Russia-Ukraine

[Deleted member 215]

Heh. Remember when the leftists here were getting accused of being pro-Putin? The right straight up says exactly what they think: Putin is a Trump-like strong man fighting for national identity and traditional values. Zelensky is a Jewish globalist fighting for progressivism. Which side do you think they're going to support?

 

[lizkat]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1573650479799799809/

How terrible for these Russian conscripts and their families. The instinct is to suggest that they surrender to the nearest Ukrainian when they set foot over the border, but one of the replies in that thread said that Putin has increased the penalty for voluntary surrender to 10 years in prison. The Daily Beast mentioned that in a piece on September 20 when describing Putin's legislative measures that preceded what was soon thereafter the mobilization announcement.

Kremlin’s New Hail Mary Shows Putin Is More Panicked Than Ever

Moscow is frantically pushing through an “incoherent” plan to curb the onslaught of humiliating Russian losses in the war.

www.thedailybeast.com

The double whammy began with the announcement early Tuesday that Russia’s State Duma passed legislation introducing stricter punishments for any troops who “voluntarily” surrender on the frontline or refuse to follow orders.

Deserters would get up to 15 years behind bars, while those who surrender face a 10-year sentence. Those who refuse to follow the orders of their commanders face three years.

The legislation, which for the first time also adds the concepts of “mobilization, martial law and wartime” to the Russian Criminal Code, has widely been seen as the first step to launching full-scale mobilization.

After unanimous approval by the State Duma, the legislation will be sent to the Federation Council on Wednesday, according to state media. With the Federation Council also expected to get on board, the new prison terms will come into force as soon as Putin signs the bill–which could happen as soon as Wednesday.

Bizarrely, the legislation was already marked as having been approved at all stages in the government portal as of Wednesday afternoon.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Wondering where Putin's true allies are? Look no further than Fox News, just wow.

Russian State TV Using Tucker Carlson Clips to Promote War as Unrest Grows​

Russian State TV Using Tucker Carlson Clips to Promote War as Unrest Grows

At least 745 people were arrested on Saturday for protesting Russia's mobilization, according to a human rights group.

www.newsweek.com

I saw this clip floating around before it was picked up by Russian state TV. I find his analysis baffling, granted Tucker in some respects has always been anti-interventionist and not particularly a fan of Europe. His opinion doesn’t seem to be at all in line with what the rest of Fox hosts seem to be saying. While I don’t agree with his analysis, I don’t think anti-war can necessarily be conflated with being pro-Putin.

I’m not sure if he made the remark in this segment about how the US has spent far more than every other country by far, it is one he has made and is a common talking point from anti-interventionists on the right and far left. It’s definitely true we have provided far more aid, we have far more to give and by percentage of GDP given, I believe we actually fall into the middle of the pack. The Baltic nations have given far more per percentage of the their GDP, but obviously these are tiny countries with tiny economies.

Heh. Remember when the leftists here were getting accused of being pro-Putin? The right straight up says exactly what they think: Putin is a Trump-like strong man fighting for national identity and traditional values. Zelensky is a Jewish globalist fighting for progressivism. Which side do you think they're going to support?

This is quite hyperbolic. I don’t think he or anyone in the mainstream Republican Party, including Tucker Carlson, think Putin is somehow the good guy here and Zelenskyy is part of some Eldens of Zion conspiracy.

We can both agree people who think we shouldn’t be funding this war have a bad opinion. Tucker has a lot of other bad opinions too. But declaring anyone who opposes the war as in bed with Putin is a tired trope. Like when Tulsi Gabbard was accused of “promoting Russian propoganda of Ukrainian Bioweapons labs” for simply for making the comment Ukraine needed to secure their high security bioresearch labs- which exist in just about every modern country in the world including Ukraine.

The argument against the war is that it’s hurting Europe economy and energy security, costing us billions, killing thousands on both sides, destabilizing the world, and all over some land in a country that’s incredibly corrupt and rates very poorly in the freedom index (Ukraine). Where I think this argument fails is that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend their land accept the help being offered. Furthermore, Russia has demonstrated it will keep taking and taking from ex-Soviet countries- either physical land or by installing puppet regimes. And despite Ukraines faults, it’s by far the lesser of two evils.

