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
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.
Avengers theme plays
The White House must be angry libs on lemmy then.
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.
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 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
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
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.
lol, thug ethics. AKA offensive realist geopolitics. The great do what they want and the small accept their fate.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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 😉
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.
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
?
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.
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.
NATO and BRICS are just not comparable? Like… they’re both acronyms I guess.
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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.
Edit: I forgot to mention that this would also be impossible in Ukraine-held areas. Zelensky has banned all left-wing opposition parties. Oddly enough the right-wing parties were all left alone, including the far-right Svoboda party.
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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.
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.
“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…
It’s amazing how much they support imperialism when it’s “their people” doing it.
That’s because you don’t understand what imperialism means. US/EU capital is looting and exploiting the former socialist block and controlling it through western capitalist media, NGOs, and military bases. That’s imperialism. The Russians preventing Nazis from doing ethnic cleansing along their border and demanding not to be threatened with a gun to the head is not imperialism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
The west forced Ukraine to defend itself?
Were they supposed to welcome the Russians with open arms?
I believe they mean by continuously sabotaging peace accords and talks
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”
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.
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.
Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
So if the US has a fleet statinoned in another contry’s territory, should they just be allowed to take it?
Non-sequitor?
What don’t you follow?
Do you also support US-backed countries to take territory as they see fit? Or does that only apply to countries you like?
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?
A Russian-backed separatist group starts a conflict and Ukraine responds.
Does Ukraine not have the right to defend their territory?
Could I get a sticker instead?
You can get some crayons to munch on.
Does Ukraine not have the right to defend their territory?
Do eastern ukrainians have a right not to be ethnically cleansed?
jokey one-liners: you have no arguments
well-reasoned point: I’m not reading all that, I have a job
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.
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.
This whole “unlike you tAnKiEs I have a job” thing just makes you look insecure and childish.
You know that, right?
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.
You straight up butchered that straw man
He is in pieces
How could you do this
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.
Yeah, clearcut good is when a government starts building monuments to Holocaust perpetrators, and banning minority languages including Yiddish, followed by a decade of bombing ethnic minorities in a border region.
Democracy is when you ban all left-leaning parties in your country and burn a hall full of trade unionists alive, and the more parties you ban and trade unionists you burn alive the more democratic you are. I don’t see what’s so hard for these tankies to get!!
The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia
What?
Euromaiden!?!??? Like a major defining moment in Ukrainian history!
The one where NATO backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine? That seems like the opposite of fighting to get out from under foreign thumb
The one that happened because their leader was passing laws making him a dictator and violently putting down protesters leading to more protests causing him to flee. Also any support came after that was over, not before.
See, if he were a legitimate leader he would have let the west supplant him in a violent coup WITHOUT reacting to it. That makes it justified post hoc.
You have to let the nazis march. It’s the rules.
So people in their country should never fight if their leader is working to surpress their rights and become a dictator. They just have to wait for elections that will never be fair again if they even happen. Also he did react to it by fleeing, Putin is not the leader of Ukraine, he has no business reacting to anything.
Putin did march his nazies into Ukraine after that if that’s what you mean.
You’re commenting on an article explicitly saying the US isn’t sending weapons for the purpose of defending Ukraine…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn’t even mind extending the war so much if there was any attempt to have some good faith peace negotiations to at least entertain a chance at peace??? Russia has always been up for peace talks, Ukraine/the West has not. In fact I am still often shouted down if I so much as say that all sides should be discussing the possibility of peace.
I agree Russia bad and should not be doing an awful invasion, but there is also a much wider context to their invasion that involves Ukraine refusing to give its eastern regions a vote on their own future and bombing civilians for 8 years. This war was very far from inevitable, even without giving Russia any major concessions.
Russia can unilaterally end the war by leaving Ukrainian territory. They choose to extend the war because they want land and resources.
And have NATO 500 miles from Moscow and all of Russia’s industry? That would be suicidal, Everyone remembers Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.
Are you saying that Russia should leave the Donbas region and leave those people to be subjugated by the undemocratic Ukrainian gov that’s been indiscriminately murdering them for 8 years???
Hate Russia if you want but why do you hate the people of Donbas?
you think north korea is annexing ukraine??? what planet are you living on
You think China and North Korea don’t look around at adjacent territories licking their lips
North Korea only borders SK and China. It has never invaded another country. China hasn’t invaded another country since 1979 and since then Vietnam and China have peacefully resolved their land border dispute.
