Ukraine reacts to fears of Russian invasion as troops build up at the border

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'd like to avoid a civil war in a nuclear armed state as corrupt as Russia, thank you very much.

Unless you WANT
#1 - nuclear weapons to disappear onto the black market and end up in the hands of a nut job that doesn't feel constrained by international laws.
#2 - One side in the war to decide 'if we're going down, you're going with me' and launching/detonating nuclear weapons (at the other guy, or just in general to get a response back to hit the other guy, ala Skynet)
#3 - Both of the above....

I'd rather see Putin removed from office, the invasion stopped with a complete pull out, and Putin and senior officals turned over to the Ukraine or UN for trial, along with international aid to Ukraine, including money from Russia.

The second half of #1 is already very much true. If nukes are going to start flying their use in a civil war is very much a best case scenario if only because it's better for one country to be irradiated instead of all of them.

[Broomstick]

Do you think I was right? I mean, I know living under a hard-right strongman regime must be pretty shit, but I can't imagine trading that for complete lawlessness and civil disorder would be a step up.

You were absolutely correct, for a number of reasons.

The problem of collapse/civil war has already been covered.

But also because a key point of this whole unholy bloody horrible mess is that national borders and sovereignty needs to be respected. There was and still is a lot of dissatisfaction over the map as re-drawn after WWII, as well as the re-drawing after the Soviet Union dissolved, but tolerating those flaws has lead to, if not a peaceful world (there are still wars and conflicts) but one in which local disputes remain local and do not escalate into global fighting. The world has demonstrated that borders can be re-negotiated and re-drawn in a peaceful manner even if it is a tense peace. If we want Russia to respect the borders and sovereignty of Ukraine we must likewise respect Russia's, whether we like how Russia runs its own affairs or who is in charge in Russia.

Attempts to force regime changes have never ended well. It is time for that to stop. It will not be a perfect system - any system that allows the government of a nation to abuse its own citizens/subjects is deeply flawed - but it is one that can prevent the sort of war that would devastate everyone.

[Broomstick]

I'd like to avoid a civil war in a nuclear armed state as corrupt as Russia, thank you very much.

I'd kind of like to avoid a civil war anywhere, the nuclear weapons just ups the ante.

I'd rather see Putin removed from office, the invasion stopped with a complete pull out, and Putin and senior officals turned over to the Ukraine or UN for trial, along with international aid to Ukraine, including money from Russia.

Money from Russia only works if Russia has sufficient money for its own citizens. Although reparations are appealing on a visceral level I think they need to be approached with caution. Inducing desperation in a population in the name of paying reparations hasn't worked out very well historically.

Frankly, if we're going to punish Russia, I'd opt for them pulling out of Ukraine completely, including Crimea, to restore the border originally drawn in the 1990's. Let the lesson be that you gain nothing from such an adventure. Leave them their money to feed and house their own, but push back the borders those of the Belovezha and Alma-Ata Accords.

[Solauren]

I'd like to avoid a civil war in a nuclear armed state as corrupt as Russia, thank you very much.

I'd kind of like to avoid a civil war anywhere, the nuclear weapons just ups the ante.

I'd rather see Putin removed from office, the invasion stopped with a complete pull out, and Putin and senior officals turned over to the Ukraine or UN for trial, along with international aid to Ukraine, including money from Russia.

Money from Russia only works if Russia has sufficient money for its own citizens. Although reparations are appealing on a visceral level I think they need to be approached with caution. Inducing desperation in a population in the name of paying reparations hasn't worked out very well historically.

Frankly, if we're going to punish Russia, I'd opt for them pulling out of Ukraine completely, including Crimea, to restore the border originally drawn in the 1990's. Let the lesson be that you gain nothing from such an adventure. Leave them their money to feed and house their own, but push back the borders those of the Belovezha and Alma-Ata Accords.

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.
I was more thinking 'Russia siezes all of Putin + his cronies/rich supporters assets, and gives it to the Ukraine'

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'd like to avoid a civil war in a nuclear armed state as corrupt as Russia, thank you very much.

I'd kind of like to avoid a civil war anywhere, the nuclear weapons just ups the ante.

I'd rather see Putin removed from office, the invasion stopped with a complete pull out, and Putin and senior officals turned over to the Ukraine or UN for trial, along with international aid to Ukraine, including money from Russia.

Money from Russia only works if Russia has sufficient money for its own citizens. Although reparations are appealing on a visceral level I think they need to be approached with caution. Inducing desperation in a population in the name of paying reparations hasn't worked out very well historically.