I’m not sure is anyone in mainstream American politics that supports Russia. But it Russia never stops being a boogeyman for each side to attack the other with and it just looks ridiculous every time.

 

[Edd]

The argument against the war is that it’s hurting Europe economy and energy security, costing us billions, killing thousands on both sides, destabilizing the world, and all over some land in a country that’s incredibly corrupt and rates very poorly in the freedom index (Ukraine). Where I think this argument fails is that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend their land accept the help being offered. Furthermore, Russia has demonstrated it will keep taking and taking from ex-Soviet countries- either physical land or by installing puppet regimes. And despite Ukraines faults, it’s by far the lesser of two evils.

There’s also the small matter of Putin threatening nuclear war. He’s a fucking Bond villain at this point.

 

[Deleted member 215]

This is quite hyperbolic. I don’t think he or anyone in the mainstream Republican Party, including Tucker Carlson, think Putin is somehow the good guy here and Zelenskyy is part of some Eldens of Zion conspiracy.

I've never claimed that anyone who is anti-war is pro-Putin. I've been pretty firmly against direct intervention from the very beginning and I was one of the people on this forum criticizing the hasty labels of "pro-Putin" (and the absurd jingoistic "let's cancel Russian culture" nonsense). What I do see as being pro-Putin is claiming that the fault of the war is on Ukraine and the U.S., not on Putin who invaded a sovereign nation. In fact, my point about leftists being accused of being pro-Putin is that they were accused of that because they were against intervention. Yet the only people I see who are actually pro-Putin are on the right.

And no, I doubt anyone in mainstream Republican politics is going to come out and say they support Putin, but I come across plenty of American Putin-supporters online, all of whom happen to be conservatives and Trump supporters. I don't think it's a coincidence. It isn't just opposition to arming Ukraine either.

 

[Eric]

I thought these guys were pro-life, Putin is responsible for the rape, murder and torture of hundreds of women and children. He should be hung on live TV IMO. It's. the MAGA faction, I don't believe all Republicans feel the same way.

 

[AG_PhamD]

I've never claimed that anyone who is anti-war is pro-Putin. I've been pretty firmly against direct intervention from the very beginning and I was one of the people on this forum criticizing the hasty labels of "pro-Putin" (and the absurd jingoistic "let's cancel Russian culture" nonsense). What I do see as being pro-Putin is claiming that the fault of the war is on Ukraine and the U.S., not on Putin who invaded a sovereign nation. In fact, my point about leftists being accused of being pro-Putin is that they were accused of that because they were against intervention. Yet the only people I see who are actually pro-Putin are on the right.

And no, I doubt anyone in mainstream Republican politics is going to come out and say they support Putin, but I come across plenty of American Putin-supporters online, all of whom happen to be conservatives and Trump supporters. I don't think it's a coincidence. It isn't just opposition to arming Ukraine either.

I’m not sure Tucker’s stance has been that the west is at fault for provoking Putin into the war, rather we have no interest in getting involved in the matter- What I understand his point to be is that if Russia was arming Cuba with weapons we might take that as a threat. It’s a bad argument IMO, but I don’t think he’s going as far to say we are blame for starting the war, but we are perpetuating it into a messier problem.

I think there is truth that at some point Ukraine and Russia could have negotiated a political deal to prevent the escalation of the war into the deaths casualties of tens, soon perhaps hundreds of thousands. But Ukraine is a sovereign nation and can decide who they wish to partner with, how to run their nation, whether or not to defend themselves, etc. I do think it’s true we are trying to bleed Russia as much as possible at the cost of Ukrainian suffering- but that is consequence they overwhelmingly are willing to endure.

I think his argument is largely just doubling down on the old assumption Ukraine has no chance of winning this war, which has continuously been proven wrong time and time again, each time to a greater extent.

It’s also rather incoherent given what I presume is his take on our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Iran nuclear deal, the expansion of China as a global power, etc that the world is a less safe place when authoritarian regimes have unchallenged power.

 

[Yoused]

I don’t think he or anyone in the mainstream Republican Party, including Tucker Carlson, think Putin is somehow the good guy here and Zelenskyy is part of some Eldens of Zion conspiracy.

