Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
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Withdrawing troops, returning stolen land, children, prisoners and paying for damages.. thats all i would accept. Nothing less.
In what fantasy land do you think this is remotely achievable? Seriously? Do the lives of Ukrainians fighting and being caught in this conflict mean this little to you, that you are willing to accept continuation of fighting?
Ukraine surrendering is evidently not happening either. Given that Russia is indisputably in the wrong, maybe that's the side we should put pressure on. Just a thought.
It's going to happen eventually, as they're going to run out of recruits before the Russians do. This is like playing a game of chess to the bitter end, only the pieces are real human beings. Hundreds of thousands of them.
Okay then the war would go on and on until your government collapsed. A peace agreement is actually good here given that they just showed they were unable to reclaim much land with their counter offensive.
Eastern European countries love their "macho" leaders. Putin has been doing the whole shtick since forever and Zelensky started it too since 2022. Fucking hate this shit.
Well, it sometimes pays off. You can see how Pashinyan is regarded as opposed to Zelensky or literally anyone not as miserable. Looking weak is bad. Humans are still apes. And politicians in some sense are even more apes than the general population - they mostly participate in some free for all without any moral boundaries, which is an environment more macho-friendly than any other.
I mostly meant that people calling for Ukrainian offensive don't quite feel that it's not a movie, most of the soldiers are mobilized men, and Ukraine has already tried a few times. Turns out it's not as cheap as one would have thought.
They likely want to stockpile weapons, train people better (especially commanders, since their recent attempts were just as Soviet-styled as what Russia does), make preparations. Maybe wait for something unexpected happening for Russia leading to it being distracted.
Or maybe they want to wait until the terrain freezes, so that it would be easier to push. Or the other way around - due to Russian problems in logistics, they want to push in the shortest possible window before frosts, so that territory taken would be easier to hold. I dunno, I'm not a military expert.
Lots of countries have this problem. Their people are looking for strong leaders, not smart leaders, and many interpret bullying as strength.
Democratic leadership hasn't really done much for Ukraine. The Russians still have Bakhmut (their big gain from last winter). Almost the entirety of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been dedicated to an area of land less than twenty kilometers across. Meanwhile, Russian forces are massing North of Kupyansk and Ukrainian supplies are drained.
The West doesn't seem to really care about Ukraine - while Russia has been able to bring their economy into war footing in about a year, the West is happy to dig around and play accounting tricks to scrounge up what they can. The recent shipment of ATACMS missiles was, well...
"A surprising discovery could also ease the administration's choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed."
That's what we're stuck with? Hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain and aid is only being sent because they miscounted inventory?
We'll see. Ukraine is still regaining land, albeit slowly. In some moments - rather fast and cheap even.
But also yes, the Russian forces have learned something.
Fast and cheap? Is that what you call losing 60 thousand lives to eke out a salient on low ground?
Give the native Americans back their territory. Nothing less.
If only you also were in the position to dictate this to Russia. Even the US isn't in this position, and will never be.
Ironically the CIA believes Putin killed Prigozhin to defuse tensions with NATO for exiling Wagner to Belarus.
Every time I read comments about the war on Lemmy I lose a little hope for liberals as with every war the same shit happens and they are blood thirsty monsters living in fantasy land, and when this war comes to an end they will surely denounce ever supporting Ukraine just like they did with the brave freedom fighters of the Mujahadeen...
he was ready for peace talks 3 days into invasion (russian military backed down, preparing for negotiations), but got talked out of it by Boris Johnson.
Nowadays his entire existence hinges on the war continuing. If it stops - no matter who wins, he will lose his seat, then get murdered.
he would have not genocided tens of thousands of ethnic Russians since 2014
Zelensky became president in May 2019...
Zelensky has forgotten to mention Mink and Mink2 agreement that he and EU have broken, thus lying to Russia, and even admitted it.
Lemmy is too small to be targeted by bots, isn't it? It makes me sad how many real people are supporting the Putin's war and blaming Ukraine for defending itself. "OH BUT USA KILLED SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE SO LET PUTIN HAVE FUN TOO". It's crazy.
I personally don't want anyone to die, but it's not like Ukraine asked Russia to invade them, steal their land and kill their people.
