https://archive.ph/yfkG9
Silly Ukraine, you're a vassal state of the american empire now, you're on our time.
I didn't know Ukrainians were Kremlin propaganda bots
Gotta love how it's still only a third
Like, how stubborn do you have to be?
I've said this before and I'll say it again (and I know it'll just upset the libs, but to heck with the genocide defenders): This is the most VIP invasion in history. Less than 11,000 civilian casualties (and I'm happy and thankful it's so low), Ukrainians have full access to the internet to rant about how the invasion is cheesing them off and to make NAFO memes, they have the ability to go right up to a Russian soldier and tell him to his face that they hope he dies without getting shot, their bunkers have wifi, they have the luxury of flying their troops out (even though there's a war on) to do meet and greets with the public, their refugees are welcomed in other countries and people take them seriously when they complain about being put in an 'ethnic' neighborhood, if even the slightest war crime takes place it's going to be in all the news 24/7, the most powerful nations on the planet are supporting the invaded nation, the invader in this scenario has been made an absolute pariah to the extent that cat competitions won't even allow Russian cats (unless they finally changed this ridiculous rule); honestly every country should hope their nation getting invaded looks this pleasant, whereas in reality it's going to look like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia (remember the Mogadishu massacre alone, which saw the killing of 5,000 people by US troops in one day?), etc.
You know how today, everybody knows the US invasion of Iraq was a terrible idea, was proposed on questionable evidence, suspiciously seemed like a war for oil, and had very bad execution, and most people who supported the invasion (celebs, people you know IRL, both libs and fascists alike) are embarrassed to have supported it or pretend they never did?
I am very excited about the upcoming years as the wind of history sweeps away the rubbish heap of NATO propaganda smothering the Ukraine-Russia war.
Iraq is an example of a war that disgusts me deeply; regardless of what people think of Saddam, after the sanctions were placed on Iraq demanding that his government cease production of WMDs, he complied; they ceased in 1991 but the sanctions remained. The UN human rights coordinator for Baghdad quit his job to criticized the sanctions as genocide, and his replacement also quit his job saying the same thing, but the sanctions didn't end. When questioned on whether half a million dead children was worth it, Madeleine Albright said yes, they think the price is worth it. Then, when they were accused of producing WMDs before the invasion, they allowed in UN inspectors to prove they weren't producing them, and then when our government refused to accept the findings, they allowed in American inspectors who also said there were no WMDs being produced, and then after Iraq proved they would be unable to effectively fight back in the event of an invasion, we attacked them. Iraq cooperated, again, and again, and again, and not content to merely slaughter a million people through sanctions, we decided we wanted a war to further decimate their population.
Iraq cooperated, and their punishment was mass slaughter. I hope every country we are hostile to never make that mistake again; I hope North Korea (for example) paid close attention and never plays ball.
Yeahhh but maaaan that waaas alllll innnn there paaaasssst mannnnn weeee goottttaaa cheeeetooooooooo
America has changed, man! We don't do that sort of shady shit anymore, not since checks notes
I'm not. Mainly because the libs will learn nothing from their own gullibility and terminal movie-brain and will just be frothing at the mouth for the next conflict.
You don't have to read the subtitle of the news to see that no, Ukraine does not consent and the headline is, at best, biased. This is manipulative and childish.
All that matters is if the people of Donbass assent. Kyiv can kick rocks.
I agree with that, but the post talks about Ukraine in a global way and the news itself links says that that is not true
So what you're complaining about is a biased title... even though the subtitle explicitly makes clear the way in which you think the title could be interpreted as biased? Putting that in the subtitle is the opposite of how you think it's being manipulative. And even if it weren't, that's not "childish."
If you think that's manipulative, let me blow your mind by introducing you to NYT, WaPo, BBC, or literally any mainstream western media that straight up lies in the title, doubles down in the subtitle, and maybe if you're lucky buries a nugget of truth near the bottom of the article in a passing mention surrounded by weasel words.
