Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

VorZakone said:
It seems a lot of Ukrainians have been deported to Russia. Why are the Russians spending all that logistical capacity on deporting Ukrainians?
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Because they aim to erase Ukrainian national identity, history, culture, land ... everything.
 
VorZakone said:
It seems a lot of Ukrainians have been deported to Russia. Why are the Russians spending all that logistical capacity on deporting Ukrainians?
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GlastonSpur said:
Because they aim to erase Ukrainian national identity, history, culture, land ... everything.
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You also have to wonder if all these Ukranians being deported aren't just being murdered as part of a mass genocide.
 
ThierryFabregas said:
You also have to wonder if all these Ukranians being deported aren't just being murdered as part of a mass genocide.
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That is part of the legal definition of genocide; it doesn’t matter in that sense whether they are systematically murdered or not. Erasing their identity as Ukrainian by deportation and forced adoption of children, which is being fast-tracked (allegedly), contribute towards meeting the standards of whether a genocide is taking place.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
That is part of the legal definition of genocide; it doesn’t matter in that sense whether they are systematically murdered or not. Erasing their identity as Ukrainian by deportation and forced adoption of children, which is being fast-tracked (allegedly), contribute towards meeting the standards of whether a genocide is taking place.
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I'm more comfortable sticking with ethnic cleansing, but I guess word choice doesn't matter too much.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I'm more comfortable sticking with ethnic cleansing, but I guess word choice doesn't matter too much.
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Yeah, it is all terrible; I’m not sure if me being pedantic about it is necessary. But being that it’s meeting the criteria established by the UN I feel comfortable using it in this context regarding Russia’s actions taken as a whole.
 
GlastonSpur said:
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Only roughly 1,000 Russian POWs? I thought there would a lot more than that if we have to believe the reports of disgruntlement and low morale. The Iraqis surrendered in large numbers during the Gulf War when their army was more or less in the same messy state as the Russian army now.
 
The historically Eurosceptic Danes are very likely to abolish their defense opt-out via referendum today. This is the first referendum related to the EU held in a member state since the biggest one (brexit).

The tweet refers of course to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

 
VorZakone said:
It seems a lot of Ukrainians have been deported to Russia. Why are the Russians spending all that logistical capacity on deporting Ukrainians?
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Basically copying Stalin’s politics on destroying national identities my moving the people out from their homes and sending them to the furtherest regions of the country. It’s not like Russia has an excess of population that they can repopulate captured Ukrainian territories with, so they need to somehow work around it and integrate a lot of Ukrainians into itself.
 
ThierryFabregas said:
You also have to wonder if all these Ukranians being deported aren't just being murdered as part of a mass genocide.
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No, it doesn’t look like it, aside from those who don’t pass the initial “filtration” where they try to find ex-military fighters (some of those go to prisons but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them are murdered on the spot).

I do a lot of volunteering to help relocated/deported (for the lack of a better word) Ukrainians — we even help them to move abroad, it’s possible even though Russia tries to make it as difficult as it can. A lot of them relocate to their relatives, some are being tricked and sent to far Eastern regions… a surprising amount of them, especially from Mariupol, believe the Russian point of view, which seems incredible to me. But I guess it’s a simple defensive mechanism multiplied by Russian propaganda that had been present in Mariupol from almost the very beginning.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
Erasing their identity as Ukrainian by deportation and forced adoption of children, which is being fast-tracked (allegedly), contribute towards meeting the standards of whether a genocide is taking place.
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Not allegedly — it’s already official.
 


"It would be arrogant and inappropriate to talk about war aims in this country. Only the Ukrainians and their President decide on the conditions for peace, @ZelenskyyUa! Our goal is that Putin doesn't win and Ukraine can defend itself."



We have been sending weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, including heavy weapons. Gepard and Panzerhaubitze 2000 are nothing else. We coordinate closely with our partners and deliver what is useful - including the state-of-the-art IRIS-T system, which protects large cities from air raids.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Only roughly 1,000 Russian POWs? I thought there would a lot more than that if we have to believe the reports of disgruntlement and low morale. The Iraqis surrendered in large numbers during the Gulf War when their army was more or less in the same messy state as the Russian army now.
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The Iraqi military was in a far worse state than the current Russian military. Ukraine's military is obviously not on the same level of the Americans invading Iraq either. With that in mind, it's not so surprising that not that many Russians are being captured. When they have been pushed back, they're probably either completely destroyed, or have managed to pull back with their injured before being captured.

