Russian war propaganda is at a hysterical fever pitch. Where anything less than the destruction of the Ukrainian state is defeat, and their enemies have been "zombified by satanic totalitarian ideology".
Completely fucking insane.
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
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Russian war propaganda is at a hysterical fever pitch. Where anything less than the destruction of the Ukrainian state is defeat, and their enemies have been "zombified by satanic totalitarian ideology".
Completely fucking insane.
On a mostly unrelated note, 77 years ago today a notable Austrian painter and fascist leader's rather noteworthy career came to an end by way of self-administered Walther PPK round to the head. And yet that gun is always associated with a fictional Brit who drinks too much.
Supposedly the same evening, the Soviets redecorated the Reichstag with a new flag, but that might have been early the next morning.
Supposedly the same evening, the Soviets redecorated the Reichstag with a new flag, but that might have been early the next morning.
When you endlessly accuse everybody else of swallowing war propaganda (even including independent Ukrainian and Russian outlets and survivor testimony), and then uncritically parrot war propaganda yourself, the hypocrisy becomes pretty crystal clear to everyone in the thread except you.
I've lost count of the number of things in here that you've dismissed or excused, which you yourself have condemned as unconscionable when the West did them.
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Are you offering a perfect illustration of my point intentionally, or unintentionally? I hope it's the latter, because that makes it funnier.
The human cost of the war?
I'm quite relieved to hear you say that; i was a bit concerned after you expressed zero concern for it for 90+ pages.
How the barbaric lessons learned in Syria came to haunt one small Ukrainian village
West of Kyiv, a Russian unit led by Syria veterans set up camp and began a drunken, murderous campaign
www.theguardian.com
Survivor testimony from Motyzhyn, a village in Kyiv Oblast where a Russian military unit (including Syrian war veterans) set up a torture camp, and held civilians as well as soldier POWs.
TW because its really grim stuff.
- May 6, 2020
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When it comes to people who want to play Putin apologist, they will win gold in the field of mental gymnastics.
They may get a participation medal in sound logic. Maybe
What has started to annoy me a great deal is that Russian billionaires are called oligarchs. Oligarch would imply that they actually have any political power, but all the perceived power people thing Russian billionaires have, comes from the state, Putin in this case. The moment they step out of line and do something Putin doesn't like, they'll lose their wealth and end up in prison or worse. They have zero power in reality, thus they're not oligarchs.
American billionaires are true oligarchs, they mostly run the country.
And American billionaires aren't called oligarchs. If you want to have separate terms for them, you could always call them plutocrats, I guess.
There's a historical factor here, in the sense that they probably were oligarchs once, and the name has stuck even though Putin has consolidated control and effectively shut them out to become dictator.
Although it's worth remembering that plenty of these super-rich businessmen are totally hand in glove with the Russian state: they potentially don't unseat Putin because they're part of the program. Furthermore, many of the politicians (including Putin) might not be running companies, but they very likely own substantial amounts of the Russian economy as basic shareholders.
Russia is a country that's at a complete dead end on just about every topic imaginable.
Geo politically Russia is at a dead end. Its a rapidly declining power and pretty much no one actually wants to be in their sphere of influence. I think just about every country within Russia's sphere of influence is there only because the Russian army had to military intervene against the people living in those countries. Even Lukashenko tried to prevent binding his country to Russia until his own lack of domestic support left him without any other option. In the best case scenario Russia can find a geo political role as China's junior partner but Russia's obsession with its imperial glory makes this a wildly unappealing prospect for them.
Culturally Russia is at a dead end. Idem Ditto. For as much as Russians express pride in the Russian world no one wants to be part of it. Ukraine is violently trying to resist getting pulled back into that world. As of now other states primarily see Russian culture as a byword for authoritarianism and corruption which decreases the pull Russian culture has on other nations.
Economically Russia is at a dead end. Even without the sanctions Russia's entire economy revolves around a finite resource that the rest of the world wants to move away from. Russia's habit of trying to blackmail countries through this finite resource only encourages those countries to move away from this resource faster. Even lifelines like China and India would only accept this resource at their own terms which limits the profits Russia could make of it.
Militarily Russia is as a dead end. Russia's military has been exposed as a paper tiger and their economic decline is going to make Russia's military weakness even more pronounced. More importantly the culture of corruption that Russia proudly fosters has proven itself toxic to any attempts to properly lead a military force.
Politically Russia is at a dead end. Its a gangster regime that can offer its citizens absolutely nothing except being vaguely better at managing Russia than the gansters who ruled it in the 90's. And just as Russia's economy revolves around a finite resource, so does its political arena revolve around a finite resource: Vladimir Putin. Staged terrorist attacks and decades of propaganda might have made Putin acceptable to the public but I don't think anyone in Russia actually likes the siloviki, just like the siloviki don't seem to like each other. So when the terminally ill Putin dies Russia will be controlled by bunch of gangsters without any mandate and who probably start fighting among themselves.
