There was a referendum in the Donbass and people voted to join Russia. Much like happened with Alsace and Lorraine. I’m sorry but we salute the red 🇰🇵 white 🇨🇺 and blue 🇱🇦 here if you don’t like democracy you can fuck off back to lemmy.
I’ll give you ample time to answer that for yourself as you remain unbanned on lemmygrad so you can still get notifications when people reply to your comments which we are also not deleting
You’re the one who butted into our instance with your takes 🤷
The key issue for me is the right of a people to self determination.
The people who live in the eastern parts of Ukraine are overwhelming Russian speaking and identify as ethnically Russian. They voted three times in various ways for some form of preserving their cultural rights, only to have their expression of Democratic will met with violent militias, shelling, and other violence, and then finally voted once again to secede from Ukraine, largely motivated by the extreme hostility from right wing Ukrainian nationalists who were banning the use of Russian, imposing assimilationist education policies, banning political parties that represented the people there, and even banning the free exercise of religion if that religious practice looked to the Russian Orthodox Church for leadership.
The principle of the self determination of a people to choose their own government demands respect and Ukraine has no right to impose their will on a population that doesn’t want it.
You should look at what the people who actually live there, in the east not just those in Kyiv, have been saying for a decade. They don’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore and it’s because of the extreme violence Ukraine has inflicted upon them since 2014.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results? Just an FYI elections in Russia itself are not free from corruption in any sense of the word. But I’m sure you take putin’s word when he says their fair Lol 2014 is when Russian backed separatists began working in Ukraine, Russia has always been the aggressor and could’ve stopped the violence whenever they choose.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results?
literally the consent “isn’t there somebody you forgot to ask?” meme but with America
but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn’t recognize them for doing that and they’re just like “Well, shucks. I guess we’re going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren’t ready to accept us yet!”
That’s all on you for misunderstanding how being a country works. It doesn’t matter that you hold elections but that you hold the monopoly of violence over the population. That’s what gets you recognition. Color me shocked that you don’t even know how the most rudimentary geopolitics works …
A group that already has a presence in the UN? I was talking about how recognition works for countries. But low and behold that nuance escapes you. It’s not my fault that u & 72 don’t understand how international recognition and civil wars work.
What are you saying? The Ukrainian state held a monopoly of violence over the people of the Donbass and used it regularly since the coup in 2014. These people in turn declared independence in order to free themselves from this violence, but the Ukrainian state wouldn’t have it. The only way to counter violent suppression is with violence. These people know this and it’s why they invited Russian military intervention to their cause.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014.
Are you saying they ::gasp:: used violence during a WAR? ThEy UsEd vIolEnCe DuRIng A wAr?!?
You are changing the question, since Russia’s violence does make Donbas part of Russia [to follow your logic] anway, but 72 was talking about democratic legitimacy and you damn well know it.
Democratic legitimacy? By internationallly recognizing any group that holds elections & breaks off a country? My good man, that’s a terrible idea. Having a monopoly over violence is just a prerequisite but of course you knew that already since Donbas is occupied until legally resolved via treaty.
Better than murdering them with polonium or putting them away in prison??? What a case of whatttaboutism. Did I ever make the claim that Ukraine was a bastion of democracy? No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads. All you talking heads do is deflect. I say that Cuz I noticed you never made any attempt to claim that the referendums were legit. Which they weren’t.
What is your proof the referenda were not legit? You’re the one who’s going against the grain here, it’s you who needs to prove your stance. I won’t accept it without evidence.
Why does “they voted for it repeatedly for a decade” not compute for you?
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine? Because they don’t, not after a decade of being brutalized by far right militias and seeing their cities shelled by the Ukrainian military and being denied the right to speak their language or practice their religion.
When you talk about “Russian backed separatists” you realize those separatists live there don’t you? You know what the word separatist means right?
Ukraine is using military force to deny them their right to self determination and the only reason you want to call the referendum illegitimate is because the people who live there chose the wrong answer.
You don’t value their views at all. They don’t matter to you. Which makes your position immoral and bloodthirsty.
No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads.
LMAO you have zero self awareness and its kind of adorable. You aren’t in your liberal echo chamber here and no amount of tantrum throwing is going to make anyone take you seriously.
They probably don’t, but unlike the bourgeois government of Ukraine, the bourgeois government of Russia wasn’t waging a several years long campaign of ethnic violence to redirect working class anger. If Russia is going to prevent a genocide, that’s obviously better.
I have a question for you. Why are liberals so much more interested in protecting the rich than the ethnic minorities they use as scapegoats? You guys do the same thing when you whine about communists in Ukraine fighting antisemitic Ukrainian landlords. How much were my ancestors supposed to endure in order to protect the privilege of the parasites?
Ukraine has a responsibility to make sure US and foreign support isn’t wasted and they’re doing just that.
idk dude, maybe you should stop sending wave after wave after wave of leopards and bradleys into minefields if you want to not waste Western resources
I hope Ukraine kill all these invading Russian motherfuckers and that Putin dies too.
the saddest thing is that at the end of this war, there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of dead Ukrainians, all who died because of Western hatred. but you won’t actually care, will you? the lives of the average Ukrainian mean nothing to you. you could send a hundred Ukrainians to die horrifically in the no man’s land and if a Russian stubs his toe because of it, you would call it a worthy sacrifice, because causing the Russians inconvenience and suffering is worth much more than saving the lives of innocent people who have been conscripted at gunpoint.
if it wasn’t a worthy sacrifice, and you thought this wholesale slaughter should stop, you would support ending the war, like the left does.
Yes, all because of western hatred, fuck all to do with the people who invaded in the first place. They’re all imperalist fucks but takes like this on the situation are just completely braindead.
Holy shit, NATOpedia made an article saying “Hey, there might be actual historical context to this situation and Putin didn’t wake up on February 24th and decide to murder a bunch of people because he’s a very evil bad bad man and King Zelensky shall slay the dragon and then we all live happily ever after.” is actually Russian disinformation? Oh my fucking god. These people are unbearable.
More than 3,000 civilians were killed as a result of the war in Donbas (2014–2022), but there is no evidence to support the claim that Ukraine committed the genocide of Russian-speaking people or ethnic Russians in Ukraine.[8] Before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the intensity of the hostilities in the Donbas had been steadily declining since the signing of the Minsk agreements in February 2015.[9] For example, according to Ukrainian authorities, 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with Donbas separatists in 2020.
civilians have died in Donbas but it’s not the Ukraine government
things have been getting better since the Minsk agreements (no numbers)
for example, [only] 50 Ukrainian government soldiers died in 2020
That’s hilarious. What should happen after signing an agreement is that the violence should stop! Gtfo with this things were getting better but we won’t provide any evidence to back this claim up bullshit.
Reminds me of how ingrained the presupposed eternal nature of this imperialist hell is into things like statistical analyses of police violence.
For instance, I once had a guy in college (who is now a professional Republican lobbyist) tell me that there was indeed a racial problem behind police violence in the U.S.! The racial disparity between how many white folk and how many black folk were getting killed, he agreed, was appalling. He said, however, that over time that disparity was shrinking, and officer-involved fatalities were reaching “equitable levels between whites and blacks!”, so we’re actually on the fast track to progress, not regress.
The disparity was shrinking. Not the actual amount of murders.
The wanton and brutal murders committed by police are not the primary issue, they say, the opaquely racial disparity between who is being murdered is.
A game of images. A perfectly logical conclusion to this train of thought is that police should simply murder more white people to prove that racism is over, to make state-sanctioned violence more equitable. Murder, but be inclusive about it!
