[Tainari88]

Tainari, make a separate thread for that boring conversation about immigration please, you are off-topic.

Back on topic:

I do apologize Russia Ukraine topic people. Please if all of my posts are deleted related to off topic stuff I would not mind.

I get pissed off with judging people running for their lives. Like in wars.

You should run for your life if you are a civilian. Period.

Do not be a hero and get bombed out waiting for some army to blow you away. It is not worth it. Run before the shit hits the fan.

[skinster]

Meet Centuria, Ukraine’s Western-trained neo-Nazi army
A uniquely Ukrainian strain of Neo-Nazism is spreading throughout Europe, which openly advocates violence against minorities while seeking new recruits. With Kiev’s army collapsing and a narrative of Western betrayal gaining currency, the horror inflicted on residents of Donbas for a decade could very soon be coming to a city near you.

Centuria, an ultra-violent Ukrainian Neo-Nazi faction, has cemented itself in six cities across Germany, and is seeking to expand its local presence. According to Junge Welt, a Berlin-based Marxist daily, the Nazi organization’s growth has been “unhindered by local security services.”

Junge Welt traces Centuria’s origins to an August 2020 Neo-Nazi summit “at the edge of a forest near Kiev.” There, an ultranationalist named Igor “Tcherkas” Mikhailenko demanded the “hundreds of mostly masked vigilante fighters present,” who were members Kiev’s fascistic National Militia, “make sacrifices for the idea of ‘Greater Ukraine.’” As the former head of the Neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine’s Kharkiv division, and commander of the state sponsored Azov Battalion from 2014 to 2015, Mikhailenko has professed a desire to “destroy everything anti-Ukrainian.”

Junge Welt reports that since 2017, the National Militia “had been practicing brutal vigilante justice” throughout Ukraine, including “tyrannizing the LGBTQ scene.” Centuria was subsequently blamed for a terrifying November 2021 attack on a gay nightclub in Kiev, in which its operatives assaulted revelers with truncheons and pepper spray.

Now the same Neo-Nazi sect “has an offshoot in Germany,” Junge Welt revealed. On August 24 2023, the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, Centuria convened a “nationalist rally” in the central city of Magdeburg, “unmolested by Antifa and critical media reporting.”

Participants proudly posed with the flag of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) founded by World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. Centuria boasted at the time on Telegram, “although Ukrainian youth are not in their homeland, they are starting to unite.” Meanwhile, they threatened the “enemies” of their country with “hellish storm,” pledging that “Ukrainian emigrants” would not “forget their national identity for a few hundred euros.”

Junge Welt reports that Centuria “is currently raising funds for its parent organization’s combat unit,” which is commanded by Andriy Biletsky – the Azov Battalion founder who infamously stated in 2014 that the Ukrainian nation’s mission was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen.” At home, Centuria’s members express similar attitudes towards Muslims, Africans, and gays, whom they refer to, respectively, as the “German Caliphate,” “black rapists,” and “pedophiles.”

Now, the group’s members are working hard to pass their ideological vision down to future racists across the continent. “We are creating a new generation of heroes!” Centuria’s Telegram channel boasts. Accordingly, the neo-Nazi group has been arranging hiking trips to Germany’s Harz mountains with a Ukrainian nationalist scout association called Plast. This outfit opened chapters across the Western world beginning in the 1950s, in response to the Soviet Union’s hounding of fascists and nationalists. Besides receiving ideological indoctrination, Plast’s youthful members may have the opportunity to improve their physical fitness and receive military training. As Centuria ominously declares on Telegram, “free people have weapons.”

As Washington gradually backs away from its sponsorship of Ukraine’s war with Russia, it has begun ceding responsibility for the military campaign’s management – and likely failure – to Berlin. If US arms shipments continue to dwindle, Germany will become Kiev’s chief supplier of weapons. And the Germans may find that saying “no” to Ukraine could result in some nasty surprises.

Unlike the US, Germany does not enjoy an ocean-length buffer between itself and the fascistic proxy warriors it sponsors in Ukraine. After Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive finally collapsed in late 2023, its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, grumbled a veiled threat during an interview with the Economist: “There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned.”

While Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them, it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner,” Zelensky remarked to the outlet.

To understand how more radical elements of a spent proxy force could turn their guns on the Western governments that armed them, one need only look at the events of September 11, 2001.

A secret Western-backed Nazi network
Centuria is seemingly not the only Azov-related Ukrainian movement seeking to infiltrate Europe. An apparently separate but identically named Centuria is doing the same, with help from an entrenched structure of elite European support.