But many Rs see Ukraine as the bad guys, for failing to properly tar Hunter Biden, thus depriving America of four more years of Individual-ONE (because a R is one of us'ns and therefore preferable to any D in the WH. They are asqared of the White-wing and wish to mollify them lest they break out their guns. Really, if the R party plays host to the stupid and the insane and fails to try to rein them in, anyone who continues to be a R cannot escape being soiled by that connection.

I thought these guys were pro-life, Putin is responsible for the rape, murder and torture of hundreds of women and children.

Well, women and children are not fetuses.

 

[Roller]

13 dead and 21 wounded in Russia school shooting

A gunman killed 13 people, including seven children, and wounded 21 other people in a school in central Russia on Monday, authorities said.

www.npr.org

According to the article, the gunman was wearing a shirt with "Nazi symbols." Watch Putin et al spin this as being perpetrated by a Ukrainian Nazi to further justify their invasion.

 

[Colstan]

But many Rs see Ukraine as the bad guys, for failing to properly tar Hunter Biden, thus depriving America of four more years of Individual-ONE (because a R is one of us'ns and therefore preferable to any D in the WH. They are asqared of the White-wing and wish to mollify them lest they break out their guns. Really, if the R party plays host to the stupid and the insane and fails to try to rein them in, anyone who continues to be a R cannot escape being soiled by that connection.

I rarely discuss my personal politics here, and mainly stick to factual news. I think it might be a bit useful to see where @AG_PhamD and I are coming from, simply for perspective. Both us of are more or less in the middle, holding both conservative and liberal viewpoints. Most of the folks here are left-leaning, which I am not criticizing, just pointing out. What I think @AG_PhamD is getting at is the sunk cost fallacy on the part of many on the right. They committed to the notion that supplying weapons to Ukraine was bad policy at a time when it was questionable whether it was wise to do so. That wasn't an extreme position at the time, a notion which I had considered, but have now rejected. They haven't changed their position, but that's not something that only the right does, every human on the planet finds ways to justify hardened beliefs. So, I'm not going to tar and feather them over it, even though I strongly disagree with it. I don't have to, because everyone else here except me and @AG_PhamD will do it anyway.

I posted a link in this thread to Daily Kos about an article written by Mark Summer, because he did an excellent job at explaining the situation on the ground in Ukraine, without resorting to emotional anecdotes or social media rumors. However, I would have no qualms about posting such news if it came from MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, or the Washington Times, as long as the reporting is factual. All of those organizations have opinion sections, which I honestly ignore, but they also have hard news reporters, which I value. I think it's best to cast a wide net when looking for information, and the more corroborating sources, the better.

I don't expect what I have just said to be well-received. I'm not a heavily partisan person, I just don't have the energy for it, which is why I stick to less controversial subjects. The UKR/RU conflict is new and interesting (if tragic), and there aren't many Kremlin boot lickers around here, while other subjects in the news and politics section feature less discussion, and more hardened opinion. These are my thoughts on the matter, take it for what it is.

 

[Alli]

How terrible for these Russian conscripts and their families. The instinct is to suggest that they surrender to the nearest Ukrainian when they set foot over the border, but one of the replies in that thread said that Putin has increased the penalty for voluntary surrender to 10 years in prison. The Daily Beast mentioned that in a piece on September 20 when describing Putin's legislative measures that preceded what was soon thereafter the mobilization announcement.

Good thing Zelensky has said he will not return Russian soldiers in an exchange if they don’t want to go.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I searched for some response/reaction from TC about this stuff and found nothing. You’d think Fox or him would have something to say, however disingenuous it’s guaranteed to be.

Their allegiance is first and foremost to the global fascism movement because I guess to them there's nothing more patriotic than worshipping other countries who are crushing "others".

