Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Wednesday affirmed the removal last week of about a dozen kernel maintainers associated with Russia. On October 18, Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman published a message to the Linux kernel mailing list showing that a handful of Linux developers in the MAINTAINERS file had been removed …
I doubt they are. Typically it is only selected institutions and people that are sanctioned. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that the individual contributors are on the sanctions list. This smacks more of ignorance or laziness in understanding the sanctions regime and regulations.
I note that in insulting people's lack of historical memory he doesn't also educate them that Finland was on the wrong side in WWII.
Finland wasn't formally an Axis member. Finland fought a defensive war against the Soviets from 1939 to 1940. They the fought with the Nazis against the Soviets (only) from 1941 to 1944, They then spent 1944 to 1945 kicking the Nazis out of Finland.
While not great, it does help his point that he's not pro russia.
If Torvalds is indeed limited by "regulatory reasons", then he needs to cite the specific regulation as well as the regulators, so that the objections can be addressed to the correct person. His failure to do so is to his detriment.
If anyone has problems with these drivers after this point, complaints should be addressed directly to him until he resolves the situation.
No, open-source is "part of this". For good, bad or indifferent, we are all part of the path forward. whether that be related to preserving a livable planet or ensuring the Budapest Memorandum is respected. There have to be consequences for bad-actors on the global-stage. As history teaches the common-man (and woman) suffer the greatest harm from bad behavior of their leaders. Something extremely prescient to be mindful of as nations choose their leaders. For those without the ability to choose, there is a choice to be made.
What does this have to do with the Budapest Memorandum? A group of volunteers have just been banned from contributing their work, for free, to a global project that the whole humanity uses. How does that protect Ukraine from Russia?! (unless what they were working on somehow directly contributed to the Russian war effort and then the parts of those kernel project need to be shut down, which is not the case, the work is supposed to continue)
Also, the Budapest Memorandum has been around for 30 years and, more to the point, was there more than two and a half years ago when the war (and the sanctions against Russia) started. What happened now?
These are legitimate questions. The move doesn't make sense from neither technical nor military point of view, but may have been necessary because regulations (and their effects) don't have to make sense, but then that can be explained. Attacking ad hominem (e.g. branding as trolls from a troll farm) anyone who asks questions is not a valid response.
"There have to be consequences for bad-actors on the global-stage."
Yeah sure. Wake me when any "bad actors on the global stage" are punished for things such as the unprovoked invasion of Vietnam, Iraq, etc. Funny how distorted things become when somebody decides they get to be the arbiter of who's a "bad actor on the global stage" and who isn't.
“ Learn some history yourself.
During Operation Barbarossa, from 1941 onwards, Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany.”
That’s only nominally correct. It was the USSR that had invaded Finland in 1939. When Germany decided to attack Russia, Finland understandably took the opportunity of a distracted USSR to regain some of it’s lost territory. Yes there was some co-ordination between Germany and Finland at that time, but purely on the basis of “my enemies enemy”. The history of Russian invading Finland goes back a lot further than WW2, and a big part of Finnish life is geared around the next one. I think that’s the real point.
But anyway, arguments about who did what 80 years ago are a bit pointless here. The current Russia is a bully and has brutally invaded Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and now the rest of Ukraine for no reason other than Putin’s megalomania. Many brave people in Russia have tried to stand up to him and have either been imprisoned on trumped up charges or paid with their lives. If anyone is going to get all prissy about the creator of Linux following the trivial restrictions which are the rest of the moderately sane worlds response, with his own OS, them arguing about who sided with Nazi Germany 80 years ago is at least a touch ironic.
Why bring open source into politics, these maintainers did work that benefitted the entire world and now they are punished because apparently Putin is a bad boy and needs to learn a lesson. This will just give more fuel to his propaganda to showcase how West hates Russian people.
Having an avowed enemy contributing trusted code to your software project does not strike me as the soundest approach.
Sure, not all Russians are in the pay of Putin - but a hell of a lot of them are. The man steals, by some accounts, up to 50% of Russia's entire GDP, which means he can afford to employ, directly or indirectly through henchmen and proxies, 50% of its population. Even if the true figures are only a fraction of that, the numbers are still boggling. And the man has been stepping up both his rhetoric and his indirect attacks on western interests in the past year.
Anyone at this point who allows anyone based in Russia to contribute to any codebase that might just conceivably have security implications - unless they personally know this person, know their employer, their financiers and supporters all the way up the line - needs their head looking at.
The man steals, by some accounts, up to 50% of Russia's entire GDP, which means he can afford to employ, directly or indirectly through henchmen and proxies, 50% of its population.
But so does Biden. Or that's just a bonkers claim. Which is the same with Putin. As wiki might say, are you getting 'reliable sources'. So Navalny sourced a lot of those claims, complete with fantasy CG videos of Putin's alleged pleasure palace outside Sochi.. which is actually a hotel & resort. Elensky also made an appearence in the Panama Papers, but details are gatekeeped by the media who control those documents rather than just publishing them. But Elensky also has a lot of unexplained wealth.
Having an avowed enemy...
exactly who is the enemy of whom ? Because from what I read Russia is by no means Finland's – or Europe's or the USA's – enemy. Russia is understandably Ukraine's enemy, but what does that have to do with Linux ? Linus's explanation that "we Finns were always with nazi Germany against Russia therefore I'll ban all Russian maintainers " doesn't strike me as satisfactory. Also the excuses that Finland was with Hitler to defeat Stalin doesn't shed an engaging light
As a Finn I don't expect people abroad to know all that much about Finland including its fate in WW2. But what naturally annoys a lot is how easily "uneducated" people associate Finland with nazism. This particularly annoying when a Brit does it for two reasons, one being England's own history with Oswald Mosley &Co.
For those interested there is this on YouTube, "Strangers in a Stranger Land: Finland's Jewish Soldiers in WWII".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgOzd0ng1A&t=345s
As we know England had no means to help anybody against the Russians, or against the Germans (Dunkirk) and soon the Russians become allies according to the old logic of my enemies enemy is my friend.
When Finland was attacked by the USSR Churchill, a man of the word, held a very nice speech on the BBC about the small brave Finland fighting the bully from the east.
Russia was then expelled from the League of Nations.
In Finland the war continued with the "Continuation War" and Churchill came to promise Finland military help but absolutely nothing came of that and as a result the Finns had to ask for help from Germany with the old logic of my enemies enemy is my friend.
There are a few things the Finnish tend not to remember, one is that Britain declared war on Finland because of that. Churchill claimed he had to because of the Allies but was lying as the Americans never did such a stupid thing. Winston was simply appeasing his Uncle Joe. It must have annoyed him immensely that Stalin realised he was less important than the Americans.
Finns forget that because on the whole Britain is a respected country, if with a slight sneer now after Brexit.
The other thing Finns tend to forget is how very crucial that German help was for Finland to stay independent especially towards the end.
The reason for that is much that the Germans had to be pushed out of Finland by force. When they could have peacefully just walked to Sweden without first burning down norhern Finland in the "Lapland war".
One forgotten group of Germans helping Finland was "Detachment Kuhlmey". A group of some 70 airplanes set agains the Russians.
Finland was of course rather lucky in that Stalin pulled troops out of Finland when he considered taking Berlin was more important than trying to take Helsinki.
This video about Kuhlmey is in German and Finnish for those who get along with that. It's hard to find much in English about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7yT23EYyME
Finland was one of those small countries pushed around when the big got mad, it could have been worse too.
As for previous experiences about the Ryssians 300 years ago, try this, texted to Swedish or English. And the music is good too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFglWuwn6g&t=3119s
Greater Wrath
But what naturally annoys a lot is how easily "uneducated" people associate Finland with nazism. This particularly annoying when a Brit does it for two reasons, one being England's own history with Oswald Mosley &Co.
Finland was occupied by the Nazis, and some Finns collaborated with them. Others became partisans and fought against them. But not sure what you mean by England's history with Mosley, other than events like the 'Battle of Cable Street' where the English demonstrated our contempt for fascists. Then of course declaring war on the Nazis.
hope better educated people understand you are babbling about Norway not Finland
Educate yourself here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II...
...On the morning of 22 June, Hitler's proclamation read: "Together with their Finnish comrades in arms the heroes from Narvik stand at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. German troops under command of the conqueror of Norway, and the Finnish freedom fighters under their Marshal's command, are protecting Finnish territory."
I realise some Finns might want to be in denial about siding with the Nazis during WW2, but they did.
And as for Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists you can read about it here:
I'm still not sure what you think your point is. Again, the Battle of Cable Street showed what the British thought of Mosely and his Black Shirts, they were regularly beaten and we eventually changed the Public Order Act to ban protestors in uniform. Plus for good measure, chucked Mosely in jail for a few years. And we're still throwing neo-Nazis in jail. Ukraine could be doing the same thing, but it won't.
@Jellied Eel
No, Finns have no problem in understanding that accepting help from the Germans was a better choice than ending up like the Baltic states then before the Continuation war as satellite states run by Stalin.
What you seem to imply is that Finns dit it because they were nazi or become nazi because of that. And that is just idiotic.
Have you joined Putin in moaning the demise of the USSR or what the hell is it with you.
We in Finland like in many other countries have been hoping Russia would turn eventually into a prosperous democratic country, but for some damned reason they always end up with something very different.
Should that not be what you should be concerned about.
Also Denmark and Norway were occupied by Germany. Sweden and Finland not but in both countries the Germans were allowed to move troops through the country.
No, Finns have no problem in understanding that accepting help from the Germans was a better choice than ending up like the Baltic states then before the Continuation war as satellite states run by Stalin.What you seem to imply is that Finns dit it because they were nazi or become nazi because of that. And that is just idiotic.
Historians still argue about exactly why Finland joined the Nazis for Operation Barbarossa. With the Finn's help, that lead to the Baltic states becoming this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ostland
The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO; lit. 'Reich Commissariat of Eastland')[a] was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR.
And the Nazis then exterminating an estimate 1m Jews. The Soviet Union then 'liberated' those states and they became part of the USSR following the end of WW2. Some Ukrainians did much the same thing, ie the Banderites massacred Poles, Jews etc with Ukrainians from mostly the west joining SS divisions and Einsatzgruppen and actively participating in the Holocaust. Perhaps the most infamous example was this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)#
with Himmler singing their praises-
Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia's good name, namely the Jews ... I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles ... I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.
along with the Banderites. But they also declared 'Independence' for a new Banderite Ukraine with the mistaken belief that the Nazis would permit this. They wouldn't, so some of the OUN then started atacking the Nazis. Meanwhile in the west of Ukraine, they sided with the Soviets, who then defeated the Nazis in Ukraine. Which came complete with another set of attrocities because those Ukrainians knew about the attrocities committed by the Banderites.
But that's history for you, and it's striking and alarming how closely events today mirror those of WW2. Plus why there's been bad blood between east and west Ukraine ever since WW2, and why Ukrainians in the east don't want to live under a Banderite regime. You say Finland sided with the Nazis to liberate themselves from Soviet rule, Donbas sides with Russia because they want to liberate themselves from Banderite/ultra-nationalist rule.
We in Finland like in many other countries have been hoping Russia would turn eventually into a prosperous democratic country, but for some damned reason they always end up with something very different.
Arguably that's what this proxy war is all about. The EU was a larger economy than the US. Finland had a lot of trade with Russia. Closer economic ties between the EU and Russia would make for an even more powerful economic bloc. Then came Ukraine's coup, and Ass Sec Nuland's infamous 'Fsck the EU' comment, which she did. Finland's economy is weaker, the EU is demilitarising and deindustrialisg and Russia's pretty much given up on trade with the EU and focusing on BRICS. That trading bloc has announced alternatives to western banking and financial services like SWIFT and Euroclear. Its also now announced its own commodities trading for grain and other commodities. That will get interesting given the 'world price' for those commodities will no longer be set by western exchanges, and the West/EU will lose revenues and taxes from those sectors of the service economy, which are worth billions.
And all because of Ukraine. Germany's Olaf Scholz recently tried to claim Russia turned off Germany's gas, which is crippling Germany's economy. Putin pointed out that one of the Nordstream 2 pipelines is still ready for service, and gas could flow at the touch of a button.. But Scholz can't do this because of the sanctions the EU imposed on itself.
Interesting that you'd call a country with a Jewish president a "Banderite regime", given that said president would be someone they'd happily execute.
You're confusing their President with the people that have power. Some of the Banderites have already said they'd execute Elensky if he tried for peace. Other factions don't want Ukraine in the EU because they want Ukraine to remain independent. So Elensky is walking a difficult tightrope, caught between a rock and some hardcases. Meanwhile, useful idiots deny stuff like this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commemoration_of_Stepan_Bandera
The first January 2023, the birthday of Bandera, the Ukrainian parliament quoted his words declaring that "the complete and supreme victory of Ukrainian nationalism will be when the Russian Empire ceases to exist." The statement sparked outrage in Israel and Poland. Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, stated that the government took "an extremely critical [stance] towards any glorification or even remembrance of Bandera".
Why is it that Russian bootlickers consistently have a problem spelling “Zelenskyy” correctly?
Probably because very few people speak Ukrainian. Elensky didn't up until a few years ago, probably about the same time he thought copying Elizabeth Holme's way of speaking would make him sound tuff(ty). Or he just hit puberty late. But the advantage of being a comedian is footage exists of his previous comedy roles. Oh, and he banned the Z. Small price to pay for the $50bn he's being given, another £5bn from Labour. Budget coming up in a couple of days, I'm sure UK taxpayers won't mind the genorosity.
That's an interesting statement when the history isn't all that clear to you either.
Finland was allied to Nazi Germany already prior to Barbarossa, although Finland was one of if not the only ally that did not sign Tripartite Pact unlike Italy and Japan (and later Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Ygoslavia), though Anti-Comintern Pact was signed by Finland so there's that. Was it a good thing? No, but what else would you have done when your neighbour is potentially looking for round two after Winter War and other nations nope out from potential alliance? Finland needed supplies and hardware especially to defend and that got them tied to Nazi Germany which eventually lead to Lapland War.
