5 ms·

I'm no expert on these subjects, but reading the original Reuters post reminds me of a similar pattern of events from Russia's entry into Ukraine. IIRC Russia p

by kfarr 5y ago

I'm no expert on these subjects, but reading the original Reuters post reminds me of a similar pattern of events from Russia's entry into Ukraine. IIRC Russia paid or otherwise clandestinely influenced their own insurgents to start violent protests against the Ukraine government and US military presence, and then used the conflict as an excuse for the Russian state to take over territory. Is this the same concept or am I just being paranoid?

WHA8m 5y ago
In my opinion, you're not paranoid.
- kfarr 5y ago
  Phew! Thanks
rich_sasha 5y ago
A similar thing happened in Afghanistan in the 80s, then Caucasus post-1989. Notional government appeals for help, Russian tanks appear and don’t leave. The difference is that the current government is undemocratic, though “legal”, not a new entity.
nisa 5y ago
In this case there is a treaty for help and the kazakh dictator just requested help via this treaty. I guess the russian military will only protect important infrastructure and will try to avoid shooting civilians. Of course there is a lot unknown.
- avmich 5y ago
  The treaty is against external aggression. In some previous case help was refused citing this reason. This time external aggression looks like a pretense.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    The Russians said same to save face about Chechens when Chechens kicked their ass during first war.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > try to avoid shooting civilians Russia has a long history of dealing with rebellions and uprisings. Protecting civilians has never been a priority as far as I am aware, and actively harming civilians has been a goal at times.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    It's a rather bad faith statement. What exactly had built your current level of awareness of Russia's peacekeeping practices? Also, no idea where you got that "long history of dealing with rebellions and uprisings", Russian attitude to riots is very specific and history counts only really a few and only bright moments. Russians don't even have a culture of riot police, just look at all their protest! Putin forces his servicemen to use use brute force and rubber battons, instead of proper tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons, such as you would see in any developed first-world country.
    - Jansen312 5y ago
      Basically bias. He or she wasn't aware how USA killed Iraqis (literally for fun - search for that video Iraq video leaked) on a cooked up false premise of WMD (Powell basically died bringing that shame to grave). The entire nation collapse. Same goes with Syria, Agfhan, and maybe Iran+Pakistan given a chance. Russia is still rookie compare to that. And yet, they are evil empire that need to get stopped at all cost. The irony is Nazi Germany the now our western allies was defeated by Russians and to some extend accelerated Imperial Japanese surrenders (the majority the history books in western countries got this part very wrong). Putin is doing it wrong. Western countries expect him to level up his brutality otherwise it makes them look bad.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
foverzar 5y ago
> Russia paid or otherwise clandestinely influenced their own insurgents to start violent protests against the Ukraine government Violent protests had already been going on for some time. At that point the elected Ukrainian government had already been overthrown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity The degree of Russian influence, compared to the degree of civil unrest naturally caused by the events in the capital is debatable, especially given spreading rumors of neo-nazis involved. Given that the "Azov Battalion" is a thing and thus the rumors were somewhat true, it seems that Russia barely had any job to do to tip the scale
- def_true_false 5y ago
  Far right attitudes are no less common in Russia, including the Russian armed forces. Given a large number of participants, the chance that neo-nazis (as well as all other kinds of people) are involved is close to 100%.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    > Far right attitudes are no less common in Russia, including the Russian armed forces What is the base of that assertion? Also, it seems to me that good old, practically a hundred years old meme based, "left-right" model is not really applicable to CIS countries. Nazism and it's symbolics has kind of a very specific set of connotations, at least in eastern slavic culture. Though we can enjoy diving in moral and statistical relativism, it seems to me that openly endorsing neo-nazism on a governmental level, up to using nazi symbolics in heraldics, is a red flag that is pretty hard to challenge in it's groutesque. Besides, it's not like "Azov" is an isolated incident, just something more flashing. The issue of language is another great thorn, but you really need to understand the context and the sentiment. In any case, we digress. It's not like this is the issue of Russian armed forces, it's an issue of what and why served as the catalyst for some people not to accept the new government, after the previous one was overthrown. Besides, the way it was handled is what really sealed the deal. E.g I have a video of this event https://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-luhansk-building-attack/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-luha... and it's a bloody mess of screaming, blood and just looks like a terrorist attack. This one actually also gives an interesting angle to the MH17 disaster, which happened just after that air strike. In fact, the more I look at the dates, the more I wonder how the hell did the Ukraininan government conduct air-bound military operations on some territory, but still direct civillian planes over this territory.

