- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
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These people are monsters, and the idiot liberals that have happily jumped on their barbarous murder machine are too.
You sent tens of thousands of people to die in a futile meatgrinder while acting like you're good people """helping""" those you were killing. In reality what was happening was that you didn't care about what happened to those people as long as it harmed some russians.
The consequences of decades of anti-russian racism all came to a head in this war, with liberals LOVING the opportunity to be openly racist pieces of shit.
All excused by what? Some fucking lines on a map? I don't give a shit about lines on a map, I care about the tens of thousands of people's lives wasted on this shit, both ukrainian and russian.
It has been extremely obvious to everyone who isn't an incredulous lib (ie the ledditor refugees from lemm.ee et al) that the US doesn't actually give a shit about Ukraine and is more than happen to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Why else would the US constantly ship overpriced wunderwaffen that the Ukrainians can barely use due to lack of training time while at the same time gobbling up Ukrainian state assets? And as we saw with how Afghanistan ended, the US will inevitably pull support, most likely because of Taiwan, and the Ukrainian war effort will collapse overnight just like Afghanistan imploded as soon as the US left the country.
The US has to fight multiple fronts against its peer adversaries as well as not-quite peer adversaries. Just recently, there's a coup in Niger with crowds of Nigeriens waving Russian flags cheering the coup leaders. While Western MSM underreport the average Nigeriens' heartfelt desire to kick out the French and overexaggerate Russia's involvement per usual, an anti-France alliance is forming in the Sahel, and Putin has launched a charm offensive courting African leaders. This is the formation of another front between the West and Russia, and the US will funnel resources away from Ukraine and towards various jihadist and separatist groups like Boko Haram in order to destabilize West Africa.
Ukraine isn't so exceptional that the US will be willing to abandon a front and lose say Taiwan for the sake of Ukraine. And from MSM reporting about the failed counteroffensive, we're close to the "US cutting their loses and leaving their allies out to dry while Hexbears repeat that quote from Kissinger" stage.
Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.
West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.
Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"
Angry libs on lemmy downplay CNN poll showing majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine
Heckin wholesome democracy, ignoring the will of the people to keep doing what you wanted anyway, after doing that for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq
At a 2008 summit, NATO stated that it would attempt to expand to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them. Georgia was immediately invaded by Russia in response. Imo this makes it clear that NATO membership for either of those countries was so unacceptable that Russia would rather invade.
If we assume that Russia (and Putin in particular) is acting violently and irrationally like a wild animal, why did NATO continue to agitate Russia when the only possible outcome would be violence? Surely a neutral or even Russia-aligned Ukraine would be preferable to a war-torn Ukraine? This is proof that the US and NATO don't care about the average person actually living in Ukraine, and indeed don't care about the Ukrainian state beyond it being a useful (and profitable) proxy against a geo-political rival.
To be clear, I'm not excusing Russia here, but geo-politics aren't about what's "fair" or "right", and if they were, the US would be a global pariah.
To clarify my stance, I want the war to end as soon as possible so that all the people on the ground can stop killing each other for no reason. I also agree that Russia invading was, in addition to being wrong because war is bad, incredibly stupid and needlessly damaging to their own position (I was one of the people saying they wouldn't launch an invasion because it seemed like it would backfire). We'll see how the economic and geo-political damage ends up shaking out in a decade or so, I imagine. And of course it's understandable for Ukrainians to take up arms to defend their land, though it will likely only prolong the suffering, especially if we agree that life on the ground under the Ukrainian state would be little better than living under the Russian one. I also recognize that Putin claiming the war was necessary for de-nazification etc was the equivalent of pretending to care about human rights to sell the war to the populace; yes there are nazis and the far right is a huge problem in Ukraine, but that isn't something Russia actually cares about (beyond a potential insurgency, anyway).
However, the point of my comment was not to condemn Ukraine. Instead, it was to point out that the US is not interested in helping Ukrainians (something we clearly agree on), and that in fact they are more than willing to sacrifice them in a conflict to achieve their own ends, namely isolating/weakening Russia and opening up Ukraine to even more voracious imperial extraction.
I certainly do care about the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION which is being denied to so many Ukrainians
Do you support the right to self-determination for Ukrainians in the Donbas region? Do you support their right to live in peace, free from artillery bombardment and being terrorized by far-right paramilitary groups? Or do you only support the rights of Ukrainians that the state department tells you to care about?
I think a peace deal involving referendums in these areas (not under military occupation-creates unfair and unfree conditions for a referendum e.g., as in Crimea!) would identify the actual will of the people in these parts of the Donbas.
Ukraine had even better terms than that under the Minsk agreements. They refused to hold to the terms and stop shelling Donbas, even after they signed a ceasefire twice. After the invasion there was another attempt at peace talks, it ended with Ukraine dragging their own negotiator into the street and shooting him in the head. Late last year Zelensky signed a decree making it illegal to negotiate peace with Putin. The few times Ukraine has retaken a major area they immediately begin purging "collaborators and traitors". If Russia pulled back it's military Ukraine would just immediately invade those areas, regardless of any agreements they signed.
I'm not philosophically opposed to your idea, it really would be the best outcome. It's just impossible to actually implement.
Edit: I forgot to mention that this would also be impossible in Ukraine-held areas. Zelensky has banned all left-wing opposition parties. Oddly enough the right-wing parties were all left alone, including the far-right Svoboda party.
It was a poorly-written, unimplementable deal that neither side took seriously.
Then why did Ukraine sign the two separate Minsk agreements if they never intended to follow them?
FURTHERMORE, the Minsk agreement was simply too unpopular in Ukraine for any government to survive implementing it.
Peace with Donbas was popular with Ukrainians. In the most recent elections the candidate that ran on a platform of peace with Donbas won the election and became president. Zelensky then went to the front and gave his "I'm not some loser" speech to Ukraine's militants on the front to try to deescalate the war. Once he failed to reign in his paramilitaries he began agitating for more war.
You are correct that it's unlikely that a Ukrainian government could survive implementing peace with Donbas. This isn't because it was unpopular with the people of Ukraine but because it was unpopular with the people in power. After the US-backed coup far-right elements were placed in positions of power in the Ukrainian government, especially in the police and military. If that failed, the US could have once again opened the floodgates of money from NGOs to anti-government protestors and replaced whoever the Ukrainian people elected with a more "pro-democratic" leader.
You're right that overall the central Ukrainian government wanted war too much to abide by the ceasefire treaties they signed. I just don't think that excuses them. Wanting war too much to do peace is literally what I'm criticizing Ukraine for.
You can't write two paragraphs excusing Russia and then say "I'm not excusing Russia btw."
No country should be able to force 'my way or a military invasion' ultimatum on another non hostile sovereign state. If a government interprets a neighboring country joining a purely defensive treaty out of their own volition (no, Ukraine is not secretly run by the CIA after Maidan) as a hostile act, that only means the nationalism levels went out if control.
I'm normally very critical of the US, but neither them nor NATO can be blamed for this conflict.
For the first 40 years of NATO's existence it sought to offensively undermine democracy and reinforce the states of NATO aligned countries in Europe through terrorism.
They then rather offensively carpet bombed Yugoslavia killing and wounding thousands of civilians ( many of whom were from Kosovo the people they purportedly wanted to help), 3 foreign diplomats by bombing a foreign embassy not in anyway involved in a conflict and completely destroying the infrastructure of Serbia.
They then offensively invaded Afghanistan where they destabilized the country, toppled the government and then put pedophile psychos in charge because they were the ones willing to work with us, killed nearly 100,000 civilians, and then ended up putting the original government back in charge 20 years later.
Finally they offensively took the most prosperous country in Africa, a country with universal college, healthcare, jobs programs, and housing, a desert country that had a 200 year supply of water and bombed the fuck out of it, destroying the water supply, plundering the gold, supporting the precursors to ISIS, and turned the country into a place with fucking slave auctions.
But yeah NATO is a defensive alliance.
Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO - I protested against my country involvement when possible and do agree about them being either dumb decisions (Kosovo) or straight up war crimes (Afghanistan). They shouldn't have happend.
My point still stand though. NATO doesn't threaten Russia borders. It could be called 'Anti-Russia-Country-Club', but even then the only things threatened by existence of NATO are post-USSR legacy and economic interest. Not exactly arguments to mount a large scale invasion/ethnic cleansing.
Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO
You'll just ignore their relevance to why NATO approaching your doorstep is, in fact, hostile and aggressive.
NATO was literally created to oppose the USSR and the left in Europe generally, and did not disband after the fall of the USSR, instead taking up further aggression and at greater range, and keeping a very clear encirclement position around Russia. The bases got larger, the spending increased, and membership was sought to undermine any countries stepping out of line of the American-imposed order.
If NATO, as we both agree, is an aggressive group of countries that has a contemporary history of attacking countries that are not aligned with the West, despite many of these countries trying to align themselves with the West in good faith (Libya, Russia, and Iran all helped the West in the war on terror), then what is the appropriate way for Russia to react to the expansion of NATO to their doorstep? And I'm asking this as a genuine question, you're Russia how are you reacting to the West surrounding you despite assisting them, when do you stop tolerating increased military encroachment?
I don't think that Russia invaded Ukraine because of only NATO expansion, but it obviously played a role given that the peace agreement that was nearly agreed upon April 2022 had Ukraine agree to neutrality. I think a lot of it came down to the genocide of ethnically Russian Ukrainians in the East and Ukraine's increased shelling of the region in February 2022 is probably what escalated the war into what we see today.
That's a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
As a resident of one, I think it's because they feel that Russia after Yeltsin has the exact same imperialistic principles USSR did. And it doesn't matter to them that Russia did cooperate with the West, because they see those principles as enough threat. Thus, they have the same reason to fear Russia as Russia has to fear NATO.
Perhaps if NATO disbanded before 1999 we wouldn't have current Russia, but that's alt history.
why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
Because they are run by right-wing oligarchies that want to consolidate and protect their accumulated wealth and power? The imperialism is coming from inside the house.
Disappointing. The other Hexbear folk at least tried to have a discussion, you just show up with the old 'everything left of my position is fascist' argument, expecting what exactly?
Bro one of the Baltics is sueing holocaust survivors for trying to reclaim their property. Orban just straight is fascist. Poland has a reactionary right wing theocratic government that rather famously banned abortion. What do you want from us? If it looks like a goose and goosesteps like a goose. The reactionary right wing takeover of eastern europe is well documented. The spread of the double-holocaust narrative and it's acceptance by the us and eu is well documented. The antisemitism, anti-lgbt violence, anti-romani violence, is all well documents. What do you want from us?
No, a good understanding of fascism and imperialism includes understanding that countries at the periphery either find a way to do the imperialism to their east/south (geographically right now) or to their ethnic others within or be the ones consumed by it.
