War in Ukraine

@Silas - Peace Popcorn! <shares with everyone>

Also, fair point.

@Achaemenid- Stronger military won't give them a stronger hand if it comes at the cost of just about everything else, which is what's happening now.

Awww, you guys, I love you all! Group hug!

Sometimes we act more like a squabbling family than a forum.

Too true. Also, we need a pass the popcorn smiley.

Because we could all use some lightening of the mood...

Ukrainian woman beats neighbor with live geese.

That poor goose.

The case was codenamed "Love and Geese", because suspect's name is Lyubov (Love) - claims victim's advocate.

edited 6th Mar '15 10:22:33 AM by Pz_VI

My sympathies are entirely with the geese.

Meanwhile, the rebels' mobilisation campaign is apparently going swimmingly. The locals volunteer en masse, mostly due to being really angry with Kyiv.

They should make the goose a martyr. They'll be sure to win then.

Please provide your sources when you make claims like that. The rest of us cant evaluate the claim unless you do.

There's a bunch of videos about that, but they are all from February. This information comes from my friends in the local (local in Russia, of course, not in Scotland) volunteer organisation that delivers humanitarian aid to Novorossiya, so consider it, as the newspapers say, an inside primary source.

edited 6th Mar '15 3:44:32 PM by KnitTie

Got it. Thanks for sharing that.

God, I love Vice News. They are definitely pro-Kyiv themselves, but they don't let that fact affect their reporting. Well, okay, they are trying to present dead people being shipped from Ukraine into Russia as conclusive evidence of Russian military fighting in Ukraine, because, you know, it's totally impossible that some Russians decide to actually volunteer to help a pro-Russian side win a war against an anti-Russian side in a culturally Russian region right across the border, but still. Also, do read the comments on the Youtube version of the video I linked, the mental gymnastics of Mc Cainbots there are seriously impressive.

Seems like Ukraine now has its own hilariously detached from reality propaganda thesis. "We won at Debaltsevo."

edited 7th Mar '15 12:05:46 AM by KnitTie

Ok, Knit Tie, here's a response to some of the issues you brought up both here and in the Russia thread.

About the Russian troops. There are a couple of issues. The first one I mentioned when I linked the article - that's why I frased it the way I did.

The soldiers go on vacation, or resign. Then they go to Donbass. Their military commanders know that exactly, thus - they condone it. Whatever the other points of the article are, this one raises a dilemma - you are sending your military country knowingly. It's either that or A LOT of soldiers are tricking their commanders and putting them under suspicion.

Another little peeve - there are political commissaries in the army, though they go by a different name. And, if you use a primary source (which is something to be wary of, I could easily allege that people are beginning a guerilla war against DPR, but that doesn't make it true. And the February videos are very inconclusive evidence), then I am going to do that, too - I have heard from my contacts in the opolcheniye that a lot of the Russian soldiers were tempted to Donbass by money.

Again, if you agree that Russian soldiers - retired, patriotic, whatever - then have you really got the right to tell the Ukrainians to stop the ATO? Another thing - nobody is alleging that the soldiers are the majority. But there's a significant enough amount to change the tide in every decisive battle (and allowing the Ukrainian Supreme Command to blame every tactical mistake on them).

And all that still ignores the advanced Russian machinery regularly entering Donbass.

As for the Maydan revolution and idealism. You, and a lot of both Russians and Westerners, are under a misconception here. The Maydan had no overarching ideas beyond "get Yanukovych out". There were radicals, there were nationalists, there were idealists (I was marginally part of that movement). But they were only a small part of the whole, which cemented Maydan's failure to create a political movement.

Let me explain one thing. Don't be under the illusion, as much of the Russians that read the Ukrainian internet, that Ukrainians didn't know that the political system wouldn't changdd that easily, or the oligarchs wouldn't be ousted.

They knew. And that's the demonstration of how far Yanukovych had gone, beyond any possible level of tolerance. ''This was more of a return to the status quo than a real change, and that's what the majority was looking for"". Now, the very vocal minorities, including us, had a very different end in mind, but we were too divided among ourselves to change anything.

And again, in a warped way, things have changed - the government is still stealing, but they are forced to steal less, the oligarchs grudgingly have to cooperate and sponsor the army to stave off the threat to their belongings, and for the first time since the Independence, popular opinion actually has an impact on the decisions. And people are allowed to express their opinion much more freely than in the past, although it's still a very long way to a democratic society.

That still leaves the Donbass situation, and I witnessed it firsthand, but I'll leave that for another post.

edited 7th Mar '15 8:33:29 AM by Emuran

By the way, where are the other Ukrainian tropers? I'm soldiering on alone here (sorry for the doublepost).