Frankly, if we're going to punish Russia, I'd opt for them pulling out of Ukraine completely, including Crimea, to restore the border originally drawn in the 1990's. Let the lesson be that you gain nothing from such an adventure. Leave them their money to feed and house their own, but push back the borders those of the Belovezha and Alma-Ata Accords.

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.
I was more thinking 'Russia siezes all of Putin + his cronies/rich supporters assets, and gives it to the Ukraine'

Good luck untangling Putin's finances from those of Russia itself, he's made sure the two are intertwined.

[Lord Revan]

I'd kind of like to avoid a civil war anywhere, the nuclear weapons just ups the ante.


Money from Russia only works if Russia has sufficient money for its own citizens. Although reparations are appealing on a visceral level I think they need to be approached with caution. Inducing desperation in a population in the name of paying reparations hasn't worked out very well historically.

Frankly, if we're going to punish Russia, I'd opt for them pulling out of Ukraine completely, including Crimea, to restore the border originally drawn in the 1990's. Let the lesson be that you gain nothing from such an adventure. Leave them their money to feed and house their own, but push back the borders those of the Belovezha and Alma-Ata Accords.

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.
I was more thinking 'Russia siezes all of Putin + his cronies/rich supporters assets, and gives it to the Ukraine'

Good luck untangling Putin's finances from those of Russia itself, he's made sure the two are intertwined.

depends which way, I'm sure Putin can untangle his finances from the Russian ones should the Russian ones end up costing too much money to be worth it.

[Gandalf]

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.

Putin is indeed the criminal here, but it's not like he can do anything without people following his orders.

[Lord Revan]

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.

Putin is indeed the criminal here, but it's not like he can do anything without people following his orders.

Well what's our goal here, is it to end the current conflict with minimal additional bloodshed, or is it the full collapse of the Russian Federation as a nation with all the negative things that follow from that. If our goal is the first then we should limit the punishment to Putin, those closest to him and field commanders that have been confirmed to have targeted civilians or other illegal targets as a collective punishment serves no rational goal here. However if the second option is our goal then yes collective punishment and as harsh as possible would be the way to go as we're really just sating our lust for blood there and guilt matter not.

We must remember that your average Russian is so far removed those calling the shots that they essentially have no say on the matter, also it's easy to say "you should disobey" when you're not the one staring a barrel of a gun for disobeying.

[ray245]

I didn't mean in the form of involuntary reparations, or for punishing Russia. Putin is the criminal here,not Russia in general.

Putin is indeed the criminal here, but it's not like he can do anything without people following his orders.

Not following his orders could get them killed. They've hardly had the most options out there. Russia is not really a democracy with legitimate elected leaders. But in reality, the world and Ukraine would possibly prefer peace rather than having the conflict drag on.

What the world should do is to try and help Ukraine get what they want, rather than what is the most "morally right" thing to do. If Ukraine are happy with a peace deal that includes allowing Putin to stay in power...then the world should listen to them.

[Solauren]

For those saying 'Putin needs people to carry out the orders', etc.... consider.

You disobey an order in the Russian military, you're probably killed.

And they know who you are, and who your families are.

And this is a country where in the past, all records of people have disappeared, to the point of official records being edited to remove all traces of someone.

There is probably a heavily implied threat of 'if you disobey, you're executed, and your family will be joining you'.

Would you risk your life disobeying orders if your parents, siblings, spouse, in-laws, and their children would also be punished?

[Ralin]

That sounds sexy and all, but could you give examples of people in the Russian military being executed recently for deserting/refusing to carry out orders? Much less their families? Because I'm somehow skeptical that they're operating on a North Korea-style "We will destroy your family to the third generation for disloyalty" principle.

Shit, even North Korea seems to mostly just throw people into prison camps for that sort of thing.

[Solauren]

That sounds sexy and all, but could you give examples of people in the Russian military being executed recently for deserting/refusing to carry out orders? Much less their families? Because I'm somehow skeptical that they're operating on a North Korea-style "We will destroy your family to the third generation for disloyalty" principle.

Shit, even North Korea seems to mostly just throw people into prison camps for that sort of thing.

What part of "IMPLIED" threat, didn't you get?

[Gandalf]

And this is a country where in the past, all records of people have disappeared, to the point of official records being edited to remove all traces of someone.

Has this happened on any appreciable scale more recently than Stalinism?