Before you respond like a tankie that America is an imperialist shithole, America is not the one (this time) committing war crimes, RUSSIA is.
America is committing war crimes right now. The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime. America’s comprehensive sanctions which it has applied to several countries constitute collective punishment and are hence a war crime.
Condemning the Russian invasion shouldn’t mean white washing the world’s largest perpetrator of state terrorism.
Sanctions are not collective punishment, and war crimes only exist in the context of war.
Also, the DPRK did invade the RoK, that’s what started the Korean War.
Also also, China has reserved a spot on its equivalent of the National Mall for when it takes Taiwan back.
China definitely cares about how well Russia’s invasion of Ukraine goes, because of the many geopolitical parallels it would have with it invading Taiwan.
Sanctions are not collective punishment
DPRK did invade the RoK
The RoK was doing genocide and had been recognized as the gov’t of all of Korea in the UN due to the US’s machinations, a gov’t whose election was rigged in the south, and absent in the north. The elections the north arranged were of course, ignored.
The DPRK saw that their position was unsustainable and struck while they still stood a chance. The war started when the people of the DPRK were faced with an existential threat.
Which is kind of similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but nobody here is gonna pretend Russia are the good guys, just that they’re fighting a greater evil.
Also also, China has reserved a spot on its equivalent of the National Mall for when it takes Taiwan back.
Do you think the RoC can feasibly remain independent forever?
Eventually either PRC is gonna be able to make them a better deal than what the failing American empire can, or they’ll make long-term peaceful integration infeasible, necessitating short-term, violent integration.
What are sanctions if not collective punishment? The entire point of sanctions is to make the average person’s life worse, with the idea that this will somehow cause them to rise up and overthrow their government. That’s the very definition of collective punishment.
Those inscrutable asiatics are licking their lips! Something must be done!!!
Axis of Evil ganggggg
your analysis is completly of as it starts from a Propaganda Tainted cartoonishly Ill Informed Postion…
Russia Reacted , Its the Ukrainian Warcrimes thats the Issue here ! How can you Start this story from 2022 … its a crime against rational thinking , Chronology , Human Civilisation … Unserious Analyss based on the uncritical repetion of irrational claimes by the World greates Liars …
According to Russia, they started it all in 2014 by invading Crimea. They initially denied it, but then even Putin himself said that the Little Green Men were their special forces. People like Igor Girkin said he was commanding militias in Crimea and later in the Dombas and that they were composed of Russians and some Ukrainians. That’s what Russia says, so there’s no point in even trying to deny it.
There was no Azov before the invasion. There was no war crimes. There was no famine. There was no shelling. No ceasefire violations. It started when Russia made the decision to invade Ukraine.
Maybe you want to go further back? How far back? How about 1994 and the Budapest Memorandum where Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s borders?
Wait, I know, you’ll blame NATO. Care to explain why countries want to give some of their military freedom away just to join NATO? What is nice Russia doing or saying that makes them want to join? Could it be something to do with the regular comments about invading their countries or nuking their cities? And do you really think that a weak, bloated, and corrupt military (a fair description of pre-2014 Ukraine military) was going to be allowed into NATO (and we’re the ones falling for propaganda)? I’d also like to know your opinion about CSTO.
Russia decided to invade Ukraine to expand their territory. That’s why Putin gave that long history lesson days before the invasion (the one that was not going to happen and was an American lie!). It’s was all there, for those who actually listened to it.
If you want to support them, then do it, but at least grow up a pair and stop using bullshit excuses to support your position.
I’ve watched the lecture. He makes some good points, but there are also some flaws with his positions. I recommend doing a quick “googling” for articles with counter points.
Russia is not governed by amateurs that are easily baited into invading a country. They decided to force Ukraine to align with them and when that didn’t work, they decided to invade in 2014. The decision and responsibility is theirs.