Poland got to join the imperialists, though with significant disadvantage of being at the behest of exploitation, in exchange for becoming the people who perform (at least partially) the expropriation towards he east at Russia/Belorussia/Ukraine. The ruling class of capitalists always takes this bargain as long as they continue to benefit
Russia after Yeltsin
Russia during Yeltsin rolled in the tanks on its own parliament. The absence of foreign invasions was not for lack of malice, but for lack of capability.
The reason why ex-Warsaw Pact countries are flocking to NATO is because when the communists left power, the reactionaries resurged. And naturally the reactionaries in power wanted to be part of a right-wing alliance. But no matter what revanchists might tell you, living standards across Eastern Europe were better in the 1980s than they were in the 2000s.
Yeah, Russia had nukes. That's the only thing that will stop NATO.
I live in eastern Europe, and I agree that the 90s and early 2000 sucked for us. Big time. My country government absolutely botched the transition to free market economy.
Still, I feel we traded stable but shit for volatile yet hopeful.
there's no way to sell public infrastructure to the highest bidder that won't result in a massive drop in quality of life. it's got very little to do with your government and entirely to do with the introduction of bourgeois rule.
I'd agree in a vacuum. Even though I'd prefer state owned stuff, quality of life does not depend solely on who owns the infrastructure.
Stuff we take for granted like buying food product at the deli (meat, cheese) required either being lucky, knowing the right people or having US dollars in your pocket.
The only way the transition was "botched" was that the west wasn't able to loot as much as they wanted.
Because the US starts color revolutions in those countries until a pro-western government is in power.
That's a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
Fellow ex Warsaw Pact resident here.
They wanted to join NATO because after the dissolution of the USSR these countries were pushed into a deep economic crisis, to which one of the solutions, apart from relentless austerity programs was the privatization of the shit ton of public assets they had. Of course lots of western companies were in on this since for them these assets were really cheap and they had a lot of money. The city hall of the town i went to university to became a fucking McDonald's.
Thing is, a lot of people didnt like this, not just the austerity, but the handing of domestic assets to western companies. And they were not even that wrong about it! In Albania, in 1997 a series of bankruptcies of asset managing companies (most western owned) who were basically scamming people who barely came into contact with capitalism, telling them theyll get 50% interest rates for their money, led to a brutal uprising where ordinary people were sacking military bases, setting up machine gun nests in the borders of cities and overthrew the government (after half a year of protests).
In the meantime Russia was led by well-known alcoholic, Boris Yeltsin, who doesn't strike me as the napoleonic conqueror people make him out to be.
So why did these countries join NATO? Because they DESPERATELY needed the money, but western companies wouldnt invest in (exploit) them if they dont have insurances (troops that could be sent against the people anytime an Albanian-type revolt breaks out or an anti-western government come in power who would try to renationalize assets) that their investments (exploitation) runs as smoothly as possible. And it works. People like to say that "ackshually the living standards went up in Eastern Europe", but they never stop to check that it only went up because the rich got richer, pulling the average up. The working class' lives stagnated at best, except the social net around them is rapidly brought down. Older people are not nostalgic for socialism here because theyre becoming senile, but because they see every time that they go to a hospital that the increasingly privatized healthcare system is crumbling.
Don't believe me? It's fine. But i would suggest that you examine who the current pariahs are in NATO: Hungary, whose government has to rely in a lot of things to the cheapest due to a ravaged economy (both by corruption and privatization), so they rely a lot on domestic production and trying to hand off as little stuff to western corporations as possible (and still fail at it, hence why they are still intact), and Turkey, who makes no secret of wanting to standing on its own feet and not rely on western corporations.
In the meantime Russia was led by well-known alcoholic, Boris Yeltsin, who doesn't strike me as the napoleonic conqueror people make him out to be.
probably worth mentioning that I think he also couped the government to prevent the Communist party from being voted back in to power in I want to say '94.
NATO weapons are bombing Russia literally right now.
Are the Russians sincerely supposed to believe that NATO isn’t a threat
That’s sort of a hard reality to contextualize away
non hostile sovereign state
Non-hostility is when you do ethnic cleansing against the ethnicity the neighboring country is named after, engage in a war right by the borders to support that ethnic ckeansing, violate your treaties to end that war, and cozy up your coup government to the military organization intended to encircle that country, an org that regularly engages in aggression.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'. There were tensions between Russian and Ukrainian nationals in those territories, but I've seen no data on large scale extermination operations.
Ukraine engaged in a defensive war with a force clearly backed by their stronger neighbor that just laid claim to another piece of their land (Crimea). This was a land grab in all but name, no matter how much propaganda tries to paint it as a legitimate independence movement. Blame for casualties of that war lies entirely on separatists and Russia.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'
The ethnic cleansing was and is part of official Ukrainian policy. Do you think the sneaky Rooskies infiltrated and forced Kyiv to drop Russian as an official language, one that could be learned and used in schools in Donbas? Did they cleverly rename the streets to Bandyerite fascist names? Did they create the Azov Batallikn, Righy Sector, etc - the Ukrainian fascist groups weaponized against the ethnic Russian civilians of Donbas and now directly incorporated into the government and armed forces? Did Russia secretly create the entire Kyiv side of the civil war that heavily targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure on the Donbas side?
Cool to learn, I didn't know that.
Ukraine has used internationally banned cluster munitions in the donbass since 2014. A six year old playing in a field and dying to unexploded ordnance, whether that child is a Russian or Ukrainian speaker, is a horrific tragedy. These bombs are a form of terrorism sponsored by the post-coup Ukrainian state, and the nazi paramilitaries active in the area were and are state-sponsored terrorists.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
But I never said I support cluster munitions. Fuck them, and fuck the Nazis.
I did not just engage in a few hours of discussion to try and convince anyone that Ukraine is the shining beacon of hope and democracy. It isn't, they have problems. So does every state. Some (like Russia) just seem to have comparatively more of those, or are not particularly good at dealing with them.
The problem though is that these issues are self-perpetuating. Both the current Russian and post-2014 Ukraine governments are the products of US interference. If we were truly spreading Democracy, then they would be capable of mediating these conflicts peacefully. Since Capital dictates the terms of our international intervention, it puts its own interests first, and it's very interested in selling weapons. I just can't accept the premise that selling more weapons will lead to any sort of long-lasting peace or democracy in the region.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'.
there have been reports of Ukranian paramilitaries shelling the Donbas going back almost a decade. multiple peace treaties were signed over it, all aiming to stop the ethnic cleansing. each and every one of those treaties were violated. this is all extremely well-documented. can you even prove that a single of these reports is fabricated?
large scale extermination operations.
How many people do you have to exterminate before it becomes bad?
non hostile sovereign state
For the past several decades NATO has utterly destroyed various countries around the world, while maintaining ruthless tradewars against the peoples of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, as well as a brutal colonial regime across much of West Africa. NATO won't stop at invading your country either. They'll maintain occupations in Syria and blockades of Afghanistan from now until the end of time.
NATO would rather see the people of Niger and Mali starve to death rather than pay market rates for their resources.
NATO will crow that countries in South America are too defiant, why, they didn't even try and coup the brazilian elections last year!
NATO is, simply put, a defensive alliance of the world's preeminent warmongerers.
Hosting NATO troops is the epitome of hostility.
Unfortunately for you some countries can actually resist. And resist they shall.
Oh I'd forgotten that Biden seized Afghanistan's soveriegn wealth, causing a famine.
Ok, according to what you're saying, Mexico can never join BRICS if the US says no. Is that what you think? The US can be a pretty rabid animal too, as you say.
What do you think would happen if, hypothetically speaking, a nearby state such as, let’s say, Cuba started hosting the military assets of a hostile power?
What about even a distant nation such as oh I don’t know maybe Iran or one of the koreas started making weapons the US felt threatened by?
Just thinking aloud here I don’t know.
Nobody is offering Ukraine nukes, that's what the Budapest memorandum was all about, knock it off.
Cuba had its revolution and had its own arsenal provided by the USSR and has survived everything the US threw at it so far and Ukraine will survive russia too, but a moat would be handy :)
and has survived everything the US threw at it so far
The point being the US threw a lot of shit at it because of course the US wouldn’t tolerate those missiles being there, and Russia won’t tolerate NATO being in Ukraine.
If China made a defensive alliance with Mexico that included a military base in Tijuana, Mexico would suddenly be in need of some democracy and freedom.
Continuing to deny this basic reality means your position isn’t connected to reality.
Peace requires a sustainable security situation for Russia not just for Ukraine and for Russia that means no NATO since NATO is hostile to Russia. It’s clear and denying this is just putting your head in the sand.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
Does the US have to place nukes in Ukraine so that by removing them russia will stop attacking it?
But by all means, if Trump starts threatening Mexico with some bullshit invasion to clean out the cartels, they should by all means ask China and anyone else to help out, sure! That's how it works in a bipolar world (there is no multipolar world, russia's empire is gone and China+US will make sure it never returns)
NATO is not hostile to russia, NATO prevents russia from invading its western neighbours, which is obviously a bummer to russia.
The sustainable security solution is: russia respects borders and other countries' sovereignty. The end.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
Yeah so the obvious conclusion is that peace in Cuba required satisfying the US’s demand to not have a Soviet military presence there.
Likewise peace in Ukraine requires not having a NATO military presence there.
Pretending that NATO isn’t hostile to Russia is also simply disconnected from reality. You need to connect your world view to reality.
Also we have been punishing Cuba with an embargo which has crippled their economy ever since just because we can.
Well, the weapons are still in Cuba, thank god :) and Cuba has an air force, which I suppose was given/sold to Cuba by the USSR/China, so maybe the US can also give some F16 to Ukraine. The USSR also sent planes and soviet crews to fight the Americans in Vietnam, so there is precedent for all that.
NATO is hostile to russia's imperial ambitions and so are all of its neighbours.
What are you talking about? The Cuban missile crisis was resolved by the missiles being removed and the soviet military presence ended in Cuba.
You’re factually wrong when you seem to say the soviet missiles are still there. They were removed.
The US’s security interests demanded they were removed from the nearby Cuba, and US missiles that threatened the USSR were removed from Turkey.
Peace was achieved by withdrawing the military threat from each others borders.
Likewise peace in Ukraine can only be achieved if Russia doesn’t feel threatened by a NATO presence there.
It’s easy to understand.
Yes at one point Putin sought to join NATO and the idea didn’t gain traction.
I don’t understand how you feel this helps your argument.
Yeah, Putin wanted in but NATO said no.... because the purpose of NATO is to subjugate and pillage Russia.
Well, the weapons are still in Cuba
Cuba still has weapons at all, but the crisis was over the nuclear missiles, which were removed. It's a very direct comparison here.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
You get that in this analogy Ukraine is taking the place of Cuba, right? Like NATO is using Ukraine as a disposable proxy to bleed Russia... okay well the metaphor falls apart because the details are really different, but Cuba was threatening the US in a vaguely similar way to how Ukraine is threatening Russia, and the peace deal was that Cuba would remove all the missiles and in exchange the US would remove it's missiles from Turkey and not massacre the Cuban population. So the equivalent would be Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO (not that NATO was ever going to let them), disarm, and stop trying to wipe out Russian speaking Ukrainians.
