Ukraine

[french frank]

The only "peace" that Putin would be interested in would be Ukraine ceding the country to Russia.

Interesting piece by Steve Rosenberg on a) how Putin's view on NATO, the West and Ukraine joining NATO has changed b) the treaties, agreements and assurances he has unilaterally reneged on and c) the forthcoming presidential election in March 2024.

I'd quite forgotten Putin's Russia still had elections now but it was just the extension of his eligibility to stand for reelection that passed in 2020. He'll be looking for some quick signs of substantial success then, rather than a slugfest stalemate with no end in sight.

[oddoneout]

A rather more graphic version of my opinion...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2023/feb/24/martin-rowson-on-putins-year-long-offensive-in-ukraine-cartoon

[HighlandDougie]

And here are Sir Lawrence Freedman's most recent thoughts which have just arrived in the inbox:

https://samf.substack.com/p/one-step-at-a-time-the-stages-of?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[richardfinegold]

One thing I’ve learnt is not to make predictions about this. Many commentators in the West assumed Russia would take Kyiv within in a month and the Ukraine government would be forced to relocate. No one realised just how poorly led the Russian Army was and how low its morale / fighting spirit proved to be. This conflict could well drag on for years , assume a new low intensity form , or perhaps rapidly escalate . It’s almost impossible to predict. One thing I would say is that there seems very little evidence that the Ukrainians are willing to seek terms and that the NATO alliance has held up much better than predicted. The Ukrainians are winning the tech battle , the PR battle - everything apart from the WW1 style slugfest. One thing we did learn from WW1 is how relatively quickly stalemate can turn to victory for one side through improved tactics and armour , new tech and collapse in morale.

It didn’t hurt that a new combatant had joined in 1917 and was sending millions of troops over. Until that happened the collapse of morale was probably worse on the Allied side. The French had mutinied and the Russian Government was over thrown. Unfortunately the Ukrainians cannot count on such an ally appearing here.

[french frank]

And here are Sir Lawrence Freedman's most recent thoughts which have just arrived in the inbox:

https://samf.substack.com/p/one-step...m_medium=email

Not fully digested yet, but on Putin's 'State of the Union' speech:

"The war Putin described was not so much against Ukraine but against NATO, supposedly taking advantage of a puppet regime in Kyiv. Viewed in this light, even victory in Ukraine would just move the conflict to a new arena. "

Exactement. Otherwise, what?

[Bryn]

Last night's TtN opened with a Swiss tribute to Ukraine, with music by, among others, Silvestrove and Kyiv-born Gliere: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jcqf

[french frank]

Last night's TtN opened with a Swiss tribute to Ukraine, with music by, among others, Silvestrove and Kyiv-born Gliere: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jcqf

Also Viktor Kosenko.

[Bryn]

The strange case of the 'left' in the UK and the USA supporting Putin's fascism:

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/six-ways-ukraine-is-winning-how-the

[french frank]

The strange case of the 'left' in the UK and the USA supporting Putin's fascism:

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/s...inning-how-the

It is indeed a strange case; and now Trump is attacking the Washington warmongers, threatening to sack them when he takes office again. He has his own take on the situation, condemns Putin's aggression which, of course, wouldn't have happened in the first place if he had been president at the time .

I won't post a link to the mealy-mouthed diatribe.

[Serial_Apologist]

The strange case of the 'left' in the UK and the USA supporting Putin's fascism:

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/s...inning-how-the

I completely agree with Paul, and have previously said as such on the subject on a prominent "left" website founded (I think) in support of Corbyn and recently those being expelled on false pretexts from the Labour Party. Recently they've even hosted a retired US high officer, I was the only poster objecting and asking what had got into their heads. As he says this is a deal breaker.

[french frank]

"The future of the democratic left has to be no less clear: the historian EP Thompson once wrote that there are "two Marxisms" and they are incompatible. The democratic left, he said, needs to acknowledge that it has more in common with liberalism, humanism and Christianity than it has with Stalinism."

And not just Stalinism but now Trumpism too: he's promising to 'fire the Washington warmongers'.

[Serial_Apologist]

For a glimpse at opinion among the young in Russia, here is a sample which seems to have a sad ring of authenticity about them:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/2/a-year-on-what-do-young-russians-think-of-the-war-in-ukraine?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

[richardfinegold]

The anti Ukraine stand of the American Right is disappointing but is a function of U.S. Politics. Although historically the Party of International Security, there has also been a traditionalist strain os isolationism that goes back to the 1930s that never fully died. Many Politicians at that time were openly or secretively pro fascist, which was swept under the rug by the Truman Administration after the War in the interest of Cold War Solidarity, thus ensuring that the guilty politicians had long post war careers and influence.
More to the current hour, it is the Rights antipathy to Biden. The excoriated him for Afghanistan and now oppose him on Ukraine.
The two sides are equally incoherent and automatically in lock step.

[french frank]

Lavrov claims it was the west which launched the war against Russia <laughter> though I imagine the audience in Delhi was rather more pro-Western than him.

[Dave2002]

Lavrov claims it was the west which launched the war against Russia <laughter> though I imagine the audience in Delhi was rather more pro-Western than him.

Fancies himself as a comedian perhaps. Not a very good one. Then of course back here we have Bojo claiming that he's been exonerated by recent "evidence" about parties in Downing Streeet. Some of these people are living in a fantasy world, or alternatively they are just lying. They think that if they keep reiterating the same rubbish that people will believe and accept that.