[HN Gopher] Ukraine Conflict Live Map
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Ukraine Conflict Live Map
Author : journey_16162
Score : 366 points
Date : 2022-02-22 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (liveuamap.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (liveuamap.com)
| vmception wrote:
| I finally read up on these regions, and know that I'm not done
| given that all sources are questionable and no consensus has been
| reached.
|
| But I do understand that Donetsk and Luhansk both have petitioned
| for more autonomy in an amended Ukranian constitution (that would
| give all administrative-districts more autonomy). This has failed
| but apparently Ukraine _is_ in the process of becoming more
| decentralized with their own constitutional amendments, pursuing
| a concept of Federalism /Confederacy similar to Switzerland,
| which Donetsk and Luhansk would benefit from but that idea of
| satisfying those districts has long passed, now that they handle
| their own affairs and also receive Russian passports now.
|
| So because the desired constitution has failed, when that chance
| for diplomacy was available, and they already receive Russian
| passports, what exactly is the goal here?
|
| Are they supposed to be on the map as their own countries? Are
| there two new countries on the map? Is there an accession to
| Russia?
|
| I get Putin's words look more like a piecemeal approach of
| chopping territory back from Ukraine, until it and all former
| soviet states are simply Russian states. But I think most of that
| is just grandstanding to sound cool to his own people. I _also_
| think any opportunity of affinity towards Russia will be seized
| upon, especially when there is a direct border.
|
| I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-
| speaking people and actions against dissidents, given the area is
| reported as being lawless for some time now. And focusing on the
| geopolitical element.
|
| So with that in mind, what does recognition as independent even
| mean? They get Russian passports and citizenship and freedom of
| movement and work in Russia already. Are they simply saying that
| civil and criminal justice can't be appealed to either Ukraine or
| Russian higher courts? Going to go with the autonomous region
| concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia?
|
| I can't get an answer from my Ukrainian friends either, "its just
| hybrid war, American news making it bigger than it is, Biden
| making misinformation". I watched Putin's speech, but okay, maybe
| my translation was wrong, seems like denial to say Biden is just
| making a big deal though, but I guess I too wouldn't care about a
| border region full of people that aren't interested in my
| country's values. This last point seems to be what another
| comment from someone transplanted to Ukraine is saying.
| iskander wrote:
| Every country has regions with distinct cultural and linguistic
| identities. It often takes an outside power to enable them to
| split away.
|
| Like with Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, &c the central actor
| is Russia, not the regions themselves.
| adolph wrote:
| A counterpoint might be:
|
| _The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia (Czech: Rozdeleni
| Ceskoslovenska, Slovak: Rozdelenie Cesko-Slovenska) took
| effect on January 1, 1993, and was the self-determined split
| of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the
| independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
| Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak
| Socialist Republic, which had been created in 1969 as the
| constituent states of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia
|
| Edit:
|
| Also Catalonia:
|
| _The Catalan independence movement (Catalan: independentisme
| catala;[a] Spanish: independentismo catalan) is a social and
| political movement (with roots in Catalan nationalism) which
| seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain, along with in
| the movement supporting the independence of Northern
| Catalonia from France, and Alghero from Italy (among other
| Catalan-speaking areas, referred to as the Catalan
| Countries)._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement
|
| Also Euskara:
|
| _The Basque conflict, also known as the Spain-ETA conflict,
| was an armed and political conflict from 1959 to 2011 between
| Spain and the Basque National Liberation Movement, a group of
| social and political Basque organizations which sought
| independence from Spain and France._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_conflict
| iskander wrote:
| There are a few counter-examples and Czechoslovakia is
| definitely one of them.
|
| The Catalan and Basque independence movements, however,
| have been successfully contained by Spain. They lacked
| external support and could not compete with the strength of
| state suppression. If a neighbor ever chooses to get
| involved we might see independent Basque and Catalan
| countries.
| glogla wrote:
| The GP is just Russian propaganda account. Just downvote,
| flag, move on - no need to answer. Some sources even say
| they get more money if you reply.
| iskander wrote:
| ?
| int_19h wrote:
| Putin literally wrote an essay on how he sees Ukraine:
|
| http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
|
| It's agitprop, of course. But it's agitprop for both external
| and internal consumption, and the latter parts are very
| telling.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| That's a quite good read. I'd like an annotated version with
| fact checking and commentary.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > Are there two new countries on the map?
|
| It depends who's map you're looking at.
|
| > I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-
| speaking people
|
| Bear in mind that it's not as simple as discriminating between
| those who speak Ukrainian and those who speak Russian. A
| significant proportion of the Ukrainian population speak
| Russian primarily, but otherwise have no political affinity for
| Russia.
|
| > Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future
| referendum of accession into Russia?
|
| This is most likely it, though it could further escalate into
| an even more egregious invasion, which would trigger a military
| response from Ukraine, which would then give Russia the _casus
| belli_ they are looking for.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > A significant proportion of the Ukrainian population speak
| Russian primarily, but otherwise have no political affinity
| for Russia.
|
| The best counterpoint for most westerners to understand is
| this: most Irish people speak English as their primary, if
| not only, language. Yet English-speaking Irishmen were (and
| still are) _vehemently_ against being part of the UK.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| thank you for including examples of people - on both sides
| of that conflict - who will not stop fighting their
| neighbors, no matter what the century. We used to say long
| ago, "what is so funny about peace, love and
| understanding?"
| p1esk wrote:
| Not the same. My understanding is Ireland has always been
| culturally separate from England, and as you said, wanted
| to be politically separate for many centuries. Ukraine is a
| very young independent state, with its borders changing
| significantly throughout the last 100 years, but for the
| most part it was happy to be part of Russia/USSR until the
| USSR collapse.
|
| I'd even say Ukraine is probably more like California, (or
| Texas) in relation to US, rather than Ireland in relation
| to GB. And just like I wouldn't mind if California
| separated from US, I don't mind Ukraine being separate from
| Russia, but the cultural ties are probably similar to the
| ties between CA and the rest of US.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The Ireland/England example was meant to be an example of
| how speaking the same language is not indicative of
| having the same culture.
|
| Culture is really hard to pin down, and there are
| examples of distinct national identities that are really
| hard to differentiate in ethnographic terms--the US and
| Canada are the example that comes readily to mind here.
|
| As for the "Ukrainians happily being part of Russia/USSR"
| bit, I think the sibling comment does it more justice
| than I can.
| frenchy wrote:
| > but for the most part it was happy to be part of
| Russia/USSR until the USSR collapse.
|
| All of the Ukrainian imigrants in North America would
| dispute that. See also, Holodomor.
| p1esk wrote:
| My father is a Ukrainian immigrant in North America. He
| does not share your opinion. So you probably shouldn't
| speak for all of them.
|
| As for Holodomor, it was caused by a bloody dictator who
| killed a lot more Russians than Ukrainians during the
| same period, so I'm not sure it proves anything about
| Russian/Ukrainian relationship. To him it would not make
| any difference if Ukraine was not part of Soviet Union
| (see how he treated Poland).
| int_19h wrote:
| Ukraine may be a young _state_ , but the ethnic identity
| is considerably older. And yes, of course there are
| significant cultural ties due to shared origin - so what?
| Serbs and Croats are even closer, which did not preclude
| them from trying to ethnically cleanse each other in
| Bosnia.
|
| > it was happy to be part of Russia/USSR
|
| It was so happy in Imperial Russia that the authorities
| saw it fit to severely censor publications in Ukrainian:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Ukaz
|
| It can also be instructive to look at this list and see
| how many of those were against Russia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossack_uprisings
|
| As for the USSR, well, there was that whole Holodomor
| thing.
| p1esk wrote:
| Most large nations have these kind of issues from time to
| time. US had the civil war. Still, I wouldn't say that
| historically Ukraine wanted to be completely separate
| from Russia in the same way as Ireland has (from UK).
|
| Nationalists are usually the loudest minority, while the
| bulk of population does not really care.
| int_19h wrote:
| The only time I can think of when Ukraine as a polity
| expressed the desire to be aligned with Russia was the
| Pereyaslav Rada during the Hetmanate. And that one was
| really a choice between Russia and Poland, so the only
| question they answered is whether Ukraine is culturally
| closer to one or the other (no surprise there, given
| their religion). It did not preclude the subsequent
| hetmans from seeking foreign aid against Russia in
| further rebellions.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > I watched Putin's speech
|
| I've seen it as well. My guess is that Covid made a huge dent
| (Low gas prices and economic problems). Putin has to direct
| this anger somewhere.
|
| This is the swan song of the Russian state. People living in
| the Soviet sphere see how other countries are developing.
| Ukraine had a higher GDP per capita than Poland - now it's 4x
| lower. It's true for every single place from Kaliningrad,
| Caucasus to Vladivostok. They are worse off than their
| neighbours for purely political reasons.
|
| Only thing that holds everything together is the authoritarian
| regime with strong military and natural resources. The problem
| is the world will become less dependent on fossil fuels and
| mining in Siberia is more expensive than pretty much
| everywhere. Russia won't be able to pay for the army.
|
| This is an existential threat to the Russian state. My
| prediction is that around 2030 there will a civil war, 2nd
| Chechnya.
| ohwellish wrote:
| it's not about covid or money - its about Ukraine becoming
| stronger, more independent than ever from russian influence
| as old corrupt politicians are getting off their political
| power so he no longer have a leverage over Ukrainian
| government the way he used to have
|
| its about the choice Ukranian ppl made in 2014 and strong
| independent Ukraine is a direct threat to russian kleptocracy
| as russain ppl might have ideas they could make this push too
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| Energy prices are near all time highs, Russia's finances
| should be great.
| ed_balls wrote:
| but not in 10 years
| dandanua wrote:
| > I do understand that Donetsk and Luhansk both have petitioned
| for more autonomy
|
| Crimea was an autonomy. The outcome you know.
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| We made a map where you can add Tweets by tweeting its URL. It's
| far from done and has a lot of bugs, but it's still a nice proof
| of concept.
|
| https://decarbnow.space/
| ed_balls wrote:
| Hn hug of death. Does anyone have a mirror?
| dainiusse wrote:
| Very good map - god bless Ukraine.
| csee wrote:
| Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3
| of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see
| how this doesn't escalate into a full on war now?
| journey_16162 wrote:
| Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia
| will not invade the entire country.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Russia will probably invade the entire country,
| because...well Ukraine could still join NATO and would likely
| now have the votes (they just can't be in a state of war.)
| Also Putin made pretty clear yesterday he doesn't believe
| Ukraine can exist without it being Russian.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Invading the entire country would be very costly. Russia
| has a superior military but Ukraine's is still very large,
| and the attacker needs superior numbers to begin with (a
| general principle). And they would have to deal with a lot
| more insurgency warfare as they move into the west of the
| country.
|
| I think Russia might possibly have ambitions of conquering
| the east of the Ukraine up to Dnieper but no further. Which
| is still a large area, to be sure.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Which is still a large area, to be sure.
|
| And includes the capital of Ukraine.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| What would they want with the whole country, lol? Believe
| they would be happy if the EU adopts that economically
| ruined part any time, without threatening them further by
| pulling more and more countries .. ah anyway.. So many
| armchair politicians and strategists with so much far off
| comments here, it is getting hilarious.
|
| And yeah, a lot of pain that will now ensue likely could
| have been avoided if that NATO thing hadn't started now, or
| maybe even taken Russia in when they pleaded for it 20
| years ago? But yeah, now go on and push them more and more
| into their corner, where either one of us or them will soon
| do something really stupid.
|
| I know I will be downvoted to oblivion, and Russias move
| now is very bad, but the hypocracy and the US-pinked
| armchair geostrategic world view here is really so one
| sided, cannot believe it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Russia invaded those two regions - why not take the rest?
| journey_16162 wrote:
| We don't know that - and sadly, it's not that unlikely. But
| if they don't retreat from those regions while it's still
| an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade
| entire Ukraine. They don't have a lot to lose by retreating
| and potentially everything to win if Russia backs off.
| There's not a chance anyway they would be able to take
| those regions back.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You don't scede territory in hopes that it might make
| your adversary content. That has basically never worked
| historically. Russia _already_ has invented a pretext for
| "pacifying" Ukraine. The response must be sudden and
| overwhelming force.
|
| Put another way, when someone has broken into your house
| at night when it is obviously occupied, you do not hand
| over your wife or children in hopes your own life may be
| spared. You respond with an escalation of force.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If they don't retreat from those regions while it's
| still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to
| invade entire Ukraine.
|
| According to Ukraine, Russia invented the pretexts it has
| already cited for the "need" to intervene in those two
| regions, so from Ukraine's perspective, avoiding given
| Russia a "genuine" (given Russia's nakedly illegal
| claims) pretext has zero marginal cost, since the absence
| of a "genuine" (even given Russia's preexisting
| propaganda position) pretext has no evident impact on
| Russia's willingness to act.
|
| Given that, Ukraine has little rational reason to
| consider providing a pretext under Russia's propaganda
| framework to be a significant factor.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Their best bet is to fight back and show that war will cost
| Russia more than they thought.
| 0xmarcin wrote:
| The question is how much it will cost Ukraine? In my
| opinion the conflict is already lost, now the Ukraine
| should concentrate on minimizing the losses and avoiding
| full scale war.
| ohwellish wrote:
| that's exactly what will happened it will cost russia so
| much more than they could possibly imagine from just
| Ukraine pushing back alone
| cutemonster wrote:
| But what does Putin care what it costs Russia? As long as
| he personally is still well off
| csee wrote:
| If it bombs their economy and puts pressure on the
| oligarchs, the chances of overthrow/revolution goes up.
|
| On the other hand, if this stirs up nationalistic
| sentiment, his support will go up.
|
| I am not sure how these net off.
| shmerl wrote:
| Like all racketeers, Putin will lie through his teeth and
| will grab anything he could grab waiting for opportunity to
| grab even more. He'll never stop voluntarily. He can't
| produce, he knows only how to steal and rob.
|
| So their best chance is to push back and to look for allies
| who could help put Putin back in place that he belongs - near
| the latrine.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Is Putin even interested in making them into sovereign
| states? I don't see how it achieves any of Russia's goals. It
| hardly widens the Volgograd Gap.
