- 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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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
Imagine not helping your Allies when they’ve been invaded, unprovoked, and are fighting for everything.
To be fair, we tend to take US military help to Europe for granted in retrospect. Both FDR and Churchill fought hard battles at home to ensure the opposition to Nazi Germany, and at the time it is far from obvious that they would succeed. There’s also an element of luck to the fact that we had FDR and Churchill at the helm of these countries in these years - weaker leaders would have crumbled like France.
US military involvement in the postwar era has been a fucking mess, but we (Europeans) are eternally grateful for this - far from obvious - determination to help your allies when they’re being invaded.
Post script since there’s a bunch of Russian shills in this thread: We’re grateful for the efforts of the Red Army as well. The fact that Stalin was happy to cooperate with Hitler all the way until the invasion of the Soviet Union, combined with a common distaste for Soviet postwar policies in many liberated areas, however makes our appreciation of the Soviet political leadership at the time a bit more strained. Soviet military tactics were also inefficient and caused unnecessary suffering and losses within the Red Army - history does repeat itself.
Avengers theme plays
The White House must be angry libs on lemmy then.
They’re angry libs, yes.
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Good thing we listened to a few things Alexis Tocqueville had to say and we don’t simply follow majority opinion on everything, because sometimes the majority is wrong.
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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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
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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.
That famine was an investment in democracy.
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?
I meant pre 2014 conflict though.
the person you replied to was talking about the last 9 years
large scale extermination operations.
How many people do you have to exterminate before it becomes bad?
They can, because hexbear. They’re Russian apologists.
Yeah yeah, I know Hexbear. I don’t agree with their pro-imperialism, but at the same time they are not wrong with their socialist takes.
That’s why it’s worth debating them - they are not inherently evil like fascists are.
In fascists’ defence, they have no theory to fall back on, it’s all just kneejerk reptilian brain brute force and brute words and brute cult of personality. That’s why I am befuddled whenever I see a leftist take an offensive realist perspective :/
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.
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.
NATO is not hostile to russia
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.
So just to reiterate, you are okay with America invading Mexico to enforce its will on them?
Half of Mexico is still under US military occupation, they already have a buffer zone between them.
Mate, it’s not hard.
It’s a yes or no question.
Your question wasn’t for me. And no, USA should give back all the land they stole from Mexico. And until they do that, it’s ridiculous for them to expect Russia to return land that’s populated with Russian ethnics to a fascists state that tried to exterminate them before the war.
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When did the last military coup in Latin America, orchestrated by CIA ,happen? I am not saying that the US is great but at some point, we need to talk about the present. And at the present(and recent past), the US is not trying to overthrow a government, at least not by using military force in Latin America.
As far as the war in Ukraine in concerned, the US is doing the right thing, even if they are doing it because it benefits them. This is the only time since WW2 that the US is doing the right thing. Have you ever wondered why historically neutral countries like Sweden want to join NATO now? What caused that change?
Mexico has every right to join the Warsaw Pact and i would be on Mexico’s and Russia’s side if the US invaded Mexico for wanting to join an alliance.
Now let’s talk about how NATO is threatening Russia. How would that happen? If Ukraine joined NATO, do you think NATO would invade Russia? You do realize that Russia has nukes, right? NATO is not about invading Russia, it’s about preventing Russia, a big country with nukes, from invading smaller countries with no nukes.
In 2014, Brazil, the coup on Dilma Roussef from the Worker’s Party received backing from the USA. In 2018, the unlawful conviction of Lula from the same party, was not only backed but also had strategical support from the USA through instructions on how then judge Sergio Moro should conduct the trial and how he should work with and favour the prosecution, even by the use of fake witnesses and evidence.
They also had the heaviest of hands against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela a few years later.
So the USA never stopped meddling and forcing their way on South America, really.
Did the US deploy military troops in Brazil?
It’s not necessary to have a military base or troops in order to threaten the sovereignty of a country. This is not only a bad faith argument, but it’s incredibly braindead as well.
And if you’re insistent on semantics, yes, the USA deployed troops for a “joint training” with Brazilian troops during (far-right USA backed) Bolsonaro’s government.
The last coup was Bolivia in 2019, unless we’re doing the old it’s not true because it hasn’t been declassified yet shtick
Did the US deploy military troops in Bolivia? You do understand the difference between saying “yeah, we support you” and then local forces do a coup and literally invading and using your own troops to violently overthrowing a government. Dont you think there is a huge difference there?
