Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Insane Hungarian President allows Putin to “Honor” the Crushing of Hungary’s 1956 Uprising

4,000 people protested

http://www.politics.hu/20150217/controversy-as-putin-lays-wreath-on-illegal-memorial-to-1956-soviet-invaders/

Shortly after landing at Budapest’s Liszt Ferenc Airport for a much-watched state visit, Putin went to the Fiuemi úti cemetery, where more than 7,000 Russian soldiers, most killed during World War II are buried.

According to an advance itinerary of Putin’s visit, he was scheduled to lay a wreath at a recently-renovated memorial to Soviet soldiers who died during the suppression of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, which says the soldiers gave their lives fighting the “counter-revolution of 1956”.

The renovation of the graves and monuments – including one with two black obelisks with red stars on top, which commemorate the Russian soldiers who fought and died in Hungary in 1956 – was financed by a Russian billionaire and took place between 2012 and 2014. The inscription “Eternal gratitude and glory to the Soviet heroes who sacrificed their lives for the liberty of the Hungarian people during the counter-revolution of 1956 October” remained unchanged after its renovation.

A little good news for a change: Russian tank & crew defect to Ukraine

During what’s inaccurately called the “Russian Civil War”, the Bolsheviks had a hell of a time with Makhno’s anarchist army in southern Ukraine.

Makhno was also a communist, but in his view, he and his people very quickly threw off the corrupt tsarist system and replaced the courts and village governments. His reaction to all the Russian speaking agitators who came down from Moscow was “we already had our communist revolution, and it went very well, thank you very much.”

The Russians kept defecting to his “black army”. It was a huge problem for them. They eventually found some Asian Russians who didn’t speak Russian to go fight him.

Debaltsev look like another disaster

From everything I heard, they killed a LOT of Russians, but it wasn’t enough. The ceasefire has allowed the Russians to abandon the line elsewhere and mass on Debaltsev.

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Report: Soldiers near Debaltseve ask for help, say they could all be killed
Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/politics/1045162-report-soldiers-near-debaltseve-ask-for-help-say-they-could-all-be-killed.html

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Russians Lie

Right after Minsk 2, they already said that they do not recognize the parts of Ukraine held by the Ukrainian military as actual Ukraine, therefore it’s their duty to “liberate”.

Russians are liars. Truth telling is a value of western civilization. For Russians, words are just sounds meant to distract enemies.

Otto Von Bismark — “A treaty with Russia isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

General Patton — “The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.”

Remember this: For Russians words are just sounds meant to distract enemies.

In Russian society there is no shame in lying, there’s shame in believing. Of course Westerners lie too, but they’re embarrassed then they’re caught. They hide it and/or deny it.

In Russia, the person who feels shame is the sucker who believed somebody. Russians consider westerner extremely weak and naive for reacting so strongly to words — for assuming that words have any connection whatsoever to the real physical world.

This is why Russians are so bad at cooperating with each other, much less with outsiders.

(Just to be clear, I condemn Patton’s racism against Asians. Those were different times. His general impression is relevant.)

Intercepted call reveals Russia’s concealment of Donbas casualties

Earlier, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reported that Russia has started directing “cargo 200″ shipments to annexed Crimea. According to the Russian human rights activist Elena Vasileva, Russian soldiers report that only a small portion of those killed in Ukraine are shipped back to Russia. Most are buried in the Donbas. Vasileva believes that more than 5,000 Russian soldiers have been killed but that only a thousand or so have been delivered to relatives through “cargo 200.”

Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11404160/Greece-threatens-tilt-to-Russia-and-China-unless-Europe-yields.html

They’ll do ANYTHING to avoid actually working.

see also:

“The Corner of Europe That’s the Very Opposite of Greece” (Estonia is anti-Greece)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-16/the-corner-of-europe-that-s-the-very-opposite-of-greece

A-10s Return to Europe to Stare Down Russia

TANK KILLERS!!!

