• Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    You know what? I never thought I’d say this but I’m with Ukraine on this one.

    This whole counter offensive insanity is so militarily nonsensical that it had to have been mounted to please the West with a “win” so that they’d stay in the war. Real Chiang Kai Shek committing the best of the KMT army to Shanghai to impress the Westerners energy.

    The West is standing on the sidelines, supplying just enough equipment to keep the embers going and judging the ordinary Ukrainians going to their deaths by their hundreds.

    Fuck the clowns in charge in Kiev and fuck the Nazi militias obviously. But at this point the men being sent to the front are old men and boys dragged off the street against their will. Sending them to die to appease the West is fucking sick.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      This got an upvote?

      Are you open to proposing your master plan?

      Ukraine has been invaded. Are you suggesting they do not fight back?

      NATO is not war. No NATO country has been attacked. Engaging against Russia directly would put NATO at war with a nuclear power. I cannot imagine that this is your plan.

      Not just “the West”, but everybody is on the sidelines as far as direct engagement goes. Most countries are assisting Ukraine where they can. Some to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Most have imposed crippling sanctions. So. “sidelines” is a bit misleading from that perspective.

      Even Russia’s allies are “on the sidelines”. You certainly do not see much overt support from China. They have even maintained ( in fact stepped-up ) diplomatic relation with Ukraine.

      Or are you trying to imply that the underlying cause of everything here is something other than Russia’s continued invasion? Everybody could truly go back to the sidelines if Russia just left.

      The only other path is for Ukraine to win. Are you supporting that or not?

      • rubpoll [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        If your goal is to prevent deaths, surrendering would have been the ideal yeah.

        Zelenksy tried to surrender to prevent further deaths, and Boris Johnson refused to let that meeting happen because NATO isn’t finished using Ukranians as crash test dummies.

        • GivingEuropeASpook [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          If your goal is to prevent deaths, surrendering would have been the ideal yeah.

          This has literally never been true in any war ever. Foreign occupations rarely tend to be bloodless and I doubt a Russian one would have been an exception. At no point were any of the peace talks about Ukraine’s surrender – only renouncing it’s NATO ambitions in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian troops, as per:

          https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/06/boris-johnson-pressured-zelenskyy-ditch-peace-talks-russia-ukrainian-paper

          “In the weeks ahead of Johnson’s April 9 visit, high-level diplomatic talks held in Belarus and Turkey had failed to yield a diplomatic breakthrough, though reports in mid-March indicated that Russian and Ukrainian delegations “made significant progress” toward a 15-point peace deal that would involve Ukraine renouncing its NATO ambitions in exchange for the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops.”

          At no point was surrender on the table - that would have likely lead to Zelenksy’s detention and execution in the early days of the invasion.

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think Zelensky was too keen on capitulating to Vladimir Putin’s demands to destroy his country, after sending in GRU hit squads to kill him and his family multiple times at the outset of the war.

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Zelenskyy tried to surrender and Boris Johnson stopped him?! Ooooookay… He maaaybe (all “unnamed” sources) expressed an opinion, which the U.K. learnt the hard way, that you cannot negotiate with dictators. There can be no “peace in our time” with dictators hellbent on destruction.

          To cast that as “Ukraine was stopped from surrendering” is just obscene … and yet another Kremlin talking point.

          • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            which the U.K. learnt the hard way, that you cannot negotiate with dictators. There can be no “peace in our time” with dictators hellbent on destruction.

            If the UK is convinced that you can’t negotiate with dictators, how does the UK keep entering into arms sales agreements with Saudi Arabia? Do the contracts just appear out of thin air at BAE?

            • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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              1 year ago

              Sigh.

              I am referencing to a dictator that is hellbent on invasion of other countries. We had plenty of relations with Russia before they decided to invade Ukraine and they were a dictatorship before. We have plenty of relationships with China now and they are a de facto dictatorship.

              • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                The Saudis used their British weapons to bomb Yemen and create one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent memory. The UK sold weapons to Saudi before, during, and after the Saudi involvement in Yemen.