Ukraine wanted war and did its best to provoke it for America. This is the inevitable consequence.
Ukraine, with the resources and military they had, wanted war with a nuclear power with a much larger military? Was anyone in Ukraine even talking about war in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and started that shit in the east? Where they so full of themselves in 2022 that they though they could take on a nuclear power?
Something doesn't fit here.
Russia invaded Ukraine. Not the US, not NATO, not the EU, not China, not the bogeyman: it was Russia.
You should stop painting Russia as if they are a bunch of amateurs that can't control themselves. They weren't baited or provoked. They looked at the political situation in Ukraine and made the decision to invade, twice. Putin isn't a moron, so presenting him as being played by the US or having no other choices makes no sense.
What's happening is the consequence of a country invading another in order to expand their borders. Anyone (and I mean anyone) doing that should pay a heavy price so they learn the lesson.
Ukraine, with the resources and military they had, wanted war with a nuclear power with a much larger military?
Not only did they then, they still want to now. Are you not following this war? Several rounds of peace talks have been spurned by Ukraine now. When we say "they" of course we mean the fascist dictatorship that's running the place, not all the people.
Was anyone in Ukraine even talking about war in 2014
Of course? More specifically they wanted to "lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen" and so forth, according to Andriy Biletzky for example. This is the type of guy who got put in power after the Nazi coup.
when Russia invaded Crimea and started that shit in the east?
I'm afraid you've been taken for a fool here. That's not what happened. Independent Crimea invited Russia in to protect its citizens from the Nazi pogroms that had already started directly after the coup. Here you can read the people who live there's polling. Around 15% considered themselves to be Ukrainian. Over 50% wanted a union with Russia compared with 17% with Ukraine.
Later a Pew research poll from 2014 found that 91% of Crimeans considered the referendum free and fair, and 88% felt Kyiv should accept the results.
Something doesn’t fit here.
Indeed. You should be annoyed at the people who lied to you.
Russia invaded Ukraine. Not the US, not NATO, not the EU, not China, not the bogeyman: it was Russia.
The USA overthrew Ukraine's democracy and popularised a Nazi based ultranationalism. Not Russia or anyone else.
You should stop painting Russia as if they are a bunch of amateurs that can’t control themselves. They weren’t baited or provoked. They looked at the political situation in Ukraine and made the decision to invade, twice. Putin isn’t a moron, so presenting him as being played by the US or having no other choices makes no sense.
This again is just a product of propagandising and manipulation. I understand it's hard to accept the scale of the lies, I really do. But accept it you must if you want to consider yourself to be a rational well informed person.
What would it take for me to convince you? A confession from the head of NATO or something?
Well you're in luck. Stoltenberg confessed a couple of days ago.
During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.
In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders — including the United States. That’s why so many western analysts and officials spent years warning that NATO’s actions were going to provoke a war, and yet when war broke out we were slammed with a tsunami of mass media propaganda repeating over and over and over again that this was an “unprovoked invasion”.
What’s happening is the consequence of a country invading another in order to expand their borders. Anyone (and I mean anyone) doing that should pay a heavy price so they learn the lesson.
What's happening is that the US has gotten its latest war that it's been pushing for for decades. It's always the USA, always has been, except this time, right?
A few points:
0:
First things first:
- Russia invaded Ukraine.
- They can stop the war at any time they want.
1:
The peace terms Russia offers is the equivalent of me telling you that I'm going to beat the shit out of you if you don't give me a room of your house and stop talking to your neighbours. Obviously you won't accept my terms, not because you want to fight with me, but because my terms are not acceptable to you.
I really fail to see why would anyone support these type of invasions where one side just annexes land because they can. Would you support it too if it was the US? I wouldn't.
2:
The "little green men" - later confirmed by Putin to be Russian - were not invited by anyone. A group of people inviting someone to annex them is also not a justification for an invasion. That's not how international law works nor would you accept that justification from other countries.
If it walks like and invasion and quacks like an invasion, then it's an invasion. Let's not pretend otherwise. Putin's own version of history even justifies all this because it's all "Russian land" anyway.