NATO is not hostile to russia
NATO's explicit purpose is and always have been the destruction of the Russian state and the pillaging of it's resources and it's beyond bad faith to state otherwise.
Ukraine’s coup government was threatening to construct nukes shortly before the US proxy war there began. I would cite my sources but I know you won’t care 😉
Well, BRICS isn't really a formal alliance but if it were? Yeah, joining a hostile alliance while sharing a border with the US is asking for trouble, and the US has committed all matter of atrocities in latin america. I do think an outright invasion would be less likely than their usual method of military coups and death squads.
NATO and BRICS are fundamentally different. You cannot compare them in good faith. NATO exists for the explicit purpose of destroying Russia. BRICS does not exist for the explicit purpose of destroying NATO, or America for that matter. It's an extremely bad faith comparison.
Also yeah America would flatten the Mexico City if Mexico tried to join BRICS. They've already agitated for a coup a number of times in the last decade.
?
What component of BRICS is a military alliance? That's a nonsensical comparison.
And the Mexican president just said that Mexico is unable to join BRICS because of the geopolitical situation.
NATO and BRICS are just not comparable? Like... they're both acronyms I guess.
If Mexico was given an army by China and started bombing Texas and committing ethnic cleansing, it would not be imperialism to try and stop that
If the lines on a map are an issue for you, just imagine a world where the Us broke up and lost Texas to Mexico before the ethnic cleansing started
I find in all Russia's statements kind of ridiculous that it would have a say in how other sovereign countries handle their safety. Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
You know sovereignty isn't real, right? Like it's just not? Countries invade whoever they want whenever they think they can get away with it? Most of Europe just went in to Iraq illegally and murdered a million people? Ukraine sent a lot of troops on that adventure. The US just kills people and topples governments all over? France controls colonial possessions in Africa? Canada de-facto runs a bunch of African territory through it's ruthless resource extraction firms? South Korea and Okinawa are under US military occupation? North Korea only remains Sovereign because they can make Seoul glow in the dark if the US tries something? The west uses ruthless monetary manipulation, dumping of consumer goods and food, outright piracy and theft, to control other countries?
This isn't model UN.
Okay, and? Like... that's... a nice sentiment, but that's all it is.
Yeah and? That's what we can do on this platform. Comment on things
Putin isn't going to end the invasion because some people from some obscure Reddit clone said so.
Somewhat true (all costs is a troublesome term), but also disregards the rest of the issue
It really doesn't. American aggression is found around every corner if you look at thr history and impetus behind this conflict.
American aggression is found around every corner if you look at thr history
True
impetus behind this conflict.
Ehhh
You're not making any sense. Unless you think that NATO encirclement, the Maidan coup, etc, are all Russian false flags?
Nope.
Instead Russia basically forced multiple countries to join a war crime organization so they have even some safety
... NATO has illegally invaded and destroyed numerous countries. Russia has invaded Georgia when Georgia tried to join NATO as part of NATO's encirclement.
It's not pretty but this is how the world works. If a man is holding a gun to your head, and says he'll kill you if you don't give him your wallet, do you hold onto the wallet out of principle because robbery is immoral?
The man with the gun to his head doesn't have much of a choice if he wants to live. You, though, have a choice between criticising and defending the man with the gun, and you're choosing to defend him.
Bruv you're not this dense. NATO, an alliance constructed for the express purpose of destroying Russia, which did not disband when the USSR was destroyed, which continued to advance towards and encircle Russia for decades after the fall of the USSR, which refused the RF's attempts to join the alliance, which has engaged in numerous illegal wars of aggression, is the man holding the gun and I swear to god just because you were born there that does not make them the good guys.
Alone, you do what you do to stay alive.
That's why the world and people need its alliances, unities and consequences for harmful actions. The world doesn't work by giving up to the worst offender.
Russia is holding a gun to Ukraine's head and saying it'll both kill and take everything.
The world doesn't work by giving up to the worst offender.
Yeah it does. Everyone does what America says or America either coups their leader or launches an illegal war of aggression and starts slaughtering their people. I
lol, thug ethics. AKA offensive realist geopolitics. The great do what they want and the small accept their fate.
Jesus christ bro Realpolitik is all there is and all there has ever been. When you live on a planet where a bunch of gerotocratic psychopaths could push the big red button at any time you don't play games. You know America is the baddies, right?
There is no ethics between capitalist states, there are only stratagems for how to exploit everyone else and not get exploited yourself.
Rhetoric about liberal world orders and rules and ethics are just propaganda to keep their own people complacent, like providing indulgences to themselves. They are wildly inconsistent and the self-named "good guys" carry out the absolute worst violence.
you do know there's been an ongoing civil war in Ukraine since 2013 and that fascists have been genociding Russian speakers in the independent republics that have been trying to split off from Ukraine in that time, right? and you know that Ukraine violated multiple peace treaties in the process of doing so?
And we know that the separatist fascists are Russian plants. The future will tell us how much there's a real independence movement instead in the areas.
Nevertheless, conquering and genociding whole Ukraine is not approvable
the idea that no one can think for themselves and must all be plants, shills, or dupes because they don't support your worldview is just plain racist. those damn asiastics, how could they possibly want to live their own lives and be free from shelling by a coup government that's trying to annihilate them -- it must be plants.
engage with people as people and acknowledge that they very frequently have needs, wants, and desires that cut against your myopic worldview.
Exactly, that's what I'm saying
(*Some people's myopic worldview)
should I take this to mean you recant your earlier statement about the Ukranian separatists being plants?
We shouldn't entertain myopic worldviews like everyone is a plant even though we know of some
We can assume good out of most and be critical of bullshit. Also helpful advice for avoiding misunderstandings :)
I'll take that as a no. expecting liberals to refrain from dehumanizing people is just too much, I guess.
Check my edit. It seems you are misunderstanding or assuming something others can't know about
And we know that the separatist fascists are Russian plants.
this you?
engage with people as people and acknowledge that they very frequently have needs, wants, and desires that cut against your myopic worldview.
I'll take that as a no. expecting liberals to refrain from dehumanizing people is just too much, I guess.
This you?
yeah, I suggested you do that and got no response. I stand by it.
Sure! That kind of "rules for thee.." is not my type of way to live so we can leave this repertoire here
: |
That is certainly a take.
Do you know what the very first action of the coup rada was?
The very first thing the Rada did when they were installed after the coup was ban the use of the Russian language in all official capacities. The country had been de-facto multilingual up until that point, though legally you were supposed to use Ukrainian. Give the ethnic and regional nature of the coup, ie Galacians vs everyone out East, it sent a pretty strong message which was received and understood in Donbas.
I didn't realize that was the very first act of the Rada. I was thinking it was appointing Natalie Jaresko as finance minster. She was an American who became a Ukrainian citizen the same day she was appointed as finance minister. That happened a lot later than I thought though.
Those lifelong Ukrainian trade unionists locked in their union hall and set on fire? Yeah, just fascust Russian plants.
How did I arrive at such a smart and correct thought? I get that question a lot. Listen, tankie
Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
Then "the west" should let them make their own decisions instead of instigating coups everytime they decide against western interests.
Of course, in the most simplified form. But I take it you maybe don't mean Monaco or Uruguay or Botswana etc.
Yes I mean "the west" in the geopolitical term, not the geographical term. I think it's the one that gets the point across the clearest. I could also use the term imperial core or imperial triad, but I'm not sure if many would understand it.
Yeah I get it. It somewhat scratches off Botswana.
Imperial core or triad is an interesting and new take yes... Could be USA+Russia+China. Isn't that more than "the west". Some can't decide if Russia is west or not.
I see some applying that term to US and changing the rest between anyone maintaining neutral relations with them. Yeah probably not an accurate idea.
The imperial triad is actually an old term, coined by Samir Amin I think, it refers to the co operation between the USA, Europe and Japan. Hence the usage of triad. And imperial because they are the old school imperial and colonial powers.
This is why I prefer using "the west", because people generally know what I'm talking about. As illustrated by your comment assuming the imperial triad could refer to USA + China + Russia, instead of the actual definition.
Yeah sounds good for it's time. It seems both are becoming outdated to tell the big picture.
Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.
You mean a western led coup with assistance from neo nazis to remove the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. With the explicit goal of "Latin Americanising" Eastern Europe and privatizing and selling off all their assets. The Ukrainian government still has a website up today for selling off anything not bolted down to the highest bidder. Shock doctrine 2.0.
West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.
You mean forcing Ukraine to start a counter offensive using NATO combined arms tactics for witch Ukraine had neither the equipment or required training to execute. And with no will from the west to give Ukraine the required equipment (F-16 saga anyone?). How do you do a combined arms offensive without a fully functional air force? The worst part being that the west knew this, and still forced Ukraine to go ahead with the offensive anyways, knowing there was little chance of success.
Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"
More like people saw this coming and think the loss of life over this attrition war is tragic. How does Ukraine win an attrition war against Russia? What is the exit plan? This is just Afganistan all over again in some ways.
Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"
Literally no one thinks this, but by all means, have fun in your fantasy land lol
I regret to inform you that you have failed your introduction to 21st century history class Like just little things.
Do you know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol? Did you know that it's an incredibly important strategic asset? What do nation states do when an incredibly important strategic asset is threatened? Do they defend it?
Did you know Crimea has a 30 year long history of seeking more autonomy, or even independence, from Ukraine?
Do you know what the very first action of the coup Rada was?
Do you know what "encirclement" means?
I know Plato's Allegory of the Cave gets used a lot when discussion the hegemonic power of western propaganda over western people, but come on bruv.
Do the words "Minsk II" mean anything to you?
Are you aware of the tariff agreements in place between Russia and Ukraine in 2013?
Do you know who Bandera was?
Do you know what the Russian Federation's stated causus belli for the invasion is?
What do you know?
The US dares to coup a democratically elected government, and then its neighbor invades at the behest of people the new government were persecuting after two different ceasefires are broken by Ukraines puppet government.
Dronies be like "oh no our wholesome smol bean azov fighters are being oppressed"
You straight up butchered that straw man
He is in pieces
How could you do this
You're commenting on an article explicitly saying the US isn't sending weapons for the purpose of defending Ukraine...
It's amazing how much they support imperialism when it's "their people" doing it.
That's because you don't understand what imperialism means. US/EU capital is looting and exploiting the former socialist block and controlling it through western capitalist media, NGOs, and military bases. That's imperialism. The Russians preventing Nazis from doing ethnic cleansing along their border and demanding not to be threatened with a gun to the head is not imperialism.
