Yeah, non-trans women don't enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren't born men in physically competitive sport lol.
It doesn't take years long studies to understand a woman who transitioned well into or after puberty is still built more physiologically man than women. We will still need data about those who transitioned early and before onset. When a man transitions into being a woman then wipes the floor with every one of her peers, there's something wrong.
You either need mixed gender sport. Male only, and female only. The regulations regarding each will have to be arbitrarily chosen until a good spot is found.
Mental sports that take near zero physical strength should have zero separations between the genders though.
It was great when women started wiping the floor with men at Shooting lol.
Given that the percentage difference between medal placings at the elite level is normally less than 1%, there must be confidence that an elite transwoman athlete retains no residual advantage from former testosterone exposure, where the inherent advantage depending on sport could be 10–30%. Current scientific evidence can not provide such assurances and thus, under abiding rulings, the inclusion of transwomen in the elite female division needs to be reconsidered for fairness to female-born athletes.
When a male athlete transitions to female, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which governs college sports, requires a year of hormone-suppressing therapy to bring down testosterone levels. The N.C.A.A. put this in place to diminish the inherent biological advantage held by those born male.
Ms. Thomas followed this regimen.
But peer reviewed studies show that even after testosterone suppression, top trans women retain a substantial edge when racing against top biological women...
Testosterone levels are crucial but do not invariably predict performance in every sport.
“I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me,” she said in an interview. “I’ve reconsidered my opinion.”
The council said they ultimately decided to prioritize "fairness and the integrity" of the female competition over inclusion.
The World Athletics Council plans to form a working group to consider the issue of transgender inclusion over the next year. The committee will speak with transgender athletes to seek their perspective, review research on the matter and submit recommendations to the council.
However, we do have evidence - we have 13 studies that show significant retained advantage. We have a number of other studies of males with lower testosterone levels with prostate cancer, we know what happens with training, and so I think collectively the picture is quite strong to suggest that advantages are retained.
So I would be quite confident at this point that a policy that regulates women's sport by excluding male advantage, which includes trans women, is the evidence-based one.
In this study, we confirmed that use of gender affirming hormones are associated with changes in athletic performance and demonstrated that the pretreatment differences between transgender and cis gender women persist beyond the 12 month time requirement currently being proposed for athletic competition by the World Athletics and the IOC.10 This study suggests that more than 12 months of testosterone suppression may be needed to ensure that transgender women do not have an unfair competitive advantage when participating in elite level athletic competition.
Responded to a comment above yours with sources etc. There’s no good reason to exclude trans athletes from sports. Benefits diminish to a negligible point after ~2 years of hormone therapy. I do agree with you that the chess thing is ridiculous though
I've also went and provided numerous and a variety of sources, direct studies, and reputable news sites disagreeing with the nearly decade old science the ALWAYS RIGHTEOUS OLYMPIC COMMITTEE based their decision on from an apparently single cherrypicked study in 2015?
I'd agree it looks like a 2 year wait requirement is a much better factor than the current single year though. Until then though, it needs changed. Then we will need more refuting the current I've linked above which shows pretty handily across the board that MtF athletes retain advantages well after a year and longer.
Yeah, non-trans women don't enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren't born men in physically competitive sport
Some sports just have totally dominant competitors. I don't think all the men who lost to Michael Phelps enjoyed losing to him because they didn't get to be born complete genetic freaks that look like they were engineered in a lab to win at swimming. In many women's sports, the top (cis) competitors tend to have really beneficial genetics, including really high levels of testosterone compared to average. Losing to someone because their genetics help them be faster/stronger/taller is just how it goes in competitive sports. Losing to a trans woman is no different than losing to a cis woman who hit the genetic lottery.
Yeah, non-trans women don’t enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren’t born men in physically competitive sport lol.
The way you start your post is very telling. You’d have been better off leaving out the first two paragraphs.
It doesn’t take years long studies to understand a woman who transitioned well into or after puberty is still built more physiologically man than women.
Appeal to common sense. Also, why default to exclusion/discrimination rather than starting from a point of inclusion and make adjustments from there?
When a man transitions into being a woman then wipes the floor with every one of her peers, there’s something wrong.
That is not something that has been shown to happen to any significant degree. Seems like another appeal to common sense. Are trans women not allowed to win?
I’m sure you’re just a concerned citizen who wants what’s best for all involved. 🙄
So are you going to talk about the numerous sauce or????
Right, you can't. Fallacy fallacy. I'm poking fun at the issue like numerous others have had. So the entire argument is wrong... despite....
Appeal to common sense fallacy!... Yet it's where almost all scientific studies come from lol. Also, just because something is a fallacy doesn't mean the logic isn't true lol. Black or white fallacy!
It's only a fallacy if it isn't true mate.
This isn't rhetorical roulette. The simple fact is that you can't refute the studies, you can't refute the sources, so you refuse to change your position. We literally hang a Progress Pride flag off our porch. Like the other person below, you're doing way more harm than good to trans rights.
Either get with the times and help, or stop trolling and ruining the perception of trans folk online by refusing reality. The current rules need to be changed. Top athletes have changed their position ex posto facto realizing how much of an advantage they had within those 2 years after transitioning for decades. Science is showing that people retain advantages after for even longer than 1-2 years. At the top levels of Sport, advantages as small as 1% is the different between even qualifying and medaling.
It's an issue. It's going to take time to resolve. No, swinging the pendulum too far the other direction isn't good, it ruins arguments. Yes, you're human just like those trolls, it doesn't mean you should be falling for the same stick your fingers in your ears obstinance,
Well… no. There are maybe 50 women total who could play in the NFL, mostly as kickers. In basketball, women use a smaller ball because their hands are just smaller. Someone who’s FTM is probably not going to be able to compete.
There are enduring advantages from living most of your life pumped with testosterone. But there’s so few top athletes who transition MTF in their prime, it’s not a big problem. Just look at Caitlyn Jenner. She could still beat most women (and men) at a track meet.
Just gonna paste an old comment I made about trans athletes. TL;DR: athletic advantages/disadvantages diminish after ~2 years of HRT. There’s no good reason to exclude trans people from elite sports. Athletes already undergo testing to make sure their hormones levels are within pre-determined limits.
British Journal of Sports Medicine states 2 years after receiving gender affirming hormones, athletic advantages disappeared with an exception to running, in which trans- women had 9% faster lap times. Trans-men were on par with their biological male counterparts after just 1 year of hormone therapy.
Medscape has an interview with Joanna Harper, and advisor to the I0C on gender and sports about this very topic. In the interview she mentions a study out of Brazil that indicates a further decrease in strength in trans-women (MtF) athletes after 36 months, further diminishing any potential physiological advantage in these athletes.
There’s also something to be said about who these arguments are targeting. There are very few elite trans athletes and they already have to conform to strict guidelines on blood hormone levels and other doping tactics, just like everyone else at that level. The arguments are largely against high schoolers (children) who just want to participate in something. No one is taking puberty blockers and gender affirming hormones just to take a trophy home in high school. It’s a ridiculous argument through and through. A thinly veiled attempt to further marginalize and discriminate against a vulnerable population
The issue of transgender athletes was basically resolved several years ago when the IOC decided on two years of feminizing hormones before transgender women could compete in the female category. But due to the re-emergence of the anti-queer culture war, sports federations are re-litigating the issue and throwing science out the door.
Science completely disagrees in so many studies. Let alone the personal opinions of trans athletes in the world themselves lol.
Like you two, I've provided sauce above. Most of it far more recent than several years ago as if pointing to a single study refutes any other lol.
Edit: It sounds like you're referencing old studies. And the Olympic Committee isn't exactly known for being on top of science or neutral lol. It's nearly decade old science in a field that still needs a lot of data.
In 2015, IOC invited Harper to attend its Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism held in Lausanne, Switzerland. After 3 days, the panel of scientists and physicians converged on revised rules for transgender competitors, including at least 1 year of hormone replacement therapy for female competitors, rather than the 2 years previously required. That change was a nod to Harper's personal transition experience and to research published in 2004 in the European Journal of Endocrinology showing that the testosterone levels—and therefore performance—of 19 transgender women stabilized after 12 months of hormone therapy.
Sounds more like you're a closed minded bigot who has already made up their mind despite being shown evidence to the contrary.
It's not a very becoming look for someone who presumably wants progress for trans folk. You can't just stuff your head in the sand the moment science begins to sway a different direction. It's not how science or reality works. It's not Adam Savage's most well known catchphrase.
These are important discussions and you're literally harming trans people by acting this petulant and childish. Quit with the persecution act and show your sources. This ain't Truth Social lmfao.
I know. As soon as you question the “agenda” at all you get attacked by the usual suspects. Whatever. It’s clear that when people get mad an insult you that you’ve struck a nerve. They can’t handle it.
“The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” - Carl Sagan.
So even if we knew, with near certainty, that a child would be helped by gender-affirming care, you maintain "no exceptions". Because forcing 99 trans people through an undesired puberty is better for you than 1 cisgender person having a delayed puberty. Because 99 miserable trans people is worth saving 1 cis person from even mild discomfort.
You aren't a doctor, and more importantly, you aren't their doctor. Keep your nose out of other people's healthcare, it is none of your business.
Define gender affirming care, please. Does it involve a scalpel? If so - sorry, thats sickening and should be illegal. Must be 18 and have given full consent. Doesnt matter what some gender doctor says either - as if they arent on the payroll here too? C’mon.
Generally no. Only in rare cases is any surgery done as a part of gender-affirming care for under-18s.
During puberty, it's just puberty blockers to delay as long as possible and gain more time for therapy. These are a conservative treatment, the absolute minimum intervention that allows the child the opportunity to be assessed further without putting them through unnecessary distress.
Between 14-16, HRT may be started if everyone, including mental health professionals, are sure that this is what is right for the patient.
Surgery is a minimum of two years after starting HRT. So the vast majority of those procedures will be done on patients over the age of 18. And the patient will have had to maintain their transgender identity for a solid two years, while under the effects of HRT and probably living as their gender full time. In the rare case that a patient somehow begins to transition mistakenly, they have a minimum of two years, watching their body gradually change, to bail out.
After all those checks and balances, it's really no surprise that transition regret is very rare.
as if they arent on the payroll here too? C’mon.
I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to wild conspiracy theories that the entire medical profession, including basically every major medical body around the world, are all colluding on the subject of transgender health and taking enormous reputational risk, to forcibly "trans" a tiny handful of people.
There is simply not even close to enough money in it.
No “gender” stuff until they are 18 years old, no exceptions.
Yeah this demonstrates a complete lack of understanding and probably an unwillingness to try to understand. As a cis-gender individuals you and I can’t know what it’s like to be trans, but we can listen to those who do know and try to understand to the best of our abilities. You clearly don’t wish to, but I have listened and I try to understand because I wish to be a decent human being.
My friends and family who are trans have said they knew from very young ages that they are not the gender they may have been biologically born as.
Also once you know you are trans one of the first steps is to take medications that prevent puberty from occuring which allows a much easier and cleaner transition later in life as well as allowing them to present as the gender they wish to present as. Preventing access to this kind of medical care until they are 18 is severely detrimental.
Gender affirming medical care is critical because the suicide rates of trans people who are not able to transition are incredibly high and rates of regret for those who are able to receive transition surgery is so shocking close to zero.
TL;DR you’re wrong and an asshole for choosing not to learn otherwise
Wow - finishes up with the usual insults. Relax, bruh. What exactly is “gender affirming care” anyways? Cutting genitals off of young boys/girls who might be simply confused or following the latest trend? They cant vote, drive after 9pm, buy a gun, get a tattoo, etc. until they are 18 but you and your kind are fine with hacking them up much younger than that. Pretty sick, sorry.
For minors most commonly it is to delay puberty and I believe in some cass may also involve hormone replacement therapy (HRT), but the most inportant part is combining the medical treatment with psychological counseling and treatment to help with the transition as well. It’s not easy being born with the wrong biological gender
Cutting genitals off of young boys/girls
The only people cutting off the genitals of young boys are people who insist on and continue to encourage circumcision. Female genital mutilation is thankfully continuing to be an increasingly rare practice.
you and your kind are fine with hacking them up much younger than that.
Who is “my kind” exactly and when did I say I’m “fine with hacking them up”?
What I actually support is compassionate individualized care appropriate for the individual based on the ongoing best practices established by the industry. I am not a medical expert, nor do I work in medicine, however those that are experts and have extensive experience and research in these areas have already established the significant mental health benefits of access to age- and developement-appropriate gender affirming care to all who need it.
Honestly the only thing I need to tell which side of history I want to be on is to see how happy people are once they begin treatment and begin presenting as who they really are. There is a glow of happiness in every trans person I’ve seen after beginning HRT that was simply not present beforehand. You have to truly be an asshole to want to take that away from people.
