Nah, that's fucking stupid, people just don't like a reactionary state invading it's neighbors.
When shit starts going further south in the west, people will radicalise, and with a lot it'll be further to the left. Just don't expect them to start loving fascists just because they're anti-american.
people just don't like a reactionary state invading it's neighbors.
People don't like Nazi's trying to ethnically cleanse their eastern population for 8 years after those Nazi's have been trained by the largest Nazi Arming and Training Organization that has ever existed. Sometimes they have no choice but to "invade" to put a stop to that ethnic cleansing, even if sycophants of the above mentioned empire foolishly insist on calling them fascists.
Just don't expect them to start loving fascists just because they're anti-american.
It would be nice if we could expect people to actually recognize real fascists and not misattribute the term, but it looks like even a lot of "leftists" can't even do that.
The person you're responding to is dumb, but what they said can be reconstructed into a useful statement. People largely didn't know about the civil war, they heard about shit happening in 2014 and then nothing to do with Ukraine besides . They did, however, get an escalating amount of press coverage about how evil Putin is oppressing gosh darn Pussy Riot and true democratic hero Navalny. Now Russia invades for reasons they haven't been told while the media actively obfuscates Russia's motivations, and get told that the Russians -- who they have only seen in the most terms along with some legitimate reporting on the actual social reaction in Russia -- are fascists working with Nazi mercenaries to try to annex "historically Russian territory" from the wholesome pro-EU, pro-America Jewish president's administration, and this is what happened. It makes sense that it went like that and even some people here are so fucking dense in parsing its most basic elements.
I am with you on all of that, yes. Except I'm a little lost on how their statement can be reconstructed into a useful one without changing most of its core implications.
and even some people here are so fucking dense in parsing its most basic elements.
I know. I hate to see it here on hexbear and it's why I decided to pipe up when someone was trying to spread the propaganda they swallowed from the MSM again. It does make sense why they believe it, but this is the last place that NATO->Ukraine propaganda should go unchallenged.
Except I'm a little lost on how their statement can be reconstructed into a useful one without changing most of its core implications.
They expressed pretty clearly why someone would think what they do, which incidentally meant it was easy to explain not only that they were wrong but what lead them to their wrong conclusions. Perhaps it was just me being precious, idk.
So in your view Putin is a rational leader and the “good guy” and Ukrainians are the bad guys for defending their country? I understand the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014 (was bubbling up even before then) but just want to understand how you see things so black and white that way. Are Putin’s stances on gay and trans people pure Western propaganda? Because what I’ve seen him supposedly say is not good to say the least. But maybe I’m just fully propagandized
Um sweaty, have you considered that Ukraine is one of the three little pigs and Russia is the big bad wolf?
Why yes I will echo generic “war bad” sentiments while completely ignoring historical context and coincidentally towing the state department line but “leftist” so it’s ok
There is a reason why an overwhelming majority of socialist and communist movements in the global South are on Russia’s side.
The overwhelming majority of the global South and thus the world are on Russia's side period. This is how you get English articles like Why Are Haitian Protestors Waving Russian Flags. Anyone who has been following protests in Africa know that Russian flags are not an uncommon feature there. Someone from the news megathread recently came back from Lebanon, and almost everybody he talked to from his communist uncle(?) to random strangers were pro-Russia. Of course, you wouldn't recognize this in an Anglo website that's 80% white.
Putin is not a “good guy” and that’s not the point. This is possibly the most provoked invasion in world history, instigated by an American vassal state, which was and still is the most corrupt state in Europe and acting like Ukraine is some sort of innocent little angel being invaded for no reason by crazy evil Putler is a symptom of a total break with empirical reality, which is that Russia had tried for eight straight years to reach a peaceful resolution. Ukraine was defeated in 2014 when its government was couped by US-backed forces. It is no longer a sovereign state. You don’t have to think Putin is a great guy to subscribe to these fundamental facts.
NATO expansionism is bad regardless of the moral character of its opponents.
Of course war is brutal and barbaric but it’s no use going both sides or poor widdle Ukraine when it’s very clear that one side deliberately and massively provoked this.
If you think that Russia invaded Ukraine because they’re fascist and Putin is crazy, you have completely and totally lost the plot.
I agree that Ukraine is very corrupt and not “fighting for democracy” or whatever the Western media is saying about this war, but is there any chance that Ukrainians wanted to push toward the EU and away from Russia’s economic influence? It’s always taken at face value that the Euromaidan protests were US backed and the protestors were all US/NATO puppets, but what if many of them just didn’t want to be another Russian puppet state like Belarus and wanted to try to increase their standard of living? Not saying I agree with them, both options of moving forward are shitty but the “Russia was provoked” argument only works if the Ukrainians had no autonomy whatsoever and were being controlled by the CIA like puppets.
