All: when you take a thread like this further into political flamewar, here is what we end up with: "all $country1 society is living in a hateful state", "I am totally for dragging $country2 into a bloody war", and "I'd sign up in heartbeat to take a gun to $country3".
Is that the kind of community you want to be part of? If so, please find a different one. If no, then please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. It's shameful. It would count as violence too, if internet forums weren't such teapots.
No more of this, please—where by "this" I mean any vector pointing to that hellish reductio, not just the ones that actually get there. What to do instead: have thoughtful, curious conversation. If you can't have thoughtful, curious conversation, please don't post until you can.
In Belarus, there are quite a lot of high-tech companies, many of them very successful. At the same time, there aren't a lot of big private enterprises (non-government-owned nor -affiliated) in other areas.
The reason is simple: the regime cannot appropriate intellectual property. If the thugs come and put a hi-tech company under arrest, all they can "collect" is .. desktops and monitors. The real value — be that in code or in employees' heads — cannot be arrested, and the company can continue what they did under a different cover (or from a neighboring country).
The regime understands that too, so they took a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to hi-tech.
Successful Belarusian high-tech companies are not in Belarus (mostly in Cyprus, some in Lithuania or Poland - founders and their families and some key people simply emigrated from Belarus once they become successful). And Belarusian legal entities just outsource for them. This is why they are usually not raided: owners don't come over to Belarus much or at all anymore, IP is owned offshore, and what is the benefit of harassing workers?
Epam has far few workers left in Belarus now. This past summer they temporarily expatriated a significant percentage of the company.
I manage about 40 engineers from EPAM. Before the troubles, 5 were in ukraine and one in Russia (but he was supposed to move to Minsk).
Now most of my team is working from Ukraine or Russia. A few choose to take on-site gigs in Netherlands and were replaced with more Belarussians in Ukraine. One of our team disappeared entirely, presumed to be in prison but our TAMs are downright cagey if we ever asked what happened to him.
EPAM is a good company, they saw the writing on the wall and hustles to get their people to safety.
"Technical Account Manager". An official point of contact for a customer with a vendor, often responsible for some amount of tech support as well as customer-relation management.
EPAM is an American company. It's clients are in the US, it's legal entity is in the U.S., and it makes profits in the U.S. And founder is an American citizen.
Belarusian (as well as Ukrainian etc.) EPAM are just outsourcing for the head office.
If you have a 2,500-strong manufacturing plant, the government can come and take over your plant. If you have a 2,500-strong bank, the government can come and take over your bank. If you have a 2,500-strong property-holding company, the government can come and take over your company and your properties.
But if you have a 2,500-strong software development center, the government cannot come and take over your software development center. And this is why software development centers strive in Belarus.
To be honest - I don't know. I was thinking - can FSB, as a result, inject some back-doors to NginX? I don't audit every line of code of software I use, and I don't know if situation like this would be easily spotted...
They take over your software company, and put you in jail.
Sure they do not get your IP, but you loose it.
I will hazard a guess that the software development centres striving in Belarus are very careful to stay entirely out of politics. Belarus is not a democracy.
If you had a manufacturing plant bringing $10M, the government takes over your plant, so now they get $10M. If you had a bank bringing $10M, the government takes over your bank, so now they get $10M. If you had a property-holding company bringing $10M, the government takes over your company and your properties, so now they get $10M.
But if you had a software company bringing $10M, and the government takes over your software company and puts everyone in jail, they now get nothing.
Moreover, where they had, say, $100k in taxes previously, they have $0 in taxes now.
What you describe is possible, e.g. out of spite, but it does not make any financial sense.
Everyone in Belarus is "very careful to stay entirely out of politics". Still banks and plants get appropriated. Software companies do not.
Except owners have foreign passports and never come to Belarus since many years. Only some middle managers are in, and key team is usually in the U.S. or in Cyprus, too.
I've been following the situation in Belarus since last August and it's really terrible. I admire how so many brave people look death in the eye and still fight for freedom. I have friends there and this allowed me to understand that there's so much potential in Belarus -- there are so many talented, intelligent people getting by in this adversarial environment. So sad to see how Lukashenko's kleptocracy regime wasted so many years and chances for a better future for millions of people.
Anyway -- you can help! Most of the communication, coordination and crime-documenting happens on Telegram and the regime tries to block access to this information. You can run Telegram Proxy [0][1]. The installation is fairly straightforward, mostly setup and forget. After setup you can register your proxy with MTProxybot [2], so that people can learn about/use your proxy. If you know people there, I also recommend setting up a private proxy just for them (i.e. not registering with [2]) and sharing over private communication channel (e.g. Signal), as the thugs try to block proxies, so it's a cat-and-mouse game.
A banned book in Belarus, called "Paranoia", by Victor Martinovich, captures the situation that Belarusians are in.
"In the summertime, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, young couples rent boats. They float, seemingly aimlessly, with the current of the Svisloch River, until they find themselves under a bridge. Then they row against the current for as long as they can, hoping to find shelter from the sun and from prying eyes. The premise of Belarusian writer Victor Martinovich’s Russian-language novel Paranoia is that this is impossible. As a police state such as today’s Belarusian dictatorship approaches perfect control, someone is always watching. The young lovers are watching each other, whether they understand this or not. The only way to be safe in such a society is to abandon love, but true solitude courts paranoia."
This sounds like an excellent read. Will definitely get my hands on a copy. I don't know what it is about East European authors' ability to explore the human condition with exacting clarity.
They have a good command of language in general, and especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic languages, there are often a lot of words that have the exact same meaning (compared to English or romance languages), but you have to learn individually how to use the right one to capture the moment best for your situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, direct, and concise with respect to communication and expression, in comparison to English. The language I speak is much more complicated than English, grammatically. It has 7 grammatical cases (all words), 7 tenses (all verbs), and 3 genders (all nouns and adjectives), which change the conjugations of each of the words, whether they be a verb, noun, or adjective. English has 3 grammatical cases, 12 tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).
There's morphological complexity and then there's semantic one. I grew up speaking one of Turkic and one of Slavic languages. Morphology-wise, both of those are massively more complicated as compared to English. But English is way more analytically powerful/flexible. It allows for constructions and frame of mind that are not quite possible in non-analytic languages. For even more dramatic example, consider math. The latter has barely any morphology to speak of. But its expressive flexibility is legendary if not unbeatable. Math famously allows for generalizations that simply do not exist in nature, just because reason/analysis allows for it.
It's also a matter of culture. For example, writing overly long sentences in passive voice in Russian is encouraged if not considered a mark of sophisticated writing whereas in English it's a massive faux-pas. Reading English I get the sense that meaning takes precedence over syntactic complexity. I can see why English might come off as, uhh, simple if one is used to bloated prose and reading between the lines. In math every word and sentence matters. I sense English strives for that as well.
Besides, English handles morphological complexity by way of syntax and massive semantic overloading of words.
Aside from logically vivid constructions and phrases, as a nonnonative speaker of English, I really like secondary/n-ary meaning to simple/common/"little" words that we are typically not taught as ESL (or EnglishAsNthLanguage). For example, I was delighted to discover "we made it" = "we are successful", "we made here on time" = "we got here on time", "we are making good time" = "we are traveling faster than expected" etc. I also love English constructions like "it's pretty ugly", "it's little too much" etc :) Basically, anything in English that doesn't have 1-1 equivalent in Slavic/Turkic languages immediately perks up my ears/eyes. Thankfully, there's a ton of that in English.
English has 3 grammatical cases, 12 tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).
But only pronouns retain those 3 grammatical cases, for nouns is only 1, or 2 if you count the genitive. Same for verbs, there are only 3 real tenses (present, past/participle and gerund), every other tense is formed with auxiliary verbs. Also, no verb-subject agreement.
