This is one possible interpretation of a recent report in Vedomosti, which analyzed a Russian Ministry of Defense tender for military insurance for the years 2018-2019.
Included within was detailed Russian military mortality statistics for the 2012-2016 period, lifting the lid on a veil of secrecy on such matters since 2010.
| 2005 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| Deaths | 1,170 | 630 | 596 | 790 | 626 | 393 |
| Serious Injuries | 2,876 | 2,525 | 2,895 | 1,926 | 1,736 | |
| Light Injuries | 4,937 | 4,272 | 4,409 | 4,406 | 2,664 |
The 1,170 figure from 2005 is also taken from the Vedomosti report. At that time, the Russian military numbered around 1.2 million; Chechnya by then only accounted for 100 of them. As of 2016, the Russian military numbers one million. Consequently, non-combat mortality in the Russian military has approximately halved in the past decade.
The most notable immediate observation is that military deaths leaped up from an average of around 600 in 2012, 2013, and 2015 to around 800 in 2014, before falling to 393 in 2016. There was also an uptick in cases of serious injuries; perhaps 600 more than there “should have been,” assuming a steady downwards trend from 2012 to 2015.
The Conflict Intelligence Team deduced analogous figures from a more complicated analysis based on death to injury ratios.
This, of course, coincided with the one time in which the Russian Army got directly involved at the Battle of Ilovaysk in late August, which foiled the Ukrainian offensive to retake the fledgling LDNR.
As is often the case reality is somewhere in between official Kremlin propaganda (which denies the Russian military was involved at all), Western MSM propaganda (2,000 deaths), and Ukrainian propaganda (several divisions’ worth of Buryats and Pskov paratroopers).
Is this the image that Kremlin policymakers want to present to the world? Lying, thieving SOB’s that are really only mischief makers in a very dangerous world? No amount of Russian soft power BS is able to whitewash away this image based on objective reality.
May the spirits of the world beyond this one, welcome all the brave souls who died in the Donbass
In their honour – and linked to the spirituality of Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, a Buddhist – would like to point here, to one of the greatest spiritual works of Asia, where the main character, Arjuna, is a warrior in doubt as he faces the prospect of death and killing … in the story, Arjuna’s chariot-driver is God himself, in the form of Krishna, who dramatically makes all of time stand still before the battle starts, in order to explain to the troubled warrior what life is all about
This is of course the wonderful Bhagavad Gita, where part of the profound message is not to worry, one should simply do one’s duty … because no one can truly be killed, no one can truly die … ‘Have no fear’, God says to us … we all re-join the divine after our journeys of lifetimes, tho for some it is a much longer road … Here is the Bhagavad-Gita story in a nicely-done 10 minute video (spelling error in the post title, should be ‘Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War’)
There’s a more charitable interpretation of these lies. Lies are the bread and butter of politics. All governments lie. There’s the famous example when the US government lied about the supposed danger of Iraqi WMDs. It was claimed that the Iraqis tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger. It was a lie.
Now, Putin could of course have chosen to blatantly tell the world that he doesn’t care about international law at all. That would’ve broken international law altogether. Instead, he chose to lie and so pretend that international law was still relevant. Thereby leaving the door open to a later return to normalcy. This actually means that Putin is quite the opposite of a Hitler. Hitler, after all, never wanted to return to normalcy. He wanted to break international law to destroy it.
Had Putin admitted that he broke international law, he’d only have two options left, either to capitulate or to declare himself a rogue nation outside international law. Neither one was really an option for him. (Please remember how the US and NATO pretended to be within the boundaries of international law while blatantly breaking it in Serbia.)
Lying and denying are just tools of great powers used to achieve national interests. I see no moral differences between this one and the Western lies about ‘moderate’ headchoppers on Syria and about ‘democratic’ snipers on Maidan.
Western liars don’t like to be outmaneuvered but;… who cares? That’s the real world.
So, does one stupid war perpetrated by the US based on lies justify another one perpetrated by Russia based on lies as well? Aren’t we just left with many lying, thieving SOB’s that are really only mischief makers in a very dangerous world? Wouldn’t it really be a better world where international laws that protect the inviolate nature of state borders remain in tact and respected, instead of a free for all that includes weapons of mass destruction? So, why the deafening silence here at this website over the blatant abrogation of international laws perpetrated by Putin and his cronies in Ukraine, that’s clear for everybody to see? You strongly imply that this sort of malfeasance took place.
Well….for majority of posters here (and readers I am sure) I am “Russia hater”, hasbara troll, “Zionazi idiot”, among other names, some of them rather vulgar.
Having clarified my position there IS a rather big difference between the war in, say, Iraq and Ukraine.
For those willing to see that is.
Without going into unnecessary explanations, the equivalent would be a takeover of Mexico by Russia oriented regime. And even that wouldn’t count really; not many Americans there.
So, long story short, of course all politicians lie. Another revealing truth is that humans breathe. Also, sun rises and sets too.
So, Putin/Kremlin/regime in Russia did what any proper leadership would’ve done.
In fact, if Putin hadn’t done all that in Ukraine by all accounts he should’ve been called either idiot or traitor.
Putin actually did less than I ( “Russia hater”, hasbara troll, “Zionazi idiot”, mind you) expected there.
If he’d invaded there, established a line at Kharkov–Dniepropetrovsk–Zaporizhia–Xerson , then created a…”special entity”….. there and then retreated I would’ve said: “nice”.
As for international laws and borders, perhaps you missed that with Yugoslavia/Kosovo.
The international law actually, died with Iraq war. Borders thing died with Kosovo.
Now it’s all about naked POWER.
Haha…your point is good actually.
When I want something, fu*&k the law. Whey you want the same, no, no…YOU have to stick to the law.
If that’s not the epitome of lawlessness I don’t know what is.
Just my 2 cents about “deafening silence” thing here.
I don’t understand your point? Please elaborate…
Lionel Interviews the Inimitable and Ineffable Peter Lavelle, Host of RT’s ‘Cross Talk’
Shouldn’t be hard to understand, the US (and to some degree other Western powers as well) just has zero credibility in regards to upholding international law after what has happened in the last 20 years.
When you argue sovereignty is an outdated concept (because of human rights, responsibility to protect or whatever pretext interventionists come up) and justify aggressive war on that basis, you can’t really complain when other great powers start playing that game as well and justify their own armed interventions with pretexts like having to protect people from fascists.
Doesn’t mean Russia’s actions in Ukraine are right or morally justified (I personally disapprove even though I can understand the reasons), but Western outrage over this is hard to take seriously, at least when it’s combined with a rather uncritical attitude to what “the West” has been doing lately.
How many you think were deployed in the first place? Probably around 2500 so 2/4 battalion depending on how you count?
10% or so kia 20-30% total casualty. Can see why they don’t want to invade up to Kiev I guess, yet.
Jai Shri Krishna।।
What’s interesting is Slavic Triglav Deva (Boga)
Is Vishnji Ziva & Branjanj
https://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.ca/2014/07/triglav-trojan-trinity-trimurti-agni.html?m=1
But I’m not defending any other power plays done by the US or anybody else for that matter. Glad to see that you personally disagree with Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. Posting (not necessarily by you) nonsensical whataboutisms in order to justify Russia’ actions doesn’t resonate well with me, as I think that you can see.
You ….appear…to be genuinely asking the question.
German_reader explained it well.
I think you, as most people here, have a…peculiar….look at such matters.
You watch it through personal moral compass.
That’s fine.
Makes your types feel good about yourself and that’s the most important, of course.
The problem is, that approach often makes you befuddled.
Who …cares….what…..you…or….me…or…ANYONE….here….justify or not.
If you want to understand what’s going on and, more importantly, what’s likely to happen you’ll have to change your approach.
If reinforcing your moral compass (and consequent feel–good “shot”) is your primary goal in discussing these matters you’ll have that “constant befuddlement” problem.
Free will.
