Cogitation in the Time of War #31 - About the discussion on the global public arena

Macron and Scholz at a press conference before a meeting in Berlin, back in January 2022. Image taken from this My India First article.

Today is day #97 of Putin's (Still Failed) Invasion of Ukraine; 551 hours and roughly 39 minutes have passed since my previous cogitation and since I haven't cogitated here about the war lately, I was planning to only write when we reached the 100 days milestone, where I would talk about the situation on that day, the previous assessments and again attempt to forecast what will happen next. But during all this time I continue to follow closely, even though the frequency of the news and the frequency of remarks by the people I follow and that I give credibility have also reduced - this is an evidence of a phenomenon I mentioned before, that time normalises a situation, so the war in Ukraine is not such a hot topic as it used to be.

Still as I was writing, I follow closely and today I ended up writing a much longer thread than I had anticipated about a sort of discussion or debate that is being going one in the Twitterverse but also generally in the public arena, or using the direct translation of the portuguese expression, the public square, so now I copy that here for proper documentation.

America's unique "problem" that the rest of the World doesn't have

Image taken from this RTE article.

I woke up to the news today of yet another school shooting that happened in the US, this time in the city of Uvade in Texas, where a teenager (18 years-old, not old enough to drink a beer but old enough to buy a gun and to kill; also old enough to die in the military if required) killed 19 children and 2 adults and injured another 16 in the Robb Elementary School (ages from 5 to 11 years old, so the same school type that my own kids attend). I had to pause writing my essay on another human tragedy happening on the other side of the globe and write some words about these tragedies that, no matter what people say, it's a unique "problem" to the US: mass shootings done by a "normal" citizen but more specifically school shootings, many times with young men as the shooters, using legally obtained guns.

Cogitation in the Time of War #29 - West and East

It's been 7 days since last cogitation and probably it will be another 7 days before I publish the next one. Tis the season of spring holidays (May vacations as they call it here in the Low Countries) and after 2 years of restricted travelling (although we did cross the "big pond" at the end of last summer) we needed this as a family. I also needed to go on a road trip as the other day I realised that driving more than 100 km in a single trip had become a rare occurrence, let alone the more than 1000 km road-trips we did so often before having the kids...

But well, moving one from this personal take, it's time to cogitate a bit about Putin's (Failed) Invasion of Ukraine and how the situation has been developing. Just some thoughts and not a complete coverage of the last days (or even weeks).

La France comme prévu

 

Results are only partial as the moment I write this but the projections after the polls close in France have been very precise and no major surprises happen. As far as I know, people already accept the projections including Le Pen that has conceded, albeit considers a win the highest voting received by her party (the far-right that is now the less extreme).

This shouldn't have been a surprise, even though earlier polls suggested a closer election. But after the 1st round, where Macron got more votes than 5 years ago, to me it was much more likely. The next projections showed an increasing margin and the vote was clear. France stays in the same path and to me that is the best for us all; Le Pen would destabilise the EU and of course the current geopolitical situation in regards to the West stance on Russia and that to me could be catastrophic in some ways.

Cogitation in the Time of War #24 - 34 days later

I was not able to do a detailed analysis on March 24th or 25th, around 1 month since the start of Putin's Invasion of Ukraine. But since February has only 28 days, today the 30th is the 35th day and so I can now look back on the previous 34 days of a war, although there are people who want to call it something else and a former portuguese spy, with a degree in International Law that turned into a despised commentator in the portuguese media, says that under the Law this is not a war because there was no formal declaration of war by either side. As I have written to date 24 pieces here (23 cogitations as I called them, plus the introductory text on the conflict) in addition to the dozens of comments and posts on Facebook and Twitter, I have plenty of material that allows me to recap before doing some new predictions (besides the ones I've made before).

Cogitation in the Time of War #23 - About the latest round of talks in Turkey

Before I write my long dissertation about the (more than) 1 month of Putin's Invasion of Ukraine (I will do it today, that is a promise that I won't break... Maybe... I hope I won't...) let me write a few paragraphs about the recent peace talks in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia. This is mostly an expanded version of what I wrote yesterday on Twitter and based on a thread from Anastasiia Lapatina (an ukrainian journalists currently in Lviv, if I'm not mistaken) highlighting the main points from the Ukrainian perspective.

As a disclaimer I haven't seen any further news today, so take that into consideration if you see me saying something that doesn't match latest reports.

