Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

netnewsledger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 372 posts

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#191

Post by azangru »

dandanua wrote: post #149
azangru wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling Ukraine "The Ukraine" is a Russian tactic... This is just wrong. If you search for the word Ukraine on the Russian government site kremlin.ru (there is an English-language version), you will find that this word is used there without the article. I am sure you'll get the same results if you search RT's web site. The article isn't the Russians' doing, especially given that there aren't any articles in most Sl…

Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language. "Ukraine" doesn't mean borderland, it's another Russian attitude with the aim to humiliate Ukrainian nation. You can also look at the map and see who is really a borderland of the civilized world.

> Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language.

This is an old and complicated argument. The Russians have their language. In that language, for several centuries, probably as long as the word Ukraine existed in it, it was governed by the preposition "на". There are other Russian toponyms that are governed by the same preposition — Cuba, Caucasus, Manhattan, "the West", Middle East, "the East", etc. It really is a question of whether the language should change because of a new political status of Ukraine (and therefore all its speakers should change their linguistic habits); or whether this word should continue to be among the exceptions that take the preposition "на".

The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#192

Post by bigodbiel »

88840-8855 wrote: post #70
MasterYoda wrote: post #28

I really hope the russian/kreml/putin war against Ukraine will end in a epic failure for them. I also hope that frozen russian assets in west can be confiscated to build up Ukraine again, russia has to be accountable and pay for all madness and horrific things they have done.

Oh yeah, super good idea. We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s FACT: the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people, no matter whether Russia loses or wins the military operation. Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics. If Russia is left alone humiliated again then we will have the next anti-western sys…

Soviet Russia after its collapse had a chance to integrate itself to the west. Even if neoliberal policies were attrocious (and they weren't exclusive to Russia, but to the whole developing world) during the 90's, its integration to the global division of labor is what allowed them to re-emerge and have rising standards of living, much higher than during Soviet times.

But they still want revanchism and imperialism in the 21st c.?

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#193

Post by spaceman_2020 »

honkdaddy wrote: post #180
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia was already always going to lose that "superpower" tag the moment the world shifted from hard industrial goods to consumer goods and technology. The first computer, the growth of the Japanese consumer goods industry, and Silicon Valley likely did as much to collapse the Soviet Union as anything else - they were simply out of the picture the moment we started creating software and portable stereos and personal…

Russia has a long history of producing excellent programmers and software engineers, I'm not sure where you get the idea this is where they were outpaced by the rest of the world. If I had to attribute one thing to Russia's downfall, it would be its geopolitical decision to align itself with China and Iran in global anti-Western sentiment, rather than moving towards joining the rest of the West and the EU as some cou…

Russians make for great programmers and software engineers.

Russian economic systems and state/societal incentives unfortunately aren't conducive to helping these engineers build world-class companies and products at any appreciable scale.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#194

Post by tromp »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #41
saiya-jin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will call them later. 300,000 noobs with minimal training, physique, crappy equipment, low morale and useless aparatchik leaders will be sent to meat grinder of eastern Ukraine. "Nas mnogo" strategy barely worked in WWII, with modern warfare (and continuing western aid) they won't make that much difference. High tech equipment in good numbers is what decides outcomes these days when armies clash. Plus Ukraine ca…

It’s more a political signal sent to the west. Russia was designing the war in Ukraine as a special operation. That put some limits on what they could officially do. With the referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia is reframing the conflict as happening on Russian soil. That allows them to declare it a war and open the door to nuclear retaliation. Mobilising and calling it a proxy war play with this line. It’s basi…

> With the referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia is reframing the conflict as happening on Russian soil. That allows them to declare it a war

By their logic it would allow them to declare it a Ukrainian Special Military Operation...

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#195

Post by ClumsyPilot »

vegardx wrote: post #178
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #111

All flights out of Russia are now booked out with millions of people trying to escape mobilisation. If the Western leaders had any foresight, they would come up with a scheme that enables them to do so and drains Putin's manpower. Anything from rebuilding Ukraine to getting them a free ticket to Brazil. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by dependancy on Russian gas, western leaders have the foresight of a frog. The rece…

The people that could realistically move from Russia already have. Just because all flights are fully booked doens't mean millions are willing to or able to move. And what gas? Currently Russia is exporting a negligible amount of gas to western countries. They played that card a long time ago. It's almost comical to talk about foresight and Russia in the same sentence without even acknowledging how blind Putin has ha…

> It's almost comical to talk about foresight and Russia in the same sentence

I don't think our benchmark for foresight should be an aging dictator thats probably loosing his mind.

> The people that could realistically move from Russia already have.

What is the basis for this assertion? You could say 'we don't want them here', at least it would be honest. But let's not pretend they had every opportunity to leave and simply chose not to.

Most people can't leave because they have no long-term visas to anywhere.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Georgia because it's one of the very few countries that allow visa-free entry. Many are illegally overstaying, because there is nothing else they can do.