In September 2021, George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) published a detailed and deeply unsettling report which documents how a once-secret order called Centuria was nurtured by a “self-described order of ‘European traditionalist’ military officers that has the stated goals of reshaping the country’s military along right-wing ideological lines and defending the ‘cultural and ethnic identity’ of European peoples against ‘Brussels’ politicos and bureaucrats.’”

IERES reported that Centuria’s military wing began training in 2018 in Ukraine’s Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy (NAA), Kiev’s “premier military education institution and a major hub for Western military assistance to the country.”

The paper revealed that “as recently as April 2021, [Centuria] claimed that since its launch, members have participated in joint military exercises with France, the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Poland.”

Indeed, many of the neo-Nazi group’s members have drilled at the de facto NATO base in Yavoriv, just a few kilometers east of the Polish border.

What’s more, “the group claims that its members serve as officers in several units of Ukraine’s military. Since at least 2019, Centuria has… [called] on ideologically aligned members of the AFU to seek transfer to specific units where the group’s members serve. To attract new members, the group – via its Telegram channel, which has over 1,200 followers and a dedicated mobilization bot – continues to tout its alleged role in the AFU and access to Western training, military, and exchange programs.”

Every Western government the IERES researchers approached claimed not to tolerate neo-Nazis in their militaries, insisting they “trusted the Ukrainian government to select and identify the right candidates” for their training programs. But Ukraine’s Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy (NAA) has explicitly declared it carries out no such screenings, while also denying Centuria operates within its headquarters.

After the report’s author reached out to Centuria and the NAA for comment about the training of neo-Nazis, operatives of the extremist movement began purging their online footprints, and have concealed their real-world activities ever since.

Western media outlets have almost completely ignored the IERES report, save for a single article in the Jerusalem Post. The silence around the issue is all the more unusual given the credentials of its author, a Washington DC-based Ukrainian citizen whose work has been published by US government outlet Voice of America, and the US and UK-government funded “open source” investigative outfit Bellingcat.

Among Western officials, only the Canadian Armed Forces have commented on the report’s meticulously-documented findings, preposterously claiming that photos posted to Facebook by Centuria members had been “doctored” to advance “Russian disinformation.”

Such disingenuity is not surprising given the Canadian military’s well-documented history of providing training to hardened Ukrainian fascists — and its refusal to disavow Ukrainian Nazis.


To this day, the leader of the country’s military, Gen. Wayne Eyre, continues to refuse to apologize for giving a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a WWII Nazi collaborator honored by Canada’s parliament.

According to researchers, Centuria fighters within Ukraine have spent at least the last five years attempting to indoctrinate their high-achieving comrades into Neo-Nazism. The IERES report notes that Centuria “has been able to proselytize Ukraine’s future military elite inside the NAA.”

Portrait of a British-trained Neo-Nazi
Underlining the extent of the neo-Nazi penetration of Western military apparatuses, NAA cadet Kyrylo Dubrovskyi, attended an 11-month Officer Training Course at Britain’s esteemed Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in 2020. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs celebrated his graduation while the NAA published a 12-minute video profile of the new graduate’s path to military leadership. IERES noted that Dubrovskyi “showed very keen interest in Centuria matters” while attending the Academy.

Dubrovskyi appears to have narrated a Centuria promotional video circulated on Telegram in May 2020, in which the group’s members are shown marching in Lviv, attending an NAA event, and firing their weapons. Dubrovskyi can be heard intoning, “our officers are raising the new army of Ukraine… We are the Centuria. We are everywhere… defend your territories, your traditions till the last drop of blood.”

A month before, Centuria posted an interview with an unnamed “cadet of Her Majesty’s Armed forces,” a description that could only match one individual: Dubrovskyi. He made clear he preferred training in Ukraine, as British training for military officers “put less emphasis on theory.” During this time, “Dubrovskyi enjoyed access to foreign cadets who visited the Academy,” and “on several occasions escorted foreign delegations that visited the Academy,” including cadets from the US Air Force and the French military.

It is unclear how much “theory” Dubrovskyi injected into the daily routines of Western soldiers with whom he crossed paths while at Sandhurst. IERES concluded that “Dubrovskyi and Centuria leveraged his status as a Sandhurst cadet” to promote the group and its ideology. On the “about” section of his personal YouTube channel, Dubrovskyi describes himself as “a cadet of the Royal Academy of Great Britain.” There, he posted multiple videos about his experiences at the academy, and at least one message expressing a desire to join the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment.