[bilateralrope]

We must remember that your average Russian is so far removed those calling the shots that they essentially have no say on the matter, also it's easy to say "you should disobey" when you're not the one staring a barrel of a gun for disobeying.

I've also got questions about how much of the truth is known by individual soldiers.

[Ralin]

What part of "IMPLIED" threat, didn't you get?

The part that sounds more like Clancy talk than anything the Russian government is seriously threatening their troops with.

[Lord Revan]

Honestly "you get thrown into prison" is enough of a threat to most people, Russian prisons are far from holiday homes. As it's pointed out Russian Federation is not a democracy and as such the question isn't do they got anything they can charge you with but rather what they're gonna charge you with and also if the Kremlin wants you to be guilty you'll be guilty no matter what evidence says.

[Gandalf]

Far worse could be said of lots of regimes whose adherents found themselves in court for various war crimes. "I was only following orders" didn't really fly then either.

[Lord Revan]

Far worse could be said of lots of regimes whose adherents found themselves in court for various war crimes. "I was only following orders" didn't really fly then either.

We also didn't execute or imprison every citizen of Germany in 1945, yes there's others besides Putin who should be punished but collectively punishing the Russian Federation isn't the answer either.

[LadyTevar]

This worries me greatly. I don't like the implications that they're in effect kidnapping Ukrainian civilians and forcing them to stay in Russia.

Russia Transfers Mariupol Citizens to Russian Territory

Ukraine has accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the strategic port city devastated by Russian shelling.

Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.

A Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: "All of us were taken forcibly".

Some Ukrainian officials describe Russia's actions as "deportations" to "filtration camps" - an echo of Russia's war in Chechnya, when thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.

It is an internationally-recognised abuse of human rights for a warring party to deport civilians to its territory.

While 140,000 civilians have managed to escape from besieged Mariupol, another 170,000 are still trapped there, the city council says. Relentless Russian shelling for more than three weeks has reduced the city to ruins, its terrified civilians hiding in cellars, desperately short of water, food and medicine.

The BBC is unable to independently verify the figures for civilians evacuated from Mariupol, or the number killed there.

Relatively few Mariupol civilians have fled via the humanitarian corridors agreed by both sides. Ukraine says Russian troops continued shelling the evacuation routes, which were supposed to be safe.

In parts of Mariupol captured by the Russians, reports suggest the civilians - hungry, thirsty and often sick - have little choice but to head out to Russian-controlled areas and Russia itself.

Matt Morris, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said the ICRC could only evacuate civilians and deliver aid if Russia and Ukraine provided safety guarantees, and that had not happened yet, though the ICRC was speaking to both sides.

"The sides have to be the guarantors and have an agreement to allow safe passage. They have to publicise the route and allow plenty of time for people to get out," he told the BBC.

International humanitarian law, he said, "requires that people should be allowed to leave, but should not be forced to leave". Warring sides should allow aid in and let people stay if they want to, he explained.

"It's a desperate situation in Mariupol - we've called on all sides to facilitate safe access in and out," he said, adding: "We don't have a team currently able to access."

Irina, a Mariupol refugee and Red Cross volunteer, spoke to the BBC's Wyre Davies via Zoom from a relative's home in Russia.

She said she and others sheltering in a bunker had been told to leave by Russian soldiers, for their own safety. The building was on fire after being shelled.

They walked 4km (2.5 miles) to a Russian checkpoint, and from there were taken further east, to territory held by pro-Russian rebels of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) breakaway region.

"Once there, you were to decide whether you were going to stay in the DPR or go to Russia," she said.

"Some elderly people that I know and whom I met at the distribution point did not know where they were headed and what for. They thought they would be able to stay in Rostov [in Russia] for a couple of months… and then maybe come back to Mariupol.

"Instead, they were taken to Samara [north of Rostov, in southern Russia]. They said they had no idea what to do there, and the accommodation there is provided only for two weeks."

Centuries-old ties between Russia and Ukraine mean that many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. But it is not clear how many Mariupol refugees have gone willingly to Russia, whose army destroyed their city.

Russia's government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on 21 March that a long column of refugees' vehicles had taken more than two hours to reach Bezimenne, a coastal village 90km (56 miles) east of Mariupol. About 5,000 refugees are being housed there, in tents, a school and a club. The Russian emergencies ministry has sent aid and workers to the scene.

On the way, the civilians were stopped by DPR rebels at checkpoints, who took their fingerprints and photographed them.

