[HN Gopher] Belarusian regime's thugs shut down Imaguru, the cou...
___________________________________________________________________
Belarusian regime's thugs shut down Imaguru, the country's key
startup hub
Author : tosh
Score : 288 points
Date : 2021-04-21 08:35 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| Jkae80_ wrote:
| There are rumours that Belarus will become part of Russia
| shortly. Putin just said that the West/United States crossed the
| line and tried to murder Lukanseko. Upheaval is coming
| https://twitter.com/ivan8848/status/1384815408495140865 So much
| about the techcrunch article
| wil421 wrote:
| Account created 3 hours ago and only commented on this article
| posting pro-Russian comments or just plain propaganda.
|
| All this user did was put a _ at the end of his other Username
| so they could comment more.
| Solocomplex wrote:
| Yep, bot account.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't break the site guidelines yourself, no matter
| how bad another comment is or you feel it is.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| iyn wrote:
| I've been following the situation in Belarus since last August
| and it's really terrible. I admire how so many brave people look
| death in the eye and still fight for freedom. I have friends
| there and this allowed me to understand that there's so much
| potential in Belarus -- there are so many talented, intelligent
| people getting by in this adversarial environment. So sad to see
| how Lukashenko's kleptocracy regime wasted so many years and
| chances for a better future for millions of people.
|
| Anyway -- you can help! Most of the communication, coordination
| and crime-documenting happens on Telegram and the regime tries to
| block access to this information. You can run Telegram Proxy
| [0][1]. The installation is fairly straightforward, mostly setup
| and forget. After setup you can register your proxy with
| MTProxybot [2], so that people can learn about/use your proxy. If
| you know people there, I also recommend setting up a private
| proxy just for them (i.e. not registering with [2]) and sharing
| over private communication channel (e.g. Signal), as the thugs
| try to block proxies, so it's a cat-and-mouse game.
|
| Edit: Added info about MTProxybot.
|
| [0] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/mtproto-transports
|
| [1] https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/MTProxy
|
| [2] https://t.me/MTProxybot
| disabled wrote:
| A banned book in Belarus, called "Paranoia", by Victor
| Martinovich, captures the situation that Belarusians are in.
|
| "In the summertime, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, young
| couples rent boats. They float, seemingly aimlessly, with the
| current of the Svisloch River, until they find themselves under
| a bridge. Then they row against the current for as long as they
| can, hoping to find shelter from the sun and from prying eyes.
| The premise of Belarusian writer Victor Martinovich's Russian-
| language novel Paranoia is that this is impossible. As a police
| state such as today's Belarusian dictatorship approaches
| perfect control, someone is always watching. The young lovers
| are watching each other, whether they understand this or not.
| The only way to be safe in such a society is to abandon love,
| but true solitude courts paranoia."
|
| [1] New York Review of Books, "Paranoia" Review:
| https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/10/28/darkest-belarus/
|
| [2] Non-paywalled version:
| https://archive.is/fTOcP#selection-647.0-651.318
| vagrantJin wrote:
| This sounds like an excellent read. Will definitely get my
| hands on a copy. I don't know what it is about East European
| authors' ability to explore the human condition with exacting
| clarity.
|
| Anyway, thanks for sharing.
| disabled wrote:
| They have a good command of language in general, and
| especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic
| languages, there are often a lot of words that have the
| exact same meaning (compared to English or romance
| languages), but you have to learn individually how to use
| the right one to capture the moment best for your
| situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I
| speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, direct, and
| concise with respect to communication and expression, in
| comparison to English. The language I speak is much more
| complicated than English, grammatically. It has 7
| grammatical cases (all words), 7 tenses (all verbs), and 3
| genders (all nouns and adjectives), which change the
| conjugations of each of the words, whether they be a verb,
| noun, or adjective. English has 3 grammatical cases, 12
| tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Thanks for this detailed reply. The dots are starting to
| connect. Will definitely dig into this rabbit hole. But
| it does make me wonder whether the English translations
| are doing the work justice. Like watching a dubbed series
| misses a lot of depth because the words and their meaning
| don't map exactly from one language to another. All we
| get are _close enough_ translations.
| bumblingmumbler wrote:
| There's morphological complexity and then there's
| semantic one. I grew up speaking one of Turkic and one of
| Slavic languages. Morphology-wise, both of those are
| massively more complicated as compared to English. But
| English is way more analytically powerful/flexible. It
| allows for constructions and frame of mind that are not
| quite possible in non-analytic languages. For even more
| dramatic example, consider math. The latter has barely
| any morphology to speak of. But its expressive
| flexibility is legendary if not unbeatable. Math famously
| allows for generalizations that simply do not exist in
| nature, just because reason/analysis allows for it.
|
| It's also a matter of culture. For example, writing
| overly long sentences in passive voice in Russian is
| encouraged if not considered a mark of sophisticated
| writing whereas in English it's a massive faux-pas.
| Reading English I get the sense that meaning takes
| precedence over syntactic complexity. I can see why
| English might come off as, uhh, simple if one is used to
| bloated prose and reading between the lines. In math
| every word and sentence matters. I sense English strives
| for that as well.
|
| Besides, English handles morphological complexity by way
| of syntax and massive semantic overloading of words.
|
| Aside from logically vivid constructions and phrases, as
| a nonnonative speaker of English, I really like
| secondary/n-ary meaning to simple/common/"little" words
| that we are typically not taught as ESL (or
| EnglishAsNthLanguage). For example, I was delighted to
| discover "we made it" = "we are successful", "we made
| here on time" = "we got here on time", "we are making
| good time" = "we are traveling faster than expected" etc.
| I also love English constructions like "it's pretty
| ugly", "it's little too much" etc :) Basically, anything
| in English that doesn't have 1-1 equivalent in
| Slavic/Turkic languages immediately perks up my
| ears/eyes. Thankfully, there's a ton of that in English.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I don't know what it is about East European authors'
| ability to explore the human condition with exacting
| clarity.
|
| Most likely that they have lives that have a lot of stuff
| happening in them besides consumption and education.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Yeah. But there's just this ability to peer into and
| through people with such wonderful detail. What joy!
| Jkae80 wrote:
| Yeah? Check out the involvement of NGO directly financed by the
| West. What ever happened in Ukraine's coup orchestrated by the
| West is not going to happen in Belarus. And that is a hard pill
| to swallow for you people.
| yurielt wrote:
| lol who is you people what I ma baffled at your statement I
| know the West has insiduous ties with what is happening in
| there but how is it bad to register crimes yeah the west can
| be degenerate and infuence things but Lukashenko seems to be
| corrupt so how is people being able to talk in an app
| something you criticize like this? Get a grip
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Lets imagine the coup is orchestrated by the West.
|
| The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is
| living in Belarus going to get worse without him?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Probably. Have you ever read about the West's involvement
| with regime change?
|
| Once, just once, can we stop and realize that being world
| policeman isn't always a good move?
| koonsolo wrote:
| Europe isn't the world policeman. Most neighboring
| countries want to join EU for good reason.
|
| In Ukraines case, do you really think they don't want to
| become more like any EU country? I know plenty of people
| from Lviv. That 'coup' was not staged by 'the west', but
| was a force within their own population that want a
| better standard of life.
|
| So please don't compare US involvement in any Middle east
| country to the EU and their neighboring countries.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Just because a country wants to join the EU doesn't mean
| the EU should send weapons and foment a civil war there.
| It is scary and absurd that this needs to be said, yet
| here we are. Arguing for starting a civil war because of
| "freedom." Where have we heard this before?
|
| Lviv/Western Ukraine is also very anti-Russia and has
| been for a long time (pre-WW2). Ukraine is a very divided
| country and there is more than one opinion on what to do.
| If each region voted independently, you'd probably see
| Ukraine split into two states, one aligning with the EU
| and the other with Russia.
| oldnews193 wrote:
| > Lviv/Western Ukraine is also very anti-Russia and has
| been for a long time (pre-WW2). Ukraine is a very divided
| country and there is more than one opinion on what to do.
| If each region voted independently, you'd probably see
| Ukraine split into two states, one aligning with the EU
| and the other with Russia.
|
| For what it's worth, the Party of Regions, which used to
| be in power until 2014 and which got voted into power by
| South and East of Ukraine, won the 2012 elections with a
| program featuring signing the Association Agreement with
| the EU, visa waiver with the EU and joining the EU
| market.
|
| Anyhow, if the question "Would you rather be in a
| political and economic alliance with the EU or with
| Russia?" might have seemed divisive to some before 2014,
| I'd think Russian aggression fixed that for good.
| koonsolo wrote:
| The election results don't support your argument: https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Ukraine#/media/Fi...
| vkou wrote:
| Think for a moment about how the United States would deal
| with a Russian or Chinese coup in Canada, or Mexico, and
| you'll get your answer.
| avodonosov wrote:
| By the west or not by the west, does not matter. Change of
| government by uprising is likely to end up in instability,
| civil war, etc.
|
| But in the end, it is the ruler to blame, that he
| undermines his legitimacy (by running elections in a way
| that large part of the population does not trust it, etc),
| thus motivating people to protest and either win with large
| chances for instability or loose and get prison terms, etc.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| It might get worst if country gets into a war situation
| like in Ukraine..
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is
| living in Belarus going to get worse without him?
|
| If one goes by the example of what happened in Afghanistan,
| Iraq or Libya, the answer is very well: yes, this could
| happen.
|
| Putsching away or otherwise deposing a regime is only _one_
| step. Without a solid aftercare plan (like the Marshall
| Plan after WW2) to empower democratic actors, the power
| vacuum can have really really bad outcomes.
| luckylion wrote:
| I have no real dog in the fight, but the exact same
| arguments were made about Iraq and Libya. They weren't
| great places to live before removing the dictators, but
| they were much, much worse afterwards.
|
| Not saying that's the same in Belarus, but that argument by
| itself doesn't hold water.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| List of countries where "the West" organized a coup against
| a "corrupt murderer dictator" to establish "democratic
| elected government":
|
| - Ukraine - Syria - Libya - Georgia - Iraq - Iran -
| Afghanistan - Yugoslavia - Venezuela - Cuba - ex-Yugoslavia
| - Chile - ...
|
| All those countries were devastated by the
| "democratization". I would like to see one example where
| that went good for the local population in general and
| where that brought progress and prosperity.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| I don't know about all these other countries, but I am
| Belarusian (though living abroad now) and it's not some
| mysterious forces that are forcing us to change
| leadership. I don't personally know anyone in my circle
| of Belarusian acquaintances who doesn't think it
| should've been over for Lukashenko decades ago, and that
| he is a corrupt, self-dealing, mini-despot.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > - Ukraine - ...
|
| > All those countries were devastated by the
| "democratization".