On Telegram in December 2020, Centuria made clear that infiltrating the Ukrainian military’s highest echelons was but the first step in a much wider ideological blitzkrieg: “Centuria is shaping a first-of-its-kind military elite whose goal is to attain the highest ranks inside the Armed Forces in order to become an authoritative core able to hold significant influence.” After consolidating its hold on the military, the group plans to penetrate the ranks of “Ukraine’s political elite,” in order to “carry out societal changes.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/04/07/cent ... nazi-army/

[Tainari88]

Yuval Noah Harari about MAGA​:

He is a liberal and supports liberalism around the world. He is pro-capitalist too. What he is right about is the conservative parties being radicalized and wanting to destroy institutions. They want war.

And you see nationalist presidents who are also engaged in that. That is true.

[skinster]

Mobilizing for Defeat
The Zelensky regime insists more Ukrainians must die before it’s all over

Ukraine’s situation is extremely precarious, if you want to put it optimistically. A more realistic term is “catastrophic.” The country faces steady, accelerating advances of Russian forces that are well-motivated and trained and superior in quantity and equipment. Even Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has admitted that “the situation on the eastern front has significantly worsened in recent days.” A massive understatement but still proof that things are even worse.

We also know – from Ukrainian polls – that ever more Ukrainians are open to ending the war by making concessions. Yet the Zelensky regime is doubling down. Instead of entering serious negotiations – the kind where you adjust your aims to your losses so as to avoid even greater ones – it is seeking to throw more lives into a war that has become a meatgrinder for Ukrainian troops.

That is the main purpose of a new mobilization law that has just passed the Ukrainian parliament. (In addition, President Zelensky has already signed off on additional measures that will be integrated into the new law once he signs that as well. In essence, though, this is one integrated bundle, which many Ukrainians and outside observers refer to as one and the same law, as will be done here.)

The new mobilization law is complex, consisting of a long list of measures, including, for instance, new rules on confiscating private cars for defense purposes. Its core, however, is simple: The minimum age for mobilization is lowered from 27 to 25 years of age. All Ukrainian men between age 18 and 60 will have to register, including those abroad. Failure to do so will count as evading military service. To make sure that compliance can be policed easily, all registered men must have their registration papers on them at all times.

The law, which has been under contentious consideration for months, is not being well-received in Ukrainian society. On a TV show run by Ukrainska Pravda, a very anti-Russian outlet, Maria Berlinska, a Ukrainian activist of equally sterling credentials, called it a fiasco. And she is by no means alone. It is true that some Ukrainian commentators have – once again – tried to dismiss all and any popular discontent as nothing but Russian interference. But this time, that tired old trick from the NATO-Zelensky playbook is not working well. Even Western mainstream media acknowledge the law is “unpopular.”

It is not hard to understand why many Ukrainians are angry. Perhaps the single worst disappointment is that the law does not include a hard rule for demobilization, which is what everyone expected. Think of it as a tacit deal: The government gets to hoover up more young men for cannon fodder, but, at least, it also promises to let go those exhausted soldiers who have already served (and survived) for years (36 months was under discussion). Even the New York Times has noticed that Ukraine’s current soldiers are “battered and exhausted.” Yet opening a way out for at least some of them is what did not happen. Instead, the Zelensky regime has dared come out with a law that only takes but gives nothing back.

To take how much, or to be precise, how many exactly? That is the second major sore spot: The law is meant to refill the ranks, which are clearly very badly depleted (massively contradicting the regime’s few and absurdly low – and thus mendacious – statements on casualty figures). High-ranking Ukrainian officers have gone public warning that “some” front sections that need to be held by eight to ten soldiers are, in reality, manned by two to four. That means that where 100 meters need to be defended, in effect, only 20 can be. Sure, such statements are also spin to drum up political support for the mobilization law. But from everything we know about the war, this spin is based on reality.

Yet what no one has done – either President Zelensky or anyone among his top brass – is to say exactly how many more Ukrainians they want. The former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny had bluntly asked for half a million. That is one reason why he lost his job. His successor, Aleksandr Syrsky has got the memo and is keeping mum, only letting it slip that it will not be 500,000. How reassuring.

