There is only one party at fault for Russia's unprovoked murderous attack on their neighbors and the slaughter and rape of its innocents. There is no communique that could have resolved this because Russia believed that it would quickly roll into Kiev and end it. They continue to believe that it will be in their interest to prevail as they believe they will long term. Negotiation is unlikely to change this analysis if the rotting corpses of its own dead isn't sufficiently persuasive.
Outright dismissal of two deadly coups that removed democratically elected presidents in Ukraine and ignoring THOUSANDS of Ukranians killed in Donbas at the hands of Ukrainian government prior to the invasion, tells us everything we need to know about your objectivity here.
The Russians armed separatists and criminals to oppose the democratically elected government of Ukraine installed in 2019 via election not via the conflict in 2014. Ukraine's lawful resistance to criminals attempting to set up their own fiefdom on Ukrainian lands with Russian guns is thin justification for the subsequent invasion.
To put it blandly it doesn't matter whether you think Bush win over Gore was legitimate. Biden was legitimately elected and Washington state has no right to form its own nation. If the Canadians funneled tanks, guns, and soldiers to such folks we would certainly shoot people to stop such a takeover. Such shootings wouldn't provide legitimate cause for the forces of flannel to make a fast break for DC to overturn our entire government.
This is why I am a libertarian. Regular people don’t want to kill each other, but these memes cause their governments to perpetuate violence. Literally everything about these concepts and games is not worth harming millions of people. And if you were in the war zone, you’d want an end to the stupid conflict. But people who aren’t, seem to think nothing of bringing violence and volunteering other people to die for some geopolitical concept justigied by some allegory where countries are anthropomorphosized.
Just to illustrate: when Ukraine and Russia were part of one federation, the same exact piece of land, Crimea changed hands from Russia to Ukraine. But back then they weren’t independent countries and it wasn’t a “matter of territorial integrity”, but just an administrative change involving road signs and local flags etc. so no one killed each other over it. Today, lots of people would support Ukraine and her allies introducing violence to Crimea, a region that has none, in order to “retake” it.
I find this obscene. Humans just want to live peace and security, go to work, date, love, etc. When push comes to shove, this or that flag isn’t such a big deal to regular humans, and historically they have changed a lot so why kill for it? But the current international system is based on Countries with borders that are supposed to be eternal. For this principle, people now are ready to support killing in a never ending war because “what if someone broke into your house and stole…”
Kosovo set a precedent. I would of course like to see Catalonia, Kurdistan get at least some more autonomy after their referendums. I’d like tk see Hong Kong get it too, and HN was sympathetic to those guys because we see just how different China was to HK after 100 years of being a British protectorate.
Well, autonomy isn’t very bad for the host country and the Minsk II agreements gave Ukraine sovereignty and control over all its borders. Why not just accept this diplomatic solution? Ukraine did, but now we learn that both Ukrainian presidents “never intended” to fulfil it. Why? It is maddening to me. The people of Ukraine suffer because of the political class, and I include Putin in that.
The people of Ukraine don't want their country to surrender the lands they live in to the monsters that are torturing and raping their sons and daughters. By and large that whinging is coming entirely from commentators bemoaning the cost of war over coffee at their kitchen tables. Nor do the people of Russia by and large want peace the overwhelming majority support sending their sons and daughters to murder Ukrainians.
You dishonestly frame the prior takeover effected by treachery and threats of mass murder as an administrative change involving road signs and flags. Should a housebreaker invade your home and evict you by threatening to slaughter your family your eviction wouldn't be a peaceful administrative change in ownership just because the violence is threatened instead of realized.
Despite this Crimea wouldn't be on the table had Russia not decided to take the rest of Ukraine. Should Russia wish to protect these folks from war they ought to start talking terms now.
I would prefer to get my overview of what “the people of Ukraine want” from actual polls conducted, not what people in the West simply assert. Same with Russia, India, China, etc. And the stats are clear:
1. Ukrainians didn’t want NATO during and after George W Bush pushed for Ukraine to be in NATO. If you care about what Ukrainians want then explain this “open door policy” where you shove countries through the door kicking and screaming
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n...
2. The people who live in Eastern and Southern Ukraine are only 56-58% supporting continuing the war. A very far cry from your claim that “Ukraine wants to continue the war”, much less invade Crimea. It is to be expected that the West of Ukraine on the other hand is happy to volunteer the Easterners for more meat grinder. It’s easier when you don’t have to live under daily bombings.
Somehow people don’t care about Crimea’s sovereignty, only Ukraine’s. But in 2014 they voted again for Independence from Ukraine. That is not surprising! If the OSCE agreed to oversee it, the legitimacy may have been enough to make it happen — like Kosovo. But OSCE refused.
That doesn’t mean Ukraine gets to bomb Crimea, does it?
Of what relevance is it what percentage wanted to join NATO in 2010? NATO expansion didn't force Russia to invade Ukraine. Nor did internal conflict over the disposition of Crimea force Russia to invade. You steadily bring up irrelevant complexities to paper over the simple truth. Russia is solely at fault and only Russia can end it. Until then let the western world continue to support Ukraine until Russia breaks.
I have been answering you point by point, showing you where you're wrong.
If a solid majority of Ukrainians do not want to join NATO in the period 1990-2010, but Bush pushed for it in 2007, then a lot of questions arise:
1) Why does NATO push for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO?
2) Why did they not welcome Russia as well? Was it more corrupt than Ukraine, or less democratic than Turkey, an existing member?
Most people outside the Western bubble know the real reason. The goal was always to gradually surround Russia with NATO bases. Russia needed to be the enemy. If Russia was part of NATO, then NATO wouldn't have an enemy to defend against. Also then Europe's security would be very strong, and there would be no need for USA's weapons to keep the peace. And the bases USA has around the world would have to be reduced, too.
