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Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

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Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#161

Post by jacquesm »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #142
jacquesm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget that in the Baltics there is a fairly large contingent of Ethnic Russians who are the perfect pretext for a liberation exercise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_the_Baltic_states

I disagree in Estonia and Lithuania. I think that 1) many ethnic Russians have seen the quality of life get much better living in these countries and while they may still hold many similar cultural values, would not want to live in Russia and 2) that the governments of the countries are well aware of the risk and have plans to counter it. Not so sure about Latvia.

The degree with which the Russian propaganda regarding vaccine safety has permeated the Russian populations in Estonia and Lithuania (and Latvia as well) has opened my eyes considerably into how strongly connected those communities are still to Russia. They are Russian first, and Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian second.

Now, Lithuania has only a relatively small number of ethnic Russians compared to the rest of the population, and in Estonia the it's somewhere in the middle (15% or so). Latvia is roughly 50/50.

And yes, the governments of those countries are well aware of the risk, but that is not the same as not having that risk in the first place.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#162

Post by atlasunshrugged »

tomsto wrote: post #139
Balero wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below. It is actually the second, but only just, and China will surpass it very soon. This doesn't detract from your point at all.

However what does detract from this point somewhat is that this neglects relative purchasing power. At purchasing power parity, Russia's military spending is actually higher than perhaps people realise.

Yes! And their defense industrial base is massive, not only are they just spending for internal use, but they also are making improvements constantly because they sell these weapons abroad (e.g. S-400's which piss of America to no end)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/26/erdogan-turkey-coul...

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#163

Post by aa-jv »

ogogmad wrote: post #160
aa-jv wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how peace could be made Its certainly not going to be possible for as long as member citizens of Western nations think they have the moral authority to tell Russia what to do .. they really, really don't have that moral authority, especially given the last twenty years of massacring of innocent people that the West continues to sweep under the rug and justify with bleats .. The Russian people know how m…

Look up whataboutism, the "tu quoque" fallacy, and the fallacy of moral equivalence.

If you think that America has the moral authority to demand other states stop their human rights abuses, you probably don't know a thing about the extent nor magnitude of America's own human rights crimes. A nation that drops bombs on innocent people every twenty minutes for twenty years has zero moral authority when it comes to calling out other nations' human rights abuses - until their own abuses are appropriately addressed.

Anything less is just a failure to understand basic ethics. You can call anything a fallacy - the idea that Americans have a higher moral authority on the subject of human rights is just ludicrous and worthy of a great deal of ridicule in light of the statistics of "Americans killing other innocent people for fundamentally racist/bigoted reasons" .. the real fallacy is that the American people think their nation has a 'right' to act with moral authority over any other nation. They really, really don't.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#164

Post by javajosh »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #106
chalcolithic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing non-warmonger democrats makes sense for non-warmonger nations only.

But is Russia a warmongering nation? I'd say most Russians hate war. Maybe more than anyone else because they were the nation that suffered most casualties in World War II. An emergence of a peaceful leader and friendly reactions with the West would mark the beginning of a completely new era in the history of our civilization. And would help both Russia and the West in the face of increasing Chinese power.

Well now, this is the question isn't it: what's going on with Russia? They've had a (smarter, more violent) version of Trump in power for 20 years, using violence to repress dissent, using fraud to fake poll numbers, cheated so bad at the Olympics they got a forever ban, and state-run media to broadcast propoganda. For the Russians, communism failed, then capitalism failed, and the national economy is the size of Italy suffering from rampant corruption. So what is it? They are deep in the bad corner of the Nash equilibrium, bitter about losing the Cold War, and determined to achieve some vestige of glory using the two levers that remain to them: nukes and gas? (Plus a 3rd lever: world-class hackers and online propagandists.)

I find it hard to imagine that in this environment there's much of a middle-class that cares about the best 3rd wave coffee in Moscow and which is the best Montessori school (e.g. the petty problems that remain once you feel safe in your society). Those Russians left for Germany or the US long ago, is my impression.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#165

Post by atlasunshrugged »

tomp wrote: post #55
lnsru wrote: post #27

There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they…

I'm certain that Israel's nukes and their strategic air strikes against Iran's nuclear/military facilities (preventing Iran from having nukes) contributes much more to their protection than a standing army. This situation is obviously amplified 10x in Lithuania (population 30% of Israel) vs Russia (population 170% Iran).

Yes but Israel operates under the US defense umbrella at least implicitly even despite their extraterritorial attacks against Iran. If Lithuania or Estonia started hitting Russian military targets, I'm pretty sure they'd be booted from NATO asap. Also, if they used nukes against Russia or even postured like they would it'd be a disaster. St. Petersburg is super close to Estonia, Belarus borders the baltics, so if you did even a first strike you'd probably end up with a nuclear cloud hanging over your own country a few hours later.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#166

Post by underscore_ku »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #128
wongarsu wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a military budget of 60bn, Germany and France spend 52bn each. Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure. The EU isn't equipped to fight in Russia or to fight a nuclear war (even though France has nukes), but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.

>Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure Baltic countries are better connected to Russia and Belarus via rail, road, electricity grid, etc than to the rest of the EU. EU was reluctant to fund infrastructure projects to change that, e.g. the railway from Poland through all the three Baltic capitals

that's not true https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-baltic-energy-idUKL8N2GT2...

EU grants Baltic grids 720 mln euros to unplug from Russia

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#167

Post by atlasunshrugged »

jacquesm wrote: post #161
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree in Estonia and Lithuania. I think that 1) many ethnic Russians have seen the quality of life get much better living in these countries and while they may still hold many similar cultural values, would not want to live in Russia and 2) that the governments of the countries are well aware of the risk and have plans to counter it. Not so sure about Latvia.

The degree with which the Russian propaganda regarding vaccine safety has permeated the Russian populations in Estonia and Lithuania (and Latvia as well) has opened my eyes considerably into how strongly connected those communities are still to Russia. They are Russian first, and Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian second. Now, Lithuania has only a relatively small number of ethnic Russians compared to the rest of the p…

Yeah sure, but the risk of taking a vaccine and deciding not to take it or holding up a sign outside of a hospital (I mean, plenty of hesitancy in the US too with no or very little Russian propaganda) is super different than taking up arms to support little green men coming across the border and I don't think really comparable. If we were back in '07 with the situation in Estonia, maybe, but now I'm super skeptical.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#168

Post by ivan_gammel »

selivanovp wrote: post #18

In real news, not propaganda, Russian court didn't confirmed anything. The guy accused of bribery just declared that he was sending food to Russian army units in DPR/LPR. The same way he could've declared that he was feeding martians.

This local newspaper does not qualify as "propaganda" website by all definitions, so I'm not sure why you are using this language and what kind of "real news" you are referring to.

The original verdict of the court does not say "the guy declared". The language used there is describing recipients in Donbass as a fact important to the investigation, otherwise it would be a simple speculation irrelevant for the court decision and not worth mentioning there.

Of course, there are ways to "explain" this publication as a mistake, misinterpretation as you already suggested or sabotage, but then it will just undermine the credibility of the supposedly objective and independent court.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#169

Post by hguant »

wongarsu wrote: post #81
jacquesm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And therein lies the rub: the EU would not be able to do much of anything without the rest of NATO to back them up. And in spite of Europe being dragged along in many American adventures in the middle east I wouldn't count on NATO sticking together either. Way too much 'realpolitik' going on to count on that for long term stability.

Russia has a military budget of 60bn, Germany and France spend 52bn each. Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure. The EU isn't equipped to fight in Russia or to fight a nuclear war (even though France has nukes), but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.

>but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.

Because money spent in an efficient and effective system has more power than money spent in an ineffective and bloated system. One example - Germany doesn't actually have enough helicopters operational to meet their needs, so they used civilian contractor helicopters in Afghanistan.

The structures are just so different that it's hard to make good comparisons. Germany can't keep its troops and equipment equipped or repaired _at home_, while Russian is capable of doing so thousands of miles from beyond its borders.

The German military in particular is "neither structurally capable nor equipped" to meet its defense obligations, according to the German parliamentary commissionor for the armed forces. Their helicopter readiness is something like 15%, they don't have the funding to keep their navy seaworthy, for most of 2018-20 they only had enough operational armaments to keep 4 of their eurofighter jets armed. They don't have enough body armor for all their troops, so they rotate it out to whichever battalion is active. Current bundeswehr projections are that they'll be able to equip all their troops in 2031.

It's gotten so bad that the German 2019 readiness report was kept secret, after the 2018 report was so bad.

Long story short, the German military is fundamentally incapable of meeting its basic defensive goals (defending the home territory of the nation), while Russia is a near peer competitor with the United States, and is capable of offensive force projection thousands of miles from it's home territory

Links for the quotes and numbers.

https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2019/01/31/g...

https://sofrep.com/amp/specialoperations/germanys-military-r...

https://www.strifeblog.org/2020/07/03/the-german-military-mu...

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#170

Post by atlasunshrugged »

wongarsu wrote: post #68
tomp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certain that Israel's nukes and their strategic air strikes against Iran's nuclear/military facilities (preventing Iran from having nukes) contributes much more to their protection than a standing army. This situation is obviously amplified 10x in Lithuania (population 30% of Israel) vs Russia (population 170% Iran).

Israel has been in many conventional wars with it's neighbors since the day it was founded. In recent times their nukes protect them, but historically it was more about every man and women being either active military or reserve, along with an economy that is able to pay for being the best military in the region.

Didn't air power play a big part too back in the day?
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