Funny how living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU, but that has not been the case for the ones that chose to be kept under Russia's sphere of influence. 🤔
Looks like the EU is really bad at looting, they should learn from Russia.
living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU
Yeah the living standards sure did improve after one of the worst demographic disasters in that era. Easy for things to get better when you start from the bottom I mean come on do better.
Have some compassion, some people just want to crank their knob to exploitative porn without questioning why so much of it comes from Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.
Thank you for calling this out. It's fucking gross how that happens. If I speak about what should happen to "sexpats", I'll be in trouble. Big big trouble.
So, why didn't Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
They both started from the bottom, right?
The Balts were immediately used as forward positions for NATO and were allowed to keep their state programs and industry. Belarus got the same treatment as Russia.
You should probably know the answer to your own snarky questions before you ask them.
So, what you're saying is that the countries that sided with the West got a better deal than the ones that became Russian puppets?
When a country joins the western bloc, they join them.
When a country joins any other multinational pact, they're puppets.
I'm not influenced by western propaganda
Two capitalist nations fucking over their subjects is not the own you think it is
So, why didn't Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
If you think that the answer to this is simply "because Russia bad" you have the mind of a child.
Eastern European countries that opened to western trade and diplomatic relationships improved significantly.
Eastern European countries that became Russian puppets didn't.
Explain that.
imagine ignoring the absolutely ruthless, western led cannibalization of the former soviet union and pretending history's baseline started AFTER the largest decline of living standards in global history.
human trafficking, prostitution, alcoholism, food/energy insecurity, diseases of despair all exploded when the west forced capitalism and privatization onto the former soviet union in the immediate aftermath. Gorbachev thought he was going to get some easy-going nordic social democracy, but instead the west carved up their public sector like a christmas ham. maybe you were too young, but in the 1980s the propaganda portrait the west had of russian women were all heavy-set, ugly babushkas. suddenly, after 1989, the mail order beautiful russian bride phenomenon exploded. they were fleeing the gutting of the public sector and the shattering of the social safety net, which made it near impossible to raise a family in the eastern bloc without becoming a sex worker.
the west sponsored every retrograde nationalist reactionary psycho to undermine any hint of democratic resistance to economic liberalization schemes and bombed the shit out of infrastructure (Yugoslavia) whenever they could get away with it. the west has the most blood on its hands for the aftermath of the USSR, but people like you want to ignore those early days and then claim credit for the "winners" the west propped up in the aftermath of all that chaos. like a killer who torched a town but kidnapped a few kids and now touts his heroic rescue of them. the most ignorant and disgusting take.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that after the fall of the USSR, Russia didn't want their assets to be sold or leased to western companies (understandably), so they let corrupt officials take them for pennies of what they were actually worth. Those officials became the oligarchs.
Russians cannibalised Russia.
the word you are striving not to say is capitalism. capitalists did this to russians, using the playbook developed and advocated for by western institutions.
God you're just... so fucking close to getting it.
What would have happened if instead of the Russian capitalists privatizing all the people's assets the western capitalists did?
Do you think it wouldn't just be western oligarchs cannibalizing Russia?
And yet, tankies still defend this corrupt capitalist state just because it's not the US.
Nevermind political persecution, assassinations, repression of LGBT people, invasion of neighbouring countries, etc. As long as it's not the US, it's all good.
No, it isnt. We at hexbear say "the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the Soviet Union was the largest humanitarian disaster of the latter half of the twentieth century" and bemoan the loss for human rights(more notably for women, lgbt people, and ethnic minorities) caused by the destruction of the Eastern block.
What we say is that you have to look at the outcomes of weapon distribution by NATO to Ukraine.
Ukraine just wasted a lot of material on one last big push and they didn't do squat. The Ukrainian state has exhausted its ability to conduct offensive operations, and attrition in both absolute quantity and in percentage has been on the Russian's side since the second stage of the war, so what's going to happen now is that Russia will slowly encroach on the rest of Ukraine until they meet their military and political objectives.
So, do we give them more weapons, make their losing war even bloodier for them and the Russians, or do we accept that they've lost, and stop giving the government more time to keep killing conscripts?
yes, capitalism is marked by class war, between the class who own things, and the class who labor. liberalizing the Soviet bloc destroyed the prospects of the working class.
There was a massive dip in all those places in the 90s with shock therapy. A lot of people are still worse off in a lot of ways and angry. Hence AfD, Orban, PiS and all those other angry nationalists.
Also, if you want to be fair, you should compare for example Poland to west Germany. Polish workers toil for German capitalists, and yet, somehow, they're getting exploited way more than the German workers. Less pay, worse services, worse infrastructure, less worker's rights. That whole arrangement is super-exploitative. Meanwhile foreigners bought most of that country. Treated like a colony basically.
The Russians got fucked even worse than Poland in the 90s, which resulted in a backlash which Putin made himself the head of. What Russia is doing is self-preservation. Any state with the means to preserve it's sovereignty from a hostile takeover would try to do so, it's not just something an imperialist state would do. Hence Russia is not doing an imperialism here.
Hell, compare East Germany to the
reichWest Germany. West Germany's economic conquest of East Germany was incredibly ruthless and brutal, and East Germany never recovered from having it's entire economy pillaged and burned.And east german lgbt rights and women's rights lost half a century of progress during reunification.
Yeah. It's still technically illegal to get an abortion in the reich afaik. It was really something finding out that the gdr had gender parity in most fields before the west crushed it, and that western germany had to give women a bunch of rights to try to manage to political turmoil.
Reading those east German men be like "yeah I prefer it now that women have to stay with me for economic reasons, before you had to be like, interesting and care about them or something" really drives it home in a different way too.
That was physically painful when I first saw some of those quotes. We've just lost so much potential.
They didn't improve at all. The rich are better off, thanks to mass privatization of public property. For the middle/working class, quality of life stagnated at best.
Source: I live in an ex-soviet country.
since joining the EU
I hope you understand how this is an incredibly cherry-picked range. It's like saying "look how steadily the American economy grew from the period of 1930 to 1940".
Many Eastern European countries in the EU are still being hollowed out and suffering massive brain drain. The model of "tributary state" accurately applies here.
Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"
Said literally no one here, besides you trying to frame communism as war loving imperialists.
Now that I'm speaking of war loving imperialists, what does that bring to mind?..
I hope we can keep supporting Ukraine. This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil. The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia and the Russians just couldn’t have that so they invaded. The support the world provides to Ukraine is support provided for all Democracies.
I thought 'tankie' came from a video game. Turns out it's been around since the USSR decided to roll into Hungary.
The Hungarian uprising was killing Jews in the street. It was anti-Semitic from the beginning and the “Jewish Bolshevik” idea from the Nazi era was a motivating factor with the fact several leaders of the Hungarian government were Jewish cited as a battle cry.
https://www.jta.org/2006/10/25/lifestyle/1956-crises-decimated-two-communities
After the uprising, 200,000 Hungarian Jews fled the country fearing it signaled a return of the antisemitism of the recent Nazi-collaborationist regime of the 1940s.
Sending the tanks in to stop this was a good thing. It would have been better if the anti-Semitic uprising was stopped before the pogroms started.
Yup. Thankfully they were able to crush the revolt before the fascists were able to re-establish the Arrow Cross Party.
oh shit hexbearites are talking about hungary again, gotta ditch the thread lmao
Órban still has fond memories of that...he was 7 in 1956, he probably remembers.
Which is funny, since crushing the revolt was the only reason it took people like Orban so long to regain power.
It makes sense to me that the ghouls in charge of this dying empire would say this but it always blows my mind when I meet someone in real life who will say shit like this. Especially when they turn around and play liberal progressive like they aren’t sitting in a circle trying to ritually summon the nuclear holocaust
are we the baddies when the only domestic manufacturing we do is cancer tank shells & child murder bombs?
The real question is why does russia want to kill Ukrainians to the last Ukrainian.
Russia repeatedly made peace talk attempts early on. Western powers that actually call those shots rebuffed them. Boris Johnson himself intervened, allegedly.
The answer to the real question, which is why Russia isn't unilaterally ending the war, is that its objectives have not been met and/or the status quo is acceptable to them. The former is the exact same as saying why Russia invaded in the first place.
So why do Western powers want this was to go to the last Ukrainian? NATO military tactics that assume air dominance without the air dominance. Zero expectation of a win, despite the propaganda.
Ukraine dragged one of their own negotiators into the street and shot him in the head.
Russian conditions to even consider peace were pretty insane, like keeping all the territory their initial conquest managed to claim, removing the baltics and other countries bordering Russia from NATO and forbid Ukraine from joining any alliance. Not only could Ukraine not fulfill all those conditions, they would never accept that.
You are confused and are including open demands Russia made of the US / NATO prior to the invasion. Russia has not demanded that Ukraine somehow de-NATOify Baltic countries.
Russia's initial negotiation demands were things like this:
- Denazification.
- Demilitarization.
- No application to NATO.
- Independence for Luhansk and Donetsk.
- Recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
These are in no way insane demands given the context of NATO encirclement, the civil war and ethnic cleansing at their doorstep, and the fact that Russia is obviously never giving up Crimea. It is also... the lead-in to negotiations, which Ukraine started balking at around the same time reports came out about Western prevention of Ukraine participating.
Yea, even those were in no way reasonable. Those terms are obviously so Russia can keep conquered territories while removing Ukraine's ability to defend itself so Russia can take the whole thing in a few years.
Also there was no ethnic cleansing, no idea where you're getting that. The baltics joined NATO like 15 years ago and Ukraine's application was denied so there's none of that either. And even if both were true those terms mean annexation for Ukraine in the future so in no way acceptable.
Yea, even those were in no way reasonable.
They're very reasonable, especially as a starting point for negotiations.
-
Ukraine haw a very serious Nazi problem that liberals everywhere recognized right up until it became inconvenient for the war narrative. The Nazi problem is part and parcel of the civil war and failure to abide by Minsk II, as those Nazis were the tip of the spear against ethnic Ruasians in Donbas. Disempowering and jailing Nazi war criminals shouldn't be controversial.
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Russia wants to prevent encirclement and to treat Ukraine as a neutral buffer. Given NATO's advancements despite the fall of the Soviet Union, this demand is already a half-measure. Ukraine being militarized and used as a Western forward military base is not something Western countries would tolerate if the roles were reversed.
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Ukraine isn't joining NATO anyways, not anytime soon at least. This is a formalization of the aforementioned neutrality.
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Independence of Luhansk and Donesk is a demand that says, "you couldn't abide Minsk II and that leaves this as the only option". Ukraine and their Western masters had nearly a decade to democratically deal with the breakaway states per their own agreements and chose to instead ramp up a civil war targeting ethnic Russians right on Russia's border. The failure od the status quo ans the West's ability to follow their own rules is the proximal issue Russia is reacting to.
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Ukraine isn't getting Crimea back. This is a formalization that would simply amount to normalizing relations in peacetime.
