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Exploring Russian atrocity claims
Yes, it's another bloody Ukraine thread. This one has a narrow, specific purpose: to look into Russian claims of Ukrainian misdeeds in the country's eastern half in the leadup to the current war, to explain why I find those claims unconvincing, and to give Serb a chance to push back. I didn't want to jack somebody else's thread, so please return the favor by leaving out childish (or adult) insults, arguments about the broader war, Putin, Stalin, etc. This is a thread for me, Serb, and anybody else who has a thoughtful contribution to make. I ask the mods to please courteously backhand anybody they catch pooping on my thread.
So: the story goes, as I understand it, that people in the eastern portion of Ukraine were doing something like ethnic cleansing to Russians living inside the country. I read a quote from some Russian defense official claiming that this has been going on for eight years, ie since the annexation of Crimea. Putin became aware of this and decided to intervene. The war was necessary to put an end to the slaughter, and therefore just.
First question: When did Putin become aware that this mistreatment was taking place, and why did he take so long to address it? I ask because it has been clear for some time that Putin was planning or threatening to invade Ukraine. Months, easily. It had gotten to the point where I was frankly thinking, "c'mon, man, crap or get off the pot." And that's just the point at which foreign observers cottoned on that something was up. This isn't how I would expect anyone to react to the wholesale slaughter of his countrymen. If we in the US were in a period of very tense relations with Canada, and it came up that figures connected to the Canadian government were killing American expatriates en masse, I would expect a period of maybe a week where we sent angry ultimata and demands, and if the issue was not at least on its way to resolution by then the tanks would be headed to Montreal. Because more people are dying that whole time.
Which brings me to my second question: Why did Putin react so oddly to this slaughter? He really buried the lede here. Admittedly, we get everything in translation and selections here, so our summaries tend to say things like "Putin said Ukrainian nationhood was a chimera, demanded some stuff about NATO, and made unsubstantiated claims of Ukrainian atrocities." But (assuming this is at all accurate) why in the hell did Putin bother over making demands about ruling out Ukrainian NATO membership, etc.? They've been killing Russians for years! Are you really offering to let them off the hook for that if we tell them we won't ever let them in our clubhouse? The crimes against humanity just feel like one more item in a laundry list of complaints, when they're the single best claim he would have to the moral high ground--if they were true.
Third: Why aren't these atrocities better known outside of Russia? Ethnic cleansing is not easy to hide. China is very, very good at hiding stuff, and it's been trying hard to hide the stuff it's doing to the Uighurs with little success. Ukraine is not China; it's far poorer and I really cannot believe it has better security. People escape from jails, or ask questions about missing neighbors and coworkers. Videos get smuggled out and spread. Reporters get nosy. It is not plausible that Ukraine kept the equivalent of concentration camps running for years without leaks.
As an addendum to the third question and anticipation of a probable objection: No, American media would not be disinterested in this, nor would the authorities be able to hush them. To the first, genocide is something of an attention-getter by itself, and ... well, you'll have to take my word for it that our newscritters just can't get enough about stories concerning white women in danger. Every damn time a blonde college student goes missing on vacation, they wet their pants with excitement. This story would be like that on steroids. Yes, our news people would be interested. And as for censorship or government control, if our government was capable of shutting up narratives it didn't want people to hear, it would have sat down hard on "vaccines don't work, the CDC is lying about everything, mask mandates are fascist" or "January 6th was a praiseworthy attempt to stop the treacherous theft of the presidency." The former undermined our response to a deadly disease and the latter called the fundamental legitimacy of the government into question. Why the hell would we let those slide, but use our censorship powers on a story of little immediate importance to America? Do you, Serb, really believe spiting Russia matters more to us than beating a pandemic or prosecuting an assault on our legislature?
Fourth: Why was Ukraine doing these things? Leaving aside the part where Ukrainians and Russians are supposed to be near identical and Ukrainian nationhood is a recent fiction, it's not a secret that Russia is larger and more powerful than Ukraine. Russia already took the Crimea with little effort; provoking an enemy who has just proven he can whoop you is an act of suicidal idiocy. We are presently pleased to see that Ukraine has lasted five whole days without having its capital conquered; nobody knowledgeable seriously expects the country to hold out over the long term on its own, and the most optimistic credible projections are that Putin will win in the end but be forced to withdraw by the intransigence of the population, domestic unrest, etc. No, we in the US will not be risking nuclear war by intervening directly. Whatever happens, Ukraine will be wrecked, and it will not recover quickly. You are suggesting that the Russian bear swiped at them and drew blood, and they were so mad they ran up and kicked the bear repeatedly in the balls, assuming that the pain to the bear would be worth their own demise. Where does this stupidity come from?
