zazen

Well maybe but as we're all here talking about it, it matters in that sense. I wont quibble, your points 1 to 5 seem fairly reasonable to me. As in there are much worse ways it could end, and Ukraine remains independent.

Agree with all that fxbip but it is still kindof interesting that the nato twitter account tried to do an International Womens Day tweet and accidentally tweeted a pic of a soldier with the black sun. Its subtle, a leather patch just below her scarf. @ilqx hermolia xpli : Friendly question: So you dont like Putin, and don't like Nato, and don't like the Azov. What would you have the world's citizens do at this point? I guess you'd say you'd rather it never got to this point. But as it has, whats your ideal way forwards? e.g. Lobby for humanitarian aid and cease all military action from both sides? I'm not trying to take the piss, just trying to understand where you're coming from as its obv quite different to most other people here.

Hearing the word Oligarch a lot. There's a whiff of double standards about it - "that side of the fence they have oligarchs, this side of the fence we have billionaires". But people with lots of money will always have sway in politics, whatever country it is. Is it a bit more blatant in Russia? Seems like we're supposed to think it is. Probably it is. Anyway so been googling 'american oligarchs'. The Koch brothers spring to mind. And Murdoch. But the New Republic has a nice feature called "Oligarch of the Month", there's a good international roster there. https://newrepublic.com/tags/oligarch-of-the-month (paywalled unfortunately)

ok this one is complicated. obviously 'burning books' has lots of historical connotations. But in this photo the point of the books is to help the tires burn, to make a big defensive fire barrier to help hold back an invading army. They aren't burning the books because of their contents, they are burning them because theres a war going on and they need flammable material. The books look random (people zoom in in the replies). So they are old random books. Maybe they are from a damaged building and were going to rot anyway? We don't know. But we know they they are making a defensive barrer. I thought your post about zooming in on the soldier in the getty image and finding a black sun was interesting and useful, but I think this book burning one is reaching a bit too hard. edit: and to clarify, my own position is that Putins stated reasons for the invasion ("denazification") are obviously complete nonsense. But also, there are a tiny minority of heavily armed nazis in Ukraine that we need to keep an eye on. When the conflict does end, what the armed far-right do next might be important. We can't pretend they aren't there.

In the 20th and 21st centuries there are 730 dates where the digits add up to 68 like that. But so far only 3 of them have started wars.

Yeah thats something. USA bought 20 million barrels a month from Russia in 2021. Average price over that period was $70 per barrel so thats $1.4billion per month or about $47 million per day. Compared to Europes 500 million euros per day (or was more like 200 million euros per day in 2021 when prices were lower) my rough calcs come out with the USAs dependence on Russian oil/gas being about 10% to 25% of the size of Europes dependance.

During the cold war the USA had a deal to sell wheat to the USSR And today Europe is spending 500 million Euros per day on Russian gas Forget about nuclear (its not going to happen) ... but the real nuclear option is actually gas. If Russia decides to stop selling us the gas, or if Europe somehow decides to stop buying it. Then we'll know the disagreement between the powers is really getting serious.

I like nuance, its about understanding the details I think its possible to understand that Putins rhetoric about de-nazifying Ukraine is bullshit, while also acknowledging that Ukraine does have a bit of an unusual nazi situation. The far right only got about 2% in the 2019 Ukraine election. Not that different to a lot of countries. But the difference in Ukraine is that the far-right are heavily armed. They will likely be a factor to keep an eye on in the end-game of this conflict. I think its important to be aware of them, not sweep it under the carpet. New York Times article from Mid February: "Armed Nationalists in Ukraine Pose a Threat Not Just to Russia" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/ukraine-nationalism-russia-invasion.html New Statesman, mid February "Silence won’t make the Ukrainian far right go away" https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2022/02/silence-wont-make-the-ukrainian-far-right-go-away

I'm glad we've got all different voices in this thread, I'd rather have it that way than heavily normative. I'm getting useful bits from all of you, even if there are some bits I don't agree with. And everyone is being reasonably civil, if you allow for the fact that emotions will run high in a thread like this ?

Bellingcat* are an independent researcher/journalist collective based in the Netherlands. When Navalny got poisoned with novochok in August 2020, they worked with other news orgs to uncover the identities of the Russian agents involved, and even managed to extract a confession from one of the unwitting agents by helping Navalny pose as a senior officer in a phone call. So, quite badass. Their exec director is Christo Grozev and he's on twitter https://twitter.com/christogrozev Today he tweeted this thread about a supposed whistleblower letter from an FSB army analyst: Original russian letter on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.osechkin/posts/4811633942268327 Machine translated English version here: https://pastebin.com/hm1VHQY6 Brief summary: Guy says everything is chaos in the army, they went in unprepared hoping for quick victory. A culture of officers embellishing the truth to keep their superiors happy has led to a lot of problems being hidden. Its worth reading. There's a bit about nukes that caught my eye: I found that interesting and reassuring. And then I got thinking - its common knowledge that USSR/Russia has a load of ICBMs. And they exist as a deterrent - if you have a load of ICBMs they give you power just by existing but if you ever actually have to use them, its already game over. So ... why spend a lot of money and effort keeping these extremely complicated and expensive devices in tip top condition? Its enough that everyone knows you have them. I suppose you need to give the appearance of keeping them in order, somehow. I guess you assume there are spies around. Anyway this whole thing could be a fake leak but anyway there it is, and Christo Grozev thinks it seems legit. (* not to be confused with boomkat)

Yes I'm seeing chatter about that. Worried that it might be wishful thinking. There has been a clear theme though since the start that Russia were doing badly on the ground and somehow unable to get air superiority

Its true I can't do much*! You are saying, I think, that people must organise to have any power. When I spoke of 'holding the powerful to account' I was thinking of criticism really ... and trying to head off the argument of 'why criticise the usa when there are much worse countries'. They deserve scrutiny because they are powerful, even if we accept there are worse state actors around. * In a small way I think every pound or dollar that a person spends is like a little vote. And also where their money comes from. So I try to spend my money and obtain my money in ethical ways. But that itself is a sortof luxury that not everyone can afford. ** Also I live in the UK where the political spectrum is somewhat to the left of the USA. We have some checks and balances against capitalism here. Although you have to fight to keep them from eroding.