I speak Spanish and compared to Romance languages, English grammar is so much simpler ;)
Thanks for this detailed reply. The dots are starting to connect. Will definitely dig into this rabbit hole. But it does make me wonder whether the English translations are doing the work justice. Like watching a dubbed series misses a lot of depth because the words and their meaning don't map exactly from one language to another. All we get are close enough translations.
What are the legal ramifications of running such proxy? For instance, if a group of people coordinate a criminal activity and it is proven that they used the proxy to communicate?
Could owner of such proxy become liable?
None, but if cops think that you are liable you will be persecuted. There were instances when having a contract with a lawyer would be interpreted as if you were intending to break the law [0]. So you can imagine how little evidence will be required.
depends on many factors, e.g. which country you live in whether there are extradition agreements with the foreign country, whether you are a native of the country you live in, whether there are exclusions of certain acts in your country etc.
Not "shitting where you eat" (never do something that is a crime in your own country) is basic opsec but the details are usually a lot more complex.
In a dictatorship, it doesn't matter so much if you use it in a legal way or not -- what matters, is instead if the dictator does not like it (or if he likes it).
If you use such a proxy in a completely legal way, but that the dictator thinks might make him lose his power, then he can make up fake charges against you and put you in prison.
I don't know, ask all the Arab Spring countries. In the history of regime changes by the West and by West i mean US, it has never really worked out. In fact, it always destabilises the countries.
Not supporting the current regime, just saying history has proven West supported coups don't work.
From Costa Rica to South Korea to Japan to modern Iraq to Egypt in 1952 to Lebanon etc..
Iran didn't work out. Some of the central American operation didn't work out. Cuba didn't. But things are not static either. Things have a habit of working out given a longer timescale.
Libya didn't work out. And if the West had succeeded in Syria, the groups that would have taken control would have been much worse than Assad (though there's the ever so tiny chance that there could have been an independent Kurdistan, so that would have been a silver lining I guess?)
>"Would an 80% success rate over the last hundred years change your perspective?"
People who live in those places rightfully do not give a flying fuck about westerner's perspective. They care about being killed, maimed, displaced, robbed of the source of income etc. etc.
I can only imagine what would happen if you stood in front of them and tried to explain your stats.
I do not think the point was that the successful Western backed coups produced a good, better, or desirable result.
Additionally I am not convinced that a independent Kurdistan would be a good idea.
I know Abdullah Öcalan has come under the influence of Murray Bookchin, and has had some very progressive ideas about how the politics of the Middle East should be structured. But in the event of the establishment of Kurdistan there is no good reason to believe it would be any less of a dictatorship than Iran, Turkey, or Dog help us, Syria.
"Mostly" is arguably a loaded term. It might have worked for the US, but certainly not for the native people.
Let's start with Italian fascism and Mussolini, financed by the US. Worked ok, everybody was happy. Next Hitler financed by the US. Worked ok, everybody was happy. Until their partners started to threaten Singapore and those pesty sunken ships. US and Britain suddenly not so happy anymore. Let's turn it around.
Next, coups in Turkey, Greece, ... and massive interventions in Italy and France. Military fascist dictatorships were of course great for their countries, and their people, esp. the workers.
Or East Asia. Japan's and Korea as prime examples but also most others, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Kambodia. Turned out extremely well for Indonesia and Kambodia, lots of dead socialists. Japan still ruled Korea via proxy military dictatorship, but everybody loved the new fascist systems in Korea and other proxies. A few thousand protesters were killed in massacres, but workers protests need to be fought hard, right? Socialism.
Latin America also loved their US coups and military dictatorships. The few socialists were tortured or flown out to the sea, and business could flourish. Happy times. Certainly the best system in the world. Freedom.
> The guy currently in charge is corrupt and a murderer. Is living in Belarus going to get worse without him?
If one goes by the example of what happened in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, the answer is very well: yes, this could happen.
Putsching away or otherwise deposing a regime is only one step. Without a solid aftercare plan (like the Marshall Plan after WW2) to empower democratic actors, the power vacuum can have really really bad outcomes.
I have no real dog in the fight, but the exact same arguments were made about Iraq and Libya. They weren't great places to live before removing the dictators, but they were much, much worse afterwards.
Not saying that's the same in Belarus, but that argument by itself doesn't hold water.
All those countries were devastated by the "democratization". I would like to see one example where that went good for the local population in general and where that brought progress and prosperity.
> All those countries were devastated by the "democratization".
I'm not sure what you mean by "devastated". Software development jobs market is flourishing and my friends from other industries are not doing that bad either. Are you watching/reading Russian news sources by any chance?
Software development market in Ukraine is flourishing because its completely decoupled from local economy with most people working in outsourcing companies. Hardly definition of success.
Country is in the middle of frozen civil war. GDP per person in Ukraine is still below 2013 and is half of GDP per person in Belarus.
Change in government need to come from within - not imposed by outsiders. Very few cases when revolution/regime change led to even ok outcome.
Besides problem with living in middle income soft authoritarian countries is mostly middle income and not authoritarian part. That’s the reason there is so much focus on corruption in protests - people just want more benefits/free money and assume that all money are stolen by corrupt government when in reality there is just not that much money in the country. Obviously regime change does not reduce corruption nor expand size of economy so all recent revolutions just made situation worse for common people.
> Software development market in Ukraine is flourishing because its completely decoupled from local economy with most people working in outsourcing companies. Hardly definition of success.
I'm not working for outsourcing company.
> Country is in the middle of frozen civil war. GDP per person in Ukraine is still below 2013 and is half of GDP per person in Belarus.
So why do you think people have not elected some pro-Russian politician? Or asked Yanukovich to come back so we could all go back to glorious-high-GDP-2013 times? In fact, it seems that significant part of population of Belarus (with their high GDP and all) are starting to see drawbacks in that arrangement instead. Really makes you think, huh?
> Change in government need to come from within - not imposed by outsiders. Very few cases when revolution/regime change led to even ok outcome.
This is very presumptuous from your side. I remember a lot of people going each evening after day of coding in cushy software company office to participate in revolution in 2014, risking their freedom and life. In fact, "People in internet say revolution is sponsored by CIA, but I'm still waiting for my paycheck!" was a common joke back at those days, so please spare me your condescension.
>Besides problem with living in middle income soft authoritarian countries is mostly middle income and not authoritarian part. That’s the reason there is so much focus on corruption in protests - people just want more benefits/free money and assume that all money are stolen by corrupt government when in reality there is just not that much money in the country. Obviously regime change does not reduce corruption nor expand size of economy so all recent revolutions just made situation worse for common people.
Revolution of Dignity started as a reaction to Yanukovich backpedaling on association agreement with the European Union under Russian pressure. You might want to educate yourself on the subject before patronizing us stupid poor people from "soft authoritarian countries".
It's amazing how every time Ukraine is mentioned in a thread, a poster (from Mukhosransk or some such place) suddenly appears to tell everyone about the virtues of living in an authoritarian petrostate.
Mine has 900 and this is my 3rd or 4th. I'm as western european as possible (literally living in the most western country in europe). My last 5 or so years, most of my social circle has been Ukranian, Belarussian and Russian people. My neighbour here in Portugal is Ukrainian and my family knows her for over 20 or so years.
