Diplomats say Putin’s brutalisation of Ukraine has brought back darkest memories of occupation under Stalin
Nato must be ready for Russia launching an “existential” war against the Baltic states “masked by a blizzard of disinformation”, ambassadors from the three countries have warned.
Writing exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph, the top diplomats to the UK from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said that Russia could “pivot quickly” from Ukraine to invade the Baltic.
And they said that Vladimir Putin’s brutalisation of Ukraine is evoking the three countries’ “darkest memories” of occupation under Stalin.
The Estonian ambassador Viljar Lubi, the Latvian ambassador Ivita Burmistre, and Lithuania’s charge d’affaire Lina Zigmantaite, wrote the joint article to mark Friday’s 20 year anniversary of their countries acceding to Nato.
Turns out we should have been helping Ukraine against Putin’s fascistic colonialism instead of supporting an entirely separate set of fascists commit genocide in Palestine.
The issue is partially that we have no real voice in American politics. Republicans are highly responsive to the whims of their voters, Democrats work hard to ignore when their voters have demands. Republicans have not choice to do what they’re voters want. Democrats have carte blanc because they know “Blue no Matter Who” and “Any Blue Will Do”. It’s incredibly important to recognize this divide in electoralism. The policies of the Republican party are the will of the Republican voter. Republicans are scared shitless of their voters because it is a non stop series of purity tests effectively contrived through the alt right media. If you step out of line as a Republican, consider your career vanished
I feel like you have it completely backwards.
Democrats have always been “the big tent” party, which is part of their weakness, as their voters have a wide range of “demands” that are often, if not always, contradictory. You have to remember that this is a party that has to appeal to religiously conservative black people, while also appealing to upper middle secularists. They are trying to appeal to both conservative religious muslims, and at the same time the powerful voting Jewish bloc.
It’s not an easy tightrope to walk, but it’s not regularly “ignoring demands of the party” it’s “which of these two competing demands of our party can we ignore that will hurt us less?” They basically try to appeal to the voter, but that’s impossible because they are trying to please too many disparate groups at the same time.
Republicans have the advantage of having to appeal to a smaller group and set of beliefs, and then just get everyone else to fall in line behind it (although that is being tested now with MAGA delusionalists vs the traditional conservatives). Republicans have been pushing this fear of different people (immigrants, different religions)and liberal elites for decades now (as you note in another post, via things like right wing media). . . it’s just that they lost control of it when someone (Trump) rose up and fully embodied the id they had been fostering. . .and now they are just following the playbook where they have to get everyone to fall in in line behind that.
US republicans are doing the opposite, they’re telling their voters what to believe
I’ll be real, that situation seems pretty fucked, but I have no idea about US politics really, I’m from Wales.
That being said, our main political parties are essentially in this same state by the looks of things.
Its super fucked, but its also people conditioned to believe that the Democrats are out there trying to do work for them, when they are just as invested in the US monoparty as the Republicans are. And those people are the majority of people on lemmy, pretty much representing a down vote brigade whenever you criticize Democrats, or point out that they are part and parcel to the dysfunction in our political system. They aren’t adjacent or subject to the problem; they are the cause and source and one of the primary beneficiaries of the dysfunctional state. The Democrats are not your friends. They aren’t on your side. They have shown that at a national level they do not give a fuck about the polices they campaign on. If it wasn’t for Democrats setting the table for it in 2008, there would be no MAGA movement right now. Failing to go after any kind of meaningful policies or actual criminal prosecution of the engineers of the financial crisis; effectively validating BAU and the Bush era policies and tax cuts: they had no interest in differentiating themselves from contemporaneous Republicans. This left the primary criticism on the table and perfectly valid: that the extant political system doesn’t reflect the will of its users. Enter MAGA. A specific and reactionary populist movement to address this criticism precisely. And it works because its transactional. MAGA voters are getting what they pay for when they vote MAGA. The policies are horrendous and deplorable, but you can count on MAGA politicians to work to get them into place. And herein lies the crux of the matter: Democrats are not interested in the politics they campaign on. They do not work to get the things they campaign on into place, because there are no consequences to them for not getting the job done. This is a direct extension of ‘Blue No Matter Who’ and “Any Blue Will Do”. Democrats always have an excuse for why it can’t be done. Republicans who fail to get it done are replaced.