Also, do you think the (checks notes) Kyiv Post is a Russian propaganda rag, and they're being manipulative on the part of that dastardly Putin or something? lol
I don't know how to answer two comments at the same time but this is also for @footfaults@hexbear.net , when I say headline, I mean the one from the post, not the one from the newspaper, which is not manipulative, I'm sorry if I haven't expressed myself perfectly, English isn't it's my language.
Regarding the rest of your comment, I would like to say that yes, the Western press has been truly embarrassing for years, but arguments of the type "and your more" have never led any movement anywhere.
Ok, well I appreciate the comment and I stand corrected. Your meaning in the first comment was a bit ambiguous but on rereading it I can see that it makes sense that you're referring to the post title, not to the article title. That said, the post title is referencing a meme and might make more sense in that context, but it is also not wrong. This war continues to be waged due to the insistence of NATO (essentially the US) that it continue. The opinions or consent of the Ukrainian people is immaterial to those in control, and Ukrainians will keep being sent to fight and die regardless of whether or not the majority of them actually wants to sue for peace or make territorial concessions (a position that is almost certainly being suppressed).
but arguments of the type "and your more" have never led any movement anywhere.
Also immaterial. What I said had nothing to do with leading a movement, it was merely calling a spade a spade and pointing out hypocrisy.
Again I apologize if my expressions are confusing, English is not my native language and I am sorry if my grammar is poor, I understand that it is 100% my mistake.
As for the rest, I know the meme perfectly, and that doesn't make it make more sense, maybe in a hypothetical situation where the surveys gave a different majority opinion of the Ukrainian population what you say would happen, but we are not talking about hypothetical things to make jokes about, we are talking about real surveys that say the opposite of the meme that heads this post .
I think there are plenty of arguments against the war, against the actions of the USA and against the shipment of weapons without having to justify false jokes
In any case, thank you for being kind in your reasoned response, not everyone has had that education with a dissenting opinion.
Right we have to revisit the topic in a few months, at the current rate opinion is changing.
Well, it's possible, the trend seems clear, but let's send the jokes and memes then, to say now that Ukraine consents is to lie
If the decision of people to keep throwing themselves into the meat grinder for the sake of their political and economic rulers were really so "democratic" and freely made, there'd be no reason for Ukraine to do massive conscription, keep military-aged men from leaving the country, and try to get Europe to deport men of Ukrainian citizenship back to Ukraine.
Ask yourself what the actual questions posed were and who they were asked of. I wonder what you'd think of it if I "volunteered" you to go die in a futile charge against Russian artillery. I suspect you'd change your mind a bit about a prospective ceasefire with handcuffs on, guns to your back, and moments away from reaching the front lines. Meanwhile, if I consider your life a small price to pay, I might very well sit pretty and keep approving of the slaughter. Should we really each have an equal say over your fate?
IMO it is kind of significant than the West-friendly press is losing ground in terms of being able to find people who they are able to say are "favorable to the war", despite their best efforts to manufacture consent. But it's still not all that believable and legitimate as an overall picture of the war, its consequences, and the working-class attitudes toward it.
Idk seems appropriate considering the US doesn't seem to consent to other countries' sovereignty, after all it was built on genocide so why should it follow the same rules?
imperialist
either you seriously think Russia's invasion was motivated by the export of dominant financial capital or you just like to add this word like seasoning to sound leftist, not sure which is more embarrassing
It is not easy to gauge what the war is motivated by, as it is waged mostly by one dictator's wishes, but my bets are on territorial gains, resource gains (as eastern Ukraine notably contains quite a lot of resources), cultural expansion (see: banning of ukranian language in schools and government services), and perhaps delusions of grandeur and desire to bring back USSR/Russian Empire (which appear to be entirely interchangeable in Russian propaganda lately), all of which fit the definition of imperialism quite well. It could also just be an internal political game, attempting to repeat the "Crimean consensus" and get Putin's waning ratings back up. That didn't quite work out, so the governance model descended from authocratic capitalism into near-fascism. In the latter case it would indeed not exactly be an imperialist war, but I'm not sure if that helps Russia's case here.
my bets are on territorial gains, resource gains
Russia is famously lacking for land and raw materials
one dictator’s wishes
You mean Zelensky, right? The guy that sold the country to foreign capital before indefinitely suspending elections, jailing any dissidents, and giving himself absolute power?