                Perhaps Russia should have merely bombed Ukraine to the point of starvation. Then they’d be a good dictatorship that the UK would be happy to carry out business negotiations with.

                • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Don’t be ridiculous

                  Ukrainians are white

                  That’s only acceptable when it’s brown, asian, or south american people who’s country you’re destroying.

                • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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                  1 year ago

                  What’s going on in Yemen is incredibly complicated. I’m not condoning everything Saudi Arabia is doing there, far from it, but to call it out as a good vs evil war is frankly a simpleton view. Saudi is bad there. Everyone is bad there. It’s a huge mess. But I think it’s important to recognise that the Saudis aim is to restore order in a neighbourhood country, to prevent Iranian influence from growing and to suppress violent Islamic fundamentalism.

                  • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    the Saudis aim is to restore order in a neighbourhood country

                    hitler-detector

                    When I started reading this thread I really did not expect you to start defending Saudi Arabia to own the tankies ngl

                  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    What’s going on in Ukraine is incredibly complicated. I’m not condoning everything Russia is doing there, far from it, but to call it out as a good vs evil war is frankly a simpleton view. Russia is bad there. Everyone is bad there. It’s a huge mess. But I think it’s important to recognise that the Russians’ aim is to restore order in a neighbourhood country, to prevent American influence from growing and to suppress violent Neo-Nazi extremism.

                  • NuraShiny [any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Holy shit man just realize you have no ideology or clue, stop talking and educate yourself on what the actual fuck is going on in the world. It would be a far more productive use of your time.

                  • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    But I think it’s important to recognise that the Saudis aim is to restore order in a neighbourhood country, to prevent Iranian influence from growing and to suppress violent Islamic fundamentalism.

                    “Restoring order is when you bomb hospitals and exacerbate famines and the more people that die, the more order it is.”

                    The Saudis are committing genocide in Yemen. No ifs, no buts. To claim they have a good reason to be out there doing it is genocide apologia.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I am referencing to a dictator that is hellbent on invasion of other countries

                Yemen isn’t a country because it isn’t white enough for you

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April, according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

            “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

            The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end.

            Foreign Affairs is a Kremlin propaganda outlet now?

                • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Considering there’s people in this thread complaining were spreading Russian propaganda by posting a press release FROM UKRAINE I’m starting to think their accusations may not be entirely in good faith.

              • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                And your sources for your beliefs are where?

                Or do only people you disagree with require sources, so that way you can keep gleefully believing whatever the fucking and spewing it everywhere you go

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia

                Hmm let’s look at the source on that: Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukranian language paper headquartered in Kyiv, owned by a Ukranian investment company also headquartered in Kyiv.

                Kremlin propaganda!

                • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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                  1 year ago

                  Sigh.

                  You do understand how propaganda works, right? It works by zooming in on molehills until they appear like mountains. So while I wouldn’t rule out that Johnson the Idiot said something unwise to Zelensky government, I also don’t automatically think that it means Zelenski was “forced to not give up”.

                  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Sigh

                    farquaad-point redditor!

                    I also don’t automatically think that it means Zelenski was “forced to not give up”.

                    1. Ukraine negotiates ceasefire.
                    2. BJ tells Ukraine to not go through with it.
                    3. Ukraine does not go through with it.

                    Why else would Ukraine have reversed course if not for one of its NATO puppetmasters commanding it to? Either it’s that, or BJ making a really impassioned argument for sending a bunch of Ukranians to an early grave and Zelensky fell for it, or Zelensky just changed his mind all on his own and the timing is a pure coincidence.

                  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    You are not immune to propaganda.
                    Who gives a shit what you “wouldn’t rule out” when even western media goes against you? Get your head out of your ass

      • Calavera@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What do you mean by not just the west?

        We have almost zero countries on Asia, Africa and Latin America which have sanctioned Russia or sent military aid to Ukraine

        This is just related to nato/Europe/global north countries.

        Europe is not the whole world

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Ukraine has plenty of opportunities to win. It could have chosen to chart a more balanced position between the EU and Russia. It could have given the Donbass some independence referenda and just let them go. It could have actually tried to adhere to the numerous Minsk Agreements to deescalate and prevent war. It could have negotiated for peace while the Russians were pulling back after its previously more successful counter offensives.

