Ukraine

[Silvanus]

Four Russian false flags that are comically easy to debunk

Analysts are poring over footage of purported standoffs and attacks paint Ukraine as the aggressor as Europe teeters on the edge of war

www.telegraph.co.uk

Both the DPR and LPR have been broadcasting footage they claim shows Ukrainian attacks. Metadata proves the footage isn't from the claimed timeframe. One of them isn't even from the country. So they're broadcasting false flags to justify the war. Here we have the reality of the Russian government narrative that this is to defend the separatist republics.

----

So reports coming out the Moskva may have been carrying nuclear warheads and a broken arrow incident may be declared. And something like 450+ of its 500 compliment of sailors may have died.
So that's probably not good for Russia.

D'you have a source for the Moskva carrying nukes? I can't find anything on that, and feel pretty dubious.

 

[Dalisclock]

Four Russian false flags that are comically easy to debunk

Analysts are poring over footage of purported standoffs and attacks paint Ukraine as the aggressor as Europe teeters on the edge of war

www.telegraph.co.uk

Both the DPR and LPR have been broadcasting footage they claim shows Ukrainian attacks. Metadata proves the footage isn't from the claimed timeframe. One of them isn't even from the country. So they're broadcasting false flags to justify the war. Here we have the reality of the Russian government narrative that this is to defend the separatist republics.

----



D'you have a source for the Moskva carrying nukes? I can't find anything on that, and feel pretty dubious.

A quick google search shows articles from the Sun and the Mirror. Which a causal web search tells me are both British Tabloids. I'm not seeing anything more from more legit news sources.

 

[SilentPony]

Four Russian false flags that are comically easy to debunk

Analysts are poring over footage of purported standoffs and attacks paint Ukraine as the aggressor as Europe teeters on the edge of war

www.telegraph.co.uk

Both the DPR and LPR have been broadcasting footage they claim shows Ukrainian attacks. Metadata proves the footage isn't from the claimed timeframe. One of them isn't even from the country. So they're broadcasting false flags to justify the war. Here we have the reality of the Russian government narrative that this is to defend the separatist republics.

----



D'you have a source for the Moskva carrying nukes? I can't find anything on that, and feel pretty dubious.

Ukrainian experts worry sunken Russian warship was carrying nukes

Russia suffered a massive blow when the flagship of its Black Sea fleet was targeted Thursday and went down off Sevastopol as it led Moscow’s naval effort in the seven-week conflict.

nypost.com

'Sunken Russian cruiser Moskva could have nuclear warheads'

In the evening of 13 April, it was reported that Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune missile hit the missile cruiser of the Russian Black Sea Fleet

www.business-standard.com

Experts say cruiser Moskva may have nuclear warheads | Travel news from DIP

The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moskva, is still fighting the fire and heading towards Sevastopol, a senior Pentagon official

dip.org.ua

Russia now says 1 crew member died, 27 are missing in the sinking of its warship

Experts say the loss of the Moskva — the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet — is significant both symbolically and militarily, even if it doesn't deal a decisive blow to Russia's overall operations.

www.npr.org

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/fears-sunken-russian-warship-moskva-was-carrying-nuclear-weapons/news-story/959170261e82bd43b5eb3c37fabf8dcd

 

[Seanchaidh]

So they're broadcasting false flags to justify the war. Here we have the reality of the Russian government narrative that this is to defend the separatist republics.

Guess that means the United States was correct to help neo-Nazis overthrow Yanukovych, and that people in the Donbas deserved to be killed by the Ukrainian armed forces.

edit:

wait, why does the url say "five" and the article headline say "four"? that's weird.

edit #2, since I've successfully undermined and collapsed the paywall

“If you're wondering if Kremlin's poorly executed war propaganda works on its domestic audience: sadly, it does," he said.

“Have been talking to young people from Russia's countryside. They don't follow the news intently but are convinced Ukraine is shelling DNR/LNR and wants to start a war.”

This is not something that the article has successfully argued didn't actually happen, which makes this an interesting sleight of hand. The existence of bad arguments for a conclusion doesn't mean that a conclusion is false. No attempt was made either to measure the impact of what was alleged by Bellingcat and the Telegraph to be poorly executed war propaganda (I'll assume that's true for the sake of argument but make no judgment otherwise) versus other information, like e.g. data from the OSCE or the history of the past eight years in which thousands of people had died in the Donbass. A picture is painted of amateurish propaganda being the only source of information that is contrary to the desired narrative of the ruling class of the United States without making an argument that establishes that is the case. Ironically, that is a pretty good propaganda technique.