|
| I think concessions from the West would be better for Russia.
| But since they aren't giving them any, Putin seemingly had to
| go in with his "peacekeeping force" or be called on his
| bluff.
|
| I think Putin might plan to invade Ukraine to the point of
| making a land bridge to Crimea. Because I don't see how
| Russia's position has been improved with this move, even if
| Ukraine backs off from Donetsk and Luhansk completely.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes
| Russia will not invade the entire country.
|
| The concessions Russia is looking for from the West are
| retreat from the NATO countries of Eastern Europe so that
| Russia can do (or, turn them into puppets with the threat
| of doing) the same thing to them that it is now doing to
| Ukraine.
|
| The first part is nakedly overt, the second part is not
| even all that subtle in their intent. They've been very
| clear that Russia is entitled to a sphere of influence
| around its borders under its effective exclusive direction.
| csee wrote:
| But how does this make logical sense. There's a number of
| European countries that are not in NATO that are now
| going to be signing up to NATO. All that Russia has
| gained is to veto Ukraine's NATO membership but it has
| lost this bigger battle.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Their best bet is probably to give <Czechoslovakia> up, in
| hopes <Germany> will not invade the entire <Europe>
|
| Their best bet is probably to <pay the Danegeld>, in hopes
| <the Dane> will not <return with further demands>.
| dundarious wrote:
| Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more
| relevant examples that go counter to your implied argument.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Abkhazia and South Ossetia would seem to be the more
| relevant examples that go counter to your implied
| argument.
|
| Yeah, if you were advising the government of Ukraine, you
| could make that argument in 2014 about why yielding in
| practice without formally giving up Crimea made sense.
|
| But, _given Crimea_ , if you were Ukraine in 2022, you'd
| have to consider the balance to have shifted back to the
| Munich/Danegeld position.
| dundarious wrote:
| Crimea is gone and it's not coming back. That much has
| been clear pretty much since day 1 of annexation. It's a
| strategic port, and there was a chance of a color
| revolution handing it to NATO. I could imagine the Kazakh
| cosmodrome driving a similar wedge, depending on how and
| if unrest grows there. Neither would imply Putin or the
| Russian leaders more broadly want something like
| "lebensraum".
|
| In fact, Russia can't sustain an Afghanistan level
| war/quagmire, which is what a broader Ukrainian invasion
| would be. Even if they had designs beyond Abkhazia/SO
| style "independence movement support", I don't think they
| could afford (militarily, not economically) to follow
| through. Maybe I'm wrong and this will be like the 2nd
| Chechen war. I think it won't. Plenty of Western powers
| are already more than happy to supply "lethal aid", i.e.,
| weapons and munitions, to Ukraine, even with neo-Nazi
| groups involved. The same could not be said for the
| Islamic fighters in Chechnya (AFAIK).
|
| And I don't think Minsk 2 was a bluff. Neither Ukraine
| nor Russia are honoring it. Ukraine needs to stop
| implementing discriminatory language and education laws,
| and seriously seek to implement some form of regional
| autonomy. Russia needs to withdraw its forces (it was
| pretending it hadn't deployed any). Neither side wishes
| to "give in" to the other. Neither side are "the good
| guys", or a "beacon of democracy", or "anti-
| imperialists", and deserving of military support.
|
| I wish that there had been more focus on the fact that
| the West could have relatively easily applied pressure to
| make a more serious attempt at implementing Minsk 2. But
| instead, everything is reduced to a battle of good and
| evil.
| nikolay wrote:
| Biden was pushing and pushing and gave no assurance to
| Putin and we're here now. I'm not sure who pulls Biden's
| strings, but it could just be his old self when we was
| Obama's vice president and actually started the
| Euromaidan. As an US taxpayer, I'm ashamed my taxes go to
| support stirring of conflicts abroad with known outcomes!
| Just like the bombing of the sovereign Syria and the
| desire to separate it into two. Suddenly, what Russia is
| doing (and we've attempted and have done successfully in
| the past ourselves) is bad! Until we act the the world's
| bully, nobody will truly respect us, and world peace
| would just be a pipe dream!
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Crimea is gone and it's not coming back
|
| True or not, that's irrelevant.
|
| What is relevant is that the action _now_ in Donetsk and
| Luhansk demonstrates that the approach of tacit
| acceptance taken in response to the occupation of Crimea
| is not (contrary to what one might assume if only looking
| at Abkhasia and South Ossetia as indicators) sufficient
| to forestall further Russian territorial aggression.
| dundarious wrote:
| I agree, Crimea is not relevant to the discussion of
| whether the most likely analog is Abkhazia/SO or
| Munich/Danegeld. That was my point in bringing it up. It
| was a conditional part of your argument, but I think it
| was an orthogonal issue.
|
| My other two points were that there are strong practical
| reasons why a full Ukrainian invasion is quite unlikely
| and why a full withdrawal was quite unlikely ("quagmire"
| and no Minsk 2 implementation, respectively).
|
| I'm not a fan of terms like "territorial aggression", not
| that it's not apt (Russia invading is clearly aggression,
| even a meaningful threat is "aggression" according to the
| UN charter), but such phrases are often used as a
| substitute for the actual motivating factors, and hence,
| used as a way to obfuscate the substantive issues. I
| still think there is a more straightforward and practical
| explanation.
|
| > And I don't think Minsk 2 was a bluff. Neither Ukraine
| nor Russia are honoring it. Ukraine needs to stop
| implementing discriminatory language and education laws,
| and seriously seek to implement some form of regional
| autonomy. Russia needs to withdraw its forces (it was
| pretending it hadn't deployed any).
|
| Putin is not consumed with abstract "territorial
| aggression", looking at a globe with flames in his eyes
| (I'm not accusing you of that, I'm just having fun, and
| making a broader point about some of the international
| relations phrases that are kindof weasel words in my
| opinion).
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Except if you've followed Ukrainian politics since, say,
| 2000, you'd also know that those regions were always very
| pro-Russian. Yanukovych came to power twice (including
| after the Orange Revolution politicians self-destructed)
| because of it.
|
| Without them voting in Ukrainian elections, the entire
| political scene in Ukraine has shifted towards the West and
| become somewhat more stable... Ukrainian politicians can't
| admit it but they don't actually want those regions back.
| int_19h wrote:
| The interesting thing about Putin's presidential decrees [1][2]
| is that they do not actually say anything about what the
| borders of DNR/LNR are. They just say, "recognize ... as a
| sovereign and independent state".
|
| I rather suspect that this is deliberate, to allow for flexible
| interpretation as needed. On one hand, it's obvious
| justification for pushing beyond the actual territory
| controlled by DNR/LNR. On the other, if they don't actually do
| that, or try and are stopped, they can always claim that that
| was the plan all along, and "mission accomplished".
|
| [1]
| http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...
|
| [2]
| http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...
| csee wrote:
| Well apparently he gave a speech today where he said he
| recognized the LDNR borders according to their constitution,
| which are the entire oblasts?
| int_19h wrote:
| Yep, that doesn't bode well at all.
| nikolay wrote:
| So, don't you think Ukraine was asking for this all the time?
| Maybe now the speculations about Zelensky being a Putin's
| puppet make more sense; he's a good actor, no doubt his past
| career, but you had to be really stupid not knowing what was
| going to happen. At the end of the day, we all expected Putin
| to recognize these republics back during the Euromaidan. I'm
| pretty sure a lot of the Russians in East Ukraine felt betrayed
| all this time. So, often you can postpone certain events, but
| they will eventually happen - like it or not. And this is no
| surprize for anyone.
| wazoox wrote:
| Putin is currently playing out the same game as he did in 2008 in
| Georgia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia aren't formerly part of
| Russia; their existence merely guarantee that Georgia cannot be
| part of NATO. That's the plan: preventing forever Ukraine from
| being part of NATO. That's been the constant demand or Russia
| since Gorbachev, Yeltsin, etc. So the pseudo-republics of Donetsk
| and Luhansk will remain forever, just for this purpose.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This is the best comment on this thread.
|
| I've actually been surprised how State Department propaganda
| ("anonymous sources within the State Department / Pentagon /
| White House") is transmitted unfiltered on the media,
| particularly after so many incidents of it being wrong (WMDs
| anyone?). It's also so sad to see how pro-Imperialist the
| suppposed Left is. Worse is how easily so many seem to accept
| this narrative.
|
| The US promised NATO wouldn't expand east in 1990 and then
| immediately reneged on it and has done so repeatedly since to
| the point where NATO is knocking on Russia's door. Russia
| absolutely does not want Ukraine in NATO. I guess that's the
| line in the sand.
|
| This draws predictable "It's Ukraine's choice" calls but when
| you provide an analogy like "How would the US feel about China
| or Russia building military and forward operating bases in
| Mexico or China along the US border?" it gets dismissed like
| "that would never happen", which of course doesn't answer the
| question.
|
| Yep, Russian troops have entered Ukraine and that's bad. But
| it's not a war... yet. And Putin isn't a madman. This is a
| high-stakes move to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the West
| really needs to reconsider our position on this because it's
| not unreasonable. More to the point, is it worth igniting a war
| over Ukraine? Really?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The US promised NATO wouldn't expand east
|
| No, it didn't, at least in any way which anyone who is
| qualified for even an entry-level position in any diplomatic
| service on Earth would mistake for a binding commitment even
| on the then-current administration, much less indefinitely
| into the future. (The most commonly cited statement on this
| is actually a reference to deployment of troops within United
| Germany in the near term post-unification, and the second
| most commonly cited _does_ refer to NATO expansion but is a
| communication of items that _could_ be on the table for
| discussion _if_ Russia was willing to come to the table on
| German unification, not a commitment; but there also some
| claims that some other private communication not reduced to a
| binding international agreement occurred.)
|
| If it had made such a promise to the USSR in a binding way,
| we could discuss, based on the specific form of the agreement
| and the subsequent diplomatic action relevant to it after the
| fall of the USSR whether it was still binding between any
| parties and which nation or nations were the USSR's
| successors in interest and what were the legal effects were
| of any potential disunity between those parties.
|
| But since it _didn 't_, the whole set of questions is moot.
|
| > and then immediately reneged on it
|
| NATO expansion to Eastern European nations beyond the former
| East Germany didn't occur until 1999, which is not
| "immediately" after an event alleged to have happened in
| 1990.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >No, it didn't, at least in any way which anyone who is
| qualified for even an entry-level position in any
| diplomatic service on Earth would mistake for a binding
| commitment even on the then-current administration, much
| less indefinitely into the future.
|
| Oh yeah? From the former Ambassador to Soviet Union
| (1987-1991), Jeff Matlock [1]:
|
| >One persistent U.S. demand is that Ukraine's territorial
| integrity be restored. Indeed, the U.S. is party to the
| Budapest Memorandum in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine's
| territorial integrity in return for Ukraine's transfer of
| Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction in accord
| with U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. _What the U.S.
| demand ignores is that, under traditional international
| law, agreements remain valid rebus sic stantibus (things
| remaining the same)._
|
| >When the Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 there was
| no plan to expand NATO to the east and Gorbachev had been
| assured in 1990 that the alliance would not expand. When in
| fact it did expand right up to Russia's borders, Russia was
| confronted with a radically different strategic situation
| than existed when the Budapest agreement was signed.
|
| What annoys me about this discussion is that people
| continue to say none of this matters because there wasn't a
| treaty signed with Soviet Union - an entity that does not
| exist anymore - and this somehow means that anything said
| in the past also doesn't matter. It certainly matters in
| the minds of people escalating things in Eastern Ukraine
| right now. So it certainly isn't "moot". How in the world
| is that question "moot" if it's the driving reason behind
| Russia's perspective in this? You can disagree with
| Russia's security perspective, and that's fine. But to just
| toss out the NATO expansion as "moot" is both historically
| inaccurate, and borders on deliberately ignorant as if
| Russia is not allowed its own security concerns in the
| first place.
|
| There's several other dimensions of this discussion that
| aren't happening at all - e.g. what NATO is even supposed
| to be doing in the 21st century 30 years after its raison
| d'etre evaporated, what continued maintenance of American
| Empire in Europe means for both Europe and the United
| States and whether that's really in everyone's best
| interest, and how the alliance actually stacks up against a
| recalcitrant China in the Pacific Theater or if it is
| really even charted to do that - because we're so obsessed
| with Russia for reasons that are probably best left
| unstated for now. Inb4 I get accused of "apologizing" for
| Russia's actions here, I'm not. What they're doing is imo a
| long-term strategic blunder that will cost lives in the
| near-term. It's also wrong that the default position in the
| West right now is "Russia's concerns aren't legitimate
| QED".
|
| [1] https://www.krasnoevents.com/uploads/1/1/6/6/116679777/
| krasn...
|
| edit: grammar
| darkarmani wrote:
| > what NATO is even supposed to be doing in the 21st
| century 30 years after its raison d'etre evaporated
|
| How can you even say this with a straight face as Russia
| invades neighboring countries? You know why Russia
| doesn't attempt this land grab with NATO countries? NATO.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > what NATO is even supposed to be doing in the 21st
| century 30 years after its raison d'etre evaporated, what
| continued maintenance of American Empire in Europe means
| for both Europe and the United States and whether that's
| really in everyone's best interest, and how the alliance
| actually stacks up against a recalcitrant China in the
| Pacific Theater or if it is really even charted to do
| that - because we're so obsessed with Russia for reasons
| that are probably best left unstated for now.
|
| NATO's raison d'etre evaporated? Pretty sure Estonia,
| Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (at a minimum) don't agree
| with that. It's the same it's always been - keep Russia
| from marching west across Europe. A bunch of countries in
| Europe still think that's important, and that it needs a
| credible military force to accomplish it. Russia's
| actions in Georgia and Ukraine do not give warm feelings
| of security to small countries on Russia's periphery.
| astine wrote:
| ">One persistent U.S. demand is that Ukraine's
| territorial integrity be restored. Indeed, the U.S. is
| party to the Budapest Memorandum in which Russia
| guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for
| Ukraine's transfer of Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia
| for destruction in accord with U.S.-Soviet arms control
| agreements. What the U.S. demand ignores is that, under
| traditional international law, agreements remain valid
| rebus sic stantibus (things remaining the same).
