Separatists, fk your referendum. It’s a good day to, well, you know what.
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Might want to blur that tweet, as it has dead bodies in the image.
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Whoops, my bad. Got it mixed up with similar stories. So I guess his point is more about just how dug in the OPFOR is.
On a related note, I was talking to a Russo-Ukrainian friend at work, who grew up near Mariupol, who is torn. He says that before the war no one used Ukrainian, the region was Russian speaking. He understands Ukrainian, but never spoke it. And no, he does not support the Russians, though their is a bit of a “pox on both your houses” sentiment.
I think with the revelation of just how brutal the occupiers were did more damage than most realized.
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Because Erdoğan is so trustworthy…
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Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev calls for referendums on joining Russia in separatist regions of eastern Ukraine
Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish long-term ally of Vladimir Putin, has posted to Telegram this morning suggesting that the self-proclaimed separatist regions of eastern Ukraine should hold referendums as soon as possible to join the Russian Federation.
He said: “Referendums in the Donbas are essential, not only for the systematic protection of residents of the LPR, DPR and other liberated territories, but also for the restoration of historic justice.”
He argues that incorporating the occupied areas of Ukraine into Russia would change the dynamic of the war, writing: “After their implementation and the acceptance of new territories into Russia, the geopolitical transformation in the world will become irreversible. Encroachment on the territory of Russia is a crime, the commission of which allows you to use all the forces of self-defence. This is why these referendums are so feared in Kyiv and the west. This is why they need to be carried out.”
Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, is referring here to concerns that should referendums be staged and produce a “yes” vote for areas like Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia joining Russia, that would in effect make any attempts to take back Ukrainian territory a direct attack on Russia itself.
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons if the state faces a non-nuclear existential threat. I think that is what Medvedev means by “all the forces of self-defence”.
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I find myself morbidly puzzled by the question of who these ‘referendums’ are for. You’ve got FSB guys crawling all over the place, inconvenient people just disappearing, a steady drumbeat of mass graves full of a mixture of civilian victims of indiscriminate shelling and bodies with signs of torture; so the pretense that the authentic will of the people freely expressed is on display is paper thin even by the standards of normal dubious electoral practices; and when it comes right down to it Moscow clearly doesn’t give a damn about popular opinion or they wouldn’t have, say, invaded Ukraine.
Is this intended to be just plausible enough to be spun into ‘something…something…principles of self determination’ to make standing next to Russia in the UN look incrementally less shabby? Is it so that the folks at home can get some TV coverage of the grateful liberated Donbas crying joyful tears as they line up to affirm their love of the motherland? Is it some cultural, organizational, or potentially even personal attachment to a certain flavor of legalism(perhaps the same one that induced Putin to, nominally, respect term limits by letting Medvedev keep his seat warm for one term rather than just declaring himself dictator for life)?
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It’s so the folks back home can be told that people in the occupied territories want to return to the Motherland, and so that Ukrainian counter-offensives become an invasion of Russian territory and the use of tactical nuclear weapons can be threatened.
ETA:
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In D&D it’s called “lawful evil”
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What makes it harder for me to wrap my head around is that it isn’t entirely classic lawful evil: things like having your enemies just tragically fall out of windows after mysteriously murdering their families and drinking some polonium; rather than getting rid of them in show trials that were only ever going to go one way but do have all the trappings of a real courtroom is much more neutral evil.
It’s more…procedural…for lack of a more apt word, than strictly lawful: in places(like nominally obeying term limits by letting lackey have a turn) it happens to overlap with lawful; but the assassinations, wars of aggression, feeding conscripts who legally ought not to be operating outside the country into a war, etc. it shows no particular respect for the law as written, though far too much consistency and focus on control and order to count as chaotic.
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“Everything that’s happening today is an absolutely unequivocal ultimatum to Ukraine and the West,” wrote Tatiana Stanovaya, an expert on Kremlin politics and founder of R.Politik. “Either Ukraine retreats or there will be nuclear war.”
“To guarantee ‘victory’, Putin is ready to hold referendums immediately in order to obtain the right (in his understanding) to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.”
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“Yay?”
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Hey, global warming solved! What a win!
GAAAAAHHHH!!! I hate this timeline.
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I think this is about to go pear shaped. Gods, we don’t need another existential crisis. We are still trying to deal with at least two of them right now!!
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ETA:
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