The 20th century had way too many countries dreaming and often trying to expand into places they were officially not. Invoking liberation of those that were not really asking for it. Finland was no exception.
I'm referring to Heimosodat. This is the prequel to whatever followed in WW2 and all the maneuvering with allies and pacts. These days everyone wants to be victim or the good guys. In life, on the dirty ground such things often don't end up existing.
Just a footnote, Yugoslavs toppled the government that joined the Tripartite Pact as soon as the agreement was signed and thus it was never implemented (also, they only signed it after a direct ultimatum from Germany, and after all of their neighbours, apart from Greece that was also being invaded by the Axis, had already joined). This prompted Germany to postpone the invasion of the USSR, so that it could destroy Yugoslavia first. This meant that Germany, together with all the countries neighbouring Yugoslavia (apart from, again, Greece) attacked simultaneously. Parts of the country were annexed by Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Albania (Romania refused to take any Yugoslav territory). In most of what remained, the fascist Independent State of Croatia was formed and in central Serbia a puppet regime was set up.
So let's not go too far when trying to downplay the Finnish involvement in the Nazi war effort.
P.S. Also regarding Bulgaria, they too only joined the Tripartite Pact in 1941, and only after a direct ultimatum from Germany, although they were quite happy to take advantage of the alliance to satisfy their irredentist ambitions against Yugoslavia and Greece. So, whatever any of them did or did not sign, Bulgaria and Finland spent about the same time fighting along side with Germany in WWII.
If we're going to use swear words, I could send plenty your way. At the moment in history we're discussing, the Western Powers were fine with Nazi Germany having annexed Austria and taken over Czechoslovakia, as long as that meant that they didn't have to go to war with them. It was only at that point that the USSR signed the non-aggression pact with that same Nazi Germany, so that they wouldn't go to war against them either. So pot, kettle, black?
Also, I'm from the Balkans, what happened in WWII is the favourite topic of every chauvinist around here, used to justify any atrocity that people who weren't even alive back then do to other people who also weren't alive back then. It's literally what fed the bigotry on all sides that lead to the civil war and the atrocities in former Yugoslavia.
Using WWII as an excuse to brand entire ethnicities as good or bad is the exact opposite of the lesson that remembering WWII is supposed to teach us.
There are two problems with that:
- Legal restrictions imposed by international sanctions. I'm unsure exactly how they impact this work but the answer is unlikely to be "not at all."
- You're giving people you have reason to believe are adversaries the ability to potentially insert trojan horse code, as we've seen happen in the past. Supply chain attacks are very much a part of modern warfare.
> Legal restrictions imposed by international sanctions. I'm unsure exactly how they impact this work but the answer is unlikely to be "not at all."
This is truely not the case. The code is still in there and thus the sanctions are still violated. The recognition of authorship is not sanctionable. Loads of hardware, software and science we use today would otherwise need to be removed from our lives.
> You're giving people you have reason to believe are adversaries the ability to potentially insert trojan horse code, as we've seen happen in the past. Supply chain attacks are very much a part of modern warfare.
This hasn't changed, the US, China and Russia have been bickering since the cold war. Why now are we starting to scrub recognition of work? Open-source must transcend these political squabbles. Just like science and space is currently.
interesting sign of how Linux has 'won'. 20 years ago MSFT and friends would be using this to call for bans on Linux for national security reasons of course.
Now everyone is so dependant on Linux that anything beyond a symbolic 'Russian contributors have to not use a .ru email' would be unthinkable
> The recognition of authorship is not sanctionable.
If I understand this correctly, the names have been removed from the MAINTAINERS file. This is a list of the current active contributors. I'm not aware that any recognition for existing code has been amended. The MAINTAINERS file contains the contact information about people you would contact to get stuff changed. If they can't contribute then it probably makes sense to at least temporarily remove those entries, regardless of what you think of the justification.
Exactly! The MAINTAINERS file reflects trust. If Linus feels he no longer trusts those people, they cannot be maintainers any more because Linus no longer trusts their pull requests.
It really doesn't even matter if this lack is trust is for personal issues, something happening behind the curtains (e.g. DDoS attack on Linus himself in form of Russia organised spam war in form of fabricated pull requests), or legal stuff decided by Linux Foundation, the employer of Linus (and Greg).
If this is only about political reasons, I would say it's just coming way too late. For political reasons, it would have made a lot more sense to do this immediately Russia attacked Ukraine and publicly declare that Linus cannot trust Russian people as long as the war continues because Russia has so much power over their citizens.
On the other hand, US has similar power over their citizens using FISA secret court orders but those seem to be rare enough not to be the most typical problem.
If this is only about political reasons, I would say it's just coming way too late. For political reasons, it would have made a lot more sense to do this immediately Russia attacked Ukraine and publicly declare that Linus cannot trust Russian people as long as the war continues because Russia has so much power over their citizens.
It may be a bit of both political and legal. There have been a lot of sanctions against Russia in the form of goods, services, along with sanctions against specific entities like businesses and people. Breaking those sanctions can lead to large fines and jail time. If Linus/Linux Foundation acted unilaterally on the outbreak of the SMO, that would have been political and might have breached the terms of the Linux Foundation.
There's also a general security risk, ie Russians have been hacking Ukrainian and Western targets, some might be state sponsored, some individual. Ukraine and pro-Ukrainian hackers have been attacking Russia as well. So there's a potential risk Russian contributors might try to sneak back doors or trojans into the kernal, which if undetected could be pretty damaging. There's the same risk that other contributors might try the same on behalf of other state intelligence services. The advantage of open source initiatives is the code base is open to scrutiny though.
But it's one of those things that can make business interesting. I've been asked to provide services into sanctioned countries before, and the simple answer is generall "No, that would be illegal". Sales might want the business, but do they really want to spend a few years in jail, or put the CEO in jail? I've also been involved in officially asking for permission, which gets complicated give there might be multiple entities involved. So maybe the solution includes delivering Cisco. They're a US entity and so US sanctions apply, and the solution may be from a UK entity, so having to get permission from both US and UK agencies for export licences. There are law firms that specialise in import/export licensing, but that costs money and the answer has still usually been 'No'.
It's more significantly phrased as, "how many western economies are depenedent on Linux?". I'm thinking banks, businesses, etc.
All of them, basically, one way or other.
Remember the attempted attack earlier this year on OpenSSH via a social engineering attack on a dependency that inserted a back door into OpenSSH? That ought to have been a bit of a wake up call. OSS projects are especially vulnerable to such attacks, but proprietary code isn't immune. Moves such as this one by Linus are, to some extent, "security theatre", in that it's not a foolproof means of achieving the desired effect. If there are enough layers of "security theatre", it does become an impediment; just look at airport / aviation security...
Ultimately, code review - excruciatingly detailed code review (and review of the build system for the code) by a trusted person / team is what does give strong assurance, accompanied by strong signing of the reviewed code to prove it's not been changed since. Though as everyone knows that's preciesly what very few people want to do.
It's also important to remember that - qualitatively, motivationally - there can be no difference between an exploitable bug and a deliberate back door. It's important with that in mind to maintain a balanced view as to who is and is not a bad actor (most bugs are just innocent bugs, probably)!
There are ways of addressing such things by changing choices of technology. There's been a plethora of attacks / vulnerabilities due to interfaces not validating data properly. HEARTBLEED springs to mind. Yet, we have plenty of technologies where interfaces can be wholly schema defined, machine built, with input / output validation automatically included. And then there's language; writing in Rust is clearly better (from a bug point of view) than writing in C/C++. OSS projects could make better tech choices to give themselves a chance of automatically avoiding mistakes, meaning that whatever review effort is available can be more efficiently used.
Quite possibly.
It's highly unfortunate that OSS is getting caught up in the geopolitics, but it was probably always inevitable. A really successful OSS project is always going to be one that's found widespread use - economically important use. And, whilst there's trouble in the world, it's economic role is always going to make it of great interest to good and bad actors.
Or to put it more bluntly, there's nowt that catches crap as much as a brand new hat. It's pretty much true of any good thing.
It's difficult things like that that I really wished universities taught, or taught more thorougly. For engineers, developers, etc to successfully find their way through the world, they need to be made thoroughly aware of the crap that'll come their way and how to deal with it (law, money, geopolitics, patent laws and their rights under these laws, etc). Engineers / developers who are less naive to the world's perils likely end up better off as a result of it.
So open-source contribution is that broken that bad trojan can be inserted a without now one knowing it? Then the model is defunct from the get go. And if this is about morality on how many western military systems Linux has been used where those system have harmed civilians in countless wars around the world?
"You're giving people you have reason to believe are adversaries the ability to potentially insert trojan horse code, as we've seen happen in the past."
The US also has a long storied history of introducing Trojan code into everything. We really need to get US contributors out of the picture by your logic.
These are just excuses. Anyone who wants (and can) introduce vulnerabilities, will do so from wherever as yet another "Jia Tan". You'll have to introduce strict identity checking (like passport verification) and require signed commits, and then you'll lose half of your committers. I've seen several people on LKML who belong to minorities and obviously hide their real identity for fear of discrimination — we'll lose them too.
(I like how some people have zero facts about the xz vuln, but somehow "know" who is responsible for it. Those who actually know their stuff and try to control for their biases are not so sure.)
>- You're giving people you have reason to believe are adversaries the ability to potentially insert trojan horse code,
If your only defense against trojans in the Kernel is that a handful of developers who are known to be Russian are now off the mailing list, then your security might not be as watertight as you think.
So we've put in place measures to prevent another 9/11 = we put all the names of Al Queda leadership on a no-fly list.
He has been removed from the MAINTAINERS file though. Which is what's being discussed here.
The only file that has been changed is the MAINTAINERS file. Presumably because these individuals can no longer contribute due to sanctions?
There's no removal of attribution going on (as that would be illegal). See here, and here for example.
Art I don't care. So we've burned all the unreadable Russian novels in libraries and erased all the Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich from Spotify
But it's going to be a pain in the arse if we have to remove all the Russian contributions to something like OpenCV
It's going to be even worse if we have to remove Russian maths from the library
On the plus side, if a future US administration gets mad at Germany, over chickens or something, we will presumably ban systemd and pulseaudio
> if a future US administration gets mad at Germany, over chickens or something, we will presumably ban systemd and pulseaudio
Oooh. You really think so?
I have a sudden urge to poison US/German relations. Hey, Idaho! You won't believe what people in Dortmund call you when they think you're looking in the opposite direction!
[...]It's going to be even worse if we have to remove Russian maths from the library
This is how wars get started.
No one has removed anyone's attribution or their contributions. (See here and here for example).
They've updated a file detailing who to contact for future maintenance to remove people that wouldn't be allowed to commit their changes.
Get angry if you think that is inappropriate, but please please get angry at the thing that has happened not what you think has happened.
Not directing you to someone who can't currently help you (through no fault of their own) is not the same as removing attribution or copyrights. Not even close.
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They are quite peculiar.
I'm not an expert but looking at those pics, I don't see how one could assume he was talented.
Denying his admission to the University of Vienna, twice, was the likely right move. Even though it resulted in WW2....
I don't think his pictures are really "art". They are pictures.
Not a good comparison. As an art lover, you wouldn't have prints of Hitler's pictures on your wall due to lack of art to be loved. Any German art from the 1930s that was worth loving and hanging on your wall was illegal. Reiser OTOH is a convicted killer, but produced a worthwhile file system.
"...open-source code committed by i.e a murderer is just as valid as code committed by the pope.
i.e. or "id est" means "that is" and is incorrectly used here. You meant to use e.g. ("for example")?
But your logic is flawed anyway. The work of a murderer, for example, can taint an otherwise legitimate project by association.
Fixing the English : 'committed by e.g. a murderer', not 'committed by i.e a murderer'.
Fixing the sentiment : Screw the "work" if it originates from highly suspect sources (e.g. Russia, China ....).Tough on any genuine people but this is a war, so act accordingly. No room for bleeding hearts unfortunately.
Open-source is better than this.
followed by:
Its a tough pill to swallow but open-source code committed by i.e a murderer is just as valid as code committed by the pope. Respect the "work" rather than the man, religion or country they come from.
This seems contradictory to me. On one hand you're saying we should treat the work in isolation; i.e. it's a kernel, it serves a function, and that's how it should be judged.
On the other hand, you say 'open source is better than this', which immediately brings idealism and morals into the equation, especially with something as important as Linux.
There's also geopolitical considerations when a project becomes internationally significant.
Linux is very much not just a piece of code, it's a 'totem' for an idealistic stance on how software should be developed (GPL).
It's also widely and internationality used, underpinning a decent percentage of the worlds infrastructure.
It's not just software, it's a complex moral and ethical ball of ick too.
Similarly to how some in the US like to emphasize the "socialist" part of "national socialism" (though it the two political philosophies had very little to do with each other), Russia (the USSR at the time) emphasized the "nationalist" part, to the point where the Russian translation of Nazi is the same as the word for "nationalist". Which makes sense when your ideal world is a bunch of vassal state satellite nations (not that the USA didn't want the same thing, but they were a bit more subtle about it). Keep that linguistic foible in mind whenever a Russian calls someone who prefers to keep their country independent a Nazi.
The bit where they had to pay money to the USSR because they were fighting alongside nazi germany
Ah, another example of the historically ignorant school of how to win arguments by saying someone else’s history is a bit naughty.
For example, do you realise that the Soviet Union invaded Poland in military alliance with Nazi Germany in September 1939? The Molotov-Ribbentrop “Non-Aggression Pact” was actually a secret military alliance. Both countries agreed on a joint invasion of Poland. Both countries then immediately committed genocide in Poland - but I don’t think that was in the agreement. It was just what their leaders did, as a matter of policy. The alliance also stipulated that the Soviet Union would provide Germany with oil and strategic minerals to help Germany’s war with France and the UK. Finally the alliance also agreed that the Soviet Union could invade Romania (they invaded and annexed Bessarabia) - plus the Baltic States and Finland.