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by "devastated". Software
| development jobs market is flourishing and my friends
| from other industries are not doing that bad either. Are
| you watching/reading Russian news sources by any chance?
| levosmetalo wrote:
| It's a fucking war there, people are sent to war to kill
| and to get killed. GDP in Ukraine is ~3,5k$ per year.
|
| Your software developer friends are just outliers there.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > GDP in Ukraine is ~3,5k$ per year.
|
| I don't know what to make of this comment; it's certainly
| wrong by a wide margin. The entire country's GDP cannot
| be less than I take home per paycheck. I thought maybe it
| was per-capita GDP, but the 2021 IMF estimate is $13k--
| almost 4x your figure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li
| st_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
| sergeykish wrote:
| That's value of GDP (nominal) per capita, year 2019. 2021
| estimate is $3,984 [1]. Not much, yes, but that's in post
| USSR country that's fighting eighth year Russia
| agression.
|
| PPP is purchasing power parity.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_
| GDP_(no...
| vincnetas wrote:
| And i'm pretty sure that Donbas (separatist region) is
| receiving weapons not from the west. So in Ukrainian
| scenario i'm nor sure who has destabilised that region.
| By the way if you look at Ukrainian GDP over time it
| shows growth over past years.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Ukraine is a big country. When you look at the part close
| to Russia, yes, that is a warzone. When you look at
| places like Lviv... warzone??? Yeah right, you can just
| travel there buddy.
|
| Then you also get which country is doing the
| destabilization, and it sure as hell isn't the EU.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > Then you also get which country is doing the
| destabilization, and it sure as hell isn't the EU.
|
| That's a pretty simplistic view of how international
| politics and geostrategy is played.
|
| ATO expansion is undesirable to Russia and counter to
| agreements made between Russia and NATO. Russia has also
| been testing Western responses to its salami incursions
| beginning with Abkhazia and now Ukraine. The most it has
| gotten so far are sanctions (probably better than a full
| scale war at this point, but longer term this tactic may
| not succeed as Russia keeps chewing away). American
| meddling and financing of Euromaidan to topple Yanukovych
| and shake up Ukrainian politics is what opened the door
| to Russian pretexts to invade a country whose borders are
| not only an unstable Soviet construct (culturally
| speaking), but which plays an important territorial role
| in Russian security (control of Crimea allows control of
| the Sea of Azoz).
|
| You can probably add NordStream II to the mix, but that's
| more about gaining the upper hand over Central Europe in
| cooperation with Germany, hence the farce of EU unity,
| and in this case, where energy security and its
| geopolitical consequences are concerned.
|
| Thus the need for a Central European bloc that can
| withstand the grind of American/Western and Russian
| cultural and geopolitical tectonics. The Three Seas
| Initiative is ostensibly supposed to accomplish this,
| exploiting American backing, at least in the beginning.
| Belarus had historically been oriented toward this center
| of gravity until the 19th century. The Belarusian
| opposition certainly leans in the historical direction
| and the only other alternative is Russian vassalage. This
| Central European bloc incidentally would function like a
| buffer that would also serve the security interests of
| Europe in general.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > That's a pretty simplistic view of how international
| politics and geostrategy is played.
|
| I see how profound is your sophisticated understanding of
| high art of geopolitics...
|
| > counter to agreements made between Russia and NATO.
|
| Do you see Russia keeping to any agreement it had with
| NATO now?
|
| What I see is politicians of NATO member countries
| running around Putin like headless chicken, trying to
| decipher some "tough geopolitical riddle," while the
| later laughs, and keeps sending them his KGB agents.
| chupasaurus wrote:
| > longer term this tactic may not succeed as Russia keeps
| chewing away
|
| As for last decade, Russia keeps chewing away itself
| since the real income declines each and every year while
| capital runs away.
| koonsolo wrote:
| >> Then you also get which country is doing the
| destabilization, and it sure as hell isn't the EU.
|
| > That's a pretty simplistic view of how international
| politics and geostrategy is played.
|
| So EU is sending soldiers to the eastern front of Ukraine
| to fight??? It's well known among Ukrainians who is doing
| the fighting over there.
|
| Ukraine democratically decides to prefer EU over Russia,
| maybe all parties need to live with that.
| oldnews193 wrote:
| > Ukraine democratically decides to prefer EU over
| Russia, maybe all parties need to live with that.
|
| Russia has been opposing the expansion of NATO for
| decades, and Ukrainian politicians at different moments
| were aiming to join NATO (rather than signing memorandums
| not to join NATO). I suppose, we Ukrainians can be upset
| at how unfair it is that our sovereignty is not
| respected, but that won't earn us any more agency.
| Russians are the ones with the nukes, overwhelmingly
| stronger military and with opinions on the matter, so
| maybe we've got to be smarter about how we navigate
| through challenges ahead of us.
| sergeykish wrote:
| You are free to relocate to occupied territories.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > That's a pretty simplistic view of how international
| politics and geostrategy is played.
|
| It is pretty clear that Russia invaded another country,
| they are the country is doing the destabilization.
|
| Additional info may be useful to get more detail, but it
| is not changing basic facts.
|
| > ATO expansion is undesirable to Russia and counter to
| agreements made between Russia and NATO.
|
| ATO expansion? Counter to which agreements?
|
| (I guess this agreements are similar that Ukraine got
| about integrity of it territory)
| caskstrength wrote:
| > It's a fucking war there, people are sent to war to
| kill and to get killed.
|
| For me it is "here". The fact that for you it is "there"
| makes me think that you should talk more to actual people
| that are living in the countries you mentioned in
| previous post instead of lecturing them over internet
| with copy/paste of Russian propaganda "news" pieces.
|
| Besides, it might be a novel concept for you, but here we
| have an actual elections. People can always vote for some
| Russian puppet (Medvedchuk, for example) and "join"
| Russia. I guess majority thinks that "fucking war" is
| better alternative in this situation.
|
| > GDP in Ukraine is ~3,5k$ per year.
|
| Your point being? It is not like Ukraine was some rich
| local Eastern European Switzerland until sneaky CIA/Soros
| sponsored NGOs "destabilized" it.
|
| > Your software developer friends are just outliers
| there.
|
| Are you intentionally omitting my next sentence?
| andonceagain wrote:
| I envy your tenacity fighting against ill-intentioned
| HNers.
|
| I was born in one of those countries mentioned by
| @levosmetalo above and the common running joke was too
| "People in internet say revolution is sponsored by CIA,
| but I'm still waiting for my paycheck!" and that was
| coming from people that were _truly_ putting themselves
| out there.
|
| Anyway, I don't care (sadly) for having an identity on HN
| anymore, several times I created a user in good faith
| only to be downvoted to oblivion discussing these
| matters. Yes, I know, I shouldn't be commenting on those
| threads. I can't help it, I grew up in a place awfully
| destroyed by communist.
| chupasaurus wrote:
| The joke is very alive in Russia.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| > For me it is "here". The fact that for you it is
| "there"
|
| Sure, and I know some people for whom it was also "here"
| and now it's "there" because they can't live any more in
| their hometown because of war. For you guys "here" in
| Kiev Donbas is also "there".
|
| > Besides, it might be a novel concept for you, but here
| we have an actual elections. People can always vote for
| some Russian puppet (Medvedchuk, for example) and "join"
| Russia. I guess majority thinks that "fucking war" is
| better alternative in this situation.
|
| And that's why Ukraine will never be a prosperous
| country, as long as you consider a "fucking war" a better
| alternative to anything.
|
| The majority has been brainwashed by "western" propaganda
| to hate everything Russian, to the point it would rather
| have "fucking war" against their ex citizen in Donbas and
| Crimea instead of letting them choose where and how they
| want to live. Those guys in Donbas and Crimea also had
| elections and referendums, not worse than those in
| Ukraine, and they decided they don't want to live with
| someone who is denying them basic human rights based on
| the wrong ethnicity. Would you rather kill them all than
| let them go? And since you want to kill all the ethnic
| Russians why are you surprised that Russia won't let you
| do it?
|
| NATO is happy to have war against Russia or Russian
| allies to the last Ukrainian solder and civilian.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > Sure, and I know some people for whom it was also
| "here" and now it's "there" because they can't live any
| more in their hometown because of war.
|
| I also hope that Russia withdraws their military and
| financial support for terrorists who prevent your friend
| from going home. However, it seems Russia wants further
| confrontation and is now amassing significant military
| presence in that region, so we won't have much choice in
| that matter.
|
| > For you guys "here" in Kiev Donbas is also "there".
|
| Not really. For most of the people in other parts of
| Ukraine who are under constant risk of being conscripted
| the Donbas is very much "here".
|
| > And that's why Ukraine will never be a prosperous
| country, as long as you consider a "fucking war" a better
| alternative to anything.
|
| Commendable sentiment. I would also prefer a peaceful
| world for all of us.
|
| > The majority has been brainwashed by "western"
| propaganda to hate everything Russian
|
| I'm a Russian speaker with some Russian ancestry. Please
| tell me more how I "hate everything Russian".
|
| > to the point it would rather have "fucking war" against
| their ex citizen in Donbas and Crimea instead of letting
| them choose where and how they want to live.
|
| There is no Iron Curtain anymore. People who want to live
| in any other country (including Russia) are obviously
| free to do so.
|
| > Those guys in Donbas and Crimea also had elections and
| referendums, not worse than those in Ukraine
|
| They are not recognized intentionally and and were
| conducted by occupying military personnel. Overall, we
| both know that "our town votes to join another country"
| is not how it works anywhere. Just ask Chechen people how
| it went for them, if you would like to know how Russia
| deals with such issues.
|
| > they decided they don't want to live with someone who
| is denying them basic human rights based on the wrong
| ethnicity
|
| This is just old Russian propaganda trope "Bloodthirsty
| Ukrainian Nazis want to genocide Russian-speaking
| people". Overall, I never felt that my rights were denied
| to me due to language of choice or my obviously Russian
| surname.
|
| > Would you rather kill them all than let them go?
|
| Have you stopped beating your wife?
|
| > And since you want to kill all the ethnic Russians why
| are you surprised that Russia won't let you do it?
|
| So you started your message with incredibly pacifist
| statement "will never be a prosperous country, as long as
| you consider a "fucking war" a better alternative to
| anything" and end it with approving of Russian aggression
| under flimsy pretext that they are preventing some
| imagined genocide of ethnic Russians? I sense double
| standards here.
|
| > NATO is happy to have war against Russia or Russian
| allies to the last Ukrainian solder and civilian.
|
| This is factually incorrect. Obama repeatedly denied
| lethal weapon sales to Ukraine during active phase of the
| conflict [1]. The main objective for European politicians
| also seems to be some fake outrage about Russia's actions
| to put a show for their electorate while continuing
| business as usual behind closed doors [2]. If anything,
| "NATO" would happily give whole Ukrainian territory to
| Russia in order to end costly sanctions, if they could
| somehow manage to do so without war, refugees and overall
| humanitarian disaster (with obvious exception of Poland
| and Baltic states who are fully aware that they could be
| next).