So yes, I think you’re an asshole based on the opinions you’ve stated, and I hope you can learn to have some compassion for your fellow human. You might even make some friends along the way
Plenty of friends as is, thanks. This all sounds good on paper until you read about horror stories and how quote a few people that fell for this regret it, big time. This gender “thing” has exploded over the last 4-5 years. Are you really certain that there isnt a LOT of “hey, me too” going on with this? There are just magically all these gender-confused people suddenly? A lot of people are having trouble buying into that idea. We all know that there are legit cases of true hermies and other statistical outliers. But this gender thing is dominating like everything now. Its the 2020’s version of a counter culture. Homo-sexuality was mostly accepted, so now people have to move onto the “next thing”, it seems since being gay isnt controversial enough.
As for compassionate care - yeah, fine. But to me, that should start with why they feel the way they do. How did a boy feel as if hes a girl? Same for the opposite. lets get to the root cause of this which to me is what needs to be addressed & managed. Id rather see these people helped to regain their biological identity so they can live a normal life. That seems more compassionate to me.
This all sounds good on paper until you read about horror stories and how quote a few people that fell for this regret it, big time.
That's called cherry-picking.
This gender “thing” has exploded over the last 4-5 years. Are you really certain that there isnt a LOT of “hey, me too” going on with this? There are just magically all these gender-confused people suddenly?
Yes there is, but that's not a bad thing.
Part of the apparent increase in the number of transgender people is simply that people are more open about being transgender, rather than hiding it. And because being transgender is being made into a political issue by bigots, trans people are more visible. Previously trans people would simply get on with their transition, and live their lives unaccosted.
But secondly with an increase in visibility, a lot of people are realising, "Wait, other people feel the same way as I do?" These people were always transgender, they have just been given the words to understand and describe their experiences, and are thus coming to terms with being transgender, and coming out. It's not that there are more people with gender issues, it's that more people who have always had gender issues are realising precisely what those issues actually are.
But this gender thing is dominating like everything now.
That is because conservatives refuse to leave trans people alone. If people leave trans people to just get their healthcare and get on with their lives, and give them the same respect everyone else gets in society, you'll quickly find that the "issue" disappears.
Homo-sexuality was mostly accepted, so now people have to move onto the “next thing”, it seems since being gay isnt controversial enough.
You are SO CLOSE to getting it.
You are dead right, homosexuality has become more accepted, and less controversial.
So conservative politicians have had to move onto a different minority to stir up fear and outrage about. That is why you are suddenly hearing about transgender people so much.
As for compassionate care - yeah, fine. But to me, that should start with why they feel the way they do. How did a boy feel as if hes a girl? Same for the opposite. lets get to the root cause of this which to me is what needs to be addressed & managed.
Why do you think that that isn't what has happened?
Id rather see these people helped to regain their biological identity so they can live a normal life. That seems more compassionate to me.
Well what you would "rather" has zero relevance to what actually works, and what is true.
Gender diverse people have existed throughout human history, in cultures around the world. the gender binary is more of a "fad" than transgender people.
You’re making it seem far more normal and common than it is.
Because ultimately, it is a normal part of the human experience. Some small percentage of people are transgender.
There should be as much or more effort put into finding out why they feel this way and how to help them get back on track.
There is. The leading theory is that they are, mentally, their gender.
We know that many of these kids are under massive pressure socially and the trans thing gives them a cause.
Absolutely not. This is COMPLETELY divorced from reality.
The social pressure to not be transgender is MASSIVE. Coming out as trans WILL lose you friends, and may lose you family as well. That is just a simple truth that transgender people accept when we come out. Not that we may lose friends, but that it is basically a certainty. We risk getting kicked out of our homes. We face discrimination in employment, healthcare, and housing. And the media stirs up false outrage about us constantly, out lives are politicised.
Being trans is hard. People aren't doing this to be trendy.
Conservatives won’t leave trans people alone?
Yes. We are a tiny portion of the population that entire political parties in multiple countries are running campaigns against.
It’s the trans movement that wants public displays of outright creepiness.
Oh I'm so sorry I would like to exist in public.
Believe me, most of us wish trans folks would just go be trans and stop the theatrics.
Then leave us alone.
You’ve got it backwards as to who the aggressors are here.
I cannot express how much I hate people with your beliefs, without getting banned. The world would be a better place without people like you in it.
Sorry we disagree. At least you’re being mostly civil about it. Being in public just minding your own business and putting on a drag show are not the same thing and you know that. Being accepted and parading around flamboyantly are also different. I’d say most people are against discrimination when it comes to basic rights. Like, job offers, school admissions, etc. But, that doesn’t translate to pushing propaganda or overdoing it. There is a line here that’s reasonable.
I’m sure muscle diminishes rapidly after MTF transition, but humans are just very good at losing muscle. Height and hand size are not things that go away after transition. Basketball is obviously one of the sports where MTF people have a massive advantage, although I don’t know of any studies on it. It depends massively on the sport.
Of course in professional leagues everyone is genetically unique. Saying “no this particular genetically unique person is unfair” is a bit weird.
When you start talking about height and hand size, I think you’re getting lost in the sauce. Basketball already favors abnormally tall people anyway, but no one is trying to ban Yao Ming from the sport for being 229 cm (7’6").
Beat me to the punch. This has been a settled issue for years, the only reason to hammer on about how trans people shouldn’t be in sports is either prejudice or ignorance. And having a several comment exchange where sources are already cited kinda narrows that down
Yeah. Pretty much all the transphobic arguments could apply to most top athletes.
“Yao Ming is stealing sports from natural, normal height men!”
“Michael Phelps has an unfair advantage because he has unnatural lungs and bone structure!”
“It’s not fair to normal men that they have to compete against Mike Tyson. Would you want your son to have to fight against that?”
The reality is that the top athletes will always be physical outliers. That doesn’t mean more average folks need to be excluded from sports nor that birth gender necessarily gives you an unfair advantage compared to the top athletes.
Have you seen Michael Phelp’s hands. The man is an absolute genetic freak with multiple advantages, both in external build and internally (e.g. lactose buildup), there’s no way anyone with average genetics can compete no matter how much they train.
And middle of the road athletes competing in the men’s leagues don’t become top athletes in the woman’s league after transitioning, btw. They become middle of the road. Might there be some slight advantage? Dunno, not sure, might be, but it also doesn’t matter because noone the fuck is willing to incur gender dysphoria to win a fucking title. Athletes are nuts but not that nuts.
Except they haven't. There are a small handful of examples, that people both greatly exaggerate, and repeat over and over again. Trans people have been allowed to compete for many years prior, and have not overrun women's sports.
Simple math is that even being a small minority, trans people will, occasionally, win things. Even if there are zero competitive advantages to being a transgender woman, some trans women are gonna excel. Finding a handful of examples of trans people being good at sports isn't actually proof of advantage.
200-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League women’s swimming
Is the type of race that can be totally dominated by up and coming Olympic athletes. Regional/institutional races tend to have quite low records until someone top-tier happens, by chance, to participate in them in the course of their career.
women’s indoor 1,500 meter long distance running event for ages 50-54.
My sides. A senior event. At that age the only one you’re competing against is yourself.
The Canadian Powerlifting Union announced a gender self-identification policy earlier this year that allowed athletes to participate in women’s competitions on the basis of self-declared gender alone.
Yeah that’s bullshit there’s a reason the rules set by all other organisations involve something along the lines of a minimum of two years on HRT. Noone at all anywhere is claming that the act of identifying as a woman, alone, reduces muscle mass.
In the elite men’s crit at the Loughborough Cycling Festival last May, she finished 43rd out of 45. Her final men’s race was the Welsh National Championship in September. Bridges finished second to last.
Previously, she set national records in the junior male category.
Nice of you to provide your own counter-evidence. There we have it, a top athlete in the men’s category, slumping to “does she even qualify?” in the men’s ratings, but ranking top in the woman’s category – because she was and still is a stellar athlete.
athletic advantages/disadvantages diminish after ~2 years of HRT
This is what I keep thinking whenever I hear about this “debate.” But I guess if the bigots admitted they know how hormones work, then they wouldn’t have an outlet for their transphobia.
I’m still not seeing why Israel is being treated as a priority over or at least equal to Ukraine. Ukraine is up against a legitimately strong adversary using human wave tactics. Israel is dropping bombs seemingly indiscriminately on mostly civilians. Ukraine is fighting for its existence. Israel is getting revenge on its much, much weaker neighbor.
If Iran and its proxies enter the war, that might change the calculations, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Agreed. Even if Iran enters the war, it will be to stop a genocide. I don’t understand why the US is so keen to tie themselves to Netanyahu’s government.
US and Isntreal share the same settler colonial ideology and history. Native Americans or Palestinians, its all about genociding the “uncivilised tribal hordes” to make space for themselves.
And the more support Israel gets to kill those civilians the more likely sympathetic regional neighbours would be inclined to join. And rightly so. It’s genocide.
Ukraine was never about Ukraine. It was about NATO’s attempt to balkanise Russia, as said by US ex-VP Dick Cheney. It was about the attempted CIA coup during 2003 Orange protests, which failed, and another CIA attempt at 2013 Euromaidan protests, which succeeded, overthrowing sovereignty and democracy, installing US puppet, installing biochemical factories for genocide attempt against Russia, and to make more money for military weapons industry.
It was all about USA using Ukraine as a condom to fuck with Russia, and the whole NATO failed in unison.
RT was banned first day of the war due to links to the kremlin and propaganda. Wouldn’t want people influenced by propaganda, of course! This is the west! We’re free thinkers! Now let me see how the war is going in the non-biased Kyiv Post.
Why do posters from Hexbear defend Russia so much? They’re not communist. If anything, they’re right wing.
Putin has a government allied with Russian business oligarchs and the support of the Russian Orthodox Church. He promotes the military as heroes. He cultivates a cult of personality. He personally controls billions of dollars. That’s textbook Fascism.
I swear someone could claim like “Russia is controlled by an army of demons” and if someone from Hexbear was like “actually that is not true you should stick to the realm of fact in your criticisms of Russia” posters you’d still get like “WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING RUSSIA? DONT YOU KNOW RUSSIA ISNT COMMUNIST”.
If it was only that it wouldn’t be an issue, but many comments here are pushing Putin’s propaganda by trying to legitimate manipulated referendums and cherry-picking colateral damages of Ukrainian self-defense or Ukrainian extremists to try to inverse the burden of guilt. I don’t know if they actually support Putin or if they are just blinded by their hate of the West, but the end result is that they do help carry Putin’s propaganda and its fascist oligarc dictatorship.
Nowhere do I voice support for Russia. It’s that any nuance with regard to the Ukraine conflict is seen as ‘defending russia’, which you’ve just proven, again.
Edit: nvm, you’re that asshole that used the Sartre quote about anti-semitism to justify your anti-communism. You don’t want to learn. Almost as if you’re a bot
Pointing out blatant untruths, being anti-war and wanting accurate reporting rather that copium meant to inspire more people to thrown themselves to a pointless death is checks notes russian propaganda?
You would’ve supported the invasion of Iraq
We believe the war was started by a quagmire of situations going back as far as 1991, including things like the 2014 NATO-backed coup of Ukraine and the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. This war wasn’t some random unprovoked territory grab dictated by Putin, it’s the resolution of western interference in the region for decades. Ukraine had been shelling Donbas and Luhansk for years. NATO brought this war upon themselves, basically. Instigating and prodding at the situation for years.
Also, Russia and Ukraine, near the start of the war, floated the possibility of a ceasefire and NATO pressured them out of it. The USA saw the possibility of a proxy war and started drooling.
We don’t support Russia so much as we see them as one unfortunate reality fighting another unfortunate reality. The war’s true culprit is capitalism, and as a leftist the only conclusion you should reach is wars like this are senseless and they should immediately stop. And the only way I see this war to stop is if Ukraine immediately surrenders and loses territory, otherwise we’d just be back in 2014 all over again and the situation would repeat. I can vaguely see how that could be construed as pro-Russia, but it’s more that I believe diplomacy with Russia is strained, Russia is volatile, and nothing is gained from open warfare with them. Everyone needs to stop fighting, whatever that takes, because the only winners in wars like this are wealthy capitalists, the rest of us lose.
I’m sorry no. Every time someone tries to say “oh well Russia was just pressured by NATO” that’s all they leave it at.
How?
No really, explain. Explain how the only option for Russia was to invade their neighboring country and steal land. What negative effects would Russia be feeling right now if they hadn’t invaded Ukraine?
“Well NATO was pushing up against their borders”
So fucking what?! Just because your country is so shitty that your neighbors choose to ally with someone else is not an excuse to invade them!