The Democratic party is the only one actually implementing positive changes, and half the things they do gets neutered by Republican politicians and judges. Infrastructure bills, student loan forgiveness, etc, are you not paying attention?
Republicans only fight for laws that hurt people.
I can’t argue with your logic here, and neither can I fault your conclusion. All that being the case, though, what can US voters do in this case?
Not vote? Vote 3rd party? Do you guys even have more than 2 parties over there? Seems like you have even more of a duopoly than we do over here in the UK.
Do you guys even have more than 2 parties over there?
No, mathematically we’re fucked by first-past-the-post voting, which means that any vote for a smaller party is a vote effectively thrown away, because under usual circumstances no third party can ever win.
Occasionally a single third-party candidate gets in, but these are one-offs and a far cry from creating new political parties. We’d have to get in some ranked choice voting like you guys have, which is what allows you to have as many parties as can get voters to vote for them.
There are some great videos on Youtube about FPTP vs ranked choice, if anyone’s interested I’ll look them up. But that’s what our two-party political trap is currently made of in the US, and of course the two parties that benefit from this exclusivity are not going to easily let it go.
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I don’t think this is exactly right. For the longest time Republicans were the same way, dangling a carrot of doing something to get votes but never actually doing it. I think Donald Trump has emboldened a lot of people to run for office that don’t understand that you don’t actually give the base what they want cause it makes you deeply unpopular with everyone else.
You need to listen to what MAGA and rightwingers say when they are critical of the establishment. You don’t have to agree with them and you shouldn’t, but you should try to understand why they make the decisions they make and come to the conclusions that they do.
The MAGA movement was able to fuckold the Republican establishment into doing the will of their voters. It just happens that the will of their voters is vile and wrong, and basically orchestrated through the distribution of rightwing media. It went from outside radicals to business as usual in the Republican party in one election cycle.
Trump pushed for every single one of his campaign tent poles. He didn’t get them all, but he pushed damned hard for almost all of them, and got or made progress on many of them. You should hate him. You should hate those policy positioned he pursued. But he did his voters right in that they voted for a person who would go after those policy positions, and he went after those policy position. These anti-human policies are what right wing voters want.
Here are is a video interviewing rightwingers. Pay attention to how they frame things, how they are structuring their arguments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w42DboOj-Xs
and a response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoP8PjWwn30
And what you are describing, Republicans in the business of dangling carrots; that was the republican party for decades. Its also been the business of Democrats for decades. The difference is that the MAGA movement was able to force the Republicans into action on their polices. The progressive movement has been unable to do so with Democrats.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=w42DboOj-Xs
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=JoP8PjWwn30
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
What they’re saying is crazy bullshit fed to them by a propaganda machine
Trump abandoned like 2/3 of his campaign points and hyped up the ones that mattered to him personally.
I generally agree with you, I think the one part I disagree on is the why Republicans go along with this. Sure some of it is because of the purity testing kind of stuff but a lot of it is just because the Republicans for the longest time have paid lip service to these issues but never done anything about them. Like with abortion for example. But then you have someone like Donald Trump come in who is just like, well why don’t we do all these crazy things. And that is what emboldened more people like him, with no experience in politics and no understanding that you can’t actually give the base the way out there stuff without alienating the general public, to run for election and start winning in very red areas. So it’s less of a pressure on the party from the outside to start following this new MAGA movement (although that does exist too) and more of an internal transformation of the party under Trump.
Thanks, trumptards.
Biden got 100 secret arms shipments to israel done while ignoring Zelensky. Bypassed Congress for israel, not Ukraine.
Blaming Trump for Biden abandoning Ukraine to support israels Genocide is top tier mental gymnastics.
Coming to Trumps defense and bashing Biden. CLASSIC LINKERBAAN
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Cognitive dissonance and a genocidal apologist liberal, name a more iconic duo.
Go tell your god emperor Genocide Joe to put in effort for Ukraine instead of whining about Trump.
Trump is not an elected official right now but Joe Biden abandoning Ukraine must be Trumps fault. Liberal gymnastics are truly something.
Average lemmy user when any one brings up valid criticism of Biden or the Democrats:
Valid criticism is appreciated and I’ve changed my mind on the genocide going on. That said, when one submits only posts or comments pushing a single narrative to the exclusion of criticizing any other politician, it’s obvious they are a propagandist.
Look through this guy’s post and comment history.