In doing so, US presidents ignored Russian presidents (including Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev.) They also ignored everyone's warnings, and even the original architects of the USSR containment strategy:
You can repeat the words "unprovoked and unjustified" many times but that's just a verbatim phrase that you've been taught to repeat, obviously it was provoked. NATO expansion was systematic provocation. As was buzzing airspace. As was the rhetoric and the drone warfare, which worked so well in Nagorno Karabakh against Armenia. And so on.
Obviously if the shoe was on the other foot, USA would do the same. In fact, they did, and does often. The Cuban Missile Crisis is an example.
USA takes far less provocation to attack. Sometimes none. Like in Laos, halfway around the world. No other country does that. You seem to operate on a complete double-standard.
So no, Russia isn't solely at fault. Russia can surely end it, but the consequences will be that Russia will be surrounded in short order by NATO bases, and in a decade or so, nuclear weapons pointed straight at Moscow. Maybe even broken up.
While as a libertarian, I don't have a horse in this race, I can tell you that no country (especially not USA) would ever allow anything close to that to happen. Russia does not want Ukraine to become a NATO member.
Nuclear weapons would have been enough of a detergent for the foreseeable future. Invading increased security not one whit nor was it expected to. It was expected to increase wealth and power at the expense of decreasing security.
In fact invasion has actually done more to advance the cause of NATO than the US could have done. They are already and were always going to be surrounded by enemies due to being surrounded by former vassal states. Russia was never going to be in NATO because it's primarily a defensive alliance vs Russia. Nobody wants to give Russia a vote in an alliance that exists for mutual defense against Russia.
Who gives a fuck what the Indian man on the street thinks? Greater truth isn't decided by surveying as many ignorant people as possible. Shall we next survey Kentucky or London to achieve critical rube mass? Worse India profits greatly from cheap Russian gas. May as well ask farmers about the wisdom of subsidies or johns about whether prostitution ought to be legalized.
This is all more chaff.
This conflict exists so that Russia can trade it's citizens blood for power. Nothing else necessitates it. It serves no other end. It has no other interest.
Every other end is damaged by this war save one.
You go on without end while ignoring this fundamental fact. If you can't address it properly then you may see yourself out of the conversation.
I could give you similar polls for China, too. That is billions of people. Who cares what they think? How about who cares what YOU think! You’re in a media bubble and not seeing any other coverage around the world. You’re being told what to think and say, and all the mainstream media is in total agreement and no dissent is allowed (with the glaring exception of Tucker Carlson’s prime time slot on Fox, which otherwise proves the rule).
Literally everything you’re saying is just parroting CIA / US establishment talking points word for word, just like in every other proxy war against Russia (Afghanistan, Syria).
No there isn’t “just one side” that unilaterally began this conflict. Not even close. And the rest of the world outside the media bubble you’re in realized it. That’s billions of people who realize NATO expansion is responsible. Western leaders too:
There was a war going on in Donbas since 2014 for 8 years before Russia invaded. Russia negotiated Minsk and Minsk II but it was never implemented. USA fomented a revolution in 2014 and Ukraine’s new government was using cluster munitions against civilians in the Donbas as early as 2014:
I could go on. I could cite experts and leaders in USA and in Europe all of whom say the war was provoked and there is more than “one side”. They say it was very easy to avoid:
But it won’t make a dent. You won’t care what billions of people think. Or what leaders think. Or what experts think. Because they’re all wrong. You in your media bubble have it right: the causes are super simplistic and only one side is at fault. This is fed to you to justify ANY LEVEL of escalation, up to and including the destruction of the entire world. It’s pretty ridiculous and scary actually. But the US military industrial complex has successfully co-opted most of its mainstream media to make sure only one narrative is allowed in the minds of most people. This has been a phenomenon that already was honed with other issues, such as vaccine hesitancy immediately prior.
We have seen proxy wars happen (in Yemen for instance, an incredibly destructive war), we know how they occur… one side foments a revolution, the other props up the counterrevolutionaries, and both sides funnel weapons to the region for years. One side bombs the country and the other delivers weapons from afar.
No thougutful person thinks there is “one side that attacked in an unprovoked way” and so on. Especially in this case, where Russia is defending its security against being surrounded by a hostile military alliance led by its geopolitical enemy, while USA simply went around the world 3000 miles away to bomb countries to the stone age to prevent, I dunno, communism I guess.
> Russia is defending its security against being surrounded by a hostile military alliance led by its geopolitical enemy
This is nothing but typical authoritarian fear-mongering about being surrounded and under attack. It's not true at all, not even remotely. After the Cold War, European countries reduced their armed forces up to 10x. For example, Germany went from 3800 tanks in 1980s to some 200 today, and the US moved its last tanks out of Europe in 2013. This only began to change in 2014 after Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine. What security was there to defend, if Europe was unilaterally disarming itself? What security are they currently defending by shooting missiles into apartment buildings in Lviv, a thousand kilometers away from Russia? If anything, the arms reduction in Europe was seen as weakness and provoked Russia to attack Ukraine in the first place.
> You won’t care what billions of people think. Or what leaders think. Or what experts think.
Speaking of leaders, the only UN members who buy the entire Russian narrative are Syria and North Korea, while 141 countries out of 193 voted explicitly against it. Take a look at the map, it really does speak for itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...
You are rehashing Russian propaganda narrative that has virtually no support in the world except for professional contrarians and other fringe groups. How did you get sucked into this? Youtube videos? Social media influencers?
To hear you (and other “true believers”) tell it, everyone’s a Putin agent. The Pope is a Putin agent. Leaders and people of countries with billions of people. Hundreds of thousands of protestors in Eastern European countries. And even of thousands of protestors in every Western European country. And even here in the US. Republicans. Progressives. Everyone is spouting Russian propaganda when they call for a resumption of diplomatic discussions and negotiated settlement, and blame NATO for instigating this?
I have a different theory (as does most of the world outside your bubble). You are the one repeating propaganda. Let me count the ways:
1. NATO attacks Yugoslavia, declares Kosovo independent, destroys Libya and turns it into a failed state, you say very little. You keep repeating it’s “purely defensive” and Russia has nothing to fear.
