Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Withdrawing troops, returning stolen land, children, prisoners and paying for damages… thats all i would accept. Nothing less.
A ‘Treaty of Versailles’ type solution is not a good idea for durable peace though, harsh reparations, despite any sense they might be ‘fair’, seldom lead to both countries returning to be prosperous democratic countries (and to be clear, neither is a capitulation by Ukraine - that would be seen by Putin as locking in its current gains, with no real incentive not to try again for more despite what the treaty might say).
The best outcome for everyone is if Russia ends up being a genuinely pluralistic democracy (i.e. anyone in Russia can have political views, and the public selects its leadership in free and fair elections). Then Ukraine can normalise relations with Russia, and Russia stops being a threat to democratic institutions across the world as a whole.
I think the best way of thinking about it is not that Ukraine has a Russia problem, but rather that Ukraine and Russia have an oligarch problem (with Putin chief amongst them). Therefore, in a fair world, the oligarchs, and not the Russian people, would pay. It is true that Russians (and indeed some Ukrainians in occupied regions) have been radicalised by the oligarchs, so some kind of deradicalisation would be needed even if the oligarchs disappeared.
Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term. Shorter term solutions could include a negotiated end to hostilities coupled with agreements for Ukraine to join a defensive alliance that the oligarchs wouldn’t consider provoking - which could be followed up by a carrot approach to easing sanctions in exchange for progressive movements towards genuine Russian democracy. This might give oligarchs enough push to take off ramps to cash in what they have plundered already, and slowly be replaced by less corrupt alternatives going forward.
Recovery from oligarchy for Russia might also by costly for Russia though - essential assets plundered from the USSR are now in private hands through crony capitalism; the best solution would be for many of the major ones to go back to or be rebuilt under state ownership, under genuine democratic leadership. But that is likely easier said than done given the state of Russia.
Solutions that look to negotiate how to reduce corruption and authoritarianism in Russia from the top are therefore the most likely to succeed long term.
This may be true but the negotiations are with a dictator. It’s not like Putin is going to step down so that the problem is resolved peacefully.
Yep. The only way to make progress on that front is to serve Putin some polonium tea…
That won’t work, it’s not just Putin doing this alone you know. You’d need a powerful (the most powerful, actually) faction inside the Russian state apparatus that want to just give up, and there’s no real reason to think there is such a group. And no anti-war opposition has enough support to do a coup or win elections.
No defeatist is getting into power. It’s not going to happen unless Lenin rises from the dead.
I bet if they had a real option, they’d love to stop sending their kids to die.
Saying as much now gets you thrown in jail.
Socialism worked in Russia: it dragged hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence farming and turned the USSR into an economic powerhouse. Of course, the collapse of the USSR showed the failings of an aggressively socialist state, but the funny thing is that China already has the solution: a market-based economy with strong state control. Putin doesn’t dare piss off the oligarchs though, so we’re stuck with this crony bullshit.
| Socialism worked in Russia:
Bullshit. Prosperity advanced much more in the west than in the Soviet Union, or anywhere in the soviet bloc. Corruption was rampant. Lying was rampant. People were miserable. Cultural genocide was the name of the game. Subjugated people hated it, and have fared significantly better since getting out. The only people who seem to be nostalgic about the USSR is the Russians, because they lost the ability to benefit from the slave labor of conquered vassal states.
In what universe have corruption and lying not been rampant in “the west” over the last hundred years? Did you just pull this comment out of a book titled “Red Scare Propaganda?”
Lol. Nice whataboutism. The USSR literally collapsed due to corruption.
It shouldn’t be surprising that prosperity advanced much more in the already advanced and industrialised west than in a former semi-feudal peasant economy country. The point is that that former semi-feudal peasant economy rose rapidly to become at least a perceived competitor to the west, even with the most destructive war ever waged on a large part of its most fertile and productive land.
Also, corruption and lying? That isn’t specific to the USSR. People are and were miserable in the west too, cultural genocide was and is happening in the west too. Comparing like for like, socialism worked well for the USSR. It was able to heavily industrialise, house populations, create a space program and compete with the USA on the international stage.
| It shouldn’t be surprising that prosperity advanced much more in the already advanced and industrialised west than in a former semi-feudal peasant economy country.
If the Russians wanted to industrialize, then good for them. But they did it off the back of the slave labor of other countries obtained through violent conquest.
Many European countries were decimated in the aftermath of WWII, not just Russia. West Germany, case in point. The West Germans had it significantly better than the East Germans under socialism. France had it better than Poland under socialism. etc… Socialism made peoples lives miserable.
To whit: 85% of Poles think positively of the change to a multiparty system and market economy. 85% and 83% (respectively) of East Germans. 82% and 76% of Czechs. 70% and 69% of Lithuanians. 74% and 71% of Slovaks. The only people who see it as a negative are the Russians. Go figure.
| Also, corruption and lying? That isn’t specific to the USSR.
True, but I never claimed it was. It’s about degree. I’ve heard first hand stories from former soviet residents of how the only way to get a doctor to treat you with anything more than an asprin was to bribe them. That’s an absolutely fucked level of corruption. The idea that that sort of corruption existed in the west at the same time is laughable.
| People are and were miserable in the west too.
Claiming that there are some miserable people in the west misses the point. There are miserable people everywhere, but what % of the population are they?
