A pretext, but that has nothing to do with you posting it here, that is a distraction. Ukraine currently has a Russian problem, the Nazi problem there - and elsewhere - should be dealt with but it can wait until the shells stop flying and there is - hopefully - a Ukraine left.
It ends with an insurgency war in which people from different countries will come to Ukraine and kill other people, including civilians, for money given by "US and allies", indefinitely. But you know, not the first time "US and allies" grow terrorists in someone else's country, for the greater good and all
> We are at war, I'm more than willing to pay personal costs to inflict pain and casualties to Russia, even more so if those costs are "only" financial. I absolutely want my government to hurt us if that means hurting Russians even more.
Tell that to people who live on minimum salary, maybe they will explain you something about "financial price"
While I have some sympathy for those who are less lucky than me, in the long run playing the appeasement game will hurt them even more. Furthermore, government can take ad-hoc redistributive actions, such as increased or reworked taxation. Our government is already spending 46% of the GDP in random crap for far less noble reasons.
OTOH I hate from the bottom of my heart the entire wave of pseudo-intellectuals and anti-western useful idiots who push the "two-sides" narrative. (Just to be clear because this is the internet -- I'm not implying anything about you specifically)
> * I think he's a very logical actor. People incorrectly say that his operations don't make sense. They make perfect sense. He did test runs in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Syria. The west didn't do anything so he assumed nothing bad will happen
People don't know what they are talking about. It is extremely simple, just 2 words - missile defense. Russia has nukes and NATO wants to protect themselves by moving their missile defense systems closer to the Russian border, to shoot the nukes down before they can reach the atmosphere. Russian army and economy suck and they won't be able to handle a standout with NATO armies without nukes, so Putin makes "special operations" to prevent them from moving missile defense systems closer. Simple
You realize that TASS is state-owned and just repeats the same propaganda that comes from Kremlin, don't you?
EDIT: To be more specific, the news I heard on Ukrainian media was that corridors were indeed open for a brief period, but fire started again almost at the moment when transports with refugees began moving, giving them no chance to leave.
Not at all. The agreement to create temporary ceasefires to evacuate civilians were the only real outcome of the last talks. It was largely reported in Russian media. Today during the morning briefing the Russian officials said that the zones and logistics were agreed and respected but russian forces haven't observed any movement of civilians. They observed rearrangement of ukranian units though.
The ukranian live YouTube channel I follow provided a few messages from (allegedly) people nearby (e.g. no buses or people were still in shelters). No clear picture from these messages.
We (Ukrainians) believed Russians once, in Ilovaisk. Of course, we will not believe them second time. Our government sends notices to citizens to not trust Russian promises about evacuation or green corridors.
Because of Ilovaisk tragedy, «green corridor» now has meaning of death threat, e.g. «we will make green corridors for Russians» means «we will fool Russians and then kill them», not a promise of a safe escape.
When Russians says that they will open a green corridor for us again, everyone is flies from them.
I hope this war stops as soon as possible. The Russian people I know (including myself) don't support the war and are trying to help with the humanitarian aid, refugees etc (I'm outside russia).
so what you are saying is, your government officially agrees with russia about humanitarian corridors, but then tells your own citizens not to follow them?
Do you have a picture of the notice? How do you know it's your government?
We know that Russian humanitarian corridors are fake, so we tell our own citizens to not follow them, because they will die again. However, we need to regroup our units as much as Russians, so we agreed on ceasefire.
I did not follow this closely because I'm busy with my own problems right now (furreal of 3 man killed by Russians will be tomorrow, so I need to make preparations). However, my advice to our government is in line with advices of other veterans of war with Russia: don't trust them. Russia invaded Ukraine and killed thousands after years of lies about peace. Why they will be honest today?
In ilovaisk it was ukranian troops who were marching armed through the exit corridor. It's clear that this could escalate quickly.
The exit corridors now are for civilians and there is at least the red cross who is monitoring. I find it hard to believe that russian army would attack civilians in open daylight. That would be a grave war crime and impossible to hide.
> I find it hard to believe that russian army would attack civilians in open daylight.
What you find hard to believe is clearly evidenced on a daily - sorry, hourly - basis in Ukraine right now. You don't need to believe, you can just see.
It's sad that we can't trust most media to give the real story. It seems that 98% of all media today has an agenda. I suspect that social media echo chambers are a distraction that drives a lot of this regardless of political affiliation.
How does this even work? In that particular case has it crossed the journalists' mind to check what the Russian position is? Did he understand implicitly that would be frowned upon by the boss/editor?
