The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[hammerofglass]

Russia especially has always been notorious for that behavior. They don't call it "the rape of Berlin" figuratively.

[clearspira]

It's sickening, and it's also frightening, because it makes it bloody hard to see a way to negotiate an end to this - who on earth would want to negotiate anything with a country that behaves like that? Yet without that the war carries on for even longer, even worse things happen, and there's a real risk of global catastrophe.

Yes, it's almost a parody of negotiation and understanding in the kinds of shows we watch here. It turns out, in real life, that a lot of parties AREN'T misunderstood but people who just intend to murder however many people they need to in order to get waht they want. Also, when you negotiate with them, they just end up betraying it the moment they think they have the advantage.

The only way I can see a least bad (but still bad) end is if Russia has too hard a job in carrying on that it's in no position to try anything again whilst that vile excuse of a man is still in charge, but he doesn't end up in a position where he's desperate and starts lashing out with things like tactical nukes. And getting to that point will leave atrocities unanswered, something any decent person will find hard to stomach.

Yes, all of the acceptable options all seem to boil down to, "Russia suddenly stops being evil and values the loss of life its causing among its own troops and abandons its evil ambitions."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61077648

Putin calls Ukraine war ''noble''. I figure we are a long way from a heel-face turn in this one.

[Riedquat]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61077648

Putin calls Ukraine war ''noble''. I figure we are a long way from a heel-face turn in this one.

He's hardly going to change his tone and ever admit to doing anything wrong. He has to keep up the nonsense rhetoric for home consumption, he'd be finished in no time if reality penetrated most of Russia, and they actually believed it. That's why there's such a strong misinformation campaign going on there. It'll be very hard now to make Russians believe the truth, basic human nature going on there, most of them won't want to face being part of what's out their committing atrocity after atrocity, so there'll be no room in their heads for the reality that that's what it's been doing.

[CharlesPhipps]

Uh yeah, that’s how war works. Soldiers, to one degree or another, engage in sexual assault.
Unless you mean these are systematic measures deliberately done at scale as a campaign of terror?

Somewhere between, "there's criminals engaged in horrific assault among the soldiers" and "mass rape camps." It's certainly enough to have been documented as being done to tens of thousands of Ukrainian women as part of capture and "pacification."

Adults and children

Which is pretty fucking abnormal save as an actual terror tactic.

[Madner Kami]

Uh yeah, that’s how war works. Soldiers, to one degree or another, engage in sexual assault.
Unless you mean these are systematic measures deliberately done at scale as a campaign of terror?

Like, again, my position here is “kill however many Russians is needed to force their full and complete retreat from Ukraine’s pre-2014 boarders. I find the size of this number frustrating but it is, from the evidence we’ve seen, what is necessary”

As best I can tell your position is “kill Russia to the last man” and I am just not seeing how you’ve reached this position except by painful naïveté about how wars have functioned in the 21st century and the length, consequence, and aftermath of such a campaign.

If by "you" you mean CharlesPhibbs, I don't quite get where you get the "kill all russians" comes from. I am not aware of him stating anything the like. Similarly, if you adress me, my stance is neither "kill all russians" but rather" whatever happens to the russian civilians back home as a direct result of how their troops behave, is fine (see bringing home radioactive trinkets).

As for the concripts-thing, Russia has the draft and does two drafts a year. However, these soldiers are by their law restricted to not being used in direct combat at all before they completed 4 months of training and not allowed to be used outside of Russia until they signed a contract as a full-time soldier/contractor after one year of conscripted service, except if Russia admits it's in a war and mobilizes (which they haven't done yet, yet another fuck-up of Putler). It is know however, that a good number of conscripts were "convinced" into signing such a contract before their time was over and landed in Ukraine (and allegedly were drawn out once the russian leadership was made aware of it - LOL) and it is also known that Donetzk and Luhansk are press-ganging everyone into service who can hold a gun and hasn't hidden fast enough or paid the "government of the people's republics" off.