2. CIA fomented a regime change revolution in Ukraine to overthrow the sitting president, helped train and arm far right extremist paramilitary groups, and you say nothing about it. They likely tried to do the same in Kazakhstan and Belarus, too, but were so far unable. (Russian agencies do this as well btw.) The reality is much more complex than your simplistic one dimensional analysis which ignores all these factors.
4. US/UK forces blow up the pipelines sending gas from Russia to Europe, try to pin it on Russia initially (it failed) and you don’t even care that they screwed European industry and economy etc.
5. Nearly ALL the people with actual domain experience have warned Clinton, Bush, etc. that NATO enlargement will likely lead to war with Russia, especially with Ukraine. And that is exactly what they wanted — Ukraine. You think they care deeply about Ukraine? They cared deeply about Afghanistan? NO, they are simply useful for making Russia bleed, “for as hard and as long as possible,” in the words of Brezhinski. They consider you a “useful idiot” and lie to their own public about their covert actions (eg #4). And then later they declassify it but by that time it’s too late to care:
This is the architects of these proxy wars, all the way up to the US President — wars like Afghanistan in which 2 million civilians died just so we can stick it to the Soviets! But during that war they lied to you and then declassified it — and they have NO REGRETS. Two million dead civilians bro. This is the “collateral damage” you are willing to pay cause you’re not the one paying it right?
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
You dismiss calls for peace talks and valuing human beings’ lives as being “Russian propaganda”. I say you are perpetuating US warmonger propaganda. Would you like to stop carrying water for thr CIA and military industrial complex?
Their track record neafly 100% of the time reveals they were behind making sure conflicts commenced and perpetuated them at the cost of real human lives abroad, while you with your one dimensional moralizing sit here and barely notice it. Laos. Nicaragua. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. This time it’s different, right? Wait until they declassify it in 2030 and by then you’ll just say “oh mistakes were made” and by then it will be ANOTHER war that is “different this time”. That is, if there is no nuclear war by then.
Only Russia, Syria and North Korea support this narrative, while 141 out of 193 UN members have explicitly called this bullshit and demanded Russia to get the fuck out of Ukraine.
It's a simple, yet powerful reminder where Russia stands in the world: 3 vs 141. Even Nazi Germany had more international support.
We find that UN had 148 countries vote against Israel to get “the fuck” out of the Golan Heights, and only Israel and USA and Liberia voted against. We also find another resolution by the plenary where 141 countries voted and only Israel and USA voted against.
Now according to your logic, the USA is dead wrong, and Nikki Haley should stop telling the rest of the UN how wrong they are and how Israel is the only democracy in the region, etc etc. But then read the Analysis column of the UN resolution — all the stuff they missed in their procedures:
Ignores the existence of the Syrian Civil War and its security implications for Israel and the civilians of the Golan Heights. Also ignores Syria’s history of shelling Israeli communities, its leader’s calls for a “war of annihilation” against Israel, and Syria’s 1967 aggression that led to its loss of the territory. Also neglects Syria’s sponsorship of the enemies of the peace process, and its support for terrorism. Falsely claims that Israel is oppressing and imposing Israeli citizenship on the Arab population of the Golan Heights.
Now, I am not here to argue the nuances of that particular dispute. My point is simply that pointing to UN resolutions against a country doesn’t exactly accomplish as much as you think it does — and also opens you up to charges of hypocrisy because USA is completely on the other side of that. You as the public receive whatever news coverage is appropriate to condition you to support one or the other position. So do people of other countries. I am not saying they are better informed than you — media in most countries is biased and selectively shows only things from one narrative, year after year — but what I am saying is you don’t have the whole story.
I care about actions and consequences on the ground. Libya is destroyed. NATO destroyed it. UN did not authorize NATO to bomb Yugoslavia, and yet they did. NATO is not a purely defensive alliance. Russia is right to fear it just like USA was right to fear USSR placing missiles on Cuba.
For me, it is more complex picture and guess what — for most of the world outside your bubble it is, too. Every time they poll the entire world, USA comes out as a bigger threat than Russia or China. The rest of the world doesn’t agree with you. You think the country you live in “jusy makes mistakes” and others around the world see it as instigating almost every conflict and it would be better if it stayed out.
You should care about data and facts, instead of cherry-picking some only. Look:
They poll people around THE ENTIRE WORLD mopsi. How can you see so many people choose USA as the greatest threat to world peace and democracy, and then yawn and say “stop your Russian propaganda”?
India. China. The Pope. Representative samples of billions of people. How can you see all those people blaming NATO for this conflict, and say “well, they’re just wrong and uninformed”?
There is just one conclusion here… you may be the one who has been in a propaganda bubble. You should speak to others around the world outside NATO countries. How often have you done that? To whom?
> My point is simply that pointing to UN resolutions against a country doesn’t exactly accomplish as much as you think it does
Yes it does. When even closest allies, including the whole Europe, vote against the US, then it's a clear sign that the US position does not have any support in the world, the same way Russia has no support for its narrative on Ukraine when only Syria and North Korea embrace it to the full extent.
That analysis you refer to was written by unwatch.org, a lobby group with strong ties to Israel. I see no reason to value their anonymous assessments higher than the opposing view held by the overwhelming majority of United Nations.
No amount of US-centered whataboutism changes the simple fact that Russia is in total international isolation on Ukraine. 3 vs 141 speaks for itself. 141 countries told Russia to get the fuck out in March 2022 and the same number of countries voted again last month to reaffirm that position.
Given that you are a Russian, I understand your denial. Many Germans couldn't bear the burden and shame of Nazi crimes either and made excuses or denied them until their final breath. Since I live in Eastern Europe, I have front row seat and meet such Russians on daily basis. I can show them Russian missiles raining down on apartment blocks hundreds of miles away from the frontline and they'll make all sorts of stupid and even outright childish excuses to deny that Russia is involved in any way. Apparently all such videos and photos are Photoshopped, hundreds of thousands of refugees are all liars and crisis actors, and so forth. Only the Kremlin never lies.