A-10-3

The snub-nosed A-10 Warthog spent years in Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Now a dozen of the tank-smashing planes are back in their original stomping grounds—and on a mission to counter Russia.

On Feb. 10, U.S. Air Forces in Europe announced that the A-10s and their crews from the 355th Fighter Wing touched down at Spangdahlem Air Base. More than 30 years ago, the flying branch first sent A-10s to Europe in case of a Soviet invasion.

The heavily armed and armored planes will help “reassure our allies and partner nations that our commitment to European security is a priority,” said Lt. Gen. Tom Jones, the second-in-command at the Air Force’s European headquarters.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-10s-return-to-europe-to-stare-down-russia-20a0d902bd86

“Why Russia Fears China” – strange title, good discussion

The title is strange because Russia is a low-trust society. They fear everybody. They are trying to destroy everyone, and they assume everyone else is trying to do the same.

The short version of the article is that Russia is trying to diversify ties to other Asian countries for fear of being too dependent upon China.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-15/putin-fearing-russian-subservience-to-china-casts-wider-asia-net

Russians lie:

An extraordinary letter addressed to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, among other recipients, reportedly sent from the Russian Parliament paints the war in Ukraine as a fight against Nazism and says Russia is ready to “mobilize all forces” to defend stability in Europe, provoking both ridicule and anger in Sweden, after surfacing there this week.

http://www.newsweek.com/russian-parliament-warns-europes-longstanding-peace-jeopardy-306751?piano_t=1

Russians lie

“Of course we can open fire,” Eduardo Basurin, a senior rebel commander of forces near Debaltseve, told Reuters. “It’s our territory. The territory is internal: ours. And internal is internal. But along the line of confrontation there is no shooting.”

https://news.vice.com/article/ukraine-ceasefire-ignored-as-fierce-battle-for-debaltseve-continues-to-rage?utm_source=vicenewstwitter

I can’t blame them. It’s their competitive advantage. European civilization’s advantage is high trust (from truth telling). One creates savagery and poverty, the other creates prosperity. Ukraine wants to go West. So do many people within the borders of that artificial country held together at the point of a gun.

Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia

Researchers agree that they can probably all be traced back to one ancestral language, called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). But for nearly 20 years, scholars have debated vehemently when and where PIE arose.

Two long-awaited studies, one described online this week in a preprint and another scheduled for publication later this month, have now used different methods to support one leading hypothesis: that PIE was first spoken by pastoral herders who lived in the vast steppe lands north of the Black Sea beginning about 6000 years ago. One study points out that these steppe land herders have left their genetic mark on most Europeans living today.

The studies’ conclusions emerge from state-of-the-art ancient DNA and linguistic analyses, but the debate over PIE’s origins is likely to continue.

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2015/02/mysterious-indo-european-homeland-may-have-been-steppes-ukraine-and-russia

Non-Intervention?

(from a Facebook discussion)

As I pointed out during my PFS about Iraq in 2009. There is a case for intervention where people are being aggressed against and want your help.

“Archidamidas, in answer to a man who commended Charillus because he was gentle towards all alike, said, “And how could any man be justly commended if he be gentle towards the wicked?””

Okay. But don’t talk non-intervention for the sake of non-intervention, as your previous comment suggests (“not my problem”).

Violence creates property.

The answer to your second question requires abandonment of Rothbardian absolutism. The reasons are:

-Punishing Russia for violating the post-WWII order of respecting national borders. A dangerous precedent.

-Trying to put back in the bottle what Russia has demonstrated to the world — that only nuclear weapons = national sovereignty.

-Stopping Russia’s ambition — they have both said and demonstrated that they’ll keep going until they are physically stopped. They’ve expressed ambitions over the Baltics, Poland, more of Georgia, Khazakstan and Finland.

The reasons NOT to go are: too expensive. too dangerous. Too undermining of Ukraine’s self-reliance.

(Notice “non-intervention isn’t on that list.)