Ukraine

[jono]

Just to be clear, corruption is a huge problem in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian military. Let’s just deal with that after the war.

Is or has been? Dealing with it after the war seems necessary primarily because this phase of the war has to change it pretty drastically.

[LongShortLong]

I disagree with Rod's opinion, but it's a reasoned opinion. Thanks for writing it out. Others' opinions are reasonable too.

Surely stopping the fighting now produces the least suffering in the short term. I don't know that either side would stop, but if they would stop then few people need to die there in the next couple years, perhaps longer. And if they stopped temporarily, then we move to the indeterminate future, where they may never start again. And maybe no other country repeats the bad example. Too many ifs and mays for me.

And Russia has a track record as a bad actor. I say there's principles involved (territorial integrity, defending Europe, self-determination, access to oil and gas, etc). Ukraine is willing to fight. It's also worth a reasonable expense to contain Russia. A big reason for our big defense budget is countering Russia - this looks like an opportunity to do so on the cheap. and with minimal or no American blood.

Many of Rod's negatives I don't think stand up to scrutiny. Russia's fighting a war, so gas and other resources are going to cost more because it's a major producer and war creates uncertainty (same as any war). Russia's a pariah state because it's starting wars and upsetting the agreed order, so no one wants to do business with them any more. Russia's a blackmailer at this point, and it's unclear they would stop at Ukraine's borders. If Ukraine stops fighting it's pretty clear Russia will take most or all of it, they already tried. If we have to have a warzone, let's keep it where it is. No sense having war in the rest of Ukraine, or Moldova, or the Baltics, or Poland, ...

I'm a dentist not a diplomat. Ok I'm not even a dentist.

[frorider]

Biden and Johnson need to stop promising the earth to zelenski, and stop asking him to keep on fighting to the last Ukrainian.

What in the actual fuck? .

I haven’t read your posts in the stock market thread. Do they lower your credibility even further.?

[XavierD]

Is or has been? Dealing with it after the war seems necessary primarily because this phase of the war has to change it pretty drastically.

Was prior to war kicking off, enough reports coming out to think it’s still a problem, but not a ton of evidence at lower echelons. Generally you don’t want to be stealing from the people you are directly counting on to support you in a war.

[XavierD]

To counter the appeasement side: we probably wouldn’t be here if Russia had lost 10,000 Soldiers + a division worth of equipment in ‘08 following huge international support for Georgia with a flood of weapons and equipment.

[jono]

Surely stopping the fighting now produces the least suffering in the short term. I don't know that either side would stop, but if they would stop then few people need to die there in the next couple years, perhaps longer. And if they stopped temporarily, then we move to the indeterminate future, where they may never start again. And maybe no other country repeats the bad example. Too many ifs and mays for me.

There's a logical explanation that needs to be included in there: Ukraine used to have a Russian puppet government. When they overthrew that government they ammended their constitution and allowed themselves to join NATO. Meanwhile, NATO only accepts applicants who aren't disputing their territorial borders. So logically, Putin had to invade to create the border dispute that got NATO to keep Ukraine from joining*. The plan since has been to keep the war going technically regardless of the level of conflict and while certain things (Ukrainian O&G, long-range missile development, US politics, imagined opportunity, Putin's health, whatever) moved the Russians to escalate, the baseline wasn't peace before. Why would it be now?

(*Obviously, that's why it's NATO's fault. If they hadn't had that smart contract in place Putin would have gone for more soft power, corrupt politicians, and coup-type activities.)[/s]

[schuss]

rod is happy to talk about his post-invasion investment in RU oil companies and how to work around exchange restrictions in the stock market thread. He's done so several times. No big deal.

"I'd like to ski with him, though. I'm sure he's a great guy."

Oh, so he just wants to selfishly profit from the whole deal. Makes a lot more sense now. He's just a greedy asshole, not necessarily an echo chamber or sock puppet.

[J. Barron DeJong]

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/st...7awrMYFgzVXp7A

I assume RU is pausing out of the kindness of their hearts, not because they’ve run into logistical challenges from every ammo dump being destroyed.

