I don’t think I’ve used any third party apps like this one, so I’m wondering what is it that I’ve actually done back then.

mentions oppressive communist regimes

gives examples of backwards and genocidal third world regimes that are even further away from communism than the US regime itself

Liberals really just have only two braincells, do they? One for memorizing all the “good” stuff and places and one for all the “bad” stuff and places.

At the cost of sounding like an anarkiddie, I would call this a conservative current in communism. Many communists are deeply patriotic, so my question was aimed mainly at them. From an idealist perspective however, my personal opinion is pretty clear. I would betray whoever tried to draft me, regardless of which side they were on. I don’t know if that’s an anti-communist thing to say. I just want to believe in something that would produce the most happiness for everyone.

I’m not taking it into consideration. On the contrary, I’m looking for sources to debunk it. Ever since genzhou got banned, I’ve lost access to a lot of good resources.

The laptop story was obviously real, the QAnon part was just randos making wild conjectures and blowing it up into completely unrelated territories like population mind control, new lizard world order, child blood drinking, and similar nonsense. I suppose, when I look at it from the other side, when the emphasis is placed on the easily discreditable parts of it, then that makes it look like the entire story is fake. Perhaps the biolabs really are producing WMDs, it just so happens that this one guy presented the story without evidence it and it turned into this entire thing before actual evidence of anything was discovered.

Did Nuland or someone else testify that the DoD funded them? Even then, did DoD send more than just money and/or did it promote large-scale bioculture manufacturing, way above the publicly disclosed scope? The US has its fingers in everything, but evidence is still required to present such claims, especially when they implicate a foreign nation. At lest, I would consider that common sense. I’ve heard stories of various US departments funding the weirdest of shit, so the story could turn out to be a dead end.

Bro seriously? How does their bias affect the facts that they’ve reported on? Or do you have actual evidence showing that the biolabs story did not in fact originate from a QAnon dumpster? And there’s no need to cite Nuland, I’ve heard about it, the existence of those labs is public knowledge. Whether they actually contain biological weapons is unknown as of yet.

But that just sounds like shifting the blame now. Both sides can be guilty of the same thing, and just because that one side is heavily biased doesn’t mean that their own sources that they present are bunk too. By all means, we can investigate these claims ourselves, there’s no need for Vice to spoon-feed us a prepared narrative.

Also yeah, its not imperialism per se, but it still has a strategic / economical motive, ie. a motive beneficial to Russia. Why would Russia launch a war, if it had nothing to gain? And for the record, I don’t buy the idea that they’re just trying to level the odds. No one is automatically this nice and polite, especially not bourgeois nation-states. When Russia becomes a communist state again, then perhaps it will become more believable.

For now, I don’t think the evidence for biological warfare research in Ukraine amounts to anything. Though if a secret facility does exist somewhere that no one has discovered yet, then that would be quite the coincidence.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxda7y/ukraine-biolabs-war-clandestine-tucker-carlson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or9kGzemcps

I haven’t actively researched this story, but these two did cross my path over the past few days. The first explains that the claim originated from a bogus conspiracy theory, and the second debunks some supposed evidence that has been presented towards the claim. (The second one has a strong “anti-tankie” vibe, but if you can stomach that, it’s a pretty well-researched video overall.)

As of right now, I don’t have any “good” sources that would be in favor of the theory. If there are any, they would need to debunk the above two links in their entirety.

Anywhere I can read more about this? The news are moving very fast now, so it’s difficult to search for stuff like that.

I was going off of the supposed news that Putin was dismayed by how slowly the war is going, as well as the reports that the Russian army is lacking in equipment. Personally, I think that a lack of intelligence did play a role too. As for the sanctions, this seems to be implying that they indeed were effective at stalling Russia’s advance. Would you say that this is the case? I know it’s a big lib talking point, that sanctions work, so I am hesitant to draw conclusions.

And yes, it is rather interesting to speculate just how much could Russia be hiding. Then again, for me, such speculations always seemed bordering with hidden tech fantasies and conspiracy theories, so I prefer relying on confirmed info. It could be that the news that Putin is unhappy with the development of the war is itself propaganda, meant to convince us that the Russian war machine is running out of juice, but the opposite would imply that Ukraine is not important enough for Russia to be worth investing much into war resources, so it’s difficult to say. Put simply, is it a blunder, or a strategic loss? I don’t know, and I hope I can learn more about this somewhere.

And yes, I meant that Putin seems like a conservative bigot from the american point of view, so it’s understandable why some might say these things and draw these Hitler comparisons.

Very well, thank you for explaining it. That said, we do see that the progress of Russian troops is beginning to stagnate. It seems that Putin or his generals miscalculated. Why do you think it is, that the war didn’t go for them as expected?

See, the reason for all these questions is, that aside from this place, my other major source for info about the war is the many liberal, usually apolitical subreddits, that I’m subscribed to on Reddit. That’s how they get me, they act apolitical, but then the mods pin some atrocity that I simply must take a look at. And, well… there were many stories covered by them that the communists around here and on Reddit haven’t really talked about that much, such as for example the material impact of the war on the ground, coverage of the civilian victims, i.e. things that illicit the greatest emotional response in liberals. (They also debunked some stories that I’ve seen around here, such as the claim that the dead bodies in Bucha were moving. Apparently they weren’t after all.)