This is the presentation of the issue by those who acknowledge that there even exists a racial problem. There are plenty who outright deny its existence and still more who celebrate it. Politicians who claim to oppose police violence (especially the phenotypically-motivated kind) will nevertheless be found supporting legislation that further militarizes the police. This is how Amerika does politics… never harm reduction, only harm redistribution - at best.
It’s so fucking funny. I shared it semi-ironically (the Russian bots are inside your walls) but I also want it to serve as an example of liberal anti-communist biases that permeate Wikifedia and hopefully an exercise for our more liberal acquaintances to practice their critical reading skills.
Hey, that time the Ukrainian state killed people? It wasn’t TECHNICALLY an attempted genocide, according to our sixth-time revised definition of the term (rev. 2022). We know they TECHNICALLY outlawed the spoken and written language of a major plurality of their people and TECHNICALLY killed 14,000+ of them, but like, it wasn’t a genocide. Russia is doing the genocide. Because Putler is ebil.
It’s amazing how thin the veneer of understanding is on empire defenders. They cannot even keep their criticisms of international and national policy differentiated, when it comes to attacking anti-imperialists it’s always both. No examination of political economy or national histories, just democratic good guys and auforitarian bad guys.
I recall talking with my friends about Ukraine being a Nazi state in 2020. It was just a fucked up thing all of us knew. I suppose I ought to wash my brain of that vivid memory, lest I become a kremlin apologist ex post facto.
If they didn’t, then you’d still have 300,000 bodies to throw at them - not to mention openly breaking treaties isn’t a good look internationally - particularly if you’re trying to build a counter bloc or at least ensure neutrality
Ukraine shoulda kept those nukes, those are much better at protecting neutrality when you share a border with Russia. Educate yourself about the Budapest memorandum and maybe you’ll realize your hypocrisy. Why the sam hell do you think would Russia care about breaking internal law?
Ukraine didn’t have the ability to use them, except to take the radioactive material and put them into conventional weapons - which they could do anyway because of their nuclear industry.
The imperialism of marching your border closer and closer to NATO’s troops from 1990 to 2022 is truly the worst kind. Russia must be punished for putting Moscow that close to Ukraine.
couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass who were getting slaughtered for years before 2022. those people don’t matter, only pro-Ukraine people matter. couldn’t possibly have anything to do with security interests. only NATO’s security interests matter, not Russia (or China’s). couldn’t possibly have anything to do with having armed NATO-trained troops in a country that recently experienced a US-backed coup. of course, if Russia puts Wagner forces in African countries (so not even inside NATO’s “sphere of influence”) that recently experienced a coup, that’s an entirely different thing because uhh Russia is bad and NATO is good. that’s Russian imperialism. us putting our troops in coup’d countries is freedom and bringing democracy. and also that wasn’t a coup, it was actually the citizens doing it all by themselves.
If the west wouldn’t ‘support’ Ukraine then they’d still have their democratically elected government and wouldn’t be in conflict with Russia in the first place
The leader that Ukraine rejected because he was under Moscow’s control? Funny that you don’t mention the constant meddling that Moscow has been doing in Ukrainian politics to bring it under their control. Ukraine elects a leader that wants to align with Europe and not Russia and suddenly Russia engages in a 3 day war to get rid of Zelensky. Funny that.
from how you assign the will of “Ukraine” to the fascist militias that carried out the coup. Not the actual voting population of the country. Those people aren’t “Ukraine”. Because “Ukraine” rejected what Ukraine voted for. FuNnY thAt.
Yeah, Putin’s actions in trying to gain control of Ukraine over the years have been nauseating. Seems like it’s a bit triggering for you though when the people of Ukraine reject Putin’s cronies.
What’s with all the weird pictures in the reply? Are you 10?
Did all the Japanese get killed after they surrendered? Did all Germans? If they had surrendered earlier less of them would have died. The same goes for Nazi Ukraine. Their defeat is inevitable, and prolonging the inevitable only adds to the suffering…and to the list of war crimes that they will be charged with by Russia’s tribunals afterwards. The West’s “support” is literally destroying Ukraine and they have all admitted that they have no problem with this, in fact they profit from it.
The West is happy to “fight to the last Ukrainian” to hurt Russia, the Banderite Nazis are happy to die (and force their less fanatical compatriots to do so as well) for the West so long as it enables their genocidal urges, meanwhile the only ones who actually care about the Ukrainian people and have gone out of their way to try and save them from the Western imperialists and from themselves are the Russians.
It’s actually really sad that there isn’t a single country on the planet that cares about Ukraine except Russia (and maybe Belarus). To the West they’re just a tool, useful idiot cannon fodder, to the rest of the world they’re a tragic cautionary tale about what happens when you let the lunatics take over the asylum, which is what happened on the Maidan in 2014. If you really cared about Ukraine you too would want the flow of weapons and money to them to stop, because the longer this goes on the worse it will be for them.
If the West didn’t organize a coup in Ukraine, put Nazis into power, then prod them into slaughtering their countrymen, then the Russians wouldn’t have invaded. The Russians didn’t just wake up one day and decide to invade Ukraine.
I’d love to see how you people will react when Mexico joins BRICS and the US invades it.
I’d love to see how you people will react when Mexico joins BRICS and the US invades it.
I cannot fucking wait for China and Russia to do freedom of navigation exercises between Cuba and Florida like how the US does with Taiwan and China and for Americans to just fucking LOSE it. Holy shit, it’ll be so funny. “No, this isn’t the same because China is evil and we’re the good guys!”
Mexico aint joining brics unfortunely. Tho it doesnt stop the US from manufacturing consent to invade on a daily basis with their fentanyl+cartel talking points.
The West’s support of Ukraine is getting them all killed anyway. Might as well lay down your arms and have some working-age males to rebuild the country with after surrendering.
They could have made peace near the beginning of the war and they rejected it. Russia offered to hand back Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts and withdraw in exchange for Ukraine giving up aspirations of NATO and not trying to acquire nuclear missiles, but Ukraine refused. Hardly the rhetoric of a bloodthirsty warlord.
If the west didn’t use Ukraine as a proxy there wouldn’t have been a war in the first place. It’s sad human garbage such as yourself that mad it possible. Now you sit here and bloviate while people die. Fuck you!
you’re so wrong it’s hard to know where to even begin. You buy into the premise that the US arming reactionaries and building them up as a force to destabilize and entire region is somehow “protecting” people.
Human garbage such as yourself is precisely the reason this war is still ongoing and hundreds of thousands of people are dead. If you want Russians to die so bad then go sign up for the foreign legion and fight yourself instead of shitposting here you deplorable piece shit.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dying my man. Calm down. If you’re angry at all the unnecessary deaths, point your energy at Putin.
Every single person who supports continuation of this war is responsible for the people dying in this war. Meanwhile, pointing your energy at Putin while living in the west is idiotic because you have zero influence on Putin. What you have influence on is your own deplorable regime that’s fueling the continuation of this war.
The war continues because Russia remains in Ukraine. All Russia has to do is withdraw from Ukraine and needless death of both sides ends.
My “deplorable regime” is helping Ukraine from defending itself from aggressors that’s trying to take control of the country, that the Ukrainian people clearly don’t want. The Ukrainians don’t want to continue this war. They’d love it to stop right now. But they can’t because Russia remains in their country. And don’t forget which country constantly launches rocket attacks against civilians since day 1 of this war. Literally the first day, Russian troops have opened fire on civilians, with orders to kill everyone.
If you think Ukraine should give up fighting to stop any deaths is insane as all Russia has to do is then continue its march into Ukraine. Why would Russia stop if Ukraine doesn’t resist? The entire world would be chaos if nobody defended their homeland, all it would take is a single aggressor to start a war and nobody would stop them.
Imagine if Britain, Russia and the US had surrendered to nazi Germany and Japan to prevent deaths in their respective cities. That’s basically your argument.
