Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Stop Falling for Russia’s Delusions of Perpetual Victory
May 10, 2022, 12:46 PM
By Mart Kuldkepp, associate professor of Scandinavian history and politics at University College London.
Much of the West’s commentary on Russia’s war against Ukraine has fallen victim to critical blind spots or inherent biases—an approach often claimed as “realism” but which has little to do with academic international relations theories. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion continues, it’s time to consider what a better approach to punditry on Russia’s war against Ukraine would look like.
To be sure, I am not a neutral observer—in fact, I couldn’t possibly be more pro-Ukraine. My view is shaped by being an Eastern European academic working at an elite Western university. But as a researcher who specializes in how people make sense of ongoing conflicts, I believe pointing out some of these biases and blind spots can help us make better sense of the war.
The biggest blind spot of all is the Ukrainians themselves. More than two months into the invasion, it is striking how little agency Ukrainians are habitually given in analyzing unfolding events. The realist (in reality, colonialist) understanding of Ukraine as a passive periphery, the fate of which must be inevitably decided by Russia and the West, has led to underestimations of the role of the Ukrainian armed forces, civil society, national and local governments, and, most of all, Ukraine’s strong will to resist.
Russian aggression is not impersonal, Western assistance is not automatic, and T-72 Russian battle tanks don’t pop off their turrets by accident. This is Ukraine’s new war of independence, a nation-shaping conflict that will define the country’s sense of identity for generations, and Ukrainians have the central role in it.
The best way to mitigate for this is to follow and read Ukrainian journalists, politicians, academics, and others commenting on the war as well as amplify their voices and contributions. Don’t assume that Ukrainians are untrustworthy because they must be biased or are producing and repeating their own forms of propaganda because they are one of the parties to the conflict.
In fact, Ukrainians often know what is going on best exactly because they are there on the ground in the thick of it. Ukrainian reporters, analysts, and commentators have constantly been more accurate and insightful than almost any Western ones, both in 2014 with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and now. The early casualty numbers that were widely treated as Ukrainian propaganda have in fact been largely borne out. So too have early reports of the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva, denied by Russia, proved to be accurate.
Ukrainians aren’t passive victims of Putin’s aggression who are looking for Western pity and handouts. They are, in fact, looking for recognition that they share a common cause with the West and that the West needs to do its part, not simply free ride on Ukrainian efforts (and, effectively, their lives).
Then there’s the blind spots around Russia itself. Putin’s Russia believes itself to be a major economic and military power, feared and respected around the globe. It is also obsessed with its glorious history, especially with the Great Patriotic War, as it calls World War II, and is convinced that it can somehow never be defeated on the battlefield. These ideas get regularly repeated by Western commentators, especially on the far left. Some more egregious examples include Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis claiming that “Ukraine cannot win this war” and that the West has a “moral duty to give Putin a way out” as well as American political activist Noam Chomsky pointing out that former U.S. President Donald Trump was the “one Western statesman” with a “sensible” plan to limit NATO expansion and establish a security accommodation with Russia.
But this is all Russian propaganda, and you should approach it as such.
Actual data about Russia’s economy is available, and anyone can look it up. Anyone can read the history of World War II,
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Everyone needs to exercise their critical and moral faculties when thinking and talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine...
I agree. And until any one of you chucklefucks start doing so, you should all just shut the fuck up.
Nobody gives a shit about Russia or Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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Quote:If you count this comment, three times on this one page you told us 'nobody cares'. You keep telling everybody that you don't care.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Everyone needs to exercise their critical and moral faculties when thinking and talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine...
I agree. And until any one of you chucklefucks start doing so, you should all just shut the fuck up.
Nobody gives a shit about Russia or Ukraine.