|
| >When the Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 there
| was no plan to expand NATO to the east and Gorbachev had
| been assured in 1990 that the alliance would not expand.
| When in fact it did expand right up to Russia's borders,
| Russia was confronted with a radically different
| strategic situation than existed when the Budapest
| agreement was signed."
|
| And this gives Russia permission to invade a sovereign
| nation? Ukraine's independence is not just a matter of
| the Budapest Memorandum, it's a matter of the wishes of
| the Ukrainian people who have wanted independence from
| Russia for centuries, something many Russians don't want
| to acknowledge.
|
| So far, NATO has not invaded Russia or violated its
| territorial sovereignty but Russia has violated the
| borders of multiple boarder states, so it's a bit rich
| for Putin to complain about NATO when he's clearly just
| trying to reincorporate border states that were conquered
| by the Tzars.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >And this gives Russia permission to invade a sovereign
| nation?
|
| Nowhere did I suggest this, and Matlock does not even
| imply it in his essay. I was pretty clear that the
| problem I have with this discussion at this point. To put
| it bluntly: we will get nowhere with diplomacy if our
| line continues to be "your concerns are fake and made up,
| so do what we tell you". That's the attitude I see in
| here, in MSM, and from politicians (mostly in the US).
| Russia needs to be punished for what they're doing, but I
| want to see an end to these conflicts. The greatest
| geopolitical blunder since the end of WWII is the utter
| failure of the West to come to terms with and reintegrate
| Russia into a joint-security sphere after the fall of
| communism and Soviet Union. It's bigger than the Iraq War
| even, since Russia actually does have nukes.
|
| >...it's a matter of the wishes of the Ukrainian people
| who have wanted independence from Russia for centuries
|
| Some of these people in Ukraine are hardcore neo-Nazis,
| and we are giving them weapons. Some a genuine I'm sure,
| and I haven't been to Ukraine, and only have a few
| friends from there. So it's hard for me to gauge exactly
| how genuine any of this is given how toxic coverage of
| anything even tangentially related to Russia is in the
| West.
| astine wrote:
| "Some of these people in Ukraine are hardcore neo-Nazis,
| and we are giving them weapons. Some a genuine I'm sure,
| and I haven't been to Ukraine, and only have a few
| friends from there. So it's hard for me to gauge exactly
| how genuine any of this is given how toxic coverage of
| anything even tangentially related to Russia is in the
| West. "
|
| Well I have been there and I can tell you that Ukrainian
| patriotism is much broader than just the far right. Some
| of the people in the US are hardcore neo-Nazis but nobody
| assumes that they drive American foreign policy.
| [deleted]
| nocturnial wrote:
| At first, I would've agreed with your position but I don't at
| this point.
|
| Russia said they wouldn't invade Ukraine because:
|
| -Russia is holding military exercises, you're being paranoid
|
| -Nobody invades a european country on a wednesday (ok, that's
| true. They did it on a tuesday)
|
| -Russia is pulling back troops.
|
| -Russia will pull back troops as soon as the military
| exercises are done. So (previous) sunday. (or not!)
|
| -Russia isn't invading Ukraine, we're just sending
| peacekeeping forces into the region that we declared
| independent of Ukraine.
|
| etc... These aren't negotiation tactics to resolve future
| NATO membership concerns. These are stall tactics to position
| their military.
|
| What Russia did strengthens the resolve of Ukraine to seek an
| alliance with NATO although they wouldn't qualify for
| membership. The more likely reason is that Russia hopes to
| undermine NATO. By taking Ukraine and putting themselves at
| the border of NATO countries, they can test if there's going
| to be a 2 tiered NATO. Countries for which the alliance is
| willing to invoke art. 5, and countries they are willing to
| abandon to avoid a world war.
| vkou wrote:
| Technically, Ukraine joining NATO would have also put
| Russia at the border of NATO countries. And it seems
| obvious to me that it would prefer a neutral buffer zone,
| instead of encirclement. Removing the first option from the
| table in 2013 forced the question of the second one.
|
| I can't see how any of this could have worked out well,
| starting from the moment that Ukraine membership in NATO
| became a serious political subject.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Technically, Ukraine joining NATO would have also put
| Russia at the border of NATO countries
|
| Technically, Ukraine's entire population being whisked
| into another dimension and its borders being impassable
| walls of force would _also_ put Russia at the border of
| NATO countries (as would, for that matter, NATO not
| expanding after 1949), because Norway (1949), Lithuania
| (2004), Latvia (2004), Estonia (2004), and Poland (1999)
| all exist (and Lithuania and Poland surround a non-
| contiguous piece of Russia, even.)
|
| And that's just counting _land_ borders, otherwise you
| have to also consider the USA (1949), Turkey (1952), and
| Bulgaria and Romania (2004).
| simplyaccont wrote:
| is there some specific memorandum of understanding or
| something with promise not to expand NATO east ?
| croes wrote:
| It's complicated
|
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-
| eastward-e...
| simplyaccont wrote:
| in other words - no
| croes wrote:
| In others words they avoided it being written down like
| the germans avoided calling the Two plus Four agreement a
| peace treaty. Political trickery.
|
| That may have worked for the germans to prevent paying
| reparations to greece, but the NATO trick lead to the
| problems we now have with russia.
|
| Remember how the US reacted to some missiles in Cuba?
| simplyaccont wrote:
| problem with russia is not nato but putin's head. if you
| had listen to his speech yesterday, nato is just a
| pretext because people need enemy to unite against. in
| reality he wants ussr back (he was complaining yesterday
| that republics were allowed to leave ussr to easily and
| ukraine is not a real country but something made up by
| lenin and stalin). he wants back the glory of soviet
| empire.
| croes wrote:
| Things don't happen in a vacuum.
|
| Putin is a result of what happened under Yeltsin, where
| some people got very rich and the rest had to suffer.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Relevant quote:
|
| > But the recollections of those involved aren't always
| consistent. Roland Dumas, who served as the French
| foreign minister in 1990, would later say that a pledge
| was made that NATO troops would not advance closer to the
| territory of the former Soviet Union. But the U.S.
| secretary of state at the time, James Baker, has denied
| that any such promise was ever made - a claim that some
| of his own diplomats, however, have contradicted. Jack
| Matlock, who was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the
| time, has said that "categorical assurances" were given
| to the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward.
|
| Even if you deny that such a promise was made (and
| broken), you should be able to understand how having a
| hostile military alliance literally on your border is
| unacceptable and the US would never accept it were the
| tables turned. That's the point.
|
| There are no good guys here. Go back to the Cuban Missile
| Crisis. There's a popular narrative of the US being
| provoked. But the truth is, the US instigated the Cuban
| Missile Crisis by deploying strategic nuclear weapons to
| Turkey (interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a
| "defensive" pact). Cuba was reciprocity. Those missiles
| in Turkey were quietly removed.
| astine wrote:
| "(interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a "defensive"
| pact)"
|
| According the grand strategy of the cold war, those
| missiles _were_ defensive. Their presence was requested
| by Turkey and when they were removed there was a
| diplomatic stink about it because the Turks argued that
| this was the US no honouring their agreement. There was
| nothing "quiet" about their removal.
|
| This isn't comparable to Ukraine however. The US isn't
| trying to put nuclear missiles in Ukraine (and there
| aren't NATO nukes in any other former SSR either.) And it
| wouldn't matter if they were, because the range of ICBMs
| has increased since 1962. Russia isn't invading Ukraine
| to prevent nuclear weapons from being deployed on its
| doorstep; it's doing so to reestablish its control over
| its former empire.
| wazoox wrote:
| Not really. However the position of Russians has been
| absolutely constant. See these excerpts from talks between
| Gorbachev and James Baker, Baker and Chevarnadze, with the
| famous "verbal assurances":
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/02/Promise...
|
| Yeltsin in this telex to Bill Clinton from 1993:
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-
| ex...
|
| Reported in the NYTimes:
| https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-
| exp...
|
| Then came a promise from Secretary of state Christopher on
| 10/22/93 that there would be no extension:
|
| https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16380-document-08-secret
| a...
|
| However Richard Holbrooke changed his discourse, and
| Yeltsin complained in 94:
|
| https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16385-document-13-offici
| a...
|
| Then again:
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NT-
| fron...
|
| However, Yeltsine nearly died in 96, and his election
| relied entirely on manipulations at a large scale from the
| CIA. Therefore, Clinton thought he was free to proceed with
| NATO extension:
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/02/Perry-p...
|
| But there was large disapproval from the Russian, like
| Gorbachev still in this Herald Tribune 1997 guest article:
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-
| ex...
|
| But in the US too, like George Kennan in the NYTimes, 1997:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-
| error.h...
|
| and many others, Michael Mandelbaum,Richard T. Davis, John
| Lewis Gaddis, even Thomas Friedman thought extending NATO
| was a serious mistake.
|
| > Privately, though, a few more perceptive officials
| acknowledged that relations with Russia had not been
| handled well. In his memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who
| served as secretary of defense in the administrations of
| both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, made some interesting
| admissions. "When I reported to the president my take on
| the Munich conference, I shared my belief that from 1993
| onward, the West, and particularly the United States, had
| badly underestimated the magnitude of the Russian
| humiliation in losing the Cold War..." Yet even that blunt
| assessment given to Bush did not fully capture Gates' views
| on the issue. "What I didn't tell the president was that I
| believed the relationship with Russia had been badly
| mismanaged after [George H.W.] Bush left office in 1993."
| Among other missteps, "U.S. agreements with the Romanian
| and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in
| those countries was a needless provocation." In an implicit
| rebuke to the younger Bush, Gates asserted that "trying to
| bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly
| overreaching." That move, he contended, was a case of
| "recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own
| vital national interests."
|
| https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-
| speec...
|
| Also, there's the treachery of the 2011 Libya operation :
|
| https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/03/libye-0...
| cowwander wrote:
| This is a very well known agreement. Search for writing on
| HW Bush's Secretary of State James Baker agreeing to
| Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not another inch"
| eastward. Much has been written about this, and it is
| considered ~first principles~ level knowledge on the topic
| of Russia/Ukraine. Putin came of political age when that
| agreement was reneged, and it is speculated that this is
| weighs heavily on his list of grievances with the US.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This is a very well known agreement.
|
| It's a very well known _non_ -agreement.
|
| > James Baker agreeing to Gorbachev that NATO would
| expand "not another inch" eastward
|
| That's...not how binding international agreements are
| formed.
| cowwander wrote:
| >That's...not how binding international agreements are
| formed.
|
| Thank you, this is exactly the point I arrived at as
| well. It's an admission that the primary tool of the US
| State Department is to make friendly, reasonable verbal
| agreements in front of the press and public, then do the
| dirty move they really wanted to do when the news cycle
| has moved past. This maintains the appearance to the US
| public that their foreign policy is always just, and
| never cynical or deceitful.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| US: says one thing and do the other one
|
| EVERYONE: claps
|
| RUSSIA: says one thing and do the other one
|
| EVERYONE: gasps
| darkarmani wrote:
| Your false equivalence is around Russia INVADING a
| country after saying it was just doing military
| exercises.
| cowwander wrote:
| > can you please show me this agreement ?
|
| It's up to you to get caught up on first principles
| before diving into discourse. It's easily searched and
| easily read about from mainstream and academic sources.
| simplyaccont wrote:
| a couple of people chit-chatting doesn't become a binding
| agreement.
| cowwander wrote:
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines.
| Please don't create accounts to do that with.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that
| you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| simplyaccont wrote:
| so far Russia is the one who is doing all the crying
| dang wrote:
| Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait
| comments.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| simplyaccont wrote:
| can you please show me this agreement ?
| throwaway_4ever wrote:
| The absolute hubris to declare this "first principles
| level knowledge on the topic of Russia/Ukraine" and
| telling people to catch up on it first and yet get it
| clearly wrong making false statements. Gorbachev is
| literally on record saying there was NOT an agreement.
| You've barely made it past complete ignorance on this
| history.
| fsckboy wrote:
| So much attention is paid to the hazy question of
| technicalities of NATO membership, I think it's important
| to note that Russia agreed to very specific terms with
| respect to Ukraine and accepting it's borders and rights.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
|
| _1. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm
| their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the
| principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security
| and Cooperation in Europe,_ to respect the independence and
| sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine
|
| _2. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm
| their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force
| against the territorial integrity or political independence
| of Ukraine, and_ that none of their weapons will ever be
| used against Ukraine except in self-defence _or otherwise
| in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations._
|
| _3. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm
| their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the
| principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security
| and Cooperation in Europe, to_ refrain from economic
| coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the
| exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its
| sovereignty _and thus to secure advantages of any kind._
| avgcorrection wrote:
| https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-
| programs/2017...
