Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[Berzerker]

So do you claim that the Separatists were unarmed?

Where did I claim that?

Did uncle Sam round up and arm a bunch of Nazis christen them "Azov" and give them secret order to start a proxy war with Russia by attacking the unarmed Separatists? When did the Separatists get armed? Who armed them? You've said that the Separatists declared independence because they wanted peace. Historically not really the ideal way to obtain peace, especially in a state that is not at war IMHO, but whatever. If they wanted peace so bad why do we have no attempts to surrender? That seems like a legitimate pacifist response when attacked by a force that is not otherwise at war from a state you just declared independence from. Can you find a single instance of such a surrender?

I said the separatists didn't want to be ruled by the coup backers

They wanted to conquer the entire Donbas from Ukraine and make it part of Russia.

Then why did they agree to Minsk? About a 1/3rd voted for independence and a small majority voted for a Minsk-like deal

Azov was a brand new militia limited to Mariupol

'April 2014: The Azov Battalion’s first violent attack was in April 2014 when it clashed with Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk'

https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/azov-battalion

In August 2014 however, before Azov did much of anything besides fight those Mariupol street fights with Separatist Neo-nazi militias, the Ukrainian government Anti-terrorist operation had almost reached the Russian borders. The neo-nazi street fighting was overrun by Ukrainian government forces. Peace was about to break out. The Ukrainian government forces weren't ethnic cleansing or genociding. They were literally taking the streets back from the gangs. Separatist "Minister of Defence" Igor Girkin (Muscovite employed by FSB) publicly warned that without Russian military involvement the Donbas republics would collapse. He said recruitment from the locals was failing.

So a half year after the war started the Donbas told Moscow they needed help because local recruitment couldn't stop Azov. I thought the separatists were little green men.

[Berzerker]

unapproved

[Geronimo]

You should look into what is required to amend the Constitution in this country. (We reversed the Prohibition amendment roughly nine years after it was clear it was a mistake that caused us a LOT of damage)

It is a lot of process but it doesn't have to cost much. Amendments can be handled without special elections. The main obstacle to a clearly benign amendment is dysfunctional partisan politics making even broadly acceptable proposals into a partisan issue that the less motivated party will turn into a bargaining chip for concessions elsewhere and the low obstruction threshold of the amendment process making it an easy political hostage.

[BeBMan]

Interesting

Not much travel options for Vlad anymore, but then he's mostly sitting behind the table anyway these days....

[Berzerker]

unapproved

[The Mad Monk]

I appreciate you are an an asshat and can't read. I said you can make an amendment. You choose not to, means it's not the constitution, but rather a desire to not offer up US citizens for prosecution

You should look into what is required to amend the Constitution in this country. (We reversed the Prohibition amendment roughly nine years after it was clear it was a mistake that caused us a LOT of damage)

[Geronimo]

Dauphin's right that the lack of interest in offering a narrow constitutional amendment to facilitate the court means that there must be more motive to dodging the court than just constitutional adherence. Claiming that dodging the court is purely about respecting the constitution would be like Russia claiming its refusal to negotiate the status of any part of the oblasts annexed from Ukraine is purely about respecting the Russian constitution's prohibitions against negotiating the status of any Russian territory with any foreign state.

In both cases the conversation shouldn't end with using the constitution as an excuse. Rather, if the constitution is really the barrier, the conversation would be how to fix that in a way that preserves the intended goal of the constitutional obstruction.

[Dinner]

No Americans were subject to that court so it didn't violate the constitution. Any agreement which set a foreign court above the U.S. Supreme Court wrt to I.S. citizens in the I.S. would absolutely violated the constitution. Period.

The constitution clearly lays out which court is Supreme in this country and no other court can be put above it.

[Dauphin]

No Americans were on trial in Nuremberg.

Who set up the Court? And were Americans involved? And was the SC the ultimate arbiter of appeal?

[Dauphin]

I appreciate you are an an asshat and can't read. I said you can make an amendment. You choose not to, means it's not the constitution, but rather a desire to not offer up US citizens for prosecution

[Dinner]

No Americans were on trial in Nuremberg so, no, it is not unconstitutional while extradition treaties, if properly written, do not interfere with the constitution. Making a separate international court contrary to the court system specifically spelled out in the constitution is unconstitutional. Especially if it violates the clause which makes the Supreme Court the highest court in the land capable of over turning any and all courts.

So, I appreciate you are ignorant on the topic being a foreigner but our constitution does not allow any government or official to violate the constitution for any reason. We will stick to that.

[Dauphin]

Were the Nuremburg Trials also unconstitutional? What about extradition treaties?

In reality the objection is 'we don't want any of our people being tried'. Which i think is more than fair as an explanation. The Constitutional argument strikes me as a bit weak - it's either not true, or you pass an amendment for specific narrow purpose to allow membership.

[Dinner]

So what? The Senate decided it would not ratify any treaties which violate the U.S. constitution and as an independent country we can do that.

