Navigating the Tensions in Ukraine: A Scientific Perspective

[PeroK]

Are you arguing that the West should declare war on Russia?

I'm not saying Tobias Ellwood has all the answers, but I think he outlines a possible means of engagement:



The other point is that NATO includes several countries bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and they need to make a decision about whether they need to get involved.

 

[artis]

If the question on whether to declare war on Russia is asked to me, let me answer like this...
US invaded Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda for the deaths of nearly 3000 Americans on 9/11
US invaded Iraq for far less, and on questionable groundsMeanwhile the USSR has murdered millions (no one knows the real number) and that was even before WW2.
So if we forget about fear, destruction , nuclear holocaust etc etc but just focus on the number of innocent deaths, war crimes, state terrorism and such then we should have invaded and toppled the regime of Russia about 90 years ago during the 1930's and Stalin's rule.
Purely from a just and honest viewpoint without considering anything else our military response is at least 90 years too late.
China (it's communist regime) should have been disassembled back in the 1960's during "Cultural revolution"

Hitler should have been stopped and prosecuted for conspiracy and attempted genocide the moment he took office, but nobody cared to actually read his book, maybe then they would have understood sooner...

This is of course bit fantasy (and fugue) on my part but if one cares for a honest opinion strictly by the book then this is how it should have went.

 

[artis]

I just watched a somewhat weird but good documentary made by DW about Russia, I can personally relate to this video as I have been interacting with Russians in my life and although they all are different because Russia is big and different regions differ in mentality there is this common problem for them about how they perceive strength, history, how their leaders perceive what is important and what can wait (well being of people VS army, government etc)
But I would suggest only watch it if you can see it fully, there is a story there that I believe is worth listening to.
I'd even go as far as to say that Putin is a skillful puppet master he has largely stayed in power because he has exploited that one weakness Russians have , see if you can spot it in the story of the mother and her army loving daughter, as well as the old lady talking about WW2 and God...

 

[wrobel]

If you grew up during the USSR

I think the present situation is much more harder

 

[StevieTNZ]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/po...ters-parliamentarians-military-and-spy-chiefs

Russia has “blacklisted” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Cabinet ministers, parliamentarians from all political parties, the Governor-General, and military and spy chiefs.

The blacklisting of 130 New Zealand politicians and officials, which will ban those listed from entering Russia, was a retaliation against the Government’s “unprecedented sanctions”, was announced overnight by the Russian foreign ministry.

No surprises here.

 

[artis]

I think the present situation is much more harder

Well it depends on how you look at it, for someone growing up in the 40's and 50's where you had to burn your chair that you were sitting on to get some heat to survive after the war and food was a luxury item, that was definitely hard, like physically hard. My grandmother lost her feet fingers while giving food to soldiers in the forest, the winters were super cold, one mistake and say goodbye to a body part from frost.Now it's harder because there are many more variables and unknowns.
WW3 is not a if but when for me, I don't think it will happen now due to Ukraine but eventually in the future

 

[nsaspook]

This is not warfare with a military objective, this is barbarous criminal behavior that the world must respond to short of WW3. How can Ukraine settle differences with a Russian state that promotes and sanctions these sort of actions with lies and disinformation on a global level?

Spoiler

https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...ited-nations-ee2fa37bb0ace7b4714c084998765f65

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other leaders accused Russia’s military of deliberately attacking the station. Russia, in turn, blamed Ukraine, saying it doesn’t use the kind of missile that hit the station — a contention experts dismissed.

The missiles were seen in the theater of combat Mar 31, 2022.

https://defence-blog.com/russian-tochka-u-ballistic-missiles-return-to-service-amid-ukraine-war/

The Russian military forces’ Tochka-U ( NATO reporting name is SS-21 Scarab-B) tactical ballistic missiles are operational again, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.

Belarus-based analyst released Wednesday video footage reportedly showing a column of Russian military vehicles with “V” marks, which was moving from Rechitsa towards Gomel along the M10 highway.

“There were at least 8 Tochka-U, several BTR-82a, about 9 KamAZ trucks, some of which are carrying Tochka-U missiles, communication vehicle and a crane,” the MotolkoHelp said in a Twitter post.Russian Armed Forces are reportedly using Tochka-U to strike targets in Ukraine.

https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

 

[Vanadium 50]

Is that a question for me ?

Sorry. For @bob012345

 

[Astronuc]

NPR interview with Artem Chapeye, a writer fighting in Ukrainian army, on his love story for his country, which he is defending.​

Chapeye reflects on being a pacifist who must fight for his country.