Otherwise it’s much less justified if Ukraine just wanted to move away from Russia’s influence toward the West on its own accord. Having millennial cousins over in Belarus who hate Luka I wouldn’t be surprised if most millennials in Ukraine truly just opposed Russia and wanted to move away before the invasion. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea is a different situation as that part of the country was much more sympathetic toward Russia but I don’t get why Putin didn’t just ramp up the fighting against separatists there instead of push to Kyiv? Once he brought the invasion to the entirety of Ukraine it can only be justified if he was provoked beyond belief, not just a regional conflict.
I get we are propagandized to an absurd degree in the West but I feel like lots of users here swing too far the other way. I don’t think NATO is as smart as lots of people here might think, Ukrainians wanting to move toward Europe is not even considered as a possibility which seems at the very least to be intellectually dishonest.
It's certainly the case that some of Ukraine's population supported the coup, fascism has been actively cultivated there for decades (see Operation Bloodstone) and the Banderite cult has shown itself to be alive and well. That said, they do not represent all of Ukraine, particularly not the massive Russian population who make up the majority in the eastern part of the country (nor the other minorities like the Poles, Jews, Romani, etc.)
I don't know enough about the proportions of demographics to give you a more numerical estimate, but the coup did throw out an elected leader, which inclines me to say that it was more likely a large minority sentiment using force to get its way when a system that got more widespread input (liberal though it was) didn't work for them.
Here's an alright article on the topic:
https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
but is there any chance that Ukrainians wanted to push toward the EU and away from Russia’s economic influence?
No.
47% of Ukrainians pre 2014 coup were ethnically Russian and spoke Russian at home as their first language. There as a slight majority that were Ukrainian ethnicaly but many of them were also more interested in good a relationship with Russian and remember the good times of the USSR.
Russia had no issues with Ukraine making trade deals with the EU but the EU insisted Ukraine dump all agreements with Russia if it wanted trade deals with the EU. Essentially that would have destroyed all their bargaining power. It is a stupid position to take and only people who are Russophobic would even consider it. Europeans are imperialists who would Neo-colonialise Ukraine and treat it like they did Greece.
Ukrainians had no autonomy whatsoever and were being controlled by the CIA like puppets.
We have seen the CIA do this sort of thing all over the world. There is a phone call on youtube with a State Department official and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine decided who they want to install as the next president of Ukraine after Yanukovych stepped down.
Those are good points. I do think the youth doesn’t have the sentimental attachment to the USSR that older Ukrainians would have. It sounds absurd but from what I hear from my Belarusian cousins they are jealous of Poland for being in the EU and they’d prefer to join the EU if it meant giving up their Russian ties. It’s probably similar to how lots of Scottish and Welsh people feel about England.
I guess my main issue with the “they couldn’t possibly side with Europe over Russia because they’re ethnically Russian” is that if Luka were to ever be overthrown by a pro-EU government in Belarus I know my cousins would love that and like most Belarusians they grew up speaking Russian. Many on this site would say that was a CIA plot or that they are brainwashed by Western propaganda but idk their economic outlook is generally pretty shitty over there. One of my cousins made it over here to the US from Belarus and loves it here compared with back home.
People aren’t necessarily 100% loyal to the country that aligns with their ethnicity or native language, that doesn’t really make sense. It wouldn’t surprise me if lots of Ukrainians disliked Yanukovych without the CIA brainwashing them into doing so since it’s probably similar to how plenty of Belarusians hate Luka in a similar way.
You've got it completely backwards. The people saying that what Russia is doing is good for the global south and that Russia is justified in entering the conflict in Ukraine while also saying that Russia is bad for it's reactionary policies, there aren't the ones who are seeing things in black and white "good guy and bad guy." They're the ones who are looking at the situation through a materialist lens. Putin is not a "good guy" by any means, but he is not wrong when it comes to the situation in Ukraine and yes he definitely is rational, one of the most pragmatic and restrained of the major actors on either side of the conflict. Don't fall for the lib bullshit that tries to paint him as some crazed lunatic. THAT is where your black and white thinking accusation should be directed. Putin being rational doesn't also make him a "good guy" and I don't remember anyone on hexbear ever saying he was.
People don't like Nazi's trying to ethnically cleanse their eastern population for 8 years after those Nazi's have been trained by the largest Nazi Arming and Training Organization that has ever existed. Sometimes they have no choice but to "invade" to put a stop to that ethnic cleansing, even if sycophants of the above mentioned empire foolishly insist on calling them fascists.
Any idea that this was just a small operation to protect the russian identifying areas of the southeast got put to rest when Putin decided to just go for Kiev itself, and then it got shot in the head when he decided to annex two additional regions, including Odessa, which isn't even pro-russian.