 

[Chimpzy]

Apparently the Moskva might've also had a piece of the True Cross on board. And yet it sunk. Some might consider that a sign their cause is perhaps not righteous.

https://tass.com/society/1123855

 

[Hades]

Guess that means the United States was correct to help neo-Nazis overthrow Yanukovych, and that people in the Donbas deserved to be killed by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Or it means the Ukrainian population was correct to overthrow a would be dictator that was trying to betray the country. Yanukobych wasn't some poor victim toppled by America but an anti Ukrainian asset who lost any mandate he might once have had.

 

[Silvanus]

Guess that means the United States was correct to help neo-Nazis overthrow Yanukovych, and that people in the Donbas deserved to be killed by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Guess that means Russia was correct to hire neo-Nazis to invade and annex Ukraine, and that people in Ukraine deserved to be killed by the Russian armed forces.

Love that you'll gripe about being "misrepresented" in one post, and then a few days later come out with the mother of all misrepresentations.

edit #2, since I've successfully undermined and collapsed the paywall
This is not something that the article has successfully argued didn't actually happen, which makes this an interesting sleight of hand. The existence of bad arguments for a conclusion doesn't mean that a conclusion is false.

That's correct. So in short: you don't give a shit that the governments of LPR and DPR are broadcasting deliberately false accounts of attacks to their own people to justify the invasion, then? Because that unequivocally did happen.

 

[Silvanus]

Ukraine conflict: 'Russian soldiers raped me and killed my husband'

The BBC has uncovered first-hand evidence of Russian soldiers raping and killing civilians in a village west of Kyiv.

www.bbc.co.uk

Survivor testimony about the widespread use of rape as a tool of intimidation and population control by Russian soldiers in Bucha.

 

[Generals]

Guess that means the United States was correct to help neo-Nazis overthrow Yanukovych, and that people in the Donbas deserved to be killed by the Ukrainian armed forces.

The United States provided what kind of help to overthrow Putin's new puppet? It sure wasn't troops and weapons like Putin gave the new dictators in Donbas. It's those dictators who started an armed conflict which caused the deaths of 14 000 Civilians (both sides included). The blood is entirely on the hands of Putin.

 

[Silvanus]

The United States provided what kind of help to overthrow Putin's new puppet? It sure wasn't troops and weapons like Putin gave the new dictators in Donbas. It's those dictators who started an armed conflict which caused the deaths of 14 000 Civilians (both sides included). The blood is entirely on the hands of Putin.

The US did indeed provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to several groups (including New Citizen) that were involved in Euromaidan. Euromaidan would undoubtedly have still resulted in the overthrow or Yanukovych even without that finance: that's a relative drop in the ocean.

And, of course, Yanokovych would never have had his position in the first place had he not rigged an election; and the puppet republics in Donetsk and Luhansk would never have been established if disguised Russian troops hadn't illegally fought to create them.

 

[Seanchaidh]

And, of course, Yanokovych would never have had his position in the first place had he not rigged an election

Which election? Not the one relevant to his overthrow by neo-Nazi street thugs. https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/02/08/yanukovych-won-get-over-it/

He won after the Orange Revolution fizzled into just a mechanism to promote privatization and economic decline. So it became necessary for western meddlers to make the conflict more explicitly about specifically anti-Russian nationalism.

The US did indeed provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to several groups (including New Citizen) that were involved in Euromaidan. Euromaidan would undoubtedly have still resulted in the overthrow or Yanukovych even without that finance: that's a relative drop in the ocean.

Neo-nazi snipers gunning down cop and marcher alike and then blaming it on the government is powerful in its own right, of course. But your conclusion is hasty and very questionable for a variety of reasons, not least that dollar amounts are not so directly relevant: targeted in the right place, relatively little can go a very long way. Also that there were a wider variety of western NGOs meddling with the same goals; actions by "pro-democracy" organizations are a great way to launder subjugation under the United States.

Love that you'll gripe about being "misrepresented" in one post, and then a few days later come out with the mother of all misrepresentations.

Hardly.