There is no such thing as ‘international law’
Then call it the post-1945 rules-based international order or whatever. Sovereignty and the taboo on using armed force against other states except under certain conditions may be imperfect, but they’re still better than the alternatives with their possibly catastrophic consequences.
By all means, you may choose to leave your own moral compass at the doorstep when viewing the world. Who the hell are you to try and tell me how to view the world?
Well…I’ll answer that question (“who the hell….”) if you answer mine first:
When you wrote those two sentences, how did it feel?
Is this guy close:
“Intoxicating” appears to be a keyword.
So….was it like after a double shot of whiskey or similar? 6-pack? A couple of glasses of vine?
Something even stronger, perhaps?
Please.
I’ll understand if you won’t share that here. Personal stuff etc.
At least you could thank me for giving you an opportunity to feel it.
Thinking about that, you could, probably, use this post too.
Not bad, a?
Really, nothing of the sort. I’m comfortable looking at the world through my own eyes, living within my own skin. Now it’s your turn…’Well…I’ll answer that question (“who the hell….”) if you answer mine first:’
Ukraine is the ass end of the world. Even the African failed states are more sane.
Had Putin admitted that he broke international law…
There’s no such thing as “international law”.
There’s no “international parliament” to enact such laws, and no “international police” and “international court” to enforce them.
Looking at such a volatile series and deciding you can figure out that hundreds of troops died in the Donbas from it is completely retarded. Exactly how many hundreds, even more so.
Correct.
Well, as you were sincere in your answer I’ll reciprocate:
I am just a guy comfortable looking at the world through my own eyes, living within my own skin.
Those %s are way too high, IMO. Probably a few thousand Russian soldiers at any one time (don’t know TBH, I’m not an expert on the conflict), you’re probabaly more or less correct on that, but for one thing I’m sure there was quite a lot of rotation. The intervention was also still very limited, “plausible deniability” in place and all that, no air support, no Iskander and cruise missile strikes, etc…. Those would’ve obviously made a huge difference.
Thanks weev.
Not a valid assumption; the Russian forces in Ukraine had to operate without their force multipliers (air power, cruise missile strikes, hardcore EW, etc., etc.). If anything, they were hobbled by having to keep their presence there more or less deniable. Even so, they still ended up smashing the Ukrainians at Ilovaysk, after which clearing them up would have been trivial; a situation that could not be fully exploited because, again, Putin’s insistence on keeping the intervention deniable.
I’m glad. I was beginning to think that you were some sort of an alchy, or worse, a burnout of some sort…
I wish that the Russians felt the same way as you do. They seem very interested in Ukraine, enough to keep loosing their own servicemen over – read the article dummy.
Concerning International Law:
It exists, it is basically the equivalent of a couple of armed Mafia families hashing out the rules for of business. If one Mafia family goes around breaking these rules at will, then the other Mafia families will break these rules too. Especially on turf which is of strategic significance to them, and especially if the “most rule breaking Mafia family” makes absolutely no secret of its pretty unhinged hatred of a particular rival family.
Another issue is the question of American credibility.
Basically, “credibility” in this context is what determines how likely it is that your threats will either compell someone else into doing something, or deterr someone else from doing something.
For this to happen, 3 things are needed:
-First, the threatening nation must be perceived to be sufficiently agressive to actually attack (US passes this one with flying colors)
-Second, the threatening nation must be perceived as sufficiently powerful to create an attack that hurts (US does pretty well here)
-Third, the threatening nation must be perceived as sufficently “honorable” to not attack anyway after its demands have been met (the US record here is epic fail.)
The big issue with the Ukrainian crisis is this: The US gave Ukraine a no regime change pledge in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine fully complied to their side of the deal. Noone in Ukraine, and that includes the so called “pro Russian” government of Yanukovich, had any hostile designs whatsorever against the USA. The USA still broke that deal, suffering a massive hit to their credibility, for basically no reason other then spiting Russia. The USA has thus effectively shown that it is a revisionist hegemon, and it is further showing that being “neutral” to the USA is actually more dangerous then being its enemy (compare and contrast Iran with Ukraine, one could add Libyia after it tried to become neutral).
Some, myself included, where hoping that Trump, a noted expert in bankrupcies, would recognice this and organize a “US credibility bankrupcy” by purging the swamp. Hang a couple of Neocons, state that their type of bullshit is over, and basically demand in return, from the other great powers, a reset of the American credibility score to zero.
Further, I would wish to state that imposing deniability certainly led to increases casulties. Such things massively increase operational friction.
And yet, because of your brilliance Anatoly, you’ve not been fooled and are able to see right through Putin’s spin. I think that this topic deserves more in depth analysis, when did you first begin to see through this well orchestrated charade anyway? Do you still feel that the international sanctions placed on Russia are baseless? A lot to write about here, I can’t wait. 🙂
Further to this, 200 dead suggests 800 wounded (using Vietnam war ratios 1:4-relatively low by modern standards 1:9). This is 1000 casualties. The engagement was short. About a month so can be considered a single battle. Were the Russian engagements fierce with heavy casualties (10%) or light with modest casualties (5%). In so far as the reporting was accurate, the assault teams were the Russian nationalist insurgents, not the regulars. Motorola must have done something. So taking the light casualties, this suggests 20,000 Russian regulars involved in Northwind. This is consistent with the Ukrainian claim of 25,000. Of course, the 200 could just be a random blip or perhaps the result of an active period of military exercises. Moving big pieces of equipment generates casualties all by itself (never sleep under the tank, especially when its raining). So, war losses or lack of professionalism on exercise?
But Russia was the original first mover in the affair when it blockaded Ukraine to force Ukraine to stop negotiations over a trade deal with the EU. This span out of control. Russia was the actor not the reactor. The final result was to make certain that Ukraine would sign a deal with the EU and to remove the main sources of Russian influence from Ukrainian politics. That this can be presented as a success to Russian nationalists shows the power of emotional commitment and an obedient mass media to a cause compared to the facts.
That’s right, everything that happens in the world is American work. Local Ukrainians (both on the grassroots level, and in terms of various oligarch clans sick of Yanukovich’s “family” squeezing them) had nothing to do overthrowing a deeply unpopular and incompetent would-be despot. $5 billion dollars, right?
https://www.aviaport.ru/digest/2015/12/16/374297.html :
“In 2015, as a result of catastrophes and serious accidents Russian military air force lost 12 aircraft. This is about twice the average of the past five years. In these accidents killed 10 people.”
In 2015, the government has conducted an ambitious test of combat readiness of all forces (military were forced to massively participate in the maneuvers) – the result was an increase in the number of accidents. So the estimates of “losses in Donbas” unreliable.
So 10% KIA with their forces being hobbled by those conditions. I assume Russia sent in some of its more elite forces to get this job done? This was against the shambling inexperienced 2014 Ukrainian army, mind you.
In terms of a wider invasion up to Kiev – there would always have been the possibility of the Ukrainian forces doing what the Donbass forces did – seek cover in large urban areas like Kharkiv or Dniprotetrovsk and fight from there, rather than sit out in the open in order to conveniently get blown up. There would have been enough pockets of support for Kiev within Kharkiv to make this feasible.
International law is a name for a web of multilateral international agreements and treaties (like the UN Charter or the Geneva Conventions), each of which was ratified by the vast majority of national parliaments. In other words, it’s basically national law in the vast majority of countries. It is usually taken roughly as seriously as national law. Which is to say, they are occasionally broken, especially when powerful enough forces find it in their interest to break it.
International law can only be enforced by a cooperation of many countries, and the more powerful the country breaking it, the less likely it is to be enforced. However, international law was written by the most powerful countries, and so it protects the status quo. Therefore, at least in theory, the most powerful countries have the least incentives to break it. Also, at least, again, in theory, it’s in powerful countries’ interests to uphold it even when it costs them to do so. Because thereby they make weaker actors stakeholders in the system, and in turn incentivize them to uphold it even when the more powerful countries cannot uphold it for whatever reasons (for example because they are distracted elsewhere).
