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[MaxTheFox]

There are universal truths. The question is too vague for me to say anything else.

[Quarque]

Unfortunately might does make a lot of right.. If Putin had succeeded with his initial plan, there would be a very different reality right now regardless of how much huffing and puffing we would be doing about his "cheating".

Do you think and talk the same way about Hitler? If he had succeeded in his initial plan the world would also look different, sure.

But, I was talking about the value of perspective e.g. to heavily dependent on energy import Europe rising energy prices is bad, to major energy exports like OPEC rising energy prices is good (works magic in relationships too); and I would argue that this war is great for China regardless of who wins.

Still not seeing the value of the perspective. Ok, some oil sheiks might make extra profit. With China, I'd like to zoom in because China remains an abstraction. There's Chinese people and for them, did life really get noticeably better? I'm not convinced any marginal gains are nearly enough for them to compensate for the extra risk of a Nuclear winter, which now threatens the life of every human being on the planet.

And how is it relevant in the first place? We still have a dictator sacrificing thousands of lives, including many of his own people, bombing cities to smithereens. If some oil sheik happens to earn extra dollars from it, well great.

[jipehog]

I was explaining the truism of different perspective, whether you derive value from my specific example is another question. The world is changing and I wouldn't be too dismissive of some "oil sheiks" or anyone on the global stage. Recently Biden had to crawl after one such sheik in hope of getting oil prices down, while another one which helps have been elevated to a NATO partner . Such things might lead to important consequences you may not expect.

Overall I am noting that if one want to better understand geopolitics, they need to try to set aside their biases and understand how things are, what everyone else want and when/how would they will react, then you can try to come up with how to bring your interests to bear e.g. There is a reason why much of Russia's shenanigans coincided with USA election time..

As for China. USA was leading an indo-pacific cooperation effort to counter balance China rise, a distracted USA\EU will benefit China secure some near-term strategic benefits in Asia and Africa. Weaker and cutoff from EU Russia would become much more reliant on China, which would benefit Chinas interest in central Asia. And overall China parrot Putin narratives that challenge and undermine the so called western "liberal world order". Just to name a few.

[bloop_bleep]

It’s post-truth denying reality levels of bullshit.

Maybe he is just young adult trying to make sense of things.

Also reality is subjective and can be shaped by thought.

Otherwise in geopolitics there are no good or bad, only good or bad for who. iirc North America and Europe account to 15% of the world population while Asia account to 60%, it is almost inevitably that Asia will eventually become the center of the world. Will you the minority be playing by their rules or trying to make your own reality?

Population creating power is a myth, it's known that as countries develop their rate of growth stagnates or goes negative. At the same time their ability to demonstrate power grows. A country may have ten billion people but if they are all subsistence farming with no time for anything else, then they might as well not be there when you want to flood someone else's economy with cheap goods, for example.

[jipehog]

Perhaps, but this is Ukraine thread, the emphasize was on the question, if you wish consider it as hypothetical (I am playing on Russia being a revisionist state)

[EuchreJack]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Loud Whispers]

in other news I just spoke to some russian friends who live in singapore and dubai respectively and they both said the same thing; the russian invasion has made the cost of business for russians go up everywhere in everything. One of them tried to get health insurance but had providers ask for a significant premium or a signed statement indicating they acknowledged the invasion of Ukraine was an illegal act of aggression. As they frequently return to Russian and such a statement could get them thrown in prison they opted to instead pay thousands of dollars more for health insurance. The other one tried setting up a business and again, found that things which took his partners a few dollarydoos to do, took him thousands, because anyone who does anything with regulation, compliance or insurance is deathly scared of accidentally working with a Russian

[EuchreJack]

in other news I just spoke to some russian friends who live in singapore and dubai respectively and they both said the same thing; the russian invasion has made the cost of business for russians go up everywhere in everything. One of them tried to get health insurance but had providers ask for a significant premium or a signed statement indicating they acknowledged the invasion of Ukraine was an illegal act of aggression. As they frequently return to Russian and such a statement could get them thrown in prison they opted to instead pay thousands of dollars more for health insurance. The other one tried setting up a business and again, found that things which took his partners a few dollarydoos to do, took him thousands, because anyone who does anything with regulation, compliance or insurance is deathly scared of accidentally working with a Russian

[Red Diamond]

There was no revolution in Ukraine. There were protests. Those were violently beaten down, leading to nearly 100 protestors being killed, and 13 policemen.