Research (you know, data), shows that people in South Eastern Europe, Central Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are significantly happier than they were at the fall of the USSR. The only region where this is not true for all countries in the region is the former CIS, which surprise, surprise, includes Russia.
| cultural genocide was and is happening in the west too
Where? Show me a country in the west where your mother tongue is banned? Show me a country in the west where you can be sent to prison for practicing your cultural rituals (assuming you aren’t hurting others ofc)? Don’t compare the mixing of cultures due to increased levels of mobility and the internet to Russiafication, because that’s bullshit.
| socialism worked well for the USSR. It was able to heavily industrialize, house populations, create a space program and compete with the USA on the international stage.
Socialism worked well for a small number of people and only compared to the rest of the soviet bloc. Gorbechev ordered his motorcade to stop at some random small supermarket in the USA to see what it was really like and was initially convinced it was some elaborate CIA setup because he couldn’t believe that the average American had access to a wider range of high quality produce than the party elite in the USSR. American’s weren’t special in that regard. Everyone in the west had the same. Occupied countries would have been just fine with industrialization and housing their populations. All the USSR did from your list was create a space program which did almost nothing for the average person of the USSR, and it was so inept that Vladimir Komarov insisted on an open-casket funeral to force the point.
Ok, so the West Germans and France, who received economic aid from the US who wasn’t ravaged by war, fared better economically than those countries being supported by the Nazi devastated USSR.
I’ve heard first hand accounts from people from the west who talk about the only way to avoid disproportionate targeting by police and other state actors was to be not black or other minority. Not to mention the institutionalised corruption of over the top corporate lobbying. That’s an absolutely fucked level of corruption too.
Of course people are happier now than at the fall of the USSR. The collapse of a nation has a massive and in this case negative instant impact on people’s lives. The fact that things if gone up from there is not surprising.
Black people and Native Americans are still dealing with past and current displacement and discrimination, including a push to eliminate their culture and language. Canada is currently dealing with the results of their very recent genocidal attempts on their First Nations people.
That 'only a small number of people’s argument really doesn’t wash when you factor in the alternative that is capitalism. The very system that is increasing inequality faster and faster since the fall of its former main ideological enemy. It’s true that light industry in the Soviet Union was underdeveloped, people didn’t have as much choice in things like food products or consumer goods, but they were building from a completely different set of conditions. The ability of the west to produce so much that then gets wasted while still having starving, homeless, and undereducated people living in it is not a ringing endorsement of the system.
| Ok, so the West Germans and France, who received economic aid from the US who wasn’t ravaged by war, fared better economically than those countries being supported by the Nazi devastated USSR.
You seem to have forgotten that the point that I am disputing is that socialism worked in the USSR. The USSR was offered aid (the Marshall Plan) but refused it. That’s on socialism.
The simple truth is that the USSR failed its citizens. Non-russian slave nations would have been much better off being autonomous and free to pursue their own ideals and prosperity. Ethnic Russians…well who knows. It’s a messed up culture and that’s hard to break free from, but you could imagine a timeline where they dumped the idea that grinding others under your boot heel was the way to success.
| I’ve heard first hand accounts from people from the west who talk about the only way to avoid disproportionate targeting by police and other state actors was to be not black or other minority. Not to mention the institutionalised corruption of over the top corporate lobbying. That’s an absolutely fucked level of corruption too.
This is whataboutism and actually supports my point. Which was, again, was that socialism did not work in the USSR. If the west had all that ‘fucked up level of corruption too’, then it still out-performed socialism on pretty much all metrics. But regardless, selecting a disadvantaged minority in one country and then trying to create a false equivalence to the majority in the USSR is exactly that, a false equivalence.
| Of course people are happier now than at the fall of the USSR. The collapse of a nation has a massive and in this case negative instant impact on people’s lives. The fact that things if gone up from there is not surprising.
Oh, they were unhappy then! I have family who lived through it, and they HATED being part of the USSR. It was a miserable time of poverty, fear and suffering for them. The USSR was an authoritarian, totalitarian, one-party, state that had Orwellian propaganda, a cult of personality and in which the Russian ethic group had an overbearing sense of racial superiority. The state also carried out repression, torture and purges on scales that were genocidal. All of these traits are common with fascism, but the Russians claim to be anti-fascist. It’s odd.
Non-russians much prefer being free and out from the Russian fascist boot heel.
| Black people and Native Americans are still dealing with past and current displacement and discrimination, including a push to eliminate their culture and language. Canada is currently dealing with the results of their very recent genocidal attempts on their First Nations people.
I never claimed that other countries were perfect, I just did a comparison and found the USSR to be severely wanting in terms of whether it worked. I think it’s a good thing that First Nations people are finally getting their language, culture and rights recognised and respected. Maybe Russia could contemplate doing the same and leaving the Ukrainians alone; as opposed to, for example, the Russian man who recently THREW A 10 YEAR OLD UKRAINIAN CHILD OFF A BRIDGE for speaking Ukrainian in Germany.
| That 'only a small number of people’s argument really doesn’t wash when you factor in the alternative that is capitalism. The very system that is increasing inequality faster and faster since the fall of its former main ideological enemy. It’s true that light industry in the Soviet Union was underdeveloped, people didn’t have as much choice in things like food products or consumer goods, but they were building from a completely different set of conditions. The ability of the west to produce so much that then gets wasted while still having starving, homeless, and undereducated people living in it is not a ringing endorsement of the system.