All this only shows the stupidity of the strongest country in the world, when it started breaking international law, which was written essentially to entrench and perpetuate its own hegemony. Now the system seems to be broken, which makes said country’ position only weaker. But that’s a different story for another day.
Good post
Probably both, combined.
Say, you move the “fighting force” into Ukraine and fight there.
You have “second echelon” force in Russia itself exercising hard in expectation of engagement.
And, you have some units/detachments exercising all over Russia also, possibly, expecting to get involved should a demand/opportunity arise.
Just those exercising mean a lot of people/material moving around and using a lot of live ammo.
Tired, stressed people, relaxed safety margins (in live firing exercises, driving etc) ….casualties.
Deniability means that the country in question has invested some resources to conceal its presence. (For example Russia has not invaded with full force and so its casualties were higher, or its success smaller for the same price.) This, according to long held custom, makes its violation much less serious than in the absence of such efforts.
It doesn’t mean that it’s difficult to “see through it”.
Well….that simplifies matters.
No research/analysis…expertise/hard thinking required.
You gotta keep the things simple.
Also…..it goes a bit deeper of course.
I mean, if those, say, Ukrainian people can do that (raise against a state power)….how come we (Westerners) , so smart/moral/advanced , even armed to teeth as Americans, can’t?
Perish the thought.
Since international law – in the absence of an international police force – cannot be upheld without the cooperation of the most powerful countries, it needs those countries to be stakeholders in the system. International law was broken in cases where it involved Russian interests (e.g. Serbia was an informal Russian ally, while Saddam was also a Russian partner with whom they hoped to make business), Russia no longer felt much interest in upholding international law. Which is understandable: if Russia was in no position in 1999 to protect its ally Serbia by force, and it couldn’t use international law for this either (even though it was obviously on its side), then in 2014 when the US was unable to protect its new ally Ukraine by force, why would Russia not violate it? It knew that it couldn’t expect anyone (especially not the US or any of its allies) to reciprocate.
It was nevertheless a violation of numerous international agreements like the UN Charter or the Helsinki Accords (I think also a number of CIS agreements starting with the Alma-Ata Protocol, and maybe some other agreements), and it’s not very good to live in a world where the strong can so easily destroy or push around the weak. Which is why a system where stronger countries have larger stakes and more power, yet are to an extent restricted in their use of force, is much preferable to a world where stronger countries will take what they need by force.
But Putin was in no position to restore that system. You might understand that a system where international law will be broken to the detriment of Russia (when it suits the US), but would be meticulously upheld by Russia even contrary to its own vital interests, is not quite stable or sustainable, since basically it’s heads the US wins, tails Russia loses. It’s easy to see why no self-respecting Russian government would sign up to that.
Their elites were less competent (for the job of staying in power) and more divided (a lot of the elites supported Maidan).
Correct, these things plus they were perceived as foreigners by most locals (particularly the rebels).
We are not as desperate, our lives are more comfortable, plus we collectively believe that we can change things through elections.
At least to me: I’m a citizen of a small country. Perhaps citizens of stronger countries (like Russians, Americans, or Chinese) feel different.
Agree.
And with this:
and this:
Still, however, a cover up is still going on, one that everyone can see through and one where most of the industrialized world is on board to punish Russia with economic sanctions. It’ll be interesting to see whether the ends justifies the means for Russia. Most observers list the destabilization of Ukraine as a major objective in Russia’s motives for its belligerent behavior. It seems that to keep this sort of a game up for a long extended time will also have serious negative consequences for Russia as well.
The war in Ukraine wasn’t based on lies, it was based on reality. Ukraine is an anti-Russian chauvinist state. Practically all of the main predictions of the Russian state media from late 2013-early 2014 have come true. Ukraine deserved what it got and a whole lot more. And I hope that after the World Cup, Putin rediscovers his balls and Ukraine gets what it deserves again.
Maintaining deniability is not exactly a coverup in the sense that the intention is not to conceal involvement but simply to make it possible for anyone interested in it (and this might include parties like Belarus) to pretend that it didn’t happen.
You are quite correct that Russia’s power (military, economic, political) is less than that of the Americans’ and their allies. But because apparently the Americans don’t feel constrained by anything (least of all international law) to push further into what Russia considers its vital sphere of interest, they found themselves in a situation where they were willing to pay the price of going into a new Cold War against the Americans, and so far it’s difficult to see how their calculations were wrong.
I’d personally be happier with a neutral Ukraine strong enough to stand on its own feet (maybe a small nuclear deterrent?) and not joining either Russia or the EU/NATO, but it’s not like it has a chance right now.
And for a more recent example, the USA is blatantly breaking international law right now in Syria, where it has thousands of troops stationed on Syrian soil without the permission of the UN-recognized government, has repeatedly bombed Syrian government forces for venturing too close to its illegal bases, and has unilaterally declared Syria’s skies east of the Euphrates to be “coalition airspace”.
By stupidly insisting on the pretense that Russia is strictly adhering to international law in Ukraine, while the USA openly and flagrantly violates the sovereignty of Serbia, Syria and anywhere else it feels like, Putin is practicing unilateral disarmament. A few days of airstrikes in June of 2014, citing the precedent of NATO’s “humanitarian” bombing in Bosnia and Kosovo, would probably have been sufficient to stop the Ukrainian army advance at Sloviansk. But 200(?) Russian servicemen had to be sacrificed, so that Putin could continue claiming that Russia wasn’t involved in the conflict.
In Afghanistan the mortality rate for Soviet troops was 3%, and it was about the same in both Chechen wars. Although Motorola taking the lead would have lowered the mortality rate for Russian troops in Donbass, that would be countered to some extent by the fact that conventional warfare, involving heavy artillery, generally produces higher casualties than counter-insurgency. Also, Soviet/Russian troops were not outnumbered in Afghanistan and Chechnya, while they were outnumbered in Donbass, as well as lacking any air support. So it’s plausible that their mortality rate could have been as high as 5%, which if the 200 estimate is correct would put the total number who served there in 2014 at about 4000 (and peak troop strength at something less than that).
I don’t think even Ukraine has claimed 20,000-25,000 Russian regulars, which would have been approximately the same number as the entire separatist force in 2014. The largest Ukrainian estimates of Russian troop strength in Donbass have been half that. I recall media reports from 2014 that NATO estimated 2000 Russian troops fighting with the separatists, though I can’t find them online. However, a 2015 report from the Brookings think tank noted that Ukraine’s estimates of Russian troop presence were far higher than the contemporaneous estimates of the NATO analysts they spoke to (10,000 vs. 250-1000).
But the Ukrainians had numerical superiority in terms of basically everything, including manpower, battle tanks, artillery pieces, whatever. Or was it not so.
I don’t think 10% KIA is very realistic. That would be about half the Red Army mortality rate in WWII, or 3x Afghanistan and Chechnya. Either the 200 KIA estimate is too high, or 2000 Russian troops is too low, or some combination of both. 150 KIA and 3000 troops seems plausible.
Reasonable posts.
One of detriments Russians had there was, also, an ad-hoc nature of that force.
They hadn’t been working/training/preparing together before being sent into heavy conventional clash.
All in all, objectively, it was quite a good performance by Russians there.
The Ukrainian armed forces were rotting in the 90s faster than the Russian armed forces, but unlike the Russians, they kept rotting after 2000, with some minimal maintenance. It’s little wonder the Russians were doing so well against them.
I beg to fucking differ. If someone dies, if a library is burnt, if a city is destroyed, information is lost, and this is Bad and a Waste of limited Time.
This universe ain’t last forever.
I don’t like the idea of living in a spirit-purifying resource recovery unit either.
AFAIK it was the EU that made the proposal “you leave the Russian sphere of influence and come into the bosom of Blue Starry Democracy or no deal”, precluding a possible Ukrainian intermediate stance.