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31013452 [2]
| https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-joe-biden-
| nord...
| minipci1321 wrote:
| > NATO is happy to have war against Russia or Russian
| allies to the last Ukrainian solder and civilian.
|
| I think this devalues your all other arguments. Where it
| comes from?
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| Software development market in Ukraine is flourishing
| because its completely decoupled from local economy with
| most people working in outsourcing companies. Hardly
| definition of success.
|
| Country is in the middle of frozen civil war. GDP per
| person in Ukraine is still below 2013 and is half of GDP
| per person in Belarus.
|
| Change in government need to come from within - not
| imposed by outsiders. Very few cases when
| revolution/regime change led to even ok outcome.
|
| Besides problem with living in middle income soft
| authoritarian countries is mostly middle income and not
| authoritarian part. That's the reason there is so much
| focus on corruption in protests - people just want more
| benefits/free money and assume that all money are stolen
| by corrupt government when in reality there is just not
| that much money in the country. Obviously regime change
| does not reduce corruption nor expand size of economy so
| all recent revolutions just made situation worse for
| common people.
| stablenode wrote:
| It's amazing how every time Ukraine is mentioned in a
| thread, a poster (from Mukhosransk or some such place)
| suddenly appears to tell everyone about the virtues of
| living in an authoritarian petrostate.
| andonceagain wrote:
| Well, to be fair, @caskstrength has had his account for
| 12 months already (karma: 150). Yours has only been
| created for 8 months (karma: 16).
| stablenode wrote:
| Thanks @andonceagain (created 29mins ago, karma: 2). I
| always wondered is the view of the Laptev Sea as
| depressing as they say?
| stablenode wrote:
| Hey @andonceagain (created 1 hour ago, karma: 5), you
| didn't answer to my reply
|
| 'Thanks @andonceagain (created 29mins ago, karma: 2). I
| always wondered is the view of the Laptev Sea as
| depressing as they say?'
|
| Don't be rude - I'm fascinated to know more about the
| subarctic regions of a wannabe superpower. You can reply
| from your real account: no shame in it.
| odshoifsdhfs wrote:
| Mine has 900 and this is my 3rd or 4th. I'm as western
| european as possible (literally living in the most
| western country in europe). My last 5 or so years, most
| of my social circle has been Ukranian, Belarussian and
| Russian people. My neighbour here in Portugal is
| Ukrainian and my family knows her for over 20 or so
| years.
|
| 95%+ of shit I hear about these countries is from
| US/Western europeans that know little more than what they
| learned in CoD and some Holliwood movies and making these
| ideological thoughts. They have good and bad things, good
| and bad people, but the view from '1st world countries'
| towards them is silly and it would be even funny if some
| of these countries and people weren't going through these
| difficulties
| stablenode wrote:
| @odshoifsdhfs: Well, I hate to quibble, but it's actually
| 'Belarusian' (just one 's', you see). I've lived in
| Western Europe (UK) nearly all my life and I'm afraid I
| disagree with you fundamentally: '95%' of the people in
| 'the West' are quite indifferent to the broader region of
| Eastern Europe, but never in my life have I encountered
| the kinds of chauvinistic attitudes even approaching
| those I encountered from Russians. To give you an
| example: 'govori po-chelovecheski' (in Russian -
| literally 'speak like a human being') -- can you believe
| this s**t? Also 'US/Western Europeans' aren't living in
| tinpot dictatorships with aspirations to annex
| territories from their neighbours -- a slight, but
| important difference, which to my mind excuses any
| ignorance of the region and its politics.
| odshoifsdhfs wrote:
| Sorry about the typo, mainly because in my language we do
| use the two 's' (Bielorussia) so sometimes my brain and
| typing have a mismatch.
|
| As for 'chauvinistic' things, I can agree with you there,
| as well as having very anti LGBT and racist tones in
| their speeches (I had to 'teach' a Russian friend that
| calling people niggers out loud in a cafe isn't
| acceptable here).
|
| But I can also say, a lot of Italians or Portuguese (and
| others as well) have similar thoughts, but they just know
| how to hide it enough (you have no idea how much faggot
| or nigger or the likes is used in normal conversation
| within family/friends conversations here, but just not
| spoken to third parties because they are afraid of
| judgement/consequences) while Russians tend to be more
| outspoken (mainly because it isn't seen such as taboo
| there to be anti-lbgt/black people)
|
| But two things that are my personal opinion. A lot of
| this is mainly due to their internal culture, and when
| they are exposed to others (black people or gay people)
| they understand very well that what was ingrained there
| isn't the reality. And second, they have (at least the
| ones I know), changed 180 degrees in a very short time
| about those ideas and behaviours when their 'eyes get
| opened' compared to local western europeans that still
| blame the black from Africa for everything that is wrong
| in their country (or nowadays, gypsies))
|
| I am not trying to defend russians or ukrainian people
| (which in the context of these posts they are probably on
| different sides of the debate), but that the ideas we (or
| most) have from that part of the world is quite wrong.
| Yes, you had russians that talked to you like that, and I
| know good friends that left Russia because they couldn't
| stand LBGT persecution and Putin's 'strong man' politics.
| There are always various faces to the same coin (I
| know!).
| caskstrength wrote:
| > Software development market in Ukraine is flourishing
| because its completely decoupled from local economy with
| most people working in outsourcing companies. Hardly
| definition of success.
|
| I'm not working for outsourcing company.
|
| > Country is in the middle of frozen civil war. GDP per
| person in Ukraine is still below 2013 and is half of GDP
| per person in Belarus.
|
| So why do you think people have not elected some pro-
| Russian politician? Or asked Yanukovich to come back so
| we could all go back to glorious-high-GDP-2013 times? In
| fact, it seems that significant part of population of
| Belarus (with their high GDP and all) are starting to see
| drawbacks in that arrangement instead. Really makes you
| think, huh?
|
| > Change in government need to come from within - not
| imposed by outsiders. Very few cases when
| revolution/regime change led to even ok outcome.
|
| This is very presumptuous from your side. I remember a
| lot of people going each evening after day of coding in
| cushy software company office to participate in
| revolution in 2014, risking their freedom and life. In
| fact, "People in internet say revolution is sponsored by
| CIA, but I'm still waiting for my paycheck!" was a common
| joke back at those days, so please spare me your
| condescension.
|
| >Besides problem with living in middle income soft
| authoritarian countries is mostly middle income and not
| authoritarian part. That's the reason there is so much
| focus on corruption in protests - people just want more
| benefits/free money and assume that all money are stolen
| by corrupt government when in reality there is just not
| that much money in the country. Obviously regime change
| does not reduce corruption nor expand size of economy so
| all recent revolutions just made situation worse for
| common people.
|
| Revolution of Dignity started as a reaction to Yanukovich
| backpedaling on association agreement with the European
| Union under Russian pressure. You might want to educate
| yourself on the subject before patronizing us stupid poor
| people from "soft authoritarian countries".
| batter wrote:
| "Country is in the middle of frozen civil war." This
| alone can tell a lot about storyteller. Nice try :)
| oytis wrote:
| Former Yugoslavia countries are doing pretty well
| actually. Genocides has been stopped, nations were able
| to establish their own countries, none of them returned
| to a dictatorship, all have democratically elected
| governments. Definitely better than before.
| hulitu wrote:
| And the economy was destroyed. Definitely better than
| before.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| You have things backwards. It was an economic decline
| that helped to motivate the collapse of Yugoslavia. If
| things in Yugoslavia had stayed as nice as in the 1960s
| and early 1970s -- the era of the _vikendica_ and middle-
| class holidays in Bali, -- nationalist grievances might
| not have gained ground.
| oytis wrote:
| That's a bold claim. It was a communist dictatorship
| first - not sure if there is a reasonable way to compare
| GDP of a communist country with a normal country. Then
| there was an endless civil war - that's hardly good for
| economy too.
|
| Today these are quite comparable to other Eastern
| European countries. Croatia has a larger GDP per capita
| than Romania, Montenegro is somewhere in Turkey's league,
| Serbia is pretty poor, but still much better than Belarus
| and Ukraine.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| And still a big number of people that remember Yugoslavia
| will tell you they lived better, it was less crime,
| better education, less poverty, less inequality, more
| actual freedom.
|
| Btw, the war and genocides are a result of "the west"
| messing up there. If "the west" wasn't so eager to
| destroy Yugoslavia none of the war and genocides would
| happen.
| powerapple wrote:
| The problem is that West is not helping them enough. Try
| finishing Iraq first before getting into other places.
| Building Iraq will take more time than bombing Iraq. It
| will need sending money instead of extracting oil. The
| problem is that, no, that's not what people want. You
| only want Sadam to go and don't care about anything else.
| The media, the NGO, the activists just move on to next
| target because it is always easy to pointing out a
| problem than fixing a problem.
| puszczyk wrote:
| What about Poland, the Baltic States, Czechia and
| Slovakia, Hungary? Also devastated? I'm sure we'd do much
| better with our friends in Moscow calling the shots.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Calling the Revolutions of 1989 a "Western coup" seems
| wrong. And blindly stating it's better to be a puppet of
| the West than Russia is not really backed up by history
| and ignores the turmoil of any transition period.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| Poland is currently circling the drain in toilet. The
| regime that gained power in 2015 did so with the help of
| Russia* and is covertly pro-Russian (watch their actions,
| not their words). It's no longer a democracy but an
| informational autocracy - like Venezuela, Russia,
| Ecuador, Peru, Malaysia, Hungary.
|
| * Marek Falenta imported coal from Russia and owes A LOT
| of money to Russian raw resource companies. The
| restaurants where the illegal wiretapping took place were
| set up by Russian raw resource companies.