Clearly, the Kiev regime prefers to go on the prowl for more meatgrinder fodder without too much public scrutiny. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment: If you had to drag, let’s say 300,000 mostly very reluctant and potentially rebellious men off to a war without a chance, would you like them, their families, and friends to know just how many they are? And by the way, 300,000 is a number Zelensky has mentioned, if in a very roundabout way, namely as his estimate (it’s no more than that, of course) of additional troops soon to be fielded by Russia.

The third main cause of public discontent about the new mobilization law is that it is unjust. Ordinary Ukrainians have a keen and absolutely realistic sense that their “elites” – in politics and business, and usually both in one and the same people – are not sharing the risks and sacrifices of war. This fact, too, the regime and its media try to propagandize away as “Russian manipulation.”

Yet the fact is that no such outside interference is needed. Take, for instance, Berlinska on Ukrainska Pravda again. She is all for continuing the war for years (and has entirely unrealistic ideas about how to do so). And yet she also asks why “should the child of a mother from a forlorn village….turn into a flag in the ground [that is end up on one of those massively expanding military cemeteries], while someone [else] can ride around Kiev in expensive cars, go on expensive holidays abroad, simply get rich and do business during wartime?”

Now add to all of the above, the following: Those who were eager to fight have already volunteered. When they volunteered, moreover, misguided optimism was widespread. Those illusions have evaporated by now. Whoever is forced to fight now knows two things: The war is not going well (which is the reason why he is being drafted, actually) and family members, friends, or work acquaintances have already fallen or, if “lucky,” been taken prisoner or come back with severe, possibly lifelong injuries and psychological trauma. Finally, sending even more of the young to fight the proxy war for the West also makes Ukraine’s severe demographic problem even worse, wasting not just one generation but the fathers (and some mothers, too) of the next one, too.

This mobilization law is a hapless response to the catastrophe of looming defeat. It is a catastrophe in and of itself. Ideally, it would be the last straw, finally provoking Ukrainians to rebel against a regime that has sold them out to US and EU geopolitics. Ideally.
https://tarikcyrilamar.substack.com/p/m ... for-defeat

[wat0n]

Well, the package was passed by the House so I guess the front will remain stagnated?

[skinster]

[Rich]

I freely admit that at the time, I totally underestimated the West's capacity to fuck this up.

In the same spirit I freely admit I was wrong to support the West's intervention in Afghanistan. back in 2001. I wanted us to support the Northern Alliance. I was naive. The Liberals and Cuckservatives went into Afghanistan to destroy the Northern Alliance not aid it. Afghanistan should have been broken up and preferably annexed by its neighbours.

I thought the West, in particular the US, would supply Ukraine with everything needed to win the war. Instead, the West has been dragging its feet for 2 years, providing just enough that Ukraine does not lose. Meanwhile, MAGA/Trump are back and have stopped all US support.

I also underestimated Russia's willingness to mobilize and throw meat into the grinder. After all, Russia started the invasion with a severe lack of manpower (not only in total but within units), which suggested a strong aversion towards mobilization.

The West's response was a joke and this should have been obvious from the start which is why I mocked it from the start. Russia, completely opposite to Nazi Germany and Japan in World War 2 was a major exporter of energy and other primary resources. In World War 2 The Western empires of the US, Britian,France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal controlled most of the world. If 3 million Bengalis starved to death, nobody cared. Well I suspect that the Bengalis cared, but no one that mattered cared. In 2022, the Liberals made zero attempt to explain who was going to bear the cost of taking Russia's primary resources off the world market. They seemed to expect that the major costs would be borne by the global south as they had in world war 2.

[Potemkin]

In the same spirit I freely admit I was wrong to support the West's intervention in Afghanistan. back in 2001. I wanted us to support the Northern Alliance. I was naive. The Liberals and Cuckservatives went into Afghanistan to destroy the Northern Alliance not aid it. Afghanistan should have been broken up and preferably annexed by its neighbours.

The purpose of the West was not to defeat the Taliban and establish democracy in Afghanistan - not even our current lords and masters were so demented as to believe that was even possible. The real purpose was to drain money from the American taxpayers and put it into the pockets of the military-industrial complex. Mission accomplished!

The West's response was a joke and this should have been obvious from the start which is why I mocked it from the start. Russia, completely opposite to Nazi Germany and Japan in World War 2 was a major exporter of energy and other primary resources. In World War 2 The Western empires of the US, Britian,France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal controlled most of the world. If 3 million Bengalis starved to death, nobody cared. Well I suspect that the Bengalis cared, but no one that mattered cared. In 2022, the Liberals made zero attempt to explain who was going to bear the cost of taking Russia's primary resources off the world market. They seemed to expect that the major costs would be borne by the global south as they had in world war 2.