It’s a bit like blaming the Soviet Union or China for the Vietnam war because they were “expanding” communism or something like that. It makes no sense.
i’m aware of the counter points
Russia is not governed by amateurs that are easily baited into invading a country
this was a bit surprising to read because if i spend 10 minutes in reddit i’ll leave thinking russians are governed by absolutely inept people who can’t do anything right and always fall for the silliest of cebolinha do pix zelensky’s schemes
and it wasn’t a “bait”, that’s a silly way of looking at it; in the neo-realist view it makes perfect sense that russia would see ukraine as an existential threat after the nato mistake was made, and that war would become inevitable if things escalated - as mearsheimer predicted more than a decade ago in other discussions
ukraine, in practical terms, has been disputed territory in terms of political influence since the fall of the ussr. but before the threat of nato, and the repeated breaking of the non-expansion promise, there was no sign that an invasion like this would ever happen
It’s a bit like blaming the Soviet Union or China for the Vietnam war because they were “expanding” communism or something like that. It makes no sense.
now you’re being disingenuous, vietnam doesn’t share a literal border with america. we should be able to blame the soviets for a mexican war if they attempted to bring mexico into a military alliance in the 80s or something, and the US would be absolutely right to see said alliance as an existential threat because it would be
it’s ok to think that russia deserves an existential threat for whatever reason, such as, i don’t know, “putin bad” (though of course i wouldn’t say he’s as bad as any american president, at least he has never been such for my country). but denying that russia’s change into a bellicose attitude was predictable and avoidable by sane geopolitics is just denying reality at this point
I don’t know what reddit is saying about Russia, but the “poor Russia, couldn’t help themselves and had to invade” doesn’t convince me. They made a calculated move which didn’t go as well as they expected. It happens sometimes.
NATO had an “open-door” policy from the start. Russia knows this, so unless we really think everyone over there is really dumb, they knew that NATO’s “sure, maybe we’ll let you in sometime in the future” meant little. Ukraine was trying to join since the early 2000’s and the reply was always the same… Ukraine wasn’t going to join NATO in 2014, like zero chance. I recommend reading about the state of their forces, corruption, etc, at the time. What changed was that Yanukovych was going to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, something that most of Ukraine supported (if we’re to trust polls and look at the reaction when he unexpectedly changed his mind) while Russia wanted Ukraine to do the same agreement with them instead.
The existential threat… I don’t know. Do you really think that their “existential threat” is now higher that Finland joined NATO (because of Russia’s actions)? Estonia is fine, but Ukraine is makes that “existential threat” much, much worse? And who the hell is going to start a war in Russia when they have capacity to reply to normal attacks and will, without a doubt, use their nukes if invaded? Does NATO now have a death wish or something like that?
I keep reading about that non expansion promise… again, I guess you all think Russians are dumb and got verbal assurances thinking that it’s the same as having them in writing. In any case, Russia doesn’t own eastern Europe, many countries have made clear they don’t want to be under their thumb or be part of their country. If Russia doesn’t like this, well, though luck. A reality check would also help here… they’re not the USSR.
The Vietnam example wasn’t a good one, but my point is that if we start finding excuses to justify wars, well, we can, but it never ends and it’s never our fault.
The US has some history with Cuba… but the only time when there was a really serious reaction wasn’t when Castro became friends with the Soviet Union… it was when nukes were deployed in Cuba (partially their fault, after deploying theirs in Turkey). Russia invaded Ukraine because they were winking at the EU and NATO… like, they didn’t even kiss!
I know why they invaded, but I also believe in taking responsibility for one’s actions. We can talk about moral responsibility, but at the end of the day Russia invaded Ukraine and therefore they are responsible for the war they started.
deleted by creator
Fuck russia but do we really need to be supporting a proxy war at the moment? Why is Ukraine so important to us?
Because we promised to help them, and Ukraine deserves independence.
We supply Saudi Arabia with missiles that hit school busses, we should at least also help protect a democracy from being re-colonized.
Putin’s Russia is cruel and exploitative. The best thing we can do as a world leader is help a smaller country stand up for itself.
We’re not a world police and shouldn’t be acting like this and we very suspiciously only help very specific countries enforce their independence
Fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian
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
???
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?
‘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.
The real question is why does russia want to kill Ukrainians to the last Ukrainian.
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.
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.
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.
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Ukraine haw a very serious Nazi problem that liberals everywhere recognized right up until it became inconvenient for the war narrative. The Nazi problem is part and parcel of the civil war and failure to abide by Minsk II, as those Nazis were the tip of the spear against ethnic Ruasians in Donbas. Disempowering and jailing Nazi war criminals shouldn’t be controversial.
