Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

[Sunsilver]

Um, what are 'seal noises'?

Sounds like this:



Meanwhile, in France.

Frelga, did he clap his flippers together in approval?

Re: villa in France - oh, that is PRICELESS!!

I clicked on the photo to see the original, and it was VERY revealing, after I ran it through Bing translator:

French activist Pierre Afner entered the villa of Vladimir Putin's daughter Ekaterina Tikhonova in Biarritz, changed locks in the house and invited refugees from Ukraine there.

This is reported by The Insider.

Villa Tikhonova has 8 beds and three baths. Also in the house, the activist found various documents in the name of the former owners of the building – Putin's former son-in-law Kirill Shamalov and a friend of Russian President Gennady Timchenko.

Information that Putin invests in real estate on the Atlantic coast, published by politician Alexander Belyaev back in 1996, it was about money stolen from the City Hall of St. Petersburg under the scheme exposed by Marina Salier, and withdrawn through Austrian accounts. Putin fiercely denied these accusations and, as the press wrote at the time, claimed that he did not even know where the Atlantic coast was.

Hands up if you've suspected that Trump and Putin were such good buddies because Trump helped Putin launder Russian money.

[tinwë]

I am missing something about the nuclear question in all of this. They say we can’t do anything because Putin has nukes, and any country that has nukes is treated differently. Doesn’t that work both ways though? We have nukes, the UK has them, and France, and by extension all of NATO. The nuclear deterrent worked for the 42 years of the cold war because it was understood that both sides had them and any action by either side would result in mutually assured destruction. How has that changed?

Of course, I know the answer to that. Vladimir Putin is now officially a psychopath who has crossed a line from which there is no return. There is no longer a peaceful settlement of this – the only possible outcome is that Putin must be removed from power. Whether that happens internally or through outside force remains to be seen, but I can’t help feeling like the die has been cast.

[Frelga]

I am missing something about the nuclear question in all of this. They say we can’t do anything because Putin has nukes, and any country that has nukes is treated differently. Doesn’t that work both ways though?

Morover, if it's reasonable for Russia to start a war because of NATO expansion to its borders, shouldn't NATO be equally justified in keeping Russia away from its members?

Of course, I know the answer to that. Vladimir Putin is now officially a psychopath who has crossed a line from which there is no return. There is no longer a peaceful settlement of this – the only possible outcome is that Putin must be removed from power. Whether that happens internally or through outside force remains to be seen, but I can’t help feeling like the die has been cast.

Well. Putin could declare victory, bring the troops home, and claim that he had done exactly what he meant to.

I don't believe putin is irrational, FWIW. Arrogant, surrounded by bootlickers, and plain evil, yeah. But I agree, this is a big threat to his rule, which makes him a big threat to everyone.

Ireland is being excellent, meanwhile.

Ukrainian teachers to be fast-tracked through registration system

Ukrainian teachers will be fast-tracked through the registration process to allow them to teach in Irish classrooms.

The move is aimed at ensuring schools are ready to meet the needs of an expected influx of Ukrainian families fleeing the war-torn country over the coming weeks and months.

[N.E. Brigand]

I am missing something about the nuclear question in all of this. They say we can’t do anything because Putin has nukes, and any country that has nukes is treated differently. Doesn’t that work both ways though? We have nukes, the UK has them, and France, and by extension all of NATO. The nuclear deterrent worked for the 42 years of the cold war because it was understood that both sides had them and any action by either side would result in mutually assured destruction. How has that changed?

Of course, I know the answer to that. Vladimir Putin is now officially a psychopath who has crossed a line from which there is no return. There is no longer a peaceful settlement of this – the only possible outcome is that Putin must be removed from power. Whether that happens internally or through outside force remains to be seen, but I can’t help feeling like the die has been cast.

The answer is that there has been no direct military conflict between nuclear powers.

For example, China and the Soviet Union didn't send troops to fight the United States in Vietnam, because the United States possessed nuclear weapons.

And the United States didn't send troops to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, because the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons.

Once a nuclear power decides to send troops somewhere, that stops other nuclear powers from doing the same.

Also, because of Article 5 of NATO treaty, an attack on a member nation in North America or Europe is treated as an attack on the entire alliance. NATO as a whole is thus understood to be a nuclear power.