It's pretty amazing to see how even highly educated Russians totally turn off their brains and start rehashing the same old debunked PR narratives when I mention specific keywords. They act almost like chatbots, say a certain keyword and it'll trigger an automatic response. Somehow everyone became experts on Kosovo (even you!) after Russia started raining down artillery shells on Ukrainian cities. Did they, or is it just a spoon-fed coping mechanism?
You are attacking a strawman. I do not deny that Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure. I do not deny that its soldiers committed war crimes and atrocities. I condemn Russia’s invasion and I even more condemn them arming “moderate rebels” with names like “Strelkov” and “Motorola” since 2014. So literally everything you are ascribing to me is false and a strawman.
What I am also saying, however, was that Russia is not the sole party involved in this proxy war. NATO systematically created the conditions for it, just like USA and Saudi created the conditions to draw USSR into a war in Afghanistan, and later declassified the extent of their involvement. The US has a history of doing this. The entire world for the last 20 years considers the US to be a threat to world peace and democracy far more than Russia and China. The entire rest of the world outside of NATO blames NATO!
It is you who are ignoring this. It is you who can’t bring yourself to blame NATO. It is you who is consoling yourself and coping hard. Look at what others in this thread say… “the ONLY party to blame is Russia, end of story.” “This is the war of one man Putin, end of story.” “There is no other legitimaye point of view, if you disagree you are spouting Russian propaganda and a monster who enjoys rapes and murder.” This breathless insistence on ENDING THE CONVERSATION immediately and shutting down the discussion should tell you something. When I provide copious links to mainstream and official sources for all my points and the other person says “I don’t want to be confused by this forest of links” that shows you what side is not afraid of facts.
The insistence on a laughably cartoonishly one-dimensional explanation, the verbatim repeat of phrases “vaccine hesitancy”, “Russia hacked the election”, “unjustified and unprovoked war”, etc etc. the complete unwillingness to discuss literally ANYTHING outside of that parroting… normally it would be considered NPCs and zombies. The total crackdown on any dissent — The propaganda on the US side to much of the US public just as much as if not more than on the Russian side. And this is with all the freedom of speech we have and they don’t over there!
I remember when we had the Iraq war and we all had to repeat the bullshit explanation “they attacked us because they hate our freedoms”. When Ron Paul repeated the actual stated reasons of Osama Bin Laden he got booed. The American Public also booed McCain when he said Obama is a good family man and not an A-Rab. Many people in this public are very gullible, and the media makes them so. The Fox viewers believe the 2020 election was stolen. The CNN viewers believe the 2016 election was hacked. They’ll believe whatever their media tells them. If you think Left vs Right is biased, just imagine when they join together into US vs THEM (other country). You hear an extremely selective set of news. Ukraine according to them has been winning since April 2022. Russia has been on the verge of running out of weapons any day now. And Russia blew up its own tanks, trains, pipelines, etc. Well, no… the US / UK did. THEY blocked the peace talks (according to Naftali Bennett who was personally close to an agreement between the two presidents). THEY fomented the revolution in Ukraine in 2014. THEY funded the neo nazi battallions secretly via the CIA since 20-4. THEY told Zelensky to stop making peace agreements. And that is just what we know… if other wars are anything to go by, we will learn in 2030 stuff that will make you regret your support just as much as you regret Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan…
Just as an aside, the Taliban in DECEMBER 2001 OFFERED AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER AND USA REFUSED! That is the same group that we later ceded the country to 20 years later after a brutal occupation. Literally can’t make this up. They are the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that gets involved around the globe and fucks it up so much. Probably has a lot of psychopathic malicious people who know FULL WELL what will happen and proceed to do it anyway.
My argument isn’t that Russia is good and isn’t really attacking zumraine. It is that Russia, China and USA are all imperialist shithead countries that destroy everything around them in their proxy wars and meddling. But mostly the USA because it has already defeated everyone around it (native americans - gone, mexico - huge swaths of land stolen, etc) so it goes now around the world in search of more fights. China has started to do that in a more clandestine way (intimidating people abroad, locking up Uyghurs). Compared to those two, Russia is in third place of being an imperialist shit. That’s not saying much but the point is you as a US citizen are the one who can’t bear hearing this about YOUR country. Go buy a book like “Rogue State” and read it. You might realize that you’re projecting.
Most regular people don’t want to kill anyone and don’t endorse endless regime change wars. So they might protest and say that sending weapons go Ukraine is gonna get a lot of Ukrainians killed. (Just like when Gulf contries kept sending weapons to Gaza — did that EVER MAKE THE PEOPLE IN GAZA SAFER? No, never. Just perpetuated the conflict by giving them false hope.)
So to support perpetuating yet another “this time is different” war, the proponents of this madness need something stronger, something that will overcome people’s natural resistance to sending more weapons to the region. They start to spout total fictions like “Russia wants to genocide all Ukrainians, restore the Soviet Union, and if we dont stop them they will go and take over all Europe.” Yes those are easily debunked of course, with many independent lines of evidence, and logic. But for some people it doesn’t make a dent. Because if they admit that this is YET ANOTHER PROXY WAR THAT WE COULD HAVE PREVENTED AND CAN EASILY DEESCALATE NOW, then we might just all do that. And then they would be exposed as useful idiots for the military industrial complex, and the war machine that has been destroying countries around the world with zero accountability, and then the next admin says “mistakes were made.”
> NATO systematically created the conditions for it
This is simply not true. All the Russian propaganda memes of the US forcing Eastern Europe into NATO and so forth that you too rehash are demonstrably false.
> The entire rest of the world outside of NATO blames NATO!
It does not. Representatives from 141 countries of the world at the UN condemned Russia for the war, not NATO or anyone else.
> That’s not saying much but the point is you as a US citizen are the one who can’t bear hearing this about YOUR country.
I am not an US citizen and I don't care about the US-centric whataboutism.