For all these reasons, and probably others that escape me at the moment, I find it most credible to believe that the stories, videos, etc. are fabrications. Putin concocted them, rather lazily and thoughtlessly, as part of a hodgepodge of excuses for war, intending to throw them at the wall and see what stuck with various audiences. He never expected us to believe them; those tales were for domestic consumption. If you have a better explanation, I'm all ears.
So: the story goes, as I understand it, that people in the eastern portion of Ukraine were doing something like ethnic cleansing to Russians living inside the country. I read a quote from some Russian defense official claiming that this has been going on for eight years, ie since the annexation of Crimea. Putin became aware of this and decided to intervene. The war was necessary to put an end to the slaughter, and therefore just.
First question: When did Putin become aware that this mistreatment was taking place, and why did he take so long to address it? I ask because it has been clear for some time that Putin was planning or threatening to invade Ukraine. Months, easily. It had gotten to the point where I was frankly thinking, "c'mon, man, crap or get off the pot." And that's just the point at which foreign observers cottoned on that something was up. This isn't how I would expect anyone to react to the wholesale slaughter of his countrymen. If we in the US were in a period of very tense relations with Canada, and it came up that figures connected to the Canadian government were killing American expatriates en masse, I would expect a period of maybe a week where we sent angry ultimata and demands, and if the issue was not at least on its way to resolution by then the tanks would be headed to Montreal. Because more people are dying that whole time.
Which brings me to my second question: Why did Putin react so oddly to this slaughter? He really buried the lede here. Admittedly, we get everything in translation and selections here, so our summaries tend to say things like "Putin said Ukrainian nationhood was a chimera, demanded some stuff about NATO, and made unsubstantiated claims of Ukrainian atrocities." But (assuming this is at all accurate) why in the hell did Putin bother over making demands about ruling out Ukrainian NATO membership, etc.? They've been killing Russians for years! Are you really offering to let them off the hook for that if we tell them we won't ever let them in our clubhouse? The crimes against humanity just feel like one more item in a laundry list of complaints, when they're the single best claim he would have to the moral high ground--if they were true.
Third: Why aren't these atrocities better known outside of Russia? Ethnic cleansing is not easy to hide. China is very, very good at hiding stuff, and it's been trying hard to hide the stuff it's doing to the Uighurs with little success. Ukraine is not China; it's far poorer and I really cannot believe it has better security. People escape from jails, or ask questions about missing neighbors and coworkers. Videos get smuggled out and spread. Reporters get nosy. It is not plausible that Ukraine kept the equivalent of concentration camps running for years without leaks.
As an addendum to the third question and anticipation of a probable objection: No, American media would not be disinterested in this, nor would the authorities be able to hush them. To the first, genocide is something of an attention-getter by itself, and ... well, you'll have to take my word for it that our newscritters just can't get enough about stories concerning white women in danger. Every damn time a blonde college student goes missing on vacation, they wet their pants with excitement. This story would be like that on steroids. Yes, our news people would be interested. And as for censorship or government control, if our government was capable of shutting up narratives it didn't want people to hear, it would have sat down hard on "vaccines don't work, the CDC is lying about everything, mask mandates are fascist" or "January 6th was a praiseworthy attempt to stop the treacherous theft of the presidency." The former undermined our response to a deadly disease and the latter called the fundamental legitimacy of the government into question. Why the hell would we let those slide, but use our censorship powers on a story of little immediate importance to America? Do you, Serb, really believe spiting Russia matters more to us than beating a pandemic or prosecuting an assault on our legislature?
Fourth: Why was Ukraine doing these things? Leaving aside the part where Ukrainians and Russians are supposed to be near identical and Ukrainian nationhood is a recent fiction, it's not a secret that Russia is larger and more powerful than Ukraine. Russia already took the Crimea with little effort; provoking an enemy who has just proven he can whoop you is an act of suicidal idiocy. We are presently pleased to see that Ukraine has lasted five whole days without having its capital conquered; nobody knowledgeable seriously expects the country to hold out over the long term on its own, and the most optimistic credible projections are that Putin will win in the end but be forced to withdraw by the intransigence of the population, domestic unrest, etc. No, we in the US will not be risking nuclear war by intervening directly. Whatever happens, Ukraine will be wrecked, and it will not recover quickly. You are suggesting that the Russian bear swiped at them and drew blood, and they were so mad they ran up and kicked the bear repeatedly in the balls, assuming that the pain to the bear would be worth their own demise. Where does this stupidity come from?
For all these reasons, and probably others that escape me at the moment, I find it most credible to believe that the stories, videos, etc. are fabrications. Putin concocted them, rather lazily and thoughtlessly, as part of a hodgepodge of excuses for war, intending to throw them at the wall and see what stuck with various audiences. He never expected us to believe them; those tales were for domestic consumption. If you have a better explanation, I'm all ears.
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