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Meanwhile, this was visible for about two seconds on Russian state TV tonight:

[River]

Ukrainian teachers will be fast-tracked through the registration process to allow them to teach in Irish classrooms.

The move is aimed at ensuring schools are ready to meet the needs of an expected influx of Ukrainian families fleeing the war-torn country over the coming weeks and months.

That's some impressive forward-thinking there. Well done Ireland!

Also, to inject some levity, a SFW quote from The Italian Job. It hits a little different now that the world is watching what happens when Ukrainians get mad.

[N.E. Brigand]

The answer is that there has been no direct military conflict between nuclear powers. For example, China and the Soviet Union didn't send troops to fight the United States in Vietnam, because the United States possessed nuclear weapons. And the United States didn't send troops to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, because the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons. Once a nuclear power decides to send troops somewhere, that stops other nuclear powers from doing the same. Also, because of Article 5 of NATO treaty, an attack on a member nation in North America or Europe is treated as an attack on the entire alliance. NATO as a whole is thus understood to be a nuclear power.

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Meanwhile, this was visible for about two seconds on Russian state TV tonight:

Other Russian media trying to report on what happened are constrained by Russian censorship requirements:



It turns out the protestor was an editor at that Russia state media outlet. She's been arrested, of course. But she also taped this video in which she apologized for having helped to spread the Kremlin's lies. Video at link. Translation here:



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Earlier today, Israel announced that it will join with the international sanctions against Russia, with the nation's foreign minister saying: "Israel won't be used as a means to bypass the sanctions on Russia."

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Razman Kadryov, the thuggish leader of the Chechen Republic, the semi-autonomous puppet regime that controls the former breakaway region of Russia in the Caucucas Mountains, yesterday released a video which purports to show him in Ukraine, advising his troops who are there as part of Ukraine's invasion. Some people doubt whether he really is in Ukraine, but whether or no, a translation of the video appears to show that the Chechens were plotting to kidnap Ukrainian children.

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NBC's reporting on the U.S. Senate race in Ohio finds that Republican voters (who describe themselves as Trump supporters) think the U.S. should do more to help Ukraine and that they say they're willing to pay higher gas prices to accomplish this. Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, who is among those vying for the Republican nomination, said just days before the war that he didn't care much about what happened in Ukraine.

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Anti-war activists broke into the British mansion of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripasks today and hung pro-Ukrainian signs:



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Yesterday a U.S. reporter working for Time was killed in Ukraine. Today a U.S. reporter for Fox was injured.

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An American political commentator named Rod Dreher, who bills himself as a Christian conservative, claimed a few days ago that the women injured in the Russian attack on a maternity hospital were "crisis actors"; he still hasn't retracted that claim. That would include this woman, who has since died:



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The price of oil has been going down over the past eight days, having dropped 25% from the peak on March 6.

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Since Russian-Chinese relations have lately become an ancillary subject, this BBC story seems important. Among other things, it says that:

(1) Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian oligarch who owns the British football club Chelsea -- until sanctions on Russia earlier this month forced him to give up control of the team -- engaged in some very corrupt dealings, including bribing someone $10 million in 1995 to make sure that he won the auction to purchase an oil company for $250 million whose value subsequently increased by 5,000%. He thus cheated the Russian government out of roughly $2.7 billion. (I have to imagine that key members of the Russian government got their cut on the side.)

(2) In 2002, Abramovich formed a partnership to buy another company at auction, but a Chinese firm was also in the running and planned to bid twice as much as Abramovich's partnership. If that happened, some important people in the Russian government stood to lose money. So they kidnapped a representative of the Chinese delegation when he arrived in the Moscow airport. As a result, the Chinese team withdrew from the auction. Supposedly Abramovich didn't know what was done to make it possible for his group to win the auction.

"Vladimir Milov was Russia's deputy energy minister in the run up to the Slavneft sale. He didn't comment on the kidnapping story, but he said senior political figures had already decided that Mr Abramovich's partnership would win the auction: 'I said, look, the Chinese want to come in and they want to pay a much bigger price. They say it doesn't matter, shut up, none of your business. It's already decided. Slavneft goes to Abramovich, the price is agreed. The Chinese will be dragged out somehow.'"

Literally dragged out.