Artem Chapeye - "If you have to die, it's better to fight" on reflection of the execution of civilians in Bucha and other villages, and the attack on civilians at the railway station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.

 

[Astronuc]

Viktor Maruniak is among dozens of local officials or community leaders who have been abducted or arbitrarily arrested by Russian forces as they seized territory in Ukraine, especially in the east and the south. These disappearances are both an attempt to coerce cooperation and a targeted effort to silence and intimidate Ukrainians who may oppose or organize against a Russian occupation.

https://www.vox.com/23012456/ukraine-russia-war-disappearances-kidnappings

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented about 109 cases of suspected detention or enforced disappearances among civilians since February 24, including 48 local officials. The UN and other human rights groups have confirmed disappearances among other members of civil society: volunteers, activists, journalists, religious leaders, protesters, and former military veterans. (Vox reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment, but did not receive a response.)

Anastasiia Moskvychova, who has been tracking disappearances for ZMINA, says they have confirmed more than 100 arbitrary detentions since February 24; about 50 people are still missing.

But Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based activist and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, said these numbers are only the “top of the iceberg.” Her group is tracking dozens more suspected cases of enforced disappearances, but they are still trying to corroborate evidence, a task that’s all the more difficult in Russian-occupied areas. Other times, family and friends of the suspected victims fear making that information public.

 

[Isopod]

Ain't that the truth. I was just talking about this with a non-western friend who scoffed at the bubble we westerners live in. We've allowed ourselves to believe that that capacity disappeared after WWII and would "never again" happen/be allowed to happen. But that's just our privilege of being in that bubble.

My grandfather was actually one of the only people I ever knew who truly believed that the events of WW2 would be repeated.

My grandfather was a fighter pilot in WW2 and he fought over the skies of Italy before being shot down, miraculously surviving, getting found & taken in by the Italian Resistance, then trying to escape Italy with a bunch of guys before getting caught, sent to a POW camp, escaped, captured and then sent to a much worse POW camp where he saw many war crimes were committed before he finally escaped from that one and walked across Italy & France before getting a boat back to England right at the very end of the war.

(My grandfather (left) with his Curtiss P40 Kittyhawk in Tunisia, shortly before he left for Italy)

Pretty much everyone in my family had a story to tell about WW1 & WW2 as people for generations fought & helped in both wars (there's a lot of military & medical peeps in my family ancestry, 2 of my g.grandfathers were also war captains who fought in the Somme). But my grandfather was NEVER convinced that the peace that ensured after WW2 would ended would last. In fact he was truly shocked that it lasted as long as it did and he was utterly convinced that he would see a WW3 in his lifetime. He didn't just whittle on about this kind of stuff with empty words either, he actually took precautions for WW3, such as learning 8 languages, including 4 different dialects of Russian (he said because although he didn't know how WW3 would start, if it did, he was sure that Russia would have something to do with it ) and he never gave up his veterans farm in Australia as he knew all too well that the people who starved the most in WW2 were the ones without land (in fact this was something that both he and one of my g.grandfathers both shared in common (a shared belief in the importance of farmland) and my grandfather was pretty gutted that I never got to have any land). The reason why he learned so many languages was also because after having had to escape from Nazi occupied Italy on foot, he knew the importance of knowing and being able to speak foriegn languages properly as such knowledge often made the life/death difference for many people fleeing back then (including some other relatives of mine who had Jewish ancestry and had to escape both Germany and then Russia on foot).

So my grandfather would've 100% agreed with you; he also thought that most people here were living in a bubble of privilege and had no real idea about what life could really be like for a lot of people in the world.

My grandfather died in 2016, but I'll never forget a lot of his stories, beliefs & advice. Unfortunately for me, I don't have any land, I'm rubbish at learning foriegn languages and when events like the ones in Ukraine began to first unfold, I felt like I was one of the only people I knew who was taking the situation that seriously (even then, I was talked out of doing a lot of self-protective measures like stocking up on foodstuffs).

I'm pretty much a nobody, but my general gut feeling on matters is that even if in the near future the events in Ukraine are somehow wrapped up/paused for a while, I feel that this will all be the precursor to something much, much worse in the future (a real WW3, occurring in the next 8 years or so).

 

[Isopod]

The beeb did an interview article today on the recently liberated Chernobyl nuclear plant:

Inside Chernobyl: "We stole Russian fuel to prevent catastrophe"​

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61048256

 

[PeroK]

My grandfather was actually one of the only people I ever knew who truly believed that the events of WW2 would be repeated.