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Russia wants to prevent encirclement and to treat Ukraine as a neutral buffer. Given NATO’s advancements despite the fall of the Soviet Union, this demand is already a half-measure. Ukraine being militarized and used as a Western forward military base is not something Western countries would tolerate if the roles were reversed.
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Ukraine isn’t joining NATO anyways, not anytime soon at least. This is a formalization of the aforementioned neutrality.
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Independence of Luhansk and Donesk is a demand that says, “you couldn’t abide Minsk II and that leaves this as the only option”. Ukraine and their Western masters had nearly a decade to democratically deal with the breakaway states per their own agreements and chose to instead ramp up a civil war targeting ethnic Russians right on Russia’s border. The failure od the status quo ans the West’s ability to follow their own rules is the proximal issue Russia is reacting to.
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Ukraine isn’t getting Crimea back. This is a formalization that would simply amount to normalizing relations in peacetime.
Those terms are obviously so Russia can keep conquered territories while removing Ukraine’s ability to defend itself so Russia can take the whole thing in a few years.
Russia could take the whole thing any time they wanted to, lol. They have complete air superiority and a much more powerful arsenal and manpower and tactics. They could do the American thing - the NATO thing - and destroy the rest of the country, targeting Kyiv and civilian infrastructure en masse. Instead, they are choosing a war of attrition that achieves many of their objectives without just rolling over the whole country.
Neutrality is far safer for Ukrainians and always was. A neutral Ukraine wouldn’t have been invaded by Russia in the first place.
Also there was no ethnic cleansing, no idea where you’re getting that.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like… at all. It’s been going on since 2013/2014. Please educate yourself on the derussification efforts undertaken by Ukraine targeted at ethnic Russians as well as their ruthless targeting of the Donbas.
The baltics joined NATO like 15 years ago and Ukraine’s application was denied so there’s none of that either
None of what?
And even if both were true those terms mean annexation for Ukraine in the future so in no way acceptable.
Ukraine is already not a sovereign state, lol. Their political leadership was chosen by Nuland et al behind closed doors as part of Euromaidan. Neutrality would actually be the most sovereign they have any chance of being, toyed with through economic courtship rather than couped and destroyed.
And again, Russia can annex Ukraine wherever it wants to. Most of it, at least. Poland would probably claim Western Ukraine for itself with various bullshit excuses.
- It had some nazies prior to about 2020. Not even close to the amount of nazies Russia has though so that’s a meaningless point.
- The countries joining NATO are joining because Russia keeps threatening them. If Russia just wanted a neutral zone they should really stop invading their neighbours. Georgia and Ukraine got invaded and Russia is doing a proxy war in Moldova as well so it seems the only thing causing NATO advancement is Russia.
- Except they also demanded demilitirization. So no allies or self defence.
- One if the points of that agreement to even take effect was that Russia removed their troops from the regions which they never did.
- They may now, depending on how the war goes.
No idea what these points are other than just lies. Russia has never had complete air superiority and definitely doesn’t now. Russia is targeting civilians constantly, like the largest mass graves in recent history were found in territories takes back from Russia. As for the equipment and manpower: Like Russia is rolling out museum pieces as tanks I have no idea where you are getting this info from. They do have more manpower since they are conscripting like everyone.
None of that was in reference to NATO encirclement. As in it was already encircled 15 years ago and Ukraine wasn’t joining NATO.
The political leadership Nuland ‘selected’ was the leader of the opposition party that was going to be in power anyways. That’s like some foreign politician saying they really like the reform party in Estonia to win after they already got the most votes.
Can’t find any ethnic cleansing done in Ukraine outside the Tatars by the Soviet union.
I’m guessing you mostly watch Russian state media since absolutely no one else thinks Russia could just take Ukraine if they wanted at this point. I’d suggest going to some other sources.
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Millions of fellow human beings are constantly dying, being severely injured, or displaced. You fucking ghoul.
Russians can just leave Ukraine, you know? If they don’t, they deserve every single death. Poor Ukrainians, though.
Iirc the main thing preventing Russian troops from pulling back to their border is the Russian commanders that won’t let them
who and what
?