It would be nice if we could expect people to actually recognize real fascists and not misattribute the term, but it looks like even a lot of "leftists" can't even do that.
The fucking founder of Wagner has SS tattoos. Putin's cracking down on LGBTQ populations as we speak. I don't think it's a big leap to say Russia's fascist.
Any idea that this was just a small operation to protect the russian identifying areas of the southeast got put to rest when Putin decided to just go for Kiev itself
No one ever said it was "just a small" operation. Yes it was largely done to protect the people of Donbas from the Nazi regime that is the Ukrainian government, as well as for other legitimate reasons like the now-proven threat of NATO encroachment. I don't know why this vapid argument keeps coming up because it's a terrible argument that doesn't make any sense if thought about for more than two seconds. I'm talking about the idea that because Russia attacked parts of Ukraine that weren't just the literal frontline of Ukraine's attempted ethnic cleansing is somehow proof that Russia wasn't doing this to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians primarily in the east and south of the country. Do you have any idea how military conflict works? Since I was just reading another thread where that same ignorant argument was made, here's a paste of someone's response to it.
Do you know anything about the history of the USSR and how they used that concept, also to fight Nazis? You understand that the military of a country will have warehouses with supplies and munitions in places that aren't on the front? And that there will be logistic networks to move equipment and personnel around a very large country? As has been said elsewhere, why would one military attack another and only hit the things on the front and ignore the reinforcements behind it?
This conflict is an ongoing civil war that Russia has repeatedly made serious efforts to end through negotiation and peace, both before and after they entered the conflict. But NATO (via their puppet government in Ukraine) refuses and literally made it illegal to do so. Russia absolutely has a major problem with its reactionary domestic policies, but it is NOT a fascist government, though it is fighting against one, and it is justified in doing so.
No one ever said it was "just a small" operation. Yes it was largely done to protect the people of Donbas from the Nazi regime that is the Ukrainian government, as well as for other legitimate reasons like the now-proven threat of NATO encroachment
If that was the case, then why the incredibly pointless and aggressive gesture of annexing Kherson and Odessa? Those weren't regions featuring violence, and pro-Ukrainians are an absolute majority.
I'm talking about the idea that because Russia attacked parts of Ukraine that weren't just the literal frontline of Ukraine's attempted ethnic cleansing is somehow proof that Russia wasn't doing this to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians primarily in the east and south of the country.
Of fucking course it is. You can't claim that you're just trying to protect one small part of a country by invading all of it, that just shows it for the obvious pretext for invasion that it is. If Putin had just kept slicing off pieces of the southwest, no one but the most ultralibs would give a shit.
Do you have any idea how military conflict works?
More than the fucking Russian MOD does, clearly. I didn't rush all my best equipped troops to the enemy's capital, like the world's dumbest HOI4 player. I didn't get rolled by a fucking hot dog salesman. I didn't decide to engage in a war of attrition when trying to invade another country, with low support for the war, while my enemy is being supplied by a bunch of other countries.
Since I was just reading another thread where that same ignorant argument was made, here's a paste of someone's response to it.
It's just the exact same fucking shit Russia defenders have been shitting out since day one, which is that nobody's ever in a position to criticize the russian MOD, and that they're actually secretly geniuses.
Sure, maybe of the choices that were in front of Putin when he made the decision, full on invasion was actually the best action, just like you could argue that sticking your dick into that hornet's nest really was the best decision, in which case it really just seems like NATO snookered him from day one. But from where I'm looking, it really seems like the MOD just gassed him up into thinking it'd be easy win.
Like, fundamentally, the idea that Russia has actually been competent all along runs into the inevitable problem that Russia is what the chicago boys made it - a broken Kleptocracy. There has been no major reforms, no big fight to actually try to get the mechanisms of state to work for somebody other than the Oligarchs, so you basically just have what the US will become in 50 years.
This conflict is an ongoing civil war that Russia has repeatedly made serious efforts to end through negotiation and peace, both before and after they entered the conflict. But NATO (via their puppet government in Ukraine) refuses and literally made it illegal to do so. Russia absolutely has a major problem with its reactionary domestic policies, but it is NOT a fascist government, though it is fighting against one, and it is justified in doing so.
There is absolutely no justification for believing that Ukraine is fascist and Russia isn't, unless your justification is solely that you like Russia.
If that was the case, then why the incredibly pointless and aggressive gesture of annexing Kherson and Odessa? Those weren't regions featuring violence, and pro-Ukrainians are an absolute majority.