[highangle]

Oh, so he just wants to selfishly profit from the whole deal. Makes a lot more sense now. He's just a greedy asshole, not necessarily an echo chamber or sock puppet.

Naa. Chatbot rod is here to troll for Pootie Poot.
Rod might be Spook, but that stank of cynicism and bad faith is probably just an artifact of its second-rate programming.

[highangle]

Just to be clear, corruption is a huge problem in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian military. Let’s just deal with that after the war.

They began to deal with that in a big way when they ran off Yanukovich and Manafort and Tad Devine. They went a lot further when they elected Zelensky.

Your anticorruption impulses wold be very beneficial in Mexico, at least until Putin is deposed and his kleptocracy with him.

[MultiVerse]

We should be careful not to assume concessions are the only way to stop the killing in the short term. Even though Russian artillery is grinding away at Ukrainian resources right now, instead of the war grinding for months or years, it could come to a sudden and unexpected end due to a collapse of morale in the Russian army. Perhaps as soon as late summer or fall. Ukraine can still win outright.

I assume RU is pausing out of the kindness of their hearts, not because they’ve run into logistical challenges from every ammo dump being destroyed.

Yeah, just four HIMARS makes a big difference because surgically targeting & countering Russian material advantages on the plains of Europe is what they were originally designed for. HIMARS were never intended as rocket powered artillery the way Russia uses its MLRS as a kind of field artillery, but instead for long-range precision strikes at ammunition depots or command posts deep inside Russian held territory.

[highangle]

To counter the appeasement side: we probably wouldn’t be here if Russia had lost 10,000 Soldiers + a division worth of equipment in ‘08 following huge international support for Georgia with a flood of weapons and equipment.

Yep. And Georgians are in the trenches right this moment fighting for freedom Ukraine and us.

[XavierD]

Is this the Mexico thread? No. It’s a big world, we can posses concerns about multiple countries simultaneously. That said corruption in Mexico isn’t the biggest problem they have just like it’s not in Ukraine either.

I’m all for supporting Ukrainian efforts to resist Putin and heavily attrit a global bully. Their valor and courage in resisting the invasion is inspiring and we should continue to ensure they are able to do so. We can also acknowledge that Ukraine isn’t some shining example of what a democracy should be either. It’s a work in progress which has taken some self induced bumps and setbacks along the way.

[highangle]

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/st...7awrMYFgzVXp7A

I assume RU is pausing out of the kindness of their hearts, not because they’ve run into logistical challenges from every ammo dump being destroyed.

""Wolverines!" Shit! Now needs must design Glorious Just-In-Time Ratnik Replenishment System! Igor! Dimitry! Read Demming. Ensure Glorious New System this desk mine next morning! [taps]..."

[MultiVerse]

II’m all for supporting Ukrainian efforts to resist Putin and heavily attrit a global bully. Their valor and courage in resisting the invasion is inspiring and we should continue to ensure they are able to do so. We can also acknowledge that Ukraine isn’t some shining example of what a democracy should be either. It’s a work in progress which has taken some self induced bumps and setbacks along the way.

It's a well known fact with democracies that the first 246 years are the hardest.

[highangle]

We should be careful not to assume concessions are the only way to stop the killing in the short term. Even though Russian artillery is grinding away at Ukrainian resources right now, instead of the war grinding for months or years, it could come to a sudden and unexpected end due to a collapse of morale in the Russian army. Perhaps as soon as late summer or fall. Ukraine can still win outright.




Yeah, just four HIMARS makes a big difference because surgically targeting & countering Russian material advantages on the plains of Europe is what they were originally designed for. HIMARS were never intended as rocket powered artillery the way Russia uses its MLRS as a kind of field artillery, but instead for long-range precision strikes at ammunition depots or command posts deep inside Russian held territory.