I’m not claiming capitalism is perfect, far from it and I think the USA goes too way far the other way. But the point (again!) is that Socialism did not work in the USSR. People suffered, literally starved by the millions, and did not have autonomy, the freedom to speak either their language or their thoughts. People were abducted by the state never to be seen or heard of again, connections to community and land were broken, and countries other than russia were worse off than if they had been free to pursue their own path under a democratically elected government.
If you want to see a state where socialism has worked, look at Norway, not Russia.
China’s also showing the problem of that. The state control is too susceptible to corruption. That’s how they have a whole industry if fake construction, fake goods etc… And why they’re on the brink of a massive Construction bond related crash.
And Russia Surrenders a 10km deep strip of its own land around Ukraine to act as a DMZ.
With what military do you plan on using to support this?
And a 3rd party enforced DMZ on the border.
If only you also were in the position to dictate this to Russia. Even the US isn’t in this position, and will never be.
Give the native Americans back their territory. Nothing less.
In what fantasy land do you think this is remotely achievable? Seriously? Do the lives of Ukrainians fighting and being caught in this conflict mean this little to you, that you are willing to accept continuation of fighting?
Ukraine surrendering is evidently not happening either. Given that Russia is indisputably in the wrong, maybe that’s the side we should put pressure on. Just a thought.
Put pressure we do, rest assured.
But, just objectively, what’s the endgame here? I saw a lot of people shit on Russian opposition for not stopping Putin. But, what can Ukraine and the entire world that supports it do? Russian state’s position is simple, it wants Donbas and Luhansk IN Ukraine (=take over it) or there would not be Ukraine at all. What’s the move here? Just supplying Ukraine with weapons won’t do. Accepting Ukraine into NATO is impossible. Going all NATO against Russia is suicidal. Real talk, get some ideas, and quick, on how to get more troops on Ukrainian soil, and make them real. The comments just shitting on Russia and chanting the same words on twitter won’t help - we’ve tried already.
It’s going to happen eventually, as they’re going to run out of recruits before the Russians do. This is like playing a game of chess to the bitter end, only the pieces are real human beings. Hundreds of thousands of them.
We don’t live in a “1 soldier = 1 soldier” world, haven’t for several millennia actually. There are weapons that multiply lethality by different amounts on both sides, so it’s more of a question of who gets the better gadgets and manages to use them in better strategies.
Except, at the end of the day, someone runs out of soldiers. If Ukraine keeps wasting resources in a futile counteroffensive, it’s going to be Ukraine. Military doctrine going back centuries has told us that defending is far easier if your technological capability is even marginally close to equivalent.
Ukraine is getting fully functional F-16s, Russia has already shown that they tape down Garmin GPSs to their fighter jet dashboards. That’s… not “marginally close”.
Maybe Ukraine should regroup and stay on the defensive in the meantime, but I wouldn’t bet on Russia in 2024.
Except… It sort of is? GPS was first launched in 1978 (oh look, the year the F-16 was introduced). The F-16 is an ancient platform and Ukraine has already shown that CAS is rather challenging given how advanced modern munitions are. At the start of the war they were literally plucking planes out of the sky.
Plus, NATO doctrine relies on complete battlefield superiority and complex logistics… Things that Ukraine lacks. How exactly is Ukraine supposed to turn the tides with F-16s when the Russians have stealth planes and hundreds of Su-35/34/30s?
Why would the hastily trained Ukrainian recruits be any better than the Russian ones? Ukraine looks to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, since they’re now also conscripting HIV positive and mentally ill men. It also looks like Ukraine has higher losses, especially now with the offensive, meaning that over time more experienced Russian soldiers are going to be fighting Ukrainian fresh recruits.
Russia also has more equipment and ammunition. And don’t start talking about quality: Most of the stuff that was sent to Ukraine is old stuff, and Russia also has a mix of old and new stuff. Even when you compare the numbers of roughly equivalent types of weapons, Russia comes out ahead in pretty much every category.
These stories about the superior NATO weapons, superior NATO training and whatnot are propaganda. There are warhawks that use this story to dismiss the obvious quantitative difference, bigots that love to believe in Russian inferiority and incompetence, and weapons manufacturers trying to advertise their Wunderwaffen. It’s all bunch of crap.
When you make an emotional plea like that, not based in reality, I think of when I was living with my aunt and uncle, and my aunt was so upset I was angering my uncle by not giving in to him.
He was going to abuse us regardless of what we did, I’d been in the situation for a few years by then and saw the patterns, and when you’re in that situation and understand the history of how that individual acts, you don’t fling yourself at the abuser’s feet once again…you fight.
I fought and got free. Got bruises and my hair ripped out of my head for it…but I got out. My aunt put up with a few more years of abuse because she wasn’t willing to put up with that bit, the dangerous bit when he popped off when someone defied him.
The situation in Ukraine is (writ large of course) similar to the dynamics of what goes on in an abusive home. The stakes are higher–more lives lost–but the dynamics underneath are still human dynamics. Which needs to be understood when it comes to negotiation and “civility” and such. It all comes back to the nature of the human animal.