"Their data is checked on a database of wanted criminals. One of the key problems is the shortage of sim cards and not everyone has a mobile phone," the newspaper reported.

Russia denies it is forcibly removing thousands of Ukrainians from their country.

Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC that in his city "some are dying from dehydration and lack of food; some are dying from lack of medicine, insulin". Many bodies have been left lying in the streets, as collecting them is so risky.

"Russian soldiers just open [enter] this shelter and tell them: 'look, you have five minutes to evacuate in this direction. Just go, walk five or three or seven kilometres and the buses will transfer you to temporarily controlled territory [by Russia]. If you don't go this house will be bombed in an hour'," he said.

Dozens of Mariupol refugees are staying in a sports centre in Taganrog, a Russian city between Mariupol and Rostov.

Russian media report that hundreds have also been sent by train more than 1,000km (600 miles) north to the Russian regions of Yaroslavl and Ryazan.

Ukraine's defence ministry says Russia is relocating Ukrainians from occupied areas en masse to distant parts of Russia, including Sakhalin in the far east.

"After passing the filtration camps Ukrainians are sent to economically depressive areas of the Russian Federation. A number of northern regions are called as a final destination, in particular - Sakhalin. Ukrainians are 'offered' official employment through employment centres. Those who agree receive documents banning leaving Russian regions for two years," the ministry said on Facebook.

Ukraine has urged the ICRC not to open an office in Rostov-on-Don - something reportedly under discussion with the Russian Red Cross. Ukraine says it could be used to legitimise deportations.

But the ICRC insisted it "does not want to open an office in southern Russia to 'filter' Ukrainians, as many reports are alleging". "This is not our role, we don't do this. We are not opening a refugee camp."

The ICRC says it "does not ever help organise or carry out forced evacuations", and has only helped in two evacuations so far - from Sumy, a besieged city in the north, to other Ukrainian-held territory.

"We would not support any operation that would go against people's will and our principles," the ICRC said.

[bilateralrope]

We must remember that your average Russian is so far removed those calling the shots that they essentially have no say on the matter, also it's easy to say "you should disobey" when you're not the one staring a barrel of a gun for disobeying.

I've got questions about how much the average Russian soldier knows about the war.

[Broomstick]

This worries me greatly. I don't like the implications that they're in effect kidnapping Ukrainian civilians and forcing them to stay in Russia.

I don't like it either, not the least because I can imagine several nightmare scenarios coming from that.

[Dominus Atheos]

One good thing: watching the far right tear itself to pieces over whether it supports Putin has been some of the most satisfying entertainment I've had recently. Now I basically live on a certain website who's members are called "freepers" (can't link to them, the nutjobs like to counter-invade websites that link to them) just refreshing, watching them eat each other.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

One good thing: watching the far right tear itself to pieces over whether it supports Putin has been some of the most satisfying entertainment I've had recently. Now I basically live on a certain website who's members are called "freepers" (can't link to them, the nutjobs like to counter-invade websites that link to them) just refreshing, watching them eat each other.

Looking at that website, it looks like a shit version of Reddit

[The Infidel]

One good thing: watching the far right tear itself to pieces over whether it supports Putin has been some of the most satisfying entertainment I've had recently. Now I basically live on a certain website who's members are called "freepers" (can't link to them, the nutjobs like to counter-invade websites that link to them) just refreshing, watching them eat each other.

Looking at that website, it looks like a shit version of Reddit

Oh, while we're into Family Guy, what about a dance from the Ukrainian in the family, MEG (Mila Kunis)?


I think NATOs slogan need to be "sic vis pacem para bellum" and we should let Poland give those MIGs to Ukraine somehow. Putin doesn't play by western rules and its nice to se General Secretary Stoltenberg being a bit less flimsy in his English than usual. He is a seasoned and experienced politician, but the strongman role is a new one for him. I think he's actually the perfect man for the job now, as he doesn't have a huge, macho ego Putin can attack. (I haven't read all the thread, so if I repeat something, I apologize.)

[Jub]

One good thing: watching the far right tear itself to pieces over whether it supports Putin has been some of the most satisfying entertainment I've had recently. Now I basically live on a certain website who's members are called "freepers" (can't link to them, the nutjobs like to counter-invade websites that link to them) just refreshing, watching them eat each other.

I looked at their front page and I think it'll be a while before my eyes stop bleeding just from the terrible design of it. I don't think I can look at it long enough to read anything there.