Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[Marduk]

Ukraine had custody over him while he was a POW, which included the ability to exclude him from the exchange list because the leap of logic between 'This guy badmouthed Russia in front of the whole world' and 'the Russians are gonna be sore over that and probably take it out on him if he's handed back to them' is smaller than the gap between transistors on a microchip.

He had POW status, not political asylum. Know the difference. You would have had a point if he was granted political asylum too, but as far as we know, he wasn't.

And yeah, the Russians could have chosen not to allow Wagner to execute him by sledgehammer, but its Russia, to show propriety would be OOC.

Their law(lessnes), their country, their citizen. Once he is returned to Russia his POW status stops being relevant, and it's no different than countless Chinese and North Korean citizens oppressed by their respective governments, does Ukraine have a duty to protect them at the expense of own citizens too?

Considering he's dead, I don't think your argument that 'almost certain' is an exaggeration is very sound especially considering Russia's treatment of its returning POWs is infamous throughout history, and especially so in the 20th century, where it was basically automatic gulag or worse.

a) Hindsight is 10\10
b) Again, he didn't have political asylum.
c) Ironically, even if he asked for political asylum, in his specific case Ukraine would be able to legally refuse it, because he was a convicted murderer back home.
d) Western Allies did far more questionable POW returns to Soviet Union after WW2, on mass scale, so if not for other reason, it would be awkward for USA or UK to bring it up.

 

[lloyd007]

He had POW status, not political asylum. Know the difference. You would have had a point if he was granted political asylum too, but as far as we know, he wasn't.

Under the Geneva Convention, POW's are not to be humiliated, Ukraine put this guy in front of a porn star actress and had him badmouth Russia like he'd been worked over for years in the Hanoi Hilton... and then they just sent him back.

Ukraine violated his rights as a POW in making him a propaganda tool and thus it was up to them to make that right... they absolutely didn't and now Wagner and Russia have a pretty effective propaganda video starring him of their own.

Their law(lessnes), their country, their citizen. Once he is returned to Russia his POW status stops being relevant, and it's no different than countless Chinese and North Korean citizens oppressed by their respective governments, does Ukraine have a duty to protect them at the expense of own citizens too?

Two wrongs...

a) Hindsight is 10\10
b) Again, he didn't have political asylum.
c) Ironically, even if he asked for political asylum, in his specific case Ukraine would be able to legally refuse it, because he was a convicted murderer back home.
d) Western Allies did far more questionable POW returns to Soviet Union after WW2, on mass scale, so if not for other reason, it would be awkward for USA or UK to bring it up.

A) yep, Russia doesn't look good, but it's a drop in the bucket for the Kremlin and they DNGAF anyway, but Ukraine also doesn't look good and unlike Russia, if they fuck up too much with things like that, putting Elon Musk on their 'kill list' and so on and so forth... well... Ukraine ain't gonna reclaim its 2014 borders through its domestic MIC and would be paying 100% of their budget and then some if they had to actually buy the systems and ordinance they're using.

B / C) Political asylum is irrelevant in this case since its the Ukrainian government that is the bad actor that had all the power in this instance. 99.9999% sure they targeted him specifically because he was convicted for murder since I think even you would have to admit to it not looking good if it was some 19 year old mobik who was getting executed by sledgehammer.

D) Yes, I know about Operation Keelhaul and some of the other skeevy realpolitik done when the USSR was a nominal ally, Ukraine and Russia are enemies though so... yeah... the implausible deniability the Western Allies had in handing over Soviet POWs to go straight to the gulag or worse doesn't apply here and Ukraine should have held him for the duration of the conflict.

 

[Marduk]

Under the Geneva Convention, POW's are not to be humiliated, Ukraine put this guy in front of a porn star actress and had him badmouth Russia like he'd been worked over for years in the Hanoi Hilton... and then they just sent him back.

I fail to see the connection here. He's not Saudi royalty or something like that.

Ukraine violated his rights as a POW in making him a propaganda tool and thus it was up to them to make that right...

Again, it's not nearly as clear as you think. Note that this is from a different war and saner time:

Film of PoWs within Geneva rules

Media organisations which show pictures of prisoners of war are not breaching the Geneva convention, international law experts confirmed yesterday. By Clare Dyers.

www.theguardian.com

Malcolm Shaw QC, professor of international law at Leicester University, said the article which says prisoners must be protected against insults and public curiosity had been understood to mean that states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances".