Admittedly the Finns rather coyly describe their alliance with Nazi Germany as, “The Continuation War” - in which they fought to recapture the territory they’d lost after the Soviets invaded - but didn’t assist Germany in the attempt to capture Leningrad.
But then Russia does rather worse by still calling its military alliance with Nazi Germany a non-aggression pact.
Fun fact, the Finns had a complicated WWII. They got invaded by the Soviets in 1939. Lost and had to give up some territory, but did immense damage to the Red Army, and its reputation. Churchill wanted to declare war on the Soviet Union and send a fleet to Finland to fight both the Soviets and the Nazis. But was persuaded not to be so silly. There’s a whole chapter in his history of the war, called ‘The Squandering of the Royal Sovereigns’ - and it’s truly mad. Battleships with giant ballast/flotation tanks to allow them to navigate the shallower bits of the Baltic - plus extra deck armour and lots and lots of anti-aircraft guns.
Then the Finns joined the Germans as “co-belligerents” in the Continuation War when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The UK quietly declared war on Finland and promptly took no action against them whatsoever. Once the Germans were in retreat, they made an armistice with the Soviets in 1944 (I guess Stalin saw it as too much trouble to invade - though he did force them to cede yet more territory). But as part of that deal, Finland had to expel all German troops - who retreated too slowly for Stalin’s liking. So Finland fought a short war against Germany, to push them into Norway (the Lapland War).
Finland declared war on Germany in April 1945. A tad late perhaps… At which point they were still formally at war with the UK and Soviet Union - although that was under armistice - and finally ended in 1947. So at one point they were formally at war with the UK, Soviet Union and Germany simultaneously…
Again, a close reading of history needed to tease out the subtleties.
Finland was the only democracy to ally with Nazi Germany. They fought together to expel the Russians from (then) Finnish territory in Karelia.
Finland did not participate in Barbarossa and when the Siege of Leningrad was taking place Finnish armies stood at the border and kept watch. Given their proven ability to take on the Red Army, Finnish support at that phase of the war might have been the difference between Leningrad being held, and it falling... which might have been the difference between Moscow being held, and it falling.
When Germany started to lose, the equation quickly turned to one of land and money for peace.
Your observation was going to be my comment as well. This is exactly how I would expect a Finn to act. What really gives me a chuckle, are people who think that this somehow comes from the US, or that it is being directed by the North Americans. Finns are generally quite vocal about aggressive Russian behavior. They certainly don't need someone from another continent to remind them how to deal with Russians.
The thing is Linus Torvalds lives in USA and Linux Foundation, to which he works for nowadays, has main office in California, US. They kind of have to follow whatever comes out of US government, at least to a point. This isn't unique incident, kinda, really either. In 80's, 90's and early 2000's (or maybe it stopped at 2000 exact?) some software and as a results Linux distros had two different versions. One version for US and one version for rest of the world thanks to various restrictions on 'exporting cryptography',
Finland was part of Russia until the Revolution. That's why there's all sorts of Russian influence up there (Tsarist Winter Palace, Russian language etc.). Things got a bit sticky around WW2 because Finland became allied with Germany. Winter Wars apart, they helped enforce the 900 day siege of Leningrad.
But, despite what you hear it seems that only a relatively vocal minority of Baltic States types fervently hate Russians. They get all the press these days. Obviously.
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) hasn’t been affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in over a century, and today consists predominantly of converts (of western and central European ancestry) with services almost exclusively in English.
ROCOR is an extension of the Russian Orthodox Church, but accounts for a small number of total Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States.
Most Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States belong to either the OCA, Greek, or Antiochian dioceses/metropolises.
"That's why there's all sorts of Russian influence up there (Tsarist Winter Palace, Russian language etc.).
Winter Palace resides in St. Petersburg, which has never been part of Finland.
At the end of 2023 Russian language was the primary language of 99606, <2% of Finns.
Since 1991 (dissolution of Soviet Union), 80256 Russians have immigrated to Finland, the numbers have (roughly) doubled since Putin started his war.
"Things got a bit sticky around WW2 because Finland became allied with Germany."
No. Things got a bit sticky around WW2 because Soviet Union made the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany and attacked Finland unprovoked and without declaring war back in '39.
"But, despite what you hear it seems that only a relatively vocal minority of Baltic States types fervently hate Russians"
You are right. Most people hate Russia, but only a relatively vocal minority does it with fervor.
I've been reading comments like these for about three years now, and as someone who had a very good opinion of the "West" and has been against the war from 2014 (and has helped financially what is essentially my enemies however I could), all I can say is I lost a lot of respect for Western societies which I thought were light years ahead of us in social development. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. As it turns out, people are the same everywhere. Give them a target for hate, and many are all too happy to oblige.
I'm no longer sure if I even want our relations to restore since so many of you are eager to paint all of us with the same (red) paint and blame for everything that's happened, while completely ignoring the faults of your own governments (who had been warned multiple times by people like Nemtsov and Kara-Murza about exactly who they were dealing with). Nemtsov foresaw the war in 2011 (IIRC) and laid out precisely what would happen in February 2022 (he didn't know the exact date, obviously).
Instead of driving a wedge between Putin and the people, a string of bad decisions and some mindless diplomacy bound the destiny of the regime with that of the people, who no longer have any reason to oppose the regime, because all "you" (not personally you — language barrier, please cut me some slack) can propose to "us" is to break up the country, give up the armed forces, and pay reparations for others' crimes until the end of time.
All the while continuing to sponsor the war on both sides. But hey, the gas must flow.
Downvote ahead, I no longer have faith in a possibility of an actually serious discussion. Anyone whose opinion differs to that of the party line is automatically labeled a "Russian troll" who writes comments for "100 rubles", as exemplified by this very article.
There are lots of decent people who make distinction between criminals and those caught in the middle, but not as many as I hoped in the beginning of 2022.
> while completely ignoring the faults of your own governments (who had been warned multiple times by people like Nemtsov and Kara-Murza about exactly who they were dealing with).
Exactly 100% - yet our (the Western) governments went ahead and did it anyway. Knowing that NATO membership was a red line for Russia, and would likely lead to war. They went ahead and did it anyway. One is therefore forced to conclude that the actions of the Western governments was not born from stupidity. It was deliberate and pre-calculated. They wanted war with Russia - well... They wanted a proxy war. They knew they wouldn't have the support of the public to send their own soldiers into a direct confrontation with Russia. So they decided to get Ukraine to do it themselves. Afterall, they can fund it with endless fiat currency, and give arms contracts to all those weapons manufacturers. It's good for the economy, you know!
It's not good for the people of Ukraine though - the country now lies essentially ruined, and definitely one, maybe two generations of Ukrainian males has been wiped out. It will take Ukraine more than 50 years just to recover their population, if it ever does. The cost to rebuild the country? Incalculable. But there will be plenty of fiat currency available to fund interest-bearing loans to rebuild, enslaving the people of Ukraine for another 100 years or so. Just like we did to Iraq. This is what we do.
Meanwhile, far from breaking Russia up into pieces, as was their aim, Russia is arguably stronger, and more united than ever, at least since 1991. Russia and the BRICS nations are divorcing themselves from the US dollar, which will lead to an eventual dollar devaluation - all of this initiated by West through its actions. What choice did Russia have but to accelerate the BRICS programme?
Meanwhile, the Western nations continue to kiss the hand of the USA while it punches them in the face. Nord Stream, I'm looking at you.
>Are you suggesting the Western nations should have sat back and sucked their thumbs as Russia annexed the entirety of Ukraine? And do you think Russia would have stopped there?
As with the vast majority of the Western public, you have missed the point entirely. The conflict only started in the first place because of the NATO states proposing to bring Ukraine into NATO. Had that not ever arisen, or had the NATO states/Ukraine backed away from admitting Ukraine into NATO, then Ukraine would not be the wasteland that it is today.
_We_ did this. And it was done deliberately - seen a means to embroil Russia into a bankrupting war, which would fracture Russia into a number of independent states, leaving the West free to come in like a knight in shining armour in those newly created states, offering development loans (ha! - read the book 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman') in return for their resources. That was the plan. And it has failed, leaving dead Ukrainians, dead Russians, and an entire western continent worse off for it.
As with the vast majority of Putinistas, you are claiming Ukraine's aspirations (perfectly valid, as a sovereign nation) to align politically and/or militarily with whomsoever they wish, as an excuse for the invasion of another country. Ukraine, whatever it's putative alliances, never represented a threat to the integrity of Russia - that is complete bullshit. This is, and always was, about Putin's imperialist ambitions.
> That was the plan...
In your head.
Appeasing despots never ends well.
>Ukraine, whatever it's putative alliances, never represented a threat to the integrity of Russia - that is complete bullshit.
You're quite right. I agree with you 100%. Ukraine does not pose any threat to Russia. But becoming a NATO member, and thereby allowing the installation of NATO controlled nuclear weapons next to Russia's border, and American/Allied bases with Ukraine's border is very much a threat to Russia. In exactly the same way that America saw the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1952, 90 miles off the American coast, as a threat. Can you not see it?
And thanks for the casual 'Putinista' slur.
Oh, come off it. There are already plenty of NATO countries next to Russia's borders (which haven't been invaded... yet). In any case, given the obscene proliferation of medium/long-range nuclear weapons on both sides, "next to a border" really doesn't count for that much these days, and hasn't for decades. The NATO thing was a transparent pretext for Putin's imperialistic ambitions - and the combination of war, paranoia and nationalistic fervour is an age-old ploy for shoring up a despotic regime and entrenching power. Can you not see it?
> And thanks for the casual 'Putinista' slur.
You're welcome. But it wasn't casual - it was considered; if you prefer "Putin apologist" I'm okay with that too.
And just in case you get the wrong impression, I am no cheerleader for Western geopolitical machinations. Happy to call out bad behaviour on all sides.
The NATO thing was a transparent pretext for Putin's imperialistic ambitions - and the combination of war, paranoia and nationalistic fervour is an age-old ploy for shoring up a despotic regime and entrenching power. Can you not see it?
Or a transparent pretext for NATO and the EU's imperialist ambitions. And the war, paranoia and natiionalistic fervor is an age-old ploy currently shoring up a despotic regime and entrenching power. The whole 'slava' palaver, the OUN's red & black flag waving again, punishment beatings for Ukrainians speaking Russian, the general de-Russification, another schism in the Orthodox church and seizure & demolition of churchs and church property. Oh, and don't forget banning political parties, the media, killing journalists, and recently bragging about beating a Russian pilot to death with a hammer in Russia.
And of course Elensky's term expired in May, yet he's still clinging to power..
Don't look closely at how this show started with the coup, regime change, Odessa massacre, civil war, shelling and bombing Donbas etc etc. And of course you have to go look because a lot of that history has been quietly revised. Like articles from western media pointing out that Ukraine had a bit of a far-right and neo-nazi problem with Azov and others proudly sporting SS insignia. I don't know when Starmer's next meeting Polish officials, but maybe they could explain why the 'Slava' thing isn't a good look. Volhyn Massacre, Lviv Pogroms etc etc.
But the West seems to be getting bored with Ukraine now, which is of course bad for Ukraine's prospects. Meanwhile, the Bbc focuses on the big stories-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c9vn8z2wwy9o
The BBC's Russia Editor asked Vladimir Putin about 'justice and security" in light of the Ukraine war.
Like.. that's the important question to ask when attending the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan. Not what he thinks BRICS, with 36(?) countries waiting in the wings might mean for Western economies. Which is back to this story. Ban Russian kernal contributors from Linux. Stick a fork in it, it's done. Russia, India, China, Brazil etc have already been creating alternatives to Western systems like SWIFT. They have rather a lot of smart people who might just come up with BRICS-OS. DPRK already has their own OS after all.
Cutting the ties that bind customers to expensive SAAS would save BRICS economies billions on software licence fees.. And if they do develop alternatives, why would they ever give 'Big Tech' their money again, especially when their services can be turned off at the drop of a sanction? But that's always been the danger with sanctions. We stop flogging tat to BRICs, they develop their own alternatives. Who suffers in that game?
"And the war, paranoia and natiionalistic fervor is an age-old ploy currently shoring up a despotic regime and entrenching power."
That's Russia in a nutshell.
"punishment beatings for Ukrainians speaking Russian, the general de-Russification"
Oops, you have inadvertedly swapped Russia and Ukraine. I don't recollect Ukraine transferring thousands of children from Russia to raise them into Ukrainian culture and hate their origins. Unlike what Russia has done.
"Oh, and don't forget banning political parties, the media, killing journalists, and recently bragging about beating a Russian pilot to death with a hammer in Russia."
You are describing exactly what Russia is doing. Do you disagree?
Ukraine has not said they were behind the killing of this war criminal pilot, nor has there been any evidence of such, Probably just Russian resistance/partisans angry at the mass murderer.
"And of course Elensky's term expired in May, yet he's still clinging to power.."
There is nothing illegal about the current status and you know it.
Putin had the laws changed to give him despot-for-life status.
"Ukraine had a bit of a far-right and neo-nazi problem with Azov"
Russia still has a far-right and neo-nazi problem with the Rusich Group which seems to be not problem for Kremlin at all since they do it all in public. Russia should have started their de-nazification at home soil if they were actually concerned about it.
That's Russia in a nutshell.
Nope, that's us. Russia Russia Russia.. It's like McCarthyism never ended. Russia stole the election from Hillary, Trump is a Putin puppet etc etc.
Oops, you have inadvertedly swapped Russia and Ukraine. I don't recollect Ukraine transferring thousands of children from Russia to raise them into Ukrainian culture and hate their origins. Unlike what Russia has done.
Huh? Russians in places like Mariupol were beating Ukrainians for speaking Russian? How did that work? So as for the rest..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
Ukrainian children have been abducted by the Russian state after their parents had been arrested by Russian occupation authorities or killed in the invasion, or after becoming separated from their parents in an active war zone.