| * "Obcym Alfabetem - Jak ludzie Kremla i PiS zagrali
| podsluchami" (Grzegorz Rzeczkowski) * "Macierewicz
| i jego tajemnice" (Tomasz Piatek) * "Rydzyk i
| Przyjaciele" (Tomasz Piatek) *
| https://oko.press/pis-wciaz-rzadzi-bo-zyjemy-w-
| informacyjnej-autokracji/ (Anna Mierzynska)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFydXPLCpL8
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yugoslavia was not destroyed by the West, it was
| destroyed by Serbian nationalism and a set of ancient
| racial and religious hatreds.
| bobthechef wrote:
| What _ancient_ racial hatreds? The Serbs, Croats, and
| Bosnians are practically the same ethnic group! The
| difference is religious!
| Koshkin wrote:
| To be fair, there's also Albanians (Kosovo). Still, not
| sure if 'racial' applies though.
| jholman wrote:
| Japan? South Korea? Just brainstorming, here.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The US propped up murderous dictators in both, more
| explicitly in South Korea but they also helped a war
| criminal entrench the LDP in Japan. Their shift to
| democracy happened much later and was not the result of a
| Western coup.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| Also Taiwan.
| rafaelm wrote:
| I can speak for Venezuela, and the corrupt murderer
| dictator party has been in power for just over 20 years.
| The country was completely ruined by the "corrupt
| murderer dictator" without any input from "the West".
| unnouinceput wrote:
| I would not call US sanctions "without input from the
| West"
|
| https://www.state.gov/venezuela-related-sanctions/
| stadium wrote:
| Pretty sure sanctions didn't start until after they
| nationalized (stole) the major foreign owned companies.
| arthur_sav wrote:
| I don't know, ask all the Arab Spring countries. In the
| history of regime changes by the West and by West i mean
| US, it has never really worked out. In fact, it always
| destabilises the countries.
|
| Not supporting the current regime, just saying history has
| proven West supported coups don't work.
| ipaddr wrote:
| History has proven west supported coups mostly work.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement
| _in...
|
| From Costa Rica to South Korea to Japan to modern Iraq to
| Egypt in 1952 to Lebanon etc..
|
| Iran didn't work out. Some of the central American
| operation didn't work out. Cuba didn't. But things are
| not static either. Things have a habit of working out
| given a longer timescale.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Libya didn't work out. And if the West had succeeded in
| Syria, the groups that would have taken control would
| have been much worse than Assad (though there's the ever
| so tiny chance that there could have been an independent
| Kurdistan, so that would have been a silver lining I
| guess?)
| ipaddr wrote:
| Look at the list I provided. There are dozens and dozens
| of successful cases and a handful of failed ones.
|
| The failed ones are recent which means the outcome has
| the potential to change in time.
|
| Would an 80% success rate over the last hundred years
| change your perspective?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Would an 80% success rate over the last hundred years
| change your perspective?"
|
| People who live in those places rightfully do not give a
| flying fuck about westerner's perspective. They care
| about being killed, maimed, displaced, robbed of the
| source of income etc. etc.
|
| I can only imagine what would happen if you stood in
| front of them and tried to explain your stats.
| worik wrote:
| I do not think the point was that the successful Western
| backed coups produced a good, better, or desirable
| result.
|
| Additionally I am not convinced that a independent
| Kurdistan would be a good idea.
|
| I know Abdullah Ocalan has come under the influence of
| Murray Bookchin, and has had some very progressive ideas
| about how the politics of the Middle East should be
| structured. But in the event of the establishment of
| Kurdistan there is no good reason to believe it would be
| any less of a dictatorship than Iran, Turkey, or Dog help
| us, Syria.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > I don't know, ask all the Arab Spring countries.
|
| > Not supporting the current regime, just saying history
| has proven West supported coups don't work.
|
| I see you omit the fact that regimes felled by Arab
| Spring were all darlings of the West, with exceptions of
| Libya, and Syria.
|
| It's true however that Western policy making in regards
| to the "our bastards'" is a tragicomedic history of
| failure, after failure.
| varispeed wrote:
| What are the legal ramifications of running such proxy? For
| instance, if a group of people coordinate a criminal activity
| and it is proven that they used the proxy to communicate? Could
| owner of such proxy become liable?
| proxysna wrote:
| None, but if cops think that you are liable you will be
| persecuted. There were instances when having a contract with
| a lawyer would be interpreted as if you were intending to
| break the law [0]. So you can imagine how little evidence
| will be required.
|
| [0] https://news.tut.by/society/700543.html
| HappyDreamer wrote:
| In a dictatorship, it doesn't matter so much if you use it in
| a legal way or not -- what matters, is instead if the
| dictator _does not like it_ (or if he likes it).
|
| If you use such a proxy in a completely legal way, but that
| the dictator thinks might make him lose his power, then he
| can make up fake charges against you and put you in prison.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| depends on many factors, e.g. which country you live in
| whether there are extradition agreements with the foreign
| country, whether you are a native of the country you live in,
| whether there are exclusions of certain acts in your country
| etc.
|
| Not "shitting where you eat" (never do something that is a
| crime in your own country) is basic opsec but the details are
| usually a lot more complex.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Anyway -- you can help!
|
| The best way to help them now is to send arms, but that if of
| course if you can get them through the border.
|
| Belarus knows that they can't trust army drafted from regular
| men, and that's why the army was sent off to seal the borders,
| while the special police monsters are let to keep doing their
| atrocities inside cities.
|
| The West is also unwittingly facilitates this by keeping
| shutting down attempts to get arms to Belarus from Balkans.
|
| It's now in the news, but Poland, a NATO member, has already
| shut a third attempt to get arms to the country, despite Warsaw
| itself being the one initiating this with Belarus opposition.
| baq wrote:
| you really think having a civil war right around the corner,
| practically on the other side of the fence, is something any
| country wants to have? not to mention having an armed
| rebellion means putin's intervention is guaranteed and then
| belarus just becomes another federal district.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > you really think having a civil war right around the
| corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is
| something any country wants to have?
|
| If you don't want a civil war on the other side of the
| fence, _go and win it._
|
| With current discord in the Belorussian armed forces,
| double digit desertion rate, broken command chain, even the
| smallest NATO armies can easily plough though them.
|
| Your bigger problem will be the militarised special police,
| paramilitaries, and secret services, which are in fact,
| bigger, and better armed, and trained than the standing
| military (this is the same situation you have across all
| Eastern Bloc btw.)
| baq wrote:
| i'm sure all Belarusans would love to have two foreign
| armies marching through their homeland, both with words
| of liberation on their standards.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| this argument is akin to somebody just having kidnapped
| my family while despite me knowing where the kidnappers
| live being told I should not gun up but "come up with a
| peaceful plan" (perhaps hit the kidnappers with a leaflet
| campaign).
| buran77 wrote:
| That's _exactly_ what a hostage rescue should be like
| until there 's no other option: negotiations, the
| peaceful plan.
|
| So you know where the kidnappers live? You grab your
| shotgun to get them "Rambo style". Best case only the
| kidnappers get injured or killed. Worst case you and your
| family get killed.
|
| It feels like too many people simply cannot go past the
| basic reaction "I find it may be a threat > shoot to
| kill". I find this a failure in education.
|
| And while it may turn out at some point that for Belarus
| there was simply no other option, it still doesn't
| justify jumping straight to it. Just a bit of common
| sense can already tell you that the most likely outcome
| is that civilians will get killed by the thousands and
| this time it will be "justified" as defending against
| acts of war. Guns escalate everything. They may escalate
| your power but they also escalate the response.
| La1n wrote:
| Except in this case it's not "your family". People here
| are arguing for foreign intervention. Not everything that
| happens in another country you don't agree with should be
| solved with violent foreign intervention...
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| that's a bad-faith argument, it should instead be:
|
| Do you really want to allow systematic killing of the
| opposition by current un-elected criminals holding on to
| power. Putin's intervention is not some kind of
| "hypothetical future danger or milestone in theoretic
| escalation" but has been fact since 1998.
|
| Europe isn't going to do anything except sending their
| thoughts and prayers and direct intervention by the US is
| unthinkable (for now). Sending support (which includes
| arms, and mercenaries) is the only way that can protect the
| civilian population.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus%E2%80%93Russia_relati
| o...
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| No, starting a civil war is exactly the wrong thing to do
| if you want to protect the civilian population.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| that's pretty hyperbolic. it's not "starting a civil war"
| it's leveling the playing field against those who are
| already brutalizing the population.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You don't protect civilians by letting a mad genocidal
| regime mow down unarmed people with machineguns.
|
| The civil war is already de-facto going. People who tell
| to do nothing make peoples' of Belarus suffer in agony
| for longer.
|
| Look at Yugoslavia. You would've been still seeing
| Milosevic's smiling face from TV if not NATO, and EU not
| only arming Bosnians, but forcing the conflict, and
| bringing it to a boiling point.
|
| Only then the crazed genocidal generals started to
| actually feel... fear. And it was it what allowed for a
| relatively bloodless ouster of Milosevic in 97.
| iyn wrote:
| I'm talking about an action that an individual can take. Is
| it enough in the grand scale of things? No. Does it make a
| positive difference in a day-to-day life for people in
| Belarus? Yes it does (e.g. knowing where the local meeting is
| happening, where the thugs are etc.). Can you do more?
| Always.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Roughly speaking, $1m is enough to feed, and arm a force of
| a 1000 with small arms only for 1 to 2 months, with men
| under arms being responsible for their own livelihood
| beyond basics.
|
| That's a very small amount of time. And without a training,
| and heavy arms, none will be a good match even against
| Belarusian standing army.
|
| The challenge is to use up money in the shortest, and most
| impactful way possible. The longer men stay in the field
| doing nothing, the more money is burned on canned food, and
| toilet paper rather than diminishing enemy fighting power.
|
| Yes, individuals can arm a significant amount of
| volunteers, and even keep inflicting the damage for a few
| weeks. A battalion of complete war rookies can do things if
| it strikes first, attacks softer targets other than
| standing military, and focus on high cost/opportunity
| operations like enemy's command chain, and political
| leadership.
|
| But in the larger scheme of things, even $1m is a pocket
| change on the scale of nation states, and completely pales
| to what a military of even smallest European states can do
| both force, and material wise.
|
| Yes, get your politicians involved, get your state
| involved. Even a third grade caucus can easily dish out 8
| digit sums in US without even blinking.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Two can play this game. Look at Podnistria or Donbas.
|
| Belarus split between a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
| 2.0 and a Totally-Not-Russian-Puppet-State, with several
| thousand young men's graves in between, isn't any better
| than Belarus today.