You don’t know who Hideo Kojima is?
am i expected to
He’s kind of a household name in videogames so it’s unusual not to know.
I mean if you don’t play many videogames it’s not unusual.
Sure but that’s like 50-60% of western populations and 36% of global so. Not sure about america specifically but I know the european figure off the top of my head and it’s 51%, my gut assumption would be the US is higher?
I do play video games but not particularly those video games. I long forgotten the name of Hideo Kojima which i play like one game 25 years ago and i didn’t even liked it.
Oof. Ruskie shills all up in these comments.
It’s really sad when the Russian shills are so good that you can’t even think of a rebuttal
lol like I’d waste my time.
God forbid you organize your thoughts to the point they’re coherent. Then you could just have a copypasta ready to go. But for some reason you can’t even find one someone else wrote for you.
you’re posting on lemmy, its all a waste of time
I can understand other arguments as to why we should be funding the war. But this one is a parable of the broken window. We could have been paying Americans to make more useful things than weapons; it’s still a net loss.
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.
The US obviously doesn’t care but the aid is helping Ukraine keep it’s independence and even if US pulled out Europe would continue it’s support. Like Poland is amping up ammo production to the point where it alone can supply Ukraine with ammo. Ex-soviet countries fucking hate Russia for a good reason. Also even if Ukraine got no support it’s not like they would stop fighting, they would just be slaughtered and occupied by the Russians which is the worst outcome for them considering what’s going on in the occupied regions. Like for once the US military is not doing something completely morally reprehensible and is actually opposing imperialism for once, that’s a good thing.
Sorry to break it down to you but if your safety DEPENDS from foreign weapon aids, you’re anything but independent.
More independant than an annexed country.
Goalpost:moved
That was kind of a joke as there are like 5 countries who produce all their weapons locally.
Goalpost:moved again
He said Ukraine’s safety depends on foreign weapon aids
Other nations buy weapons. Ukraine only exists as long as it can continue to successfully beg for weapons.
You sure do like your goalposts…
I’m pretty sure the US at least is providing weapons in the form of a loan so they are buying their weapons too.
Also begging for weapons seems a bit more dignified than having your army steal washing machines and build the electronics of your equipment out of those.
- Ukraine isn’t independent, they got coup’ed by US-backed Nazis and libs and they’re now a vassal of the US empire.
- Most European countries would immediately follow the US, as they always do.
- The whole of NATO cannot send enough ammo right now, and you think Poland can do it all on its own soon? What are you on about?
- No they didn’t. Their president made a play to become a dictator and failed. Any support for euromaidan outside Ukraine happened after.
- Maybe Germany but no earthly force can stop support from the baltics and Poland that hate Russia with a passion due to their bloody rule during the soviet occupation and current antagonism from Russia.
- They can’t send enough arms that Ukraine can use. More modern stuff requires training Ukraine doesn’t have and most places aren’t producing old equipment so what’s sent is stuff is stockpile. More training is being done to modernize the equipment but that takes time. Also Poland just wants to produce the ammo, not everything and it was just one example.
the baltics
I’ve lived in cities with a much larger population than all of the Baltics. What, exactly, are three medium sized suburbs going to do against Russia?
Have an actual military instead of a meat grinder disguised as one.
Wait did you just said Baltics have actual military? Compared to… Russia? All of them combined have less that 50000 active military personnel with pretty weak armament and basically nonexisting navy and airforce (all three combined have literally zero combat airplanes).
🤡
use your words
Why waste time say lot word when emoji do trick?
🤓
Manichean views don’t explain enough, although they do create engagement, which may be the primary goal.
A less angry explanation is that it is all of that at the same time. They want to help Ukraine’s democracy, weaken a historical authoritarian enemy and feed their military–industrial complex. It’s a balance of all of that in the interest of the people that elected them, like in any democracy. If something gets out of balance, yes they will probably retract their support before it hurts their country in some way, like any other country would. It’s just Realpolitik.
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.
Feeding the MIC is a bipartisan effort, never forget that.
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
Mitch may be crap, but here he is just trying to get ahead of Republicans who would rather leave Ukraine high and dry. He may give zero fucks about human lives but not as bad as the Russians who have no problem committing war crimes on a daily basis.
Fact is that for less than 3% of the DOD budget we get the result of the loss of over 50% of the military strength of one of our top geopolitical foes. Plus, it will take them at least a decade to rebuild it.
