Russia

[Guy Chamberlin]

12 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I'm not seeing how this article runs counter to @Moiraine's point. 

 

Only if we disagree about the actual amount of over-stating or under-stating, but if the goal is liberating and uniting Ukraine, Zelensky can't assume he'll be greeted as a liberator in Eastern provinces and Crimea, where it could turn into a crippling slog both militarily and administratively. It gets especially murky because people there who aren't necessarily pro-Russia don't exactly trust Ukraine either, based on recent history. This isn't an uncommon observation, btw.  

 

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky has made it quite clear that Ukraine intends to reclaim all of its territory – that includes a large chunk of the Donbas region that pro-Russian separatists, aided by Russian troops, turned into unrecognised pseudo-states in 2014, and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed that March. 

 

It’s one thing liberating territories that Russian troops only took last year when it deployed its entire war machine in a brutal and atrocious campaign to subjugate Ukraine – with its air force bombing cities and its regular troops slaughtering civilians. 

 

But it’s a different story when it comes to the areas that seceded in 2014. Even though Ukraine, for understandable reasons, insists that first Crimea, and then Donetsk and Luhansk were occupied by Russian troops, in reality local separatists who were Ukrainian citizens played a central role in the conflict. In Crimea, pro-Russian protesters, aided by volunteers and special forces from Russia, installed a local Russian, Sergei Aksyonov as prime minister of the internal republic of Crimea. Then, with Russian guns and aided by the Kremlin, the new Crimean government held a referendum in which a majority voted to join Russia.

 

In Donetsk and Luhansk, the picture was murkier. There, encouraged by Russian officers and volunteers, local separatists took control of government buildings and declared independence, hoping that Russia would take them in. It didn’t. Instead, the Kremlin sent troops to ensure the separatist governments could survive, gradually taking control over their administrations and militias – all the while refusing to recognise them officially. 

 

The so-called ‘Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics’ were legally a no man’s land, but de facto administered much like Russian provinces. In 2017, Ukraine established a blockade of the statelets, banning trade with them and ceasing to fund infrastructure there. The local administrations became more and more entrenched and, impoverished, the residents of these pseudo-states – nearly 3 million Ukrainian citizens (and over 5 million if you include Crimea) – went on with their lives as best as they could. That meant turning to Russian funding, Russian banks, Russian trade, and, increasingly, Russian passports. These areas have had nine years of Russian integration. 

 

It is hard to gauge the political sympathies of an isolated population living under a brutally repressive regime. But figures from before Donetsk and Luhansk came under the control of pro-Russian separatists are telling. According to a poll conductedin April 2014 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, over 70 per cent of respondents in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine – where support for Russia was far less consolidated than it was in Crimea – considered the government in Kyiv illegitimate. While this does not mean automatic support for pro-Russian separatism, many in eastern Ukraine felt that no one but the Russian government really heard or represented them. ‘I don’t want to be called a separatist,’ a Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizen in Odessa told me in May 2014. ‘We don’t want to secede from Ukraine. But we hope that Russia won’t leave us to our sorrow.’ 

 

You might expect that years of Russian brutality has changed people’s minds. For a lot of people, it has. But for many people I’ve spoken to from east of the line of contact – when it was still possible to do so – the question becomes about what they can afford to do and who pays for their groceries. 

.......

 

The government has tried to avoid extreme punishments that could be exploited by Russian propaganda. But a law that in effect criminalises paying taxes in the place where you live will inevitably lead to abuses, according to Ukrainian lawyer Rostislav Kravets. ‘Any business conducted on occupied territories can be ruled collaborationist,’ he told Meduza.  

 

If this is already a problem in territories liberated after less than a year of Russian occupation, how does Ukraine plan to reintegrate millions of people in the Donbas – and, if it ever comes to that, Crimea? 

[knapplc]

(͡•_ ͡• )

[commando]

lol

 

 

[Gage County]

On 6/4/2023 at 7:21 PM, commando said:

am starting to see some reports that the ukrainian counter offensive might have started.   

Spring or summer?