More precisely (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union_Association_Agreement#History)
(Also, how the hell do you “blockade Ukraine”? Russia threatened economic sanctions, which ain’t the same)
Really. Glad to hear the safe space was not accidentally unsafed.
Whataboutism can lead to reasonable discussions and should not be dismissed outright. Best used if your counterside has lost moral high ground a bit earlier and needs to suddenly invoke eternal abstract “principles” that it gave a fuck about just recently instead of admitting that Realpolitik variously married to Rapacity is what drives the show.
“But … but … muh Kruim! This is aggression!”
“Well, what about Lybia, then?”
At Ilovaisk, the surrounded Ukrainian troops were outnumbered.
I don’t know about specific numbers, but in 2014 Ukraine had few usable troops (something in the neighborhood of 50,000) and moreover couldn’t place its entire army in Donbas (estimated number it had in Donbas was around 30,000). While Donbas had a lot of Chechen war volunteers, the Ukrainian forces were inexperienced and poorly trained. In 2014, a lot of Ukraine’s equipment was still in in storage and/or in need of repair.
Currently Ukraine has about 250,000 troops, combat experience, and is decently equipped.
Seems plausible indeed.
As I mentioned a couple of times before (and it went over people’s heads, naturally), the most important improvement/change is the planned creation of professional NCO corps.
Apparently starting to happen in January.
If….if that happens, in June 2018 Donbas/Novorossia/whatever could have a big problem.
200 KIA sounds about right. There were always rumors of Russian servicemen being embedded with separatist units, so some of these must have bitten the dust. I would also assume that some Russians were killed behind enemy lines (Russian media made fun of Poroshenko when he held up those three Russian passports in the EU Parliament, or wherever it was, but I’m sure those three captives were indeed Russian soldiers, demobilized or not).
As for the merit of the “plausible deniability” strategy. I agree with Randal, I believe it was, who once commented that the intervention’s present scale and scope is just about what Western Europeans could look past. Anti-russian sentiments have gone up, of course, but my impression is that most people think of these regions as “troublespots” rather than occupied territory. I have myself heard otherwise quite anti-Russian friends say things such as “Crimea was always Russian.”
1) The original approach was from Ukraine to the EU. The EU responded as it is obliged to do so. The EU response was very demanding for Ukraine. The EU did not particularly want another poor country seeking handouts on its books, even as a trade partner. So terms were strict. And, as we see from the Brexit fudge over Northern Ireland now, you can’t reasonably be in two Free Trade zones at once. The EU terms were harsh to keep Ukraine at a distance. There were enough beggars in the East already. (Eastward expansion was a policy pushed by British Conservatives to prevent deepening).
2) Russia was impatient. Instead of making Ukraine a better offer, say on gas (after all why? Yanukovich had been their guy bought and paid for), Russia also very reasonably demanded a clear choice, EU or EEU. Then, extremely foolishly Russia went beyond normal trade negotiation and on 12 August 2013 imposed severe customs inspections on all trade crossing the border with Ukraine. There was a total blockade for two weeks. The blockage was repeated at intervals. On many items that competed with major Russian private businesses, such as steel pipes, the blockade has been permanent. Some Ukrainian oligarchs asked Yanukovich to submit to Russian pressure. Russia finally shifted to the carrot and offered billions in loans. Yanukovich blinked and opened talks with Russia. The great majority of Ukrainians objected and the Maidan began. The Ukrainian police took a protestor out of hospital and beat him up live on camera and the Maidan got nasty. The oligarchs started sending their security staff to join in. Yanukovich spun round again, so far without actually reading the EU treaty even in summary but it was too late. The oligarchs controlled the Maidan…
“Local Ukranians” don’t sit around in winter time in Kiev for 4 months you brainless disinfo -spreading attention-whore cretin. “Local Ukrainian” mostly didnt support the ultimate goal of the protests, but more importantly- didn’t support the “revolution” .Most Ukrainians were fully aware of US led Colour revolutions, ( and the pathetic failure that was the Orange revolution) and there was just as much antipathy of one in Ukraine, as there was in Russia. I know you’re too thick to understand Ukrainians and Ukrainian politics…but this is just ridiculous.
…errr….
….his rating at the worst point was still by far the most popular ( in a very low popular field) of candidates for the next Ukrainian election you prick. His rating at the worst point was still 3 times more than Poroshenko’s now! “incompetent” …he had managed to get Ukraine into the position of EU Association agreement, something Yushchenko failed at…..by comparison to the catastrophe that the economy is today, a flatline economy, as experienced in Yanukovich’s 3 years, is a high point in Ukrainian history. Furthermore on the issue of incompetance….all Ukrainian Presidents and PM’s have been incompetant you imbecile.
….yes an awful lot of money to support liberast pseudo-nationalist fuckwits.
“despot”…even by the standards of a POS like you, that is laughable.
The simple fact for a retard who knows nothing about Ukraine like you ( but wants to harm it so that it continues along this fuckwit path of non-development and failure, from the comfort of your UPA scumbag escapee armchair) is that as soon as Yanukovich didn’t sign the EU Association agreement…the US and EU decided to overthrow him….as simple as that.
…ahhh…..finally this moron is getting somewhere. Yes, oligarch clans, long-time controlled by the west and owning the Ukrainian media ( when not funding Clinton campaigns) also had a role in this….mainly on the say-so of the west. You can even see this in Russia where very few of the oligarchs gave Putin public ( or much practical support) in these last few years on the issue of sanctions of protecting Donbass…mainly of course because they are clients of the west you dimwit. This despite the fact that the likes of Kolomoisky and Pinchuk owe their wealth to Russian business
“Practically all of the main predictions of the Russian state media from late 2013-early 2014 have come true.”
Or to put it another way this had been planned for a long time. Michael Yuriev wrote a novel in 2004, “Russia as it should be” that described the scenario for capturing Novorossiya exactly, except that Yuriev estimated that 80,000 Russian nationalists would be needed to go to Ukraine. In reality, there might have been 20,000 at most. Borodai said he had 7,000 Russian nationals in Donetsk in early August 2014. Some of the Saratov ones returned dead, “cossacks” from Balashov to be certain.
Rounding heavily, 3% mortality would equate to 6-7,000 regular soldiers in the field. This is consistent with 10,000. Although as I note, a proportion of the deaths would have been due to increased training activity. So, say 4,000 in the field which is your number. Could 4,000 have delivered Northwind. The Ukrainian army was in terrible condition. It also seemed to me that they had wilfully advanced beyond their logistics capability. (The Soviets did this often once they started advancing). Nevertheless, 4,000 regulars would not have overwhelmed the Ukrainians even as assault troops. Were they all artillery? Reports at the time suggested artillery was decisive.
I know from my own experience talking to drunk Russian army specialists on trains in the middle of Russia that members of the Russian regular army have provided rear echelon support like training in tank fitting mostly around Rostov. A group of retired generals is alleged to have set up there to advise the insurgents. That is not the same as live combat support of course.
Written for the benefit of other readers, not Retard2:
No, they operated in shifts (slightly over 50% of protesters were from Kiev) and the Ukrainians from out of town were being periodically fed and housed by locals.
During Maidan, Maidan had the support of about 40% of Ukrainians, Yanukovich’s government had the support of 25% of Ukrainians, with the rest not liking or favoring either side.
In central Ukraine, where Kiev is, the ratio of Maidan support to Government support was 50% to 11%, with Kiev city being somewhat more pro-Maidan than the rest of central Ukraine.
Ukraine’s highest post-Soviet per capita GDP PPP was $8,739, in 2008, when Yushchenko was president and Tymoshenko was PM. It crashed alongside much of the global economy in 2009.
https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/gdp-per-capita-ppp
Under Yanukovich it recovered in 2010-2011 without getting very close to where it had been in 2008, and was then stagnant in 2012-2013.