You have a lying abuser at top (Russia) who tries to divert attention by tugging on heartstrings with pretty words while they are placing the blame for the war on the victims who “just won’t stop fighting–don’t they want to stop getting hurt?” as if fighting someone who is already hurting you is abusive, as if fighting back against them is irrational.
You don’t play around with idealism with these people, because they’ve already shown they are not willing to hold up their side of that social contract. (Although they are cunning and know using it on YOU might get you to do things against your own interest.) It’s NOT a given that stopping fighting will stop the loss of lives, that the abusers will keep their word once they’ve given it–with the Wagner dude as an example, who stopped what he was doing presumably because he was given promises if he did stop, then was blown up in an airplane shortly after.
Being civil only works if the other person is also being civil. When they’re not, other methods of dealing with a threat have to be taken. In an individual home, like my situation, I was lucky enough that simply leaving was enough. It was wildly “uncivil”–everyone gets super upset when you say you ran away from home or don’t talk to family…but it was effective to change the situation I was in. I didn’t need to be violent myself, just physically remove myself.
Nations, unfortunately, can’t pick up their borders and walk away to a place where their neighbors can’t reach them, they are by their nature very land-bound. So you get war instead, when civility–diplomacy–doesn’t get the result needed. (Just like talking to my uncle wouldn’t stop him from doing things, it’d only cause more trouble because he’d get even angrier that you’re “back talking” and not giving in.)
BTW, I’m not really responding to this guy, I doubt they’ll read or understand what I’m saying as the wringing fingers appeasement is an emotional ploy meant to get people to stop thinking and start crying inside.
Even if he’s real I’d be surprised if he understood. My aunt never did understand my point when I tried to explain what was wrong in our situation. There’s a reason it takes X amount of years and X amount of tries for abused spouses to get free.
I hope this is interesting enough for lurkers, though.
it is possible to understand something without agreeing with it
with all due respect, using domestic abuse to explain geopolitical events is not a useful analytical approach
wringing fingers appeasement is an emotional ploy meant to get people to stop thinking and start crying inside.
Do you think it was acceptable for Texas to fight a war of independence against Mexico to join the U.S.?
If so, why isn’t it acceptable for the Donbas to fight a war of independence against Ukraine to join Russia?
If so, why isn’t it acceptable for the Donbas to fight a war of independence against Ukraine to join Russia?
Is that what you think this current conflict is?
Ah yes, because geopolitics is basically child abuse.
It’s not them dying, so why would you expect them to care?
How? Ukraine’s made like a few square kilometers of progress with hundreds of billions of dollars of funding while Russia has just fallen back from their low ground territorial gains to the more easily defensible high ground.
What leverage does Ukraine even have for those demands?
Okay then the war would go on and on until your government collapsed. A peace agreement is actually good here given that they just showed they were unable to reclaim much land with their counter offensive.
Russia is a terrorist country. Terrorists can’t be negotiated with. #SlavaUkraini
Russia can’t be accepted back into the international community until Putin is in a jail cell or in the ground.
While I’d like to believe this, if Putin comes to some peaceful agreement with Ukraine, the international community will just wait until people are distracted by the next big news story and then let Putin back in.
I’d rather be cynical and happily surprised than optimistic and disappointed.
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Of course. They’re white.
“my genociders are good, your genociders are bad”. Whataboutism at its best. Lovely.
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The ccp is not China.
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I mean, by that logic we might as well dump everyone who’s started a major land war recently into the ground.
Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan… ah fuck, eh?
Sure let’s do it
Actually tho
US is still there though, being at the source of the death of 4.5 Millions humans since 2003! (washington post article).
Sorry to see you downvoted, but in ukraine topics you can’t have any other opinion then West=Good or you are a Putin apologist. We are back at cold war red scare disscusion levels, no nuace is allowed.
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Paywalled article, meh doesn’t count.
Most of those actual deaths were Muslims killing Muslims. Deaths caused by United States soldiers are comparatively low.
For example, the Iraqi body count website tracks 210,000 civilians killed between 2003 and 2020.
According to your article, it cites US-led wars in countries such as Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Syria. However, the United States did not launch a war in any of those countries and certainly did not fight a war in Pakistan which is a US ally.
The Washington Post article as well as research from Brown University has Lucy affiliated anyone who has died outside of the expected peacetime death rate in any country in Africa in the Middle East to be attributable to the United States which is, frankly completely unfair. ISIL aka the Islamic State for instance killed tens of thousands of people, yet those deaths are attributed to the United States. Which is completely crazy!
While I was completely against the 2003 Iraq war, and even March and protest against it, the truth of the matter is that Saddam was a complete bastard, the bath is party were fascist, and destroying them created enormous power vacuum which resulted in chaos death and destruction. However, this was probably an inevitability Saddam wasn’t going to last forever and had no system of governance to transfer leadership to someone else. The Middle East has been well known for centuries as a chaotic and violent region of the world and Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been at war with each other since time immemorial.
Maybe take a good look at that last paragraph you wrote and think about why you blame the conflicts in the middle east on a reductive basis of “they are savages” rather than looking at the actual historical context of what has caused instability in the region.
Seriously, this entire comment is just a racist write-off of the middle east that is completely devoid of any true consideration of history. Ignorance personified.
Who was it that was selling Saddam sarin gas and anthrax again?
Foundations of geopolitics? Fuck that, more war. More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
More Ukrainians will die, and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
I genuinely can’t tell if you are saying this ironically considering you are all over this thread defending Russia’s invasion.
