Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.

“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

nosurprises,

Lemmy is too small to be targeted by bots, isn’t it? It makes me sad how many real people are supporting the Putin’s war and blaming Ukraine for defending itself. “OH BUT USA KILLED SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE SO LET PUTIN HAVE FUN TOO”. It’s crazy.

flaneur,

Zelensky has forgotten to mention Mink and Mink2 agreement that he and EU have broken, thus lying to Russia, and even admitted it.

Devious_Thoughts,

Facts

WuTang,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

Using terrorist to talk about russian’s state army, well identified, sounds fishy to me.

looking for a EU only fediverse instance. I’m fed up of us trolls.

rikudou,
@rikudou@lemmings.world avatar

Why you think people from the EU will be more understandable of your conspiracies, is beyond me.

Source: am from EU.

phoenixz,

Very true. Russia (well, putin) has shown over and over that he can’t be trusted, he will stab you in the back and he will murder you.

Hell, the entire land grab from Ukraine was going against accords made where Russia promised to allow Ukraine to exist as a sovereign nation and Russia would get all their nukes. Russia got the nukes and theb went on to invade and steal Crimea and then to just drop all pretence and invade the entire Ukraine.

Just give some shitty transparent excuses, mumble something about non existent Nazis, and just steal lands.

So no, you can’t make deals with Putin

However, Ukraine is in a tight spot. They still rely on the west (and mostly United States)for the Weapons and gear they use on the war. Russia has the Republican party in their pocket and if the Republican party (or worse trump) wins the election, they’ll at the least stop all Help and likely hand the Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter.

This means they basically gotta gain as much as possible before the US elections, which is why they’re grinding on so much without the proper air support they’ll start having at the end of the year. It sucks, but it’s the situation they’re in.

It’s impressive though to see how much they advance without air support. Slava Ukraine!

onparole,

The eerie thing is the change in the behaviour of conservatives regarding Russia. If Trump wins, will NATO fall?

grue,

The eerie thing is the change in the behaviour of conservatives regarding Russia.

What change in behavior? Conservatives hated the communist Soviet Union, but Russia as ruled by czars or fascist dictators is everything they admire.

(Also, to answer your question: yeah, probably.)

onparole,

“What change” ? They were the cause of the red scare. Weird how the enemy suddenly becomes a friend, Trump is duped and the westworlds most open spy ever. EVERRRR

grue,

You completely missed the point, which is that post-1990 Russia is the polar fucking opposite of the Soviet Union that the conservatives hated during the Red Scare, in terms of ideology along the left-right spectrum.

Trying to pretend fascist Russia is the same as the USSR is bullshit on the same caliber as calling the modern Republicans the “party of Lincoln.”

onparole,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    onparole,

    Yer a cunt Harry

    grue,

    WTF are you talking about? Nothing about my comment is “defending” a damn thing, especially not fascists.

    Not only are you apparently a moron with zero reading comprehension skills, you’re too defective even to troll properly!

    Gsus4,
    @Gsus4@feddit.nl avatar

    Fun fact: Lincoln was Marx’s penpal and Marx influenced Lincoln’s opposition to slavery :)

    hglman,

    You have to think that’s strongly opposed by the military industrial complex. Maybe there is an alternative formulation of ways to spawn foreign wars trump will push.

    onparole,

    As I understood Trump was a fairly peacefull pres except for the moba he dropped. Even the worst has to be good at something.

    FatCrab,

    This is wild revisionism that keeps getting spread around right now just for “some reason.” In case you’re being sincere, you understood wrong. He greenlit operations with far less stringent oversight on civilian casualties, lured an enemy general to an assassination with false pretenses, dramatically loosened up rules of engagement, increased drone deaths immensely while ratfucking transparency on drone operations, and explicitly wanted to use us military as literal mercenaries. No, Trump was not at all a “peaceful” president or administration.

    onparole,

    Good. I’m not a Trumper. Thank you your service 07

    phoenixz,

    Nah. The US might pull out of NATO because the corrupt criminal would obey Putin but NATO would simply continue without the US.

    zephyreks,

    People really want to see more Ukrainians die, huh?

    dsmk,

    I personally don’t want anyone to die, but it’s not like Ukraine asked Russia to invade them, steal their land and kill their people.

    zephyreks,

    You don’t want anyone to die, but that’s effectively what this is calling for.

    But hey, it’s just Slavs killing Slavs, right?

    dsmk, (edited )

    I’m not Ukrainian, so it’s not my place to tell them to just bend over and take it. If they want to continue fighting, then it’s their right and I support their position.

    I’m also not sure if a compromise is possible when the positions of both sides are so far apart. Ukraine thinks they can win, Russia still thinks they’re the 2nd best army in the world and that all is going well, so even if you trust Putin or Russia (which you shouldn’t, see the 2nd Chechen War), I’m not sure how both sides can agree on a middle ground. There are still too many cards to be played before we reach that point.

    Those who truly worry about human life should keep in mind that if it’s too easy for aggressors to start wars, they’ll keep doing it because it works. Do nothing, appease the aggressors, and you might end up with even more dead people.

    But hey, it’s just Slavs killing Slavs, right?

    All I see is Russia invading another country (2014 and then again in 2022) and bringing war, death, and destruction to a land that had its problems but was fairly peaceful. Them being “slavs” matters little here.

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Ukraine wanted war and did its best to provoke it for America. This is the inevitable consequence.

    dsmk,

    Ukraine, with the resources and military they had, wanted war with a nuclear power with a much larger military? Was anyone in Ukraine even talking about war in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and started that shit in the east? Where they so full of themselves in 2022 that they though they could take on a nuclear power?

    Something doesn’t fit here.

    Russia invaded Ukraine. Not the US, not NATO, not the EU, not China, not the bogeyman: it was Russia.

    You should stop painting Russia as if they are a bunch of amateurs that can’t control themselves. They weren’t baited or provoked. They looked at the political situation in Ukraine and made the decision to invade, twice. Putin isn’t a moron, so presenting him as being played by the US or having no other choices makes no sense.

    What’s happening is the consequence of a country invading another in order to expand their borders. Anyone (and I mean anyone) doing that should pay a heavy price so they learn the lesson.

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Ukraine, with the resources and military they had, wanted war with a nuclear power with a much larger military?

    Not only did they then, they still want to now. Are you not following this war? Several rounds of peace talks have been spurned by Ukraine now. When we say “they” of course we mean the fascist dictatorship that’s running the place, not all the people.

    Was anyone in Ukraine even talking about war in 2014

    Of course? More specifically they wanted to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen” and so forth, according to Andriy Biletzky for example. This is the type of guy who got put in power after the Nazi coup.

    when Russia invaded Crimea and started that shit in the east?

    I’m afraid you’ve been taken for a fool here. That’s not what happened. Independent Crimea invited Russia in to protect its citizens from the Nazi pogroms that had already started directly after the coup. Here you can read the people who live there’s polling. Around 15% considered themselves to be Ukrainian. Over 50% wanted a union with Russia compared with 17% with Ukraine.

    Later a Pew research poll from 2014 found that 91% of Crimeans considered the referendum free and fair, and 88% felt Kyiv should accept the results.

    Something doesn’t fit here.

    Indeed. You should be annoyed at the people who lied to you.

    Russia invaded Ukraine. Not the US, not NATO, not the EU, not China, not the bogeyman: it was Russia.

    The USA overthrew Ukraine’s democracy and popularised a Nazi based ultranationalism. Not Russia or anyone else.

    You should stop painting Russia as if they are a bunch of amateurs that can’t control themselves. They weren’t baited or provoked. They looked at the political situation in Ukraine and made the decision to invade, twice. Putin isn’t a moron, so presenting him as being played by the US or having no other choices makes no sense.

    This again is just a product of propagandising and manipulation. I understand it’s hard to accept the scale of the lies, I really do. But accept it you must if you want to consider yourself to be a rational well informed person.

    What would it take for me to convince you? A confession from the head of NATO or something?

    Well you’re in luck. Stoltenberg confessed a couple of days ago.

    During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.

    The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

    The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

    So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.

    In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders — including the United States. That’s why so many western analysts and officials spent years warning that NATO’s actions were going to provoke a war, and yet when war broke out we were slammed with a tsunami of mass media propaganda repeating over and over and over again that this was an “unprovoked invasion”.

    What’s happening is the consequence of a country invading another in order to expand their borders. Anyone (and I mean anyone) doing that should pay a heavy price so they learn the lesson.

    What’s happening is that the US has gotten its latest war that it’s been pushing for for decades. It’s always the USA, always has been, except this time, right?

    dsmk,

    A few points:

    0:

    First things first:

    • Russia invaded Ukraine.
    • They can stop the war at any time they want.

    1:

    The peace terms Russia offers is the equivalent of me telling you that I’m going to beat the shit out of you if you don’t give me a room of your house and stop talking to your neighbours. Obviously you won’t accept my terms, not because you want to fight with me, but because my terms are not acceptable to you.

    I really fail to see why would anyone support these type of invasions where one side just annexes land because they can. Would you support it too if it was the US? I wouldn’t.

    2:

    The “little green men” - later confirmed by Putin to be Russian - were not invited by anyone. A group of people inviting someone to annex them is also not a justification for an invasion. That’s not how international law works nor would you accept that justification from other countries.

    If it walks like and invasion and quacks like an invasion, then it’s an invasion. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Putin’s own version of history even justifies all this because it’s all “Russian land” anyway.

    3:

    I really don’t like Nazis, Ukrainians or not. The problem with invading because of them is that Russia has the same type of crowd, which following the logic promoted people like you means that any country can now invade Russia, as they also have a “nazi problem”, not only in political parties, but also in Ultra groups and “philosophers”. Well, unlike you, I don’t think we should be invading countries because they have some ultra nationalistic groups… so I’m not going to support any invasion of Russia either.

    I’d also like to remind you that the far right party had less than 2% of the votes in the 2019 election. If less than 2% is a signal that the country is full of nazis, then maybe I don’t know how % work.

    The now very famous Azov Battalion (thanks Russia for creating some martyrs, like wtf?) was created in May 2014. What’s the context though? In February, Russia took over Crimea and started shit in the east, confirmed by people like Igor Girkin. The bloated, weak, and corrupt Ukrainian army was shitting their pants and the usual groups got together to fight. It wasn’t only the far right though, you even had far left anarchists doing the same. I don’t know why this is a surprise… who’s going to stand and fight if not those with more extreme views?

    4:

    I don’t know if the USA was behind the coup, in any case, with Russia’s interventions in Belarus and Kazakhstan that seems to be acceptable from their point of view.

    What I know is things went to shit when the then president Viktor Yanukovych did a 180º turn on the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement and decided to do an agreement with Russia instead. Maybe you’ll blame the US for that decision, I don’t know, but that’s when the protests, Maidan, etc, happened.

    In any case, Ukraine had laws and the new government and elections followed that law. It’s just what it is, we don’t have to like it. And it’s certainly none of Russia’s business.

    5:

    NATO had an open door policy from the start. I know this, you should know this, and Putin certainly knows this. The policy doesn’t change. Nor it should change. We don’t tell Russia’s CSTO to change their rules, they don’t tell us to change our rules. It’s simple to understand.

    Ukraine has been trying to join NATO from the early 2000s. Are they in NATO? No, of course they are not. The chances of me joining NATO today are higher than Ukraine’s chances in 2014, yet Russia did what they did.

    Russia invaded Ukraine, but not because NATO kept repeating the same “we will consider any application” talk they’ve been repeating from the start. Nothing changed. Russia started a war - not NATO - and as grown ups they also need to accept the consequences of their decisions.

    6:

    because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders

    I thought it was because of the Nazis? And I’m sorry, where’s the “great power” here?

    Reminds me of the UK after WW2. Still acting like they were rich, powerful, and had an empire. Russia needs to have a good look at themselves. They are not the Soviet Union or are in the US or China’s league. We all need a reality check sometimes, hopefully this will be theirs.

    Also, and while with many differences and a weird past, not even during the Cuban missile crisis did the US invaded Cuba. Shit only almost hit the fan because of the nukes, not because Soviet troops were there… and they were there for a long time before that.

    7:

    What’s happening is that the US has gotten its latest war that it’s been pushing for for decades. It’s always the USA, always has been, except this time, right?

    Chechnya, Georgia… yes, it must be always the US forcing Russia to start wars. It’s never Russia’s fault, the poor guys just can’t control themselves and have to wage war on everyone around them.

    Next we’ll blame any war in the Pacific on the US too when China decides to occupy some random island that doesn’t belong to them, because of course China was “forced” to be aggressive. Their claims over the south china sea that overlap territorial waters of other countries? All the US fault! Can’t you see they are being oppressed for gods sake!!! /s

    It’s always everyone else’s fault. The US should start doing the same. Vietnam? It’s all the Soviet’s fault. Iraq? I don’t know, maybe blame Iran or something 🤷‍♂️. I’m joking, they shouldn’t do that.

    What about taking responsibility for our actions? Russia decided to invade Ukraine. No need to be so defensive about it, they started the war, it’s them that crossed the border in 2014 and 2022. The way some of you talk it’s as if Ukraine/NATO/US invaded Russia, but no, Russia did it.

    [I’d really like to continue this conversation about how Russia is totally blameless for the war they started (lol), but I have more important things to do. I’ll leave the thread here.]

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Next we’ll blame any war in the Pacific on the US too when China decides

    I didn’t read the rest but this jumped out just as I was scrolling by. Behold comrades, pure zombie NPC.

    I’d really like to continue this conversation about how Russia is totally blameless for the war they started (lol), but I have more important things to do. I’ll leave the thread here.

    “I really am terrified of a discussion about this but I’m typing up a shitload of Nazi apologia anyway and then running away.”

    dsmk,

    Even Russia has issues with China’s claims:

    newsweek.com/russia-breaks-silence-china-map-disp…

    But sure, keep blaming the US for China’s actions. Poor China, also being forced into doing this.

    Regarding the “Nazi apologia”, what part of “don’t invade someone else’s country” don’t you understand? Tankies gonna tankie, I guess.

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Every single country in the region has disputed claims. Every one.

    Forced into doing what? Beating the US at everything? Maybe go home yanks and look after your starving children? Or your sick who are dying for lack of basic medicine.

    Regarding the “Nazi apologia

    Oh it’s you! So you didn’t run away like you promised?

    This you?

    Russia, as they also have a “nazi problem”,

    Trying to both sides Ukraine’s Nazism. Pathetic. Tell me, if they only got 2% of the vote, why did your rotten murderous scumbag country put Biletsky into power after your illegal Nazi coup? A guy who’s sworn that Ukraine’s national purpose is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”?

    dsmk, (edited )

    Indeed, it’s normal to have disputed claims, even between China and Russia. But as soon I mentioned China in the south china sea, that “jumped out”. If China behaves like dickheads with Russia, it’s normal. If they do it in a different region, it’s the US’ fault.

    You hate a country so much that it clouds your view to the point that you criticise said country for doing something (eg: invasions) and then defend another you like (Russia) for doing the exact same thing. “Go home yanks” one second and defend Russia invading other countries the next. And I’m the fucking zombie?

    I never left Europe, so I don’t know what’s that about medicine. I have free healthcare. I’m not a fucking tankie though, you won’t see me defending the invasion of other countries like you do.

    There’s not much to run from to be honest. It’s just I have no patience to discuss with people that defend the invasion and annexation of other countries. You want this war, you love it so much that you go around the internet making excuses to justify it, you just lack the balls to admit it. And then, when a country you don’t like does the same, you correctly criticise their imperialism and tell them to go home… you’re not doing it for the right reasons though, after all you like war when Russia wages it. It’s just a general hate of the west that makes you have that reaction.

    I really dislike people like you, so, and as soon I submit this comment, I’ll do what I should have done when you replied to me: block you.

    I’m not going to ask for proof of that coup because I know you don’t have it, but let me turn that question around… Would a country with so many nazis remove people like Biletsky from power, only give 2% of the vote to the nazis, and elect a jew (all in 2019)?

    You’ll probably do some mental gymnastics as you need to hold on to something… I mean, a man needs to sleep at night and if there’s nothing to justify this war Russia started, you might reach the conclusion you’re just a bad person that likes to see big countries invading, annexing, and killing people (as long it’s Russia doing it!).

