Navigating the Tensions in Ukraine: A Scientific Perspective

[Isopod]

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

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

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

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



But a few people have told me that nuclear weapons are so incredibly powerful now that the info in this video is out of date (its more applicable to a nuclear fallout situation in the 40s/50s) because if a modern-day nuclear bomb was dropped on us, there would be no survivors left to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

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

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

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

 

[Isopod]

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

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

 

[pinball1970]

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

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

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

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

 

[artis]

Prime minister of Slovakia

 

[artis]

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

 

[Isopod]

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

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

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

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



Israels white phospherous bombs:


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

Lowdown on White Phospherous bombs, their uses & effects:





Footage of the bombs in action being used in Mosul:

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

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

Putin is just egging for a WW3.

 

[PeroK]

Putin is just egging for a WW3.

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

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

 

[artis]

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

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

 

[artis]

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

 

[artis]

 

[Isopod]

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

View attachment 299634

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

 

[artis]

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

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

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

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

 

[Isopod]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[PeroK]

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

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

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

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

 

[artis]

 

[Baluncore]

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

 

[Isopod]

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"17 Facts about Search Psychology You Should Know"​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... ... ...

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

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

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

Russia's always been a threat.

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

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

 

[Isopod]

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

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

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

 

[artis]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[artis]

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

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

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

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

 

[BillTre]

I actually think that people might be more stupid and less educated now than they were in the past.

Over longer time scales, the human brain has evolved to smaller sizes (by ~10%), since the ice age.
This has been attributed to several things:

• brains use a lot of energy (~25% of body energy use), so smaller brains use less energy, which can be adaptive
• "self-domestication": domesticated animals have smaller brains, presumably due to less requirement for thinking in a human curated environment.
• "off-loading" of memory/thought processes to social structures

Its a long term evolutionary trend.

 

[artis]

This is a short but really good video , a message from a US veteran Andrew Milburn, helping in Ukraine now

 

[Astronuc]

On 7 April 2014, following the annexation of Crimea by Russia, Russian-backed militants occupying the Donetsk Oblast administrative building declared independence from Ukraine and staged an unrecognized referendum on separating from Ukraine on 11 May 2014. Subsequently, the war in Donbas started. After Donetsk fell to the insurgents, the Donetsk Oblast administration was relocated to Mariupol and later to Kramatorsk.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk_Oblast

Kramatorsk is near the center of Donetsk, and area that Putin seeks to completely control. From Luhansk, to the east, and Donetsk, Russia military could launch missiles and artillery into the rest of Ukraine, or the military could simply regroup, reinforce and resupply for further offensives in the future. A prolonged war seems to be inevitable, and it would seem an escalation at some point is likely. Apparently, Putin would like to take control of the entire coast line of Ukraine, all the way passed Odessa, which would leave Ukraine landlocked and deprive Ukraine of independent international trade except through the European states on its western border.

Together, Ukraine and Russia ship ~30% of wheat to the global market.

Russia and Ukraine collectively accounted for about 30% of global wheat exports and 20% of maize exports over the last three years, the organization said, with conflict-related export disruptions in both countries prompting a surge in global prices of wheat and coarse grain. The FAO Cereal Price Index was 17.1% higher in March than it was in February.

"The expected loss of exports from the Black Sea region exacerbated the already tight global availability of wheat," the organization added. "With concerns over crop conditions in the United States of America also adding support, world wheat prices rose sharply in March, soaring by 19.7 percent.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091705608/global-food-prices-record-high-ukraine-war

Mariupol is in Donetsk.
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/23/1088113318/what-mariupol-means-ukraine-russia-military-campaign

By controlling Mariupol, Russia could potentially create a land bridge to Crimea and control the entire north shore of the Sea of Azov.
. . .

If Russia effectively cuts off Mariupol for the long term, and with it access to the Sea of Azov, it will damage Ukraine's finances and economic sustainability, hindering the country's ability to sell and ship its products.