In WWII, the Allies were serious about their aim of defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They exerted themselves to their physical and moral limits to achieve it as quickly as possible. The West’s attitude towards the Russia-Ukraine war is very different - the aim from the outset was not to defeat Russia as quickly as possible, but to bleed it dry for as long as possible. The longer the war lasts, the better. If Ukraine looks like it’s winning, we turn off the supply of arms and money. If it looks like it’s about to lose, we turn the taps back on again. Eventually, of course, after another decade or two, the same thing will happen to Ukraine as happened to Afghanistan.

[Rugoz]

The purpose of the West was not to defeat the Taliban and establish democracy in Afghanistan - not even our current lords and masters were so demented as to believe that was even possible. The real purpose was to drain money from the American taxpayers and put it into the pockets of the military-industrial complex. Mission accomplished!

I disagree. For a while they certainly thought it was possible. Then the war hang in limbo for years until Trump decided to pull out. Wars are not started based on what the "military-industrial complex" wants. There are far easier ways to hand out government pork, without the risk/collateral damage.

In WWII, the Allies were serious about their aim of defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They exerted themselves to their physical and moral limits to achieve it as quickly as possible. The West’s attitude towards the Russia-Ukraine war is very different - the aim from the outset was not to defeat Russia as quickly as possible, but to bleed it dry for as long as possible. The longer the war lasts, the better. If Ukraine looks like it’s winning, we turn off the supply of arms and money. If it looks like it’s about to lose, we turn the taps back on again. Eventually, of course, after another decade or two, the same thing will happen to Ukraine as happened to Afghanistan.

The MAGA blockade has/had one single purpose, namely to keep Ukraine on the backfoot until the election. Are you suggesting the Biden administration wanted it? I think you're reading to much strategy into what the West does. It's a combination of fear of nuclear escalation, concerns about cost, election strategy that led to current events, and of course Russia's willingness to go all in.

[JohnRawls]

Marjorie Taylor Greene is your woman. She hates socialism. Lol.

Since when do I support Republicans?

I think you misunderstand something, I told this already to you. I do not hate socialism. I am centrist who doesn't care where the ideas come from as long as I consider them useful or good. Stealing good ideas should be considered a badge of honor.

The only negative connotation that I have with socialism or communism is that it is synonymous to imperialism for me. Simply put, the Baltic states were one of the first states to break the chains of Imperialism post world war 1. A lot had to wait a lot longer and even after WW2 or during cold war so basically 99,99% forget that we were colonised by the Russian empire(and others before) for a long time and since we were one of the few first to escape you somehow disregard us.

And it was a hard fight since we were close to the core and always one of the most developed regions in the Russian empire. So they didn't ever want us to "leave".

[JohnRawls]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhTHsvuKa4s

The frontline hasn't moved in almost a year now. What are you on about? The last significant movement was near Kherson when Russians retreated behind the river and even that was barely much honestly. The mini advances that Russia or Ukraine has done are not gonna change anything.

[Tainari88]

Since when do I support Republicans?

I think you misunderstand something, I told this already to you. I do not hate socialism. I am centrist who doesn't care where the ideas come from as long as I consider them useful or good. Stealing good ideas should be considered a badge of honor.

The only negative connotation that I have with socialism or communism is that it is synonymous to imperialism for me. Simply put, the Baltic states were one of the first states to break the chains of Imperialism post world war 1. A lot had to wait a lot longer and even after WW2 or during cold war so basically 99,99% forget that we were colonised by the Russian empire(and others before) for a long time and since we were one of the few first to escape you somehow disregard us.

And it was a hard fight since we were close to the core and always one of the most developed regions in the Russian empire. So they didn't ever want us to "leave".

A small place that needs to break away. Hmm. It sounds familiar to me.

Marjorie is a Republican. I never thought the Republican party free of problems. It has in the last 70 years or more been a party of racist assholes mostly. No surprise for me there. But, many keep thinking it had some kind of utility for the world.

I have no use for parties full of people who only work together to take rights away from other people. For me that is the definition of evil.

Imperialism is innate to capitalism. You can never separate those two. It is like trying to take Hydrogen out of water. H2O breaks down. They have to be together to be water. That is capitalism and imperialism. Constant growth means invasions and military to make profit. It is as Smedley Butler said....the marines follow the dollar.