You know exactly what someone means when they say the US did a coup, stop playing dumb.
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
“How dare ex soviet nations try to ensure their own protection after Russia showed multiple times they like to invade ex soviet nations!”
Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them
Fuck that bully shit. They don’t own Ukraine and Georgia and they can make their own decisions. If Russia wanted a nato buffer zone they should have offered incentive. Look what they got instead…
I remember another time when some dictator wanted a bigger sphere of influence and started occupying other countries. Appeasement didn’t work than and it didn’t work with Russia.
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.
And it’s time to stop the invading shit
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.
So then we agree, America must be defanged at all costs
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.
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.
Ohhhh, I get hexbear now.
Wow, what an amazingly terrible worldview.
“I told you I was going to rob you if you tried to defend yourself, it’s your fault.”
That’s the genesis of the word “tankie”, much misused today: they say they are communist, but then advocate for the law of the strongest and can’t conceive of an alliance that isn’t more than vassalage and sending in the “tanks” against their allies to ensure they don’t fall out of line. That’s why everyone ran away from the Warsaw Pact when it ended whereas NATO endured.
It’s actually appalling how much seething hate they have towards communists
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.
Yes. We don’t need entertain such ideas from who have them
engage with people as people and acknowledge that they very frequently have needs, wants, and desires that cut against your myopic worldview.
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That is certainly a take.
Do you know what the very first action of the coup rada was?
I actually do not, tell me.
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.
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.
Was West Germany an imperial state?
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”
“And that’s all I have to say about that.”
You straight up butchered that straw man
He is in pieces
How could you do this
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
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.
Read Settlers
Siri, what’s imperialism?
Yes, you really should ask her what imperialism is if you don’t think what Russia and China are doing is imperialism.
Imperialism is when china and russia and the more china and russia the imperialister it is
Siri please help the red fash tankies keep telling me to read Lenin.
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.
Feel like clawing your eyes out?
So, why didn’t Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
They both started from the bottom, right?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Are these nazis in the room with us right now?
no they’re not here. they’re over in ukraine putting up statues of Bandera and wearing nazi symbols all over their military uniforms. were you not listening, or…?
Don’t forget putting the OUN… er… ukrainian trident on that old monument.
And the Blood and Soil flags that are very common.
I mean, you’re not gonna like it, but;
CW: Like over a hundred fotos that all have some kind of Nazi imagery in them, except one where I think they mistook a patch for the 14th Waffen SS Grenadiers 1st Galacian patch because it has similar elements
They’ve been open and pretty frank about their goals. I can explain all the symbols and their history and significance for you if you’d like.
I’m sorry to break it to you but are you aware of the Wagner group that has been fighting for Russia? They’re pretty Nazi as well and yet hexbear keeps cheering for Russia anyway, saying the only way to end the war is to have Ukraine give in to them. For some reason Ukraine has to be the bigger man, but Russia, the actual aggressor, who is also employing Nazi fighters, can’t?
1.) Killing Nazis is not a tit for tat thing. Everyone should kill all the Nazis they can.
2.) Most of us are not cheering for Russia. This is not a sports game. There is not a goodguy and a badguy. The only thing I want out of this war is for the killing to stop and NATO’s hegemonic power diminished. No one is going to “win” this. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Nazis are emboldened and proliferating throughout Eastern Europe. Vast amounts of weaponry have gone missing and will begin being used in terror attacks in the next few years. Much of Ukraine’s last remaining state industries and farmland have been sold off the multinational vultures. The massive infrastructure damage in Ukraine is never going to be repaired. You’re treating this like a movie with a hero and a villain where someone wins and someone loses. That’s not how geopolitics work. The idea that Russia is an “aggressor” shows both ignorance of history and a failure to understand the security concerns of modern states and how conflcit is conducted. So many people have this very naive model un view that the lines on the map are real and you can be sovereign when you don’t have nukes. There’s a studious refusal to engage with the reality that NATO routinely engages in hostile wars of aggression and that countries all over the world will defend themselves from that to the best of their ability, regardless of your concept of morality or rule of law. Russia is intensely aware of what NATO did to Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria. They’re intensely aware of NATOs decades of sabotage and subversion, of death squads and assassins, of coups and coercion. And you can refuse to engage with that or understand it if you want. I can’t force you to acknowledge the world as it really is. But this ridiculous “oh Russia has Nazis so it” s okay that Nazis occupy positions of influence throughout Ukraine" thing is obnoxious. Round up all of Wagner and shoot them. I don’t care. Mercenaries are scum. I don’t care what happens to them. Nazis should be hunted down and killed regardless of where they are, not armed and emboldened.