    Ta ta and farewell.

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Indeed, it’s normal to have disputed claims, even between China and Russia. But as soon I mentioned China in the south china sea, that “jumped out”. If China behaves like dickheads with Russia, it’s normal. If they do it in a different region, it’s the US’ fault.

    Yes, exactly. Russia share a border. The US is a country on the other side of the planet. It’s already lolworthy that you typed this as your first argument. Why is the US trying to provoke these invasions that you pretend to hate so much?

    You hate a country so much that it clouds your view to the point that you criticise said country for doing something (eg: invasions) and then defend another you like (Russia) for doing the exact same thing. “Go home yanks” one second and defend Russia invading other countries the next. And I’m the fucking zombie?

    You forgot that only one country is behind these invasions. The USA. It provoked Russia to invade for years. Russia pushed for peace. This is a basic historical reality you’re going to have to confront. This is what they’re trying to do with Taiwan now.

    I never left Europe, so I don’t know what’s that about medicine. I have free healthcare. I’m not a fucking tankie though, you won’t see me defending the invasion of other countries like you do.

    You’ll defend the USA though? A country that’s invaded more that any other in your living memory. Says it all about where you stand and your lack of principles.

    It’s just I have no patience to discuss with people

    Yet here we are. You don’t even agree with yourself.

    You want this war, you love it so much that you go around the internet making excuses to justify it, you just lack the balls to admit it.

    That’s literally you you’re describing, trying to justify America’s latest war.

    And then, when a country you don’t like does the same, you correctly criticise their imperialism and tell them to go home…

    So we’re agreed after all? The yanks should go home? If they’d done that in 2014 there’d be no war. Looks like this was all a misunderstanding comrade.

    I really dislike people like you, so, and as soon I submit this comment, I’ll do what I should have done when you replied to me: block you.

    What a coward.

    krakenmat,

    The solution is easy. Russia can go back to the pre-2014 borders. No more dead Ukrainians, with a side benefit of no more dead Russians.

    Blursty,
    @Blursty@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    And failing that, you really want to see more Ukrainians die, huh?

    tomatopathe,

    So from having had a few exchanges with pro Russian accounts on Lemmy (which seems to be infested with a few very active ones) this is a summary of their arguments:

    • “Ukraine is Nazi”
    • “Well far right parties got a total of under 6% of the vote, and they elected a Jewish man president”
    * “yeah but Bandera and whatabout America”
    • “Ukraine killed ethnic Russians”
    • “A huge percentage of their population are ethnic Russians, including in government, and they are fine, and were until the Russian invasion. And now it’s Russia that has killed, maimed and raped more ethnic Russians, including civilians, than Ukraine every did or even could. Including their own people thorough incompetence and corruption”.
    * “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
    • “Ukraine is fighting because they are forced to by their colonial masters, the USA and NATO, and Ukrainians will keep dying so long as they keep being armed”
    • “Actually > 90% of the population wants to continue fighting for their country back, so what you’re basically saying is you think Ukrainians should be abandoned to Russian enslavement”
    * “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
    • “NATO and USA are colonialists and this is just more colonialism”
    • “Actually both Russia and China are actual, bone fide land empires, with ethnic minorities that are forced to live like colonized people - including doing the fighting for Russia while their families back home live in misery and squalor and Putin’s Mafia collect mansions, private jets and yachts”
    • “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
    Snowpix,
    @Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

    I take it you had to deal with the Hexbears? Idiots.

    tomatopathe,

    Such a worthless use of brain cells. Imagine being the product of billions of years of evolution and becoming that.

    Zuberi,
    @Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    They said talking on a Lemmy.world post lmfao

    Serinus,

    I’m sure some are on a payroll. You don’t get a weird narrative like that started without planting a seed.

    It’s not a coincidence they look like a better version of 2015 the_donald.

    They even mocked me when I said I expected to get banned for saying that… and then banned me. Weird how that works.

    gnuhaut,

    Yes, the Russian troll farm pays me to post for the dozen weirdos who actually read this on here. Money well spent!

    Makes perfect sense.

    ghost_of_faso2,
    @ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    oh god the russia bot reddit npc dialogue script has leaked onto lemmy nooo

    Snowpix,
    @Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

    Ikr? I wonder what their parents think of them.

    zephyreks,

    Didn’t lemmy.ca defed with Hexbear because someone called (in jest) for death to landlords while Canada experiences it’s biggest housing crisis ever and rents are rising rapidly YoY solely because landlords, who otherwise deliver no intrinsic value in their position, found a way to make more money from the increased demand?

    rbesfe,

    No, that wasn’t the reason and if it’s the only one you can think of you have no idea how toxic and disgusting the hexbear community is. I hate landlords too but these people are really taking it so much further than joking about dead landlords.

    zephyreks,

    That was one of the big reasons made in the post about Hexbear defed.

    The other ones were nebulous concerns about Hexbear comments in other instances… Which, by definition, is the responsibility of those other instances.

    Zaktor,

    The idea that you can’t judge anyone by actions not in your personal instance is just such terminally online idiocy. Trolls always seem shocked that their behavior might actually follow them around rather than being conveniently compartmentalized so they can start their trolling fresh before burning out a new instance.

    zephyreks,

    It’s the instance’s responsibility for policing it’s own instance.

    fushuan,

    And defederation was the action that the instance decided to policy them. If users from that instance take up the majority of their moderation effort, taking into account that instance owners are volunteers and paying for the instance, it does not surprise me.

    zephyreks,

    But why would they? As discussed, very little content was posted on lemmy.ca (where the instance owners actually have moderation power) and of that, most of it was fairly tame.

    “Death to landlords” is, while somewhat extreme, a sentiment that is shared by a lot of people in Vancouver and Toronto. These are cities that are facing a record housing and affordability crisis with no indication that the government will intervene.

    Defederation based on political ideology seems, well, rather harmful to a healthy democracy… Which, given that lemmy.ca is supposed to represent Canadians, is rather harmful for Canada.

    CanadaPlus, (edited )

    And, as I recently got downvoted on lemmy.ca for pointing out, it’s not (directly) due to landlords, there’s just not enough houses built, and I can cite sources on that.

    fiah, (edited )
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    they’re on other instances as well

    edit: having to go through posts like these and blocking all the invader apologists isn’t fun, but it beats accidentally reading their drivel again

    zephyreks,

    There’s a reason Western Europe focuses on the Nazis in the context of the Holocaust: the Nazis never saw the Western Europeans as a stain on the Earth like they did the Jews and the Slavs. Russians don’t need to point to Jews to claim Nazism: they can point directly to the treatment of ethnically Russian Slavs during WW2 and the plans that Nazi Germany had for the eradication of Slavs.

    Russia doesn’t need to point at how Ukraine treats Jews because to Russia, the Holocaust is dwarfed in societal impact by the issues that motivated Operation Barbarossa. The Russians lost 19 million Russian civilians in the war, why would they care about the Jews?

    Nevermind that minorities in China get so many advantages it’s actually silly how much affirmative action goes on. Provinces dominated by minorities get significantly more funding per capita and even get loss-leading infrastructure projects like the Tibet and Xinjiang railways. Students from minorities get additional bonuses on gaokao (basically SAT, but imagine if schools didn’t look at anything else). Minorities are exempt from family planning policies and get massive interest-free loans for starting businesses. They get proportional representation in government. Hell, there are 55 minority groups in China making up 8% of the population.

    In the army? The prevalence of rural populations in the army has been observed AROUND THE WORLD. It’s a function of rural communities being rather poor and underserved by governments in general, as well as the lack of economic opportunities that living on a farm provides. In fact, the entire notion of the underserved countryside is what allowed communism to rise in Russia and China.

    GyozaPower,

    The Russians lost 19 million Russian civilians in the war, why would they care about the Jews?

    Nevermind the fact that it was Russia itself that treated (and keeps treating) its soldiers as cannon fodder

    zephyreks,

    I’d recommend that you read a more insightful commentary on Red Army practices during WW2 rather than following Nazi propaganda from that period. David Glantz’ work is particularly insightful.

    Either way, those are 19 million civilians. That isn’t military dead, that’s civilians.

    tomatopathe,

    One thing they always forget to mention is the USSR was allied to Nazi Germany in order to partition Poland.

    No doubt the Soviets suffered greatly in WW2, and contributed greatly to the allied victory. On the other hand they did not do it alone, and they certainly did not expect to have to fight the Germans at all, at least not at that point.

    zephyreks,

    So? The Great Powers had decided on a policy of appeasement against Nazi Germany. What exactly would you have proposed the USSR do? They signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact prior to the war for a reason.

    Without the Eastern Front, Europe was lost. Hitler only launched Operation Barbarossa because he thought the Western Front was all but won. Continental Europe was under German control and the UBoats were locking down most of the Atlantic, meanwhile imports of Russian materials was sustaining the German war economy (similarly, imports of American materials was sustaining Japan’s war in China and the Pacific)… Of course, it turns out that dividing your forces and taking on Russia in the winter aren’t the best ideas, but at the time Germany wanted energy independence and the Caucasus was seen as an easier target than the Middle East (which at the time out produced Romania but wasn’t yet the oil superpower it is today).

    tomatopathe,

    That’s all well and good, but that’s never taught at all to Russians and ignored by tankies.

    And if you actually read your dumb narrative, your first paragraph is contradicted by your second. You really need to work on your story.

    Here’s the truth: the USSR, like Nazi Germany, was an authoritarian expansionist nightmare that was happy to get Poland for free. They only fight the Nazis because they had to. And Stalin was a shit strategist.

    tomatopathe,

    25% ish of the Russian population live in huts and shit in holes in outhouses for a lack of plumbing (mostly ethnic minorities), all while the ruling Mafia collects yachts and private jets, and launches wars.

    I’m not saying there isn’t wealth inequality elsewhere, but how about a bit of perspective here. Russia cannot actually conscript too many ethnic Russians or use them as cannon fodder, since that is the only ethnicity in Russia that matters politically, since they are the middle class. Instead they send the colonized people, who happen to be those who shit in holes for a lack of plumbing.

    zephyreks,

    Poor people are overrepresented in the army? No way!

    tomatopathe,

    It’s a conscript army. They shouldn’t be.

    gnuhaut,

    You say that, but conscription always has exceptions, which usually include having an important job or going to university, which would presumably skew the result towards more poor people in the army. There’s also corruption of course.

    TheLurker,

    Oh yeah CCP is all about diversity and minorities right?

    I mean just ask the people of Tibet, or the Uyghurs right? They will tell you how much the Chinese government supports their minority culture.

    Filthy fucking genocidal cunts. That’s what the Chinese Communist Party is. And your attempt to create a positive spin of them is not as subtle as you think.

    Tankie scum!

    zephyreks,

    Have you ever been to China? Ever talked to a person from a Chinese minority? Clearly not.

    By and large their complaints are about a lack of economic opportunity (because, y’know, Inner Mongolia isn’t exactly the most hospitable climate) and that the government affirmative action isn’t enough to address the gap in resources. That’s what you’ll hear on the ground… And that’s an absolutely fair concern.

    TheLurker, (edited )

    Fuck off idiot, don’t try to push a narrative that I’m nieve or uninformed. The persecution of minorities in China under the oppressive CCP is well documented and none of your tankie bullshit will change that.

    I don’t care how much revisionism, whataboutism, alternative facts, or straight up propaganda you throw at this, the fact remains the CCP is an oppressive, genocidal and brutal regime run by cunts.

    And you in support of said cunts makes you a cunt. I don’t like people who act like cunts. So fuck you!

    zephyreks,

    So… I’ll take that as a no?

    No first party sources, no evidence, and probably has never left a NATO country. Truly a well-informed opinion.

    krakenmat,

    I have. I’ve known Tibetans personally and I can assure you that they wish China had never invaded their country and taken it over.

    zephyreks,

    Ah yes, because Tibet before the CCP was a bastion of human rights protection. Who do you think you’re convincing?

    Still, clearly never been to China 🤷‍♀️

    krakenmat,

    Well it’s sure as shit not a bastion of human rights after the CCP invasion.

    You’ve clearly never met a Tibettan refugee.

    zephyreks,

    Do you understand Tibetan history up to that point? At least it’s no longer a serfdom system (which Tibetan advocates will say was equal because of the one-in-a-million chance that one of the peasants can become the Dalai Lama and that everyone was totally happy because everyone was working towards bettering Buddhism). How many Tibetan refugees do you know who experienced serfdom?

    krakenmat,

    The Tibetans should get to chose their government, not a communist dictatorship of a foreign country who undertook a military invasion and then practiced cultural and ethnic eradication in Tibet. If the Mao had not lied to the leadership of Tibet, and the chinese communists had not invaded, Tibet would most likely be a peaceful democracy now, as is the democratically elected government in exile. How’s China going? Hold up a poster of Winnie the Poo in Beijing and let me know how you go.

    zephyreks,

    You do realize that Tibetan independence was never recognized by any country, right? Not even the British.

    krakenmat,

    You do realize that the chinese are furiously trying to extinguish Tibetan culture, right?

    zephyreks,

    I too enjoy reading Western media instead of experiencing things first-hand.

    Quacksalber,

    Improved infrastructure and better access to education is not the win you think it is. Whether infrastructure and education is good or not depends on what you do with it. If you use your infrastructure to connect unruly provinces to your center of power in an effort to better exert control, then the infrastructure becomes a net-negative for the people on the receiving end. As an example, I’m sure nobody sane enough would claim that the US building the railroad was positive for native americans. Likewise, if you use your education to indoctrinate people, then better educational opportunities go hand in hand with increased oppression.

    zephyreks,

    So… You’d rather people be poor and uneducated than wealthy and educated? Huh?

    Quacksalber,

    I didn’t say that at all. What I did say is that you shouldn’t take China providing infrastructure and education as a purely philantrophic endeavour.

    zephyreks,

    improved infrastructure and better access to education is not the win you think it is

    What exactly do you think you’re saying? That infrastructure and education are bad?

    Quacksalber,

    minorities in China get so many advantages it’s actually silly how much affirmative action goes on

    You claim China is engaging in affirmative action to strengthen its minorities. I’m pointing out that the actions China is taking can just as easily be turned against the minorities you claim are helped by China.

    zephyreks,

    The actions such as… Giving them additional points on gaokao? Interest free business loans? Exemption from family planning policy? The horror.

    ImmortanStalin,

    How were their ethnic Russians fine when this shit was happening?

    I’d ask you to cite your sources but this is all sensationalized. Also, nice summary on Bandera, and the Azov fighters everyone keeps shuffling around to parliaments and fundraisers.

    If you’re all so blood thirsty go put some skin in the game.

    nonailsleft,

    Do you believe the Ukrainian army started shelling Donetsk without any reason?

    ImmortanStalin,

    You mean the US backed, far-right led coup?

    nonailsleft,

    No I mean armed insurrection taking over government buildings at gunpoint.

    I don’t know what country you’re from but I don’t think there are many that are going to keep the kids gloves on for long in such a situation

    Pili,

    Yes, when there was insurection in France and the Paris Commune was created, the government sent the army and killed everyone.

    It was a bad thing when France did it, and it was also a bad thing when Ukraine did it. Monarchists and fascists are just equally disgusting.

    nonailsleft,

    Yeah I’m sure if you go through human history you can find some insurrections you support and others you don’t :)

    Perhaps you’ll want to pick another example though, as this particular one was started because their government capitulated to a foreign invader while Parisians wanted to fight. So just a little bit of irony there

    dsmk,

    No one was shelling anything until Russia sent their “little green men” into Ukraine. Just saying…

    vidumec,
    @vidumec@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    “whatabout America” - “nooo you can’t just call me out on hypocrisy, it makes me look bad”

    tomatopathe,

    Whataboutism is literally a logical fallacy. We are talking about Russia, so talk about Russia.

    vidumec,
    @vidumec@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    You have no right to judge someone for what you yourself are guilty of.

    docwriter,

    guess we are all fucked then, all world powers are guilty of vile shit

    irmoz,

    What are they guilty of?

    BNE,
    @BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Hawkish imperialism, I guess.

    (to be very explicit, I have no love for either)

    LarkinDePark,

    Accusation of whataboutism is just a hiding place for hypocrites.

    CanadaPlus,

    Pointing out supposed hypocrites is just a hiding place for people uninterested in actual ideas.