95%+ of shit I hear about these countries is from US/Western europeans that know little more than what they learned in CoD and some Holliwood movies and making these ideological thoughts. They have good and bad things, good and bad people, but the view from '1st world countries' towards them is silly and it would be even funny if some of these countries and people weren't going through these difficulties
@odshoifsdhfs: Well, I hate to quibble, but it's actually 'Belarusian' (just one 's', you see). I've lived in Western Europe (UK) nearly all my life and I'm afraid I disagree with you fundamentally: '95%' of the people in 'the West' are quite indifferent to the broader region of Eastern Europe, but never in my life have I encountered the kinds of chauvinistic attitudes even approaching those I encountered from Russians. To give you an example: 'govori po-chelovecheski' (in Russian - literally 'speak like a human being') -- can you believe this s**t? Also 'US/Western Europeans' aren't living in tinpot dictatorships with aspirations to annex territories from their neighbours -- a slight, but important difference, which to my mind excuses any ignorance of the region and its politics.
> It's a fucking war there, people are sent to war to kill and to get killed.
For me it is "here". The fact that for you it is "there" makes me think that you should talk more to actual people that are living in the countries you mentioned in previous post instead of lecturing them over internet with copy/paste of Russian propaganda "news" pieces.
Besides, it might be a novel concept for you, but here we have an actual elections. People can always vote for some Russian puppet (Medvedchuk, for example) and "join" Russia. I guess majority thinks that "fucking war" is better alternative in this situation.
> GDP in Ukraine is ~3,5k$ per year.
Your point being? It is not like Ukraine was some rich local Eastern European Switzerland until sneaky CIA/Soros sponsored NGOs "destabilized" it.
> Your software developer friends are just outliers there.
I envy your tenacity fighting against ill-intentioned HNers.
I was born in one of those countries mentioned by @levosmetalo above and the common running joke was too "People in internet say revolution is sponsored by CIA, but I'm still waiting for my paycheck!" and that was coming from people that were _truly_ putting themselves out there.
Anyway, I don't care (sadly) for having an identity on HN anymore, several times I created a user in good faith only to be downvoted to oblivion discussing these matters. Yes, I know, I shouldn't be commenting on those threads. I can't help it, I grew up in a place awfully destroyed by communist.
There is no independent TV in Russian Federation for 20 years. State controlled media spreads all possible lies. Everything to distract from internal problems. Right now state breaks down peaceful protests, 1600 detained, each is fined by about $200, that's almost half of the average wage ($500). Opposition leader in jail by fabricated claim, requires medical help, poisoned previous year. Income is falling, retirement age increased. State leaders are corrupt beyond possible.
> Sure, and I know some people for whom it was also "here" and now it's "there" because they can't live any more in their hometown because of war.
I also hope that Russia withdraws their military and financial support for terrorists who prevent your friend from going home. However, it seems Russia wants further confrontation and is now amassing significant military presence in that region, so we won't have much choice in that matter.
> For you guys "here" in Kiev Donbas is also "there".
Not really. For most of the people in other parts of Ukraine who are under constant risk of being conscripted the Donbas is very much "here".
> And that's why Ukraine will never be a prosperous country, as long as you consider a "fucking war" a better alternative to anything.
Commendable sentiment. I would also prefer a peaceful world for all of us.
> The majority has been brainwashed by "western" propaganda to hate everything Russian
I'm a Russian speaker with some Russian ancestry. Please tell me more how I "hate everything Russian".
> to the point it would rather have "fucking war" against their ex citizen in Donbas and Crimea instead of letting them choose where and how they want to live.
There is no Iron Curtain anymore. People who want to live in any other country (including Russia) are obviously free to do so.
> Those guys in Donbas and Crimea also had elections and referendums, not worse than those in Ukraine
They are not recognized intentionally and and were conducted by occupying military personnel. Overall, we both know that "our town votes to join another country" is not how it works anywhere. Just ask Chechen people how it went for them, if you would like to know how Russia deals with such issues.
> they decided they don't want to live with someone who is denying them basic human rights based on the wrong ethnicity
This is just old Russian propaganda trope "Bloodthirsty Ukrainian Nazis want to genocide Russian-speaking people". Overall, I never felt that my rights were denied to me due to language of choice or my obviously Russian surname.
> Would you rather kill them all than let them go?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
> And since you want to kill all the ethnic Russians why are you surprised that Russia won't let you do it?
So you started your message with incredibly pacifist statement "will never be a prosperous country, as long as you consider a "fucking war" a better alternative to anything" and end it with approving of Russian aggression under flimsy pretext that they are preventing some imagined genocide of ethnic Russians? I sense double standards here.
> NATO is happy to have war against Russia or Russian allies to the last Ukrainian solder and civilian.
This is factually incorrect. Obama repeatedly denied lethal weapon sales to Ukraine during active phase of the conflict [1]. The main objective for European politicians also seems to be some fake outrage about Russia's actions to put a show for their electorate while continuing business as usual behind closed doors [2]. If anything, "NATO" would happily give whole Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end costly sanctions, if they could somehow manage to do so without war, refugees and overall humanitarian disaster (with obvious exception of Poland and Baltic states who are fully aware that they could be next).
Ukraine is a big country. When you look at the part close to Russia, yes, that is a warzone. When you look at places like Lviv... warzone??? Yeah right, you can just travel there buddy.
Then you also get which country is doing the destabilization, and it sure as hell isn't the EU.
> Then you also get which country is doing the destabilization, and it sure as hell isn't the EU.
That's a pretty simplistic view of how international politics and geostrategy is played.
ATO expansion is undesirable to Russia and counter to agreements made between Russia and NATO. Russia has also been testing Western responses to its salami incursions beginning with Abkhazia and now Ukraine. The most it has gotten so far are sanctions (probably better than a full scale war at this point, but longer term this tactic may not succeed as Russia keeps chewing away). American meddling and financing of Euromaidan to topple Yanukovych and shake up Ukrainian politics is what opened the door to Russian pretexts to invade a country whose borders are not only an unstable Soviet construct (culturally speaking), but which plays an important territorial role in Russian security (control of Crimea allows control of the Sea of Azoz).
You can probably add NordStream II to the mix, but that's more about gaining the upper hand over Central Europe in cooperation with Germany, hence the farce of EU unity, and in this case, where energy security and its geopolitical consequences are concerned.
Thus the need for a Central European bloc that can withstand the grind of American/Western and Russian cultural and geopolitical tectonics. The Three Seas Initiative is ostensibly supposed to accomplish this, exploiting American backing, at least in the beginning. Belarus had historically been oriented toward this center of gravity until the 19th century. The Belarusian opposition certainly leans in the historical direction and the only other alternative is Russian vassalage. This Central European bloc incidentally would function like a buffer that would also serve the security interests of Europe in general.
> Ukraine democratically decides to prefer EU over Russia, maybe all parties need to live with that.
Russia has been opposing the expansion of NATO for decades, and Ukrainian politicians at different moments were aiming to join NATO (rather than signing memorandums not to join NATO). I suppose, we Ukrainians can be upset at how unfair it is that our sovereignty is not respected, but that won't earn us any more agency. Russians are the ones with the nukes, overwhelmingly stronger military and with opinions on the matter, so maybe we've got to be smarter about how we navigate through challenges ahead of us.
> That's a pretty simplistic view of how international politics and geostrategy is played.
I see how profound is your sophisticated understanding of high art of geopolitics...
> counter to agreements made between Russia and NATO.
Do you see Russia keeping to any agreement it had with NATO now?
What I see is politicians of NATO member countries running around Putin like headless chicken, trying to decipher some "tough geopolitical riddle," while the later laughs, and keeps sending them his KGB agents.
I don’t know what to make of this comment; it’s certainly wrong by a wide margin. The entire country’s GDP cannot be less than I take home per paycheck. I thought maybe it was per-capita GDP, but the 2021 IMF estimate is $13k—almost 4x your figure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
That's value of GDP (nominal) per capita, year 2019. 2021 estimate is $3,984 [1]. Not much, yes, but that's in post USSR country that's fighting eighth year Russia agression.