As far I as know, most people of my generation (born 1963) feared there would be nuclear war. It was discussed at school and on TV and at home. I am too young to really remember Vietnam, but there were no illusions until the 1990's that the world might ever become a peaceful place. Those illusions, in any case, were shattered on 9/11 and by the Iraq war.

I can't say why Russia has gone down the road it has and why the European leaders have been so blind to Putin's intentions. But, I doubt your grandfather was the only one who feared that peace in Europe would not last.

 

[artis]

I can't say why Russia has gone down the road it has

Gone down?
Hasn't Russia always been down that road?

 

[artis]

such as learning 8 languages including 4 different dialects of Russian

4 dialects of Russian? Wow that is definitely a bit of an overkill, I have yet to meet a Russian who would know all those dialects, but whenever you speak Russian still every Russian understand what your saying (also Ukrainian, Kazakh, Mongol, almost all Baltic people,Georgians most of Polish etc etc), especially if you use the censored part of their language (which is pretty vast)

 

[Isopod]

As far I as know, most people of my generation (born 1963) feared there would be nuclear war. It was discussed at school and on TV and at home. I am too young to really remember Vietnam, but there were no illusions until the 1990's that the world might ever become a peaceful place. Those illusions, in any case, were shattered on 9/11 and by the Iraq war.

I can't say why Russia has gone down the road it has and why the European leaders have been so blind to Putin's intentions. But, I doubt your grandfather was the only one who feared that peace in Europe would not last.

Actually yeah, you are are right, one of my teachers was telling me about this recently (the whole Cold War fear stuff). He said that the 1980s he was a young guy living in London and back then, the Cold War situation got so serious that the government actually started drawing up mandatory military conscription letters to force people to fight in the war (which looked like it could start any moment). My teacher said that he actually got one of these military draft letters sent to him in the post and it sent a shiver down his spine because he is such a tiny guy (very short & skinny), he thought he wouldn't stand a chance on the battlefield and would just end up as cannon fodder.
My teacher has been taking the events in Ukraine very seriously. He said that due to his age now (60s), the one good thing is that they likely wouldn't force him to serve in the military anymore, but he is really concerned for the younger generations and what we might be forcefully subjected to were a war to start (his heart is breaking for all the young people in Ukraine right now too).

I watched this video on surviving nuclear fallout a little while back:



But a few people have told me that nuclear weapons are so incredibly powerful now that the info in this video is out of date (its more applicable to a nuclear fallout situation in the 40s/50s) because if a modern-day nuclear bomb was dropped on us, there would be no survivors left to even worry about surviving in a post-fallout world (I don't know if this is true, but I'd like to have a plan just in case there is a chance for survival). People have also said to me that even if it were possible to survive, you also wouldn't want to live in a nuclear fallout world anyway (that the ones who got obliterated by the initial blast would basically be the lucky ones).

I grew up in that bubble era. Hmm...I dunno...I think that sometimes people in my generation are too sensitive about stuff (in both good ways and bad ways). A lot of people either seem to be so upset about events in Ukraine that they can't discuss the events at all, or they still very much seem to think that this is something that will remain contained in Ukraine and won't spread outside of it. And a lot of people seem to be afraid of upsetting or offending people by discussing the matter entirely, so it doesn't get talked about all that much (to be fair though, there are fair few Russian, Ukrainian & Polish students at my uni, sooo ...). People are VERY interested here in trying to do something to help (a lot of people are making posters and doing fundraising efforts to help Ukrainians) but few people seem to want to face/talk about the brutalities of the war.

Personally I'd like to see a lot more in the way of dead body photos & videos (they're always so censored in our media) and hear more of the gritty accounts occurring in Ukraine because I want to try to better face the realities that these people are going through. I also don't think that our media censoring so many images of the dead is helping as online I have noticed it's leading to a lot of people disputing the Ukrainian accounts (obviously its a Kremlin story that the corpses are actors, but with so people not being able to see the dead clearly, its making it harder for people to dispute that).

Nothing particularly shocks me about life. Plenty of people in my family suffered from PTSD/CPTSD and I grew up with a lot of stories about war (people in my family don't hold back) and I've also lived many lives myself so far. I also used to live with an ex-SAS guy who fought in the Falklands and Yugoslav/Balkans wars of the 90s and amongst other things, he was a war photographer. He once showed me some of his (illegal) photo albums documenting war crimes from those eras (lots of mass graves, etc), it was very eye opening. He was left traumatized by the things he witnessed. One of my friends at uni has also done a number of art projects on the subject of war & refugees as her family came to this country as refugees from the Yugoslav wars and it affected her family a lot.
First-hand account stories are always incredibly eye-opening...