All the Trump voters I know are saying 'nobody cares' about what the Trump voter doesn't care about. This is all subjects, not solely Russia/Ukraine. They all act like other people are eating the Trump voter's food, owing money to the Trump voter, and have to follow the Trump voter's rules or else the Trump voter will be angry at them, telling them 'nobody cares'. Trump voters keep telling everybody to shut-up because the Trump voter wants to be in charge. Then Trump voter makes threats about what they will do after the next election. The Trump voter's enemies will rue the day the topic 'nobody cares' about was mentioned.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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World War II Is All That Putin Has Left
In the official accounts, the Red Army soldier did not brutalize civilians, rape women, or loot property. Famously, a staged photograph of soldiers waving a Soviet flag on top of the Reichstag in May of 1945 had to be doctored, because one of them was wearing two wristwatches (they were stolen from Germans; Soviet soldiers typically did not own several wristwatches). Many years later, when another British historian, Antony Beevor, published archival evidence of looting — children as young as 12 traveled to Berlin for that purpose — and the mass rape of 2 million German women, the Russian ambassador to the U.K. accused him of “lies, slander, and blasphemy.”
But plenty of Russians already knew the truth. Stories of the horrors of the war, experienced by veterans as well as those who stayed at home, were passed down within families. Ambivalent memories persisted. Not long after the war ended, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, himself a former member of the Red Army battalions that had rampaged across the German region of East Prussia, composed a poem describing what he had witnessed:
The little daughter’s on the mattress,
Dead. How many have been on it
A platoon, a company perhaps?
A girl’s been turned into a woman,
A woman turned into a corpse.
This year’s World War commemoration had a rote, empty quality, as if the Russian state is no longer capable of offering its citizens anything more than cardboard nostalgia — but also as if it assumes those citizens need little else. President Vladimir Putin made a short, dishonest speech about his invasion of Ukraine, just barely alluding to the costs and casualties. Soldiers waved Soviet flags. Spectators saw less military equipment than last year (and no air show at all), but tanks, trucks, and intercontinental ballistic missiles still paraded across Red Square. Mini celebrations unfolded around the country, at least one featuring Russian children singing, “Uncle Vova, we are with you” — Uncle Vova being Putin — followed by one-armed salutes. Even as Russia carries out a brutal war of aggression, one in which Russian soldiers are once again committing terrible crimes against a civilian population, the whole occasion was permeated with a sense of grievance, as if Russia were the only real victim of both conflicts.
More at https://web.archive.org/web/20220511151159/https://www.theatlantic.com
/ideas/archive/2022/05/putin-speech-ukraine-invasion-soviet-union/629825/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:If you count this comment, three times on this one page you told us 'nobody cares'. You keep telling everybody that you don't care.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Everyone needs to exercise their critical and moral faculties when thinking and talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine...
I agree. And until any one of you chucklefucks start doing so, you should all just shut the fuck up.
Nobody gives a shit about Russia or Ukraine.
I'll say it a million times more.
If we were riding high in the 90's economy, people would be able to afford the time and mental energy to care.
It's 2022, the economy is shit, and people don't have time or mental energy for the Neo-Con/Neo-Lib war machine and lies about countries half a world away.
You keep pretending like you give a shit about Russia and Ukraine all the way until November and wake up on the morning of November 9th and wonder how the hell Democrats got destroyed so thoroughly even though Republicans overturned Roe v Wade in the SCOTUS.
Nobody gives one single shit about Russia or Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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Quote:I heard the same defeatism and silliness from my own grandmother. When Apollo landed on the moon, she did two things: said it was a waste of tax-payer money that should go to people like herself and, the cherry on top, said it was all a lie. She said nobody cares and nobody landed on the moon. The moon-landing was all fakery by a hidden conspiracy. Grandma was ahead of her time. She would fit in well with today's Trump voters.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:If you count this comment, three times on this one page you told us 'nobody cares'. You keep telling everybody that you don't care.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Everyone needs to exercise their critical and moral faculties when thinking and talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine...
I agree. And until any one of you chucklefucks start doing so, you should all just shut the fuck up.
Nobody gives a shit about Russia or Ukraine.
I'll say it a million times more.
If we were riding high in the 90's economy, people would be able to afford the time and mental energy to care.
It's 2022, the economy is shit, and people don't have time or mental energy for the Neo-Con/Neo-Lib war machine and lies about countries half a world away.
You keep pretending like you give a shit about Russia and Ukraine all the way until November and wake up on the morning of November 9th and wonder how the hell Democrats got destroyed so thoroughly even though Republicans overturned Roe v Wade in the SCOTUS.
Nobody gives one single shit about Russia or Ukraine.