He was a highly decorated Marine and a B. Major General.

Russia was and is competing with the USA for power. It used to be about Communism. It no longer is. It is about being able to influence other adjacent regions and nations for influence.

The EU is going to wind up paying for it. And Estonia has to spend as well. It is a small nation. And it will need to be able to keep as much of its gains as possible. War is never something where the ones engaged in it will be in good shape afterward.

It always costs much more in human lives, wealth, and time than what it is worth.

Until human civilizations stop using the formula of allowing elites to determine all policies? Most of the world's people will not be allowed peace, freedom, or prosperity. That is the truth of that.

Only by having people who work be in charge of their labor and wealth and by making democracy work for the majority and having systems that discourage psychotic power-hungry people can you realistically get a better result.

Capitalism though does have an enemy they can't defeat. It is called Mother Nature. If you do not respect the laws of Mother Nature and think you can take, take and take, and expand and expand without limits....you become parasitical. and all organisms that collapse the ecosystem do wind up getting a response from Mother Nature. And she is the Great Equalizer.

So, these puny people thinking they are the last word in wars and in power....will realize that you are not divorced from the Earth and the elements. And unless you scrap a bad idea and concept that is unrealistic. There is no future for the parasites.

[Rancid]

The purpose of the West was not to defeat the Taliban and establish democracy in Afghanistan - not even our current lords and masters were so demented as to believe that was even possible. The real purpose was to drain money from the American taxpayers and put it into the pockets of the military-industrial complex. Mission accomplished!

Singular reasons are usually not correct. This is a part of it, but not all of it. This is why I think Tulsi Gabbard is kind of full of it, because this is often her singular focus. Singular points/focus, needs to be a giant red flag for anyone.

Also, the military-industrial complex isn't as all powerful as you'd think. There was a massive consolidation of defense companies, precisely because there simply wasn't enough money/contracts to go around to sustain the bloated landscape of defense companies that were created for WWII and the cold war. This is why many defense companies are "dual named". Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-GRuman, etc. etc. They had to merge to survive, because there wasn't enough tax money sloshing around to sustain them. If they were as powerful as people like to claim, they would have been able to extract more and more money from the system so that they didn't have to merge to survive.

In other words, the military-industrial complex has shrunk. Google's non defense earnigns alone earns more money than the WHOLE defense industry. Googles earning from defense related stuff is pretty small as well. Plenty of other companies that earn more than the defense industry. That's not to say they do not have pull/sway. However, they do not singularly hold all, or even most of the power. They can certainly put their thumb on the scales of course.

I'd extend that to the CIA and the US government in general. The US isn't as much of a puppet master as people like to claim. They can certainly put a strong thumb on the scales, but they are not a shot-caller. Like this idea that Europe does absolutely everything the US wants/says is simply not accurate either.

[skinster]

You guys are still very off-topic. I guess that's the option now that the writing is on the wall re: Ukraine's defeat...

Ukrainian Voices for Compromise
Reading Ukrainian opinion polls, you'll discover what Western media hide: a large and growing number of Ukrainians who want to end the war through compromise, including concessions.

What a small band of objective-though-long-disparaged observers in the West have long warned about is now happening: Ukraine and the West are losing their war against Russia. The strategy of using Ukraine to either isolate and slowly suffocate Russia or to defeat and degrade it in a proxy war is coming to its predictable catastrophic end.

This reality is now being acknowledged even by key media and high officials that used to be uncompromising about pursuing the extremely ill-advised aim of military victory over Russia. A Washington Post article has explained that with ”no way out of a worsening war,” Ukrainian President Zelensky’s options ”look bad or worse.” NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has discovered the option of ending wars by concessions – Ukraine’s concessions, that is. The sturdy old hardliner Edward Luttwak warns of a ”catastrophic defeat” – for the West and Ukraine. True, Luttwak is still spreading desperate illusions about a direct NATO deployment to avert the worst. In reality, it would, of course, only make things much, much worse again, as in World War III worse. But his fear, not to say panic, is palpable.

The fast-approaching outcome will be a disaster for Ukraine, even if Moscow should be generous regarding the terms of a postwar settlement (not a given, after the costs that Russia has incurred). Ukraine has already been ruined in terms of its demography, territory, economy, and, last but not least, political future. The damage incurred cannot simply be undone and will have long-lasting consequences.