    LarkinDePark,

    Discussion is furthered by pointing out contradictions in positions. Hypocrisy is one of these contradictions.

    seitanic,
    @seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    So, if you’re a US citizen, you can’t say anything bad about the Nazis, because the US has done genocides, too… Is that seriously your argument?

    kd637_mi,

    That’s a pretty poor takeaway I would say. The argument would be that the Nazis took direct inspiration from the early US idea of Manifest Destiny and the dealings with Native Americans. That in turn should give people reason to think about how to change their own society and how to make the world better, instead of handwaving it away by saying, ‘Nazi genocide was worse, why are you bringing up the US?’

    kd637_mi,

    Dismissing something for being a fallacy is also a fallacy. There are historical, political, social, and economic reasons things happen, and sometimes it pays to put things in context. Limiting the discussion to the thing happening NOW and only NOW doesn’t allow for a better understanding of the events.

    Also, someone pointing out hypocrisy of other nations shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, especially if it’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the most powerful and influential nation to ever exist. You can see based on past events such as the war on terror and endless drone striking of civilians how governments could expect that to be the standard way of operating. That doesn’t make it right, only that military intervention has been and continues to be legitimised politically by the international community.

    tomatopathe,

    Dismissing something for being a fallacy is also a fallacy

    Lol

    Also, someone pointing out hypocrisy of other nations shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, especially if it’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the most powerful and influential nation to ever exist.

    I didn’t realize Ukraine was the most powerful nation to ever exist.

    kd637_mi,

    Bruh are you being willfully ignorant about that last point or do you legitimately believe I was saying Ukraine is the most powerful nation to ever exist?

    tomatopathe, (edited )

    You are implying that this war is somehow orchestrated by the United States, since you are whatabouting that way.

    The United States is not a belligerent here. Ukraine is the one getting invaded, and Russia is doing the invading - that is the situation. Every time you whatabout to the US you imply that Ukrainians have no agency and no rights to decide for themselves or defend themselves, or are somehow under the control of Joe Biden or some shit (hint: they aren’t - polling in Ukraine is very clear that a large majority want to keep fighting until Russia is gone from their country).

    So yeah, “bruh”, I’m pointing out that when we talk about Russia and Ukraine, let’s talk about Russia and Ukraine. If you want to talk about the wider geostrategic implications of the USA, Europe, NATO, and various other nations providing aid to Ukraine, let’s dance:

    I suppose your moral grounds aren’t shaken by Russia seeking help in North Korea and Iran to continue killing Ukrainian civilians? That is an actual whatabout.

    Or perhaps that NATO and the EU are voluntary alliances that nations are free to leave at any moment (and don’t want in the case of NATO because of Russian aggression). Very nice, “bruh”.

    You trolls are so predictable.

    kd637_mi,

    The person you replied to, saying whataboutism is a literal fallacy, brought up the fact that whenever anyone criticises the US in relation to current events it gets dismissed as whataboutism. I was making a point that hypocrisy in regards to the US, which is the most powerful nation in the world, helps no one, and only hinders the ability for governments to operate.

    I’m not saying Ukrainians have no agency, although they are indebted to the west now, I am saying that the US is using Ukraine and spinning it as a moral good. The fact that it aligns with what the Ukrainian government wants is not necessary.

    I don’t support killing civilians. I don’t support killing conscripted people. I don’t support killing volunteers who joined because they were struggling in a system that is designed to entice the poor to fight. I don’t even support killing those who joined because their mind is warped to hyper patriotism by propaganda due to the system they live in. I would rather see peace talks, collaboration in demining and rebuilding, and genuine interest in what the people of the region want. That Russia is seeking support is not surprising seeing the west supporting Ukraine, that doesn’t make it right, that just makes it predictable.

    tomatopathe, (edited )

    I am saying that the US is using Ukraine and spinning it as a moral good.

    Using Ukraine how? Spinning it how? As far as I can tell Ukrainians are the ones begging for help. And fighting off an aggressor such as Russia is a moral good as far as I can tell. The thing I’m curious about is the constant “fear of escalation” which means we have been providing aid too slowly.

    I don’t support killing civilians. I don’t support killing conscripted people. I don’t support killing volunteers who joined because they were struggling in a system that is designed to entice the poor to fight. I don’t even support killing those who joined because their mind is warped to hyper patriotism by propaganda due to the system they live in.

    Of course not. I don’t want anyone to die for the ego of a sociopathic cunt. I also want everyone to be happy, live long and prosper, and I also wish we could all ride magic flying unicorns to the infinite ice cream parlor in the Bahamas and never gain weight. There are wishes and there is reality.

    I would rather see peace talks, collaboration in demining and rebuilding, and genuine interest in what the people of the region want.

    This is all nice, except you have to contend with Russia. The people of the region who are not Russia want security and they can’t have it with Russia as a neighbor, unless they join an alliance such as NATO, or accept Russian enslavement.

    There are precisely two countries who are Russian “allies” in the region - Belorus which is occupied, and Hungary which is run by a similar Mafia, but it’s also protected from Russia by NATO and the EU (I really wish they weren’t).

    kd637_mi,

    Using Ukraine to offload old weapon systems, fund the US military industrial complex, test weapons in a peer to peer scenario, and destroy Russia as much as possible through Ukrainian deaths rather than American. They are spinning it as a moral crusade to uphold democracy, just like they do in every other conflict they are involved in. The Ukrainian government and a vocal part of the Ukrainian people are calling for assistance, but also a large proportion of those fighting were conscripted against their will, which shows they do not want to fight. I don’t think the fear of escalation is why new weapons are being withheld for so long, if it was they wouldn’t be sent in the end. I feel it is just to keep Ukraine and Russia struggling on in stalemate, which devastates the country and leads to more and more death.

    Indeed there are wishes and reality. I told you my wishes so you don’t think I hope for some ‘Ruzzian genocide of all Ukronazis’ or something. The reality is a ceasefire and peace talks will save lives. That’s why I advocate for it. Where it goes from there is up to Ukraine and Russia, but an all or nothing mentality does not seem to be working for either of them.

    Most neighbours are in NATO now, except Ukraine obviously, and those aligned with Russia. I don’t feel that two diametrically opposed blocs sharing a big border while propagandising against each other is very stable, especially when you factor in that Russian support apparently includes countries outside the local region, just as with Ukraine.

    The fact that Hungary, a nation that is clearly under a right-wing, reactionary government, is a part of NATO shows how little those in NATO actually care for democratic rule. Also the alignment with the Saudis, and the propping up of Israel despite their constant crimes against the local Palestinians. I’m not saying Russia cares about democracy, the results of Yeltsin’s rule have clearly crippled them on that front, along with Putin’s never ending run. The point is to see that these are two powerful and primarily self interested blocs, and any time they start talk about how they are fighting for good it should raise some eyebrows at least.

    tomatopathe,

    Using Ukraine to offload old weapon systems, fund the US military industrial complex, test weapons in a peer to peer scenario, and destroy Russia as much as possible through Ukrainian deaths rather than American.

    The fact that you keep ignoring is that Ukraine is asking for the equipment. NOT asking for any boots on the ground but their own. They are willing to fight this war, they need equipment.

    Not just the President of Ukraine or the government, but pretty much the whole of civil society.

    kd637_mi,

    I’m not ignoring that, I explicitly stated that the Ukrainian government and a vocal part of the population is asking for aid. That doesn’t mean the US isn’t using them. There is also a large number of conscripts who are forced to fight, and were either prevented from leaving the country or some basically kidnapped. Those people would definitely benefit from a ceasefire and peace talks.

    tomatopathe, (edited )

    I am not so sure who is using who at the minute, but sure. What’s for certain is that the Russian military, such as it was, is suffering heavy losses, with plenty of busted myths (invulnerable hypersonics, indomitable Armata etc…). It’s a good return for the USA helping Ukraine, no doubt about it.

    Turns out Russia are a second tier military, who was halted by previous generation US handheld anti-tank weapons and Ukraine are holding their own using second tier equipment for the most part. Turns out when you put loyalists in charge of the military, they might not be so effective. All the bloviating nonsense coming out of the Kremlin turned out to be hot rectal air.

    As for a cease fire, sure, so long as Russia doesn’t use that time to reinforce their positions in Ukraine. Because they are occupying Ukrainian land. Would it be acceptable to give up that land (because that is effectively what a cease fire would accomplish, no matter what the “talks” determine)?. Russia understands only strength and force, whether they are using it or recieving it. Giving them a chance to strengthen while “talks” are ongoing only strengthens their position. As we talk Ukraine is encroaching on Donetsk airport, occupied since 2014. Continuing to weaken Russia creates a better position to negotiate from.

    And Russia reneged on a prior treaty with Ukraine too, so it’s not like they are trustworthy. They have already openly stated Ukraine has no right to exist.

    kd637_mi,

    Yes the Russian and Ukrainian military, both made of up actual people many of whom were conscripts, are both suffering heavy losses. That means lots of death. I don’t see lots of death as being worth finding out the Russians overhyped their weapons.

    Second tier military remarks are pretty surprising to me. I don’t get why so many people seem shocked that a country that suffered a decade of basically mob rule and ruthless resource extraction by oligarchs after the collapse of the previous political entity doesn’t match up to the last remaining superpower that has had no real war or massive disruption on its land since the American Civil War. Sure, in a peer to peer fight, which Russia against Ukraine is, Russia is not doing the equivalent of ‘impressively’ taking Baghdad in three weeks. It’s a completely different war. And yes the corruption obviously plays a huge role in how underwhelming the Russian menace seems to western audiences. I’m not saying this as some massive Russia supporting spiel, I am just constantly surprised by this take.

    I imagine in a cease fire before official peace talks both sides would reinforce unfortunately, that tends to be what happens and I’m under no illusion that it isn’t. As to whether it would be acceptable to give up this land, it comes down to whatever is agreed to in the peace talks. I personally am all for giving up land if needed, especially land where there was a legitimate civil war happening before the Russian invasion, but it doesn’t have to happen that way. Before the inevitable accusations of ‘thats literally appeasement, Hitler, Chamberlain, 1939, etc’ a podcast called Citations Needed has a good rundown on why that is an often dishonest framing for situations. Episode 89.

    …libsyn.com/episode-89-how-charges-of-appeasement…

    They also do a good episode on the idea of ‘whataboutism’ which I wish I had remembered earlier. Episode 66.

    …libsyn.com/episode-66-whataboutism-the-medias-fa…

    Obviously you don’t need to agree with their takes, but it helps to put it into perspective.

    There has been a lot of discussion around the Budapest agreement and the Minsk agreements on Lemmy already, so I won’t go into that as others are more knowledgeable than me.

    seitanic,
    @seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    It was an invasion. Invasions are wrong. That should be the beginning and end of the debate.

    CanadaPlus,

    I mean, there’s usually more to say than just that. I don’t think no discussion is the answer.

    tomatopathe,

    Well then discuss.

    What justifies the torture, rape, pillage, kidnapping, Russia has inflicted on Ukraine?

    CanadaPlus, (edited )

    Mmmm… nothing. Putin is just an ultranationalist asshole on top of being a kleptocrat asshole.

    Hey, I didn’t say the discussion had to be long, and this is a pretty cut and dried case.

    Edit: Now, consider for contrast the invasion of neutral Iceland by Britain in WWII.

    fushuan, (edited )

    I agree, but ignoring who started the war and who is the one actively invading who, while having already occupied territory from a past war, not too long ago, isn’t right either. Doubting the motivations of the agressor with a past in agression is important. And yes, "TheWest"™ does it too, but Ukraine, who revolted their puppet government (as told to me by people I know from there) in 2014 and having been invaded as a result, isn’t really an agressor to other countries.

    I’m from northern Spain, we have had our fair share of civil revolts, the sides I support lost, and I would be SO angry with portugal or france if they had militarily intervened. Several international volunteers came to help in several of them, but volunteers != an official invasion.

    I honestly feel like several commies hate "TheWest"™, and by proxy anyone that wants to be related to them so they just eat up the “There’s Nazis in power in Ukraine” speech Putin used.

    And yeah, context is important, this is what I know about the whole thing, told to me by my partner, whose family lives in Ukraine and lightly searched by me:

    There was a revolt in Ukrained around 2013, where they took away the alleged corrupt puppet president that was manipulating elections and funnelling tons of money to Russia. He has to flee the country when people went to his home, and he apparently had a golden toilet. So after that elections were done and another dude was put in power.

    They started to de-russiafy some stuff because they were fed up of russia’s influence in a separate sovereign country, and as a result Russia invaded in 2014. They took Crimea, taking the home away from several Crimean Tatars who were originally from there. Ukraine tried to get international help but since "TheWest"™ didn’t want a full scale war against Russia, they kinda forced Ukraine to give up Crimea, since they obviously don’t have enough resources to defend alone.

    Zelensky, an actor, made a TV show where he starred as a good professor that suddenly became president, and fought against the big bad of the country, corruption and oligarchs. People were quite happy by the idea he was promoting, and after popular demand he tried for elections, going into power with a huge majority. He started to de-russiafy again and try to gain more economical support of "TheWest"™, which are the countried whom they have most economical relations. He wanted to join both the EU and NATO, and Putin REALLY disliked that, since he felt threatened. Suddenly, war.

    This time, "TheWest"™ decided to support Ukraine more heavily for what I’m sure are their personal reasons, but it’s important to see who the aggresor is. That the US made a bridge for Zelensky offering NATO to pressure Russia we don’t know, maybe, but the fact that a sovereign country is forcing another sovereign country against treaties that the second one wants is clear.

    From now on, all the new info that I get on the subject is passed through all the before mentioned context, assuming that all info is completely tampered with. All of what I told you was stuff I knew about before this war, so it’s not like it was propaganda, for me.

    As an addendum, some of the family members of my partner work for the military (tech job), and told us that there had been issues with russian agents in Donbass with removing the Ukranian passport to people and giving them the russian one, I believe that the military of every country is fed tons of propaganda, so idk about this one.

    What do we also know about Russia? There are several indications that they tempered with international elections by creating fake internet movements and promoting disruptive real ones as we have seen with the whole Trump fiasco. If they did so mcuh effort for countries that are that far, I have zero ounces of doubt that the manipulation strategies Russia actively performed pre-war, in a non-NATO coutry, were a lot more aggresive. Again, commies and tankies don’t trust anything about "TheWest"™ so to them all the manipulation reports hold no weight, it’s clear that there is a divide in ideology here around how Russia operates things.

    I don’t have any reputable sources to support my context because I can’t bother to search for them, I’m just browsing the web while working like all of us lazy asses, but given this context I have, it’s really hard for me and tons of people living in "TheWest"™ to trust anything Russia says, since they have a really long history of tampering with their neighbouring countries (Yes so does USA but this is about Ukraine and Russia).

    roastpotatothief,

    That all sounds like brigading emotional nonsense. In fact, there were strong reasons for Russia to invade. It is probably true that Russia was manipulated into invading, it had no choice because of strategic decisions made by Ukraine. It’s a shame none of the people you talked to were able to argue the issues sensibly.

    kazakhspy,

    Well here is your chance. Argue this issues sensibly.

    uberkalden,

    Probably the tired line of NATO expansion fears. How’d that work out? Does Russia have more or less NATO countries near their borders? The invasion itself is the best sales pitch NATO could ever need.