That is how I have always seen a large portion of Americans: they whine about the money government spends, claim it is wasted when not spent on them, claim that whatever happened didn't actually happen and what didn't happen actually did happen. Everything gets turned upside down and backwards by the kind of people who, once upon a time, voted for Nixon and, if they had lived, would have voted for Trump. I found it completely unsurprising that grandma didn't prosper or even live very long. Neither did grandpa. Those two couldn't see their low expectation future which was dreadfully obvious to teenage me. My sisters and I did not want to end up like our grandparents, which is why all three of us ran far away from our extended family. The ones that didn't run, didn't do well, but they do vote for Trump.
Looking back 50 years after they died, at all myriad details of their lives, theirs looks exactly like the life of the angry poor white trash who vote for Trump and defend him.
P.S. Grandma and grandpa had a two-story house, all paid for, a farm, a car, the whole she-bang. They believed they were doing great. I know they weren't because I and my sisters have gone back and looked.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Poland is next, after Ukraine
18:18 13.05.2022
The State Duma proposed to put Poland in line for denazification
MOSCOW, May 13 - RIA Novosti. The Polish leadership's statements about Russia "as a cancerous tumor" and about indemnities to Ukraine encourage the Russian Federation to "put it in line for denazification," said Oleg Morozov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Control.
"By its statements about Russia as a 'cancer tumor' and about the 'indemnity' that we must pay to Ukraine, Poland encourages us to put it in first place in the queue for denazification after Ukraine," Morozov wrote in his Telegram channel.
Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a Telegraph column that he considers the Russian world "a cancer that poses a deadly threat to the whole of Europe", in his opinion, it needs to be "eradicated". Also, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Russia would be forced to pay indemnity to Ukraine.
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal "the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine", to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for "bloody crimes against civilians" in Donbass.
https://ria.ru/20220513/polsha-1788409643.html
OSINTdefender @sentdefender tweeted:
The Russian State Duma has proposed that after the Invasion of Ukraine, that Poland be invaded and denazified next due to their clear Support for “Nazi Elements” in Ukraine and around the World while also providing Aid to Ukraine that results in the death of Russian Troops.
1:07 PM · May 13, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1525176043539144704
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I heard the same defeatism and silliness from my own grandmother.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:If you count this comment, three times on this one page you told us 'nobody cares'. You keep telling everybody that you don't care.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Everyone needs to exercise their critical and moral faculties when thinking and talking about Russia’s war against Ukraine...
I agree. And until any one of you chucklefucks start doing so, you should all just shut the fuck up.
Nobody gives a shit about Russia or Ukraine.
I'll say it a million times more.
If we were riding high in the 90's economy, people would be able to afford the time and mental energy to care.
It's 2022, the economy is shit, and people don't have time or mental energy for the Neo-Con/Neo-Lib war machine and lies about countries half a world away.
You keep pretending like you give a shit about Russia and Ukraine all the way until November and wake up on the morning of November 9th and wonder how the hell Democrats got destroyed so thoroughly even though Republicans overturned Roe v Wade in the SCOTUS.
Nobody gives one single shit about Russia or Ukraine.
It's not defeatism. It's realism.
Fail to see the difference between the meaning of those two words at the peril of your party.
Tick Tock
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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The international humanitarian group Human Rights Watch released stunning details of the carnage in Chernihiv and Kyiv that Russia left behind. It stated in a report released Tuesday morning that it is currently investigating 22 potential summary executions, nine other unlawful killings, six possible kidnappings, seven cases of torture and 21 reported incidents of other forms of “unlawful confinement in inhuman and degrading conditions” carried out by Russian forces against civilians in those regions.
“The numerous atrocities by Russian forces occupying parts of northeastern Ukraine early in the war are abhorrent, unlawful, and cruel,” Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “These abuses against civilians are evident war crimes that should be promptly and impartially investigated and appropriately prosecuted.”
More at https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2022-05-17/russian-c
arnage-destruction-revealed-in-newly-liberated-ukrainian-territory
Where is the original report? According to Jan Kooy @KooyJan
New research Human Rights Watch on executions and torture in Ukraine, during Russian occupation in Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, going out on Wednesday May 18.
Reporters can DM me for embargoed copy, access to video, interview requests etc.
2:50 AM · May 17, 2022·Twitter Web App
https://twitter.com/KooyJan/status/1526470077075312640
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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