Occupying powers have a legal (and moral) duty to safeguard civilians. If kids are orphaned due to their parents being killed, either by Russia or Ukraine, what is Russia supposed to do? Keep them in orphan camps inside an active war zone, or evacuate them to a place of safety? Which is the legal requirement, and what Russia has done. Plus the Ukrainian civil war had already created a lot of orphans, so some of the early claimed 'abductions' were transfering orphans from Donbas to Russia where they were safer from Ukrainian shelling. Then once the SMO started, finding more orphans that had been abandoned in Mariupol after their guardians had fled. Ukraine also has a legal duty to safeguard civilians and evacuate them away from active combat zones.
Ukraine has not said they were behind the killing of this war criminal pilot, nor has there been any evidence of such, Probably just Russian resistance/partisans angry at the mass murderer.
I guess this is 'fake news'?
https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-pilot-eliminated-kremenchuk-strike-amstor/33166437.html
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) announced on October 21 the "elimination" of Russian military pilot Dmitry Golenkov, a chief of staff in Russia’s 52nd heavy bomber aviation regiment... The intelligence agency reported that Golenkov’s body was found with head injuries, possibly inflicted with a hammer, emphasizing “fair retribution for every war crime.”
Or just a war crime. Especially as the Kremenchuk was rather odd given there were allegedly 1,000 shoppers in a mall, but only 22 deaths after a rather large missile allegedly hit the mall. And didn't even break vodka bottles sitting on a shelf.
There is nothing illegal about the current status and you know it.
Did I say there was? Elensky's term expired in May. Martial law allows him to cling on to power. It'll only get legally interesting if/when it comes to signing official documents like peace treaties and if Elensky is authorised to sign any of those.
Russia still has a far-right and neo-nazi problem
Yep. People like Navalny as an example. But whataboutery. Ukraine dreams of entering the EU. In the EU, and most civilised countries it's illegal to wear, display or glorify Naziism. Yet Azov made the 2nd SS Panzer division's insignia and the 'Black Sun' emblem designed for the SS's castle at Wewelsburg part of it's official, approved insignia. After many people pointed out that this wasn't a good look, and the US proscribing the organisation, they kinda, sorta modified it, but still use it.
Ukraine could have simply countered criticism by enacting legislation banning Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, but it didn't, and still hasn't. But it will have to, if it ever wants to join the EU. Most of us don't tolerate that kind of abhorent ideology, yet some attempt to rationalise it and justify it..
"Nope, that's us. Russia Russia Russia.."
No it is not.
War, paranoia and nationalistic fervor to shore up despotic regime and entrenching power. That's what Russian kleptocracy is doing to a T. Any dissenting option about warfare or the govt likely results in severe penalties, no matter if your child draws pictures in a class, or a priest prays for the warfare to end, or you are wearing blue alongside yellow colors.
"It's like McCarthyism never ended. Russia stole the election from Hillary, Trump is a Putin puppet etc etc."
You have a tendency to categorize all non-Russian aligned countries into some US centric group. That's wrong. My country didn't have any sort of McCarthyism, just Finlandization.
"Ukrainian children have been abducted by the Russian state after their parents had been arrested by Russian occupation authorities or killed in the invasion, or after becoming separated from their parents in an active war zone."
Yes, they are called war crimes as you can read on the next sentences. The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.
The children have been forced to Russification and treated badly.
"what is Russia supposed to do?"
Return them to Ukraine post-haste of course! Now the Russians have adopted some or forced them into Russian citizenship illegally.
"I guess this is 'fake news'?"
Ukraine is stating the guy was eliminated. So do I. That does not mean I am behind the killing, nor does it mean Ukraine was behind it.
The whole killing sounds fishy anyway. This happened in a shopping mall with no eye witnesses or camera footage?
Maybe the powers that be just wanted the guy dead for some reason and there were no high-rises with accessible balconies / windows to push him through.
"Or just a war crime. Especially as the Kremenchuk was rather odd given there were allegedly 1,000 shoppers in a mall, but only 22 deaths after a rather large missile allegedly hit the mall. And didn't even break vodka bottles sitting on a shelf."
20+ dead in a mall bombing is not terrorist attack or a war crime? Russia has already admitted responsibility for the attack. It does not matter whether the warhead hit a less populated area of the mall since they aimed at a civilian infrastructure anyway.
Russia using the inaccurate anti-ship KH-22 missiles is not a defense at all. Russia has not been averse to collateral damage at any point.
"Russia still has a far-right and neo-nazi problem"
"Yep. People like Navalny as an example."
You didn't address my worries about the Rusich Group. Why doesn't Russia abolish them? Their insignia has an obviously modified swastika after all.
Why aren't you concerned about them?
You have a tendency to categorize all non-Russian aligned countries into some US centric group. That's wrong. My country didn't have any sort of McCarthyism, just Finlandization.
No, it's right. The 'West' is very much dominated by US interests. That might be wrong when EU and US interests don't necessarily align, but that's politics. McCarthysim is very much back in fashion and there's much anti-Russian sentiment and rhetoric in Finland and from other Baltic States. This isn't necessarily suprising given there's a lot of history there, along with historical revisionism.
Yes, they are called war crimes as you can read on the next sentences. The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.The children have been forced to Russification and treated badly.
They're allegations. It isn't a war crime to evacuate children from war zones. Because this is a propaganda and proxy war, emotive language like 'abducted' gets used. Evil Russians snatching babies! But investigators also found that kids had been well treated, not forced to cower in basements as Poroshenko wanted ethnic Russian kids. But there are processes around evacuated populations, including re-uniting kids with families, if those families have survived and it's safe to do so. Things do get messy with adoptions, ie adopting orphans should be a good thing for the kids, but they're also being used as pawns in the PR campaign.. Should an orphaned child from an ethnic Russian family in Donbas be adopted and raised to respect and appreciate Russian traditions, or should they be adopted by a Banderite family in Lviv and raised to hate Russia? It's one of those tricky situations that international aid charities have to deal with.
Maybe the powers that be just wanted the guy dead for some reason and there were no high-rises with accessible balconies / windows to push him through.
Ukraine claimed and announced the kill and have tagged him as 'liquidated' on their kill list website, which for some reason is still running. Meanwhile you create conspiracy theories. Russia will be investigating the murder and may announce more details when they're done.
20+ dead in a mall bombing is not terrorist attack or a war crime? Russia has already admitted responsibility for the attack. It does not matter whether the warhead hit a less populated area of the mall since they aimed at a civilian infrastructure anyway.
It's 'collateral damage', but you're using the texas sharpshooter fallacy. Because a mall was hit, the mall must have been the target. Or per wiki-
On 29 June, the UK Ministry of Defence said, "There is a realistic possibility the missile strike on the Kremenchuk shopping centre on 27 June 2022 was intended to hit a nearby infrastructure target."
ie the machine plant next to the mall, or possibly rail wagons on the rail lines between the mall and the factory. But a Kh-22 with a 1,000kg warhead killed 20 out of "1,000" people and didn't break or knock bottles off shelves. Again this is where propaganda is heavily used. A missile hits an apartment building, therefore the apartment building must have been the target. Yet Ukraine has been using a lot of air defence. Standard procedure is launch 2 interceptors at the incoming missile. So 3 missiles in the air, and they have to obey the laws of gravity. Wreckage from all 3 has to land somewhere. Which in one case just happened to be Poland, killing a couple of Poles. But this is a risk militaries have known about for years, especially Israel given frequent missile attacks and their use of Iron Dome. They try to intercept over 'safe' ground, but people have still been killed or injured.
Why aren't you concerned about them?
Who says I'm not? But I'm more concerned about our support for neo-nazi and far-right groups, especially when Starmer parrots the 'Slava' thing. I wonder if he and his wife have discussed the origin of that phrase, or the way it was used by OUN Ukrainians to massacre thousands of Jews, Poles and the Banderites have a lot of influence in this conflict. When he says that, and says the UK stands behind Ukraine, it's a national disgrace when Ukraine is doing nothing to ban the Banderites.. but then Elensky can't, because he relies on their muscle and knows they'll 'liquidate' him if he tries.
But Rusich came to infamy after they ambushed troops from Ukraine's Aidar Battalion, so you could argue that neo-nazis killing each other is a good thing.. But also a bad thing given once this conflict is almost settled, Ukraine will have to de-nazify either under Russia, or as part of EU accession. Which means a lot of those neo-nazis will try to flee, be combat veterans, and it's not like Scandanavia doesn't have enough problems with neo-nazi gangs already. Especially as some of those gangs have ended up with weapons smuggled out of Ukraine.
> Should an orphaned child from an ethnic Russian family in Donbas be adopted and raised to respect and appreciate Russian traditions, or should they be adopted by a Banderite family in Lviv and raised to hate Russia?
"Banderite". You really *are* keen on associating Ukrainians with that word, aren't you?
I mean, I'm *sure* you just decided to use it yourself and it's pure coincidence that it's a historical smear that remains particularly favoured within anti-Euromaidan and anti-Ukrainian propaganda churned out by the present-day Russian state... isn't it?
God, you're such a fucking mouthpiece.
"Banderite". You really *are* keen on associating Ukrainians with that word, aren't you?
When people keep using the 'slava' thing without understanding its origins, then yep.
I mean, I'm *sure* you just decided to use it yourself and it's pure coincidence that it's a historical smear that remains particularly favoured within anti-Euromaidan and anti-Ukrainian propaganda churned out by the present-day Russian state... isn't it?
Paranoid much? But how can it be a historical smear when its actually a historical fact? And since the coup, Ukraine has been putting up statues, renamiing streets, flying the OUN's red & black flag etc?
> But how can it be a historical smear when its actually a historical fact?
By using the fact that *some* Ukrainian Nazis existed/exist to imply- by associating them with the term- that all Ukrainians are Nazis. (Or at least those who don't wish to subsume themselves as part of a de facto Greater Russia.)
In other words, the same propaganda tactic that Putin's Russia still uses today.
And no "paranoia" needed to observe that- for a Westerner- your comments on such things *always* seem to mirror the line churned out by Russian state propaganda.
(BTW, to be clear, I know you're not a paid Russian shill. You're a formerly-"regular" right-winger co-opted as a culture warrior and useful idiot regurgitator of pro-Russian propaganda towards that group).
By using the fact that *some* Ukrainian Nazis existed/exist to imply- by associating them with the term- that all Ukrainians are Nazis. (Or at least those who don't wish to subsume themselves as part of a de facto Greater Russia.)
No, I have not said this. But this is why you don't understand Ukraine. In the west, ie clustered around Lviv you have the Banderites, with their dreams of an independent Ukraine and sometimes restoring the glories of the Kingdom of Galacia-Volhynia. Which was one of the reasons behind the OUN/Banderite's massacres in Volhynia. Some also dream of the Kievan Rus' and why they claimed they were 'liberating' Kursk. The Banderites and Ukraine's nationalists were (are) also heavily influenced by this chap-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko#
In much the same way as the Nazis were influenced by their Teutonic fantasies.. which isn't that supprising given they both came from the same school of political/social thought. Meanwhile, in the east, more Ukrainians identify with their Russian roots, which lead to Ukraine's civil war after the coup and the de-Russification began. There are also ethnic Hungarian, Polish and Romanian groups that ended up becoming 'Ukrainian' after the victors drew lines on maps, regardless of traditional boundaries.
But the 'slava' thing is very simple, even though posters like Spartacus couldn't figure it out-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava_Ukraini
In the 1930s, it became widespread as a slogan of the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)
So it's an easy way to identify Banderites given it functioned much the same way as the Nazis and their HH thing. So when people like Starmer use it, the Banderites in Ukraine must be laughing their azov. Plus it goes deeper, eg this lot-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/72nd_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukraine)
who were in the news recently for trying to hold Vuhledar and pretty much being wiped out. But also-
Its honorifics "Krasnohrad–Kyiv" were removed and replaced with the honorific Black Zaporozhian in honor of the Ukrainian People's Army Black Zaporizhian Cavalry Regiment on 23 August 2017
Not sure Poland would agree with that 'honor', or the red & black flag again.
And no "paranoia" needed to observe that- for a Westerner- your comments on such things *always* seem to mirror the line churned out by Russian state propaganda.
I have no idea what Russian 'state propaganda' is given in our free society, we've blocked access to most Russian news sources. But you and others just mirrror the lines churned out by Ukrainian propaganda, which is usually uncritically mirrored by British state propaganda. So it's unsuprising you have a rather one-sided view of this conflict.
No?
No, and again I guess this is why so many IT f'ckups happen when people simply don't understand logic. Just because I do not support the Banderites in Ukraine, it does not follow that I support Russian. I guess the more salient question is why people are attempting to defend the Banderites when it's an ideology that should be abhorent to most people.
> Just because I do not support the Banderites in Ukraine, it does not follow that I support Russian.
Yeah, it's just a coincidence that you constantly and repeatedly conflate pro-independence Ukrainians with "Banderites" in a manner that mimics Russian state propaganda and that everything you say in general just happens to reflect the Russian side of the argument with no sign of notable dissent.
But that doesn't mean you're an uncritically pro-Russian apologist, does it? *rolls eyes*
> No, I have not said [that all Ukrainians are Banderites/Nazis]
I didn't say you said it. I said that you implied it, by your constant association of non-pro-Russian Ukrainians with the term. Or is it just the purest coincidence that when you said earlier...
> "Should an orphaned child from an ethnic Russian family in Donbas be adopted and raised to respect and appreciate Russian traditions, or should they be adopted by a Banderite family in Lviv and raised to hate Russia?"
...that the Ukrainian family in this manufactured scenario justifying child abduction just happened to be "Banderites"? (Answer: No, of course it isn't a coincidence).
"there's much anti-Russian sentiment and rhetoric in Finland and from other Baltic States."
Yes. There's loads of anti-Finnish / Baltic rhetoric in Russia.
