The Brink of War?

[StevieWonders]

this picture isn't real reflection of how is going here...

for example most of Western companies not "puling out" but postpone operations till the end of military conflict - they will have huge losses if they will really pull out - factories, property and so on...

but yes, conflict was easy avoidable if Ukraine canceled "language law" and just implemented Minsk protocol which was signed and ratified by Ukraine in 2014... Russia waited for that 8 years.

I'm bored by it all

[RonanTheBarbarian]

but yes, conflict was easy avoidable if Ukraine canceled "language law" and just implemented Minsk protocol which was signed and ratified by Ukraine in 2014... Russia waited for that 8 years.

This is a bit of a canard

The failure of the Minsk II process was not purely a stubborn refusal by Ukraine to accept a fair deal from Russia. Although France and Germany tried for several years to get the Minsk instruments to work, they came up against what has been referred to as the “Minsk conundrum.”

This is how Al Jazeera explains the problem. I’m just using Al Jazeera here as example of a news website that wouldn’t necessarily be pro-Western.

“Ukraine sees the 2015 agreement as an instrument to re-establish control over the rebel territories.It wants a ceasefire, control of the Russia-Ukraine border, elections in the Donbas, and a limited devolution of power to the separatists – in that order. Russia views the deal as obliging Ukraine to grant rebel authorities in Donbas comprehensive autonomy and representation in the central government, effectively giving Moscow the power to veto Kyiv’s foreign policy choices. Only then would Russia return the Russia-Ukraine border to Kyiv’s control”

Full article here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...t-relevant-now

The real stumbling block was that Putins real aim was never rights of self-government for Donbas, but instead his demand that the terms of the agreement would result in the Donbas region having a veto in international treaties and agreements by Ukraine, which would result in Ukraine being prevented joining NATO or the EU, even if a huge majority of the rest of country wanted to.

(If you think the above points are a bit familiar, it is probably because it is a slightly reworked version of a post I made Gayguides Forums, where I post as Forrestreid)

[Moses]

This is a bit of a canard

The failure of the Minsk II process was not purely a stubborn refusal by Ukraine to accept a fair deal from Russia. Although France and Germany tried for several years to get the Minsk instruments to work, they came up against what has been referred to as the “Minsk conundrum.”

This is how Al Jazeera explains the problem. I’m just using Al Jazeera here as example of a news website that wouldn’t necessarily be pro-Western.

“Ukraine sees the 2015 agreement as an instrument to re-establish control over the rebel territories.It wants a ceasefire, control of the Russia-Ukraine border, elections in the Donbas, and a limited devolution of power to the separatists – in that order. Russia views the deal as obliging Ukraine to grant rebel authorities in Donbas comprehensive autonomy and representation in the central government, effectively giving Moscow the power to veto Kyiv’s foreign policy choices. Only then would Russia return the Russia-Ukraine border to Kyiv’s control”

Full article here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...t-relevant-now

The real stumbling block was that Putins real aim was never rights of self-government for Donbas, but instead his demand that the terms of the agreement would result in the Donbas region having a veto in international treaties and agreements by Ukraine, which would result in Ukraine being prevented joining NATO or the EU, even if a huge majority of the rest of country wanted to.

(If you think the above points are a bit familiar, it is probably because it is a slightly reworked version of a post I made Gayguides Forums, where I post as Forrestreid)

First and only thing what you have to know about Minsk protocol - Russia isn't the part of agreement. There is no one word "Russia"

Full text is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements scroll down till Minsk II

[cdnmatt]

Now there's reporting about how Putin may unleash chemical weapons.

I really hope NATO steps in and stops this shit before it gets any worse.

[StevieWonders]

The Russian Consulate in Surat Thani says there are 3,200 Russian tourists on Koh Samui and nearby islands. Many cannot use their credit cards or transfer money and so cannot pay for their accommodation

[cdnmatt]

I think we should raise Vlad the Impaler from the grave so he can impale Putin. That'd make for a nice PPV event.

[cdnmatt]

BTW... what the fuck is going on with that 40 mile long armored column outside of Kiev? They've been sitting there for about a week like a bunch of idiots. I'm assuming the soldiers must be getting pretty bored now.

It'd take about 24 hours for NATO airstrikes to put that thing into the history books.

[StevieWonders]

Now there's reporting about how Putin may unleash chemical weapons.

I really hope NATO steps in and stops this shit before it gets any worse.

“Reporting”? SPECULATING at best

[Ruthrieston]

Bombing a children's hospital.......war crime of the worst order, utterly despicable. The threat of chemical weapons now, how much lower can the Russian forces go?

[StevieWonders]

Bombing a children's hospital.......war crime of the worst order, utterly despicable. The threat of chemical weapons now, how much lower can the Russian forces go?

When guests used to visit Vladimir Putin in his office in the ­Kremlin’s Senate Palace, he’d point at the bookshelves and ask them to choose a book from Joseph ­Stalin’s library. Half of Stalin’s books – usually marked up by the Soviet leader himself with red or green crayons – remain in Putin’s office. As one of his ministers told me, Putin would ask the visitor to open the book and they would look together at whatever marginalia Stalin had written: sometimes it was a grim laugh: “xa-xa-xa!”; sometimes a snort of ­disdain: “green steam!”; at others it was just a word: “teacher” was written on the biography of Ivan the Terrible.

Across the world today, people are asking if Putin is a new Stalin. Karl Marx joked that “history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy then as farce”. It doesn’t, but any ruler of the Russian state faces some of the same issues as earlier Romanov tsars and Communist general secretaries. Most Russian leaders have aspired to emulate the achievements of the two pre-eminent modern rulers, Peter the Great and Stalin, both revolutionary tsars, both brutal killers. One day, hopefully, Russia will be governed by someone who admires neither. Yet Putin is not Stalin. Stalin was a Marxist; Putin is a 21st-century tyrant, who, while co-opting elements of Romanov and Soviet imperialism, is a populist and nationalist, a practitioner of 21st-century identity politics who deploys both old-fashioned military heavy metal and the new hi-tech weaponry of social media.

Yet Stalin could not be more relevant. Stalin’s influence is imprinted everywhere in the state structure of Russia; he remains omnipresent. Putin’s repression at home increasingly resembles Stalinist tyranny – in its cult of fear, rallying of patriotic displays, crushing of protests, brazen lies and total control of media – ­although without the mass deportations and mass shootings. So far.

https://www.newstatesman.com/long-re...stalins-legacy

The writer is a prominent British and Jewish historian so not a fan you would think of any truly Nazi State which is how Putin characterises Ukraine