I joke of course. You can tell Putin's a dictator, because he was popularly elected multiple times by the Russian people. If Russia were a real Democracy™, he'd be broadly unpopular among every Russian demographic and chosen by an unelected cabal of wealthy party elites like in the US.
USSR/Russian Empire (which appear to be entirely interchangeable in Russian propaganda lately)
Sure man, it's Russian propaganda in which they're interchangeable. I mean, I'm sure you'd know what with all the Russian media you're busy avoiding.
Russia is famously lacking for land and raw materials
Strategically important and tourist-attracting Crimea with a land bridge to it would be pretty useful by itself, couple that with prime agricultural land (Ukraine is a massive producer of grain), lots of coal, some oil and gas.
I joke of course. You can tell Putin’s a dictator, because he was popularly elected multiple times by the Russian people
There was not a fair presidential election in Russia since (arguably) 1996, when communists were defeated with significant use of administrative resource by Eltsin administration. Any serious political opposition began to be silenced in 2012. 2020 constitutional changes were actually unconstitutional, and as such were a soft coup. Both 2018 and 2024 elections had massive electoral fraud too.
Sure man, it’s Russian propaganda in which they’re interchangeable. I mean, I’m sure you’d know what with all the Russian media you’re busy avoiding.
I'm actually reading official and independent Russian news weekly due to Russia being my home country.
There was not a fair presidential election in Russia since (arguably) 1996
Imagine pretending that the 90s elections in Russia were 'fair' when NATO literally intervened in them on the side of Yeltsin.
EDIT: grammar. I seem to have mixed up both 'intervened in' and 'interfered with' when I initially made the comment.
You really like to dance around admitting the fact that the war was started because NATO tried to set up its weapons on the Russian border and use the threat to either coerce or openly attack Russia.
On that note, mind telling us how you think Russia should have reacted to the NATO-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014?
You really like to dance around admitting the fact that the war was started because NATO tried to set up its weapons on the Russian border and use the threat to either coerce or openly attack Russia.
NATO has had weapons on the Russian border for 20 years now. There were obviously no plans to "openly attack Russia", as they would have been realized after Russia actually invaded Ukraine. As for coercion, yeah, imperialism sucks, I wish US didn't do it, but it does not justify starting a war with a smaller country with intent to invade it.
On that note, mind telling us how you think Russia should have reacted to the NATO-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014?
I'm not one to give complex geopolitical advice, but definitely not by invading it. Perhaps a good start would be exercising its immense soft power inside the country to help pro-Russian powers (which has been attempted, but extremely unsuccessfully).
NATO has had weapons on the Russian border for 20 years now
Is that why we've seen so many NATO bases in Ukraine clash with the Russian military in the past 2 years? Oh, wait.
There were obviously no plans to "openly attack Russia"
Lol. You are saying this about the empire which, among other things, invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria just this century, and which has been committing a highly-televised genocide in Palestine.
Oh, and which also had the Russian government be its puppet in the 90s, and where it killed millions of people through legislative means.Notably, you did not answer my question:
mind telling us how you think Russia should have reacted to the NATO-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014?Having read some more of what you wrote, I do have to give it to you that you aren't a chauvinist while also recognising that NATO is at least somewhat bad. However, my criticism of your position stands.
Perhaps a good start would be exercising its immense soft power inside the country to help pro-Russian powers (which has been attempted, but extremely unsuccessfully).
So you acknowledge that they already did it and it wasn't enough . . .
TBH I agree with you that the invasion wasn't justified. Nor was NATO expansion, orchestrating the 2014 coup in Ukraine, and a whole host of other things. (Disclaimer: I'm an anarchist, so I never see the actions of nation-states as legitimate or justified.)