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > More to the point, is it worth igniting a war over Ukraine?
| Really?
|
| That's a very good question for Putin, try asking it and
| enjoy gulag or sudden inexplicable death/disappearance.
|
| What the fuck gives one state (Russia) right to dictate what
| sovereign countries do and don't do? I get this cold war
| mentality, it was the heyday of Russia, moving pawns,
| fighting wars, being global badass with some serious respect
| unlike now, doing whatever they wanted. That's over for 30
| years, and the only one to blame is Russians themselves, and
| their fucked up mentality. But Putin would like some 21st
| century version of the same.
|
| In same way I hated US for the invasion of Iraq based on pure
| lies, which were clearly lies to everybody I knew even when
| Bush jr was presenting them in UN (remember the US senators'
| cries about changing 'french fries' to 'freedom fries' when
| France and Germany refused to support this bullshit? Look
| where it led Iraq and surrounding countries. Not even going
| into topic of Afghanistan).
|
| I come from eastern Europe. We were invaded overnight by
| russian (and V4, but mostly russian) troops in 1968 for the
| great sin of wanting to live in freedom from communist terror
| of previous decades. Just like Hungarians a decade before.
| This ain't something to forget. Even if I wasn't alive back
| then, my parents were and its very good to listen to elders
| in such cases, they have good stories to tell, lessons to
| learn. Hard earned lessons of oppressed lives which could
| never reach their potentials.
| glogla wrote:
| Realistically, the Western Powers not giving shit and not
| doing anything effective about both all the previous
| Russian invasions and this one gives Russia the right.
|
| And make no mistake, the West is quite fine with
| sacrificing us (everything east of Germany) all rather than
| doing anything effective.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| This is also Chomsky's position from back when he was talking
| about the Crimea crisis:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq5IlDB-Ago
| elzbardico wrote:
| Exactly. That's the real reason behind all of this. Just like
| the US didn't want soviet missiles in Cuba, the Russians don't
| want American missiles in Ukraine.
| ohwellish wrote:
| real reason is in Ukraine becoming strong independent
| democratic country which is a direct threat to kleptocratic
| russian regime
|
| still far from it, but this escalation indicates Ukraine is
| one a right path
| wazoox wrote:
| avgcorrection wrote:
| The example contemporary to that Cold War incident was
| American missiles in Turkey, which is even more apropos.
| darkarmani wrote:
| What missiles were going to end up in Ukraine? In Cuba, there
| was an actual plan in progress for missiles. This is just an
| excuse to invade the Ukraine.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Putin is currently playing out the same game as he did in
| 2008 in Georgia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia aren't formerly
| part of Russia; their existence merely guarantee that Georgia
| cannot be part of NATO.
|
| They don't actually guarantee that, there is no formal bar to
| admitting a country with active disputes to NATO; and even if
| there were it would take agreement of exactly the same parties
| as are required to admit a new member to either eliminate or
| modify the formal requirement.
|
| Also, the new regions aren't necessary for that if it was a bar
| because of the occupation of Crimea since 2014.
| vkou wrote:
| > They don't actually guarantee that, there is no formal bar
| to admitting a country with active disputes to NATO
|
| There's no formal bar, but it would be politically difficult.
| (Because now you either need to ignore your newest member's
| problems, or commit to a war that you didn't even want to
| fight.)
|
| The former significantly undermines confidence in the
| organization, the latter... Ties it to actually fighting a
| war (with all the nasty ways in which it can escalate), as
| opposed to muttering about sanctions.
|
| Out of the US, France, the UK, and Germany, which of those
| four countries do you think want to fight a shooting war with
| Russia?
|
| At the moment, the answer is 'none of the above'.
| Implementing sanctions is comparatively easy, though.
| wrnr wrote:
| I wonder what Putin will do next, he might annex Donetsk a third
| time.
| mdb31 wrote:
| So, yes, political, but on the other hand a cool piece of tech?
|
| I've not seen this kind of visualization of a developing
| situation publicly available before, and a cursory glance shows
| that the data sources are at least one level beyond 'naked
| propaganda'...
|
| Bookmarked!
| m0llusk wrote:
| Live maps like this of ethnic conflicts in Kenya made a huge
| difference with the civil unrest there. This conflict is very
| different, but being able to present evidence of what is
| happening could have a great influence not just on the conflict
| itself but all that comes afterward.
| mdb31 wrote:
| Oh, this definitely seems very useful.
|
| But, the immediate reflex on HN is to downvote such tools
| into oblivion. When I 'vouched' for this submission, it was
| flagged, I assume for immediate deletion.
|
| It's quite interesting that 'free speech' advocates are so,
| eh, limited in what they actually consider to be such...
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Yeah, I think this is the first Ukraine story that has
| survived more than 30 minutes on the front page, so, well
| done!
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I think that the data part has probably helped to avoid
| the flamewars (for some reason).
| dandanua wrote:
| Notice dashed lines on the map. Those are boundaries of regions.
| Putin claimed "independence" of the whole area of 2 regions. It's
| MUCH larger than currently controlled red area. It's all the way
| up to north and also a significant area to west of the red zone.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| I'm not sure what dashed lines are those. Are they the ones
| that include Mariupol in the south of Donetsk? Thank you
| dandanua wrote:
| Yes, it is a part of Donetsk region. It's a city of around
| 0.5 mil citizens. And a very strategic location. They wanted
| to capture it in 2014, but failed.
| antocv wrote:
| Does anyone remember when Gitlab forbade employees from Russia?
| How did that go, whats the current status now that issue?
| [deleted]
| tokai wrote:
| Most of those sanctions got lifted by Trump right?
| golergka wrote:
| Wrong. On the contrary, Trump administration imposed
| additional sanctions that prevented Nord Stream 2 from being
| complete -- which Biden administration have reversed.
|
| Western media portrayed Trump as "pro-Putin", but if you look
| at the actual decisions by administrations, he was the one
| who really pushed back against Putin, compared both to Obama
| and Biden.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| No, Trump was absolutely "pro-putin", and sanctions were
| imposed in spite of his protests. The administration could
| not help but be staffed by competent Russia hawks, since
| those same folks were needed to push Trump's desired agenda
| on Iran, but with regard to "being tough on Russia", Trump
| himself often had to be dragged kicking and screaming.
|
| https://www.wichitaliberty.org/united-states-
| government/trum...
|
| EDIT:
|
| I should point out that the Trump administration's small
| and ineffective sanctions aimed at Nord Stream 2 are the
| exception that proves the rule. Nord Stream 2 brought
| together a unique set of issues that inspired Trump: hatred
| of Germany and Merkel, hatred of NATO, and his religious
| love of fossil fuels, manfiested in fear that Nord Stream 2
| would wipe out his dream of shipping natural gas to Europe
| on tanker ships.
|
| But the stubborn reality is that Nord Stream 2 was built on
| Trump's watch, and in the end his sanctions did exactly
| nothing. They threatened only a tiny fraction of the
| uncompleted prohect-- a couple hundred kilometers-- which
| were simply completed anyway by a Russian company instead
| of a Swiss one.
| golergka wrote:
| What matters is the end result. And just as you showed
| yourself, if american voter wanted to put pressure on
| Putin, he should've voted for Trump (and his
| administration) and not Biden.
| [deleted]
| ars wrote:
| I'm having a hard time understanding your objection. From
| the article "Trump touted these as major achievements",
| but because he complained privately to his staff they
| .... somehow don't count?
|
| But because Biden something something something, when he
| removed sanctions that somehow doesn't count either?
|
| Since when do actions not speak louder than words?
|
| (Not to mention these tell all Trump books are unlikely
| to be reliable sources.)
| nate_meurer wrote:
| When did I say they don't count?
|
| > _But because Biden something something something_
|
| That something involved acknowledging that the pipeline
| was mere months from being completed, and that the US
| could do nothing to stop it, so why continue to waste
| diplomatic capital in a fight that we've already lost.
| Especially since that diplomatic capital may soon be
| critical in persuading Germany to withhold certification
| of the pipeline.
|
| And if you have any specific criticisms related to the
| accuracy of Bolton's claims, which align nicely with what
| we know of Trump from his public statements, feel free to
| explain.
| laverya wrote:
| In other words, Trump may have been pro-Russia but the
| _Trump Administration_ was very tough-on-Russia.
|
| As said by the grandparent.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| No, at pain of pedantry, the grandparent said this:
|
| > _Western media portrayed Trump as "pro-Putin", but if
| you look at the actual decisions by administrations, he
| was the one who really pushed back against Putin,
| compared both to Obama and Biden._
|
| The lack of distinction between Trump and the rest of his
| adminstration is exactly what Trump is now using to claim
| that he was "tough on Russia".
| mhh__ wrote:
| Technically it says trump and then gives the admin as
| evidence.
|
| Given what I read in Michael Lewis's excellent book about
| his administration I do not believe the two are anywhere
| near as correlated as they would be for (say) Clinton and
| the Clinton administration or Truman etc. Even bush who
| was an edge case because of Cheney.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| No and he actually imposed new sanctions while in office.
| keewee7 wrote:
| They only forbid Russian residents from having direct access to
| production servers. That means sysadmin and devops roles.
| Russians are employed in other positions.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Inserting a bug on purpose that makes it into production
| seems very hard. This sounds aimed at making media/investors
| happy.
| kemitchell wrote:
| I've never heard of this. Link?
| igammarays wrote:
| I'm in Ukraine right now, where I've been living for the past few
| years (Canadian Citizen born and raised in Toronto). This is
| completely overblown nonsense.
|
| This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war
| starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago,
| and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war
| decisively.
|
| The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in
| constant conflict for 8 years. There's nothing new here on this
| map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially Russian-
| protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-escalates tensions
| and finally ends the 8-year long conflict. Now that Donetsk and
| Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no
| longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President
| Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on).
| Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news,
| though not the ending we wanted.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| This is a really bad reading of the situation and you won't
| have to wait very long to see why. Putin did not go through
| this massive hoopla just to get a small strip of land.
|
| Yesterday's moves were just the first step. Within a few days
| they'll escalate by doing something like claiming the entire
| regions, by staging a false flag, Triggering an insurrection
| outside the regions etc. Once they have threatred their way
| into making it look as if Ukraine is the aggressor, they'll
| move in widely.
|
| I don't know where he'll end up, but the ultimate objective is
| the humiliation of the west and subjugation of Ukraine. What I
| think you'll see is a wide areal campaign destroying most of
| Ukraines military equipment, a take over of the entire black
| sea coast making Ukraine landlocked. Finally there'll be a
| "peace" treaty making Ukraine a substantially smaller
| landlocked country, forcing them to demilitarize, pay tribute
| etc.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| >I don't know where he'll end up, but the ultimate objective
| is the humiliation of the west and subjugation of Ukraine.
|
| Biden has said this was coming, biden has said this is
| complete invasion of ukraine. He's headed to kyiv.
| igammarays wrote:
| > Putin did not go through this massive hoopla just to get a
| small strip of land.
|
| He achieved his political objectives by just threatening
| invasion, without actually invading. An actual full-scale
| invasion is something nobody wants, least of all most
| ordinary Russians who have relatives in Ukraine.
|
| > you won't have to wait very long to see why
|
| I'd bet you on it if you set me a date. Westerners have been
| raising the alarm about a potential Russian invasion since
| time immemorial.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| I'm down for a friendly or small sum bet. You'll see a
| major escalation in about a week. Russians will be firing
| missiles and artillery and dropping bombs in Ukraine proper
| in March.
|
| I certainly hope I lose.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| They already claim the entire oblasts.
|
| This isn't about the humiliation of the west and the
| subjugation of Ukraine, this is about national defense
| strategy. The way the borders were set after the breakup of
| the USSR were based on certain assumptions that don't hold
| true today, and as a result Russia does not have a defensible
| border. With these annexations, they do. Additionally, it's a
| way to test what sort of response they'll get and prepare for
| similar responses in the future.
| yks wrote:
| What kind of argument is that? Because the empire lost its
| buffer colonies, it needs to re-acquire them again? Because
| it feels "vulnerable"? Vulnerable against whom? Against the
| countries the previous iteration of that empire sought to
| destroy?
|
| This "national defense strategy" is just a made up tale,
| another episode of russian propaganda that keeps poisoning
| generations after generations.
| vkou wrote:
| > What kind of argument is that? Because the empire lost
| its buffer colonies, it needs to re-acquire them again?
|
| It's how empires operate. It's not fair, but it is what
| it is. For an example of how this turned out when the
| shoe was on the other foot, look at Cuba. The world
| nearly ended in '63, because the American empire needed a
| 'buffer colony'.
|
| It's been a lifetime since the revolution, communism as a
| world ideology has been dead for a generation, but Cuba's
| still paying for the consequences of flipping
| allegiances. (The western world, sans the United States
| has normalized relations with it a very long time ago -
| so it's not an ongoing ideological problem...)
| avgcorrection wrote:
| It's a Realist position on the matter. Ukraine is a vital
| security interest to Russia.
|
| That's a descriptive opinion on the matter. Not a
| normative one.
| yks wrote:
| Ukraine aligned with the West may be a security issue for
| Russia only if Russia itself is not aligned with the West
| which it absolutely does not have to be.
|
| If Russia did not get an ex-KGB absolute monarch
| traumatized by the fall of the Berlin wall, the country
| could've joined NATO by now. Pretending that this
| particular made up "national defense strategy" is the
| only one possible, is just caving in to the Putin's
| propaganda.
|
| Even if Russia for some dumb reason chooses to be
| perpetually against the West even after the fall of
| communism, it does not mean that the West automatically
| becomes interested in invading Russia either. Even in
| this case the "national defense strategy" is just a
| cover-up for the unprovoked aggression.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Geostrategy is about more than just invasions. It's about
| military assets, natural resources, artificial resources,
| trade routes, cultural influence, the ability to attack
| from and defend certain geography and plenty more I
| didn't name. And it's more than Russia playing the game.
|
| It's not a national defense strategy, it is a national
| security one. They need to control the paths for gas
| exports to Europe to maintain Europe's reliance on them
| for heat in the winter. It makes them powerful.
|
| If you look at national strategies for nations and
| territories, even beyond the time the current state has
| ruled, for every major or minor power throughout history,
| you'll find similar strategies because the underlying
| realities remain the same.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Russia could not join Nato since Nato would then lose all
| justification for existing.
| yks wrote:
| Goal of NATO is "to safeguard the freedom, common
| heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on
| the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the
| rule of law. ... to promote stability and well-being in
| the North Atlantic area." [1]
|
| Russia joining NATO in good faith would change it for
| sure but would not make it obsolete.