| baybal2 wrote:
| One side will have the definite firepower advantage,
| enough to deal with other be it puppet, not puppet or
| whatever.
|
| You choose what this side will be.
|
| Russians have nothing in their coffers they can spare for
| a puppet project when there will be a battle hardened
| army a day away from Moscow.
|
| It's the best way for NATO to put Russia on defensive. A
| solid wall of steel from Baltic to Azov to seal it shut
| from Europe.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "It's the best way for NATO to put Russia on defensive. A
| solid wall of steel from Baltic to Azov to seal it shut
| from Europe."
|
| Can you see the problem with NATO?
|
| European countries are unlikely to finance the effort,
| our armies are for the most part underinvested and their
| deployment capacity very limited.
|
| France has some capabilities, but it is also bogged down
| elsewhere (Sahara), because the Islamist threat is more
| acute for Paris than whatever Russia does.
|
| USA and UK have two decades of nation building behind
| them and whatever fighting spirit is left, is reserved
| for a possible confrontation with China. Also, both of
| them are naval powers, while Belarus is a landlocked
| country. Not to say that they are unable to fight on
| land, but it is a disadvantage for them.
|
| If you like The Lord of the Rings, we are sort-of similar
| to Gondor just prior to the war. Not enough power and
| will to hold Mordor in a siege.
|
| The good news is that Russia is fairly strained and it is
| not a full Mordor either. More like a group of orc
| chieftains from the Misty Mountains.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I very much see this very problem with NATO.
|
| It's exactly because of this NATO's best move is to
| commit to one defence line.
|
| Even if depleted, and under invested. The power of EU
| NATO members combined will be more than enough in this
| scenario to hold a line with a few choke points in
| between plains, and impassable forests.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| IDK. "Holding the line" scenarios in last 100 years
| generally ended up badly for the defenders: expensive
| _and_ ineffective. Modern wars are all about movement,
| maneuver and sudden concentration of power in a spot
| chosen by the attacker.
|
| If the recent Nagorno Karabakh war is of any use as an
| example, Russians and Russian-trained officers were
| unable to hold their positions against killer drones.
| Drones are cheap and their destruction in combat does not
| fuel anti-war sentiments at home, unlike a stream of
| coffins draped in flags.
|
| But given that Russians are not stupid, they are probably
| working on some anti-drone strategy as well.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Saying this, it's not a literal line of course, but a
| meaningful strategic objective, and rough position for
| offensive staging.
|
| Yes, yes, yes. Long lines on warfare are an invitation
| for a breakthrough by a more concentrated force, which is
| what every Russian military textbook tells.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The Anti-Drone strategy in Nagorno Karabakh would have
| been airstrikes. But the rules of engagement were such
| that this was not doable.
|
| Beyond that, actual Russia support was very limited as
| punishment for Armenia's reorientation. If this was a
| full-scale war then the skies would have been full of
| Su-35s swatting out the TB2s and killing drone operators.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The key to small drone efficiency is that they don't need
| big airfields which can be bombed.
|
| Instead the attacking force will be hard pressed finding
| hundred separate drone teams hiding in bushes, and
| forests on the frontline, while flying over enemy AA
| themselves.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There will be no enemy AA. There will be no enemy air
| force. You do not understand the dynamics of this
| conflict. Ukrainian AA is entirely inadequate and it's
| airforce is a joke to Russia.
|
| Beyond that, these drones are satellite-guided. You can't
| control them from bushes and forests. The Bayraktar TB2
| that did the vast majority of the damage in Azerbaijan
| needs to take-off from an actual airfield, too.
|
| What you might be referring to are loitering munitions.
| Their issue is that they have pretty dumb guidance, so
| all they are good at is going to predetermined GPS
| coordinate or homing on radar. The solution is to overrun
| their positions and use your airforce to shoot them down
| if they do take-off. They are very slow. It can be
| expensive to shoot them down but you only have to do so
| until you overrun their 60km or so range, and for the
| things in the danger zone you only have to use mobile
| assets that cannot be targeted via GPS.
|
| In small numbers and without actual drones to help with
| jamming these loitering munitions are also quite
| vulnerable to AAA.
|
| There are some long-range loitering munitions, like the
| IAI Harop. However they can only do radar-seeking
| missions without a base station and actually do need a
| base. Additionally munitions like the Harop have a very
| large radar cross section from anything but the frontal
| aspect and are thus very vulnerable to detection by
| modern aircraft radar.
| baybal2 wrote:
| TB2 on sale has no satellite link.
|
| TB2 Video is line of sight gigahertz link. Control, and
| telemetry UHF which can get to 100km.
|
| TB2 can launch from improvised strips with substantial
| payloads.
|
| A mobile catapult launch adapter was once advertised
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Some TB2 in Azerbaijan were operated by Turkey
| essentially, but I take your point.
|
| TB2 may be able to launch from improvised positions. But
| it cannot land and resupply there. The weak point still
| exists.
|
| The elephant in the room is also that the TB2s will get
| shot down by the Russian airforce. In Azerbaijan this did
| not happen because Turkey was willing to protect
| Azerbaijani airspace and the Armenian airforce is weak.
| In Ukraine the roles are reversed.
| koonsolo wrote:
| So you give arms to a bunch of people, they kill a bunch of
| people, and then you hope that the leader that arises from
| all this blooshed is better than Lukashenko?
|
| Good luck.
| pvarangot wrote:
| All this while still not making it easy for people that
| don't want to live in that country from actually emigrating
| to somewhere safe and with a government of their liking.
| Yeah, the old "Hunger Games" approach for freedom
| spreading.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| context matters a lot.
|
| the Belarusian security forces are not as loyal to the
| Lukashenko regime as you think. They are all part of the
| same social fabric, they have mothers, brothers sisters who
| are among the population. The oppositions successful
| unmasking of them has been a massive spanner in the
| strategy of Lukashenko oppression.
|
| What they are missing is being able to defend themselves
| from Wagner group mercenaries who have absolutely no such
| ties and couldn't care about who they kill. Sending
| mercenaries and arms with a mission to take out the
| Lukashenko regime while fighting the Russians who are
| infiltrating the security forces would be the only
| strategy.
|
| Helping in other ways (from the comfort of an arm chair) is
| possible but it means cracking down on off-shore banking
| and money laundering (much of it takes place in Europe &
| the US. Good luck.
|
| That's pretty much how this has been working throughout the
| history of the human race.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Turning Belarus into Yugoslavia is not going to improve the
| situation.
|
| > Warsaw being the one initiating this with Belarus
| opposition.
|
| ?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Turning Belarus into Yugoslavia is not going to improve
| the situation.
|
| It will.
|
| It's only because of massive amount of guns pointed at
| Belgrade, and the previous civil war, you don't have
| Slobodan Milosevic still smiling on you from TV now.
|
| Arming Bosnians did more to crack the genocidal regime than
| any NATO bombing. This is the fact.
| superfist wrote:
| First of all can you provide any credible sources that will
| back your claims regarding Poland and its attempts to smuggle
| weapons? This sound like pure lie to me. Second thing: "The
| best way to help them now is to send arms" - this sounds like
| Russian provocation. Sending weapon to Belarus will only
| justify Russian miliary opperations in this country. So
| either you don't know what are you saying or you are
| instigator.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Shake that boat, provoke Kremlin, arm the populace, make Kremlin
| bleed, and go broke.
|
| The longer the Russia will be dragged into this war, the deeper
| Putinisms' grave will be, and the less is the chance of Russia
| ever growing big enough to threaten Europe.
|
| I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war.
| dang wrote:
| > I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war.
|
| What? Even in the hellish flamewar of this thread, that stands
| out as beyond the pale. I appreciate your substantive comments
| but you can't keep breaking the site guidelines like this.
| Please stop it so we don't have to ban you again. See also
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892864.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26887036.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Yep, Have to admit. I totally lost my nerve here.
| [deleted]
| rightbyte wrote:
| > the less is the chance of Russia ever growing big enough to
| threaten Europe.
|
| > I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war.
|
| Uhm, how about wishing for peace since Russia is allready big
| enought to threaten Europe?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Uhm, how about wishing for peace since Russia is allready
| big enought to threaten Europe?
|
| Of course it is, I can do the math. And exactly because of
| that Europe should strive to bleed off Russia's reserves, and
| firepower _while it still can._
|
| If Europe lets Russia's massive armour advantage to continue,
| no amount of airpower, nukes, "smart bombs," or whatever else
| wunderwaffe will save them when 3-5 tank armies will pour
| through Fulda gap.
| wwtrv wrote:
| And what exactly would Russia gain by invading Central
| Europe? Even now they can barely afford maintaining their
| occupation of Crimea.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Nothing, but that didn't stop Putin from his past
| military misadventures.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Not while their nukes still work. We had all this discussion in
| the 1960s, and the underlying reality of that potential war has
| not changed. The "border area" has got a lot more chaotic -
| Vienna is definitely the West, and Minsk definitely not, but
| it's less clear how aligned everywhere in the middle is. But an
| actual war would obliterate both sides.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > But an actual war would obliterate both sides.
|
| No, it wouldn't. Europe 560M people, and the world's biggest
| economy as a EU bloc.
|
| Russia 139M people with only 20M of military age, of which
| 1/3 fares from Caucasus, and other less than loyal ethnic
| republics.
|
| A Russian first strike on NATO block will take down 40M-50M
| at maximum even if Russia will only target large population
| centres.
|
| The retaliation busts Moscow -- it's only economic, and
| industrial centre, and that will be it for Russia.
|
| It will however not guaranteed to win the following
| conventional war, given Russian advantage in armour _if it
| can strike first._
|
| If Russian airforce, and AA will be gone before their armour,
| the overwhelming manpower advantage of Europe will then win
| the conventional war despite Russian armour advantage.
| adventured wrote:
| > Europe 560M people, and the world's biggest economy as a
| EU bloc
|
| The US has a far larger economy than the EU, there is now
| roughly a $7 trillion gap there (IMF estimates for 2021 is
| the US economy at $22.6 trillion; the EU will be around $15
| trillion). The US economy is almost 50% larger than the EU
| economy.
|
| China in 2021 will formally surpass the EU in nominal GDP
| size. It's fair to say it already has. IMF estimates peg it
| at over $16.6 trillion for 2021 and that's probably an
| undercount given how much economic market share they've
| taken from the rest of the world during Covid (eg in
| manufacturing and exports).