Russia has no excuse and neither does NATO. The best case scenario is both countries lay down their arms and have socialists take power. Unfortunately we don’t live in that kind of situation, so the only thing I can advocate is both NATO and Russia cease fighting. Ukraine shouldn’t ally with NATO because NATO shouldn’t exist.
What negative effects would Russia be feeling? I don’t know, personally I thought Russia entering the war was a bad call and a strategic mistake. I can see the reason why it happened while still saying it’s an open act of aggression. Russia probably could have negotiated with Ukraine about Donbas/Luhansk through better oil deals or something, no idea. Possibly could have tried straight up purchasing the land that Russian separatists occupied?
But Russia probably had reason to distrust diplomacy with Ukraine ever since 2014. For context, I believe that 2014 happened specifically because Ukraine’s previous government was becoming too close to Russia and it made NATO nervous. I could easily ask, what negative effects would Ukraine be feeling if they hadn’t had a western backed coup? Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych floated membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, which set off protests that were capitalized upon by western nations. Would it had been so negative had Ukraine entered a formal economic alliance with some former Soviet states? Who knows now.
The new president, Porochenko, was much harsher on Russian separatists in the east than his predecessors, which started the Donbas war in earnest. That’s the moment above any I can point to that started all of this. Maybe if Yanumovych had remained president there could have been a more peaceful solution to Donbas. Who knows now
Yeah but this is all speculation and we live in reality. The reality is the war should cease immediately, for the benefit of people in Ukraine, Russia, and all refugees from the region. Only way I see that realistically happening is if NATO disengages and Ukraine loses territory.
Maybe once fighting finishes something new and better can get negotiated, but I’m not holding my breath that neoliberal countries like this know how to resolve long standing conflicts.
Ukraine shouldn’t ally with NATO because NATO shouldn’t exist.
Maidan wasn’t about NATO. Support for NATO membership of Ukraine only sky-rocketed once Russia invaded (after 2014, that is), and by now is overwhelming.
Maidan was about EU membership. Should the EU also not exist in your mind? And yes btw the EU is also a defensive alliance (it’s a gazillion of things). Russia’s invasion wouldn’t have happened had Ukraine been a member. Hence why Russia’s stooge Yanukovich was ordered to stop EU accession: Because then Russia wouldn’t be able to invade, any more. Ukraine would be as safe as the Baltics and Finland have been all this time.
Oh and btw after the 2004 NATO enlargement (including the Baltics) Putin said that he saw no threat to Russia from that, and also that every country was free to choose their alliance.
I’ve come to realize I gotta preface a lot of what I say on other instances like this: Russia is an imperialist country and I’d laugh if Putin got forcibly removed from power. I’m a communist.
No, the EU should not exist either. No neoliberal institution should exist, including things like the IMF, World Bank, USMCA, NATO, the EU. Should all become memories. Yeah except that’s not the world we’ve got quite yet.
I can’t really talk much about what should happen. Money, bosses, landlords, and banks shouldn’t exist either, but too bad, right? And yeah we can say all day what would have happened had Ukraine become an EU member nearly a decade ago, but it didn’t happen and now we’re stuck in this situation. It’s all alternate history now. Best case scenario I see right at this moment is a ceasefire even if that means Ukraine loses territory.
The EU isn’t any more neolib than its member states, in fact, often much less so. It raised worker’s rights and living standards pretty much everywhere, it’s actually doing shit against anticompetitive behaviour because Berlaymont isn’t nearly as caught up in national industry entanglements as, well, the national governments.
Is it without fail? No, no government is. But it’s kinda telling that the forces behind Brexit wanted the UK out so that they could continue to park their assets in tax havens, regress on worker’s rights, well, things nobs do.
All in all what you’re seeing from the EU, overall, is European SocDem pan-continental compromise stuff. I can definitely fucking imagine worse, especially considering our history of being at each other’s throat all the time.
Oh and btw after the 2004 NATO enlargement (including the Baltics) Putin said that he saw no threat to Russia from that, and also that every country was free to choose their alliance.
As NATO Finally Arrives on Its Border, Russia Grumbles
Russia’s lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on Wednesday denouncing NATO’s expansion generally and the deployment of the F-16’s specifically.
Echoing warnings in Russia’s new military doctrine set forth last fall, the resolution called on President Vladimir V. Putin to reconsider Russia’s international agreements with NATO and its own defense strategies, including its nuclear posture.
I don’t put a lot of stock in some YouTuber I’ve never heard of stiching together snippets of a lengthy diplomatic remark. That’s a surefire way to lose context in an environment where there is tons of hedging and caveats as a matter of course.
But taking it at face value for the sake of argument: he said Russia’s stance on NATO expansion hasn’t changed.
Putin is saying in the snipped exactly what the subtitles say. My Russian is rusty and never was particularly good but it’s still good enough to tell.
Also he’s not any random youtuber. NFKRZ is Russian, and currently in Georgian exile (the other option would’ve been to get forced to fight in Ukraine). Probably the best (not excessively analytical like Vlad Vexler) source on Russia you can get in the west if you don’t speak Russian.
Have you ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Why did America freak out that Cuba was going to get missiles from the Soviet Union? What did the Soviet Union choose to do to stop the crisis? Could it be that it is entirely normal for a nation to not want an adversary’s missiles on their border? Has there been multiple examples of conflicts stemming from this issue all over the globe? Have you ever asked yourself a question about how conflicts start, and if other nations have ever behaved similarly?
You say “NATO brought this on themselves” like they weren’t joyous at the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine but I think this isn’t true. The west has worked closely to recreate the Ukrainian Army from the ground up since 2014 (when it was useless) because they knew this was a possibility. This war-launched idiotically by Putin-has benefitted the west alone. Not Russia, and obviously not Ukraine.
-Ukraine is now irrevocably tied to the west and will be for the foreseeable future. Before this, western intelligence agencies were worried Zelensky was too pro-Russian. Not anymore.
-Eastern Ukrainians who speak Russian in their mother tongue are now anti-Russian for the most part.
-Lots of juicy money for western MICs.
-The bulk of the Russian Army is tied down in Ukraine and so cannot be used elsewhere-massive limiting of Russia’s strategic manoeuvrability.
-Russian economy damaged (not as much as they thought it would, but it’s still damaged) and large-scale brain drain of well-educated Russians who oppose the war who have now fled to Georgia and will seek to move to the west most likely. Also Russians living in the west who are more likely to be liberal will be much less likely to come home.
-Strong consolidation and reification of Ukrainian national identity, meaning far less likely for Ukraine to see Russia as a ‘kin state/brotherly nation’ akin to Azerbaijan/Turkey.
-Exposes and emphasises the fragmentation and factionalism within the Russian state and security apparatus, (see: Wagner).
-Kills lots of Russians whose families may eventually turn against the state once this war drags on and nothing good comes from it.
What I mean to say is that NATO isn’t suffering at all-at least, the Americans and Brits aren’t. They’re overjoyed! You can’t “bring something on yourself” forlornly if you’re openly working for it, then it’s just a success! I mean I don’t think they necessarily worked only for the invasion but basically just various means to bring Ukraine into the western fold, of which this was just one (probably not the ideal) option of many.
It was not a ‘rational’ or sensible reaction to NATO encroachment. I mean realistically with nuclear weapons the idea that a land invasion of Russia could happen is ludicrous, but even removing that factor there were countless other mechanisms at Putin’s disposal to achieve his strategic aims. This invasion was a terrible choice and it only happened because (A) the Russian leadership is full of yes-men who are unable to criticise Putin, (B) because the Russian leadership has become increasingly isolated from the realities on the ground in the last few years and so VASTLY misunderstood how the war would go. They thought it would be like Georgia (though the Georgia War was a mess from a Russian perspective they won anyway because of the vastly unbalanced correlation of forces).
Yes, this is a sensible and thoughtless war, but I think expecting Ukrainians to just give up against an aggressor is fruitless. They will not do it as long as they believe they can win (see Zartman’s concept of a mutually hurting stalemate), which both sides currently believe they can. Plus if it’s a frozen conflict and more or less even, why would Ukraine ‘surrender’? Yes, I think the eventual only possible end to this war will be a surrender of some territory (more likely is simply a frozen conflict), but I don’t believe it is politically viable atm and so it is pointless to support it. If Zelensky agreed to surrender territory he’d risk being overthrown and probably killed by the far-right and ultra-nationalist sections of the army/state. The morally best situation would be a return to the status quo ante bellum and a referendum in the east and in Crimea monitored by international IGO/NGO bodies not tied to any particular state, but that wont happen.
The balance of forces is even enough that one side admitting defeat is implausible until the mutual damage from the war is much higher and both sides come to realise it is unwinnable (this is a subjective understanding even if there are objective measures of ‘mutually hurting stalemate’.
including things like the 2014 NATO-backed coup of Ukraine
AAAAaaaa
What you just said should be a bannable offence. President reneged on his election promises, people demonstrated, president sent out goons (both criminal and police) to deal with them, more people demonstrated, president passed laws (without having the votes) to make the country authoritarians, more people demonstrated even more, NATO countries “backed” protestors by sending… politicians. Who talked and negotiated, recommending compromises, the protesters were having none of that. After a while Yanukovich fled to his masters in Russia and, being AWOL, got removed from office.
None of that was a coup, which involves toppling of the government by government insiders. It wasn’t really a revolution either because nothing fundamental about the state changed, though yes Berkut got dismantled over the egregious police violence they committed, but that’s reform, not revolution.
Then, there have been multiple completely democratic elections since then. So all in all, big picture glossing over details: President didn’t want to keep his election promises, people were opposed and wanted a different president, then they had themselves exactly those elections. Call it a special electoral operation I’m not even using that term tongue in cheek. In more mature democracies where presidents don’t take orders from foreign governments it would’ve taken the form of “presidents wants something, people are vehemently opposed, president resigns, new elections”.
I wonder how American would act if Chinese leaders showed up at protests for Black Lives Matters protests, or Russian leaders showed up for Jan 6th protests?
Victoria Nuland showed up to the protests, and she has multiple emails that basically call it a coup.
I wonder how American would act if Chinese leaders showed up at protests for Black Lives Matters protests, or Russian leaders showed up for Jan 6th protests?
Well Russia did stoke a ton of that culture war bullshit in the US. On both and all sides, of course, they don’t care who comes out on top all they want is the US being dysfunctional (well, more dysfunctional than usual). The more controversy the better.
What makes you think they didn’t do the same in Ukraine? Just that unlike Yanks, Ukrainians actually understand how Russians operate.
Victoria Nuland showed up to the protests, and she has multiple emails that basically call it a coup.
Foreign diplomat is abroad doing diplomacy. Curious. Coincidence? I think not.
Coup? Where? All I see is American arrogance. Americans also still believe that they started Libya and that it had something to do with Hillary.
Also 2 weeks later was the Maidan Sniper incident that has overwhelmingly evidence of a false flag operated by the Ukrainian far right.
You mean Berkut gave Right Sector rifles, then Right Sector shot protestors (including their own people), then Right Sector gave those rifles back to Berkut so the bullets in demonstrators could be matched to Berkut rifles? Overwhelming evidence like that?
Hey but at least you didn’t claim Azov was involved who didn’t even exist yet.
I know it’s hard to see that the world isnt Disney level “good vs evil”. It’s actually a little more complicated
Victoria Nuland was not a diplomat. She ran the Bureau of Eurasian Affairs in an office based out of Washington DC. She deliberately flew to and took part in demonstrations against a democratically elected government. Again if Chinese or Russian officials did the same during Black Lives Matter 2020 or Jan 6th 2021 I think it would be negatively recieved. I understand you need to pretend that’s not true so you don’t have to admit to being wrong.
Added to that, the person Victoria Nuland picked to be prime minister in the phone call about the the 3 named opposition leaders became prime minister that very same month in an UNELECTED designation by an alliance of far right parties like Svoboda. Svoboda was specifically tied to the shootings in the square on February 20th. 7 days later they were helping choose the US picked prime minister. This wasn’t some magical event of peace, it was clearly deeply effected by US interests and has led to a decade of violence in the country. I’m sorry to hear you enjoy people dying for self righteousness, but here at hexbear we just want senseless violence to end.
I read “Bureau” and thought it was a state institution, and she diplomatic corps. I have no idea who she actually is.
And, no, politicians taking part in demonstrations isn’t exactly unheard of in Europe. Also abroad. I mean for one you have to go to Belgium to protest the EU so there’s that.
She saying “yeah he should be prime minister” also doesn’t mean that she dictated that he should become one… a couple of years back I said that Biden should become President of the US. Does that mean that I putsched the US? Nah, it simply means that I think he’s a (vastly) better idea than Trump.