 

[Isopod]

4 dialects of Russian? Wow that is definitely a bit of an overkill, I have yet to meet a Russian who would know all those dialects, but whenever you speak Russian still every Russian understand what your saying (also Ukrainian, Kazakh, Mongol, almost all Baltic people,Georgians most of Polish etc etc), especially if you use the censored part of their language (which is pretty vast)

It was pretty impressive! I think he in part learned so many because he really enjoyed learning the Russian language in general (he always loved a challenge haha , he was a very smart man! He never stopped learning in his retirement). I can't speak Russian (so I have no idea how difficult it is for people to understand very different dialects) but I will always have this one memory of when I was 16 years old living in this shared accomodation place (I moved out of home very young) and my grandparents came around to visit me. As they were trying to find my room, my grandfather bumped into one of the other people living there who was this Lithuanian woman who could barely speak a word of English and so would often speak with mixture of Lithuanian & English words and expect us to understand her somehow (we often did not ). My grandfather couldn't speak Lithuanian, but apparently Lithuanian and Russian are very similar languages and so initially he mistook her for possibly speaking some form of Russian. I came out of my room at this point only to see the 2 of them in the hallway trying to communicate with each other in mixture of English, Lithuanian & Russian as my grandfather tried out all his different dialects on her . Up until this point, I had no idea that he could even speak Russian so when I saw the 2 of them, I stood there mouth ajar for a while just watching the 2 of them go at it (my grandfather later said that he found the experience fun as he rarely came across anyone to try out his Russian on).

 

[pinball1970]

As far I as know, most people of my generation (born 1963) feared there would be nuclear war. It was discussed at school and on TV and at home. I am too young to really remember Vietnam, but there were no illusions until the 1990's that the world might ever become a peaceful place. Those illusions, in any case, were shattered on 9/11 and by the Iraq war.

I can't say why Russia has gone down the road it has and why the European leaders have been so blind to Putin's intentions. But, I doubt your grandfather was the only one who feared that peace in Europe would not last.

My phobia through my teens. Probably till after the first Iraq war.
Seeing bodies pulled out of rubble helps one to focus on other people's misery rather than one's own paranoia.

On another note there has been some changes at the top in the Russian military. I. Suppose that is good in one way, if it ain't broke don't fix it. The Ukraines have broken some stuff which is good.
The guy who is taken over has experience from Syria which sounds ominous. Asads methods seem to focus on pounding towns till all that is left was rubble and bodies. He was also accused of chemical weapon use.
That could be one of the lines we discussed earlier.

 

[artis]

Prime minister of Slovakia

 

[artis]

A Russian "Tockha" rocket booster stage landed in Kramatorsk, the white paint on the rocket translates to approximately "for children" , could be interpreted as for the revenge of Russian children or for the death of Ukrainian children who knows.

 

[Isopod]

Asads methods seem to focus on pounding towns till all that is left was rubble and bodies. He was also accused of chemical weapon use.

The Ukrainians have accused the Russians of using chemical weapons on Ukraine already. More specifically, using White Phospherous bombs in Kramatorsk:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...l-russia-phosphorus-bombs-biden-b2041973.html

Obviously, Russia has already used Cluster bombs and Thermobaric weapons on Ukraine, but I believe the Ukrainian accounts of White Phospherous bombs being used. Years ago there quite a number of reports of Russia dropping White Phospherous bombs on Syrians in the war over there:



Israels white phospherous bombs:


(Israel later admitted using White Phospherous bombs: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/21/gaza-phosphorus-shells )

Lowdown on White Phospherous bombs, their uses & effects:





Footage of the bombs in action being used in Mosul:

Putins recently accused Ukraine of using Biological weapons and whilst I don't believe this, it does infer that Putin could be considering using them next.

I feel that Putin is constantly trying to antagonize the West into making a false move so that he can justify using much worse weapons on us. Obviously, there was this incident last month where Russian fighter jets carrying nuclear weapons violated Swedish airspace: https://www.euractiv.com/section/po...ng-nuclear-weapons-violated-swedish-airspace/

Putin is just egging for a WW3.

 

[PeroK]

Putin is just egging for a WW3.

The analysis I have seen from thise who know Russia (Kasparov, Khodorkovsky etc.) Is quite the opposite. Putin would not have invaded if he believed NATO would fight. He's relying on us not to fight.