I wonder what your motivation for supporting Russia is in this. Are you a paid Russian troll? Or just attention starved in the real world so you need to have a contrary opinion to get any kind of attention?
Edit: it’s also kind of suspicious that any time a user from two specific instances they get upvoted multiple times almost instantly.
The war continues because Russia remains in Ukraine. All Russia has to do is withdraw from Ukraine and needless death of both sides ends.
Russia isn’t going to leave, and nothing the west has done got Ukraine closer to winning the war. What the west has achieved was to drag this war out and ensure that countless people died in the process. If anything, the west ensured that Ukraine is in a far worse position now than it was in March last year when US and UK sabotaged negotiations.
If still you think that Ukraine can win this war then you need to start engaging with reality. Your whole rant is premised on a nonsensical assumption that Ukraine can win. Meanwhile, comparing this to WW2 shows stunning amounts of historical illiteracy and utter lack of understanding in regards to causes of this war.
Finally, nowhere have I supported Russia in anything here. What I’ve explained to you is the objective reality of the situation. The fact that you see this in black and white terms of either supporting the west using Ukraine as a proxy in a war with Russia or supporting Russian invasion shows that you have infantile understanding of the world. Your childish insults are a further indication of your stunted mental development.
Finally, nowhere have I supported Russia in anything here
Your reactions to other people and your blaming of western nations very clearly puts you in the position of supporting Russia. You’ve not once admitted that Russia is to blame for the countless deaths. that it has caused in its aggression. Instead you keep trying to twist it on everyone else for having the absolute-fucking-audacity of defending themselves. I mean, how dare they fight for their nations survival and independence!
The fact that you see this in black and white terms of either supporting the west using Ukraine as a proxy in a war with Russia or supporting Russian invasion shows that you have infantile understanding of the world.
This is probably one of the very few conflicts in recent times where this war is black and white. There’s a very clear aggressor. This entire war is utterly pointless. It’s not difficult to see how Russia is the aggressor here.
If still you think that Ukraine can win this war then you need to start engaging with reality. Your whole rant is premised on a nonsensical assumption that Ukraine can win.
Why are you so confident that Russia can win? They should have won this war within 24 hours of the invasion. Instead the 3 day operation has been going on a little while longer. The only reason why they’re still in this fight is because of the huge stockpiles they amassed over the past 70 years.
Russia isn’t going to leave, and nothing the west has done got Ukraine closer to winning the war. What the west has achieved was to drag this war out and ensure that countless people died in the process.
They will, eventually. Maybe it’ll take a year, maybe it’ll take 10. I’ll iterate the point I made in my previous reply: should Russia have rolled over and immediately surrendered to Nazi Germany to prevent deaths? Should North Vietnam have conceded to the US because the US wasn’t going to leave? Look how long that war lasted. Ukraine has an absolute right to fight to push out the Russian aggressors and not concede any land.
supporting the west using Ukraine as a proxy in a war with Russia
All of Russia’s doing. All the west is doing is giving Ukraine the tools and info to defend itself.
Your reactions to other people and your blaming of western nations very clearly puts you in the position of supporting Russia.
No, that puts me in a position of having actual understanding of the situation and reality of the war instead of regurgitating western propaganda the way you’re doing.
Instead you keep trying to twist it on everyone else for having the absolute-fucking-audacity of defending themselves. I mean, how dare they fight for their nations survival and independence!
This is probably one of the very few conflicts in recent times where this war is black and white. There’s a very clear aggressor. This entire war is utterly pointless. It’s not difficult to see how Russia is the aggressor here.
It’s not, and only an ignoramus or a propagandist would claim that. Your whole narrative based on the fallacy of homogenizing Ukraine. Let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
Furthermore, the idea that NATO threatens Russia doesn’t come from Russia. Plenty of western experts have been saying this for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. Here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
And of course, RAND published a whole study titled extending Russia where it proposes to use Ukraine as a western proxy the way is being done now. You’re either a shill or a useful idiot for the empire, either way not a good look.
The ethnic makeup of Ukraine and it’s election results is absolutely none of Russia’s business and it’s gives it no excuse to attack Ukraine. Ukraine is a sovereign nation, what happens internally is of no consequence of Russia. In the end, Ukraine ousted Yanukovych after it turned out he was in Putin’s pocket and fucked off to Russia. The people decided they didn’t want to align with Russia and Putin realised he was losing influence of the country he thinks should be under Russian control.
You still haven’t replied to my point about whether Russia or other nations should have surrendered when they were attacked by axis powers. They fought back against aggressive tyrants and kept their land at huge costs. Ukraine are very much in the right to do the same.
Of course that’s bad. There’s a good reason why cluster munitions are banned and I’m against the US supplying them to Ukraine. In retrospect though this is virtually a none issue (it was used against Russian invaders and not civilians) given the terrorist attacks Russia launched against the civilian population, bombing hospitals, targeting apartment blocks, stealing Ukrainian children, raping and murdering their way through the country. I’m sure someone as intelligent and with a balanced view will be constantly denouncing the atrocities that they’ve caused and calling out Russia for its war crimes, and calling for them to stop the attacks.
The NATO crap isn’t even worth discussing and is just a flimsy excuse from Russia to try and justify the “special military operation”. Ukraine isn’t even in NATO but Russia has done a damn good job of promoting the organisation. Former Soviet countries have joined or want to join precisely because of the behaviour exhibited by Russia. It’s their sovereign right as independent country to decide if they join, it’s none of Russia’s business.
I engage with some Russian language media, and people actually do express criticisms and critiques of Putin and the war without being arrested or killed.
Fun fact, the origin of “whataboutism” was its use as the phrase “whataboutery” during the Troubles in Ireland as the Irish accused the British of atrocities only to be dismissed as “whataboutery”
Weird how it’s always used as a thought terminating cliche to prevent criticism of the dominant empire, huh!
I’m not the one dismissing what any country has done. I’m saying they should both be held accountable.
The fact that the comment I was originally replying to was using that justification goes along with what you just said… which is pointing out what someone else did is no justification for any action. They both should be taken for what they are and judged accordingly.
I’m gonna try to follow your logic in good faith. If both Russia and the US should be held accountable for their crimes, then who should actually hold them accountable?
NATO is the international arm of the US military and it has committed war crimes over its entire decades of existence, some of the most recent ones in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. If the US is to be held equally accountable for their actions as the RF should be, then all NATO operations should be held under the same scrutiny.
So by this logic how can you support a NATO in it’s actions in Ukraine. Before Russia invaded, NATO was supported the bombing of the Donbass and the destruction of that region. If the US and NATO has a history of destabilizing regions through warfare for the benefit of the US, how can any of their actions be justified?
by the International Court of Good Guys, which will order Russia to totally rebuild Ukraine and give back Crimea and all the rest, and order the United States and NATO to give a heartfelt apology to the people of the countries they’ve invaded and whose governments they’ve overthrown (they won’t do this)
Whataboutism is just a rhetorical device trolls try to use to create a double standard for themselves and everyone else when faced with the fact that their side does all the same things they accuse others of. Meanwhile, imagine being such an utter ignoramus to be unaware of all the political violence that US does.
No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.