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty
| avgcorrection wrote:
| That's your argument? You googled and pasted in their
| mission statement?
|
| Who would that alliance be (ostensibly) protecting
| themselves from? China? Taking that kind of stance (EDIT:
| against China) would not be in Russia's interest.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| So they're doing it for the lulz?
|
| No. Nations don't throw national resources away,
| especially in modern times. If they're spending money,
| their lives, political capital on this they're profiting
| from it in some way.
|
| Russia has to control the black sea and they have to
| control territory all the way to the Dneiper river. If
| Ukraine realigns to Europe and NATO they have to at a
| minimum have control over that territory to have a
| defensible position. This has been true since the days of
| the Russian empire, and this is one of the historical
| reasons for a Russian ethnic majority east of it.
| darkarmani wrote:
| > as a result Russia does not have a defensible border
|
| So it should be easy for NATO to go on the offensive here
| and teach Russia a lesson? If that isn't true, then why
| would Russia need to invade a country to "make itself
| safer"?
| geoka9 wrote:
| This is definitely about humiliation of the West and
| subjugation of Ukraine.
|
| Putin doesn't care about defensible border with China. In
| fact they don't care about the Chinese ambitions in South
| Siberia at all. And those ambitions are much clearer than
| any idea that NATO or European countries might want to
| invade Russia.
|
| Putin's only worry is avoiding the fate of Sadam and
| Qaddafi and for that, in his mind, he needs to keep waging
| wars around Russia (and support struggling dictators all
| over the world, but that's unrelated to this conflict).
| yks wrote:
| Exactly, if Putin really worried about protecting
| borders, he'd never move most of his Asian army units to
| the Ukrainian border, exposing huge vulnerability to the
| powerful autocratic nuclear regime who actually kinda
| wants these exposed lands.
|
| The fact that he did it means that either he really
| believes that NATO is scheming on invading Russia proper,
| in which case he's just gone mad, or all this pseudo-
| historical pretext is just a bunch of crap he feeds the
| world to legitimize his personal quest for glory and give
| his worldwide supporters ("useful idiots" as they call
| them in KGB) a reason to let him off the hook for that.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| They don't care about a defensible border with China
| because they are allied with China currently. If that
| changes you'll start seeing militarization of that border
| also.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > The way the borders were set after the breakup of the
| USSR were based on certain assumptions that don't hold true
| today, and as a result Russia does not have a defensible
| border.
|
| In the thirty years since the USSR dissolved no one has so
| much as bothered Russia or even pretended like they wanted
| to bother Russia. Most NATO members in Europe vastly
| reduced their militaries and defense spending. Everyone was
| content to just buy shit from them as business
| relationships are far cheaper than invasions and
| annexation. NATO only expanded east because of _Russia 's_
| posturing about reclaiming former SSRs.
|
| The _only_ people worried about "defensible borders" are
| old Soviet hardliners pining for some past glory that
| didn't exist. They either see or pretend to see the specter
| of foreign invasion because it whips of nationalistic
| fervor. They use it to distract from their shit show
| governance and to blame "the West" for every self-inflicted
| problem they have.
|
| The most baffling part is literally no one wants to invade
| Russia. Outside of their propaganda machine no Westerner
| has any interest in Russian territory. No one is super
| excited to occupy Siberia or fish the "waters" of the Aral
| Sea.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| Besides what another commentator already said, I'd also
| include China. Russia and China, despite the apparently
| good relations right now, have actively disputed regions
| that the Chinese believe were stolen from them on one of
| the unequal treaties.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| The US has 6 border disputes with Canada ongoing. It is
| the longest nonmilitarized border in the world.
|
| Border disputes are par for the course when you're a
| state managing a nation and territory. These disputes
| come up when other concerns are dealt with. They're
| bargaining chips. Right now China and Russia need each
| other. Later maybe they fight over them or they resolve
| them peacefully.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Most NATO members in Europe vastly reduced their
| militaries and defense spending_
|
| Most _western_ members did. Eastern ones, meanwhile,
| ramped it up very significantly. Which is the only reason
| Western countries could get away with it, really - NATO
| is supposed to feed the American defense industry.
|
| _> NATO only expanded east because of Russia 's
| posturing_
|
| More like because of the bordering countries clamoured
| for protection, even when there was no threat whatsoever
| (since the Russian military was in utter disarray). In a
| way, they were right: the ones who didn't manage to
| escape Moscow's orbit back then (Ukraine, Belarus, the
| Caucasus stans...), are now enduring dictatorship or war.
| In another way, they fuelled the Russian paranoia that
| fed Putin's nationalism, eventually ensuring that the
| doomsday scenarios did, in fact, materialize.
|
| _> The most baffling part is literally no one wants to
| invade Russia._
|
| It's not just about immediate military occupation.
| Gazprom is an important piece of Putin's kleptocratic
| powerbase, and Gazprom needs to be free of Ukrainian
| control of their pipelines. If NordStream2 can't happen,
| because the Germans have to obey their American lord-
| protectors, then Putin must establish an alternative to
| the South - which doesn't need to be entirely in Russian
| hands, but rather in a position where Russian troops can
| secure it in a matter of days if necessary. In my view
| this is the real endgame.
|
| This, obviously, on top of putting the strategic Crimean
| ports in a safer position; because NATO might not want to
| invade Russia, but Erdogan's Turkish troops are not shy
| about "securing" stuff (any sanctions against them
| carving up Syria? Not that I'm aware of...).
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| That's what I said about Crimea eight years ago.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Russia recognises the independence of the _whole_ Donbas and
| Luhansk, not just the parts held by the rebels. And now they
| 're going yo take them by force.
| slezyr wrote:
| Yea, that's a bullshit. Ukrainian-Ukrainian here. Russians now
| claim that they will "protect" the entire Donetsk and Lugansk
| regions and expand if needed to do so. People die right now
| MORE than in previous "peaceful" times. They already fucking
| shelled a kindergarten, school, and killed a civilian (was a
| rarity before).
| [deleted]
| igammarays wrote:
| The President of Ukraine and all official channels say they
| do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen. Only
| America says it will happen. We lost Donetsk and Luhansk a
| long time ago. It's gone now. Hopefully this will end now.
| tokai wrote:
| >We lost Donetsk and Luhansk
|
| Not all of it.
| igammarays wrote:
| I refer to the cities, not the whole oblast.
| tokai wrote:
| Well the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and Putin
| refer to the whole oblasts, so it makes your analysis a
| bit nonsensical.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Russia recognized those republics defined by the area in
| their constitution: ie. whole oblasts.
|
| https://twitter.com/JakeCordell/status/149616127985308467
| 7
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The President of Ukraine and all official channels say
| they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
|
| This is part of Ukraine's lobbying effort for strong
| preemptive, rather than reactive, sanctions against Russia;
| Ukraine is arguing that Russia can be dissuade from
| invasion by tougher pre-general-invasion action, and is
| acting (whether they believe it or not) like they believe
| that their lobbying effort to Western powers for this
| approach will succeed in getting the desired policy which
| will, in turn, dissuade Russia.
|
| So far, whether or not they are right that it _would_ work,
| they seem to be largely unsuccessful in lobbying, with the
| US, especially, offering only limited sanctions for the
| actions related to the separatist regions but holding back
| the massive general sanctions threatened in case of a
| broader invasion as a reactive contingency.
|
| Ukraine's official channels are very clear that they view
| decisive factor in Russia's decision making the strength of
| immediate Western action.
|
| Examples: https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/149592205
| 6541753349?...
|
| Viewing the Ukraine statements about not expecting a full-
| scale invasion without this context is...misleading. They
| are saying _if_ an invasion happens, it is because the West
| failed to be resolute in the ways Ukraine expects them to,
| not that Russia does not _intend_ to invade.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So far, whether or not they are right that it would
| work, they seem to be largely unsuccessful in lobbying,
| with the US, especially, offering only limited sanctions
| for the actions related to the separatist regions but
| holding back the massive general sanctions threatened in
| case of a broader invasion as a reactive contingency.
|
| Well, a couple hours later and this part is outdated, as
| the US has now announced the first set of general
| sanctions on Russia and described existing Russian
| actions as the beginning of the invasion that was always
| described as the triggering condition for such sanctions.
| igammarays wrote:
| I think you're reading the sentiment backward. Of course
| Ukraine wants stronger sanctions against Russia in any
| case, because an invasion already happened, not because
| they believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| They _explicitly_ say (including in the tweet from the FM
| that I cited) that strong action now is important because
| Russia's _future_ action depends on what other countries
| do now.
|
| Yes, they think an invasion already is ongoing, but
| that's _explicitly_ not the only factor in their call for
| action. It is directly tied to impact on Russian
| escalation.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| The oblasts are larger than the regions within Russian
| territory. This is just a straight violation of the
| sovereign territory of Ukraine. You do not, as a country,
| get to unilaterally redraw internationally recognized
| borders just because some people sympathetic to you or who
| share a language live on the other side.
| elzbardico wrote:
| > You do not, as a country, get to unilaterally redraw
| internationally recognized borders just because some
| people sympathetic to you or who share a language live on
| the other side.
|
| History would show you otherwise.
| mcguire wrote:
| History would suggest that you can do anything you want
| if you're willing to back it up with enough military
| force.
| [deleted]
| igammarays wrote:
| I never said Putin had a right to do it, I'm saying he
| already did it. Of course it was a totally illegal
| invasion, but it's done now. What I'm saying is we
| believe this is the end of the conflict. The official
| position of the President of Ukraine is that we do not
| believe a full scale invasion will happen, as do most
| Ukrainians I know.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Once you pay the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the
| Dane.
| toyg wrote:
| Ukraine will never get rid of its continent-sized
| neighbour, no matter what.
| slezyr wrote:
| Full-scale might not happen, but it absolutely does not
| mean any kind of peace. There is no interest for russia to
| stop daily shelling and keep capturing in small pieces.
| Russia has zero interest to stabilize the situation they
| walked away from all the agreements and negotiations.
| igammarays wrote:
| Brother, I believe it is in their interest to stabilize
| the situation now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially
| protected by Russia. Previously the shelling continued
| for 8 years because of the rebellion.
| pqb wrote:
| > The President of Ukraine and all official channels say
| they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
|
| First, he is a politician. My rational explanation for his
| words is to cooldown the emotions. Back in last week, you
| could see news about many oligarchs departing the country,
| while others trying to cash out every asset they have.
| Standing enemies at the borders is economically tragic for
| the whole country. Trying to sell other, non-catastrophic
| vision is his duty.
|
| Secondly, there were many variants of the invasion. The
| full-scale operation often means the Russia forces will
| attack the entire Ukraine - eastern, central and the
| western. Many experts say this scenario is highly unlikely,
| because there will be too many casualties on both sides.
| the_mar wrote:
| Ukrainian-American here. Depends on how you look at it.
| Comparing Donetsk to Crimea for instance, Crimea is in much
| better shape: no active war for the past 8 years. I second
| the opinion that this isn't the ending that people wanted,
| but hopefully it is the ending nonetheless.
|
| For the record, I do not condone the annexation of Crimea,
| but I also do not support giving it back to Ukraine, as it
| just creates unnecessary tension at this point. I understand,
| how globally we should not just be ok with countries taking
| parts of other countries, but at the same time the reverse
| transaction will bring more misery to people of crimea.
| mcguire wrote:
| Makes for interesting strategies for a country wishing to
| expand.
|
| If you go in fast and settle the issue quickly, it's a fait
| accompli and anyone seeking to "reverse the transaction" is
| just bringing misery.
|
| If you can't settle the issue quickly, support a local
| insurgency until the international community stops paying
| attention and then go in. Everybody will be grateful.
|
| It's kind of how the Soviet Union and the west divided up
| Europe after WWII.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| I'm Canadian as well but I'm in Canada. I was led to believe
| the biden warnings of imminent russia invasion were war
| mongering and not true. Clearly not true anymore. Russia is
| an aggressor.
|
| From my point of view, it seems Canadians are team Russia
| here, especially our prime minister.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| What led you to believe those things (the idea that the
| Biden Administration's claims of an imminent invasion were
| war mongering, and the idea that Canada has aligned itself
| with Russia)?
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| >What led you to believe those things (the idea that the
| Biden Administration's claims of an imminent invasion
| were war mongering,
|
| That's a great question, but I don't know if I know the
| answer. Overall, the US as world police, Obama and his
| nobel peace prize and 7 wars, and virtually entire
| existence of the USA they have been at war. It's kind of
| easy to see this point of view.
|
| However, I would generally say our media was saying the
| invasion wasn't imminent. Largely reporting the Ukraine
| government denied any invasion was coming.
|
| This I would say as well was the story across political
| lines.
|
| The only thing really covered was how Trudeau was being
| actively excluded from diplomacy by Biden.
|
| https://twitter.com/annmarie/status/1485652537105600516/p
| hot...
|
| Though not about Ukraine... our media covered how we got
| excluded from the security alliance as well:
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
| releases...
|
| I dont think I ever read anyone in our media suggesting
| Biden lost respect or trust in Trudeau but now in
| hindsight...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poroshenko-ukraine-
| russia-c...
|
| Ukraine is on the other side of the planet and they are
| singling us out to ask for aid that we aren't giving?
|
| >and the idea that Canada has aligned itself with
| Russia)?
|
| Well as I said, a week ago I didn't believe in this at
| all. In my mind, it was a wackadoodle conspiracy theory.
|
| Here's a 5 minute video from Jimmy Dore:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdHF7J_ZZM
|
| It is public knowledge that the liberal party are members
| of the WEF. So is Putin. Both Putin and Trudeau have done
| keynotes. They are publicly linked.
|
| It's a whole different thing to say this is some evil
| cabal or some diplomatic war-supporting effort. For all I
| know Trudeau is a mole and we are still complete allies
| to the USA, if not protectorate.
|
| But frankly, I look at the last week. Russia invaded and
| Canadians are under an unjustified national emergency
| with the government seizing bank accounts with no due
| process or redress. We do have political prisoners and
| global celebrities from across the political spectrum are
| calling out Trudeau as Hitler.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| Might I add, I reallllllly hope this isn't what it looks
| like.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Your PM just got a taste of authoritarian despotism so it
| would make sense.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| >Your PM just got a taste of authoritarian despotism so
| it would make sense.
|
| I'm going to show my left-wing bias but Bill Maher and
| Jimmy Dore both called Trudeau Hitler. They are
| objectively right, but what happened?
|
| Canada had some ineffectual blockades, but at the time of
| the emergency being invoked. Those were gone. So the
| emergency was ONLY the protest in Ottawa.
|
| The justification for the emergency is the military
| occupation and they used the givesendgo hacked data to
| analyze that around 50% of the raised money was from the
| USA. The allegation is that the USA is somehow doing
| this? This is absurd but why is Trudeau overreacting to
| all this? What did he fear?
|
| I think I might know why he fears the USA.
| User23 wrote:
| Like most Americans I have no real knowledge of the situation
| in the Ukraine. What exactly is a Ukrainian-Ukrainian? What
| other Ukrainians are there?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > the situation in the Ukraine
|
| Just FYI - like you, I grew up hearing it called "the
| Ukraine" (like "The Philippines" or "The Netherlands") but
| apparently that's changed and it's just "Ukraine" now.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| The person they are replying to identified themselves as a
| Canadian citizen living in Ukraine.
|
| The person who described themselves as "Ukrainian-
| Ukrainian" is implying that their own assessment of the
| situation is likely to be more accurate since they are not
| just an expatriate.