There is a risk in getting involved, but in no way does Putin intend to start WW3. If he did, all he would have to do is nuke the West preemptively.

 

[artis]

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

German chancellor holds off on ramping up military aid despite pressure from coalition partners

 

[artis]

And here is the Slovakian owned Russian S-300 loaded up onto train and sent to Ukraine.

 

[artis]

 

[Isopod]

A Russian "Tockha" rocket booster stage landed in Kramatorsk, the white paint on the rocket translates to approximately "for children" , could be interpreted as for the revenge of Russian children or for the death of Ukrainian children who knows.
View attachment 299633

View attachment 299634

Yeah, that bomb was one of the ones which was dropped on the crowded train station in the city of Kramatorsk yesterday which (so far) killed 52 people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61036740



(Kramatorsk is also where the Ukrainians recently accused the Russians of dropping White Phospherous bombs on the people there)

(From what I have understood), a lot of Russian soldiers have been brainwashed into believing that they're fighting an alt-right neo-Nazi force in Ukraine. They're often not told any real information about the targets that they're being ordered to attack, simply that they need to destroy or occupy them for strategic reasons (for example this was the case with Chernobyl, where apparently the young Russian soldiers who were ordered to dig the trenches in the Red Forest weren't even told that the area was radioactive and many didn't even have a clue about the plants history or why exactly they needed to occupy it). So who knows what is going through their heads and what these young troops actually think they're doing/targetting.

But let's also be real here, post-WW2, the US has repeatedly managed to convince its people to start and engage in a huge number of dubious wars abroad where although they weren't the direct targets, millions of civilians (including women & children) ended up being killed & horribly maimed in the conflict. So that Putin is able to convince his soldiers to so effectively to this in Ukraine shouldn't surprise anyone in the least bit.

"Magnificent Storyteller Soldier Reveals What He Saw In Vietnam"​

“The longer we stayed in Vietnam the more Vietcong their were, because we were creating them”- there is a lot of truth to this statement.
(Now just imagine that you were Russian, that you've been led to believe that you're fighting Nazi's and terrorists in Ukraine, and imagine how the natural course of conflict could escalate & re-affirm the worst misinformation in the war...If you had any doubts at the beginning, far becoming enlightened, the more you fought, the more you could end getting fully embroiled in and escalating everything that was wrong about the war).Reality is, that even in this day & age of so-called "enlightenment", even with the accessibility of the internet & VPN's (etc), its very easy for governments to persuade majorities of people to believe just about anything (f anything, internet psychology, algorithms and other technologies have possibly made people even more susceptible to believing tripe than they already were before).

 

[artis]

Reality is, that even in this day & age of so-called "enlightenment", even with the accessibility of the internet & VPN's (etc), its very easy for governments to persuade majorities of people to believe just about anything (f anything, internet psychology, algorithms and other technologies have possibly made people even more susceptible to believing tripe than they already were before).

Honestly I'm not even sure at which point in history people were better informed. Todays information ocean is simply drowning the average human being as he has not the time nor the background to accurately and skeptically analyze what he is told or what he reads.

Maybe knowing less but at least being able to verify the authenticity is better for us humans than knowing more and not being able to verify what we know.
I'd say some 70% of all information hitting us is either flawed or unnecessary.

electronic communication and the internet is just as much a tool as it is a weapon and poison.

 

[Isopod]

The analysis I have seen from thise who know Russia (Kasparov, Khodorkovsky etc.) Is quite the opposite. Putin would not have invaded if he believed NATO would fight. He's relying on us not to fight.

There is a risk in getting involved, but in no way does Putin intend to start WW3. If he did, all he would have to do is nuke the West preemptively.

U'know, this is what I believed at the start. But now I'm not so sure.

What we're seeing is Putin using an increasing amount weapons and tactics on Ukrainians which are being done to maximise fear, terror & pain amongst the people. And he's engineering an increasing amount of reasons to keep on taking things to the next level (chemical weapons, etc).

Is Putin still just this equivilent of the bully picking on the kid in the school yard, knowing that none of the onlookers have any real power or place to stop him? Or is Putin now pummeling the kid to bait the others into making a move?

Can Putin really do whatever the hell he likes to Ukraine and we will do nothing in return but sanction him and send weapons to the Ukrainians? Does he know where to draw the line (and do our leaders know where to draw the line)?
Is Biden also now playing a game (making antagonizing statements, etc) knowing that Putin won't actually go so far as to start picking on countries outside of Ukraine?

