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Indeed. And Ukraine doing absolutely amazing propaganda work to pull the entire developed world firmly onto its side. I don't mean to take anything away from th

Indeed. And Ukraine doing absolutely amazing propaganda work to pull the entire developed world firmly onto its side. I don't mean to take anything away from the suffering Ukraine is experiencing, or the justness of its cause. I mean, they're presenting all that in an incredibly persuasive way, across essentially all media. For example, early on in the invasion, we saw pictures of new highway signs, where the directions to different cities had been replaced with (in Russian), "Fuck Off", "Also Fuck Off", and "Fuck Off Back to Russia." Or, when a brewery switched to creating Molotov cocktails, they had already printed labels, with fun graphic design, an the title "Putin is a dickhead." That wasn't spontaneous. They had an entire portfolio of stuff like that, which they'd been planning for years. Absolutely genius preparation by Ukraine.

legalcorrection 5y ago
- vogre 5y ago
  > The real winner is the West. The real winner is US. Europe will pay for this war by its' economy.
  - legalcorrection 5y ago
    Yes, good point. The truth is Europe is utterly helpless militarily. They can't defend against Russian action in Eastern Europe without American military power. So they have to accept these sanctions as the cost of that protection. This is no doubt part of the why the United States has lobbied so strongly against the development of an integrated EU army, which is the probably the only way Europe can by itself deter aggression on its periphery.
    - creato 5y ago
      I don’t know about an integrated EU army, but the US has been lobbying for Europe to expand its defense capabilities for years, that wasn’t just Trump.
    - Balero 5y ago
      I think Russia's incompetent invasion goes to show that Europe can defend itself against Russia (at least discounting Nuclear Weapons, but who can defend there, and not just retaliate). And further more, that they should prepare in order to defend even more capably. In general some countries in Europe, notably Germany, have been relying on the US and to a lesser extent France, UK and Poland to defend them from Russia. But recent events have caused a change in tack here.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > Russia's incompetent invasion goes to show that Europe can defend itself against Russia The incompetence cuts both ways. They're unlikely to win a land war in Europe. But they're apparently happy to start wars they can't win.
        Balero 5y ago
        Hopefully after this pointless fiasco they will be less happy to start something. But it is a good reason for European countries to keep supplying Ukraine, and to build their own defence forces. Good point though! I hadn't thought of that.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      > The truth is Europe is utterly helpless militarily. They can't defend against Russian action in Eastern Europe without American military power. If you paid any attention to recent weeks, it would have occurred to you that the rest of Europe would obliterate Russian forces if Russia dared to attack with its absolutely inept ground forces.
    - malka 5y ago
      > created: 61 days ago hmmm.
      - legalcorrection 5y ago
        Give me a break. If you look through my other comments and still think I'm a paid shill, then you're paranoid and seeing ghosts.
    - orwin 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure the Russian cannot detect French Rafale in enemy territory, and while MICA can hit most Russian planes without troubles AND defend against R77s, i'm not convinced old long distance missile like the R-27 can actually lock on a Rafale, let alone hit it. Also i'm not sure there is a chance for any Russian fighter to avoid getting hit by a Meteor, so i guess Russia would have to destroy Eu satellites and hope the US doesn't lend theirs? Also i think Europe have more MICA-VF than Ukrainian had manpads. So the Russian would have to go ground-only. I don't think they have something as good as MICAVF to defend against let's say SCALP, so most of the artillery would have to stay under cover (and again, need to destroy EU satellites). I'm pretty sure the fuel tech used in the Meteors could be used in AtS missiles too, and that would render any artillery useless as long as any EU satellites can discover the piece. Basically, mechanized infantery and tanks would have to be the way to go.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    The US as well (massively) if this leads to a shift off the petrodollar.
