An article by an American that sums up what I think

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The Ukrainian president is more the progressive type. He’s not a neo-Nazi.

He’s against the oligarchs of the Ukraine.

He isn’t perfect—but what politician is?

Before all this, he was seen as being inexperienced. Who knows what will happen as time proceeds.

---

Hopefully Some Folks In the United States
Will Come to Understand Neither New Striving
Democracies

Or Old
Ones
Are

Guaranteed

It's Sort of Like FRiEnDS
Unless Ya Treat Old FRiEnDS
As New FRiEnDS And New FRiEnDS

As Old FRiEnDS

They Tend to Go Away
For Those Who Don't Appreciate

The Little Things in LiFE, Yes iNHaLinG
Peace Exhaling LoVE iN JoY oF LiGHT

A Place That Putin And Trump Rarely
If Ever Go Just Giving Sharing Caring
Healing For All With Least Harm

WHAT THE REAL ALPHA
MALE NATURALLY DOES
AS A REAL HUMAN HERO

DOES TOO; WHETHER THEY
HAVE FAME AND FORTUNE OR NOT...

TRUE PEAS IN A POD AS TRUMP CALLS PUTIN
A GENIUS AND SAYS THE INVASION IS ALL ABOUT
HIS BIG LIE THAT HE DIDN'T LOSE A PRESIDENTIAL

ELECTION
HE DID LOSE
BY OVER 8 MILLION
LOSING, LOSING, LOSER VOTES...

Or What About Trump's Flunky He
Pardoned of Crimes Steve Bannon
Praising Putin For Putting Down

The LGBQT Community in Russia too...

True Peas in A Pod Humans Without Empathy
And Compassion Cells Next to Each Other in HeLL ON EartH

Just Pretending

To Be Free

SinKinG

Deeper
into the
Pit THeiR Homes...

Representative Democracies
Much Be Cherished As Both
Old and New FRiEnDS Are or They

Will Surely Go Away And Sink And Sink

And Sink
to the

Bottom
of Putin
And Trump Pits of Real
HeLL ON EartH For Anyone
Who Understands How Human And
Reality Works Shadow Through Wings Soaring Higher Now..

---

What most non-Americans as well as many Americans don't know is that the Washington Times is a right-wing propaganda organ and one can safely assume that whatever they print is intended to serve the Russian agenda whether or not anyone in Russia has seen the specific content or would agree with its effectiveness in supporting that agenda.

Of course on casual observation it appears entirely respectable. Don't be fooled!

Good call!

If you just look at each point made, you will see it sounds like reasonable observations. I don’t see anything twisted.

Well the most effective propaganda will seem the most reasonable to the casual reader.

The situation in Ukraine is complicated and a lot depends on one's point of view. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. I won't dispute that. The author is certainly not going to want to come across as a raving lunatic.

My issue with Putin per se has less to do with Ukraine than the supporters he has in the US. During the Cold War, almost nobody supported Russia but nowadays you have people, some in positions of considerable power, who openly express admiration for him and those who support his agenda. Not long ago, Edward Snowden would have been considered a traitor and Julian Assange would have been seen as an enemy of US interests. Nowadays it's not hard to find people in the US who defend those guys, who are clearly acting in support of Putin's agenda.

EDIT: Consider this. And no I see no irony in the fact that this politician is African-American.

You’re making me want to quote Luke Skywalker.

- We’re not “putting our own countries at risk”

- We’re not sending troops

- the Ukrainian government is significantly better than the Russian government, with Zelenskyy elected on an anti-corruption platform and his term to this point being characterised by taking power away from oligarchs. Crucially, Ukraine is a Democratic nation, while Russia is not, meaning that Ukraine has much more ability to improve.

There won’t be parades like this under a Putin regime.Ukrainian Pride day.

Yes I might have misread Biden/NATOs intentions. But what exactly does sending 7000 troops to Germany actually mean? If it's mean't as a provocation to Putin then it doesn't make sense. Putin's goal is to create a puppet states in Ukraine. He's not jostling to recreate the Soviet empire.

Characterizing the entire Ukrainian government and military as neo-nazis is misleading, but there is a grain of truth to this bulls***.
Ukraine has a serious problem with radical nationalism. Ever since the anti-Russian revolution in 2014, Ukrainian nationalists have become emboldened to attack and intimidate ethnic Russians. The Azov Battalion, for example, is a neo-nazi militias which was incorporated into the Ukrainian national guard in 2014. They and others like them have been used in the war in Donbas and have carried out multiple documented war crimes against ethnic Russians.

Further, the political landscape in Ukraine is dominated by right-wing, conservative, and centrist groups. The political left in Ukraine is basically powerless. This means that conservative and right-wing forces have an outsized influence on policy--somethinf which sets many Russian Ukrainians more than a little on edge. This was a major factor in motivating separatists in Donbas.

All of what I've said is milked for all it's worth by the Russian state and media. They exploit these things as justification for this imperialist expedition.

Plenty of Russians have legitimate concerns about the safety of Russians in Ukraine, given the state's willingness to abet anti-Russian militias.

Does this mean Ukraine's government is neo-nazi? No. Does this justify Russia's invasion? No. But neo-nazis are a real element of Ukraine's military and have been for 8 years. Denying this plays into the Russian narrative that western narratives erase all abuses on the part of Ukraine.

If some Russian apologist tries to cite neo-nazis as justification, point out to them that this invasion has put Russian Ukrainians in greater danger than ever from the threat of Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainian nationalists are among those armed to resist Russia's invasion. Expect ethnic violence.

