No update today, but your regularly scheduled programming will continue tomorrow.
Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
About 20-25% of Ukraine outside Crimea identified as Russian more than Ukrainian before the February invasion - maybe 10% feel that way now.
Russia was probably a few years from Crimea's referendum joining the Russian federation being recognized internationally. Crimea after the fall of the USSR had close to a million ethnic Russian military, professional, and industrial families left behind in Ukraine. Crimea has been majority Russian since the late 19th century, and while what the Soviets did with the forced migrations of the Crimean Tatars was fucked up there are more Tatars in Crimea today than ever before. Russia is smart and usually plays the long game with territorial disputes/claims. Crimea was taken with almost no bloodshed, it would have been a major windfall for Putin to pull off a warm water port without bumping up against NATO.
There was incessant Cheney-level "we will be greeted as liberators" political propaganda being pushed out before the Feb invasion began. Either way, we all know that most of Ukraine has not in fact welcomed Russians with open arms. A massive miscalculation by Putin and a historical intelligence blunder by Russian military intelligence for telling Putin just what he wanted to hear.
There are regions where Russia was greeted with open arms (Kherson, Melitopol, LPR, DPR) and certain portion of the population are obviously Russia supporters. There were mayors of some southern cities that just handed the city over to the Russians and the Ukrainians later hunted them down and kidnapped them for treason.
It’s hard for the Russia friendly population to greet anyone as liberators with Azov and Ukrainian intelligence breathing down their necks and slaughtering “traitors”
???
Ah yes, I can see the situation you're describing now, in my mind's eye...
DATE: 20th of February, 2022. Vladimir Putler is sitting at the end of the very long table. His hands are in an arch, tapping his fingers against one another as he grins malevolently.
ENTER: terrified advisor.
Advisor: "S-sir, I have the latest opinion polling from Ukraine. I don't need to remind you that the, uh, the hostilities between west and east Ukraine since the coup in 2014 have deteriorated due to their differences in which country they want to be part of. Well, uh, I have g-great news, sir! The opinion polling has, uh, fixed itself, like you said it should in that evi-- I mean, very bold tone you were speaking in, just yesterday."
Putler: His grin gets even wider. "Yes, yes, out with it boy, before I take out your the next generation of your family!"
Advisor: "Sir, yes, sir, uh, I have great news! The western half of Ukraine, and the south as well as Kiev, they actually uh, want to be part of Russia now! They say that they are yearning for freedom, and will fight for you if only you give them military support!"
Putler: "Yes... very good... what are the exact figures?"
Advisor: "Well, sir, in 2014 it was, well, very polarised, and has remained so ever since. But, well, in the last few weeks, it's gone up to 90% support across the whole country! They strongly desire your rule! You must only march in there with soldiers and then all will join your banner!"
Putler: "Fantastic. This intelligence is reliable, I assume. Tell my generals to draw up a plan to immediately go for Kiev, because, as I'm sure you know, taking a capital city grants a Domination Victory and you get a big golden trophy icon. I've been playing lots of those Civilization games, as you know."
Advisor: "Yes, sir, I've noticed. I will tell the generals immediately. Is my family safe, sir?"
Putler: "For now, young man... for now..."
END SCENE
Germany and France were pushing for Ukraine to sue for peace with Russia pre-invasion. With offers of 100's of billions in future loans/aid being tantalized behind the scenes it seems Zelensky kept holding out for more goodies as the security situation in the East continued to deteriorate. Zelensky chose not to even negotiate the de facto reality of the new Russian territory of Crimea which created a massive security problem for the Russian military. Ukraine's Neptun anti-ship missiles are one booster stage from being able to take out most ships in the Black Sea.
Macron pre-invasion on NATO and Russia:
BTW: Macron's "stability order" envisions a Russia that does not exist. Macron's willingness to work with Russia comes from French version of the Anglo neoconservative mindset that once those
evil Stalinistsevil Putinists are gone the liberal West will have Russia as a security/economic partner which they can bully/bribe or puppet into being a buffer between Europe and China.So many fucked-up agendas colliding at once. The world will definitely be different geopolitically forever because of this invasion. In ways we have yet to even fathom I'd bet.
The literally did this shit in the 90s, succeeded, and proceeded to spit on the Russians and drive them away.
What do you base this on? I haven't seen any signs of this happening, quite contrary no westoid politician or journalist has been able to say "Crimea" since 2014 without prefixing it with "illegally annexed".
Crimea has been the go-to "Russia bad" story up until the war and has been used to justify everything from increased spending on armaments to energy policy to football.
The US empire has seen Russia as a rival since Soviet times and Crimea has been not only a perfect propaganda tool but also a justification for economic warfare and sanctions meant to weaken Russia to America's benefit. They had no reason whatsoever to give Russia a win in Crimea by recognising the will of the Crimean people.
The realpolitik of Crimea was written on the wall in 2014. There was never any serious international diplomatic effort for Ukraine taking back Crimea.
What Western politicians loved was the status quo pre-invasion of getting cheap Russian gas/oil and cheap Ukrainian labor by doing nothing.
Honestly the Realpolitik in Crimea was written on the wall in 1992. Crimea has tried to assert independence from Ukraine every 2-5 years since the end of the USSR and the only thing special about 2014 is the Kiev government was too weak to stop them.