Then the president, Yanukovich, was abdicated by parliament, and new democratic elections were held. This is not a revolution, this is how a democratic system works. Parliament can send home the government. Over here in the Netherlands, it would be called a 'vote of no confidence'. That is normal.
It is in no way a justification for forming seperatist movements that violently secede, and it most certainly no reason for a foreign power to invade your country.

No they can't.  They aren't that sort of democratic system, the are an American style system where the President and Parliament are elected seperately, potentially leading to a situation where opposing parties control the Presidency as do the Parliament.  I'll agree it is a bad system but it is the system that prevails in Ukraine.

The Ukrainians *call* it a Revolution of Diginity, even they agree it wasn't just buisiness as normal.

Moving on. There will be a "new international center to enable the prosecution of war crimes committed by Russia during its war in Ukraine", European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised. 
https://nltimes.nl/2023/02/02/european-office-gather-proof-war-crimes-ukraine-will-set-hague I hope this means that we don't have to wait 20 - 40 years for any kind of successful investigations and trials.

Fortunately the Russians will take absolutely no notice of it.

You can shove your happy smiles....

No, this is not what happened. You completely ignored my argument that civil war should have been every region in which Yanukovich had voters not only in few areas bordering Russia. 

Your argument doesn't make sense.  Firstly things don't work in that kind of deterministic fashion and secondly you can drive or fly troops to most places in hours.  If the new Ukrainian goverment sends troops to occupy the breakaway places fast enough, which barring an existing organised armed force opposing them they can do, it doesn't really matter much what the people there or their local authorities want. 

You cannot simply expect people to conjure up an army out of nowhere, frankly your assumption seems to work on the idea that Ukraine is some kind of medieval feudal system where all the local barons have their own armies and get called up to form a Ukrainian army.  It is the modern world, so the civil administrations of Ukraine are not blessed with large pre-existing armies ready to use to fight the new government. 

I don't know the exact details of the degree of Ukraine's fragmentation and I am unsure if anyone does.  Yet given how quickly modern armies can move the amount of territory initially reconquered by the Ukrainians before military resistance could be organised there was likely considerable, yet since I don't know the exact extent I refrain from making any definite claims. The reason then that Crimea, Donetesk and Luhansk 'got away' would have to do with the fact the Ukrainians had to fight their way through other hostile provinces to get to them. 

There is no need for your idiotic probably. There are numerous polls. This area did always have people that wanted to join Russia... in single digits % of the population

Events happen, public opinions change.  In any case, what matters here is what the people already in charge of those places decide and not what 51% of the voters want.  There are two Donetesk Republics and there are two Ukrainian Oblasts in that area, with the same name and boundaries; this is no coincidence. 

Yeah, let us ignore a huge Russian naval military base in Crimea. Nice alternative reality you have there

____________
You are a liar, plain and simple. Every single word you say is a misrepresentation, falsehood or outright lie. I have no interest in further "discussion" with you until you admit your rather stupid lies

You cannot state conspiracy theories about secret Russian armies as though they were certain, unquestionable fact and call people liars for disagreeing with you.

RD’s position seems to be “I’m not crazy, you’re all crazy!”

I'm not crazy and neither are you.  The Ukrainiaks believe in their conspiracy theories because it makes sense to simplify things so that Ukraine can be the innocent victim it wants to be.

Putin's answer was deliberate misinformation to give a venire of plausibility to his self serving narrative.

A year after the fact, in documentary about Crimea capture Putin admitted that decision was made at least a week prior the capture of parament many remember from the media. More importantly, it supports what was shown in other sources about Russian troop movement into Crimea and deployment beyond their allowed areas in advance of that event.

