Ukraine told critics of the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to "shut up" on Thursday, the sharpest signal yet of Kyiv's frustration at leaks from Western officials that say its forces are advancing too slowly.
Ukraine escalated by violating the ceasefire. Russia escalated further by sending in troops. I didn't say it's "okay," but the blame isn't just on their side.
If Russia wanted to ensure the safety of the people of Donbas (which is a big if tbf), what should they have done differently, at any point leading up to the conflict? Because I'd like to condemn Russian escalation, but it's a little hard for me to do so if I don't have an answer to that question.
Which one(s)? There were so many from 2014 onwards that I lost track. I'm always skeptical anytime one side gets all the blame for violating a ceasefire.
If Russia wanted to ensure the safety of the people of Donbas (which is a big if tbf), what should they have done differently, at any point leading up to the conflict?
If it really is about the people of Donbas and not annexing the land itself, they could have done what every country is supposed to do when the safety of people in a region is jeopardized – open their borders to refugees and asylum seekers. It would piss off Ukraine, but they could have just been like "Come across the border and we'll set you up with a Russian passport".
Which one(s)? There were so many from 2014 onwards that I lost track. I'm always skeptical anytime one side gets all the blame for violating a ceasefire.
Minsk II was the one I was referring to, but it's a fair point.
If it really is about the people of Donbas and not annexing the land itself, they could have done what every country is supposed to do when the safety of people in a region is jeopardized – open their borders to refugees and asylum seekers. It would piss off Ukraine, but they could have just been like "Come across the border and we'll set you up with a Russian passport".
Ok, let me rephrase that then. Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia, or should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country? Because I think that a lot of this mess could've be avoided if Ukraine had simply given them a referendum, but instead they banned opposition parties, which says to me that they knew how the people there would vote.
This is like saying that the US should've invaded Cuba when they started taking nationalizing property instead of doing what the other person said and accepting refugees and asylum seekers. There's always another way besides war and violence.
There isn't always another way besides violence. The German invasion of the USSR was a war of extermination. Laying down and dieing is not morally superior.
There are countless of well-documented examples of the American empire sponsoring terrorist attacks, sabotage and assassinations against Cuba. To this day the American empire upholds an illegal an unprovoked blockade of the island as well as occupying the land on which the Guantanamo naval base and torture black site is placed.
Before the revolution, America ran Cuba as a colony, leeching off the hard work of Cubans. If anything, the history of American relations with Cuba has been one of profound violence.
But okay, most of the times they made sure to put in a middle-man to do the actual dirty work which absolves them of all sin I guess.
Oh! Well then we see eye-to-eye in that case. I think Western support to Ukraine should be limited to accepting refugees and providing humanitarian aid, not weapons. I think Ukraine should be open to ceding territory in negotiations in order to end the war and prevent further loss of life. There's always another way besides war and violence. I'm all about peace, glad we're in agreement.
Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia
Of course. They just don't have a right to drag the rest of Ukraine into Russia at the same time. On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement on the grounds of "why should I care if a country's capitalist class loses some of its economic base?"
should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country?
No, but if that's what was happening we could all then be criticizing a peacetime government for acting injustice upon segments of its population, instead of advocating for an end to a war. The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere? (Since there's pretty much at least one oppressed group in every country worldwide at least one other country could claim a right to "protect" them based on shared heritage or language.)
Just because Russia (might) have the military capability to do so when all these other countries might not doesn't mean they should.
On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement
The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere?
I don't see how you can hold these two positions simultaneously. If part of a country wants to leave, and the government of that country says, "No, and we'll use force to stop you," and another country says, "Hey, seperatists, we'll support you," then where do you stand on all that? You're pro-seperatist while being anti-supporting seperatists? That doesn't make any sense, you could look at just about any successful seperatist movement and see that they recieved foreign backing from someone and that it was likely a crucial factor in winning, for example, French support in the American revolution. This foreign support is generally less motivated by altruism and more by the assisting nation's geopolitical goals, but it's all the same to the seperatists who need it to survive.
To me your stance is coming across as, you support the seperatists, but also they should've backed down immediately when Ukraine used force to avoid a war, but in that case it seems like you don't actually support the seperatists in practice.
They did do that. My coworkers aunt was finally granted Russian citizenship and was ecstatic. They granted citizenship to a number of refugees in the war.
Look, the heckin' wholesome slava ukrainis didn't know where he was so they had to shell everywhere! It's like playing Battleship, except it's mostly other random innocent people that you hit
Yes, but the liberal pro-EU protestors got sidelined by literal neo-Nazis. The following President was basically handpicked by the US Ambassador. There's plenty of western media from 2015-2021 about the integration of Azov into the Ukrainian military structure, the rehabilitation of World War II collaborators, and the suppression of the Russian language. The people of the East are, in principle, just as entitled to wish to join Russia as western Ukraine is to join the EU.
A compromise now is bad for russia, russia basically has to be able to extort Western Europe to not to be crippled for decades. Germany is apparently working to that end now.
It's so fucking funny when the geopolitics understanders who have been drip-fed NATO propaganda state the clear opposite of reality and think they made an insightful comment.