The famous Katyusha MLRS that could stop a German armor advance cold was based on the thousands of Studebaker deuce and a halfs supplied to the Red Army by the US through Lend Lease, and advances in propellant technology supplied by American engineers 10 years before that, when Americans used high grade dynamite to blow the taps of the great steel furnaces Americans designed and built in Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Chelyabinsk.

[frorider]

I’ve talked about this before in the thread, but when people say ‘Russia is nervous about Ukraine becoming a Western style democracy’ they’re really saying Russia is nervous about having a historically corrupt neighbor become relatively transparent.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/17...acy-oligarchs/

Since 2014, Ukrainian civil society groups, governmental reformers, and international partners have been crafting the country’s anti-corruption architecture. Experts advocated for the adoption of a host of laws, and then monitored their implementation and sustainability. Inspired by the experiences of Romania and Georgia, anti-corruption reforms were based primarily on two pillars.

The first one foresaw opening to the public as much state-controlled information (such as registries, or information on public procurements or state spending) as possible to shrink the space for corruption. The second was based on establishing independent anti-corruption institutions from scratch to prosecute top officials.

As a result, in 2015-16 the Ukrainian government opened state databases, including real estate, vehicle, land, and company registries. Public procurement was transferred to the online system ProZorro (which means “transparent” in English), which now saves up to 10 percent of the funds budgeted for each purchase due to the site’s auction approach, transparency, and competitiveness.

Since 2016, around one million public servants have submitted asset declarations to the electronic declaration system annually. They must report their and their family members’ incomes, assets, real estate, valuable property, corporate rights, beneficial ownership of companies, bank accounts, art, fur coats—and even hard cash stocked in closets or deposit boxes. If there’s a gross discrepancy between their lifestyles and income, they will face administrative or criminal sanctions.

These measures significantly empowered civil society experts and investigative journalists to reveal and expose corruption, thus elevating the risk for corrupt officials, who are sensitive to any public exposure of their wrongdoings. Also, these measures contributed to the country’s business climate, particularly via better protection of property rights.

Nobody is glibly suggesting there won’t be any corruption in Ukraine after Russia admits defeat, but FFS let’s not overlook how threatened Putin feels by having a culturally similar neighbor taking steps to move away from the typical post Soviet oligarchy.

[jono]

Yes. And before we start parsing self-inflicted from neighbor-inflicted we'd need at least some guess as to how much corruption has been carried out by the people Ukraine has executed for treason or otherwise removed from power since February. There's a whole spectrum of less corrupt but sketchy actors that will be a lot less so by the end and the mechanics of corruption will be completely changed. It's just not today's problem.

[LongShortLong]

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/st...7awrMYFgzVXp7A

I assume RU is pausing out of the kindness of their hearts, not because they’ve run into logistical challenges from every ammo dump being destroyed.

Yay Russia. So kind. Now operationally pause yourselves back home. Then we can talk about peace, and how to fix what you broke. We'd like you to rejoin the community of nations some day.

[J. Barron DeJong]

https://twitter.com/iaponomarenko/st...qTNcwxZ6dPQSEA

[J. Barron DeJong]

https://twitter.com/phillipspobrien/...qTNcwxZ6dPQSEA

[J. Barron DeJong]

https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status...7q9V6Lao9NrT_A

I believe UKR still only has four US HIMARS, but another eight have been promised, so these attacks should become even more frequent.

[uglymoney]

They have 8 on the ground now and 4 more promised.

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk

[MultiVerse]

We should send 28 more for a total of 40.

If we also sent missiles capable of reaching Sevastopol, it could provide a way for Ukraine to negotiate an end to the Russian naval blockade.

[jono]

We should send 28 more for a total of 40.

If we also sent missiles capable of reaching Sevastopol, it could provide a way for Ukraine to negotiate an end to the Russian naval blockade.

+1. I still think longer range missiles are one of Russia's greatest fears. Nothing to do with NATO before, but I guess this way it saves face because it isn't Ukraine-developed missiles chasing them out.

Start with the bridge, though. Maybe just a few holes in the westbound side first.