They were playing with both the West and with Russia. If they were the West’s puppets Ukraine would have gone for the EU and NATO many years ago. When Yanukovich destabilized the system by grabbing too much power they turned on him. Had Yanukovich been as popular as Putin, he could have gotten away with that. But Ukraine’s people hated Yanukovich (at least, a plurality did, with few supporting him), so he was done.
Yanukovich’s group owned more of the media than did the other ones. Ukraine’s largest media holding (Media Group Ukraine) is owned by Akhmetov, the Donbas-based Tatar who financed and was part of Yanukovich’s party (Party of Regions). The second largest media company, Inter, was under the control of another Party of Regions oligarch, Khoroshkovsky. Apparently Russia’s Channel One had a 29% stake in Inter. Pro-Maidan Kolomoysky’s media holding group 1+ 1 and Poroshenko’s Channel 5 were not as large as those two.
@kimppis realize that but still assume they would’ve taken about the same proportion of casualties in an occupation with limited roe against an insurgency.
“International law” = laws as defined to defend the current hegemony.
Amusing.
I never defined ‘International law’ this way. The little man within your head seems to be ‘Amusing’ you once again! 🙂
Start with the theory that Russia was present for Ilovaysk, then sure 200 is a good best guess for Russian deaths there, but with no clue to the standard deviation.
As evidence to confirm the “Russia present for Ilovaysk” theory, though, this comes nowhere close to a 95% significance test. Nowhere near. A change from 0.06% to 0.08% deaths is pretty small, and might just be all that moving troops within Russia.
My real question then is about Ilovaysk (and if we accept your theory the numbers add little new).
Ilovaysk but not 10,000 and not none sounds like a compromise argument rather than a rational one.
In the run up I read many times about the giant cauldron that Kiev was pushing troops into and how it could all end up as a nightmare for them given the narrow bottle-neck they had for a retreat. (Much the same was said late in January 2015). Incredibly clever fake news from Russia/Strelkov? Or just Kiev incompetence?
Then given the issues of Kiev troops retreating alive from Ilovaysk, is it any surprise that stories of vast numbers of Russian troops emerged.
And while we know why there are no US satellite pictures of the tens of thousands of Russian troops crossing the border. How come there were no pictures of the minimum 1000 troops that would have made a difference at Ilovaysk? Do we really think that the US has them but is holding them back to avoid giving away its photography skills? They only need to present Google earth quality picture.
I see. It dovetails nicely with what I wrote in another comment about the decay and dismal state of the Ukrainian military (prior to 2014), so I can imagine it’s true.
Anatoly also wrote that the time for Russia to overrun the whole of Ukraine was in 2014, and that it’s now way more difficult than would’ve been then. Hitler would’ve done it already in spring 2014. (Actually, in 2005 immediately after the orange revolution. Depending on when he’d come to power.) But obviously Putin resigned to having lost Ukraine, only wanted to show the world that he could use force if he feels so, even against the explicit wishes of NATO.
All law is created with an eye to defend those who create it. As I wrote, international law tends to protect those who are powerful (e.g. by protecting the sanctity of borders – it’s good for those who won the last war) against those who are not so. But when the most powerful player (those who benefit the most from it) start breaking it, there’s no way others will keep cooperating with them in upholding it. It will just fall apart.
It’s not realistic to expect lesser powers to uphold international law when it’s detrimental to their interests, if it’s not upheld by others when it’d be beneficial to them.
So Putin withdraws his troops from Syria?
Officially claimed that most of the troops returned to Russia
The soldiers rejoice
https://imgur.com/29M1PBE
@AP
Without US backing, including the understanding that a blatantly unconstitutional takeover would be recognizced as a “glorious peoples revolution” by the USA,the locals may have well settled for the negotiated solution, 1000s of people would not be dead and Ukraine would not be down the drain.
Massive one sided support from an external actor was, as is typically is, utterly destabilizing.
Part of the reason why the Maidan elites went straight for the jugular is that they know they would not have the power they have without US backing, they know that the US is fickle, and so they aim to “make hay”, meaning to destroy the economic and political power of the South East no matter the costs, as long as they have US support.
Maidan started the civil war, there is scant precedent in history (closest would be the Japanese assasination of Korean Queen Myeongseong in 1895 or so) of a sub polity of the size, economic importance and kinetic problem solving attitude of Donbass (they are not populated by Mahatma Gandhi equivalents) to meekly accept its disenfranchisements and economic destruction, especially not if they have a great power patron of their own.
In a way, Maidan is actually more “Soviet” then their enemies. Just like the Bolsheviks they launch a blatantly illegal coup backed by a foreign power, and then claim to be the aggrieved party when various factions dont recognice their naked power grab and these factions have a foreign power behind them as well.
Concerning Illovaisk vs. Debalzevo:
Some people I know in some German think thanks explained things as such:
Illovaisk was a short sharp demonstration that Russians can utterly splat Ukraines military (everyone with more then 2 brain cells knew that) while still maintaining some plausible deniability (the capability of this was in question. Defeating a theoretically well armed combined arms army while maintaining plausible deniability is not that easy). Russia also demonstrated that they are a lot better at training auxillary armies then the US is at training Iraqis or Afghans (not a fair comparison for a variety of reasons, but true non the less).
Informed opinion is that the Rebels won at Debalzevo without having to commit the reserve of Russian regulars they had. What happened is that Maidan forces had standing order to only give ground to Russian regulars, but were forbidden to retreat from advancing rebel forces for political reasons.
As such, they totally missed the point where they could have went for an organized retreat.
As the rebels had a clear morale advantadge (remove the artillery firing at your children is pretty good motivation), and had some effective combat multipliers in the form of some pretty sage polite green men (who were not at the frontlines), the rebels slowly ground down Maidanite resistance.
The Russian regular reserve was still uncomitted at that point, and may have done a bunch of feints to panick Maidan leadership a bit. At this point, Maidan command had the choice of either sending their remaining reserves into the growing cauldron (and then, very obviously, lose them all because the Russian reserve would cut off the entire thing including the just sent in reserves) or effectively try to make a run for it. They chose, militarily speaking rightly I think, the latter.
As a consumer of Russian nationalist media you are probably unaware that Yanukovich’s own moves securing power were also unconstitutional; had he not chosen to do away with the constitution and usurp full power over the country after winning the presidential election, there probably would not have been a revolution.
As for foreign support – that is different from something being a “foreign coup” or whatever it is the Russian nationalists refer to it as. Pretty much all revolutions have some foreign support. The French proved much more help relatively and absolutely to the Americans during their anti-British overthrow, yet this would not be considered a French coup by objective observers..
Only someone who hasn’t been in Ukraine recently would say this nonsense. In 2015, the low point, Ukraine fell to about where it was during the crisis of 2009 (slightly worse). Today certain regions (such as Lviv) have already recovered completely, others are dong worse but the country overall is hardly “down the drain.” There are Westerners who think Russia has collapsed or is about to collapse due to the sanctions and low oil price (Soros predicted this, sometime this year) and Russians who have the same fantastic nice wishes for a Russia-less Ukraine.
The parties behind Maidan won the popular vote (something like 52% ) in the parliamentary election prior to Maidan; the Bolsheviks lost the popular vote (with 25% of the vote) in the election prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.
Maidan was supported by the country’s native ethnic group, the ethnic Ukrainians of Ukraine. Its enemies by recent arrivals and migrants or their children/grandchildren. Yanukovich was the ethnic Russian-Belarusian child of immigrants. PM Azarov had been a Russian immigrant who arrived in Ukraine when he was over 30 years old. Bolsheviks, like anti-Maidan, were the party of the country’s non-natives.
So not many similarities.