I wouldn’t say average lemmy user, but I have noticed a huge influx of astroturfers looking to gentrify lemmy and make it into another reddit (see r/politics for a prime example of that crap). It started with the shrieking demands to defederate from “tankie” instances.
It’s Russian bots. It’s the disinformation campaign the OP story is referring to.
Arms shipments so secret that we are here talking about them?
Yep because they got leaked. Real sad that Biden is using the same dirty tactic Trump used to secretly sell weapons to Saudi. But of course Biden does it to support Genocide, not help Ukraine. And Biden recently passed the free israel money without Ukraine in the bill. Because Joe Biden does not seem to care about Ukraine at all aside from optics.
I think you may be under the impression that “secret” means something it does not.
Strange when Trump did this to secretly sell weapons to Saudi it was a massive scandal and we all really cared about it. But if Biden does it it’s fine because only Trump would do violate his presidential powers this hard.
By the way do show me the receipts of these sales if they aren’t secret.
You speak only for yourself, there is no we here lol.
I really would suggest at least checking what the word secret means.
You’re desperately trying to argue semantics because you don’t have any actual argument.
Hmmm I wonder who is responsible for the aid money not going to Ukraine. Couldn’t have been republicans refusing to vote for it. Nope… That can’t be it
Oh look there’s still someone left that believes in the fairy tale of voting and the President not being able to bypass congress after being directly demonstrated of the opposite.
Trump broke laws to do that and the only reason nothing happened is because the stolen SCOTUS seats gave him immunity
All I see is “Thanks, trumptards”. Perhaps he edited his post or something, but I don’t get the impression he’s the one doing mental gymnastics on this.
And how exactly is orange man related to Putin invading other countries?
Probably being an enabler?
Biden is the one that dropped Ukraine this time around. Why only blame Trump?
I would venture to guess it’s because this time around might not have existed in the first place if Trump didn’t invest so much of his presidential attention to stroking Putin’s ego and having secret meetings with him in Helsinki.
But what do I know? I just wanted to tell you that you were doing more mental gymnastics than the other guy.
Wouldn’t have existed if Biden and the UK didn’t tell Zelensky to abort peace negotiations in 2022 because “they got Ukraine’s back” . Now we see they did not in fact “got Ukraine’s back”.
Biden is only on his knees for Netanyahu giving him as many Genocide bombs as possible.
Strange way to spell Republicans blocking votes
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Removed, insulting other users in Russian is still insulting. Attacking the idea is fine, not the person.
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Removed, insulting other users in Russian is still insulting. Attacking the idea is fine, not the person.
“Anyone pointing out inconvenient facts is a Russian plant” is a stupid argument to make. I do see all the mindless upvotes you’re getting while seeing all the mindless downvotes others who are actually citing facts are getting and it makes me wonder if the regular astroturfers from reddit have added lemmy to their list of sites.
You’re saying this while knowing Trump withheld aid to Ukraine on the condition of helping him manufacture dirt in Biden?
This is the cost of failing to fully support Ukraine, while supporting Israel in a genocide.
Is Russia really in any position to be trying to wage war on multiple new fronts? Poland just implied Russia is going to attack Europe. With what? Dry Russian wit and empty vodka bottles?
Russia still has a lot of men and has already transitioned into a war-time economy. All Europe has done is have Baltics and Poland (and probably also Finland) go through potential invasion strategies, the rest of Europe doesn’t even believe in the possibility of war. The only way circumstances could be better is if Trump gets elected because that old fuck will make sure to hamper US support. Other than that if you’re going to invade you couldn’t want better conditions.
I’m not saying it will happen. I’m going to say the invasion would the stupid and hardly beneficial for Russia and the logical thing would be to not invade. But I will add that I said the exact same thing about the invasion of Ukraine and we know how that went. I wouldn’t put it beyond the realm of possibilities.
the invasion would the stupid and hardly beneficial for Russia and the logical thing would be to not invade. But I will add that I said the exact same thing about the invasion of Ukraine and we know how that went.
The main difference here though is the consideration of NATO. If you attack Ukraine you’re attacking one country, if you attack NATO you’re attacking many, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, who have some of the largest military’s forces on the planet and access to nuclear weapons. Russia had reason to believe it might have actually win against Ukraine, there’s no possible way they can think that they could win against NATO.