| afterburner wrote:
| Russian-Ukrainians. And there are many.
| thriftwy wrote:
| There are at least four kinds of Ukrainians. Russians with
| Ukrainian citizenship (a lot of these in Crimea and L/DNR),
| Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians
| and Western Ukrainians, who did not live in the Russian
| Empire or Soviet Ukraine before 1944, and have Roman
| Catholic-controlled faith based on Orthdox rituals.
|
| The first three groups form a continuity and is not
| perfectly correlated with loyalty to Ukrainian state.
|
| Plus hungarians and some tatars.
|
| Caveat emptor: I'm not from Ukraine.
| ccozan wrote:
| Romanians form with ~500K the third biggest minority in
| Ukraine. Again, a situation where USSR conquered and draw
| the map as it wished, since they live in teritory formely
| belonging to interbellic Romania.
|
| One fact which people forget: Ukraine decided to end
| support to minorities, as such there is no longer
| possible to study in native language. This type of
| nationalism should not be supported at all. Ukraine is no
| saint.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I had a friend who I referred to as "my Russian friend".
| When my uncle married a Russian woman, I showed her a
| picture of my Russian friend from one of his kids
| birthday parties, and she said, "I think he is from
| Ukraine". I asked why she thought that and she said
| because of the lettering of the sign in the background -
| apparently they have a different (but similar enough to
| my non-Russian reading eyes) alphabet, too.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hourislate wrote:
| >This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war
| starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago,
| and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war
| decisively.
|
| What a lot of folks in the West don't realize is that Ukrainian
| soldiers have been at war with Russian Mercenaries and Russian
| Soldiers since 2014. It's been a slow burn war and every week
| there have been Ukrainian KIA but it never made the news. We
| can only hope that you are correct about the war being over but
| I'm not so sure. My opinion is it will never be over as long as
| Putin and his mafia are in power. There is just too much at
| stake for them to hand over power to a new guard because of the
| hundreds of billions they have stolen from the Russian people.
|
| >The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been
| in constant conflict for 8 years.
|
| I don't think anyone believed that the Separatists/Russians in
| Ukraine were some home grown group. They were funded, supplied,
| and reinforced with Russian Mercs and Army from the beginning,
| it's just that the world didn't give a shit because there was
| too much business going on between Europe and Russia.
|
| I still don't believe the West is going to take this or any
| future aggression seriously, strongly worded disappointments is
| about all they can muster in the face of evil. NATO and the
| West are toothless, America has no appetite to take on an enemy
| like Russia or China and those countries know it. Even now any
| reaction is just theater without any real consequences. What
| this means for the future is that it sets a precedent, There
| are millions of Russians seeded throughout Eastern Europe and
| it leaves the door open to separatism. Taiwan is also fucked,
| the Chinese will take it in a day and the USA won't do a single
| thing. Just saying, always hoping I'm wrong.
| zie wrote:
| Because Taiwan has such a large export of stuff the USA
| desperately wants/needs, I'm not sure you are right that the
| USA will let China take Taiwan. See TSMC for one example :)
|
| What does the USA need/want from Russia, other than for them
| to stop being antagonistic against the USA? Nothing that I
| can see.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Okay, so China promises no interruption in supply if
| there's no American intervention.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| If Taiwan military blows up critical parts of fabs upon
| invasion, China can promise whatever they want, its just
| empty words. Also, as we can see here, promises mean less
| than fart in the wind to states if its lucrative to break
| them
| toyg wrote:
| _> America has no appetite to take on an enemy like Russia or
| China_
|
| We should remind ourselves that "taking on" such entities
| might well mean the end of the human race.
|
| In many ways, we got lucky that Hitler and Mussolini appeared
| before the atomic bomb was invented. Since 1945, the world
| effectively lost the option to "take on" certain countries,
| even if they were to succumb to pure evil.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Dude Putin said today Russia recognizes the separatists'
| _claimed_ borders of Donetsk and Luhansk which extend far
| beyond the borders the separatists actually control. Which
| means unless Ukraine decides to cede a shitload of territory to
| Russi...I mean the totally grass roots and not at all Russian
| run separatist governments, Russia will fight with Ukraine.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been
| in constant conflict for 8 years. There 's nothing new here on
| this map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially
| Russian-protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-
| escalates tensions and finally ends the 8-year long conflict._"
|
| How so? Doesn't it just turn a pro-Russian insurgency into a
| pro-Ukrainian insurgency? In other words, the "insurgents" and
| the "legitimate local militias" just switch places.
|
| " _Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed,
| the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing
| it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not
| be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body
| bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted._ "
|
| As long as Putin stops at the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk.
|
| And, by the way, it's good there are no Ukrainians in Donetsk
| and Luhansk.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| It should be good news for everyone unless Russia makes a
| full-scale invasion (which seem very unlikely), no? By
| everyone I mean every average, civilian person. All of them
| should want peace, no matter if their passport says Ukraine
| or "X Republic of the Russian Federation".
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Unconvincing. Why would Putin stop now?
| igammarays wrote:
| Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who
| hate him? Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic
| Russians with pro-Russia sentiment. Everywhere else in
| Ukraine he is hated, there's no way he will want to expand
| into territory that jeopardizes his own stability.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people
| who hate him?
|
| Because distracting people with a project to restore the
| greatness of Imperial Russia, repudiating the losses it
| suffered at the hands of hostile foreign powers (and even
| Soviet leaders--he's blamed, e.g., Lenin for "creating"
| Ukraine from "Russian" territory and Stalin for giving
| Ukraine control of additional "Russian" territory) is
| Putin's central political strategy right now, and he's
| already laid out the public case for why Ukraine ought to
| be Russian on that basis.
| toyg wrote:
| That's definitely a factor. Another factor is the refusal
| to make NordStream2 operational. Gazprom must be free of
| Ukrainian influence, and if it can't be North it will be
| South - the spice must flow, and so does the gas.
| slezyr wrote:
| Why not? Nothing stops him.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Why wouldn't he?
| vetinari wrote:
| Why would he feed another country? Crimea is a strategic
| territory, LNR/DNR protect access to RF borders, and both
| are home of ethnic Russians, but the rest? Only throwing
| away good money.
|
| In his strategic interest he would let the West to
| continue throwing finances here.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Well, no, not really. It's plausible given his rhetoric
| that he'd be interested in _all_ of Novorossiya.
| vetinari wrote:
| He would need support of local population for that. And
| if locals want it, why not? Right for self-determination,
| after all. At least that was the excuse when
| USSR/Yugoslavia/etc were broken down.
|
| But it is not that simple; any such territory would be a
| drain on Russian economy. For now, it is tactical
| advantage to keep Europe and US to drain theirs here.
| (One of reasons, why _opolchentsi_ stopped before
| Mariupol few years ago).
| geoka9 wrote:
| > Crimea is a strategic territory, LNR/DNR protect access
| to RF borders, and both are home of ethnic Russians, but
| the rest?
|
| Odessa is the biggest port in Ukraine. Controlling it
| (and Mykolaiv) will make Ukraine a land-locked country,
| in addition to providing Crimea with reliable access to
| electricity, water and supply routes (in addition to
| connecting Russia with Transnistria). These are only the
| rational reasons, but Putin apparently has fears and
| complexes that go beyond those.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Invading a country is easy, occupying it and annexing it
| is extremely difficult. The only times it seems to be
| viable is when the local population is already within
| your cultural sphere, speaks your language, and is
| ethnically similar. Putin certainly _could_ go on an
| annexation spree but he would be stymied very quickly by
| local resistance in places that aren 't 80%+ ethnically
| and culturally Russian.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Why? I suppose you missed the speech he gave last night?
| afterburner wrote:
| Could be a diplomatic tactic, threaten greater
| destruction so people are relieved when he takes less.
| _ph_ wrote:
| For the "why" you would ask him, but didn't he stress in
| his speech yesterday, that he considers the whole Ukraine a
| part of Russia? So yes, if the Russian troops do nothing
| beyond settling the status, it might be good for the local
| population. But what if not? Why would he need such a huge
| army just to consolidate those regions, why army in the
| Belarus? I guess we will see what happens (and I wished
| things stopped where they are now).
| pqb wrote:
| For money, of course. Donetsk region is full of good
| quality coal and benefits coming from controlling the Black
| Sea are definitely very tempting.
|
| > Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people
| who hate him?
|
| Please change your optics. People never matter in
| Russia/Soviet Union. Even, if there will be 70-80% of
| people who are dreadful opponents to "new goverment" then
| what they would do? Take it to the street? Strike? Please
| remind yourself how it looked in the Kazakhstan in early
| January 2022 (you will get shot, just because you left your
| home to buy some food) and in Belarus 2021 (mass protests,
| thousands of people being thrown in jail for no reason,
| very often beaten, many found dead there). Coup d'etat?
| Poor joke, especially if we look at the latest events in
| Africa (for example Mali), where armed Russia's Wagner
| forces helped to take over the whole country.
|
| Edit: As a person who lives in Central Europe, your
| question made me sad, because it means western mass-media
| is crap these days - they cannot explain a very silly thing
| why this ongoing conflict for 8+ years takes place.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > As a person who lives in Central Europe, your question
| made me sad,
|
| Reading the GP's other comments they're either a "useful
| idiot" (in KGB parlance) or a Russian-supporting
| astroturfer. There has been a lot of coverage of Russia's
| actions in Ukraine in "the West" for the past 8 years.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| This isn't a constructive comment. There isn't a point to
| accusing people of being propagandists or <insert
| nefarious Soviet intelligence term here> unless you have
| proof.
| [deleted]
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic Russians
| with pro-Russia sentiment.
|
| The absolute majority sans the single digit percentage of
| ethnic Russians hate Russia with passion.
|
| And I am not even talking about ethnic Russians within
| Ukraine, but Russia itself.
|
| Russian Far East very seriously wanted to seccede.
|
| South Russians don't count themselves as the same ethnicity
| as Russians living in the Moscow at all.
|
| People in Urals, besides attempting at Urals Republic in
| early nineties, are still very unhappy about Urals, and
| Western Siberia being the poorest part of Russia, while
| their resources allow Muscovites bathe in Champagne.
|
| All other ethnic republics will secede in no time as well
| if given the opportunity.
|
| Russia will be the next Yugoslavia. This is what we
| actually need to be talking about
|
| Russia losing its oil/gas, or Putin getting assasinated, or
| just any major crisis = Yugo with nukes, and a civil war 10
| times worse.
| marshray wrote:
| Putin has repeatedly made clear his (weird) belief that
| NATO will base hypersonic nuclear missiles in a free
| Ukraine. Yesterday he claimed Ukraine will develop its own
| nukes.
|
| These claims would suggest that Putin will stop at nothing
| short of total regime change in Kiev.
| sysmet wrote:
| Seems you are living in the Disneyland.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Unhappy populations can be dealt with sufficient
| application of repression. Or, worst case scenario,
| genocide--history has shown that the international
| community is extremely reluctant to do anything about
| genocide other than moralize after the fact about how wrong
| it was. I mean, there's already precedent for Russian
| genocide against Ukrainians...
| celticninja wrote:
| I think the bigger issue for Putin is his army and his
| support. That will beging to fade if he goes into an area
| that is not supportive and then Russian soldiers start
| dying. It's all good 'capturing' territory without a loss
| of life, but are the Russian people going to put up with
| dead soldiers just for them to occupy Kyiv?
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| No one in the modern era has attempted to take a country
| with a population that's 1/3 of the invading country. If
| he incorporated Ukraine, that's 40 million angry
| citizens. It would absolutely be the end of him
| especially because most Russians see Ukrainians as
| brothers.
|
| He justifies Luhansk, Donbass and Crimea because of the
| 2014 revolution and they fact they were always culturally
| Russian.
|
| Edit - I should also add that it's in Ukraine's interest
| to simply let these regions go. Prior to 2014, Ukrainian
| elections always flip-flopped between pro-Russian and
| pro-Western factions... Now that most of the pro-Russian
| support no longer votes in Ukrainian elections (due to
| being part of Russian or breakaway), Ukrainian politics
| are almost entire pro-Western.
| int_19h wrote:
| Most Russians very much don't see Ukrainians as brothers
| after 2014. Russian propaganda works reasonably well.
|
| As for angry citizens... for one thing, not all of those
| citizens will be angry, especially in central Ukraine.
| Not the majority, but enough to supply informants etc to
| keep the rest in check.
|
| But also, why do you say that no-one in the modern era
| has attempted that? This exact thing happened during WW2
| - or is that not sufficiently "modern"? And if not, then
| what makes the difference?