|
| The US and China will continue to put economic distance
| between themselves and the EU; the EU will fall further and
| further behind. This trend has been underway for near 15
| years now. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece,
| Netherlands etc have all suffered intense net economic
| stagnation since roughly 2007-2008, and that was prior to
| Covid.
|
| Did you know that even prior to Covid, Sweden's economy was
| smaller inflation adjusted for 2019 than it was in 2008?
| The same is true of Germany and the others as well.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Digits don't lie.
|
| A lot has changed since just half a decade ago.
|
| Unfavourable demographics.
|
| What kind of world we are heading in? Just trying
| imagining it is infuriating.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| In 10 years after that war, Chinese military bases in
| Moscow, Minsk and Paris will ensure European co-prosperity
| sphere and harmonious development on the continent.
|
| Seriously - you want to risk hot war between Europe and
| Russia with millions in collateral losses because
| Lukashenko put a few dozen people in prison and single
| digit number of people died in protests? Do you also
| advocate machine gunning jaywalkers?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Seriously - you want to risk hot war between Europe and
| Russia with millions in collateral losses because
| Lukashenko
|
| You have to understand, the risk of hot war between
| Europe, and Russia has nothing to do with Lukashenko,
| Yanokovac or any of those pissants. It's completely not
| important, what's important is a power crazed mafia guy
| sitting in Kremlin fortress, and starting West every day,
| and night.
|
| You can pretty much erase anything standing in between
| Europe, and Russia on the map, and you will still have
| the same problem.
| FpUser wrote:
| It is just too bad they stopped giving Rabies shots
| preventively
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Europe would be almost wholly dependent on the US for
| defense against Russia. Just 3 or 4 years ago Germany had
| something like only ~10 fully operational fighter jets and
| literally ZERO operational submarines. The situation has
| improved slightly since then, but the military of most NATO
| members is puny. France and Britain are probably the only
| European nations that would provide any significant
| military force.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > A Russian first strike on NATO block will take down
| 40M-50M
|
| I'm glad you agree with me on the obliteration.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 40M-50M losses in the most pessimistic scenario is not an
| obliteration by any extent.
|
| USA + EU = 1B people, and the strongest economic alliance
| in the world. The only one capable of taking a hit like
| that.
|
| On other hand, it will be the enormous jolt to the entire
| Western world to open eyes on the festering mess they let
| happen on their watch.
|
| It will unite, and solidify the Western alliance like
| nothing else can, and will bring one more century of
| Western world's global domination.
| scaladev wrote:
| You will be among the first volunteers to go to the frontline,
| I presume?
| hpoe wrote:
| I wouldn't for a war with Russia, but I'd sign up in
| heartbeat to take a gun to China. The CCP needs to be put
| down, and any price is worth it.
|
| Out children and our children's children will view us the
| same way we view Chamberlin and his appeasement of Hitler if
| we don't do something about their genocide now.
| dang wrote:
| > I'd sign up in heartbeat to take a gun to China
|
| I'd send the two of you to bed without any supper for
| posting such shameful tripe to this place. Please review
| the site guidelines and stick to the rules so we don't have
| to ban you--regardless of which country you have a problem
| with, or how fond you are of grandiose rhetoric. See also
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892834.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Only those who know nothing of war could wish for it to happen.
| You're totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war until your
| dear ones will be killed by this war. Remember that Russia
| rockets are pointed all over the world and death of the human
| civilization is one button press away, so even if you're
| sitting in US, you're not safe.
|
| Putin is not eternal. He's old man. He'll die soon. He'll
| likely give up presidency earlier. If Putin is all you hate
| about Russia, you just have to wait a little bit.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Do not wait. Act. Act to not to let his system survive him.
|
| It's a better for the country to die, than to let Putinism
| survive, and recover. If the world will let Putinism to come
| back, it will come back in force, and with vengeance.
| Jkae80 wrote:
| Let's condemn Russia always always always but let's look away
| from the US trying to create vassal states in Europe to
| antagonize Russia. It's like hearing the brain-dead old George
| Bush: United States/West good, Russia bad, very bad.
|
| Let's see how many NGOs and US spies have been working to
| undermine Belarus sovereignty. Even in Syria American politicians
| accepted the fact that US supported directy terrorists who wanted
| to subvert Assad. IF Assad was a criminal but a good friend of
| the US interests, that would no problem. The US would not even
| bother. Not to mention of course, Ukraine, where right wing Nazi
| fascists are supported militarily by United states and Europe
| (all the US's vassal states speak the same language)
|
| By the way, techcrunch is a mouthpiece of the US based interests.
| They did not notice that Lukashenko did not accept any "help"
| from IMF or the WHO besides having been pressured heavily.
| Opening up your country to IMF is like giving them your keys.
| esperent wrote:
| > techcrunch is a mouthpiece of the US based interests.
|
| I haven't heard this before, where are you getting this claim
| from?
| etc-hosts wrote:
| at the very least, the funders of Imaguru is the US State
| Department
| ohashi wrote:
| From his bot master probably
| dandanua wrote:
| Nah, their neural network is trained to produce some random
| sh*t that sound blamable and vicious. Didn't you heard the
| stories about crucified boy by Ukrainian army in Donbass?
| Russian state TV translate this kind of madness 24/7 for
| years now. The war is imminent, it's just a matter of time.
| It's impossible to dissipate that hate peacefully.
|
| Also, all Russian society is living in a hateful state,
| towards many things (their own government, immigrants,
| West, etc.). This energy will be used for destruction, one
| way or another, unfortunately.
| dang wrote:
| > all Russian society is living in a hateful state
|
| Slurs like that will get you banned here, regardless of
| which country you have a problem with. No more of this on
| HN, please.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| baybal2 wrote:
| A slur it is, but I have yet to see a more profound
| understanding of state of the country.
|
| A regime that masterfully plays hate, both from country's
| own century long social self-immolation, and its own
| spin.
|
| The crux of the issue is very much that Kremlin plays,
| and direct this bottomless reservoir of insecurity, and
| anger, but even without it, the country's tragic fate
| through whole modern history will keep moving it astray.
|
| I telling people again, and again that in 1999 it were
| people in their completely free will, and sane mind who
| decided to elect a KGB official as a president.
|
| For there to not to be Putin II, Putin III, Putin IV,
| etc, this country's deep anguish must be extinguished.
| How one does it, I don't know. Maybe there will need to
| be a self-harm reduction course of nation state scale.
| etc-hosts wrote:
| >I telling people again, and again that in 1999 it were
| people in their completely free will, and sane mind who
| decided to elect a KGB official as a president.
|
| Did you know the 1st George Bush used to run the US
| Central Intelligence Agency?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Putin was elected because Yeltsin had ruined the country
| beforethen and he was the only credible alternative as it
| was clear the US would never allow the Communists or
| Socialists to take power. So the only choices left were
| Yeltsin Yeltsin 2, and Putin. People understandanly chose
| Putin as Yeltsin's policies were just done ruining
| millions of lives.
|
| It has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with the
| fact that Russia was in ruins, and that Putin was the
| only option that wasn't going to be interfered against
| again. So people voted for Putin. You probably would have
| done the same.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| well then, didn't you hear about the policeman bludgeoned
| to death with an extinctor by armed revolutionaries in
| the US?
|
| Disinformation is everywhere, always.
|
| We as a Civilisation have to be able somehow to start
| accepting that "idiots" and "deplorables" from any side
| are just like us, humans....
| Jkae80_ wrote:
| Just because you have never heard it, does not mean it does
| not exist. Look at how the article is written and you
| understand it takes sides.
| wnoise wrote:
| The form of this argument is "you can ignore the argument
| they make because they're biased, and you can tell they're
| biased by the argument they make." That's clearly not a
| valid inference.
| dandanua wrote:
| US and Russia are not the same at all. Just look what Russia
| did to North Korea and what US did to South Korea. The Russian
| power order is a cancer of the Earth.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop posting nationalistic flamewar to Hacker News.
| It's not what this site is for, regardless of which country
| you have a problem with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| This. Russian state doesn't care about its own society
| either. And people were conditioned to believe there's no
| alternative.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| South Korea shortly after US occupation was _poorer and more
| opressive than North Korea_.
|
| Let that sink in.
|
| Things changed when there was a local South Korean revolution
| against the US-installed government.
|
| Also, Russia did nothing to North Korea. That was the Soviet
| Union. The two are quite different entities.
| La1n wrote:
| >what US did to South Korea
|
| You know South Korea was a dictatorship for many after the
| Korean War ended? The first dictator so loved by the US that
| they flew him to Hawaii to live out his life when people
| revolted against the regime. The second dictator got approval
| from the US.
|
| Yes, North Korea is bad, but after having 85% of buildings
| and a larger proportional civillian death toll than Vietnam
| or WW2, I find it not strange they turned into a closed off
| dictatorship.
|
| >Russian accusations of indiscriminate attacks on civilian
| targets did not register with the Americans at all. But for
| the North Koreans, living in fear of B-29 attacks for nearly
| three years, including the possibility of atomic bombs, the
| American air war left a deep and lasting impression. The DPRK
| government never forgot the lesson of North Korea's
| vulnerability to American air attack, and for half a century
| after the Armistice continued to strengthen anti-aircraft
| defenses, build underground installations, and eventually
| develop nuclear weapons to ensure that North Korea would not
| find itself in such a position again. ... The war against the
| United States, more than any other single factor, gave North
| Koreans a collective sense of anxiety and fear of outside
| threats that would continue long after the war's end.
|
| https://apjjf.org/-Charles-K--Armstrong/3460/article.pdf
| lou1306 wrote:
| Another case in point: Cuba, pre-Castro.
| alehander42 wrote:
| I really hope people realize that indeed both USA and Russia
| mostly follow their own interests and don't see this as a
| black/white thing: you see the russian sentiment and downvote
| it, but don't see how equally biased the US one is.
|
| And sadly HN and Reddit are usually political echo chambers for
| geopolitics
| scrollaway wrote:
| I think a lot of people realize it, but at the end of the
| day, the US' own interests more often align with Europe's
| than Russian self interest does.
|
| So it's more beneficial to let the US be selfish than Russia.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| You're not going to get anywhere with the truth in this
| environment (HN or similar). They're all amoral and they can't
| comprehend what morality is... Everything is about their
| communistic utopian future. That's why SF, the most progressive
| & rich part of the USSA, has the most degeneracy &
| homelessness. US doesn't have real elections but complaining
| about places far from home allows them to yelp loudly with
| their fingers in their ears. As someone who has been to the
| places in question, the east is idyllic in comparison with the
| western cities. Actually, the main problems in the east are
| mostly left over trauma from last time they had communist rule.
