Ukraine

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Russia states more limited war goal to 'liberate' Donbass

In a scaled-back formulation of its war goals, Russia said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation was mostly complete and it would focus on completely "liberating" Ukraine's breakaway eastern Donbass region.

www.reuters.com

This has "bush mission accomplished" energy. It seems like Russia may just settle for taking the break away States.

 

[Generals]

Read another book!

Says the "President" who cancelled all dissident opinion...

 

[Avnger]

Says the "President" who cancelled all dissident opinion...

He's entirely right that cancel culture has overtaken Russia. It just so happens to be the significantly more common right-wing, authoritarian, "Christian"-values type than the boogeyman left-wing version.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The one that holds elections in which more than one party has a chance of winning. The one in which the leader of the opposition wasn't just sentenced for 9 years on false charges. The one in which reporters are not hunted down and summarily executed. The one in which the media is not wholly controlled by the one-party state.

Fucking obviously.

You think a state that is the result of a pro-west coup with support of the NED and a leadership determined by US officials, is dominated by oligarchs like Ihor Kolomoisky, and bans opposition political parties and television stations is "a democracy"? Obviously?

That's wild.

Read another book!

Definitely the cringiest of wars

Sorry, does any of the additional context change the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, utilising those bases? Because that's the sole bit that's relevant to that particular post.

It is not the only bit that is relevant, and framing it as if it happened out of the blue is disingenuous.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Russia Was Losing the Information War. Then Fox News Stepped in.

A conspiracy theory about U.S.-supported biolabs in Ukraine originated here, but it’s helping Russia turn the tide.

www.vice.com

Goddamnit.

Read another book!

Well...can we use this next time Rowling says something really stupid?

 

[Agema]

I'm just trying to figure out what the hell your game is in this whole thing.

His game is that Western capitalism is the ultimate bad guy. Therefore, any entity that opposes Western capitalism is better. Therefore when any entity that opposes Western capitalism attacks a third party entity, that third party entity must be traduced in order to protect the reputation of the entity that opposes Western capitalism.

Or, if you like, the enemy of my enemy's enemy is my enemy too.

 

[Agema]

You think a state that is the result of a pro-west coup with support of the NED and a leadership determined by US officials, is dominated by oligarchs like Ihor Kolomoisky, and bans opposition political parties and television stations is "a democracy"? Obviously?

Yes, it is a democracy.

It's got issues, but it's hard to see they're significantly worse than countries which you vociferously support as democratic because there's a left-winger in charge.

Spoiler

Of course, the "coup" is a sort of red herring. There have been free and fair elections since then. At best one can argue that many Russian-sympathising voters were unable to vote, but in the context that they were in territory occupied Russia and Russian-backed militias that refused to let the vote go ahead, it's not a good argument. Furthermore, the president deposed in the coup was immensely unpopular (both for corruption and unpopular policies) and would almost certainly have lost the subsequent election anyway.

One might point out the incumbent president lost the 2019 elections to a political outsider, accepted the fact and left office without a struggle. That's a pretty good sign of democracy - and better than the USA managed in its last election. The vague allusions of oligarchs is also quite ironic. Fun fact: the outgoing 2019 president had four times as much campaign money, and the other establishment stalwart three times as much campaign money, as the eventual winner. The big money candidates lost in the 2019 presidential election. Under normal circumstances, left-wingers should be cheering that. Instead...

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

His game is that Western capitalism is the ultimate bad guy. Therefore, any entity that opposes Western capitalism is better. Therefore when any entity that opposes Western capitalism attacks a third party entity, that third party entity must be traduced in order to protect the reputation of the entity that opposes Western capitalism.

Or, if you like, the enemy of my enemy's enemy is my enemy too.

And it's the easiest and laziest kind of traducement- call 'em all Nazis! Even the pregnant mother and her unborn child were Nazis! We have an ultrasound image of the fetus doing a Hitler salute. No, we can't show it to you; just trust us. They had it coming.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

This is a really great video on the European perspective on this war.

 

[EvilRoy]

His game is that Western capitalism is the ultimate bad guy. Therefore, any entity that opposes Western capitalism is better. Therefore when any entity that opposes Western capitalism attacks a third party entity, that third party entity must be traduced in order to protect the reputation of the entity that opposes Western capitalism.