For the top 5% of Russians that have knowledge of English, the legal chops,the income and the grounds to get a western visas, embassies take many months to process your documents, have quotas and limited processing capacity. And they reduced their staff levels since the 'special operation' started.

You can even be refused visa to donate an organ to your family https://www.ieyenews.com/uk-leukaemia-transplant-blocked-by-...

Suppose you are an upper class Russian that has savings, earned every penny honestly and wants to leave to Britain. What can you do? Well maybe you get yourself an excellent job that sponsors your visa, suppose you have 300k+ of salary and all the time in the world. But can you bring with your dumb brother? No, you will have to leave him behing, watch him get drafted and killed. Can you bring your aging mother with arthritis that needs regular help just to get through the day? No, you cannot. What are you meant to do, leave them behind to die?

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#196

Post by spywaregorilla »

_0w8t wrote: post #188
spywaregorilla wrote: post #154

A few months ago analysts were warning of impending collapse of Russia's troops due to poor supplies and poor morale. Russian cheerleaders on HN were doubting it as Western propaganda saying it had been declared for months and not materialized. Well it materialized in the collapse of the Kharkiv front over a week so there's that. In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter. The Russian problem is bad s…

I mostly agree with you, but Kharkiv collapse was not that big. While Russia abandoned a lot of equipment there, they managed to withdraw most of it and the vast majority of troops. It looks like after the initial Ukrainian breakthrough Russian generals managed to convince Putin to abandon most of Kharkiv and focus on Donbas instead. At Bakhmut Russia did made small but meaningful progress with Ukrainian sources repo…

> Kharkiv collapse was not that big.

That's nonsense. It was an entire front of the war. A huge land area. Russia spent months trying to conquer Izyum. There's basically no clear intel on what was left behind, or how many people were taken prisoner, but even if it's nothing, which it isn't, it's a major loss.

> At Bakhmut Russia did made small but meaningful progress with Ukrainian sources reporting the situation as difficult or even very difficult.

It has barely nudged in months. It is difficult. Fighting is hard. But it's not meaningful in the slightest and it's not strategically important.

> And Lyman are far from being liberated. Ukrainians forces made a progress threatening to surround Russian forces there, but the situation is rather unclear there. As for Lysychansk there were sporadic reports about small Ukrainian units nearby, but nothing more.

I give Lyman a week to hold out at most personally. It's surrounded on two sides, soon to be 3. If it falls you may see another yolo rush.

Lysyschansk is not currently an active fighting zone but they're pushing east from Bilohorivka, which is very close. It could take a while for that to develop.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#197

Post by bryanlarsen »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #154

A few months ago analysts were warning of impending collapse of Russia's troops due to poor supplies and poor morale. Russian cheerleaders on HN were doubting it as Western propaganda saying it had been declared for months and not materialized. Well it materialized in the collapse of the Kharkiv front over a week so there's that. In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter. The Russian problem is bad s…

Another thing that could change the war could be North Korean men and/or Chinese material.

Neither are likely, but both are possible and have been rumored.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#198

Post by _ph_ »

camjw wrote: post #65
_ph_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ukraine can do it, if it gets supplied with the weapons to do it. Even with the weapons they got so far, they managed to hurt the Russian military a lot - hence the mobilization. They got some very powerful weapons, but still limited in number and choice. Just delivering long-range ammunition for HIMARS in large numbers might be enough to break any Russian offensive as all supply and all fixed positions were easy…

Calling Ukraine "The Ukraine" is a Russian tactic to make Ukraine seem less like a country and more like a region. Quoting from wikipedia: > However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, [calling Ukraine "The Ukraine"] has become politicised and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use. US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty.…

Besides not being a native speaker, I never thought about using an article with Ukraine. Now that you mention it, in German we always use an article with Ukraine, I never noticed it. But this is true for some other countries. Countries like USA, UK, Netherlands, Switzerland or Turkey are also always used with an article, I don't know what is the pattern behind it. All of those are certainly sovereign nations. So nothing was implied by using an article with Ukraine.

Re: President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia

#199

Post by dandanua »

azangru wrote: post #191
dandanua wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language. "Ukraine" doesn't mean borderland, it's another Russian attitude with the aim to humiliate Ukrainian nation. You can also look at the map and see who is really a borderland of the civilized world.

> Russians refer to Ukraine as a territory in their language by using preposition "на" instead of "в". They don't respect sovereignty of Ukraine in their language. This is an old and complicated argument. The Russians have their language. In that language, for several centuries, probably as long as the word Ukraine existed in it, it was governed by the preposition "на". There are other Russian toponyms that are gover…

It's not bizarre. It's one of the many factors that has led to the genocide of Ukrainians. Little things matter too.

Surely, the main factor is that Russians disrespect everyone else too, including their own less lucky compatriots. Russia must be destroyed as a culture if they can't learn to behave as civilized humans, if they want to be enslavers only. Though, it looks like Putin is already succeeding in this task.

Post reply on HN