Those terms are obviously so Russia can keep conquered territories while removing Ukraine's ability to defend itself so Russia can take the whole thing in a few years.
Russia could take the whole thing any time they wanted to, lol. They have complete air superiority and a much more powerful arsenal and manpower and tactics. They could do the American thing - the NATO thing - and destroy the rest of the country, targeting Kyiv and civilian infrastructure en masse. Instead, they are choosing a war of attrition that achieves many of their objectives without just rolling over the whole country.
Neutrality is far safer for Ukrainians and always was. A neutral Ukraine wouldn't have been invaded by Russia in the first place.
Also there was no ethnic cleansing, no idea where you're getting that.
Then you haven't been paying attention. Like... at all. It's been going on since 2013/2014. Please educate yourself on the derussification efforts undertaken by Ukraine targeted at ethnic Russians as well as their ruthless targeting of the Donbas.
The baltics joined NATO like 15 years ago and Ukraine's application was denied so there's none of that either
None of what?
And even if both were true those terms mean annexation for Ukraine in the future so in no way acceptable.
Ukraine is already not a sovereign state, lol. Their political leadership was chosen by Nuland et al behind closed doors as part of Euromaidan. Neutrality would actually be the most sovereign they have any chance of being, toyed with through economic courtship rather than couped and destroyed.
And again, Russia can annex Ukraine wherever it wants to. Most of it, at least. Poland would probably claim Western Ukraine for itself with various bullshit excuses.
- It had some nazies prior to about 2020. Not even close to the amount of nazies Russia has though so that's a meaningless point.
- The countries joining NATO are joining because Russia keeps threatening them. If Russia just wanted a neutral zone they should really stop invading their neighbours. Georgia and Ukraine got invaded and Russia is doing a proxy war in Moldova as well so it seems the only thing causing NATO advancement is Russia.
- Except they also demanded demilitirization. So no allies or self defence.
- One if the points of that agreement to even take effect was that Russia removed their troops from the regions which they never did.
- They may now, depending on how the war goes.
No idea what these points are other than just lies. Russia has never had complete air superiority and definitely doesn't now. Russia is targeting civilians constantly, like the largest mass graves in recent history were found in territories takes back from Russia. As for the equipment and manpower: Like Russia is rolling out museum pieces as tanks I have no idea where you are getting this info from. They do have more manpower since they are conscripting like everyone.
None of that was in reference to NATO encirclement. As in it was already encircled 15 years ago and Ukraine wasn't joining NATO.
The political leadership Nuland 'selected' was the leader of the opposition party that was going to be in power anyways. That's like some foreign politician saying they really like the reform party in Estonia to win after they already got the most votes.
Can't find any ethnic cleansing done in Ukraine outside the Tatars by the Soviet union.
I'm guessing you mostly watch Russian state media since absolutely no one else thinks Russia could just take Ukraine if they wanted at this point. I'd suggest going to some other sources.
It had some nazies prior to about 2020. Not even close to the amount of nazies Russia has though so that's a meaningless point.
UA incorporated Azov Batallion into its official forces aftee the invasion and Right Sector is everywhere. What on earth are you talking about?
You're also losing the plot if you think, "Russia has more Nazis" is relevant to whether this is a reasonable demand in this exact context where the Nazis are the shock troopa against Donbas. Also, Russia has about 5X the population of Ukraine.
Forms of nominal hypocrisy just plain don't matter. This isn't model UN or debate club, it's powerful interests and statea vying for position based on their conditions and perspectives on what is driving developments. "Disable your ideological, genocidal forward force against Donbas" is a reasonable starting ask.
The countries joining NATO are joining because Russia keeps threatening them. If Russia just wanted a neutral zone they should really stop invading their neighbours. Georgia and Ukraine got invaded and Russia is doing a proxy war in Moldova as well so it seems the only thing causing NATO advancement is Russia.
Most of the encirclement happened when Russia was in turmoil, run by an America-installed ruling class. It wasn't threatening anyone, it was undergoing "shock therapy", getting dismembered, and losing tens of millions of lives.
NATO has never been a defensive org. Article 5 has only been triggered once and it was used to launch a war of aggression (amazing). It has taken many offensive and aggreasive moves, however. This narrative that membera join for safety is absurd: it's always an escalatiom, a threat, and is done with this knowlesge. The primary thing is actually bestows is official American military bases in your country.
And as you can see, it mase Ukrainians much more vulnerable
Except they also demanded demilitirization. So no allies or self defence.
This doesn't counter what I said at all.
UA isn't joining NATO anytime soon so there is literally zero material loss for UA in that demand, and as I've argued, it actually securea a better position for the Ukrainian people, who are currently stuck acting as proxies for Western plans against Russia - and paying for it (have been since 2014).
One if the points of that agreement to even take effect was that Russia removed their troops from the regions which they never did.
Because UA continued to shell Donbas. RF and Donbas troops implemented ceasefires repeatedly. RF pulling out unilaterally would have meant giving UA Nazis more kills against folks in Donbas. UA refused to actually work together to end the war there and implement the required referenda.
They may now, depending on how the war goes.
Delusional.
No idea what these points are other than just lies.
They're a simple list of why the demands made by RF are fairly reasonable starting point foe negotoations. I wouldn't have expected "disempower and get rid of your Nazi commandos" to be something you'd oppose so vehemently and with seemingly made-up stories. I'm confident you were unaware of basically everything I've told you given the babytime propaganda stories you've been telling me. You're welcome!
Russia has never had complete air superiority and definitely doesn't now.
It absolutely does. UA doesn't even have airfields an F-16 could use anymore. UA has no real air presence at all, which is why the only UA things you hear about with any evidence are manpads. This is also why UA following NATO doctrine in "the counteroffensive" has been such a completr failure. No air support.
Russia is targeting civilians constantly, like the largest mass graves in recent history were found in territories takes back from Russia.
Unevidenced propaganda from the UA MoD.
As for the equipment and manpower: Like Russia is rolling out museum pieces as tanks I have no idea where you are getting this info from.
I know you don't. You seem to be completely unfamiliar with the Russian military. Not that anyone needs to be, but it's very uncool to have such strong opinions in something you've never investigated. Feel free to educate yourself on its capabilities and what it's currently using to destroy ammo dumps and take down planes. Or, better, endeavor to feel okay having no opinion yet.
They do have more manpower since they are conscripting like everyone.
They have more manpower because they have 5X the population.
UA is also doing forceful conscription and with much more dramatic coercion.
None of that was in reference to NATO encirclement. As in it was already encircled 15 years ago and Ukraine wasn't joining NATO.
???
The political leadership Nuland 'selected' was the leader of the opposition party that was going to be in power anyways. That's like some foreign politician saying they really like the reform party in Estonia to win after they already got the most votes.
Sounds like you haven't heard the recording or you wouldn't be saying such nonsense.
Can't find any ethnic cleansing done in Ukraine outside the Tatars by the Soviet union.
Ah, you have to actually know what ethnic cleansing is and then know what has been happening in UA for the last decade and apply it yourself. The ways in which media outlets and politicians use certain terms is very selective and UA never really got the enemy/target treatment that brown or "bad" countries get.
Anyways, you should research better. Here's a starting point: the National Druzhina.
I'm guessing you mostly watch Russian state media since absolutely no one else thinks Russia could just take Ukraine if they wanted at this point. I'd suggest going to some other sources.
You'd guess wrong and I think you're projecting, as you clearly have relies entirely on certain dominant narratives to give you opinions rathee than informing yourself.
If you war goal is denazification and you are crawling with nazies it's quite relevant. Should start with that at home instead of invading your neighbour.
Right sector has zero political power in Ukraine, Wagner is way more influencial.
Also Azov batallion is mostly dead about a year ago. They died defending one of the locations that I think Ukraine took back during the previous counteroffensive. Any survivors were integrated into the actual military now, yea.
Also if you want to compare numbers: highest estimate of Azov brigade was 2500, highest for Wagner was 50000. Wagner also got mostly incorporated into the Russian military.
The only threat involved when joining NATO was the threat of Russia. Here in Estonia Russia constantly postures with military exercises and airspace violations, more before we joined NATO. Thankfully Russia seems to have run out of equipment to annoy us and this stopped completely halfway into it's war with Ukraine.
If by NATO launching a war of aggression I can only assume you mean Serbia because there arent others. You know they were doing a genocide? Like full on Hitler level genocide. I find that like a pretty acceptable one.
This is already an essay and arguing about points only Russian state media argues for seems like a loss no matter if you are right or wrong.
Here in Estonia
There it is!
You should have just lead with that.
If you war goal is denazification and you are crawling with nazies it's quite relevant. Should start with that at home instead of invading your neighbour.
You're not listening. I've already told you, explicitly, twice why RF is making that demand, and neither time was it, "well they just don't like Nazis".
Right sector has zero political power in Ukraine, Wagner is way more influencial.
Right sector and its offshoots are very powerful in the military and the military is calling a lot of the shots.
Also, have you noticed how hard it is to find pictures of UA soldiers without either a Wolfangel or a Right Sector reference? Probably not because I am not convinced you read anything about this topic, but.. it's surprisingly difficult.
And again, it doesn't matter if Russia did it too or does it more or whatever impetus is making you try to find these facile gotcha moments. I'm not the Russian state and I don't care if a nation-state are hypocrites in rhetoric or whatever (though RF didn't incorporate a Nazi regiment into their armed forces, so there's that).
In terms of negotiation demands being reasonable, all that matters is whether the material ask is directly addressing the grievance and would support peace. This does both.
Also Azov batallion is mostly dead about a year ago. They died defending one of the locations that I think Ukraine took back during the previous counteroffensive.
Azov was significantly weakened in Mariupol and UA didn't retake that city. They still have a large presence, as an official part of the UA armed forces, in Lviv, Kyiv, Odessa, and distributed near the front. They still appear in an inordinate number of press photos and stories, which speaks to their privileged status.
Any survivors were integrated into the actual military now, yea.
You got the order wrong.
The only threat involved when joining NATO was the threat of Russia. Here in Estonia Russia constantly postures with military exercises and airspace violations, more before we joined NATO.
Given your comfort with saying things you don't know, I won't take your word for it on the exact frequency of military exercises. But I will point out that NATO itself has carried out more and greater aggressions, and ceased to have any ostensible purpose after the fall of the USSR. Mask off, it continued under its actual goal of furthering the interests of US imperialism, which Baltic countries happily oblige.
If by NATO launching a war of aggression I can only assume you mean Serbia because there arent others.
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya are the most notable.
You know they were doing a genocide? Like full on Hitler level genocide. I find that like a pretty acceptable one.
This comparison trivializes the holocaust, which us not out of character for a NATO fan from the Baltics. In addition, this is again a piece of propaganda, a thin pretense for the actual goal of Balkanizing Yugoslavia. The NATO bombings were brutal and targeted civilian infrastructure.
This is already an essay and arguing about points only Russian state media argues for seems like a loss no matter if you are right or wrong.