> Most regular people don’t want to kill anyone and don’t endorse endless regime change wars
That's certainly not the case in Russia, where the majority of people continue to support the war with Ukraine.
> I am not an US citizen and I don't care about the US-centric whataboutism.
Understood. Well now you know how I felt when you keep saying I’m Russian and ascribing views to me that I don’t have.
> This is simply not true. All the Russian propaganda memes of the US forcing Eastern Europe into NATO and so forth that you too rehash are demonstrably false.
Given all the warnings Clinton and Bush ignored from experts, given the aggression NATO has displayed in Yugoslavia and Libya, the refusal to accept Russia, and given the number of bases and the all-but-stated raison d’etre of NATO to have Russia as a geopolitical enemy, I’m pretty sure Russia would not want this organization to surround it with missiles.
Neither would USA want to be surrounded by its geopolitical foes or have them turning their neighbors against them, much less fomenting a revolution. In fact the Monroe Doctrine long ago claimed THE ENTIRE WESTERN HEMISPHERE as a protectorate of the USA, but meanwhile USA went all around the world seeking to turn Russia’s former allies against it.
I just told you that a solid majority of Ukrainians said NO TO NATO but yet NATO persisted. Bush started this meme of Ukraine in NATO. I shared the poll data and mainstream links with you. DATA AND REALITY SHOULD MATTER MORE than repeating the words “Russian propaganda”.
Explain thei. Reuters is repeating Russian propaganda? American experts and diplomats predicting war are Russian stooges? Billions of people around the world are Russian assets? Or what?
It does not. Representatives from 141 countries of the world at the UN condemned Russia for the war, not NATO or anyone else.
That was never up for a vote. Show me where the UN was asked to vote on whether they condemn NATO for this conflict, or blame NATO or anything of the sort.
They did even more overwhelmingly blame USA for the 20th year in a row for the Cuba embargo and called for USA to lift it. But USA did not. Do you likewise spend as much time on this for the last 20 years? No. Why this double standard with Russia? I have some pretty good guesses.
That's certainly not the case in Russia, where the majority of people continue to support the war with Ukraine.
You’re just proving my point. The majority of regular Russians did not want to go and kill Ukrainians themselves. Their government and mainstream media had to radicalize them over time and tell them lies (eg that it is overrun with Nazis), just like Ukrainian and US people are told lies by their governments too, and very likely your government tells YOU one sided lies too. (Lithuania and Estonia would gleefully get NATO to fight Russia if they could, just as Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis mindlessly wanted to instigate USA vs USSR even when neither country was going to be that reckless.)
11 million Russians have family in Ukraine. Those are stories of love. It takes a lot of stories of hate and killing for them to turn on each other.
I am saying that all governments are telling people half truths and the media is radicalizing them for years, highlighting only the bad stuff others did, and with an agenda. And media that doesn’t play along is banned!
The majority of US citizens supported the Iraq war the first yeats (as high as 73%). Why? Same reasons. If I asked people back then why we were attacked on 9/11 they’d say Muslims hate us for our freedoms. You think that was their original thought? Do you truly believe “russia hacked the election” and “unprovoked and unjustified” are original thoughts?
But I will give you credit for something… you have actually cared about polling of the Russian public and their support for the war! Good job, yes polls matter. (Someone here said polls of Indians, Chinese and the entire world don’t matter - some kind of metaphor about people drinking sand.)
I give you credit because some people mindlessly still repeat that this is Putin’s war, one man’s war. And the Russian public is given a pass because they say they are just too afraid to say what they think, or polls are unreliable. They have a fantasy that if Putin is killed or removed then everything would be better.
No, Medvedev and Zhirinovsky and others would have been FAR bigger war hawks than Putin, and really anyone at all including Putin’s greatest liberal critics in Russia would have the same reaction (which you say is totally baseless):
In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
So we have two options here:
1) Russians are uniquely bloodthirsty orcs who want Ukrainians to be raped and killed
2) The Russian public believes Ukraine in NATO is an existential threat for their country, believes that their leaders have exhausted all peaceful ways to avert this war, and support the war just as US would have supported a war against Cuba in the Cuban Missile Crisis if USSR pumped it full of weapons.
> That was never up for a vote. Show me where the UN was asked to vote on whether they condemn NATO for this conflict, or blame NATO or anything of the sort.
Exactly. You claim that BILLIONS of people are blaming NATO, yet even Russia hasn't put forward a draft resolution with such allegations, because it would gain no support and would only humiliate Russia further by demonstrating how isolated they are.
> I’m pretty sure Russia would not want this organization to surround it with missiles.
I'm not interested in a forest of time wasting links when you can't attend to simple conversation. "I could give you similar polls for China, too. That is billions of people. Who cares what they think? " We established prior that polls are a poor way to determine truth. If sand is a poor way to slake your thirst then pouring more of it down your gullet wont improve your situation.
Let's be real and acknowledge that you are sympathetic to the country of your birth. Where other people see monsters rampaging through Ukraine, raping women and girls, shelling hospitals ,you see excuses. I'm sure after all the footage of the death camps came out some people of German heritage felt ashamed of their countrymen while others focused on making excuses for them.
You’re the one making excuses for the most warmongering country in the last 100 years, involved in 80% of all the wars in the entire world, with more spent on the military industry than the next 10 countries combined, and maintaining 800 bases around the world while the rest of the world has 30.
The links are to back up everything I am saying with MAINSTREAM SOURCES and quotes from the very people who admitted lied to you and thought of you as a “useful idiot”. If you don’t want to click them, simply don’t. The cognitive dissonance might be too great. The polls show what actual people think who actually live in these countries. The links are all to mainstream and experts. In any other area of life, backing up your points would be normal and praiseworthy. But you are so afraid of challenging the official propaganda narrative, that you won’t open yourself up to more information.
Let’s be clear. I don’t care about countries or flags nearly as much as I care about human beings, their lives, safety, a good economy etc.
I have seen this exact same game play out multiple times in proxy wars between USA and USSR. Countries got razed to the ground. Civilians died. I don’t want that for Ukrainians.
