Welcoming liberation I'd imagine.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Name them? What the hell.. how is the average Joe blogs gonna know the name? Seems to me to be an added step to put people off and reduce the numbers
It’s mostly correct. At first he doesn’t say about the nuclear missile and later he proposes that the strike can be made by a ballistic rocket even without a warhead, but the general idea is the same.
Yeah, it seems that they are leaving the actual organisation to everyone else rather than setting up any sort of system to help arrange these things.
Some things to take into consideration. Turnout was lower in those eastern oblasts, suggesting a greater degree of apathy. Factors which may have helped convert this apathy to hostility to Ukrainian independence in recent years may include - a general disappointment of expectations; political dysfunction in eastern regions; fear of a total break with Russia represented by events of 2014; reaction to alleged measures taken against the Russian language after 2014.
Still we definitely need some actual hard data before just accepting claims that “the east wants to separate”. Certainly I don’t think we ought accept any pronouncements of this sort coming from Russian sources. The more I read about the events of 1991 the more apparent it becomes that Russian authorities back then had no respect for or understanding of the force of Ukrainian nationalism, and didn’t see that referendum result coming at all. And recent events (most obviously Putin’s own words) suggest they still don’t.
It’s independence from the Soviet Union, not from Russia, people on the West (and now Putin) often confuse the two, but at that point that distinction was very important. And there was another referendum in the spring before (March of 1991) which led to drastically different results (70% of Ukrainians had voted to remain in USSR). It shows you how quickly those things can change even in the space of few months, don’t try to explain today’s events using the referendum from 3 decades ago that wasn’t even asking the same question.
Case in point — Kharkiv, Mariupol’ and many other Eastern cities were generally pro-Russian before 2014. I don’t need to tell you that their stance had, well, changed since then to put in mildly.
This bunch of charlatans, they want to be seen to be doing the right thing but making it pretty bloody hard for those poor people
I love that China now has a serious Covid outbreak and have to go back to lockdowns, just as they were thinking of propping up the Russian economy.
Life's a bitch, Putin.
Life's a bitch, Putin.
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I don't think that the East wanted to separate from Ukraine (the only part of Ukraine for which the question of the separation/reunification with Russia was always relevant was Crimea), but they were always pro-Russian — while the West was always more, well, Western-oriented with the main roots of Ukrainian nationalism (not in Putin's understanding) coming from there, with Lviv as its central hub of sorts. Kyiv was the most balanced city where both of those views were widely represented.
For example, this is the split from the 2004 election, the first one where the Ukrainians were essentially choosing between the West (Yushchenko was trying to move towards the EU and away from Russia) and Russia (Yanukovych was always extremely close with Kremlin):
This is from 2010, Tymoshenko was a prime minister under Yushchenko, Yanukovych is still closely connected to Moscow — as you can see, the results are almost the same (although Yanukovych wins this time):
Obviously I expect that all of those bright red regions had turned blue/deep blue by now.
The presidents of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia travelling to Kyiv today in a statement of unwavering EU support to Ukraine.
I posted about this 2 weeks ago. Most of the eastern regions used to vote for the pro Russian party.
But for some minorities It’s more about regionalism than “Euro scepticism” . The Greek community in Mariupol probably felt safer in a more diverse pro-Russian republic, than the alternative nationalist Ukraine.
Isn't that just a missile away from something we'll be unable to deescalate in any possible way.
He never stated or indicitated they had such a right?
Some of you need to stop jumping down posters throats. His post is obvious and blatantly true, Sweden does not fall under the same political, cultural, or defensive threat to Russia.
It does seem very risky, but might also buy Kyiv some time. Strong show of support either way
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I understand that. At the same time, the referendum made reference to the Declaration of Independence issued in August which explicitly stated that “The territory of Ukraine is indivisible and inviolable.” Clearly there were some misgivings about this prospect in the eastern oblasts and especially Crimea, given the relatively lower turnout and percentages returned in favor compared with the rest of the country (though not enough to come anywhere near to actually swaying the result). So would it not be fair to explain the relatively greater hesitancy expressed in these regions as a consequence of greater pro-Russian sentiment (whatever that means)?
