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Notes -
On its face, and from my comfy armchair, consuming my western news, the invasion of Ukraine seems like such a colossal waste of human lives and military power.
When I think about other recent conflicts, the ones that come to mind were also incredibly wasteful, but they make sense to me in a way that the Ukraine war does not (maybe because I'm not russian?). The recent examples that come to mind are the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the American defense of South Vietnam. These were arguably also very wasteful but maybe not on the scale of the Ukraine war. Are these good analogies for the war in Ukraine?
My initial ideas relate to the idea that Russia had a lot of military power that was sitting around unused and a bunch of petro income that made any sanctions less meaningful. Maybe the invasion/war hasn't actually been costly? Perhaps Russian leaders (and the hawks among them) saw nationalist fracturing of the tech supply chain coming anyways and this just accelerates it?
What does Russia get for the tremendous expenditure of resources in the invasion and following conflict? Is there some piece of context that helps the invasion make sense to a westerner?
Russians believe they're protecting Russians in historic Russian lands from a campaign of anti-Russian hatred by a populous poisoned by western-backed Galicians. They think, or at least thought, of Ukrainians as wayward little brothers who also needed to be protected from western poison seeking to rob both them and Russia generally of real sovereignty.
Russia is facing something of a demographic cliff and as time goes on their power will wain so they were more time limited than the West. Since 2014, they've been preparing their economy for just this. They attempted over years to come to a diplomatic solution ethnic protections and autonomy for parts of eastern Ukraine (Minsk agreements), but Ukraine and the West used this time to heavily fortify eastern Ukraine, using soviet strategy of using cities (and their populations) like fortresses, and raising and training the largest army in Europe behind only Russia while engaging in an 8 year long terror campaign against the populations in Donbass and Lugansk (not to mention the slaughter of pro-Russians in Odessa in 2014).
The Russian perspective is explained by Putin in his speech at the start of the war. And further reinforced in his speech in September (text here). Tl;dr: protect ethnic russians, russian land, fake state and identity, western poison, failed diplomacy, and some more
Minsk agreements were never intended to be anything but delays and Russia never seriously considered itself bound by any of it, no more than Budapest agreements.
That is pure fabrication, nothing like that ever happened - that's why Russians initially captured so much land, especially on the south-east - because there was no serious fortification ever made. In fact, quite the opposite - a wide publicized campaign of road building and enhancement was performed just before the war (which roads were then gladly used by the advancing Russian troops). Some opponents still can't forgive Zelensky this.
Again, nothing like that happened - this didn't even happen in Soviet times, and certainly nothing like that was happening during post-soviet times. They did not believe there would be a war, and did not build anything to prepare for it. There were - and still is - some stuff left from Soviet times, but some "city-fortress" dreams are pure fabrications.
This is complete bullshit, Ukrainian army in 2021 numbered under 200 thousands, and only part of it was combat personnel. See e.g.: https://www.ukrmilitary.com/2021/02/utrymannya.html
This not "largest army in Europe behind only Russia", and that's not accounting for acute lack of materiel and weapons - all the Western weapon supplies came after the start of the war, before it was "helmets and blankets" policy. While Russia had the standing army of over a million.
Russia also had the military budget of $65bn/year, Ukraine had 1/10th of that. And that's not counting "private contractors" - which proved to be the only combat-capable parts of Russian military - which are financed completely from black budgets and aren't counted as official military. And the "special forces" which did the bulk of the job in Ukraine before 2022.
Not that Ukraine weren't justified in upping their army after 2014, when Russia conquered part of their territory - but they didn't. Turns out it was a huge mistake, but that's not the reason to lie and pretend exactly the opposite happened.
Again, nothing like that happened. What happened is Russian army, Russian special forces along with a bunch of local criminals seized control over some areas. Russian aren't hiding it for a long time, and yet you insist on repeating their stale lies, which even they since abandoned. Later, some fissures developed between local criminals and their Russian handlers, due to misalignment of their goals. Also, both forces were determined to keep the conflict active, so they periodically attacked Ukrainian forces - which were unable to take back control over their territory. Locals gangs weren't also shy of shelling residential buildings and so on - to keep Russia more involved and pouring in more resources, since they reasonably assumed if Russia withdraws its troops, Ukraine would make short work of them and re-establish control. So the population turned into hostages locked between local gangs and Russian military, both intent to control the territory and both determined not to allow any resolution of the conflict - because creating the conflict is what they were there for.
Imagine Sinaloa cartel, aided by Mexican special forces, taking control over southern Texas - that's what it happened. Except drug cartels have the main purpose to sell drugs, and warmaking is only secondary for them. So maybe not the cartel but Sendero Luminoso or some other pungent group like that. It's pretty terrible thing, but Ukraine has nothing to do with it.
Again, there was no such thing. There was an attempt to do in Odessa what they did in Donetsk and Lugansk, instigated by the same sources in Russia, of course, and it did not work out well, and in the process some of the people participating in it - some unwittingly as they didn't know what was happening at the time - died. It's regrettable as much as all loss of human life is regrettable (or almost all) but constantly digging it out as some kind of justification of Russia atrocities only reveals the weakness of Russian propaganda efforts.
It sounds like you are just reading from a sheet of standard Russian propaganda, hitting all the prescribed notes in prescribed sequence. Which, of course, are all lies.
