Ukrainian War Developments

Lethe said:

How could it have been addressed without war? Russia strenuously objected to NATO's 2008 declaration that anticipated Ukraine joining NATO and has conducted rigorous diplomatic negotiations with relevant parties ever since, right up to the invasion. Russia attempted and failed to maintain a friendly political regime within Ukraine. Limited annexation of more-or-less friendly territory and an ongoing civil war in the country had failed to halt the slide. We can disagree with Moscow's assessment of the situation (i.e. the threat of NATO expansion specifically, and the erosion of Russia's "sphere of influence" more broadly) and the means they have chosen to obstruct it, but it's clear that this invasion was not Moscow's plan A, B or even C.

And ultimately, it doesn't matter if we think Russia is being overly paranoid or entitled or whatever. What matters is Russia's position and its ability to assert and enforce that position. As Hugh White said recently, relations between great powers are set by the issues upon which each is willing to go to war. Cuba and the Soviet Union were morally right in the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was irrelevant, and indeed that crisis was only resolved when Washington agreed to a quid pro quo re: Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey. The crisis and its resolution both reflect the preeminence of power politics over abstract moral considerations of self-determination and national sovereignty.

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Russia's war on Ukraine fails to satisfy the criteria for a 'just war' in any moral philosophical tradition of which I know.
But the Russian Orthodox Church's leaders are Putin's accomplices in Russia's wars.
Some Russian Orthodox priests disagree and have started to break away.


"Russia’s Orthodox Church paints the conflict in Ukraine as a holy war.
In an unholy alliance, it is helping Vladimir Putin to justify his war at home.

In Russia, church and military go hand in hand. Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, implicitly supports
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He spouts Kremlin propaganda, claiming that Russia is not the aggressor and that genocide
is being perpetrated by Ukrainians against Russian speakers in the Donbas. Nor is his endorsement of this war unique.
During his tenure, Russian priests have blessed bombs destined for Syria and Crimea. Bishop Stefan of Klin, who presides over
the Cathedral of the Armed Forces, leads the church’s department for co-operation with the army. Before taking holy orders
he was an officer in the missile-defence force."


"How One Priest Turned Putin’s Invasion Into a Holy War"

"The partnership of Putin, 69, and [Patriarch] Kirill, 75, began around 2012, when the politician was reelected for a third term.
It was then that Putin began embracing the Russian Orthodox Church."

"By 2017, Politico was already Russia as “the leader of the global Christian Right."

"Kirill has long perpetuated a version of history that insists many countries that made up the former Soviet Union are one
people with a common religious origin: namely, the 10th century baptism of Prince Vladimir I of Kiev, known as St. Vladimir.
It’s often paired with a geo-political (and geo-religious) vision hundreds of Orthodox theologians and scholars recently
: a “transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
(and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world.”

"Kirill’s rhetoric has only escalated in the days since. He referred to Russia’s opponents in Ukraine as “,” and
on March 6 in which he suggested the invasion was part of a larger “metaphysical” struggle against
immoral western (read: liberal) values."

Hitler wished to unite all ethnic Germans and German speakers into the same polity.
Why should Putin and Kirill be considered any better for wishing to do the same for ethnic Russians and Russian speakers?

Who else recalls the ending of _Taras Bulba_?

Terrowyn said:

Ukraine wanting to become a NATO member was not the reason for the Russian invasion. It is because the far-right have been weaponized as a tool to terrorize the Luhansk and Donetsk republics and have been doing it for years. That isn't something that can be ignored, and inserting a peacekeeping force isn't going to deter the neonazi looneytunes with nothing to live for to stop. No country worth its salt is going to tolerate that, period.

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Please attempt to grasp the context before you write.

I replied to Temstar, who wrote:
"he [John Mearsheimer] said if NATO expand eastwards then there's going to be a war in Ukraine. Was he not correct?"

Hence, I addressed NATO's expansion eastward as a supposed proximate cause of the war.
I did not address other supposed causes of the war because they were beyond the context.