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > or is that not sufficiently "modern"
|
| When I say modern I think in the internet age. When
| everyone can communicate with everyone and information
| can be shared quickly.
|
| > Most Russians very much don't see Ukrainians as
| brothers after 2014.
|
| https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/16/we-are-one-
| people-...
|
| All the Russians I know view Ukrainians as brothers and
| are against the idea of Slavs fighting Slavs. Anyhow I'm
| not spending the time to find a comprehensive poll but
| it's you believing the propaganda that a majority of
| Russians actually want to fight Ukrainians.
|
| > Russian propaganda works reasonably well.
|
| Yeah right, I've never met a Russian that believes any
| news, no matter the side lol. Ditto for Ukrainians.
| Distrust in authority is basically a cornerstone of
| Slavic culture...
| saiya-jin wrote:
| That's simply not true. Many Russians are swallowing
| uncritically whatever Putin says. I've personally met on
| my Elbrus expedition in cca 2016 quite a few in our team
| (russian agency, I never go with western ones when
| mountaineering), who seemed otherwise smart, but praised
| him uncritically like some saint. I couldn't listen to it
| whenever we switched otherwise normal topics to this.
|
| Not everybody gets their news from internet. And those
| young folks were from Moscow / St Peterburg and used
| internet like everybody else.
|
| > are against the idea of Slavs fighting Slavs
|
| Bullshit, army men do what they are told. In 1968 Soviet,
| mostly russian army invaded Czechoslovakia. Soldiers had
| no qualms with shooting to ie teenage girls riding across
| the street on their bicycle, harmless as one can be.
| Hundreds of cases like this, nobody was armed or posed
| any threat. Nobody was ever punished, there are tons of
| memorials across whole country(ies).
|
| There is a lot of wishful thinking in your statement, and
| I hope its meant in optimistic way. I wish there was
| really this fabled slavic friendliness since I am also
| one of those, but I see it more a nice myth which works
| mostly on language grounds, and falls apart as quickly as
| problems arise, see ie Yugoslavia.
| int_19h wrote:
| I'm Russian myself, and my extended family is mostly in
| Russia, so this is all speaking from very personal
| experience.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| So exactly what aspect of Russian propaganda do they
| believe? Or is it because they don't believe US
| propaganda?
|
| Because US news (Canadian as well) is way different than
| European news as well. Even Ukrainian news hasn't been as
| fear-mongering as US news...
| jcranmer wrote:
| > No one in the modern era has attempted to take a
| country with a population that's 1/3 of the invading
| country.
|
| Saudi Arabia invading Yemen. Syria invading Lebanon is I
| think around the 1/3 mark. Iraq invading Iran--note
| that Iran was the larger country then. All of these are
| conflicts that were intended to induce suzerainty if not
| outright conquest, and all of these are undeniably in
| what you'd call the "modern era".
|
| Although I'll note that "modern era" is usually given as
| since about ~1789, which means we can throw in all of the
| wonderful aggression conflicts that make up World War II,
| such as Germany attempting to incorporate the populated
| bits of the USSR into its own territory, after killing
| off the current inhabitants of course.
|
| > they fact they were always culturally Russian.
|
| IIRC, he claims that Ukrainians are themselves no
| different from Russians, which means this gives him casus
| belli to incorporate _all of Ukraine_ on the same
| grounds.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| The Saudis aren't invading Yemen, they're just bombing
| and destabilizing it. Last I checked Lebanon is also
| still Lebanon, not Syria.
|
| > IIRC, he claims that Ukrainians are themselves no
| different from Russians
|
| Saying something and believing it are two different
| things. Also, it depends what you mean by 'no different'.
| Ethnically they're almost identical. Culturally close.
| But there is a bit of a difference, mainly that much of
| "Ukrainian" identity comes from regions that had been
| been invaded by both Poland-Lithuania and Austria-Hungary
| and spread to the rest of the country since independence.
|
| Anyhow, not even the Ukrainian President thinks Russia
| will invade all Ukraine...
| jcranmer wrote:
| > The Saudis aren't invading Yemen, they're just bombing
| and destabilizing it. Last I checked Lebanon is also
| still Lebanon, not Syria.
|
| The word you said was "attempted" which includes failed
| attempts as well as successful. There have been no
| _successful_ attempts post-WW2 that I can think of, but
| that doesn 't mean there haven't been any _unsuccessful_
| attempts.
|
| > Ethnically they're almost identical. Culturally close.
|
| You can say the same thing about the US and Canada. Yet
| Canada successfully resisted both US invasion attempts,
| and even today, you would likely get a pretty vehement
| response if you suggested that the US and Canada ought to
| be part of the same country.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| >you would likely get a pretty vehement response if you
| suggested that the US and Canada ought to be part of the
| same country
|
| I live in Alberta... That statement is definitely not
| true lol.
| mywittyname wrote:
| In an abstract sense, sure. But once they start putting
| the nuts on the bolts, they are going to get cold feet.
| The USA is vastly different from Canada is many tangible
| ways. It's not the conservative utopia people think it
| is.
|
| Plus, given the political issues involved with
| integration of the two countries, I suspect serious
| concessions would need to be made by Canada.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > It's not the conservative utopia people think it is.
|
| And Canada's not the liberal paradise people think. We're
| leaving, personally.
|
| The quality of life here is pretty shit - think LA or
| Seattle cost of living (SF if you're in Vancouver or
| Toronto) with Nebraska wages (actually that would be
| generous)...
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Because this isn't Risk. They don't care about capturing all
| territory within a state's borders, they care about a
| defensible border position. It's strategic.
| mcguire wrote:
| How does moving the border 100 or 150 km west make it more
| defensible?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| The same reason the Himalayas are the border between
| China and India, the swiss and Italians border in the
| alps, the US and mexico border along the Rio Grande, and
| the Arab countries have foggy borders. It's the reason
| you see ethnic groups bounded by geographic artifacts.
| You want a natural barrier as a defense. You expand or
| contract to an easier to defend position. You'll note
| nations with artificial borders such as latitude lines
| are at peace with one another, and ones that aren't, such
| as several African nations who's borders were decided by
| the French and English are in constant strife and flux.
| toyg wrote:
| It depends on the geography, of course.
|
| Tbh, I bet the Russian generals would dearly like to
| reach the Dnieper.
| Scarblac wrote:
| This live map started 8 years ago and has been updating all the
| time since, showing all daily incidents that never stopped
| happening. It also followed ISIS wars in Iraq and Syria and so
| on.
| journey_16162 wrote:
| Yes, I found it on HN search, it was submitted in 2014. I was
| surprised that the exact url still works and shows recent data.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| wffurr wrote:
| I'm not even sure who you're replying to. Looking at the other
| comments plus the front-page ranking, seems as if there's
| plenty of interest in this map on HN.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| forinti wrote:
| Transnistria shouldn't be marked as it is a disputed part of
| Moldova, not of Ukraine.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's marked because, as a de facto Russian-controlled
| territory, it is likely to be used as a bridgehead if Russia
| decides to occupy the entirety of Ukraine.
| can16358p wrote:
| I think the server is down, can't access, what did it look like
| when it was up?
|
| (Edit: okay it's definitely up. It was my extremely democratic
| country blocking the access. Accessed throung VPN now)
| mrenum wrote:
| This makes me wounder how far we are from having real time high
| resolution satellite coverage of events like this. Some of the
| events reported in liveuamap are already based on high res sat
| images to identity military camps and troop movement.
| mrenum wrote:
| If anyone is interested, seems like SentinelHub offers a tool
| called EO Browser that is able to explore multiple high
| resolution sat image for free, those images seem to be pretty
| update.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| Most of SentinelHub's open access data comes from Sentinel-1
| (radar) and 2 (optical) satellites constellations, which
| offer a 6-days or shorter revisit time over nearly any point
| on Earth (for S-1, this is currently longer, as one of the
| two S-1 sats making up the constellation is out of order).
|
| This is not quite high resolution data however - in the 10 to
| 20 meters per pixel range, i.e. medium resolution. Sentinels
| are not reconnaissance satellites, but are rather tasked for
| mapping and collecting large amounts of data globally, for
| which the main use cases do not necessarily need high
| resolution imagery (agricultural monitoring, deforestation,
| natural catastrophes...).
|
| Reconnaissance satellites have much finer ground resolution
| (sub-meter per pixel, down to a couple dozen centimeters...
| from what is publicly available), and some constellations
| feature daily revisit cycles.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >as one of the two S-1 sats making up the constellation is
| out of order
|
| I'm having a really hard time calling 2 dots in the sky a
| constellation. Does 1+ satellites equate to a constellation
| in satellite owner/operator parlance?
| contravariant wrote:
| The mathematician in me thinks it should be fine to have
| 1 and 0 satellite constellations as well.
| arwineap wrote:
| A fleet is simply more than one ship traveling together,
| so it seems to translate fine
| dylan604 wrote:
| In everyday parlance would you say "look at those ships"
| or "look at that fleet"?
|
| That's all I'm trying to say. I didn't say the term was
| incorrect. I'm just stating that I have a hard time using
| the term as it just sounds pompous.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| The IAU cites Wood L., 2003 who defines a satellite
| constellation as "a number of similar satellites, of a
| similar type and function, designed to be in similar,
| complementary, orbits for a shared purpose, under shared
| control" [1]. So, Sentinel-1 is a two-satellite
| constellation, yes.
|
| [1]:
|
| https://www.iau.org/public/themes/satellite-
| constellations/,
|
| https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-0431
| -3_...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| The constellation Canis Minor is made up of just two
| stars, so it's true at least in astronomic parlance :)
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > I'm having a really hard time calling 2 dots in the sky
| a constellation. Does 1+ satellites equate to a
| constellation in satellite owner/operator parlance?
|
| I'm having a really hard time calling 2 servers in the DC
| a cluster. Does 1+ servers equate to a cluster in server
| owner/operator parlance?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't know. Does it? You clearly have the answers.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > The most common size for an HA cluster is a two-node
| cluster, since that is the minimum required to provide
| redundancy, but many clusters consist of many more,
| sometimes dozens of nodes.
|
| You clearly don't have an access to a search engine.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| availability_cluster#Node...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why would I look up something someone else replied with
| in snark, or something I don't really care about?
| 7952 wrote:
| Most places are cloudy most of the time.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| That's where imaging radar (SAR most specifically) comes in
| handy, as it is able to image through clouds in most
| circumstances. Image intepretation isn't as straight forward
| as with optical imaging though.
| mike_k wrote:
| I wonder, what is the current state of satellite technology
| available to military? Can they stream near real-time hi-res
| images that would "prove" that one side or the other is
| effectively responsible for a certain escalation?
|
| An (non-existent) international institution to analyze and take
| action is the other part of the puzzle.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Imagery satellites fly at a low altitude and effectively cannot
| "hover" over a site in the same way a drone can.
|
| That said, one can correlate the passes of imagery satellites
| (optical, radar) with other spaceborne RF sensors, and sensors
| on airplanes & drones (optical, radar, RF etc.), and data from
| implanted sensors on the ground, to construct a real-time view
| of the battlespace.
|
| The Full Monty of these capabilities, especially data fusion
| from disparate platforms, would never be released to the world.
|
| Fun fact: US overhead systems (NRO satellites) are sometimes
| quietly used to aid search & rescue activities. A friend of
| mine, a USAF E-9 who had been read into many compartments
| during his career, used to do this with the Coast Guard after
| he retired from the Air Force. Pretty cool stuff.
| xxpor wrote:
| The operators of most of those satellites for the US, which I
| find most people haven't actually heard of:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-
| Intelligen...
|
| Like you mentioned, they do use their capabilities for some
| things other than just GEOINT:
|
| >In addition to using GEOINT for U.S. military and
| intelligence efforts, NGA provides assistance during natural
| and man-made disasters, aids in security planning for major
| events such as the Olympic Games,[9] disseminates maritime
| safety information,[10] and gathers data on climate
| change.[11]
| m2fkxy wrote:
| The NRO would be actually the operator. NGA takes care of
| exploiting the data
| chippy wrote:
| Couple of other maps:
|
| NYT:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukrain...
|
| Centre For Information Resilience:
| https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor
|
| from: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-
| inv...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Centre For Information
| Resilience:https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-
| monitor_
|
| This one seems much better than the original link. Probably the
| best "live" map I've seen so far.
| l5ymep wrote:
| Impressive how responsive this map is.
| osynavets wrote:
| Thanks everyone for support If you want somehow to support
| Ukraine, please join savelife.in.ua patreon, which is a volunteer
| rehabilitation services done for Ukrainian soldiers Again thanks
| everyone for everything
| ohwellish wrote:
| that would be https://www.patreon.com/savelife_in_ua
|
| (Ukrainian IT community already raised around $100k in a last
| few days)
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| How do I know that this money is going to where they say it
| is going? I'm happy to support it at the top level, I just
| want to make sure I'm not accidentally funnelling money into
| Russia's disinformation campaign.
| osynavets wrote:
| Savelife service continuously publishes financial reports
| for all their activity. You can find that on their website.
| (We know that it's not user-friendly especially for English
| speaking users, updates will be soon). For example, this
| one is an income and expenses report for 2021-2022 years
| [1].
|
| [1] - https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=B0264747CBB
| 7E393!1...
| capableweb wrote:
| Indeed, some external validation would be great, from
| Patreon or any other organization.
|
| The membership levels are also.. Disturbing? If I select
| "Projectile" membership (with a picture of a grenade
| missile or something) it says "You started saving lives!".
| All memberships are munition for weapons ("Bullet",
| "Projectile", "Bomb" and "Missile"), not exactly something
| you associate with "Saving lives".
|
| Seems to be run by Come Back Alive Foundation
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Alive) but I can't
| actually verify that they link to the Patreon from their
| website (https://savelife.in.ua) as it seems to be offline
| right now.
|
| Not to say it's sketchy to use Patreon for something of
| that importance, since Patreon has a reputation of pulling
| funding for organizations by now.
| ohwellish wrote:
| (sorry for delay, my account is for reads and I hit the
| limit of replays in HN, had to wait)
|
| back in 2014 when sht hit the fan and Ukrainian army was
| very weak, ppl made it back strong with everything they
| could, donating money equipment and food, there was alot of
| volunteer organizations back then and these ones was one of
| the most well know, still operating to this day
|
| tbh Idk how to reassure you they are true but here's their
| fb page with 3mln+ followers
| https://www.facebook.com/backandalive/
|
| and here's the link of that IT community thing I've
| mentioned before https://dou.ua/forums/topic/36494/
|
| hopefully those will provide some validation for you
| mushbino wrote:
| Is it assistant for the Azov battalion?
| Hard_Space wrote:
| A nice idea, but not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon.
| gs17 wrote:
| However, I appreciate their optimism in assuming the site would
| still be up in the event they need to use the actual nuclear
| symbol.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| Is it appropriate to flag the link for that same reason?