    LarkinDePark,

    This just supports that explanation? Use your brain man.

    nonailsleft,

    So Russia says: “Nooo, nooo, don’t band together to defend yourself against our aggression! You mustn’t band together to defend against me! Wait if you even dare think about it, I’ll invade you. So here come the tanks”

    LarkinDePark,

    What aggression? NATO is the obvious aggressor here? You don’t even believe what you’re saying. This propaganda is stale man. Even NATO admits it was the provoker.

    uberkalden,

    What aggression? See Ukraine

    LarkinDePark,

    But that was a response to NATO aggression?

    uberkalden,

    There was no NATO aggression. The response doesn’t make sense anyways. It only strengthens NATO. Are you actually Russian? I can’t make any other sense of your stance here

    LarkinDePark,

    Having a Nazi puppet state threaten you with joining the world’s most destructive military alliance and install nuclear weapons isn’t aggressive? What’s your reasoning?

    uberkalden,

    Lol ok, that’s what happened. 👌

    LarkinDePark,

    Which part do you disagree with? This is all historical fact. Nobody disagrees with this.

    nonailsleft,

    Ukraine wanting to join NATO is NATO aggression? Lol France & Germany even said they wouldn’t allow them in

    LarkinDePark,

    They promised Ukraine they’d let them join so they could use them as cannon fodder in their proxy war. Then they betrayed them. Even Zelensky was threatening to install nukes after they joined. Totally not aggressive.

    nonailsleft,

    You must have missed some history then. Bush said he wanted them to join. France and Germany told him “never gonna happen cowboy”. I’m not sensing you know anything about how NATO works in this regard but they basically told ol’ gubya he could go eat a bag of dicks in the corner. Can you cite a source of NATO promising anything or are you going to join him there finish the rest of the dicks

    LarkinDePark,

    Bush said he wanted them to join. France and Germany told him “never gonna happen cowboy”.

    Here’s Secretary-General Rasmussen inviting after the Obama regime’s Nazi coup. You must have missed some history.

    nonailsleft,

    Yeah Rasmussen is still eating dicks in the corner along with his buddy Bush jr.

    Watch out there might be a nazi in the bottom of your bag!

    LarkinDePark,

    Weak. You try to enjoy your dick now.

    uberkalden,

    Lol, lemmygrad. GTFO with your bullshit

    LarkinDePark,

    Great contribution there Mr Feynman.

    uberkalden,

    Why thank you good sir

    tomatopathe,

    Why should Russia strategically be required to invade exactly?

    I’ve never heard a cogent argument on this point.

    LarkinDePark,

    Ask Jens Stoltenburg. He just fucked up and bragged about how he forced them into it.

    CanadaPlus,

    Okay, but you didn’t actually answer the question, you just pointed to the geopolitical equivalent of blurry sasquatch footage. What’s the strategic logic?

    LarkinDePark,

    M.A.D.

    Seems like a really dishonest question when you’re pretending not to understand such a basic concept. Unless you want me to believe that you’re an idiot or something?

    CanadaPlus,

    The MAD play would be to stay within their borders and make sure their nukes and delivery systems are all in good working order. Escalating at great cost and with a risk to internal stability isn’t very good from a MAD perspective.

    LarkinDePark,

    Agreed but here we are. They’re now arming their fascist puppet state with ATACMS and installing nukes in Finland, which is just eliminating MAD by reducing the time that Russia can respond.

    CanadaPlus,

    I see what you did there. I don’t believe NATO has puppet states.

    LarkinDePark,

    Fair enough, it’s the USA that has the puppet states.

    CanadaPlus,

    Them either, unless you count, like, Puerto Rico. But I think you knew what I meant.

    drathvedro,

    It’s because Russia sees NATO as a threat and wants to take control of Ukraine to keep buffer states on the west side. Also, to keep it’sblack sea fleet safe. Why it happened now and not sooner or later - nobody knows. The official reasoning, of course, is bullshit, just like with any other war. Not the worst one, though.

    roastpotatothief,

    Most people haven’t. We all have a filter bubble.

    Here is a first draft, my attempt to provide the missing context. Please leave comments on anything bad or missing you notice. lemmy.ml/post/4848742

    tomatopathe,

    That is just a list of Russian propaganda points. There is no evidence for any of it.

    nonailsleft,

    Lol Ukraine strategically decided not to surrender their territory, thus manipulating the peaceful Russians to invade

    Bytemeister,

    I mean look, it’s a nation we talked in to giving up it’s nuclear weapons in exchange for protection and recognition by us. We really had no choice but to invade.

    roastpotatothief,

    Background? Link?

    seitanic,
    @seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    It is probably true that Russia was manipulated into invading, it had no choice because of strategic decisions made by Ukraine.

    Of course Russia had a choice. Not invading a country is the easiest thing to do. I do it every day, and I have nowhere near the power and resources that Vlad Putin does.

    zephyreks,

    Exactly why the choice is so easy for you.

    seitanic,
    @seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    What do you think would’ve happened if Russia hadn’t invaded?

    fosforus,

    “Well far right parties got a total of under 6% of the vote, and they elected a Jewish man president”

    6%, damn, that sounds serious. Let’s check how many seats the nationalist party in Russia got. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Russia

    72.22%. Okay then.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Last year Zelensky was asking for a World War III. He has never had any intentions to stop this warfare. If he wanted to, he would have not genocided tens of thousands of ethnic Russians since 2014, or cut off water and electricity supplies to Crimea and Donbass, or made laws outlawing Russian language itself.

    The comedian actor is acting well, to manufacture a heroic sacrifice of Nazis that they truly are.

    tomatopathe,

    Oh it’s you, idiot and Russia shill.

    Do you wet your panties everytime Putin gets a new yacht, goes through another round of Botox or assassinates another journalist?

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Your comment adds no value and we’re all worse off as a group for reading your ad hominem vitriol. Please go and sit in the corner and think about how useless you have been until you have something constructive to share.

    tomatopathe,

    It adds plenty. You are shilling for the worst, most russophobic, thieving, murderous, most brutal mafia in the world.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    No I am not shilling for the CIA thank you.

    tomatopathe,

    Oooh, what a great comeback.

    In the meantime 1/4 of Russians shit in a hole in the ground for lack of plumbing while their children die in Ukraine with shit equipment so that Putin and his Mafia can collect mansions, private jets and yachts.

    If the CIA really wanted to kill Russians they couldn’t have done it better.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    It’s pretty clear the CIA wants dead Ukranians, 60,000 this summer ☹️

    tomatopathe,

    Nobody is forcing Ukraine to fight. > 90% want their country back, based on latest polls.

    zephyreks,

    Isn’t this coming from the same country that literally cancelled elections and started hunting down and imprisoning opposition political parties?

    tomatopathe,

    If they held elections Russia would bomb the polling sites.

    It’s dangerous and costly, and r/n Ukraine is under martial law for good reason.

    zephyreks,

    Ah, but that doesn’t mean you should start prosecuting your opposition.

    tomatopathe, (edited )

    If the opposition supports the enemy, you perhaps should.

    Edit: you asshats think Russia should allow pro-Ukraine parties to run for the Duma, or the presidency? Or is it always a double standard with you?

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Want their country back != will fight to the death for it. Also share the poll please I can’t find anything recent.

    tomatopathe,

    Here is something constructive: the Russian Mafia state might just collapse soon, giving a window to hundreds of colonized peoples, like Chechens, Dagestanis, Mongols, Tatars, etc, a chance for freedom.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    All the colonized Native American tribes first…

    tomatopathe,

    Oooh so now you go from “Russia is the bestest, Ukraine nazis” to “whuddabout” as you run out of anything constructive to say.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Not at all, I just think these comments are disingeneous and filled with fallacies. We use the same arguments when we pollute the earth (other countries should lead by example if we should stop polluting), so why does the same not apply to foreign interference? Maybe the USA should remove its 800+ military bases around the world before telling other countries they can’t interfere in another countries sovereignty. Imagine a country saying, USA please leave. Do you think the USA will just say, “OK sure I’ll pull all my troops out tomorrow.”

    fhqwhgads,

    Hey did anybody else consider the relevance of what happened in America? Have you guys heard? About America? America. What about America. No forget Russia, we’re taking about America right now! America…

    Hexadecimalkink,

    This entire comment thread pretends like their poop doesn’t stink while telling someone else their poop stinks. American Exceptionalism is a bad thing to defend.

    fhqwhgads,

    Hey, guys what about America!? Did anybody hear about America? AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Preach it brother, there’s not enough people on Lemmy talking about US war crimes and foreign meddling.

    fhqwhgads,

    Right? Every time somebody mentions something bad about Russia or the CCP, we should remind those yanks about how bad America is! Every time! Because we care about justice and peace soooooooo much. Hey guys… MURCA BAD

    Hexadecimalkink,

    He’s getting it…

    fhqwhgads,

    Guys, I also heard that Germany did some bad stuff. Maybe we should bring that up too?

    zephyreks,

    Russian nationalism is stronger in the rural areas than the urban ones… Odd, don’t you think?

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    I absolutely got wet when Snowden found safe haven in Russia, from the genocidal hands of USA, something Assange will never experience, as he got extradited from UK, and gets drugged and tortured everyday in USA.

    tomatopathe,

    As if Snowden is free, lol.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Average westerner delusion 100 infinity

    vidumec, (edited )
    @vidumec@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    he was ready for peace talks 3 days into invasion (russian military backed down, preparing for negotiations), but got talked out of it by Boris Johnson.

    Nowadays his entire existence hinges on the war continuing. If it stops - no matter who wins, he will lose his seat, then get murdered.

    Quenching the conflict over Donbass and Crimea was the main point of his election campaign. People on both sides believed he would finally put an end to it, after the low times under Poroshenko. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad, how it turned out in the end.

    zephyreks,

    Pretty much. Dude’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he steps down, his propaganda machine has made it so he’ll probably get executed for betraying Ukraine. If he doesn’t, he’s stuck in a war he knows he can’t win without NATO troops.

    dsmk, (edited )

    he would have not genocided tens of thousands of ethnic Russians since 2014

    Zelensky became president in May 2019…

    edit: I am really being downvoted for pointing out a fact? lol.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Every time I read comments about the war on Lemmy I lose a little hope for liberals as with every war the same shit happens and they are blood thirsty monsters living in fantasy land, and when this war comes to an end they will surely denounce ever supporting Ukraine just like they did with the brave freedom fighters of the Mujahadeen…

    skymward,

    Cute how you think liberals will eventually agree.

    Also cute that you think Americans supported the Mujahadeen, and not just the US military without consulting the public, or liberals, who would not support them.

    Try harder comrade.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Cute how you think liberals will eventually agree.

    Yeah… They’ll always side with fascism, as long as it’s their side doing it, it seems…

    Also cute that you think Americans supported the Mujahadeen, and not just the US military without consulting the public, or liberals, who would not support them.

    You have no power, no ability to do change, and you still forget that’s the liberals who are in the government making these decisions. And guess what, the public gave their support!

    https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/3eaafdc3-3e01-4436-969b-7c8c4b2457e1.png

    https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/56f69428-f379-495d-a9e8-b4e5e91912b3.jpeg

    You will never learn, you are what I’m cautioning people against becoming.

    MeowZedong,
    @MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    That first image isn’t a real clip from the movie, it’s just a good fake. The origin of the “brave Mujahedeen fighters” line is from Ronald Reagan himself.

    That said, you are right.

    rikudou,
    @rikudou@lemmings.world avatar

    Nah, I’ll proudly support fucking Russia in the ass without a lube. That country is making the world worse for all people in the whole world. Which, while impressive in its own, sucks.

    Nioxic,

    Withdrawing troops, returning stolen land, children, prisoners and paying for damages… thats all i would accept. Nothing less.

    kent_eh,

    And a 3rd party enforced DMZ on the border.

    OurToothbrush,

    Okay then the war would go on and on until your government collapsed. A peace agreement is actually good here given that they just showed they were unable to reclaim much land with their counter offensive.

    mashbooq,

    They’ve shown no such thing. Stop believing everything you hear in the media.

    OurToothbrush,

    I’m literally basing this on bloodthirsty weapon manufacturer adjacent media, who’s interests are unaligned with saying things are going badly. Even they are getting cold feet on the war, or saying there never was an offensive or the offensive hasn’t really started yet.

    Cryan24,

    And Russia Surrenders a 10km deep strip of its own land around Ukraine to act as a DMZ.

    zephyreks,

    With what military do you plan on using to support this?

    vacuumflower,

    Losing thousands (possibly tens or hundreds of thousands) more soldiers forcing that.

    Playing macho may seem cool from your chair, but if Ukraine could force that without significant losses, it would already have by now.

    Their behavior also shows that they don’t see their victory as that close and certain. Even though the statement itself is by a stronger side definitely, unlike in the first few months since the war started.

    jackoid,

    Eastern European countries love their “macho” leaders. Putin has been doing the whole shtick since forever and Zelensky started it too since 2022. Fucking hate this shit.

    vacuumflower,

    Well, it sometimes pays off. You can see how Pashinyan is regarded as opposed to Zelensky or literally anyone not as miserable. Looking weak is bad. Humans are still apes. And politicians in some sense are even more apes than the general population - they mostly participate in some free for all without any moral boundaries, which is an environment more macho-friendly than any other.

    I mostly meant that people calling for Ukrainian offensive don’t quite feel that it’s not a movie, most of the soldiers are mobilized men, and Ukraine has already tried a few times. Turns out it’s not as cheap as one would have thought.

    They likely want to stockpile weapons, train people better (especially commanders, since their recent attempts were just as Soviet-styled as what Russia does), make preparations. Maybe wait for something unexpected happening for Russia leading to it being distracted.

    Or maybe they want to wait until the terrain freezes, so that it would be easier to push. Or the other way around - due to Russian problems in logistics, they want to push in the shortest possible window before frosts, so that territory taken would be easier to hold. I dunno, I’m not a military expert.

    seitanic,
    @seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Lots of countries have this problem. Their people are looking for strong leaders, not smart leaders, and many interpret bullying as strength.

    zephyreks,

    Democratic leadership hasn’t really done much for Ukraine. The Russians still have Bakhmut (their big gain from last winter). Almost the entirety of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been dedicated to an area of land less than twenty kilometers across. Meanwhile, Russian forces are massing North of Kupyansk and Ukrainian supplies are drained.

    The West doesn’t seem to really care about Ukraine - while Russia has been able to bring their economy into war footing in about a year, the West is happy to dig around and play accounting tricks to scrounge up what they can. The recent shipment of ATACMS missiles was, well…

    “A surprising discovery could also ease the administration’s choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed.”

    That’s what we’re stuck with? Hundreds of billions of dollars down the drain and aid is only being sent because they miscounted inventory?

    vacuumflower,

    We’ll see. Ukraine is still regaining land, albeit slowly. In some moments - rather fast and cheap even.

    But also yes, the Russian forces have learned something.

    zephyreks,

    Fast and cheap? Is that what you call losing 60 thousand lives to eke out a salient on low ground?

    vacuumflower,

    I said “in some moments”. There were days and places under Kherson a few months before.

    Apollo,

    Just goes to show you the disparity right? NATO is keeping ukraine in the fight against a country which brought its “economy into war footing in about a year” by sending whatever they find lying around down the back of the couch.

    TheLurker, (edited )

    Fuck you and tell your handler to go fuck themselves as well.

    We in the West didn’t start this war. Ukraine didn’t start this war. RUSSIA STARTED THIS WAR.

    Russia started it, Russia is responsible for all the death, destruction and misery going on.

    We in the West are supporting Ukraine. We care about Ukraine and we want it to be free.

    FUCK PUTIN & FUCK YOU!
    You can put that in your filthy tankie report back to your degenerate masters.

    You tankies are filthy parasites.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    In what fantasy land do you think this is remotely achievable? Seriously? Do the lives of Ukrainians fighting and being caught in this conflict mean this little to you, that you are willing to accept continuation of fighting?

    Serdan,

    Ukraine surrendering is evidently not happening either. Given that Russia is indisputably in the wrong, maybe that’s the side we should put pressure on. Just a thought.

    gnuhaut,

    It’s going to happen eventually, as they’re going to run out of recruits before the Russians do. This is like playing a game of chess to the bitter end, only the pieces are real human beings. Hundreds of thousands of them.

    jarfil,

    We don’t live in a “1 soldier = 1 soldier” world, haven’t for several millennia actually. There are weapons that multiply lethality by different amounts on both sides, so it’s more of a question of who gets the better gadgets and manages to use them in better strategies.

    gnuhaut,

    Why would the hastily trained Ukrainian recruits be any better than the Russian ones? Ukraine looks to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, since they’re now also conscripting HIV positive and mentally ill men. It also looks like Ukraine has higher losses, especially now with the offensive, meaning that over time more experienced Russian soldiers are going to be fighting Ukrainian fresh recruits.

    Russia also has more equipment and ammunition. And don’t start talking about quality: Most of the stuff that was sent to Ukraine is old stuff, and Russia also has a mix of old and new stuff. Even when you compare the numbers of roughly equivalent types of weapons, Russia comes out ahead in pretty much every category.

