Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Falco Underhill]

Well, it was your article that you posted.

I was actually quoting from another source who was quoting it, which left the rest out. After checking the rest of the article I was just coming back to delete it but couldn't because you already replied to it. Lesson learned.

[Szdfan]

While there are negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, there don’t appear yet to be talks directly between Putin and Zelensky. The Russian delegation has been made up of rather low-level diplomats so far.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/worl ... urkey.html

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called publicly on Saturday for direct negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but a senior Turkish official said that Mr. Putin was not ready for such talks.

“Zelensky is ready to meet, but Putin thinks that the positions to have this meeting at the leaders’ level are not close enough yet,” Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said in an interview.

“I believe that meeting will take place at some point,” Mr. Kalin said. “There will be a peace deal at some point. Of course, we all want this to happen sooner rather than later, but probably Putin thinks that he wants to be in a position of strength when he does that, and not appear to be weak, weakened by either military losses or by the economic sanctions.”

That time is not yet, and may not be soon, Mr. Kalin said. But the economic sanctions are probably having the most impact on Mr. Putin’s thinking, he said.

But the main difficulty will be how to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, which Ukraine and its allies will not sacrifice. That includes the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed eight years ago. Even if Crimea is “de facto Russian,” he said, no one will concede to “de jure” annexation..

Ideally, Mr. Kalin said, the solution will be found in some new version of the Minsk accords, which were meant to provide significant autonomy within Ukraine to the Russian-supported separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk.

That is now more complicated since Mr. Putin and the Russian Duma, or parliament, have recognized the separatist enclaves as “independent” states covering land not now under their control, as Russia did with South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia following a similar war in 2008.

But it will also be important for Turkey and its fellow NATO members to start thinking seriously about how to manage relations with Russia once the war ends, Mr. Kalin said. “Even though we fully reject the Russian war on Ukraine, the Russian case must be heard, because after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc,” he said.

“We cannot afford another Cold War — it will be bad for everyone and costly for the entire international political and financial system,” he said. “Every decision we make, every step we take now with regards to Russia militarily, politically, economically and otherwise, will have an impact on that new security architecture.”

[temporal1]

This may demonstrate the danger of surrounding yourself with loyal “yes men” who tell you what you want to hear. You don’t get the full picture and it’s easy to make significant mistakes with wrong assumptions and incomplete information.

o. like HRC in 2016.

While there are negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, there don’t appear yet to be talks directly between Putin and Zelensky. The Russian delegation has been made up of rather low-level diplomats so far.

this is no secret, nor surprise.
reports have been consistent about talks between representatives of Putin+Zelensky. SOP.

the tenor taken seems mostly to discredit members here who are sharing info, hopes, and prayers in good faith.
that’s sad.

i continue to pray - to be more precise, for (the delegates) of Putin+Zelensky who are working to find resolution.

and, for the west, including the U.S., to somehow allow resolution to be found.
third parties are often the most problematic in any given conflict.

[temporal1]

I thought this was interesting, and maybe has some credibility since it was made a year ago. Before current troubles.

i appreciate these, and share your interest in trying to understand the background.
i try to view/listen to links/videos shared on this forum, and have been helped by many. all topics.
of course, not everyone does.

it’s really sad to think the invasion might have been prevented or ended with little or no bloodshed.
this bothers me, i don’t want to think (esp the U.S.) has made everything worse.

we know, none of these men are innocent “choir boys,” so to speak. the biden family’s seedy history.
HRC and uranium, obama and the half-million speaking fee. not choir boys, or girls.
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/ho ... -SD004.pdf

cringeworthy flawed people in positions of power. life on earth.

[Szdfan]

https://apple.news/ABcQXFAKsQwOW5tt7mmByCA

Two sleepless days after Eduard Lysovysk was carried into a basement bomb shelter, his thigh bone shattered by a Russian sniper’s bullet, soldiers from the army who had shot him came to visit.

The Russian soldiers stood over the man they had injured, his leg tied up with bandages torn from bedsheets and held in place with a makeshift splint, and told Lysovysk: “We have come to protect you.”

[Soloist]

https://apple.news/ABcQXFAKsQwOW5tt7mmByCA

Two sleepless days after Eduard Lysovysk was carried into a basement bomb shelter, his thigh bone shattered by a Russian sniper’s bullet, soldiers from the army who had shot him came to visit.