For the West, this war will also mark a dismal turning point, in four main ways that can only be sketched here:

First, the US will have to absorb its worst defeat since Vietnam. Arguably, this latest fiasco is even worse because, even during the Vietnam War, America did not try to attack Russia (then, of course, leading the Soviet Union) as head-on as it does now. Washington’s most over-confident attempt ever to take Moscow off the “grand chessboard” once and for all has backfired perfectly. In general, that will diminish America’s capacity to impress and cajole globally. In particular, the goal of preventing the rise of regional hegemons in Eurasia, the holy grail of US geopolitics, is even farther out of reach than before. The “unipolar” moment and its illusions were passing anyhow, but the US leadership has added a textbook illustration of the West’s limits.

Second, the EU and its individual members – especially myopic warmongers such as Germany, Poland, and France – are far worse off again: Their foolish abandoning of geopolitically imperative caution and balancing (remember: location, location, location) will cost them dearly.

Third, in their own, different ways, cases such as Britain (not even an EU member anymore) and the Baltics (very exposed and very bellicose, a shortsighted combination) are in a class of their own: damage there will be galore. Damage control? The options are paltry.

And, finally, there is, of course, NATO: Over-extended, self-depleted, and having gratuitously exposed itself as much weaker than it would like to seem. Its defeat by Russia in Ukraine will trigger centrifugal tendencies and blame games. Not to speak of the special potential for tension between the US and its clients/vassals in Europe, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidency again, as is likely. And, by the way, he can only thank NATO for proving his point about what a dubious proposition it has become. If you believe that having added more territory on the map (Sweden and Finland) was a “win,” just remember what has happened to the mistaken celebrations of Ukraine’s territorial advances in 2022. Territory may be a price; it is not a reliable indicator of strength.

Yet what about Ukrainians? They have been used as pawns by their Western friends from hell. They are still living under a regime that has just decided to mobilize even more of them for a hopeless meatgrinder, while Zelensky is admitting that Ukraine is on the verge of defeat.

Some Western media are still telling a simplistic and false story about Ukrainians’ unflagging and united will to hold out for victory, as if every single one owed the West to play a Marvel hero to the bitter end. But in reality Ukraine is a normal, if badly misled country. Many of its citizens have long shown what they really think about dying for a toxic combination of Western geopolitics and the narcissism of a megalomanic comedian: by evading the draft, either by hiding in Ukraine or fleeing abroad. In addition, a recent poll shows that almost 54 percent of Ukrainians find the motives of the draft dodgers at least understandable. Kiev’s push for increased mobilization will not go smoothly.

But there is more evidence of the fact that Ukraine’s society is not united behind a Kamikaze strategy of “no compromise.” Indeed, under the title “The Line of Compromise,” Strana.ua, one of Ukraine’s most important and popular news sites, has just published a long, detailed article about three recent and methodologically sound polls.

They all bear on Ukrainians’ evolving attitudes to the war and in particular the question of seeking a compromise peace. In addition, Strana offers a rich sample of comments by Ukrainian sociologists and political scientists. It is no exaggeration to say that the mere appearance of this article is a sign that the times are changing: Under the subtitle “How and why attitudes to the war differ in the East and the West of Ukraine,” it even highlights “substantial” regional differences and, really, suppressed divisions. If you know anything about the extreme political – even historical – sensitivity of such divergences in Ukraine, then you will agree that this framing alone is a small sensation.

But that is not all. The article, in effect, dwells on ending the war by concessions – because that is what any compromise necessarily will take. Readers learn, for instance, that, according to the ‘Reiting’ agency polling on commission of Ukraine’s Veterans’ Affairs Ministry, in Ukraine’s West, farthest removed from the current front lines, 50% of poll respondents are against any compromise, while no less than 42% are in favor of compromise solutions as long as other countries (other than Ukraine and Russia, that is) are involved in finding them. For a region that, traditionally, has been the center of Ukrainian nationalism, that is, actually, a remarkably high share of those siding with compromise.

If you move east and south over the map, the compromise faction gets stronger. In the East, the proportions are almost exactly reversed: 41% against compromise and 51% in favor. In the South, it’s a perfect tie: 47% for both sides.

On the whole, Ukrainian sociologists are finding a “gradual increase” of those supporting a “compromise peace” in “one form or the other.” Even if, as one researcher plausibly cautions, this increase displays different rates in different regions, it still adds up to the national trend. One of its causes is “disappointment,” the loss of faith in victory, as the political scientist Ruslan Bortnik observes. In other words, the Zelensky regime is losing the information war on the home front. Notwithstanding its mix of censorship and showmanship.

