Everything about this war is just so wrong.
Russia invades Ukraine
There are 187 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 10,033 times. The latest Post () was by sts.
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My brother is on his way back from the Polish/Ukraine border having delivered food aid and collected Ukrainian refugees for onward transport to homes in Germany and Belgium.
He told me that it's a very well organised refugee centre, a stone's throw from Ukraine and they helped two families of five women and children.
I wish I could do more.
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Splinter , with what group is your brother working?
I don't know which group he linked up with, but he went of his own volition with a mate.
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Very brave and generous of him! Like you, we would like to do more, as all we seem to be doing now are donating money and flying the Ukrainian flag.
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This is a highly respected group who keep track of vehicles and equipment that has been destroyed, captured, disabled etc.
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That's a massive list, but I would prefer a summary.
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A summary would be easier to grasp, but the sheer numbers certainly are staggering.
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Also in the numbers department,NATO is now estimating 7,000 - 15,000 killed Russian solders. Extrapolating from that, the estimate 30-40,000 Russian casualties, out of a total army of 280,000 soldiers, 40% of whom are conscripts.
“The NATO military officer, in a briefing from the alliance's military headquarters in Belgium on Wednesday, said the estimate of 30,000 to 40,000 Russian casualties is derived from what he called a standard calculation that in war an army suffers three wounded soldiers for every soldier killed. The casualties include killed in action and wounded in action, as well as those taken prisoner or missing in action, the officer said.”
NATO: 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in UkraineNATO is estimating that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in a month of fighting in Ukraine.www.pbs.org -
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“The U.S. government has determined members of Russia’s military have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, as President Biden heads to Europe for high-level diplomatic meetings and a NATO leader announced plans to deploy more troops.
“Blinken said that assessment is based in part on U.S. intelligence and pointed to the suffering of civilians in Mariupol, a key port city that Russian forces cut off early in their invasion and then bombarded.”
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NYT newsletter today (long but we’ll worth reading):
The ‘messy middle’
If you live in most any Western country, your government’s support for Ukraine, including sending weapons and imposing sanctions on Russia, can give the impression of a united global response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
But that isn’t the case. Most of the world’s 195 countries have not shipped aid to Ukraine or joined in sanctions. A handful have actively supported Russia. Far more occupy the “messy middle,” as Carisa Nietsche of the Center for a New American Security calls it, taking neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s side.
“We live in a bubble, here in the U.S. and Europe, where we think the very stark moral and geopolitical stakes, and framework of what we’re seeing unfolding, is a universal cause,” Barry Pavel, a senior vice president at the Atlantic Council, told me. “Actually, most of the governments of the world are not with us.”
Today’s newsletter offers a guide to some of those countries and why they have committed to their stances.
National interests
India and Israel are prominent democracies that ally with the U.S. on many issues, particularly security. But they rely on Russia for security as well and have avoided arming Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Moscow. “In both cases, the key factor isn’t ideology but national interests,” says my colleague Max Fisher, who has written about Russia’s invasion.
India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons, seeking to protect itself from Pakistan and China. India joined 34 other countries in abstaining from a United Nations vote that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as you can see on the map below. And India appears to be rebuffing Western pleas to take a harder line.
The United Nations vote took place on March 2. Some countries did not formally submit votes. | Source: United Nations Israel coordinates with Russia on Iran, its chief adversary, and in neighboring Syria (with which Russia has a strong relationship). Russian-speaking émigrés from the former Soviet Union also make up a sizable chunk of the Israeli electorate. Israel’s prime minister has avoided directly criticizing Putin, and though its government has mediated between Ukraine and Russia, little has come out of the effort.
Several Latin American, Southeast Asian and African countries have made similar choices. Bolivia, Vietnam and almost half of Africa’s 54 countries declined to support the U.N. resolution condemning Russia. Some rely on Russian military assistance, said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Others don’t want to risk jeopardizing trade relations with China, which has parroted Russian propaganda about the war.
Those countries “might be more accurately described as disinterested,” Max says, unwilling to risk their security or economies “for the sake of a struggle that they see as mostly irrelevant.”
West skeptics
Some countries, citing the West’s history of imperialism and past failures to respect human rights, have justified opposing its response to Ukraine. South Africa’s president blamed NATO for Russia’s invasion, and its U.N. ambassador criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq during a debate last month about Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis.
Other countries, including some that voted to condemn Russia’s invasion, accuse the West of acting counterproductively. Brazil’s U.N. ambassador has suggested that arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia risk escalating the war.