[N.E. Brigand]

An American political commentator named Rod Dreher, who bills himself as a Christian conservative, claimed a few days ago that the women injured in the Russian attack on a maternity hospital were "crisis actors"; he still hasn't retracted that claim. That would include this woman, who has since died:

Two details from the AP story:

"Realizing she was losing her baby, medics said, she cried out to them, 'Kill me now!'"

"Medics were pleased she would not be placed in one of the mass graves being dug in the city."

[N.E. Brigand]

Useful video compilation about how Donald Trump helped set up this catastrophe:



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Fascinating thread on Russian politics ("courtiers" vs. barons"), including information about the dark past of opposition leader Alexander Navalny, which partly explains the scorn directed him on this forum by a a now-former member -- but still doesn't justify Putin having him poisoned and imprisoned, of course. More to the point for this thread was this part:

Consider the following. Kadyrov sent a lot of his troops to Ukraine and was PRmaxing their engagement. He declared he went there personally and posted a video from a "basement near Kyiv." And yet, Kremlin didn't confirm it. When asked about Kadyrov's visit to Ukraine, Putin's press-secretary Peskov told: "No, we don't have such information." It's unlikely that Kadyrov went there without Kremlin knowing anything. More probably, Peskov just accused Kadyrov of lying.

[Side note: Peskov is the fellow who was at the chess championship in New York City on November 10 2016: Russian agents made at least two attempts to get members of Trump's team to meet Peskov there. Eleven months earlier, it was Peskov that Trump consigliere Michael Cohen was working very hard to contact regarding the proposed Trump Tower Moscow.]

Kadyrov not only sent his troops to Chechnya, but launched a massive PR campaign propagandising them. Chechen fighters are putting Chechen flags on Ukrainian military bases. They're cheering Kadyrov and his father. Kadyrov clearly strived for military glory and fame of conquest. It looks like this public rise of Kadyrov makes Kremlin administration anxious. Did you notice that Kremlin is never PR-ing its own generals? They always report - Russian troops captured this or that town. They never mention a specific general. They don't want to give them fame

If you allow the generals' names to get into media headlines, you give them fame. Their image rises, their status, too. Soon, they may become independent political figures. In 1990s it was happening a lot, so later Putin had to accident all these famous generals this or that way.

It's Cleon and Bel Riose all over again.

[Sunsilver]

I wish I had more background on who this man is, but his FB page doesn't give much info. Still, from what I've heard, his report sounds accurate. Posted by Enchie on FB today, which gives it more credence, since she is Polish:

RG Jones is in Warsaw, Poland.
MarcuthSa p12 as3t 8r:333 PgeM ·
I have returned safely from Ukraine. I am utterly destroyed by what I’ve seen. The hospitals are bombed and they take doctors and nurses hostage. They shoot old women fleeing with young children. They ambush civilian cars like cowards. Yesterday our meeting with the ministry of health and 250 doctors from across Ukraine was interrupted by air raid sirens so we hid in an old Soviet bunker. Belarusian jets began flying between the border between Poland and Ukraine yesterday and there is chatter that Belarus may be planning an invasion to cut off the west so we decided to pull out when we did. After dropping off $500,000 worth of trauma and critical care medical supplies we had room to take casualties back into Poland as we left. A family of three adults and two children, all with bullets and broken bones in them by an ambush of a clearly marked civilian car trying to flee for Vinnytsia. There should have been more in the family but the mother and one year old daughter did not survive- the manner in which they were killed is too gruesome to say here.

In the background of all of this I know that nearly every NGO is rallying funding for Ukraine right now but curiously MedGlobal was the only NGO there. Im sure that many are planning to “intervene” with their humanitarian programs from the safety of Poland. We have seen first hand the need and cannot stay off to the sidelines. If you’re able to help the Ukrainian effort in medical supplies or financially, please let me know urgently because we will be sending teams and taking it into Ukraine to get it to the front lines. If nothing else, we haven’t slept in days- send us a couple of bucks to buy us a cup of coffee!
This is not just a war, this is industrial scale murder. We have seen that Russians stop attacking civilians in Syria when they bombed NATO member Turkey in 2014 and Turkey crippled them with air strikes there. I call for any of the several types of no fly zones and I am sick with embarrassment that Putin had dictated us to watch from the sideline already. Our own decency and humanity are on the line- we will be defined by our cowardly response.