| Exit USSR, enter USSA ;)
| varispeed wrote:
| I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their
| geography, or more precisely their neighbour? If they removed
| their dictator from office, then it may be very likely that
| Russia will use the situation to do a land grab or finance
| instability. If current dictator knows that, then perhaps in a
| twisted way they want to keep status quo, so at least people can
| live without fear of the civil war. This is of course
| unsustainable. So what are their options? Could Belarus withstand
| an attack from the East? I am sorry if that sounds ignorant - I
| don't have much knowledge about that country.
| wrinkl3 wrote:
| This is basically what happened in Ukraine - they overthrew a
| Russia-aligned dictator and had to deal with a Russian invasion
| within months.
| maratc wrote:
| In Belarus, there are quite a lot of high-tech companies, many of
| them very successful. At the same time, there aren't a lot of big
| private enterprises (non-government-owned nor -affiliated) in
| other areas.
|
| The reason is simple: the regime cannot appropriate intellectual
| property. If the thugs come and put a hi-tech company under
| arrest, all they can "collect" is .. desktops and monitors. The
| real value -- be that in code or in employees' heads -- cannot be
| arrested, and the company can continue what they did under a
| different cover (or from a neighboring country).
|
| The regime understands that too, so they took a somewhat laissez-
| faire attitude to hi-tech.
| anovikov wrote:
| Successful Belarusian high-tech companies are not in Belarus
| (mostly in Cyprus, some in Lithuania or Poland - founders and
| their families and some key people simply emigrated from
| Belarus once they become successful). And Belarusian legal
| entities just outsource for them. This is why they are usually
| not raided: owners don't come over to Belarus much or at all
| anymore, IP is owned offshore, and what is the benefit of
| harassing workers?
| maratc wrote:
| See EPAM with 2,500 employees in Belarus. Do you know of any
| other non-government entity with that amount of workers?
| anovikov wrote:
| EPAM is an American company. It's clients are in the US,
| it's legal entity is in the U.S., and it makes profits in
| the U.S. And founder is an American citizen.
|
| Belarusian (as well as Ukrainian etc.) EPAM are just
| outsourcing for the head office.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPAM_Systems
|
| so just 2500 out of 41K people are in Belarus (while it is
| from where it all started).
|
| it makes no sense for Lukashenka harassing EPAM. So you do
| it and they just move these 6% of heads to other country
| offices.
| maratc wrote:
| This is irrelevant to my point, which is:
|
| If you have a 2,500-strong manufacturing plant, the
| government can come and take over your plant. If you have
| a 2,500-strong bank, the government can come and take
| over your bank. If you have a 2,500-strong property-
| holding company, the government can come and take over
| your company and your properties.
|
| But if you have a 2,500-strong software development
| center, the government cannot come and take over your
| software development center. And this is why software
| development centers strive in Belarus.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| I was very worried when I was reading about FSB entering
| NginX offices in Russia. I think your statement might be
| a bit too optimistic..
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| And they got nothing out of it.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| To be honest - I don't know. I was thinking - can FSB, as
| a result, inject some back-doors to NginX? I don't audit
| every line of code of software I use, and I don't know if
| situation like this would be easily spotted...
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Nginx is mostly open-source. If anything, NSA can inject
| backdoors as well.
| worik wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| They take over your software company, and put you in
| jail.
|
| Sure they do not get your IP, but you loose it.
|
| I will hazard a guess that the software development
| centres striving in Belarus are very careful to stay
| entirely out of politics. Belarus is not a democracy.
| cbnotfromthere wrote:
| The comment you're replying to imply that the key persons
| of that company AND the legal entity are outside Belarus.
| Otherwise, as you clearly wrote, they would be at the
| mercy of whatever happens in / with Belarus.
| belatw wrote:
| Epam has far few workers left in Belarus now. This past
| summer they temporarily expatriated a significant
| percentage of the company.
|
| I manage about 40 engineers from EPAM. Before the troubles,
| 5 were in ukraine and one in Russia (but he was supposed to
| move to Minsk).
|
| Now most of my team is working from Ukraine or Russia. A
| few choose to take on-site gigs in Netherlands and were
| replaced with more Belarussians in Ukraine. One of our team
| disappeared entirely, presumed to be in prison but our TAMs
| are downright cagey if we ever asked what happened to him.
|
| EPAM is a good company, they saw the writing on the wall
| and hustles to get their people to safety.
| Nzen wrote:
| What is a TAM, in this context ? It's clear this is some
| administrative person, but not whether this is law
| enforcement or a representative.
| pianoben wrote:
| "Technical Account Manager". An official point of contact
| for a customer with a vendor, often responsible for some
| amount of tech support as well as customer-relation
| management.
| proxysna wrote:
| More like 8k+ when i worked there in 2017. Wiki page is
| outdated.
| anovikov wrote:
| I really don't understand what are these protesters trying to
| achieve. I like Belarus and spent years there. Hard to guess why
| would anyone want to shake the boat and risk the country getting
| annexed by Russia.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| that's fatalism, not realism. Change is possible still, but
| admittedly much momentum and a big chance currently seems lost.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Young people have been sold the promise that working hard and
| getting educated means they can have a nice life. Now that
| either needs to be fulfilled (cutting corruption, upsetting
| Russia etc). Or the rest of the country needs to admit it was a
| lie and watch all the young, educated, hard working people
| leave for the west.
|
| This isn't specific to Belarus, only the local details
| (democracy, Russia etc) differentiate it from say Hong Kong or
| brexit Britian really.
| liaukovv wrote:
| They want to have a say in their country's future.
| anovikov wrote:
| The choice is simple: Lukashenka or Putin. I'd pick
| Lukashenka, at least some form of quasi-independent Belarus
| is better than none at all. It is so patently obvious that no
| non-manipulated Belarus will be allowed to exist... Just
| because all country is Russian speaking - even to a bigger
| degree than Crimea and is wholly owned by the Russian
| propaganda reality tunnel.
| [deleted]
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| You do realise that a lot of people in Russia want to get
| rid of Putin too? And neither dictator will live forever,
| both are in their late 60s.
| T-A wrote:
| 35% of Russians disapprove of Putin, according to this:
|
| https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
|
| 41% of Americans disapprove of Biden, according to this:
|
| https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-
| rating/
| mariksolo wrote:
| I personally don't have a ton of trust in polls like that
| (referring to the Russian one). It is a strong claim to
| make that Putin is more popular in Russia than Biden in
| the US.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > both are in their late 60s.
|
| Joe Biden (78) just replaced Donald Trump (74). Prince
| Phillip died at the age of _99_. Putin has a long way to
| go on natural lifespan.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| That's assuming Putin is alive and it's not just the 5
| doubles we see.
| ramtatatam wrote:
| I'm reading about people wanting to get rid of Putin
| since at least 2010, the sad reality 10 years later is
| that he is still there...
| viraptor wrote:
| I don't think anyone who wants to get rid of Putin
| expected a change on the same day and gives up if that
| doesn't work. It will take time and a lot of work.
| (Unless they want an assassination)
| ramtatatam wrote:
| Nobody says that expectation is to change the dictator
| the same day, it's simple statement of fact, that it's
| much easier said than done.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Alexander, do you live in Cyprus now? I want to have
| meeting with you.
| liaukovv wrote:
| I don't believe those are the only choices.
| trhway wrote:
| Because of the history in those places, new Belarus will
| immediately try to join EU and NATO. That is an option
| which Russia will try to prevent. As history shows there
| are some windows of opportunity for the things to go
| either way. It seems that the major escalation is coming
| in Donbass - Ukraine has beefed up the forces, and in
| particular brought in the Turkish drones which (being
| very successful against Russian made tanks and air
| defenses) provided for the recent blitzkrieg in
| Azerbaijan (and the very cake-in-the-face moment for
| Russia who supported Armenia in that war), and Russia has
| massed up large force on the Donbass border - which would
| probably result in large involvement and losses for
| Russia, and that may be the window of opportunity for the
| things to quickly change. Of course it may also be a last
| stand nothing to lose moment for Russia and it will just
| force its way in Belarus.
| liaukovv wrote:
| Maybe in the face of growing russian agression nato will
| relax it's rules.
| lb1lf wrote:
| -More likely, rules will toughen up.
|
| The prime purpose of NATO is deterrence; no-one wants to
| be forced into a shooting war - hence I expect NATO to be
| very wary of accepting a member which may invoke article
| 5 pretty much the moment the accession ceremony is over.
|
| The Ukraine would have a much easier time getting into
| NATO if relations with Russia were cordial; however, as
| the mere act of exercising their sovereignty to join an
| alliance of their choosing is sufficient to prevent
| cordial relations with Russia...
|
| The problem, obviously, being that Russia is not content
| to be secure within its borders, but also desires to have
| a say in the affairs of neighbouring countries (Which,
| incidentally, makes these countries feel much less
| secure, hence making them more eager to join alliances to
| improve their lot, precisely the scenario Russia wishes
| to avoid.)
|
| Sigh.
| maratc wrote:
| > The Ukraine would have a much easier time getting into
| NATO if relations with Russia were cordial
|
| If relations with Russia were cordial, the Ukraine would
| have no need to get into NATO to begin with. In that
| ideal world, things would look different; we don't live
| in that world, sadly.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The prime purpose of NATO is deterrence
|
| There is no point of deterrence when if Ukraine is gone,
| and you have Russian tanks in Vienna in one week, Munich
| the other, and the rest of Europe in a month.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| No, you will not. Russia cannot invade Vienna or Munich.
| Germany, France and Italy are each powerful enough to
| stall the Russian offensive. Russia will not even attempt
| it.
|
| Ukraine in comparison has a miserably weak military that
| is strongly outdated compared to Russia.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You think so?
|
| How much tanks does Germany have, and how much does
| Russia?
|
| I will do Googling for you.
|
| 354 vs 12000
|
| Russia's tank force biggest problem? Having more tanks
| than pilots.
|
| Half of this tank fleet is in long term storage for this
| reason, and what's left half is in rather bad semi-
| written-off condition.
|
| If we let Russians to regain their breathe, it would not
| take them long to restore them, and regain this enormous
| military asset.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You are incorrect.
|
| Russia only has 3000 tanks in service. The rest are
| mothballed. That's not half, that's 75+%.
|
| Even looking in total, the vast majority of these "12
| 000" tanks are in fact T-72s, 9000 of them. We already
| know how T-72s fare against modern tanks.