I mean, I'm assuming.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Only roughly 1,000 Russian POWs? I thought there would a lot more than that if we have to believe the reports of disgruntlement and low morale. The Iraqis surrendered in large numbers during the Gulf War when their army was more or less in the same messy state as the Russian army now.
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Yes, but some previous POWs will have already been traded for Ukrainian POWs during the past 3 months of war.
 
nimic said:
The Iraqi military was in a far worse state than the current Russian military. Ukraine's military is obviously not on the same level of the Americans invading Iraq either. With that in mind, it's not so surprising that not that many Russians are being captured. When they have been pushed back, they're probably either completely destroyed, or have managed to pull back with their injured before being captured.

I mean, I'm assuming.
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They aren’t comparable, I agree. The Iraq war was fought mostly in huge flat expanses of desert against overwhelming air superiority. If you didn’t surrender you’d face almost certain death.
 
the hea said:
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Desperately sad. And the same story will play out in the east in any city that resists.

The longer it goes on, the more Ukrainians will die, the more Russia will gain territory (regardless of how slowly), just an overall sad situation.
 
shamans said:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/europe/serbia-russian-gas-eu-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html

Here's another news article that pushes me towards the "do these sanctions even do anything" side of the room.
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Even if the sanctions do feck all, in principle trading with Russia in it's current state is moral bankrupty (i understand that much of europe is still dependent on russian gas and oil).

These sanctions should stay until Russia is out of Ukraine and Putin is gone.
 
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shamans said:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/europe/serbia-russian-gas-eu-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html

Here's another news article that pushes me towards the "do these sanctions even do anything" side of the room.
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We are slowly but surely heading toward an almost complete embargo of all things Russian in the western world, that could go on for decades.

I don't think any deep analysis is really needed to conclude if that "does anything".

Although how much of it has a real effect on the Ukranian war in the near term, I suppose, is up for debate.
 
Simbo said:
We are slowly but surely heading toward an almost complete embargo of all things Russian in the western world, that could go on for decades.

I don't think any deep analysis is really needed to conclude if that "does anything".

Although how much of it has a real effect on the Ukranian war in the near term, I suppose, is up for debate.
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Well, obviously if you stretch the impact out to decades it makes a difference, since even a million or two becomes compounding and so on but that's a pretty big assumption to make I think.

Again, western world may be powerful but countries like India and Serbia are not little satellite states like Belarus. China will be a big variable as well since I think 16% of their trade is with them. You start including developing nations like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the likes and it could be enough to sustain exports.
 
shamans said:
Well, obviously if you stretch the impact out to decades it makes a difference, since even a million or two becomes compounding and so on but that's a pretty big assumption to make I think.

Again, western world may be powerful but countries like India and Serbia are not little satellite states like Belarus. China will be a big variable as well since I think 16% of their trade is with them. You start including developing nations like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the likes and it could be enough to sustain exports.
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This might speed things up.

 
shamans said:
Well, obviously if you stretch the impact out to decades it makes a difference, since even a million or two becomes compounding and so on but that's a pretty big assumption to make I think.

Again, western world may be powerful but countries like India and Serbia are not little satellite states like Belarus. China will be a big variable as well since I think 16% of their trade is with them. You start including developing nations like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the likes and it could be enough to sustain exports.
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I mean, at the very least it is hard to imagine how the sanctions don't lead to an increase of transactional costs. Corona should've shown which impact supply chains and trade routes have, how difficult it is to rearrange these things, etc. So even if Russia could just import everything they need by taking detours through complicit countries, it will increase the costs of all their operations. Intermediaries will demand their share, the time spans increase and logistics become more difficult, etc.

And then there's also the supply and demand thing. You can't just sell what you would've sold to Europe to somebody else. China and India may trade with Russia but they still have their own interests in mind. Which means that they'll buy the resources they sit on for dumping prices. And the same way the West now needs LNG terminals to become less dependent on Russian gas, this infrastructure needs to exist for them to sell their gas to India or China as well. Or they need to build a pipeline like Nordstream for it to work. Such projects will only become more difficult due to the sanctions and general boycott as well. And they need to outpace the West as well - the EU alone has 10 times the GDP of Russia, so good luck on that.

So overall, it's hard to imagine how these sanctions won't hit Russia very hard.
 
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