He’s counting on NATO continuing to take the “let’s just sanction him” approach. He’s essentially hoping they’re bluffing while he tries to get the gang back together. (USSR)
They won’t do that if he’s actually invading though. NATO’s point is they won’t ever escalate a situation. That whole point is to try and prevent something like world war II happening again. So declining war on Russia while he’s attacking a non-nato country would be an escalation. But they’re all about responding in kind to an attack against them.
The idea in the previous comment is that Putin thinks NATO is bluffing about doing that, about responding in kind.
To answer your multi-part question: yes, he can and will. On all counts.
Don’t underestimate his will to destroy what he already has to obtain what he does not yet have.
With what? Dry Russian wit and empty vodka bottles?
With starving Russian bodies, local Russian wars (including a new Chechnyan uprising) a Russian populace decimated into the next three generations, the gutting of all Russian social services (including education and whatever else that does not directly serve the war machine) and any physical thing he can rip off its foundations and flog to international buyers (as he has been doing all along), right down to the last museum artifact or liter of oil, and served with as many mountains of disinformation as he can pay to produce.
No regrets, either. Once he wins and gets what he wants, which is all the ex-Russian land of Eastern Europe, he can replace whatever he stole – or so he thinks, because living things are as fungible to him as rubles.
Putin is a cornered rat whose time is running out, and who is delusional enough to actually be chasing dreams of Russkiy Mir (the recreated Russian Empire of ages past) across the golden fields of Ukraine. What he has done to Ukraine – and specifically to Ukrainian citizens – he will gleefully do to his own, as well as to those of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and anywhere else any fucking Russian soldier ever planted a successful foot.
He’s insane. Literally. Putin thinks he’s on a one-man holy war, and he will not hesitate to strip the homeland bare of not only his own people but anything he can convert to battlefield gains, no matter the cost for centuries to come, no matter if it starts WWIII, and honestly he’d probably enjoy that part. Why should we enjoy what he cannot? Why should we have peace when he has war? “If I can’t have it, no one can. Blow it all up.” And he will.
The countries I just mentioned know all this because they’ve had to live with Russia’s and Putin’s shit for ages. They too saw him take Crimea, and Georgia, and march on to Ukraine, knowing that it could have been them just as easily. They don’t think this is laughable at all. Anyone who does . . . well, I just hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Ukraine . . . Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and anywhere else any fucking Russian soldier ever planted a successful foot.
I can’t believe I left out the badass Finns. What was I thinking??? Many apologies to the good people of Finland, who have taken far more than their share of Putin’s shit – so much so that they finally just closed the border last November.
Just commenting so I can come back here when Russia invades another country
Why multiple fronts? The current conflict may be frozen under “right” circumstances, Putin will have several years to resupply. It doesn’t matter if Ukrainian allies have more economical and technological power than Russia if people in places like Germany cry that Currywurst now costs 1 EUR more than 2 years ago, and just want this to be over.
Interesting that you chose Germany specifically, which is one of the largest contributors, both total and relative to GDP.
That being said, everybody needs to step up their game, including Germany. Just send the Tauruses, Olaf.
If I remember right, most polls show people are against sending weapons. This might be why Scholz is cautious about sending Tauruses. The Baltic states have warned for years that Russia is a threat, even before Ukraine was invaded in 2022. But others didn’t listen to them then, and many still don’t take them seriously. The truth is, Russia is doing better than Ukraine’s allies because people think the conflict won’t reach them, and they prefer not to support politicians who would sacrifice short-term benefits for long-term security.
I’m not disputing your main point, I just think it’s interesting that you chose Germany as an example, which, as I wrote, is one of the top contributors, even adjusted for GDP.
And I explained why.
In that case, I fail to follow your explanation. What’s more important: Words/sentiments, or actions? For example, Macron talks the talk, but fails to walk the walk, as evidenced by France’s sub-par contributions.
In my opinion, the outcome is what matters. But also: Sign off the Tauruses, Olaf!
I think most people are missing the strategy of modern Russian warfare. Is Russian going to roll tanks and soldiers into the Baltics this year? Probably not.
Russia is using more of an asymmetrical approach to warfare with a ramp up. On the low end is the disinformation campaign. (News and religion: there are a lot of Orthodox in Latvia) Economic “Little Green men” Conventional warfare Nukes or the threat of nukes
I’m the Baltics they are in the disinformation and economic section of the ramp up and are worried about escalation.
Also note Russia goes up and down that ramp escalating and descalating as they did in Ukraine.