Call your senators and congress:

Demand a no fly zone immediately.

For now, I’m safe but exhausted and have to get some sleep. If you want to know more about the things I’ve seen but can’t post here, DM me or call me, I’ll tell you every thing.

[N.E. Brigand]

Caption by AFP: "The US Congress gave President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a standing ovation Wednesday as he began an address to lawmakers on Russia's invasion of his country".



But nearly half the people in that room voted that Donald Trump shouldn't be punished for extorting Zelenskyy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

From Heather Cox Richardson:

March 15, 2022 (Tuesday)

“I want to thank the Russian Academy for this Lifetime Achievement Award.”

That was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s response to the news that her name was among those of the people Russia sanctioned today, forbidding their entry into Russia and freezing any Russian assets they might have. Clinton, of course, was the one who warned in 2016 that then-candidate Donald Trump would be “[Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s puppet” if he were elected.

What jumped out about that Russian announcement, though, was that it singled out not American lawmakers in general, but Democrats, and for that matter, Democrats who were targets of the right-wing propaganda machine. So the “sanctions” hit President Joe Biden (or, as White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted, his deceased father, since they missed that the current president is Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.), Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as Psaki. They also covered former secretary of state Clinton and Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, both of whom are private citizens and involved in present-day politics only in that they are targets of the modern right-wing media.

The list made it clear that Putin and his U.S. supporters are engaged in a propaganda campaign.

In contrast, the U.S. extended sanctions today to Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who turned to Putin to shore up his own waning popularity before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and who is now stuck on Putin’s side. The administration also sanctioned Lukashenko’s wife, Halina, and a number of Russians targeted for human rights abuses, along with 11 military leaders.

That the tide is turning against Putin was indicated today by former president Trump’s new tone on the Russian president today. While it was notable that Trump would never criticize Putin, even after his invasion of Ukraine, tonight Trump told Washington Examiner reporter David M. Drucker, “I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

The leaders of Poland, Czechia, and Slovenia thumbed their noses at Putin today when they visited Kyiv itself by train to show their support for Ukraine. They traveled to the city despite ongoing Russian shelling that has taken countless lives, including those of five journalists documenting the atrocities.

Those atrocities convinced the U.S. Senate today to pass a resolution condemning Putin as a war criminal, while a new U.S. funding bill appropriated an additional $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine.

The attack on democracy at home is not being as clearly condemned.

We are starting to see the effects of Russian money on our own political system. Today, we learned that Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev has been indicted by a federal grand jury for funneling $1 million in political donations through Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to candidates in the 2018 election. A $50,000 donation apparently went to a political action committee called the “Friends of Ron DeSantis Political Action Committee” in June 2018. After DeSantis won the election, Muraviev and his partner texted congratulatons* to Parnas and Fruman on “victory in Florida.”

Today, the Republican National Committee sued its own email vendor, Salesforce, to try to block it from responding to a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. The committee subpoenaed information about fundraising emails sent by Salesforce, soliciting money by lying that the 2020 election had been stolen. The committee is interested in seeing if any of that money actually went to the causes for which it was solicited, and in following how those emails, with their false, inflammatory messages, encouraged the attack on January 6. The RNC says it is suing “in order to protect the constitutional rights of the Republican Party and its millions of supporters.”

The Freedom to Vote Act would stop the flood of dark money into our elections by requiring the disclosure of the identities of any person or organization donating $10,000 or more to campaign activity. But while the Senate easily passed legislation today to make daylight saving time permanent beginning in 2023 by voice vote, it cannot pass voting rights legislation since all Republicans oppose it. (The daylight savings law will now go to the House.)

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky will speak to Congress tomorrow morning and is expected to ask for more help. Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the Biden administration is not, in their view, moving quickly enough to defend Ukraine, and his speech is expected to increase criticism of the Biden administration.

That criticism is coming primarily from Republican lawmakers who, of course, refused to remove Trump when he withheld support for Ukraine in 2019 in an attempt to get Zelensky to attack Joe Biden, but who are now saying that Biden is not defending Ukraine powerfully enough. Their insistence that the U.S. move unilaterally against Russia plays to our natural sympathies for the suffering country of Ukraine, but it is also a back-door attack on Biden’s extraordinarily successful multilateral approach to Russia’s aggression.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) makes decisions only through consensus. By moving without NATO, the U.S. would undercut NATO and the global consensus that Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have taken incredible care to create and that is now crushing the Russian economy and isolating Putin. The administration’s coalition against Putin is extraordinarily delicately balanced, and that balance will collapse if the U.S. heads off on its own in a resurrection of the unilateral action that the U.S. has embraced for the past forty years.