He’s making fun of all the libs/fascists who want to kill all the Ukrainians in the hope of owning Putin, while sitting comfortably on their gamer chairs in their mom’s basement.
Do you think the USA is a terrorist country? If not, why not?
Slava Ukraini was literally the battle cry of the OUN, which collaborated in the holocaust. Find a different motto.
Wait till you hear about the origins of Volkswagen.
Oh boy, more good reasons to hate cars and automotive corporations!
Oh I know. I have a massive ax to grind on how little denazification happened after the war, especially in west Germany.
SLAVA UKRAINI tell your czar putler his time is up. :)
YOU SURE SHOWED HIM. PUTLER RESIGNED AFTER READING THIS SCATHING COMMENT.
Putler? But wouldn’t that make you like him if he was like Hitler? Are you sure you support Ukraine?
K scratched liberal
.
I block all ruscist trolls. You’re up!
The worst part about this is that you are a real person with a brain.
Found the bot with a script.
Ok dronie
“ahhhhhh splat” is the current warcry of the woefully unprepared orcs getting slaughtered in a war that could end today. maybe you guys could at least come up with something original before winding up as compost?
as expected tankies and brain-dead conservatives take issue with the fact I’m mocking the vatniks out there being converted into soil. guess what? I give as much a shit about you guys as the decomposing corpses of the mobiks, and find your opinions on the topic to be as usual, laughably silly and predictable. no, I’m not gonna have any need to humanise a bunch of trash that are invading another country. do I feel genuine sympathy for the conscripts who have no choice and no possibility to surrender? sure. that’s their lot unfortunatly, but you won’t find me crying over dead Russians in Ukraine
Calling russian soldiers orcs is litteral dehumanisation straight out of the faschists playbook. Can we please collectivly agree in not becoming the strawman putin used in his “justification” for this war?
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National security?
lol nope
“Slava Ukraini” is fascists slogan used by, and mainly associated with, the mass murderers of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews. I guess that doesn’t count as terrorism in your worldview.
Ah yes, “Glory to Ukraine,” seems like a super specific slogan that can only be associated with one movement. In no way is it a generically nationalist slogan.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0
See what they are doing while chanting “Slava Ukraini”? Notice the salutes? That’s the context of this becoming popular in Ukraine (again).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava_Ukraini
You might want to specify whether you’re talking about the pre-WWI, post-WWI, WWII, USSR, or post-USSR meaning.
For reference, the current year is 2023.
I already responded to this in a reply to another user:
So it’s perfectly normal to revive a slogan that was last used by fascists? I’m sure the fact that Ukraine also made Bandera a national hero and put up statues of him and named streets in his honor right around the same time that slogan made its comeback is just a coincidence? Totally innocent slogan my ass.
You might be blind in your right eye if you think this isn’t some fascist shit. This is like “the swastika is an old Hindu symbol” type defense, only worse because you’re ignoring the Hitler portrait right next to it.
I’m blind in my left eye, thank you very much… but since we’re copying other comments:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists
It’s mainly associated with “Ukrainian Nationalists” since WWI, adoped by the fascist organization which took part in the Holocaust and massacre of Poles, whose members have been granted veteran benefits in 2019, and its emblem is being used by present Ukrainians.
I’m not defending it, and as a Pole I’m definitely suspicious of Ukraine’s true intentions behind the slogan and the emblem… but I’m also pro-EU, and right now it’s better to support Ukraine, than to let Russia think about which EU member state to invade next.
Afterwards, if Ukraine wants to get its shit in order to a level where it could join the EU and NATO… then go ahead. Germany did it, Italy and Spain did it, and we’re all better for that.
Germany and Italy literally did not get rid fascism willingly, they were defeated and this was imposed on them. And being from Germany, I assure you denazification was incredibly half-assed.
Look at it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0
They’re doing the salute and everything. That salute was introduced by the fascist OUN.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
FML… that is indeed the fascist salute.
I know de-nazification was half-assed; I lived in Italy, now I live in Spain, and man, 45 years after the fascist regime was “gone”, there are still those opposing the removal of some fascist symbols. They used to argue that “it’s too soon”, now they’re arguing “it’s too late, let them be”, while there are still people killed by the dictature laying unidentified in some ditch or another.
Guess we’ll have to live and see where it all goes.
ok bye now
Shut your face, ruzzian troll
The “cope” downvotes lol
hows your special operation going champ?
edit: you still waiting for your response to be sent to you? arent able to think of one yourself? pretty sad. what about the other tankies downvoting, got any thoughts of your own fellas?
Nope
Lol right? I mean why would literally anyone trust Putin at this point?
I’m kind of confused why Prigozhin did what he did, even. He knew Putin was going to try to kill him afterwards, I had assumed he had his own play but I guess not.
His entire plan made very little sense. And he’s dead now so clearly whatever he thought he was doing definitely did not work out.
Yeah. I eagerly await whatever book will come out about it in a couple decades.
IIRC, I believe Putin found the family members of the people in his chain of command and threatened with their safety.
It’s pretty weird if Prigozhin didn’t have those people all locked down already, too. He knew the gravity of starting an armed rebellion and he knew as well as anyone how Putin operates.
As far as I recall, I read on a random article that his family was secured, but not the family of his close chain of command or something.
