cathedral that's in all the news shots, pray for guidance, and consider how I could best help my friends and neighbours. Doubt I’d have what it takes to imitate this guy’s actions, but this to me is what principled courage looks like;
Cool. As you know, the question I was asking was what would you, as Ukraine, do. You're never going to answer so I'll leave it now. Vin
How is anyone supposed to reasonably answer that question? Crimea has been a ticking time bomb for a long time and the inevitable has routinely been kicked down the road. During that time, all 32 years of it, Russia has rebuilt itself internally from the complete cluster **** that was eastern Europe in the 1990s to where it is now, a regional power worth immense clout largely due to natural resources. These issues should have been considered whilst the area was geopolitically weakened with more room for negotiation. Expecting that a resolution was remotely possible from March 2022 is madness. Eastern Ukraine has been ****ed over relentlessly time and time again and is undoubtedly one of the most unfortunate regions in post industrial European history, yet once again it is the people who suffer, not those in charge. Hopefully we can collectively learn lessons for the future to prevent war. Israel/ Palestine, Kurdistan and huge amounts of northern Africa are all heading towards conflict. We won't though, BAE have just announced strong sales and that'll keep those needed happy.
I'm afraid I can't answer that question, as it genuinely makes no sense to me at all. Sorry. We speak different languages, you and I. But the things we speak about do not change, for all that. That's a quote from Mikhail Bulgakov btw, which often comes to mind when two people fail to comprehend each other's perspective.
It's remarkably easy to answer: in Ukraine's position I'd resist. You can answer it easily by saying whether you would resist, try to get everyone to leave, ask for help, etc. All I am asking for is an opinion on how a country manages to live out "peace at all costs" once an enemy has decided on military action and attacked your country. Because, the moment a column of foreign tanks has crossed your border you can shout all you want about war being awful or about what led to Russia invading and the deep historical roots of the conflict but that isn't going to change anything. It is indeed always better to jaw jaw than to war war but once your cities are being shelled you have to decide whether you're going to fight, run or whatever. The options have been closed off. Not by you, not by history, not by complexity, not by the military-industrial complex but by the act of invasion. I'm a humanist. I think we have one go at life and that when we're dead we're done and we don't get another second. I put a huge value on every single day of human life because of that. I don't think a day has gone by when I haven't considered that, thanks to Russia's invasion, young men and women, both Russian and Ukrainian, the same age as my offspring are bleeding to death in the snow in Ukraine. It's utterly disgusting. It's tragic and it's vile. I'm no warmonger but the point the "peace at all costs" movement misses is that everything changes the moment someone starts rolling tanks across the border. I'll happily sign up to do anything to stop the next war but you have to face up to the fact that this one's already happening so the choice had to be made by Ukraine. Surrender, flee or resist. I'm not sure "Guys! Let's stop and talk about the causes of this conflict" would have worked when Russian troops in tanks were bearing down on Kyiv. Vin
And in other news: How it began: Sunlit uplands, global Britain, bobbies on the beat on every street, sunny seaside holidays, cream teas and jam, freedom, lashings of ginger beer, a pint and a ploughman's every day, £350m a week for the NHS. How it's going: “Turnips for tea” Brexit. What a ****ing triumph!