Yeah, election in which opposition parties got beaten up, totally free and fair of course /s
Also, Malorussian =! Ukrainian, especially not in the Galician interpretation of the term “Ukrainian”. Ukrainians include Lyudmila Pavlichenko and Semjen Timoschenko, Ukrainians who fought with honor in the Red army vastly and massively outnumber the collaborators
The Japanese takeover of Korea had local compradors as well, as did the Shahs coup in Iran. All coups have some type of domestic support. The US spent decades whitewashing Ukrainian fascism, it spent billions in “democracy promotion” (yeah, newsflash, Ukraine had, prior to Maidan, election with open results, and with results that had effects, it was in some ways more democratic then a number of western countries)
As a matter of fact, the script of Maidan was quite Iranian.
Only a fucking Galician ultranationalist who does not actually live in Galicia would claim that Ukraine is not down the drain. Seriously, I currently subrent my flat to a Maidanite from Kiev (of some minor popularity actually), we do discuss Ukraine and she, as well as nearly everyone from Ukraine who still occassionally live there, agree that it is getting fucked up even more.
Corruption on the ground has roughly tripled (unsurprisingly given that both the remaining old and the new beurocracts assume to be living on borrowed time, so they have a large incentive to cash in right now), the state losts its monopoly on violence, corporate raiding has become fully endemic again in all regions, and the enviroment increasingly goes down the shit, especially in Gallicia, due to rouge amber mining operations (which are now a revenue source for, among others, Right sector. RS forced out previous Yanukovich aligned goons out of the main amber areas, but they demand even more money so some of the pretty nationalists otherwise Galicians in the era now prefer the old goons. You could make deals with the old goons, RS randomly decides that you are a seperatist sympathizer, beats you up and takes your stuff even if you did pay protection money to them, also, they shoot way quicker and for way less of a reason then the old goons as well).
Maidan replaced a government of thieves by a governments of murderous robbers.
So yeah, thats actually quite in line with the Bolsheviks.
In your rage you have lost the ability to read. I wrote –
“The parties behind Maidan won the popular vote (something like 52% ) in the parliamentary election prior to Maidan; the Bolsheviks lost the popular vote (with 25% of the vote) in the election prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.”
So in the last election prior to Maidan the Opposition won the popular vote with over 52% of the vote. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, lost the election with only 25% of the popular vote prior to their Revolution.
Of course, thanks to electoral reforms pushed through by Yanukovch specifically in order to prevent the majority from gaining power, he continued to control the Parliament despite losing the popular vote. Prevented from taking power through an election win, the majority (or, plurality) overthrew the unpopular would-be despot.
To reiterate – in Maidan the majority (or plurality) seized power. In the Bolshevik Revolution a minority seized power.
According to the government of the Tsars it did. Malorussian had a specific meaning – the language of the Malorussian people. This language was standardized and used in writing prior to it being renamed (but largely unchanged) as Ukrainian. This was the language whose use was curtailed by the Russian government and the language used for identification purposes on the Russian census (alongside Great Russian and Belarussian).
In your world, would Washington be considered a local comprador of the French?
Says someone who has not been there. Cute. And unless you define “ultranationalist” as someone who is not a Russian nationalist, I am not an ultranationalist.
So your source is a few people who have chosen to leave. Perhaps we should base our idea of how Russia is, on those who have chosen to leave it, also.
Meanwhile in the real world, here is Ukraine’s GDP PPP:
https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/ukraine-gdp-per-capita-ppp.png?s=ukrnygdppcapppcd&v=201707122030v&d1=19170101&d2=20171231
It is about where it was in the 2009 crisis, and higher than before 2006. It was not “down the drain” then, and isn’t now. It is actually improving. As I wrote, some areas such as Lviv have already recovered to where they were in 2013.
Here is a video of bad drivers in Lviv, in 2017 (it’s not a tourist video so it captures the real city):
Such poverty, looks just like Africa, doesn’t it?
I stayed with family in Kiev this summer. None of them plan to leave. They and the city are okay. Granted, the Italian shoe store chain was rather empty of customers (I suppose not so many people can spare the $400 for a pair) but the Ocean mall was crowded. Someone took a video of wandering around Kiev in August this year:
Totally down the drain. The people are in such misery!
LOL, sadly, it has stayed about the same. Karlin posted bribery rates awhile ago, they went up by 3%. Example from personal experience: when visiting a museum this summer, a guard offered to let me in if I paid him personally half of what was being charged at the ticket counter. This was done in view of the ticket counter, so presumably the employee working there was taking a % herself.
OTOH, I saw a medical emergency with a relative, the ambulance came to the flat, help was provided, no bribe involved. I drove around central Ukraine and Galicia, was never stopped or bothered by cops. So it isn’t ubiquitous. Actually the only time I was ever stopped by a cop fishing for a bribe was in Russia, in the early 2000s.
Still, the fact that after so many sacrifice the problem hasn’t changed is indeed disgusting. “Tripled” is fairy-tale nonsense.
The illegal and environmentally devastating amber mining is not in Galicia but in the swampland and forests of northern Volynia near the Belarus border. This is like saying that Freiburg in the state of Baden-Wurttenberg is in Bavaria.
Thanks for demonstrating your total ignorance about a country you make silly claims about.
Anything else you write can be judged accordingly.
Also – apparently this illegal amber mining is also a problem in Kaliningrad:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/amber-mining-russia-market-baltic-gold-very-black-n640576
UAF combat deaths to put these numbers in perspective with 5-6,000 Donbass native or Russian ‘Northern Wind’ dead likely number over 17,500 on the high end with 14-15,000 Ukrainian Army and volunteer battalion deaths on the more likely end.
We know an entire UAF battalion was wiped out by cross border massed fires from Russian territory in the so called Southern Cauldron boiler with Colonel Cassad and even Vice News showing the Highway of Death like aftermath, yet typical of the systemic, face saving coverup of UAF KIA as ‘MIA’ the Western media never push for the names of, The Potomac Foundation (yes Dr Phil Karber not the most reliable source) listed ‘only’ 37 dead from a barrage that destroyed an entire battalion. Even the retired Army Gen Scales referred to the episode but the Americans try to cover for their Ukrainian interlocutors.
So today unlike in March 2014 the Russian Army probably could not march to Kiev without several thousand casualties in what would be a very unpopular with many even non-West loving Russians, who would view it as a fratricidal campaign. That is after hundreds of millions and thousands of trainers poured into improving the quality of what was a pretty pathetic Army in 2014.
But based on what I saw in Syria, if the RuAF were turned loose along with cruise or Iskander missile strikes, notwithstanding the Ukrainians heroic propaganda about ‘cyborgs’ at Donetsk Airport killing bazillions of Pskov VDV, the UAF would be slaughtered or encircled in a huge pocket in the Donbass.
I also think NATO Foreign Legionnaire aka European and American/Canuck volunteer deaths mostly in the Azov Battalion and at Debaltsevo where many reportedly were permitted to escape from the pocket in civilian clothes have likely been in the low (3?) dozens. Just enough to cover up. I’d like to see what the Polish and Baltic armies and special forces training accident casualties were in 2014-15 too.
This comment is mostly directed not at the usual Galicia fans, but the retired mil who loves to exagerrate UAF competency and the scale of direct Russian Army involvement while pretending the Ukrainians didn’t get lots of U.S. logistical and non lethal support including of late Global Hawk flights practically begging for an S400 shoot down so close tomCrimea.
“Lying, thieving SOB’s that are really only mischief makers in a very dangerous world?”
I presume you’re not American, because they must surely be the champion mischief-makers. What American interest has been served by Iraq, Libya, Syria, or the Iran sanctions? They are half a world away, the US is oil-independent – why are they bombed and/or invaded/subverted?
What American interest has been served by the policy of Nato expansion and encirclement of Russia? Ukraine is in their back yard, was controlled by Moscow until the 1990s, is of historic importance to their history (Kievan Rus), and a pro-Moscow leader was toppled by a Western-backed coup. The Russians are pretty sensitive about their western border for good historical reasons.
