In Putin and the publics eyes.
1. There are real nazis who does the whole hail Hitler thing in Ukraine.
2. They have a real political party
3. The Ukrainian government allows them to fight with their own military to kill Russian civilians(most likely due to collateral damage).
4. The president also actively suppressing Russian culture in the area like banning the Russian language.
The more you learn, the more you understand how Putin and his people mostly support this war and how they are fighting the nazis. All true stories, just wildly exaggerated and has nothing to do with west Ukraine.
Moral of the story, when in doubt, never side with the Nazis even if they are of mass benefit to you at any given time. Now it turned into a propaganda that's hard to wash off.
This book has been around a few years. I couldn't finish it because so much of it was unfolding in the news at the time.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century - Kindle edition by Snyder, Timothy. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Two things dictators (and wannabe dictators) do is exaggerate any tiny bit of evidence that supports their position, while completely ignoring any evidence to the contrary. And another thing is always accuse the other guy of being guilty of all the things you're doing, even if there is zero evidence. If caught, claim you were doing those things only because the other guy started it (even when they never did it). Rinse and repeat.
It's done by nationalists in democracies all over the world and it's been done frequently by Russia. It's an almost ancient play of authoritarians at this point.
Almost every functioning democracy in the world has a nationalist party or nationalist wing at this point. All of it is something that has been there for decades, but Putin has watered those seeds and made them grow where ever he found them. They are much stronger and have influence in national politics in many countries because that's been part of Putin's plan to tear down western democracies.
There are two likely paths: continued escalation, potentially across the nuclear threshold, or a bitter peace imposed on a defeated Ukraine
www.theguardian.com
interesting analysis from someone who has actually taken part in US war games & outcomes
This also (although from 2016) gives an insight into some events in 2014 and saying Russia was running the insurgents / separatist movement in Eastern Ukraine.
An extreme Russian nationalist who fought alongside separatists in eastern Ukraine says it is clear that Moscow has orchestrated the war, despite the Kremlin's claims to the contrary.
www.rferl.org
The author of the first piece is coming from the now debunked idea that Russia's military is a viable combat organization. It may have been true of the Soviet military in 1975, but is woefully out of date. The war in Ukraine has shown that the only two outcomes are Ukraine ends up a nuclear landscape (and Putin races to the top of the list for all time bad guys everywhere outside of Russia), or Russia loses after taking staggering losses because they threw an amateur army gutted by corruption up against a western trained and equipped army.
Even though Ukraine is taking heavy losses to civilian infrastructure, it's winning the war. Russia has failed to take most day 1 objectives. Ukraine's military is showing no signs of being in trouble. They are not in a position to do much on the offensive yet, but they have stopped the invaders on most fronts.
The Russians have serious supply problems, serious morale problems, and they were dumb enough to launch a full scale invasion during the Rsputitsa
Rasputitsa - Wikipedia
The 10 day forecast for northern Ukraine is for more Rasputitsa weather as far out as the forecast went
Kiev, Ukraine - Detailed long-term weather forecast - Extended 10-day weather report | Weather Atlas
This army is a shadow of the old Soviet army manned by children who don't know anything about fighting led by incompetent idiots who got there by their political connections rather than by having any talent. Some of the media still want to continue the narrative that this is a Goliath (Russia) vs David (Ukraine).
It's more the story of an old empire rotted to the core trying to regain its old glory by beating up on a neighbor they thought as weak, but turned out to have been seriously working to improve themselves and is more than a match of an opponent.
Yum Brands(pizza hut, taco bell, kfc) will redirect profits to humanitarian air and suspend any new development in Russia. Meh. Not bad.
Nothing from Coca-Cola or PepsiCo that I've seen.
Due to some weird things that happens in the 1970s, Pepsi is far more popular in Russia than Coca Cola is.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
Those who do learn from history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats its mistakes.
There are times I've felt like Cassandra.
Interesting choice of combat vehicles coming into Ukraine from Russia
View attachment 778339
There was a discussion about that a few days ago. Russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel if they are pressing civilian cars into combat use.
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