 

[Deleted member 215]

I rarely discuss my personal politics here, and mainly stick to factual news. I think it might be a bit useful to see where @AG_PhamD and I are coming from, simply for perspective. Both us of are more or less in the middle, holding both conservative and liberal viewpoints. Most of the folks here are left-leaning, which I am not criticizing, just pointing out. What I think @AG_PhamD is getting at is the sunk cost fallacy on the part of many on the right. They committed to the notion that supplying weapons to Ukraine was bad policy at a time when it was questionable whether it was wise to do so. That wasn't an extreme position at the time, a notion which I had considered, but have now rejected. They haven't changed their position, but that's not something that only the right does, every human on the planet finds ways to justify hardened beliefs. So, I'm not going to tar and feather them over it, even though I strongly disagree with it. I don't have to, because everyone else here except me and @AG_PhamD will do it anyway.

I posted a link in this thread to Daily Kos about an article written by Mark Summer, because he did an excellent job at explaining the situation on the ground in Ukraine, without resorting to emotional anecdotes or social media rumors. However, I would have no qualms about posting such news if it came from MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, or the Washington Times, as long as the reporting is factual. All of those organizations have opinion sections, which I honestly ignore, but they also have hard news reporters, which I value. I think it's best to cast a wide net when looking for information, and the more corroborating sources, the better.

I don't expect what I have just said to be well-received. I'm not a heavily partisan person, I just don't have the energy for it, which is why I stick to less controversial subjects. The UKR/RU conflict is new and interesting (if tragic), and there aren't many Kremlin boot lickers around here, while other subjects in the news and politics section feature less discussion, and more hardened opinion. These are my thoughts on the matter, take it for what it is.

I don't know if you have read through the early pages of this thread, but in it, leftists like me were absolutely hammered by the moderates and more traditional Democrats in this thread for suggesting that we should be cautious about provoking a nuclear war or that this war somehow could've been prevented by Ukraine vowing to not join NATO (don't even get me started on what happened when I pointed out that Ukrainians were often being racist in their refusal to help African students stuck in their nation). Many leftists regard NATO as an evil institution and while I don't know enough about it to have that opinion, I certainly did not think NATO membership was worth fighting a war over. That said, the more I've read about this conflict, the more I'm convinced this was not just about Ukraine joining NATO but about Russia's desire for Ukraine's natural resources, namely its mostly untapped gas reserves in the East. So to me, this is nothing more than an imperialist power seeking to do what imperial powers always do: undermine sovereignty of nations to maintain control over their resources (as well as in this case, the cultural value that Ukraine represents--there's a mix of imperialism and revanchism here). So my problem is not with these more "cautious" takes since those were my own takes at the beginning of this conflict. I also had that stance because I believed that even with U.S. support Ukraine would still lose. I'm no longer convinced of that, though I'm still broadly "cautious".

But I also spend a lot of time on the internet, outside of forums like these where most users are left-leaning. And on those sites, I see the unapologetic support for Putin from the right (they see Ukraine as Biden's war, they see Zelensky as fundamentally globalist and progressive and admire Putin for standing up to the "deep state") and it's difficult for me to see the likes of Tucker as anything more than a softened mainstream-palatable version of this position. He has to concede "yeah, Putin is bad", but that's not what they're saying on less mainstream platforms. It's certainly not the case that the American right broadly supports Putin, but the more far-right elements do and the more far-right elements are gaining more power so I can't pretend they're just lunatics on the internet. Again, my problem is not with the cautious stance, my problem is with the admiration of Putin and Viktor Orban and the fascist sympathies I see gaining ground in the right as they become increasingly disenchanted with Reaganesque libertarianism. Maybe I'm wrong to see hints of it in Tucker's position (though Tucker's other positions on "replacement theory" and other insidious ideas preclude me from being generous to Tucker), but I think it should be clear by now that I do not think anyone who thought this war was a bad idea was pro-Putin as that was the whole point of my argument in the early pages of this thread. In general I am very anti-interventionist, though less because of "America first" than because I am opposed to American imperialism. But I've become more pro-Ukraine the more I've seen proto-fascists oppose Ukraine. I am still 100% opposed to provoking anything nuclear or sending troops to Ukraine.

I also find a lot of the anti-Ukraine stance disingenuous, like the focus on Ukraine's "Nazi problem" when Russia has huge numbers of Nazis. If the position is that Russia somehow represents an admirable anti-deep state position in the face of global progressivism, why is the Nazi problem in Russia going unaddressed? I'm not denying that there are Nazis in Ukraine, as Nazis always come out of the fray when nationalism comes into play, as it tends to do when a nation is invaded.