And i'm pretty sure that Donbas (separatist region) is receiving weapons not from the west. So in Ukrainian scenario i'm nor sure who has destabilised that region. By the way if you look at Ukrainian GDP over time it shows growth over past years.
You are so wrong about Ukraine. We live in a democratic country since 1991. Russian puppet used force to break down peaceful protests, this started escalation. He made attempt than to criminalize meetings [1], laws described as "draconian", "dictatorship", and was overthrown.
There were democratic elections next month. And another since than. Different parties, different leaders. There is no civil war here, that's proxy war by Russia and everyone knows it. Russian leaders, Russian mercenaries, Russian weapon, Russian money, sometimes even Russian army. That's openly stated by Russian mercenary leaders.
There is no reason for civil war. Everyone understands both Ukrainian and Russian. My native tongue is Russian, I live in Russian speaking city, and I am grateful to our army that protects us from Russian mercenaries. Occupied territories even by founders described as fascist states. Life is rough there. Population greatly decreased, a lot of refugees scattered around Ukraine, Russian speaking refugees, and everywhere they were welcomed.
What about Poland, the Baltic States, Czechia and Slovakia, Hungary? Also devastated? I’m sure we’d do much better with our friends in Moscow calling the shots.
Calling the Revolutions of 1989 a "Western coup" seems wrong. And blindly stating it's better to be a puppet of the West than Russia is not really backed up by history and ignores the turmoil of any transition period.
Poland is currently circling the drain in toilet. The regime that gained power in 2015 did so with the help of Russia* and is covertly pro-Russian (watch their actions, not their words). It's no longer a democracy but an informational autocracy - like Venezuela, Russia, Ecuador, Peru, Malaysia, Hungary.
* Marek Falenta imported coal from Russia and owes A LOT of money to Russian raw resource companies. The restaurants where the illegal wiretapping took place were set up by Russian raw resource companies.
* "Obcym Alfabetem - Jak ludzie Kremla i PiS zagrali podsłuchami" (Grzegorz Rzeczkowski)
* "Macierewicz i jego tajemnice" (Tomasz Piątek)
* "Rydzyk i Przyjaciele" (Tomasz Piątek)
* https://oko.press/pis-wciaz-rzadzi-bo-zyjemy-w-informacyjnej-autokracji/ (Anna Mierzyńska)
I don’t know about all these other countries, but I am Belarusian (though living abroad now) and it’s not some mysterious forces that are forcing us to change leadership. I don’t personally know anyone in my circle of Belarusian acquaintances who doesn’t think it should’ve been over for Lukashenko decades ago, and that he is a corrupt, self-dealing, mini-despot.
Former Yugoslavia countries are doing pretty well actually. Genocides has been stopped, nations were able to establish their own countries, none of them returned to a dictatorship, all have democratically elected governments. Definitely better than before.
You have things backwards. It was an economic decline that helped to motivate the collapse of Yugoslavia. If things in Yugoslavia had stayed as nice as in the 1960s and early 1970s -- the era of the vikendica and middle-class holidays in Bali, -- nationalist grievances might not have gained ground.
That's a bold claim. It was a communist dictatorship first - not sure if there is a reasonable way to compare GDP of a communist country with a normal country. Then there was an endless civil war - that's hardly good for economy too.
Today these are quite comparable to other Eastern European countries. Croatia has a larger GDP per capita than Romania, Montenegro is somewhere in Turkey's league, Serbia is pretty poor, but still much better than Belarus and Ukraine.
The US propped up murderous dictators in both, more explicitly in South Korea but they also helped a war criminal entrench the LDP in Japan. Their shift to democracy happened much later and was not the result of a Western coup.
I can speak for Venezuela, and the corrupt murderer dictator party has been in power for just over 20 years. The country was completely ruined by the "corrupt murderer dictator" without any input from "the West".
The sanctions started 2-3 years ago. 5 years ago I had to buy milk and diapers for my newborn girl in the black market because the govt destroyed the economy. So don't try to "explain" the situation to me, since I'm living it in the flesh.
Not only that, they have been in power for over 20 years, with the highest oil prices ever. They've consistenly stolen all of the country's resources and destroyed the economy during all these years. The sanctions started 2-3 years ago.
The problem is that West is not helping them enough. Try finishing Iraq first before getting into other places. Building Iraq will take more time than bombing Iraq. It will need sending money instead of extracting oil. The problem is that, no, that's not what people want. You only want Sadam to go and don't care about anything else. The media, the NGO, the activists just move on to next target because it is always easy to pointing out a problem than fixing a problem.
By the west or not by the west, does not matter. Change of government by uprising is likely to end up in instability, civil war, etc.
But in the end, it is the ruler to blame, that he undermines his legitimacy (by running elections in a way that large part of the population does not trust it, etc), thus motivating people to protest and either win with large chances for instability or loose and get prison terms, etc.
Europe isn't the world policeman. Most neighboring countries want to join EU for good reason.
In Ukraines case, do you really think they don't want to become more like any EU country? I know plenty of people from Lviv. That 'coup' was not staged by 'the west', but was a force within their own population that want a better standard of life.
So please don't compare US involvement in any Middle east country to the EU and their neighboring countries.
Just because a country wants to join the EU doesn’t mean the EU should send weapons and foment a civil war there. It is scary and absurd that this needs to be said, yet here we are. Arguing for starting a civil war because of “freedom.” Where have we heard this before?
Lviv/Western Ukraine is also very anti-Russia and has been for a long time (pre-WW2). Ukraine is a very divided country and there is more than one opinion on what to do. If each region voted independently, you’d probably see Ukraine split into two states, one aligning with the EU and the other with Russia.
> Lviv/Western Ukraine is also very anti-Russia and has been for a long time (pre-WW2). Ukraine is a very divided country and there is more than one opinion on what to do. If each region voted independently, you’d probably see Ukraine split into two states, one aligning with the EU and the other with Russia.
For what it's worth, the Party of Regions, which used to be in power until 2014 and which got voted into power by South and East of Ukraine, won the 2012 elections with a program featuring signing the Association Agreement with the EU, visa waiver with the EU and joining the EU market.
Anyhow, if the question "Would you rather be in a political and economic alliance with the EU or with Russia?" might have seemed divisive to some before 2014, I'd think Russian aggression fixed that for good.
Yes, they do? The candidate who won was less harsh on Russia than others. The only region which didn’t vote for him was Lviv, who voted for the more hardline one.
We are united against Russia aggression. No one wants their city destroyed like Donetsk and Luhansk. A lot of people are switching their language to Ukrainian to distance themselves from all the crime that Russia does, myself included.
you really think having a civil war right around the corner, practically on the other side of the fence, is something any country wants to have? not to mention having an armed rebellion means putin's intervention is guaranteed and then belarus just becomes another federal district.
That's exactly what a hostage rescue should be like until there's no other option: negotiations, the peaceful plan.
So you know where the kidnappers live? You grab your shotgun to get them "Rambo style". Best case only the kidnappers get injured or killed. Worst case you and your family get killed.
It feels like too many people simply cannot go past the basic reaction "I find it may be a threat > shoot to kill". I find this a failure in education.
And while it may turn out at some point that for Belarus there was simply no other option, it still doesn't justify jumping straight to it. Just a bit of common sense can already tell you that the most likely outcome is that civilians will get killed by the thousands and this time it will be "justified" as defending against acts of war. Guns escalate everything. They may escalate your power but they also escalate the response.
Except in this case it's not "your family". People here are arguing for foreign intervention. Not everything that happens in another country you don't agree with should be solved with violent foreign intervention...
that's a bad-faith argument, it should instead be:
Do you really want to allow systematic killing of the opposition by current un-elected criminals holding on to power. Putin's intervention is not some kind of "hypothetical future danger or milestone in theoretic escalation" but has been fact since 1998.