"It's part of a broader effort to effectively cut Ukraine off from access to the sea, which is a really important part of Ukrainian economy and trade," Konaev says.

Edit/update: I was listening to a news report about Russian forces regrouping/reinforcing/rearming in Belarus and Russia for a large offensive in the east, ostensibly to take control of all of Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts), but it could also mean Kharkiv.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Oblast

The presumably, a prolonged campaign to depopulate and take control of Ukraine east of Dnipro River, while seeking to undermine the western part of Ukraine, Moldova (Transnistra), Romania, Slovakia and Poland. It seems Putin already has an ally in Hungary, which can be used to undermine neighboring states.

 

[artis]

It's interesting, Russians have an elite military group called "The Wagner group" , Ukrainians now have "The Mozart group"

Starts to sound like they will face each other in Ukraine's east with violins and cellos...

 

[artis]

Just another video from a Russian town from which a soldier has died, but listen to the opinions expressed in the end of the video, I once thought they can't be representative of the larger views held by Russians but talking more to people in reality seems to confirm they indeed are.

 

[Astronuc]

Just another video from a Russian town from which a soldier has died, but listen to the opinions expressed in the end of the video, I once thought they can't be representative of the larger views held by Russians but talking more to people in reality seems to confirm they indeed are.

What I don't hear in such interviews is the question to the Russian individuals, "What did Ukraine do to Russia, or you personally, to warrant an invasion?", or "How were you personally affected by Ukraine before the war?". Either they reflect on the fact that they weren't really, they have to make up something, or repeat some Putin propaganda.

 

[Astronuc]

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

Some other insightful articles

March 17 - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/03/negotiated-peace-russia-fraught-danger

March 18 - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/03/cost-ceding-advantage-russia-far-reaching

Three weeks later, they still apply, and will continue to do so.

 

[artis]

What I don't hear in such interviews is the question to the Russian individuals, "What did Ukraine do to Russia, or you personally, to warrant an invasion?", or "How were you personally affected by Ukraine before the war?". Either they reflect on the fact that they weren't really, they have to make up something, or repeat some Putin propaganda.

The ones who strongly support Putin even up to now don't really go down that "intellectual rabbit hole"
For them that question is meaningless because they only see US as aggressor and NATO as threat, and in the absence of those "threats" they would more than happily once again come live in neighboring countries with the added bonus of their puppet government controlling them against the wishes of the locals.

It is a combination of ill informed patriotism together with rudeness and with the added brainwashing cheery on top.

 

[neilparker62]

So here's a thought I had. Could not a group/groups of prominent Russians (oligarchs and/or political exiles such as GK ?) and Ukrainians convene their own conference (on neutral territory if needs be) and try to chart - at least in principle - a way forward out of this mess ? Theme for the conference: "Blueprint for the permanent stabilisation of the European continent" if that does not sound too lofty an ideal (pipe dream perhaps ?).

 

[Astronuc]

So here's a thought I had. Could not a group/groups of prominent Russians (oligarchs and/or political exiles such as GK ?) and Ukrainians convene their own conference (on neutral territory if needs be) and try to chart - at least in principle - a way forward out of this mess ? Theme for the conference: "Blueprint for the permanent stabilisation of the European continent" if that does not sound too lofty an ideal (pipe dream perhaps ?).

In theory, that would be possible, but unlikely. What would Russia give up? Would Russia keep what has been taken? Would Russian military withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk, and compensate Ukraine for the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure? What about the dead civilians or the survivors whose homes have been destroyed and whose loved ones have been murdered? What about Putin? What about further aggression? What about US/UK/EU sanctions?

It would not matter much if the group of Russians didn't have Putin's approval.

 

[neilparker62]

In theory, that would be possible, but unlikely. What would Russia give up? Would Russia keep what has been taken? Would Russian military withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk, and compensate Ukraine for the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure? What about the dead civilians or the survivors whose homes have been destroyed and whose loved ones have been murdered? What about Putin? What about further aggression? What about US/UK/EU sanctions?