    - echelon 5y ago
      This is one of the developments I've been watching with interest. Saudi Arabia seems to be interested in trading oil in Yuan now [1], which would mark an enormous shift away from the petrodollar. And from one of the US' biggest oil trading partners, at that. Does anyone with more context in the energy / geopolitical world care to add some color? [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollars-for-chinese-oil-sales-11647351541 https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-acceptin... edit: add link, +" away from the petrodollar"
      - ericmay 5y ago
        It doesn't matter. They were only proposing this for trade with China, and the USD is useful regardless. Notice how nobody in Europe is worried that the Euro isn't the primary trading currency for oil, and the Euro is worth more than the USD? The only existential threat to the USD is an actual civil war in the United States. I don't even view cryptocurrency as a threat.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > if this leads to a shift off the petrodollar Given the petrodollar hypothesis for dollar dominance is a debunked myth, no. (TL; DR Oil is priced and trades in numerous currencies. America is not dependent on foreign oil. The global transaction volumes in oil, across currencies, pales next to total U.S. dollar volumes.) We've in all but explicit name cancelled the deal with the House of Saud that created the petrodollar because petrodollars are no longer useful to us.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > and an inflated sense of Russia's desires to commit cruel atrocities for the sake of it There are two kinds of people: those who had to deal with Russian military, and those who spout nonsense like the one above.
  - rat9988 5y ago
    Which one of the two you are?
    - jhgb 5y ago
      My country used to be occupied by them and I remember their withdrawal that left numerous historical buildings destroyed. Those illiterate rubes couldn't even use flushing toilets, so they shat all over the place. Some of those buildings were finally repaired as late as in the last decade.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  >Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians He says as they shell residential areas, hospitals, etc.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    You are a fool if you think militias don't use civilian structures and human shields. War is a dirty affair.
    - oneoff786 5y ago
      Pretty sure those humanitarian corridors and theatres marked “Kids” weren’t hiding militias
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      Didn't say that wasn't happening. I'm saying the implication that Russia is running a "clean" war is, well, "not true" to keep it diplomatic. Edit: re "you are a fool" maybe tone down the personal attacks?
      - legalcorrection 5y ago
        When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target, to use your terminology. That is well-established law of war, accepted by every nation on the planet.
        Forgeties79 5y ago
        Hard disagree, but it doesn't really matter ultimately. I think we just need to be careful sanitizing Russia's tactics.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target We have zero evidence of the military operating out of civilian infrastructure that doesn't come from Russia. We have independent evidence of the Russian military targeting civilian infrastructure which had zero military presence. Hate to have to look at this kind of stuff, but a 61-day old account parroting Putin's propaganda points doesn't look credible per se.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- filoleg 5y ago
  > Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians (if they did, they would have won the war weeks ago) Well, they don't have that as their end goal, just as the method of choice for accomplishing their real goal (capturing territories + forcing Ukraine to surrender). Because if they did, you are correct, that wouldn't make sense, since they could've just done it earlier. Wiping out a country serves no purpose, no benefit, and attracts massive downsides all around. But harming them to the point where they would consider surrendering those territories and capitulating, that makes way more sense.
  - est31 5y ago
    Yeah and they absolutely do torture civilians, journalists even, e.g. read this testimony: https://rsf.org/en/news/chilling-account-radio-france-fixer-who-was-kidnapped-and-tortured-russian-soldiers-ukraine https://rsf.org/en/news/chilling-account-radio-france-fixer-...
    - orwin 5y ago
      I think i know of him. Helped one of my friend around 2016 to get himself (and his Kyiv nightclub project) started in Ukraine. 32 yo French interpret checks out. Horrific.
- fabian2k 5y ago
  They have intentionally bombed hospitals and shelters with civilians. The most prominent case being the theater in Mariupol that had "Children" written next to it so that it would be visible from the air. Russia is pretty clearly committing war crimes and directly targeting civilians, there is a lot of evidence for that.
  - milansm 5y ago
    I’m from Serbia, and know for sure that during the NATO war against Serbia in ‘99 our military was residing in (some) schools. It makes sense if you think about it. If they were better at information warfare, they would have written “children” on some of the buildings.
    - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
      Pour one out for Lusitania.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    They've even been admitting since the beginning that they were ordered to kill civilians: https://old.reddit.com/r/RussianWarSecrets/comments/t1yd83/russian_soldier_admits_that_russia_ordered_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RussianWarSecrets/comments/t1yd83/r... To say that "Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians" is a barefaced lie considering the numerous soldiers' testimonies to the opposite.
    - legalcorrection 5y ago
      So, one, it's actually a violation of the Geneva Convention to be using captured soldiers in propaganda videos (regardless of whether what they're saying is true). Nonetheless, the Ukrainians have been doing this a lot. Two, how do you know the guy is actually a Russian soldier, how do you know he's telling the truth, how do you know he's free to tell the truth? You should be a little more skeptical of random videos posted online during a war. Both sides have been caught putting out blatantly fake propaganda.