Yeah kinda, that’s how Russia has historically won wars and handled surplus population. Sort of why its so fucking big.
It muddies the water around, supporting the various states, and the public image of that.
The same thing for the Palestine genocide ongoing now, the US has a second war to supply.
This is where the drive to withdraw from NATO comes from. Because if you withdraw before your puppet master would trigger article 5 you have no problem.
The US withdrawing from NATO would make NATO pretty much meaningless, since most other NATO members are part of the EU, which has its own military alliances. Notable exception being the UK.
I don’t know if that is true. For the short term … most definitely. But in the end a lot of countries still benefit from the mutual defense clause. NATO would have to reinvent itself for sure, but it is not an unsurmountable problem. It might cause the UK and Canada to withdraw too meaning it will be the defacto European military.
In the Long run the US would lose so much in their power position towards China. Because if Beijing can just keep trading with the EU and make money there, the US will have a much harder time doing their powerplay. China will annex Taiwan and noone will be able to prevent it.
The EU also has a mutual defense clause.
That and many others in Europe. Unfortunately none that Ukraine was a part of.
Which is why Ukraine needs quick accession to the EU.
The UK is not going to leave the European security architecture, no chance in hell: It would contradict a good millennium of UK foreign policy, they’d rather leave the Commonwealth than have France and Germany, much less the rest of the mainland, united without them.
It’s the US which is the odd one out in the Anglosphere.
I think you are probably right. But after the own goal that was brexit… I’m not convinced of anything that has to do with these kind of things.
No need to withdraw from NATO if NATO can effectively prevented from accomplishing its mission (the current political state).
Wut? Is he going to invade using a pivot table?
He is Vlooking for trouble
If Russia was going to attack NATO the place to do it would be on the Swedish border. As NATO not deployed that many forces in that area, mostly to avoid antagonising the Russians.
In the absence of any explicit threat though I don’t think NATO really needs to do anything very much.
- Sweden doesn’t have a land border with Russia
- You’re probably thinking of the Finnish border. Here’s the thing, Finland has spent its entire history preparing for Russian invasions.
If im being really nice maybe theyre talking about a strike from the bit of Prussia the Russians own over to Gotland and then using that foothold to attack into mainland Sweden. But im pretty sure the Swedes fortified Gotland specifically for that issue so IDFK.
Sweden does not have a border with Russia.
This dude is going by pre-20th century European borders lol
I know it’s a meme we don’t exist, but we actually do. We’ve also got the biggest and arguably most accurate artillery in Europe.
Homeland defence willingness against a superior enemy is at 83%, one of the highest rates in Europe.
And seeing what we managed in WWII against Russia without allies or gear (now we have both), when the Soviets were well armed, it’s understandable Putin would be a bit apprehensive about opening up a new front on the Finnish border.
Rage bait.
Such fear porn. It’s amazing that now Sweden and Finland have become NATO members that they are subject to even more scare tactics! I think it’s ridiculous. Nobody is shelling Russians from Finland or Sweden for the last 7 years. Granted, joining AMericATO is a big mistake but mainly because you are submitting your national defence to US rent seeking instead of developing a European arms framework.
Let’s play “Spot the russian bot” i’ll begin ⬆️
Sweden and Finland aren’t the Baltics nor are they the ones claiming the Baltics could be next
There is a European arms framework, that is developed to be compatible with NATO and thus US stuff. Nordic fighter jets which have been exported to many countries can carry US missiles. All the while, the US is phasing out the M16/M4 in the USMC for a German licence built rifle. They have been using German small arms for a bunch of stuff for a while.
Also, it’s not NATO who’s saying the Russians want to attack neighbouring states, it’s Russia who is saying that, who has been saying that, who has actually been attacking neighbouring states. Finland and the Baltics have been invaded in the past by the Russians as well, and Putin is open about wanting to reconquer them.
Check out the function of nato after the Cold War. Also check the new American economic tent seeking ambition if you want to see how Europe fits into the economic picture.
Yeah, the country I grew up in joined NATO after the Cold War, and it is viewed there as a universally good choice. It had us join the West, which has led to a big jump in living standards, civil rights, international relations, and not the least, I don’t have to worry that Russian tanks will shoot up my granny’s house.
What is it that you see as bad in former Warsaw Pact countries joining NATO? Are you implying that they were forced to or that they want to leave now, or that somehow it is bad for them?
