Rat u Ukrajini

The thing that makes this most different — and it was one of the reasons a lot of Russia analysts didn’t think they were serious about invading — is that there was very little effort on the part of the Russian regime to prepare the population for war.

If anything, it was the opposite. The government very casually and belatedly cooked up the pretext of defending the people of Eastern Ukraine from genocide, which is obviously nonsense. This is different. During the Russian invasion of Georgia, it made a very clear effort to justify it in the exact language that the West had used in its own previous interventions — certainly in Kosovo. There was a sense that the Russo-Georgian war, in terms of its legitimation, was very much an ideological, geopolitical retaliation: we will do something in the same terms that you do and see how you like it.

The invasion of Crimea was, again, a slightly different model: we will reincorporate this piece of historical Russia that has been arbitrarily severed from us and reinstate Russia’s national glory. That kind of move was actually very popular in Russia. It had strong support, and it seemed to validate a kind of nationalist worldview, but again, the government made an effort to justify it in terms of international law doctrines.

With this war, it didn’t really bother. That’s a break. All of us are scrambling to reread this. I think there are two ways of thinking about this intervention: one is that all of this stuff about restoring the great Russian nation, all of this unwillingness to recognize the existence of Ukraine, shows how deeply committed Putin is to the project of nationalism. He will use whatever motivations work in the given moment, but this is his driving ideological goal.

A lot of us overlooked that. A lot of us thought, “This regime is so cynical, it doesn’t believe in anything; it’s just tactically improvising.” Now, a lot of analysts on the Left are thinking, “We got this wrong.” This regime is deeply, irrationally committed to this goal. And it will do things that are self-destructive in pursuit of that goal. That’s one available reading of what this war means.

The other reading is that it’s still as cynical as we thought it was. It’s using whatever pretext it can find. This time, it’s just lazier than usual. It didn’t even bother. It feels that it can do what it wants, but it’s still doing a series of tactical improvisations. It doesn’t have a big idea.

It’s too early to tell which of those two things it is. I’m reassessing my views. I’m looking at the situation again and thinking, “Okay, what did I get wrong? How can we look at this again?” That’s the only honest thing to do. But it’s still maybe too early to tell which of those interpretations would turn out to be correct, or if there’s a third or fourth interpretation.

Filipenko wrote:on prvi zna kakva je to olos,

Russian elements landed near #Voznesensk, 4 Russian helicopters involved. Heavy fighting reported from the town. #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/CcMYcQKdDJ

— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) March 5, 2022

“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Kadri Liik, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “For Putin, the incentive is to escalate. He has gone all in. I cannot see him modifying his war because that would be a loss in his eyes.” Any chance to come to an agreement with western powers had probably passed, she said.

“And I think it’ll be pretty full-blown dictatorship at home. You can see it coming.”

For now, all the public data suggests Putin enjoys popular support for the war – in which the major cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv and Mariupol have been shelled.

Employees of several Russian pollsters have said that they are concerned that the robust numbers in support of the war could embolden the Kremlin and prolong the conflict.

“Maybe some people can open their eyes and see that it is Putin who is responsible for the situation and his ambitions are not the ambitions of the whole nation and the war was in vain, the war was unjust,” said Kolesnikov. “But that’s only a hypothesis because for now, most of the people support this operation.”

Putin has put his top advisers on television to imitate a public discussion about a war that has been a surprise for many Russians. Beyond selling the war to the public, the televised show also tied many of those officials closer to Putin, making it harder for them to later denounce the war or act as if they had not lobbied for it.

“You can’t discuss the situation in rational terms,” said Kolesnikov. “All these people at the very top are in one boat, one submarine with Putin and they don’t have an exit from it right now.”

BREAKING: Paypal shuts down its services in Russia

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 5, 2022

Mr.Pink wrote:kako je ovaj lik pilot 

lici na kamionzdiju

BREAKING:

Russia is trying to take another nuclear power plant!

Paratroopers were just dropped over, and helicopters sent to, Yuzhnoukrainsk.

The South Ukraine nuclear power station has 3 VVER-1000 reactors (2,850 MW capacity).

It’s Ukraine’s 2nd largest nuclear power station pic.twitter.com/Y6jS2kzTHW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 5, 2022

Жирненький, которого живым взяли, тоже успел порезвиться на Сирийщине. Вот он рядом с #Асад'ом (via @BarbarosToprak2) #всрф #RussianUkrainianWar pic.twitter.com/zYc8J6mIvj

— Necro Mancer (@666_mancer) March 5, 2022

Mr.Pink wrote:ne znam zasta sluzi avion sa slike, sada vrv slabo cemu

neki su30 

znaci danas air kampanja na twitteru jer no fly nista, pa da pokaze ukrajina sta sve moze

Mr.Pink wrote:pa ovo nije obaranje jbg