# Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion, breaking-news
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037 "2022-02-24T08:30:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 173
### Author:  [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3441 "2022-03-27T00:03:11Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#):
>
> Also the Russian’s have finally updated their official casualty numbers:
>
> 1,351 killed and 3,825 wounded.
So Baghdad Bob was brought out of retirement to be Russia’s new Information Minister?
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3442 "2022-03-27T00:19:33Z")
> [@keeganst94](#):
>
> Luhansk and Donetsk, sure. But if I recall correctly Russia has “encouraged” long time residents to leave Crimea and Russians to move in. I am less sure that a referendum is fair in that case.
I was thinking that too, but allow some time for the original inhabitants to move back in coupled with, “I’m out from under Putin’s thumb if I vote to stay Ukraine? Sign me up!” from the recent Russian immigrants\* it just might work.
\*Another cunning plan blowing up in Putin’s face.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3443 "2022-03-27T00:57:18Z")
Moderating:
Just a reminder that this is a breaking news thread in MPSIMS. We have lots of threads on the war in Ukraine, and several of them are appropriate places for political commentary. This one isn’t.
Reporting what Biden said, and that the White House is walking it back are news. Opining on how good or bad it was for Biden to say that is… hard to separate, i know, but that becomes politics.
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### Author:  [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3444 "2022-03-27T01:47:10Z")
> [@SunUp](#):
>
> It’s quite true, of course, and hopefully there are plenty of Russians thinking along similar lines right now - but it would be best if they acted on those thoughts themselves, rather than seemingly at the behest of a foreign power.
Garry Kasparov is one Russian who is definitely thinking along those lines. From his Twitter account:
> _When a regime is repressive, murderous, dictatorial, and led by someone who has committed war crimes in multiple countries, including his own, what else should be hoped for and worked toward than regime change?”_ he wrote in the first of a series of tweets.
> _“When the President is right, the White House should stick with him instead of fumbling to apologize to a murderous dictator for speaking the truth. It’s pathetic,”_ he continued.
> _“Biden isn’t Trump, requiring an English to English translator! No dictator is legitimate. Don’t backpedal when you are right and in the right. Don’t play diplomatic games with a mass murderer._ ”
I don’t know how much influence he has among Russians (he lives in NYC now) but one thing that could really change everything is more resistance from within. I can’t imagine what it’s like right now to be a Russian who hates what’s happening.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3445 "2022-03-27T02:08:25Z")
Can anybody imagine Churchill catching heat for saying that Hitler is a war criminal and needs to “go”?
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3446 "2022-03-27T02:25:10Z")
another thought on the “Putin has to go” sentence …
I think we might get a good feeling how “safe” Putin is, by watching what and how this is being transmitted in russian media:
- if Putin feels reasonably safe, the media should blow that phrase out of proportion … → _see, the americans want to kill our president_
- if he feels not too save, the media will be downplaying/ignoring it … → _we don’t want to put stupid ideas in people’s heads_
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3447 "2022-03-27T03:33:36Z")
Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling strikes an optimistic note:
>
>
> ELINT News @ELINTNews
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3448 "2022-03-27T03:44:41Z")
Does Russia’s constitution (1993) include impeachment? Yes, under normal circumstances no one would dare try. But, I could see the FSB collectively removing Putin and calling it an _impeachment_.
Then, some of the recent repressive laws could be repealed. That would be the safest and most stable solution. Preserve the constitution and undo some of Putin’s authoritarian changes.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3449 "2022-03-27T04:00:07Z")
If the FSB and the Oligarchs want Putin gone, he is gone.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3450 "2022-03-27T04:23:34Z")
> [@Al128](#):
>
> Can anybody imagine Churchill catching heat for saying that Hitler is a war criminal and needs to “go”?
The United Kingdom was formally, legally at war with Germany.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3451 "2022-03-27T04:52:31Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I could see the FSB collectively removing Putin
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Then, some of the recent repressive laws could be repealed.
I don’t think the second one follows from the first.
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### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3452 "2022-03-27T04:56:54Z")
Perhaps they can just sentence Putin to 10 years Without the Right of Correspondence.