You have been wrong about nearly everything you've said, even just simple facts. Now you want an excuse to leave rather than just doing it - ah, my information is just "Russian" (nearly everything I've said comes from Western and Ukrainian sources).
How pitiful.
Like half your points are either insane or just provably wrong and there's an essay for each point. Going over each one separately only to find out the only source is Russian state media is more than a little demotivating, especially on my phone, when arguing with people like you.
Like the NATO offensive war part: the only one that would be an offensive war is the Serbian one and all the others listed are definitely not offensive wars initiated by NATO.
And then there's the insane claims like Russia could win if they just wanted to, Russia has total air superiority since the start of the war, Ukraine military is run by nazies, NATO members join by being threatened by NATO. There are probably others I'm forgetting. The only people saying something that batshit is Russian state media and their strategy has been to overwhelm you with bullshit to debunk so either you are get all your bullshit there or you are a professional and I'm not going to waste my time with playing whack the Russian propaganda.
Like half your points are either insane or just provably wrong and there's an essay for each point.
Interesting that you proved none of them wrong and just said made-up nonsense in response then, isn't it?
Going over each one separately only to find out the only source is Russian state media is more than a little demotivating, especially on my phone, when arguing with people like you.
And now you're just lying. So pitiful.
Like the NATO offensive war part: the only one that would be an offensive war is the Serbian one and all the others listed are definitely not offensive wars initiated by NATO.
You are 100% incorrect and I invite you to spend literally any amount of time learning about NATO's involvement in both Libya and Afghanistan. If you were a student I'd having a talk with your parents because you keep making things up rather than reading and learning.
Maybe you don't know how to find information? Put the words "Libya" "NATO" and "bomb", read the results, ask yourself if NATO was defending lol.
And then there's the insane claims like Russia could win if they just wanted to
Yes obviously. Only gullible people think otherwise. Military folks expected RF to immediately curbstomp Ukraine because they thought RF would use the tactics of, dare I say, NATO countries and just bomb everything war crimes style. RF chose a very different tactic. I know you don't know why they did that, but you should do yourself a favor and read about it.
Russia has total air superiority since the start of the war
A basic fact. RF bombed UA airfields right off the bat and UA has had very little air presence while RF does basically whatever it wants outside of manpad resustence. You are free to go spend any amount of time learning these basic facts.
Ukraine military is run by nazies
Actually I didn't say that, though you csn tell the military is run by people in that neighborhood based on their statements. Remember when the UA MoD endorsed calling Chechens orcs and dipping bullets in lard? Of course you don't, you haven't paid attention. But you are free to review the extent to which Nazis have been incorporated into UA's military both formally and informally.
NATO members join by being threatened by NATO.
I didn't say that either. In UA's case it was less a threat than a coup, though UA isn't joining NATO soon anyways.
There are probably others I'm forgetting. The only people saying something that batshit is Russian state media and their strategy has been to overwhelm you with bullshit to debunk so either you are get all your bullshit there or you are a professional and I'm not going to waste my time with playing whack the Russian propaganda.
And now we return to your habit of, "everything I don't know is Russian propaganda". Like I said before, my sources are Western and Ukrainian. At no point in this conversation have you asked a question, sought information, or demonstrated knowledge of anything I'm talking about. But you have repeated some confused poorly-remembered talking points and seem to be very comfortable with lying when you don't know something.
Work on that, buddy. I don't think I should have to tell you that lying is bad.
Just another essay straight from RT. I'm as interested of learning about Russia from tankies as I am about learning of the holocaust from neonazies.
This comparison trivializes the holocaust, which us not out of character for a NATO fan from the Baltics. In addition, this is again a piece of propaganda, a thin pretense for the actual goal of Balkanizing Yugoslavia. The NATO bombings were brutal and targeted civilian infrastructure
With depleted uranium bombs, no less!
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Yes. "Denazify" everyone that thinks Ukraine is a country, give up all your weapons, and give us part of your territory... or else.
Sure, totally fair demands. /s
NATO encirclement
Can you explain why countries want to join NATO? Why do they want to give away some control of their military so badly and risk being dragged into someone else's war just to join this alliance? Why are fairly neutral countries like Finland and Sweden joining it?
It's as if there's a country to the east pushing the idea that they're actually part of Russia, that their culture doesn't exist, that their cities should be nuked or that said country's army should just invade!
Reminds me of that meme where the guy puts something into his bike wheel and then blames someone else for the outcome.
Yes. "Denazify" everyone that thinks Ukraine is a country, give up all your weapons, and give us part of your territory... or else.
Kind of amazing how liberals will tell themselves little stories and even believethem rather than actually having to learn something.
You should be honest with yourself and at least become familiar with the context of the demands before forming an opinion. I'll give you a hint: UA does have a very real Nazi problem that is directly connected to RF's invasion.
Can you explain why countries want to join NATO? Why do they want to give away some control of their military so badly and risk being dragged into someone else's war just to join this alliance? Why are fairly neutral countries like Finland and Sweden joining it?
These are open-ended questions and a proper explanation would take a long time. And let's just say I'm dubious that you're actually curious. The (over)simple answer is that they're taking a deal to be subservient to the United States, which usually requires their political class, and therefore economic ruling class, to see an interest in doing do. Not that they're correct - the US is slowly deindustrializing its European allies as we speak. The reason why those interests won out? Those are specific historical stories. Try answering your own question but for Ukraine's toying with NAT membership. What led to the change in their political class?
It's as if there's a country to the east pushing the idea that they're actually part of Russia, that their culture doesn't exist, that their cities should be nuked or that said country's army should just invade!
Case in point that you're not curious in any real answers.
Reminds me of that meme where the guy puts something into his bike wheel and then blames someone else for the outcome.
Liberals often use cartoonish examples to understand a world for which their knowledge and ideology are inadequate.
Oh, I'm liberal now. Weird as I was a fascist just before I left reddit. In a few hours someone will call me a communist.
You should be honest with yourself and at least become familiar with the context of the demands before forming an opinion. I’ll give you a hint: UA does have a very real Nazi problem that is directly connected to RF’s invasion.
I'm very honest with myself. I also try to not bullshit myself into believing it's only an Ukraine problem.
Russia didn't invade Crimea and then the Donbas region in 2014 because of Nazis. After Yanukovych weirdly reverted his position on Europe (European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement) and got kicked out, Russia decided to invade to support all those "Russian speakers". Of course, there was even a referendum, but as Igor Girkin said, they had the guns and politicians did as they were told.
People like to forget that far-right groups like the Azov Battalion and some of far-left/anarchist groups that joined the fight were only created after the invasion, after the Ukrainian army completely failed to do their job. It's as if the ultra-nationalist and people with more extreme views in general are the first to react to an aggression against their country! /s
But yes, Ukraine had "nazis", but so did Russia. I recommend reading about people like Aleksandr Dugin (and his views), which seems to be liked even by Putin himself. As a space fan and a fan of some of the Soviet accomplishments, I couldn't help but notice that when the war started, the boss of Roscosmos was Dmitry Rogozin... an old member of the Russian National Unity party, which had some "interesting" views. In fact, here's a picture of young Rogozin with the flag of the party in the background. I'll also give you a hint: they're nazi as fuck.
I guess we need to invade Russia, right? And make some demands where Russia gives away part of their territory... at least that's what the very well informed and smart people such as yourself think should happen? Or this only applies to when Russia has a problem with someone else?
Also, in 2019 the far-right party (Svoboda) received 2.16% of the votes in the whole country. Not even 3%. And then Russia comes in, invades Ukraine again and transforms Azov into national heroes. Well, good fucking job Russia! I'm sure that helps reducing support for nazis. /s
These are open-ended questions and a proper explanation would take a long time. And let’s just say I’m dubious that you’re actually curious. The (over)simple answer is that they’re taking a deal to be subservient to the United States, which usually requires their political class, and therefore economic ruling class, to see an interest in doing do. Not that they’re correct - the US is slowly deindustrializing its European allies as we speak. The reason why those interests won out? Those are specific historical stories. Try answering your own question but for Ukraine’s toying with NAT membership. What led to the change in their political class?
If that's the case, then Putin must be part of the conspiracy? The guy managed to give a new life to the alliance and even recruited 2 new countries where popular support to joining used to be really low. There's no way he's helping NATO so much without being part of all that. Surely you can see the guy is a plant?
Or maybe there's a simpler explanation (Occam's razor, for the cool kids).
Maybe people read what Russian politicians say, look at the size of their country, remember what happened during the days of the Soviet Union (and now at what happened to Ukraine) and say: "maybe we should be friends with that big guy over there, just in case the local bully decides to invade us".
Of course my lIbErAl mind is too dumb to understand high level politics like you do, but if one reads Putin's On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians and Address concerning the events in Ukraine, it's not that hard to imagine that there's a much simpler reason.
What lead to the change in Ukraine's political class? Other than Yanukovych's reversal and people getting pissed? I don't know. If you're suggesting any foul play, I'd like to remind you that Russia intervened directly in Belarus and Kazakhstan, so apparently that's all good.
Case in point that you’re not curious in any real answers.
I'm curious, that's why I sometimes actually read what Mr Putin says, am aware of his obsession with Peter the Great and his conquest of the Azov sea, etc. I also watch a bit of Russian television as they have interesting views on countries around them. I'm not even talking about weekly threats of nuking European cities or higher ups at Russia Today suggesting that Ukrainian kids should be killed in a river... Did you know that Kazakhstan now has a lot of "ethnic Russians" in need of protection? A bit weird since everything was fine until they stopped playing ball with Russia...
To know the real answers you can't filter out everything that doesn't fit your view. You have people like Putin making up excuses for his view that Ukraine is not really a proper country... yet you decide not to read it and to outright ignore it. And I'm the dumb guy who doesn't want real answers?
Liberals often use cartoonish examples to understand a world for which their knowledge and ideology are inadequate.
My apologies, let me make it easier for you:
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Russia, which is not governed by morons, decided to invade Ukraine to accomplish certain objectives. They knew what they were doing, you don't need to make excuses up to defend their actions.
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Like any major power, they don't give a fuck about Ukraine or the people that live in Ukraine. It's not a nice thing, but hey, it is what it is.
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No, Russia didn't have to invade. No, Ukraine wasn't going to invade Russia (nuclear obviously, plus they struggle to take control of their own territory...). And no, there's no way in hell 2014 Ukraine was going to join NATO (they've been trying since the early 2000's...).
Anyway, if you want to support them, then fine. Just don't try to come up with bs excuses for what they're doing. You like Russia and you like what they're doing. I on the other hand don't agree with they're doing and also have a similar position when other countries do the same, so you can see why I don't support their invasion of Ukraine.
Oh, I'm liberal now. Weird as I was a fascist just before I left reddit. In a few hours someone will call me a communist.