I wonder what are these people saying

The death of a tank Ukranian style !!! This is now become a more complete endevor. It's seams that is no more the case of the heroic Ukranian farmer now we sea Ukranian army engineers streeps wat is useful to capture Russian tanks in organizing fashion

Abominable said:

If Azerbaijan launches a full scale attack on Karabakh it will be difficult for Russia to defend it. The 2020 was short but very bloody, however civilians were mostly spared. Azerbaijan taking Stepankert would be a humanitarian disaster. This is definitely not something Russia wanted to see. Worst case scenario it finds itself fighting a two front war with Azerbaijan and possibly Turkey.

Western attitudes were largely pro-Armenian in that conflict, I wonder how they will see the situation now.

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It won't take much for the West to flip its population's attitude to a pro-Azerbaijan one. Could Russia do anything to prevent the possibility of it from happening, like shooting a missile over there, in order to escalate to de-escalate?

Lapin said:

Was NATO's potential future expansion into Ukraine a *proximate* cause or justification of Russia's invasion?
No, because any potential threat to Russia was too far removed and could have been addressed first without war.
One should not kill a child, for instance, simply because one's afraid that he will grow up into a terrorist.

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Exactly.

Somehow Baltic states entering NATO in 2003 didn't trigger Russia invasion even though NATO troops directly bordered Saint Petersburg region and Kaliningrad oblast, but conveniently, NATO is now a proximate cause to justify a pandemic-distracted opportunistic attempt to subdue Ukraine. I don't really buy it either. The pandemic was a huge factor in the timing of invasion, Putin timed it when West can't afford to intervene given inflation, slow growth, and supply chain issues.

Lethe said:

How could it have been addressed without war?

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Keep the 8-year long proxy war in DNR/LNR going forever? Engage in reverse color revolution to install your own coup/puppet leader? Engage in psychological operations (psyops) to impact public opinion and elections? I don't see an immediate existential threat that justified razing Ukrainian cities to ashes/rubbles. This appears to be risky gamble to take advantage of Western COVID economic struggles to assert dominance in sphere of influence.

Coalescence said:

It won't take much for the West to flip its population's attitude to a pro-Azerbaijan one. Could Russia do anything to prevent the possibility of it from happening, like shooting a missile over there, in order to escalate to de-escalate?

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The USA's significant Armenian lobby may form an alliance with Russia against Azerbaijan.

Lethe said:

The analogy with the eastern front in WW2 illustrates precisely how absurd the current invasion is. Operation Barbarossa saw Germany and its allies commit over 4 million men to the invasion of the Soviet Union, while by war's end the Red Army numbered over 11 million drawn from a population not much larger than Russia's today. Even accounting for changes in warfare that shift the relationship between manpower and capability, Russia's invasion force of 200,000 men is woefully inadequate for the task of conquering Ukraine, let alone maintaining control over it. It's clear that Moscow planned to emulate the western "war on terror", i.e. to wage war without major transformation of the home front. The rosy assumptions underpinning this strategy lead directly to the present quagmire.

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Of course the difference between then and now is that the USSR was on a total war footing with the Allies also fighting the same enemy from the west.

Now Russia has to contend with not just Ukraine itself but a potential actual total war scenario with NATO such that she has no choice but to fight hamstrung.

As has been said plenty already, current Russian tactics have been methodical and deliberate, and unlike that with Nazi Germany Russia isn't fighting a peer or even near-peer adversary in Ukraine, where "war on terror" is actually an apt analogy when you consider the AFU is being fast reduced to what's tantamount to a Western-sponsored insurgency a la the Mujahideen at this point, esp. once the entrenched forces in the east and their heavies get swallowed up.

Coalescence said:

It won't take much for the West to flip its population's attitude to a pro-Azerbaijan one. Could Russia do anything to prevent the possibility of it from happening, like shooting a missile over there, in order to escalate to de-escalate?

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The problem with that is that Azerbaijan will have no problem escalating it up all the way to full blown war with Russia. They know they will have NATO backing now.

It's very likely the Armenians will be on their own on this one unfortunately.

sheogorath said:

Ukraine is winning so much they want to instigate a larger conflict

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1507848982667542532

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Turkey won't allow them to do this.

Turkey has very unique and convoluted set of strategic interests in this. Turkey wants balance, they DON'T want a collapsed Russia.