"This isn't necessarily suprising given there's a lot of history there, along with historical revisionism."
There's no historical revisionism in Finland. You're spouting nonsense as usual.
"They're allegations."
No they're not. There is plenty of first hand experience and children who have managed to return have been interviewed who have corroborated these statements.
"Evil Russians snatching babies!"
Yes, you understood it finally!
"Things do get messy with adoptions"
Yes, war crimes are a messy business.
"Ukraine claimed and announced the kill"
No, they did not.
"It's 'collateral damage'"
It's 'war crime'.
"ie the machine plant next to the mall, or possibly rail wagons on the rail lines between the mall and the factory. But a Kh-22 with a 1,000kg warhead killed 20 out of "1,000" people and didn't break or knock bottles off shelves. Again this is where propaganda is heavily used. A missile hits an apartment building, therefore the apartment building must have been the target. Yet Ukraine has been using a lot of air defence. Standard procedure is launch 2 interceptors at the incoming missile. So 3 missiles in the air, and they have to obey the laws of gravity. Wreckage from all 3 has to land somewhere"
You are either uninformed again, or (more likely) blatant lying since there is video of the strike available. The missile is intact and strikes the mall head first. It is not tumbling and it is certainly not wreckage and causes a big explosion.
"Why aren't you concerned about them?"
"Who says I'm not?"
I'm saying.
For someone as "concerned" about nazism as you, you have never shown any concern about Rusich. You are still not condemning them or even asking why Russia tolerates blatant neo-nazis on their own soil.
Yes. There's loads of anti-Finnish / Baltic rhetoric in Russia.
Are you denying the Continuation War and Finland allying with the Nazis? Is that period of history even taught in Finnish schools?
You are either uninformed again, or (more likely) blatant lying since there is video of the strike available. The missile is intact and strikes the mall head first. It is not tumbling and it is certainly not wreckage and causes a big explosion
And yet the missile's 1,000kg warhead detonated, only killing 0.2% of the people that were allegedly in the mall, and not knocking bottles off shelves or breaking them. But that's a problem with propaganda. It's illegal for Ukrainians to release pictures or video.
You are still not condemning them or even asking why Russia tolerates blatant neo-nazis on their own soil.
I'll condemn them if you want, and again I'll say that it's a good thing if neo-nazi nutjobs end up killing each other. But we're not being asked to arm and support Russia's neo-nazis, we are arming and supporting Ukraines. Again it would be a very simple issue for Ukraine to resolve and counter Russia's claims. All Ukraine has to do is pass a law making it illegal, yet despite international pressure, they refuse. Canada was a great example. We know politicians are often dumber than a box of rocks, so when they introduced their Ukrainian 'war hero' as someone who fought against Russia during WW2.. They should perhaps have twigged their 'hero' was fighting on the wrong side. Especially when that 'hero' was quickly identifed as a Ukrainian SS volunteer.. Yet the Canadians gave him a standing ovation.
"You're quite right. I agree with you 100%. Ukraine does not pose any threat to Russia. But becoming a NATO member, and thereby allowing the installation of NATO controlled nuclear weapons next to Russia's border, and American/Allied bases with Ukraine's border is very much a threat to Russia. In exactly the same way that America saw the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1952, 90 miles off the American coast, as a threat. Can you not see it?"
NATO has has a border with Russia / Soviet Union since 1949 when Norway joined as one of the founding members.
In 2004 all the Baltic states joined NATO, all them have a border with Russia.
In 2023 Finland joined NATO, with a long border with Russia.
Are you saying that each of these countries were fair game for Russia to bomb when they were discussing NATO membership? No.
"The conflict only started in the first place because of the NATO states proposing to bring Ukraine into NATO"
Absolute nonsense. To think that you need to ignore so much history and much of what Putin himself has said. Sure, it's a great justification that Putin can spout when he wants to redirect from his empire building desires, but to think it's the only reason this war started is simplistic and lazy.
Putin is enacting a plan that has been in the works since the 90s. Just take a look at Aleksandr Dugin's 1997 book 'Foundations of Geopolitics'. It reads like a playbook of what Putin has been up to since 1999, including making Western nations reliant on your resources, pouring money into Western financial markets to gain power and influence, sowing dissent in Western democracies and separating the UK politically from Europe (again by sowing dissent). Subsuming Ukraine into Russia was the next step on the list, a list which also includes reclaiming all of the Slavic countries. Dugin has been in Putin's ear for years. There's a reason why he's known as "Putin's Rasputin".
Putin also openly says he wants to rebuild the Russian Empire and make Russia a world power again. He often likens himself to Peter the Great and talks of 'reclaiming and strengthening Russian lands'. Talk which rattled the Baltic states long before 2022. For Putin this is almost a religious war and a battle for geopolitical dominance. Talk of NATO and de-nazifying Ukraine are useful distractions when you need to justify your actions on the global stage, but if you listen to what he says to his home audience, it's all about how Ukraine is not really a country, how Russia needs to reclaim its lands, how Russia is the Mother of all Slavs, and how all Slavic people should be living together as a single nation. It's entirely ideologically based.
It's been deeply imprinted in Russian culture that Russia is the Mother of all Slavs since the time of the Tsars, which is ironic when you consider that if any state can claim that name it would be Kievan Rus', which was centred in Kiev. Muscovy, from which Russia grew, was merely a region of Kievan Rus'. It was when Ivan IV was crowned Prince of Muscovy in 1547 and declared “Tsar of All the Russias” that a unified Russian state first began to claim the heritage of Kievan Rus’. I wonder why Putin is so desperate to say Ukraine is not a real country and is just part of Russia? (side note: The first usage of the word Ukraine to mean the region where Ukraine now sits dates back to 1187 in the Hypatian Codex, long before Russia existed as a nation - this is tricky for Putin).
A lot of this talk of pan-Slavism is also to boost Putin's popularity at home. Nothing boosts an authoritarian ruler's popularity like increasing your country's status on the world stage. His strongman image is very much tailored to play well at home. Russian culture loves a strong ruler.
We could also touch on the feeling within Russia that the nation was deeply embarrassed by the West when the USSR fell and a desire to regain lost glory, but this would take several thousand more words to pick apart.
Anyway, these are just a fraction of the reasons why this war started. It's deeply ingrained in an almost religious belief that Russia is the rightful leader of all Slavic people, hundreds of years of Russian history, and the desire of an authoritarian leader to leave a legacy, as well as protect his current position.
So saying "The conflict only started in the first place because of the NATO states proposing to bring Ukraine into NATO" is really sloppy thinking. This was always going to happen in one form or another, the NATO line is just a useful excuse.
No. I don't agree, sorry. Though for the record, I upvoted you because at least you were polite.
I'll see your Aleksandr Dugin's 1997 book 'Foundations of Geopolitics' and raise you Zbigniew Brzezinski's 'The Grand Chessboard' (1997). It's quite clear, just from the text of that book alone what America's geopolitical aspirations were/are. Couple it with the PNAC documents, first published in 1997, and it's beyond debate that America's foreign policy was centered around the strategic capturing of resources, by fair means or foul. It's right there in black and white in Brezinski's text. And that lies at heart of America's deliberate invoking of conflict within Ukraine (though deeply buried beneath layers of noise and propaganda from subservient and spineless water-carrying western media and press that simply parrot the party line, in echoes so ironic of the Soviet Union itself!).
The Ukrainians are nothing more than pawns on the chessboard, same as the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, and the Libyans.
I've also heard Putin talk of Peter the Great and reclaiming Russian lands, but only in the context of Crimea, the gifting of which to Ukraine by Brezhnev in 1954 was controversial (from the Russian standpoint). I guess Russia never considered the Soviet Union would collapse, and so the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was seen as healing and symbolic, though of little real consequence. All that changed when the Soviet Union, fell, or course. I suspect that Putin is being dishonest when he refers to taking back Crimea to protect ethnic Russians. He's more likely interested in the significant oil and gas reserves that are sloshing around under Crimean soil, as noted by this article from 10 years ago: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Russia-Eyes-Crimeas-Oil-and-Gas-Reserves.html
In this regard, his behaviour would not much different to that of the western nations that seek to capture and exploit Russian reserves through the break up of Russia.
I'm inclined to agree with you regarding Putin to some extent pandering to his home audience, though I do not think his actions are related to 'old wounds' such as the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 as you infer. Sending countless thousands of Russian male conscripts to their death over such an old issue is political suicide. No, I think his actions are solely pragmatic, based on current geopolitical events as he sees them.
Buckle up, this is a long one!
“No. I don't agree, sorry. Though for the record, I upvoted you because at least you were polite.”
It’s fine to disagree. The world would be a dull place if we all agreed on everything.
“I’ll see your Aleksandr Dugin's 1997 book 'Foundations of Geopolitics' and raise you Zbigniew Brzezinski's 'The Grand Chessboard' (1997). “
I’ve not read the book, but it is on my list, so I’m not sure I can fully respond to this fairly. I have however read many discussions and reviews of the ideas in the book (which is why it’s on my list to read), so I can perhaps talk about my understanding of it (with the caveat that I’m talking about the ideas in the book from the perspective of what I thought about what other people thought about them).
From my understanding, Brzezinski himself has said the book is very much about the US geo-strategy of the last decade of the 20th century. Obviously, what happened in the 90s has an impact today (as I said with the perceived embarrassment about the fall of the USSR in the Russian psyche) and some policies may still carry over, but how many of the strategies in the book are still current policy is open to debate. Dugin's work was very much a roadmap for the future, one that can be seen to be have been followed pretty closely up to now. He is also still active in Putin's ear and is cited as Putin's favourite 'thinker'.
Obama for example had his famous ‘reset’ of US relations with Russia in 2010. This involved the scrapping of plans to build military bases in Eastern Europe and the reduction of deployed warheads with the new START treaty. The US even helped speed along Russia’s WTO accession. They had agreements and discussions on everything from culture, education, sports, dealing with the financial crisis, ‘universal values’ (whatever they are) and much more. It really seemed to be an attempt to find common ground across all areas. Obviously you can claim this was all a ruse, but most of what I have read doesn’t think it was and see it as a genuine attempt to put old differences behind them.
Some in the intelligence community cite this reset, and later the lack of any real action against 2014’s annexation of Crimea, as the reason for Putin’s renewed confidence on the world stage.
It is also evident that the US has pulled back from its many international adventures during the 90s, and is now far more insular. It’s hard to argue that the US of today is as globally adventurous as the US of the 90s.
Moving outside of the US, Europe also had a reset of relations with Russia, with a policy of trying to bring Russia into the European community. This was strongly pushed by Angela Merkel and Germany as a whole, with many now thinking she was taken for a fool by Putin.
Obviously the book cannot be dismissed (the guy was an advisor to US government in the 80s after all) and I’m sure that the content has relevance today, but I’m not sure you can cut and paste the US policy of the 90s over the 2010s onward.
Perhaps my biggest criticism, and from what I understand is one of the main criticisms levelled at the book, is that it’s from a very one sided, US centric view. This is exactly what I see from everyone who says that everything in the world is the fault of the West, they don’t allow for the autonomy of any other country.
You back up my view when you say:
“The Ukrainians are nothing more than pawns on the chessboard, same as the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, and the Libyans.”
Ukraine is a nation state that has autonomy and its own ideas and wants. Diminishing a country of 40 million people down to a pawn in a US political game is insulting. I would think the fact that the Ukrainian people have multiple times risen up against their Government shows that they are not merely pawns. Even all the way back in 1990 with the Revolution on Granite, the Ukrainian people have been showing their autonomy and a strong will to be in control of their own destiny. Just because that desire looks West does not mean it’s all a CIA plot.
“I’ve also heard Putin talk of Peter the Great and reclaiming Russian lands, but only in the context of Crimea, the gifting of which to Ukraine by Brezhnev in 1954 was controversial (from the Russian standpoint).”
Putin has talked about reclaiming Russian lands multiple times, most recently that I have heard in 2022. He again likened himself to Peter the Great and discussed how Peter had retaken lands from Sweden. He was justifying the war in Ukraine in general and a wider desire to reclaim Slavic lands for Russia, not only Crimea.
“Sending countless thousands of Russian male conscripts to their death over such an old issue is political suicide. No, I think his actions are solely pragmatic, based on current geopolitical events as he sees them.”
I agree some of the reasons are pragmatic, I never said these were the only reasons, I was simply pushing back against your claim that the war only started because of NATO expansion.
Crimea for example was largely about access to the deep water port in Sevastopol, the lease of which was up for renewal. However, Putin soon found out that supplying Crimea with essentials like food, water and power was very costly and not at all easy, even with the new Kerch Bridge. This is one reason why a land bridge between Russia and Crimea is so important now. The reason Brezhnev gifted Crimea to Ukraine wasn’t just from the kindness of his heart. It was also because of the cold, hard realities of maintaining infrastructure in, and supplying essentials to a separate enclave. Ukraine is attached to Crimea, so it’s far more cost effective to run power, water and supply lines from Ukraine. As you say, this wasn’t much of an issue when the USSR still existed.
As for the thousands of conscripts, this is currently a major issue for Putin. He desperately needs to mobilise more manpower, however politically he cannot for the reasons you state. Politically he also cannot withdrawal from Ukraine as it would be the end of his rein. He (and his advisors) believed Ukraine would fail within three days and Ukrainians would welcome Russia with open arms. He believed his own hype about ‘one Slavic people’ and now has a mess that is all of his own making.
I don’t know where you are from. Are you Russian or from another Slavic nation, or are you from a Western country? Just to explain my interest in this, I am a British / Irish national, married to a Russian woman. She lived in Ukraine in her early life and has relations who are Ukrainian and live in Eastern Ukraine. I have spent a lot of time in Russia and, as I married into a Slavic family, I felt I should understand the history of the region and the culture. I have spoken extensively to both Russians and Ukrainians in my extended family and have probably annoyed them all by asking many questions about how things were and are for them. My wife still has family and friends in Russia, so we are keeping up to speed with how things are there now.