You are just taking the term "humiliated" to an extremely wide definition that is not necessarily reasonable. Badmouthing Russian military is not humiliating, millions of people volunteer to do that on social media all the time.

they absolutely didn't and now Wagner and Russia have a pretty effective propaganda video starring him of their own.

Propaganda videos for what purpose? For scaring existing members, they can (and do) make far better stunts anyway. For recruitment, i don't think that's helpful in the direction they think.

A) yep, Russia doesn't look good, but it's a drop in the bucket for the Kremlin and they DNGAF anyway, but Ukraine also doesn't look good and unlike Russia, if they fuck up too much with things like that, putting Elon Musk on their 'kill list' and so on and so forth... well... Ukraine ain't gonna reclaim its 2014 borders through its domestic MIC and would be paying 100% of their budget and then some if they had to actually buy the systems and ordinance they're using.

Again, i fail to see the connection here. What do the results of war have with keeping the most fanatical humanitarian NGO people happy?
Reiterating, the big supporting governments apparently don't care, and have historical precedents suggesting to not care too much.

B / C) Political asylum is irrelevant in this case since its the Ukrainian government that is the bad actor that had all the power in this instance. 99.9999% sure they targeted him specifically because he was convicted for murder since I think even you would have to admit to it not looking good if it was some 19 year old mobik who was getting executed by sledgehammer.

They have similar interviews with all sort of people, including normal mobiks. Obviously Wagner picked who are they going to publicly execute, not Ukraine.
The conclusion you want here requires considerable mental gymnastics to achieve.
You stand there, like in the meme, pointing at Wagner killing their penal legionnaire, asking "Why would Ukraine do this"?
Obviously Ukraine didn't do this, Wagner did. Ukraine is not responsible for what Russian state or its functionaries do to returned POWs. Unless you are implying Russia is run by children, they have plenty enough agency to take responsibility for own actions.

D) Yes, I know about Operation Keelhaul and some of the other skeevy realpolitik done when the USSR was a nominal ally, Ukraine and Russia are enemies though so... yeah... the implausible deniability the Western Allies had in handing over Soviet POWs to go straight to the gulag or worse

But... that made the optics worse? After all, the people Allies handed over nominally fought the same enemy at least. In case of Ukraine, they are enemy combatants, why would they give a shit, especially when they can get their own soldiers back in return, which is an incentive and duty that Western Allies didn't share in their exchanges? For all they know he got exchanged for a perfectly good soldier who would be getting starved and tortured until the end of war otherwise.
If you put that choice in a referendum in Ukraine, what do you think would be the result?
Hell, what do you think would be the result in supporting countries?

doesn't apply here and Ukraine should have held him for the duration of the conflict.

And that would achieve what exactly? If Russians want to kill him, they would do it later. The only thing that would change is some random Ukrainian POW would spend some months more in rather unpleasant Russian captivity.

 

[ATP]

To be fair Serbians and Russians have a lot in common like the fact that any one who was under their rule never wants to be ruled by them again.

Indeed.When panslawizm was popular before WW1 among czech and others,poles wished them visit of cossacks.

 

[Zachowon]

Anything that threatens the nuclear deterrent capability will make a nation-state very nervous for the obvious reason that the nuclear deterrent is a state's ultimate guarantee against existential destruction. (Note the recent tiff between Belgium and the UK over Belgium blocking the export of technology essential to the UK's nuclear deterrent capability.)

However, what you are suggesting is actual use of thermonuclear weapons against another sovereign state, which is not "defending the deterrent" but rather a "launch-on-warning" response; i.e. "use these assets right now or we lose them, because enemy missiles are in the air." To suggest that (repairable) damage to two (2) dual-use units of the least survivable, flexible and prompt leg of the nuclear triad (out of 72 total airframes; 55 Tu-95s and 17 Tu-160s) constitutes any serious threat to Russia's entire nuclear deterrent arsenal is fucking moronic. It is, in fact, just as fucking moronic as all the screaming from supposedly fully-grown adults who thought that there was literally any possibility of NATO going to war, much less full scale war involving unrestrained full exchanges of intercontinental thermonuclear-armed ballistic missiles, because a stray missile killed two (2) farmers in Poland.

For the love of our Savior Christ, stop spewing this peabrained bullshit.

Hey even we in the military were going "this might be it".
I may have been a LITTLE to excited about two dead poles

 

[LordsFire]

When two countries are at war every military asset belonging to both sides is a legitimate target.