Lol. Neither Kherson or Odessa are annexed. Wtf are you talking about. It's right there even on wikipedia's map. Even if Russia did occupy cities that Nazi forces are using as a staging ground to wage their war against Russian-speakers, that's not exactly a mark against Russia. You really are proving you have no clue how conflict has ever worked in the history of humanity. Also, even if an area isn't predominantly Russian-speaking, doesn't mean everyone there is literally siding with the Nazis. Someone mentioned black and white thinking in this thread and that's what you're doing. I'm sure the civilians in Kherson love being abducted by masked men in white vans and forced into conscription for Ukraine.
You can't claim that you're just trying to protect one small part of a country by invading all of it, that just shows it for the obvious pretext for invasion that it is.
Yes. Yes you can. I don't know what else there is to say to you if you don't understand that limiting your entire military effort to a single line is not only stupid but simply doesn't happen.
If Putin had just kept slicing off pieces of the southwest, no one but the most ultralibs would give a shit.
What are you even talking about? Do you mean southeast? Assuming so, that's funny. That was part of what Russia attempted to offer as a peace plan but Ukraine in its stupidity and belligerence wouldn't hear it and continued to bang the war drum of sending their people into the meat grinder. All the while, Russia has been trying to keep infrastructure intact, minimize civilian casualties, and open corridors for any civilians that want out of the conflict areas.
Do you have any idea how military conflict works?
More than the fucking Russian MOD does, clearly.
That says a lot right there. You literally think you understand military conflict more than the heads of state and military of one of the largest countries in the world, a country that was the heart of the former USSR and that is still using the successful military tactics developed by the USSR. You know who constantly jokes about how dumb all those asiatic orcish hordes of the Russian military are? NAFO. I can tell zero difference between what you're saying here and what the NAFO shills spout. Maybe stick to reddit where you'll be right at home with your fellow conflict-understanders.
I didn't rush all my best equipped troops to the enemy's capital, like the world's dumbest HOI4 player.
Yeah, because you don't understand the concept of a feint and how the USSR used it to great effect. Funny how it turned out really well for Russia. Imagine that. But clearly you know better because you're not, as you say, the world's dumbest HOI4 player. Got it.
I didn't get rolled by a fucking hot dog salesman.
Oh, you're talking about the billionaire Pringles you used earlier to claim Russia was fascist? Make up your mind. Yeah, Russia sure was "rolled" by his cringey attempt at a coup that they bloodlessly put down in 2 days.
I didn't decide to engage in a war of attrition when trying to invade another country, with low support for the war, while my enemy is being supplied by a bunch of other countries.
Low support is support of the entire world except for the US and it's vassal states? And you mean an attrition war that Russia has been consistently winning, to the frothing hysteria of NATO and the US as they keep sending all their military equipment to be easily destroyed by Russia (or diverted long before it reaches the front and sold on the black market to show up in places like the hands of drug cartels)? I honestly can't believe your ignorance on this topic. Is CNN and MSNBC truly the extent of your news consumption?
It's just the exact same fucking shit Russia defenders have been shitting out since day one,
There it is, folks. NAFO was right. Anyone who actually has been following what has been happening is a "Russia defender." All the news that has been posted on the topic on hexbear for the last year and a half was a lie, let's pack up and head back to reddit.
which is that nobody's ever in a position to criticize the russian MOD, and that they're actually secretly geniuses.
What. the. fuck. are you talking about? No one has ever said any of that. Russia is constantly criticized here (but for shit actually deserving of criticism) and no one has ever said they were "geniuses." You're literally just making shit up.
But from where I'm looking
There's the problem. You haven't actually been looking. Just swallowing what you've been told by the MSM. This isn't a snide "gotcha" it is literally true. If you genuinely consider yourself a leftist, but you believe the things you've been saying - this really is the only explanation.
Like, fundamentally, the idea that Russia has actually been competent all along runs into the inevitable problem that Russia is what the chicago boys made it - a broken Kleptocracy. There has been no major reforms, no big fight to actually try to get the mechanisms of state to work for somebody other than the Oligarchs, so you basically just have what the US will become in 50 years.
The US will become a rising economic world power and ally of China that easily withstood all the sanctions put on it by the worlds largest imperialist empire and is fighting and winning a war against said empire? And the US has the support of the global south and nearly every anti-imperialist movement. Wow, nice. I sure didn't predict that. You're also confusing Russia's domestic issues with its military's ability to win a conflict which like so much else of what you said, makes no sense.
There is absolutely no justification for believing that Ukraine is fascist and Russia isn't, unless your justification is solely that you like Russia.
No justification aside from all the ethnic cleansing Ukraine was doing but that Russia hasn't done and doesn't do. I can't believe I'm reading this on hexbear.
When shit starts going further south in the west, people will radicalise, and with a lot it'll be further to the left.
How many examples of libs tending to radicalizing to the left over the right have we historically seen? The phrase is not "scratch a liberal and a radical leftist bleeds" for a reason, no?