But that actually doesn't matter. At all. The important thing is to consider what to do now. War is fucking bad. People are dying. The environment is being ripped to shreds, both locally and globally. Capitalists are lapping up profits like nobody's business. Far more important than where some shitty, illegitimate national border winds up ultimately landing is whether the participants in this war keep slaughtering working-class people for their own ends. The most responsibility for that lies with the U.S. and its empire, which is using Ukraine to try to harm Russia, no matter how many lives it has to toss into the meat grinder. It has directly intervened in peace talks and
sabotagedoverridden ceasefire agreements, and may very well do so again. Of lesser but still high responsibility is Ukraine's government, which was U.S.-installed and has been selling itself, its land (massive privatization to the benefit of U.S. corporations), and its people (conscription, etc.) for the sake of a more privileged position within the empire. And of course Russia shares a lot of responsibility, though getting it to back away from that is hardest because nation-states have very little incentive to resign themselves to existential threats like NATO expansion/encirclement.So what can you and I do about it? We can pressure the participants. You said in another comment that you live in (or your "home country is"?) Russia. You are in a position to actually pressure Russia to stop invading/expanding and to back away as much as you can possibly make it. You should. Good for you. Many people here are in a better position to pressure the West to do similar: to allow ceasefire negotiations to continue, stop the supply of weapons for war, shrink or dissolve NATO, keep their nation's hands off of Ukraine, etc. We should. Working-class people "on both sides" pressuring the entities they have some small amount of influence on to back down isn't contradictory, but is 100% consistent with socialists fighting the class war. Don't forget that the class war is the only justified "war" there is or can be. As Vijay Prashad has said so well, "War itself is a crime."
You know there is like history and real life and stuff that happened prior to the invasion right? Like you don't have to guess or speculate or make up fan theories? Like you can just like read and find out why.
This feigned "who could possibly know" attitude is baffling. Just like look it up
All the reasons I've provided are grounded in actual Russian reality as it was before the invasion. I had been following russian news, from both official and independent outlets, due to actually living there. I don't think I need to look up the obviously made up reasons of "denazification" and "demilitarisation".
since you're such a smart guy who knows what's obviously made up, tell me about Operation Aerodynamic
Shut the fuck up, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about
banning of ukranian language in schools and government services)
Never happened but your projection levels are off the charts because the
did ban the Russian languagewhat a buch of idealist garbage. love to solemnly intone about how "it is not easy to gauge" what the war is motivated by when you haven't read the explicit justifications given in Putin's speeches and therefore cannot critique it even from a materialist standpoint
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/06/putins-full-speech-brics-nato-expansion-and-ukraine-peace-talk-conditions.html
you are a joke, stop attempting to sound leftist and actually do some reading
The people of Donbass want to join the Russian Federation, nobody but Nazis and NAFO dipshits who don't know anything about the conflict care what the corrupt regime in Kiev has to say about sovereignty, if they wanted to maintain territorial integrity then they shouldn't have couped a democratically elected government and tried to ethnically cleanse their fellows citizens for speaking one of their mother tongues
Also don't trivialize rape for the sake of making some half-baked geopolitical analogy, it's gross incel behavior
The territory Russia wants conceded is more than just the Donbas tho, isn’t it.
Isn't it just Donbas + official recognition that Crimea is Russian?
2022 Putin officially annexed the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts into Russia. Some of that area is still under Ukrainian control.
No, honestly that would be reasonable at this point, but the maps I have seen include large swathes of territory outside most of the people’s republics that have been established.
Could be just a negotiation tactic, set the initial claim too high to have more wiggle room in negotiations.
Maybe it's just cope but I don't think they'll be so unreasonable as to keep all of the original claims.
The people of Kherson don't want to be part of Russia. Why is Russia trying to annex it? Why is the russian military leveling towns, sometimes still with civilians living there, in the very regions they are purportedly trying to liberate? Let's be clear here, neither US nor Russia actually cares about people living there, they just want territory, resources and influence.
