Bharat Rakshak

Mort Walker wrote:FWIW....I talked to Mrs. Mort, who has the pulse on what most people in India think, and she's been very right about Galwan and Covid (as a molecular biologist - Mrs. Mort always asserted back from late Jan. 2020 that it was Wuhan biolab leak) that there is no difference between the Aatankwadi Pakistani army killing people in India and Russian army attacking Ukraine causing so much civilian death and damage. Yes, she says the Ukrainians were killing people in the east, but why was it necessary for this full scale war? "Ek paagal ko dekh ke, dusre paagal duniya mei karange." She does agree that India should remain neutral as it is the intent of Americans to allow Europeans to kill each other, then come in the end like in previous European wars, and be the hero for domestic political considerations.

She also told me to quit rationalizing Putin's decisions on this war as it is wrong. Again take it FWIW....

Rudradev wrote:Zelenskyy need not be 'overthrown' in some Maidan/Tahrir Square type drama. For all practical purposes he no longer governs a functioning state. People will give him leeway upto a point, as a war leader, but how much and for how long?

Putin figures that there is an attritive function at work here. The longer the Ukrainian population sits in besieged cities, the longer they wait with no services, no governance, no verifiable victories, no relief from the state of siege & constantly dwindling faith in Zelenskyy's ability to change any of that... the greater the chance they will simply cease to regard him as any sort of leader. Especially if alternatives come into view offering hope of some return to normalcy following an 'understanding' with Russia (and you can bet Putin & his FSB will supply such alternatives).

Ukrainians need not overthrow Zelenskyy for Putin to win, but simply stop regarding Zelenskyy as their president (like Zahir Shah of Afghanistan following Daoud Khan's putsch, for example). If Zelenskyy can be arrested, tried etc. so much the better for Putin... but simply by becoming seen as ineffectual & irrelevant, he can lose.

Rudradev wrote:Mort, with all due respect to your Mrs, I must differ with her observations. I am here in Mumbai (have been for a month) and there is a diversity of viewpoints here.

Almost nobody sees Putin as having done a good thing by invading a country without obvious provocation, true. Many are angry at the effect his actions have already had on the economy, stock market etc.

But not many people, in my experience, blame him exclusively... and I certainly haven't met anyone who regards Russia as a Pakistan or China equivalent here. There is a sense among most folks I've talked to that he had his reasons, and the shriller the American propaganda machine becomes, the deeper their suspicions of it grow.

Rudradev wrote:Mort, with all due respect to your Mrs, I must differ with her observations. I am here in Mumbai (have been for a month) and there is a diversity of viewpoints here.

Almost nobody sees Putin as having done a good thing by invading a country without obvious provocation, true. Many are angry at the effect his actions have already had on the economy, stock market etc.

But not many people, in my experience, blame him exclusively... and I certainly haven't met anyone who regards Russia as a Pakistan or China equivalent here. There is a sense among most folks I've talked to that he had his reasons, and the shriller the American propaganda machine becomes, the deeper their suspicions of it grow.

vinod wrote:

skumar wrote:
[*]Revokation of all sanctions. Russia will squeeze Ukraine to force the west to agree. There is a purpose behind Zelenskyy getting so much attention.

Why should squeezing Ukraine result in removing all sanctions? All these efforts were to provoke Russia to get involved in a war so that they can impose these crippling sanctions. Now, if they could sacrifice a whole country, why would they agree to any relaxation just because Ukraine is in bad situation?

Just like oil and gas is out of sanctions, they will only relax ones that is hurting them the most. Otherwise these Russian sanctions are to stay for a while, at least till putin goes.

Russia will have to find leverage points which involve NATO directly than anything to do with Ukraine. May be, Iran, Syria? I'm waiting for Putin to reveal his next play after this war is over.

skumar wrote:

vinod wrote:
Why should squeezing Ukraine result in removing all sanctions? All these efforts were to provoke Russia to get involved in a war so that they can impose these crippling sanctions. Now, if they could sacrifice a whole country, why would they agree to any relaxation just because Ukraine is in bad situation?

Just like oil and gas is out of sanctions, they will only relax ones that is hurting them the most. Otherwise these Russian sanctions are to stay for a while, at least till putin goes.

Russia will have to find leverage points which involve NATO directly than anything to do with Ukraine. May be, Iran, Syria? I'm waiting for Putin to reveal his next play after this war is over.

It is easier for Russia to have an "empowered" Zelenskyy negotiate with them instead of directly with NATO. Zelenskyy is repeatedly crying for closing air space knowing that no one will agree, all those standing ovations are for nothing - however he is gaining sympathy to be empowered. NATO involvement in security guarantees will be linked to sanctions by Russia and Zelenskyy will force NATO to participate in the negotiations on pretext of these guarantees.