My Wife reads much of the current thinking on Putin from Russian political figures (mostly those exiled for wrong think) and the general consensus is that there is a strong ideological and legacy building element to Putin’s current actions.
Utter tosh. The motivation for the invasion was absolutely, resources. The annexation of Crimea was about seizing one of the few useful deepwater Black Sea ports for access to the Med, and in Ukraine itself, the vast trove of oil, gas and other resources.
Russia signed up to guarantees of Ukrainian independence (and it's borders).
It's reneged on both of those.
So, no, there is absolutely no culpability in the west for the actions of the street thug in charge of one of the largest nuclear arsenals ever created.
Utter tosh. The motivation for the invasion was absolutely, resources. The annexation of Crimea was about seizing one of the few useful deepwater Black Sea ports for access to the Med, and in Ukraine itself, the vast trove of oil, gas and other resources.
If you stop and think, you'll see that cuts both ways. The Baltics are often described as a 'NATO Lake', seizing Crimea starts creating another 'NATO Lake' in the Black Sea.. Plus of course the regime change in Syria where Russia has a small naval base. Russia is also not exactly short of natural resources already, and sanctioning those is deindustrialising the EU. Russia doesn't need those resources anywhere near as much as Ukraine or the EU does. Especially as most of those resources where in the break-away regions in the Donbas. Ukraine's about to lose it's coke & coal mines for example, so that might be good news for Poland, but less good for EU steel prices.
But that's been one of the strategic objectives behind this conflict. 'Welcome' Ukraine into the EU, load them up with debt, give them the full Greek experience when they inevitably default. Presto chango, profitable industries no longer owned by the Ukrainian state, or Ukrainian oligarchs, now owned by cuddly Western oligarchs instead.
And all of this justifies the slaughter of thousands of civilians and military personnel. What an abysmal view of life and political values. Merely the petulant, cowardly school-yard bully writ large—someone who never grew up, but learned that if you smash someone in the face first you often get what you think you want. Only to discover, usually too late, that it's all for nothing—you are nothing more than just another bloodstained bully who is a long time dead, and the sooner the better.
Putin and his ilk in Russia, the capitalist moneygrubbers in the 'West'—all cut from the same cloth. All selfish murderous idiots, and no amount of weasel words and slimy justifications will change that reality.
Utter tosh back to you.Crime never was Ukrainian until 1950's even Ukraine never existed before 1917 revolution that gave Ukraine it's independence. Post USSR Ukraine did have guarantee from Russia to live as brothers side by side until the west started eyieing Ukraine as asset and commodity and started an ethnic strife with the pretext of expanding *democracy". Russia can not see Russian speaking section of Ukraine being total maulloed in their step door neither loose the interwonded economy they did have with their neighbors. That war is only in fact originated by the west fueling western Ukrainian ultra nationalists. I bet you would like someone telling you to forget your maternal language and learn and new one and adapt. I guess US and UK can send help to Israel and even the old South African Apartheid to support their kind leaving in stolen land but Russia can not do it to theirr own kins living in their own land. You westerners have the most bizarre morality in the entire universe.
If Putin were really that concerned about the expansion of NATO, he wouldn't have commenced an invasion that anyone with two neurons to run together could have foreseen leading to Sweden and Finland joining the organization.
Great job, Vlad, your border with NATO has increased by 1,340 km.
Putin knew Ukraine was never going to invade Russia. He knew Ukraine was never going to invade Russia.
Putin knew Ukraine was never going to invade Russia. He knew Ukraine was never going to invade Russia.
Well, they have now. Plus claimed Kursk as part of Ukraine's ancestral homelands. All part of the 'victory plan' to give Ukraine something to negotiate with. How many potato fields would Ukraine need to swap for a coal mine? But a genius move from the Comedian-in-Chief that's just accelerated the loss of Ukrainian territory in the east.
Wow, next stop Moscow!
It's all in the plan, you know. or, perhaps not. Instead merely a tactical venture. Mind you, given what Russia has stolen from Ukraine one couldn't blame Ukraine if they end up deciding to hang on to that little bit of Russia—just as a reminder that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.
as someone who had a very good opinion of the "West" and has been against the war from 2014 (and has helped financially what is essentially my enemies however I could), all I can say is I lost a lot of respect for Western societies which I thought were light years ahead of us in social development. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. As it turns out, people are the same everywhere. Give them a target for hate, and many are all too happy to oblige.
In the end, people are very similar. Also people making comments on the interent rarely tend to put in the nuance when they post. You have to be very disciplined with your language to always talk about "the Russian government" or "the Putin regime" did something - rather than just saying Russia or Russians. And that's when people are even making that distinction in their mind.
There's a lot of loose talk of "breaking up Russia" and "decolonising Russia" - but even our most loud-mouthed politicians mostly avoid that.
I agree you are correct that our politicians have made many bad choices when it comes to relations with Russia. Some of that is bad politicians, and some is the downside of a democractic system. Politicians want to get elected - and so making easy choices that don't cost money is very popular with politicians, because it's popular with voters. Until it goes wrong.
However I've come to the conclusion that it's also because Putin was very hard to understand. Politicians not grounded in Cold War history, and too young to have direct experience of Cold War foreign relations, weren't able to understand Putin. Many of our politicians thought he was like them - and weren't able to understand the mindset of someone who willingly joined the KGB in the 1970s.
I'm no longer sure if I even want our relations to restore since so many of you are eager to paint all of us with the same (red) paint and blame for everything that's happened
This is a shame. I have a lot of sympathy for your position. However there's a lot of people with a lot of historical reasons to hate Russia. And that history is within living memory. That's part of your history, and you're going to have to come to terms with it in some way. Putin is in his 70s, along with almost all of his leadership team.
There are a lot of younger technocrats, like Prime Minister Mishustin - but as I understand things, they're not in the inner circle of the regime. So some sort of change is inevitable.
At some point, Russia is going to have to look at its history, and find a path forward. One way might be to say that everyone was a victim of the Soviet Union, including Russians. So the crimes of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe were also committed in Russia against Russians. And Russians are as much the victims as Poles. But then what about the horrors of the war in Ukraine and Chechnya?
Britain is still debating the history of our empire all the time. The Atlantic slave trade was as evil as anything Stalin did. But then Britain also banned the slave trade (and later slavery itself) and either persuaded or forced much of the rest of the world to stop the trade in slaves as well. We went from legally trading in slaves to voting in Parliament to ban it because it was morally wrong, to freeing all slaves and then to using the Royal Navy to force other countries to stop the slave-trade in a period of 30 years.
All of those positions are problematic and complicated. The word "superpower" was actually invented to describe the 19th Century British Empire - because it did things like deciding slavery was morally wrong and then used its military power to force others to comply.
bound the destiny of the regime with that of the people, who no longer have any reason to oppose the regime
The Russian people have plenty of reasons to oppose your government. If Russia was ruled by less corrupt people, you'd all be a lot richer. If Russia was ruled by less warlike people, you wouldn't be getting 5-10,000 of you killed in Ukraine every month for 2½ years.
The Russian people have otherthrown 3 of their governments (and one short-lived military coup) in the last 100 years. Which is 3 more than the British people have. Although the difference is we can vote to get rid of ours, so hopefully won't need to.
Not that I'm saying you should go out and get shot in order to fulfill my expectations of what Russia should be. But Ukraine have mostly peacefully thrown out 2 governments in twenty years - and I think that example is much more the reason Putin ordered the invasion than mistakes made by Western politicians. In my opinion the correct policy would have been to increase conflict with Russia by arming Ukraine back in 2015 - in order to avoid the full-scale invasion that happened in 2022. And save hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives. I'd be interested to know if you regard that as anti-Russian or realistic. The only Russians I have talked to are people who left the country years ago.
Here's to reasonable discussion.
You have to understand, this is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!
When Yeltsin took over Russia, western influence came into Russia and took advantage of him and instituted massive corruption. Western interests were making billions draining Russia dry! The people suffered due to this. When Putin took over he stopped this and cut the flow of wealth to the western oligarchs, they were pissed!
So they tried, twice now, to create "Putin's Afghanistan" in an attempt to get him thrown out of power. The first was Syria! It failed because Hillary Clinton lost the election. The second is Ukraine! They laid the ground work under Obama when they orchestrated the over throw of the Ukrainian government (You can believe that was 'grass roots', just like you can believe in the Easter Bunny, but neither are true).
They goaded Russia into this war with the talk of EU and NATO membership for Ukraine, all in the hopes of a war that would bankrupt Russia and remove Putin. So far it has failed!
I largely agree. Though I would say that the intent was to bankrupt Russia and watch it (and encourage) the break up of what we now call Russia into multiple nation states, akin to the fall of the Soviet Union where countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Hungary, Romania, Azerbaijan et al all re-emerged free of their Warsaw Pact chains. It's good old divide and conquer. Those new ex-Russian states would need money to get on their feet. Western alliances would be more than happy to print their fiat currency out of thin air to finance them, in return for cheap access to their energy reserves. The loans would be interest bearing, of course. All trade would be in US dollars, of course. Russia would be left a fraction of its original size and never more a threat on the geopolitical stage. That was their plan. So far, it hasn't worked and the Western nations have lost access to their cheap energy, ruined their own economies, and destroyed Ukraine in pursuit of their goal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/world/europe/paul-whelan-russia-prisoner-swap.html
Mr. Whelan’s arrest was a new chapter in what is called hostage diplomacy, when citizens of the United States or other nations are arrested and imprisoned on sham charges in order to be exchanged for a person or some concession.
They were both politically the same. Mussolini was a socialist, who, along with most of the rest of the socialists in the world, noticed how socialism had developed in Russia. Taking that as a model, he decided to skip the revolutionary stage Marx and Engles had thought necessary, and go straight to a 'post socialist' society like the USSR. Hitler took the same direction, following Mussolini. They were all on the same page, except that 'internationalist' socialism meant a Russian empire, 'nationalist' socialism meant German and Italian empires.
Nazi "National socialism" isn't socialism at all.
North Koreas official name is "the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,"
Kim Jong Un's party is called "The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK)"
I suppose you think North Korea is therefore a Democratic party, run by a government supporting the workers?
Nazi "National socialism" isn't socialism at all.
Neither was Russian Communism. They put an ice pick into Trotsky.
Mussolini explicitly described his political movement as "post socialist". Hitler explicitly was an admirer, and took his organization in the same direction, a step that included killing the Brownshirt leaders on the Night of the Long Knives. They both took their lead from Russian Communism, a system of control of the means of production by the dictatorship of the party.
Seize the opportunity to read a little further in your old age, seeing as the history education you received in your youth was lacking...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
Yes, Germany attacked Czechoslovakia long before they even looked at Poland, and the UK's response was to demand that Czechoslovakia cede their territory to Germany.
For the record, I'm not Russian and have never been there, but fair's fair - the only way to fight propaganda is with facts, and history has them in troves.
The Russian *government* likes to label anyone they don't like as "nazis". I don't personally know anyone who seriously believes this, although I live in a bubble, as most of us do.
You have to understand that these unfortunate facts about Stalin¹ being a pal of Hitler are never brought up in the school history program (which is a propaganda device in almost every country I'm remotely familiar with, Russia very much included). Many people simply don't know it, because let's be honest — how many people do you know who enjoy reading history books in their spare time?
Even if it's mentioned, the school program puts a positive spin on it, to the effect of "Stalin understood the war with Germany was unavoidable and needed extra time to prepare for defense, and this was the only way".
1: btw, a bloody dictator of Georgian origin — somehow these things are never mentioned if we're talking about anyone but Russia. There were *lots* of commies of Ukrainian, Latvian, Polish origin too. No, fuck it, Russians bad, everyone else good.
Would your narrow mind consider the division of Czechoslovakia by Poland and Germany as an act of teaming up with nazis or is it different? Would you consider France and the UK who agreed to support Czechs and did literally nothing to fullfill their promises as teaming up with Germany? I swear some people are so dense they have no desire to use logic. The pact between Soviets and Reich was made to buy time for both parties to prepare. Stalin was dumb enough to think that Hitler would not break the treaty and make a sudden attack. So many high ranking generals were warning Joe that it will but he didnt listen cause as we know he was egoistical psycho who thought he knows better than anyone.
Samurai Shrek,
Would your narrow mind consider the division of Czechoslovakia by Poland and Germany as an act of teaming up with nazis
It was an act of teaming up with Nazis to annex bits of a next-door country. Sadly there was a lot of it about at the time. But it's no excuse for the Polish government that did it.
This is one of the reasons that people at the time (and earlier) were warning of the dangers of nationalism. Because in Eastern Europe there weren't clear borders and so their was a cycle of continual wars to conquer neighbouring regions and take a province or two off them which had a chunk of your national population. And the only way to stop the cycle was to expel all the people of other nationalities once you'd conquered it.
Would you consider France and the UK who agreed to support Czechs and did literally nothing to fullfill their promises as teaming up with Germany?
No. Because it wasn't. Also it was France that had an alliance Czechoslovakia, and they weren't willing to fight. Had they been willing to do so, I think the UK would also have fought - and in that case WWII would almost certainly have been a lot shorter, a lot less bloody and a lot less genocidal. Which is why British foreign policy discussion ever since has warned of the dangers of the Munich agreement, why it was bad policy as well as being immoral and why we shouldn't ever do it again.
But inaction is not alliance.
I swear some people are so dense they have no desire to use logic. The pact between Soviets and Reich was made to buy time for both parties to prepare. Stalin was dumb enough to think that Hitler would not break the treaty and make a sudden attack.
And straight to the defence of the Soviet Union for what you've just criticised others for in the previous two sentences.
Except even here, you're totally wrong. The Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939! It wasn't a non-aggression pact to buy time for the Soviets to arm. It was an alliance to divide Poland with Germany, only 20 years after the last Soviet invasion of Poland. The Soviets also gave loads of iron ore and oil to Germany which it used to conquer France and build the very army it used to invade the Soviets in 1941. But that was fine as it also allowed Stalin to conquer the Baltic States and Finland (which failed) and steal a province off Romania.