Geo politically Russia is at a dead end. Its a rapidly declining power and pretty much no one actually wants to be in their sphere of influence. I think just about every country within Russia's sphere of influence is there only because the Russian army had to military intervene against the people living in those countries. Even Lukashenko tried to prevent binding his country to Russia until his own lack of domestic support left him without any other option. In the best case scenario Russia can find a geo political role as China's junior partner but Russia's obsession with its imperial glory makes this a wildly unappealing prospect for them.
Culturally Russia is at a dead end. Idem Ditto. For as much as Russians express pride in the Russian world no one wants to be part of it. Ukraine is violently trying to resist getting pulled back into that world. As of now other states primarily see Russian culture as a byword for authoritarianism and corruption which decreases the pull Russian culture has on other nations.
Economically Russia is at a dead end. Even without the sanctions Russia's entire economy revolves around a finite resource that the rest of the world wants to move away from. Russia's habit of trying to blackmail countries through this finite resource only encourages those countries to move away from this resource faster. Even lifelines like China and India would only accept this resource at their own terms which limits the profits Russia could make of it.
Militarily Russia is as a dead end. Russia's military has been exposed as a paper tiger and their economic decline is going to make Russia's military weakness even more pronounced. More importantly the culture of corruption that Russia proudly fosters has proven itself toxic to any attempts to properly lead a military force.
Politically Russia is at a dead end. Its a gangster regime that can offer its citizens absolutely nothing except being vaguely better at managing Russia than the gansters who ruled it in the 90's. And just as Russia's economy revolves around a finite resource, so does its political arena revolve around a finite resource: Vladimir Putin. Staged terrorist attacks and decades of propaganda might have made Putin acceptable to the public but I don't think anyone in Russia actually likes the siloviki, just like the siloviki don't seem to like each other. So when the terminally ill Putin dies Russia will be controlled by bunch of gangsters without any mandate and who probably start fighting among themselves.
No.
Your individual comfort. You obviously don't give a single shit about the human cost of the war or you'd advocate the fastest way to ending it with the least escalation.
The quickest way for the invasion to end would be for Russia-- the only participant who actually decided for the invasion to happen, and who has full control over whether it continues-- to withdraw.
Capitulation, and ceding territory to the invader, would not end it. They would invade again in a few years, just as they invaded already a few years before the current invasion. The difference would be that if we followed your road-map, Ukraine would have also surrendered its armed forces, meaning Russia could annex far more of the country next time.
Plus... we've seen what Russia does when land falls into its control. You want more land subject to the utter, grotesque brutality of Bucha? Capitulation does not save the people living in the occupied territory; it renders them subject to mass torture, rape, and execution in the street.
EDIT: (On a side-note, I love the irony of the guy who has insinuated that survivor testimony is faked telling me I don't give a shit about the human cost. I'm the only one who's actually linked to testimony from the people affected by the war, while you've dismissed and denigrated what they've said. You couldn't be appearing more utterly uncaring if you tried).
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Cool, get on the phone with Putin.
It's not particularly relevant whether it's reliable unless your priority is demonizing one side or the other. If you want the war to end, you want the war to end. If you want the war to have a particular outcome whatever the cost, then you want the war to have a particular outcome whatever the cost. Truth is the first casualty of war unless it's a small collection of civilians speaking, apparently.
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Oh! I didn't realise we were only discussing options we personally had direct control over! I thought we were on a video-game forum!
Wait, so which one of us has phone numbers for Guterres, Zelensky, and Biden?
It's pretty fucking relevant, actually. It gives you an illustration of what being under Russian occupation actually means for Ukrainian towns and villages. It shows you what is actually involved when you argue we should cede territory to them, and then demilitarise so they can take over whatever territory they want later.
You yourself are more than happy to post instances of barbarity and atrocity for other conflicts. Was your sole concern in bringing up US war crimes "demonisation" then?
Indeed. The "cost" for your approach is a hundred more Buchas, and then you don't even attain peace anyway, as Russia invades again after Ukraine has demilitarised.
But we both know that the war ending isn't your primary concern. If Russia withdrew, without having attained its geopolitical ambitions to possess South and Eastern Ukraine, you'd be livid. Its that territorial ambition you're mainly concerned with, because in your zero-sum mindgame it somehow helps to combat US hegemony. And your utter disregard for whatever horrors the Russian army unleash shows that "whatever the cost" is absolutely, 100% your attitude towards attaining it.
We are. And neither of us is from Russia, whose leadership felt that what was happening in (relative) peacetime was undermining its security so much that they needed to strike first now or be struck later in a less tenable position.
The only way to make Russia just deciding to withdraw a solution is to convince Putin that he should. You support methods of doing so that directly harm people both in Russia and outside it and prolongs the war; a punitive approach that prioritizes western imperial interests. I support methods of doing so that minimize the duration and scope of the war and relieve the perception among Russian leadership that the west is constantly undermining the security of Russia, making long-term peace possible.
According to you.
Are you drunk?
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