Why is Russia trying to annex it?
Oh I don't know maybe because the Kiev regime had been telegraphing for eight years their plans to use the oblast as a vector to reconquer Crimea
Why is Russia trying to annex it? Why is the russian military leveling towns, sometimes still with civilians living there
You think the Russian military are the one leveling towns and territories they'll have to rebuild and administer, filled with allied civilians? Motherfucker, the Ukrainian army are the ones openly leveling towns to stop any and all Russian advances, angering western advisors by wasting mountains of artillery ammunition while hunting "collaborators" in the regions they're purportedly trying to liberate, only Bakhmut can be said to have been destroyed in equal measure by the Russians, and that was a result of Ukraine turning that town into Redux-Stalingrad for no real strategic reason beyond media glazing
You literally don't know anything about this conflict
The people of Kherson don't want to be part of Russia. Why is Russia trying to annex it?
Russia is building a buffer zone to push the site of potential NATO bases and weapons systems further and further from Moscow, and to be able to militarily hold that buffer zone (requiring infrastructure, transportation, continuity with Crimea which was annexed for similar reasons, etc.). It views NATO expansion and encirclement as an existential threat, for pretty good historic reasons.
You're right that its intentions aren't altruistic as other users are claiming/implying. It is a nation-state. But its intentions are predictable and inline with those that basically every other nation-state would have in the same situation, because that is the nature of the institution.
"Fuck Nazi Germany for doing ethnic cleansing, and fuck Russia for actually invading and bombing the shit out of it" - liberals who can't define imperialism
Russia literally intends to annex (as in, turn into own territory) 4 Ukranian oblasts, banning ukranian language there, turning over capital to its own oligarchs (or their cronies), all via a means of war. I would like to remind you that Russia is an authoritarian capitalist oligarchy, with overt ambitions of turning itself into an empire. This definitely fits at least multiple definitions of imperialism.
I despise the shit that Ukraine did to its eastern regions for many years. What Russia is doing now is worse on multiple accounts (human suffering, death count, material damage), though.
What Russia is doing now is worse on multiple accounts
How?
Like, you are literally suggesting that the rest of the world should just roll over for NATO.
Sure the status quo is violence, but resisting the hegemony is also violent. Do you really want to be as bad as NATO?
There is a better argument to be made for Ukraine being imperialist for brutally repressing the independence movements in Donbass that were themselves in response to the US-backed coup that you seem to recognize for what it is. The war was eight years old by the time of Russia's invasion.
I'm going to take your comment seriously even though I don't know if you're making it in bad faith or not, and I'm going to say that this war was entirely avoidable if Ukraine had just applied their laws. I'm making an assumption here when I say that terrorism is illegal in Ukraine, but I'm fairly confident in this assumption; I mention this because Ukraine had eight years to take terrorism by militias in their country seriously. There's a video of Elensky going out to talk to the militia to tell them to disarm, but they basically didn't take him seriously at all; at this point, the military is supposed to step in and deal with it, one way or the other. They had eight years to send in the military to take out those terrorists who were literally indiscriminately shelling civilian areas in Donbas, but they didn't. Counting the military casualties in this war, over half a million Ukrainians have now died just because the Ukrainian government decided to allow terrorism in their country. The reality is they want the land but they don't want the people who live there who are ethnically Russian; this is not the attitude of good people, it's the attitude of people who want to engage in ethnic cleansing. When they were in a position of power, they could have made peace with Donbas and applied their laws and obliterated the terrorists striking Donbas residents, instead you even had a president promising that while Ukrainian children were attending kindergarten, that Donbas children would be hiding in bunkers; these are utterly atrocious people who are the literal cause of the war (in addition of course to our government who supported them).
