Putin has miscalculated with Ukraine. And now Russian
citizens are sending him a message with their feet.

Putin's announcement of a "partial mobilization" in the
Ukraine war has triggered mass protests throughout the
country and launched an exodus of Russian citizens facing
the draft. Hundreds of thousands have fled across land
borders into Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Traffic jams
are stretching for many kilometres and its taking as long as 18
hours to reach border posts.

Russians flee the draft as the reality of the war in Ukraine
hits home. And even the Ukrainian President is encouraging
Russian soldiers to flee. A dictator can only survive as
long as he is supported. When his own people turn and run -
his time time in power is not guaranteed.

We all agree the conflict in Ukraine is truly awful and needs to come to an end as soon as possible. If we’re going to help bring this about, we need to understand the situation and apply pressure in the right areas. Simply railing against an ‘evil’ Putin and placing all the blame on him is both unhelpful and ignorant.

As pointed out by Armchair Critic, there is a long history of US provocation which has led to the current impasse. The US-instigated coup in 2014 and its installation of a pliant puppet government is the event which really divided Ukraine and turned life into hell for the Russian speakers in the Donbas. Over 14 000 have been killed by Ukrainian neo-nazis in the last eight years. No-one in the West came to their aid. The Minsk agreements signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in 2014 and 2015 would have given the Russian-speakers autonomy while allowing the Donbas to remain part of Ukraine. This was never good enough for the US and Ukraine who completely ignored these treaties. The Russian speakers in the Donbas were forced to forgo their language, their history and their safety. Many have spent the best part of the last eight years living underground to avoid the shelling. The fighting in the Donbas began long before Putin’s military action in February. The people in the Donbas had been begging him for years to save them. Putin tried to negotiate with the US and Ukraine, but was ignored.

The US provocation actually began long before 2014. In fact, many in the West never ended their Cold War mentality. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were conned by the West. Gorbachev made concessions to enable a unified Germany and in return was promised that NATO would not move eastward. That promise was never kept. Yeltsin was conned into mass scale privatisation with the main beneficiaries being greedy Western capitalists. The Russian economy collapsed and it was only when Putin came to power at the end of the last century that order was restored and the economy once again strengthened.

Continued ...

This is why the Russians support Putin. They know he turned their lives around and continues to ensure they live well. The stronger Russia has grown, the more determined the US has become to bring it down. Russia has long accepted the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its actions today are not expansionist … they are all about defending Russia’s sovereignty. Russia, along with most of the rest of the world, is working towards a multipolar world order. The US is clinging on to its totally unsustainable unipolar world where it has hegemonic control and the world marches to its rules.

Russia has tried to negotiate a peace settlement with Ukraine and in March this year appeared close to achieving it until Zelensky walked away from the negotiations and has refused ever since to return to them. This confrontation will not end until both sides sit down and talk. 66 nations at the UN, mainly from the global south, have called for urgent diplomacy from both sides. Russia is willing. It’s the US which is prolonging the fighting. It continues to flood Ukraine with weapons and is urging it to fight on whatever the cost. And though there’s no clear proof as yet, the circumstantial evidence is certainly pointing to the Nordstream pipeline leaks as being an act of US sabotage. The US needs to be told to stop pouring fuel on the fire and to start encouraging Ukraine to sit down and engage diplomatically with Russia.

Those in the west who support US aggression account for little more than 10% of the world’s population. The majority of the world condemn the US arming of Ukraine and its sanctions against Russia. So yes, we should all call for restraint from Russia, but we must also urge restraint from the US and Ukraine.

For anyone interested in a different perspective here
is a link that may be of interest:

http://bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589

It's worth a read.

AC advises that "Russians by and large have listened to and believed Putin's speeches"

Given that we now have, at a minimum, 300,000 20-somethings fleeing the country rather than fight and die for Putin's imperial dreams, rather than saying 'by and large' the correct expression would be 'good-bye' and 'at large'.

Its difficult to gauge the popularity or otherwise of policies in Russia given that there are no free elections and people are reluctant to talk freely to pollsters. But with so many people prepared to go to the extreme of leaving their homeland rather than fight its wars, I think we can draw two conclusions:

1. The war is utterly unpopular with at least a sizeable section of the community
2. The Russian people don't see the Ukrainians and/or their backers as existential threats to Mother Russia

AC advises that "I've heard that Ukraine outnumbered Russians by maybe 8 to 1 during the recent counter offensive."

There are two types of statistics - those you look up and those you make up. That was the latter.

No offensive can succeed against a reasonable well motivated and dug in defence without a 3 to 1 advantage. Perhaps Ukraine achieved that on occasion in the eastern Ukraine offensive. But it is also clear that elements of the Russia army ran at the first opportunity, leaving their equipment which is now incorporated into the Ukraine army.

But the main reason they achieved local numerical advantage and surprise was the feint to the south which utterly fooled the Russian military and caused them to move troops south just as the eastern offensive started. Always remember when talking of this that Armchair was deriding the southern offensive as a disaster a day before its success became clear. Such were his 'sources' and their 'value'.

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The Russians have held referenda in the conquered (for the moment) territories which (surprise..surprise) have heavily favoured joining Russia. There is an old Russia word which I heard a lot in the days I used to visit the old USSR - 'Vyrano'. I basically means an agreed upon lie. Its so prevalent in Russia that Dostoyevsky wrote an essay on it. It was described as "You know I’m lying. I know that you know. You know that I know that you know. But I go ahead with a straight face, and you nod seriously"

That's what the referenda are. Only those required or too indoctrinated (eg AC and/or Bronwyn) to know better, believe the referenda were legit. We all know it's a lie. Even Putin