What are you on about, fam? Liberalism is the hegemonic ideology under capitalism. Literally every single comrade on here got radicalised and moved away from liberalism. Except for those who had been on the road to fascism, but I don't get the feeling that's many here. No one was born with theory already uploaded to their minds.
Individual people who were liberals can radicalize left, yes. But at the same time, history shows us that liberals, including demsocs and socdems also have a tendency to radicalize right as a group when push comes to shove. The comrades here on Hexbear are probably, quite generously, 10% of the liberals who became radicalized. We are outnumbered by 4channers, incels, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, etc etc by a lot and most of those people were part of the hegemonic ideology under capitalism before their radicalization.
Nah, that's fucking stupid, people just don't like a reactionary state invading it's neighbors.
Russia is a progressive state at this moment in history as it is waging a war of national sovereignty against NATO imperialism and horrendous ethnic chauvinism by nazis in Ukraine against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbass
Just like how Stalin pointed out that Egypt and the Emir of Afghanistan were objectively revolutionary despite their anti-socialist and monarchist views whilst the British imperialist Labour party were reactionary despite that, formerly, they were "for" socialism
The same must be said of the revolutionary character of national movements in general. The unquestionably revolutionary character of the vast majority of national movements is as relative and peculiar as is the possible revolutionary character of certain particular national movements. The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such "desperate" democrats and "Socialists," "revolutionaries" and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its results was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism. For the same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British "Labour" Government is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they are "for" socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other, larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a revolutionary step.
When shit starts going further south in the west, people will radicalise, and with a lot it'll be further to the left. Just don't expect them to start loving fascists just because they're anti-american.
Fascism has no meaning outside of imperialism (look at Hitlers talk with Lord Halifax on how it was "intolerable for Germany to have no colonies"). Russia has zero gain from destroying the Ukrainian State that Nato has turned into the bastion of white supremacy and neonazi training camps. Proven by the imperialists saying themselves this will "overextend and unbalance Russia" (which foreshadowed the Ukraine war, written in 2019) or Lindsay Graham saying the "Russians are dying" with an orgasmic smile on his face
Nah, that's fucking stupid, people just don't like a reactionary state invading it's neighbors.
When shit starts going further south in the west, people will radicalise, and with a lot it'll be further to the left. Just don't expect them to start loving fascists just because they're anti-american.
People don't like Nazi's trying to ethnically cleanse their eastern population for 8 years after those Nazi's have been trained by the largest Nazi Arming and Training Organization that has ever existed. Sometimes they have no choice but to "invade" to put a stop to that ethnic cleansing, even if sycophants of the above mentioned empire foolishly insist on calling them fascists.
It would be nice if we could expect people to actually recognize real fascists and not misattribute the term, but it looks like even a lot of "leftists" can't even do that.
The person you're responding to is dumb, but what they said can be reconstructed into a useful statement. People largely didn't know about the civil war, they heard about shit happening in 2014 and then nothing to do with Ukraine besides
. They did, however, get an escalating amount of press coverage about how evil Putin is oppressing gosh darn Pussy Riot and true democratic hero Navalny. Now Russia invades for reasons they haven't been told while the media actively obfuscates Russia's motivations, and get told that the Russians -- who they have only seen in the most 
terms along with some legitimate reporting on the actual social reaction in Russia -- are fascists working with Nazi mercenaries to try to annex "historically Russian territory" from the wholesome pro-EU, pro-America Jewish president's administration, and this is what happened. It makes sense that it went like that and even some people here are so fucking dense in parsing its most basic elements.
I am with you on all of that, yes. Except I'm a little lost on how their statement can be reconstructed into a useful one without changing most of its core implications.
I know. I hate to see it here on hexbear and it's why I decided to pipe up when someone was trying to spread the propaganda they swallowed from the MSM again. It does make sense why they believe it, but this is the last place that NATO->Ukraine propaganda should go unchallenged.
They expressed pretty clearly why someone would think what they do, which incidentally meant it was easy to explain not only that they were wrong but what lead them to their wrong conclusions. Perhaps it was just me being precious, idk.
So in your view Putin is a rational leader and the “good guy” and Ukrainians are the bad guys for defending their country? I understand the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014 (was bubbling up even before then) but just want to understand how you see things so black and white that way. Are Putin’s stances on gay and trans people pure Western propaganda? Because what I’ve seen him supposedly say is not good to say the least. But maybe I’m just fully propagandized
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Um sweaty, have you considered that Ukraine is one of the three little pigs and Russia is the big bad wolf?
Why yes I will echo generic “war bad” sentiments while completely ignoring historical context and coincidentally towing the state department line but “leftist” so it’s ok
The overwhelming majority of the global South and thus the world are on Russia's side period. This is how you get English articles like Why Are Haitian Protestors Waving Russian Flags. Anyone who has been following protests in Africa know that Russian flags are not an uncommon feature there. Someone from the news megathread recently came back from Lebanon, and almost everybody he talked to from his communist uncle(?) to random strangers were pro-Russia. Of course, you wouldn't recognize this in an Anglo website that's 80% white.