- JoshCole 5y ago
  > They are doing so well in part because of the propaganda Propaganda doesn't kill tanks, planes, helicopters, and soldiers. Weapons do these things. > The average Westerner and Ukrainian has an unrealistic idea of their prospect of victory, and an inflated sense of Russia's desires to commit cruel atrocities for the sake of it. Putin has been arresting generals and intelligence personnel who had an unrealistic idea of their prospect for victory. Russian citizens have such an unrealistic idea of how the war is going that they can't even state how many have died or that there is even a war at all. > There's a small chance this unrealistic expectation of victory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I doubt it. It isn't unrealistic. Russia doesn't have a much larger economy than Ukraine and though it has a much larger military its spending was dedicated to fighting a very different type of war than the type it is waging against Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been preparing for this attack and has the support of larger economies than Russia. > That is, they are dying for Poland, the Baltic states, and American hegemony, and perhaps for a romantic idea of going down fighting, but not for the best outcome for their people. Your comment calls this conflict a war. That is illegal in Russia. What you said, under Russian rule, isn't allowed. You are a criminal according to Russia. You deserve, according to Russia, time in jail and/or fines. You yourself have shown through your own use of liberty to be an enemy of Russia. You use a freedom without thought to its value. You walk free, rather than in jail. Yet you imply that Ukraine fights for nothing. That there is no value to itself in preserving the freedom that you yourself enjoy. In my eyes this is cowardly hypocrisy: shouldn't you despise your own freedom before you criticize others for fighting for those freedoms?
- libraryatnight 5y ago
  The westerners I work and socialize with must not be average. The overwhelming opinion in my circle was of course support for Ukrain, disgust for Putin, but the sad thought that Ukraine couldn't possibly hold out long - I remember thinking when everyone was impressed they cleared the 4 day mark that if the world's impressed with 4 days, how much longer could they last? Of course that opinion proved incorrect, but that's OK because I figured myself average and a layman in the realm of military engagement outside Civ. I also reject the notion that Ukrainians only fight because of romanticism or having been duped about their prospects. Plenty of what I've seen in their own messaging seems very aware, and like people fighting for their homes and way of life against harsh odds. Perhaps there are some who would fall under your characterization, but to generalize them all so you can wax armchair Foreign Affairs correspondent undermines your entire comment. Also, I keep seeing these comments crop up. All manner of semi-literate arguments for why a country is better off to roll over and accept, in this case, Putin as their new overlord. It's always cloaked in the veneer of "regrettable truths if only all could see..." and a tone of reluctant pragmatism that's manufactured to a painful degree.
throwaway123081 5y ago

legalcorrection 5y ago

vogre 5y ago
> The real winner is the West. The real winner is US. Europe will pay for this war by its' economy.
- legalcorrection 5y ago
  Yes, good point. The truth is Europe is utterly helpless militarily. They can't defend against Russian action in Eastern Europe without American military power. So they have to accept these sanctions as the cost of that protection. This is no doubt part of the why the United States has lobbied so strongly against the development of an integrated EU army, which is the probably the only way Europe can by itself deter aggression on its periphery.
  - creato 5y ago
    I don’t know about an integrated EU army, but the US has been lobbying for Europe to expand its defense capabilities for years, that wasn’t just Trump.
  - Balero 5y ago
    I think Russia's incompetent invasion goes to show that Europe can defend itself against Russia (at least discounting Nuclear Weapons, but who can defend there, and not just retaliate). And further more, that they should prepare in order to defend even more capably. In general some countries in Europe, notably Germany, have been relying on the US and to a lesser extent France, UK and Poland to defend them from Russia. But recent events have caused a change in tack here.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > Russia's incompetent invasion goes to show that Europe can defend itself against Russia The incompetence cuts both ways. They're unlikely to win a land war in Europe. But they're apparently happy to start wars they can't win.
      - Balero 5y ago
        Hopefully after this pointless fiasco they will be less happy to start something. But it is a good reason for European countries to keep supplying Ukraine, and to build their own defence forces. Good point though! I hadn't thought of that.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > The truth is Europe is utterly helpless militarily. They can't defend against Russian action in Eastern Europe without American military power. If you paid any attention to recent weeks, it would have occurred to you that the rest of Europe would obliterate Russian forces if Russia dared to attack with its absolutely inept ground forces.
  - malka 5y ago
    > created: 61 days ago hmmm.
