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Comment by f6v | Hacker News Reader

That is a great idea. Let’s throw even more fuel into the fire of a new Cold War. By naming a street in a EU capital after the guy who’s proud of serving in the white supremacist militia.

As if Bucharest has no other problems to solve. I mean, I’ve been there, the place is literally falling apart.

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Bucharest... Romania in general, has to play a difficult diplomatic game. The only source of the stability in the region comes from Bucharest. Look at its neighbours:

Moldova, who was part of the Eastern bloc, has strong tendencies towards EU and RO, Romania is even offering them citizenship, to literally everyone that applies for one. Moldova has a region called Transnistria which is the equivalent of Ukrainian Donbass. It's a ticking bomb.

Ukraine, is literally divided, in the sense that their politicians don't have a clear direction. Romania and the EU still do not know if they are on the course to join the EU. Last time, Ukraine took the Russian and Romanian curriculum out of the schools. Let's not forget that Ukraine has pretty significant Romanian and Russian minorities. What kind of signal does this send? You don't even know what they are on about. Is that the start of a fierce nationalism promoting isolationism?

Serbia, another Romanian neighbor, they have affinities with Russia due to their shared Slavic heritage, which is perfectly fine. But they also don't give any indication of anything. What are your plans? Do you see yourself as an EU member? Is there any anti-corruption fight going on?

The only close neighbor to Romania is Hungary because of their shared European values. But even Hungary has problems with JOBBIK and Fidesz. Bulgaria comes second.

I can say that Romania is already living the new Cold War, it's right at the core. Without EU and NATO, today Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia wouldn't have been a unitary body of democractic values called Romania.

You can't sanction Belarus through brute force. You can't take on Russia without repercussions. Looks at this game between the embassies:

Romania kicks out 1 Russian embassy official: https://www.dw.com/en/romania-kicks-out-russian-embassy-offi...

Russia kicks out 1 Romanian embassy official: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/05/11/russia-expels-roma...

Frankly, we (Serbia) have been told very clearly that we won't become member anytime soon as EU has first to solve some internal issues. Add to that that our politicians don't have any real desire to actually join and the end result is that everyone is just paying a lip service about joining.

In a country where prospect of joining never had strong support in general population (except in a sense that we would join only for money) even euro-enthusiasts figured out that joining isn't going to happen in short/mid term.

On the other side, our links to Russia in west media are pictured as much stronger than they really are. Culturally we are more western oriented and Russia is able do capitalize mostly on resentment regarding wars in '90. That won't disappear anytime soon but that's something where Russia plays only secondary role.

In the end Romania has no reasons to be on alert regarding Serbia (there was never a war between two countries, quite rare here), and minority issues aren't significant.

Offtopic, my grandfather was Serbian, he came from Vojvodina. Thanks for describing what happens in Serbia from a Serbian point of view. Our media describes Serbia as being one of the countries that is a candidate to the EU but with no clear direction from the politic class. Indeed, Romania doesn't have to be on alert, just that this incertitude about the future of our region contributes to many missed opportunities, it also affects how infrastructure develops. For example, almost 90% of the investments in highways are the ones that link Romania with Hungary (literally the West), ignoring other borders that could have been useful to develop economic ties.

> Bucharest... Romania in general, has to play a difficult diplomatic game. The only source of the stability in the region comes from Bucharest. Look at its neighbours:

> Moldova, who was part of the Eastern bloc, has strong tendencies towards EU and RO, Romania is even offering them citizenship, to literally everyone that applies for one. Moldova has a region called Transnistria which is the equivalent of Ukrainian Donbass. It's a ticking bomb.

Transnistria is not an issue really. With modern Western weapons, both Moldova, and Romania can contain it with a single division.

> I can say that Romania is already living the new Cold War, it's right at the core. Without EU and NATO, today Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia wouldn't have been a unitary body of democractic values called Romania.

Romania, with all its flaws, still has a functioning military, ministry of interior, mostly stuffed with pro-nationalist cadres. The chance of Russia pulling Crimea on it is low. They will not have the same ease to bribe half of the general staff as they did in Ukraine.