Your words don’t match your attitude. You guys constantly berate Ukraine and defend Russia, even when it has similar problems. The only actual solution you have is to have Ukraine give up and surrender sovereignty to Russia. The only place I agree with you is that all Nazis are bad.
And Russia is the one who attacked, that makes it the aggressor. Ukraine wasn’t even joining NATO until they made it seem more alluring, and even then their membership is still an open question, so none of that matters. And if NATO did attack Russia, then they would be the aggressor, and I would be arguing against them, because Russia would have the right to defend itself, just like Ukraine does. But it wasn’t. They just wanted territory. You guys also seem to just take Russian propaganda as truth, generally taking their reasons as good faith, claiming genocides against Russian speaking people’s (even though the President is one) just because they specified the official language or saying some Nazi terrorists are a reason to obliterate the country (even though Russia has some, too, as does the US. It doesn’t mean I want someone invading to stop them, destroying my house and shit). It would be like if some terrorists attacked the US and that was used as a reason to obliterate a country, or two. You claim you see the world as it really is, even though Russia didn’t have to attack and none of this had to happen. It reminds me of conservatives who are always telling people on the left to open their eyes and see how the world really is.
I mean you’re here so, kinda yeah
Even some otherwise good regular leftists have absolute dogshit takes on Ukraine. It’s like they’re allergic to even being coincidentally on the same side as the US State Department that they start falling all over themselves to be like “Remember guys, US Bad,” and start like saying that we should be pushing Ukraine to give up territory to appease Russia so they don’t use nukes. When we already know because of Crimea that Putin will almost certainly just regroup and try again if they give him anything.
Yes, I couldn’t understand it, because to most NATO members, NATO is the backbone of their security, but I’ve realised that many lefties’ reaction to NATO is akin to atheists’ emotional-dogmatic view of religion: They’re ever suspicious, never forgive nor forget past crimes, they reject all redeeming qualities and twist themselves to oppose benefitting them at the axiom level.
I would say most leftists (specially the libertarian type), are not on the side of Russia on this.
Tankies have just been really loud with their mental gymnastics lately.
OK so you’re siding with the state dept on Ukraine but when was the last time you agreed with usa foreign policy around the world? Why do you think they’re in any way acting on behalf of anyone in eastern Europe?
I don’t think there’s been another time once in the twenty plus years that I’ve been concerned with politics have I agreed with the position of the state department. But to me that means that I for damn sure am not about to interrupt them when they’re finally for once in my life taking the morally correct action in funding the defense of Ukraine. I’ll save that for when they inevitably get back on their bullshit thanks.
So because the US has pulled a bunch of bullshit over the last several decades they shouldn’t get involved when there is a real evil to fight? That’s a boneheaded take. What if it was actual real Nazis? What if Nazis got ahold of a country in Europe and started invading and putting people into death camps? Should the US just say “I don’t know man, we’ve fucked up in the middle east, south America, and southeast Asia so much we’re just going to sit this out”?
Yes, western imperialism is bad. No, everyone opposed to western imperialism is not necessarily good.
Think of it as broken clock being right twice a day. Think of it however you need to. Russia needs to lose in Ukraine. And if that means the west gets a propaganda “win”, that sucks but just deal with it. Western countries getting egg on their faces isn’t worth letting Russia rape, murder, and steal.
And here it is, perfect example.
Whataboutism
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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 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?
I don’t have the time for the classic tankie “reply with a wall of text and deflections”, I actually have a real job to attend to. But some main points.
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?
Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
Tell me, do you also support Israel’s claims on Palestinian territory?
Do you know what the Russian Federation’s stated causus belli for the invasion is?
Yes.
Do you know what the causis belli for the US’s invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
What do you know?
I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
What you call “reply with a wall of text and deflections” is 90% of the time well informed and sourced discourse, you just dismiss it cause you can’t argue with it.
jokey one-liners: you have no arguments
well-reasoned point: I’m not reading all that, I have a job
Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
Yes? Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
Tell me, do you also support Israel’s claims on Palestinian territory?
Non-sequitor?
Do you know what the causis belli for the US’s invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
… Okay so you know that UA was shelling Donbass and killing people for years, and the Rada was very openly hostile to the Russian speaking Ukrainian minority, right?
I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
Could I get a sticker instead?
Also that’s not a wall of text you dork it’s like 10 sentences.
