Gravitas: Zelensky’s three big miscalculations

NATO IS DIVIDED

March 9, 2022 | 17 Comments »

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  2. Agree with Reader. Putin is more popular buy Russia is a weak nation and poor. GDP less than Texas. Putin is very aware of this and conquest is the last thing he wants. Could not on no account carry it out. He struck from desperate. Maybe at even a macho pride. Not Trotsky. Need cleverness today

    PS how close to oblivion re nuclear …see action of Blinken on planes from Poland. A Trotsky would have avoided at all costs being in such vulnerability.

  3. @Michael S

    Nobody faults the Belgians for resisting the Germans in WWI

    The comparison is invalid.

    the Texans for resisting Mexico at the Alamo

    That’s when the immigrant (mostly illegal) Americans took over the Mexican territory of Texas and kicked the vicious Mexicans out of there?

    1

  4. And we did live in fear.

    It’s too bad because there was no need for it.

    The reason you lived in fear was because of the incessant government propaganda.

    The Soviet Union suffered so much in WWII that there was no way it would start another war or nuke anybody.

  5. Edgar were there not Lithuanian, Latvian and Ukrainian collaboration in the Holocaust? And US placed precisely these SAME forces in government after February 2014 MAIDAN COUP.

  6. I think Zelensky has been doing the right thing. Nobody faults the Belgians for resisting the Germans in WWI, nor the Texans for resisting Mexico at the Alamo, nor the ANZAC for fighting at Gallipoli. In all three example, a nation was formed, though the battle was lost.

    Belgium’s King Albert responded to the Germans, when ordered by the Kaiser to let the German troops pass through unmolested,

    “Belgium is a nation, not a road”; and on that day, the artificial construct of 1830 became a nation. Today, it hosts the capital of the EU.

    The British lost the battle of Gallipoli; but to this day, Australians and New Zealanders celebrate the day as their national day, similar to America’s Fourth of July.

    Jim Bowie, Bill Travis and Davy Crockett were defeated and killed at the Alamo, fighting for Texan independence. Bowie and Crockett became American legends, the subject of Disney TV series watched by millions of my generation. Travis left as his legacy, a letter to the Texan people:

    Fellow citizens and compatriots;
    I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country. VICTORY or DEATH.

    William Barret Travis
    Lt. Col. Comdt.

    P.S. The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

    Travis

    He gave this letter to courier Albert Martin to deliver. The envelope that contained the letter was labeled “VICTORY or DEATH”.

  7. @Ted. The Warsaw Pact was never a genuine alliance but just a cover for a military occupation. It existed only on paper. Its dissolution was automatic once Russia withdrew its occupation forces from Eastern Europe.. The Russian withdrawal from Eastern Europe by Gorbachev and Yeltsin is what was meaningful. And that was a voluntary decision by the Russian governments at the time.

  9. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Silicon Valley tech worker was the Ukrainian mom lying dead on street in brutal photo that sparked outrage
    Carolyn Said March 9, 2022 Updated: March 9, 2022 8:29 p.m. Comments

    Carolyn SaidUpdated: March 9, 2022 8:29 p.m.
    Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv. Ukrainian soldiers tried to resuscitate a friend who was with them but he later died.
    Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv. Ukrainian soldiers tried to resuscitate a friend who was with them but he later died.
    Lynsey Addario/The New York Times
    A Silicon Valley employee and her children are the subjects of photos so devastating that they shocked the world: a Ukrainian family lying dead on the pavement, killed by Russian mortar fire while trying to flee the conflict.

    The images of Ukrainian soldiers tending to the bloodied bodies of a woman, her teenage son and young daughter, and their friend ran on the front page of the New York Times this week, along with online videos of the unprovoked attack on civilians. They stirred international outrage and a pledge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to punish the perpetrators. “There will be no quiet place on Earth for you,” Zelenskyy said. “Except for the grave.”