    - legalcorrection 5y ago
      Give me a break. If you look through my other comments and still think I'm a paid shill, then you're paranoid and seeing ghosts.
  - orwin 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure the Russian cannot detect French Rafale in enemy territory, and while MICA can hit most Russian planes without troubles AND defend against R77s, i'm not convinced old long distance missile like the R-27 can actually lock on a Rafale, let alone hit it. Also i'm not sure there is a chance for any Russian fighter to avoid getting hit by a Meteor, so i guess Russia would have to destroy Eu satellites and hope the US doesn't lend theirs? Also i think Europe have more MICA-VF than Ukrainian had manpads. So the Russian would have to go ground-only. I don't think they have something as good as MICAVF to defend against let's say SCALP, so most of the artillery would have to stay under cover (and again, need to destroy EU satellites). I'm pretty sure the fuel tech used in the Meteors could be used in AtS missiles too, and that would render any artillery useless as long as any EU satellites can discover the piece. Basically, mechanized infantery and tanks would have to be the way to go.
- spurgu 5y ago
  The US as well (massively) if this leads to a shift off the petrodollar.
  - echelon 5y ago
    This is one of the developments I've been watching with interest. Saudi Arabia seems to be interested in trading oil in Yuan now [1], which would mark an enormous shift away from the petrodollar. And from one of the US' biggest oil trading partners, at that. Does anyone with more context in the energy / geopolitical world care to add some color? [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollars-for-chinese-oil-sales-11647351541 https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-acceptin... edit: add link, +" away from the petrodollar"
    - ericmay 5y ago
      It doesn't matter. They were only proposing this for trade with China, and the USD is useful regardless. Notice how nobody in Europe is worried that the Euro isn't the primary trading currency for oil, and the Euro is worth more than the USD? The only existential threat to the USD is an actual civil war in the United States. I don't even view cryptocurrency as a threat.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > if this leads to a shift off the petrodollar Given the petrodollar hypothesis for dollar dominance is a debunked myth, no. (TL; DR Oil is priced and trades in numerous currencies. America is not dependent on foreign oil. The global transaction volumes in oil, across currencies, pales next to total U.S. dollar volumes.) We've in all but explicit name cancelled the deal with the House of Saud that created the petrodollar because petrodollars are no longer useful to us.
jhgb 5y ago
> and an inflated sense of Russia's desires to commit cruel atrocities for the sake of it There are two kinds of people: those who had to deal with Russian military, and those who spout nonsense like the one above.
- rat9988 5y ago
  Which one of the two you are?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    My country used to be occupied by them and I remember their withdrawal that left numerous historical buildings destroyed. Those illiterate rubes couldn't even use flushing toilets, so they shat all over the place. Some of those buildings were finally repaired as late as in the last decade.
Forgeties79 5y ago
>Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians He says as they shell residential areas, hospitals, etc.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  You are a fool if you think militias don't use civilian structures and human shields. War is a dirty affair.
  - oneoff786 5y ago
    Pretty sure those humanitarian corridors and theatres marked “Kids” weren’t hiding militias
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    Didn't say that wasn't happening. I'm saying the implication that Russia is running a "clean" war is, well, "not true" to keep it diplomatic. Edit: re "you are a fool" maybe tone down the personal attacks?
    - legalcorrection 5y ago
      When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target, to use your terminology. That is well-established law of war, accepted by every nation on the planet.
      - Forgeties79 5y ago
        Hard disagree, but it doesn't really matter ultimately. I think we just need to be careful sanitizing Russia's tactics.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target We have zero evidence of the military operating out of civilian infrastructure that doesn't come from Russia. We have independent evidence of the Russian military targeting civilian infrastructure which had zero military presence. Hate to have to look at this kind of stuff, but a 61-day old account parroting Putin's propaganda points doesn't look credible per se.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
filoleg 5y ago
> Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians (if they did, they would have won the war weeks ago) Well, they don't have that as their end goal, just as the method of choice for accomplishing their real goal (capturing territories + forcing Ukraine to surrender). Because if they did, you are correct, that wouldn't make sense, since they could've just done it earlier. Wiping out a country serves no purpose, no benefit, and attracts massive downsides all around. But harming them to the point where they would consider surrendering those territories and capitulating, that makes way more sense.