It’s true that I was born in Russia but that is not behind what I am saying. For example, when Russia went to war in Chechnya and razed their capital city TO THE GROUND, I unequivocally condemn Russia. Even though it is “an internal matter” according to the International Community, and Chechnya had “no right” to become independent of Russia, I consider that bullshit. I would much prefer a resolution that has less violence, less wanton destruction. And that typically involves letting the region have more autonomy and yes, even independence. My approach is CONSISTENT.
I have defended Iran, for instance, in the past against such simplistic analysis. I have praised Hezbollah and Iran and Russia for coming to the aid of Syria against rampaging Jihadists with Saudi money and US weaponry. I call things as they are and my commitment is to the truth.
North Korea had an agreement with Clinton, not to develop a nuke. GWB and the Republicans called it expensive “appeasement” and let the deal die on the vine. North Korea got a nuke. Who is better off? Is it more expensive to deal with them now? Yes. Same with Iran and JCPOA. It was foolishness to nix the best DIPLOMATIC solution that placed more inspectors than any country, ever. Now Iran will develop a nuke! Many nukes! And it’s all because of Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
I am Jewish yet I can criticize Bibi and Trump. I am born in Russia yet I can criticize Russia, condemn their invasion and arming “moderate rebels” in the Donbas, etc. I live in USA and I do the same thing here. MY SIDE IS REGULAR PEOPLE AND MY SOLUTION IS DIPLOMACY. And most of the world outside your bubble agrees with me. Or at the very least 30% of the world does. So your narrative — just like all other sad attempts to coerce others into one official propaganda line — have failed and will fail. You can’t fool all the people all the time:
What diplomatic solution? Will you suggest we give the Russians part of Ukraine which isn't ours to give or shall we threaten the Ukrainians with starving them of help and demand that they capitulate? Either option leaves millions subjugated and subject to "filtration", torture,privation and makes further conflict inevitable. They have specifically laid claim to a much broader territory than merely Ukraine and 150M people live in Independent nations they claim as their vassals. Even if such an agreement were possible and moral there is no reason to believe they should keep it.
Read the the Minsk II agreement — all the provisions are super positive and constructive for everyone involved. It should have been implemented.
Zelensky said never planned to honor it, just like Hamas never planned to honor previous agreements with Israel… went badly for Gaza, and the Gulf states sending weapons to Gaza only made things worse for the actual people living there. Gaza wouldn’t have received sanctions and a blockade if Hamas had actually implemented previous agreements. And same here:
Zelensky ran on actually implementing peace with Russia and even started to, but the US and NATO and the Ukrainian far right very likely told him to cut it out, or else:
USA and UK did everything possible to make sure Ukraine would NOT make peace with Russia, and also that the European countries wouldn’t either. Including very likely blowing up the Nordstream I and II pipelines dealing a major blow to German industry and European energy in the short term. Swedes know who did it but are keeping mum. No one dares criticize the big daddy in the room.
You are continuing your strategy of throwing chaff. I asked you what diplomatic solution can be put into play now. Neither side is looking for Minsk II at this juncture.
I would highly suggest you watch this informative lecture from an IR professor examining the causes of the current crisis in Ukraine (a lecture, mind you, given nearly a decade ago that accurately projected forward to now, perhaps the one mistake being that the lecturer did not expect Putin to attempt a full-scale invasion of Ukraine).
The tl;dw: the West has pursued a policy since the end of the Cold War to march NATO and the EU to Russia's doorstep. Each time tangible actions or declarations have occurred, Russia has clearly expressed that it views this as an existential threat and that it will not tolerate NATO or the EU on its doorstep. We have ignored these warnings and continued this policy. Ultimately, it is not clear we have any good reason to be doing this for our own strategic interests, especially paired with the rise of China.
Nothing about Russia's neighbors forming a defensive alliance is an attack or justifies a war of aggression. Russia was never endangered by such. Nuclear weapons in and of themselves represent sufficient check on any ambitions. The only way for Russians to end up in piles of blood and meat was to march their own people to their deaths in foreign lands where they could safely be slaughtered without provoking Armageddon. If the Russian people ought to be afraid of anyone they ought to fear their leaders.
NATO was the one who tried to get Russia’s neighbors to all join. Pew polls and others have shown that a solid majority of Ukrainians did NOT want to join NATO. How is habing Yuschenko do it anyway, any different than Yanukovich agreeing to cheap Russian gas and loans? If that makes Yanukovich a stooge of Russia then Yuschenko was a stooge of NATO.
When NATO pushed Russia’s neighbors to join, their populations didn’t want it. Russia wanted to join and NATO rejected them. Why?
NATO has nuclear sharing agreements, and situates their armies next to the Russian border and buzzes their airspace regularly. Why?
Boris Yeltsin opposed NATO expansion, he did everything USA wanted (including “shock therapy”) to the point where his own parliament tried to oust him and USA propped him up. But no matter how much he protested NATO’s expansion, USA told him to go pound sand. This isn’t a Putin thing.
Furthermore don’t forget that NATO isn’t a “purely defensive alliance”. They bombed Serbia without UN approval, and declared Kosovo independent (that set a precedent for what Russia did in, say the Russo-Geogia war, and now in Ukraine).
They also invaded Libya and left it as a failed state with millions of people living under warlords, including terrorists from ISIS and Boko Haram. Why do you not even care? No this organization isn’t “purely defensive”.
No “great power” country, not USA nor China nor Russia, would allow itself to be gradually surrounded with bases and missiles from a hostile military alliance. USA sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Cuba was perfectly rational to ask USSR to install missiles on Cuba. And Kennedy violated international law by blockading Cuba during the missile crisis. But I totally support what he did, because USA couldn’t have nukes so close to Florida. (Nevermind that USA did the same thing secretly in Turkey, before the Soviets). Rather than engaging in more hypocrisy, they both deescalated and solved things with mutual respect. That’s how it should be now, too.