What other Ukrainian tropers? You were always the only one. Besides, you have the other tropers in general backing you up.

Aren't Kilremgor and Sayting from Ukraine?

Are they?

Emuran, as for the Russian soldiers - you are right in both cases. Russian military commanders do not even remotely try to stop their troops from going to Donbass, and there are also plenty of mercenaries there, both in the Novorossiyan and in the Ukrainian armies. And why shouldn't they be there? It's the first proper war in decades! Hell, I think that there was even an interview with a Polish mercenary who fought near Donetsk once in one of the local Scottish tabloids.

Now, as for Maidan, I actually supported it when it was still in full swing. Sic semper tyrannis and all that. However, in retrospective, I have to admit that it was a tremendously bad idea. Sure, the oligarchs might steal less and fund the army, or at least the part of the army that obeys them, but Ukraine is an economic basket case with no foreseeable way of getting out of recession any time soon without absurd amounts of money being dumped into it by the EU, which they are not even remotely itching to do now, what with Greece getting uppity and all, the welfare system is in shambles, the industry is ruined, the far-right is politically metastasising and the Donbass now hates Kyiv's guts. And how does popular opinion matter nowadays in Ukraine, anyway? 70% of people want the ATO to stop. It goes on. Thousands of draftees want the mobilisation to stop. It goes on. People want economic reforms. There are none. And so on and so forth. Even the free speech has taken a beating with the imprisonment of Kotsaba and the banning of the Russian channels. It's starkly reminiscent of what happened in the 90s in Russia, where people destroyed one system without making sure that there was another to take its place.

I am truly sorry, I just cannot see any positive developments in Ukraine since Yanukovich left. Maybe I am wrong.

edited 7th Mar '15 11:03:09 AM by KnitTie

The main problem with the "meh: only war going on; way to make hay while the sun shines if your job is soldiering" argument is a quite obvious one: unless you're the Iraqi armed forces, a very dim view is taken of soldiers just suddenly taking leave, taking equipment (with ammo and spare parts) and buggering off to make a quick savings plan.

Where are the courtmarshalls, the dishonourable discharges, the theft charges, the furious military police, the even more furious accountants and the very interested tax investgators? As stated: Russia's forces are rather better organised than cobbled-together militias who wouldn't know disciplinary organisation if it bit them.

Russian military volunteers and Russian military arms and ammo get into Novorossiya by two completely different channels, the latter of which is entirely governmentally-controlled. If a Russian soldier were to go to Donbass and take with him any equipment that he doesn't own, he'd be court martialed. Said soldier would also be court martialed if he were to go to Donbass while on active duty or without the permission of his commander.

edited 7th Mar '15 11:23:17 AM by KnitTie

Seriously? Only "active duty" (however you wish to define that at any given point)? If (likely) hundreds of Britsh troops on inactive duty up and left to go play in other countries without first being officially (and fully) discharged and registered with various companies. you would hear the shitstorm upon them getting brought back in Moscow.

In fact, a small handful are in trouble for trying to help out in the Middle East off their own bats after being discharged, no matter where they found arms.

I fear for the Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine: if this goes belly-up, they're the first in line to be handed a very nasty surprise about how unofficial they were officially allowed to be there actually suddenly turns out to be. -_-

I bet if London decided that a bunch of British troops in Middle East would be beneficial for Great Britain's interests, all these soldiers would suddenly find themselves under much less scrutiny.

Besides, you are assuming here that inactive duty Russian soldiers volunteering to go to Donbass is a rule and not an exception. Generally, non-discharged Russian troops are there under orders on a covert ops, while the soldiers that are openly fighting in the rebel army are long-retired veterans of Chechnya and Afghanistan. Like Motorola, for example.

Woo? That answers me: my point was lost on you. I was pointing out that they must have support from the top. For now. Which makes it a semi-official, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, invasion (oh, sorry: I meant "aid of our Russian brothers who just happen to be part of another country"). Which means that, if in the next twenty, thirty or forty years official opinion shifts, they are so screwed.

Seeing as many Middle East governments have British troops being sent there to train local forces officially you'd be wrong. Even with us sending our own trainers officially to several countries there would be a massive shitstorm if our soldiers went walkabout of their own initiative. Hell British interests would benefit massively from soldiers going to fight Assad, but a fit is still being pitched.

Soldiers, even off duty ones, are a part of the state, they don't get to go fight in a war and have their government claim no responsibility. If your government is standing by and letting its people participate in a war than it is responsible for their actions.