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| They actually posted a video on their twitter of a mushroom
| cloud somewhere last week, then deleted it. I followed them for
| a long time, but recently they have gone full conspiracy-
| theorist. They frequently post videos, photos, or rumors with
| no source, and when you ask them the source they just say "you
| should trust us". These aren't UN observers, they are quite
| extreme and scaremongering on their twitter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon_
|
| Ironic, given Ukraine wouldn't be in this situation had it not
| given up its nuclear weapons on the back of promises--from the
| U.K., U.S. and Russia--that its territory would be respected
| [1].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
| croes wrote:
| I don't think Russia would've accepted a country nearby with
| nuclear weapons.
|
| It would have become the russian version of the Cuban Missile
| Crisis.
| throw3838 wrote:
| Not really. Maidan would never happen if Ukraine had nukes.
| rmason wrote:
| U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the agreement to protect
| Ukraine from a Russian invasion in exchange for it's nuclear
| weapons. However the agreement was never submitted it for
| ratification by the U.S. Senate. So in effect in the words of
| the Brooking institution it became a 'politically binding but
| not legally binding agreement.'
| kingcharles wrote:
| LOL. Most treaties the US signs are politically "binding"
| but have no effect because there is no underlying statute
| created to enforce them.
|
| tl;dr: treaties are PR shams
| eftychis wrote:
| The tl;dr is not true however. There is binding
| international law affecting certain treaties, and some
| kind of treaties and parties do expect ratification from
| each signatories' internal legislative body. (e.g.
| totally random example
| https://www.jta.org/archive/french-senate-ratifies-
| lausanne-...)
|
| Your body is correct though: Now why the US follows a
| counter-pattern and why Ukraine did not ask for
| ratification is another discussion, that I consider to be
| long term harmful.
|
| From the Ukraine's side/pov: it will be politically not
| wise for the U.S.A. to back out of the protection treaty.
| There is good will capital that is lost, just for
| allowing this 8 year situation to occur.
| nradov wrote:
| The 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances was
| specifically a _memorandum_ , not a _treaty_. It was never
| intended to be submitted to the US Senate for ratification.
| kwantam wrote:
| In what sense were they Ukraine's nuclear weapons? They were
| physically inside Ukraine but controlled by Russia, as the
| article you linked makes clear.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Ukraine also probably had half the engineers and scientists
| that built the damn things in the first place considering
| how much of the Soviet nuclear industry was located in
| Ukraine at the time.
|
| They ended up with the 3rd largest nuclear stockpile and
| whilst they would probably would get invaded by both sides
| if they didn't surrender the nukes and attempted to assert
| operational control over them they surely had that
| capability.
|
| Also back then the primary fear was that some of those
| nukes would end up on the open market, Iran, Iraq,
| Pakistan, Libya, North Korea heck even South Africa back
| then were all likely buyers.
| markvdb wrote:
| South Africa had its own nuclear weapons. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapon
| s_of_ma...
| jessriedel wrote:
| Those were simple gun-type pure fission weapons (~6
| kiloton), which are two orders of magnitude smaller than
| the typical thermonuclear weapons (~1 megaton) left by
| the USSR in Ukraine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They were the Soviet Union's nukes. That organization
| ceased to exist.
|
| The section of the Soviet military controlling those nukes
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Rocket_Army) became a
| part of the Ukranian military. Why wouldn't their
| equipment?
| trenchgun wrote:
| Ukraine never had the control of those nukes.
|
| "Until then, Ukraine had the world's third-largest
| nuclear weapons stockpile, of which Ukraine had physical,
| but not operational, control. Russia alone controlled the
| codes needed to operate. Their use was dependent on
| Russian-controlled electronic Permissive Action Links and
| the Russian command and control system" https://en.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Russia alone controlled the codes needed to operate_
|
| If Ukraine had held on to those nukes, disconnected, an
| engineer today could re-work them to function under
| Kiev's command. (American PALs from the era have de-
| classified weaknesses that merited upgrades. Post-USSR
| nuclear safekeeping was roundly criticised for decades
| [1].)
|
| Even barring that, possessing fissile material is no
| small feat. It would give Kiev the credible capability to
| _e.g._ threaten large sections of Russian agricultural
| production. That's the sort of thing that deters tanks.
|
| [1] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SE-11.pdf
| morelisp wrote:
| baybal2 wrote:
| > "Until then, Ukraine had the world's third-largest
| nuclear weapons stockpile, of which Ukraine had physical,
| but not operational, control. Russia alone controlled the
| codes needed to operate. Their use was dependent on
| Russian-controlled electronic Permissive Action Links and
| the Russian command and control system"
|
| I don't know where they got it, the book author cited in
| Wiki. The man cited read too much Tom Clancy I guess.
|
| USSR nuclear weapons had no permissive action links as
| such
|
| Kazakhstan's, and Ukrainian's nukes were fully
| operational, sans confused nuclear weapons officer
| command chain.
|
| The launch codes were employed, but they were used solely
| for checking the authenticity of launch, and targetting
| commands.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > They were the Soviet Union's nukes. That organization
| ceased to exist.
|
| I agree with some of what you say, but "the Soviet Union
| ceased to exist" is too simplistic. The codes necessary
| for firing the weapons (without modification) were
| controlled by military leaders largely in Russia.
| zx85wes wrote:
| The former states of the USSR agreed that Russia was the
| continuator state of the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Succession_of_states#Soviet_Un... The "the Soviet
| Union ceased to exist" argument was also used to
| circumvent the agreement not to expand NATO towards the
| east. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16117-document-0
| 6-record-...
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the agreement not to expand NATO towards the east_
|
| This is a myth. There was a discussion in the midst of a
| negotiation that mentioned this. The final agreement, the
| Budapest Memorandum, which everyone is presently
| violating, did not.
| pydry wrote:
| There were multiple assurances made throughout the years
| in diplomatic comminques that were later declassified
| including James Baker's famous "not one inch eastward".
|
| https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-
| programs/2017...
|
| It just didnt appear in any treaty.
|
| For the Soviet Union I think the notion that diplomatic
| assurances were meaningless unless backed by a treaty
| wasnt considered.
| vkou wrote:
| Most people recognize Russia to be _the_ successor state
| to the Soviet Union, much like how they recognize that
| the Fifth French Republic is the successor state to the
| Fourth French Republic.
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd be more inclined to see the CIS as the successor.
|
| The Fifth French Republic may be the successor to the
| Fourth, but that doesn't mean Algeria is still French.
| mprovost wrote:
| Was the code 00000000?
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/21/air-force-swears-
| our-nu...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _In what sense were they Ukraine 's nuclear weapons? They
| were physically inside Ukraine but controlled by Russia, as
| the article you linked makes clear_
|
| Possession is nine-tenths of the law [1].
|
| Soviet weapons in Ukraine serviced by Russia when the
| Soviet Union dissolved had no clear owner. Russia would
| have had to seize them to gain control. Ukraine would have
| needed to develop or contract out servicing expertise.
|
| To say nothing of the threat even inoperable nukes pose. If
| Ukraine had unserviced warheads in 2014, do you really
| think they would have found nobody who could get them
| working again?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-
| tenths_of_t...
| jessriedel wrote:
| They were Ukraine's in the sense that they had physical
| possession and unlimited time to circumvent the locks
| ("permissive action link", PAL). It's true the PALs may
| have been very non-trivial to circumvent (e.g., some PALs
| require a code to decrypt firing parameters), but I haven't
| seen anyone argue that this wasn't still _vastly_ easier
| than developing weapons from scratch. Ukraine had
| substantial nuclear weapons expertise; it was not just a
| physical hosting site of the weapons.
| moritonal wrote:
| Just gonna point out that trying to hack a Nuke would be
| very high on that list of "NOPE" jobs I have in my head.
|
| Either you brick a nuke in which case your boss bricks
| you, or the nuke bricks you and your local region.
| laverya wrote:
| Or the nuke does an intentional fizzle (sets off the
| implosion in an intentionally asymmetric manner resulting
| in plutonium being spread all over, but no nuclear
| criticality) which seems like the most serious-but-still-
| plausible "fuck you for trying this" mechanism I can
| think of.
| Accujack wrote:
| A fizzle is just a nuclear weapon that doesn't reach its
| design potential yield, which isn't the same thing as no
| nuclear criticality.
|
| A 5 MT hydrogen bomb that "only" yields 750 kt of
| explosive power is a fizzle, but you don't want to be
| anywhere near when it happens.
| laverya wrote:
| Yeah, fizzle was a bad choice of word. I'm not sure what
| you'd call an intentionally subcritical detonation,
| though.
| arethuza wrote:
| Pick nukes from a country that doesn't use PALs - like
| the UK.
|
| Edit: Physically getting hold of a UK nuke might be a bit
| tricky....
| kadoban wrote:
| How much of nukes is even hardware vs software? I'd
| naively think that you'd probably just rip out the core
| of the device and wire up a new thing that can zap it to
| go boom.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The timing of the explosives around the core is extremely
| important to actually getting a nuclear detonation
| instead of just a dirty bomb so the precise timing and
| triggering of the detonators is a very critical part of
| the bomb. They're not just simple fuses you can light and
| run away.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Nuclear bombs are strongly disinclined to "go boom"
| unlike say TNT. Turning the energy from splitting atoms
| into a large explosion, which is what you want from a
| weapon, will require precise timing. If you get it wrong
| either nothing happens, or you maybe create a small
| detonation, and cover a modestly sized area with
| dangerous debris from the failed attempt. Just throw a
| box of grenades into a waste water treatment plant or
| something instead for a fraction of the cost.
| kadoban wrote:
| Isn't getting the timing right just "zap all the bits at
| the same time" ?
|
| Are these still basically a soccer ball of explosives
| encircling a core of subcritical nuclear material that
| "just" needs to be compressed?
|
| I think all of my knowledge of nukes might be based on ht
| tps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhattan_Project_(film
| ) xD
| mywittyname wrote:
| For reference, there have been a number (dozens, at
| least) of nuclear devices dropped accidentally all over
| the world (some of which landed in the USA), but none
| have ever accidentally detonated.
|
| This was a plot device in the popular Fallout games.
| Where a city had built up around a nuclear bomb which
| failed to detonate during a nuclear war.
| Accujack wrote:
| You can, but it's not as simple as it sounds. Since the
| timing of the explosives is critical to achieving a
| nuclear explosion, you can't really do the timing all in
| software. You need a specialized network of switches that
| splits the detonation signal several times so that all
| the explosives go off at exactly the same time. Even the
| wires have to be cut to the same length with a tiny
| margin of error.
|
| You can replace the timing and electronics mechanism
| prior to that network, but probably any sort of tamper
| resistant mechanism for a weapon will remove part of that
| network of switches if removed from the device. The rest
| of the controls are just too easy to replace to be
| effective at keeping someone from a roll your own type
| solution.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think about nuclear physics and high performance
| aerospace as the distinction between hardware and
| software shrinking to zero.
|
| You're effecting physical operations (movement,
| explosions) on such tight timescales that the software
| becomes part of the hardware. You can't just run the code
| on a different setup: the code is defined by the hardware
| it's running on, because it's orchestrating the physical
| properties of the hardware it's running on.
|
| As an analogy, think about programming early video game
| systems or computers, where a single clock cycle was
| critical. Is the software just software? Or is it
| intertwined with the hardware it's running on? (See:
| emulators having to mimic actual hardware performance)
| rtkwe wrote:
| They're not movie bombs where doing something wrong sets
| them off. PALs were very much the fail safe kind of
| device because if messing with them could set off the
| warhead then you've just discovered the way to detonate
| the warhead which a PAL was designed to prevent from
| happening. Nukes are also relatively safe in that it
| requires a very carefully timed sequence of explosion to
| properly implode the core so an accidental triggering is
| just a dirty bomb instead of a nuclear detonation.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Honestly, the biggest risk in failure is that the missile
| gets launched, but the payload is a dud. So now, your
| country gets the punishment for launching a nuke, but
| none of the benefits.
| Accujack wrote:
| It depends on what level the detonation was triggered at.
| An accidental detonation that actually triggers the
| primary device detonation mechanism could result in the
| bomb actually going off.
|
| If an accidental detonation means just triggering some of
| the explosives, then yes, you'd get a dirty bomb.
| However, it's actually more likely that the bomb would
| actually detonate than the explosives being partially set
| off... they're designed specifically to be hard to
| detonate unless the actual detonator mechanism is used.
| bregma wrote:
| > just a dirty bomb
|
| You'd be just as dead.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Mostly if you're not smart enough to work remotely in
| which case you're probably not the person to be trying to
| bypass a PAL in the first place. And again they're not
| designed to trigger the bomb incorrectly if messed with
| because the whole point is to make them unusable unless
| you have the PAL code.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| One might easily imagine an energetic disabling event
| that doesn't result in nuclear yield. Just fire one
| detonator.
|
| That said, Command Disable mechanisms on modern weapons
| don't result in a loud bang. However, there's no
| guarantee those mechanisms are all that are used in
| mechanisms which may deter physical penetration of vital
| areas of the weapon.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is hard to guess because politics is complicated and
| it is a hypothetical, but I'd be surprised if they really
| had unlimited time to circumvent the locks. If they
| hadn't given them up peacefully, for all we know somebody
| might have decided to take them by force.
| int_19h wrote:
| At the time, Russia couldn't even quickly deal with
| Chechnya by force.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Other people have thought that "At the time, Russia
| couldn't even..." and regretted it.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| If soviet russia's PAL locks were built anything like
| US's security measures where it's actually subtle timing
| information they would have to rip out and completely
| rebuild the explosive shell that trigger the nuclear
| reaction, at which point you essentially are creating new
| nukes from scratch.
| jessriedel wrote:
| 1. It's not obvious to me you can't reverse-engineer the
| necessary timing information, _especially_ when you have
| a bunch of nuclear weapons experts and a huge stockpile
| allowing you to take apart a few and use that knowledge
| on the rest. To my knowledge, the PAL system was intended
| to prevent weapons from being detonated by rouge officers
| or thieves; it wasn 't designed to thwart states.
|
| 2. Even if all the conventional explosions are worthless,
| you still have all the nuclear material and other
| extremely sophisticated equipment involved with boosting,
| etc. It's not like creating new nukes from scratch.
|
| I think for this conversation to continue productively,
| we need experts to weigh in on these issues.
| [deleted]
| mikecoles wrote:
| Buffalo, NY, US made the map. Has anyone seen the inner workings
| of the site? Is it pulling keywords from feeds and then
| geolocating the incident?
|
| https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-wo...
| capableweb wrote:
| It's all manually sourced and manually geolocated.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Every pins that I have touched on the map pops up it's balloon
| that says the same thing "84 ceasefire violations, 2 servicemen
| killed."
|
| mmmmm
| slater wrote:
| Looks like that's a compilation of many smaller skirmishes that
| happened most recently
| shrubble wrote:
| Does anyone know which areas of Ukraine have the large proven
| reserves of Lithium, the element needed for EV battery
| production? I know that the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have or
| are near to large coal deposits.
| ohwellish wrote:
| update: better link with a map, Lithium are those light green
| circles https://i.imgur.com/6JU7YS5.jpeg
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