Russia has all but won the military conflict, as has been made clear by this utter failure of a "counteroffensive." Russia is doing better economically than before the SMO, despite the supposed economic wunderwaffen sanctions that only backfired and hurt NATO countries. Russia has only gained support by most of the rest of the world and has showed the global south that the US/NATO are indeed paper tigers. Russia has all the leverage now. So yes, for Russia to compromise right now would be bad for them because they don't need to compromise, they can keep going as they have been and eventually have their demands met, or Ukraine/NATO can recognize they've lost and make a bid for peace by acquiescing to Russia's demands before more lives are needlessly lost.
Ukraine on the other hand will be crippled for decades regardless of how things pan out. Ukraine is now deeply indebted to Western countries, has already had all national assets sold off, has had a major chunk of its working-age population killed or maimed, and is beholden to a fascist, nazi-worshipping government.
As for Germany, yeah they have been working to the end of hobbling themselves for decades too by allowing their remaining industrial capacity to be completely gutted, kowtowing to their US masters that bombed their infrastructure to prevent them ever again getting oil from 'The Bad Country,' they have irreparably removed nuclear power as an option even as they're facing an impending energy crisis (in large part because of aforementioned no-oil-from-bad-country), and are right now also sliding towards right wing populism.
Most of the people I'm talking about were either born there or have lived there for longer than Ukraine has existed as a state. Those people should be the ones in charge of the fate of Crimea, regardless of their ethnicity. I don't believe in blood and soil nationalism where only certain ethnicities get to be full citizens.
By "the Uighers" I assume you're talking about Xinjiang? The most serious separatist movement there is the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the US recognized these guys as a terrorist group in 2002. The US continued to recognize them as a terrorist group until 2020, when the US decided that it would be more politically convenient for them to not be terrorists anymore. The overall populace supports the central government. It's 90+% approval for China overall, I can't find a breakdown by region. If the people of Xinjiang were to lose faith in the central government and decided to go their own way then I would support them. The important part is that is has to be the people, not terror groups, not US-backed NGOs, and not US-backed protest movements, that support the separatism movement.
It's not supporting Russia to be critical of one-sided narratives or to call for peace for the sake of minimizing loss of life.
Russia is welcome to GTFO at any time.
The war was already going on before Russia sent troops in.
And that makes it okay for them to escalate it, how?
Ukraine escalated by violating the ceasefire. Russia escalated further by sending in troops. I didn't say it's "okay," but the blame isn't just on their side.
If Russia wanted to ensure the safety of the people of Donbas (which is a big if tbf), what should they have done differently, at any point leading up to the conflict? Because I'd like to condemn Russian escalation, but it's a little hard for me to do so if I don't have an answer to that question.
Which one(s)? There were so many from 2014 onwards that I lost track. I'm always skeptical anytime one side gets all the blame for violating a ceasefire.
If it really is about the people of Donbas and not annexing the land itself, they could have done what every country is supposed to do when the safety of people in a region is jeopardized – open their borders to refugees and asylum seekers. It would piss off Ukraine, but they could have just been like "Come across the border and we'll set you up with a Russian passport".
Minsk II was the one I was referring to, but it's a fair point.
Ok, let me rephrase that then. Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia, or should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country? Because I think that a lot of this mess could've be avoided if Ukraine had simply given them a referendum, but instead they banned opposition parties, which says to me that they knew how the people there would vote.
This is like saying that the US should've invaded Cuba when they started taking nationalizing property instead of doing what the other person said and accepting refugees and asylum seekers. There's always another way besides war and violence.
There isn't always another way besides violence. The German invasion of the USSR was a war of extermination. Laying down and dieing is not morally superior.
They tried, using a proxy force of Cuban exiles.
There are countless of well-documented examples of the American empire sponsoring terrorist attacks, sabotage and assassinations against Cuba. To this day the American empire upholds an illegal an unprovoked blockade of the island as well as occupying the land on which the Guantanamo naval base and torture black site is placed.
Before the revolution, America ran Cuba as a colony, leeching off the hard work of Cubans. If anything, the history of American relations with Cuba has been one of profound violence.
But okay, most of the times they made sure to put in a middle-man to do the actual dirty work which absolves them of all sin I guess.
Oh! Well then we see eye-to-eye in that case. I think Western support to Ukraine should be limited to accepting refugees and providing humanitarian aid, not weapons. I think Ukraine should be open to ceding territory in negotiations in order to end the war and prevent further loss of life. There's always another way besides war and violence. I'm all about peace, glad we're in agreement.
Of course. They just don't have a right to drag the rest of Ukraine into Russia at the same time. On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement on the grounds of "why should I care if a country's capitalist class loses some of its economic base?"
No, but if that's what was happening we could all then be criticizing a peacetime government for acting injustice upon segments of its population, instead of advocating for an end to a war. The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere? (Since there's pretty much at least one oppressed group in every country worldwide at least one other country could claim a right to "protect" them based on shared heritage or language.)
Just because Russia (might) have the military capability to do so when all these other countries might not doesn't mean they should.