Russia campaign was very well coordinated and executed. They have managed to captured strategic locations isolating Crimea from Ukraine, both physically by land/sea/air and by cutting communications lines; they brought significant amount of troops and pined down Ukrainian forces. They have used the mobilization (initially used to obscure troop movement to Crimea) on Ukraine borders in the East to cow Ukraine under fear of further escalation Meanwhile, politically they have secured the parliament, in the dark and under gunpoint they have rushed a new government headed by a loyalist, which gave them a referendum. They also fantastically utilized information warfare in the media (Ukraine media was disrupted)

It is undeniable that Russia used military force to intervene in Ukraine's sovereign territory and just as bad prevent Ukraine to exercise its rights. In what was certainly a scenario prepared in advanced, an outcome Russia warned Ukraine about months before if the choose to to go with EU economic association plan. Interestingly, this also where Russia use of PMC got solidified, understanding the benefit of plausible deniability, ability to circumvent local law and some international conventions, and lack of accountability at home and concern to losses. They make great use of them in Africa right now.

Edited. rm ** forgot I wanted to write about Russia involvement in the east but this is already in the 'too long didn't read' territory so no need.

Yes, misinformation, Putin is lying etc, etc it is irrelevant to my point.  For the sake of argument I was assuming that Putin is lying, it is a scenario designed to test the conspiracy theory of 'little green men'. 

The only way for Russia to deploy forces in Crimea, is to land troops from ships or planes, which takes days to organise but the Ukrainians can just drive thousands upon thousands of troops into Crimea in mere hours.  In history however Crimea was taken by Russia without any fighting at all, which only makes sense if the Russians can get there more quickly than the Ukrainians can, which for geographical reasons they cannot. 

Why do the Ukrainians completely lack any kind of defensive advantage in spite of the fact that Crimea is geographically far more inaccessable to the alleged Russian invaders?  Why was there no huge amphibious invasion and apocalyptic fighting between the two parties? 

Like a few days ago he was all “oh Yanukovych was democratically elected and was overthrown” and goes into more detail about “opposition parliamentarians” overthrowing him today, and completely fails to realize they were also democratically elected.

It’s post-truth denying reality levels of bullshit.

No, it's called not being totally ignorant of constitutional realities.  The parliament is not allowed to overthrow the President, as they are seperately elected bodies and neither is superior to the other (we are talking about the American system of division of powers and not the British system of Parliamentary supremacy here). 

Rebels are rebels whether they are democratically elected or not.  In the same way a mayor does not remain in his office if he rebels against the president simply because he is seperately elected, parliaments lose their legitimacy if they decide to remove their president. 

Yet at least the Ukrainians have the honesty to call what they did a Revolution, rather than the Self-Coup BS the Peruvian rebels against Castillo favour. 

[Strongpoint]

Arguing with this guy about events in Ukraine is like arguing with a flat-earther about astronomy or with a young earth creationist about evolution. The same level of dishonesty and\or stupidity.


I especially like that idiocy of - HOW COULD RUSSIA LAND TROOPS IN CRIMEA?

Completely ignoring that Russia had 10ks troops there since 1991 because of a huge naval base in Sebastopol with the ability to pour many more thousands through the said naval base. It is the level of "if humans evolved from monkeys why there are still monkeys around?"

[Red Diamond]

1. The eastern regions' locally-elected authorities never chose to separate from Ukraine. They were, however, violently overthrown by armed Russian-integrationists after local administration buildings were stormed by those same integrationists, who, incidentally, had a conspicuous number of connections to Russian government. Whether these connections were Russian in nationality, ethnicity, identity, or other technicalities is irrelevant. There is a straight line between LPR & DPR and the Russian government.

2. The eastern regions did not ever want to join Russia. A majority of each region of the Ukrainian SSR voted for Ukrainian independence in 1991, which was recognized by all involved parties as well as internationally. All polls for years have shown that reversing this vote and joining Russia is widely unpopular.

3. In contrast to the armed separatists, Euromaidan activists did not participate in an armed rebellion, but in protest on the town square after Yanukovich made an unpopular move against the intentions of the elected Parliament, capping off dissatisfaction which had been brewing for years, where they were shot by government security forces. Yanukovich lost almost all his support, signed an agreement with the opposition which included the provision that he would remain President for the time being. He then fled anyway, and the Parliament removed him from his post in absentia in a legal impeachment motion.

1.  Said integrationists are rather fast moving.  Where are the Ukrainian police, army and so on?  No, the integrationists 'stormed the buildings' because they were defending them against attempts by Ukrainian forces to sieze control of the regions. 