        But each time its leaders ignored the off ramp to peace and pursued delusional maximalist goals, egged on by promises of EU and NATO membership which even Zelensky acknowledged publically were just carrots dangled in front of Ukraine.

        Now there’s no pathway to any sort of Ukrainian victory and the most realistic scenarios all involve Ukraine permanently giving up Donbas and Crimea. The only difference between the likely outcome now and just giving them a referendum in 2014 is a couple hundred thousand Ukrainian graves.

        I’d respect the EU and NATO more if they had actually followed through with their promises to Ukraine instead of this Charlie Brown football bullshit.

        • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Ukraine has plenty of opportunities to win. It could have chosen to chart a more balanced position between the EU and Russia.

          I mean they tried to but they got couped by the US for their troubles.

          • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            It rules that libs constantly appeal to public opinion of people in Taiwan as an argument for why China should let it be independent but as soon as people from a Western aligned country want to exercise that same self-determination its “surrendering” to let them have a referendum.

            Totally an intellectually coherent ideology and not just “our team (good), your team (bad)”.

          • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Neither of these things he describes are surrendering:

            It could have given the Donbass some independence referenda and just let them go. It could have actually tried to adhere to the numerous Minsk Agreements to deescalate and prevent war.

            In fact both of them would have prevented Russia from annexing donbass. They would be independent territories that would act as a buffer state between the two countries.

            • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I was coming at it from the sense of both outcomes being the same (Ukraine losing Donbas) but in one scenario Ukraine “wins” because it doesn’t get bombed and lose hundreds of thousands of people, but you raise a great point. There was a chance that letting Donbas go in 2014 would have resulted in a fairly neutral buffer with Russia.

              There was a point where the DPR and LPR were just seeking autonomy within Ukraine to speak Russian and decide local issues but the hardliners in Kiev decided to sic Nazis on them instead.

          • Right, but it’s not like every country not filled out in green is actively supporting Russia in the same way. In terms of countries supplying Russia the way the US, NATO, and the EU are supplying Ukraine, I’m pretty sure it’s just Iran and North Korea. The US has largely failed to isolate Russia the way it wanted to, but Russia hasn’t been able to get the kind of support from its allies that Ukraine has (like, unless there have been some Chinese Type 99s tanks spotted in operation by the Russians that I hadn’t heard about, I’m not exactly tracking the front every day).

            • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              but Russia hasn’t been able to get the kind of [material] support from its allies that Ukraine has

              It hasn’t needed to. Ukraine wouldn’t be a functional state at all by this point were it not for the tens of billions of dollars in aid as well as all the military equipment slowly depleting the west. Russia on the other hand, has been doing quite well in holding it’s own economically despite the sanctions and in holding the literal defensive line against all the NATO weaponry. It’s a nonsensical comparison to make.

              • It hasn’t needed to

                They’ve taken arms and supplies from Iran and are currently negotiating with the DPRK. Yes, Russia is bigger and can theoretically out-last Ukraine in a war of attrition on a 1:1 basis, but you shouldn’t be hoping for something that prolongs the war.

                It’s a nonsensical comparison to make.

                So is using a map of the countries supporting Ukraine to insinuate that the all the other countries must therefore be on Russia’s side.

                • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  but you shouldn’t be hoping for something that prolongs the war./

                  lol, what do you think I’m “hoping” for? Stating the fact that Russia can easily do what it has been doing indefinitely (but Ukraine cannot) has nothing to do with my hopes.

                  So is using a map of the countries supporting Ukraine to insinuate that the all the other countries must therefore be on Russia’s side.