And the times that this topic came up in my family’s circles, the discussion always circled back to this topic, and I didn’t really have anything to say, so I simply agreed to pretty much every single talking point they were having, because obviously, the loss of innocent life is terrible no matter what, and I also didn’t want to resort to whataboutisms regarding America’s wars, as that doesn’t seem very appropriate. (If anything, it looks dismissive or ignorant.)

Lastly, I originally mentioned Hitler, as he was exactly one of those types that believed in superstitious war strategies. He provided the general plans, and his generals fleshed them out to the best of their abilities. At least that’s how I’ve heard it be told. For example, his decision to invade the USSR apparently came to him after a solitary deliberation in the Alps. I.e., he picked the time of the invasion based on a nonsense reason. I initially thought that maybe Putin could have also been motivated by some superstition to greenlight such an operation, all else being left to his skilled generals as far as logistics go (so pretty much every single important decision, aside from the initial idea for the invasion itself).

I suppose that in the end, it doesn’t really matter what Putin thinks, right? The reason could have been anything and it wouldn’t change the fact that Putin decided to invade Ukraine in late February of 2022, superstitious or not. So I guess I really am arguing about nonsense. But he obviously is a conservative bigot, no denying that, so it’s understandable where the video that I shared was coming from.

I have explained in the original post that I do not think that this is the case, that there are material reasons for this war, as with anything else. I have merely wondered whether “LGBT issues” were a contributing factor.

So just to be clear, Putin does not think that the west is “weak”, he did not see an opportunity with Ukraine because of that, and when he displays such attitudes publicly, he is merely pandering to domestic bigots. Is that right? And also, speaking of Sun Tzu, is that something that played a role? It is an ancient book, most famous for telling how to defeat your opponent without fighting, i.e. through propaganda. Did Putin read Sun Tzu and did it influence his decision making? Or, what exactly are you saying?

It did seem rather far fetched to me too, but I wasn’t entirely sure, so I had to ask. So then, what is the main cause of Putin opening a war in this specific timeframe, early 2022? What specific opportunity did he see in it?

Well obviously they are. Is it therefore itself a rightist idea to suggest that this played a role in his decision making, i. e. something that only rightists alone would believe? Because obviously there are historical examples of various leaders nonetheless succumbing to such line of thinking.

So, you are of the opinion that Putin does in fact not factor western gendersex attitudes in matters of war, despite being seemingly full about it as of recent? (Such has his recent remarks about J. K. Rowling, which most people found very strange, coming from him.)

My current opinion:

One doesn’t have to be fully pro-US to recognize that Russia is doing shitty things out of strategical geopolitics that just so happen to be anti-imperialist, and vice versa, one doesn’t have to be pro-Russia to recognize the amount of influence that the US exerts and wants to exert over the entire world. Obviously, every bold move requires certain sacrifices, but this shouldn’t be the cost of economical freedom. What’s the point of hoping for a better economical future, when the country is turned to ruin? It’s not like Russia has come to liberate Ukraine with the promise of building it back better and ensuring human rights; Putin is not Lenin. Not to mention that the crux of the issue seems to be with the Russian military’s command chain (you absolutely do have some abhorrent troop leaders in there).

I do not want to see any country or place ruined over what essentially amounts to a botched anti-imperialist struggle. Russia might be de-facto an anti-imperialist actor, but it does not have anti-imperialist goals. If it did, it would care about human lives and it wouldn’t disperse so much one-sided propaganda. Russia has patriotic (country-oriented) interests, which include nationalism, religion, and patriarchy. These goals serve only its own interests, and other people-groups are paying the price of it. (Although it is not so absolute either; Russia still is a multi-ethnic country, after all.) We must not forget that socialism is primarily an international movement. Socialism for one people-group at the expense of another is no socialism whatsoever. Judging by state TV propaganda, Russia isn’t interested in helping Ukraine, it’s only interested in “reclaiming what was once theirs”, completely disregarding all else. Anti-imperialism in general is too about more than just territorial control.

One top comment here said that Russia does not yet possess the capability to be as ruthless as the US, and that by siding with the less powerful entity, our chances at revolution increase, whereas (implying) that our chances when siding with the US are nil. This attempt to quantize the probability is quite naïve, since it is entirely possible that our chances are zero under both circumstances, perhaps because we lack the power. At the cost of sounding like an anarchist, unless we can create an actual organized mass movement with strong leadership that can strike and overthrow a whole state apparatus, we remain vulnerable, and the only thing we can do in the meantime is to engage in smaller-scale struggles, if not straight up organize.

In this sense, the greatest good we can do is help Ukrainian refugees, aka the people whose material realities were impacted the most by this event. Their suffering does not bring a revolution any closer to existence, it can come with or without thousands of innocents dead or displaced. But other than this, I don’t see much else we can do, aside from giving our opinions. For real, what material impact should our critical support of Russia generate? If it’s blocs we’re talking about, then one can most definitely support China and its allies, including Russia in general, while simultaneously condemning this one specific event. The Soviet bloc was not a monolith either, after all, and it had its good and bad moments throughout the years.

Finally, remember that all of this is just my personal opinion, I do not claim to possess the only correct and true narrative. If I have misunderstood anything or if there’s something you want to add, I am open to criticism.

Edit tl;dr: I support Russia and its people in the long run, but I mostly disagree with this war, and I strongly disagree with how it’s been conducted so far. Russia could have done a better job, but hasn’t done so not by accident, but due to ideology.