So he just messed up, then. Oops, now you’re dead.
Hasn’t he had pretty good relations with, like, literally all of BRICS?
So good he didn’t even show up there at the last conference in person because of pretty legitimate concerns they’d arrest him? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-remotely-attends-brics-summit-in-south-africa-while-facing-war-crimes-warrant
Oh no! Not international law!
So are you arguing his relationship with BRICS is actually good despite them probably arresting them if he shows up? What would make a bad relationship in your eyes?
Hasn’t Lula already declared Putin is free to enter Brazil regardless of international law and potential sanctions?
We’ll see if he’s still dictator in a year to take advantage of that!
Lula walked this back literally just today btw.
That’s why he went to South Africa in that visit!
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Quite dishonest to equate “not wanting Ukraine invaded by Russia” with being pro NATO.
Quite dishonest to equate “not wanting Ukraine invaded by Russia” with being pro NATO.
Quite dishonest to equate “criticizing Zelensky and this US proxy war” with being tankie or russian terrorist.
That’s crazy, the level of accusatory reversal.
You might have mixed up something. Neither I or anybody on this direct thread said anything about terrorism or tankies. We didn’t even mention zelensky.
Either you’re the crazy one or you have been called those this enough time as to lose track.
BTW, it couldn’t be a pretty war if, you know, Russia didn’t start a war… small detail I know
Neither I or anybody on this direct thread said anything about terrorism
just ctrl+f “terrorist”
As a clarification, since searching the page will give you the wrong idea, direct thread is referring to this direct chain of comments, not the whole post.
You are the first one on this come thread. Other threads sure talk about that. But not this one. So yeah… double down in your mistakes, the Putin’s way.
take it. You just demonstrated your dishonesty here. There’s like at least, 10 occurences of this word in this thread.
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Remind me again what did RAND Corp outline about US agenda against Russia in 2019 documents, or US ex-VP Dick Cheney tell us what NATO’s vision about Russia is (spoiler: balkanisation),
Dunno, but not really necessary to know about it when the statement being challenged is “not wanting Ukraine invaded by Russia”.
how Biden, after pumping $40B into Ukraine, is asking for $60B more from GOP to use Ukraine as a condom to try fuck with Russia till the “last Ukrainian”, causing deaths of both Ukrainians and Russians
Don’t really care about US but isn’t your yearly military spending like 1Trillion? I looked it up and in 2016 the budget was $639.86B, while in 2023 seems to be $797.B, Accounting for inflation from 2016 to 2023 (Core inflation averaged 3.09% per year between 2016 and 2023 (vs all-CPI inflation of 3.52%), for an inflation total of 23.74%.) $639.86B then is $791,76B now, so accouting for inflation This year’s military budget is not higher than the one in 2016. I picked that year because as an outsider I don’t think the US was doing anything special by then, no covid no Ukraining war, nothing. So basically the US is not spending more than usual for the military, and although I think that’s too much in general, blaming the war maybe isn’t the best approach.
It took me 5 mins to find these numbers and do the math.
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Please go ahead and tell yourself what it says and why that makes it ok to kill Ukrainian civilians.
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No. Just no. Russia is invading. You can’t, in good faith, blame the invaded for the casualties. The same way you can’t tell a woman that she got beaten because she refused to have sex.
I can understand it’s not a black and white issue, but this is the laziest propaganda imaginable. You want to stop the casualties right now? Russia retreats to their territory at this very moment. It’s that simple. Keep trying to invade the country won’t reduce the casualties. Now you will take your whataboutism card to say it’s your time to do some killing. Or say that US allying with Ukraine and Russia taking my force is basically the same.
You think the invasion is rightful so the deaths are in there fault of the defenders? Happy that Russia reports low civilian death ratio? Fantastic, you have now used the same argument that all other atrocities used. I’ll also oppose the ones you oppose BTW not only the ones that fit my agenda.
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Who cares? Russia sucks. Remember when they were the bad guy in every movie and every American was anti-Russia? What the fuck happened to the GOP that they’re all sucking Russian dick now?
Putin is a wannabe dictator fucking with Europe, America, and Canada with troll farms while invading non-aggressive neighbours and should be crushed.
Yes, let’s all go back to the McCarthyist days where everyone was secretly a ebil commie, why don’t you go the frontlines and see how ‘enthusiastic’ the Ukrainian conscripts are about the war, if you hate Russia so much
The United States made Russia into what it is today. Yeltsin’s campaign was heavily funded be the US under Clinton, and Putin was hand picked by Yeltsin as his successor.
What does .ml stand for again?
Mali. The domain is free.
I thought it was Machine Learning lmao.
So from having had a few exchanges with pro Russian accounts on Lemmy (which seems to be infested with a few very active ones) this is a summary of their arguments:
- “Ukraine is Nazi”
- “Well far right parties got a total of under 6% of the vote, and they elected a Jewish man president”
- “yeah but Bandera and whatabout America”
- “Ukraine killed ethnic Russians”
- “A huge percentage of their population are ethnic Russians, including in government, and they are fine, and were until the Russian invasion. And now it’s Russia that has killed, maimed and raped more ethnic Russians, including civilians, than Ukraine every did or even could. Including their own people thorough incompetence and corruption”.