                  No one ever did any such thing, just noted that support comes in many forms other than military equipment, which Russia has mostly already covered for itself, even if it buys drone parts from Iran. Unlike Ukraine which now relies wholly and entirely on outside help for all of its material need. You changed the goalposts for what “support” means to make it sound like only military equipment counts as support, which is foolish because it isn’t what Russia needs. You’re just trying to move the goalposts all over the place to make it seem like you have some kind of valid point, but you don’t. Even if countries are not sending unneeded tanks, Russia still has plenty of support all over the world, mostly from countries who rightly recognize this as a struggle against the imperialism of the US and NATO which is beneficial to any anti-imperialists (including any actual leftists, even though so many western “leftists” drink deeply of their overlord’s propaganda).

                  • You changed the goalposts for what “support” means to make it sound like only military equipment counts as support, which is foolish because it isn’t what Russia needs.

                    I’m pretty sure I mentioned here or elsewhere that financial aid was being given to the Ukrainian government in order to keep their civil service paid. South Korea just approved some of that recently.

                    Whenever anyone in the West brings up “global support for Ukraine” that’s what they’re mostly talking about, I merely clarified that because people are operating on different definitions of what constitutes “support”. When I consider “support for Ukraine” vs “support for Russia”, I’m comparing money, arms, and diplomatic positions or comments made by a country’s leadership. When I do so, I see:

                    • Countries supporting Ukraine with money and/or arms
                    • Countries that have condemned the war/invasion and nothing else, maintaining their existing relations with both Ukraine and Russia while also criticizing NATO in some cases
                    • Iran + the DPRK, plus maybe Belarus for allowing it’s territory to be used

                    Russia still has plenty of support all over the world, mostly from countries who rightly recognize this as a struggle against the imperialism of the US and NATO which is beneficial to any anti-imperialists

                    Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line at reflexively supporting anything the United States opposes? Like, I get that the US successfully re-aligned Ukraine’s foreign policy over the last decade or two, an unequivocal and blatant expansion of US influence and control, and so a successful Russian invasion would result in undoing that American victory, but I fail to see the benefit of Ukraine being in Russia’s sphere of influence for socialists, beyond the fact that Russia isn’t the dominant world power. Is that really it? And if so, how is it beneficial to replace one imperialist domination with another?

                    Doesn’t it matter that Russia is arguably more of a neoliberal state in line with the domestic social, economic and political agendas of far-right parties in the US, UK, and EU, than many Western countries currently?

              • In what way? I think a lot of people are acting like anyone not actively sending arms or money to Ukraine must therefore be “supporting” Russia. Has the Saudi Arabian Kingdom given any weapons to Russia? Have they given any loans to plug the holes in the national budget while the country engages in open warfare? Or are they just viewing a European conflict as irrelevant to their own aims and goals?

      • s0ykaf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Most countries are assisting Ukraine where they can.

        lmao here i am living in a 200 million people country where nobody gives a single fuck about ukraine

        even more political groups and discussions rarely involve ukraine except when lula decides to own zelensky in some way, no one here cares about nato’s proxy war

        • even more political groups and discussions rarely involve ukraine except when lula decides to own zelensky in some way, no one here cares about nato’s proxy war

          I mean why should they? Brazil as a country (you mention lula, so) isn’t in NATO so it doesn’t have an ideological reason to support Russia or Ukraine in the matter. There’s nothing to be gained geographically for Brazil either, since whoever controls Kyiv doesn’t directly impact any strategic concerns for Brazil afaik.

          You say no one cares, so while I think most people in Canada and US hope that Ukraine “wins”, does that mean apathy in that regard or would you say most people are passively hoping Russia achieves its war goals?

          • s0ykaf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            i think most people here are just apathetic towards it, yea

            as for smaller, more involved groups, you have the english-speaking libs and the middle class which are just nyt-brained to the core (on every single issue, so you can guess their opinions), and the communists and PT libs (with opinions that are pretty close to ours: “war is bad, putin is shit, and we should stay away from the whole thing, but hopefully the end result of this one is a weaker, and not a stronger, american/nato empire”)

            • the communists and PT libs (with opinions that are pretty close to ours: “war is bad, putin is shit, and we should stay away from the whole thing, but hopefully the end result of this one is a weaker, and not a stronger, american/nato empire”)

              All sounds very reasonable, tbh even the libs and middle-class positions make sense to me if they are plugged into the same media as US libs.