How old are your parents? The general rule of thumb is that you need to save 8- or 10-12x your annual income for retirement. If they are anywhere near retirement age they honestly probably couldn’t afford to pay for your college. We don’t know the details of how they blew through that money (they may have moved it to another broker) but even if they still have 600K that could be their entire retirement savings. You can go through that quickly with a major health issue. If you look on the bright side it’s nice that you can always stay with them when you fall on hard times…
Those are good points. I do think the youth doesn’t have the sentimental attachment to the USSR that older Ukrainians would have. It sounds absurd but from what I hear from my Belarusian cousins they are jealous of Poland for being in the EU and they’d prefer to join the EU if it meant giving up their Russian ties. It’s probably similar to how lots of Scottish and Welsh people feel about England.
I guess my main issue with the “they couldn’t possibly side with Europe over Russia because they’re ethnically Russian” is that if Luka were to ever be overthrown by a pro-EU government in Belarus I know my cousins would love that and like most Belarusians they grew up speaking Russian. Many on this site would say that was a CIA plot or that they are brainwashed by Western propaganda but idk their economic outlook is generally pretty shitty over there. One of my cousins made it over here to the US from Belarus and loves it here compared with back home.
People aren’t necessarily 100% loyal to the country that aligns with their ethnicity or native language, that doesn’t really make sense. It wouldn’t surprise me if lots of Ukrainians disliked Yanukovych without the CIA brainwashing them into doing so since it’s probably similar to how plenty of Belarusians hate Luka in a similar way.
I agree that Ukraine is very corrupt and not “fighting for democracy” or whatever the Western media is saying about this war, but is there any chance that Ukrainians wanted to push toward the EU and away from Russia’s economic influence? It’s always taken at face value that the Euromaidan protests were US backed and the protestors were all US/NATO puppets, but what if many of them just didn’t want to be another Russian puppet state like Belarus and wanted to try to increase their standard of living? Not saying I agree with them, both options of moving forward are shitty but the “Russia was provoked” argument only works if the Ukrainians had no autonomy whatsoever and were being controlled by the CIA like puppets.
Otherwise it’s much less justified if Ukraine just wanted to move away from Russia’s influence toward the West on its own accord. Having millennial cousins over in Belarus who hate Luka I wouldn’t be surprised if most millennials in Ukraine truly just opposed Russia and wanted to move away before the invasion. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea is a different situation as that part of the country was much more sympathetic toward Russia but I don’t get why Putin didn’t just ramp up the fighting against separatists there instead of push to Kyiv? Once he brought the invasion to the entirety of Ukraine it can only be justified if he was provoked beyond belief, not just a regional conflict.
I get we are propagandized to an absurd degree in the West but I feel like lots of users here swing too far the other way. I don’t think NATO is as smart as lots of people here might think, Ukrainians wanting to move toward Europe is not even considered as a possibility which seems at the very least to be intellectually dishonest.
According to my Indian-American buddy his Hindutva cousins love Putin and hate the “d3generate” Ukrainians. Very odd massive movement but yeah the invasion has a lot of Hindu nationalist support
So in your view Putin is a rational leader and the “good guy” and Ukrainians are the bad guys for defending their country? I understand the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014 (was bubbling up even before then) but just want to understand how you see things so black and white that way. Are Putin’s stances on gay and trans people pure Western propaganda? Because what I’ve seen him supposedly say is not good to say the least. But maybe I’m just fully propagandized
I agree the quotes sound like Hitler talking about the Jews, it is genocidal rhetoric. Weirdly enough it doesn’t seem like Trump truly hates trans people and he’s even defended them in the past but if the party wanted him to sign a bill ordering the liquidation of all trans people of course he’d do so without hesitation since he doesn’t really have any principles himself. I do think there is a small portion of Democrats who do truly care about trans rights and aren’t just paying lip service but as a whole I get what you’re saying. Thanks for the insights
I get all of that but that doesn’t square with this:
I agree with your friends on the harm reduction nonsense to the extent that I even wonder if more harm has come about under Biden than would have under Trump
I asked one of my friends again who is worse on trans rights Trump or DeSantis and they said Meatball Ron truly wants trans people to no longer exist. Biden himself seems fairly pro-trans rights so even if the Dems suck ass as a whole the guy who literally hates the community is probably more of a threat? I don’t get the opposition toward the harm reduction vote for Sleepy Joe angle. They sent me more stuff DeSantis has said and it’s really next level hate damn.
Thanks I thought it might be around then and there. Very fucked up. Russia has obviously killed far more civilians at this point but I understand the opposite was the case prior to the invasion
I think that’s probably an overreaction compared to a genocide like the Holocaust. All of my leftist friends say voting for Biden/the Dems for “harm reduction” is a fruitless endeavor, if Trump/DeSantis were actually going to genocide the LGBT community I doubt they’d say that since it wouldn’t be very pragmatic. I think both parties are fairly similar in terms of working for capital first and foremost
The first genocide that only Adrian Zenz and he alone has seen evidence of lmao also it trivializes the term because no one seriously suggests invading China over that “genocide”, Americans buy so many goods manufactured in China they’d never in a million years stop the flow of Funkos and clothing from companies like Shein even if they truly believed it was a genocide (and I think most truly don’t, even the most propagandized libs)
Yeah that was a big tell, by this point the SMO quite clearly isn’t about de-nazification or preventing the creep of “gay Western values” in Russia which was another absurd justification Putin trotted out for a few months… like most wars it’s probably about money and resources.
All types of bombs should make you feel this way. I’m pretty sure Russia has been using cluster bombs the entire SMO, now the problem may become twice as bad. The whole war is a disaster
Billionaire on billionaire beef like Elon vs Zuck. Elon is like Putin challenging Elon to a fight, Luka is Elon’s mom calling off the fight saving his ass from further humiliation, and Prigo is Zuck the crazy ass white boy
If it was a Psy Op I don’t think Prigo would say these things:
“The war was not needed to return our Russian citizens and not to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine,” Prigozhin said in the video, claiming it was instead launched to benefit Russian leaders. “The war was needed by oligarchs. It was needed by the clan that is today practically ruling in Russia.”
Prigozhin claimed the goal of the “special military operation,” the official name for the war in Russia, was to install pro-Russian and Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk, who is living in exile in Russia, as president of Ukraine and to divide up the assets of the country.
“They were stealing loads in Donbas, they wanted more,” Prigozhin said, likely referring to the Russian-backed resistance launched in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He also said there was never any plan for Ukraine or the Western security alliance NATO to attack Russia.
Can’t find the direct quotes but that’s a pretty accurate summary of his message when he sent his lads to Moscow. Plus they destroyed more Russian aircraft in a day than Ukraine could ever dream of lol I don’t think Putin is at real risk of losing power over this but I find it hard to believe he’d accept being humiliated like that just for a Psy Op. If Putin was in on it he’d stick to just saying they weren’t getting enough support to execute their tactics properly, not that the entirE SMO was bullshit
When I am tired at the end of the day I often upvote comments and posts without thinking. I’m sure lots of people are like this