- est31 5y ago
  Yeah and they absolutely do torture civilians, journalists even, e.g. read this testimony: https://rsf.org/en/news/chilling-account-radio-france-fixer-who-was-kidnapped-and-tortured-russian-soldiers-ukraine https://rsf.org/en/news/chilling-account-radio-france-fixer-...
  - orwin 5y ago
    I think i know of him. Helped one of my friend around 2016 to get himself (and his Kyiv nightclub project) started in Ukraine. 32 yo French interpret checks out. Horrific.
fabian2k 5y ago
They have intentionally bombed hospitals and shelters with civilians. The most prominent case being the theater in Mariupol that had "Children" written next to it so that it would be visible from the air. Russia is pretty clearly committing war crimes and directly targeting civilians, there is a lot of evidence for that.
- milansm 5y ago
  I’m from Serbia, and know for sure that during the NATO war against Serbia in ‘99 our military was residing in (some) schools. It makes sense if you think about it. If they were better at information warfare, they would have written “children” on some of the buildings.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    Pour one out for Lusitania.
- jhgb 5y ago
  They've even been admitting since the beginning that they were ordered to kill civilians: https://old.reddit.com/r/RussianWarSecrets/comments/t1yd83/russian_soldier_admits_that_russia_ordered_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/RussianWarSecrets/comments/t1yd83/r... To say that "Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians" is a barefaced lie considering the numerous soldiers' testimonies to the opposite.
  - legalcorrection 5y ago
    So, one, it's actually a violation of the Geneva Convention to be using captured soldiers in propaganda videos (regardless of whether what they're saying is true). Nonetheless, the Ukrainians have been doing this a lot. Two, how do you know the guy is actually a Russian soldier, how do you know he's telling the truth, how do you know he's free to tell the truth? You should be a little more skeptical of random videos posted online during a war. Both sides have been caught putting out blatantly fake propaganda.
JoshCole 5y ago
> They are doing so well in part because of the propaganda Propaganda doesn't kill tanks, planes, helicopters, and soldiers. Weapons do these things. > The average Westerner and Ukrainian has an unrealistic idea of their prospect of victory, and an inflated sense of Russia's desires to commit cruel atrocities for the sake of it. Putin has been arresting generals and intelligence personnel who had an unrealistic idea of their prospect for victory. Russian citizens have such an unrealistic idea of how the war is going that they can't even state how many have died or that there is even a war at all. > There's a small chance this unrealistic expectation of victory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I doubt it. It isn't unrealistic. Russia doesn't have a much larger economy than Ukraine and though it has a much larger military its spending was dedicated to fighting a very different type of war than the type it is waging against Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been preparing for this attack and has the support of larger economies than Russia. > That is, they are dying for Poland, the Baltic states, and American hegemony, and perhaps for a romantic idea of going down fighting, but not for the best outcome for their people. Your comment calls this conflict a war. That is illegal in Russia. What you said, under Russian rule, isn't allowed. You are a criminal according to Russia. You deserve, according to Russia, time in jail and/or fines. You yourself have shown through your own use of liberty to be an enemy of Russia. You use a freedom without thought to its value. You walk free, rather than in jail. Yet you imply that Ukraine fights for nothing. That there is no value to itself in preserving the freedom that you yourself enjoy. In my eyes this is cowardly hypocrisy: shouldn't you despise your own freedom before you criticize others for fighting for those freedoms?
libraryatnight 5y ago
The westerners I work and socialize with must not be average. The overwhelming opinion in my circle was of course support for Ukrain, disgust for Putin, but the sad thought that Ukraine couldn't possibly hold out long - I remember thinking when everyone was impressed they cleared the 4 day mark that if the world's impressed with 4 days, how much longer could they last? Of course that opinion proved incorrect, but that's OK because I figured myself average and a layman in the realm of military engagement outside Civ. I also reject the notion that Ukrainians only fight because of romanticism or having been duped about their prospects. Plenty of what I've seen in their own messaging seems very aware, and like people fighting for their homes and way of life against harsh odds. Perhaps there are some who would fall under your characterization, but to generalize them all so you can wax armchair Foreign Affairs correspondent undermines your entire comment. Also, I keep seeing these comments crop up. All manner of semi-literate arguments for why a country is better off to roll over and accept, in this case, Putin as their new overlord. It's always cloaked in the veneer of "regrettable truths if only all could see..." and a tone of reluctant pragmatism that's manufactured to a painful degree.

throwaway123081 5y ago