And in any case none of that matters as there were elections quickly after that. The interim government was in power for only a short while, and btw right-wing parties lost heavily in those elections, and elections since. Any iffiness that may or may not have existed during and directly after Maidan was cured afterwards, as befits a democracy, by elections.
I just don’t even know what to say anymore. You are an Internet poster, you are not running the US state department for Eurasian affairs. Saying what your opinions are is not the same as a Bureau Chief at the state department.
Added to that, Nuland goes out of her way to dismiss the EUs interests in those leaked phone calls. The US doesn’t want what’s best for Ukraine, or the EU. They are funding this war out of self interest. If you can’t see that I got nothing left to say.
The US isn’t funding this war Europe is. The US is sending military surplus that should largely be assigned negative monetary value because if Ukraine did not take it the US would have to pay to decommission it.
Gods the fucking US exceptionalism wafting through all that supposedly leftist talk. “Nothing ever happens without the CIA being behind it”. Guess what, beyond the brink of your burger are people making their own decisions.
And speaking as a EU citizen: Please stop worrying about us. No the US is not some imperial overlord telling us what to do. Stop the pretence.
Also no we’re not buying US gas. We don’t import much LNG in the first place but mostly from Norway and the LNG we import is mostly Quatar. We still consider the US’s talk about NordStream to have been nothing but commercial self-interest how naive do you think us to be.
Down the line we’re going to import ammonia from Canada and Namibia, completely replacing natural gas.
You may notice that they form concentrated barrages along lines of advance, such as one might make if one were about to launch a maneuvering assault, upon two territories recognized just earlier that week as sovereign states by Russia, and with which it signed defensive pacts.
No! But actually, yes! Here is a high-ranking Azov fascist talking about various things (how the west supports them because they enjoy fighting and killing, how the Maidan would have been a “gay pride parade” if not for a very active fascist element) but most importantly what would happen if “Russia split into five or so Russias”. This has been the US State Department’s goal since 1993, to divide up Russia into a group of powerless fractional states and enslave them through austerity and debt peonage, so they can exploit their natural resources and labor cheaply - EXACTLY as they did to the Balkans, directly across from Russia.
The threat of the fascist Kiev regime is that it is attacking, subjugating and ethnically cleansing the Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens of the Donbass, who formed militias and fought back against their extermination for eight years. If the AFU had launched a huge invasion and pushed deep into the region, it would be too late for Russia to reverse the operational momentum - ESPECIALLY if, as was continuously threatened, Ukraine joined NATO or their invasion (overtly) included NATO personnel, at which point Russian intervention would start a nuclear war - and they would be left with a group of victorious, energized, viciously anti-Russian fascists on their doorstep. Would those fascists diligently stay on their side of the border? No, of course not. As Andriy Biletsky, founder of the Azov battalion puts it, it is their “crusade to lead the Aryan peoples of the world against the Jewish-led untermenschen”. Russia would be subject to continuous destablization by Nazis crossing the border, with the ultimate goal of bringing down the Russian state.
Ukraine, or crucially rather the US State Department puppetting Ukraine, vigorously waved a red flag in front of Russia’s nose for eight years, getting closer and closer until finally Russia was forced to invade or face a direct threat to its existence. And how gradually they invaded! It took about a week for the Duma to vote on recognizing the DPR and LPR as sovereign states, and then vote on signing a defensive pact with them, and then finally start moving soldiers into position.
Everything you say about Russia is true, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a proxy war where US is trying to weaken Russia. You can just be against a senseless war that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying lives of millions more. Anybody who is even minimally engaging with reality can see that this war will only end one way. What the west is doing is prolonging it without changing the outcome. People of Ukraine are being cynically thrown into a meat grinder so that US can score a win in a geopolitical chess game with Russia.
I fully agree w/ you about NATO’s obviously non-altruistic motivations for fuelling the war but I think the Ukrainian position itself has to be considered in the whole conflagration. Without that, we cannot really analyse when and how the war might end. For Ukrainians it’s not the case they’re being forced or deceived into fighting, it is a war of national survival! It is a war against an aggressor seeking to at the very least oppress Ukrainian national identity if not destroy it entirely as a political and social force. Even without western support the Ukrainians would have fought and Russia wouldn’t have won straight away (because they already had a fair few weapons and the west had spent 8 years already reforming and rebuilding the army from 2014 onwards). The thing to remember is that urban combat is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for the attacker. To put it into context, a city the size of Kyiv has not been taken by an enemy against a committed defender since WW2! Taking a city the size of Kyiv or bigger, no battle lasting longer than 8 days (one of the battles for Seoul) has been won by the attacker. Consider the defences being set up for the capital-vast networks of local militia, booby traps and tank traps, every building and every basement being turned into a place for fighting. Russia would have to take this huge city street by street, building by building. This is an incredibly difficult feat. While Russia would obviously be doing a lot better without western arming, the war would still be going on and would be no less bloody. Even Mariupol and especially Bakhmut have been extremely difficult for both sides, Kyiv would be a whole new level, especially since it’s the capital.
Then after that there’d still be the whole western half of the country where troops can, at the border, slip into Poland/Romania when needed. There are so many big cities in Ukraine that if they were committed to defending it, taking over the whole country would be insanely difficult. As I say, a committed defender has not lost an urban battle in a city the size of Kyiv since, like, the Battle of Berlin in WW2. It would require a total societal commitment to the war in Russia which Russians are not willing to tolerate. The current Russian Army is not up to the task!
Let’s imagine, though, that the end of western support did bring about an impulse for peace within the current leadership. What do you think happens if Zelensky signs a peace deal that gives up land? He, a Russian-speaking Jew who used to be on Russian TV and regularly went to the country. He would be deemed a Russian traitorous Jew and would be overthrown and possibly killed by the nationalist and far-right elements within the Ukrainian Army who have gathered disproportionate strength relative to the actual support for fascist politics in the country since 2014 because of Russia’s (yes, and NATO’s) actions. Then the war would continue anyway, but likely with far less restraint against Russian-speaking citizens and Russian soldiers.
So at the minute there honestly is NO ROUTE TO PEACE because of the internal dynamics in Ukrainian politics both because the population believes the war is winnable and is committed at all costs to fight for their survival against the aggressor, and because there are spoilers within the Ukrainian state + army that have enough power to effectively ‘veto’ it. It is impossible to conceive of peace until there is a mutually hurting stalemate between the two sides in which neither believe they can win and in which both are deeply hurting in the status quo such that the value of continuing war is no longer high enough to justify the suffering. We are not there yet, so whether or not the west arms them is quite beside the point. Indeed, if anything it’d bolster Russia and make them less likely to make concessions for peace. Not that I’m supporting this that or the other arming of far-right militias (I believe any armaments should explicitly exclude Azov and such), but I do not believe the logic of bringing about peace held by many of my fellow Hexbears is correct.
Ahh, the rare sane hexbear user I still have hopes for you lot you’re definitely not as bad as lemmygrad.
However, let me add something:
It is impossible to conceive of peace until there is a mutually hurting stalemate between the two sides in which neither believe they can win
You leave out the scenario of Russians getting kicked out of the country. Which is going to lead to Putin being sent to his Dacha, and if not and he somehow clings on Ukraine having all its territory opens NATO membership which means that the Russian general staff is going to shit bricks and rather putsch than attack.
What do you think happens if Zelensky signs a peace deal that gives up land? He, a Russian-speaking Jew who used to be on Russian TV and regularly went to the country. He would be deemed a Russian traitorous Jew and would be overthrown and possibly killed by the nationalist and far-right elements within the Ukrainian Army
He a) wouldn’t do that and b) since when is Ukraine antisemitic you’re confusing it with… pretty much all other countries in that area and c) you don’t need to invoke far-right fucks (who are a tiny minority btw) the rest of the country would, well, send him to a Dacha.
And ever if: At that point we’d be in the situation many predicted in the first days of the invasion: Fall of the government, but Ukrainians then fighting a partisan war. And Ukraine right now is just in way too good a position to switch to that.
All in all, the way forward to quick peace is clear: Help Ukraine win this thing. It’s both the best option from a direct humanitarian POV by cutting the war short, as well as the best option for wider humanity and the future: Not allowing states intending to conquer to get away with such behaviour. Discouraging wars of aggression is important by itself and one of the reasons why Ukrainians fight so hard, they see the universalism in their own national struggle it just all aligns so well.
you are welcome. Since you are asking for more people to die than less people to die, and you say it’s for peace. I’ve decided simplifying your long ass post for everyone.
Long-range systems can, drumroll, disable things from a distance. Right now Ukraine needs to get quite up and close and personal to overcome those lines. One of them incurs more casualties.
You leave out the scenario of Russians getting kicked out of the country. Which is going to lead to Putin being sent to his Dacha, and if not and he somehow clings on Ukraine having all its territory opens NATO membership which means that the Russian general staff is going to shit bricks and rather putsch than attack.
This is unviable. The best weaponry available to Ukraine was shattered against the Russian frontline-they can barely even take a few villages, let alone Melitopol, and let alone Crimea and the rest of the country! There is no indication that Ukraine has the strength to launch successful counterattacks. In Kherson and Kharkhiv Russia retreated for tactical reasons as their positions were undefendable-this is not the case w/ the current frontlines. It is utopian thinking.
He a) wouldn’t do that and b) since when is Ukraine antisemitic you’re confusing it with… pretty much all other countries in that area and c) you don’t need to invoke far-right fucks (who are a tiny minority btw) the rest of the country would, well, send him to a Dacha.
No, I don’t thjink he would.
“Ukraine” isn’t a ‘real’/reified entity, what I am saying is that the far-right has disproportionate strength in the Ukrainian army (and, to an extent, the state intelligence apparatus) because of the power vaccuum created by the 2014 invasion and the collapse of the pre-existing Ukrainian Army, then in 2022 because it was the best organised forces in the areas seeing the most intense fighting. While Nazis do NOT have much support among the population, the state still has a strong strategic-structural liability to these far-right groups…largely thanks to the actions of Russia!
And ever if: At that point we’d be in the situation many predicted in the first days of the invasion: Fall of the government, but Ukrainians then fighting a partisan war. And Ukraine right now is just in way too good a position to switch to that.
Yes, I agree, which is why I don’t think Zelensky will sign a peace. It is unviable.
All in all, the way forward to quick peace is clear: Help Ukraine win this thing. It’s both the best option from a direct humanitarian POV by cutting the war short, as well as the best option for wider humanity and the future: Not allowing states intending to conquer to get away with such behaviour. Discouraging wars of aggression is important by itself and one of the reasons why Ukrainians fight so hard, they see the universalism in their own national struggle it just all aligns so well.
I do not see how Ukraine can win this-even with western weaponry they have failed in their counteroffensive. What else do they need? Western boots on the ground is certainly not possible.
The best weaponry available to Ukraine was shattered against the Russian frontline-they can barely even take a few villages,
Ukraine send like two and a half Leos out to see if a frontal assault would work, and it didn’t, so they didn’t do it again. The vast majority of western systems are still intact and in any case: If things like MBTs and APVs don’t get destroyed you’re not using them. Things get shot at in wars and it’s no secret that a direct artillery hit will kill any tank.
Meanwhile, though, Ukraine is inflicting heavy attrition on Russian artillery, as well as choppers. Don’t let the lines on maps confuse you there’s a lot happening that isn’t visible there.
what I am saying is that the far-right has disproportionate strength in the Ukrainian army
That would mean that all those people who joined since 2014, 2022 are far-right? Which would mean that the whole of Ukraine is far-right. Which makes no sense when you look at the election results with Svoboda having one seat in the Rada.
then in 2022 because it was the best organised forces in the areas seeing the most intense fighting.
Ukraine built its army from 2014, recruiting ordinary people, training them according to NATO doctrine (giving status and independence to NCOs, mission command, such stuff), with NATO help, we sent like a gazillion of instructors. Many many Nazis left Azov after they were integrated into the National Guard, and the whole thing was actively depoliticised.
Are there still Nazis in Azov? Almost certainly. But the days of them dominating and openly running around with SS runes on their helmets are definitely over. Just as a side note btw Azov is and always was Russian-speaking, Ukrainian nationalism gets complicated.
I do not see how Ukraine can win this-even with western weaponry they have failed in their counteroffensive.
No. Ukrainian generals have been very clear about this from the beginning: The offensive is going to drag on for a very long time due to the lack of materiel to do anything big. Conditions have improved somewhat with Stormshadow and Taurus is bound to come soon but Ukraine has no weapons with which it could just obliterate Russian artillery en masse which would then allow them to bring in slow and vulnerable materiel to clear minefields etc. to enable them to break through the line with heavy armour. They, as already said, have to slowly grind down Russian artillery where they can.