Cogitation in the Time of War #17 - The Azov Regiment & Co.

After all this time, since the first days of the invasion and the first reactions from the "opposition (the so-called contrarians) and after I promised in the Cogitation #12 to write in more detail, Let's finally talk, and dissert, about the Azov Regiment and other extremists in the region.

Cogitation in the Time of War #15 - Lying Lavrov

To summarize, and attempt to make sense, of some of things officially said by Russia, in particular by Lying Lavrov and his diplomatic staff located all over the world.

Russia DIDN'T ATTACK Ukraine, it is a "special military operation" after all, and it "operated" for the following reasons:

Cogitation in the Time of War #7 - Was this a premature glimpse of a future?

RIA Novosti  is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency, that belongs to Rossiya Segodnya,  owned and operated by the Russian government.

On the 26-February, a little more than 48 hours after the start of the so-called "special military operation" by Putin's Russia, an article was published on the RIA Novosti website entitled "The new world order". This article was later taken down but it was up long enough for it to be saved under WebArchive. An English version of it was also shared around the same time in a Pakistani-based website named The Frontier Post and that page is still available.

The article gives an explanation for the invasion and in a way it gives the main reason behind it. It is very much aligned to Putin's speech from the 21-February, where he mentioned the need to correct the errors from the past in regards to Ukraine that, in his own words, was not a real country.

Cogitation in the Time of War #4 - The first peace negotiations

Both Ukraine and Russia agreed to talk without pre-conditions at the Belarus-Ukraine border. It's a positive development but if they happen soon, I believe they will go nowhere. And why? That is due to the reasons for Putin deciding to invade. Let me explain further.

Cogitation in the Time of War #2 - Ghosts of Wars Past

Yeap, the above image shows a Russian tank flying the Soviet Union flag, while moving inside Ukraine in 2022. It's almost like seeing ghosts from wars past, namely de Cold War. To me it makes me think about the soviet tanks rolling into Warsaw Pact countries when the people there would manifest their will to escape Moscow's control.

Some people think (and one friend said that to me) this image is a fake, edited, but it's not; it's a traffic camera feed in the South of Ukraine. The feed was being broadcasted live and several people saw this tank. In this tweet you can see another video, taken from another camera feed, where the same tank with the flag is visible.

As my friend Cravo said to me, considering that Ukraine has the Azov Battalion (actually a regiment) that has neo-nazis/neo-fascists elements, we might watch in 2022 a fight in the ukrainian plains with one side hoisting the Nazi flag and the other side the Soviet flag. A surreal and bizarre scenario, that after 1944 nobody thought could be seen again except during filming of a movie or a documentary... With the added anomaly that this time the roles would be reversed with the "villains" being the invaders and the "heroes" being the defenders.

Cogitation in the Time of War #1 - The beggining

On February 4th around 17:07 I wrote this (in Dutch because the match was here): "Voordat Rusland en Oekraïne vechten op de Oost-Europees Laagland (hopelijk niet), strijden ze nu bij de FUTSAL EURO 2022 halve finale." and this menas: Before Russia and Ukraine battle each other in the East European Plain (I hope not), they fight now in the semi-finals of the Futsal EURO 2022.

Later on the 20th, wrote an additional comment about Putin and Ukraine that said, among other things:

This is so much alike 8 years ago, when there were no Russian troops in Crimea and Crimea was just looking for independence/sovereignty, but not really (it was a Russian plan all along).

All the pieces are set and all conditions are there to "justify" a Russian intervention. With the excuse of an attack on its troops or due to violence against Russians or whatever in the East of Ukraine, they will intervene.

(...)

What happens next depends on the reactions of the rest of the World. Russia can be severely impacted and that can diminish support for Putin.(...)8 years ago there were already many people in the West believing Russia had rights to take Crimea. Some will again think Russia is in its right and only reacting to provocations/moves by others.

The next day, Putin recognised the 2 self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas, making at the same time a lot of statements about Ukraine not being a real nation and the need to correct the mistake that came with the end of the Soviet Union, and I got this off my chest (and there was an interesting debate in the comments that maybe deserve its own dissertation):

It's done. Now all (the) pieces are in place. The 2 regions are recognised, Russian troops will enter to "protect them from Ukrainian aggression" and only question now is where it stops?

We were just starting to get back to normal...

Fuck this shit!