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January 13, 2023
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-12
Comments
2014 Russia stole 50% of the azov sea, 70%of Ukraine’s coastline and the majority of it’s most valuable real estae.
A treaty was signed to stop the Russians from taking all of Ukraine. Pretending poor Russia is some sort of innocent baby in this cluster##@@ is not accurate.
Posted by: OohCanada | Jan 14 2023 14:49 utc | 292
Ukraine didn’t exist as a country until the 90s, after the collapse of the USSR.
The entire Black Sea “Ukraine coast” was, historically, part of Novorossiya. Russian culture, Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox.
Furthermore, the areas you claim Russia “stole” declared independence from Ukraine following the US/CIA/Nuland coup. Per the UN, & precedent in Kosovo, people have a right to declare independence from a country. Certainly that would apply in a country with an unelected, installed puppet government.
Any treaty signed was by an illegitimate puppet government.
Crimea voted to go with Russia, as have, more recently, Luhansk & Donbass.
In contrast, when the cia stirred up trouble in Georgia, they voted not to go with Russia, ho was happy to let them go their way *as long as they effed off & behaved.
Posted by: Mary | Jan 14 2023 15:17 utc | 301
Posted by: Passerby | Jan 14 2023 7:24 utc | 236
This war will end when we run out of money.
Much sooner: It will end when “we” run out of guns and butter.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 14 2023 15:38 utc | 302
@ Vikichka | Jan 14 2023 11:14 utc | 254
i think it is good this guy is coming out and saying what he is saying.. better late then never…. i don’t agree with him on all of it, but he gets the main thing right.. this can’t be resolved by throwing more and more money and weapons into ukraine.. that is insanity, but that is what nato is doing under the guidance of usa-uk.. its good he is saying all this, however late it is..
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2023 15:40 utc | 303
It’s all very well saying Russia is doing well, but how are they going to combat the increasing use of cluster bombs? USA has been supplying from at least November 2022 old clusters DPICM to Turkey and new tungsten clusters M30A1 or M30A2 to Finland.
From Ukrinform Media Center today
‘Ukraine has established the production of its own 82mm fragmentation mortar shells. In order to secure the production cycle and labor teams, production was launched at the capacities of partner countries. ‘
Anyone know who these partner countries are?
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 15:50 utc | 304
@ Passerby | Jan 14 2023 7:24 utc | 236 & Arch Bungle | Jan 14 2023 15:38 utc | 305:
No matter whether »we« run out of money or »guns and butter«: Let’s hope in that case there aren’t too many crazies in the political class of the West (of the sc. »Values«) who, like players on the loosing end, even put up in their own (and the world’s) extinction as a reasonable price for the possibly *last* chance of »winning« against Russia & the ROW.
Posted by: Yogi | Jan 14 2023 16:04 utc | 305
Ooh Canada @296
Did you make these comments immediately after or upon recovery from emerging from Freedland’s bed?
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 14 2023 16:18 utc | 306
Posted by: Bill Smith | Jan 14 2023 11:59 utc | 267
Those are prices for Russian oil in Europe.
I thought Russia no longer exports oil to countries that impose a price ceiling?
Posted by: Passerby | Jan 14 2023 16:37 utc | 307
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 14:30 utc | 292
USA is hampered by its patent trolling problem ($30 bn a year lost), and general patent hoarding which slows development eg in medicine, and prohibits small businesses. Presumably this affects other industries.
Its not trolling but the entire concept of monopoly power in private hands that is the problem. Patents, copyrights and other monopoly powers have ruined America, allowed private interest to profit from the parts of government that have been privatized and are responsible for denying re-industrialization to America. Also monopoly power explains the difference between the haves and the have nots. Grants of Monopoly Powers are like the British Land grants were in colonial America (the grantee had unlimited power over those the British governed; while the masses had no successful monopoly powers).
I observe that Global business use patents and copyrights to prevent competition from small business, to lobby and manipulate government, and to make industrial operations portable between nations, to block successful marketing of private game-changing-innovations which threaten the profit core of global enterprises. Patents and copyrights allows the big guys to steal innovations little guys try to promote. Monopoly powers in private hands are like the nuclei of matter, Mesons, Baryons, Hadrons, Quarks and Leptons, they are the basic building blocks of global wars; Ukraine is no exception. Oligarch power and wealth depends on monopoly power.
IMO, monopoly powers in private hands interfere with efficient production in capitalistic nation states. Already we have learned private monopolistic ownership of farm land in Ukraine and speciality minerals speak to the root cause of the crisis in Ukraine.