I guess I’m looking for two things:I don't think that the East wanted to separate from Ukraine (the only part of Ukraine for which the question of the separation/reunification with Russia was always relevant was Crimea), but they were always pro-Russian — while the West was always more, well, Western-oriented with the main roots of Ukrainian nationalism (not in Putin's understanding) coming from there, with Lviv as its central hub of sorts. Kyiv was the most balanced city where both of those views were widely represented.
For example, this is the split from the 2004 election, the first one where the Ukrainians were essentially choosing between the West (Yushchenko was trying to move towards the EU and away from Russia) and Russia (Yanukovych was always extremely close with Kremlin):
This is from 2010, Tymoshenko was a prime minister under Yushchenko, Yanukovych is still closely connected to Moscow — as you can see, the results are almost the same (although Yanukovych wins this time):
Obviously I expect that all of those bright red regions had turned blue/deep blue by now.
1. Reliable data on the actual extent of explicitly separatist sentiment in the eastern regions throughout the last thirty years. Perhaps such data doesn’t exist, so we’re left with the maps above as our only vague guide to the question.
2. A greater interrogation of what exactly it means or has meant to be “pro-Russian” in this context. It seems to me that “pro-Russian” can potentially mean quite different things to different people at various times over the last thirty years.
That’s an interesting line of thought, and I can think of similar cases among minorities elsewhere who have found themselves somewhat ‘stranded’ in post-colonial nationalist states continuing to harbor positive sentiment for the old metropole.
His idea does ignore what Russia have said though.
“It is obvious that [if] Finland and Sweden join NATO, which is a military organisation to begin with, there will be serious military and political consequences,” Sergei Belyayev, head of the Russian foreign ministry’s European department, told the Russian news agency Interfax.
“[It] would require changing the whole palette of relations with these countries and require retaliatory measures,” he added, echoing a threat made by Russia the day after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.
I think the major inflection point in Ukraine was 2014. Before that, there was generally a lot of positive sentiment towards Russia (but not Putin) because of how Soviet era family/ethnic ties were interwoven across multiple SSRs. All of that took a massive hit with Putin's invasion of Crimea and Donbas and basically securitized the Ukrainians into viewing Russia as an existential threat. Putin, apparently stuck in the past, has since 2014 completely misjudged domestic Ukrainian sentiment as continuing to be what it was during the Yanukovich era, which is one of the primary reasons the invasion didn't go down as he thought it would. Even when you factor in Russian military incompetence of the past few weeks, they would've taken most of the red bits on the map if local Ukrainians were amenable. So in a sense, Putin's own post 2014 blunders created the conditions for his 2022 blunder.I don't think that the East wanted to separate from Ukraine (the only part of Ukraine for which the question of the separation/reunification with Russia was always relevant was Crimea), but they were always pro-Russian — while the West was always more, well, Western-oriented with the main roots of Ukrainian nationalism (not in Putin's understanding) coming from there, with Lviv as its central hub of sorts. Kyiv was the most balanced city where both of those views were widely represented.
For example, this is the split from the 2004 election, the first one where the Ukrainians were essentially choosing between the West (Yushchenko was trying to move towards the EU and away from Russia) and Russia (Yanukovych was always extremely close with Kremlin):
This is from 2010, Tymoshenko was a prime minister under Yushchenko, Yanukovych is still closely connected to Moscow — as you can see, the results are almost the same (although Yanukovych wins this time):
Obviously I expect that all of those bright red regions had turned blue/deep blue by now.
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I always find the policies and public sentiment towards NATO, the EU etc. fascinating in Nordic countries. All of them are essentially half-in and half-out of various things. None are both fully signed up to the EU and NATO. Even Denmark’s relationship with the EU is made complicated by their opt outs. There’s seemingly a constant tension between a recognition and pragmatism to be part of the modern, interconnected world; but a stubbornness to actually fully commit.
This can't be right surely?!?