You've repeatedly denied the importance of US influence in the Euromaidan and Ukrainian aggression against the Donbass-- remember, Donbass is part of Ukraine, so Ukraine has a right to go in and slaughter the separatists. Think of the Budapest memorandum! There are existing borders whose sanctity must be upheld, Silvanus! They are not just an arbitrary social construct which can be challenged by the people they affect!

I am, at worst, slightly overstating your position within the confines of the ambiguities of your statements on the matter-- and in a way to highlight how the implications of your statements contradict more general things that you probably believe. You can hardly blame me that you seem to believe both P and ~P.

On the other hand you've repeatedly claimed not only that I support the Russian invasion of Ukraine (I'm not in the business of telling the targets of my country's aggression how to respond to that aggression and thus take no position on that) but that I also support Ukraine's annexation in its entirety when so far as I know that's not even the stated aim of the Russian government; you crossed the line between reasonable misinterpretation and the absurd then traveled around the world and crossed it again.

That's correct. So in short: you don't give a shit that the governments of LPR and DPR are broadcasting deliberately false accounts of attacks to their own people to justify the invasion, then? Because that unequivocally did happen.

According to NED-funded Bellingcat-- so not so unequivocally. But apparently you'll take the allegations of a United States propaganda outlet at face value-- unequivocally!-- if you like what they say. Were there lies on the LPR's Telegram? I don't know. Was Ukraine (still) shelling the Donbass republics? You don't care. And why should you? You have a villain that-- for once!-- your government isn't a part of or responsible for: a cause for rejoicing if ever there was one. And condemning the foreign adversaries and approving the measures taken against them by the most powerful empire in history slightly burnishes your credibility among chauvinist sociopaths when fruitlessly condemning your domestic atrocities: a double win of sorts.

 

[Silvanus]

Which election? Not the one relevant to his overthrow by neo-Nazi street thugs. https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/02/08/yanukovych-won-get-over-it/

The 2004 election (y'know, the one in which Yanukovych's opponent was poisoned). He didn't take his mandate from that clumsy rigged poll, but his public stature and the funding he built in the intervening years created the platform for 2010.

I'm a little interested in your rationale for declaring his vote-rigging irrelevant, though, considering you're willing to disregard Zelensky's mandate on the basis that....a predecessor from a different party altogether was installed following Euromaidan. It's quite a difficult double standard to keep up with.

Neo-nazi snipers gunning down cop and marcher alike and then blaming it on the government is powerful in its own right, of course. But your conclusion is hasty and very questionable for a variety of reasons, not least that dollar amounts are not so directly relevant: targeted in the right place, relatively little can go a very long way. Also that there were a wider variety of western NGOs meddling with the same goals; actions by "pro-democracy" organizations are a great way to launder subjugation under the United States.

It's rather hastier to conclude with such utter certainty that a minuscule amount of money like that decided the outcome of both a national protest movement and several subsequent elections. In which the big-money candidate (the one you favour) was defeated by the outsider with comparatively little financial capital.

Hardly.

You've repeatedly denied the importance of US influence in the Euromaidan and Ukrainian aggression against the Donbass-- remember, Donbass is part of Ukraine, so Ukraine has a right to go in and slaughter the separatists. Think of the Budapest memorandum! There are existing borders whose sanctity must be upheld, Silvanus! They are not just an arbitrary social construct which can be challenged by the people they affect!

I am, at worst, slightly overstating your position within the confines of the ambiguities of your statements on the matter-- and in a way to highlight how the implications of your statements contradict more general things that you probably believe. You can hardly blame me that you seem to believe both P and ~P.

They're not being "challenged by the people they affect", though. An insurgency has been artificially created by a foreign invasion force; who entirely control the policy of the "separatist" government, and who have been literally disguising their own military personnel to infiltrate the area. And now we find out those separatist governments--- who're again back to rigging elections etc-- have also been broadcasting false flags to their own people.

You're willing to discount Euromaidan on the basis that there were... a few hundred thousand US dollars that ended up there. But you're simultaneously willing to believe the Donbas separatist movements are entirely organic and possess a true mandate, despite the enormously larger amount of Russian finance involved there, as well as the direct military interference and disguised Russian soldiers breaking international law to shore it up. Russian involvement in the Donbas republics utterly dwarfs US involvement in Euromaidan, a thousand times over. These two positions are yet again a stunning double standard.