When I heard those early reports of Putin hiding in a bunker, distrusting all those around him and somewhat mentally losing it, I just thought that it was Western propaganda. Even though I didn't understand what was going through Putin's head, I thought that he must still be a clever/smart man either way (albeit an evil one). But now I'm not so sure.

Is Putin really all there in the head? Can we really rest the fate of the world on him pulling back at some point after escalating things this far?
Even if the Ukrainians defeat Putin on their own home turf, unless they then decide to invade Russia, then they won't be able to defeat and get rid of him for good. And for as long as that man and his systems remain alive and intact, the world is not safe.

I've read a number of articles stating that Putin may in fact be suffering from Thyroid Cancer or Parkinsons Disease:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/five-chilling-signs-vladimir-putin-26619113

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...sia-health-investigation-cancer-b2049297.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-n...d-cancer-doctor-35-times-bathes-deer-antlers/

Cancer can cause madness in people sometimes, such as "Thyroid Psychosis" https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/520128

(For all we know), Putin might be suffering from a serious or increasing mental deficiency due to some sort of underlying health condition. We've all heard the stories of how Hitler slowly went mad due to his increasing cocktail of drug usage towards the end of WW2 and how he ended up a paranoid & out of touch wreck in his bunker in the final days. If Putin equally went mad, then would those close to him have the power & courage to take him down before he took us all into the new WW3...?

 

[PeroK]

@Isopod while much of that is true, in the Cold War era both sides were genuinely fearful of the other. After 1990 NATO did not invade the former Soviet bloc and enslave its inhabitants. Many of these countries are now voluntarily part of NATO or the EU.

From 1990 there has been no genuine reason for Russia and the West to be bitter enemies. Some distrust perhaps. All of the hatred has been generated on one side. The Germans and Italians are almost completely dependent on Russian oil and gas. You wouldn't do that with someone you even suspected of being an enemy.

Your line of argument is not completely illogical but imagining that the bitter hatred of the cold War is valid in 2022 is something I cannot understand. There was a genuine and largely successful policy of the West to integrate and rebuild Germany and Japan after WWII and the countries of Eastern Europe after the cold War.

This is in stark contrast to Russia that has invented a conflict against the West. It's clear that the EU was caught totally by surprise by this. Perhaps because they, like me, could not envisage any reason for Russia to attack us.

 

[artis]

 

[Baluncore]

Why a ceasefire would be a mistake.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/04/ensuring-ukraine-prevails-now-only-moral-choice

 

[Isopod]

Honestly I'm not even sure at which point in history people were better informed. Todays information ocean is simply drowning the average human being as he has not the time nor the background to accurately and skeptically analyze what he is told or what he reads.

Maybe knowing less but at least being able to verify the authenticity is better for us humans than knowing more and not being able to verify what we know.
I'd say some 70% of all information hitting us is either flawed or unnecessary.

electronic communication and the internet is just as much a tool as it is a weapon and poison.

I think that despite the vast scale of the information ocean that is the internet, what most people live & willfully engage in is the equivilent of tiny microscopic puddles.

Apparently when the internet first started becoming a thing for ordinary people to surf, governments were worried about how they might control people because there was a genuine fear that if people became too educated about everything, then not only would we be less liable to believe whatever our governments told us, but that we might even rise up and riot against them. There were also a huge amount of unknowns about how the internet was going to shape society in general.

David Bowie sharing his thoughts about the rise of the internet in 1999


Like so many technologies, once it was out there, the internet was going to exist & be used by general publics whether governments liked it or not. So society then witnessed a variety of tactics being used to control people and the information they got exposed to in a post-internet world, ranging from the totalitarian information control approaches that you see in countries like China, to the supposedly more free internet states that we get to enjoy in the West.

Some things that became very apparent pretty quickly though was that:

1. Most people don't use the internet to search for information beyond their personal interests.
2. Most people just use the internet to access social media, games, porn and personal shopping.
3. Most people don't look beyond the 1st handful of Google search results, let alone the 1st page.
4. Pretty much everyone is incredibly susceptible to user engagement algorithms.

"17 Facts about Search Psychology You Should Know"​

https://www.quicksprout.com/search-psychology/

"The Psychology Of Search - Ranking 1st & It's influence Factors"​

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/psychology-search-ranking-1st-tom-buckland

One thing that many Western countries realized a long time ago, is that you don't have to control the entire internet (or even bother about the vast majority of it) to continue controlling people very effectively because human beings have very predictable psychology and patterns of behaviour that can be easily harnessed and counted on.