[N35t0r]

This is how the war will end for Russia. A new Russian president calling for an end and complete withdrawal. Andrii Yusov, Spokesman for Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, has said that the Kremlin is looking for a successor to the Russian President after the decision of the International Criminal Court to arrest Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. All member states of the International Criminal Court are now legally required to detain Russian President Vladimir Putin as a suspect. Not too many places for Putin to visit.

Oh look USA, you're on the same camp as a lot of very upstanding nations.

[Geronimo]

Azov led the charge on the Donbas, the regular army was small and took time to build. It was volunteer militias that attacked the east. You're citing actions that came after the Maidan protests, the USA took advantage of those protests, not Russia.

So do you claim that the Separatists were unarmed? Did uncle Sam round up and arm a bunch of Nazis christen them "Azov" and give them secret order to start a proxy war with Russia by attacking the unarmed Separatists? When did the Separatists get armed? Who armed them? You've said that the Separatists declared independence because they wanted peace. Historically not really the ideal way to obtain peace, especially in a state that is not at war IMHO, but whatever. If they wanted peace so bad why do we have no attempts to surrender? That seems like a legitimate pacifist response when attacked by a force that is not otherwise at war from a state you just declared independence from. Can you find a single instance of such a surrender?

I'll save you the time. There is tons of evidence that neo-nazi paramilitary group Donbas People's Militia led by such colorful neo-nazis as Pavel Gubarev and then by Aleksander Borodai (native Russian born and later Russian Duma member but first "Prime Minister" of DPR- after some visits to Moscow for himself and the previous "PM") was directly supplied arms straight from the Russian military. Tons of evidence that they were always working with huge numbers of active duty Russian military trainers and advisors. These guys and their organizations never have claimed to be pacifists or to favor peace. They wanted to conquer the entire Donbas from Ukraine and make it part of Russia. They made the first move Berz. They drew the first blood. After the Ukrainian government took back all of the public buildings seized in March 2014, these pro-Russian neo-nazis paramilitaries moved in and took them back in April 2014. Azov was a brand new militia limited to Mariupol while the Separatist militias were occupying every public building they could reach. The Ukrainian government "anti-terrorist" operation, not Azov or any other militia, was targeting these guys. In February 2014 there had been special tasks patrol police militia AKA Eastern Corps as a kind of quasi-privately funded Ukrainian state sanctioned militia and importantly they quickly turned to crowdfunding which obviously made it very easy for Washington and other foreign interests to connect them with resources with limited traceability. It was one of the first militias to fight with the separatist neo-nazi militias but unlike the separatists it didn't have any official nazi ideology at the outset and in fact didn't join Azov until 2015 by which time there was plenty of bad blood in the Donbas to go around. Azov itself was started in February 2014 in the Kharkiv area by Black Corps (in contrast to Russia's infamous "little green men") led by neo-nazi Andriy Biletsky who had just been let out of prison as a result of the post-maidan act of parliament freeing "political prisoners". When things had settled down in Kharkiv, he brought the core of the Black Corps in to the Mariupol area to found a new chapter when the Ukrainian government ordered all state security late March in Mariupol to pull out and await orders. Andriy quickly recruited enough new members to found a new organization which they named Azov Battalion and by early May 2014 they were engaged in street fighting with the Separatist neo-nazi militias in Mariupol. Their activities *did* eventually create a space in the oblast where Ukraine tried to establish a new oblast regional government capitol in Mariupol but this new Azov did not contest the separatist control of oblast government buildings.

In August 2014 however, before Azov did much of anything besides fight those Mariupol street fights with Separatist Neo-nazi militias, the Ukrainian government Anti-terrorist operation had almost reached the Russian borders. The neo-nazi street fighting was overrun by Ukrainian government forces. Peace was about to break out. The Ukrainian government forces weren't ethnic cleansing or genociding. They were literally taking the streets back from the gangs. Separatist "Minister of Defence" Igor Girkin (Muscovite employed by FSB) publicly warned that without Russian military involvement the Donbas republics would collapse. He said recruitment from the locals was failing. If Washington neocons wanted a proxy war...things weren't looking good. All those tax payer dollars were going to go to waste. In August 2014 however, just when things looked grim for the neocons (and the Separatists), a curious thing happened. Ukraine captured a group of elite Russian active duty paratroopers in the Donbas behind the Ukrainian military line of control and the Battle of Ilovaisk saw the Ukrainian regular armed forces defeated by the neo-nazi separatists along with thousands of Russian military troops and vehicles.

After this decisive defeat Russian citizen, Muscovite born FSB veteran Igor Girkin negotiated Minsk I on behalf of the independent minded Separatists along with official Russian diplomatic representation and official OSCE representation and Ukrainian representation.

they offered this protocol of twelve points:

1To ensure an immediate bilateral ceasefire.
2To ensure the monitoring and verification of the ceasefire by the OSCE.
3Decentralisation of power, including through the adoption of the Ukrainian law "On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts".
4To ensure the permanent monitoring of the Ukrainian-Russian border and verification by the OSCE with the creation of security zones in the border regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
5Immediate release of all hostages and illegally detained persons.
6A law preventing the prosecution and punishment of people in connection with the events that have taken place in some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
7To continue the inclusive national dialogue.
8To take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Donbas.
9To ensure early local elections in accordance with the Ukrainian law "On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts".
10To withdraw illegal armed groups and military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine.
11To adopt a programme of economic recovery and reconstruction for the Donbas region.
12To provide personal security for participants in the consultations.