On the other hand you've repeatedly claimed not only that I support the Russian invasion of Ukraine (I'm not in the business of telling the targets of my country's aggression how to respond to that aggression and thus take no position on that) but that I also support Ukraine's annexation in its entirety when so far as I know that's not even the stated aim of the Russian government; you crossed the line between reasonable misinterpretation and the absurd then traveled around the world and crossed it again.

You are not able to divorce the vague statements you've made about how we should acquiesce to Russian demands from what that means in practice.

It means annexation. It's already been pointed out several times now that annexation was the goal (remember the information you smugly said you had no intention of looking for, when it was pointed out it had already been provided?)

Russian state TV explicitly states that the idea of "Ukraine" must be destroyed, and that the successor state cannot be allowed to be neutral; must be forced to be dependent on Russia. Putin himself, on live TV, comes out with a spiel about how "Ukraine" shouldn't exist. And Russian soldiers openly state to the citizens of the areas they are occupying that they had orders to take the capital and depose the government. And still you're here saying they're not trying to annex the country, juuuuust like you repeated ad nauseum that the troops all along the border were just there for drills. Christ, it gets old, the willing gullibility.

According to NED-funded Bellingcat-- so not so unequivocally. But apparently you'll take the allegations of a United States propaganda outlet at face value-- unequivocally!-- if you like what they say. Were there lies on the LPR's Telegram? I don't know. Was Ukraine (still) shelling the Donbass republics? You don't care. And why should you? You have a villain that-- for once!-- your government isn't a part of or responsible for: a cause for rejoicing if ever there was one. And condemning the foreign adversaries and approving the measures taken against them by the most powerful empire in history slightly burnishes your credibility among chauvinist sociopaths when fruitlessly condemning your domestic atrocities: a double win of sorts.

Bellingcat has one of the best records with debunking Russian state crime in the past, correctly identifying Russian state assassins. In this case the conclusion is based on easily-accessible metadata, so it's not even under dispute. I consider it credible because it's got a proven track record, and because it perfectly tracks with numerous other truly independent outlets. Unlike any source you've provided from the start.

I consider shelling residential areas to be a despicable act regardless of who perpetrates it. Both the Ukrainian government and the DPR/LPR were guilty of doing so, and therefore of breaking Minsk. I actually already have said so; I've been consistent on this. The extent is unknown, considering the DPR and LPR are now known to be falsifying their broadcasts of such events.

I also have a sense of perspective. I know that Russian targeting of civilians has been about a hundred magnitudes larger than anything Ukraine has done in Donbas. Mass executions in the street, hands tied, shots to the backs of the head; mass rape; intentional targeting of hospitals, schools, kindergartens.

And there, you don't care. And you haven't been consistent in the slightest: You don't even acknowledge it. Every time, you'll ignore, downplay, excuse, or resort to rank whataboutery, before sinking back to vaguely advocating acquiescence. I mean, you don't even actually care about the shelling of Donbas; it's a convenient casus belli for the Russian government and its puppets.

 

[Agema]

You've repeatedly denied the importance of US influence in the Euromaidan and Ukrainian aggression against the Donbass-- remember, Donbass is part of Ukraine, so Ukraine has a right to go in and slaughter the separatists. Think of the Budapest memorandum! There are existing borders whose sanctity must be upheld, Silvanus! They are not just an arbitrary social construct which can be challenged by the people they affect!

Under what democratic mandate did the Donbas rebels demand secession?

Did the Donbas rebels not exercise aggression first - both against Ukraine and their Donbas fellows who did not want secession? Do you really propose that they have a right to strip their provinces from Ukraine without even the basics of seeking democratic assent from those two provinces? Does it not trouble you at all that Russia supplied them with manpower and arms to help carry this out?

When they did hold a poll, should we respect a vote conducted with ambiguous wording, with minimal oversight for fairness, where many "loyalists" were driven out from the area polled, and there were widespread accusations of fraud and intimidation? What does even running such a poll say about the honesty and integrity of those organising it?

 

[Seanchaidh]

The 2004 election (y'know, the one in which Yanukovych's opponent was poisoned). He didn't take his mandate from that clumsy rigged poll, but his public stature and the funding he built in the intervening years created the platform for 2010.

I'm a little interested in your rationale for declaring his vote-rigging irrelevant, though, considering you're willing to disregard Zelensky's mandate on the basis that....a predecessor from a different party altogether was installed following Euromaidan. It's quite a difficult double standard to keep up with.