All the same can be said about current Russian invasion. US-backed coup wasn't great, Ukrainian attitude to its eastern regions was atrocious, but Russia invading with full force didn't help anyone but wealthy Russian elites (and perhaps corrupt ukranian elites too, not 100% sure on internal ukranian politics): it destroyed yet more regions of Ukraine, killed yet more people, and there's no resolution in sight except for a slightly different frontline.
could you give us your answer as to who you think bombed NordStream 2 so we can laugh at it?
I agree that Russia invading didn't help anyone as terrorists are still striking Donbas as far as I'm aware, but they ARE trying to change that, which Ukraine had all the power to do prior to the war and which Western European powers could have invested just a tenth of what they did towards the war effort in putting a stop to.
and there's no resolution in sight
Now that's not true; there was an attempt at a peace plan about a year or two ago that we and the UK blocked, there's also the peace plan now that people are trying to push for. You may not like the term concede as your initial post stated, but I would hope you would also support this peace plan regardless because it would end the war. Myself I would be fine with Ukraine keeping their territories provided they can prove that these regions will be safeguarded from future attacks and that the people there will be allowed as much autonomy as any Ukrainian city and the safety as well, but we both know they won't. As I said, this war could have absolutely been avoided if Ukraine had simply administered their anti-terrorism laws; if a similar situation happened back home, do you think our government would have allowed such terror attacks to go on for eight years? Whether Russia or Ukraine controls the territory, I hope both our concerns are aligned in that the people living in these territories MUST be guaranteed safety.
Although all of this is basically true, the fascist slaughter of people in Donbass wasn't even the deciding factor. Whether Ukraine was accepting NATO weaponry, military infrastructure, training exercises, and hopeful, near-future membership was. Russia wouldn't have invaded even to stop the potential genocide going on. It invaded because the U.S. was threatening its western border and escalating the Cold War (again/still). It's exactly as if Russia had made an agreement with Mexico to put military bases and weapon systems right on the U.S.'s southern border. (Or maybe Canada would be a better parallel, due to the proximity the weapons systems would then have to Washington DC.)
So it WAS avoidable. Just on a slightly different basis than whether or not Ukrofascists were happily doing their thing unmolested (which they also were).
How do you explain that on invasion 1 million ukrainians gone to russia? (That’s not counting the 3 millions they occupied)
It’s delayed civil war, cause ukraine couldn’t live like civilized bilingual euro countries
But yeah, invasion is bad
Some of them genuinely wanted to go to Russia (I expect it was a significant percentage), some of them didn't care and it would be easier to go there, some literally didn't have a choice, some were moved to Russia forcibly. However, consider that of the remaining ~35 million Ukrainians ~5 million went to Europe, and of those who remain in Ukraine support for Russia is in low one-digit percentage. Simply put, not that many Ukrainians (outside Crimea) wanted to be part of Russia, and of those who did a lot are dead now as a result of the invasion, and more now hate Russia.
It’s delayed civil war, cause ukraine couldn’t live like civilized bilingual euro countries
Sure. However, Russia turned a skirmish into a bloodbath, for the benefit of its elites.
Ah, but the last point is the interesting part. It’s definitely not for benefit of elites in russia, with some squinting corruption in ukraine maybe made local oligarchs come out ahead.
Anyway, cause it’s not for benefits of elites, the reasoning is more complicated in russia (like genuine dislike of nato 500 km from moscow).
To the first point, not that many wanted to be part of nato either (when it was shoveled in constitution in 2019 (?) it was like low 30s), or renaming streets for heroes of oun. Yet both happened without any resistance, as donbass has demonstrated what happens to those who try to protest.
Re:numbers it implies some 16 percent sympathizers (as it’s snap decision on invasion, it’s not biased selection I don’t think), and if we include 3(?) million who chose to stay where they were we get near parity.
IMHO russia not being capitalist hellhole could have saved a lot of heartache by assassinating nazis earlier, instead of allowing them to grow unmolested, but then it arrived where it’s either let them cleanse donbas and plausibly join nato, or try to shock them in neutrality. Which they nearly did in march of 2022, and then everything went to shits. But I feel you don’t place a lot of culpability on ukraine before the invasion
