I find it extraordinarily sociopathic to be like “welp fuckem” to people being ripped off the street and forced into conscription. I’m not saying anyone here is doing that that’s just the vibe i get everywhere online. They don’t live in a democracy and political dissent is oft met with a mysterious accident befalling you. Nothing they consume on tv or even sometimes online is without complete distortion by the state, and western companies will usually help them do this, yet we dont condemn them.
for instance IG/fb/etc as most other websites are completely accessible in russia still. almost nothing got actually turned off. these companies cooperate with the government there. you have to to stay online.
personally every russian I’ve ever interacted with impresses me, they have a near superhuman ability to tolerate misery and often face it with a degree of glibness that’s quite funny.
the ones who consume propaganda on tv and online are not being forced into conscription. they take their mobilization letter and march to voenkomat willingly. those who are arrested with the thread of batons and put into avtozaks are political prisoners. i do feel bad for them and i suppose we’ll see what happens if they try to put them into uniform. but like, if you disagree with the regime, at the very least you should do everything possible for them not to mobilize you, including fleeing, resisting, and sabotage.
i agree it is sociopathic to cheer for someone’s death, even more so en masse onto thousands of people. this is assymetric warfare, the other side is openly committing atrocities, and this side is seriously debating whether it is sufficiently liberal to not have a conversation with roger waters or a random nouveau riche russian sampling wines in spain.
A while up thread there was a video of a russian truck full of soldiers being attacked at the river crossing and people were mocking the still of the guy. He seemed completely fucking terrified.
I dont know what it is about this that’s causing folks to shut off empathy. But it’s not good.
Yes. We also think the russians are the bad guys who need to be stopped by force. But we should also recognize there are russian victims suffering here too.
I reject the premise. It would indeed be darkly humorous if every one of us Americans that supported, or blithely went along with, the Iraq War got conscripted and then wrecked once we got there.
On the other hand, it is sad and tragic that the Russian government been rounding up anti-war protestors this whole time and are now conscripting them.
not trying to tone police anyone because i hate that, it’s just a vibe thing, idk everything coming out of russia horrifies me because it could so easily happen here.
that clip of the woman screaming in the van is easily the worst thing I’ll see all year. all of it is horrible and i feel for anyone in russia caught in this, that’s all i was trying to say with my op
unfortunately this is not true for me. there are couple of videos from the war i refused to watch, e.g. mutilation one, a few others. but there are photos of one of Azov fighters after he returned in a prisoner swap. when he surrendered he was already wounded, a field surgeon had stabilized his upper arm with a metal bracket. the photo showed his arm got no medical help from the russians. it’s crooked and 4 inches short of a normal arm. the guy looks thin like he came out of a hunger strike. all the released azov fighters looked likethat.
I feel bad for the conscripts, yes, but once you take up arms against Ukrainians, that’s on you. Even the conscripts can attempt desertion, surrender, etc. rather than just going along with it.
man I have had this weird thing since 13 or so when I hear of a horrible video I have this compulsion to go watch it. I think to this date that one israeli pilot being burned alive was the worst I’d seen, hopefully I’m over this phase and I wont go look that up.
This thread has barely mentioned the significant bipartisan US funding effort for Ukraine, approaching $100bn.
I’m all in favor of this and hope it continues. I think it likely will, but less robustly, if the GOP wins the House in Nov.
In any event, I would regard Ukraine funding as related to something Yglesias calls “Secret Congress,” where a decent amount is getting done under the radar of Fox News, Brietbart, etc. (There was a global warming treaty passed last week that I also haven’t seen mentioned in the various WAAF threads.)
People like Tucker Carlson aren’t happy about Ukraine funding, as least when they feel free to bloviate, but it’s getting done due to support of GOP hawks in the Senate (around 15-20 senators). Biden, of course, has so far done an exceptional job guiding both foreign policy and congressional relations on Ukraine, basically like he said he would when he was running.
I think you’re right, this is way under the radar, I don’t think it’s even close, this has been bigger than W’s decision to start the war on terror. Zelenskyy gets a lot of credit here, but if Biden had not managed to keep NATO unified (and, in fact, strengthened it during this crisis), Ukraine would have gotten ground down and we’d probably be looking at China seriously thinking about moving into Taiwan. Who knows what dominoes would have been next after that.
What does one do with so much non-palletized material? RU obviously knows where it is. Do they have no precision weapons to destroy it? Can’t send a jet or helicopter? If I were Ukraine I would move all the stuff at least 10km away, issue the useable munitions to troops, etc.
The results of the Kharkiev offensive must be a logistical nightmare to deal with.