- “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
- “Ukraine is fighting because they are forced to by their colonial masters, the USA and NATO, and Ukrainians will keep dying so long as they keep being armed”
- “Actually > 90% of the population wants to continue fighting for their country back, so what you’re basically saying is you think Ukrainians should be abandoned to Russian enslavement”
- “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
- “NATO and USA are colonialists and this is just more colonialism”
- “Actually both Russia and China are actual, bone fide land empires, with ethnic minorities that are forced to live like colonized people - including doing the fighting for Russia while their families back home live in misery and squalor and Putin’s Mafia collect mansions, private jets and yachts”
- “Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America”
Very true. Russia (well, putin) has shown over and over that he can’t be trusted, he will stab you in the back and he will murder you.
Hell, the entire land grab from Ukraine was going against accords made where Russia promised to allow Ukraine to exist as a sovereign nation and Russia would get all their nukes. Russia got the nukes and theb went on to invade and steal Crimea and then to just drop all pretence and invade the entire Ukraine.
Just give some shitty transparent excuses, mumble something about non existent Nazis, and just steal lands.
So no, you can’t make deals with Putin
However, Ukraine is in a tight spot. They still rely on the west (and mostly United States)for the Weapons and gear they use on the war. Russia has the Republican party in their pocket and if the Republican party (or worse trump) wins the election, they’ll at the least stop all Help and likely hand the Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter.
This means they basically gotta gain as much as possible before the US elections, which is why they’re grinding on so much without the proper air support they’ll start having at the end of the year. It sucks, but it’s the situation they’re in.
It’s impressive though to see how much they advance without air support. Slava Ukraine!
His plane “crashed”? You mean after it was shot with AA missiles right?
It was not shot down, here is a short video with a detailed explanation on why the most likely thing that happened was a bomb onboard.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/rCUTsO6bOSo?si=fl_UixmPEqsMNI3I
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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No no, that was before crash.
Yeah exactly - let’s not get things twisted here. The being blown out of the sky by AA and the crash are 2 entirely separate situations involving the same plane that happened close together, that’s all. Yep.
Jesus the fucking ignorance here.
It’s pretty damn clear at this point it was a bomb on board.
No one is saying Putin didn’t do it. Just that the evidence is that whomever did do it, did it with a bomb.
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A wing an the tail fell of… chance in a million /s
Computational Structural-Fluid interaction simulation/ engineering analysis of the crash that I think is really good https://piped.video/watch?v=rCUTsO6bOSo
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/rCUTsO6bOSo?si=5or7ZnDf1hur-f2w
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Ironically the CIA believes Putin killed Prigozhin to defuse tensions with NATO for exiling Wagner to Belarus.
If Putin wants to defuse tensions with NATO, he knows what to do.
Retreat from Ukraine, then fall out of a window.
Right, pullout, like Putin’s daddy should have done.
I’m skeptical the government would allow him to do that.
He’s not actually a god-king. If a leader ever became a threat to the power structure, he’d be eliminated. Just ask JFK 🙃
I don’t think you can compare those situations. Putin has had everyone fall out the window that was a threat to his power. Or accidentally get himself stabbed with poison by a Russian agent. Or pour themselves poisoned tea definitely nobody else poisoned.
In the west we say Putin, like he’s some sorta boogieman. In the US our politicians are essentially puppets with some corporation’s hand up their ass. Yes, Putin has been in power for years; that doesn’t mean he isn’t in power because he keeps the oligarch’s money flowing. The second the money flow comes into question, someone falls from a window.
Now I’m not saying Putin isn’t the one ordering the hits - he could be and also potentially couldn’t be. What I am saying is that there are often multiple versions of the truth and/or layers to that truth.
I think Zelenskyy is right, don’t make deals with the devil. But there’s a 100% certainty that this isn’t only “Putin’s War” and there are more players, potentially those with their hand deep in Putin’s ass, pulling his puppet-strings
You think Putin is the one personally pushing people out of windows?
This is bigger than he is - he’s a figurehead of a power bloc within the government, he isn’t god.
Since when do leaders have to personally execute every command? He surrounded himself with yes men for decades.
Just ignore that obvious shill. The other day they were denying the importance of education to combat propaganda. It’s obvious where their loyalties lie.
Did Putin conquer Russia all by himself?
The idea that he’s some kind of lonely tyrant and accountable to no-one really implies that he actually is a god, like he somehow managed to take over the largest country on Earth and rule it with an iron fist and there wasn’t anyone else that helped him get there or helps him stay there (and could help him “retire” if he ever became a problem)
I’ve never said he alone is responsible for everything. For example, he has loads of assholes trying to defend him online.
Good night.
Putin is, for all intents and purposes, an absolute ruler. He’s a lot closer to being the “god-king” of Russia than you appear to think.
Absolute rulers don’t actually exist. That’s fantasy stuff for kids books.
Even under feudalism and in ancient empires the leader wasn’t actually like that, they could always go too far and be replaced (with lots of violence of course)
yeah sure, he will surrender to a comedian who didn’t even go through compulsory military service. Hallo, this guy played piano with his dick on TV.
what a shame, real people are dying and this zelensdick plays the victim in his castle.
Or you know, Russia could just have not attacked in the first place.
Putin is the laughingstock of the world.
Is that why G20 decided not to sanction nor condemn Russia this week?
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That’s unfortunate.