Russia would have no issues in NATO providing security guarantees since it would have effectively sealed objectives it has already achieved - a neutral neutered Ukraine + Russian speaking territories in the east. Sanctions will be eased off by Apr/May. 10,000s of Ukrainians on both sides would have died for nothing. Zelenskyy will then be projected as a saviour of his people and will get a few more standing ovations to ease the guilt.

Mort Walker wrote: Have you talked to some people from eastern MH, Vidharbh region, near Nagpur or closer to Indore? That’s where Mrs. Mort is from.

yogeshkumar wrote:I hope some day Indian leadership will get the courage to say and do the right thing.

Here is South African country, directly , and correctly blaming NATO for this crisis:

Jay wrote:

yogeshkumar wrote:I hope some day Indian leadership will get the courage to say and do the right thing.

Here is South African country, directly , and correctly blaming NATO for this crisis:

How in the world India showing "courage" and blaming NATO for this crisis is going to help India and Indians? For good or for worse, this is not our war and there is no need to show our courage, morality or other traits. If someone asks "Does India support Russia or Ukraine" our answer should just be "Yes Dear" and leave it at that. We need to secure as much "strategic maneuverable" space as possible and let Europe and US fight it out.

Jay wrote:

yogeshkumar wrote:I hope some day Indian leadership will get the courage to say and do the right thing.

Here is South African country, directly , and correctly blaming NATO for this crisis:

How in the world India showing "courage" and blaming NATO for this crisis is going to help India and Indians? For good or for worse, this is not our war and there is no need to show our courage, morality or other traits. If someone asks "Does India support Russia or Ukraine" our answer should just be "Yes Dear" and leave it at that. We need to secure as much "strategic maneuverable" space as possible and let Europe and US fight it out.

yogeshkumar wrote:
Problem with that approach is that - some day when India would need help, no one would come to India's help. You can think India would never need help.. but history proves that wrong.

India did need Russia in 1971. And Russia did come to India's aid. If we are staying neutral now.. hen Russia will stay neutral next time when India may need a veto or something in UN or other places. This goes both ways.

ldev wrote:

Jay wrote:
Far too many folks think that relationships between countries are like friendships between individuals. Sometime ago, a few months before the Russian thrust into Ukraine, I came across a video posted on my twitter feed. In that video a couple of western journalists were interviewing Putin and the video was a 1 minute snippet where Putin was asked whether he considered any western leader a "friend". Putin's answer was, and I am paraphrasing," I am the President of the Russian Federation and my duty is towards the people of the Russian Federation. Personal friendships that you refer to do not enter into such an equation. It is my duty to do whatever is required for the people of the Russian Federation and my country."

I will be surprised if the the Indian leadership is'nt equally unsentimental in it's appraisal of relationships with other countries.

yogeshkumar wrote:

ldev wrote:

This is conflating two entirely different things. No one is talking about personal friendship. Its as simple as : If India stays neutral now, then Russia will stay neutral when India may need someone at its side in future. Don't expect China to veto on our behalf. US and EU cabal are opportunistic merchants. They will use us and then throw us when time comes.

ldev wrote:

yogeshkumar wrote:
This is conflating two entirely different things. No one is talking about personal friendship. Its as simple as : If India stays neutral now, then Russia will stay neutral when India may need someone at its side in future. Don't expect China to veto on our behalf. US and EU cabal are opportunistic merchants. They will use us and then throw us when time comes.

Countries have permanent interests. If a relationship has become a net liability instead of a net asset, you drop it, sentimentality about the past does not come into the picture.

yogeshkumar wrote:

ldev wrote: Countries have permanent interests. If a relationship has become a net liability instead of a net asset, you drop it, sentimentality about the past does not come into the picture.

I am talking about future, not past. When in Future, if India needs some help, lets say in UN security council, a veto or something where US/EU are screaming at India. Lets say if and when India tries to take POK back. Whose support do we expect to get? Only courageous countries come out stronger from historical pivot points like wars.

yogeshkumar wrote: Problem with that approach is that - some day when India would need help, no one would come to India's help. You can think India would never need help.. but history proves that wrong.

India did need Russia in 1971. And Russia did come to India's aid. If we are staying neutral now.. then Russia will stay neutral next time when India may need a veto or something in UN or other places. This goes both ways.

For all intent and purposes, China has been more vocal about this thing being fanned by NATO. You have to check their mouthpiece http://globaltimes.cn/ how they portray NATO as the aggressor here.

nachiket wrote:

Baikul wrote:
I’m imagining some guys with beards in Kashmir…javelins plus ‘plausible deniability’:

Beards in Kashmir get whatever weapons the pakis give them. If pakis get their hands on surplus Javelins from Ukraine, they will keep them for their own army. Not waste them on the beards. Javelins would be far more useful to them to target Indian tanks and border fortifications in a war. We don't use tanks and APC's for Kashmir COIN ops. The jeeps/buses used can far more easily be attacked with RPG's and IED's like in Pulwama.

Anoop wrote:That's an accurate summary, Rudradev. Does anybody know if Western coverage of war is visible to Russian public?