Or, if you like, the enemy of my enemy's enemy is my enemy too.

I mean, I guess that seems to be accurate relative to his behavior up to this point, but its just so logically perplexing. Like, trying to trash Ukraine and claim the situation isn't black and white is absolutely bizarre. They got invaded. They aren't the bad guy here. Saying "well there are Nazi's in Ukraine" kind of falls flat when the Ukrainian nazi's haven't done shit in years compared to the hundreds if not thousands of civilians the Russians have killed in a couple weeks.

Worse yet is failing to understand this war has indirectly lionized truly bad people. The Azov was an embarrassment. Now they're war heroes. They died protecting a city that's getting absolutely destroyed, with accusations that civilians are getting rounded up and shipped into Russia, or just getting outright killed by bombing. Nobody in Ukraine is gonna say "haha the nazi regiment died finally". Congratulations Russia, you made horrible people into heroes, that's gonna look great in the history books in a couple decades.

And THEN what about what this war is doing to Russia itself! If you want countries to oppose western influence then you should also want them to do it competently without outing themselves as extremely militarily weak and economically fragile! Sean should be enraged at Russia for making anti-west groups look pathetic! This foolish war may well be end end of Russia as a world power. Even if sanctions get lifted eventually, the world is moving on. All Russia has is natural resources and farms, too long without Russian supplies means everyone just changes buyers and moves on. China and India are both economic powerhouses, they aren't going to put up with Russia being a ball and chain for long and frankly aside from using Russia as a meatshield/lightningrod for hate there's no reason for them to care what happens to Russia longterm.

 

[tstorm823]

I'm not posting pictures of corpses here.

Posting pictures of corpses wouldn't do anything toward verifying the information. It's just fun how highly you hold the reporting of a random Twitter account that openly says they won't post anything.

 

[tstorm823]

They aren't the bad guy here.

In Seanchaidh's world, they are increasingly allies to the bad guy. They got invaded for wanting to be friends with the US, which to Seanchaidh is properly justified. Everything else is just trying to rationalize to us the simple, hyper-dogmatic stance he's taking.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Posting pictures of corpses wouldn't do anything toward verifying the information. It's just fun how highly you hold the reporting of a random Twitter account that openly says they won't post anything.

I wrote that it has been claimed. And indeed it has been claimed. Really went out on a limb there!

Like, trying to trash Ukraine and claim the situation isn't black and white is absolutely bizarre.

Numerous people who are not particularly friendly to Russia have been saying that a war like this one is a predictable result of how the US and NATO are acting towards Russia with respect to Ukraine since 2014. This is not 'bizarre' at all. Your wish for the real world to fit some trite narrative of good and innocent versus senseless evil is irrelevant. The people of Ukraine deserve better than for their country to be used as a sacrifice to damage Russia in various ways, but that is how they have been used by the United States intentionally with the apparent cooperation of their corrupt government (after the United States helped to overthrow and legitimize the overthrow of Yanukovych without meeting the Ukrainian constitutional requirements for removing him from office). That cannot be undone at this point. What can be prevented is further loss of life and the infliction of more suffering.

You can say whatever you like about how Russia has responded to the west's provocations, whether those provocations are legitimate cause for war or not, but the fact is that Russia is pursuing its interests following precedents set by the United States and its allies. And the hypocritical response by the United States and its allies are not being performed for the benefit of Ukraine but rather to strengthen the grip of the United States on world domination-- this is evident by the expendable way the United States treats its own population as well as its refusal to treat Russia's security concerns with anything other than stonefaced dismissal or contempt.

 

[Trunkage]

Says the "President" who cancelled all dissident opinion...

I would note that Rowling has spent a lot of time cancelling a demographic. The person using the term cancel culture is usually describing their own actions

 

[EvilRoy]

Numerous people who are not particularly friendly to Russia have been saying that a war like this one is a predictable result of how the US and NATO are acting towards Russia with respect to Ukraine since 2014. This is not 'bizarre' at all. Your wish for the real world to fit some trite narrative of good and innocent versus senseless evil is irrelevant. The people of Ukraine deserve better than for their country to be used as a sacrifice to damage Russia in various ways, but that is how they have been used by the United States intentionally with the apparent cooperation of their corrupt government (after the United States helped to overthrow and legitimize the overthrow of Yanukovych without meeting the Ukrainian constitutional requirements for removing him from office). That cannot be undone at this point. What can be prevented is further loss of life and the infliction of more suffering.