The other way would be actual air superiority. Dunno if those F16s will suffice to switch to full NATO strategy but it’s certainly going to give the Russian side quite some trouble.
Speaking of NATO strategy that’s probably the reason this impression exists: Yeah if Ukraine had a fully equipped NATO army they’d disable the whole Russian rear from the air, then parachute in armour to attack the Russian lines from the rear and the whole thing would be over in no time. The kind of not war but beating you saw on TV so many times. Like Operation Desert Storm. But Ukraine doesn’t have a fully equipped NATO army, it’s a Soviet-style army half-way switching to NATO doctrine drip-fed some NATO surplus.
Oh another tidbit: Russia mobilised all its reserves to the front, quite some while ago. Ukraine didn’t they’re rotating troops in and out. Which is why you see renewed conscription drives in Russia, which then poses the question on what kind of equipment they’re supposed to be equipped with, not to speak of the additional instability doing that causes.
For Ukrainians it’s not the case they’re being forced or deceived into fighting, it is a war of national survival! It is a war against an aggressor seeking to at the very least oppress Ukrainian national identity if not destroy it entirely as a political and social force.
Russia is not interested in conquering Ukraine. They’re interested in goals like keeping Ukraine out of NATO, maintaining access to the Black Sea, and not having ethnic Russians who don’t wish to be a part of Ukraine killed on their borders.
I would call them annexed. The people in them do not want to remain part of Ukraine, they’re fine with being part of Russia, and that’s the touchstone here.
Russia is not interested in conquering the whole of Ukraine, because most of the people in the western part do want to remain Ukrainian, not Russian.
Do you actually think the referendums were legitimate? In Crimea there likely was a majority who wanted to join Russia but even then the results were way higher than in previous polling. Plus Kherson and Kharkiv areas were and are not pro-Russian since the invasion and the referendums there were clearly falsified.
It’s not a simple ethnic conflict and the majority of Russian speakers in Ukraine do not want to secede to Russia and do not support the invasion. It is harder to tell in the Donbass because of a lack of data but it is still true that Russia orchestrated the removal of independent-minded leaders for puppets from 2014-2018 or so.
What evidence do you have for that? Asking genuinely not to be facetious. Crimea, yes, but the others I am not so sure. I am especially here referring to Kherson and Kharkhiv regions that were annexed as all data I have seen (I can dig some up if you’d like-do not have it to hand) indicates strong support for the Ukrainian govt against the invasion here even if they dislike the government itself.
I’m very confident the parts of Ukraine that have been trying to leave since 2014 mostly want to leave. I know ethnic Russians and Russian speakers are most heavily concentrated in the east, not just in the pre-war separatist regions but surrounding them, too. I’m sure war breaking out caused a lot of people who were on the fence to pick a side, and I can imagine someone who speaks Russian at home but wasn’t radical enough to be part of a pre-war separatist movement throwing in with the much stronger country, that speaks their language, that doesn’t have troops running around with neo-Nazi patches and flags.
all data I have seen (I can dig some up if you’d like-do not have it to hand) indicates strong support for the Ukrainian govt against the invasion
What I’ve seen is breakdowns of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, which are predominantly in the east. I’ve also seen pre-war election results that show these eastern regions disagree with western Ukraine on national politics.
Sorry, I meant Zaporizhzhia. I am pretty muddle-brained atm as I have my increased anxiety meds dose recently.
I’m very confident the parts of Ukraine that have been trying to leave since 2014 mostly want to leave. I know ethnic Russians and Russian speakers are most heavily concentrated in the east, not just in the pre-war separatist regions but surrounding them, too. I’m sure war breaking out caused a lot of people who were on the fence to pick a side, and I can imagine someone who speaks Russian at home but wasn’t radical enough to be part of a pre-war separatist movement throwing in with the much stronger country, that speaks their language, that doesn’t have troops running around with neo-Nazi patches and flags.
Certainly some did, especially in the Donbass regions, but AFAIK never as much in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson-there is significant data to show that, while obviously Eastern Ukrainians have had a difficult relationship w/ the central government, they still opposed the Russian invasion and supported defence efforts.
What I’ve seen is breakdowns of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, which are predominantly in the east. I’ve also seen pre-war election results that show these eastern regions disagree with western Ukraine on national politics.
Yes, you are right, but voting patterns show there is this polarisation between east and west Ukraine, but that does not ipso facto imply support for the Russian invasion, much less annexation into the Russian state. There is polling to suggest that even in Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and such, there was widespread opposition to the invasion and a ‘rally-to-the-flag’ effect had led to a temporary support in all regions (Donbass not included) for Zelensky and for the Ukrainian defence effort. As I say I can go digging for them if you’d like. I am not saying all Ukrainians hate Russian language and that there is no autonomist movements in the east, just that the data I have seen indicates widespread opposition to the invasion and annexations. However, there is a lack of data in the Donbass region so I simply do not know what people support or think in there as the L/DPRs were not democratic.
I disagree with this. No, I don’t think Russia wants to ‘annex’ all of Ukraine per se, I think the original goal was to invade, quickly topple the government, then set up a puppet state which would be subservient to Russian interests. This would perhaps be combined with an annexation of much of the east. It was set to be a more successful version of Georgia 2008 (which from an operational level was a bit of a screw-up, but Georgia was weak enough that it went well enough anyhow).
Ukraine had signalled its willingness to stay out of NATO before the invasion started. Access to the Black sea was definitely an issue but not the primary war goal, hence why Russia initially directed its most intense attack towards Kyiv (it was not a feint, Russia dedicated a huge amount of manpower here and made an earnest attempt to sweep through the capital here). I think it’s pretty obvious the Russian government doesn’t care at all about ethnic Russians/Russian speakers as this war has made life a hell of a lot worse for most of them. Plus the accusation of ‘genocide’ against the Donbass was vastly exaggerated and a clearly cooked up justification.
The reality is that Ukraine lost its sovereignty when the legitimate and democratically elected government was overthrown in a coup. That’s when the war started between the regime in western Ukraine backed by the west and the east. Western media actually reported on this as well
I agree that at this point Ukraine is basically fucked. There was a possibility to make a deal back in March last year, but US and UK decided to sabotage it. Now, Russia will likely go all the way and there’s not going to be an Ukraine left when this war ends.
Because I truly believe that war is horrible the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this war is a human tragedy, working people all over the world have to deal with the fallout of this war with rising energy costs and higher foodprices which certainly also caused the deaths of people, meanwhile this war is used in many western countries to push extreme austerity which will lessen the quality of life at best.
This war and all wars are a human tragedy, and at the start of it I certainly wasn’t in Russias corner and I’m still not but I have lost all sympathy for Ukraine and the West because not only have there been many off ramps for Ukraine to end this conflict but western politicians have contributed to this misery. They’ve contributed to the deaths of so many lives. People like Boris Johnson that sabotaged the peace talks, Biden that keeps on sending more and more weapon over there so more and more people can die. I’ve since stopped looking at how much money they’ve given but around spring it was 100bn USD which would’ve been enough to combat world hunger for 3 years. Ukranian officials like yes Zelensky who is a clown that personally doesn’t suffer from this and uses it to push his own persona and does a cool photoshoot in his sick operator outfit.
Ukraine has not approached the negotiating table in any serious manner because they insist on demanding everything back including Crimea, which just won’t happen especially not in this position, so the ukranian leadership is happy to get some money from the west so they order people like you and me to walk into artillery fire or into landmines not for any reason because there haven’t been any real gains but just because that’s how the money is flowing in.
Ukraine totally could negotiate a peace it would be incredibly easy because Putin seems eager to want to negotiate but what Ukraine wants isn’t a restoration of the border situation before the war they want Crimea as well, they are not serious about peace and everyone knows it, Ukraine will never surrender and so the only thing that can stop this senseless war is when the endless amount of money flowing into Ukraine stops or when the people of Ukraine have had enough of their bloodthirsty corrupt leadership and overthrow them.
Edit: Also sorry but quite a few people from other instances literally say fascist shit that reminds me of rhetoric that was used during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and we all know how that turned out, calling russian ethnicities in Ukraine ‘occupiers’ is surely not going to lead to violence towards that group.
Germanic tribes, and this continues over to Ukraine culturally (because Rus), had the battle cry “better dead than slave”. A village would fight down to the last woman, elderly, and child. Because even if the aggressor overcame them they’d be left with nothing but their own losses. Thus, they wouldn’t even try.
If Russia is allowed to get away with this, Taiwan will be next. A gazillion of small-scale empires in unstable regions all around the world will say “well, seeing that noone cares our time to get away with it”.
Millions if not billions of people more will be dead.
If Russia is allowed to get away with this, Taiwan will be next. A gazillion of small-scale empires in unstable regions all around the world will say “well, seeing that noone cares our time to get away with it”. Millions if not billions of people more will be dead.
Holy shit mate, stop watching Marvel movies and get some perspective; this isn’t the first time one nation has invaded another. The world didn’t end when America invaded Iraq.
The Iraq war was wrong for a multitude of reasons, and many countries (including mine) wanted to do nothing to do with it, but one thing sets it apart very clearly from the current situation:
Iraq wasn’t a war of conquest. Russia’s war against Ukraine is. The US hasn’t waged a war of conquest IIRC since Hawaii, it’s always been foreign meddling instead but never out-right imposition of rule and they’ve gotten less and less bad at how they’re doing it over time. I mean compare the Iraqi or Afghani government during occupation with the likes of Batista.
Then, and this (as well as that Marvel reference I couldn’t give less of a fuck) makes me think you’re American: It’s the first war by a major power in Europe since WWII. We thought we had that shit behind us, that Yugoslavia was a regrettable exceptions caused by small-minded autocrats exploiting ethnic tensions for their own benefit. But, nope, actual full-scale war has come back to Europe because unlike the rest of Europe Russia hasn’t gotten the memo that imperialism is soooo 18hundreds. As a yank you wouldn’t understand.
A war of avoiding national embarrassment and getting re-elected. The equivalent of starting a bar fight because someone picked up the gal you eyed through your whisky glass for two hours.
Okay, so what you’re saying is that our genocidal war in Iraq that killed a million people, displaced 30 million more, poisoned their soil and DNA with depleted uranium and created ISIS…You’re saying all of that was done for even stupider reasons than the ones you think are driving the Russian Federation now.
Is that supposed to make the US look better, and not monstrous?
Or, more relevant question, why on Earth should the country that lied to start that war be trusted about anything, ever again?
Nobody has been able to give me a compelling answer that doesn’t just boil down to “because other countries must be worse, have to be worse, for my worldview to make sense.” And I get it, I’ve been there. I was a bit of an American chauvinist for a while. But the more familiar I became with history, especially in the 20th century, the more it became clear to me that America has no equivalent in the scale of it’s evil.
Btw just curious, (and not the smug condescending internet kind of “curious”, the real deal): Have you ever checked out Blowback? If you’re a podcast person it’s fantastic, season one is about the Iraq war and it really goes into depth on the history and context behind the war. Some of the reasons you mentioned, some others. Highly recommend.
Is that supposed to make the US look better, and not monstrous?
No. Yanks are idiots I said it before and I’m certainly willing to repeat it. The age of enlightenment by and large never reached them.
Have you ever checked out Blowback?
Nope and honestly I’m not particularly interested because I was already arguing with idiots back then that they’re making a heap of mistakes, I’m sure there’s details in there that I don’t know but I’m well-versed in the overall gist of it all from back then.
If you’re up for crying and laughing at the same time though I have something for you. The history of the USA ones, the subtitles are quite good.
Please, for god’s sake log off before you strain something.
less and less bad at how they’re doing it over time.
This is actually disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. The Americans murdered a million Iraqis, and in the last few years at least 400,000 Yemenis, plus god knows who else and in what numbers.
Cyprus is a vastly complicated situation as Turkish Cypriots were in favour of British rule and Greek Cypriots wanted unification with Greece while it was a dictatorship.
I mentioned Yugoslavia. Do you read comments before replying.
Georgia is basically the same shit as Ukraine just in a bit less worse. While we’re at it we can also mention Transnistria: Again, Russia. As said, it’s Russia which didn’t get the memo.
Cyprus is a vastly complicated situation as Turkish Cypriots were in favour of British rule and Greek Cypriots wanted unification with Greece while it was a dictatorship.
Now this definitely was an inter-state conflict, because Cyprus managed to break free from the British empire. And if we excluded complicated situation then we would have to exclude all wars, including the Ukraine war.
I mentioned Yugoslavia. Do you read comments before replying.