Europe isn't going to do anything except sending their thoughts and prayers and direct intervention by the US is unthinkable (for now). Sending support (which includes arms, and mercenaries) is the only way that can protect the civilian population.
So you give arms to a bunch of people, they kill a bunch of people, and then you hope that the leader that arises from all this blooshed is better than Lukashenko?
All this while still not making it easy for people that don't want to live in that country from actually emigrating to somewhere safe and with a government of their liking. Yeah, the old "Hunger Games" approach for freedom spreading.
the Belarusian security forces are not as loyal to the Lukashenko regime as you think. They are all part of the same social fabric, they have mothers, brothers sisters who are among the population. The oppositions successful unmasking of them has been a massive spanner in the strategy of Lukashenko oppression.
What they are missing is being able to defend themselves from Wagner group mercenaries who have absolutely no such ties and couldn't care about who they kill. Sending mercenaries and arms with a mission to take out the Lukashenko regime while fighting the Russians who are infiltrating the security forces would be the only strategy.
Helping in other ways (from the comfort of an arm chair) is possible but it means cracking down on off-shore banking and money laundering (much of it takes place in Europe & the US. Good luck.
That's pretty much how this has been working throughout the history of the human race.
First of all can you provide any credible sources that will back your claims regarding Poland and its attempts to smuggle weapons? This sound like pure lie to me. Second thing: "The best way to help them now is to send arms" - this sounds like Russian provocation. Sending weapon to Belarus will only justify Russian miliary opperations in this country. So either you don't know what are you saying or you are instigator.
I'm talking about an action that an individual can take. Is it enough in the grand scale of things? No. Does it make a positive difference in a day-to-day life for people in Belarus? Yes it does (e.g. knowing where the local meeting is happening, where the thugs are etc.). Can you do more? Always.
Roughly speaking, $1m is enough to feed, and arm a force of a 1000 with small arms only for 1 to 2 months, with men under arms being responsible for their own livelihood beyond basics.
That's a very small amount of time. And without a training, and heavy arms, none will be a good match even against Belarusian standing army.
The challenge is to use up money in the shortest, and most impactful way possible. The longer men stay in the field doing nothing, the more money is burned on canned food, and toilet paper rather than diminishing enemy fighting power.
Yes, individuals can arm a significant amount of volunteers, and even keep inflicting the damage for a few weeks. A battalion of complete war rookies can do things if it strikes first, attacks softer targets other than standing military, and focus on high cost/opportunity operations like enemy's command chain, and political leadership.
But in the larger scheme of things, even $1m is a pocket change on the scale of nation states, and completely pales to what a military of even smallest European states can do both force, and material wise.
Yes, get your politicians involved, get your state involved. Even a third grade caucus can easily dish out 8 digit sums in US without even blinking.
Two can play this game. Look at Podnistria or Donbas.
Belarus split between a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 2.0 and a Totally-Not-Russian-Puppet-State, with several thousand young men's graves in between, isn't any better than Belarus today.
"It's the best way for NATO to put Russia on defensive. A solid wall of steel from Baltic to Azov to seal it shut from Europe."
Can you see the problem with NATO?
European countries are unlikely to finance the effort, our armies are for the most part underinvested and their deployment capacity very limited.
France has some capabilities, but it is also bogged down elsewhere (Sahara), because the Islamist threat is more acute for Paris than whatever Russia does.
USA and UK have two decades of nation building behind them and whatever fighting spirit is left, is reserved for a possible confrontation with China. Also, both of them are naval powers, while Belarus is a landlocked country. Not to say that they are unable to fight on land, but it is a disadvantage for them.
If you like The Lord of the Rings, we are sort-of similar to Gondor just prior to the war. Not enough power and will to hold Mordor in a siege.
The good news is that Russia is fairly strained and it is not a full Mordor either. More like a group of orc chieftains from the Misty Mountains.
It's exactly because of this NATO's best move is to commit to one defence line.
Even if depleted, and under invested. The power of EU NATO members combined will be more than enough in this scenario to hold a line with a few choke points in between plains, and impassable forests.
IDK. "Holding the line" scenarios in last 100 years generally ended up badly for the defenders: expensive and ineffective. Modern wars are all about movement, maneuver and sudden concentration of power in a spot chosen by the attacker.
If the recent Nagorno Karabakh war is of any use as an example, Russians and Russian-trained officers were unable to hold their positions against killer drones. Drones are cheap and their destruction in combat does not fuel anti-war sentiments at home, unlike a stream of coffins draped in flags.
But given that Russians are not stupid, they are probably working on some anti-drone strategy as well.
Saying this, it's not a literal line of course, but a meaningful strategic objective, and rough position for offensive staging.
Yes, yes, yes. Long lines on warfare are an invitation for a breakthrough by a more concentrated force, which is what every Russian military textbook tells.
The Anti-Drone strategy in Nagorno Karabakh would have been airstrikes. But the rules of engagement were such that this was not doable.
Beyond that, actual Russia support was very limited as punishment for Armenia's reorientation. If this was a full-scale war then the skies would have been full of Su-35s swatting out the TB2s and killing drone operators.
The key to small drone efficiency is that they don't need big airfields which can be bombed.
Instead the attacking force will be hard pressed finding hundred separate drone teams hiding in bushes, and forests on the frontline, while flying over enemy AA themselves.
There will be no enemy AA. There will be no enemy air force. You do not understand the dynamics of this conflict. Ukrainian AA is entirely inadequate and it's airforce is a joke to Russia.
Beyond that, these drones are satellite-guided. You can't control them from bushes and forests. The Bayraktar TB2 that did the vast majority of the damage in Azerbaijan needs to take-off from an actual airfield, too.
What you might be referring to are loitering munitions. Their issue is that they have pretty dumb guidance, so all they are good at is going to predetermined GPS coordinate or homing on radar. The solution is to overrun their positions and use your airforce to shoot them down if they do take-off. They are very slow. It can be expensive to shoot them down but you only have to do so until you overrun their 60km or so range, and for the things in the danger zone you only have to use mobile assets that cannot be targeted via GPS.
In small numbers and without actual drones to help with jamming these loitering munitions are also quite vulnerable to AAA.
There are some long-range loitering munitions, like the IAI Harop. However they can only do radar-seeking missions without a base station and actually do need a base. Additionally munitions like the Harop have a very large radar cross section from anything but the frontal aspect and are thus very vulnerable to detection by modern aircraft radar.
Some TB2 in Azerbaijan were operated by Turkey essentially, but I take your point.
TB2 may be able to launch from improvised positions. But it cannot land and resupply there. The weak point still exists.
The elephant in the room is also that the TB2s will get shot down by the Russian airforce. In Azerbaijan this did not happen because Turkey was willing to protect Azerbaijani airspace and the Armenian airforce is weak. In Ukraine the roles are reversed.
> Turning Belarus into Yugoslavia is not going to improve the situation.
It will.
It's only because of massive amount of guns pointed at Belgrade, and the previous civil war, you don't have Slobodan Milosevic still smiling on you from TV now.
Arming Bosnians did more to crack the genocidal regime than any NATO bombing. This is the fact.
I guess a lot of software engineers will continue to move aboard. Next door Poland got generous visa schema and hungry for tech talent with low cost of living. Salaries are getting close to Western countries.
1. If you are from Belarus you can get "humanitarian visa" for 10 euro, that gives you one year of work permit with no strings attached and no job offer priori.
2. Still getting regular work visa is very easy for software.
3. Having any grandparent with Polish origin grants you equivalent of green card. Given history this is quite common and not so expensive to proof with right lawyer.
I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their geography, or more precisely their neighbour?
If they removed their dictator from office, then it may be very likely that Russia will use the situation to do a land grab or finance instability.