140 million people blocked from Facebook. I wonder what effect that will have on the population. Seems they're unlikely to just shrug? edit after reading subsequent posts: Ah I see, more like only 7million users....

Well thats the thing isn't it. Communism may sound great to some people but in practice devolves into something messy. Similarly 'perfect markets' in Capitalism are impossible to achieve, because its in the interest of all the players to exploit any externalities that they can, and break rules where they can get away with it, and skirt as close to monopoly as possible, and perform regulatory capture of the government in order to boost corporate welfare and so on. So you end up ruled by giant corporations which are kindof like immortal superpowered toddlers in their moral outlook. I'm down with Chomskys analysis of that - all the CEOs may talk about their love of free markets but behind the scenes they're lobbying for whatever welfare they can get from the government. THAT SAID ... if we're going to live in a world with one dominant superpower I'd rather it be the USA than China. BUT we do need to hold the powerful to account. OK I've solved the capitalism debate we dont need to talk about it anymore in this thread

Offering this up as 'interesting example of ultra specific analysis on twitter': Trunk mainenance guy can deduce from a few photos that the russian army hasn't been looking after its trucks properly. another tyre guy chimes in here saying they are using cheap Chinese tyres.

I think you're trying to say, something about Russia allowed Putin to hold onto power for 22 years. And you're trying to figure out what? I'm not sure that the problem is 'not capitalist enough'. I'm not a russia expert but I've heard some say that Yeltsins reforms in the 1990s were too radically pro-capitalist and led to economic chaos and corporations running off with loads of loot ... Putin then benefited from that chaos by 'bringing stability'. ^ This is my brief take on it, might be wrong But I guess something about Russias authoritarian past makes it easier for an authoritarian to take hold there, compared to say France or whatever?

Indeed. But then I'm free to respond to your response if I think you're missing something. And so on. Dialogue is really important.

I'm not buying this. We should be able to handle nuance, not just relentlessy cheerlead. Whataboutism is only Whataboutism if shifting the focus to the other issue is evading the first one. Pointing out that war is a shitty experience for those involved is not whataboutism. We know that there's information warfare going on, that shouldn't mean we censor our every statement and avoid the details just in case someone reads this thread.

Yes I heed the warning you are giving - real life isn't a fairy tale and the world is not simply split into goodies and baddies. I didn't post it as hero worship, more as background context. Although I would say that Zelensky suddenly being thrust into the worlds consciousness in such a dramatic way and becoming a figurehead is very unusual, I can't think of anything similar in the last few decades. Maybe the NZ Prime Minister during covid is a somewhat similar phenomenon to a lesser extent. Sometimes people need to quit doomscrolling and do something else for a bit, and I found the TV show useful for that, while still relevant. Also I found the TV show really interesting/poignant, as a stylised peek into Ukraine in 2015 - lead character cycling through a beautiful city, looking at the sort of furniture thats in the houses, the overarching theme of political corruption, the wacky pop music ending. I now have some images of Ukraine in my head that arent to do with war.

So Zelensky produced and starred in a TV show called Servant of the People, here's the first episode (from 2015) with english subtitles. Its actually really well done. Zelesnky plays a teacher who semi-accidentally becomes President after his rant about corruption goes viral. I'm interested to know at what point he decided to run for President for real. I guess the themes in the TV show inspire him to try it for real. Like, its not just that he was in a show playing the President, like West Wing. He was in a show specifically about political corruption and how a non-career politician would be a good alternative.

Can you explain? Looks like a USA drone hanging around the Poland side of the Poland/Ukraine border - I guess the point is, its sensors are good enough to pick up intel of whats happening in Ukraine?

This, to me, seems like the appropriate amount of concern for nukes at this stage.

I dont think anyone is close to using nukes. Both sides have to tread carefully because of nukes and they've got experience of having to do that since 1958. These announcements from Putin are just little moves in a long complicated nuclear dance. Nato has to respond in the appropriate way by condemning them and so on but there is a very long way to go before anyone is even thinking about using them. Like how would it make any sense? In the cold war you had two vast empires with completely opposite ideologies facing off against each other in an atmosphere of complete musual distrust and incomprehension. For decades. What we have now is just a gangster throwing a strop. Its not the same. And I don't buy that Putin is crazy or whatever. He's out of touch but the russians have plenty of ways of getting rid of him if he's actually crazy. TLDR: The fact that nukes exist is scary and has been for almost 70 years now but I'm not taking any of this nuclear talk seriously. Proliferation and terrorism are bigger nuclear problems than Putin.

The most complicated machine ever built is the EUV Lithography machine built by a Dutch company called ASML. 50,000 times a second, the machine hits a 25 micron drop of molten tin that is moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers, the first hit to change the shape of the drop of tin in exactly the right way, the second hit to vaporise it, creating Extreme Ultraviolet Light at the right wavelength to etch chip designs onto silicon at "5nm process" sizes. More about the light souce - No one else in the world is able to make these machines. If you buy one it costs $150m and gets shipped to you in forty containers on specially adapted planes. Very few firms have the resources/know how to even run the machines. The best known firm to use the machines is TSMC in Taiwan, who make over half of all the worlds chips and hence make Taiwan a strategically vital country to the worlds economy.