The best way to keep a very valueable and hard to replace piece of strategic kit from getting damaged is to keep it too far away from the enemy for them to hit.

Which, amusingly enough, Russia is the nation in the world with the greatest capacity for doing so.

Got to find some use for all that empty territory in Siberia.

 

[lloyd007]

Y'know your points would be more relevant to debate Marduk if you hadn't gone full gaslighting including an article about how a video taken of ALREADY DECEASED soldiers wasn't considered a violation of the Geneva Convention because already deceased cannot be considered POW's...

Here's what the article also said though, so thank you for finding it for me. (emphasis added by me)

Malcolm Shaw QC, professor of international law at Leicester University, said the article which says prisoners must be protected against insults and public curiosity had been understood to mean that states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances".

He added: "If you show long shots of prisoners without their being identifiable, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you show people who have clearly been beaten, are clearly terrified, I do think that is contrary to the convention." But it would be the state or detaining power which released the pictures which would be in breach, not the media outlet, he said.

James Crawford QC, professor of international law at Cambridge University, said coercing PoWs into appearing on TV would be a grave breach of the convention and a war crime, "but shots of prisoners of war at a distance and not identifiable as individuals are fine". He said the convention's protections had to be balanced against freedom of information.

 

[Marduk]

Y'know your points would be more relevant to debate Marduk if you hadn't gone full gaslighting including an article about how a video taken of ALREADY DECEASED soldiers wasn't considered a violation of the Geneva Convention because already deceased cannot be considered POW's...

They gave you the source by name. He is a professor in the relevant subject. Go argue with him.

Here's what the article also said though, so thank you for finding it for me. (emphasis added by me)

Again, do you have any evidence that he was insulted, humiliated or coerced, beaten or terrified, or are you just going to stick with the blanket assumption that by being a POW anything he does is as good as coerced, which is an interpretation more common among activists than lawyers as you can see?

Overall, you are trying to make a 5 star dinner out of a nothingburger by clumsily trying your hand at lawyering, going as far as assuming this will change western power's policy on Ukraine's borders. Meanwhile, it's a big deal only to some annoying activists, in terms of law or public opinion, it's not even widely known, nevermind cared about.

 

[WolfBear]

Anatoly Karlin 🧬⏩ (@powerfultakes)

Hope it's obvious that if/when these two things happen Russia will no longer have anything left to do in Ukraine. One breaks Russia's strategic standoff weapons monopoly, the other equalizes munitioning power, those are its main remaining *conventional* advantages.

nitter.1d4.us

 

[Aldarion]

Czech Company Excalibur Restoring and Modernizing Ukrainian T-72 Tanks.



Lithuania Helping Repair and Restore Ukrainian PzH-2000 SPG's Originally Donated By Germany and Other NATO Powers.



German Supplied Ukrainian Gepard SPAAG Allegedly Shoots Down a Russian Cruise Missile.



Ukrainian Leleka-100 UAV Presumedly Survives a Russian MANPAD strike.



Russian Ka-52 Helicopter Gunship Shot Down by Ukrainian Forces.

You know, I'm really jealous. If Croatia had gotten this level of support during the Homeland War... yeah, war wouldn't have lasted four years.

 

[Cherico]

You know, I'm really jealous. If Croatia had gotten this level of support during the Homeland War... yeah, war wouldn't have lasted four years.

you guys didn't need this level of support people trusted you to be able to handle your shit.

and you did.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

You know, I'm really jealous. If Croatia had gotten this level of support during the Homeland War... yeah, war wouldn't have lasted four years.

The United Nations actually deployed boots on the ground in Croatia from the 1992 cease fire and diplomatic recognition, did it not?

 

[Aldarion]

The United Nations actually deployed boots on the ground in Croatia from the 1992 cease fire and diplomatic recognition, did it not?

It did, and then Serbs tried to use that to basically legalize their conquests. Now, the ceasefire did help - but Croatia had to smuggle weapons due to embargo.

you guys didn't need this level of support people trusted you to be able to handle your shit.

and you did.

Eh, Europe wanted to preserve Yugoslavia. They only changed tune when it became obvious that that would not succeed.

Croatia depended heavily on weapons imports to defend itself. I am not sure whether you are aware of this, but on 23 May 1990., Ivica Račan and Stjepan Mesić, along with the rest of the Social-Democratic Party of Croatia, surrendered the entire armament of the Croatian Territorial Defense to the Yugoslav Army. With this, Croatia had been completely disarmed. We had to rely on improvised weapons and what little domestic weapons production there was (that was in fact the origin of HS2000 pistol and VHS rifle).