If current dictator knows that, then perhaps in a twisted way they want to keep status quo, so at least people can live without fear of the civil war.
This is of course unsustainable. So what are their options?
Could Belarus withstand an attack from the East?
I am sorry if that sounds ignorant - I don't have much knowledge about that country.
> I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their geography
Prisoners of Geography is literally the name of the book determining this exact conclusion. Russia's history involves lots of invasions. (WW2 Germany, Mongols, etc.) Because of this, they want to secure the area around them geographically, whether by politically-aligned states or by controlling the territory themselves. West of Moscow is just huge plains, there's no defensible moat, so they think they need to secure all of the area until they geographically have a defensible moat for their army. That moat / natural barrier is the narrower choke-point on the left side of Poland, the Romanian mountains, Black Sea, and Baltic sea. That's also not-coincidentally what the USSR controlled. So Russia wants Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, and even Poland. That's why you see even Poland under Russian influence operations, as another commenter pointed out.
Indeed, this is incorrect. He didn't die in prison but his death was likely precipitated by the conditions of his imprisonment.
From Wikipedia[1]:
> In March 2005, in Orsha prison, Marynich suffered a cerebral stroke. The stroke was provoked by the prison administration when Marynich was denied access to his medicines after a very hard transportation in unheated train wagons from Minsk to Orsha. [...] Marynich died on 17 October 2014, at the age of 74. His death was officially ruled a homicide, caused by the stroke he received in prison 9 years earlier.
Well, the "officially ruled a homicide" part seems false too, the reference after this sentence in the wikipedia article leads to a tut.by news post, where nothing is said about "ruled a homicide".
But overall, I agree, his case looks unlawful and politically motivated, from what I can find in the public sources (the wikipedia and tut.by) - he was sentenced for stealing computers that US Embassy provided to his NGO, while US Department released a statement that they don't have any claims against him.
See it this way. Those corrupt "regimes" are simply making the money. Similarly, toppling those regimes is a highly profitable activity. There is an often cited claim: when Yanukovich was toppled in Ukraine, >$30bn disappeared overnight. The new "Western aligned" government did not even produce a coherent version of those events in 7 years. The most credible thing they say: he moved it out to Russia, in cash, on trucks. Probably, they are satisfied with the outcome? And that is just one episode of the ongoing saga.
Always keep this perspective in mind. (To me personally, it really helps to ignore clownish geopolitical speculations.)
> I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war.
What? Even in the hellish flamewar of this thread, that stands out as beyond the pale. I appreciate your substantive comments but you can't keep breaking the site guidelines like this. Please stop it so we don't have to ban you again. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892864.
Only those who know nothing of war could wish for it to happen. You're totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war until your dear ones will be killed by this war. Remember that Russia rockets are pointed all over the world and death of the human civilization is one button press away, so even if you're sitting in US, you're not safe.
Putin is not eternal. He's old man. He'll die soon. He'll likely give up presidency earlier. If Putin is all you hate about Russia, you just have to wait a little bit.
I'd send the two of you to bed without any supper for posting such shameful tripe to this place. Please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules so we don't have to ban you—regardless of which country you have a problem with, or how fond you are of grandiose rhetoric. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892834.
> Uhm, how about wishing for peace since Russia is allready big enought to threaten Europe?
Of course it is, I can do the math. And exactly because of that Europe should strive to bleed off Russia's reserves, and firepower while it still can.
If Europe lets Russia's massive armour advantage to continue, no amount of airpower, nukes, "smart bombs," or whatever else wunderwaffe will save them when 3-5 tank armies will pour through Fulda gap.
Not that I’m in any way justifying them but Russia’s actions in the Ukraine might be considered to be defensive in nature (from a purely pragmatic real-politik point of view).
Ukraine used to be pretty much a puppet state of Russia until 2014. When pro-western parties cam to power Putin decided to just peel off what he can (Crimea) since they are are gonna loose the rest anyway and start permanent border conflict in Donbas so that the Ukraine would never be accepted into NATO.
Not while their nukes still work. We had all this discussion in the 1960s, and the underlying reality of that potential war has not changed. The "border area" has got a lot more chaotic - Vienna is definitely the West, and Minsk definitely not, but it's less clear how aligned everywhere in the middle is. But an actual war would obliterate both sides.
In 10 years after that war, Chinese military bases in Moscow, Minsk and Paris will ensure European co-prosperity sphere and harmonious development on the continent.
Seriously - you want to risk hot war between Europe and Russia with millions in collateral losses because Lukashenko put a few dozen people in prison and single digit number of people died in protests? Do you also advocate machine gunning jaywalkers?
> Seriously - you want to risk hot war between Europe and Russia with millions in collateral losses because Lukashenko
You have to understand, the risk of hot war between Europe, and Russia has nothing to do with Lukashenko, Yanokovac or any of those pissants. It's completely not important, what's important is a power crazed mafia guy sitting in Kremlin fortress, and starting West every day, and night.
You can pretty much erase anything standing in between Europe, and Russia on the map, and you will still have the same problem.
Europe would be almost wholly dependent on the US for defense against Russia. Just 3 or 4 years ago Germany had something like only ~10 fully operational fighter jets and literally ZERO operational submarines. The situation has improved slightly since then, but the military of most NATO members is puny. France and Britain are probably the only European nations that would provide any significant military force.
> Europe 560M people, and the world's biggest economy as a EU bloc
The US has a far larger economy than the EU, there is now roughly a $7 trillion gap there (IMF estimates for 2021 is the US economy at $22.6 trillion; the EU will be around $15 trillion). The US economy is almost 50% larger than the EU economy.
China in 2021 will formally surpass the EU in nominal GDP size. It's fair to say it already has. IMF estimates peg it at over $16.6 trillion for 2021 and that's probably an undercount given how much economic market share they've taken from the rest of the world during Covid (eg in manufacturing and exports).
The US and China will continue to put economic distance between themselves and the EU; the EU will fall further and further behind. This trend has been underway for near 15 years now. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece, Netherlands etc have all suffered intense net economic stagnation since roughly 2007-2008, and that was prior to Covid.
Did you know that even prior to Covid, Sweden's economy was smaller inflation adjusted for 2019 than it was in 2008? The same is true of Germany and the others as well.
Let's condemn Russia always always always but let's look away from the US trying to create vassal states in Europe to antagonize Russia. It's like hearing the brain-dead old George Bush: United States/West good, Russia bad, very bad.
Let's see how many NGOs and US spies have been working to undermine Belarus sovereignty. Even in Syria American politicians accepted the fact that US supported directy terrorists who wanted to subvert Assad. IF Assad was a criminal but a good friend of the US interests, that would no problem. The US would not even bother.
Not to mention of course, Ukraine, where right wing Nazi fascists are supported militarily by United states and Europe (all the US's vassal states speak the same language)
By the way, techcrunch is a mouthpiece of the US based interests. They did not notice that Lukashenko did not accept any "help" from IMF or the WHO besides having been pressured heavily. Opening up your country to IMF is like giving them your keys.
I really hope people realize that indeed both USA and Russia mostly follow their own interests and don't see this as a black/white thing: you see the russian sentiment and downvote it, but don't see how equally biased the US one is.
And sadly HN and Reddit are usually political echo chambers for geopolitics
The form of this argument is "you can ignore the argument they make because they're biased, and you can tell they're biased by the argument they make." That's clearly not a valid inference.
A slur it is, but I have yet to see a more profound understanding of state of the country.
A regime that masterfully plays hate, both from country's own century long social self-immolation, and its own spin.
The crux of the issue is very much that Kremlin plays, and direct this bottomless reservoir of insecurity, and anger, but even without it, the country's tragic fate through whole modern history will keep moving it astray.