    These stories about the superior NATO weapons, superior NATO training and whatnot are propaganda. There are warhawks that use this story to dismiss the obvious quantitative difference, bigots that love to believe in Russian inferiority and incompetence, and weapons manufacturers trying to advertise their Wunderwaffen. It’s all bunch of crap.

    zephyreks,

    Except, at the end of the day, someone runs out of soldiers. If Ukraine keeps wasting resources in a futile counteroffensive, it’s going to be Ukraine. Military doctrine going back centuries has told us that defending is far easier if your technological capability is even marginally close to equivalent.

    jarfil,

    Ukraine is getting fully functional F-16s, Russia has already shown that they tape down Garmin GPSs to their fighter jet dashboards. That’s… not “marginally close”.

    Maybe Ukraine should regroup and stay on the defensive in the meantime, but I wouldn’t bet on Russia in 2024.

    zephyreks,

    Except… It sort of is? GPS was first launched in 1978 (oh look, the year the F-16 was introduced). The F-16 is an ancient platform and Ukraine has already shown that CAS is rather challenging given how advanced modern munitions are. At the start of the war they were literally plucking planes out of the sky.

    Plus, NATO doctrine relies on complete battlefield superiority and complex logistics… Things that Ukraine lacks. How exactly is Ukraine supposed to turn the tides with F-16s when the Russians have stealth planes and hundreds of Su-35/34/30s?

    jarfil,

    It’s not about how old is the platform, it’s about what you put into it. Is the F-35 still randomly rebooting mid flight? The F-16 hasn’t had that problem for decades, and it can run modern hardware just fine.

    Stealth planes are irrelevant in a dogfight, or in defending ground assets, and all those Su-* have been shown to be lacking proper maintenance for decades. We’ll see how they manage against a fully operational and updated bunch of F-16s.

    zephyreks,

    Dogfights are an outdated paradigm.

    If an Su-57 picks up your radar signature and gets a lock, you better pray to your countermeasures suite because you’re not even going to get a glimpse of it. That’s literally the entire modern US fighter paradigm.

    jarfil,

    You’re supporting my point: those F-16s are going to have the latest countermeasure suit.

    It doesn’t matter how “invisible” is the plane (Ukraine already downed a Russian Su-57) or how “hypersonic” is the missile it launches (Ukrainian ground countermeasures are also taking care of those), what matters is whether it can hit you or not.

    A bunch of “old” F-16s equipped with the latest stuff, plus some decent ground support… we’ll see how it goes, but since Russia hasn’t been able to establish air superiority over Ukraine in all this time, with a little push Ukraine likely will.

    zephyreks,

    With… 40 F-16s? Do you imagine Ukraine to be the size of Taiwan while the Russians fly around in Chaika biplanes?

    jarfil,

    Ukraine is already protected from those magnificent Russian Su-57s, they don’t need F-16s for that. All Ukraine needs is to keep maybe 5 of those F-16s in the air over whatever scrap of land they happen to be trying to take back at any given moment. And yes, those pieces of land are going to be much smaller than Taiwan, what matters is that piece by piece, they will no longer be under Russian control.

    zephyreks,

    Ah yes, because F-16s will absolutely be able to achieve what Su-27s couldn’t… Because, reasons I guess? Just like the Patriot system. Just like the Bradley. Just like the Challenger. Just like the Leopard 2. Just like HIMARS. The Patriot system was supposed to help Ukraine gain air superiority, too. Western armour was supposed to act as a fist straight through Russian lines.

    How much has Ukraine captured over the counteroffensive so far?

    This war lives and dies on attrition and logistical superiority. Ukraine needs more artillery shells, more drones, more ammunition, and more men, not some new wonder weapon that’ll go straight where all the other wonder weapons are. Thing is, nobody has the manufacturing capability to produce more artillery, more drones, off more ammunition and Ukraine has been bleeding refugees since the start of the war.

    Put another way: if Ukraine knew it was going to get F-16s eventually and that F-16s could gain air superiority, why go on a counteroffensive and bleed morale/resources now? By your reasoning, Ukraine could have just hunkered down until they had technological superiority and pulled some good old Blitzkrieg tactics on Russian lines to punch straight throw them. Either this counteroffensive was a severe tactical blunder or the F-16s won’t do as much as claimed.

    jarfil,

    because F-16s will absolutely be able to achieve what Su-27s couldn’t… Because, reasons I guess?

    We’ve been over this: because F-16s have updated hardware (radars, ECMs, etc.) that couldn’t be retrofit into a Su-27.

    This war lives and dies on attrition and logistical superiority

    That too. This wouldn’t be a war in the first place if Russia hadn’t fucked up their initial logistics so severely.

    By your reasoning […] this counteroffensive was a severe tactical blunder

    Personally, that’s my opinion, yes.

    I think they’ve done it to “boost morale” by hopefully regaining “some” territory before the whole place turns into a mud bath, but from a tactical point of view, yes, I think they should have waited it out, stick to defense and drones for the time being.

    zephyreks,

    I think we’re at a bit of an impasse then. I don’t think it makes sense to bleed men and defectors for morale (because, y’know, people dying is bad for morale), but maybe the Ukrainian propaganda machine is more powerful than I am.

    My point is that the West has sat behind the idea that every single new weapon they send to Ukraine will be a GAME CHANGER and lead to the COLLAPSE OF RUSSIAN LINES. Nothing has done so so far, so why should the F-16 be any different? The Patriot was supposed to help Ukraine maintain air superiority. Western tanks were supposed to outclass Russian ones. The Bradley, through it’s rich operational history, was supposed to completely outmaneuver Russian forces. Yet… Nothing.

    jarfil,

    the West has sat behind the idea that every single new weapon they send to Ukraine will be a GAME CHANGER

    That’s propaganda used to get the expenditures approved. Nothing is going to be a “game changer” by itself, it’s all a step by step way to replace Ukraine’s soviet-era weapons, with an updated NATO weapons kit.

    Once the kit gets completed, we’ll see what happens. For now, each part is proving superior to its Russian counterpart. The Patriot is a defensive system intended to prevent Russia from achieving air superiority, and it’s doing just that.

    zephyreks,

    How well has NATO equipment fared on the front lines? With the exception of HIMARS (which has given Ukraine long-range artillery strike capability that Russia can’t match), what’s all this NATO equipment done?

    The Patriot systems are parked far from the front lines in Kiev. The “indestructible” Challenger 2 has lost 14% of their delivered vehicles in barely a few weeks.

    Ukraine needs artillery, ammunition, drones, and supplies. These new weapons have done nothing to shift the front lines whatsoever and serve only to distract the population from providing Ukraine with real, tangible military aid.

    jarfil,

    what’s all this NATO equipment done?

    Stopped Russia from taking over Ukraine.

    These new weapons have done nothing to shift the front lines

    That is correct, they’re intended to prevent Russian advances, not to support Ukrainian advances.

    There is a non-zero risk that if Ukraine was given full offensive support, they’d try to take over Russia… or at least a chunk of it… which would self-justify Russia into using nuclear weapons, something that most people don’t want to see.

    Ukraine needs artillery, ammunition, drones, and supplies

    Supplies, they’re getting. There is a problem with ammunition though; since Ukraine is using Soviet era weapons, they are non-NATO caliber. Most of the stock of Soviet stuff that Western countries had, they have already shipped to Ukraine. In order to ship more, Ukraine will need to switch to NATO gear, which means basically re-arming the whole country from scratch.

    It is no coincidence that Russia would become buddies with China, India, or North Korea, they’re one of the few countries left producing some Soviet-compatible ammunition and gear.

    All of this also means a NATO-ification of Ukraine’s armament, which is something very desirable for NATO, and in particular for the main NATO weapons producer: the US.

    zephyreks,

    Has it? Almost all the progress in this war has been made by infantry and artillery. Where exactly do you propose the NATO equipment has helped change that?

    ghost_of_faso2,
    @ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderwaffe

    drathvedro,

    Put pressure we do, rest assured.

    But, just objectively, what’s the endgame here? I saw a lot of people shit on Russian opposition for not stopping Putin. But, what can Ukraine and the entire world that supports it do? Russian state’s position is simple, it wants Donbas and Luhansk IN Ukraine (=take over it) or there would not be Ukraine at all. What’s the move here? Just supplying Ukraine with weapons won’t do. Accepting Ukraine into NATO is impossible. Going all NATO against Russia is suicidal. Real talk, get some ideas, and quick, on how to get more troops on Ukrainian soil, and make them real. The comments just shitting on Russia and chanting the same words on twitter won’t help - we’ve tried already.

    IonAddis,
    @IonAddis@lemmy.world avatar

    When you make an emotional plea like that, not based in reality, I think of when I was living with my aunt and uncle, and my aunt was so upset I was angering my uncle by not giving in to him.

    He was going to abuse us regardless of what we did, I’d been in the situation for a few years by then and saw the patterns, and when you’re in that situation and understand the history of how that individual acts, you don’t fling yourself at the abuser’s feet once again…you fight.

    I fought and got free. Got bruises and my hair ripped out of my head for it…but I got out. My aunt put up with a few more years of abuse because she wasn’t willing to put up with that bit, the dangerous bit when he popped off when someone defied him.

    The situation in Ukraine is (writ large of course) similar to the dynamics of what goes on in an abusive home. The stakes are higher–more lives lost–but the dynamics underneath are still human dynamics. Which needs to be understood when it comes to negotiation and “civility” and such. It all comes back to the nature of the human animal.

    You have a lying abuser at top (Russia) who tries to divert attention by tugging on heartstrings with pretty words while they are placing the blame for the war on the victims who “just won’t stop fighting–don’t they want to stop getting hurt?” as if fighting someone who is already hurting you is abusive, as if fighting back against them is irrational.

    You don’t play around with idealism with these people, because they’ve already shown they are not willing to hold up their side of that social contract. (Although they are cunning and know using it on YOU might get you to do things against your own interest.) It’s NOT a given that stopping fighting will stop the loss of lives, that the abusers will keep their word once they’ve given it–with the Wagner dude as an example, who stopped what he was doing presumably because he was given promises if he did stop, then was blown up in an airplane shortly after.

    Being civil only works if the other person is also being civil. When they’re not, other methods of dealing with a threat have to be taken. In an individual home, like my situation, I was lucky enough that simply leaving was enough. It was wildly “uncivil”–everyone gets super upset when you say you ran away from home or don’t talk to family…but it was effective to change the situation I was in. I didn’t need to be violent myself, just physically remove myself.

    Nations, unfortunately, can’t pick up their borders and walk away to a place where their neighbors can’t reach them, they are by their nature very land-bound. So you get war instead, when civility–diplomacy–doesn’t get the result needed. (Just like talking to my uncle wouldn’t stop him from doing things, it’d only cause more trouble because he’d get even angrier that you’re “back talking” and not giving in.)

    BTW, I’m not really responding to this guy, I doubt they’ll read or understand what I’m saying as the wringing fingers appeasement is an emotional ploy meant to get people to stop thinking and start crying inside.

    Even if he’s real I’d be surprised if he understood. My aunt never did understand my point when I tried to explain what was wrong in our situation. There’s a reason it takes X amount of years and X amount of tries for abused spouses to get free.

    I hope this is interesting enough for lurkers, though.

    redline,
    @redline@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    it is possible to understand something without agreeing with it

    with all due respect, using domestic abuse to explain geopolitical events is not a useful analytical approach

    Shinhoshi,
    @Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    wringing fingers appeasement is an emotional ploy meant to get people to stop thinking and start crying inside.

    Do you think it was acceptable for Texas to fight a war of independence against Mexico to join the U.S.?

    If so, why isn’t it acceptable for the Donbas to fight a war of independence against Ukraine to join Russia?

    abbenm,

    If so, why isn’t it acceptable for the Donbas to fight a war of independence against Ukraine to join Russia?

    Is that what you think this current conflict is?

    Shinhoshi,
    @Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Why shouldn’t I? Don’t the people want to join Russia?

    Serdan,

    I’m pretty sure Ukrainians being bombed have no interest in joining Russia.

    Shinhoshi,
    @Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    You mean the Ukrainians that Ukraine was bombing before Russia even got involved at all?

    Serdan,

    I mean the Ukrainians being bombed by Russia. I assume you’re aware that thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russia.

    The problem you have with the Donbas genocide narrative is that, even if true, it doesn’t justify an invasion, killing even more people.

    Why a supposed communist would even want to justify Russia’s actions in this conflict remains a complete fucking mystery.

    kev-F384,

    Putin flooded the Donbas with Russian-born citizens and thousands of the Ukrainian citizens evacuated Donbas, so the elections were always going to be in Russia's favor, just a sham vote that most of the world laughed off, now we see new voting taking place, and again we already know the winner, I just wish the bookies were giving odds.

    zephyreks,

    Wait, you’re telling me demographics change over time? No way!

    You’ve described a failing of democracy, but not of the result. Democracy is susceptible to the people and thus, like Bitcoin, is susceptible to a 50% attack. That doesn’t make the election null and void unless you’re arguing that democracy in general is a flawed concept in any country with open immigration.

    zephyreks,

    Ah yes, because geopolitics is basically child abuse.

    TheBlue22,

    Of course, it’s a grad user saying this bullshit. The end of fighting means Ruzzia has won. They captured territory, killed tens of thousands, raped women and children alike and you want them to get away with it. It’s not about peace, because Ruzzia will never want piece. All it wants is subjugation of those they deem inferior. This conflict wont end if you end fighting. They will simply regroup and attack in a few years again. If you think ending the fight will end the war you are fucking delusional.

    zephyreks,

    It’s not them dying, so why would you expect them to care?

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Wine cave warriors love their murderous state department line of thinking don’t they?

    uberkalden,

    Maybe they do care? Maybe they realize agreeing to terms that give land to Russia means they will be back to take more?

    zephyreks,

    They only care enough to send more Ukrainians to die, I guess…

    uberkalden,

    Are you intentionally ignoring the point?

    Lols,

    do you live there

    zephyreks,

    How? Ukraine’s made like a few square kilometers of progress with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding while Russia has just fallen back from their low ground territorial gains to the more easily defensible high ground.

    What leverage does Ukraine even have for those demands?

    Badass_panda,

    Russia’s monetary system is in collapse and its economy is in free fall… the war took up 45% of its budget last year, its foreign exchange reserves have long since run dry and its first defensive line is slowly crumbling.

    If it ends up being a war of endurance, Russia’s going to be in a far worse position in a year than they are now.

    zephyreks,

    Russia’s manufacturing PMI is at, what, 55.9 this month? In fact, the Russian Bank is literally worried about higher than expected inflation because their economic output has been too high.

    And of course, by slowly crumbling you mean that one salient near Robotyne? The one that’s known to be in a region of low ground surrounded by defences on high ground? That line?

    Fact is, so long as India can keep buying Russian oil at whatever price OPEC dictates, Russia can keep financing the war. A lot of Russian industries can function entirely domestically (and thus don’t really stress foreign exchange reserves) - the main limiting factor I’d expect is high-tech electronics coming from India and China. Russia’s war economy has been remarkably resilient given the circumstances.

    Scary_le_Poo,
    @Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

    The reason for those small gains instead of hard ones is largely air support. The fighting on the ground is very reminiscent of world war I. That is not a good thing. They may seem like modest gains but in terms of that type of warfare they are pretty huge gains. The problem is that without air support it is going to be a long hard battle.

    All that said, it is Ukraine’s territory. Russia could pack up and leave at any time.

    zephyreks,

    How is Ukraine ever going to get air superiority? The West is basically trickle-feeding then equipment.

    Scary_le_Poo,
    @Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

    Yes, that is exactly what I implied.

    LarkinDePark,

    Give the native Americans back their territory. Nothing less.

    TheLurker,

    Fucking whataboutism, how pathetic are you?

    Just because something happened in the past doesn’t excuse it in the present or future.

    You filthy fucking tankie parasite.

    rikudou,
    @rikudou@lemmings.world avatar

    I’m not sure Putin has any say in that, but I like the spirit!

    flaneur, (edited )

    If only you also were in the position to dictate this to Russia. Even the US isn’t in this position, and will never be.

    DDNB,

    His plane “crashed”? You mean after it was shot with AA missiles right?

    massive_bereavement,
    @massive_bereavement@kbin.social avatar

    No no, that was before crash.