In other words, embargo was basically a death sentence. Croatia had to create entire weapons industry from bottom-up, because majority of weapons factories were in Serbia. And Britain used Budimir Lončar to push the weapons embargo past Chinese veto, all in attempt to preserve Yugoslavia.

Thankfully, United States - which had supported embargo at first - soon changed the tune and essentially looked the other way while Croatia rearmed itself. But saying "people trusted us to be able to handle our own shit" is wrong. The international community - particularly the European Union, but also USA at the beginning - trusted Serbia to be able to preserve Yugoslavia by force. That is what they trusted in.

 

[ATP]

No they won't. Russia will get bitchy, but they're not going to open up a 2nd front.

3th front. 2nd is in Africa.

The Tu-141s are old reccon drones from the 70s that were actually built at the old Tupolev factory in Kharkiv. It's been known for quite some time that Ukraine had reconditioned and put back into service a number of warehoused Tu-141 and Tu-143 drones starting back in 2014.

They still should have no chance to survive on modern battlefield.

 

[Marduk]

3th front. 2nd is in Africa.

They still should have no chance to survive on modern battlefield.

That's the beauty of drones. They aren't meant to survive. At least not for long. For normal aircraft, a 50% attrition rate per mission is catastrophic. For drones, bad but if it's important enough... For suicide drones, it's good enough.

 

[Captain X]

You have to love all the concern trolling over this convicted murderer getting killed by Russian mercs. You think we can't see right through you? What even is the basis for the claim that this man was forced to say anything bad about Russia? Who was it that actually killed him. You are twisting into pretzels and playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon to try and blame Ukraine for something Russians did. Something, I'll add, that is entirely consistent with the barbarism they've shown in the areas of Ukraine that they've occupied. Not only do you come off like some leftist trying to blame guns for murder, you actually manage to self-own and don't even seem to realize it by claiming Ukraine was inhumane by sending this man back to Russia and that this is somehow equivalent or even worse than the actual act of bashing his skull in. It's like you're admitting that the Russians are barbarians and cannot but help to commit acts like that.

 

[lloyd007]

They gave you the source by name. He is a professor in the relevant subject. Go argue with him.

Again, do you have any evidence that he was insulted, humiliated or coerced, beaten or terrified, or are you just going to stick with the blanket assumption that by being a POW anything he does is as good as coerced, which is an interpretation more common among activists than lawyers as you can see?

Overall, you are trying to make a 5 star dinner out of a nothingburger by clumsily trying your hand at lawyering, going as far as assuming this will change western power's policy on Ukraine's borders. Meanwhile, it's a big deal only to some annoying activists, in terms of law or public opinion, it's not even widely known, nevermind cared about.

You either didn't read your own article at all, or you're deliberately misrepresenting it expecting no one else to read it since the experts in the article gave out two exceptions to the Geneva Convention.

1. Already deceased soldiers.
2. Videos from a distance where individuals cannot be identified.

OTOH, as the parts I quoted of that article, TV interviews are a direct violation against the power holding the POW as 'public curiosity' since the media company that produced the interview could not gain access to a Russian POW without the active participation of the Ukrainian government since they had custody of said POW at all times before, during and after. And unless the Ukrainian government has published its methods, neither you nor I have any idea what pressure was put on Nuzhin to go in front of that camera and either read a script or otherwise say what his interviewers wanted him to say, that they seemingly did got him to do it through the carrot rather than the stick makes no more difference than Wagner group using a sledgehammer over a knife in his final video.

And no, unlike the words you're trying to put in my mouth, I don't expect any policy makers to be changing their minds over Nuzhin any more than they did over Jeffrey Epstein, the Ukrainian government choose their interview target very well in that respect.

You have to love all the concern trolling over this convicted murderer getting killed by Russian mercs. You think we can't see right through you? What even is the basis for the claim that this man was forced to say anything bad about Russia? Who was it that actually killed him. You are twisting into pretzels and playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon to try and blame Ukraine for something Russians did. Something, I'll add, that is entirely consistent with the barbarism they've shown in the areas of Ukraine that they've occupied. Not only do you come off like some leftist trying to blame guns for murder, you actually manage to self-own and don't even seem to realize it by claiming Ukraine was inhumane by sending this man back to Russia and that this is somehow equivalent or even worse than the actual act of bashing his skull in. It's like you're admitting that the Russians are barbarians and cannot but help to commit acts like that.