IndraD wrote:it is nearly imposible to find an unbiased article on military operation, from BBC to CNN all we get to read is propaganda. On one hand we read Russian army is losing, ran out of ammo, 7k KIA etc next article from same house will tell maripol under siege, 100s dead in Kiev where ru army only 2 kms away from centre. Even Indian portals like WION platform NYT, India Today and Times group is as immoral as daily mail, any idea where to turn to get articles on military ops?

ldev wrote:

yogeshkumar wrote:
The Soviet and Chinese were bound by ideology and were allies in the 1950s against the West. They then diverged and had a border clash in 1969 and the Chinese opened up to the US. And now they again have a close relationships much to the alarm of the US.

Similarly the US and China fought on opposite sides during the Korean War. The US then opened up to China in 1971 with Nixon visiting and China used that to lay the foundations of their economic rise. And now the US and China are rivals again.

So India need not be permanent friends or permanent enemies with any country. Allies can become enemies and vice versa depending on which country aids India's permanent interests at any particular time and period.

yogeshkumar wrote: India should stay out of this Sanctions non-sense that these crooks in US/EU and have been harping about. We should trade in India Rupees with Russia. Get the Oil, Gas, Fertilizers with discounts. Reduce the need to desperately hoard USDs.

yogeshkumar wrote:

ldev wrote:

Russia and China didn't come together randomly. Putin, being a long term strategist, gave parcel of land back to China (that was the cause of border clash in 1969) in a treaty in 2010s (don't remember the exact year). One thing that Russia has lot of - is Land. Ever since then, Russia has removed main problem point in it's relationship with China. Point that I am making is - everyone has to think long term. Short term thinking doesn't get us far.

India should stay out of this Sanctions non-sense that these crooks in US/EU and have been harping about. We should trade in Indian Rupees with Russia. Get the Oil, Gas, Fertilizers with discounts. Reduce the need to desperately hoard USDs.

However, it is worth considering that there is a second Ukrainian centre of gravity – alluded to by Vladimir Putin in his pledge to ‘demilitarise’ Ukraine – the regular Ukrainian army, most of which remains near Donetsk and Luhansk under the aegis of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO).

The position of this force is looking increasingly precarious as Russian forces advance to encircle it on three axes….

Viewed in conjunction, these advances present a troubling picture whereby the Ukrainian forces opposite Donetsk and Luhansk are at risk of encirclement on the eastern side of the Dnieper. If this is indeed the focus of Russia’s approach, then the emphasis on Russia's ability to take major cities as a metric of success will have been an analytical error, as Russia appears more intent on pinning Ukrainian forces in cities like Kharkiv while it bypasses them. Indeed, preparations for an amphibious assault on Odessa may have been a feint, given that the ground forces such an assault could have linked up with appear to be moving north.

Turkey has positioned itself with great care to be the go-between with Russia and Ukraine - and this seems to be paying off.

On Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.

Within half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan's leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.

The Russian demands fall into two categories.

The first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.

Chief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.

There are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.

Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.

This is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.
The second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr Zelensky has already said he's prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.

Mr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.

Although Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.

The other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.

Nevertheless, it is a fait accompli, even though Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.

Ibrahim Kalin was one of the few people to listen in on the phone call between Russia and Turkey's leaders
Still, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction which Russia has visited on Ukraine.

Given his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory.

For Ukraine, though, there are going to be serious anxieties.

If the fine details of any agreement aren't sorted out with immense care, President Putin or his successors could always use them as an excuse to invade Ukraine again.

A peace deal could take a long time to sort out, even if a ceasefire stops the bloodshed in the meantime.

Ukraine has suffered appallingly over the past few weeks, and rebuilding the towns and cities which Russia has damaged and destroyed will take a long time. So will rehousing the millions of refugees who have fled their homes.

What about Vladimir Putin himself? There have been suggestions that he is ill, or possibly even mentally unbalanced. Did Mr Kalin detect anything strange about him in the phone call? Not at all, he said. Mr Putin had apparently been clear and concise in everything he said.

Yet even if he does manage to present an agreement with Ukraine as a glorious victory over neo-Nazism, his position at home must be weakened.

More and more people will realise that he overreached himself badly, and stories of the soldiers who have been killed or captured are already spreading fast.

IndraD wrote:

…..

The Russian demands fall into two categories.

…..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60785754 Putin's demands

via BBC so with pinch of salt

Baikul wrote: There’s maybe 20,000 plus ATGMs floating in Ukraine - While mostly used against armour, in some cases it seems they may have been deployed against artillery and grounded aircraft. I’m thinking it’s at least possible 2/3 get into Kashmir independently of PA and are used against high value targets in Kashmir, say an air facility.

IndraD wrote:thanks Baikul ji!

Baikul wrote:I’ve been saying for a while that all indications are that Putin has popular support in Russia. Below appears to be more evidence - a very recent (today?) crowd of 200,000 on a rally preceding a Putin speech in Moscow.