Fascism is just an offshoot of liberalism so this isn't a zinger
I'm very honest with myself. I also try to not bullshit myself into believing it's only an Ukraine problem.
You definitely tell stories and deflect and make guesses but present them as if they're fact so gonna disagree with you, champ
Russia didn't invade Crimea and then the Donbas region in 2014 because of Nazis.
Yeah duh, or at least not proximally or the exact Nazis being referred to. This feels like saying things just to feel like you're lecturing but it doesn't mean anything. The next two paragraphs don't address what I said or answer my question.
But yes, Ukraine had "nazis", but so did Russia.
Cool, what impact does that have re: Russia's demand? It's a pretty liberal thing to try to come up with pointless gotchas or like entire states are hypocritical or something so you don't need to look any deeper. Are you able to provide even the most basic explanation for why the RF would want UA to hand over/imprison their Nazis?
I recommend reading about people like Aleksandr Dugin
Ahahahahahahaha
I guess we need to invade Russia, right?
Already did. First in 1918, then in the early 90s (it was called the shock doctrine).
Anyways, you seem to again be arguing with some liberal in your head that bases everything on abstract rules and gotchas. Has nothing to do with me or anything I've said.
Also, in 2019 the far-right party (Svoboda) received 2.16% of the votes in the whole country. Not even 3%.
Congratulations you've caught up with liberal arguments from 2022. It is, in fact, peak liberalism to think that election results are the same as political power, or power in general. I'm sure the Roma murdered in tacitly state-supported pogroms are delighted to know Svoboda only got a few percent in an election.
Anyways, you failed to answer my question. I'm not even a tough grader. Just looking for very basic material context, and you couldn't do it. I even gave you a hint!
If that's the case, then Putin must be part of the conspiracy?
This makes no sense.
Maybe people read what Russian politicians say, look at the size of their country, remember what happened during the days of the Soviet Union (and now at what happened to Ukraine) and say: "maybe we should be friends with that big guy over there, just in case the local bully decides to invade us".
This is a form of liberalism called idealism, and it's as hilarious as it is wrong. People just got together, for no clear reason, and thought a bunch until change happened. Actually don't mention "for no clear reason", because this begins the thought of, "well why would I need to think about material causes?", which puts you into dangerous territory of reading or understanding something before having an opinion on it. Best to just make shit up and have little cartoon characters voice your opinions and tell little stories, right?
Of course my lIbErAl mind is too dumb to understand high level politics like you do
You are perfectly capable of understanding anything I've mentioned. You're unwilling and uninterested, and are a victim of propaganda and your society. If you chose honesty, things would go a lot better, but you so far you seem unable to drop the habit of making things up to fill in the gaps. Very defensive behavior, which is typical for Reddit-brained liberlaism.
but if one reads Putin's On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians and Address concerning the events in Ukraine, it's not that hard to imagine that there's a much simpler reason.
Reading Putin and extracting value from it requires already knowing all of the things he mentions, as he is just a singular politician struggling in his own interest, attempting to make very particular cases to very particular audiences. I am... dubious that any of that happened here.
What lead to the change in Ukraine's political class? Other than Yanukovych's reversal and people getting pissed? I don't know.
You skimmed all of that and failed to notice the coup, lol.
I'm curious, that's why I sometimes actually read what Mr Putin says
Your behavior says the exact opposite
To know the real answers you can't filter out everything that doesn't fit your view.
Ahahahahahahaha
My apologies, let me make it easier for you
See the gears turning. You've been criticized! What to say in response? Hmm... well this Maoo jerk just said you used simplistic examples because you can't understand what's happening on the planet due to ignorance and worldview. That's a meany thing to say! Better turn to... uh... condescension? Yeah, and say "I'll make it simpler"! That'll get 'em!
Because I probably do have to spell it out: I said you were being simplistic. Making it simpler is dunking on yourself.
Russia, which is not governed by morons, decided to invade Ukraine to accomplish certain objectives.
You jumped into this thread to flail around because you didn't understand what those were, and continue to miss the most basic points made about them, lol. No wonder this is left vague.
They knew what they were doing, you don't need to make excuses up to defend their actions.
Now you're doing the "I'm rubber you're glue" thing. Amazing how contradiction brings out the inner child in liberals.
Like any major power, they don't give a fuck about Ukraine or the people that live in Ukraine. It's not a nice thing, but hey, it is what it is.
Who are the "they"? Be specific. This will help you on your journey on learning how to know things.
No, Russia didn't have to invade.
According to what logic? Who makes any country invade another? This type of thinking isn't even appropriate for the category of thing we're talking about. I'm giving you baby's first realpolitik here and nothing is sinking in.
No, Ukraine wasn't going to invade Russia
lol who on earth are you talking to? Do you think I said anything like that? If not, tell me who you're talking to. Be specific. Does the person in your head saying these things look like a muppet? Did you win your argument with them?
And no, there's no way in hell 2014 Ukraine was going to join NATO (they've been trying since the early 2000's...).
UA isn't joining NATO in the near term either. If you stopped making shit up and asked questions or read things, you might say things that are germane to this conversation.
Anyway, if you want to support them, then fine.
Liberal brain strikes again. Good guys vs. bad guys. If you criticize me, you must support the bad guys. I have a big brain.
Just don't try to come up with bs excuses for what they're doing. You like Russia and you like what they're doing.
Now we've graduated to the "lying their ass off" portion of disagreeing with a liberal.
I on the other hand don't agree with they're doing and also have a similar position when other countries do the same, so you can see why I don't support their invasion of Ukraine.
Ah yes, that's the thing we're talking about: whether or not you support Russia invading Ukraine.
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Seriously, to listen to hexbears talk about the Ukranian invasion, you'd think that the US talked Ukraine into invading Russia just for fun, and that Russia was simply left with no choice.
The killing can stop absolutely any day now - all Putin has to do is pull out and pay for his mess, easy peasy
You should do more listening to hexbears because that sounds nothing like us.
All you have to do is read through this very thread to find numerous examples of hexbears acting like US liberals are primarily (or second only to Ukraine itself) for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
"Why could Ukraine have just bent over and let Russia take it over??? And why couldn't the rest of the world just pretend it never happened?? What about 'Murica in the middle east???"
Sounds pretty familiar to me.
I don't see any of that, personally.
Any chance the liberal in your head is editoriakizing some straw men?
It's literally everywhere in this thread. There's history lessons abound about how bad Ukraine is (with no noticeable criticism of Russia) but no example of what should be done now except to have them give up their sovereignty, their most valuable land, and giving in to Russian's demands.
It's insane to me that these are the same people who would probably say that the US shouldn't have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan, or that the US shouldn't invade Cuba. In their view, since the US did a coup there once, I guess all their people deserve to die and lose their sovereignty? How does that make sense?
"No, we just want the US and Europe to stop giving them weapons to defend themselves!" OK then, then what do you think will happen? More deaths and then a loss of sovereignty obviously. Why is this on them and not on Russia, who simply have the option of stopping their aggression and walking away?
It's literally everywhere in this thread. There's history lessons abound about how bad Ukraine is (with no noticeable criticism of Russia) but no example of what should be done now except to have them give up their sovereignty, their most valuable land, and giving in to Russian's demands.
Show one example, lib.
Trying to rob the word genocide of all meaning in the way your doing serves only to trivialise actual genocide.
Actual genocide like forced deportation of children? Or do you require actual gas chambers before you care?
Pop quiz, without researching, what was the bloodiest genocide last year?
What a shock, the person accusing other people of not caring about genocide can't actually answer the question, because they don't actually give a shit about genocides themselves, they just use it as an emotional cudgel to try and win debate points.
It's not that I can't answer the question, or that I deny evidence of genocide in Ethiopia, China and Yemen. In fact, I want to make it very clear that only one of us in this conversation is a genocide denier. It's that your attempt at deflecting to a completely unrelated topic is pathetic (and frankly lazy) whataboutism.
More than anything, I don't understand why so many leftists want to die on this particular hill. It just makes it feel like your stated values are merely ideological lip service.
It was absolutely that you couldn't answer the question; you know it, I know it, and everyone reading this knows it.
Just like you also know that trying to tar anyone who doesn't believe any and all accusations of genocide, no matter how obviously bad faith, as a genocide denier is an obviously cynical and disingenuous rhetorical technique that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and which you wouldn't be willing to be subject to yourself. Do you believe the claims of Donbas genocide? How about white farmer genocide in South Africa? How about White Genocide in America?
Nobody cares if you made up some stupid little name for it like whataboutism and declared it against the 'rules'. We're still going to point your obvious double standards as proof of your dishonesty
China
Oh my fucking god the UN report came out A YEAR AGO. READ THE UN REPORT.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf
How many people have been killed in the supposedly ongoing genocide in China?
You do have a properly sourced number, right?
So let's see it.
removing children from a warzone isn't forced deportation. those kids were returned when requested.
'Put the children back in the warzone!
Also let's stop pretending the west is above that. Key difference is that we let the people fleeing western' foreign policy' drown in the mediterranian sea, rather than housing them.You should be angry at the propagandists that made you selectively trivialize genocide this way.
So as someone not close to this war, and as someone who's always been open to the idea that the worst outcome for the war is for it to be drawn out for a long time, and that the west should think more clearly about what's really going on here, but also as someone who would probably have picked up a gun and prepared to die if an invading force I didn't like came for my country ... what's the alternative for the Ukrainians here? Or, do you think Ukraine should be conquered and are fighting an unjust war?
Upholding the Minsk agreement would have been an option up until 2022 at least.
by all accounts, Russia held to the letter of that agreement until it was violated. what on earth are you talking about.
I think they made several attempts to keep it intact, but Ukraine couldn't keep it's pet Nazis under control and they kept violating the cease fire.
Christ sake. France and Germany are both on the record saying they never intended to honor the agreement and were just playing for time to arm Ukraine.
what's the alternative for the Ukrainians here?
Not shelling the Donbass for the past 8 years for one. That was them fucking around and the Russian invasion is them finding out.
Apparently their government messed up years ago so now they all have to die. Seriously, look at the replies from hexbear to your question. The obvious answer is that they were attacked, they now have to defend themselves, and the US and Europe are helping them do that. And even if it's just to weaken Russia, it's also what the Ukrainian people would want, just like you or I would want someone to hand us a rifle if someone is attacking us.
But they can't say that, so they have nothing they can say to this question, no answer, no solution, just what coulda shoulda, etc. They can't empathize with Ukrainian citizens protecting their land when invaded, just like you or I would do, because the US sucks. And it does, but that's besides the point. Oh well. Ukraine has some Nazis so I guess Russia gets to invade their neighbors when they feel like it and take Crimea or similar territories, like they've been doing with Georgia and other places near them for awhile now. And it's their neighbors jobs to just allow it and not ally with anyone to prevent it.
