Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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magz 2 Mikah 0

Repeating: What American provocation and why do you consistently ignore Ukrainians themselves?

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to know that putin invaded Ukraine under false pretences of liberating it from Nazis by the supposed request of Ukrainians.

That’s not the USA doing sweet F all anything to force putin into bs-ing Russians and the world about invading Ukraine while his real reason is a last ditch effort at stitching the old Soviet Union back together so he can feel like a big man before he kicks the bucket.

magz 3 Mikah 0

(I think you can see where the final score is going..)

In the meantime, Lyman has been officially claimed by Ukrainian forces.
It's an important railway hub, logistic gateway to Donbas.

This thread makes me think if I do move this Winter or so And I rent a big enough house And I’m going to sublet half of it instead of trying Airbnb, maaaybe I’ll look into renting it to a Ukrainian refugee family IF they can afford it. :/ Many who arrive here quickly realize there’s nowhere to live and that rent is astronomically expensive so they peace out to the prairie provinces. But never know, maybe some wealthier people Or two small families willing to cram into a space to split the bills or something.

More accurate to say that I assumed they weren't complete idiots, if it was the Russians it is so far beyond a strategic mistake as to be unbelievable. I still hold that assumption and I think it is on you to prove that they are complete idiots and would make such an enormous sacrifice for so little potential gain. Since you ignore my point about the future value those pipelines had, assume that European governments will forever be antagonistic towards Russia and focus on the fact that there is no gas flowing right now, I don't think this line of argument can go any further.



Fear of invasion in particular, war in general, border insecurity and foreign interference in their politics. Anyone with half a brain fears these things, but the Russians are particularly sensitive for good reason.



Such is the price of modern war, this completely avoidable war they feel they have no choice but to wage.



Looks like I was right. You don't understand the Russians and as such cannot sympathise with them. Russia, the Soviet Union and even the Tsars now are blurred beyond comprehension for you. Russians were as much a victim of that evil ideological empire, the Soviet Union as Poland, if not much worse. After centuries of invasion, the worst, most depraved period in their history - the Soviet period - was imposed on them in a foreign-organised (Germany, for those who don't know) putsch, overthrowing not the Tsars, but the first democratic government Russia had ever had. Then the Soviets worked their progressive "improvements" upon the population, need I go into that? Russians are a people broken in ways most can't even dream of. Everything but basest survival had been taken from them - they needed time to heal. And in their time of need what did the West do after Russians emerged into the sunlight after the Soviet Union collapsed? Yeah.



Yep. Pretty much what I expected.



We discussed this months ago, no? First, unwarranted NATO expansion and America, giggling like a schoolgirl, placing expensive first-strike capable weapon systems everywhere, pointing at Moscow. Then the attempt to bring Ukraine half-way under the NATO/EU umbrella with the association agreement and when the Russians countered that with a very generous aid package wanting Ukraine to remain neutral - the US orchestrated a bloody coup in Ukraine to scuttle the deal. That is when the war really began - and Russia annexed Crimea. It was simmering for a while after that, delayed by Trump not being onboard the neocon American empire train (yeah I've been on top of this since before Trump was elected, many people either don't know or have forgotten how important the Ukraine situation was in the 2016 election and how Trump's election delayed what is happening now). But the fraudulent Russiagate thing crippled Trump's ability to permanently defuse the Ukraine problem by killing off its entry into NATO. Biden comes to power and Russia, having lost all hope of diplomatic solutions to its problems finally sends in the troops properly.

Why does Russia care about Ukraine? If Ukraine is turned from neutrality: Russia loses its Black Sea fleet, America erects weapon systems all over the Ukrainian border and Russia loses confidence both at sea and its ability to defend its Western borders properly. Any potential conflict with the West - including things that at first glance aren't directly contra the USA, like intervention in Syria, it can no longer perform, because any war with NATO is automatically lost if Ukraine is turned.

It becomes just another state bent under the questionable rule of the Americans, like most of Europe but probably treated much worse because of the American elite's demented hatred of all things Russia.

I also didn't forget the Ukrainians. You can't always get what you want in politics (ignoring the reams of money and propaganda the West sent to Ukraine to make them "want"). I recall in our conversations criticising the succession of Ukrainian governments both for being more corrupt than Russia and for not playing it smarter and rebuffing American/EU attempts to move them away from neutrality. They are sure as hell paying for that mistake now.

Anyway I must sleep now, can pick it up again tomorrow.

I can understand much of your views are based on the trauma of the USSR, but many of your personal fears of Russian invasion lack logic just a few points:-

1. Logically there is zero possibility of Russia invading Poland. Russia has a population of 145 million they would have to fight there way through tens of millions of people. They are clearly struggling to take E Ukraine.

The only reason they got there in the first place (leaving aside the initial Stalin / Hitler pact) was fighting the retreating Germans in WW2. At the time there was no Polish army or any E European army, it was just USSR v Germany over the enormous Nazi occupied landmass and Germany was retreating

2. Even if successful what are they going to do if they got there? Is Poland sitting on a sea of oil? What’s in it for them? Why would they bother? Would they really think 21st century non Slavic catholic Poland is going to greet the Russian military nicely?