After Zelensky’s address, Biden is expected to announce another $800 million in security assistance from the U.S. to Ukraine, putting the total at $1 billion in the last week and $2 billion total since Biden took office. Biden announced today he will head to Brussels, Belgium, next week to meet with NATO leaders about Russia’s war on Ukraine. He is expected to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO.

*I deliberately misspelled this word because it was triggering Facebook's usual red boldface for when the word is used.

[Frelga]

Servant of the People is on Netflix. It's the 2015 comedy in which Zelensky plays a teacher who finds himself running for president and winning. I haven't seen it, but you can. (US only, apparently, but worldwide with a VPN)

[N.E. Brigand]

On Feb. 24, Russia's official position was that there was no such country as Ukraine, which was really part of Russia.

According to reports from the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, Russia's demand now is that Ukraine should agree to be a neutral country like Sweden or Finland.

And Ukraine is said to have rejected that demand, because why should Russia have any say in Ukraine's decisions?

Here's a literary passage that's come to mind more than once over the past few weeks:

"We will have peace," said Théoden at last thickly and with an effort. Several of the Riders cried out gladly. Théoden held up his hand. "Yes, we will have peace," he said now in a clear voice, "we will have peace, when you and all your works have perished--and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter a men's hearts. You hold out your hand it to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor. Cruel and cold! Even if your war on me was just--as it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired--even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there? And they hewed Háma's body before the gates of the Hornburg, after he was dead. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanic. So much for the house of Eorl. A lesser son of great sires am I, but I do not need to lick your fingers. Turn elsewhither. But I fear your voice has lost its charm."

That said, Ukraine may yet agree to some sort of compromise position.

[N.E. Brigand]

Apropos of nothing, in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol (pop. 151,000), which was captured by Russia twelve days ago, Ivan Fedorov, the town's duly elected mayor, was taken into custody by the Russian military Friday: he was hauled out of his office with a bag over his head. Russia has installed a new mayor:



I'll be generous and assume that they threatened her family if she didn't take the job. I'm not sure that will save her in the end.

I'm seeing reports that Ukrainian commandos have rescued Mayor Fedorov from Russian captivity.

[N.E. Brigand]

Ukraine's government says that Russia has bombed a theater building in Mariupol where civilians were sheltering. The word "children" had been written in large letters on the pavement outside the building so that fact would be known to aerial surveillance. Reported many people are buried in the rubble.

As Heather Cox Richardson notes in the piece quoted above by Voronwë, the U.S. Senate today passed a resolution declaring Vladimir Putin a war criminal. Later today, Joe Biden also referred to Putin as a war criminal.

[Frelga]

even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there?

Russians dropped a heavy bomb on Mariupol theater where hundreds of civilians were said to be sheltering. The number of casualties is yet unknown.

Russians have also been known to wait for the rescuers to arrive, and then shell the same area again, killing medics.

I'm seeing reports that Ukrainian commandos have rescued Mayor Fedorov from Russian captivity.

Appears to be true.

Melitopol mayor released from Russian captivity.

Ivan Fedorov was released five days after being abducted following a Ukrainian “special operation,” according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy chief of staff for President Zelensky. He will shortly return to his duties as mayor.

[Sunsilver]

[OT}N.E. Brigand, that quote from LOTR reminds me I'm long overdue for a re-reading of the books! WOW! I'd forgotten how eloquent Tolkien was! [/OT]

Given the situation, the Tolkien quote is very appropriate.
Putin is indeed a war criminal!

[elengil]

Russians have also been known to wait for the rescuers to arrive, and then shell the same area again, killing medics.

That was a tactic used in the Hunger Games books, the third book I believe

[Jude]

Russians have also been known to wait for the rescuers to arrive, and then shell the same area again, killing medics.

So have U.S. drone strikes under President Obama: BBC article

The tactic is despicable, no matter who it's done by.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Exactly right, Jude.