And that is the exact issue. You list the sins of Ukraine so readily, even going so far as to imply that Ukraine has a corrupt government that for some reason wanted to get invaded (despite the fact that the leader of the government has chosen to remain in the danger zone of the war under threat of assassination), all while trumpeting that the best way to end this conflict is for Ukraine to surrender to and accept the rule of an even more corrupt government that historically has not had a problem with hurting Ukraine. And you claim that this will prevent further loss of life and infliction of more suffering which, frankly speaking, does not align with the willingness of Russia to kill civilians up to this point. Is this situation complex when viewed from a wider angle? Certainly, all sorts of things happened to lead up to this point much of which really didn't involve Ukraine and Ukraine has been turned into an unwilling punching bag as a result. Is suggesting that Ukraine surrendering to Russia will stop the suffering of Ukrainians unbelievably naive? Absolutely. At no point up to this stage has Russia demonstrated any regard for civilian life, and there is no reason to believe surrendering to Russia will suddenly result in Russia changing their position on this matter. The question of whether Ukraine should defend itself is black and white. I would be more willing to accept your perplexing insistence that it is grey if Russian civilians were under fire but as it is only one country has been invaded, only one country is being thoroughly destroyed, and only one people are likely to continue to suffer in the event of surrender.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Yes, it is a democracy.

It's got issues, but it's hard to see they're significantly worse than countries which you vociferously support as democratic because there's a left-winger in charge.

Such as?

Of course, the "coup" is a sort of red herring. There have been free and fair elections since then.

There have been elections.

At best one can argue that many Russian-sympathising voters were unable to vote, but in the context that they were in territory occupied Russia and Russian-backed militias that refused to let the vote go ahead, it's not a good argument. Furthermore, the president deposed in the coup was immensely unpopular (both for corruption and unpopular policies) and would almost certainly have lost the subsequent election anyway.

Ah, that makes the US meddling in Ukraine's politics fine, then. The guy would presumably have lost an election after an organized campaign to make him toxic-- and the banning of political parties and unfriendly television stations in the immediate aftermath of the coup really demonstrates the confidence the coup-mongers had in the durability of that attitude. Such democracy.

One might point out the incumbent president lost the 2019 elections to a political outsider, accepted the fact and left office without a struggle. That's a pretty good sign of democracy - and better than the USA managed in its last election. The vague allusions of oligarchs is also quite ironic. Fun fact: the outgoing 2019 president had four times as much campaign money, and the other establishment stalwart three times as much campaign money, as the eventual winner. The big money candidates lost in the 2019 presidential election. Under normal circumstances, left-wingers should be cheering that. Instead...

Instead there is some cognizance of how shallow that analysis is-- and how it would imply that left-wingers ought to have celebrated the election of Donald Trump. Donald Trump was able to beat Jeb Bush AND Hillary Clinton: socialist hero!

But anyway, yes, left-wingers should totally cheer on that a rich guy who starred in a television show financed by a billionaire oligarch about being president was able to wrest power from an existing corrupt political establishment and turn it into another corrupt political establishment in a country that had banned outright any communist party and shut down opposition television stations (obviously not including the one that aired Zelensky's show, if it can even be called opposition). Truly inspiring. No need to consider what he actually did in office, whether that matched the campaign rhetoric, or indeed whether he was even capable of exerting authority without the agreement of his paymasters, or without constraints set by the influence of neo-Nazis, the United States, or western institutions more generally. His campaign officially had less money than some other guys, so he must be Thomas Sankara back from the dead.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Threatening to invade the Solomons is however as dumb as it gets: there's no chance of a happy ending from that.

Yeah but that was just one idiot commentator. Even the Australian Minister of Defense, who normally likes to talk a tough game when it comes to China, was extremely circumspect and very 'diplomatic effort is the answer'.

 

[Agema]

...but that is how they have been used by the United States intentionally with the apparent cooperation of their corrupt government...

Or here's another idea: other countries, governments and people have their own agency.