So logically how can you call that a temporary truce to buy time? It was a mutually beneficial military alliance with an enemy in order to gain more territory. Had Russia supported Poland - it could have fought a much smaller German army with enemies at its back in France, far fewer resources (including no Russian oil, grain, iron ore and strategic minerals) and a decent sized Polish army to help. But that didn't leave any room to conquer more territory.
C'mon Shrek, you joined the forum today and the first comment you make from your swamp calls someone narrow-minded?
While indulging in some deflection, a bit of revisionism, and rehabilitating the actions of the Soviets?
You say people are dense, with no desire to use logic, but you chose to start with that comment?
I was going to take your "logic" apart, but I see I ain't Spartacus has done an excellent job already.
While we were friends, allies and supporters of Stalin
Nobody was friends with Stalin. As Churchill said at the time of the German invasion of Russia, “If Satan were to declare war on the Nazis, I’d at least give him a favourable mention in Parliament.”
People like to remember the parts of history that make them feel good though.
The fact is that the Finns had to cede territory twice as part of armistice agreements, and pay reparations to the USSR.
They were 100% an ally of nazi germany. Not a good look.
Shrewd of yot to cut the sentence where you cut it, here's the whole sentence:
"As part of the Paris Peace Treaty, Finland was classified as an ally of Nazi Germany, bearing its responsibility for the war."
The peace treaty said exactly what soviets wrote into it. It doesn't make or unmake Finland an ally of Nazi Germany or responsible of the war. Finland had no choise but to sign that.
Whilst I (think I) understand at least some of Russians motivations re: Ukraine and NATO, I don't agree with the country's actions. However, this "All Russians baaaad" attitude, forcing Russian people who want to contribute to the world (be they programmers, sports-people or whatever) to become effectively stateless is not proportionate, useful, or effective. It is a huge misuse of power tantamount to bullying. Torvald's "I'm Finnish so yah boo sucks to Russia" is, frankly, pathetic - history or not.
When your country is intentionally and deliberately bombing residential buildings, children's hospitals, and energy infrastructure, with absolutely no military purpose, setting loose Wagner on civilians with mass graves in Bucha, Izium, Mariupol, Bakhmut, etc., using war crimes as a purposeful strategy meant to break the spirit of the population, yeah, you may find that the world is no longer interested in working with your country anymore. Go figure!
I agree. Dont work with the country. But what does that have to do with people? People arent countries, and they didn't get to choose where they were born, so why should they be held responsible for their parents' actions? Thats absolutely ridiculous. And whats the point of all the stuff you said? It has nothing to do with the users that were removed. Are you blaming the war on a bunch of linux contributers? Do you have any evidence for such allegations?
There's that Russian brand of whataboutism we know and love. Last I checked the US never annexed territories across Afghanistan and Iraq and claimed them as their own.
And, regardless, none of America's actions would justify Russia's litany of continued, deliberate war crimes for which Putin makes no attempt to stop. The mass graves at Bucha, Izium, Mariupol, and Bakhmut. The admitted murders of entire apartment buildings of civilians by Wagner criminals. The daily shelling of civilian apartments in Kharkiv. The drone attacks on civilians just walking home in Kherson.
Why would Putin attempt to stop his war crimes when they're a deliberate part of Russia's strategic goals meant to crush the spirit of the Ukrainian population and sue for peace?
There's that Russian brand of whataboutism we know and love. Last I checked the US never annexed territories across Afghanistan and Iraq and claimed them as their own.
Yet the US/West invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, exerted control over those territories, attempted to install puppet governments and eventually gave up and pulled out. Afghanistan went from 'War on Terror' to fighting the Taliban to a very messy exit and the Taliban taking over the country inside a few weeks. Or there's Syria. We're currently occupying their oil fields and have temporarily annexed a large part of that sovereign nation because we decided Assad is mad, bad and dangerous to know. One of many regime change operations we've conducted.
Why would Putin attempt to stop his war crimes when they're a deliberate part of Russia's strategic goals meant to crush the spirit of the Ukrainian population and sue for peace?
That's modern politics for you. We bombed Iraq's energy infrastructure. We bombed and destroyed Belgrade's power infrastructure with the stated intention of bringing the Serbs to the negotiating table. That escapade resulted in Yugoslavia vanishing from the maps, and map lines being redrawn. Ukraine has been bombing and shelling Ukrainians since 2014 in Donbas, including firing PFM-1 'petal' mines into population centres. Ukraine is a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, and should have destroyed their stocks, yet they're still using them. Then again, so is Russia, but Russia isn't a signatory.
Again, that's politics for you. If we do this, why are we suprised that Russia does the same thing? War crimes are being committed, and often documented in videos on Telegram showing soldiers that are either surrendering or clearly hors de combat being executed by drones. Ukraine had opportunites to prevent this conflict by honoring the Minsk agreements and negotiating with the DPR and LPR. It didn't, and instead used Minsk to re-arm and rebuild after the mauling it got during the civil war. It had another opportunity for peace with the Instanbul agreement signed in first couple of months of the SMO. It broke that agreement as well.
So now Russia is disinclined to trust Ukraine, and especially now that Ukraine pulled their ill-fated PR stunt of invading Kursk. Russia has repeatedly stated it will negotiate, but only if Ukraine gets serious. Their '15 point' peace plan shrank to 10, now a 5 point 'victory plan' that is utterly delusional and does not reflect the realities on the ground. Ukraine can still seek terms, but it has a very weak negotiating position. None of the West's leaders seem willing to help with any viable peace negotiations, and still seem content to keep killing Ukrainians. With some notable clown moments, eg Macron keeps suggesting France sends troops. Then Lithuania agreeing that France should put their boots on the ground.
So the killing continues until Ukraine seeks terms. I think much depends on US elections and their appetite for destruction, along with where Russia might stop. It'll be interesting to see if Russia destroys the remainder of Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the next few weeks. Also if it continues advancing after capturing the entirety of the territories it has already claimed. One logical outcome would be the partition of Ukraine along the Dnipr, which fits geographically along with ethnic lines. Or if Russia decides to capture Odessa (again) which it may be shaping up to do the same way it did during WW2.
The world is divided politically into two camps: (1) "the west" (broadly, the USA and its satellites/puppet states) and (2) BRICS (broadly, everybody else). People in "the west" mostly see only US propaganda and believe Russia, China, etc are "evil". People in Russia mostly see Russian propaganda - etc.
Free Software should rise above all this. Neither side is wholly "evil", both sides do bad stuff.
Where a developer lives should not matter as far as contributions to free software are concerned.
lol where do I start?
"The world is divided politically into two camps: (1) "the west" (broadly, the USA and its satellites/puppet states) and (2) BRICS (broadly, everybody else). People in "the west" mostly see only US propaganda and believe Russia, China, etc are "evil". People in Russia mostly see Russian propaganda - etc."
Uhhh no it's not. You speak of propaganda but you use the phrase "puppet states" and suggest that BRICS includes every country outside the (alleged) sphere of influence of the US. The reality is that BRICS is a sad attempt by Putin to develop his own trading circle with other like-minded leaders, now that the ruble's value collapsed.
The list of BRICS countries reads like a list of human rights abusers - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. You're having a laugh.
"Free Software should rise above all this. Neither side is wholly "evil", both sides do bad stuff."
Ah, the "both sides" argument. Classic whataboutism deflection tactic. Bonus points for the "XYZ should be better than this" appeal.
"Where a developer lives should not matter as far as contributions to free software are concerned."
Yeah well...sanctions and compliance are of bigger importance than the world of free software. The great thing about open source is that they're free to fork and carry on.
Software doesn’t have a personality to want to do anything. It depends on what the project owners want.
The difficult choices come when a project decides that it cares more than trivially so about the motivations of developers.
It’s bad enough with just well-meaning developers, and there are vast suites of software to give control over what developers do and remove the need to trust (their abilities) absolutely. This software is called git and the associated services and tools. So OSS is already comfortable with the notion that one cannot absolutely trust all contributors to never make errors, and the need for strong controls being available to project owners.
Not trusting contributors’ motivations is also normal. There’s tons of ordinary criminal hackers out there to ward off, and no one thinks such warding off is a bad thing.
Obviously the idea that, because something is good and free it would always be universally venerated and left untainted by absolutely everyone, is very naive. Geopolitics is simply another unavoidable aspect of that.
>Obviously the idea that, because something is good and free it would always be universally venerated and left untainted by absolutely everyone, is very naive. Geopolitics is simply another unavoidable aspect of that.
Yes the concern is that a bunch of politicians, the same ones that were asking Zuckerberg how they turn off the Facebooks, decide that we aren't allowed to accept code contributions from people in countries they don't like. Consider how that list of countries may change come January.
If the prohibition extends to existing code it's going to become unworkable - or more realistically - just expensive, as we have to pay Redhat etc for proof that we have pure approved Linux to use in a system for public use. Or you can just use Microsoft and be able to check the box proving that you have no Venezuelan/Cuban/Iranian/Chinese/Belgian code in the system.
If the prohibition extends to existing code it's going to become unworkable - or more realistically - just expensive, as we have to pay Redhat etc for proof that we have pure approved Linux to use in a system for public use. Or you can just use Microsoft and be able to check the box proving that you have no Venezuelan/Cuban/Iranian/Chinese/Belgian code in the system.
I doubt it would go that far, because as you say it would be unworkable. It might mean code reviews to double-check nothing nasty has been snuck in by next week's enemy, but those code reviews should be happening anyway. It's a bit like other sanctioned stuff. If you've got a bottle of Stolichnaya, you can still drink it but can't import more from Russia. But that one's a bit weird given long running trademark disputes over Stolichnaya or Stoli, where it's produced etc. Sainsburys in the UK is still flogging 'Stoli, the original' but no idea where that's distilled, and it may be original 'Stoli', but it isn't original Stolichnaya. See also the two Budweisers. One is drinkable, the other.. isn't.
Github had to jump through a bunch of hoops to be allowed to have individual users from Iran , they say they are now working on allowing Syrian, and ironicaly Crimea, access.
Just have a slight concern about the combination of 'patriotic' politicians who don't understand technology, a DoD/DoJ that is still thinking in cold war terms and open source being dependant on US corporations that are wary of legal risks.
As one who has visited Russia (since USSR days) and Finland, I am aware of the tensions inherent in folk of Finish residence or descent to Russia. Memories are long and family talk of history enfolds the young and moulds attitudes. We should not be surprised at Finish attitude to Russia; however we can try to help both sides obtain toleration.
Russia's current aims are expansionist, and I don't blame the Finns for not wanting to tolerate becoming part of Russia again
Ah, cognitive dissonance again.
On the one had, Russia has the 3rd worst army in Ukraine, ran out of missiles years ago, is importing washing machines to canibalise for missile parts and launching meatwave assaults armed only with shovels.
On the other, if Ukrainians don't keep dieing, Russia will be in Paris by next Spring.
Oh, and Putin suffers from multiple terminal illnesses that actually killed him years ago. And Yolanda Navalny's flogging a book and just announced that she'll be the next President of Russia! To which around 98% of Russians would probably go 'who?'
So I'm having.. difficulty reconciling the expansionist threat from Russia given their apparently dire performance in Ukraine. Then again, since we decided to bet the Ukrainian's farms on this proxy conflict, we have been demilitarising NATO whilst Russia has been expanding. And all for a fraction of the price (not cost) spent on NATO. So perhaps once Russia is done with Ukraine, it might turn it's attention to Finland. And then Russia has a lot of combat veterans, Finland.. doesn't, and the first the Finns might know about it is their airfields having a RUD moment. But that would likely lead to WW3 and we all die. Which despite the best intentions of necons and their escalations, most people don't want to happen.
I'm one of those people who read history books in their spare time.
I'd recommend "The Court of the Red Czar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore to give you an idea of just how bad Stalin was.
There is also a "Young Stalin" book by the same author which describes how he got to become that dictator.
They are interesting not just for what Stalin did, but what the Czars' secret police, gangsters, and other revolutionary types (and later White\Red Army) did to each other, themselves and anyone else.
I believe that Putin and most of his inner circle grew up in that Soviet mindset that Stalin was "Good" and the West was "Bad" and he's done everything he can since to channel that inner Stalin.
As we know (and previous comments show) that nothing is ever as clear cut as we might like and things are always seen from a particular point of view.
The title of this comment is due to the fact that I travelled to St. Petersburg before the Crimea invasion, and found the Russians I met welcoming and helpful.
That they have had to endure their leadership trying to destroy Ukraine in an "It will all be over in 8 weeks" invasion and everything that has come since is not their fault.
If there is no one else on the ballot paper other than Putin (because all the other candidates have been blocked from standing or are in prison) there is not much they can do, even if they had the ability to read news that is not propaganda.
I'd like there to be a simple solution, but as history teaches us again and again, nothing is simple when it comes to conflict and wars.
It will come down to a single event (such as a limited nuclear strike on Kyiv, or Putin being assassinated) to start an actual negotiation that will probably drag on for years.
"The title of this comment is due to the fact that I travelled to St. Petersburg before the Crimea invasion, and found the Russians I met welcoming and helpful.
That they have had to endure their leadership trying to destroy Ukraine in an "It will all be over in 8 weeks" invasion and everything that has come since is not their fault.
If there is no one else on the ballot paper other than Putin (because all the other candidates have been blocked from standing or are in prison) there is not much they can do, even if they had the ability to read news that is not propaganda.."
I don't buy that. They're complicit in the war by their silence, just like Germans in WWII who pretended concentration camps didn't exist.
Russians don't protest against the war.
Russians don't call for Putin to be removed.
Russians don't show any empathy for the victims of their war.
And don't give me the old "Oh they're so oppressed, they can't protest. it's not a free society" excuse.