Putin is not a “good guy” and that’s not the point. This is possibly the most provoked invasion in world history, instigated by an American vassal state, which was and still is the most corrupt state in Europe and acting like Ukraine is some sort of innocent little angel being invaded for no reason by crazy evil Putler is a symptom of a total break with empirical reality, which is that Russia had tried for eight straight years to reach a peaceful resolution. Ukraine was defeated in 2014 when its government was couped by US-backed forces. It is no longer a sovereign state. You don’t have to think Putin is a great guy to subscribe to these fundamental facts.
NATO expansionism is bad regardless of the moral character of its opponents.
Of course war is brutal and barbaric but it’s no use going both sides or poor widdle Ukraine when it’s very clear that one side deliberately and massively provoked this.
If you think that Russia invaded Ukraine because they’re fascist and Putin is crazy, you have completely and totally lost the plot.
I agree that Ukraine is very corrupt and not “fighting for democracy” or whatever the Western media is saying about this war, but is there any chance that Ukrainians wanted to push toward the EU and away from Russia’s economic influence? It’s always taken at face value that the Euromaidan protests were US backed and the protestors were all US/NATO puppets, but what if many of them just didn’t want to be another Russian puppet state like Belarus and wanted to try to increase their standard of living? Not saying I agree with them, both options of moving forward are shitty but the “Russia was provoked” argument only works if the Ukrainians had no autonomy whatsoever and were being controlled by the CIA like puppets.
Otherwise it’s much less justified if Ukraine just wanted to move away from Russia’s influence toward the West on its own accord. Having millennial cousins over in Belarus who hate Luka I wouldn’t be surprised if most millennials in Ukraine truly just opposed Russia and wanted to move away before the invasion. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea is a different situation as that part of the country was much more sympathetic toward Russia but I don’t get why Putin didn’t just ramp up the fighting against separatists there instead of push to Kyiv? Once he brought the invasion to the entirety of Ukraine it can only be justified if he was provoked beyond belief, not just a regional conflict.
I get we are propagandized to an absurd degree in the West but I feel like lots of users here swing too far the other way. I don’t think NATO is as smart as lots of people here might think, Ukrainians wanting to move toward Europe is not even considered as a possibility which seems at the very least to be intellectually dishonest.
It's certainly the case that some of Ukraine's population supported the coup, fascism has been actively cultivated there for decades (see Operation Bloodstone) and the Banderite cult has shown itself to be alive and well. That said, they do not represent all of Ukraine, particularly not the massive Russian population who make up the majority in the eastern part of the country (nor the other minorities like the Poles, Jews, Romani, etc.)
I don't know enough about the proportions of demographics to give you a more numerical estimate, but the coup did throw out an elected leader, which inclines me to say that it was more likely a large minority sentiment using force to get its way when a system that got more widespread input (liberal though it was) didn't work for them.
Here's an alright article on the topic: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
No.
47% of Ukrainians pre 2014 coup were ethnically Russian and spoke Russian at home as their first language. There as a slight majority that were Ukrainian ethnicaly but many of them were also more interested in good a relationship with Russian and remember the good times of the USSR.
Russia had no issues with Ukraine making trade deals with the EU but the EU insisted Ukraine dump all agreements with Russia if it wanted trade deals with the EU. Essentially that would have destroyed all their bargaining power. It is a stupid position to take and only people who are Russophobic would even consider it. Europeans are imperialists who would Neo-colonialise Ukraine and treat it like they did Greece.
We have seen the CIA do this sort of thing all over the world. There is a phone call on youtube with a State Department official and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine decided who they want to install as the next president of Ukraine after Yanukovych stepped down.
Those are good points. I do think the youth doesn’t have the sentimental attachment to the USSR that older Ukrainians would have. It sounds absurd but from what I hear from my Belarusian cousins they are jealous of Poland for being in the EU and they’d prefer to join the EU if it meant giving up their Russian ties. It’s probably similar to how lots of Scottish and Welsh people feel about England.
I guess my main issue with the “they couldn’t possibly side with Europe over Russia because they’re ethnically Russian” is that if Luka were to ever be overthrown by a pro-EU government in Belarus I know my cousins would love that and like most Belarusians they grew up speaking Russian. Many on this site would say that was a CIA plot or that they are brainwashed by Western propaganda but idk their economic outlook is generally pretty shitty over there. One of my cousins made it over here to the US from Belarus and loves it here compared with back home.