That's pretty simple. I never claimed Yanukovych's government was democratic; I've claimed he was elected. Neither have I said that Zelensky was not elected. They were both elected in nominally fair processes... if you consider the various ways in which an oligarchy maintains power in a society that has elections "fair", and if you disregard the processes which disallow certain candidates from receiving a hearing, manipulate public opinion, and so on. Yanukovych being an arm of Ukrainian oligarchy like Poroshenko and Zelensky after him is not a justification for the United States to help neo-Nazis overthrow him. By your very loose standards, Yanukovych's government was democratic. And by mine, neither his government nor Zelensky's were or are.

Zelensky, notably, was elected after a bunch of political parties were banned and opposition television stations shut down. And he rode to power on the strength of a career in media. That career in media, to put it another way, benefited from the elimination of his competition by government decision. What a bold outsider! lol

Amusingly, everything you say about Zelensky to try to make it seem like I should like him you can also say about Donald fucking Trump. That's when you know you have a strong argument!

An insurgency has been artificially created by a foreign invasion force

You draw this conclusion without making any real argument for it. It is as if being associated with Russia at all is enough for you. So by the same token, Rojava was an invention of the US State Department. There is your consistency, maybe you'll find it somewhere in the far future.

It means annexation. It's already been pointed out several times now that annexation was the goal (remember the information you smugly said you had no intention of looking for, when it was pointed out it had already been provided?)

The leaps in logic that you make might be fascinating were it not for how baldly they seek to downplay western involvement and exaggerate Russian statements about their aims. Given the obviousness of that pattern, they instead are just tedious. "Annexation is the goal" is not "Russia won't be satisfied with neutrality".

It's like you expect people to be impressed by your ability to collapse a situation in your head to a simplistic good guys and bad guys narrative, bulldozing whatever facts might stand in the way. To be fair, there are some that apparently are impressed by the rigidity with which you can hold to a state department line.

I also have a sense of perspective. I know that Russian targeting of civilians has been about a hundred magnitudes larger than anything Ukraine has done in Donbas.

And you got this sense of perspective from listening to western media. Just like you got your idea that the Euromaidan coup would have happened without western involvement even though it wasn't supported by a majority of the people of Ukraine even with western involvement. Maybe I should interpret that as an admission that the will of the people of Ukraine had little to do with the success or failure of Euromaidan. Is that not correct?

This sense of perspective is alloyed by disregarding video evidence of Ukrainian troops using medical infrastructure in a military capacity (ambulances as troop transports live on an Al-Jazeera broadcast), ignorance or dismissal of allegations that the Ukrainian military tried to prevent civilian evacuation from places like Mariupol in order to manufacture the narrative you've decided is your "sense of perspective".

Greek Refugee From Mariupol: "Ukrainian Soldiers Stopped And Threatened Us, Russian Soldiers Calmed Us Down" (VIDEO)

The shocking moments that were experienced when escaping the horror of the war were described by ethnic Greeks originally from Sartana on the outskirts of

greekcitytimes.com

And how does your "sense of perspective" compare what has occurred in Ukraine to what was perpetrated by NATO in Libya or Iraq or Yugoslavia?

Bellingcat has one of the best records with debunking Russian state crime in the past

They are a source for the wider western mainstream media landscape to launder US propaganda through a nominally independent mouthpiece. That's not the same thing. Also, just as a matter of method, a list of high profile hits isn't a measure of reliability. What you're really showing here is that they have an anti-Russian orientation. Wow, great. So reliable.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Under what democratic mandate did the Donbas rebels demand secession?

Not a lot that happened in 2014 was achieved by a tidy democratic process. But that doesn't mean you should simply dismiss it and fire the rocket artillery. The overthrow of Yanukovych was hardly a democratic mandate; Yanukovych fled because neo-Nazis were threatening to kill him despite an agreement between him and the opposition. The burning of anti-Maidan protestors in Odessa was not the result of an opinion poll or local initiative: it was just plain murder. Ukraine was already at the stage of might makes right before the separatists separated. It is weird to demand tidy democratic processes from people in a place where that is simply not common practice and in a situation that is obviously ruled by guns and not ballots.

 

[Hawki]

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/vladimir-putins-easter-ultimatum-to-ukrainian-soldiers-in-mariupol-surrender-or-die/news-story/4f6eea87b7b5d34c7d60547710df65a6

 

[Agema]

Ukraine was already at the stage of might makes right before the separatists separated.