You mentioned it and then said it didn’t count because of reasons. I’m saying it does count because it was a war and it was in Europe. Although under your criteria this should also be excluded because it wasn’t an inter-state conflict. One of the ways that NATO justified its bombing was by saying it wasn’t a state but a supranational organization and thus wasn’t beholden to the UN charter.
Georgia is basically the same shit as Ukraine just in a bit less worse
It was another situation where a western-backed revanchist government attacks a separatist area and then Russia moves in to stop the shelling.
Transnistria
“The first fatalities in the emerging conflict took place on 2 November 1990, two months after the PMR’s 2 September 1990 declaration of independence. Moldovan forces entered Dubăsari in order to separate Transnistria into two halves, but were stopped by the city’s inhabitants, who had blocked the bridge over the Dniester, at Lunga. In an attempt to break through the roadblock, Moldovan forces then opened fire.[47] In the course of the confrontation, three Dubăsari locals, Oleg Geletiuk, Vladimir Gotkas and Valerie Mitsuls, were killed by the Moldovan forces and sixteen people wounded.[30]”
According to a Human Rights Center “Memorial” report, local Bender eyewitnesses on 19 June 1992 saw Moldovan troops in armored vehicles deliberately firing at houses, courtyards and cars with heavy machine guns.[39] The next day, Moldovan troops allegedly shot at civilians that were hiding in houses, trying to escape the city, or helping wounded PMR guardsmen. Other local eyewitnesses testified that in the same day, unarmed men that gathered in the Bender downtown square in request of the PMR Executive Committee, were fired at from machine guns.[39] HRC observers were told by doctors in Bender that as a result of heavy fire from Moldovan positions between 19 and 20 June, they were unable to attend the wounded.[39] -Wikipedia
Hmm
The economic situation in Moldova was not bright. The Agrarian Democratic Party of Moldova was having, along with the Unity-Edinstvo formation – belonging to the people with nostalgia for the former Soviet Union, a comfortable majority; yet, deep concepts and programmes on reforms and the country’s development were absent.
Nevertheless, the western countries were helping Moldova make progress on the way of liberalization of the political and economic spheres. In particular, a substantial assistance was coming on behalf of the USA. The Americans repeatedly declared their unconditional support for Moldova’s territorial integrity, acting to this end in diverse international institutions. And the economic agenda of the Moldovan-American relations was rich at that time. In 1993, 35 Moldovan-U.S. enterprises were working and the trade between the two countries was in a continuous growth. In 1992, this commerce stood at 11.5 million dollars, in 1993 - 15.1 million dollars and in 1994 – 22.4 million dollars. Moldova was benefitting from full support in the relations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. -https://news.gov.md/en/news/2021/01/01/21000333
Hmm. It’s weird how in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine a western-backed revanchist government started attacking civilians in a separatist region all of a sudden. And how all three countries had “market liberalizations” against the will of their people. I guess it’s just one of those coincidences that seem to happen whenever the US has an interest in a place.
I’m sorry but this is definitely shit you only say when you’re very far from the action. Would you want your grandpa drafted and sent into a minefield to “dissuade the aggressor”? Grandma and the children too apparently, better dead than governed by another neighboring authoritarian shithole?
I think I’d rather just flee with my family to a country right next door that has a nuclear deterrent and NATO membership. Literally why would “they need to all fight to the death instead” be your first thought? I can’t imagine it coming from a position where you think Ukrainians are as human as you are.
lol no you don’t, you’ve been lying through this entire thread, I bet even if you had them you wouldn’t know about it because when I asked you to go outside and talk to people you ignored it, literally stop being a NEET go outside and talk to people
You are a german NEET go outside, maybe when you spend some time among real life people you can get your priorities straight like instead of arguing with the scary putin-bot tankies online you can figure some way to organize so that the AfD, that’s the fascist party in case you forgot, doesn’t poll in second place. Unless you yourself aren’t a NEET but a fascist and want the AfD to ‘Take back Germany’ in which case fuck off.
Germanic tribes, and this continues over to Ukraine culturally (because Rus), had the battle cry “better dead than slave”. A village would fight down to the last woman, elderly, and child.
So when are you going to Ukraine to sign up for the frontline?
I’ll have to inform you that I’m a conscious objector (spent my time in catastrophe relief) and by now too old.
But yes there’s plenty of German reservists in Ukraine. Also what does that have to do with anything I said, I was glossing Ukrainian sentiment. Did you merely wanted to be right on the internet (in your own mind).
Dude I’m two countries away. If Russia gets through Poland and half of Germany, sure, I’ll be in the trenches. Probably wouldn’t do much good but if I can’t be of more use somewhere else, that’s where I’ll be.
Well that’s better! Someone so interested in tales of Germanic valor should be ready for another Volkssturm. What I don’t get is why you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself in Ukraine, what with the blood relation and all. Maybe Ukrainians aren’t quite as Germanic in your mind after all?
I’m mocking you. You’re the one that drew a line from Germanic tribes and their heroic culture to modern-day Ukraine. These are some pretty völkische theories you got there.
Native Americans might speak about the War Path. You see it in a ton of indigenous tribes, more “civilised” populations, if they exhibit it, often don’t have a name for it, especially when at peace. It’s a not too uncommon expression of basic human instincts regarding defence of your loved ones. To get away from Germanic tribes but stay in Europe: Finns for the longest time didn’t really have it in this way and were ruled by more or less benevolent Swedes, then Russia came along and, by treating them way worse, unearthed that stuff which is why you get “when the snow starts speaking Finnish” memes, they’re absolutely capable of mobilising the complete country for their own defence, support for universal conscription is near universal, such things. For the closely related Estonians it took Soviet occupation to develop that fierceness.
Minsk I a treaty they’ve signed that was about greater autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts like them being allowed to speak russian a treaty that was very quickly broken.
Minsk II a treaty that did the same thing which again was broken.
and these are the off ramps before the war during the war you had the peace talks when the russian army was outside of Kiev whose content is dubious because so far only the russians said what it was about
and more importantly every peace talk after that Ukraines position was a restoration of the 2014 borders aka they want Crimea back which sorry is just not reasonable, hell for a lot of those peace talks russia wasn’t even invited it was a bunch of countries like Germany, UK and Ukraine but not you know the country currently participating in this war.
This is one of those bits where I say that a country isn’t about some piece of land but the people in it which guess what the ukrainian government is feeding into gigantic blender.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME IMAGINARY LINES.
If Cuba decided to ‘restore its borders’ aka if it attacked the US base on Guantanamo Bay and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Cubans throwing them against the US army blender I would call for the Cuban people to rise up against its government because it doesn’t care about its people and I hope you would too, if Mexico decided to take back California I’d have that same stance. It’s called being anti-war, something I’m sure you’ll now quote how “actually your stance isn’t anti-war my which calls for sending billions of military equipment is actually anti-war”
My guess is that you don’t know what war is like or have never interacted with anyone that had to flee a war, you really have two options here you can go outside and talk to any ukrainian woman that fled because of the war, tell them to their face that they are giving in to the aggressor when they say how angry they are at the ukrainian government because they don’t know where their husband or their two brothers are. You know what I’ll make it easier for you find any person in real life that has had to flee a conflict and how they feel about ‘giving in to the aggressor’. Or if you feel you don’t need to do that go join up the ukranian army do your part to fight the aggressor I mean it’s only war right, you’ve seen some TikToks with war footage and some phonk music accompaning it, war is absolutely poggers I’m sure you’d have a blast fighting some russian orks.
Minsk I a treaty they’ve signed that was about greater autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts like them being allowed to speak russian a treaty that was very quickly broken.
Minsk II a treaty that did the same thing which again was broken.
…broken by the separatists. Also Russian was never outlawed.
Ukraines position was a restoration of the 2014 borders aka they want Crimea back which sorry is just not reasonable,
It’s unreasonable to not give in to a conqueror? It’s that “Pacifism is when I kick you and you don’t defend yourself” thing, again.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME IMAGINARY LINES.
You may not. The people living in those areas (fled or not) do, though. They do care whether there’s rule of law, whether they have a say in how things are run, whether there’s a criminal installed at the top of things by the occupying force. After Ukraine got its independence many Tatars returned to Crimea that should tell you something.
Ukrainians, no matter the ethnicity, don’t want to be ruled by Moscow. It’s as simple as that. Before the war, some still had hopes that good relations with Moscow are possible, but not any more. Do you want to be ruled by Moscow? See neighbours disappear in torture cellars?
damn I was so sure this ukrainian woman I was talking to really wanted the war to end but she must not be a true blooded ukrainian women amiright? Again you are just some edgy person that doesn’t get out enough and you channel that into playing up how much of a big powerful person you are by yelling “WAR WAR WAR NO ME WANT BLOOD WAR NOW BOMBS MINES BLOOD SKULLS WAR” it is good to see though that you will not go outside so there’s that you don’t seem like a pleasant person to be around.
Also this isn’t a creative exercise you aren’t supposed to just make up lies lol
Everyone wants the war to end. By the way of Russia losing it because Russia being allowed to win means even more war in the future: Peace on the agressor’s terms is not peace, and thus cannot be the goal of any pacifist.
If the Kiev coup regime was concerned about aggression, they could have simply not done eight years of ethnic cleansing in the Donbas and ignored a ceasefire🤷♂️
the first 2 , they just involved West Ukraine giving in towards accepting 30 % of your citizens to have Human and Democratic rights as well … (please read up on Minsk 1 & 2 )
Ah, the old myth about the poor disenfranchised Russian minority. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives? A neighbouring belligerent empire, perhaps?
Ah, the old myth about the perfidious, untrustworthy minority with dual loyalties who are surely plotting with The Enemy. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives?
Name them. Who are you talking about? Through which party do they act? What battalions do they field? How are they operating independently of the general staff?
Because if you mean Azov the current battalion isn’t the old Azov, it’s been diluted by ordinary people to the point where it’s an ordinary battalion. If you’re talking about Right Sector they’re under general staff command when it comes to military, and have literally zero political power left in the Rada.
And those genocide claims are also bullshit. Poroshenko lost an election (among other things) over being too heavy-handed, yes, but even then anything that went down was a far cry from genocide. It’s not even comparable to Russia’s bombing campaign which deliberately targets civilians at their most vulnerable to inflict maximum casualties, apartment complexes in the night and shopping malls during shopping hours kind of shit.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
Their choices are to keep fighting, which will not change this outcome, or negotiate an end to the war so they can stop dying and start rebuilding. Their negotiating position will only weaken as the war continues absent some one-in-a-million stroke of luck.
This isn’t “I kick you and you don’t defend yourself.” It’s “I kick you, you defend yourself, lose, and choose to either walk away or keep getting beaten up.” And that’s not even digging into the actual causes of the war, which are nowhere near as clear cut as Russia one day waking up and deciding to attack out of the blue.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
[citation needed].
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting. Heck even if Russia occupied all of Ukraine they’d keep on fighting. It’s not in your hands whether they fight or not, and their motive is just, so why not help them? Because you’re a defeatist? Come on.
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting
Yeah, that’s why they’ve been kidnapping people to the front lines, because the Ukranian people want to fight so much. That’s why they conscripted prison inmates and forbid any man undder 60 from leaving when the war broke out, right. Because of all that popular will to fight.
There’s been plenty of court cases and firings over improperly handled conscriptions. Prison inmates IIRC weren’t conscripted but given a choice. Plenty of Ukrainians – also men – returned from other European countries to fight, left countries where they had a free welfare ride and working permits. Plenty of women fight in the army. It surely must be terrible over there /s.
Meanwhile Russia is force-conscripting pretty much any man they can get their hands on and sending them, without equipment, into meat grinders. Have a look at Storm Z units.
Yeah, one lesson I’ve taken from this conflict, is if you ever get conscripted into a modern war, don’t fucking go, because someone in power probably wants you dead. You’ve got russia on one side trying to smash their own domestic fascists and dwindle their numbers (see Wagner in Bahkmut) and you’ve got Ukraine trying to burn through anyone they think might have Russian sympathies. It’s just a shitty situation all around, and of course it usually affects the poorest.
The point remains this is going to go on until the west, or better yet, the people of Ukraine can acknowledge the reality of the situation and muster the phrase “territorial concessions”. Continuing to expend lives on the idea of retaking Crimea is not a path to victory.
Stuff you don’t want to hear so didn’t hear, apparently: Russian torture cellars. Other things you might not want to hear include Russians castrating POWs.
I said the war is lost and Ukraine should negotiate. You said:
It’s not in your hands whether they fight or not, and their motive is just, so why not help them?
I pointed out how ridiculous it is to say “why not help them” is to someone who just said they believed the war was lost. Rather than continue this conversation, you went off on a tangent. Brilliant.