If Russia wouldn't pullout and or disarm its illegal armed groups and military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine then the treaty was a non-starter. You say that this treaty proves Russia wanted peace but wouldn't at least temporarily removing the illegal armed groups and military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine have been the best way to prove that? They never moved, they never left. Russia didn't want peace. They wanted Crimea. They wanted to have their cake and eat it to. The treaty was an attempt to lift sanctions against Russia. In fact. While the treaty imposed on Ukraine demanded quite a hell of a lot from Ukraine it only asked this one thing from the Russians and they never delivered it whatsoever.

This is all super documented. The Separatists were neo-nazi militias riddled with active duty Russian military personal whose local leadership were almost immediately and completely replaced with Russian politicians, security officers and recently active soldiers. Russia armed the neo-nazi separatists with direct arms smuggling from Russia while the Ukrainian nationalists neo-nazis were armed by mysterious crowd sourcing which allowed for very easy foreign funding. Russia clearly wanted this war to continue. Russia didn't want to deal with a policing difficulty of directly annexing the area but they did want it to keep Ukraine too busy to interfere with the new Crimean situation.

So. why not join me in condemning Russian activities in Ukraine and focus your anti-Washington anger on actual Neo-con crimes?

Bribery and force, a coup and attacks on protesters. If the USA stayed out of it there would be no coup, no Azov, and no reason for eastern Ukrainians to separate. The separatists didn't attack Kiev, Azov attacked them.

Washington had carrots it could dangle but it had no sticks. If nobody in Ukraine wanted a coup they would have taken Uncle Sams money and ran It wouldn't be the first time. Even if we presume Washington used its money to setup hired guns in Ukraine it would have no way to make them risk their lives or stop them from selling out their Washington contacts. You can't astroturf a coup and have it look like a revolution. It's just going to look like a coup sans the revolution. You also can't buy loyalty. When interests diverged, Washington's puppet would've shed its strings.

It is when the coup backers start killing protesters. Separatists didn't defeat the Ukrainian army, they seized some govt buildings and were attacked for not supporting the coup.

see above.

Yes, Minsk kept the Donbas in Ukraine. The west dangled Nato to Georgia and they attacked S Ossetia.

Minsk didn't do squat. With the illegal forces still in the Donbas a defacto state of war would exist whether Ukraine acted against them or not. In fact most of Ukraine's many obligations under this treaty could not even be legally attempted while the illegal armed forces were present. Minsk *did* offer the perfect chance for peace for Russia. If that was what it really wanted. It could easily have moved all of its forces out.

The West doesn't "dangle" NATO. Countries make requests and NATO responds to those requests. Sometimes the response says "according to our charter you have these problems to solve before your membership would be legal to consider under the charter" other times they say "here is a plan your state can implement to formally request NATO membership at a future time". Russia chose to officially plant its troops in another country where militias had been ethnically cleansing ethnic Georgians born in unambiguously Georgian territory and protect those militias from Georgian security forces. What would you think of Neocons having US troops do this in Kosovo?

Did Georgia stop attacking S Ossetia?

At least as much as Russia stopped attacking Chechnya. To be fair I don't think Georgia's armed forces should stop attacking the militias in South Ossetia. These people have been engaged in ethnic cleansing.

When Russia intervened militarily the west agreed to Minsk because Ukraine was losing, the deal gave Ukraine time to build its military.

The offer to Ukraine was simple, peace. The treaty offered nothing to the USA, we didn't want peace.

The offer to Ukraine was peace. Russia didn't want peace. The weapons they brought in stayed under the control of Russian citizens in Ukraine. Russians continued to execute executive control over the Ukrainians living in occupied Ukraine. It didn't matter what the US wanted. The US couldn't possibly have delivered peace in any form.

I didn't say peace was breaking out, a deal was in the works.

A deal being in the works means nothing. Just like deals everywhere. Ukraine couldn't unilaterally implement that deal even if it tried and it would have needed time to implement the few points that could occur under Russian occupation of the Donbas. So long as Russia did *nothing* to implement its one promise it would be absurd for Ukraine to follow through on its onerous treaty obligations. Why would Washington have any role?

There wouldn't have been a proxy war on Russia's border, there would have been a cultural if not ethnic cleansing of Ukraine by Azov and the right wing. My premise? The people of the Donbas wanted greater autonomy, they got attacked instead and the Russian people wanted to help them, that happened regardless of what Putin wanted.

Russian proxies started ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia in Georgia. When Russian neo-nazi paramilitaries seized power in the Donbas its pretty safe to assume the new Russian proxies were going to be first to start any "ethnic cleansing".