No one asked Russia to invade Ukraine and disrupt world order. Russia doesn’t seem to want to negotiate. Why would you want Ukraine to give up?
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.
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
And why shouldn’t he?
Not a single lib will change their minds after hearing this.
deleted by creator
Not a single lib will change their minds after hearing this.
Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine? What opinion are they not going to change?
Opposed? Liberals are fully on board with endless war in Ukraine. It’s a bipartisan consensus.
Ya that’s my understanding was well. Which is why I asked the question.
Your question was: Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine?
The answer is no. I dunno what to tell you.
This thread is evidence of it. The quiet part gets shouted and rather than accepting that this is what MLs have been saying for two years, the libs are doubling down. Will they now accept the truth behind the quip, ‘To the last Ukrainian?’ Not a chance. Oblivious.
Liberals are just as bloodthirsty as their fashy counterparts, they just need to have their own slightly different words for why it is okay.
It took like 6 months for mainstream liberals to feel 100% comfortable thinking of Russians as subhuman monsters deserving of any and all violence, dredging up old-school orientalist tropes, and celebrating snuff videos, making special exception for them so long as they are accompanied by a little story about how it’s happening to Russians. A random Russian civilian got attacked by a shark in Egypy and liberals were rah-rahing for the shark.
Liberals will be pro-war until their corporate masters tell them not to be. Then, like with Iraq, they might pretend they werw anti-war the whole time.
russia can end this whenever they want by restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, if they think the US is benefiting so much from it at their expense. The US is just making it much harder for russia to reach its maximalist goals: to conquer Ukraine. One of those is a war crime, the other one is supporting international law.
Alright but what would guarantee Russia’s safety after they do that? It’s obviously not in their interest. What they want is to negotiate a peace treaty, which is why they are holding their defense line so strongly until their opponents are exhausted.
What I heard were rumors that the “UN” could sort of hold Ukraine’s occupied territories “in escrow” as a DMZ buffer, but it’s not a final solution (we know how these handovers have turned sour in the past), because eventually you’d have to divide it, or create a new country…the essential is that russia does not get rewarded for its aggression with territory to brag about in the history books and that there is no chance that any native pro-russian Ukrainian in the buffer zone suffers reprisals…
those territories are independent republics that have been embroiled in a civil war with Kyiv for 9 years. Ukraine’s fascist factions within the military have been shelling those republics in violation of multiple peace treaties that have been signed over the past 9 years. securing the independence of those regions is Russia’s entire pretext for invading - in response to requests for military aid from said republics.
I could even imagine a scenario where if they had become independent republics, russia parked tanks there and said: “peace now”, it could have worked, but Putin got greedy. Then to pile on the catastrophic stubbornness, russia annexed parts of them, plus parts of 2 other oblasts in mock referendums that nobody recognizes. There is no defense, it’s a land grab and a clumsy one at that.
can you see how if you were living in those cities and multiple peace treaties were violated, that you might prefer joining the larger power that speaks your language to remaining at the mercy of death squads that howl for your blood?
If you speak russian and you want to move to russia and you like daddy putin’s policies, you always could join Russia: they’ll give you a passport and welcome you with open arms, nobody is stopping you, they have plenty of space and can use the manpower.
International law is when you support a government coup to replace the pro-Russia government with a pro-EU/pro-NATO government.
International law is when russia does not annex Crimea because of the unfavourable internal affairs of its neighbour. You know, your power ends at “these” borders and from there to here you can’t threaten the Ukrainian President.
The coup government illegally removed the previous president, so they don’t get to complain when Crimea illegally votes to join Russia.
Yea, well, did you hear about how the President escaped and the Parliament voted to destitute him. And when you invade Crimea to do a mock referendum, that’s awesome international law. Not even Iran and China recognize the annexation of Crimea, because you can’t invade a country and referendum an annexation unilaterally.
The parliament had no constitutional authority to vote to expell him without an impeachment hearing, which he never got. It was an illegal move.
The referendum in Crimea is as legitimate as the acting president of Ukraine.
Someone from my state recently died fighting for Ukraine. I live in New England. I guess we aren’t American?
I think you know what he meant, or are you claiming that the “someone” was part of a secret US military program and died in action?