Yeah whataboutism is fucking retarded. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.
the problem isn’t necessarily pointing out the problems with any particular country, that can be done as a legitimate discussion, what gets really fucking annoying is when people only talk about the problems with a certain country and then when questioned, are like “Oh, no! We also hate it when America does this thing! We’re just talking about X country right now!” when that’s clearly false. like, you say “Fuck China for having mass surveillance” on reddit and you get 100k upvotes, 20 platinum awards and some dude’s firstborn son, whereas if you say “Fuck America for having mass surveillance” you’ll get “Hm, well, you see, this is a complicated topic, because on the one hand…” or even just “Yeah, but it’s nothing compared to China though!”
the problem is also when what you’re talking about is necessarily a comparison because no action exists in a vacuum free of context. if I say “The US is an awful, imperialist country that has invaded all these nations, and NATO has also invaded and destroyed nations, and we should not support them even if Russia is doing a bad thing because Russia’s death toll is so much lower than the West’s” then all I would get on most lib platforms is “That history doesn’t matter! What matters is the here and now, when Russia is doing a bad thing and NATO currently, at this precise moment in time, is not! Bad things are bad things! You can’t wave them away through context!”
but the question isn’t “Is Russia doing a bad thing”, I don’t think anybody would deny except the most fervent Russian nationalist that Russia has done at least some bad things in Ukraine, the question is “Who should we support in this war” and so the fact that NATO and the US has killed tens of millions of people within the lifetime of the current president and doomed hundreds of millions more to backbreaking labor in mines and plantations and sweatshops, and Russia, well, hasn’t, is a perfectly pertinent point to make when asking who to support. This is also why liberals are so utterly gobsmacked when third-world countries don’t come out against Russia, because they have been on the receiving end of this campaign of carnage that the US has wrought around the world and so, logically, think Russia is the lesser of two evils. can’t they see that Russia is evil! can’t they see that Putler is the devil doing a genocide!? they must be brainwashed by Russian disinformation propaganda! we must up our efforts to spread Correct Information!
When your own country does the same and worse you have no moral high ground to criticize others, nor does it accomplish anything. As the saying goes, people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Americans should focus on fixing their own country instead of playing world police.
No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.
Yeah whataboutism is fucking retarded. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.
Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.
Again, try saying anything bad about Putin or Russia in Russia. At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US. Go ahead.
At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US
Someone’s never heard of the Free Speech fights.
You can and will be jailed just for saying shit, if people start to listen to you and you’re saying the wrong shit. Your “freedom of speech” is as worthless as used toilet paper the moment a judge decides to issue an injunction against you i.e. the strikes in Harlan County in the 70s had judges jailing people for using the word “scab.”
Also fun fact I learned today, remember the Kent State Massacre? People were ordered to apologize for being shot just to get compensation, which only covered legal defenses. Land of the fucking free, lmao
Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.
When your life is made illegal, what’re you gonna do, liberal? Roll over for the bourgeois state like a good boy?
no, he didn’t leak shit, he published leaked information what the hell.
and you can only do that right now because the ruling class isn’t concerned about possible socialist revolution, I advise you to read up on the 1st and 2nd Red Scares!
(also, who fucking cares if you can complain about something if you can’t actually change the situation???)
So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?
Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.
The Uhuru House publically opposed the war effort in Ukraine and got raided, then had a bunch of their members locked up for allegedly being in cahoots with Russians. By default, your bullshit’s refuted.
Whoa slow down, where did this cop come from? I swear you people are so morally bankrupt, you have to try and mindtrick someone into agreeing w/ a completely unrelated question. It’s so jarring and deceitful to read
So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?
Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.
in awe at this one. Once again, if they think you’re a threat to state power do you think they give a single flying fuck about what’s legal/illegal? do you think what’s being done to Assange is actually legal? he didn’t leak anything, he just published information given to him. Once again, if the there was a serious socialist threat to this country I promise you would be arrested/killed no matter what if it became known you were a vocal dissident, legality be damned
Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.
Going up to Snowden and saying “Erm, sir, you might have told us that the American government is spying on us every moment of our lives, but, erm, actshually, doing that was illegal, so unfortunately, sir, you are not epic and you don’t deserve freedom of speech protections”
what an absolute fucking dweeb, holy shit
I will go tell Putin to make it “confidential information” that he’s a bad person, then maybe you’ll shut the fuck up for a single moment of your life because a bootlicker like you will be forced to obey it if you ever go there
There’s lots of above ground opposition to Putin in Russia. Stop being a clown. There’s plenty of real things to criticize. We don’t need to make things up.
Damn thats crazy, the shit that might hurt the state is illegal(and therefore presumably justifiable to punish) while you get to do all the intellectual jerkoffs you want with no effect on anything?
Assange didn’t do anything illegal but even if he did you might as well be saying “criticizing Putin may the right thing do, but it’s illegal so you shouldn’t do it.”
Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.
The definition of right and wrong is always what is legal, that’s why when the ruling class buys political power through lobbying and other corruption, the ruling class becomes more legally right in whatever they want to do!
that’s impossible, the entire Russian army has been destroyed a hundred times now by Ukraine, over 15 million Russian troops have been killed last time I checked, there are no snipers left
the Zaporozhye front is just the Ukrainians doing a giant war re-enactment of what would have happened if there were any Russians left alive, but due to the 1:984219 casualty ratio, there aren’t any Russians left
I need you to understand that I am not being hyperbolic when I say that you and people who share your views are what is wrong with humanity in the present day. As long as people like you continue to be either willing or gullible enough to keep believing the lies of a geopolitical block as untrustworthy as the United States and its allies solely because you are incapable of looking past your country’s propaganda and seeing your own leaders as anything other than the righteous beacons of humanity that they try to make themselves appear to be, humanity will almost certainly be doomed to enter pointless conflicts and cause mass destruction until we drive our own species off of a cliff.
You cant even meaningfully add to a joke bc youre so childishly resentful. You take this arguing so much more seriously than us while we just casually have the information youre missing, and it looks hilarious.
If you say that to point the hypocrisy in someone’s statement is a fallacy then everyone can just blame each other for basically anything and nothing constructive comes out.
Oh you drink water? Hitler did too. What do you mean everyone drinks water? That’s whataboutism
Keep hoping. Better yet, go there and fight yourself if you think it’s so important. But you won’t. You’ll just move your outrage to the next target that US propaganda will point you to.
Fuck off with your pro Russian headline which doesn’t match the article.
Ukraine has a responsibility to make sure US and foreign support isn’t wasted and they’re doing just that.
Yes, we know you libs dream of Russian genocide, but you can keep dreaming.
Why do you think Russia deserves the land it invaded?
There was a referendum in the Donbass and people voted to join Russia. Much like happened with Alsace and Lorraine. I’m sorry but we salute the red 🇰🇵 white 🇨🇺 and blue 🇱🇦 here if you don’t like democracy you can fuck off back to lemmy.
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I’ll give you ample time to answer that for yourself as you remain unbanned on lemmygrad so you can still get notifications when people reply to your comments which we are also not deleting
You’re the one who butted into our instance with your takes 🤷
Eh you’re not as bad as the other guys/gals/comrades.
Talk about that democracy, blue boy. It’s your favorite thing right?
The key issue for me is the right of a people to self determination.
The people who live in the eastern parts of Ukraine are overwhelming Russian speaking and identify as ethnically Russian. They voted three times in various ways for some form of preserving their cultural rights, only to have their expression of Democratic will met with violent militias, shelling, and other violence, and then finally voted once again to secede from Ukraine, largely motivated by the extreme hostility from right wing Ukrainian nationalists who were banning the use of Russian, imposing assimilationist education policies, banning political parties that represented the people there, and even banning the free exercise of religion if that religious practice looked to the Russian Orthodox Church for leadership.
The principle of the self determination of a people to choose their own government demands respect and Ukraine has no right to impose their will on a population that doesn’t want it.
You should look at what the people who actually live there, in the east not just those in Kyiv, have been saying for a decade. They don’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore and it’s because of the extreme violence Ukraine has inflicted upon them since 2014.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results? Just an FYI elections in Russia itself are not free from corruption in any sense of the word. But I’m sure you take putin’s word when he says their fair Lol 2014 is when Russian backed separatists began working in Ukraine, Russia has always been the aggressor and could’ve stopped the violence whenever they choose.
literally the consent “isn’t there somebody you forgot to ask?” meme but with America
but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn’t recognize them for doing that and they’re just like “Well, shucks. I guess we’re going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren’t ready to accept us yet!”