The only thing which has thrown a real spanner in the works, is that other governments (such as Putins one) have been fighting a war online for sometime now to goad people down paths that will make them believe their propaganda via taking advantage of illusory truth effect psychology, user engagement algorithms & other methods. There is also evidence that user engagement algorithms on social media platforms typically favour the right, although this is for complex reasons (that are still being understood).

If you encounter something through your own research, you're more likely to value and believe it to be truth than if you were simply told it by someone else. With so much psychology being harnessed on things social media platforms, a lot of people are extremely easily lulled into believing all kinds of baloney which they not only consider truth, but think they've discovered (when in reality, its been pretty purposely fed to them, hook line & sinker). And when you combine this with the fact that most people aren't actually that enquiring (as said, most people just live in very narrow only bubbles of social media, personal shopping, porn and a little news), governments have nothing to worry about when it comes to the public really educating itself.

I actually think that people might be more stupid and less educated now than they were in the past. After all, there has been such a rise in things like anti-vaxxers, flat earthers and more, I do think that surely something has been going amiss in the critical thinking abilities of Joe Public (or perhaps this perception is just a part of my own growing up? That adults are not as smart as they might first appear to you when you're younger).

@Isopod The Germans and Italians are almost completely dependent on Russian oil and gas. You wouldn't do that with someone you even suspected of being an enemy.

Your line of argument is not completely illogical but imagining that the bitter hatred of the cold War is valid in 2022 is something I cannot understand. There was a genuine and largely successful policy of the West to integrate and rebuild Germany and Japan after WWII and the countries of Eastern Europe after the cold War.

This is in stark contrast to Russia that has invebted a conflict against the West. It's clear that the EU was caught totally by surprise by this. Perhaps because they, like me, could not envisage any reason for Russia to attack us.

I lay the blame of our dependency on Russian oil & gas being in part due to the general corrupting effect that fossil fuel companies have on politics in general. After all, even if you removed countries like Russia & Saudi Arabia from the equation, there was still every reason why we should have been steering away from our fossil fuels much more than we have (and much longer ago than we started) and yet despite this, we've failed to do so.

So I put the reasons for the dependency on Russian oil/gas not down to any intelligent or enlightened thinking on our politicians part (or that Russia was ever a friendly/safe country), but because our governments have quite simply been corrupted by fossil fuels companies for the longest time.

And not only that, but we have truthfully been very corrupted by Kremlin money. Even long before all this Ukrainian business started, major questions were being raised about the increasing influxes of Russian money that were entering parliament over here in England via Oligarch donars, for example:

"Russian-born husband of Tory donor ‘earned millions via oligarch connections’"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...onor-earned-millions-via-oligarch-connections

"Tories took even more money from Russian linked donor in months up to Ukraine invasion"​

https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...russian-linked-donor-months-ukraine-invasion/

"Why Britain’s Tories are addicted to Russian money"​

https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-tories-russian-money-oligarch/

We've also long had a problem with Russian money in the broader capital city of London here:

How London became the city of choice for Russian ‘dirty money’​

https://www.theweek.co.uk/107585/how-london-became-city-of-choice-for-russia-dirty-money

Huge amounts of Londons best buildings (its most historic buildings, tallest skyscrapers & biggest mansions etc) are owned by Russians. And the Tory government kept on selling off and handing over chunks of our city (and so much more) to these dubious individuals despite there being a housing crisis in ths city

"Tower underoccupied, astonishingly expensive, mostly foreign owned, and with dozens of apartments held through secretive offshore firms"​

https://www.theguardian.com/society...wn-two-thirds-of-tower-st-george-wharf-london

"Londongrad: a city’s addiction to Russian oligarchs and easy money"​

https://www.investigate-europe.eu/e...ddiction-to-russian-oligarchs-and-easy-money/

"Eight arrests by police after Belgravia mansion with ‘links to oligarch’ occupied by squatters"​

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/lon...-mansion-oligarch-oleg-deripaska-b987900.html

People were warning Europes politicians about our dependency on Russian gas as far back as 2008, just look at this reports findings:

"Europe must undertake such a strategy not only because over-reliance on anyone source represents unsound policy, but more importantly because domination of the European market has been a clear and calculated goal that an unreliable Russian administration has been working towards for several years. Russian domination of the European natural gas market would give the Kremlin incredible leverage in its dealings with its European neighbors. Europe’s dependence on Russia for natural gas already profoundly affects the freedom of action of certain European states and will increasingly erode European sovereignty."​

("Europe's Dependence on Russian Natural Gas: Perspectives and Recommendations for a Long-term Strategy": https://www.marshallcenter.org/de/node/1276 )​

... ... ...