It’s not a tangent. Even if Ukraine lost (and it didn’t, and you made no actual argument on why I should believe so) with the kind of atrocities Russia is committing in occupied territories tons of people would, and, well, do, fight against the occupiers.
you made no actual argument on why I should believe so
Would anything convince you?
And yes, bringing up allegations of war crimes is a total non sequitur in a discussion about whether the war itself is winnable for Ukraine. No war crime is excusable, but every side of every war commits them.
The front has not moved in most of a year, which includes the recent failed counteroffensive.
Russia views this as an existential threat. NATO will pay the bills but not indefinitely. Ukraine at some point will tire of a train of body bags with nothing to show for them.
Russia has much shorter supply lines than NATO.
NATO pulled out its economic Trump card at the beginning of the conflict and yet here we are.
The front has not moved in most of a year, which includes the recent failed counteroffensive.
That’s not even close to a military analysis. What about artillery attrition? Logistics in the rear? What’s the average time between Russians setting up an ammo depot and it getting blown to bits? Conscription getting riskier and riskier for Putin?
How many reserves have the sides committed to the front? Hint: Russia committed everything quite some time ago while Ukraine didn’t and is rotating troops so they can get some well-deserved R&R.
Russia views this as an existential threat. NATO will pay the bills but not indefinitely. Ukraine at some point will tire of a train of body bags with nothing to show for them.
Putin does, certainly when it comes to regime stability. Russia? I very much doubt it because there’s also sane Russian. Europe will continue support indefinitely don’t confuse us for fickle yanks and you’re severely underestimating the morale boost incurred by fighting a defensive war. For Ukraine, this indeed is an existential war. Read Clausewitz.
Russia has much shorter supply lines than NATO.
No. Much of Russia’s production and stocks are in the east. Also that’s like such a non-issue.
NATO pulled out its economic Trump card at the beginning of the conflict and yet here we are.
…at a state where Russia, Russia, is importing metals from China. Metals. Russia. Do I need to need to use more italics. I don’t have any insight on the details but it’s well-known that Russia is lacking workers because tons are either a) dead, b) on the front, or c) in hiding to not end up a) or b), and that seems to be so bad that it affects mining and refining.
Now China might be happy propping Russia up, but internally the Z-patriots are going to scream bloody murder incurring debts with China. Long story short: Russia’s internal situation is becoming more and more volatile.
What about artillery attrition? Logistics in the rear? What’s the average time between Russians setting up an ammo depot and it getting blown to bits? Conscription getting riskier and riskier for Putin? How many reserves have the sides committed to the front?
Do you think you know the answer to any of these questions? I don’t see any sources. The bottom line is that Russia has shown the ability to hold its territory for quite some time.
Europe will continue support indefinitely
Lol let’s see if Europe’s support will last another winter of higher energy prices. The U.S. is the big spender, anyway.
…at a state where Russia, Russia, is importing metals from China
This paragraph is so mind-meltingly stupid I hardly know where to start.
Countries regularly import metals, metals, from other countries. That’s because whether to import is a business decision based on price, not whether you have domestic access to an item.
It is utterly preposterous to believe Russia is lacking workers. Soviet industrial capacity exploded during WWII, a far larger and more destructive war.
Do you think you know the answer to any of these questions? I don’t see any sources.
You’d know about it if you actually followed the war in military terms.
Lol let’s see if Europe’s support will last another winter of higher energy prices. The U.S. is the big spender, anyway.
Are you European?
Countries regularly import metals, metals, from other countries. That’s because whether to import is a business decision based on price, not whether you have domestic access to an item.
So you’re saying that it’s cheaper for Russia to import from China than keeping production inside? How is that supposed to work?
It is utterly preposterous to believe Russia is lacking workers. Soviet industrial capacity exploded during WWII, a far larger and more destructive war.
That was in a day and age where people still had children, and it’s no wonder it exploded it was pretty much at zero during Tsar times.
Have Russian press reporting about the military shortfall, and that’s before the war started, not counting the sky-high incurred losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#/media/File:Russia_Population_Pyramid.svg.
So you’re saying that it’s cheaper for Russia to import from China than keeping production inside? How is that supposed to work?
Jesus Christ… Russia is a big country. Mines and mills are expensive and undesirable to live by so they don’t build them everywhere unless it’s necessary. Ore deposits are not spread evenly throughout countries, nor are mills. Unfinished products are not very economical to ship long distances. So Russia could have all the (for example) steel production capacity in the world, but if its capacity is mostly in Western Russia and you have a factory in Eastern Russia right across the border from a Chinese steel mill, it’s probably cheaper to import than buy domestically.
That was in a day and age where people still had children, and it’s no wonder it exploded it was pretty much at zero during Tsar times.
People have kids today you doofus, and not only running production capacity but building it all while fighting a war is an even greater indication of their labor availability than if they had started with a strong industrial base.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
[citation needed].
Points at the utter failure of the joke of a counteroffensive to even breach Russia’s first line of defense after months of hype about retaking Crimea
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting.
You mean the ones forced to fight because they were kidnapped off the street and will be shot if they try to leave? Or the fascists that are in charge?
Heck even if Russia occupied all of Ukraine they’d keep on fighting.
Part of the reason why Russia does not want to occupy all of Ukraine.
It’s not in your hands whether they fight or not,
Nor yours, but it is in the hands of NATO leadership who have stymied peace negotiations at every opportunity.
and their motive is just
[citation needed]
so why not help them?
Why would we want to help people get forced into a meat grinder?
I don’t know, we really have to look at defederating from some of these hostile communities. That rude user just told me to kill myself, whereas my polite Hexbear comrades would only send me an emoji of pig shit if we had a serious disagreemt.
How many of those involve not giving in to the aggressor?
How can it be hammered in to your skull that this is not a story book where good guys win by virtue of their righteousness?
This is geopolitics. An empire wants to conquer an outlying resource rich region it has not been able to bring under it’s control. It has provoked a small outlying nation to act as a proxy to weaken it’s enemy. Ukraine isn’t making decisions. They’re just ammunition in someone else’s war and the best thing for them would be to mutiny against Kiev and end the slaughter. Status quo antebellum is not on the menu.
You will forget again by tomorrow. It’s a very human coping mechanism. Then some meany will remind us again. The only reason I’m not so surprised is because I wake up every day with a riddle of tattoos covering my body.
That’s not what he meant and you know it. He’s making light of an obvious double standard regarding the standing in which we hold two sources with obvious national biases.
They might not know it. There hasn’t been a lot of particularly complex analysis here and they very well might be operating on the level of “bad news bad, good news good”.
Because you have the reading comprehension of a grade schooler and are apparently incapable of handling such complexities as “Just because they’re winning doesn’t mean we support them” and “everybody in this conflict is an asshole except the non-Nazis soldiers being slaughtered so defense contractors can put in new pools in Arlington”.
This isn’t some law of attraction thing. Admitting that Ukraine is at best stalemated isn’t going to cause them to magically lose.
There’s a lot of layers to this. Among them the problem that yanks and other westerners with an exceptionalist world outlook have been convinced that only the good guys win, and that to win means to be the good guy no matter how abhorrent they are. So to accept that Russia is winning or, at least, that Ukraine can’t win, means accepting that Russia is in fact the good guy. Which is clearly nonsense, but then neither you nor I are making the claim.
Not to mention deported American citizens fairly frequently, since they assume any brown person who doesn't have their license on them at the moment is illegally in the country.
I’d never considered this, but of course it came down to economics- weird how often massive crimes against humanity come down to some bourgeois thief wanting to take more for themselves and willing to do anything to do it.
Just did a little reading on it, they stole 400 million (1942) dollars worth of farmland from Japanese-Americans, which is like 7 billion adjusted for inflation, and basically just gave them to agribusiness corporations.
Yeah they don’t tell you in school that white Californians lobbied hard for Japanese Americans to be robbed of all their land and property, and it’s a big part of why their lands weren’t restored to them after the war. Like western expansion never really stopped.
I think they’d be somewhat more likely to use various schemes to enslave Hispanic migrants and citizens, given how vital Hispanic migrants are to American ag.
Sorry but they’re called ‘Migration Storage Facilities’ not Concentration camps by the trustworthy newspaper The New York Times. This obviously means they’re not concentration camps.
That’s all fair, but framing the sequence of events as entirely unilateral action by the AfD is just as slanted as the article, and we’re better than that.
It is almost entirely unilateral action by AfD though.
A better article would make AfD look even more perverse by highlighting a key plant of Xi Jinping thought is “ecological civilisation”, that China invests heavily in renewables and is building a $1 billion factory in Hungary (from memory) to gain more European green market share.
It could also seek comment from Chinese officials, or even AfD (I didn’t see that but might have missed it?)
I mean… It’s not like there’s not a standing invitation for Germany’s current government. Is building diplomatic ties not permissible if the party isn’t currently in power?
Better fucking tell the Republicans to get out of Canadian politics, then.
Berry says the convoy wants to save children from the “human trafficking industry,”
Sounds like pizzagate
but also from “mandating the shots to kids and kids getting sick
Anti-vaxx disinformation
and frigging education and all the stuff they’re teaching them in schools
Anti-education disinformation
and the trans agenda [and], gender dysphoria – all of these things.”
Anti-trans moral panic fueled by disinformation
he and others have shared graphics claiming “the World Health Organization and the United Nations are instructing elementary schools around the world to have pedophilia normalized.”
Anti-LGBTQ moral panic fueled by disinformation
and the math agenda
Ah yes the tyranny of math
You know what really helps solve these imaginary issues? Blocking traffic in Canadian cities, inconveniencing random people, and committing acts of terrorism. Brilliant plan, fuckwits. If only they cared about real issues as much as their imaginary ones.
Oh and then there's this gem:
The “Save the Children Convoy,” a spin-off of recent anti-2SLGBTQ+ protests targeting schools and drag storytime events as well as loosely inspired by the controversial film “Sound of Freedom,” is being planned for Toronto in late summer or early fall. ...
This week, reports surfaced that one of the Sound of Freedom’s original funders had been arrested on child kidnapping charges in Missouri.
It’s those fuckin’ numbers, man! I keep trying to make them do what I say, but they keep responding rationally. I want 2+2 to equal 5, but they won’t fuckin’ listen!
I thought everything else was supposed to be covered under the "Q," but I guess it's important to some groups that they have their own letter. So, that makes the long-form 2SLGBTQIA+ now? Ugh, that does not roll off the tongue.
I feel like the sooner society accepts that sexuality is complex the less letters will need to be added so people feel like they’re represented. I’m all for inclusion but I’d rather see a world where 2slgbtq+ is irrelevant and people are just free to be who they want to be, whatever letter that is
Pretty much. At this stage, I don’t want anyone to feel left out, but after a certain point, trying to define more points on the spectrum of human gender expression and sexuality gets into diminishing returns. Even with the traditional colours of the rainbow, where does blue end and indigo begin? The labels exist to make it easier for people to talk about things and describe the world around us. Unless there is some specific nuance someone is trying to capture, LGBTQ+ should get the point across with the Q and the +. Technically, I think you could get the point across in most use cases with something more succinct than that, but that seems to be what has been established.
Still, I can totally get that someone can feel left out being lumped into the +, so individual use will and should vary. I still rail against the inefficiencies of common language though. The concept is simple, people who aren’t in the big main hetero & cis sections of the spectrum.
This is what I’m hoping for in my lifetime. It’s hard to explain but I want healthy sexuality to be so mainstream, and so socially acceptable that it’s boring. That it doesn’t need to be the focal point of a show or a movie or a book or whatever. That people can just be people and we don’t need token characters at all. I want it to be so normal that it’s boring.
You beat me to it on that last line, but I’ll highlight some others [emphasis mine]:
Berry is even more pointed about his concerns in the convoy’s private Facebook group where he and others have shared graphics claiming “the World Health Organization and the United Nations are instructing elementary schools around the world to have pedophilia normalized.”
[…]
Phillips says Sager’s comments point to the influence of “sovereign citizen ideology.”
As soon as I saw the headline, I wondered if Romana Didulo would be mentioned. She’s a conspiracy nutbag who declared herself the Queen of Canada and started her cult of followers caravanning back and forth throughout Canada. She’s been active since 2020. There’s a fascinating look at her org at Vice. She wasn’t mentioned in the original article, however.
My wife just got back from a literal math conference with fellow math researchers. I asked her what the math agenda is and she said snacks & coffee at 10am because everyone was tired from being up early to make it to the conference.
I’ll let you know if any other nefarious math-based plots are exposed.
hahahahahaha, Fulton County Georgia is gonna get and release mug shots on every single one of these motherfuckers, and the court cases are going to be televised, ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
“Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you,” Sheriff Labat said.