It would not matter much if the group of Russians didn't have Putin's approval.

I would say very simply that at some point all of the above will have to be discussed!

 

[bob012345]

So here's a thought I had. Could not a group/groups of prominent Russians (oligarchs and/or political exiles such as GK ?) and Ukrainians convene their own conference (on neutral territory if needs be) and try to chart - at least in principle - a way forward out of this mess ? Theme for the conference: "Blueprint for the permanent stabilisation of the European continent" if that does not sound too lofty an ideal (pipe dream perhaps ?).

Why should the Ukrainians compromise their freedom and independence to satisfy Russia's aggression? It is immoral to even ask them to in my opinion. No, the only Blueprint for the permanent stabilisation of the European continent is the to stop Russian aggression.

 

[Isopod]

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

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

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

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

Nah, I don't buy that.

The Russian army is behaving as it has always done. Just look at this Russian veteran recounting the horrors he saw the Russian army commit towards German girls & women towards the end of WW2 (warning: very disturbing accounts, not for the faint of heart):

‘The Russian soldiers raped every German female from eight to 80’​

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/01/news.features11

More accounts & photographic evidence of the rape of Berlin, "How German Women suffered the largest Mass Rape in History": https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2018/03/11/PICTURES-The-largest-mass-rape-in-history

"The rape of Berlin"​

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32529679

"The Soviet army raped over two million German women. Over 240,000 women died because of rapes. Many of them committed suicide or died from venereal diseases"



So, historically speaking, the Russian armies behaviour in Ukraine right now? Same old army that its always been (nothing new going on).

The commanders of the Red Army not only did virtually nothing to prevent their troops from raping women and children back in WW2, but proactively encouraged them to do it (it was systematic) because organising it was seen as both a means to keep their troops under control and was used a weapon of terror & revenge in itself unto the "enemy".

So I don't buy this whole "The Russian army is full of aggressive & uneducated teenage country bumpkins (and that's why they're behaving this way)" rhetoric to explain recent reports of the armies behaviour in Ukraine. For starters, this could be applied to just about every army in the world (full of young men from the boonies) but also, we only think things are different now because we have historically never been that well educated about our own past. This is partly because of the old "History is written by the victors" stuff, but also because of the social stigma attached to rape & the general problems of reporting it during war. There are also often elements of racism, colonialism & other politics going on in the reporting wartime rape (its not "us" who rape, but other nations who do so) and so while we get taught a lot about things like like The Rape of Nanking and rape during the Rwandan Genocide, we are not taught so much about things like The Rape of Berlin.

-------

After spending years in POW camps during WW2, my grandfather became utterly convinced that there was something fundamentally messed up about the German people because of the utter sadism that he 1st hand witnessed being committed by the camp guards towards the prisoners and because of accounts of Germans behaviour that he heard taking place throughout Europe back then. Even on his deathbed, he still could not forgive the German people for what they did in WW2 and although he traveled the world (and visited endless countries during his retirement years), the one country he utterly refused to ever set foot on was Germany.

Personally, I do not believe that there's anything particularly fundamentally messed up about the German people, nor any other nation for that matter which got a reputation at points for utter depravity during wartime years (for example the Japanese). Instead, I believe that there is a darkness that lurks in just about every one of us and even worse, that it doesn't take a whole lot to bring it out.

A classic example of relatively minimal conditions bringing out the worst in people, would be the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Here's a little lowdown for those who don't know:



They even made a movie about the experiment back in 2015:



Anyhow...

Re: The Chernobyl ignorance stuff, I can kind of believe it.