That’s all on you for misunderstanding how being a country works. It doesn’t matter that you hold elections but that you hold the monopoly of violence over the population. That’s what gets you recognition. Color me shocked that you don’t even know how the most rudimentary geopolitics works …
Who has the monopoly of violence in Luhansk and Donetsk currently…?
A group that already has a presence in the UN? I was talking about how recognition works for countries. But low and behold that nuance escapes you. It’s not my fault that u & 72 don’t understand how international recognition and civil wars work.
What are you saying? The Ukrainian state held a monopoly of violence over the people of the Donbass and used it regularly since the coup in 2014. These people in turn declared independence in order to free themselves from this violence, but the Ukrainian state wouldn’t have it. The only way to counter violent suppression is with violence. These people know this and it’s why they invited Russian military intervention to their cause.
It wasn’t a coup it was a revolution.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014.
Are you saying they ::gasp:: used violence during a WAR? ThEy UsEd vIolEnCe DuRIng A wAr?!?
You are changing the question, since Russia’s violence does make Donbas part of Russia [to follow your logic] anway, but 72 was talking about democratic legitimacy and you damn well know it.
Democratic legitimacy? By internationallly recognizing any group that holds elections & breaks off a country? My good man, that’s a terrible idea. Having a monopoly over violence is just a prerequisite but of course you knew that already since Donbas is occupied until legally resolved via treaty.
“That referendum and those elections don’t count because the USA said no” truly the voice of democracy and freedom.
I guess it was Putin that forced Zelenskyy to ban the political opposition? Because the damn Putin bots kept voting wrong.
Better than murdering them with polonium or putting them away in prison??? What a case of whatttaboutism. Did I ever make the claim that Ukraine was a bastion of democracy? No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads. All you talking heads do is deflect. I say that Cuz I noticed you never made any attempt to claim that the referendums were legit. Which they weren’t.
What is your proof the referenda were not legit? You’re the one who’s going against the grain here, it’s you who needs to prove your stance. I won’t accept it without evidence.
Why does “they voted for it repeatedly for a decade” not compute for you?
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine? Because they don’t, not after a decade of being brutalized by far right militias and seeing their cities shelled by the Ukrainian military and being denied the right to speak their language or practice their religion.
When you talk about “Russian backed separatists” you realize those separatists live there don’t you? You know what the word separatist means right?
Ukraine is using military force to deny them their right to self determination and the only reason you want to call the referendum illegitimate is because the people who live there chose the wrong answer.
You don’t value their views at all. They don’t matter to you. Which makes your position immoral and bloodthirsty.
Imma put this simply since you’ve started repeating yourself ad nauseam. Which 3 specific referendums are you referring to?
LMAO you have zero self awareness and its kind of adorable. You aren’t in your liberal echo chamber here and no amount of tantrum throwing is going to make anyone take you seriously.
They probably don’t, but unlike the bourgeois government of Ukraine, the bourgeois government of Russia wasn’t waging a several years long campaign of ethnic violence to redirect working class anger. If Russia is going to prevent a genocide, that’s obviously better.
I have a question for you. Why are liberals so much more interested in protecting the rich than the ethnic minorities they use as scapegoats? You guys do the same thing when you whine about communists in Ukraine fighting antisemitic Ukrainian landlords. How much were my ancestors supposed to endure in order to protect the privilege of the parasites?
Anything is better than to live under nazi rule.
Ok dronie. I will celebrate when the West crumbles.
dronie is a good one.
idk dude, maybe you should stop sending wave after wave after wave of leopards and bradleys into minefields if you want to not waste Western resources
the saddest thing is that at the end of this war, there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of dead Ukrainians, all who died because of Western hatred. but you won’t actually care, will you? the lives of the average Ukrainian mean nothing to you. you could send a hundred Ukrainians to die horrifically in the no man’s land and if a Russian stubs his toe because of it, you would call it a worthy sacrifice, because causing the Russians inconvenience and suffering is worth much more than saving the lives of innocent people who have been conscripted at gunpoint.
if it wasn’t a worthy sacrifice, and you thought this wholesale slaughter should stop, you would support ending the war, like the left does.
Yes, all because of western hatred, fuck all to do with the people who invaded in the first place. They’re all imperalist fucks but takes like this on the situation are just completely braindead.
Where have you been for 8 years? 2014-2022
What do you know of the modern “civil conflict” in Ukraine? Do you know what happened in 2014? Are you aware of who began massacring who that year?
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_have_you_been_for_eight_years%3F#:~:text="Where have you been for,pointing out to what Ukraine)
Holy shit, NATOpedia made an article saying “Hey, there might be actual historical context to this situation and Putin didn’t wake up on February 24th and decide to murder a bunch of people because he’s a very evil bad bad man and King Zelensky shall slay the dragon and then we all live happily ever after.” is actually Russian disinformation? Oh my fucking god. These people are unbearable.
That article is amazing
That’s hilarious. What should happen after signing an agreement is that the violence should stop! Gtfo with this things were getting better but we won’t provide any evidence to back this claim up bullshit.
Reminds me of how ingrained the presupposed eternal nature of this imperialist hell is into things like statistical analyses of police violence.
For instance, I once had a guy in college (who is now a professional Republican lobbyist) tell me that there was indeed a racial problem behind police violence in the U.S.! The racial disparity between how many white folk and how many black folk were getting killed, he agreed, was appalling. He said, however, that over time that disparity was shrinking, and officer-involved fatalities were reaching “equitable levels between whites and blacks!”, so we’re actually on the fast track to progress, not regress.
The disparity was shrinking. Not the actual amount of murders.
The wanton and brutal murders committed by police are not the primary issue, they say, the opaquely racial disparity between who is being murdered is.
A game of images. A perfectly logical conclusion to this train of thought is that police should simply murder more white people to prove that racism is over, to make state-sanctioned violence more equitable. Murder, but be inclusive about it!
This is the presentation of the issue by those who acknowledge that there even exists a racial problem. There are plenty who outright deny its existence and still more who celebrate it. Politicians who claim to oppose police violence (especially the phenotypically-motivated kind) will nevertheless be found supporting legislation that further militarizes the police. This is how Amerika does politics… never harm reduction, only harm redistribution - at best.
It’s so fucking funny. I shared it semi-ironically (the Russian bots are inside your walls) but I also want it to serve as an example of liberal anti-communist biases that permeate Wikifedia and hopefully an exercise for our more liberal acquaintances to practice their critical reading skills.
Hey, that time the Ukrainian state killed people? It wasn’t TECHNICALLY an attempted genocide, according to our sixth-time revised definition of the term (rev. 2022). We know they TECHNICALLY outlawed the spoken and written language of a major plurality of their people and TECHNICALLY killed 14,000+ of them, but like, it wasn’t a genocide. Russia is doing the genocide. Because Putler is ebil.
It’s amazing how thin the veneer of understanding is on empire defenders. They cannot even keep their criticisms of international and national policy differentiated, when it comes to attacking anti-imperialists it’s always both. No examination of political economy or national histories, just democratic good guys and auforitarian bad guys.
Wow. I’ve been asking people that question since February 2022 and I have yet to receive a single Ruble from Mr. Putin.
I recall talking with my friends about Ukraine being a Nazi state in 2020. It was just a fucked up thing all of us knew. I suppose I ought to wash my brain of that vivid memory, lest I become a kremlin apologist ex post facto.