3. Many are ignoring Ukrainian joint involvement in the crimes of the USSR. Ukraine was an equal partner many Soviet presidents were Ukrainian. Imagine an empire having a foreigner as its president? The Uk in the 19th century having an Indian PM? France an Algerian president? Ukraine ran the place with Russia

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion ... #read-more

4. Russia are doing so badly part of me thinks NATO /US will let Russia take the Donbas just to justify their arms industry. They lost billions when the Berlin Wall fell.

Fortunately, yes.
It's sheer force that is stopping them.

The Allies accepted Russia to help them defeat the Nazis and sent them weapons to achieve it.
If there weren't for the Allies, Germans wouldn't be retreating.

Ahem, Poland is Slavic, if you didn't know it.
Why do they keep bothering with Ukraine who also did not "greet them nicely?"

First rulers of Rus' were Norse, Catherine the Great was German, Stalin was Gerogian... It's a British thing to care for ethnicity that much.

Luckily, there are also other forces in politics.

Russians personally are not that stupid but their decision-making process is based on corruption and fear of whims of those above one in the pecking order.

I don't sympathize with fear of invasion?
I experience it all the time. And it does not make me in any way support an idea of pre-emptively invading my neighbours.

Why do you "sympathize" with fear of invasion of the invader but not fear of invasion of those actually invaded? Why do you care for border security of those who violate borders of others but not of those whose borders are being violated?

It's not "modern" war. "Modern" war was Iraq or Afghanistan. Modern war is Ukrainian counter-offensive. Precise and well coordinated, trying to avoid civilian targets.
Russian tactics is WWI-like: more cannon fodder!
You still believe Russians genuinely wanted to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine - after all they've done to them?

Wow. Just wow. I see you reject the standard history course for some very "alternative" sources.
What is true in your post here is that Russians are indeed victims of their history and they need a lot of time to heal. But the healing process is far from advanced and it's being largely reversed right now - by their beloved Putin and his KGB/FSB band themselves.

Yeltsin agreed to NATO expansion and no first-strike weapons were ever deployed on the new members' territories. You again re-tell this story as if Ukrainians never had any opinion on what is happening to them and what course their country takes. Propaganda is not as almighty as you paint it. Ukrainians, similarily to Poles, have experienced both "Russkyy Mir" and democracy first-hand. They know the difference on their own skin.

After the "coup" in 2014, Provisional Government organized new elections (OSCE-observed, that's important in this part of the world, it's what the Orange Revolution was all about) as soon as it was technically possible. They lost it, and gave power to their successsors without any incident. All Ukrainian governments since then were legitimately elected.

Again: Why? Why do you keep denying middle-sized nations a right to self-determine?

I didn't say that magz, you are putting words in my mouth.



I do. I even said as much. Argue with me and what I say, not what you think I am saying.



There is much to potentially debate there, but I can't honestly say I know for certain what is going on. There is so much propaganda I doubt anyone truly knows. Some analyses suggest that Russians were exceptionally careful in the beginning and continue to be so in some areas, but as it went on desperate Ukrainian defenders started using human shields - and in the choice between bombing military targets surrounded by civilians and giving up and going home - they chose to stay. I don't know if I'd do the same, but staying is a choice Western powers have made in the past - except the media instead puts all the blame on those using human shields, so I don't think we can much criticise.



As I've said in months past, I think that was a secondary objective, a way to shore up domestic and some international support with a more "moral" objective than plain self-defence. There is certainly a desire to protect there, but alone it was not reason enough to go to war. The main objective was always keeping NATO weapons and troops out of Ukraine.



Which part do you dispute?



I'm not sure the healing process ever really began and that is largely the fault of the West, the USA in particular. Misunderstandings, insults, absurdly aggressive diplomacy has put Russia into an very defensive, borderline paranoid posture (paranoid even by Russian standards) and this is why we are here, watching Ukraine get turned into paste.

You claim Poles can't "think straight" about Russia.
Asked what you mean by this, you say ability to sympathize with Russians.
Asked what exactly to sympathize with, you point out fear of invasion.

How am I putting words in your mouth?

Who cares what Yeltsin did or didn't do? If I find a Polish collaborator would that justify anything and everything that happened to Poland in the last century?

You are technically correct about the weapons, but as I recall Russia's complaint was that the systems deployed could be trivially reconfigured for a first strike.



They are caught between a superpower and a former superpower, it is not crazy to say that their options are limited.



The following elections aren't really important, the coup served its purpose, which was scuttle the Russian diplomatic attempt to keep Ukraine neutral. It also sent a strong message to Russia AND Ukraine : If Russia succeeds diplomatically in Ukraine - Ukraine's government gets overthrown. You were saying something about the will and opinions of Ukrainians were you not? Well, they are allowed to choose any future they like, as long as it's a future the USA approves of and this is true of everyone without the power to oppose the USA while it still exists.

Ignore it, I misinterpreted it. For some reason I thought you were saying that I had implied that you had no fear of invasion, which makes little sense on the face of it. Everyone sane has some fear of that, what is lacking is the ability to sympathise with Russia's fears and how the actions of the Western USA/EU/NATO Empire have pushed their buttons.

Where?

"Some analyses" from Kremlin experts, I understand. Ukrainian people dared to be on the line of invasion.
Why did Ukrainians call for Donbas evacuation if they were supposed to need human shields? Why do they invite international investigators to their territorry?

Consistent attributting internal processes to external conspiracies.

See the comment above. of themselves Should we all have tiptoed around Russia and let them take everything they wanted? Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, Kyiv... Should they never face consequences of violating international laws?