A little thought experiment. It’s 2037, only 20 years away, and the US is in economic and political crisis following the replacement of the dollar by the renminbe as the world reserve currency. A good amount of its remaining industry has been sold to US-Chinese oligarchs after the Shanghai Business School was called in to advise on restructuring.
California, New England and Texas have declared independence, and the pro-US leader of New England has just been overthrown in a Chinese-backed coup. China already has military bases in the Caribbean and Central America.
How would you expect the US to respond?
“I ain’t got nuthin against them Russians. No Russian ever called me deplorable”
So the wishes of the people of Ukraine are irrelevant to your way of thinking.
This is what Russian nationalists claim but it is not correct. A popular revolution is not a coup. A coup would be Gorbie getting overthrown. What happened in Ukraine is more akin to what happened when Commies lost power in the Warsaw Pact states. Were East Germany, Poland, Romania, etc. also illegal coups? How about the American Revolution, financed and supported by France (hell, French troops were even on the ground, by the thousands)?
Ukraine is also in Europe’s (specifically, Poland’s) backyard. Eurasia good and should be given what it wants despite native opposition, Europe bad?
Part of Poland-Lithuania for longer than under Moscow.
Timeline for what parts of Ukraine were ruled by whom:
Kiev City and eastern Ukraine: Lithuania, Poland 1362 – 1648 (about 300 years); independent 1648-1654 (6 years); autonomous (own military, legal system, locally elected ruler, Polish retained as elite language) but under the Russian Tsar until 1709 (55 years); diminished autonomy until 1764 (55 years); integrated part of Russian Empire until 1917 (153 years); Ukrainian SSR 1918- 1991 (73 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (25 years). Russian 336 years, Western 286 years, independent 31 years.*
The “Right Bank” – everything west of the river Dnipro, including most of Kiev province: part of Lithuania and Poland 1362-1793 (429 years); integrated part of Russia until 1917 (124 years); Ukrainian SSR 1919-1991 (72 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (25 years). Russian 196 years, Western 429 years, independent 25 years.
Volynia – same as “Right Bank” but unlike the rest of the Right Bank was part of Poland from 1919-1939, missing the first 20 years of Soviet rule. Russian 176 years, Western 449 years, independent 25 years.
Galicia – part of Poland 1349-1772 (423 years); part of Austria 1772-1918 (146 years); part of Poland 1919-1939 (20 years), part of Ukrainian SSR 1939-1991 (52 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (25 years). Russian 52 years, Western 589 years, independent 25 years.
Ukraine’s relationship to Russia is not the same as New England’s relationship to New York or Washington. Different languages, different histories, different peoples. Spain /Catalonia might be a better fit though Ukraine was apart from Russia longer and more recently than Catalonia was apart from Castille.
Furthermore, although the Americans backed the popular revolution in Ukraine, one of the purposes was to draw Ukraine closer to its western neighbor.
So to make your analogy better, it would involve Britain and Canada being Chinese allies, and a popular revolt in New England, supported by China, overthrowing some unpopular New Yorker-ruler from Greenwich in favor of a Bostonian ruler who brings New England closer to Canada and Britain. As a consequence the parts of CT next to NY leave New England due to local militias supported by the soldiers of the Washington government.
::::::::::::::
I agree with you about American criminal actions in Iraq, Syria, etc. because unlike you I am consistent in my opposition to military interventions in other states and interference with other peoples. You excuse them when they are made by Russia but only condemn them when America does it.
Since the end of the Cold War, American efforts to ignore, break asunder and dismantle the Westphalian System ( of International Law ) have been truly herculean. And all will be ultimately unsuccessful.
Economic collapse beckons shortly. But it will be 15 or 20 years before the full fruits of this policy will be seen. Foreign powers will be intervening, directly or more likely indirectly, in the warring statelets that succeed the United States. The war will have returned home.
A masterpiece of a comment. Well done
I know you have severe mental problems but this unsustained attention-whore crap of non-stop lies is beyond a joke.
the one word the excellent poster said wrong was “especially” but other than that this operation does occur in Galicia also you fuckwit.
..and other parts of Russia….but the point is that Russia is a considerably ,wealthier, more prosperous, muchmuchmuch less corrupt, better infrastructure, much better governed and better country than Ukraine you brainless moron. Even roads in Russia are much better in Russia than Ukraine…..even though the scale of the country, extreme weather conditions and so on should make the quality of roads in Ukraine superior or equal…which of course they fail to be.
As for the retarded claim that Lvov has recovered from the loss of GDP (HAHAHAH…what a cretin)…or that showing 2 clean streets in Kiev or Lvov is “proof” of anything shows what a dumb moron you are.
The Sun newspaper published a report from a tourist board which had Kiev as the worst city in Europe for tourists ( this despite the fact that it is the cheapest)..it was an excellent and comprehensive report but the NATO government in the country where the Sun Newspaper works forced them to remove the article. Other than Russians and sex tourists nobody else visits Kiev or the irrelevant Lvov you fuckwit ( though a great number of people in Lvov go over the border to work and live in Poland now)
https://twitter.com/JudithGoughFCO/status/825320363156443137
(kreakl /trollbot comments trying to support this lesbian but the Sun report is obviously true)
even the russophobic scumbag media “The Economist” ranks Kiev as the worst place to live:
https://sputniknews.com/world/201508191025909091-kiev-becomes-one-of-worst-cities-to-live-In/
Damascus and Tripoli also have many nice tourist places you dumb retard. Kiev and Lvov have a 2 or 3 nice streets (no suprise because of the russian architecture buildings and soviet infrastructure/planning) you dickhead but are massively corrupt and poor places to live you idiot. If you had to make a driving video of Saint Petersburg,Moscow, even places like Kazan and Khabarovsk……they would all take several 100 hours…..not 30 minutes ( in that very average video)
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/homeandproperty/the-worlds-10-least-liveable-cities/ss-AAimsH2#image=9 ….and there you are…right there along with all the “best” Africa and Asia has to offer.
There is further lying BS that I wont bother to go through
Sounds more like a dead end movie script for ‘Apocalypse 13’. Looks like this kind of thing is still making wads of money at the movie stands. Hollywood is always looking for new talent:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
“The best thing to do with an argument that can’t be defended is not to try to defend it”, to paraphrase the late historian AJP Taylor.
— Woody Allen. 🙂
A ukrop cretin getting an American paedophile to “support” their stupid argument is typically tragi-comic of this failed,artificial nation.
Ukraine- a 15%+ loss in GDP after Euromaidan that will probably take then nearly 20 years to recover to,many failing regions like Lvov and Zhitomir, the poorest country in Europe ( including the so-called “frozen conflict” states), millions having left it ( as if the whole country was in a state of war), a so-called revolution that has resulted in mass poverty and stupidity, a failed so-called revolution against the oligarchs in which the oligarchs control more of the country than before!( except now with added input on the Ukrainian military and intelligience units),infrastructure crumbling, mass war crimes and crimes against humanity commited, a freakshow of a political system, a political leader far more unpopular than the one who was illgeally overthrown in a US supported coup
…prostitution industry is at an all-time high though ( that and corruption)
Is there any hope? Ukraine should probably impeach Poroshenko, beg Yanukovich to return and rule in Putin’s name, hold a referendum reaffirming Khmelnitsky’s Act of Unification of 1654, outlaw the artificial Ukrainian language (a Polish/Austrian invention in the first place), and replace any public monuments or street names referring to Bandera with those of Stalin. The artificial name of ‘Ukraine’ should be renamed
‘Little Russia’ A good start, eh?
What else would you suggest?
Interesting article by Alexander Mercouris
http://theduran.com/ukraine-spiralling-down/
For how long the ‘Evrasianist’ BS that Shoigu is a Buddhist would be thrown at us? And for what reason, I wonder?
Shoigu is a Christian, duly baptized by his own admission and demonstrating it in front of all the world at any Victory Parade.
From reading the complaints of hyper-resentful Russian nationalists, I’m learning to appreciate the dignity and good sense incorporated into the disputes my cousins in Ulster have been having over parades and car parks.