I spent a month in Georgia just before the 2008 war and got the sense of something similar - no love for Putin or Russian politics, but a lot of cultural and historic ties which run deep. Young people would still look/travel/migrate to Moscow for the big city experience to work/study/party in the same way lots of Irish still look to London.
Azov seems like a nice bunch.
I'd imagine its similar across several former Soviet republics. In many ways, Ukraine's evolution as a post-Soviet nation is what Russia could've been with vaguely competent leadership during the same period.
You can’t find it because it largely didn’t exist. The DNR and LNR are almost entirely enabled, supported and funded by Russia. The war in Donbas is entirely of Russia’s making under the flag of sham states, with those fighting either being Russian forces, mercenaries or people otherwise forced into conscription.
I had a good essay on this that was written several years ago by an academic with a Japanese name, but cannot find it in my history.
My guess is that its probably on the high end of the spectrum and will wind up at about 20k over the coming weeks. Can't imagine this will sit well with the parents of thousands of Russian troops who thought their kids were on temporary "special military operations".
I believe it's those counties PM's who are travelling, not Presidents.
Still, it's a big statement.
Good that they repeatedly cite experts who they don't name and put menacing music in the background to make sure you know it's bad. Fills me with confidence that they have innocent motives for the video.
I doubt that reliable data exist but from my somewhat limited understanding I don’t think that separatist sentiments were wide-spread (aside from Crimea) — it was more of a case of having their own preference of their country’s vector of political & economic development that was very different from that of the Western Ukrainians.
Yes, pro-Russian is obviously a complex umbrella term that includes everything — from radical ideas of separatism to simply preference of staying inside the Russian sphere of influence (not only because of the same language & culture but also because most businesses had close economic ties with Russia and depended on its markets).
As other posters have mentioned, the video is a bit shit, my main issue being their “I’m just asking questions approach” where they ask (twice in a slightly different wording) “can it be that Putin’s goal is actually trying to get rid of Azov?”… and they don’t answer that, instead not very subtly hinting on the answer to be yes.
Is this a far-right neo-Nazi battalion? Yep. Is it significant on the political front and can it be the reason behind Putin’s invasion? No.
Edit: just looking at their thumbnails and video titles makes me very suspicious about them.
I know very little about the region, but I was watching a youtuber called Bald and Bankrupt, who often visits Eastern Europe and the former USSR. He talks to people and a lot of people, especially older people talk about how life was better under the USSR. This is usually in places that used to be subsidised by the USSR and since it's collapse have fallen into decay and poor governance.
Massive.
Are they going into Kyiv? Would have thought that would have been too perilous to get to.
The Azov are a bunch of twats but they are probably a big reason why the eastern front is so well defended.
They are mad enough to believe they can take on all of the Russian military on their own.
They are mad enough to believe they can take on all of the Russian military on their own.
Yeah, this is a very popular sentiment in the older generations in most of the ex-USSR republics (aside from the Baltics, I think).
Yes it’s confirmed. It has been over many reliable news outlets since the morning.
Apparently it is an EU initiative.
From the Czech Prime minister’s official Twitter account.
“Together with the Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, the Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński and the Prime Minister of Slovenia Janez Janša, we are going to Kiev today as representatives of the European Council to meet with President Zelenský and Prime Minister Shmyhal.”Tweet
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I've watched his videos too and there's an important distinction there. The people who were state employees and fully invested in the Communist Party had good lives, others are not so glowing in their reviews.
Much of the former Soviet Union has fallen between the cracks of their previous Russian protection and future Western development. Latvia, Lithuania and especially Estonia are much better places now they're in the EU and the people do not talk positively of anything Russian in my experience.
Would an attack on the train containing the European leaders traveling to Kyiv today trigger Article 5?
And still, the US basically fled from both. Russia sees this stuff and acknowledges to itself the human sacrifices it's willing to make while seeing the US/West unwilling to make those same sacrifices. It is part of the calculus that led Putin to think the rationale for war during this American administration was a sound one.
Absolutely, I would assume. Killing political leaders of countries not at war should also immediately stop any support Russia is still getting globally