Well in this particular instance: Trump is the guy who non stop says that everything is fake news and not real. Having a mug shot is visual proof he was booked.
They will still get weapons from the EU though because Ukraine used to supply huge amount of the grain supply and the EU wants that back.
And the UK will continue to supply weapons like storm shadow missiles, tank ammunition, and the 3D printed mini helicopter drone things because the right wing party are going to lose the next election. The Russians seemed to have lost interest in trying to influence those elections.
They'll still get weapons from the EU and European countries, true, but about half of all their military aid has come from States. The EU simply doesn't have the capability to replace that amount of aid.
Seems the pentagon has no intention of stopping no matter what the legislative branch says, it will take the executive to tell them to stop before they maybe do. They might just “lose” some equipment in Ukraine like they’ve lost billions who knows where
Not only that, but Canada has proven its firm hand on this. When China went apeshit after Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Canada to extradite her to the USA, Canada stuck to its guns. Even after two Canadians were taken hostage by the Chinese government in a retaliatory arrest, Meng stayed under arrest with her extradition going forward, while the rest of the world (including Modi’s India) politely looked the other way rather than angering China.
India cannot possibly claim they couldn’t have gotten results from Canada if they’d gone through the legal system.
Canada did not stick to any kind of guns, but was ordered by USA to kidnap Huawei CEO’s daughter, so that Trump could play around with China using Huawei as a “bargaining chip”. The way Meng was house arrested on airport by RCMP for about 350 days, despite Huawei having no faults regarding HSBC’s transactions with Iran, only tells Canada is like a little chained puppy for USA.
The Huawei situation riles me up as having been someone who loved Huawei pushing the smartphone industry for many years, to where we are now, with a feature-rich camera app with timelapse, first to invent night mode, 40+ MP camera sensors, pixel binning tech, 10x periscope zoom, 4000+ mAh batteries in flagships, focus on large camera sensor size, amazing back designs and numerous other things they have done. If not for them, these other companies would have kept us stuck to 2 shitty cameras, 3000 mAh battery and subpar computational camera processing. Even Pixel’s HDR+ and Night Sight were highly “influenced” and derivative of Huawei’s innovations.
If you think this is fanboy defense, you can freely assume that since you are deluded. Each of those things I mentioned have carried over to every phonemaker over the years, and have received praise from everyone. Talking about innovations is not fanboyism.
I am talking about history and how it tends to repeat if you don’t correct the mistakes, the mistake Canadian Govt. is making again by shielding these terrorists, just because they need NDPs support to keep their govt running and it’s a shame how bais plays into it, just because you don’t want to believe violent separatists are terrorists it doesn’t mean they aren’t.
Alleged is an important word here and India has already shared files with evidence to Canada in multiple individuals (including the one “alleged” to have been assassinated). Why is Canada not supporting India in these investigations? just because it needs NDPs support to keep in power, Canada is siding with terrorists and their sponsors.
What's interesting is that India has been claiming the guy is a terrorist for years, but never really gave specific examples of what made him a terrorist other than his spouting separatist beliefs (which maybe is enough in India to arrest someone?)
But they also don't seem to have bothered to even try to extradite him, which seems telling in itself.
Have you seen the extradition request? Who told you India has not given proof to Canada? He is wanted in a bombing and multiple killings. A simple google search will give you the case no. and relevant details for his involvement in such crimes.
That’s more or less my point. We’re all flawed. I’m just questioning our ability to be self regulating. I’m also questioning the use of the word “deserve.”
And all the Indian news outlets are claiming the guy was a gangster and that this was a gang-related shooting. Meanwhile the local Winnipeg police are just like "Uh, we have no evidence on that as of yet and have made no statements about that, where the frick are you getting this claim from?"
Yeah, I updated the headline to make it clear that the allegations were by India, because people were rightly pointing out that “alleged Khalistani terrorist” was giving them too much credit.
“the guy deserved it” should never be justification for a state to kill someone. Even if you think capital punishment is justified, it should only be after a fair trial. And, if someone has a capital punishment sentence against them, that’s only valid within their own borders.
If you violate a country’s monopoly of the use of force within their own borders, that’s a step on the path to war.
… this is what the elites in Europe have come to… hedonism, lack of loyalty except to personal desires, no sense of responsibility to anything bigger than self-interest. Sadly, the USA is headed the same way if the liberals, leftists, progressives, socialists, and Democrats continue to have their way with our government, schools, and children…
… The socialist mindset has made Europeans lazy and entitled. …
I’m not sure what I expected from the comments but it certainly wasn’t that.
The USA is definitely headed this way… towards a proto-fascist leader on the GOP side. Meloni comes from the remainder of Mussolini’s supporters. Doesn’t have anything to do with Europeans or Socalists of course.
Israel’s strategy with the West Bank is masterful. Wholly and completely evil, but masterful.
Either the Palestinians just accept their lot, in which case Israel incrementally takes their land through their “settler” proxies, or the Palestinians (entirely justifiably) try to fight back, in which case the IDF goes in and kills a bunch of them, and Israel takes their land anyway.
It’s fucking despicable, but it works, and if one is devoid of morality, empathy or simple human decency, that’s all that matters.
That just isn’t true, the majority of the population of American Indians died via disease without ever meeting a European. Also, Americans on many occaisons had virtually no qualms with just committing outright genocide, whereas Israel actually needs “tactics” to try to cover it up.
I agree, but just for clarity’s sake most of the deaths due to disease weren’t strictly intentional until long after we were genociding them. I’m not saying it’s a mirror image of the US genocides, I’m saying that the Israeli government is modeling their methods after the US, and playing politics about their genocide.
No it wasn’t. Stealing land? Sure. Forced religious conversion? Sure. Invasion and occupation? Sure.
Genocide, though, only really started in this millennia. Before that, land conquest would just involve replacing the government and institutions, not killing/displacing the local population to have them replaced with settlers. It just didn’t make sense for most of human history.
Not to say things were good! Instead of genocide, the more common tactic throughout history was mass enslavement.
“Started this millennia” is not the same thing as “USA was the first to ever do that”. Of course groups expanded into territory held by others and pushed them out and killed them. I mean, there’s tales of similar things in the Bible. It’s also not really the same as what is happening in Gaza at all.
I would say the concept of genocide didn’t really exist before the concept of the nation-state, which is a relatively recent development that happened to coincide with the so-called “discovery” of the New World. That’s hardly the USA’s invention though! Europe pioneered the concept and used it to colonize all over the world.
But America just kept pushing the survivors west a couple thousand miles at a time, and at least they got some land. Even if there was no where to displace them to, America would have just killed them all.
Israel is compacting people in a box, physically and psychologically it’s torture. Then, when some snap and do some crazy shit, they kill a bunch of people and make the box smaller
They’ve been doing it for the whole 70 years Israel has existed.
And it gives right wing extremist politicians a constant Boogeyman and without any real threat to themselves, and keeps them in power. So its never going to change.
That’s an analysis I hadn’t considered. I was thinking about instances like Wounded Knee, the 1862 Sioux Uprising, etc and the aftermath of US colonialism that resulted in the small plots of land they were forcibly exiled to.
Modelled after the settler colonial tactics of the Americans, British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Boer, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Chinese, Germans etc etc
Settler colonialism is an old evil, we saw it do immense damage in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of us live with its legacy and are still picking up the pieces.
That’s actually not how modern China gained territory. The settlements in Xinjiang were explicitly designed to not step on the traditional Uyghur economic/cultural center of Kashgar. Instead, settlement surrounded Urumqi, a place that used to be a backwater of backwaters (the name meaning “beautiful pasture”). Even today, Kashgar and it’s surrounding areas are majority Uyghur (by far), while Urumqi is majority Han.
I love that you name-drop the US when it was the English, Spanish, Dutch, and French that raped every continent and genocided entire cultures before the idea of the United States even existed.
Ok. But the US did exist during westward expansion. America is a pretty modern look at colonialism. The “USA” territory was originally untouched by westward expansion. It therefore functions as a super recent, unmuddied, look at colonialism. It’s a good example.
Oh, and don't forget that the IDF have been reported on (and even video taped themselves) stealing money, jewelry, and anything else valuable they can grab in Gaza while they're there.
It’s funny, it’s pretty similar to what the US government did when they sent in settlers out to the west. Once over enough settlers staking out clams of land, it ended up crowding out the native Americans which led to conflict, and then you ended up with Custer killing bison on the Great plains.
I think the significant part there though is that it’s what the US government did almost 200 years ago. Not that that excuses it, but it was a much more primitive and ignorant world then, and at least some of it can be ascribed to that primitiveness and ignorance.
Doing the same thing in the modern world though - that’s just pure, unmitigated evil.
Restaurant Brands International owns Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeye's Chicken, and Firehouse Subs
Fuck RBI, they are lying war profiteers putting tax revenue in the hand of the Kremlin which it uses to fund it's war of genocide in Ukraine. Do not eat in any of their restaurants
You don’t own franchise partners by definition. They are individually owned restaurants that pay you a fee to use your brand (name, menu, marketing, etc.).
„Shutting down“ here means: Don’t renew these franchise contracts. The restaurants will continue to exist, but they will have to rebrand and be less lucrative.
but they will have to rebrand and be less lucrative.
And what do you do if those Russian franchise owners refuse to rebrand and continue using the BK name, supplies and signage?
Do you stop providing logistical support? Do you cut them off the BK supply chain (shut that down too) and not provide any new menu items / marketing materials?
Edit: At least 10 people didn’t read the fucking article, BK did cut the supply line. This place is just like Reddit, all hurr durr without reading the article.
They are telling you, literally. They should revoke the branding licence, cut every supply lines, and sue them if they continue using the brand (as they would surely do if I just started to have a Burger King without a licence). They don’t do these things. Which is wrong. And that’s what they are doing wrong.
What imaginary supply line are you talking about? Do you think that any food there is not supplied locally? That they import paper wrappings with a logo from the US? Actually the ones probably importing their stuff are sitting in the US, even if it's just plastic trash from China.
It's a name. And if they got told not to use it anymore or they just don't pay anything anymore... what is supposed to happen? Someone goes to Russia and sues them there?
Burger King corporate supplies the wrappers, the branding, the marketing, and the damn product. These franchises don’t “make” anything in house. They reheat par-cooked food that, in this case, BK corporate has delivered to them via truck. BK corporate has had over a year to cut that supply line. They own the branding, and therefore the wrappers.
BK did cut the supply chain logistics. It’s mentioned in the article.
Sue the franchisees? Where? In Russia? In the middle of an economic war with the west? Even if the suit proceeded for some reason, who do you expect the court to rule in favor of?
BK did everything to severe ties. The only thing that remains is to sell their share of the franchise. If they sell now (even if they find a buyer), they likely won’t be paid in anything other than rubles which is useless.
Lol dude, take your own advice. Read the article, about how they’re dragging their feet and didn’t even want to exit in the first place. How much that BK PR team paying you lol.
Also they didn’t say they were cutting supply chain, it says “The spokesperson for RBI said the company was refusing new investment and supply chain support.” Refusing NEW investments is not the same as killing the existing supply chain. Jesus, read.
Nothing, because you just hallucinate supply lines. The franchise pays for the fucking name and that's it. And if they are not allowed to do so anymore, who's going to Russia and sue the owning oligarchs there?
The fact that this gets media coverage like it even remotely matters is madness. Will there be media coverage of my posts on the topic, since it’s suddenly world news when a private American citizen comments on what is happening in another country…
To be fair, this is a private American citizen with close enough ties to far right politicians he hosted the campaign launch of one, who’s whim personally controls a major space launch provider and a site that sets the terms of public conversation and normality for a terrifying large number of people, and ohh ya, in an economic system based around the idea that the person with the most capital gets to decide what to do , well he has the most capital.
This isn't Tom the small business accountant from rural Ohio commenting on Germany's immigration policy on a facebook post. It's someone who controls more money than the GDP of multiple entire countries, and who has already shown an interest in using his companies to influence geo-politics based on his opinions in the moment.
If anything, you should be concerned that a single individual can make choices about global politics without discussion or legal safety guards - which has historically caused some issues in the place that the AfD comes from.
Because it does matter, motherfucker has millions of people listening to him and a worldwide social media that he controls. Even if his opinions are trash, he amplifies and spreads this garbage, and gives a platform for the scum of the earth who wouldn’t have it otherwise.
He’s building a Tesla factory in Germany. So that might be why. Also it’s not just a right wing party, but the most extreme right wing party in Germany that isn’t forbidden yet.
The video makes it pretty clear what’s going down. She has also stated nothing happened he wasn’t aware of, so it might not be cheating regardless.
Seems an awfully specific phrasing in English in regards to what he has agreed to in their relationship, but maybe it’s less suspiciously specific in Finnish.
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