I'm simply quoting a senior American diplomat. A man who played a significant role in ending the Cold War so can hardly be described as a Russian apologist. I suspect he's better informed than either of us. There are two problems with the parliamentary vote you mention: 1. Respectable academics have said there were armed rebels in the parliament when the vote took place. In my view that alone would render the vote invalid 2. Putting that to one side, a simple parliamentary vote wasn't enough to impeach a president of Ukraine. The Ukrainian constitution required the creation of committee to investigate, a parliamentary vote in favour of impeachment, decisions from both the Constitutional and Supreme Courts and then a vote of 75% of MPs in favour of impeachment - 338 MPs would need to vote to impeach. None of this was done. Even in the vote that did take place the total number of votes cast was only 328. So it's clear the constitutional process for impeaching a president was not followed. Hence his removal was illegal. You can quibble over the term coup if you really want but he was certainly removed unconstitutionally after a violent uprising. There's no conclusive proof the USA was involved in that uprising but you wouldn't expect there to be. The circumstantial evidence and the past record of the CIA in particular suggest it's likely. In January 1991 Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favour of seceding from Ukraine (93% in favour on an 80% turnout) and remaining part of the USSR. In March 1991 there was a vote on Gorbachev's "Union Treaty". Crimea again voted overwhelmingly in favour of becoming independent and remaining part of the USSR (87% in favour, not sure of turnout in that one). In late November 1991 the Crimean parliament sent a message to the Ukrainian parliament asking it to continue to participate in Gorbachev's proposal to continue the USSR as a federation. In the December 1991 referendum Crimea did (quite narrowly) vote in favour of independence but turnout was much lower than before and much lower than elsewhere (59% overall, falling to 51% in Sebastopol, as opposed to 88% in western Ukraine) which is significant. There was certainly uncertainty over what people in Crimea wanted and good reason to believe they didn't want to be part of Ukraine. Oh there's no doubt Russia's actions have been counterproductive. For me it's one of the most concerning aspects of the whole thing. Putin has been an unpleasant, dangerous dictator for some time but in the past he's been a shrewd operator on the international stage. This invasion is very obviously a mistake. It's exposed the weakness of Russia's conventional forces and turned (or hardened) opinion against him. It makes me wonder whether there's some truth in the rumours about his health and if he's mentally weakened or incapacitated in some way his actions may become dangerously unpredictable. There's so much propaganda and posturing it's hard to say what would happen, but the reality is that in any war there are three possible outcomes. Total victory for Side A, total victory for Side B or a negotiated peace. It doesn't look as though either side in this war is likely to win a total victory any time soon and I don't think anybody benefits from a drawn out war of attrition. The many more soldiers and civilians who'll die certainly won't benefit. Russia may not be able to sustain a long war, while Ukraine certainly can't by itself so is left dependent on external support from countries who may lose interest. That leaves you with a negotiated peace, and Minsk II is the obvious starting point for any negotiation. It may be that both sides need to see more death and destruction before they accept the inevitable and negotiate but that's something to be mourned not something to celebrate.
Here he is, on the eve of the invasion, claiming that the threat of Russian invasion was fabricated by the Biden administration to distract from domestic politics. https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-jack-f-matlock-jr-todays-crisis-over-ukraine/ Many of those that opposed the Soviet Union have become apologists for Putin's Russia, for what it's worth. Remind me what this circumstantial evidence is? And the Party of Nations, Yanukovych's own party, repeatedly and consistently disavowed him. He had no base of support remaining. Once he ordered security forces to fire on protesters -- and once the military subsequently announced that they would not be used as a tool to suppress the Ukrainian people -- his tenure was over. No one wanted him back. You're misreading it a bit. Crimea voted to be a separate SSR within the Soviet Union, at a time when both Ukraine and Crimea were part of the Soviet Union. Because they wanted greater autonomy. When the Ukrainian SSR voted to separate from the Soviet Union, a majority in Crimea voted in favour. Because they wanted greater autonomy. And the Crimean Parliament later attempted to become independent from Ukraine. Because they wanted greater autonomy. The consistent throughline is that they wanted autonomy. I am very confident that what they did not want is what has happened, namely ethnic cleansing and the dissolution of the Tatar assembly. There will of course be negotiation. The question is on what terms. The terms today are very different than the terms would have been eight months ago. And the terms were not, and never will be, some sort of agreement on protecting Russian speakers, because that was never the aim. Territorial expansion and some sort of restoration of the Empire is. That's not me saying that. It's literally every Russian government official of any standing or substance. They have been very upfront about their aims; there really isn't any reason to twist into knots providing them with justifications that they have long since abandoned.