The compromises imagined by Ukrainians include all conceivable solutions that do not foresee a return to the 1991 borders. In other words, there are ever more Ukrainians who are ready to trade territory for peace. How much territory, that is, of course, a different question. But it is clear that the maximalist and counter-productive aim of “getting everything back,” the all-or-nothing delusion, imposed for so long on Ukrainian society, is losing its grip.

The agency Socis, for instance, counts a total of almost 45% of respondents ready for compromise, while only 33% want to continue the war until the 1991 borders are re-established. But there are also 11% who still favor fighting on until all territories lost after February 2022 are recovered. That, as well, is now an unrealistic aim. It may have been closer to reality when Kiev dismissed an almost finished peace deal in the spring of 2022, on awful Western advice. That ship has sailed.

Polling results, it is important to note, do not all point in the same direction. The KMIS agency has produced results that show 58% of respondents who want to continue the war “under any circumstances” and only 32% who would prefer a “freeze,” if Western security guarantees are given. Such a freeze, while a favorite pipedream of some Western commentators, is unlikely to be an option now, if it ever was. Why should Moscow agree? But that is less relevant here than the fact that KMIS, for one, seems to have found a massive bedrock of pro-war sentiment.

And yet, even here, the picture is more complicated once we look closer. For one thing, the KMIS poll is comparatively old, conducted in November and December of last year. Given how quickly things have been developing on the battlefield since then – the key town and fortress of Avdeevka, for instance, finally fell only in February 2024 – that makes its data very dated.

KMIS also had interesting comments to offer: The agency notes that respondents’ proximity to the front lines plays an “important role” in shaping their opinions about the war. In other words, when the fighting gets close enough to hear the artillery boom, it concentrates the mind on finding a way to end it, even by concessions. As one Ukrainian sociologist has put it, “in the East and South … one of people’s main concerns is that the war must not reach their own home, their own home town.”

In addition, the executive director of KMIS has observed that the number of compromise advocates also grows when Western aid declines.

It remains difficult to draw robust conclusions from these trends, for several reasons: First, as some Ukrainian observers point out, the number of compromise supporters may be even higher – personally, I am sure it is – because the Zelensky regime has stigmatized any appeal to diplomacy and negotiations as “treason” for so long. Many Ukrainians are virtually certain to be afraid to speak their mind on this issue.

Second, what exactly the compromise camp understands by compromise is bound to be diverse. This camp may still include quite a few citizens who harbor illusions about what kind of compromise is available at this point.

Third, the current regime – which is de-facto authoritarian – is not answerable to society, at least not in a way that would make it easy to predict how shifts in the national mood translate into regime policies, or not.

And yet: There is no doubt that there is a groundswell in favor of ending the war even at the cost of concessions. Add the clear evidence of Western Ukraine fatigue – even a growing readiness to cut Ukraine loose – and the facts that the Russian military is creating on the ground, and it becomes hard to see how this basal shift in the Ukrainian mood could not become an important factor of Ukrainian – and international – politics.
https://tarikcyrilamar.substack.com/p/u ... compromise

[Rugoz]

Also, the military-industrial complex isn't as all powerful as you'd think.

It confuses cause and effect. Politicians prop up the military-industrial complex more than any other sector because they think it is in the national interest to do so.

[skinster]

[Rancid]

It confuses cause and effect. Politicians prop up the military-industrial complex more than any other sector because they think it is in the national interest to do so.

True... true.

To a degree, it is in the national interest of course.

But yea, we should be more worried by the likes of big oil, big tech, and big pharma influencing the system.

[Tainari88]

True... true.

To a degree, it is in the national interest of course.

But yea, we should be more worried by the likes of big oil, big tech, and big pharma influencing the system.

Is this war of Russia vs Ukraine going to take one decade or more to resolve? I think it might.

[skinster]

Is this war of Russia vs Ukraine going to take one decade or more to resolve? I think it might.

It has already gone on for a decade - it began in 2014, not 2022 - and it looks to be on its way out, in favour of Russia (watch interviews I post for more). This might be more obvious considering all the Slava Ukraini dorks in this thread who supported this US/NATO war don't seem to be reporting anything about it anymore, and haven't for some time. It's because the side they support has lost, but they're too proud to admit defeat.

[Rancid]

Is this war of Russia vs Ukraine going to take one decade or more to resolve? I think it might.

Depends on how long each side wants to keep fighting.

How would you like to see this end?