    Beardedsausag3,
    @Beardedsausag3@kbin.social avatar

    Yeah exactly - let's not get things twisted here. The being blown out of the sky by AA and the crash are 2 entirely separate situations involving the same plane that happened close together, that's all. Yep.

    Count042,

    Jesus the fucking ignorance here.

    It’s pretty damn clear at this point it was a bomb on board.

    No one is saying Putin didn’t do it. Just that the evidence is that whomever did do it, did it with a bomb.

    Kalkaline,
    @Kalkaline@programming.dev avatar

    There were early reports of “strange maintenance” on the plane beforehand as well. Could have just as easily been a bomb planted on board, or some other sabotage.

    jarfil,

    A wing an the tail fell of… chance in a million /s

    Zetta,

    It was not shot down, here is a short video with a detailed explanation on why the most likely thing that happened was a bomb onboard.

    youtu.be/rCUTsO6bOSo?si=fl_UixmPEqsMNI3I

    HootinNHollerin, (edited )
    @HootinNHollerin@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Computational Structural-Fluid interaction simulation/ engineering analysis of the crash that I think is really good piped.video/watch?v=rCUTsO6bOSo

    Mudface,

    If there isn’t going to be any peace discussions from Ukraine … how does this ever end?

    teft,
    @teft@startrek.website avatar

    With Russia packing up their shit and going back to the pre 2014 borders.

    Mudface,

    So you think it’s all or nothing for Ukraine?

    teft,
    @teft@startrek.website avatar

    If someone invades your country and kills your countrymen you don’t negotiate with them. You tell them to get the fuck out or we’ll kill every one of you motherfuckers that decides to continue being on our land. Why? You going to advocate being like Chamberlain? Or Quisling? What do you suggest someone does if their country is invaded?

    Hyperreality,

    Do you think Russia will unconditionally surrender and stop fighting when Ukraine reaches the Russian border?

    SkyezOpen,

    Do you think Ukraine is going to invade Russia after they push them to the border?

    Hyperreality, (edited )

    I don't think Ukraine is about to conquer Russia or capture Moscow, even if they wanted to or if we want them to.

    Do you think Russia will unconditionally surrender and stop fighting when Ukraine reaches the Russian border?

    SkyezOpen,

    I have no idea. Even if they don’t, Ukraine just has to defend their territory, which they have proven more than capable of.

    The only one party that can end this conflict is the aggressor.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    The only thing they’ve proven is that the West really wanted to get rid of their old weapon stock.

    Send_me_nude_girls,
    @Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de avatar

    A safety buffer zone of a few kilometers, on the Russian side, past the Ukrainian country, sounds reasonable. Depending on how far they still keep shooting.

    SlopppyEngineer,

    More likely there will simply be no peace and they’ll technically stay at war, with a huge minefield in between the two countries, until one of them runs out of money.

    Count042,

    How do you show you’ve never heard of the war of the triple alliance or of Paraguay, without saying war of the triple alliance or Paraguay.

    Badass_panda,

    Weirdly specific

    Count042,

    Sorry, I was on a long canoe trip without internet access.

    It is specific for a reason.

    It feels good to say that you will support a country that wishes to fight to its last inhabitants. It sounds good. It sounds macho. Very few people actually think about the actual consequences to a policy like that.

    But, we have a real life example, and it is horrible beyond description. Sometimes, if you can make people see the horror and blood of a macho pithy saying, maybe you can get them to see the actual cost of that macho pithy saying.

    Sometimes, sadly, giving up is the right thing to do.

    Badass_panda,

    Sometimes, sadly, giving up is the right thing to do.

    I get it, but if you are just trying to make the point that, if a country thinks they’ll eventually lose, it’s better for everyone if they give up quickly … then this historical example doesn’t seem relevant.

    Given that Ukraine already gave up quickly once (in Crimea) and that Russia simply waited until it was convenient to invade them again, I’m sure you can understand why Ukrainians think it’s necessary to fight this one out.

    Now, the war of the Triple Alliance is often held up as an example of how a minority of belligerents can create massive devastation by continuing a guerilla war after losing the conventional war; if Ukraine seems in danger of losing the conventional war, I’ll admit it’s a relevant parallel, otherwise it isn’t terribly relevant.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    So we’re fighting to the last Ukrainian then?

    Badass_panda,

    They are, mate. You act like the West is standing behind Ukraine threatening to shoot anyone that retreats. We’re sending em guns and money, if they wanted to stop fighting they could make that decision tomorrow.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    You haven’t seen the video of the Ukrainian lieutenant throwing a grenade into the trench of the Ukrainian soldiers who disobeyed an order to charge the front. Or the daylight kidnappings of Ukrainian citizens by the recruitment officers.

    Badass_panda,

    I sure haven’t

    LoafyLemon,

    You don't negotiate with terrorists.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    That worked out really well lol

    Hyperreality,

    The UK negotiated with the IRA.

    The US negotiated with the Japanese.

    The allies negotiated with the Nazis.

    InvertedParallax,

    I’m fine with the Japanese solution, which Russian cities should we delete?

    The German solution seems awfully similar.

    Hyperreality,

    I'm fine with winning the lottery. That isn't likely either.

    Ukraine doesn't have nukes, so the Japanese solution is off the table.

    Ukraine isn't about to conquer Moscow, so the German solution isn't feasible either.

    InvertedParallax,

    North Korea has nukes, you’re honestly telling me ukraine, the ones who figured it out in the soviet union, can’t figure it out too?

    Ukraine is the smart remnant of the soviet union, Russia needs to surrender out of sheer terror.

    wanderingmagus,

    No, but the US does. I, for one, as an SSBN sailor, am ready and willing to set condition 1SQ for Strategic nuclear launch at any time. Slava Ukraini, HOOYAH AMERICA. Kill the Bear!

    triplenadir,
    @triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    I hope the ghosts of hundreds of thousands of murdered Japanese civilians haunt you for the rest of your life. thank fuck even the post-1945 US government isn’t as bloodthirsty for war crimes as you are

    InvertedParallax,

    They didn’t surrender, they wouldn’t surrender, the alternative of murdering them slowly by starvation wasn’t magically better.

    Sometimes you just have to explain how hopeless things are.

    triplenadir,
    @triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    what if we had records of contemporary US top military leaders saying the exact opposite, would you stop cheerleading for mass slaughter then?

    because, in an amazing coincidence…

    While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: “The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds.”…

    Seven of the United States’ eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy’s vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry “Hap” Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.

    No one was more impassioned in his condemnation than Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff. He wrote in his memoir “that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender …. In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

    MacArthur thought the use of atomic bombs was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Hoover that if Truman had followed Hoover’s “wise and statesmanlike” advice to modify its surrender terms and tell the Japanese they could keep their emperor, “the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt.”

    Before the bombings, Eisenhower had urged at Potsdam, “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

    latimes.com/…/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-…

    Hexadecimalkink,

    You’re really ignorant and it’s sad to think people like you still exist.

    kd637_mi,

    I really don’t like how often I see people ok with the idea of nuclear war. I like Fallout as much as the next person but I don’t think it’s an accurate representation of nuclear apocalypse.

    Railcar8095,

    I’m pretty sure the negotiations consisted on total surrender and heavy controls of power in the three cases, which Zelenskyy agrees on. Just giving more territories to Russia is not what they want. That would only mean a new offensive in a few years.

    Hyperreality,

    In other words, even Zelensky knows there'll have to be negotiations somewhere down the line.

    It's just a question of when and under which circumstances.

    It's in Ukraine and Europe's interests, that these negotiations occur when Russia has been pushed back to the border. Otherwise they'll have been rewarded for their military adventurism.

    And obviously Russia can't be trusted, so the moment a cease fire is signed, it's imperative that Ukraine gets defacto NATO membership (or something approaching it) and is armed to the teeth.

    Railcar8095,

    They had been open to negotiations in the past, and surely are open now, but the first step is for Russia to get the fuck off Ukraine and stop the aggression. It’s not a negotiation of your have a knife to your neck.

    Badass_panda,

    The US negotiated with the Japanese.

    The allies negotiated with the Nazis.

    You know both these groups surrendered unconditionally, right?

    Hyperreality,

    Yes. The terms were harsh, but ultimately both parties agreed to them. A negotiated settlement.

    Note also how the reality is slightly more nuanced. For example, Hirohito remained in power and all members of the Imperial House were spared criminal prosecution. That was an unfortunate but necessary compromise. If the world was fair, they'd have hanged them all, just like much of the Nazi establishment.

    This also why at one point Japanese officials, basing themselves on the Potsdam Declaration, argued to MacArthur that Japan's surrender had in fact been contractual and conditional. Obviously he told them to go fuck themselves, and because the country was by now occupied, there wasn't exactly much they could do about it.

    It's unfortunate, but this is almost certainly what will happen with Russia. A ceasefire will be agreed under conditions both parties accept. The better Ukraine does, the worse the conditions will be that Russia is forced to accept. With a bit of luck, the conditions will be so bad that Putin falls out of a window and is replaced with someone slightly more sane.

    Once the ink is dry, the west will hopefully arm Ukraine to the gills, perhaps institute a no fly zone, give them NATO membership or something approaching it, etc. etc.

    But before that happens there will still need to agree to a ceasefire, hence all wars end with a negotiated settlement, unless you engage in genocide.

    lonke,

    Either you give them land from which they can prepare their next attack or you show them that they’re unable to take and hold land. So yeah. Pretty much.

    NoneOfUrBusiness,

    I mean at the current pace it's just all or all, nothing doesn't seem possible anymore unless something big happens.

    bdonvr, (edited )

    So it doesn’t end?

    Edit: barring NATO rolling in and starting WW3 that’s clearly not gonna happen. So what’s next?

    MightEnlightenYou,

    Why are you arguing for Ukraine to forgive and forget the rapes and murders and to give up parts off their country to the perpetrators rather than arguing for Russia to go back to Russia?

    bdonvr,

    Clearly Russia isn’t going to do that, no matter how much a bunch of nobodies argue for it online.

    Which actually realistic path leads to less dead people?

    InvertedParallax,

    Putin being killed by his own people for leading them to this catastrophe.

    Send_me_nude_girls,
    @Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de avatar

    Negotiations don’t exist for Russia, they are known for breaking all agreements anyways. Russia is not trustworthy in the slightest, they have never missed to prove that. You don’t push the trigger on a loaded gun and hope for it to not fire. If you believe otherwise you desperately need to get out of you bubble and drink less Vodka.

    Russian people killing Putin is the only way to end this sooner.

    SevFTW,

    Putin-fanboys love to say “Ukraine needs to negotiate an end to this war” but like to forget that this war started because RuZZia shat on a treaty ensuring the sovereignty of Ukraine in exchange for their nuclear arms.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Why do liberals always like to forget the Minsk agreements? Like they are always being taken out of the conversation.

    TheBigMike,

    The first agreement collapsed due to the seperatist taking over an airport in Donetsk and saying they won’t follow it anymore.

    The second Minsk agreement basically said “Stop fighting and Ukraine gets full control of the seperatist areas after elections and a special territory status for the areas”. After offering them the special status the seperatists just said no.

    Hyperreality,

    It doesn't matter that Russia's word can't be trusted.

    Push Russia back to the border so that their invasion isn't rewarded, negotiate a ceasefire, then almost immediately make Ukraine a (defacto) NATO member, protect their airspace, no fly zone, arm them to the teeth.

    The Russians are far better at keeping their word, when they know that they are weak, and that it benefits them.

    fhqwhgads,

    Clearly this bully isn’t going to stop trying to take your lunch money. If you continue trying to defend yourself it’s just going to lead to more fights and you getting hurt more. If you just give up your lunch money peacefully then it’ll be better for everybody!

    bdonvr,

    You can’t just boil geopolitics down like that.

    The longer this goes the more people die. We can’t seem to stop Russia without plunging the world into more war…

    fhqwhgads,

    The longer you keep fighting back, the more you will keep being hit. We can’t seem to stop the bully without you getting hurt more, so just be a good little boy and hand over your lunch money peacefully. And when the bully demands the contents of your backpack, hand that over to avoid more bloodshed. And when he demands your hat, hand that over too. You don’t want to keep getting hurt, do you?

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Really happy you’re not in a position of power because you’d be a dangerous useful idiot.

    fhqwhgads,

    No u!

    InvertedParallax,

    Then russia suffers until they learn (so probably forever).

    Ukraine has the will and the west has the means to make this a very painful lesson, maybe even Russians can learn this time.

    bdonvr,

    By every account Russia has the manpower to outlast Ukraine in this. I’m sure whoever is left in Ukraine once NATO is done teaching Russia this “lesson” will be so glad to have been a part of this.

    mrnotoriousman,

    If you lay off the Kremlin propaganda for a minute you'll realize what a laughing stock they are to the real militaries in the world.

    ComradeEd,

    Ok so, assuming the Russian army is the laughing stock of the world, then why isn’t the Ukrainian Army an even bigger laughing stock?

    For a long time I heard one thing after another about how incompetent the Russian army is. For 1 and a half years, the most incompetent, laughing stock of the world, army has been… losing?

    InvertedParallax,

    Because ukraine is a smaller country, and has been handing russia its ass.

    This is exactly like if the US attacked canada and got its ass handed to it.

    No, Canada is actually competent, this is much worse.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    The counteroffensive has been an utter disaster, they’ve reclaimed almost no land in months and it has severely cost them in lost men and equipment. Ukraine is anything but competent as they are hugely struggling in the heavily mined territories also covered by artillery and air support.

    InvertedParallax,

    Awesome how proud you are at an invader mining civilian territory.

    jcit878,

    or 1 and a half years, the most incompetent, laughing stock of the world, army has been… losing

    yes? try to keep up (with reality, not your provided opinions)

    vzq,

    By every account Russia has the manpower to outlast Ukraine in this.

    Wars don’t end because you kill everyone on the other side. The American revolutionaries didn’t murder every single English citizen on the face of the earth. Yet, they still won.

    The point is to last long enough and inflict enough losses that the other side does not want to continue the war. In Clausewitzian terms, even if you can’t win the Trial of Strength, you can still win the Battle of Wills.

    I’m sure whoever is left in Ukraine once NATO is done teaching Russia this “lesson” will be so glad to have been a part of this.

    Ukraine is an independent country that is completely capable of deciding for themselves whether, and at what cost, they want to keep fighting off a foreign invader occupying their territory. This is also part of the “Battle of Wills”.

    I’m not saying that NATO and its members don’t have an interest in the conflict, but the tell-tale sign that you’re regurgitating Russian propaganda is that in your arguments Ukraine has no agency.

    Oderus,

    Wow… you’re delusional.

    slaacaa,

    Bro, hand me some of that copium you’re having, seems like the strong kind!

    fhqwhgads,

    You really been huffing that Russian propaganda, huh? It’ll turn your brain to mush, you should really stop.

    fiah,
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    So what’s next?

    who knows, but maybe some progress will be made when more modern weapons can be fired from western F16’s. It likely won’t have a huge impact, but every little bit helps

    mean_bean279,

    With Russia leaving. They started this war. Fuck off with your “If there isn’t going to be any peace discussions from Ukraine … how does this ever end?”

    Ukraine, and only Ukraine can be the one to talk about any negotiations. I’ll back their decisions whether it’s to fight to the bitter end, or stop and give up. Their people control their destiny. Russia on the other hand is the one that could simply bring an end to this by leaving. They could have brought peace in fact by simply never killing others. You’re victim blaming. Fuck off.

    vrojak,

    Why is it that country A starts occupying parts of country B, and some people start expecting country B to have peace discussions (ie, give land to country A)? There should be calls to country A to stop occupying country B's land, and that's it.

    vzq,

    That’s how they have decided to spin this: co-opt the language of peace and dialogue to justify aggression.

    Too bad it’s so obviously transparent.

    bdonvr,

    I suppose your definition of being “pro-peace” involves sending billions in weapons?

    LetterboxPancake,

    I suppose you think the Russians have a right to invade, kill and rape Ukraine?

    DaDragon,

    Well technically, considering historical precedent, anyone who feels they have more might than their neighbours has the right to do whatever they want to do to them. Historically, that was mostly conquest. Other’s use that might for what can generally be construed as the common good. (EG. Team America world police)

    Ultimately the one who decides what is right and wrong is the collective, and honestly, the world is much less unified in its opinion than it probably should be.

