this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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The war was already going on before Russia sent troops in.
And that makes it okay for them to escalate it, how?
Ukraine escalated by violating the ceasefire. Russia escalated further by sending in troops. I didn't say it's "okay," but the blame isn't just on their side.
If Russia wanted to ensure the safety of the people of Donbas (which is a big if tbf), what should they have done differently, at any point leading up to the conflict? Because I'd like to condemn Russian escalation, but it's a little hard for me to do so if I don't have an answer to that question.
Which one(s)? There were so many from 2014 onwards that I lost track. I'm always skeptical anytime one side gets all the blame for violating a ceasefire.
If it really is about the people of Donbas and not annexing the land itself, they could have done what every country is supposed to do when the safety of people in a region is jeopardized – open their borders to refugees and asylum seekers. It would piss off Ukraine, but they could have just been like "Come across the border and we'll set you up with a Russian passport".
Minsk II was the one I was referring to, but it's a fair point.
Ok, let me rephrase that then. Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia, or should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country? Because I think that a lot of this mess could've be avoided if Ukraine had simply given them a referendum, but instead they banned opposition parties, which says to me that they knew how the people there would vote.
This is like saying that the US should've invaded Cuba when they started taking nationalizing property instead of doing what the other person said and accepting refugees and asylum seekers. There's always another way besides war and violence.
There isn't always another way besides violence. The German invasion of the USSR was a war of extermination. Laying down and dieing is not morally superior.
Fair enough. If you're defending yourself, then I suppose that's true. Which is incidentally another reason Ukraine has the right to defend themselves.
I don't think the US dumping tons of weapons is actually helping defend themselves, it just seems to be getting conscripts killed. If they had actually negotiated after that karkiv offensive maybe you could have made the case?
Well it's keeping them having some sovereignty over their own country instead of it falling in 3 days like everyone thought. Does Ukraine want to lose a bunch of their territory? That's the question and considering how hard they're fighting, it doesn't look like they do. If the average Ukrainian wants the ability to defend and keep their home, then I want that for them, too.
And war is unpredictable. Maybe Russia will lose the appetite for war soon, or maybe Ukraine will want to negotiate (but I'm sure they want to take what they can before then). Winter is coming.
It already has, and not in the way you think. In 2013 Ukraine had a president unwilling to take an IMF deal, and opted for the Russian one. The maidan coup happened and now they have a president who does whatever the money men want.
Even now there's a website up for openly privatizing Ukraine, and the ultimate outcome in a NATO victory explicitly is going to be the privatization of the breadbasket of Europe.
There are countless of well-documented examples of the American empire sponsoring terrorist attacks, sabotage and assassinations against Cuba. To this day the American empire upholds an illegal an unprovoked blockade of the island as well as occupying the land on which the Guantanamo naval base and torture black site is placed.
Before the revolution, America ran Cuba as a colony, leeching off the hard work of Cubans. If anything, the history of American relations with Cuba has been one of profound violence.
But okay, most of the times they made sure to put in a middle-man to do the actual dirty work which absolves them of all sin I guess.
They tried, using a proxy force of Cuban exiles.
Right, but they didn't full out invade, like Russia is doing. They definitely considered it, though lol. And it would've sucked for the people of Cuba if they did, just like it did for Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, or the populace of every other country that's ever been attacked.
Correct, they were repelled from the beaches by Socialists
Putting American boots on the ground is not the only way that the United States brings death and destruction to a region to further (or protect, as some Amercan politicians call it) American, and more broadly western, hegemony (or American interests, as craven ghouls call it). The use of proxy forces like in Afghanistan during the 80s, coups like those carried out in Chile in 73 and, well really most of South America in the latter 20th century, sanctions against countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and the DPRK (which are explicitly put in place to make life worse for the people living there and produce people who would be willing to commit violent acts to overthrow the local government not adequately subordinate to the United States), facilitating the mass murder of people opposed to the pro-america regime or too supportive of communism like in Indonesia and South Korea several times, all bring massive loss of life and terrible suffering. The crimes against humanity carried out by the United States and on their behalf are so terrible and widespread that it is difficult to name a country that has not had blood spilled to advance American hegemony in it. Like Cuba.
At that though, the United States is no stranger to directly deploying troops to crush opposition to American hegemony. Like in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan again, and the RSFSR immediately after the revolution. War is terrible, but it is not out of the question to enforce American hegemony.
In Ukraine, the United States is not interested in preserving democracy or the self determination of the Ukranian people. It never has been in any of the countries or among any of the organizations that receive its support. The United States ultimately wants to have control over the Russian economy to use as a source of cheap labor and resources. That was the USSR and later Russia were denied, several times, entry into NATO, an ostensibly defensive alliance for the region that Russia is in, and the purpose of the rapid privatization of post-soviet economies after '91. Ukraine is caught in the terrible position of being used to advance the United States' goal in the region. Support for Ukraine will be dropped when the United States government believes that it is no longer useful or viable to support them against Russia, after who knows how many people are dead and permanently injured, and how many more whose entire lives have been destroyed.
Oh! Well then we see eye-to-eye in that case. I think Western support to Ukraine should be limited to accepting refugees and providing humanitarian aid, not weapons. I think Ukraine should be open to ceding territory in negotiations in order to end the war and prevent further loss of life. There's always another way besides war and violence. I'm all about peace, glad we're in agreement.
They did do that. My coworkers aunt was finally granted Russian citizenship and was ecstatic. They granted citizenship to a number of refugees in the war.
Right, Ukraine was fighting corruption. Russia entered on the side of... corruption.
"Fighting corruption" is an interesting way to describe sustained artillery bombardments of civilian targets.
Fighting this corruption:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
Hoo boy wait til you see what Zelenskyy was up to.
Why are you defending oligarchs?
Seems like you are. Zelensky was in the paradise papers
A few million dollars earned from acting is an oligarch to you?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/4/pandora-papers-ukraine-leader-seeks-to-justify-offshore-accounts
Better keep reading and you'll find a real one:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/4/pandora-papers-russia-dismisses-leaks-implicating-putin
Yes being a multi-millionaire and hiding your wealth in offshore tax havens is being an oligarch to me.
You act as if I support Russia? Oh no Putin bad! Who would have thought!
I'm not sure what that has to do with shelling cities, are you suggesting he was hiding in one of the buildings or what?
Look, the heckin' wholesome slava ukrainis didn't know where he was so they had to shell everywhere! It's like playing Battleship, except it's mostly other random innocent people that you hit
Yes, but the liberal pro-EU protestors got sidelined by literal neo-Nazis. The following President was basically handpicked by the US Ambassador. There's plenty of western media from 2015-2021 about the integration of Azov into the Ukrainian military structure, the rehabilitation of World War II collaborators, and the suppression of the Russian language. The people of the East are, in principle, just as entitled to wish to join Russia as western Ukraine is to join the EU.