The whole context of homosexuality debate in USA and former USSR is entirely different.

a) In USA racism and homophobia are lumped together. In former USSR it isn't. So when Putin accuses Ukraine of nationalism (whether said accusations are true or not) that has nothing to do with accusing it of homophobia. So the gay parade that you shown is a moot point as far as the subject of nationalism is concerned. Now, Putin's statement that Ukrain is more antisemitic than Russia happens to be correct: the survey posted on that site https://global100.adl.org/map confirms this. But I agree that this particular reason for invasion is silly: Ukrain is far from the top of the list on that site, so why doesn't Putin invade all those other countries? I still agree with his other grievances though, particularly the ones related to NATO expanding despite promising not to. In any case, back to the point: they don't lump together homophobia with nationalism in the former USSR, so the gay parade picture is a moot point. And Putin doesn't lump them together either. He views nationalism as a bad thing (at least in Ukrainian context) but he views homophobia as a good thing (at least as far as protecting kids from gay propaganda). So for him these are totally different things.

b) The root cause of negative attitude towards homosexuality in former USSR is totally different from the one in USA. In former USSR it is related to prison subculture. Now, both in former USSR and in USA passive gays in prison have lower status (in USA they are called punks, in USSR they are called petukhs -- which translates as roosters). But in USA punks can improve their status on occasion, while in former USSR they can't: whoever was rooster in one prison in former USSR would have to declare that they are rooster in a totally different prison in a totally different part of the former USSR many years later. If they fail to do so, and are discovered, they would be beaten and killed. Now just think about it: why would people in prison at a totally different end of former USSR would discover that someone was a rooster at a totally different end of a country 50 years earlier? Thats because information travels. But why would it travel across the whole country so well? Thats because the whole country lives by those prison notions, even the people that aren't in prison. And they have a good reason to do so. In particular, one of the prison notions is that whoever shake hands with a rooster will become a rooster themselvers. But in order to avoid shaking hands with roosters, you have to know who the roosters are. Thats why they are making sure to keep track of that information both in and out of prison. They even have an expression "who are you for life": meaning are you a rooster or a normal person. Now, why "for life"? Because prison status extends for the rest of the life, even the one outside prison. Even some words, and some expressions in Russian speech come from prison. And this is the source of negative attitude towards gays: gays would be roosters in prison, so they have to be outcasts outside of prison too. Whoever disagrees, would endanger themselves to become a rooster for life as well! Now, the prison culture in Russia and in Ukraine is identical. So, just like Russians hate gays because of prison culture, the Ukrainians hate gays too, for the same exact reason. The way I know that the prison culture is the same is that there is a former prisoner Vitaly Lozovsky, who has a website and possibly even wrote books trying to educate people about prison culture. He happens to live in Ukraine, and he went to prison in Ukraine as well And by the way here is food for thought: if Ukrainians aren't Russian, why are they following Russian prison culture? That just shows that their thinking pattern IS Russian (not just in this aspect but in other things too). But because they haven't really communicated much with the rest of the world, thats why they don't realize that certain concepts are really Russian concepts, they think they are universal. But if you were to put them in a room with either Western Europeans or Americans, then only will they see just how Russian they really are. But, back to the point: you can't claim that Ukraininans are tolerant to homosexuality; they can't be -- because if they were, they would basically defile themslves according to the prison culture they hold to. This point applies to Russians and Ukraininas equally.

One thing that angered Putin is that Ukraine was contemplating joining NATO, which means that NATO would come up to Russian borders. Putin repeatedly pointed out that back in the 90-s they promised that NATO won't expand not by an inch. Yet it expanded quite a bit after that. And the Ukraine is culmination of all this, since now NATO would actually touch Russian border.

So in this paragraph you are basically saying that you don't like that Americans don't all agree with each other. But agreeing for the same of agreeing is a bad thing. I for one like when people have multiple opinions, it shows free thought. And I dislike two party system, because it signifies herd mentality. I wish third party candidates could win elections once in a while.

I realize you are going to tell me that you aren't just wanting people to agree for the sake of agreeing but rather because of reasons X, Y and Z pertaining to Putin. But please re-read the first sentence of the above quote. In particular, re-read the following: My issue with Putin per se has less to do with Ukraine So in other words you just told us "my issue is not so much about the truth, but rather about having Americans agree with each other". So thats where you admitted to want people to agree for the sake of agreeing, with which I disagree.

They were FREE to have a parade.
The issue is freedom.
This is what happens to a Pride parade in Russia.
https://youtu.be/V_KKuy5A9CA

Well, you can argue that Russian olegarchs are "free" to earn money illegally, which they aren't "free" to do in USA, so in Russia there is more freedom.

The reason you don't make the above point is that you are concerned about freedom to do "good" things rather than "bad" things.

So your point about homosexuality is made under the assumption that homosexuality is a good thing. And this assumption goes contrary the whole entire social context in both Russia and the Ukraine (and the rest of the former USSR for that matter).

Now, within their context, this parade isn't about tolerance but about obscenity. So, in their context it simply means they don't do a good job controlling obscenity. To understand my point, imagine replacing homosexuality with either paedophilia or nudity. Because in their context it really falls into the same category. .

/\ It’s like that in other nations, in many places it’s not safe to be open.Once it was a diagnosis for a mental disorder here in the States.And not that long ago, an older neighbor was institutionalized and her children taken from her in the sixties.
Ukraines last pride parade had around 8,000 people and was peaceful.So attitudes are changing.And the cops didn’t drag anyone off.