    InvertedParallax,

    Great, then let’s give ukraine f15es, fleets of predators and more, give them them much more might than their neighbor and let them solve this solution.

    I’m fine with ukraine demonstrating that might means right.

    vzq,

    Thank you for demonstrating exactly what I referring to.

    GreenMario,

    Peace through Superior firepower.

    There can be no peace if one side wants to wipe your very existence out.

    lonke,

    Yup. Russia doesn’t understand diplomacy. Only force. It’s sad that russia acts this way, so, unfortunately, beating them is the only way to have lasting peace.

    That or leadership change but I don’t think putler fears anything more than losing power and the people are either weak or live in a propaganda bubble.

    Badass_panda,

    Yeah, unironically it does in this instance.

    jcit878,

    if only your heros had billions* in weapons to use lol

    • in USD, not rubles. Watching the red army collapse has been one of the few joys of the past few years
    ImmortanStalin,

    It’s not like country B wasn’t ethnic cleansing near its borders with country A while conspiring with hostile to country A: country D. But let’s just rehash everything as a marvel film for the yankkks.

    fhqwhgads,

    Exactly. It’s not like that. That would just be regurgitating Russian propaganda in an attempt to justify an invasion of a sovereign nation , wouldn’t it?

    Krause,
    @Krause@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    over ukraine’s dead body

    WuTang,
    @WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

    certainly not Zelensky body…

    InvertedParallax,

    More like Putin’s but the Russians are so stupid they’d rather march into machine gun fire like cows.

    ComradeEd,

    My reaction to your comment.

    judging seagull

    InvertedParallax,

    Don’t care, just need you to keep walking.

    Putin’s on my side here, we’re both invested in more dead Russians.

    lonke,

    It ends the second russia withdraws its troops or they are beaten out of Ukraine.

    InvertedParallax,

    Russia doesn’t need to ask permission to leave, they just leave.

    Seems like a lot fewer Russians and Ukrainians will die if the Russians left ukraine.

    volodymyr,

    Good question, every war ends in some kind of negotiation, even for surrender. I think when Russia loses, Putin is unlikely to keep power, and some sort of agreement will happen without him.

    fiah,
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    with all invaders dead, captured or back where they came from

    Count042,

    Showing your math, how do you think that happens?

    tomatopathe,

    By making the invasion so untenable that they fuck off.

    Which is what is happening.

    fiah,
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    in a sentence, tell me why I shouldn’t add you to my long and growing block list full of tankies

    Count042,

    Because there is no faster way to turn off critical thinking then to self-enforce an echo-chamber?

    But whatever, you do you. I don’t actually give a shit if you block me. Like, holy fuck, “In a sentence, tell me why you deserve to be my friend.” God, I wish I had that sort of self-confidence. That may be why you want to live in an echo chamber, though.

    Decompose,

    Hey… stop making sense! All the bots and teenagers here think you’re stupid!

    Peace? Are you crazy??? You keep that kinda smart talk to yourself! We don’t use the P word here! Here we just want to be angry all the time and blame some imaginary enemy for all our problems.

    slaacaa,

    I agree, let’s have peace! Russians should go the fuck home

    tomatopathe,

    It takes two to make peace. And how can there’s be peace after the mass murder, torture and kidnapping of children, destruction and death wrought upon Ukraine.

    If Canada did that to the USA, how keen for peace would you be exactly?

    There can only be peace if there is justice.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    It takes two to make peace. And how can there’s be peace after the mass murder, torture and kidnapping of children, destruction and death wrought by Ukraine upon tens of thousands of ethnic Russians since 2014?

    If your neighbour raped your wife and killed your children, how keen for peace would you be exactly?

    There can only be peace if there is justice. Justice is when Banderite Nazis and their “slava ukraini” Nazi Eagle supporters are deleted.

    tomatopathe,

    The president is an ethnic Russian you lying piece of garbage.

    Russia has killed more ethnic Russians than Ukraine (or anyone else) ever has. Including 200k of it’s own soldiers. There is nobody in the world more russophobic than Russia.

    As for “Banderite Nazis” I wonder how much they got in the elections? You know, those things that Russia doesn’t have, unless “United Russia” wins. Every single action taken by Russia over the past decade is an exact reflection of Naziism.

    How can you be so completely and utterly brainwashed as to not see what’s right in front of your dumb face.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    I mean the Nazis got into power because Victoria Nuland acted as kingmaker for them… this is all available on the internet from reputable sources. It just hasn’t hit your brainwashed mass media sources because you watch literal propaganda and are such a useful idiot that rather than think critically you regurgitste it on link sharing forums. Sad.

    tomatopathe,

    Yeah Nazis elected a Jewish man president. You truly do believe such bullshit.

    In the meantime the real Nazis were in an alliance with Russia until the Russians were betrayed.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    The USA was fine to let the Nazis take over Europe until Japan invaded Pearl Harbour. What’s your point?

    tomatopathe,

    The US played the same role towards the UK as it is playing now towards Ukraine - providing aid - until Pearl Harbor.

    zephyreks,

    Oh, so, war?

    Korea ended in peace. Vietnam ended in peace. Iraq ended in peace. Afghanistan ended in peace. Hell, even China-Taiwan ended in what, by any means, could be defined as peace.

    War and peace are intricately tied together and compromises are often made to save lives. Did the KMT never trade with the CCP again after literally getting booted out of their own country? Did China never trade with Japan again despite millions of people dead, raped, and experimented on?

    Badass_panda,

    Russia can, very straightforwardly, retreat to Russia. Boom, peace!

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Ironically the CIA believes Putin killed Prigozhin to defuse tensions with NATO for exiling Wagner to Belarus.

    vzq,

    If Putin wants to defuse tensions with NATO, he knows what to do.

    LetterboxPancake,

    Retreat from Ukraine, then fall out of a window.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    I’m skeptical the government would allow him to do that.

    He’s not actually a god-king. If a leader ever became a threat to the power structure, he’d be eliminated. Just ask JFK 🙃

    LetterboxPancake,

    I don’t think you can compare those situations. Putin has had everyone fall out the window that was a threat to his power. Or accidentally get himself stabbed with poison by a Russian agent. Or pour themselves poisoned tea definitely nobody else poisoned.

    ME5SENGER_24,

    In the west we say Putin, like he’s some sorta boogieman. In the US our politicians are essentially puppets with some corporation’s hand up their ass. Yes, Putin has been in power for years; that doesn’t mean he isn’t in power because he keeps the oligarch’s money flowing. The second the money flow comes into question, someone falls from a window.

    Now I’m not saying Putin isn’t the one ordering the hits - he could be and also potentially couldn’t be. What I am saying is that there are often multiple versions of the truth and/or layers to that truth.

    I think Zelenskyy is right, don’t make deals with the devil. But there’s a 100% certainty that this isn’t only “Putin’s War” and there are more players, potentially those with their hand deep in Putin’s ass, pulling his puppet-strings

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    You think Putin is the one personally pushing people out of windows?

    This is bigger than he is - he’s a figurehead of a power bloc within the government, he isn’t god.

    LetterboxPancake,

    Since when do leaders have to personally execute every command? He surrounded himself with yes men for decades.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    Did Putin conquer Russia all by himself?

    The idea that he’s some kind of lonely tyrant and accountable to no-one really implies that he actually is a god, like he somehow managed to take over the largest country on Earth and rule it with an iron fist and there wasn’t anyone else that helped him get there or helps him stay there (and could help him “retire” if he ever became a problem)

    LetterboxPancake,

    I’ve never said he alone is responsible for everything. For example, he has loads of assholes trying to defend him online.

    Good night.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    Defend him? I literally just said he’s an employee of the government, just like every figure head. The government is in charge, not the godking lol

    pinkdrunkenelephants,

    Just ignore that obvious shill. The other day they were denying the importance of education to combat propaganda. It’s obvious where their loyalties lie.

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Putin is, for all intents and purposes, an absolute ruler. He’s a lot closer to being the “god-king” of Russia than you appear to think.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    Absolute rulers don’t actually exist. That’s fantasy stuff for kids books.

    Even under feudalism and in ancient empires the leader wasn’t actually like that, they could always go too far and be replaced (with lots of violence of course)

    WuTang,
    @WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

    yeah sure, he will surrender to a comedian who didn’t even go through compulsory military service. Hallo, this guy played piano with his dick on TV.

    what a shame, real people are dying and this zelensdick plays the victim in his castle.

    heeplr,

    this guy played piano with his dick on TV

    Maybe it’s probably not necessary to kickass the “world’s #2 strongest army” but knowing how to use your dick certainly doesn’t hurt obviously.

    gravitas_deficiency,

    I, for one, think it’s pretty fucking hilarious and incredible that the “world’s second best army” is getting curbstomped by a country led by a guy who played piano with his dick on TV.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    You might need to check your sources about how the war is going… Russia hasn’t committed its full army to this war.

    goat,

    not that I don’t believe you, but do you have sources yourself? Lotta propaganda flying everywhere

    Hexadecimalkink,

    understandingwar.org/publications?type[]=map&…

    And understandingwar.org/publications

    Generally you want to look at the sources that the military use and not sources the media use to justify their positions.

    BigNote,

    This doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. It’s not the case that Russia is somehow holding back and has huge additional reserves and resources that it can throw at the conflict. The Russian military isn’t about to collapse or anything, but it’s not doing great either and has largely been exposed as far weaker than was previously supposed.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Yes I agree, particularly in the fact that the corruption and facade that was the Russian military reporting structure made it seem to Russian leadership that they were more powerful than they thought. This is the problem with having so many yes men surrounding an authoritarian leader.

    However as we’re hitting the two year mark on the war soon, the Russian military has likely become more competent and less corrupt than before with the increased attention.

    BigNote,

    That’s a fair take and may well be accurate. I am no expert and accordingly don’t have a strong opinion either way, and that’s leaving aside the rather obvious point that most/many of our so-called “experts” keep getting it wrong in the first place.

    Remember when Kyiv was going to fall in a matter of days, then that got adjusted into a matter of weeks and then months and now here we are a year and a half later?

    The loud and clear lesson from that is that the so-called experts often don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Russia can’t commit its full army to the war, for quite a few reasons. One of which is that it’s “full army” has been decisively proven to be WAY more of a paper tiger than anybody would have guessed.

    The scale and duration of this war are orders of magnitude are far larger than anyone in Russia was planning for in January of 2022. They discovered that their battalions were rife with ghost soldiers so the officers could scoop up their pay. They discovered their modern tank stockpiles were not only unmaintained, but also often scavenged for parts to either repair other vehicles or simply sell on the black market. They discovered that, incredibly, their Air Force was unable to fully suppress a force that (on paper) was a mere fraction of their size and supposed capability.

    This is scratching the surface. This shit goes way deeper, and it involves their whole military industrial complex, as well as pretty much all seriously profitable ventures in Russia. If money is made at any serious scale, someone’s going to put together a scheme to take a cut of it. That’s how the country works. And it’s biting them in the ass right now.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Yup I agree. But much like the Ukrainians were able to mobilize, Russia is doing the same. The paper tiger isn’t all paper though, they really do have 5 times the population as Ukraine.

    can,

    Or you know, Russia could just have not attacked in the first place.

    Putin is the laughingstock of the world.

    freagle,

    Is that why G20 decided not to sanction nor condemn Russia this week?

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Of Anglo Nazi world only. Rest of the world respects and is friends with Russia.

    can,

    That’s unfortunate.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    In reality? Fortunate. Nobody should morally agree with Anglo hegemon until USA, UK, Ukraine and Israel are fully isolated away.

    can,

    Why couldn’t he just let Ukraine be then?

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Because Ukraine did not let Donbass residents be for 8 years since 2014, genociding over 14,000 of them, banning Russian language, cutting off their water, food and electricity supplies and what not constantly. Patrick Lancaster has recorded this shit on YouTube for years, with a vlog frequency of almost daily.

    Western media, if you look at their coverage of Ukraine, had the “neo Nazi” moniker slapped everywhere until a few months before the whole conflict started. Donbass people of eastern Ukraine are largely ethnic Russians, and DPR and LPR declared independence and asked for sovereignty as well. Moreover, there were a lot of biochemical factories at the shared border, creating a threat for Russia.

    can,

    Do you have a source for the genocide claim? I’m not watching years worth of blogs.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Pro-Russian source TASS ( tass.com/world/1289095) from 2021 citing Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s statement:

    PRAGUE, May 13. /TASS/. The conflict in Donbass has claimed about 14,000 lives, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said during his working visit to Slovakia.

    “To date, about 14,000 people have been killed in Donbass. This number includes [Ukrainian armed forces] servicemen and civilian casualties. We regularly update this data,” he said. Kuleba’s speech has been posted on the Slovak Foreign Ministry’s website.

    Pro-Ukrainian source detailing the death count, with an ample amount of Russia bashing. bitterwinter.org/donbass-did-ukraine-kill-14000-p…

    On January 27, 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its most recent estimate of the victims of the Donbass conflict from 2014 to December 31, 2021. The famous figure of 14,000 casualties, often quoted by pro-Russian comments, comes from this document. In fact, the U.N. estimate is between 14,200 and 14,400 victims.

    By no means were these victims all “killed by the Ukrainians.” According to the U.N., 10,900 victims were soldiers, of which 4,400 were Ukrainians and 6,500 pro-Russian combatants of or on behalf of the separatist pseudo-republics. Civilian victims were between 3,400 and 3,500. The latter were in turn not all victims of attacks and of drones and rockets launched by Ukraine against the pseudo-republics. In fact, a part died in the portions of the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk that remained under Ukrainian control during attacks by separatists.

    The genocide part is labelled upon the deaths that happened due to Ukraine’s aggression against Donbass residents and the constant border conflicts. Part of the genocide is cultural as well, with the ban on Russian language, among other elements.

    can,

    Admittedly I do need to do more reading. Thank you for the links.

    mashbooq,

    Which is why he put in a military expert as commander in chief, even though he’s legally entitled to that position. Almost like he knows how to delegate like a leader

    fiah,
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    aww are you scared of the big bad comedy man? perhaps you needn’t be if russia just skedaddled back whence they came from

    gravitas_deficiency,

    Lmao cope harder, tankie. Russia went from the “second best army in the world” to the 3rd best army operating openly in the Ukraine AO. Russia has proven themselves to be a joke, militarily - they went from being considered a superpower to being a peer-power of Ukraine. That’s a fucking HUGE step down in geopolitical clout and military credibility.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Again I think you need to do some research on this…

    WuTang,
    @WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

    I don’t know what to think, are you sad there’s few dead toll on UA side. Russia especially proved they were not in clean-slate mode. Do you really think they wouldn’t use aviation if they wanted “more”, really?

    Between, UA is supplied by our governments (and certainly on the intel side too), so it is not just “UA” against RU, idiot!

    slaacaa,

    Tank(ie) you for your valuable comment!

    vidumec,
    @vidumec@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    cringe

    Railcar8095,

    So, you’re saying Putin can’t back down because he would look like a fool, but somehow people dying is fault of Zelenskyy for not being at the front, just like Putin?

    FreeBooteR69,
    @FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca avatar

    Right, pullout, like Putin’s daddy should have done.

    zephyreks,

    I mean, obviously?

    Hexadecimalkink,

    But that would counter Zelensky’s argument.

    zephyreks,

    You mean Zelensky was wrong? No way!

    jarfil,

    A day earlier, Prigozhin published a video purportedly from Africa. Next day, he managed to get himself killed on a flight from Moscow. While being exiled.

    Not sure what the CIA believes, but it’s all sus AF.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    It was a flight from St Petersburg to Moscow, but yes why he was allowed in the country after being exiled shows that in Russia their rules aren’t cut and dry.

    jarfil,

    From Moscow: www.reuters.com/graphics/…/dwvkaealmvm/

    There were two jets though, the other one did the roundtrip fine.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    Ahh, apologies I thought it was St P to Moscow, I was wrong.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    Russia is a terrorist country. Terrorists can’t be negotiated with.

    sndmn,

    Russia can’t be accepted back into the international community until Putin is in a jail cell or in the ground.