Serious question, would you save 300,000 Ukrainian lives if it meant giving up 100 square kilometres of land to Russia?
Of course not! It’s not Ukraine’s fault that the Russian Federation invaded and demanded they give up land.
Yikes
That question was a test of your basic empathy and humanity
Let's see those results
Meanwhile “tankies”:
(Mao)
Blood and soil lookin ass warhawks.
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Imagine thinking they’d stop at 100 sq km lol
What a shock: you aren’t willing to answer that question. I wonder why
If they didn’t, then you’d still have 300,000 bodies to throw at them - not to mention openly breaking treaties isn’t a good look internationally - particularly if you’re trying to build a counter bloc or at least ensure neutrality
Ukraine shoulda kept those nukes, those are much better at protecting neutrality when you share a border with Russia. Educate yourself about the Budapest memorandum and maybe you’ll realize your hypocrisy. Why the sam hell do you think would Russia care about breaking internal law?
Ukraine didn’t have the ability to use them, except to take the radioactive material and put them into conventional weapons - which they could do anyway because of their nuclear industry.
Okay so you think Russia broke the memorandum right?
RuLeS baSEd oRDeR!
The imperialism of marching your border closer and closer to NATO’s troops from 1990 to 2022 is truly the worst kind. Russia must be punished for putting Moscow that close to Ukraine.
couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass who were getting slaughtered for years before 2022. those people don’t matter, only pro-Ukraine people matter. couldn’t possibly have anything to do with security interests. only NATO’s security interests matter, not Russia (or China’s). couldn’t possibly have anything to do with having armed NATO-trained troops in a country that recently experienced a US-backed coup. of course, if Russia puts Wagner forces in African countries (so not even inside NATO’s “sphere of influence”) that recently experienced a coup, that’s an entirely different thing because uhh Russia is bad and NATO is good. that’s Russian imperialism. us putting our troops in coup’d countries is freedom and bringing democracy. and also that wasn’t a coup, it was actually the citizens doing it all by themselves.
That has to be one of the dumbest takes I’ve ever read on the internet.
If the West wouldn’t support Ukraine then the Russians would kill them without resistance, that’s about it.
If the west wouldn’t ‘support’ Ukraine then they’d still have their democratically elected government and wouldn’t be in conflict with Russia in the first place
Obviously not as they’d be under Putin’s control.
If nearly a decade ago Ukraine were allowed to keep it’s democratically elected government, they would be under Putin’s control?
Why do you feel comfortable jumping in to argue when you don’t seem to know what’s being talked about in the first place?
The leader that Ukraine rejected because he was under Moscow’s control? Funny that you don’t mention the constant meddling that Moscow has been doing in Ukrainian politics to bring it under their control. Ukraine elects a leader that wants to align with Europe and not Russia and suddenly Russia engages in a 3 day war to get rid of Zelensky. Funny that.
Holy shit what a nauseating
Yeah, Putin’s actions in trying to gain control of Ukraine over the years have been nauseating. Seems like it’s a bit triggering for you though when the people of Ukraine reject Putin’s cronies.
What’s with all the weird pictures in the reply? Are you 10?
Did all the Japanese get killed after they surrendered? Did all Germans? If they had surrendered earlier less of them would have died. The same goes for Nazi Ukraine. Their defeat is inevitable, and prolonging the inevitable only adds to the suffering…and to the list of war crimes that they will be charged with by Russia’s tribunals afterwards. The West’s “support” is literally destroying Ukraine and they have all admitted that they have no problem with this, in fact they profit from it.
The West is happy to “fight to the last Ukrainian” to hurt Russia, the Banderite Nazis are happy to die (and force their less fanatical compatriots to do so as well) for the West so long as it enables their genocidal urges, meanwhile the only ones who actually care about the Ukrainian people and have gone out of their way to try and save them from the Western imperialists and from themselves are the Russians.
It’s actually really sad that there isn’t a single country on the planet that cares about Ukraine except Russia (and maybe Belarus). To the West they’re just a tool, useful idiot cannon fodder, to the rest of the world they’re a tragic cautionary tale about what happens when you let the lunatics take over the asylum, which is what happened on the Maidan in 2014. If you really cared about Ukraine you too would want the flow of weapons and money to them to stop, because the longer this goes on the worse it will be for them.
Not to mention the arming of a now destabilize country in Europe, could have totally unforeseeable consequences. But that’s not Americans problem.
If the West didn’t organize a coup in Ukraine, put Nazis into power, then prod them into slaughtering their countrymen, then the Russians wouldn’t have invaded. The Russians didn’t just wake up one day and decide to invade Ukraine.
I’d love to see how you people will react when Mexico joins BRICS and the US invades it.
I cannot fucking wait for China and Russia to do freedom of navigation exercises between Cuba and Florida like how the US does with Taiwan and China and for Americans to just fucking LOSE it. Holy shit, it’ll be so funny. “No, this isn’t the same because China is evil and we’re the good guys!”
They did it near Alaska and Yankees lost it
Mexico aint joining brics unfortunely. Tho it doesnt stop the US from manufacturing consent to invade on a daily basis with their fentanyl+cartel talking points.
The West’s support of Ukraine is getting them all killed anyway. Might as well lay down your arms and have some working-age males to rebuild the country with after surrendering.
They could have made peace near the beginning of the war and they rejected it. Russia offered to hand back Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts and withdraw in exchange for Ukraine giving up aspirations of NATO and not trying to acquire nuclear missiles, but Ukraine refused. Hardly the rhetoric of a bloodthirsty warlord.
If the west didn’t use Ukraine as a proxy there wouldn’t have been a war in the first place. It’s sad human garbage such as yourself that mad it possible. Now you sit here and bloviate while people die. Fuck you!
you’re so wrong it’s hard to know where to even begin. You buy into the premise that the US arming reactionaries and building them up as a force to destabilize and entire region is somehow “protecting” people.
Kill who? Without the west supplying and supporting Ukraine wouldn’t even have a functioning military to kill.
Human garbage such as yourself is precisely the reason this war is still ongoing and hundreds of thousands of people are dead. If you want Russians to die so bad then go sign up for the foreign legion and fight yourself instead of shitposting here you deplorable piece shit.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dying my man. Calm down. If you’re angry at all the unnecessary deaths, point your energy at Putin.
Every single person who supports continuation of this war is responsible for the people dying in this war. Meanwhile, pointing your energy at Putin while living in the west is idiotic because you have zero influence on Putin. What you have influence on is your own deplorable regime that’s fueling the continuation of this war.
The war continues because Russia remains in Ukraine. All Russia has to do is withdraw from Ukraine and needless death of both sides ends.
My “deplorable regime” is helping Ukraine from defending itself from aggressors that’s trying to take control of the country, that the Ukrainian people clearly don’t want. The Ukrainians don’t want to continue this war. They’d love it to stop right now. But they can’t because Russia remains in their country. And don’t forget which country constantly launches rocket attacks against civilians since day 1 of this war. Literally the first day, Russian troops have opened fire on civilians, with orders to kill everyone.
If you think Ukraine should give up fighting to stop any deaths is insane as all Russia has to do is then continue its march into Ukraine. Why would Russia stop if Ukraine doesn’t resist? The entire world would be chaos if nobody defended their homeland, all it would take is a single aggressor to start a war and nobody would stop them.
Imagine if Britain, Russia and the US had surrendered to nazi Germany and Japan to prevent deaths in their respective cities. That’s basically your argument.
I wonder what your motivation for supporting Russia is in this. Are you a paid Russian troll? Or just attention starved in the real world so you need to have a contrary opinion to get any kind of attention?
Edit: it’s also kind of suspicious that any time a user from two specific instances they get upvoted multiple times almost instantly.