    Palo Alto startup SE Ranking confirmed Wednesday that the photo depicts its chief accountant, Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, along with her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18, who were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv. They had just dashed across a partially destroyed bridge over the Irpin River into Kyiv when a mortar hit.

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    “For me as her colleague it’s a tragedy to see those pictures,” Ksenia Khirvonina, the company’s spokeswoman, told The Chronicle. “They show that it’s real. On the other hand, they prove that (the) Russian army and Putin himself are monsters who deserve no mercy for their doings.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that his forces are not targeting civilians trying to flee.

    Perebeinis “was a very friendly, brave, courageous woman with a great sense of humor; she always cheered everyone around her up; she was truly like a big sister to all of us,” Khirvonina said. She spoke from Dubai, where she had fled on Feb. 23 from Ukraine, where about half of the company’s 110 workers are based.

    “She always had answers to all our questions, even the most stupid ones, about personal finances or taxes or how to upgrade your visa cards; she had answers to everything,” Khirvonina said. “We are so shocked, saddened, devastated, angry. There are no words to describe our emotions, we are so heartbroken.”

    When the Russian invasion started, Perebeinis initially stayed in Irpin, where she and her family lived, because her mother was sick and her son, at 18, was in the age group of males not allowed to leave the country in case they are needed to defend Ukraine, Khirvonina said. Perebeinis didn’t want to leave her son behind, Khirvonina said. He had just started university this year.

    “She always talked about him, how smart he was,” Khirvonina said. “She was a great mother; giving her kids everything she could.”

    But after Irpin was surrounded, a bomb hit the family’s building, right above their apartment.

    “They couldn’t stay in their apartment anymore; they spent all their time in the basement where it was cold with no food, light, heat, anything,” Khirvonina said.

    Perebeinis decided to use the promised “safe passage” that Russia had agreed to for civilians to flee.

    “But then Russian troops started firing on innocent civilians, and that’s how they got killed,” Khirvonina said. She doesn’t know where the family was headed.

    Sergii Perebeinis, Tatiana’s husband, who was not with them as they tried to flee, shared photos of his wife and children on his Facebook page.

    Tatiana Perebeinis (center), 43, chief accountant of SE Ranking, along with her son, Nikita, 18, and daughter, Alise, 9, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv.
    Tatiana Perebeinis (center), 43, chief accountant of SE Ranking, along with her son, Nikita, 18, and daughter, Alise, 9, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv.
    Provided by Sergii Perebeinis
    The Russians “took them all,” he wrote on Facebook.

    On Wednesday, Khirvonina said that SE Ranking had helped Sergii Perebeinis arrive in Kyiv, where he was arranging a funeral for his wife and children.

    Perebeinis was hired in 2016 as an accountant at SE Ranking’s Kyiv office and worked her way up to head of the department, a position equivalent to chief financial officer, Khirvonina said. The company, which develops tools for search engine optimization, was founded in 2013 by natives of Belarus. CEO Valery Kurilov, who is one of the founders, lives in Ukraine, Khirvonina said.

    Many U.S. tech companies have a presence in Ukraine, which is known for a strong education system with an emphasis on technology skills.

    Perebeinis had previously lived in Donetsk, a part of Ukraine that abuts the Russian border and was occupied by its larger neighbor in 2014. She and her family then moved to Irpin, Khirvonina said.

    “We are devastated to say that yesterday our dear colleague and friend Tatiana Perebeinis, the chief accountant of SE Ranking, was killed together with her two kids by Russian mortar artillery,” the company wrote on Facebook on Monday.

    Tatiana Perebeinis, an employee of Palo Alto company SE Ranking is pictured on the right side of this group pose of company employees. Perebeinis was killed by mortar fire in Ukraine earlier this week.
    Tatiana Perebeinis, an employee of Palo Alto company SE Ranking is pictured on the right side of this group pose of company employees. Perebeinis was killed by mortar fire in Ukraine earlier this week.
    Provided by SE Ranking
    “There are no words to describe our grief or to mend our pain,” SE Ranking wrote in its post about Perebeinis. “But for us, it is crucial to not let Tania and her kids Alise and Nikita remain just statistics. Her family became the victim of the unprovoked fire on civilians, which under any law is a crime against humanity.”

    Khirvonina shared memories of her colleague from just before the war. SE Ranking held a corporate retreat in the nation of Georgia the weekend before Russia started its invasion.

    “One day we went to the mountains there; they have these great big high mountains,” she said. “One lady offered paragliding. Tatiana was the person who insisted we do it. I said, OK, if Tatiana is doing it, I have to do it. I will never forget and it will be a warm memory of her. She was brave, free, enjoying her life.”

    The day before the invasion started, Perebeinis brought 9-year-old Alise to work, and a colleague brought their daughter of a similar age, Khirvonina said. Although she had just arrived in Dubai, she interacted with the girls and Kyiv staffers on a video call.

    “The girls were playing a game called Jenga with wooden sticks that you have to pull out,” she said. “Also, they were doing some braids for each other, and asked everyone to help them.”

    The photo of the deceased family was replete with heartbreaking details, including their roller suitcases, the children’s backpacks and a green dog carrier. “A dog could be heard barking,” wrote a New York Times reporter who witnessed the attack.

    Sergii Perebeinis wrote on Facebook that at least one of the dogs, a Yorkshire terrier, survived, although its leg was amputated.

    “Hoping for his strength,” he wrote. “He is a tough guy. Thanks to all those who care. Thanks to the journalist who showed humanity.”

    Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid

    It is important to remember that innocent people, including children, are being killed by Russian fire in this war.

  10. @TED-
    Of course you are right. But, for some reason, (I believe merely to provoke a dispute and lengthy discussion and display of purported eruditeness)., it seems to be a bone of contention here as to how and why.

  12. @ ADAM-

    I am in total agreement with you, because I lived through those times and was deeply engrossed in the events as they materialised. At last, living in fear of an atomic war was finally receding. And we did live in fear. Reagan’s policies broke the Soviet’s bankroll and spirit. As soon as the Berlin Wall was dismantled Gorbachev, who had been making “Peristroika” moves, eventually resigned after all the satellite states broke away, and Yeltsin, succeeding Gorbachev, further decisively declared the Soviet Union dissolved.

    At least, this is how I remember it. And of course I can be corrected.

  14. @Adam Dalgliesh

    I just posted this on the Gravitas site

    Every word of it is wrong, it is your wishful thinking.

  15. I just posted this on the Gravitas site:

    There are many serious errors in this account of NATO-Russian relations. Thge Warsaw pact was not disbanded by Russia as a voluntary concession to the West, but because the “satellite” states occupied by Russia never willingly joined the pact in the first place, having had no choice in the matter because the Russian government insited on it. Occupied by Russian forces, the “satellite” had no choice but to submit.Once Russia withdrew its troops from the satellite states, they had no wish whatsoever to continue their forced alliance with Russia.

    NATO forces did not compel Russia to give away much of its territory, as well as its sphere of influence over the satellite states. There was no invasion by NATO of Russia or any other East European country. The disbanding of the Soviet Union was a voluntary choice of the Russian government of the time, headed by Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was motivated by his belief that Russia was bankupt and couldn’t afford to hold on to these countries any longer. Also, he wanted the Western countries to help Russia transition to a capitalist economy, and he believed that in order to do this he had to dispel any fears that they still had of a Russian attack on Western Europe. These were voluntary decisions of the Yeltsin government. Just because Putin regrets these decisions (although he served in Yeltsin’s government himself) doesn’t mean he has the right to take back the countries to whom Yeltsin granted their independence. That includes Ukraine.

  17. Z not being a politician, who feeds him with all these “discours”/proclamations, comments, responses, requests and demands, etc.?
    The West most likely?
    Did the US warmongers chickened out on the F16?
    Z understand that he is being back-stabbed by his supporters (Bho, J, Hrc, dinos, rinos) who made big bucks from Ukraine.