Europe at War

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Fairly interesting BBC article with another fascinating photo (in addition to the Putin/Gerasimov/Shoigu pix posted above in the thread):

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60573261


In the days before the invasion, Russian TV broadcast a session of President Putin's 30-member security council

Let the psychoanalysts (armchair and otherwise) chime in on this one.

Thank you for that link; it will provide some very interesting and informative reading as to "who is who".

Re that photo and the early one posted:  I'm surprised that he doesn't have a bullet-proof glass between him and them.

PD

[Florestan]

Thank you for that link; it will provide some very interesting and informative reading as to "who is who".

Re that photo and the early one posted:  I'm surprised that he doesn't have a bullet-proof glass between him and them.

PD

He doesn't need one, they are probably scanned even through their pants for weapons. 

He is clearly paranoid. Not even Stalin, let alone the Tsars, took such extreme cautions.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

He doesn't need one, they are probably scanned even through their pants for weapons. 

He is clearly paranoid. Not even Stalin, let alone the Tsars, took such extreme cautions.

I read that Shoigu goes on hunting and fishing trips with him...wonder whether that has changed or will be changing in the near future?  We'll find out come spring or summer.

PD

[Florestan]

I read that Shoigu goes on hunting and fishing trips with him...wonder whether that has changed or will be changing in the near future?  We'll find out come spring or summer.

One can only hope that Shoigu and / or Gerasimov are saner than the scelerate Putin --- but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. Heck, as Minister of Defense and Chief of General Staff respectively they certainly qualify as war criminals with respect to Ukraine and I doubt that an honest and thorough ICC inquiry will exonerate them.

[Mirror Image]

One can only hope that Shoigu and / or Gerasimov are saner than the scelerate Putin --- but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. Heck, as Minister of Defense and Chief of General Staff respectively they certainly qualify as war criminals with respect to Ukraine and I doubt that an honest and thorough ICC inquiry will exonerate them.

They all need to be dropped off in Siberia and left for dead.

[LKB]

I've just made a temporary profile change, Mahler will return once Russia is defeated.

[T. D.]

After learning that Shoigu is from Tuva, I was interested to read that Gerasimov is from Kazan' (capital of Tataria).
Wondered for a while if he could possibly be Tatar...could only find sketchy biographical info, but I figure Gerasimov is "ethnic Russian", not Tatar.

[Florestan]

I've just made a temporary profile change, Mahler will return once Russia is defeated.

Bravo and welcome to the club! In the face of blatant aggression, flagrant injustice and heinous war crimes we must all take a stand!

[Florestan]

After learning that Shoigu is from Tuva, I was interested to read that Gerasimov is from Kazan' (capital of Tataria).
Wondered for a while if he could possibly be Tatar...could only find sketchy biographical info, but I figure Gerasimov is "ethnic Russian", not Tatar.

Their ethnicity is far less important than their apparently unwavering allegiance to the scelerate Putin.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

One thing that I've been wondering about:  What have each of you seen in terms of locally as to what kind and how much supplies/aid is being given to help the Ukrainians--in terms of food, clothing, etc.?  Any sense?

This story of people and organizations trying to help people and their pets and zoo animals was heart-rending to read:  https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-60593791

"How animals in Ukraine are being rescued during war"  I'm glad that people are trying their best to help though.

PD

[Florestan]

One thing that I've been wondering about:  What have each of you seen in terms of locally as to what kind and how much supplies/aid is being given to help the Ukrainians--in terms of food, clothing, etc.? 

Bucharest is some hundred km away from the Ukrainian border so I haven't personally been able to see anything with my own eyes --- but Romanians in regions close(r) to the border have welcome refugees with open arms and organized admirably in order to shelter and feed them. Government stepped in too: border pass points have been, are and will remain open, the refugees may work without any permit for 9 months and their children may study in the Ukrainian-language schools of Romania. The most publicly vocal millionaire and football club owner (and a long-standing philanthropist too) took strong actions to help the refugees, heavily and mercilessly lambasting the scelerate Putin in the process. Several TV channels have organized public donations. The prevailing feeling in our country is one of solidarity with these unfortunate people and of implacable hatred against the scelerate Putin and the Russian aggression. The vast majority of Romanians stand with Ukraine unconditionally, will do our best to help the Ukrainian people and hope and pray for the scelerate Putin and the Russian army to be defeated.