People aren’t necessarily 100% loyal to the country that aligns with their ethnicity or native language, that doesn’t really make sense. It wouldn’t surprise me if lots of Ukrainians disliked Yanukovych without the CIA brainwashing them into doing so since it’s probably similar to how plenty of Belarusians hate Luka in a similar way.
You've got it completely backwards. The people saying that what Russia is doing is good for the global south and that Russia is justified in entering the conflict in Ukraine while also saying that Russia is bad for it's reactionary policies, there aren't the ones who are seeing things in black and white "good guy and bad guy." They're the ones who are looking at the situation through a materialist lens. Putin is not a "good guy" by any means, but he is not wrong when it comes to the situation in Ukraine and yes he definitely is rational, one of the most pragmatic and restrained of the major actors on either side of the conflict. Don't fall for the lib bullshit that tries to paint him as some crazed lunatic. THAT is where your black and white thinking accusation should be directed. Putin being rational doesn't also make him a "good guy" and I don't remember anyone on hexbear ever saying he was.
Any idea that this was just a small operation to protect the russian identifying areas of the southeast got put to rest when Putin decided to just go for Kiev itself, and then it got shot in the head when he decided to annex two additional regions, including Odessa, which isn't even pro-russian.
The fucking founder of Wagner has SS tattoos. Putin's cracking down on LGBTQ populations as we speak. I don't think it's a big leap to say Russia's fascist.
No one ever said it was "just a small" operation. Yes it was largely done to protect the people of Donbas from the Nazi regime that is the Ukrainian government, as well as for other legitimate reasons like the now-proven threat of NATO encroachment. I don't know why this vapid argument keeps coming up because it's a terrible argument that doesn't make any sense if thought about for more than two seconds. I'm talking about the idea that because Russia attacked parts of Ukraine that weren't just the literal frontline of Ukraine's attempted ethnic cleansing is somehow proof that Russia wasn't doing this to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians primarily in the east and south of the country. Do you have any idea how military conflict works? Since I was just reading another thread where that same ignorant argument was made, here's a paste of someone's response to it.
This conflict is an ongoing civil war that Russia has repeatedly made serious efforts to end through negotiation and peace, both before and after they entered the conflict. But NATO (via their puppet government in Ukraine) refuses and literally made it illegal to do so. Russia absolutely has a major problem with its reactionary domestic policies, but it is NOT a fascist government, though it is fighting against one, and it is justified in doing so.
If that was the case, then why the incredibly pointless and aggressive gesture of annexing Kherson and Odessa? Those weren't regions featuring violence, and pro-Ukrainians are an absolute majority.
Of fucking course it is. You can't claim that you're just trying to protect one small part of a country by invading all of it, that just shows it for the obvious pretext for invasion that it is. If Putin had just kept slicing off pieces of the southwest, no one but the most ultralibs would give a shit.
More than the fucking Russian MOD does, clearly. I didn't rush all my best equipped troops to the enemy's capital, like the world's dumbest HOI4 player. I didn't get rolled by a fucking hot dog salesman. I didn't decide to engage in a war of attrition when trying to invade another country, with low support for the war, while my enemy is being supplied by a bunch of other countries.
It's just the exact same fucking shit Russia defenders have been shitting out since day one, which is that nobody's ever in a position to criticize the russian MOD, and that they're actually secretly geniuses.
Sure, maybe of the choices that were in front of Putin when he made the decision, full on invasion was actually the best action, just like you could argue that sticking your dick into that hornet's nest really was the best decision, in which case it really just seems like NATO snookered him from day one. But from where I'm looking, it really seems like the MOD just gassed him up into thinking it'd be easy win.
Like, fundamentally, the idea that Russia has actually been competent all along runs into the inevitable problem that Russia is what the chicago boys made it - a broken Kleptocracy. There has been no major reforms, no big fight to actually try to get the mechanisms of state to work for somebody other than the Oligarchs, so you basically just have what the US will become in 50 years.
There is absolutely no justification for believing that Ukraine is fascist and Russia isn't, unless your justification is solely that you like Russia.
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Do you have evidence that Russia is ethnically cleansing ethnic minorities like the fascist regime is doing to the Russian minority in Ukraine?
Vibes-based politics have no use for your reality
Lol. Neither Kherson or Odessa are annexed. Wtf are you talking about. It's right there even on wikipedia's map. Even if Russia did occupy cities that Nazi forces are using as a staging ground to wage their war against Russian-speakers, that's not exactly a mark against Russia. You really are proving you have no clue how conflict has ever worked in the history of humanity. Also, even if an area isn't predominantly Russian-speaking, doesn't mean everyone there is literally siding with the Nazis. Someone mentioned black and white thinking in this thread and that's what you're doing. I'm sure the civilians in Kherson love being abducted by masked men in white vans and forced into conscription for Ukraine.