Careful about that strawman you've built, it's so large you'll be crushed if it tips over.

 

[Marduk]

You either didn't read your own article at all, or you're deliberately misrepresenting it expecting no one else to read it since the experts in the article gave out two exceptions to the Geneva Convention.

1. Already deceased soldiers.
2. Videos from a distance where individuals cannot be identified.

Could it be that i was referring to the latter part of the article? No, impossible.

OTOH, as the parts I quoted of that article, TV interviews are a direct violation against the power holding the POW as 'public curiosity' since the media company that produced the interview could not gain access to a Russian POW without the active participation of the Ukrainian government since they had custody of said POW at all times before, during and after.

Do you have reading comprehension issues? He specifically says what this exactly means in lawyerspeak, instead of some wide interpretation in common parlance.
Does in your world being normally interviewed, regional TV style constitute "being shown in humiliating or insulting circumstances"?

Malcolm Shaw QC, professor of international law at Leicester University, said the article which says prisoners must be protected against insults and public curiosity had been understood to mean that states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances".

"states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances"" does not mean the same thing as
"states should not allow them to be shown publicly, period".

And then you go "Aha! He was interviewed, that means they made a public curiosity out of him, Ukraine violated Geneva Convention!"

And unless the Ukrainian government has published its methods, neither you nor I have any idea what pressure was put on Nuzhin to go in front of that camera and either read a script or otherwise say what his interviewers wanted him to say, that they seemingly did got him to do it through the carrot rather than the stick makes no more difference than Wagner group using a sledgehammer over a knife in his final video.

Again, do you have any evidence? Does anyone? That sort of argument sounds like accusing everyone of bribery for doing any favor for anyone. Because you have no evidence they didn't get a bribe, so...

 

[lloyd007]

Could it be that i was referring to the latter part of the article? No, impossible.

Maybe there's stuff below the donation ask, but opening the article on every browser I have shows it to be 6 paragraphs with the last three I quoted above. If it's longer than that and the part no browser is revealing to me gives different context than those six paragraphs then fair enough, if not, well...

Do you have reading comprehension issues? He specifically says what this exactly means in lawyerspeak, instead of some wide interpretation in common parlance.

Does in your world being normally interviewed, regional TV style constitute "being shown in humiliating or insulting circumstances"?

"states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances"" does not mean the same thing as
"states should not allow them to be shown publicly, period".

And then you go "Aha! He was interviewed, that means they made a public curiosity out of him, Ukraine violated Geneva Convention!"

Again, do you have any evidence? Does anyone? That sort of argument sounds like accusing everyone of bribery for doing any favor for anyone. Because you have no evidence they didn't get a bribe, so...

He's a POW, PRISONER OF WAR, he's not under ANY freedom to give a 'normal interview,' since however he came under Ukrainian custody and detention, he started off as an enemy soldier.

This is as much a 'normal interview' as a Potemkin village is actual prosperity. The normalcy is as fake as those 'animal rescue' videos that swamped youtube a couple years back and in the end thanks directly to this interview, Nuzhin's end was the same as James Foley's.

 

[Marduk]

He's a POW, PRISONER OF WAR, he's not under ANY freedom to give a 'normal interview,' since however he came under Ukrainian custody and detention, he started off as an enemy soldier.

Again, that's your random assumption not shared by the lawyers.
If the law was meant to say "POWs should be assumed to not be capable of consenting to interviews due to their status and implied power dynamics", the lawyers would be fully capable of writing the relevant law similarly to the statutory rape laws. But they didn't write that in, even though that would be a pretty damn significant part of the law. Why are you interpreting the situation exactly as if they did?

This is as much a 'normal interview' as a Potemkin village is actual prosperity. The normalcy is as fake as those 'animal rescue' videos that swamped youtube a couple years back and in the end thanks directly to this interview, Nuzhin's end was the same as James Foley's.

That's blame jujitsu on the level of various western humanitarian activists who try to argue that western countries indefinitely responsible for the well being of third world illegal immigrants who arrive there, just by that act, no matter what they do, no matter where they go.
Russia is a functioning state, not even failed one (yet). It can take responsibility for the actions of its subcontractors. If Russian government didn't agree with what happened to Nuzhin, it either wouldn't have happened, or the guy who ordered it would have been just as dead now.
Also your casual link is not nearly as clear as you think. Retreating or surrendering alone are often rumored as potential "bullet to the head" offenses in Russia's auxiliaries, especially the convict one.