I telling people again, and again that in 1999 it were people in their completely free will, and sane mind who decided to elect a KGB official as a president.
For there to not to be Putin II, Putin III, Putin IV, etc, this country's deep anguish must be extinguished. How one does it, I don't know. Maybe there will need to be a self-harm reduction course of nation state scale.
Doing more of what I asked you to stop is no recipe for staying unbanned.
I realize you have a lot of experience in that part of the world, and your substantive contributions are welcome here, but outright slurs are just so totally unacceptable that, no matter how much we value your substantive contributions, we are going to have to ban you if you keep it up. Stop it now please.
As for me, I understand that my words sound very rough to HN audience. I'll try to be more tactful here.
It was hard for me in this case since I'm a Ukrainian who lives in Ukraine.
From my perspective, Putin is using exactly the same strategy as Hitler did – fueling hate towards others so it will be much easier to conquer them and kill them with no doubts.
My words are not just "slurs". There are facts, like Ilovaisk massacre in 2014 [1], that already confirm what I'm saying.
>I telling people again, and again that in 1999 it were people in their completely free will, and sane mind who decided to elect a KGB official as a president.
Did you know the 1st George Bush used to run the US Central Intelligence Agency?
Putin was elected because Yeltsin had ruined the country beforethen and he was the only credible alternative as it was clear the US would never allow the Communists or Socialists to take power. So the only choices left were Yeltsin Yeltsin 2, and Putin. People understandanly chose Putin as Yeltsin's policies were just done ruining millions of lives.
It has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with the fact that Russia was in ruins, and that Putin was the only option that wasn't going to be interfered against again. So people voted for Putin. You probably would have done the same.
You know South Korea was a dictatorship for many after the Korean War ended? The first dictator so loved by the US that they flew him to Hawaii to live out his life when people revolted against the regime. The second dictator got approval from the US.
Yes, North Korea is bad, but after having 85% of buildings and a larger proportional civillian death toll than Vietnam or WW2, I find it not strange they turned into a closed off dictatorship.
>Russian accusations of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets did not register with the Americans at all. But for the North Koreans, living in fear of B-29 attacks for nearly three years, including the possibility of atomic bombs, the American air war left a deep and lasting impression. The DPRK government never forgot the lesson of North Korea's vulnerability to American air attack, and for half a century after the Armistice continued to strengthen anti-aircraft defenses, build underground installations, and eventually develop nuclear weapons to ensure that North Korea would not find itself in such a position again. ... The war against the United States, more than any other single factor, gave North Koreans a collective sense of anxiety and fear of outside threats that would continue long after the war's end.
I really don't understand what are these protesters trying to achieve. I like Belarus and spent years there. Hard to guess why would anyone want to shake the boat and risk the country getting annexed by Russia.
The choice is simple: Lukashenka or Putin. I'd pick Lukashenka, at least some form of quasi-independent Belarus is better than none at all. It is so patently obvious that no non-manipulated Belarus will be allowed to exist... Just because all country is Russian speaking - even to a bigger degree than Crimea and is wholly owned by the Russian propaganda reality tunnel.
Because of the history in those places, new Belarus will immediately try to join EU and NATO. That is an option which Russia will try to prevent. As history shows there are some windows of opportunity for the things to go either way. It seems that the major escalation is coming in Donbass - Ukraine has beefed up the forces, and in particular brought in the Turkish drones which (being very successful against Russian made tanks and air defenses) provided for the recent blitzkrieg in Azerbaijan (and the very cake-in-the-face moment for Russia who supported Armenia in that war), and Russia has massed up large force on the Donbass border - which would probably result in large involvement and losses for Russia, and that may be the window of opportunity for the things to quickly change. Of course it may also be a last stand nothing to lose moment for Russia and it will just force its way in Belarus.
The important thing about drone warfare campaigns is that they are only successful if the enemy is unwilling to challenge your air supremacy over your own territory.
This is the case in Ukraine right now and in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia is unwilling, right now, to challenge all of Ukrainian airspace, and Armenia/Russia was unwilling to challenge Azerbaijani airspace.
The moment this change is when the drone strategy is no longer effective. Drones only work when you have air supremacy over at least a staging area. When you do not, then there is not much to do.
Also, Russia has it's own drones, which they are not using because they are in the defensive position right now.
If there is a prompt for a Russian advancement or if the line becomes untenable, the drone-based strategies will collapse and the conflict will turn unless Ukraine can muster up something else. Simply put, Ukraine has no hope at all of contesting air supremacy with Russia. It's air force is incomparably worse, and drones have no anti-air capacity.
But we are not there. Russia is nowhere near attempting a full-scale invasion and hasn't, they limited themselves to taking the Donbass and Crimea and defending it strictly, more or less.
As for Russia in Armenia, there was not really any cake-on-the-face. Russia's policy was to stand-by unless Azerbaijan was threatening Armenia proper. Maybe Armenia could have negotiated another arrangement had their orientation been different, but as it stood Russia was unwilling to do much at all in the NK conflict.
As it stands the balance of power is still overwhelmingly in the favor of Russia and it is not close.
You like many is missing Turkey in your picture. There is a lot of points to discuss. I'll just point that the Azerbaijan airspace in the war zone was patrolled by Turkish F-16s, so Armenia couldn't really fly anything there to attack the drones. Given Turkish interest in the Black Sea area happenings, their support for Georgia leading to 2008, direct support for Azerbaijan in 2020, kicking Russian butt in Syria and Libya in 2019/2020 (by using the same drones) and the Ukraine's course toward NATO and the Ukraine's open increasing military cooperation with Turkey who is the most willing and enthusiastic NATO member to kick Russian butt on Black Sea ... - basically i see an Azerbaijan style scenario coming to Donbass, only much more larger-scale and bloody given the amount of Russian forces there.
Turkey is not going to fight the Russian airforce in the Donbass which is bolstered by the most advanced IADS and modern jets with F-16s. It would be a horribly bad idea.
Turkey never fought Russia in Syria. They fought Assad's government with some help from Russian irregulars, even then they got stalled and recently had losses. Russia was however unwilling to escalate and there were no air battles, for example.
that is the key point. Turkey mastered how to use drones to kill Pantsir-S1 in Syria, and immediately applied that in Libya and Azerbaijan with great success. Pantsir-S1 - the first were brought to Donbass in August 2014 with the tank battalions which hit near Ilovaysk - is what caused Ukraine to stop using air force in Donbass. With Pantsir-S1 advantage removed, the tank-based Russian forces there would become much easy to deal with for Ukrainian air force and especially for the high-precision munition what is used from the Turkish drones.
>modern jets
Russia is really far from sending airforce there, while Ukraine doesn't have much barriers for allowing the F-16 to fight there - as result the F-16s will appear there earlier thus putting Russia in the position of the one escalating conflict if Russia decides to bring the airforce. And if Russia does decide to send the planes in the outcome is far from obvious- while F-16 is older and worse in direct dogfight than the modern Russian planes it isn't that important as for the last 40 years USSR/Russian planes were mostly shot down from stand-off distance where NATO weaponry and situation awareness is better.
Pantsir is basically a truck mounted Tunguska. It is not the real threat, the real threat is S-300 and S-400 with interceptor cover. Turkey has had no luck against that at all.
Pantsir is not even an IADS. It is at its core 50 year old technology. S300 and S400 are fundamentally different and an order of magnitude more dangerous, they are real air defence systems.
The F-16 would have no situational awareness advantage. It would be without any AWACS and the Russian jets would be networked into the S400 system and sharing data. They would have the clear and obvious situational awareness advantage.
And this is only if Turkey is willing to fight the Russian airforce. So far even in Syria Turkey has not dated to do so, there is no chance Turkey will dare to do so that close to Russia.