For example, Chernobyl? Yeah, loads of people know about that.
But the Red Forest? Less so.
And who knows the exact perimeters of the Red Forest? Even less.
What about the fact that the Red Forest is dead- could they have not discerned it from all the dead trees? Well they were fighting in what was basically still the Winter and trees haven't come into bloom yet, to the untrained eye it can be hard to tell a dead tree from one that's still just asleep from the Winter.

Also (lets face it), we've seen the Russian commanders treat their ground troops as very disposable. Many the troops were aware that they were going into Chernobyl, but they probably assumed that the commanders weren't going to take them through any dangerous parts of it. And there are some "safer" zones in the Chernobyl exclusion zone where some people do live (for example "The people who moved to Chernobyl" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/moving_to_Chernobyl ) and this combined the abundance of wildlife (boar, wolves, feral ponies etc) that lives in the contaminated zone, it might not have been immediately obvious to the casual observer how radioactive the site actually was (one of those "Expectations VS Reality" perception issues). It is also entirely possible that neither the commanders nor the army were aware that digging into the Red Forests turf was going to create such a difference in radiation levels.

I think that during times of shocking cruelty & depravity during war, we tend to seek to distance ourselves from these things whilst simultaneously try to understand them by viewing such events as something not committed by our own kind (or people relatable to our kind), but instead as actions committed by the "other" (in this case, some vague bandings of young & uneducated recruits who come from parts of Russia so isolated, that they're practically foreign to even a lot of Russians). But endless experiments and events (both in and outside of warzones) beg to differ; almost anyone can behave with utter depravity when the environment changes from peacetime to wartime and people are wrapped up in group thinking dynamics (etc).

 

[neilparker62]

An unimaginable nightmare. Well I think we are at some kind of crossroads with respect to the "advanced civilization" posts in this thread. Either we overcome the nightmare or we fail as an "advanced civilization."

 

[neilparker62]

Why should the Ukrainians compromise their freedom and independence to satisfy Russia's aggression? It is immoral to even ask them to in my opinion. No, the only Blueprint for the permanent stabilisation of the European continent is the to stop Russian aggression.

I think the question of whether to engage or not in negotiations of some form or another will be for Ukranians to decide. I don't think it's immoral to put ideas on the table - not at all. President Zelensky himself has not ruled out the possibility.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1258728.shtml

 

[bob012345]

I think the question of whether to engage or not in negotiations of some form or another will be for Ukrainians to decide. I don't think it's immoral to put ideas on the table - not at all. President Zelensky himself has not ruled out the possibility.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1258728.shtml

Maybe he will negotiate the surrender of Russian forces in Ukraine.

 

[phinds]

I think the question of whether to engage or not in negotiations of some form or another will be for Ukranians to decide. I don't think it's immoral to put ideas on the table - not at all. President Zelensky himself has not ruled out the possibility.

And do you seriously think that Putin is interested in any kind of negotiations? Zelensky would be doing what in the military is called pissing up a rope.

 

[neilparker62]

And do you seriously think that Putin is interested in any kind of negotiations? Zelensky would be doing what in the military is called pissing up a rope.

I can only quote what Zelensky himself has said:

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that talks between Ukraine and Russia will continue despite the evidence of "atrocities carried out by the Russian military," the Ukrinform news agency reported on Wednesday.

"In any case, we must find even small opportunities for the negotiation process. Without this, I think it is difficult to end the war," Zelensky was quoted as saying in an interview with Turkey's Haberturk television channel.

On Putin you are probably right but his teams are going to the table at least. The performance of the Ukrainian military has certainly strengthened their President's bargaining chips!

 

[phinds]

On Putin you are probably right but his teams are going to the table at least. The performance of the Ukrainian military has certainly strengthened their President's bargaining chips!

Teams at tables and bargaining chips are irrelevant if Putin doesn't really want to negotiate. Do you seriously think that he does?

 

[neilparker62]

Teams at tables and bargaining chips are irrelevant if Putin doesn't really want to negotiate. Do you seriously think that he does?

No I don't. We will just have to hope that he's not an entirely one man show in Russia!