> Transnistria is not an issue really. With modern Western weapons, both Moldova, and Romania can contain it with a single division.

This would be an issue as big as Putin would want to make it. He would not have any qualm sending some troops there if it could further destabilise Europe.

> Romania, with all its flaws, still has a functioning military, ministry of interior, mostly stuffed with pro-nationalist cadres. The chance of Russia pulling Crimea on it is low. They will not have the same ease to bribe half of the general staff as they did in Ukraine.

Thankfully.

> This would be an issue as big as Putin would want to make it. He would not have any qualm sending some troops there if it could further destabilise Europe.

And... bad for him! He should be let doing his destabilising as much as he wants, as long as he is wasting his armies, and it is 2:1 for NATO.

The current Western discourse about possible confrontation with Russia is too sentimental, and not guided by ground truths. Few things what pundits say make sense military wise about the current situation in Europe.

As I said before, the truth of few centuries of military history is unequivocal: it is a very good thing to trip your opponent into a big war for a small gain, while your main force can stay back, and preserve its power.

> And... bad for him! He should be let doing his destabilising as much as he wants, as long as he is wasting his armies, and it is 2:1 for NATO.

You say that. A couple of years ago I would have agreed. Now I see several major NATO partners unwilling to intervene in such a situation. I am sorry for my Moldovan friends, but in most likelihood nobody will budge for Moldova. Particularly as we've seen how American support can be fickle these days, and such an operation would last longer than a term of an US president. So yeah, not much confidence here.

> As I said before, the truth of few centuries of military history is unequivocal: it is a very good thing to trip your opponent into a big war for a small gain, while your main force can stay back, and preserve its power.

That's fine and dandy when you have a convenient 2000 km-wide moat and all this is quite abstract. If there is a thing we really don't want in Europe it's a war, regardless of the size and who ends up winning it. Also, another truth you can learn from History is that there is no easy war.

I’d love to see how Russia would have pulled Crimea if the population didn’t support it. It’s obvious that Russia isn’t going to do anything like that in Romania as the majority of the population isn’t pro-Russian there.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but that was for Transnistria. The population of Transnistria supports it just as much as the population of Crimea. It's been that way for quite some time now. I agree that it would be different for Romania. Thankfully, as I wrote.

I'm curious, what course of action would you propose? Let lukashenko & putin flourish?

I’m convinced it’s up to the country’s population to take any action. If you don’t like what Russia does - don’t talk to them, don’t buy anything from them. If you’re convinced that certain territory is “illegally occupied” you can say “hey guys, come and study for free if you live there!”. This way you can educate people and try to convince them you’re right. Instead, we end up with Coursera not allowing Crimeans and Iranians to study, or GitHub access being blocked there. It’s such a petty move.

The population is taking action, yet they are brutally silenced. Have you seen protests in Belarus and what happened to Navalniy?

Do you have a source for him being in a white supremacist militia?

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/26/belarus-roman-protasevich...

That article links to a tweet in Ukrainian that seems to be disputed [0].

Do you have another source?

[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1397273535...

Counter-view:

http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissi...

Where truth dies so easily, make your own judgement.

From the link:

> Conspiracy theorist Ivan Katchanovski, known in Ukraine for online ballistic “expertise” of trees on Instytutska square to “prove” Maidan protesters shot each other

Which invalidates it right away. I’m yet to hear a convincing story from the Ukrainian government about who shot people on Maidan.

The interview from 2015 features an anonymous Belorussian combatant [0]. Recently, the same picture with his face was shown to be on his phone.

[0] https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/colonelcassad/19281164/28822...

It's interesting to see this[0] on svaboda.org which certainly cannot be considered Putin/Lukashenka's propaganda by anyone.

I'm not saying "he was in a white supremacist militia" but if that's him in [0] (cf. [1] — claimed to be a picture of his phone) then maybe he was at some time a part of Azov batallion. It's still unclear in what function he was there though.

[0] https://www.svaboda.org/a/27255566.html

[1] https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27

Does it matter? Even if he was a chef there, it’s still a god awful organization.

Of course it does matter, e.g. if he was there as a journalist. Hamas/Hezbollah/ISIS are all god-awful organizations — as is Belarus own OMON — but being with them while on a journalist mission is not a crime.