[Gage County]

Why would combines be in the wheat fields in early June? lol

16 minutes ago, commando said:

lol

 

 

 

[commando]

3 minutes ago, Gage County said:

Why would combines be in the wheat fields in early June? lol

 

what?

[Gage County]

14 minutes ago, commando said:

what?

The Twitter poster is  wrong and probably hasn't ever been on a farm. Those aren't sprayers, they're combines. Why would combines be in the fields in early June?

[teachercd]

3 minutes ago, Gage County said:

The Twitter poster is  wrong and probably hasn't ever been on a farm. Those aren't sprayers, they're combines. Why would combines be in the fields in early June?

Come on, it is to trick the Ruskies!

[commando]

2 minutes ago, Gage County said:

The Twitter poster is  wrong and probably hasn't ever been on a farm. Those aren't sprayers, they're combines. Why would combines be in the fields in early June?

well.....i am not sure about what the normal season is for harvesting in that part of ukraine...but winter wheat harvest is getting close here.  but either way....the russians were claiming they were destroying  tanks.   

[Gage County]

3 minutes ago, commando said:

well.....i am not sure about what the normal season is for harvesting in that part of ukraine...but winter wheat harvest is getting close here.  but either way....the russians were claiming they were destroying  tanks.   

The Ukraine mostly grows corn and wheat like us and have similar harvest seasons. After watching it again, the only thing I am certain of is that was not a tank! The first few seconds show 3 combines, they aren't working, no straw and dust out the back, no trucks to off load to, no short and tall wheat. So my assumption that this was during harvest was wrong.

 

[when losing an argument, change the subject]

 

I think you're comment about the counteroffensive is more important. The front line is going to determine the outcome of the invasion.

[BigRedBuster]

42 minutes ago, Gage County said:

The Ukraine mostly grows corn and wheat like us and have similar harvest seasons. After watching it again, the only thing I am certain of is that was not a tank! The first few seconds show 3 combines, they aren't working, no straw and dust out the back, no trucks to off load to, no short and tall wheat. So my assumption that this was during harvest was wrong.

 

[when losing an argument, change the subject]

 

I think you're comment about the counteroffensive is more important. The front line is going to determine the outcome of the invasion.

Yesterday, I read a lot about D Day and the invasion of the beaches of France.  One part I read was about the planning and the lead up to the invasion.  Everything the Allies did leading up to it to divert Germany's resources was fascinating.  I knew some of it, but some was new info.

 

It really got me thinking about what possibly Ukraine is doing to prepare for the offensive.  One thing I thought of is the attacks within Russia.  You have the small Russian forces that oppose Putin attacking small towns.  You have the drone activity over Moscow.  I'm guessing they are trying to draw Russian forces away from the front lines to defend spots inside Russia.

[teachercd]

2 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Yesterday, I read a lot about D Day and the invasion of the beaches of France.  One part I read was about the planning and the lead up to the invasion.  Everything the Allies did leading up to it to divert Germany's resources was fascinating.  I knew some of it, but some was new info.

 

It really got me thinking about what possibly Ukraine is doing to prepare for the offensive.  One thing I thought of is the attacks within Russia.  You have the small Russian forces that oppose Putin attacking small towns.  You have the drone activity over Moscow.  I'm guessing they are trying to draw Russian forces away from the front lines to defend spots inside Russia.

The US used f#&%ing magic tricks and fake blow up tanks!  Unreal!

[ZRod]

27 minutes ago, teachercd said:

The US used f#&%ing magic tricks and fake blow up tanks!  Unreal!

And recorded the sound of mechanized equipment on the move to play over loud speakers. And made Patton the head of a fictional army.

[Born N Bled Red]

7 hours ago, commando said:

what?

U.S. winter wheat is planted in the fall, typically in September and October. The plant goes into dormancy over the winter months and begins growing again in the spring. Winter wheat is harvested starting in late May and through the summer.

[ZRod]

This is becoming the most husker thread ever. Arguing about the harvest time of winter wheat in Ukraine in a thread about the Ukraine Russo war.