As for whether war-crimes are done by conscripts or "professional" soldiers or the mixed russian equivalent to Germany's "Einsatzgruppen" and soviet polit-commissars is irrelevant. They're done by all of them and these actions are encouraged by the russian state through their dehumanizing propaganda. That is the point I was trying to make: The moment you try to divide into "professionals" and conscripts, you are finding excuses for their behaviours. This isn't a situation where some people who are fundamentally outside their comfort zone lost their shit under duress. What they did was intended.

As for "US is bad, too". No. Just no. Not once has the US in recent years gone into a conflict and loudly proclaimed "all these people are subhumans which we are going to kill if they do not serve us" and "their land is ours and we do with it and the people on it as we please". Did individual war-crimes happen? Yes. Did the US go into wars which didn't need to happen? Yes. But show me the one war were the US went in with the explicit intend of killing everyone to call it a peace.

And since this whole situation needs at least some smile for a moment:

What do you call Russia's war in Ukraine? - Blyatskrieg.

[clearspira]

Uh yeah, that’s how war works. Soldiers, to one degree or another, engage in sexual assault.
Unless you mean these are systematic measures deliberately done at scale as a campaign of terror?

Somewhere between, "there's criminals engaged in horrific assault among the soldiers" and "mass rape camps." It's certainly enough to have been documented as being done to tens of thousands of Ukrainian women as part of capture and "pacification."

Adults and children

Which is pretty fucking abnormal save as an actual terror tactic.

Russian soldiers enjoy rape. Apparently they were infamous for it in WW2. Women, girls, senior citizens. Every German female in their path was fair game.

It's not just women who are raped either. The hazing of conscripts in the Russian military is vile. Its like something out of the worst horror frat or prison shower.

Power over the powerless. That's ultimately what it comes down to.

This is also one of the reasons why their army is so crap of course. A drunk ruled by fear is no match for a Western trained modern infantryman. Its literally the equivalent of the 19th century vs the 21st.

[CmdrKing]

In the interest of not getting too derailed (especially since everyone agrees on the main points of a) fuck Russia and b) Ukraine's gotta do what it's gotta do vis a vis killing soldiers), just wanna emphasize this a bit for the sake of clarity.

As for the concripts-thing, Russia has the draft and does two drafts a year. However, these soldiers are by their law restricted to not being used in direct combat at all before they completed 4 months of training and not allowed to be used outside of Russia until they signed a contract as a full-time soldier/contractor after one year of conscripted service, except if Russia admits it's in a war and mobilizes (which they haven't done yet, yet another fuck-up of Putler). It is know however, that a good number of conscripts were "convinced" into signing such a contract before their time was over and landed in Ukraine (and allegedly were drawn out once the russian leadership was made aware of it - LOL) and it is also known that Donetzk and Luhansk are press-ganging everyone into service who can hold a gun and hasn't hidden fast enough or paid the "government of the people's republics" off.

Right. Aside from sharing a lol over Russia actually caring about it's laws for something like this, honestly I've just known too many people who've been chewed up by volunteer militaries like the US to put much stock in the idea that soldiers in a less-than-volunteer military like Russia's properly understand what they're in for or that they really agree to what they're ordered to do. When it comes to particular units that we can definitively say instigated war crimes, I get it, but I really just can't say I see evidence that each individual soldier is sufficiently complicit to celebrate their deaths.

And again, I don't object to the *necessity* of killing a whole ton of Russian soldiers. I object to getting celebratory about it, to indulging in bloodlust. No good comes of it.

[Frustration]

The individual Russian soldiers may or may not be complicit in crimes. What do we know is that many of them are not truly volunteers (torturing draftees with increasingly-arduous physical labor until they agree to fight isn't voluntary - people can be and have been worked to death that way) and many of them are innocent of war crimes. Celebrating their deaths is ignoring their individuality and seeing them only as elements of the organization they belong to.

In fairness, that's what militaries are trying to do - reduce individuals to components - so it is understandable if people respond that way.

To paraphrase great thinkers on the topic, we should enter into war as though we were attending a funeral, with grief and solemnity, not celebration. We should be mourning every death that occurs, for the Russian people as much for the Ukrainians. Are they not victims too?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

War happening to innocent civilians is bad, mmkay?

[Frustration]

War is just plain bad, to everyone involved, and to people who haven't even been born yet.