3:
I really don't like Nazis, Ukrainians or not. The problem with invading because of them is that Russia has the same type of crowd, which following the logic promoted people like you means that any country can now invade Russia, as they also have a "nazi problem", not only in political parties, but also in Ultra groups and "philosophers". Well, unlike you, I don't think we should be invading countries because they have some ultra nationalistic groups... so I'm not going to support any invasion of Russia either.
I'd also like to remind you that the far right party had less than 2% of the votes in the 2019 election. If less than 2% is a signal that the country is full of nazis, then maybe I don't know how % work.
The now very famous Azov Battalion (thanks Russia for creating some martyrs, like wtf?) was created in May 2014. What's the context though? In February, Russia took over Crimea and started shit in the east, confirmed by people like Igor Girkin. The bloated, weak, and corrupt Ukrainian army was shitting their pants and the usual groups got together to fight. It wasn't only the far right though, you even had far left anarchists doing the same. I don't know why this is a surprise... who's going to stand and fight if not those with more extreme views?
4:
I don't know if the USA was behind the coup, in any case, with Russia's interventions in Belarus and Kazakhstan that seems to be acceptable from their point of view.
What I know is things went to shit when the then president Viktor Yanukovych did a 180º turn on the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement and decided to do an agreement with Russia instead. Maybe you'll blame the US for that decision, I don't know, but that's when the protests, Maidan, etc, happened.
In any case, Ukraine had laws and the new government and elections followed that law. It's just what it is, we don't have to like it. And it's certainly none of Russia's business.
5:
NATO had an open door policy from the start. I know this, you should know this, and Putin certainly knows this. The policy doesn't change. Nor it should change. We don't tell Russia's CSTO to change their rules, they don't tell us to change our rules. It's simple to understand.
Ukraine has been trying to join NATO from the early 2000s. Are they in NATO? No, of course they are not. The chances of me joining NATO today are higher than Ukraine's chances in 2014, yet Russia did what they did.
Russia invaded Ukraine, but not because NATO kept repeating the same "we will consider any application" talk they've been repeating from the start. Nothing changed. Russia started a war - not NATO - and as grown ups they also need to accept the consequences of their decisions.
6:
because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders
I thought it was because of the Nazis? And I'm sorry, where's the "great power" here?
Reminds me of the UK after WW2. Still acting like they were rich, powerful, and had an empire. Russia needs to have a good look at themselves. They are not the Soviet Union or are in the US or China's league. We all need a reality check sometimes, hopefully this will be theirs.
Also, and while with many differences and a weird past, not even during the Cuban missile crisis did the US invaded Cuba. Shit only almost hit the fan because of the nukes, not because Soviet troops were there... and they were there for a long time before that.
7:
What’s happening is that the US has gotten its latest war that it’s been pushing for for decades. It’s always the USA, always has been, except this time, right?
Chechnya, Georgia... yes, it must be always the US forcing Russia to start wars. It's never Russia's fault, the poor guys just can't control themselves and have to wage war on everyone around them.
Next we'll blame any war in the Pacific on the US too when China decides to occupy some random island that doesn't belong to them, because of course China was "forced" to be aggressive. Their claims over the south china sea that overlap territorial waters of other countries? All the US fault! Can't you see they are being oppressed for gods sake!!!! /s
It's always everyone else's fault. The US should start doing the same. Vietnam? It's all the Soviet's fault. Iraq? I don't know, maybe blame Iran or something 🤷♂️. I'm joking, they shouldn't do that.
What about taking responsibility for our actions? Russia decided to invade Ukraine. No need to be so defensive about it, they started the war, it's them that crossed the border in 2014 and 2022. The way some of you talk it's as if Ukraine/NATO/US invaded Russia, but no, Russia did it.
[I'd really like to continue this conversation about how Russia is totally blameless for the war they started (lol), but I have more important things to do. I'll leave the thread here.]
Next we’ll blame any war in the Pacific on the US too when China decides
I didn't read the rest but this jumped out just as I was scrolling by. Behold comrades, pure zombie NPC.
I’d really like to continue this conversation about how Russia is totally blameless for the war they started (lol), but I have more important things to do. I’ll leave the thread here.
"I really am terrified of a discussion about this but I'm typing up a shitload of Nazi apologia anyway and then running away."