If tanks have crossed your border and as you keep saying, roll towards your capital city then there have been plenty of lost opportunities to attempt a more peaceful resolution. The act of invasion is obviously a tragic waste on so many levels, but to pretend it changes all that came before the act itself, neglects decades of geopolitical posturising in favour of arbitrary simplicity. Ukraine is doing all of the things you mention. People are being relocated, some people fleeing, some are resisting and they very publicly asking for help. I don't see how it is a binary choice and it makes total sense that all of these thing are happening simultaneously. This is a conflict directly affecting millions of people. We have become so desensitised to how many people a million is, it is difficult to comprehend. St Mary's spills out ~30k every other week in to the city and that completely grinds transport in and out of the city for hours before and after kick off and fills hundreds of pubs, clubs and restaurants in every town within a 10 mile radius for the rest of the afternoon. That amount of people are dying every month in this conflict. Mostly, and as always, working class men. The sad reality is that is will grind on for years and years and years. Russia's economy hasn't collapsed, the currency is performing well and the Russian warmachine shows no sign of collapse as often reported. I guess one of the fundamentals of this disagreement is that I and surely some others here believe that communication is the best way to end wars. It almost always is in cases of these attritional, destructive wars. No side can reasonably "win" this, so just cut out 5+ years of unnecessary destruction and death and begin some form of negotiations to end this as soon as possible to prevent as many of these grim consequences as possible. The only winners here are the ones who always ****ing do. Raytheon, BAE, Lockheed and no doubt other war companies who are amongst a tiny minority to have increased their share price in the previous 12 months, the S&P500 is presently down 20% on it's pre invasion all time high by comparison. Bob Dylan sang it years ago, just a pawn in their game.
Again: Ukraine negotiated an agreement with Putin's emissary, either on the eve of the war or shortly after hostilities began. It was rejected by Putin. Explicitly because Putin wanted to annex large chunks of the country of Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...eace-deal-recommended-by-his-aide-2022-09-14/
Putin is undeniably one of the main proponents of the war.. He absolutely needs to be removed from power. Disagreeing about how we think best to end this conflict doesn't mean that anyone in any capacity is anyway supportive of Putin... It would seem unlikely he would want to abandon his plans once the mobilisation was already well under way though, especially if he's already made the decision, it would compromise his status within Russia. It appears to me that the opportunity for resolution was on probably in 2014 but the world did **** all when Crimea was annexed. Inaction has consequences. Just as it will in Taiwan, in Mali, Nigeria, Myanmar, Yemen and many many others.
But all of this is fundamentally predicated on the belief that there is some magic combination of words that would make Russia an honest broker in negotiations. What if, and I know this is a crazy thought here, Vladimir Putin isn't that? What if he has spent the past 15 years encroaching on his weaker neighbours, and with each successive time that he succeeded in doing so, he continued to push the envelope further? If he demands that Ukraine agree to the formal annexation of the Donbas and Crimea in 2014, do you do that? If he follows up demanding the whole of southern and eastern Ukraine, do you hand that over, too? If he turns around and asks for the annexation of parts of the Baltics, do you agree to that to in the spirit of peace and comity? The annexation of some or all of the former Central Asian SSRs, likely at least Kazakhstan? The rest of Karelia? This isn't some sort of wild hypothetical; the Russians have hinted at each and every one of those in the past. Putin has been obsessed for years with returning Russia to its former imperial glory, and Russian dominion over the former territory of the USSR has been a frequent subject in his speeches for two freaking decades. At what point is consigning peoples to a murderous and repressive dictator in the name of peace no longer worth it?
I am actually scared at how successful the Russian propaganda machine and its paid apologists in the US Right Wing Media have been in influencing the people in this thread. Stop listening to these people and go talk to some of the Ukrainians who have FLED THEIR HOMES to come and live here. After two minutes with them you wouldn’t dare spout this nonsense. Ukrainians who speak Russian are now ashamed of their language. They have even decided to move Christmas away from the Russian Orthodoxy. This is Europe. This is the border of the world YOU live in. Forget all your anger about foreign policy in the rest of the world: the moral and the pragmatic arguments are all about stopping Russia and its insane Mafia Oligarchy from expanding further. Get a grip!