Yes. Yes you can. I don't know what else there is to say to you if you don't understand that limiting your entire military effort to a single line is not only stupid but simply doesn't happen.
What are you even talking about? Do you mean southeast? Assuming so, that's funny. That was part of what Russia attempted to offer as a peace plan but Ukraine in its stupidity and belligerence wouldn't hear it and continued to bang the war drum of sending their people into the meat grinder. All the while, Russia has been trying to keep infrastructure intact, minimize civilian casualties, and open corridors for any civilians that want out of the conflict areas.
That says a lot right there. You literally think you understand military conflict more than the heads of state and military of one of the largest countries in the world, a country that was the heart of the former USSR and that is still using the successful military tactics developed by the USSR. You know who constantly jokes about how dumb all those asiatic orcish hordes of the Russian military are? NAFO. I can tell zero difference between what you're saying here and what the NAFO shills spout. Maybe stick to reddit where you'll be right at home with your fellow conflict-understanders.
Yeah, because you don't understand the concept of a feint and how the USSR used it to great effect. Funny how it turned out really well for Russia. Imagine that. But clearly you know better because you're not, as you say, the world's dumbest HOI4 player. Got it.
Oh, you're talking about the billionaire Pringles you used earlier to claim Russia was fascist? Make up your mind. Yeah, Russia sure was "rolled" by his cringey attempt at a coup that they bloodlessly put down in 2 days.
Low support is support of the entire world except for the US and it's vassal states? And you mean an attrition war that Russia has been consistently winning, to the frothing hysteria of NATO and the US as they keep sending all their military equipment to be easily destroyed by Russia (or diverted long before it reaches the front and sold on the black market to show up in places like the hands of drug cartels)? I honestly can't believe your ignorance on this topic. Is CNN and MSNBC truly the extent of your news consumption?
There it is, folks. NAFO was right. Anyone who actually has been following what has been happening is a "Russia defender." All the news that has been posted on the topic on hexbear for the last year and a half was a lie, let's pack up and head back to reddit.
What. the. fuck. are you talking about? No one has ever said any of that. Russia is constantly criticized here (but for shit actually deserving of criticism) and no one has ever said they were "geniuses." You're literally just making shit up.
There's the problem. You haven't actually been looking. Just swallowing what you've been told by the MSM. This isn't a snide "gotcha" it is literally true. If you genuinely consider yourself a leftist, but you believe the things you've been saying - this really is the only explanation.
The US will become a rising economic world power and ally of China that easily withstood all the sanctions put on it by the worlds largest imperialist empire and is fighting and winning a war against said empire? And the US has the support of the global south and nearly every anti-imperialist movement. Wow, nice. I sure didn't predict that. You're also confusing Russia's domestic issues with its military's ability to win a conflict which like so much else of what you said, makes no sense.
No justification aside from all the ethnic cleansing Ukraine was doing but that Russia hasn't done and doesn't do. I can't believe I'm reading this on hexbear.
My god, reading r/politics blue MAGA takes about Ukraine on here makes me think I’ve died and gone to hell
There is no place on Earth you can go to escape Liberalism
How many examples of libs tending to radicalizing to the left over the right have we historically seen? The phrase is not "scratch a liberal and a radical leftist bleeds" for a reason, no?
What are you on about, fam? Liberalism is the hegemonic ideology under capitalism. Literally every single comrade on here got radicalised and moved away from liberalism. Except for those who had been on the road to fascism, but I don't get the feeling that's many here. No one was born with theory already uploaded to their minds.
Individual people who were liberals can radicalize left, yes. But at the same time, history shows us that liberals, including demsocs and socdems also have a tendency to radicalize right as a group when push comes to shove. The comrades here on Hexbear are probably, quite generously, 10% of the liberals who became radicalized. We are outnumbered by 4channers, incels, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, etc etc by a lot and most of those people were part of the hegemonic ideology under capitalism before their radicalization.
Russia is a progressive state at this moment in history as it is waging a war of national sovereignty against NATO imperialism and horrendous ethnic chauvinism by nazis in Ukraine against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbass
Just like how Stalin pointed out that Egypt and the Emir of Afghanistan were objectively revolutionary despite their anti-socialist and monarchist views whilst the British imperialist Labour party were reactionary despite that, formerly, they were "for" socialism
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch06.htm
Fascism has no meaning outside of imperialism (look at Hitlers talk with Lord Halifax on how it was "intolerable for Germany to have no colonies"). Russia has zero gain from destroying the Ukrainian State that Nato has turned into the bastion of white supremacy and neonazi training camps. Proven by the imperialists saying themselves this will "overextend and unbalance Russia" (which foreshadowed the Ukraine war, written in 2019) or Lindsay Graham saying the "Russians are dying" with an orgasmic smile on his face
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html