The first one of course is grotesque lies again - there are millions of ethnic Russians who are Ukrainian citizens and don't want to do anything with Putin, and many now are fighting him. Yet more are suffering from the atrocities inflicted on them by Russia. Some are already murdered by their "protectors". The second one is of course his wishes - he thinks any land Russia can conquer, or ever conquered in the past, is "Russian land". The third however is the most revealing - he wants to achieve this by cultural and ethnic genocide - since "Ukrainan" identity is "fake", destroying it is good, it's reveling the truth. This also reveals all the other lies - since Russian does not believe that Ukraine is a legitimate state and Ukrainian people exist, all their other claims are unnecessary - it's not because West behaved bad or Ukraine behaved bad, it's because they think it's Russian land and the people are Russian and thus are legitimate property of Putin, and Putin just comes to take his rightful property. That's the real reason. And the "we heroically fight Western decadence" is just the sugar coating for the plebes - maybe you live in shit, and will die in shit for Putin's grandiose ideas, but at least you are not a corrupt soul-less Westerner!
for Germany and France (and likely most of NATO), it surely was a delay game and they've admitted as much
whether or not Russians considered themselves "seriously bound" by any of it, they did implement their part of it
I can see the fortifications built in the Donbass and Lugansk on archived google maps. I read press covering their construction. Were those there in 2014 or did they magicked into existence?
I watched in real-time how Mariupol was used this way, including Ukrainian army and their militia pals attacking civilians trying to flee on backroads.
"large" = number of men and it is indeed true that Ukraine had more men under arms than any other country in Europe in 2021 behind Russia
you talking about Russia being bigger or spending more money is entirely irrelevant to the statement I made
how many men under arms in 2014? in 2021? Claiming the military didn't grow in size is simply nonsense.
I watched artillery shells targeting apartment buildings and city squares in Donetsk for 8 years with Ukrainian politicians bragging about the children in Donetsk hiding in basements instead of going to school. Or are you going to claim they were shelling themselves?
I watched them being burned alive in the Trade Unions House in Odessa on live stream in 2014.
I stopped reading there. Please read my comments more carefully.
They didn't, and they didn't even try to.
Donbass and Luhansk was captured in 2014. You were talking post-2014. Which fortifications specifically do you mean?
How exactly did you watch it in real time? You were present in Mariupol at that time? Where exactly and what did you do there? How did you get out?
No it didn't. Italy has more even if you stretch "men under arms" to include non-fighting personnel. France has more. UK has more. Germany maybe has more too, hard to say since I didn't find exact figures, but I think that's enough.
Not that it would be any problem if Ukraine has 2x more military and above France and UK and Italy taken together - but they didn't.
It is extremely relevant as Ukraine's military was minuscule compared to Russia's and so was Ukrainian military budget, and you're trying to present it as if Ukraine was trying to beef up to wage war on poor peaceful Russia. While what happened was the opposite - Russia has been beefing up their military for years, spending tons of money on it, and Ukrainians were largely dicking around before 2014, and continued to half-ass it after because they believed Crimea is as much as Putin would dare to go.
No, you watched some propaganda lies on TV (or Youtube, same difference). Now you are parroting them. In fact, in 2021 in Donetsk area there were 7 civilian causalities of war and in Luhansk - 1 civilian. For the whole year. This is "official" data from the Russians controlling Donetsk and Luhansk themselves, so they didn't have any incentive to undercount (and also it may mean that "civilians" were same gangsters just without official uniform - but we don't have a way to know it). This, of course, incompatible with constant shelling apartment buildings - what happens when that happens, we can see very well when Russians do it - not in propaganda lies, but in reality. One Russian attack produces more casualties usually than the whole fighting (instigated by Russians) produced for a year before Russians decided to "protect".
From the same source, overall number of casualties since the beginning of 2014 Russian invasion - both military and civilian - was 5038 (likely about 90% of them military). In 2022, the casualties among mobilized in Donetsk/Luhansk were in tens of thousands, and the number of civilian casualties unknowable. I guess this is how the Russian "protection" works.
Could you provide the names of three such Ukrainian politicians and where they bragged about that? This sounds very much like blatant propaganda, next thing you will tell me they crucified a little boy in underpants?
No, the kids in the basement obviously weren't shelling themselves (if such kids existed at all). But very possibly the gangsters that controlled the territory were shelling them, such cases were documented - the reason varying from infighting to just stirring shit up to promote one's own standing among other warlords. Or the Russian military, whose stormtrooper-like aiming capacities are widely famous now. Whatever they did, they probably couldn't top downing of a civilian airliner, so it was all small change to them undoubtedly.
You seem to get around - you were personally present in Donetsk, Mariupol, Odessa... Or wait, do you mean you watched some propaganda videos carefully prepared, edited and narrated to you, by Russian TV perchance, that's what you mean? Oh. I see then. You saw a video of a fire. Somebody told you some narrative about what happened in this fire. Since you saw the picture of a fire, you somehow believed this narrative is the holy truth and now consider yourself an eye-witness. If you don't understand the difference, I probably have no hope of penetrating the armor of your belief. But if you would care to research what happened, you'd know there was a fight between pro-Putin and pro-Ukraine protestors, which unfortunately devolved into throwing Molotov cocktails on both sides. Only one of the sides - the pro-Putin one - fortified themselves in the building. Which turned to be a very stupid idea when having an incendiary device fight - because when the fire followed, inevitably, they didn't have the means to retreat from it. But nobody forced them into the building, and they were giving as much as they were getting - so the "slaughter" here is not appropriate. They went out looking for a fight, they had the fight they were looking for, and they died, because of how they chose to conduct that fight. Regrettable, but hardly innocent lambs led to slaughter.
I don't know any way of carefully reading parroted propaganda lies that would make them anything but parroted propaganda lies, sorry.
pot meet kettle
that ends this discussion
So you admit to deliberate posting of parroted propaganda lies and accuse Jar of doing the same?
no
in the future, if you were looking for something resembling a genuine dialogue, this is not how one would start it
cheers
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