Where I agree with you is that every country’s public should hold their leaders accountable, rather than blaming the public of the other country.
And I'd highly suggest that you read Mearsheimer's more recent interview with The New Yorker where he reminds us that he's a complete fraud that shouldn't be spoken about anymore.
> Negotiation is unlikely to change this analysis if the rotting corpses of its own dead isn't sufficiently persuasive.
So the only solution you leave us with is open war with a nuclear power.
> There is no communique that could have resolved this because Russia believed that it would quickly roll into Kiev and end it.
There is a common strain of thought that WWII was a "just war" and that nothing could have prevented war with Nazi Germany. This is correct if one starts history in 1938, or even 1933, but ignores the fifteen years between 1933 and the end of World War I, and still the years of WWI and the decades prior.
You are wrong in the same way that folks err that WWII was unavoidable. History exists and we didn't arrive at this moment simply because of the evil of one man.
If we want to avoid an open war with a nuclear power, we have to be willing to negotiate. Putin is rational and has negotiated in the past. How many corpses do you want?
I am not sure what Russian presidents (not just Putin) could have done to stop NATO expansion. They have complained, they have offered to join NATO, they were rebuffed. But Russia's neighbors were PUSHED to join, even if their own citizens didn't want to. Why? Here is a chronology since the 90s:
Boris Yeltsin officially complained and ask NATO not to expand. What was wrong with Boris Yeltsin?
He was literally on the cover of Time magazine with an American flag, after USA meddled in Russian elections to prop up the guy who implemented privatization, "shock therapy", and continued to do it even when the Parliament made a vote of no confidence, during the Russian constitutional crisis he actually fired at the Parliament and arrested the Parliament (same as the Peru guy who was ousted recently): https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.htm...
Boris Yeltsin did everything USA wanted to be done to Russia and even so, his complaints about NATO expansion fell on deaf ears.
In 2008, George W Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, but not Russia. Never Russia. Why? A solid majority of Ukrainians didn't want to join NATO, but that didn't stop NATO from constantly trying, and even working with Yuschenko to start the process. I thought NATO was "only if you want to join": https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n...
Then Yanukovich came in and stopped the NATO membership process (stopping is what polls showed matched what the majority wanted). So NATO then helped Ukraine destroy their own defensive weapon stockpiles, and then offered themselves as the solution... here is their own site admitting it: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_79035.htm?selectedLo...
This isn't just "Putin's war", either. Whether it's Yeltsin, Putin, Medvedev or any other Russian president, the USA told them "sorry, but NATO is expanding"... and we're adding all your neighbors, whether you (and their citizens) want to, or not.
If you are a warlike people with a history of violence against your neighbors you don't have any right to demand that your neighbors don't join in a defensive alliance for protection against you nor right to join such an alliance. Why would an alliance that virtually exists for defense against Russia give Russia a vote on whether said alliance should react to an attack by Russia.
If Russia wasn't so inclined to invade its neighbors lands, rape their women, and murder their children it wouldn't matter who joined NATO. Nothing about the mere existence of NATO obligates them to commit atrocities. They are murdering their neighbors now because it would be harder to do after they join NATO which is literally what Putin said in more polite terms. He said they must take it now lest they have to fight all of NATO for it tomorrow.
Left by the wayside is admitting that they lost the right to it in the 90s and will never regain their former empire.
You are a statist who seems to justify war and killing by anthropomorphosizing countries and speaking about entire populations of civilians as “warlike”. You can stop apologizing for governments and war machines anytime. My side is the regular people, regardless of their nationality — the vast vast majority do not want to kill each other. They are conscripted by their governments to fight, while the politicians and media speak about how “we” must, but neither they or their families actually experience the conditions they send others to. And sitting 3000 miles away it’s even easier to find justifications for a war to continue. You have no skin in the game, after all — but most armchair patriots would have a very different attitude about peace agreements if the war was in your city and putting your family in danger.
But let’s apply your own statist logic.
The USA has been quite warlike, ever since the colonists fought the natives for land. The entire western third of the USA is former Mexico, which they simply won in a war of aggression. USA even tried to invade Canada but was rebuffed. USA has already taken all the land from ocean to ocean and subdued all its neighbors, so now it goes around the world in order to “lead” in every conflict. It spends more on its armed forces than the next 20 countries combined. It has 800 military bases around the world while the rest of the world combined has 30.
Just in the last 25 years, the USA has destroyed more countries than Russia by far (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc) and if we go further back, USA used chemical weapons and bombs indiscriminately in multiple countries in south asia etc etc etc.
And NATO is not a “purely defensive” alliance since it bombed Yugoslavia without UN authorization and declared Kosovo independent (much like Russia has done with breakaway republics), invaded Libya and left it a failed state etc.
But now let’s take an exact analogue. So USA sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (a neighbor) which failed. Cuba asked USSR for protection and help. USA according to you had no right to interfere, when USSR put missiles on Cuba. And yet, Kennedy wouldn’t allow it. He blockaded Cuba and threatened violence and war unless this was undone.
I actually support Kennedy in doing that to protect his country from USSR putting nukes in a neighboring country. (Nevermind that USA had secretly already done the same in Turkey against USSR, which they declassified later.)
The point is that although Kennedy technically violated international law, the important part is that USSR and USA acted like grownups and deescalated, and even began cooperating and cutting nuclear stockpiles together. That’s what dialogue and respect looks like. It’s possible.
Instead, you’re justifying escalating war and killing based on the most childish argument: “but he started it!” This isn’t how conflict resolution should be done by human adults, let alone adults responsible for the fate of entire populations!
You can critique the US, their history, their actions all you like none of that is of any relevance to the present conflict we are discussing. Its chaff you use to hide the fact that your core argument is so bad.
Nothing but mindless aggression and acquisitiveness has provoked this war. There is only one side that has unilaterally begun this conflict and there is only one party that can end it by going home. That is the only thing to talk about–when Russia is going home—and nothing whatsoever to say on it.