I don’t have the time for the classic tankie “reply with a wall of text and deflections”
This is literally a deflection to avoid dealing with the (inconvenient) basic facts you should’ve learned before having any opinion on this topic in the first place.
I’ll make it easier for you
I actually have a real job to attend to.
Can’t be that important if you’ve got all this time lose arguments on the internet
reply with a wall of text
And here I thought that the classic tankie reply was low-effort trolling and shitposting.
Tell me, do you also support Israel’s claims on Palestinian territory?
To the degree the Palestinians have used their self determination to say they want to be Israel and not Palestine
You’re really bad at analogies. You shouldn’t lean on them to avoid direct investigation.
You know you’re dealing with a pro-NATO bot when they say stupid boomer jokes like “well I have a job to go to”
Hi bot! 👋
Eli5 that Pluto shit I toned out the Cave hard when I took a philosophy class
This. Is. An. Investment. In. Democracy.
That’s what a win win looks like. No need to be quiet around it. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Now everyone gets to replenish and modernize their weapons, test them in real conditions while making sure Russia gets enough of a bloody nose to not fucking try this shit ever again.
Russia did the ‘fuck around and find out thing’. It was their choice and the only way they can win is by tankies convincing every other country that just saw rape, murder, pillaging and terrorism getting used on another country in Europe by a rabid bear that somehow Russia was justified and should be allowed a free pass. But it’s not working. The rabid bear is rabid, but there’s ways to deal with that.
Because now they makes sure that every country around them is joining the anti rabid bear alliance.
The way the OP framed the article is to create the idea that somehow Russia is good because US military is bad. But that’s a fallacy. The US military is perfectly capable of doing bad shit on behalf of the US, but that does not mean everyone else is good. Sometimes clobbering Nazis is win win and Russia should have know that. Their feeble at reframing may work on Fox brainwashed Republicans who are reduced to “Putins kills gays and is strong so Putin is good”, but it turns out Putin is a cuck taking it into the ass by his own chef.
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.
are we the baddies when the only domestic manufacturing we do is cancer tank shells & child murder bombs?
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.
Fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian
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.
-
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.
-
Ukraine isn’t joining NATO anyways, not anytime soon at least. This is a formalization of the aforementioned neutrality.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Denazification.
Vague
Demilitarization.
Vague
No application to NATO.
Ukraine made that deal when they gave up nukes, Here’s Russia invading anyways
Independence for Luhansk and Donetsk.
No comment, shit’s too complex
Recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
“Just concede the most valuable part of your country as a gesture of good faith”
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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.
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.
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Russia does not want that. That’s the answer.
gottem
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.
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As opposed to the alternative, surrendering to Russia to the last Ukrainian.
This argument assumes that absent US backing Ukraine and Russia would not be at war. Ukraine is not just a pawn between a Russia-US struggle, it’s a state which has asked for assistance in an existential struggle with a much larger authoritarian aggressor. Ukrainians are dying because of Russian aggression, not US backing.
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.
It’s tough to hold an agreement as the only participant
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 openly states that their goal is the elimination of Ukrainian identity. Literally genocide. And here you are being smug about it, believing your edgy contrarian sentiment is justified by the evils of a country which is not even party to the war.
Talk about rent free mind rot.
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?
Yemen?
Tigray
When you’ve lost the plot, deflect
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.
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.
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I wonder if there was a more efficient way of employing people without having executives from the MIC getting almost all the benefit?
it’s not “the quiet part” as you imply. your insinuating that we made this war happen for the reasons he gives. no, context is king. he is merely trying to justify our involvement in the face of criticism. russia has long wanted to grab more countries. putin is a dictator, have you heard? he poisons opponents and attacks other countries to smash them back into his idea of what russia should be.
It’s interesting how the republicans believe in Keynesian economics, but exclusively when it’s applied for feeding the military industrial complex.
In this situation I agree with the need to support Ukraine, but I wish they would make the same realization about infrastructure investments as well.
To all the people not wanting to extend the proxy war against the war crime committing Russians: what do you expect will happen if you stop funding Ukraine defense against war crimes? You think Russians just go home? You think China and North Korea don’t look around at adjacent territories licking their lips? Do you understand what deterrence means?
Before you respond like a tankie that America is an imperialist shithole, America is not the one (this time) committing war crimes, RUSSIA is.
Werent a bunch of reddit brigaders obliterated forgetting to turn off location services posting from their top secret training facility?
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