Ukraine isn't a "victim" of the USA. It's a country in between an orderly, prosperous, peaceful trading bloc, and a stagnant, corrupt, authoritarian dictatorship. Its people took a look at their options, and most decided they'd be better off forming more links with the trading bloc. At which point the stagnant authoritarian dictatorship invaded them. Sure, the USA and EU invested in that relationship, and Russia invested against that relationship. Not that we can hear a peep from you about Russia's interference and meddling in Ukraine - more than the West ever did - because apparently it's fine for everyone else to do it or something.

If Venezuala wants to buck the trend against the local bully, it's heroic. If Ukraine wants to do the same it's a villain: the only consistency in your position is that the USA must be opposed. If you really had any true moral objection against authoritarian nationalism, plutocrats and exploitation of the poor, you'd be starting at places like Russia, not the USA. But your moral compass here is, unfortunately, fucked.

Your analysis works mostly in screwed up, arrogant Americocentrism, where countries in the world are merely passively following along a trajectory that can only be altered by the USA. Just look at that shit about "Russia is pursuing its interests following precedents set by the United States and its allies" you say. Russia has a precedent of pursuing interests in this way older than the USA itself. Georgia 2008, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Czech Republic and Hungary 1950-60s, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states 1930-40s, Ukraine around 1920, and its own long campaign of empire building over centuries before than (including Poland, Crimea, Siberia, Ottoman Empire etc.). If we want to take the Moscow-Novgorod war as a start point, Russia had established its precedent before Columbus even set foot in the Americas, never mind the USA. The world does not revolve around the USA in the way you think, and most countries have long had their own notion of how to behave shittily without needing a lesson from the USA and its allies.

 

[Trunkage]

Or here's another idea: other countries, governments and people have their own agency.

Ukraine isn't a "victim" of the USA. It's a country in between an orderly, prosperous, peaceful trading bloc, and a stagnant, corrupt, authoritarian dictatorship. Its people took a look at their options, and most decided they'd be better off forming more links with the trading bloc. At which point the stagnant authoritarian dictatorship invaded them. Sure, the USA and EU invested in that relationship, and Russia invested against that relationship. Not that we can hear a peep from you about Russia's interference and meddling in Ukraine - more than the West ever did - because apparently it's fine for everyone else to do it or something.

If Venezuala wants to buck the trend against the local bully, it's heroic. If Ukraine wants to do the same it's a villain: the only consistency in your position is that the USA must be opposed. If you really had any true moral objection against authoritarian nationalism, plutocrats and exploitation of the poor, you'd be starting at places like Russia, not the USA. But your moral compass here is, unfortunately, fucked.

Your analysis works mostly in fucked up, arrogant Americocentrism, where countries in the world are merely passively following along a trajectory that can only be altered by the USA. Just look at that shit about "Russia is pursuing its interests following precedents set by the United States and its allies" you say. Russia has a precedent of pursuing interests in this way older than the USA itself. Georgia 2008, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Czech Republic and Hungary 1950-60s, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states 1930-40s, Ukraine around 1920, and its own long campaign of empire building over centuries before than (including Poland, Crimea, Siberia, Ottoman Empire etc.). If we want to take the Moscow-Novgorod war as a start point, Russia had established its precedent before Columbus even set foot in the Americas, never mind the USA. The world does not revolve around the USA in the way you think, and most countries have long had their own notion of how to behave shittily without needing a lesson from the USA and its allies.

No, no, no. People cant think for themselves or want their own things. That's ridiculous. They have to be controlled a deep state that is working against their interests

It's not like the exact tactic was used by antivaxxers during the pandemic. Or against BLM protester. 2020 election. JFK assassination. Both sides of the cold war. Almost every time an American say communist and not pointing to a country. Immigrants

 

[Gordon_4]

Yeah but that was just one idiot commentator. Even the Australian Minister of Defense, who normally likes to talk a tough game when it comes to China, was extremely circumspect and very 'diplomatic effort is the answer'.

Well invasion is a bold ass move. Manufacturing a coup and installing a friendly government would be much more efficient.

Then again it’s a probable flaw in our Strategic thinking that I was rather hoping we’d addressed. Despite culturally and politically being a Western nation we are geographically closer to Asia. We should have been making serious alliances with places like the Solomon Islands, but also India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc.