Putin invades Ukraine

[LilyLark 10,213]

7 minutes ago, TheSlash said:

Maybe it's also due to the fact that Lithuania and Poland both surround their exclave Kalininigrad and fear they might close the borders making Kaliningrad basically only accessible by sea.

Good point. Also, I forgot that Kalingrad was basically under German and Polish control for like..a thousand years.. until the end of World War II and basically had no ties whatsoever to Russia. I imagine that makes them uneasy about people trying to reclaim Kalingrad...(which is ironic).

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1 hour ago, LilyLark said:

*Also find it really strange/interesting how they seem to have a hard on for hating Lithuania more than Estonia and Latvia.

Out of the three Baltic states, Lithuania's capital Vilnius is not on the coastline like Riga or Tallin, but actually pretty close to the Russian border, plus Lithuania borders Kaliningrad and shares the Suwalki gap with Poland. So in a sense is more in Russia's reach than Estonia or Latvia.

I mistakingly said Russian border instead of Belarusian border, but in 2022 they are basically the same thing so what I am saying is still right***

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19 minutes ago, TheSlash said:

Maybe it's also due to the fact that Lithuania and Poland both surround their exclave Kalininigrad and fear they might close the borders making Kaliningrad basically only accessible by sea.

They already did and Russia already threw a tantrum about it. They can't use the airspaces or the territorial waters of the Baltic states either, so Kaliningrad is accesible by boat or planes though the sea. Russia can't go through the territorial waters of the Baltic states, but can use the rest of the EEZ as ships can generally travel above the surface of the water even if they belong to the EEZ of a country.

[LilyLark 10,213]

23 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

 

 

I mistakingly said Russian border instead of Belarusian border, but in 2022 they are basically the same thing so what I am saying is still right***

Sad, but true

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The last three days

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During the last day (16-17 May), Ukraine continued to regain ground in the north of Kharkiv, while Russia had some succes in Donbas.

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[LilyLark 10,213]

15 hours ago, FfFfFfFF said:

The sh*t coming out of Russia about mass executing the fighters from Mariupol is terrifying (even if Azov was as bad as Russia claims, you can't just mass execute people ffs). Ironically (and unsurprisingly), apparently quite a few aren't even Azov but they're lumping them all under Azov.

There was also an interesting thread on twitter a while back, wish I had bookmarked it, about how Azov purged most of the worst elements around 2017-2018 to the point that one of the former founders was publicly b*tching to the media about them being not right wing enough anymore, etc. and the sole focus being on defending Ukraine from Russia. It was fairly eye opening-explains why a lot of Ukrainian journalists (even self described left wing ones who are generally critical of Azov, even if they support them in defending Mariupol against Russia) have criticized Western media coverage of Azov as being somewhat inaccurate. I've actually seen a few left wing Ukrainian journalists speak out about how they dislike Azov in general (despite currently supporting them in their fight against Russia for obvious reasons), but they're deeply bothered about how Western journalists act like it's unique to Ukraine (as it's parroting Russian propaganda) when large swaths of the world have an issue with the far right and Golden Dawn in Greece had far more (legitimate) political and popular power than Azov or the far right in Ukraine ever has.

Anyway, I thought that was an accurate (and interesting) rebuttal to the bad faith arguments about the far right...that Ukraine is far from perfect ...but in many parts of the world the far right has or had far more popular/political power...so arguing that it somehow justifies a violent, imperialistic, war is bizarre. The Greek argument was especially salient, imo, as I recall learning about Golden Dawn in college and being dumbfounded such a thing existed. Also one of Russia's Wagner group's founder has freaking Nazi tats and Putin's been photographed with him...not to mention Putin uses Wagner all the time...which makes Putin's claims about de nazifying even more nuts.

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On 2/25/2022 at 1:48 AM, FfFfFfFF said:

- Ukraine will more or less retain its current borders and be turned into a puppet state like Belarus / it will be federalised or broken up in some way

- Russia annexes huge chunks of territory (lands east of the Dniper, the South-East, Black Sea coast), but allows Western Ukraine to exist as an independent entity 

- Russia incoporates the entire Ukraine into its territory, perhaps even Transnistria, bordering 8 NATO members

I think the second option is what will happen. 

Now that 1) Russia implicitely admitted Russia will allow a post-war independent Ukrainian state to exist (by saying it will sell electricity to it);

2) Russia clearly intends to outright annex the occupied territories in the east and south (as they start to impose the ruble, Mariupol is being located in official documents under the jurisdiction of Rostov oblast, there are talks about referendums to join Russia etc), it seems that the second option was indeed the right one.

A simple puppet regime change never the sole scope of the war, Russia's aims are to secure strategic territory. 

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12 hours ago, LilyLark said:

Anyway, I thought that was an accurate (and interesting) rebuttal to the bad faith arguments about the far right...that Ukraine is far from perfect ...but in many parts of the world the far right has or had far more popular/political power.

There is also an argument that can be made about the radicalization of the population that follows territorial loses. The far right tendecies of to the Azov Batallation didn't appear out of nowhere, they started after Russia unprovokedly began its invasion in 2014.

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