>Pantsir is basically a truck mounted Tunguska. It is not the real threat
it is a very effective system against 4th gen at the close range. As a result one has to use high-precision stand-off weapons in the presence of Pantsir . Ukraine doesn't have such weapons, and this is why Russian tanks operated so freely there. Turkey does have it and is using those weapons from the drones - that is how they have been so effectively taking out Pantsirs and Russian made armor in all those places recently.
Russia isn't going to deploy S-300/400 class of the systems in Donbass. There is pretty specific parameter envelope for fighting there without escalating it to the next level. Neither side has interest in doing so, at least currently. That also basically makes Russian jets non-participants there.
>there is no chance Turkey will dare to do so that close to Russia.
That is the point here that Ukraine is that chance for Turkey to get that close without officially fighting Russia, only supposedly helping Ukraine on its official territory like they did in Azerbaijan (and like Russia did in Syria - right near the Turkey btw, and, similar to Russia in Syria, Turkey can bring a lot into Ukraine, including AWACS - i think it is Ukrainians who may be not ready for that level of Turkish involvement - i mean for example my great-grandfather, a peasant from Kiev region, fought in the Russo-Ottoman war just 144 years ago and the historic memory of Ottoman rule and power projection in the Black Sea region is still alive). It isn't an open frontal war, it is more like a power- and kind of chess pieces moving play. No country wants to be slotted into a very disadvantageous position of an open aggressor - thus officially there is no Russia in Donbass and this is why it can't send S-300/400 there - and the play is to move as far and as aggressively as possible without being slotted that way.
>And this is only if Turkey is willing to fight the Russian airforce. So far even in Syria Turkey has not dated to do so
actually Turkey did it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo... . It was pretty clear demonstration of force. Russia didn't dare to respond in kind - that would be a major escalation Russia couldn't sustain as among other factors the number of Russian planes in Syria, and especially modern planes capable of dealing with F-16s, is miniscule.
Ukraine has to modernize army (including anti-air), stabilize economy (around 3% year to year growth prior to COVID). With each year more and more people understand that Russia is, unite against aggressor. It forces our government to implement much needed reforms. Meanwhile Russia economy is crumbling. All we need is time.
Unfortunately question today is not about deoccupation, but about preserving our freedom and sovereignty.
It's strange that any of this is up for discussion. If Russia wants Ukraine, they're going to take it. Ukraine has no ability to fight with Russia. NATO isn't going to do anything directly (they'll push some weapons into Ukraine, that's it).
What's going to happen is that Russia will slice Ukraine at the Dnieper River and also take all of Ukraine's Black Sea territory. That will include taking Odsesa and Kharkiv. By taking the territory south of Odesa, they'll get a large border with Moldova, and then they'll annex Moldova at some point or otherwise entirely control it as a puppet.
There is no scenario where this doesn't happen. When Putin took Crimea, taking the rest of Ukraine's coastal waters was an obvious and inevitable step. The only thing left is timing, whenever Putin decides an ideal time to do it is.
There's nothing the West can do to Russia at this point to stop any of this and Putin knows that. No nation in the West is going to war with Russia over these lands.
The prime purpose of NATO is deterrence; no-one wants to be forced into a shooting war - hence I expect NATO to be very wary of accepting a member which may invoke article 5 pretty much the moment the accession ceremony is over.
The Ukraine would have a much easier time getting into NATO if relations with Russia were cordial; however, as the mere act of exercising their sovereignty to join an alliance of their choosing is sufficient to prevent cordial relations with Russia...
The problem, obviously, being that Russia is not content to be secure within its borders, but also desires to have a say in the affairs of neighbouring countries (Which, incidentally, makes these countries feel much less secure, hence making them more eager to join alliances to improve their lot, precisely the scenario Russia wishes to avoid.)
There is no point of deterrence when if Ukraine is gone, and you have Russian tanks in Vienna in one week, Munich the other, and the rest of Europe in a month.
No, you will not. Russia cannot invade Vienna or Munich. Germany, France and Italy are each powerful enough to stall the Russian offensive. Russia will not even attempt it.
Ukraine in comparison has a miserably weak military that is strongly outdated compared to Russia.
Russia only has 3000 tanks in service. The rest are mothballed. That's not half, that's 75+%.
Even looking in total, the vast majority of these "12 000" tanks are in fact T-72s, 9000 of them. We already know how T-72s fare against modern tanks.
For sure, 3000 decent MBTs is a formidable force. But 3000 vs 1000 is not going to let Russia steamroll when their air force is set-up for defence and not offense. Even an advantage of 3:1 is not going to do you much good when your opponent has absolute air supremacy.
A Russian offensive into Western Europe will definitely get stalled, there is no question about it.
> The Ukraine would have a much easier time getting into NATO if relations with Russia were cordial
If relations with Russia were cordial, the Ukraine would have no need to get into NATO to begin with. In that ideal world, things would look different; we don't live in that world, sadly.
I don't think anyone who wants to get rid of Putin expected a change on the same day and gives up if that doesn't work. It will take time and a lot of work. (Unless they want an assassination)
I personally don't have a ton of trust in polls like that (referring to the Russian one). It is a strong claim to make that Putin is more popular in Russia than Biden in the US.
It's not a strong claim. He is absolutely a lot more popular. Popularity doesn't work in the same way as in the U.S., in the Orthodox culture where there is no concept of independent opinion: doublethink is innate.
Russian thinking is wholly totalitarian, in the good old Hitleresque sense (while ofc, Russian state is absolutely NOT totalitarian, it's just a soft dictatorship not unlike vast majority of governments in the poor world). Totalitarian thinking means that Putin is "us", i.e. government, State overall, country, nation, and society are the same, they are inseparable: most Russians could not explain how is "society" is different from "state", or discard the whole concept of "society" as Western weed. Rejecting Putin thus means self-rejecting. Very few people can even think of it.
Young people have been sold the promise that working hard and getting educated means they can have a nice life. Now that either needs to be fulfilled (cutting corruption, upsetting Russia etc). Or the rest of the country needs to admit it was a lie and watch all the young, educated, hard working people leave for the west.
This isn't specific to Belarus, only the local details (democracy, Russia etc) differentiate it from say Hong Kong or brexit Britian really.
This is a pipe dream. If someone who isn't a Putin handpicked puppet gets elected, country will be taken over. Face reality: even the Belarusian KGB people are trained in Moscow (they don't have an academy of their own, just kept things the way they were in Soviet times). It's just a facade of independence. Whatever small bits of real independence exist, are only there of Lukashenka's personal ambitions to "own" the country - with him gone, nothing at all (and not even opinion of majority of people who are Russian at heard and see their independence as a historical fluke) will hold Putin from formally annexing the country.
To make a point from a different perspective: some environments / countries / regions are so FUBARed by decades of bad governance that emigration is a much, much easier way out than trying to change the system from within and possibly risking prison, beating to death, serious consequences for your family etc. Cynicism and learned helplessness are just a description of what people actually live in there.
Of course, then you have zombie regimes holding to power forever, because people who would challenge them most effectively are outside the country. Iran, Russia etc.
Navalny returned to Russia precisely because he did not want to be seen as yet another emigree who utters advice from abroad. He will pay with his life for that courage and other people will think twice before becoming the next anti-regime icons.
Authoritarian states are very good at intimidating people. What they cannot usually control is the economy, that is a major weakness in their armor. That is one of the reason why China concentrates so much on economic development.
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Is that the kind of community you want to be part of? If so, please find a different one. If no, then please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. It's shameful. It would count as violence too, if internet forums weren't such teapots.
No more of this, please—where by "this" I mean any vector pointing to that hellish reductio, not just the ones that actually get there. What to do instead: have thoughtful, curious conversation. If you can't have thoughtful, curious conversation, please don't post until you can.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html