The Russian soldiers stood over the man they had injured, his leg tied up with bandages torn from bedsheets and held in place with a makeshift splint, and told Lysovysk: “We have come to protect you.”

A farmer was approached while he was tending his crops. The man asked him to dig a hole at the side of the road that the US used for convoy's and he would pay him 20$. He replied "I have two children and a wife and I don't want the Americans to kill me" The man replied "okay, I will shoot you and your family unless you dig a hole and put this bomb there" The man with no choice in his eyes headed off to dig a hole.
The US convoy headed by around the time he was digging a hole and a gunner shot him as an enemy combatant killing the farmer.

Who do the children grow up hating? The Taliban? or the US troops? (true story...)

These troops very likely believed they were there to protect him and he was likely assumed an enemy combatant when he was shot. This is not to discount the evil the Russians are committing in Ukraine, but these soldiers might be innocent of those crimes.

[Ken]

https://apple.news/ABcQXFAKsQwOW5tt7mmByCA

Two sleepless days after Eduard Lysovysk was carried into a basement bomb shelter, his thigh bone shattered by a Russian sniper’s bullet, soldiers from the army who had shot him came to visit.

The Russian soldiers stood over the man they had injured, his leg tied up with bandages torn from bedsheets and held in place with a makeshift splint, and told Lysovysk: “We have come to protect you.”

A farmer was approached while he was tending his crops. The man asked him to dig a hole at the side of the road that the US used for convoy's and he would pay him 20$. He replied "I have two children and a wife and I don't want the Americans to kill me" The man replied "okay, I will shoot you and your family unless you dig a hole and put this bomb there" The man with no choice in his eyes headed off to dig a hole.
The US convoy headed by around the time he was digging a hole and a gunner shot him as an enemy combatant killing the farmer.

Who do the children grow up hating? The Taliban? or the US troops? (true story...)

These troops very likely believed they were there to protect him and he was likely assumed an enemy combatant when he was shot. This is not to discount the evil the Russians are committing in Ukraine, but these soldiers might be innocent of those crimes.

Both of these wars were horrible destructive mistakes. It took the US 10 years to extract itself from Iraq after immense damage to the region. I wonder how long it will take Russia to extract itself from Ukraine and what the damage will be. So far it doesn't look good.

[Szdfan]

These troops very likely believed they were there to protect him and he was likely assumed an enemy combatant when he was shot. This is not to discount the evil the Russians are committing in Ukraine, but these soldiers might be innocent of those crimes.

There have been a number of news accounts about Russian troops who are surprised and shocked to discover that the locals are not greeting them as liberators. I posted this tibbit from another article earlier:

Russian soldiers in Myrne, she said, “had the gall to come and ask: Do you like us, do you appreciate that we have come to liberate you?”

“Not so much,” Ms. Khodus said fellow villagers replied. “We had no need for you.”

I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating. The Russians clearly believe they came to liberate and “denazify” the Ukrainians and are surprised that the Ukrainians don’t agree. I’ve been also reading a number of stories about how Russians don’t believe their Ukrainian family members that they’re being bombarded or that their is a war going on.

[Szdfan]

the tenor taken seems mostly to discredit members here who are sharing info, hopes, and prayers in good faith.
that’s sad.

I haven’t named anyone or called anyone out. There are emphatic statements being made as “truth” that are either factually incorrect or overly simplistic.

I do think there will eventually be a negotiated settlement, but not until one or both sides feel that continuing to fight the war costs more than compromise. Until that point is reached, this war is going to be a disastrous, miserable slog. Of course, most wars are miserable slogs until one or both sides can’t do it anymore,

I don’t think Ukraine giving the Russians everything they demand is feasible or achieves peace. There are a lot of really complicated issues here.

[Soloist]

I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating. The Russians clearly believe they came to liberate and “denazify” the Ukrainians and are surprised that the Ukrainians don’t agree. I’ve been also reading a number of stories about how Russians don’t believe their Ukrainian family members that they’re being bombarded or that their is a war going on.

We thought likewise but those who had been under the Taliban knew when we left, the Taliban would still be there and we wouldn't. Generally speaking, those that wage war have to justify their actions somehow otherwise the evil of what they do will destroy them.