Pray tell more?…
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2017/04/21/news/loyal-order-portadown-parade-avoids-nationalist-areas-1003159/
Russia gave up millions of square kilometers freely you brainless idiot….this even more impressive considering they had excellently ruled over these lands for many centuries and created these modern states.
What makes your comment particularly stupid is that in the Ulster model, Russia even allowing Ukraine to keep Crimea, Estonia to keep Narva, Kazakhstan to keep it’s northern part……far outweighs what the British did with Ireland
My suggestion is that you treat yourself to a course in Introduction to Reading Comprehension ‘ere you make any further efforts to interpret the remarks of other individuals, especially native English speakers.
As for the Ukraine, remarkably deft Russian policy pursued over 3 or 4 years has reduced the dimensions of the Russophile political constituency therein by about 60% (over and above damaging the Ukrainian economy). (The constituency for merger with Russia is too small to poll). Anyone reading you will get the following impression of Russian nationalists: (1) that it’s a constituency amply populated with people driven by spite and (2) it’s a constituency amply populated with people who fancy they own everything they ever laid a hand on; and (3) it’s a constituency amply populated with people whose dispositions resemble those of the common caricature of the wife-beater.
I would love to hear Karlin respond to your characterization of modern day Russian nationalists. He is, after all a self professed one, even honestly admitting that he has certain real affinities with those nasty 19th century ones known as ‘black hundreds’. Nah, it would be too easy just to ignore your comment. 🙂
I said ‘amply populated’, not ‘consisting of’. I’ve never had much objection to Mr. Karlin’s political advocacy beyond disagreements on substantive points (e.g. his dislike of the Church, monarchy in general, decentralization, &c. and his hypertrophied interest in psychometrics). Irridentist claims (to the Crimea, to Narva, to certain border counties and municipalities) aren’t troublesome, either. What is objectionable is the notion that the Ukraine is Russian property that someone stole from them (that someone being people who live in the Ukraine) and the notion that Ukrainians are untermenschen who cannot manage their affairs and must be superintended by Bobrikov-like overlords. The Ukraine isn’t some human catastrophe like the Sudan or the Congo. It’s isn’t even one of those places on the globe suffering peculiar acute problems (e.g. Greece or Venezuela). It’s just another poor country with the portfolio of short-comings of a sort that are regrettably common in this world.
Different communities in Ulster have a history of petty disputes which are points of pride (“no that’s a protestant car park. We need one for us”), of which parade routes are one. The reference was sarcastic. That having been said, neither nationalists nor Unionists in Ulster deny the other exists, deny the other has a distinct and incompatible sense of affinities and loyalties, or deny the other side is composed of functional adults. Irish nationalists insisted for decades that Orangemen who did not wish to be incorporated into an all-Ireland state should be beaten about the head until they consented to it and Irish Unioninsts insisted that having a majority in a particular locus meant you get to pee in the cornflakes of the Pope’s minions. That’s no way to live – not in Belfast, not in Detroit, not in Mississippi.
What’s regrettable about this ongoing dispute between the Ukraine and Russia is that it’s deadweight loss for both sides.
I couldn’t agree with you any more!
And how are you sure that he doesn’t hold these viewpoints dear and near to his heart? I’ve been following his blog now rather closely for about a year, and I’m not o sure that he doesn’t? I am sure,however, that he’s posted an admission that after taking some sort of a questionnaire, his own Russian nationalist sentiments are shown to be akin to 19th (or early 20th) century Black Hundreds. He likes to banter around the completely archaic nomenclature of ‘NovoRosija’ when talking about Southern and Eastern Ukraine. I’ve been egging him on him on for quite a while now to come forth and make his own sentiments about Ukraine vis-a vis Russia clearer, all to no avail. Until then, I feel rather safe in including Karlin within the group that you write about here, where:
his own Russian nationalist sentiments are shown to be akin to 19th (or early 20th) century Black Hundreds.
Pretty distant kin. He fancies the Czech Republic is the greatest country in Europe because of its low rates of religious observance and he despises the British monarchy.
I’m not making thi stuff up about Karlin. In his own words:
comment 20: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/who-are-you-in-1917-russia/
In any event, he seem extremely right wing and refuses to spell out his own personal views about Ukraine’s right to exist as a separate nation, not one that:
To be more specific, I ended up virtually halfway between the Cadets and Black Hundreds (though marginally closer to BH).
Mr. Hack, I might have ended up there (roughly). I’ll defend Franco and Pinochet (though I’m not looking for that for my own country).
Re Karlin, he doesn’t map to the North American right very well even though he lived there for an extended period of time (and, I think, in Britain prior to that). He seems devoted to technocratic national mobilization, regards private enterprise as being of instrumental value only, and seems to care nothing about religion, morals, customs, or the decent drapery of life (when he’s not explicitly hostile to these things).
It would be useful for him to come out from behind the drapery and more fully explain his nationalist Russian views. When pressed for more of this sort of stuff in the past, he sheepishly states that this is not a personal blog, but one where he tries to objectively present not his own stated opinions. Yet, he irritatingly does present his views in an inconsistent and incomplete manner. I’ve stated this before, I think that he’s afraid to offer fuller meaning to his own views either because he’s not really sure what they are, or, he’s afraid that if put to closer scrutiny, his ideas would appear more bizarre than what most of his readers believe they are.
FWIW, I took the test. It says I’m near the less militant Mensheviks and SRs on the vertical axis and about 85% of the distance toward the Cadets on the horizontal axis.
Yes, I suppose I am a technocrat, though I don’t know what you mean exactly by “national mobilization.”
My ideal state is triangulated somewhere between the technically dynamic and healthily xenophobic America of the 1950s, modern day based-but-liberal Czechia, and the enlightened free-market technocracy of Mr. House’s New Vegas in the Fallout video game.
Yes, I suppose that’s correct. But I will advance that this has been conventional wisdom even in the West since WW2.
I am easily more traditionalist than at least 75% of the American population. (Neoconism isn’t traditionalist. Neoliberalism isn’t traditionalist. Frothing at the mouth evangelicalism isn’t traditionalist).
(Neoconism isn’t traditionalist. Neoliberalism isn’t traditionalist. Frothing at the mouth evangelicalism isn’t traditionalist).
There is no such thing as ‘neo-conism’. There was a collection of opinion journalists called ‘neo-conservative’. Those people were notable for a critique of regnant notions in the education and social work professions and had an affinity for traditionalism whether or not they were traditionalist themselves. (They certainly were practitioners of mid 20th century bourgeois virtues).
“Neoliberalism” is an epithet applied to advocates of economic policy devoted to liquidating portfolios of state-owned industry. The concerns of ‘neo-liberals’ are orthagonal ot questions of ‘tradition’ v. ‘epater les bourgeois’.
There is hardly any such thing as ‘frothing at the mouth evangelicalism’. There’s Fred Phelps. He led a small and strange congregation composed of his relatives. You could offer Jimmy Swaggart and Tim LaHaye. Both were pentacostalists and that’s a minority taste among evangelicals. Pentacostalists also tend to be the most resistant to political mobilization of all evangelical subsets. Evangelicals tend to look to mid-20th century bourgeois virtues as well (though there’s a strange divorce culture among evangelicals.
I might also note that the sort of anticlericalism to which you give voice is characteristic of perhaps 30% of the population here at most.
But I will advance that this has been conventional wisdom even in the West since WW2.
Not across the board, no. In the Democratic Party, yes.
My ideal state is triangulated somewhere between the technically dynamic and healthily xenophobic America of the 1950s,
The state was not technically dynamic in 1955. Private industry was. I don’t think you could say the culture was xenophobic (though immigration policy was animated by a preference for foreigners who were the least alien).
As useful as it would be for Lenin in 1917 to fully explain his pro-worker, pro-peasant views and describe in detail the coming socialist utopia 🙂