    WuTang,
    @WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

    US is still there though, being at the source of the death of 4.5 Millions humans since 2003! (washington post article).

    doom_and_gloom,

    …maybe we need to take a step back on this international community thing, at least until the people in power aren’t the same ones who want to use it for neo-colonialism. Or maybe we could rebuild it, this time with common individuals being the basis instead of corporations and their subversive power struggles. Because right now it looks like the “international community” is going to have the effect of turning us all into the bad guys…

    TheDarkKnight,

    Paywalled article, meh doesn’t count.

    mashbooq,

    What about, what about, what about

    cyclohexane,

    And? Should we not point hypocricy and double standards because it hurts your feelings?

    BigNote,

    No, you shouldn’t do it because it’s stupid. If you had real arguments you would use them, but you don’t, so instead you trot out this garbage. It’s a sign of intellectual weakness and dishonesty.

    cyclohexane,

    If it really was such a bad and stupid argument, why can’t you address it? Spending paragraphs telling me an argument is bad without actually addressing it screens entitlement and incompetence to me.

    BigNote,

    Where did I “[spend] paragraphs telling [you] an argument is bad”?

    Go ahead, I’ll wait.

    Maybe you’ve mistaken me for someone else.

    I used a few short and simple sentences to explain why your position is crap. That’s it.

    PersnickityPenguin,

    Most of those actual deaths were Muslims killing Muslims. Deaths caused by United States soldiers are comparatively low.

    For example, the Iraqi body count website tracks 210,000 civilians killed between 2003 and 2020.

    According to your article, it cites US-led wars in countries such as Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Syria. However, the United States did not launch a war in any of those countries and certainly did not fight a war in Pakistan which is a US ally.

    The Washington Post article as well as research from Brown University has Lucy affiliated anyone who has died outside of the expected peacetime death rate in any country in Africa in the Middle East to be attributable to the United States which is, frankly completely unfair. ISIL aka the Islamic State for instance killed tens of thousands of people, yet those deaths are attributed to the United States. Which is completely crazy!

    While I was completely against the 2003 Iraq war, and even March and protest against it, the truth of the matter is that Saddam was a complete bastard, the bath is party were fascist, and destroying them created enormous power vacuum which resulted in chaos death and destruction. However, this was probably an inevitability Saddam wasn’t going to last forever and had no system of governance to transfer leadership to someone else. The Middle East has been well known for centuries as a chaotic and violent region of the world and Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been at war with each other since time immemorial.

    MeowZedong,
    @MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Maybe take a good look at that last paragraph you wrote and think about why you blame the conflicts in the middle east on a reductive basis of “they are savages” rather than looking at the actual historical context of what has caused instability in the region.

    Seriously, this entire comment is just a racist write-off of the middle east that is completely devoid of any true consideration of history. Ignorance personified.

    shroobinator,

    Who was it that was selling Saddam sarin gas and anthrax again?

    Matombo,

    Sorry to see you downvoted, but in ukraine topics you can’t have any other opinion then West=Good or you are a Putin apologist. We are back at cold war red scare disscusion levels, no nuace is allowed.

    IndefiniteBen,
    @IndefiniteBen@feddit.nl avatar

    While I’d like to believe this, if Putin comes to some peaceful agreement with Ukraine, the international community will just wait until people are distracted by the next big news story and then let Putin back in.

    I’d rather be cynical and happily surprised than optimistic and disappointed.

    vacuumflower,

    Actually likely not, he’s been building international relations similarly to the Russian criminal code of behavior, and while it’s sad that even Americans and Europeans would consider this kinda acceptable, now he’s shown himself to be weak and humiliated. In other words, of the lower caste, and simply said, a pidor.

    So no, he won’t be let back in. But some other (in appearances mostly, not in essence) government in Russia may.

    havocpants,

    simply said, a pidor.

    isn’t that some kind of Turkish pizza?

    vacuumflower,

    Well, in Russian it’s a swear word meaning a faggot, which refers to prison hierarchy.

    LifeInMultipleChoice,

    I tried to look it up, I am only finding that it is a slur used to call people gay when they may or not be. U.S. equivalent seems to be like saying “Suck a dick, fag!” With pidor being the word at the end that would be shunned for being said.

    I halted on submitting this over and over because I feel like I am going to get downvoted for using that term even to define a word/usecase. (Then I remembered the points don’t matter and intent changes context)

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Western genociders are “international community” leaders? Things have changed, Anglo racist. BRICS+ is the new international community, and West will never get accepted into it.

    zephyreks,

    Of course. They’re white.

    god,
    @god@sh.itjust.works avatar

    “my genociders are good, your genociders are bad”. Whataboutism at its best. Lovely.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Imagine objectivity from a clown who literally runs a community hating China. A fascist like you probably wants China to be either enslaved to whites or nuked.

    god,
    @god@sh.itjust.works avatar

    The ccp is not China.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    More than 95% people approve of CPC, according to Harvard’s 20 year study of China. China is more democratic than USA, and even Hong Kong said during the 2019 riots that USA is a bigger threat to their democracy.

    zephyreks,

    I mean, by that logic we might as well dump everyone who’s started a major land war recently into the ground.

    Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan… ah fuck, eh?

    SilverFlame,

    Sure let’s do it

    zephyreks,

    Actually tho

    gnuhaut,

    “Slava Ukraini” is fascists slogan used by, and mainly associated with, the mass murderers of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews. I guess that doesn’t count as terrorism in your worldview.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    Shut your face, ruzzian troll

    fiah,
    @fiah@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    ok bye now

    lukini,
    @lukini@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    gnuhaut,

    I really think “Slava Ukraini” is a fascist slogan, because it is. Since you’re mad at me for pointing it out, I suspect it might be you who would get banned if you said what you really think.

    In April 1941 in German-occupied Kraków, the younger part of the OUN seceded and formed its own organisation, called the OUN-B after its leader Stepan Bandera. The group adopted a fascist-style salute along with calling “Glory to Ukraine!” and responding with “Glory to the Heroes!”. During the failed attempt to build a Ukrainian state on lands occupied by Germany after its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, triumphal arches with “Glory to Ukraine!”, along with other slogans, were erected in numerous Ukrainian cities.

    lukini,
    @lukini@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    gnuhaut,

    So it’s perfectly normal to revive a slogan that was last used by fascists? I’m sure the fact that Ukraine also made Bandera a national hero and put up statues of him and named streets in his honor right around the same time that slogan made its comeback is just a coincidence? Totally innocent slogan my ass.

    lukini,
    @lukini@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    gnuhaut, (edited )

    Have a good day.

    Look, you can’t just present an argument and then tell me not to reply.

    The history of Ukrainian support of him is fairly new and is far more complicated than “we like fascists”,

    I’d like to hear your arguments why worshiping the leader of an organization that took part in the Holocaust is somehow “complicated”. It’s not like this isn’t some well-known fact. Seriously, this is obviously totally fucked. Why would you feel to need to defend this? It’s not, actually, fucking complicated.

    hostility so far

    And whose fault is that?

    mashbooq,

    No, it’s neither fascist, nor mainly associated with mass murderers to anyone except redfash

    jarfil,

    …wikipedia.org/…/Organisation_of_Ukrainian_Nation…

    It’s mainly associated with “Ukrainian Nationalists” since WWI, adoped by the fascist organization which took part in the Holocaust and massacre of Poles, whose members have been granted veteran benefits in 2019, and its emblem is being used by present Ukrainians.

    Meanings can change; denying history… is sus.

    ImmortanStalin,

    The “cope” downvotes lol

    jcit878, (edited )

    hows your special operation going champ?

    edit: you still waiting for your response to be sent to you? arent able to think of one yourself? pretty sad. what about the other tankies downvoting, got any thoughts of your own fellas?

    Rawdogg,

    Nope

    jarfil,

    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava_Ukraini

    You might want to specify whether you’re talking about the pre-WWI, post-WWI, WWII, USSR, or post-USSR meaning.

    For reference, the current year is 2023.

    gnuhaut,

    I already responded to this in a reply to another user:

    So it’s perfectly normal to revive a slogan that was last used by fascists? I’m sure the fact that Ukraine also made Bandera a national hero and put up statues of him and named streets in his honor right around the same time that slogan made its comeback is just a coincidence? Totally innocent slogan my ass.

    You might be blind in your right eye if you think this isn’t some fascist shit. This is like “the swastika is an old Hindu symbol” type defense, only worse because you’re ignoring the Hitler portrait right next to it.

    jarfil,

    I’m blind in my left eye, thank you very much… but since we’re copying other comments:

    …wikipedia.org/…/Organisation_of_Ukrainian_Nation…

    It’s mainly associated with “Ukrainian Nationalists” since WWI, adoped by the fascist organization which took part in the Holocaust and massacre of Poles, whose members have been granted veteran benefits in 2019, and its emblem is being used by present Ukrainians.

    I’m not defending it, and as a Pole I’m definitely suspicious of Ukraine’s true intentions behind the slogan and the emblem… but I’m also pro-EU, and right now it’s better to support Ukraine, than to let Russia think about which EU member state to invade next.

    Afterwards, if Ukraine wants to get its shit in order to a level where it could join the EU and NATO… then go ahead. Germany did it, Italy and Spain did it, and we’re all better for that.

    gnuhaut,

    Germany and Italy literally did not get rid fascism willingly, they were defeated and this was imposed on them. And being from Germany, I assure you denazification was incredibly half-assed.

    Look at it for yourself: www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0

    They’re doing the salute and everything. That salute was introduced by the fascist OUN.

    jarfil,

    FML… that is indeed the fascist salute.

    I know de-nazification was half-assed; I lived in Italy, now I live in Spain, and man, 45 years after the fascist regime was “gone”, there are still those opposing the removal of some fascist symbols. They used to argue that “it’s too soon”, now they’re arguing “it’s too late, let them be”, while there are still people killed by the dictature laying unidentified in some ditch or another.

    Guess we’ll have to live and see where it all goes.

    Badass_panda,

    Ah yes, “Glory to Ukraine,” seems like a super specific slogan that can only be associated with one movement. In no way is it a generically nationalist slogan.

    gnuhaut,

    www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0

    See what they are doing while chanting “Slava Ukraini”? Notice the salutes? That’s the context of this becoming popular in Ukraine (again).

    OurToothbrush,

    Slava Ukraini was literally the battle cry of the OUN, which collaborated in the holocaust. Find a different motto.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    I block all ruscist trolls. You’re up!

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    The worst part about this is that you are a real person with a brain.

    jarfil,

    Found the bot with a script.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Ok dronie

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    SLAVA UKRAINI tell your czar putler his time is up. :)

    OurToothbrush,

    K scratched liberal

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    .

    Fascism_Chewer,

    YOU SURE SHOWED HIM. PUTLER RESIGNED AFTER READING THIS SCATHING COMMENT.

    LarkinDePark,

    Putler? But wouldn’t that make you like him if he was like Hitler? Are you sure you support Ukraine?

    rikudou,
    @rikudou@lemmings.world avatar

    Wtf kind of word vomit was that?

    p1mrx,

    Wait till you hear about the origins of Volkswagen.

    polskilumalo,
    @polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Oh boy, more good reasons to hate cars and automotive corporations!

    OurToothbrush,

    Oh I know. I have a massive ax to grind on how little denazification happened after the war, especially in west Germany.

    jcit878, (edited )

    “ahhhhhh splat” is the current warcry of the woefully unprepared orcs getting slaughtered in a war that could end today. maybe you guys could at least come up with something original before winding up as compost?

    as expected tankies and brain-dead conservatives take issue with the fact I’m mocking the vatniks out there being converted into soil. guess what? I give as much a shit about you guys as the decomposing corpses of the mobiks, and find your opinions on the topic to be as usual, laughably silly and predictable. no, I’m not gonna have any need to humanise a bunch of trash that are invading another country. do I feel genuine sympathy for the conscripts who have no choice and no possibility to surrender? sure. that’s their lot unfortunatly, but you won’t find me crying over dead Russians in Ukraine

    Matombo,

    Calling russian soldiers orcs is litteral dehumanisation straight out of the faschists playbook. Can we please collectivly agree in not becoming the strawman putin used in his “justification” for this war?

    jcit878,

    lol nope

    LarkinDePark,

    National security?

    vacuumflower,

    I would understand if at least 20% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel would be comprised of western volunteers talking about terrorists and no negotiations.

    But that is not a thing. So looks a bit ballsy, cause one would think that in a rather apocalyptic war on Ukraine’s soil, after they’ve reclaimed large swathes of territory, they’d be interested in some reduction of monthly casualties and rebuilding various capacities on that territory. Which a ceasefire would provide.

    I mean, even if you are right, you are eagerly advocating for spending mobilized Ukrainian lives on a costly offensive.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    I’m only repeating what Ukrainians say. They know any concession with ruzzian terrorists now will only lead to ruzzian terrorists regrouping and reloading to perfom more genocide in a few months/years all over again. The fascist moscow regime needs to be stopped NOW.

    vacuumflower,

    The word “genocide” means something else (which, in case of Turkey and China and even Yazidis in Syria, most of the world has problems recognizing).

    Yes, but Ukrainians need to regroup too.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    Murdering, kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children is genocide. Attempting to exterminate the Ukrainian people is genocide.

    vacuumflower,

    Murdering, kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children is genocide.

    Then we’ll have to introduce degrees of genocide.

    Attempting to exterminate the Ukrainian people is genocide.

    Which is not happening.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    I block all russian trolls.

    vacuumflower,

    You don’t fucking know which things the words you use mean. And since you still dare voice your opinions on real world - blocking me is an important first step at stopping that.

    Grant_M,
    @Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

    Bye, moscovite. Your terrorist regime is about to meet the end.

    vacuumflower, (edited )

    Bye, moscovite.

    What an ape FFS. Don’t say bye the third time.

    EDIT:

    I mean, you say “genocide” as if China is being sanctioned or punished for Xinjiang, and very little pressure would be required to make them stop, or Azerbaijan for Artsakh, and Azerbaijan is a bug to squash, one phone call would be enough, and Turkey itself mostly does all the things it does to pressure concessions, so they are ready to negotiate in every moment.

    Ah, and Ukraine supports Azeri genocidal crimes in Artsakh, so fuck them.

    Your country, if that’s US, doesn’t do anything about these. It cooperates with the criminal terrorist states I’ve mentioned. And yet you have the gall to throw the word “genocide” around about something which is war crimes, yes, and even sometimes acts of genocide, but that would mean that a Ukrainian life is worth more than an Armenian life, and I don’t agree. A Ukrainian life is worth more than your life, surely, but not more than an Armenian life.

    Now, you can say that yes, these are all genocides much more real about which you don’t care, cause your side is of the perpetrators there.

    abbenm,

    I would understand if at least 20% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel would be comprised of western volunteers talking about terrorists and no negotiations.

    Now do Russia. There must be more western volunteers on that side, I take it?

    vacuumflower,

    I obviously mean that you are talking too tough for somebody not participating.

    Badass_panda,

    what a ceasefire would provide

    Like the 2014 ceasefire? All it does is give Russia the opportunity to retrench and dig in. When the Ukrainians ask for a ceasefire, then I’ll support one.

    vacuumflower,

    Like every ceasefire.

    I suppose right now Ukraine just wants some better guarantees while it has a strong negotiating position.

    So that it takes some effort from Putin to even be heard.

    Or maybe what Zelensky says is what he means, you can’t negotiate with a pathological liar (just like a few of Ukraine’s allies, though) who doesn’t know how to lose with dignity. Be it a person or a whole elite of some country, like Russia. I mean, emotionally I’ve met some and I’d agree. Just don’t know what it is rationally.

    Badass_panda,

    Like every ceasefire.

    Probably the reason Ukraine doesn’t want a ceasefire…

    LarkinDePark,

    Do you think the USA is a terrorist country? If not, why not?

    TheLurker,

    Fuck off tankie. No-one gives a shit what you think with your pathetic bootlicking whataboutism rhetoric.

    zephyreks,

    Foundations of geopolitics? Fuck that, more war. More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

    oldmate,

    More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

    I genuinely can’t tell if you are saying this ironically considering you are all over this thread defending Russia’s invasion.

    Pili,

    He’s making fun of all the libs/fascists who want to kill all the Ukrainians in the hope of owning Putin, while sitting comfortably on their gamer chairs in their mom’s basement.

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