Yea, I'm more or less with you. As someone curious to get to know their community better, this isn't, TBH, the best introduction/impression they could have given (ie, the replies to my question). There's a difference between whether there's any justification for Russia's acts of aggression and my actual question of what else could ordinary Ukrainians actually do, which not only requires some empathy for actual real life people being crushed under the boots of governments (something I thought Hexbear might have cared about??) but also raises the serious question, for me, about whether military force is ever morally justifiable (however much russian, ukrainian or western nations are responsible for the escalation to this).
Instead, the reflex by those replying seems to have been to ignore all of that and abstract the situation to higher level political tennis, where avoiding that was the essential point of my question. I get that that's where the heat of the topic is for them (and probably in general), but still ... sighs.
russia can end this whenever they want by restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity, if they think the US is benefiting so much from it at their expense. The US is just making it much harder for russia to reach its maximalist goals: to conquer Ukraine. One of those is a war crime, the other one is supporting international law.
International law is when russia does not annex Crimea because of the unfavourable internal affairs of its neighbour. You know, your power ends at "these" borders and from there to here you can't threaten the Ukrainian President.
Yea, well, did you hear about how the President escaped and the Parliament voted to destitute him. And when you invade Crimea to do a mock referendum, that's awesome international law. Not even Iran and China recognize the annexation of Crimea, because you can't invade a country and referendum an annexation unilaterally.
Most of the people living in Crimea work for the Russian Black Sea Fleet you dork. They didn't have to invade Crimea, they already had a huge military instalation there. And no one cares about international law, least of all NATO.
Also Crimea has been trying to get autonomy or leave Ukraine for thirty years.
Indeed, making russia pay for trying to conquer a sovereign country by helping that country defend itself.
Alright but what would guarantee Russia's safety after they do that? It's obviously not in their interest. What they want is to negotiate a peace treaty, which is why they are holding their defense line so strongly until their opponents are exhausted.
What I heard were rumors that the "UN" could sort of hold Ukraine's occupied territories "in escrow" as a DMZ buffer, but it's not a final solution (we know how these handovers have turned sour in the past), because eventually you'd have to divide it, or create a new country...the essential is that russia does not get rewarded for its aggression with territory to brag about in the history books and that there is no chance that any native pro-russian Ukrainian in the buffer zone suffers reprisals...
those territories are independent republics that have been embroiled in a civil war with Kyiv for 9 years. Ukraine's fascist factions within the military have been shelling those republics in violation of multiple peace treaties that have been signed over the past 9 years. securing the independence of those regions is Russia's entire pretext for invading - in response to requests for military aid from said republics.
They aren’t independent republics anymore, they’ve been annexed by the Russian Federation
sure but forgetting the historical context just provides justification for NATO aggression
Sure, I just thought it was a difference worth noting
I could even imagine a scenario where if they had become independent republics, russia parked tanks there and said: "peace now", it could have worked, but Putin got greedy. Then to pile on the catastrophic stubbornness, russia annexed parts of them, plus parts of 2 other oblasts in mock referendums that nobody recognizes. There is no defense, it's a land grab and a clumsy one at that.
can you see how if you were living in those cities and multiple peace treaties were violated, that you might prefer joining the larger power that speaks your language to remaining at the mercy of death squads that howl for your blood?
If you speak russian and you want to move to russia and you like daddy putin's policies, you always could join Russia: they'll give you a passport and welcome you with open arms, nobody is stopping you, they have plenty of space and can use the manpower.
why is "leave the place you and yours have lived for countless generations" a preferable option to you? would you see it the same way if this were the choice offered to your city?
That's a great thought process, instead of emigrating from Ireland to the UK, ask the UK to invade Ireland so you don't have to move and can live with your English buddies. Wtf. Respect borders, move if your country allegiance changes
What are you even on, dude? There wasn't hard border between Russia and Ukraine for Ukraine's entire existence as a state until the destruction of the USSR. People should flee when their own country decides to kill them? That is actual, real, literal ethnic cleansing and/or genocide?
Are you seriously saying that all the Russian speaking Ukrainians should have fled Ukraine when the Rada started sending death squads in to the Donbass? Are you really saying that?:
lmao taking the side of the Brits over the IRA is a fucking amazing take. Tiocfaidh ár lá
it is, isn't it? That's what russian speakers are doing, this just keeps getting better and better.
it's literally the opposite. they're in the position of Northern Ireland, in this analogy.
it's a real conflict you knob. the actual history is exactly the opposite and it's a great fucking analogy that's going straight over your head.
Yes, but why cant some dude in Ireland call up his English friends to add bits of Ireland to Northern Ireland? The possibilities are endless without borders just the way putin likes. Or maybe Switzerland or Belgium can join France...I can just keep listing countries that speak the same language as their neighbour that could be invaded to "save the speakers". Hitler invaded Poland on that pretext too, it's super versatile.
mate, the Brits literally colonized Ireland and the actual direction people want to go is towards Ireland. there was a real reuinfication conflict. posing a ahistorical hypothetical that's precisely the opposite of the actual lived reality is fucking hilarious. what you're saying effectively amounts to "if the Irish in Northern Ireland want to join Ireland so badly, why don't they simply move there", which is fucking insane and precisely the point I've been making for a half dozen comments.
THis probably isn't worth it. Gsus is either taking the piss or not clever or knowledgeable enough to follow you.
You can twist my careless example of a translinguistic border in every direction to represent what you want, apparently in this case you're making Ireland to be russia here, but I can say the UK represents russia...which is still different from:
Ukraine was already independent in 1993 without DNRs+LPRs and there was a referendum which settled the matter according to russia too, only for russia to come back 20 years later for Crimea and then for the Donbas by force.
If you want to be russian after 20 years of settled internationally recognized borders and peace, you can move there, because that's not how borders or international law work.
I'm pointing out the similarities with a group that shares language and culture with the parent nation wishing to rejoin the parent nation. those borders have also been "settled". and yet the only conscionable choice is to support the separarists. the other poster is right, you are too dense to understand history and its lessons.
And, again, are you suggesting the Russian speaking population of Ukraine, who have lived their for at least decades, should have fled the country when the coup Rada declared their language illegal?
Why do you think a nation, any nation, would give up a strategic port and major naval facility to it's enemies without a fight?
The UN was absolutely useless at peacekeeping in Ukraine from 2014-2022. Why would they suddenly become competent now? Ukraine would just keep shelling those territories (now with cluster munitions) and would invade them if Russia pulled it's military back.
And if you try and say that Ukraine wouldn't dare do that because it would be against "international law" I'll remind you that Ukraine had absolutely no problem violating the Minsk Agreements. Ukraine just kept violating those agreements by shelling the Donbas for 8 years without suffering any consequences until Russia invaded.
Oh my god, nobody gives a fuck about international law. It’s a meaningless term used to sling attacks at your geopolitical enemies. Just look at Guantanamo bay, where Americans are torturing people that have never even faced a military tribunal for over two decades! In an illegal occupation of Cuban land!
Yes, the brutal hard truth is if your country is neighbor to a much more powerful country than you will be forced to make concessions to that country. Else you will get couped, invaded, have your leaders assisted or be put under crippling economic blockades. Russia sucks but any state in the world would do the same to prevent giving their enemies an easy point of invasion
Cool, rule by the strong and powerful, acquiescence by the weak is a great take by a leftist, but whatever, I don't care, I'm done here, please stop writing.
I’m not saying any of this is good. It is reality however
Not a single lib will change their minds after hearing this.
Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine? What opinion are they not going to change?
This thread is evidence of it. The quiet part gets shouted and rather than accepting that this is what MLs have been saying for two years, the libs are doubling down. Will they now accept the truth behind the quip, 'To the last Ukrainian?' Not a chance. Oblivious.
Ya that's my understanding was well. Which is why I asked the question.
Because the reasons to support Ukraine are supposed to be noble and not completely self-interested. That's why there is popular support for it. McConnell admitting that it's about funneling money into the military industrial complex, at least in part, ought to make at least some people reconsider their assumptions
Ah I see now. It's about the motivations behind the support. Thanks for the insight!
It's actually quite interesting. Personally, I try to remain neutral on politics but I'm definitely fed a left-leaning social media diet. Within that content, the general reason to support Ukraine is still self centered. "Go beat up the Russian military because they're the bad guys and our cost is super low." The nobility of this support feels like a happy side effect. But the really interesting part is that "funneling money into the military industrial complex" simply isn't focused at all. This is the first time I've considered that aspect.
neutral on politics
Yeah... About that. There is no neutrality in politics.
Why don't you go look up what the US and Saudi did to Yemen over the last decade and decide how you feel about sitting on that fence.
Go beat up the Russian military because they're the bad guys and our cost is super low.
They're not beating up the Russian military. They're fertilizing the fields of Ukraine that the Rada is going to sell to Blackrock. There's nothing noble about this. NATO pushed and pushed and pushed until the RF took the bait, and now they're bleeding the RF using Ukrainians because they don't give a shit about Ukrainians. Christ this is so frustrating ISTG if people would just read Sun Tzu they'd understand everything and we wouldn't need to have these absurd conversations over and over.
You don't need to go super far left to find convincing arguments against US foreign policy. Noam Chomsky is a mainstream intellectual after all, and he coined the phrase "consent manufacturing".
The idea that the US acts in total self interest should be presumed true in all cases, but that doesn't on its own defeat the idea that its intervention in Ukraine is good. The logical next step is to ask ourselves whether this intervention ever had any chance of changing the outcome of the conflict at all. If it didn't, and most people here would agree that it didn't, then the US' involvement amounts to wartime profiteering at the cost of human lives.
edit: I should also add, there's good reason to believe that NATO expansion is what caused the conflict, and that the west did this in spite of clear and explicit warnings from Russia
Liberals are just as bloodthirsty as their fashy counterparts, they just need to have their own slightly different words for why it is okay.
It took like 6 months for mainstream liberals to feel 100% comfortable thinking of Russians as subhuman monsters deserving of any and all violence, dredging up old-school orientalist tropes, and celebrating snuff videos, making special exception for them so long as they are accompanied by a little story about how it's happening to Russians. A random Russian civilian got attacked by a shark in Egypy and liberals were rah-rahing for the shark.
Liberals will be pro-war until their corporate masters tell them not to be. Then, like with Iraq, they might pretend they werw anti-war the whole time.
I wonder if there was a more efficient way of employing people without having executives from the MIC getting almost all the benefit?
Werent a bunch of reddit brigaders obliterated forgetting to turn off location services posting from their top secret training facility?
Millions of fellow human beings are constantly dying, being severely injured, or displaced. You fucking ghoul.
Straight out of the gaping shitass orifice of Failed States of America propaganda. Incredible
Whilst not suffering a series of mini-strokes on national television, Mitch is as always razor sharp and the epitome of giving zero fucks about any human lives/hides other than his own. May the Sweet Lord Above see fit to drown this nearly calcified ghoul in a bed of his own shit, like real soon. Tomorrow morning would be cool
takes