by kfarr 5y ago

WHA8m 5y ago

In my opinion, you're not paranoid.

kfarr 5y ago
Phew! Thanks

rich_sasha 5y ago

A similar thing happened in Afghanistan in the 80s, then Caucasus post-1989. Notional government appeals for help, Russian tanks appear and don’t leave. The difference is that the current government is undemocratic, though “legal”, not a new entity.

nisa 5y ago

In this case there is a treaty for help and the kazakh dictator just requested help via this treaty. I guess the russian military will only protect important infrastructure and will try to avoid shooting civilians. Of course there is a lot unknown.

avmich 5y ago
The treaty is against external aggression. In some previous case help was refused citing this reason. This time external aggression looks like a pretense.
- notch656a 5y ago
  The Russians said same to save face about Chechens when Chechens kicked their ass during first war.
lostlogin 5y ago
> try to avoid shooting civilians Russia has a long history of dealing with rebellions and uprisings. Protecting civilians has never been a priority as far as I am aware, and actively harming civilians has been a goal at times.
- foverzar 5y ago
  It's a rather bad faith statement. What exactly had built your current level of awareness of Russia's peacekeeping practices? Also, no idea where you got that "long history of dealing with rebellions and uprisings", Russian attitude to riots is very specific and history counts only really a few and only bright moments. Russians don't even have a culture of riot police, just look at all their protest! Putin forces his servicemen to use use brute force and rubber battons, instead of proper tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons, such as you would see in any developed first-world country.
  - Jansen312 5y ago
    Basically bias. He or she wasn't aware how USA killed Iraqis (literally for fun - search for that video Iraq video leaked) on a cooked up false premise of WMD (Powell basically died bringing that shame to grave). The entire nation collapse. Same goes with Syria, Agfhan, and maybe Iran+Pakistan given a chance. Russia is still rookie compare to that. And yet, they are evil empire that need to get stopped at all cost. The irony is Nazi Germany the now our western allies was defeated by Russians and to some extend accelerated Imperial Japanese surrenders (the majority the history books in western countries got this part very wrong). Putin is doing it wrong. Western countries expect him to level up his brutality otherwise it makes them look bad.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

foverzar 5y ago

> Russia paid or otherwise clandestinely influenced their own insurgents to start violent protests against the Ukraine government Violent protests had already been going on for some time. At that point the elected Ukrainian government had already been overthrown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity The degree of Russian influence, compared to the degree of civil unrest naturally caused by the events in the capital is debatable, especially given spreading rumors of neo-nazis involved. Given that the "Azov Battalion" is a thing and thus the rumors were somewhat true, it seems that Russia barely had any job to do to tip the scale

def_true_false 5y ago
Far right attitudes are no less common in Russia, including the Russian armed forces. Given a large number of participants, the chance that neo-nazis (as well as all other kinds of people) are involved is close to 100%.
- foverzar 5y ago
  > Far right attitudes are no less common in Russia, including the Russian armed forces What is the base of that assertion? Also, it seems to me that good old, practically a hundred years old meme based, "left-right" model is not really applicable to CIS countries. Nazism and it's symbolics has kind of a very specific set of connotations, at least in eastern slavic culture. Though we can enjoy diving in moral and statistical relativism, it seems to me that openly endorsing neo-nazism on a governmental level, up to using nazi symbolics in heraldics, is a red flag that is pretty hard to challenge in it's groutesque. Besides, it's not like "Azov" is an isolated incident, just something more flashing. The issue of language is another great thorn, but you really need to understand the context and the sentiment. In any case, we digress. It's not like this is the issue of Russian armed forces, it's an issue of what and why served as the catalyst for some people not to accept the new government, after the previous one was overthrown. Besides, the way it was handled is what really sealed the deal. E.g I have a video of this event https://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-luhansk-building-attack/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-luha... and it's a bloody mess of screaming, blood and just looks like a terrorist attack. This one actually also gives an interesting angle to the MH17 disaster, which happened just after that air strike. In fact, the more I look at the dates, the more I wonder how the hell did the Ukraininan government conduct air-bound military operations on some territory, but still direct civillian planes over this territory.