 

[phinds]

No I don't. We will just have to hope that he's not an entirely one man show in Russia!

That I can agree with although I think it's a bit optimistic.

 

[Vanadium 50]

But let's also be real here, post-WW2, the US has repeatedly managed to convince its people to start and engage in a huge number of dubious war

Please back that up.

Roughly 10 million people have died in wars post 1946 (vs. 85 million in WW2). Major wars were the partition of India, the Bangladesh Indepedence wars, the Soviet-Afghan war, the Second Congo War, the Second Sudanese Civil War, the Ethiopian Civil War, the Nigerian Civil War,

It's easy to blame the US. But the bloodiest conflicts tend not to have US involvement, andto be in parts of the world nobody cares about. One might even argue that post-war decolonization was the major cause of war deaths post-WW2.

 

[phinds]

parts of the world nobody cares about

Ooohh ... harsh.

I'll bet the people in those regions would not agree w/ you.

 

[strangerep]

Instead, I believe that there is a darkness that lurks in just about every one of us and even worse, that it doesn't take a whole lot to bring it out.

+1 (alas).

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'll bet the people in those regions would not agree w/ you.

I bet they wouldn't. I made the same point about malaria vs. Covid in another thread. Important people get covid, so it's a worldwide crisis. Malaria, not so much.

 

[artis]

Nah, I don't buy that.

I'm not sure what exactly you refuse to buy? You basically argued against something which I did not say.
My claim was not that the Russian army became like this recently. It has always been like that and somewhat for the very reason you dismissed - which is the low education and harsh backgrounds of many of it's conscripts.

To use your own phrases , no not even "country bumpkins" are the same everywhere, yes people do have a capability towards violence but the background in which they grow up matters alot.
I had a friend who grew up in an orphanage , he said himself that he was probably the only guy in his "class" in the orphanage who doesn't commit violence on a daily basis. He even got raped by his very "friends" while in the orphanage.
And yet this is not how I remember my childhood while growing up in a family , nor were my friends violent thugs nor did we rape each other.

So once more I'm not sure what you find so hard to buy in what I said.
The fact that the Soviet army wasn't much better during WW2 is exactly for the very reasons I said.
And then again it wasn't the whole army, there were soldiers who had good conscience who did not partake in those lusts.
I know a dozen people who had served in the Red army whom I have talked stuff like this over I could tell you even the specific nationalities and ethnicities that were among the most violent within that army, but I won't do it here because it will easily be labeled racism and stir up some negative feedback.In fact one of your provided links actually hints at one of the reasons I would have explained

Asian societies comprising the Soviet Union believed that dishonor was avenged by raping the women of the enemy.

Germans had their fair share of atrocities too, but they were less brutal , more polite and had higher manners even during war (on average), as my now gone relatives told me when I was a kid from their personal experience, and there is a good explanation for that, again background. Germany had a much higher standard of living and culture and everything else pre WW2 than Russia.

Recall few years ago immigrants from the middle east raped women in Germany during New Year's eve, there wasn't even a war happening, again background. Anyone who knows about the average background that people grow up in various middle eastern countries would understand.
But the point is this, background matters alot. People have very different approach to life in the far east and many of the "stans" countries than in the west.

PS. I have seen the Stanford prison experiment, yes good movie.

 

[artis]

Here is a good read for those with enough time.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ukraine-war-marines-front-lines-1334770/

 

[artis]

Boris Johnson visits Kyiv and Zelensky,



A nice speech by Boris, let's hope it materializes , especially the military aid part

 

[neilparker62]

Boris Johnson visits Kyiv and Zelensky,

A nice speech by Boris, let's hope it materializes , especially the military aid part

A more measured speech certainly - he did not repeat his "Brexit bloomer".

 

[artis]

And there's that Russian convoy again, this time in a different place and shorter,
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/worl...ne-satellite-images-phil-black-ndwknd-vpx.cnn