> **[Without the right of correspondence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_the_right_of_correspondence)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
>
> "Without the right of correspondence" (WRC) (Russian: Без права переписки, abbreviated as БПП in official documents) was a clause in a sentence of many political repressions victims of Stalinist Great Purges in Soviet Union that implied death. It was used to keep family relatives of those executed uncertain as to the fate or whereabouts of the victims.
> WRC was used as a euphemism to cover the true nature of a court sentence.
> In many cases during...
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3453 "2022-03-27T05:04:31Z")
Not before September, 1939.
> Above all I fear they would say: You are weak, and we are strong. After all, my friends, only a few hours away by air there dwells a nation of nearly 70 millions of the most educated, industrious scientific people in the world, who are being taught from childhood to think of war as a glorious exercise and death in battle as the noblest deed for man. There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength. There is a nation which with all its strength and virtue is in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride unrestrained by law by Parliament or by public opinion. In that country all pacifist speeches, all morbid books, are forbidden or suppressed and the authors rigorously imprisoned. From their new table of commandments they have omitted: Thou shalt not kill. It is but 20 years since these neighbours of ours fought almost the whole world and almost defeated them. Now they are re-arming with the utmost speed.
Winston Churchill in a BBC radio broadcast, November, 1934
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3454 "2022-03-27T05:12:03Z")
And Winston was not in government at that point.
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3455 "2022-03-27T05:23:50Z")
60 miles (100 km) north of Mariupol:
>
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### Author:  [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3456 "2022-03-27T08:09:02Z")
Excellent article by Illia Ponomarenko in the Kyiv Independent:
## [Ukraine reaches breaking point in Russia’s war](https://kyivindependent.com/national/%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8bukraine-reaches-breaking-point-in-russias-war/)
NB: The headline writer meant **turning point** , not breaking point! 🙂
This is a clear, informative, detailed, and balanced article about the war over past month, the current situation and future prospects. Long, but worth reading.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3457 "2022-03-27T14:04:19Z")
Now the recent deportations makes sense. Russia is removing people that could vote. It’s also a terror tactic.
Any electon will be heavily manipulated. It’s easier with Ukrainians forcibly removed or killed.
Guardian Live blog
> [@](#):
>
> **Ukraine said that [Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) holding a referendum in occupied Ukrainian territory would have no legal basis and would face a strong response from the international community, deepening its global isolation.**
>
> The Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern [Ukraine](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine) could hold a referendum soon on joining Russia, its local leader was quoted as saying.
>
> “All fake referendums in the temporarily occupied territories are null and void and will have no legal validity,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said in a statement to Reuters.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3458 "2022-03-27T14:21:11Z")
Elections in occupied territory are meaningless.
Just like Russia has been removing elected mayors from towns it has occupied and replacing them with preferred candidates.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3459 "2022-03-27T14:25:59Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> > [@Gyrate](#):
> >
> > This is a merry muddle of dead Russian Major Generals.
>
> I am the very model of a Russian Major-General,
> I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
> I know the Party Leaders, and I quote the fights historical,
> From Poltava to Stalingrad, in order categorical.
[https://twitter.com/AndrejNkv/status/1507365192405073920](https://twitter.com/AndrejNkv/status/1507365192405073920)
Here’s the whole thing:
> I am the very model of a Russian Major General
> My standing in the battlefield is growing quite untenable
> My forces, though equipped and given orders unequivocal
> Did not expect the fight to be remotely this reciprocal
>
> I used to have a tank brigade but now I have lost several
> My fresh assaults are faltering with battleplans extemporal
> I can’t recover vehicles but farmers in a tractor can
> It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan
>
> My ordnance is the best but only half my missiles make it there
> I would have thought by now that we would be controllers of the air
> But at the rate the snipers work my time here is ephemeral
> I am the very model of a Russian Major General
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3460 "2022-03-27T15:54:56Z")
The Ukrainians are admirable and resilient people. The US needs accept to more refugees. We had a large Eastern European immigration around 1900. They’ve contributed a lot to our country.
These people are still doing garbage collection. The men wear flak jackets emptying garbage cans. They’re determined to keep their city running as normal as possible.
Does require a registered login. It’s free.
> **[Kharkiv citizens: ‘They can bomb us for as long as they want: we will...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/we-decided-to-be-useful-ukraine-the-kharkiv-citizens-who-stayed-behind)**
>
> In the second most shelled city in Ukraine, defiant residents are set on keeping their beloved city running
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