|
| For sure, 3000 decent MBTs is a formidable force. But
| 3000 vs 1000 is not going to let Russia steamroll when
| their air force is set-up for defence and not offense.
| Even an advantage of 3:1 is not going to do you much good
| when your opponent has absolute air supremacy.
|
| A Russian offensive into Western Europe will _definitely_
| get stalled, there is no question about it.
| splistud wrote:
| You have no concept of what it takes to project power
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The important thing about drone warfare campaigns is that
| they are only successful if the enemy is unwilling to
| challenge your air supremacy over your own territory.
|
| This is the case in Ukraine right now and in the Nagorno-
| Karabakh conflict. Russia is unwilling, right now, to
| challenge all of Ukrainian airspace, and Armenia/Russia
| was unwilling to challenge Azerbaijani airspace.
|
| The moment this change is when the drone strategy is no
| longer effective. Drones only work when you have air
| supremacy over at least a staging area. When you do not,
| then there is not much to do.
|
| Also, Russia has it's own drones, which they are not
| using because they are in the defensive position right
| now.
|
| If there is a prompt for a Russian advancement or if the
| line becomes untenable, the drone-based strategies will
| collapse and the conflict will turn unless Ukraine can
| muster up something else. Simply put, Ukraine has no hope
| at all of contesting air supremacy with Russia. It's air
| force is incomparably worse, and drones have no anti-air
| capacity.
|
| But we are not there. Russia is nowhere near attempting a
| full-scale invasion and hasn't, they limited themselves
| to taking the Donbass and Crimea and defending it
| strictly, more or less.
|
| As for Russia in Armenia, there was not really any cake-
| on-the-face. Russia's policy was to stand-by unless
| Azerbaijan was threatening Armenia proper. Maybe Armenia
| could have negotiated another arrangement had their
| orientation been different, but as it stood Russia was
| unwilling to do much at all in the NK conflict.
|
| As it stands the balance of power is still overwhelmingly
| in the favor of Russia and it is not close.
| adventured wrote:
| It's strange that any of this is up for discussion. If
| Russia wants Ukraine, they're going to take it. Ukraine
| has no ability to fight with Russia. NATO isn't going to
| do anything directly (they'll push some weapons into
| Ukraine, that's it).
|
| What's going to happen is that Russia will slice Ukraine
| at the Dnieper River and also take all of Ukraine's Black
| Sea territory. That will include taking Odsesa and
| Kharkiv. By taking the territory south of Odesa, they'll
| get a large border with Moldova, and then they'll annex
| Moldova at some point or otherwise entirely control it as
| a puppet.
|
| There is no scenario where this doesn't happen. When
| Putin took Crimea, taking the rest of Ukraine's coastal
| waters was an obvious and inevitable step. The only thing
| left is timing, whenever Putin decides an ideal time to
| do it is.
|
| There's nothing the West can do to Russia at this point
| to stop any of this and Putin knows that. No nation in
| the West is going to war with Russia over these lands.
| trhway wrote:
| You like many is missing Turkey in your picture. There is
| a lot of points to discuss. I'll just point that the
| Azerbaijan airspace in the war zone was patrolled by
| Turkish F-16s, so Armenia couldn't really fly anything
| there to attack the drones. Given Turkish interest in the
| Black Sea area happenings, their support for Georgia
| leading to 2008, direct support for Azerbaijan in 2020,
| kicking Russian butt in Syria and Libya in 2019/2020 (by
| using the same drones) and the Ukraine's course toward
| NATO and the Ukraine's open increasing military
| cooperation with Turkey who is the most willing and
| enthusiastic NATO member to kick Russian butt on Black
| Sea ... - basically i see an Azerbaijan style scenario
| coming to Donbass, only much more larger-scale and bloody
| given the amount of Russian forces there.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Turkey is not going to fight the Russian airforce in the
| Donbass which is bolstered by the most advanced IADS and
| modern jets with F-16s. It would be a horribly bad idea.
|
| Turkey never fought Russia in Syria. They fought Assad's
| government with some help from Russian irregulars, even
| then they got stalled and recently had losses. Russia was
| however unwilling to escalate and there were no air
| battles, for example.
| trhway wrote:
| >most advanced IADS
|
| that is the key point. Turkey mastered how to use drones
| to kill Pantsir-S1 in Syria, and immediately applied that
| in Libya and Azerbaijan with great success. Pantsir-S1 -
| the first were brought to Donbass in August 2014 with the
| tank battalions which hit near Ilovaysk - is what caused
| Ukraine to stop using air force in Donbass. With
| Pantsir-S1 advantage removed, the tank-based Russian
| forces there would become much easy to deal with for
| Ukrainian air force and especially for the high-precision
| munition what is used from the Turkish drones.
|
| >modern jets
|
| Russia is really far from sending airforce there, while
| Ukraine doesn't have much barriers for allowing the F-16
| to fight there - as result the F-16s will appear there
| earlier thus putting Russia in the position of the one
| escalating conflict if Russia decides to bring the
| airforce. And if Russia does decide to send the planes in
| the outcome is far from obvious- while F-16 is older and
| worse in direct dogfight than the modern Russian planes
| it isn't that important as for the last 40 years
| USSR/Russian planes were mostly shot down from stand-off
| distance where NATO weaponry and situation awareness is
| better.
| fakedang wrote:
| EU and NATO will not let Belarus in because of a long
| standing agreement.
| thecopy wrote:
| Fair elections.
| anovikov wrote:
| This is a pipe dream. If someone who isn't a Putin handpicked
| puppet gets elected, country will be taken over. Face
| reality: even the Belarusian KGB people are trained in Moscow
| (they don't have an academy of their own, just kept things
| the way they were in Soviet times). It's just a facade of
| independence. Whatever small bits of real independence exist,
| are only there of Lukashenka's personal ambitions to "own"
| the country - with him gone, nothing at all (and not even
| opinion of majority of people who are Russian at heard and
| see their independence as a historical fluke) will hold Putin
| from formally annexing the country.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| It is a pipe dream until it isn't. And it isn't up to you
| to decide when it stops being a pipe dream.
|
| Do you realize that if everyone reasoned like you, then
| there would be no elections anywhere but instead every
| country would still be monarchies?
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Belarusian KGB has an academy on its own, and it existed
| since after WWII: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%B
| D%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8...
|
| KGB office in Minsk was always quite big and powerful in
| Soviet times.
|
| Fun fact 1: head of FSB Patrushev studied in that academy.
|
| Fun fact 2: Lee Harvey Oswald lived in Minsk under KGB
| control for a few years.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > If someone who isn't a Putin handpicked puppet gets
| elected, country will be taken over
|
| If they get killed, then no. The dead don't win elections,
| even rigged ones.
| liaukovv wrote:
| Cynicism and learned helplessness is the environment in
| which dictators thrive. You have to fight it.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| To make a point from a different perspective: some
| environments / countries / regions are so FUBARed by
| decades of bad governance that emigration is a much, much
| easier way out than trying to change the system from
| within and possibly risking prison, beating to death,
| serious consequences for your family etc. Cynicism and
| learned helplessness are just a description of what
| people actually live in there.
|
| Of course, then you have zombie regimes holding to power
| forever, because people who would challenge them most
| effectively are outside the country. Iran, Russia etc.
|
| Navalny returned to Russia precisely because he did not
| want to be seen as yet another emigree who utters advice
| from abroad. He will pay with his life for that courage
| and other people will think twice before becoming the
| next anti-regime icons.
|
| Authoritarian states are very good at intimidating
| _people_. What they cannot usually control is the
| _economy_ , that is a major weakness in their armor. That
| is one of the reason why China concentrates so much on
| economic development.
| lampe3 wrote:
| Thats russian/lukaschenko propaganda...
| dang wrote:
| All: when you take a thread like this further into political
| flamewar, here is what we end up with: " _all $country1 society
| is living in a hateful state_ ", " _I am totally for dragging
| $country2 into a bloody war_ ", and " _I 'd sign up in heartbeat
| to take a gun to $country3_".
|
| Is that the kind of community you want to be part of? If so,
| please find a different one. If no, please don't take HN threads
| further into political or nationalistic flamewar. It's shameful.
| It would count as violence too, if internet forums weren't such
| teapots.
|
| No more of this, please--where by "this" I mean _any_ vector
| pointing to that hellish reductio, not just the ones that
| actually get there. What to do instead: have thoughtful, curious
| conversation. If you can 't have thoughtful, curious
| conversation, please don't post until you can.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| corporateshil1 wrote:
| Warmonger say jump, HNs been in the air.
| Solocomplex wrote:
| Your grammar is strange...
| avodonosov wrote:
| Now I know what was our key startup hub.
|
| So far no-one is arrested, they simply denied to lease the office
| space. Hopefully it will stop at that.
|
| Probably other IT people who joined the "Coordination Council"
| will face consequences too.
| avodonosov wrote:
| > whose husband died in jail after standing at elections in
| opposition to the Lukashenko regime.
|
| What?
|
| He was in prison in 2004-2006, but died in 2014.
| [deleted]
| etc-hosts wrote:
| Imaguru was started by United States Agency for International
| Development.
|
| The Minsk site has some corporate tenants.
|
| Opposition groups held some meetings in the space.
|
| I'm sure this is why Belarus gov shut it down.
| gritzko wrote:
| See it this way. Those corrupt "regimes" are simply making the
| money. Similarly, toppling those regimes is a highly profitable
| activity. There is an often cited claim: when Yanukovich was
| toppled in Ukraine, >$30bn disappeared overnight. The new
| "Western aligned" government did not even produce a coherent
| version of those events in 7 years. The most credible thing they
| say: he moved it out to Russia, in cash, on trucks. Probably,
| they are satisfied with the outcome? And that is just one episode
| of the ongoing saga. Always keep this perspective in mind. (To me
| personally, it really helps to ignore clownish geopolitical
| speculations.)
| jakozaur wrote:
| I guess a lot of software engineers will continue to move aboard.
| Next door Poland got generous visa schema and hungry for tech
| talent with low cost of living. Salaries are getting close to
| Western countries.
|
| 1. If you are from Belarus you can get "humanitarian visa" for 10
| euro, that gives you one year of work permit with no strings
| attached and no job offer priori.
|
| 2. Still getting regular work visa is very easy for software.
|
| 3. Having any grandparent with Polish origin grants you
| equivalent of green card. Given history this is quite common and
| not so expensive to proof with right lawyer.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| It's already happening, our Polish team is half Russians,
| Ukrainians living in Poland.
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