Historically, Russians have never been much loved in Romania but I think these days Russophobia is at its highest since 1989. And rightly so.

[71 dB]

I've just made a temporary profile change, Mahler will return once Russia is defeated.

If Russia gets stopped and sanity and peace gets restored, Elgar & cross-feeder circuit will return.

[amw]

Mariupol under siege: 'We are being completely cut off' (BBC)

Bear in mind that much of the information regarding Mariupol is unconfirmed (and potentially unconfirmable until the battle ends). But the situation there seems to have been an entirely avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.

The BBC (and other European media outlets) will obviously only quote pro-Ukrainian sources and Russian media will obviously only quote pro-Russian sources. But from a mixture of the two along with posts on social media, the following claims have been made:
- The city is primarily under attack from Donetsk People's Republic forces, with the Russian military in a support role.
- The city is primarily defended by the Ukrainian National Guard, rather than the regular Ukrainian military.
- The Russian military opened humanitarian corridors for several days during the siege of the city, but the National Guard forces established cordons along these corridors and turned back any civilians attempting to flee.
- The Russian military opened humanitarian corridors for several days during the siege of the city, but fighting outside the city remained too intense for civilians to flee.
- The Russian military opened humanitarian corridors for several days during the siege of the city, but DPR forces continued to shell the city anyway.
- National Guard forces entrenched themselves in civilian areas including apartment buildings, and are using civilians as human shields.
- DPR forces have made social media posts describing Ukrainians as dogs, cockroaches, etc. National Guard forces have made social media posts describing Russians as subhuman, vermin, etc. Both DPR and National Guard troops have also posted antisemitic and racist rants, the former targeting Zelensky specifically, the latter targeting foreign-born Ukrainian residents regarded as potential traitors (Mariupol is a city with a very large non-Ukrainian or Russian population, mostly Greek). (All of these are technically confirmed, but in the form of social media posts by individual fighters which are unlikely to represent anyone's views but their own.)
- Pursuant to this, the official National Guard twitter account posted images of fighters greasing bullets with pork fat specifically to wage "holy war" against Russian Muslim fighters. (Confirmed; condemned by Ukrainian government officials.)
- And as such, the current situation (only partially confirmed via satellite imagery and occasional social media posts): fierce house-to-house fighting between DPR and National Guard troops, dead and wounded bodies piling up in the streets with neither side offering humanitarian breaks to retrieve them; National Guard troops occupying civilian apartment blocks that in turn blown to pieces by Russian airstrikes; lynchings of civilians on suspicion of being Russian spies/saboteurs; Russian shelling has become indiscriminate; prisoners of war on both sides are being subjected to torture or execution. Civilians tend to feel they have been abandoned by the Ukrainian authorities and fear that Russian/DPR forces will massacre them.

All of this was completely avoidable. True, the likely alternative would have been a long siege of the city until the lack of electricity, heat, food and water forced it to surrender, and that would have still been bad. (That was the situation in, e.g., Kherson.) But Russia's failure or lack of desire to keep the DPR forces in line seems to have made the humanitarian catastrophe infinitely worse, and at least from my perspective—I'm Jewish, my family owes its continued existence in part to Soviet Union authorities, but also has pretty extensive experiences of antisemitism from Soviet citizens—it's easy to read the situation as a war between rival fascist armies, with tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire.

(Putin and Lukashenko, incidentally: both big fans of Hitler. Most of the Ukrainian national guard's "Banderaist" paramilitary groups: also big Hitler fans. Between the pressure from both his right flank and the Russian invasion, Zelensky increasingly seems like the only sane man in this situation.)

Talks are still ongoing and I hope that a ceasefire in Mariupol is high on the agenda, and would be an initial Ukrainian demand. No evidence that this is the case though.

[amw]

Another thing that has been confirmed: a large number of African, Asian and Middle Eastern students and workers with Ukrainian residency have been turned back when attempting to flee to Poland, on the grounds that they aren't Ukrainian citizens. Although some have reported experiencing racism from border guards on both sides (and a number of European politicians and authorities are now in hot water because of unwise comments along the lines of "this isn't an ordinary refugee crisis involving brown people, these are blonde blue-eyed people just like us, we have to let them in"), the overall situation appears to be more due to bureaucratic incompetence than malice. For example, a representative for some international students in the northern city of Sumy was advised by Ukrainian government officials to cross the border into Russia (???) which, even if the Russian army was not what they were trying to run away from, the city is completely surrounded by Russian forces, who have seized every highway that could theoretically provide an exit from the city.