Russia isn’t going to leave, and nothing the west has done got Ukraine closer to winning the war. What the west has achieved was to drag this war out and ensure that countless people died in the process. If anything, the west ensured that Ukraine is in a far worse position now than it was in March last year when US and UK sabotaged negotiations.
If still you think that Ukraine can win this war then you need to start engaging with reality. Your whole rant is premised on a nonsensical assumption that Ukraine can win. Meanwhile, comparing this to WW2 shows stunning amounts of historical illiteracy and utter lack of understanding in regards to causes of this war.
Finally, nowhere have I supported Russia in anything here. What I’ve explained to you is the objective reality of the situation. The fact that you see this in black and white terms of either supporting the west using Ukraine as a proxy in a war with Russia or supporting Russian invasion shows that you have infantile understanding of the world. Your childish insults are a further indication of your stunted mental development.
Your reactions to other people and your blaming of western nations very clearly puts you in the position of supporting Russia. You’ve not once admitted that Russia is to blame for the countless deaths. that it has caused in its aggression. Instead you keep trying to twist it on everyone else for having the absolute-fucking-audacity of defending themselves. I mean, how dare they fight for their nations survival and independence!
This is probably one of the very few conflicts in recent times where this war is black and white. There’s a very clear aggressor. This entire war is utterly pointless. It’s not difficult to see how Russia is the aggressor here.
No, that puts me in a position of having actual understanding of the situation and reality of the war instead of regurgitating western propaganda the way you’re doing.
Where were you when these people were trying to defend themselves as reported by CNN, and where were you when this was happening?
It’s not, and only an ignoramus or a propagandist would claim that. Your whole narrative based on the fallacy of homogenizing Ukraine. Let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Ukraine is clearly not some homogeneous blob, but a large country with complex cultural and ethnic situations.
Furthermore, the idea that NATO threatens Russia doesn’t come from Russia. Plenty of western experts have been saying this for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. Here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
And of course, RAND published a whole study titled extending Russia where it proposes to use Ukraine as a western proxy the way is being done now. You’re either a shill or a useful idiot for the empire, either way not a good look.
Damn saved for further reading
The ethnic makeup of Ukraine and it’s election results is absolutely none of Russia’s business and it’s gives it no excuse to attack Ukraine. Ukraine is a sovereign nation, what happens internally is of no consequence of Russia. In the end, Ukraine ousted Yanukovych after it turned out he was in Putin’s pocket and fucked off to Russia. The people decided they didn’t want to align with Russia and Putin realised he was losing influence of the country he thinks should be under Russian control.
You still haven’t replied to my point about whether Russia or other nations should have surrendered when they were attacked by axis powers. They fought back against aggressive tyrants and kept their land at huge costs. Ukraine are very much in the right to do the same.
Of course that’s bad. There’s a good reason why cluster munitions are banned and I’m against the US supplying them to Ukraine. In retrospect though this is virtually a none issue (it was used against Russian invaders and not civilians) given the terrorist attacks Russia launched against the civilian population, bombing hospitals, targeting apartment blocks, stealing Ukrainian children, raping and murdering their way through the country. I’m sure someone as intelligent and with a balanced view will be constantly denouncing the atrocities that they’ve caused and calling out Russia for its war crimes, and calling for them to stop the attacks.
The NATO crap isn’t even worth discussing and is just a flimsy excuse from Russia to try and justify the “special military operation”. Ukraine isn’t even in NATO but Russia has done a damn good job of promoting the organisation. Former Soviet countries have joined or want to join precisely because of the behaviour exhibited by Russia. It’s their sovereign right as independent country to decide if they join, it’s none of Russia’s business.
People in Donbas will certainly keep being killed if Russia withdraws
Being popular and having friends is only suspicious to friendless losers
I see your brigading chums have arrived 😂
You’re the one who’s brigading, I don’t remember inviting you on our instance. Banned for brigading and possibly being a funded shill.
Read this to know why this is not a realistic line of argument.
Who provided Ukraine with cluster ammo and depleted uranium ammo that will infect their own soil and people for decades to come
what’re your thoughts on the US bombing of panama city?
Having thoughts is probably too much to expect from a NAFO bot.
Whataboutism is your best defense, and a poor attempt at that?
Equating the two is hilarious. Even so I’m not excusing all the bullshit the US has done.
At least I can say the US has done some terrible shit without getting arrested or killed. Try saying anything bad about Russia or Putin in Russia.
I engage with some Russian language media, and people actually do express criticisms and critiques of Putin and the war without being arrested or killed.
Fun fact, the origin of “whataboutism” was its use as the phrase “whataboutery” during the Troubles in Ireland as the Irish accused the British of atrocities only to be dismissed as “whataboutery”
Weird how it’s always used as a thought terminating cliche to prevent criticism of the dominant empire, huh!
Good thing it only works on idiots like you
Again, since you’re reading comprehension sucks…
I’m not the one dismissing what any country has done. I’m saying they should both be held accountable.
The fact that the comment I was originally replying to was using that justification goes along with what you just said… which is pointing out what someone else did is no justification for any action. They both should be taken for what they are and judged accordingly.
I’m gonna try to follow your logic in good faith. If both Russia and the US should be held accountable for their crimes, then who should actually hold them accountable?
NATO is the international arm of the US military and it has committed war crimes over its entire decades of existence, some of the most recent ones in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. If the US is to be held equally accountable for their actions as the RF should be, then all NATO operations should be held under the same scrutiny.
So by this logic how can you support a NATO in it’s actions in Ukraine. Before Russia invaded, NATO was supported the bombing of the Donbass and the destruction of that region. If the US and NATO has a history of destabilizing regions through warfare for the benefit of the US, how can any of their actions be justified?
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by the International Court of Good Guys, which will order Russia to totally rebuild Ukraine and give back Crimea and all the rest, and order the United States and NATO to give a heartfelt apology to the people of the countries they’ve invaded and whose governments they’ve overthrown (they won’t do this)
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Whataboutism is just a rhetorical device trolls try to use to create a double standard for themselves and everyone else when faced with the fact that their side does all the same things they accuse others of. Meanwhile, imagine being such an utter ignoramus to be unaware of all the political violence that US does.
No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.
Yeah whataboutism is fucking retarded. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.
the problem isn’t necessarily pointing out the problems with any particular country, that can be done as a legitimate discussion, what gets really fucking annoying is when people only talk about the problems with a certain country and then when questioned, are like “Oh, no! We also hate it when America does this thing! We’re just talking about X country right now!” when that’s clearly false. like, you say “Fuck China for having mass surveillance” on reddit and you get 100k upvotes, 20 platinum awards and some dude’s firstborn son, whereas if you say “Fuck America for having mass surveillance” you’ll get “Hm, well, you see, this is a complicated topic, because on the one hand…” or even just “Yeah, but it’s nothing compared to China though!”
the problem is also when what you’re talking about is necessarily a comparison because no action exists in a vacuum free of context. if I say “The US is an awful, imperialist country that has invaded all these nations, and NATO has also invaded and destroyed nations, and we should not support them even if Russia is doing a bad thing because Russia’s death toll is so much lower than the West’s” then all I would get on most lib platforms is “That history doesn’t matter! What matters is the here and now, when Russia is doing a bad thing and NATO currently, at this precise moment in time, is not! Bad things are bad things! You can’t wave them away through context!”
but the question isn’t “Is Russia doing a bad thing”, I don’t think anybody would deny except the most fervent Russian nationalist that Russia has done at least some bad things in Ukraine, the question is “Who should we support in this war” and so the fact that NATO and the US has killed tens of millions of people within the lifetime of the current president and doomed hundreds of millions more to backbreaking labor in mines and plantations and sweatshops, and Russia, well, hasn’t, is a perfectly pertinent point to make when asking who to support. This is also why liberals are so utterly gobsmacked when third-world countries don’t come out against Russia, because they have been on the receiving end of this campaign of carnage that the US has wrought around the world and so, logically, think Russia is the lesser of two evils. can’t they see that Russia is evil! can’t they see that Putler is the devil doing a genocide!? they must be brainwashed by Russian disinformation propaganda! we must up our efforts to spread Correct Information!