I don't see how you can hold these two positions simultaneously. If part of a country wants to leave, and the government of that country says, "No, and we'll use force to stop you," and another country says, "Hey, seperatists, we'll support you," then where do you stand on all that? You're pro-seperatist while being anti-supporting seperatists? That doesn't make any sense, you could look at just about any successful seperatist movement and see that they recieved foreign backing from someone and that it was likely a crucial factor in winning, for example, French support in the American revolution. This foreign support is generally less motivated by altruism and more by the assisting nation's geopolitical goals, but it's all the same to the seperatists who need it to survive.
To me your stance is coming across as, you support the seperatists, but also they should've backed down immediately when Ukraine used force to avoid a war, but in that case it seems like you don't actually support the seperatists in practice.
They did do that. My coworkers aunt was finally granted Russian citizenship and was ecstatic. They granted citizenship to a number of refugees in the war.
Right, Ukraine was fighting corruption. Russia entered on the side of... corruption.
"Fighting corruption" is an interesting way to describe sustained artillery bombardments of civilian targets.
Fighting this corruption:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
Hoo boy wait til you see what Zelenskyy was up to.
Why are you defending oligarchs?
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I'm not sure what that has to do with shelling cities, are you suggesting he was hiding in one of the buildings or what?
Look, the heckin' wholesome slava ukrainis didn't know where he was so they had to shell everywhere! It's like playing Battleship, except it's mostly other random innocent people that you hit
Yes, but the liberal pro-EU protestors got sidelined by literal neo-Nazis. The following President was basically handpicked by the US Ambassador. There's plenty of western media from 2015-2021 about the integration of Azov into the Ukrainian military structure, the rehabilitation of World War II collaborators, and the suppression of the Russian language. The people of the East are, in principle, just as entitled to wish to join Russia as western Ukraine is to join the EU.
Ukraine also crucified little boys in pants. The info from the same source
A compromise now is bad for russia, russia basically has to be able to extort Western Europe to not to be crippled for decades. Germany is apparently working to that end now.
It's so fucking funny when the geopolitics understanders who have been drip-fed NATO propaganda state the clear opposite of reality and think they made an insightful comment.
Russia has all but won the military conflict, as has been made clear by this utter failure of a "counteroffensive." Russia is doing better economically than before the SMO, despite the supposed economic wunderwaffen sanctions that only backfired and hurt NATO countries. Russia has only gained support by most of the rest of the world and has showed the global south that the US/NATO are indeed paper tigers. Russia has all the leverage now. So yes, for Russia to compromise right now would be bad for them because they don't need to compromise, they can keep going as they have been and eventually have their demands met, or Ukraine/NATO can recognize they've lost and make a bid for peace by acquiescing to Russia's demands before more lives are needlessly lost.
Ukraine on the other hand will be crippled for decades regardless of how things pan out. Ukraine is now deeply indebted to Western countries, has already had all national assets sold off, has had a major chunk of its working-age population killed or maimed, and is beholden to a fascist, nazi-worshipping government.
As for Germany, yeah they have been working to the end of hobbling themselves for decades too by allowing their remaining industrial capacity to be completely gutted, kowtowing to their US masters that bombed their infrastructure to prevent them ever again getting oil from 'The Bad Country,' they have irreparably removed nuclear power as an option even as they're facing an impending energy crisis (in large part because of aforementioned no-oil-from-bad-country), and are right now also sliding towards right wing populism.
Ohh won't someone think of the poor invading war criminals!
Ukrainians are dying too, including ones drafted against their will. Maybe you should fight in their place before asking them to die on your behalf.
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? We have tho? My country has sent like $80 billion dollars so far to the invading war criminals.
Free the Donbass
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So you’d want peace by Ukraine giving up its territory?
How about peace talks that involve Russia giving back all Ukrainian lands (including Crimea) and pulling all troops out.
Why stop there, how about demanding Russia provide every Ukrainian with a talking unicorn buddy?
I live in reality and when I say I want peace it means I believe in negotiating based on realistic expectations.
Shouldn't the people of Crimea get to decide whether they want to live under Kyiv's rule?
You mean the Russians that Russia settled there? Curious what you think about the Uighurs getting to break away a country from China.
Crimea was annexed with zero shots fired. Maybe Ukraine should respect the voices of the people living in eastern ukraine.
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Most of the people I'm talking about were either born there or have lived there for longer than Ukraine has existed as a state. Those people should be the ones in charge of the fate of Crimea, regardless of their ethnicity. I don't believe in blood and soil nationalism where only certain ethnicities get to be full citizens.
By "the Uighers" I assume you're talking about Xinjiang? The most serious separatist movement there is the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the US recognized these guys as a terrorist group in 2002. The US continued to recognize them as a terrorist group until 2020, when the US decided that it would be more politically convenient for them to not be terrorists anymore. The overall populace supports the central government. It's 90+% approval for China overall, I can't find a breakdown by region. If the people of Xinjiang were to lose faith in the central government and decided to go their own way then I would support them. The important part is that is has to be the people, not terror groups, not US-backed NGOs, and not US-backed protest movements, that support the separatism movement.