And even last year there were a flurry of warnings about the Russian gas dependency situation, for example:

"Europe’s energy crisis highlights dangers of reliance on Russia"​

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blo...sis-highlights-dangers-of-reliance-on-russia/

Russia's always been a threat.

I don't think we have very smart people running this country. My belief & understanding is that the Tory's are quite simply a very corrupt party who basically sold us out, being more concerned about lining their own pockets with Russian oligarch money than doing what was morally correct and politically right in the best interests of this countries longer-term safety & security. Boris Johnson is just another fool who fancies himself too much and whose a schmuck for pretty young blonge ladies and easy money (whether it comes from the Kremlin or elsewhere, if you waft enough under his nose, he'll take it). edit: (I mean, c'mon, case & point: the Kremlin knew exactly what it was doing when it sent this one over https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d7b3...t&fit=crop&s=4cefe5bfee524740ce5c7db6c7461a57 to wine & dine the Tories! https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-husband-given-8m-by-kremlin-linked-oligarch ).

I believe that Putin has been planning this whole invasion of Ukraine for absolute years, taking many proceedures over the years to not only help make Russia more sanction-proof, but corrupt many European countries so that they had too many hands in Russian oil/gas to fight back effectively.

 

[Isopod]

Why a ceasefire would be a mistake.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/04/ensuring-ukraine-prevails-now-only-moral-choice

Ceasefires are also a mistake because quite frankly, everytime there's been one the Russians have ended up ignoring it.

Ukraine's a land of rivers and swamps and this geography has apparenly been helping massively slow down the Russian supply lines, allowing the Ukrainian troops to then target the Russian supply lines. But everytime there's a ceasefire, the Russian's simply use the time to repair the damage to their supply lines.

 

[artis]

Why a ceasefire would be a mistake.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/04/ensuring-ukraine-prevails-now-only-moral-choice

Given where things stand now , I'd agree, the only real option is to fight back. Even if Ukraine can't regain complete control and push back beyond the 2014 line, it would still be beneficial if Ukraine got the tools (missiles bombs etc) to continually inflict damage in Russian troops and equipment thereby weakening their military. Then it simply becomes a contest of who can hold out the longest.

But for this to work Europe and USA has to be ready and willing to supply weapons on a continuous basis, which might be a significant time period.
And eventually the thing that at first was feared will have to happen, that is Ukraine will have to arm itself with NATO weapons as I'm sure the Soviet reserves will soon run out as there aren't that many in Europe of them to begin with.

As long as NATO doesn't get involved directly that shouldn't be a problem, Ukraine has the right to purchase whatever weapons it desires irrespective of what Moscow thinks of that.

An article about Ukraine's top general
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/08/ukraines-iron-general-zaluzhnyy-00023901

 

[artis]

Although you won't find much links to cite about this, but I talked with a man who himself had been in the service of the Soviet army, I asked him how can it be that the Russian soldiers (many of them) are not just fighting in Ukraine but basically acting like pure brainless pigs? They are looting, raping women , trashing without reasons etc, none of which are direct military orders, nor they help their advancement in any way.

He basically said what I have read elsewhere, that in the Russian conscript force there are a lot of lads from the far east of Russia, in other words those conscripts come from rural poor places with little if any education, poor backgrounds both physically and mentally and with very little knowledge about the world.
Others who have served in the Soviet army have said the same as some of them were stationed together with folks like them.

I would speculate that Russians have better formed units that are more trained and then worse ones, the ones that are worse are probably much larger in numbers therefore they seemed to be the ones that got sent in first.

Given the average conscript soldier is about 20, he had a smart phone back in home and a internet access , given the popularity of all kinds of vloggers and stories about Chernobyl (both in English as well as Russian) I find it hard to believe that the conscripts from the more educated and civilized parts of Russia (mostly west) would have been so totally blind to what Chernobyl is or the dangers of it. Chernobyl is one of the most recognizable places of the planet.Seems like even during the USSR times there was more humanity in the commanders , the conscripts that were sent to Chernobyl worst areas, like the cleaning of the reactor3 roof were given 2 minutes and then they were laid off.
It is a sad picture overall of what Russia has become. The sins of their fathers who murdered their own countrymen for a communistic future are coming back to haunt them it seems.
China once learned from the USSR about how planned economy is a dead end, I wonder whether they would learn from Russia now how senseless violence and bloodshed is a dead end...