Many of the stories have been less negative, with fleeing Ukrainians sharing food and water and transport etc with noncitizen refugees (since at this point it's a two to three day wait just to get through the border crossing) and international humanitarian aid organisations stepping in to the best of their ability. But overall it does signal yet another respect in which Western countries have essentially abandoned Ukraine. European countries evidently can airlift weapons into the country, but find it to be too much trouble to use those same aircraft to airlift civilians out of it.

[MusicTurner]

Obviously, there is a flight stop in Ukranian airspace due to the fighting, also between airforces.

As of today, the UN estimates that 1 mio refugees have already left Ukraine. A couple days ago it was 880,000 to the EU, of which more than half went to Poland.

EU is apparently preparing to organize a staying permit for 3 years for them, including allowance for work and education. The possible, future estimate number has now gone up, from 5 mio to 7 mio. Among other things, there are already Ukranian communities in the EU countries, especially workers, who might contribute somewhat to their integration.

DK is so far preparing for 20,000, but potentially 50,000.

Events might change these figures. Today, an agreement was apparently made, that will allow 'refugee corridors' through Ukraine. Whether there'll be organized transport involved, is yet unknown, at least to me. Ukraine is sceptical as regards possible False Flag events though, that would stage 'Ukrainian atrocities'.

[MusicTurner]

Worrying escalations: Kirgistan will apparently mobilize tomorrow and introduce martial law, and Kazakstan does military transports that might suggest later participation in the war.

[JBS]

After learning that Shoigu is from Tuva, I was interested to read that Gerasimov is from Kazan' (capital of Tataria).
Wondered for a while if he could possibly be Tatar...could only find sketchy biographical info, but I figure Gerasimov is "ethnic Russian", not Tatar.

Side note: at least some of the Tatars are Kazan because of a forced population move under Stalin from the Crimea.
The Muslim population of Crimea/southern Ukraine is mostly Tatar.

[T. D.]

Thank you for that link; it will provide some very interesting and informative reading as to "who is who".

Re that photo and the early one posted:  I'm surprised that he doesn't have a bullet-proof glass between him and them.

PD

BTW, both of the photos I found so remarkable were stills taken from Russian TV broadcasts. Which raises interesting questions (that I can't even pretend to answer) about the Russian public's perceptions.

[vandermolen]

I rather agree with this comment from a former Finnish Prime Minister:

Vladimir Putin's has achieved "the opposite of what he wanted", the former Finnish prime minister has said, in a stark warning that highlights the difficulties now facing the Russian President one week into his invasion of Ukraine.

Despite claiming to be "liberating and de-Nazifying" Ukraine (claims much of the international community rejects), the Russian president has only cemented his position as a "global pariah" who has united almost every nation in its condemnation of his actions.

Alexander Stubb, who served as the Finnish PM from 2014-15, tweeted: "Putin has achieved in one week the exact opposite of what he wanted: i.e. the Europeanisation of Ukraine, revitalisation of the Transatlantic relationship, the rejuvenation of Nato, unity of the EU and a radical shift in support for Nato membership in Finland and Sweden."

[amw]

Worrying escalations: Kirgistan will apparently mobilize tomorrow and introduce martial law, and Kazakstan does military transports that might suggest later participation in the war.

Both countries are Russian allies/proxies. If Russia is calling on them for aid, probably a sign that the war is somewhat falling apart, and ties in with the idea that Russian positions in Ukraine are weaker than they look.

Reportedly a second full day of negotiations was completed and some progress was made, with Russian and Ukrainian officials agreeing on humanitarian actions, but no sign of a ceasefire yet. On the other hand, also no major Russian offensives reported today (except for Enerhodar—for the fourth time—and, obviously, Mariupol, which continues to be extremely bloody, although some evidence suggests that the intensity of artillery/missile fire has reduced in the last couple of hours), and even some withdrawals by Russian/LPR forces from areas of Luhansk oblast—apparently not even due to military resistance, but due to nonviolent resistance from civilians.