And I do wonder how much of it is simply anti-Biden as the same people who are opposed supporting Ukraine in any meaningful way think we were weak to leave Afghanistan. I still run across some Republicans who think Biden was weak for not preventing the war in Ukraine! So what is "weak"? I have no clue.

 

[Yoused]

Upset that his friend with no military experience was being drafted, a 25-y/o Siberian man in BFNowhere took up arms against the army.

MSN

www.msn.com

Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said that the draft office head was hospitalized and in critical condition. He added that the detained shooter "will absolutely be punished … I'm ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united. We must not fight with each but against real threats,"​

 

[lizkat]

MSN

www.msn.com

Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said that the draft office head was hospitalized and in critical condition. He added that the detained shooter "will absolutely be punished … I'm ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united. We must not fight with each but against real threats,"​

When you think back to how Putin was presenting this as a several day "special military operation" it really boggles the mind how it has unspooled over all this time, and arriving at this state of affairs where it sounds like they may be able to conscript citizens but can't trust them with a functional gun.

It does grow alarming to realize that Putin can't even find a way to declare "peace with honor" and walk away. He has still insisted on having those four sham referenda in eastern provinces. It's like a deadly no man's land there really, thanks to all the shelling. So the gain at best looks to be a disputed wasteland, lost or expended arms, a lot of dead Russians and their angry families back home... plus the wrath of families of all the displaced and dead or injured Ukrainians as well.

What a price to be paying for tenuous accessions: the UN will not recognize those referenda as freely voted upon. The votes are occurring at gunpoint, house to house.

https://wapo.st/3xTBuHs

Ukrainians who are in contact with friends and relatives in the occupied territories describe groups of men armed with Kalashnikov rifles, accompanied by a person with a portable ballot box, going door-to-door in apartment buildings and houses.

“The referendum is taking place in the occupied city of Kherson under the muzzle of an automatic rifle,” said Galina Luhova, head of the Kherson City Military Administration, who now lives in Ukrainian-controlled territory. “They ring the doorbell of apartments, knock down the doors of those who don’t open them and demand that people come out and put a mark that they agree to join the Russian Federation.”

 

[Yoused]

I rarely discuss my personal politics here, and mainly stick to factual news.

I understand that TA can seem hostile to genuine conservative types who have some measure of flexibility. Most of us, I think, do try to make an effort to avoid alienating/punishing people for disagreeing with us, but it can be difficult. The leadership of the R party has spent four+ decades poisoning the marketplace of ideas, to the point that it has become burdensome to have meaningful exchanges of ideas on subjects relating to the national/world stage. I remember when they strove mightily to turn "Liberal" into a viscious slur, and gained some traction.

Really, I think most of us would like to hear your thoughts on some of these issues, and it is indeed unfortunate that you find the atmosphere so hostile that you feel loath to post freely.

 

[Eric]

Putin grants Russian citizenship to U.S. whistleblower Snowden​

Putin grants Russian citizenship to U.S. whistleblower Snowden

Snowden fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013.

www.reuters.com

Sept 26 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Snowden, 39, fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA, where he worked.


U.S. authorities have for years wanted him returned to the United States to face a criminal trial on espionage charges.

There was no immediate reaction from Snowden, whose name appeared without Kremlin comment in a Putin decree conferring citizenship on a list of 72 foreign-born people.

The news prompted some Russians to jokingly ask whether Snowden would be called up for military service, five days after Putin announced Russia's first public mobilization since World War Two to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine.


"Will Snowden be drafted?" Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state media outlet RT and a vocal Putin supporter, wrote with dark humour on her Telegram channel.

Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told RIA news agency that his client could not be called up because he had not previously served in the Russian army.

Wonder if he'll be able to make a beeline for a border now.

 

[Yoused]

Wonder if he'll be able to make a beeline for a border now.

… with Ukraine … in a uniform ?

 

[Eric]

… with Ukraine … in a uniform ?

That's how it's looking, free ride is over from the sounds of it.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Read that Russians are calling Ukraine to tell them they will surrender before they've even been drafted.

Seems to me there are going to be a lot of temporary Russian expats looking to take their country back from Putin.