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Why couldn’t he just let Ukraine be then?
aww are you scared of the big bad comedy man? perhaps you needn’t be if russia just skedaddled back whence they came from
this guy played piano with his dick on TV
Maybe it’s probably not necessary to kickass the “world’s #2 strongest army” but knowing how to use your dick certainly doesn’t hurt obviously.
I, for one, think it’s pretty fucking hilarious and incredible that the “world’s second best army” is getting curbstomped by a country led by a guy who played piano with his dick on TV.
You might need to check your sources about how the war is going… Russia hasn’t committed its full army to this war.
This doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. It’s not the case that Russia is somehow holding back and has huge additional reserves and resources that it can throw at the conflict. The Russian military isn’t about to collapse or anything, but it’s not doing great either and has largely been exposed as far weaker than was previously supposed.
Yes I agree, particularly in the fact that the corruption and facade that was the Russian military reporting structure made it seem to Russian leadership that they were more powerful than they thought. This is the problem with having so many yes men surrounding an authoritarian leader.
However as we’re hitting the two year mark on the war soon, the Russian military has likely become more competent and less corrupt than before with the increased attention.
not that I don’t believe you, but do you have sources yourself? Lotta propaganda flying everywhere
And https://understandingwar.org/publications
Generally you want to look at the sources that the military use and not sources the media use to justify their positions.
Russia can’t commit its full army to the war, for quite a few reasons. One of which is that it’s “full army” has been decisively proven to be WAY more of a paper tiger than anybody would have guessed.
The scale and duration of this war are orders of magnitude are far larger than anyone in Russia was planning for in January of 2022. They discovered that their battalions were rife with ghost soldiers so the officers could scoop up their pay. They discovered their modern tank stockpiles were not only unmaintained, but also often scavenged for parts to either repair other vehicles or simply sell on the black market. They discovered that, incredibly, their Air Force was unable to fully suppress a force that (on paper) was a mere fraction of their size and supposed capability.
This is scratching the surface. This shit goes way deeper, and it involves their whole military industrial complex, as well as pretty much all seriously profitable ventures in Russia. If money is made at any serious scale, someone’s going to put together a scheme to take a cut of it. That’s how the country works. And it’s biting them in the ass right now.
Yup I agree. But much like the Ukrainians were able to mobilize, Russia is doing the same. The paper tiger isn’t all paper though, they really do have 5 times the population as Ukraine.
So, you’re saying Putin can’t back down because he would look like a fool, but somehow people dying is fault of Zelenskyy for not being at the front, just like Putin?
Tank(ie) you for your valuable comment!
cringe
Lmao cope harder, tankie. Russia went from the “second best army in the world” to the 3rd best army operating openly in the Ukraine AO. Russia has proven themselves to be a joke, militarily - they went from being considered a superpower to being a peer-power of Ukraine. That’s a fucking HUGE step down in geopolitical clout and military credibility.
I don’t know what to think, are you sad there’s few dead toll on UA side. Russia especially proved they were not in clean-slate mode. Do you really think they wouldn’t use aviation if they wanted “more”, really?
Between, UA is supplied by our governments (and certainly on the intel side too), so it is not just “UA” against RU, idiot!
Again I think you need to do some research on this…
A day earlier, Prigozhin published a video purportedly from Africa. Next day, he managed to get himself killed on a flight from Moscow. While being exiled.
Not sure what the CIA believes, but it’s all sus AF.
It was a flight from St Petersburg to Moscow, but yes why he was allowed in the country after being exiled shows that in Russia their rules aren’t cut and dry.
From Moscow: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/RUSSIAN-CRASH/PRIGOZHIN/dwvkaealmvm/
There were two jets though, the other one did the roundtrip fine.
Ahh, apologies I thought it was St P to Moscow, I was wrong.
I mean, obviously?
But that would counter Zelensky’s argument.
You mean Zelensky was wrong? No way!
Facts
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
The Wagner leader’s dramatic death, which followed a short-lived rebellion that threatened the authority of the Russian president, was a warning to be heeded, Zelensky suggested.
While the United States and other key Ukrainian allies continue to supply weapons to Kyiv, and stress that conditions to pursue a “just and durable” peace are not yet in place, a handful of world leaders, such as Brazil’s Lula Da Silva, have put the onus on Ukraine to end the war.
As evidence for his position, Zelensky cited other countries which have been attacked by Russian soldiers and continue to be partially occupied by them.
Ukraine has made incremental gains in the south amid fierce fighting with Russian troops, accounts from the front lines suggest.
Geolocated videos on Friday showed a wasteland of shell holes, abandoned trenches and wrecked military hardware in the area between Robotyne, Verbove and Novoprokopivka — a triangle of villages that hold the key for Ukrainians to getting closer to Tokmak, an important hub for Russian defenses.
The original article contains 282 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 29%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Zelensky has forgotten to mention Mink and Mink2 agreement that he and EU have broken, thus lying to Russia, and even admitted it.
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Every time I read comments about the war on Lemmy I lose a little hope for liberals as with every war the same shit happens and they are blood thirsty monsters living in fantasy land, and when this war comes to an end they will surely denounce ever supporting Ukraine just like they did with the brave freedom fighters of the Mujahadeen…
Using terrorist to talk about russian’s state army, well identified, sounds fishy to me.
looking for a EU only fediverse instance. I’m fed up of us trolls.