Appeasement can't possibly work because a rational actor would then conclude that they can buy back their former empire with blood and negotiate their way out of the very temporary pain of sanctions. It would inevitably lead to war, death, and pain. For someone who proposes it seems to be a student of history, you are uniquely bad at following a simple line of logic or staying on track.
“I am not interested in a forest of time-wasting links to mainstream sources”
“Nothing but what I say has provoked this war. Period.”
“There is only one side that has unilaterally done everything bad. End of story.”
“Only one party can end this. Stop talking about what we can do. This is completely up to Putin.”
“If you disagree with me then you are spewing Putin propaganda. How much are they paying you?”
“Russia is 100% at fault, and it must be 100% defeated to show the world that no one can arm rebels or invade countries or occupy them or bomb people”
“Ok well we may have done that but that was a really long time ago.. and anyway we didn’t try to ANNEX those countries! Look, no one is perfect and we make slight mistakes. But two wrongs don’t make a right”.
“Stop talking about what our country did. NATO had no role in this. Stop using historical facts. What you say has no relevance”
“Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine is completely unjustified and unprovoked! I mean.. unprovoked and unjustified. That’s what I independently personally think and you should agree — end of story!”
“That is the only thing to talk about.”
“And nothing whatsoever to say on it except what I said. Period.”
“End of story.“
“Did I mention period?”
I think it is clear this style of arguing is a bit different than most intellectually honest discourse on HN. Can’t quite put my finger on what the differences are … maybe someone can help me out here?
Sure this could have been prevented, and resolved, in many different ways.
1. The most straightforward way would be for Russia and Ukraine to have implemented the Minsk II Agreements at any time since 2015, when they were introduced. Minsk II says as soon as the Donbas region gets some autonomy and votes for their own representatives, Ukraine would get control over the entire borders of its country, everyone would get amnesty, lay down their arms, and unicorns would frolic around. But for some reason this was considered "bad" and the election kept being postponed:
2. An easy way that the USA could unilaterally prevent this escalation is simply to say that Ukraine would not join NATO. Tulsi Gabbard for instance literally said this in the first days of the war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF5oPNjMZw4
The following presidents could have simply rolled this back. Not even other NATO countries really wanted what George W Bush was pushing, but it turned into an escalation.
I wouldn't say it's "unprovoked". It was not provoked by Ukraine, but certainly by NATO's expansion. A lot of people around the world feel this way, including leaders of billions of people (China, India, the catholic Pope, etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEbVBi1f0e8 and the people themselves
3. To be 100% clear, the CIVILIANS of any country are not to blame for any of this. The people of Ukraine are victims in this, just like Iraqis were victims of US invasion and occupation. But I can still blame Saddam Hussein for ousting inspectors and giving the US an excuse to invade. If you think the Russian invasion was "unprovoked", then the invasion on Iraq was even more unprovoked. But both are far more provoked than, say, the US bombing of Laos to the stone age, more than any country has ever been bombed in history. Totally unprovoked "special military operation", completely. There have to be ways to stop this. And it's called respect for human life and having public discussions with leaders instead of bombing their population.
As the old 'Ukraine just has to have no agency for there to be peace'.
Remember the Minsk II Agreements were based on the predicate that the 'little green men' WEREN'T Russian soldiers. Which even Russia now admits was a lie. How could a framework based on a lie about one side's aggression work to.... prevent future aggression by that lying side?
Ukraine implementing the Minsk II agreements is exercising its agency. It's a country, that's party to an agreement. And implementing a peace agreement is a great way to exercise your agency.
In fact, Ukraine's position (and I guess yours, tacitly) is that Donetsk and Luhansk should have no agency, for there to be "peace". Just like Hong Kong, Catalonia, and many others.
Laws define the limits on the agency of particular subsets of nations. Its perfectly boringly normal for a subset of a nation to have zero unilateral agency insofar as to their membership in large groups. London can't choose to be part of France nor the nation of London not even everyone agreed on the matter. Less do they have the right to murder their neighbors to effect such a change.
Well, you were the one who brought up that someone has to have "no agency" for there to be peace, as being obscene. Then you agreed that, actually, subsets of nations should have "no agency".
So for example if Crimea voted in 1991 overwhelmingly (over 95%) to become independent of Ukraine and that vote was not implemented, but a few months later voted 54% to become part of Ukraine, then Crimea should have no agency ever again. So if in 2014 they vote again overwhelmingly to become independent of Ukraine, it's just too bad. The OSCE shouldn't even observe the vote, because that would give it legitimacy as "what the people who live there want". And we can't have that, so therefore let's just claim that it was a disputed vote because of "little green men" somewhere, and that way we don't have to deal with what they want. We can just claim that they secretly all wanted to be part of Ukraine, and everyone changed their minds from 1991 and just overwhelmingly voted against that because they were afraid of what the little green men would do when they learned how they anonymously voted.
Same with Hong Kong. Catalonia. Basque people. Kurds. And so on. What the people want doesn't matter, that way there can be peace.
So you already seem to agree with the principle that for there to be peace, we have to shut some people up. (Separatists, nationalists, etc.)
I happen to strongly disagree with that principle, but I also don't want violent revolutions. I would want for the UN to somehow allow more self-determination and autonomy, like they did for Kosovo. I know it's a pipe dream since UN is composed of countries, so none of its members want to allow too much secession or autonomy, they looove to maintain power and control within their borders. But if you look at what they do to secessionists, including indeed the Holodomor in Ukraine, I think harming your own people is far more obscene.
But do you agree at least that Ukraine should have a responsibility to its citizens, not to bomb them? Maybe you can agree that the Minsk II agreements to grant them some degree of autonomy WITHIN UKRAINE were more than reasonable, and that everything happening now is far, far worse for everyone than if Ukraine's government simply implemented the Minsk agreements?
The Russians honored neither prior agreement with Ukraine. Appeasement would as it already has lead to further demands. Again your neighbors have every right to form a defensive alliance. Such an alliance doesn't provide reason for aggression.