Its easy to see why a county at war would legalize patent and copyright theft, because copyrights and patents limit access to technology and reduce the overall efficiency of production.
Posted by: snake | Jan 14 2023 16:46 utc | 308
OohCanada | Jan 14 2023 14:49 utc | 296
______
Suggestions: preface your litany of Russia’s crimes with “Putin’s unprovoked, brutal aggression.” (Use treacherous, villianous, heinous, and/or imperialist dictator to avoid sounding clichéd). This signals your virtue, while also establishing 02/24/22 as the beginning of all history in Ukraine, rendering prior events irrelevant. This is the foundation for asserting all of Russia’s subsequent war-of-aggression crimes: theft, plunder, land seizures, wanton civilian slaughter, torture, etc. You’re doing well to continually repeat assertions as “stipulated facts in evidence” without supporting arguments or sources, which can otherwise be questioned.
You alao deftly avoided Ed’s trap: “Can you say “Maidan Coup? [Sure…] I knew you could.” He’s just baiting you. Beware of and ignore similar questions:
-Can you say NATO expansion?
-Can you say treaty INF, START, SALT, ABM?
-Can you say Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Georgia, …?
-Can you say illegal sanctions?
-Can you say international law?
-Can you say Minsk I, Minsk II?
-Can you say UN R-2202?
-Can you say 14,000 civilians killed in Donbass?
-Can you say Nazi? Zio-nazi? Fascist?
-Can you say Nord Stream 2?
-Can you say referenda?
…
Sure, I knew you could…
…but don’t.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | Jan 14 2023 16:57 utc | 309
snake | Jan 14 2023 16:46 utc | 312
re patents
thanks for expanding on that-i was hoping someone would. I’m a firm believer in freeware and if it costs- nick it or hack it
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 16:59 utc | 310
“I thought the Red Army was a well-oiled war-machine not a think-as-you-go one-man-show.”
CommiesGOFY | Jan 14 2023 15:55 utc | 308
_____
Someone needs to read up a tad on Military, geopolitical, and geoeconomic strategery. Start with “Mission Accomplished in Iraq” by George W Bush. Also study the consistent successes of the world’s unipolar superpower, starting with its most recent 20-year victory over goat-herders in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | Jan 14 2023 17:12 utc | 311
Doug Hillman | Jan 14 2023 16:57 utc | 313
I would add one to your list:
Can you say 17th Feb 2022 when Ukraine restarted artillery shelling of LPR and DPR?
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 17:26 utc | 312
Mary | Jan 14 2023 15:17 utc | 303
____
Excellent riposte.
“Any treaty signed was by an illegitimate puppet government.”
Adding that said puppet government never intended to honor any treaty and continually violated it, aided and abetted by its agreement-incapable co-conspirators. These are now undisputed facts. The cosigners and gaurantors of the Minsk Accords, France and Germany, are equally culpable in the Donbass genocide.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | Jan 14 2023 17:29 utc | 313
@olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 17:26 utc | 314
Can you say 17th Feb 2022 when Ukraine restarted artillery shelling of LPR and DPR?
Ukraine never stopped shelling LPR and DPR. The tempo of shelling increased from 17 February in preparation for the final cleansing operation.
Posted by: cirsium | Jan 14 2023 17:54 utc | 314
Bill Smith | Jan 14 2023 2:06 utc | 167
There has been only one game changer in this war and that is the supply of weapons across the border into Ukraine from the West.
Non, non mon petit pote ! Not “game changer” but ‘game – prolonger’ !
Ah fink that’s ingleesh…mmkay ? Prolongé ? Prolong ? Help !
P.S. Karlof1, 7of9 wants to know did you like the tea ?
Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Jan 14 2023 21:31 utc | 315
cirsium | Jan 14 2023 17:54 utc | 316
yes. thanks. I assumed that people here knew that it was an escalation. there were several periods between 2014-21 that saw much less activity.
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 21:31 utc | 316
cirsium | Jan 14 2023 17:54 utc | 316
The main point is that the ‘war’ did not start on 24th feb, surely.
Posted by: olaf22 | Jan 14 2023 21:34 utc | 317
Milites | Jan 14 2023 2:15 utc | 170
one of the lynch pins of the defence of Bakhmut, … As they say in The Prince’s Bride,
‘you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means’.
Are you taking the p*ss, my man ?
Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Jan 14 2023 21:42 utc | 318