There are 145 million of them - they could bring about change if they wanted to, as people in many other countries have done. The problem is they don't want change.
Exactly. Where are the widespread anti-war protests by Russian expats demanding an end to the war? They're free to protest in the west but their silence is deafening. And the majority of Russians I encounter are pro-Putin, despite living abroad. It's nonsensical.
If Iranian expats can stage a protest of 80,000 in Berlin, what's Russia's excuse? Or is the more likely explanation that they aren't victims and that the majority still support Putin and his imperialist bid to bring back the USSR?
Transcribed from: https://aosc.io/news/detail/2024-10-24-condemnation-of-the-linux-foundation-and-its-employees.zh-cn.md:
The past day has been one of shame and despair. We have witnessed Linus Torvalds attack, insult, and denigrate our contributors and our work.
Last Sunday, a shameful commit that trampled on the trust of the community was merged silently. Dozens of Russian Linux kernel contributors and subsystem maintainers were removed from their maintainer status without being informed.¹Among the many kernel contributors and followers who raised questions, our staff also raised their own doubts and severe criticisms.²³The Linux Foundation not only did not issue any announcement to explain its behavior, but also the founder and core maintainer of the Linux kernel project, Linus Torvalds, andlinux-stableThe branch maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman and two other technical staff members even teamed up with the Linux Foundation to launch a highly discriminatory "witch hunt."
Before this new round of responses, a detailed background introduction was already provided in the press release compiled by our staff yesterday. The full text is posted here:
Recently, Greg Kroah-Hartman (Greg KH), one of the main maintainers of the Linux kernel, submitted an unusual "document"renew, removing several maintainers with email addresses in the <.ru> top-level domain and one maintainer who was clearly Russian in origin from the MAINTAINERS file.
This commit was pulled by Linus Torvalds last Sunday and included in the 6.12-rc4 version of the code.
Greg KH did not elaborate on the specific reasons for this update, only vaguely stating that the change was "due to certain compliance requirements" and pointed out that "(relevant personnel) can only return to the (maintainer list) after providing sufficient documentation."
The removal of the relevant maintainers is quite violent. Some subsystems are removed from the MAINTAINERS file because the only maintainer uses the <.ru> top-level domain email address. Among them are important and widely used subsystems such as the UFS file system and the PPTP driver. Since the Linux kernel development process is completely based on mailing lists, when the relevant maintainers are removed from the MAINTAINERS file, it means that patches or communications with the relevant subsystems will no longer be sent to the maintainer's email address or even the relevant mailing list. This is likely to cause many patches to "sink into the sea"; and if a subsystem is not adequately maintained, it is only a matter of time before it is removed from the kernel.
Generally speaking, in addition to sending patches to mailing lists, Linux kernel patches also need to be copied to relevant people (such as subsystem maintainers and active contributors), and will be pulled in and merged after discussion and review. However, Greg KH seems to have deliberately bypassed this part of the process and only sent the patches to the mailing list with the largest traffic, where almost no one reads every email [email protected], and sent a pull request to Linus Torvalds just two days later, and Torvalds pulled and merged the change without questioning or commenting on the changes.
Considering that both Linus Torvalds and Greg KH are employed by The Linux Foundation, a 501©(6) organization registered in the United States, it is obvious why “certain compliance requirements” are required.
As of press time, Greg KH has not responded to the relevant inquiries on the mailing list. Whatever the result, this will be one of the most shameful submissions in the history of the Linux kernel community.
At the beginning of this storm, our contributor Ke Xiaoyu took a very brave action. While proposing to withdraw the patch (Revert), he also expressed his dissatisfaction and doubts.⁴Meanwhile, our contributors followed this topic closely, all of us holding out a faint hope: "Are Greg Kroah-Hartman and Linus Torvalds being forced by unexplainable political pressure to do something so unexpected?"
Unfortunately, after Greg Kroah-Hartman chose to violateLinux Mailing List NetiquetteAfter privately negotiating with many people on the list (our contributor Bai Mingcong chose to make the full email conversation public after determining that Greg Kroah-Hartman's private communication was insincere and insulting)⁵Linus Torvalds directly chose the most despicable way to respond to the doubts - attacking, insulting and slandering our contributors⁶:
It's entirely clear why the change was done, it's not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to "grass root" it by Russian troll factories isn't going to change anything.
The reason for this change is clear, and we will not withdraw this submission. Even if a bunch of anonymous accounts from the Russian troll factory attack it, the result will not change.
Linus Torvalds also mentioned that "innocent passers-by" should understand that the "certain compliance requirements" referred to by Greg Kroah-Hartman are not U.S. patents. He also pointed out that readers who do not understand what sanctions against Russia are should "read more news" when they have time.
Then, Linus Torvalds changed the subject and attacked the patch submitted by Ke Xiaoyu to withdraw the changes:
As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.
As for the retraction patch sent earlier, please use that thing you might call your brain. I'm Finnish, do you think I would support Russian aggression? It's obvious that you not only don't read the real news, but you also know nothing about history.
In today's extremely tense geopolitical world, Linus Torvalds' choice to use nationality to encompass political views is extremely irresponsible. Not to mention the consequence of attributing all opposition from the community to "Russian trolls" and "Russian state-sponsored spam". Linus Torvalds' remarks will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage to the collaboration and trust between the Linux kernel and the international open source community, and even to the free and open source software movement of all mankind.
This post has been deleted by its author
Economic sanctions violate the 1906 Geneva Conventions and are totally illegal. Being Finnish, Linus should know that Kyiv used to be the capital of Russia, and that Kyiv was illegally invaded by the evil Polish empire around 1700. The fact Kyiv is now mostly ethnic Polish does not mean the Ukraine is. Does anyone expect Russia to allow NATO nukes to be installed along its border?
>Does anyone expect Russia to allow NATO nukes to be installed along its border?
Yet somehow it was perfectly ok for Russia to install nukes in Ukraine when it had a Russian-aligned government? Right on Europes border?
Your protestations are nonsense if you cannot acknowledge the sheer hypocrisy this stance.
Yet somehow it was perfectly ok for Russia to install nukes in Ukraine when it had a Russian-aligned government? Right on Europes border?Your protestations are nonsense if you cannot acknowledge the sheer hypocrisy this stance.
Those that ignore history..
So a couple of points. You forget the hissy fit the US threw during the Cuban Missile Crisis which brought the Cold War closer to becoming a rather hot war. Or nuclear weapons based in East Germany. Or the UK. Or that Russia didn't install nukes in Ukraine, the Soviet Union did, with the consent of the Ukrainian Soveit Socialist Republic. But the Cold War is very much back, nukes are still on both sides of the border(s), NATO expanded despite warnings that it was a Russian red line and NATO ignoring that.
Plus the strategic implications, like distances between potential missile launches, reaction times, or the ability to install those 'long range missiles' Ukraine so desperately wants so it can strike Moscow. Moscow doesn't want those being nuclear tipped. Which is/was a problem with treaties governing intermediate range missiles that may or may not end up being nuclear tipped. Or basing anti-missile defences on Russia's borders that grant first-strike capability and render MAD doctrine obsolete. Maybe.
And then people keep throwing around the Budapest Memorandum, which was a memo, and didn't really promise anything. Other than removing nuclear weapons from Ukraine. But then Elensky went to the Munich 'Security' conference and said that Ukraine might restart their nuclear programme, which given they helped design and develop a lot of the Soviet nuclear missiles, they're probably quite capable of still doing. Which rather broke the Budpast Memo, was an intolerable risk to Russia and so the SMO started a few months later. Ukraine's Comedian-in-Chief FAFO'd and learned that you really shouldn't joke about nuclear weapons.
But there have also been a bunch of rumors floating around that Ukraine might be planning to use dirty bombs, so they're still maybe doing the FA part. If they do, Russia has made it very clear that the 'FO' bit would be a response in kind, which means nuclear. And they'd be legally justified given most nations regard dirty bombs as WMDs.
"You forget the hissy fit the US threw during the Cuban Missile Crisis"
You forget that Khrushchev has some year earlier infamously told "We will bury you", a very ominous thing to say.
What sort of similar nuclear threats have your heard from NATO or USA? None.
"NATO expanded despite warnings that it was a Russian red line and NATO ignoring that."
NATO expanded to Finland and Sweden and Russian red line moved back.
"Moscow doesn't want those being nuclear tipped."
I'm sure there are some hawks in Kremlin who would want that to justify their own use of nuclear weapons.
"But there have also been a bunch of rumors floating around that Ukraine might be planning to use dirty bombs"
You're resorting to rumours now?
'You forget that Khrushchev has some year earlier infamously told "We will bury you", a very ominous thing to say.'
Though I don't speak Russian, my understanding is that this is a literal translation of a common Russian saying and is no more ominous than giving a Gallic shrug and saying "whatever, we'll still be here after you've gone".
So that's alright then, nothing to see here. Just a friendly tiff between neighbours. Only it wasn't like that at all was it, on both sides?
If you were alive then you may remember that everyone was trying to live normal lives with the perceived very real possibility of nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads. Good times.
Just realised that not everyone here is used to this "phenomenon", given the typically non-political nature of this site, and seems to realise that this thread has been flooded by Russian trolls and other "useful idiots" paid from uncle putin's and his cronies' pockets. It also seems Reg is now under DDoS attack as e.g. voting hardly works at the moment. Keep that in mind before you sacrifice your time and effort trying to have a conversation with brainwashed paid trolls. There's no convincing them and - sadly - not much point trying to get to them, they're beyond saving.
Seriously, has Linux finally been taken over completely by the logic of the Empire? I can't believe that this is happening to wear is meant to be an open platform. I guess I'll have to have a look at Harmony. Will Linus be next banning people who speak out against b the Israeli US genocide in west asia?
The Linux Foundation operates as a US-based non-profit organization and must therefore comply with US laws and regulations. Given this legal framework, it's likely Mr. Torvalds was required to take these actions to meet compliance requirements.
What's particularly noteworthy is that this decision comes more than three years after the Russian invasion and the implementation of Western sanctions.
It's important to remember that open source is not a political movement - it's fundamentally about code that remains free and open for use and review by anyone.
Those who attempt to inject politics into open source are paradoxically politicizing the very principles of openness and accessibility they claim to defend.
>Those who attempt to inject politics into open source are paradoxically politicizing the very principles of openness and accessibility they claim to defend.
Except it's not the open source people that are injecting politics.
I can't visit the company that does our vacuum chamber welding, because I'm not a US citizen and their site has rules, I assume they do work for the US DoD.
Suppose the same applied to Linux. If it's used in the F-whatever fighter or in US nuclear plants then should only US citizens be allowed to contribute?
Suppose the same applied to Linux. If it's used in the F-whatever fighter or in US nuclear plants then should only US citizens be allowed to contribute?
Some forks or code would have the same restrictions, ie it would be classified and might only be available to US nationals who've been vetted.
So Linus pulls Russian maintainers off the MAINTAINERS list for whatever reasons. And the commentariate get together and we get a multi-perspective world history lesson in a discussion thread.
The single largest issue within this comment thread is perspective. I personally feel that there is substantial reason for Vlad to want to recoup Ukraine into Russia, both politically, economically and for reasons of personal self aggrandisement. I don't personally agree that it is in any way beneficial to either the peoples of Ukraine or the peoples of Russia, but almost purely for Vlad. However my perspective is coloured by a western upbringing, a classical education, and a study of history that includes periods prior to the 1940's.
Part and parcel of the process to reaching accord, or peaceful resolution of conflict, is comprehending perspective, and finding common cause. Sadly with the influence of social media over the last 20 odd years, polarization and extremism have taken over far far far too many people who will no longer be willing to, or possibly even capable of, comprehending other perspectives. They will be very unwilling to seek out the common ground.
I have Ukrainian neighbours. They arrived in my neighbourhood barely 6 months before the invasion. They have Russian relatives on both sides, and are very clear about their position on this issue. Their families are all convinced this is purely for Vlad's position in Russia. I'm willing to accept their perspective.
Way to weaponize linux, Linus. Russian fork incoming.
Yep. This is what I suspect will happen. DPRK already did this developing their own linux based distro, and there's no reason why Russia/BRICS couldn't do the same thing. And save a small fortune not being locked into the MS or AWS ecosystem.
There is not thing limiting this maintainers of using current of future Linux and even fork and use it while their contributions is not used by others. Most probably non of them are target of sanctions. Then someday some one will ask Linus back who is his famous term prima Donna? He should learn from HarmonyOS and Android divergence.
Apparently Mr Thorvalds is unable to explain this affair in a calm and rational manner.
Something like "Russian contributors could be government agents and could implant backdoors. See the current war. For this reason we have suspended them until the security situation improves".
No need for angry stuff.
Mr Thorvalds and the Linux Foundation should use a PR expert to make such sensitive statements.
The Linux Foundation, Mr Thorvalds, Redhat, Suse, Canonical etc would be well advised to conduct a conversation about:
1.) How are FOSS contributors identified and vetted ? There are obvious an severe security risks from state and organized crime actors.
2.) What are the minimum security standards of contributor's systems ?
3.) Is it really necessary to have bloated(read: easy to hide a backdoor) access systems such as OpenSSH ?
4.) Should certain types of code such as the /dev/random generator, OpenSSH and the TCP/IP stack be under special controls ? All of them could crack open millions of servers in the internet. Impact would be massive and world-wide.
5.) What is the relevant government legal framework covering Linux kernels and distributions ?
Linux has become a critical resource and must be protected by more than angry shouting and willy nilly actions.
> Given the bellicosity of Moscow, this might be necessary.
Well, using your own argument, given the (probed) bellicosity of USA, the rest of the world should ban American things and people too. Nonsense.
> The Russian government can easily coopt each of their citizens. "Nice FOSS project you contribute to. Include this backdoor, OR go to the GULAG".
Yeah, your paranoid is outstanding: an open source project is easy to control, otherwise a NSA/Microsoft tapping of Sky... exercise left to the reader.
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