“There’s nothing intellectually incoherent between viewing Russia’s actions as outrageous and not necessarily fully siding with the West’s reaction to it,” Jones told me.
Autocratic leaders — including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua — may also feel threatened by Ukraine’s resistance and the West’s framing of the invasion as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, experts said. “They’re concerned that this could inspire opposition movements in their own countries,” Nietsche said.
Russia’s friends
China, with all its economic and military might, has seen the war as a chance to enhance its own geopolitical standing as a counterweight to the U.S. while still maintaining ties to Russia. The countries recently issued a joint statement proclaiming a friendship with “no limits.” But China has struggled with the delicate balancing act of honoring that commitmentwithout fully endorsing Russia’s invasion: Beijing has denounced Western sanctions but has not appeared to have given Russia weapons or economic aid.
“China’s support for Russia, while very important, is also carefully hedged and measured,” Max says.
Four countries — North Korea, Eritrea, Syria and Belarus — outright voted with Russia against the U.N. resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a former Soviet state whose autocratic leader asked Putin to help suppress protests in 2020 and allowed Russia to launch part of its invasion from within Belarus.
Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war on behalf of the Moscow-aligned government there, and Syria is sending fighters who may aid Russian forces in Ukraine.
What’s next?
It’s not unusual for countries to avoid picking sides on big global issues. Several stayed neutral during World War II; dozens sought to remain free of both U.S. and Soviet influence during the Cold War.
But if the war in Ukraine drags on, Jones said, neutral countries could come under stronger international pressure to condemn Moscow. And for countries with close ties to Russia, even neutrality can be an act of courage.
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What stands out here is the hypocrisy over the illegal US and allied invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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In many people's eyes, Zelensky is emerging as an unlikely hero, a word which I think is possibly inappropriate. Unlikely and inspiring leader would probably be more fitting.
However, some Argentine Instagrammers (sic) are comparing him to Galtieri and are accusing him of starting the war as a distraction from his own corruption and Panama Papers scandal. They say he goaded Putin to start the war, so I intervened in an Internet argument which is usually against my better nature.
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Am not finding your post, but feel I should warn you of the obvious: people whose limited intelligence allows them to believe in conspiracy theories and internet hoaxes will not be dissuaded from their fool’s errand….
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Am not finding your post, but feel I should warn you of the obvious: people whose limited intelligence allows them to believe in conspiracy theories and internet hoaxes will not be dissuaded from their fool’s errand….
In the end, I pointed them all in the direction of my book.
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Excellent strategy!
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Here are some quotes from the Instagram trolls
"Para InfoOTAN es un "heroe" para nosotros es un Galtieri que jugó a la guerra provocando a Putin como el de acá provocó a la Thatcher. La diferencia es que Galtieri se dió cuenta cuando no quedaba otra que firmar la paz."
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Splinter as a website owner or just as a generally (DCT) geeky person, do you have the tools to trace these posts back to their source? There's been a lot of discussion for years about Russian Troll Farms interfering in elections, posting fake news and generally disrupting news, groups, discussions etc because the more general chaos and distrust there is outside Russia, the weaker their opponents become. It's all supposed to have become much worse since their "special military operation"began in March.
Google NewsComprehensive, up-to-date news coverage, aggregated from sources all over the world by Google News.news.google.com -
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Splinter as a website owner or just as a generally (DCT) geeky person, do you have the tools to trace these posts back to their source? There's been a lot of discussion for years about Russian Troll Farms interfering in elections, posting fake news and generally disrupting news, groups, discussions etc because the more general chaos and distrust there is outside Russia, the weaker their opponents become. It's all supposed to have become much worse since their "special military operation"began in March.
Aren't those just random articles picked by Google based on that search term? Many of those articles appear to be from conservative leaning websites, which is the only thing I noticed.
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Aren't those just random articles picked by Google based on that search term? Many of those articles appear to be from conservative leaning websites, which is the only thing I noticed.
My apologies. I ought to have anticipated that.
I am searching from the UK using a completely fresh browser instance (no history, no cookies, no nothing) and on the first page of results I get:
The Russian troll factory at the heart of the meddling allegationsFormer workers tell how hundreds of bloggers are paid to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin commentswww.theguardian.comNPR Cookie Consent and Choices
Inside the Russian Troll Factory: Zombies and a Breakneck Pace (Published 2018)Ex-employees of the Internet Research Agency, which was indicted last week over meddling in the 2016 election, described their often bizarre work lives.www.nytimes.comInternet Research Agency - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org -