Even Russia has issues with China's claims:
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-breaks-silence-china-map-disputed-islands-1823983
But sure, keep blaming the US for China's actions. Poor China, also being forced into doing this.
Regarding the "Nazi apologia", what part of "don't invade someone else's country" don't you understand? Tankies gonna tankie, I guess.
Every single country in the region has disputed claims. Every one.
Forced into doing what? Beating the US at everything? Maybe go home yanks and look after your starving children? Or your sick who are dying for lack of basic medicine.
Regarding the “Nazi apologia
Oh it's you! So you didn't run away like you promised?
This you?
Russia, as they also have a “nazi problem”,
Trying to both sides Ukraine's Nazism. Pathetic. Tell me, if they only got 2% of the vote, why did your rotten murderous scumbag country put Biletsky into power after your illegal Nazi coup? A guy who's sworn that Ukraine's national purpose is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”?
Indeed, it's normal to have disputed claims, even between China and Russia. But as soon I mentioned China in the south china sea, that "jumped out". If China behaves like dickheads with Russia, it's normal. If they do it in a different region, it's the US' fault.
You hate a country so much that it clouds your view to the point that you criticise said country for doing something (eg: invasions) and then defend another you like (Russia) for doing the exact same thing. "Go home yanks" one second and defend Russia invading other countries the next. And I'm the fucking zombie?
I never left Europe, so I don't know what's that about medicine. I have free healthcare. I'm not a fucking tankie though, you won't see me defending the invasion of other countries like you do.
There's not much to run from to be honest. It's just I have no patience to discuss with people that defend the invasion and annexation of other countries. You want this war, you love it so much that you go around the internet making excuses to justify it, you just lack the balls to admit it. And then, when a country you don't like does the same, you correctly criticise their imperialism and tell them to go home... you're not doing it for the right reasons though, after all you like war when Russia wages it. It's just a general hate of the west that makes you have that reaction.
I really dislike people like you, so, and as soon I submit this comment, I'll do what I should have done when you replied to me: block you.
I'm not going to ask for proof of that coup because I know you don't have it, but let me turn that question around... Would a country with so many nazis remove people like Biletsky from power, only give 2% of the vote to the nazis, and elect a jew (all in 2019)?
You'll probably do some mental gymnastics as you need to hold on to something... I mean, a man needs to sleep at night and if there's nothing to justify this war Russia started, you might reach the conclusion you're just a bad person that likes to see big countries invading, annexing, and killing people (as long it's Russia doing it!).
Ta ta and farewell.
Indeed, it’s normal to have disputed claims, even between China and Russia. But as soon I mentioned China in the south china sea, that “jumped out”. If China behaves like dickheads with Russia, it’s normal. If they do it in a different region, it’s the US’ fault.
Yes, exactly. Russia share a border. The US is a country on the other side of the planet. It's already lolworthy that you typed this as your first argument. Why is the US trying to provoke these invasions that you pretend to hate so much?
You hate a country so much that it clouds your view to the point that you criticise said country for doing something (eg: invasions) and then defend another you like (Russia) for doing the exact same thing. “Go home yanks” one second and defend Russia invading other countries the next. And I’m the fucking zombie?
You forgot that only one country is behind these invasions. The USA. It provoked Russia to invade for years. Russia pushed for peace. This is a basic historical reality you're going to have to confront. This is what they're trying to do with Taiwan now.
I never left Europe, so I don’t know what’s that about medicine. I have free healthcare. I’m not a fucking tankie though, you won’t see me defending the invasion of other countries like you do.
You'll defend the USA though? A country that's invaded more that any other in your living memory. Says it all about where you stand and your lack of principles.
It’s just I have no patience to discuss with people
Yet here we are. You don't even agree with yourself.
You want this war, you love it so much that you go around the internet making excuses to justify it, you just lack the balls to admit it.
That's literally you you're describing, trying to justify America's latest war.
And then, when a country you don’t like does the same, you correctly criticise their imperialism and tell them to go home…
So we're agreed after all? The yanks should go home? If they'd done that in 2014 there'd be no war. Looks like this was all a misunderstanding comrade.
I really dislike people like you, so, and as soon I submit this comment, I’ll do what I should have done when you replied to me: block you.
What a coward.