I think you would not have a moment's objection against the average public uprising or social disorder where it served your political interests. I don't recall you fuming at the riots caused by the George Floyd killing across the USA in 2020 and their attempt to use force to drive change, sidestepping proper political process.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I think you would not have a moment's objection against the average public uprising or social disorder where it served your political interests. I don't recall you fuming at the riots caused by the George Floyd killing across the USA in 2020 and their attempt to use force to drive change, sidestepping proper political process.

..?

If your point is that it matters to me whether it's neo-Nazi murderers and US imperialists who are driving a protest versus people who just want the police to stop killing so many people, then oh, no, I'm quite guilty. I am indeed not a process-fetishizing liberal. I'm not this guy:


Are you that guy? I would not have thought so.

But the BLM protests never actually overthrew the government, did they? They never even threw petrol bombs into a building where they had cornered a bunch of pro-police counter-demonstrators-- they were absolutely saintly compared to the Euromaidan.

Anyway, you raised an interesting idea, I guess, but you didn't really engage the point I made. My approval or disapproval of Euromaidan is quite irrelevant to whether Ukraine was in a situation of might making right. Street violence bubbled over into overthrowing the government by threatening the president with murder. But John Kerry was there to smile and say it was fine, actually, and so deftly avoided the objections of process liberals who would accordingly never look into the matter further.

Sure, I think that Nazi violence in Charlottesville is bad and BLM burning down a police station is good; I think that Nazis achieving their goals is bad and BLM marchers destroying some property and achieving their goals is good, and BLM marchers destroying some property and failing is acceptable, because I don't put following the correct process ahead of everything else-- especially not when the 'correct' process is offering a mixture of jack and shit because the oligarchs want a strong police state (because might must make right for them).

That's not really controversial, though, is it? Not if we understand what the processes that operate in our modern world actually are. They're not perfectly democratic. They're not even close to that. They are mostly a mechanism to enforce the will of property owners, especially the wealthiest of them, and if ever they should deviate from that function, they are usually corrected or abolished. We simply do not live in a world in which democratic processes that would be worthy of liberal worship even exist. Not in our countries, at any rate. At best we have nominal, managed democracies with laws tailored to the whims of a predatory capitalist class.

Ultimately what made US meddling in Ukraine bad-- among a few other things, but mainly this-- was that its objective was to subjugate Ukraine to the United States and other western interests and its method was promoting hatred between Ukrainians based on spoken language and ethnicity. Second in importance is that it would have the predictable result of the war we're seeing now. And I know it was predictable because people literally predicted it. That the Euromaidan sidestepped the proper process for transitioning between governments is less of an issue than either of those, though the fact that it did so with the help of US imperialists and neo-Nazis is an indirect indication that very little about it would end up being good (admirable though some of their goals were-- the admirable goals never being achieved, of course, and now I can't even find the list of them on Euromaidan press like I could a month or so ago, which makes sense as they've shifted to promoting Ukrainian war propaganda and a list of unrealized objectives about judicial and police reform and curbing corruption does the opposite of helping with that-- but hopefully I'm just stupid and missing it for some reason).

Anyway, yeah, I'm not a process liberal. Go figure.

 

[Hades]

I think what Sean and others in his particular stream of the left suffer from is ''anti American exceptionalism'' where they believe the US is the only actor on the world stage and that no one else has any agency.

Because in this mindset the Ukrainian people don't have any agency them ousting their leader after that leader betrayed them to Moscow can only be US intervention rather than the Ukrainians themselves not wanting to be owned by Russia. Just as how people who rise up against dictators who brutalized them for decades can't genuinely be opposed to the brutal dictatorship but are instead just means of US intervention.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

I think what Sean and others in his particular stream of the left suffer from is ''anti American exceptionalism'' where they believe the US is the only actor on the world stage and that no one else has any agency.

Because in this mindset the Ukrainian people don't have any agency them ousting their leader after that leader betrayed them to Moscow can only be US intervention rather than the Ukrainians themselves not wanting to be owned by Russia. Just as how people who rise up against dictators who brutalized them for decades can't genuinely be opposed to the brutal dictatorship but are instead just means of US intervention.

They act like United States is the main player against Russia and not the you know...the people fighting Russia