There are pictures of him wearing neo-nazi imagery

https://twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/13975130316183715...

Since I never heard of "SvaStone" before, a quick search confirms that the brand sold other tshirts with the least subtle slogans possible, like:

"White baby — the future of our race."

https://huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/facebook-nazi-clothing-ex...

It's interesting that we are exposing "neo-nazis", but when you are a communist no one bats an eye.

Well, even the US blocked the military aid to Azov on the nazism grounds. So everyone who was even standing near those people should be questioned.

I'm afraid that talking about communism here is just derailing the discussion, for multiple reasons:

1- Communists aren't in power in Belarus (nor Russia)

2- Protasevich is not a communist

3- None of the discussion that's happening is about seizing the means of production

4- Being a neo-nazi is not bad because the word starts with a "N", it's bad because the ideology behind it advocates for racial conflict and ethnic cleansing.

Wikipedia writes: According to the BBC, Belarusian authorities have sought to portray Protasevich as an "extremist with right-wing sympathies" to "muddy the waters" on his detention. The Belarus presidential administration's state-run newspaper, Belarus Segodnya, has claimed that Protasevich was a mercenary who "fought in eastern Ukraine with the nationalist Azov Battalion".[3] Protasevich has previously said he spent a year in Ukraine covering the war in Donbas as a journalist and photographer.[3] Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky wrote that Protasevich “actually fought with the Azov Battalion and other units against the occupation of Ukraine, but as a journalist his weapon was not the machine gun, but the word,” and that he was wounded at the 2015 Shyrokyne standoff.[17]

If he actually joined them, he's certainly not boasting about it.

Why would he? He’ll never get out of jail if you add those accusations.

I'm curious about what do you mean when you say "the place is literally falling apart"?

They bash the presidential palace for being the symbol of dictatorship and oppression. Ironically, just 100 meters away from it, there’re entire streets that look literary abandoned. Giant potholes, half-destroyed buildings etc. Bratislava and Bucharest were the most depressing cities out of all European capitals I visited. These cities seem to be very poorly managed.

Practice shows that being polite and diplomatic with an aspiring dictator will be treated as a weakness by him and he will continue escalating more and more. Force approach to the assholes in charge is the only working solution.

“The dictator” has killed fewer people than any of the NATO states since the downfall of the USSR. It’s kind of like scaring people with North Korea, which hasn’t invaded anyone for decades.

> I mean, I’ve been there, the place is literally falling apart.

I don't understand the need to insult the city, regardless of your opinion of one politician's gestures or proposals.

I’m stating the fact. It seems quite relevant in the light of officials trying to ride the hype train.

> I’m stating the fact.

How is that a fact? Perhaps you meant 'figuratively falling apart'. How much of the city have you visited? How much do you know about the place and what's going on there?

I think the idea that any (inhabited) city in the world is 'literally' falling apart is a stretch, but if it were to be applicable somewhere, it would have to be a place that was recently ravaged by wars or earthquakes or tsunamis or something like that.

I suspect what you meant was along the lines of 'I was there once and I didn't like it and I don't like that the mayor wants to rename the street, so fuck all the people who live there and their shitty city'. This is why I found it offensive.

> It seems quite relevant in the light of officials trying to ride the hype train.

It is precisely and completely irrelevant. If anything it's an example of whataboutism [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

> Let’s throw even more fuel into the fire of a new Cold War.

Right. Because if an autocratic bully is offended by a name change, it clearly is the fault of the people changing the name. Appeasement is totally the solution. Let's just do whatever they want us to do, I'm sure it's going to be great.

In the real world though, naming streets is the prerogative of the city councils or mayors, not the dictator next door.

> As if Bucharest has no other problems to solve.

Sorry, this is just stupid. I am sure you realise that people can do more than one thing at one given moment, right? Reality is not turn based.

Your average HN user is trained in the diplomacy of Sid Meyer's Civilization. Realpolitik is a joke. /s

The NATO members and their god complex.

How so? NATO is impotent these days, I don't see how it would solve any of this. It is also irrelevant to anything I've written in that post.

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