2. Fair enough, but this is the past, prior to Euromaiden that we are talking about. 

3. Mostly accurate, aside from the fact that the armed seperatists aren't actually rebels but folks defending their local government against the rebellion's new government.  Yanukovich however was forced to flee because the 'peaceful' Euromaidens tried to murder him. 

Everything that happened to Yanukovych was legal, and he left his post on his own initiative (because he understood his political career in Ukraine was already over).

And Yanukovich's corruption was not secret, ambiguous, or moderate in scale. He had a massive mansion estimated to cost $1 billion & a huge estate, with his own galleon, an ostrich farm, a gold-plated chandelier, lakes of swans. People saw it all with their own eyes after Euromaidan, there are plenty of pictures. Meanwhile the state treasury was nearly empty when he left. Needless to say this is unlikely to be supported by his Presidential salary.

He left because he accepted defeat, that is correct. 

I don't know how wealthy he was before becoming President, so nothing you are talking about proves anything at all.  Despite having complete access to all documents and archives plus strong motive to do so, the Ukrainians can provide no solid evidence of their former president's actual wrongdoing, which says enough for me to say he did nothing wrong. 

Arguing with this guy about events in Ukraine is like arguing with a flat-earther about astronomy or with a young earth creationist about evolution. The same level of dishonesty and\or stupidity.

I especially like that idiocy of - HOW COULD RUSSIA LAND TROOPS IN CRIMEA?

Completely ignoring that Russia had 10k troops there since 1991 because of a huge naval base in Sebastopol with the ability to pour many more thousands through the said naval base. It is the level of "if humans evolved from monkeys why there are still monkeys around?"

Yes, you are losing the argument.  Presumably you lost the arguments against flat-earthers and young earth creationists as well.   

A naval base does make it considerably easier than it would otherwise be (as in impossible), but still the fact remains said troops are still trapped within Ukrainian territory without any means of reinforcement and supply.  I point out that it is strange the Ukrainians made no attempt to resist despite a considerable strategic advantage.  The Russian green men appear to have taken the whole place without any kind of a fight. 

All the Ukrainians need to do is deploy enough artillary surrounding the naval base and the Russians cannot land anything there at all.  So it doesn't matter that the base is coastal at all or whether the Russians have planes or not. 

[Strongpoint]

A naval base does make it considerably easier than it would otherwise be (as in impossible), but still the fact remains said troops are still trapped within Ukrainian territory without any means of reinforcement and supply.  I point out that it is strange the Ukrainians made no attempt to resist despite a considerable strategic advantage.  The Russian green men appear to have taken the whole place without any kind of a fight.

It is not strange at all.  The Ukrainian army of 2014 was not ready for any kind of resistance, it wasn't anywhere close to being a combat-ready force nor it expected that there will be any need for combat. It also had no idea whose orders to follow because of the ongoing political crisis.

But you know all of that. You are not stupid. You are just dishonest. Calling an evident fact of Russian invasion of Crimea "conspiracy theories" can be done only out of dishonesty. Whatever evidence I'll provide will be discarded just like flat-earther will discard every piece of evidence of the round earth. This is why arguing with you is pointless.

[Random_Dragon]

Oh, the Russian troll is ranting again, great.

[King Zultan]

Are you sure your not the one losing the argument Red Diamond?

in other news I just spoke to some russian friends who live in singapore and dubai respectively and they both said the same thing; the russian invasion has made the cost of business for russians go up everywhere in everything. One of them tried to get health insurance but had providers ask for a significant premium or a signed statement indicating they acknowledged the invasion of Ukraine was an illegal act of aggression. As they frequently return to Russian and such a statement could get them thrown in prison they opted to instead pay thousands of dollars more for health insurance. The other one tried setting up a business and again, found that things which took his partners a few dollarydoos to do, took him thousands, because anyone who does anything with regulation, compliance or insurance is deathly scared of accidentally working with a Russian

Hey man there's no need to be happy about that as not all Russians are Putin loving morons, especially not ones that don't live in Russia.

[MaxTheFox]

Stop responding to his arguments. If you don't feed him he will get bored and go away.