Sevy destroys Liberal with facts and logic
When your own country does the same and worse you have no moral high ground to criticize others, nor does it accomplish anything. As the saying goes, people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Americans should focus on fixing their own country instead of playing world police.
No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.
Yeah whataboutism is fucking retarded. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.
Cool ableist slurs go fuck yourself
Huh??? what the hell do you think Assange did?
Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.
Again, try saying anything bad about Putin or Russia in Russia. At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US. Go ahead.
You when the US commits war crimes: :)
You when their war crimes are reported on: >:(
so I gather from these two statements that the first is incorrect
It’s like the two statues riddle but you lose no matter what and they wear CIA and NSA jackets.
He didn’t leak any info, he published already leaked info. There is an important legal distinction.
Julian Assange wasn’t even fucking American or in America
silly communist, don’t you know that AMERICAN law applies everywhere in the world? Heh, you really lack a geopolitical education and it shows 😎
(I am being facetious pls don’t block me)
Someone’s never heard of the Free Speech fights.
You can and will be jailed just for saying shit, if people start to listen to you and you’re saying the wrong shit. Your “freedom of speech” is as worthless as used toilet paper the moment a judge decides to issue an injunction against you i.e. the strikes in Harlan County in the 70s had judges jailing people for using the word “scab.”
Also fun fact I learned today, remember the Kent State Massacre? People were ordered to apologize for being shot just to get compensation, which only covered legal defenses. Land of the fucking free, lmao
When your life is made illegal, what’re you gonna do, liberal? Roll over for the bourgeois state like a good boy?
No, not at all.
Freedom of speech protects you from being prosecuted for saying something.
It doesn’t protect you from any other consequences of what you say.
I did not say that you can say anything with no consequences whatsoever
You’re just being obtuse and refusing to understand reality, so as not to lose an argument or learn something.
They were talking about prosecution
no, he didn’t leak shit, he published leaked information what the hell.
and you can only do that right now because the ruling class isn’t concerned about possible socialist revolution, I advise you to read up on the 1st and 2nd Red Scares!
(also, who fucking cares if you can complain about something if you can’t actually change the situation???)
Liberals don’t know the difference between negative and positive rights.
So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?
Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.
The Uhuru House publically opposed the war effort in Ukraine and got raided, then had a bunch of their members locked up for allegedly being in cahoots with Russians. By default, your bullshit’s refuted.
Whoa slow down, where did this cop come from? I swear you people are so morally bankrupt, you have to try and mindtrick someone into agreeing w/ a completely unrelated question. It’s so jarring and deceitful to read
So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?
Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.
in awe at this one. Once again, if they think you’re a threat to state power do you think they give a single flying fuck about what’s legal/illegal? do you think what’s being done to Assange is actually legal? he didn’t leak anything, he just published information given to him. Once again, if the there was a serious socialist threat to this country I promise you would be arrested/killed no matter what if it became known you were a vocal dissident, legality be damned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
Do you see how these two statements cannot be true at the same time?
Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.
Talking realistically and honestly about something is freedom of speech.
If you are that dense that you think those are the same things, then I might as well talk to a brick wall.
Going up to Snowden and saying “Erm, sir, you might have told us that the American government is spying on us every moment of our lives, but, erm, actshually, doing that was illegal, so unfortunately, sir, you are not epic and you don’t deserve freedom of speech protections”
what an absolute fucking dweeb, holy shit
I will go tell Putin to make it “confidential information” that he’s a bad person, then maybe you’ll shut the fuck up for a single moment of your life because a bootlicker like you will be forced to obey it if you ever go there
Again, I don’t disagree and I find it commendable what both did exposing things.
However, it is against the law. It’s not the same thing as free speech.
There’s lots of above ground opposition to Putin in Russia. Stop being a clown. There’s plenty of real things to criticize. We don’t need to make things up.
Damn thats crazy, the shit that might hurt the state is illegal(and therefore presumably justifiable to punish) while you get to do all the intellectual jerkoffs you want with no effect on anything?
Real lucky you get to live in freedomland.
So saying you disagree with something your government did is hurting the state? Lol
If you do this in the US you are getting a visit from the police
Assange didn’t do anything illegal but even if he did you might as well be saying “criticizing Putin may the right thing do, but it’s illegal so you shouldn’t do it.”
Rooftops are generally a good place to speek freely, even in an oppressive country.
Try speaking about US atrocities at work. If you lose your job, you’re not free.
I used to work for the US government and we all talked shit about it at work. So your making shit up
Working at the dmv and talking about how incompetent bureaucracy are isn’t the kind of talking we’re talking about
Go work for a railroad and try to organize a general strike and tell me how safe you feel
I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?
I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?
I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?
The definition of right and wrong is always what is legal, that’s why when the ruling class buys political power through lobbying and other corruption, the ruling class becomes more legally right in whatever they want to do!
Unless that law is a bad country’s law.
dang putin must have snipers everywhere to enforce that
that’s impossible, the entire Russian army has been destroyed a hundred times now by Ukraine, over 15 million Russian troops have been killed last time I checked, there are no snipers left
the Zaporozhye front is just the Ukrainians doing a giant war re-enactment of what would have happened if there were any Russians left alive, but due to the 1:984219 casualty ratio, there aren’t any Russians left
you mean there are not snipers in every square meter of siberia watching out for siberian separatists?
He probably would if he could.
Damn the butthurt Russians are out in force today.
Why do you call the people disagreeing with you Russians?
Imagine being so chauvinistic that you’re outright unable to conceive of the idea that someone might hold an opinion for any reason other than blind patriotism. You’ve become brainwashed to a point where you can’t imagine that the governments of the United States and its allies, which have been caught spreading or taking advantage of lie after lie after lie after lie after lie in order to achieve geopolitical victories over nations they considered to be a political or economic threat, might be lying in their characterization of the government of Russia, which has repeatedly stood in the way of American and Western European attempts to both expand into Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe politically, as well as exploit Ukraine economically.
I need you to understand that I am not being hyperbolic when I say that you and people who share your views are what is wrong with humanity in the present day. As long as people like you continue to be either willing or gullible enough to keep believing the lies of a geopolitical block as untrustworthy as the United States and its allies solely because you are incapable of looking past your country’s propaganda and seeing your own leaders as anything other than the righteous beacons of humanity that they try to make themselves appear to be, humanity will almost certainly be doomed to enter pointless conflicts and cause mass destruction until we drive our own species off of a cliff.
You cant even meaningfully add to a joke bc youre so childishly resentful. You take this arguing so much more seriously than us while we just casually have the information youre missing, and it looks hilarious.
Aside from that not being what he did, what does it matter morally that it’s illegal? It was illegal to smuggle Jews out of Germany, too.
You shouldn’t ask what about this? You should ask what about this ban ayyylmao
If you say that to point the hypocrisy in someone’s statement is a fallacy then everyone can just blame each other for basically anything and nothing constructive comes out.
Oh you drink water? Hitler did too. What do you mean everyone drinks water? That’s whataboutism
Keep hoping. Better yet, go there and fight yourself if you think it’s so important. But you won’t. You’ll just move your outrage to the next target that US propaganda will point you to.
Correct, they are doing just that: wasting the support they’ve been given.
You lost, get over it
we need a banhammer emoji, specifically for these instances
Thank you, comrade
Why do you lot keep posting these dumb pictures?