International Russia/Ukraine Megathread V7

[ferrisjso]

We are not deciding to spend Ukrainian lives, they are the ones choosing to defend themselves rather than surrender. They request weapons from us to fight back, and we are just obliging them.

The only person spending Ukrainian lives here is Putin, along with many Russian lives as well.

The immoral thing is not fighting for their nation(though i think their nation is wrong) in Zelenskys case its losing men in the name of acheiving goals he knows cannot be acheived. Even worse he is basically trying to lobby the west to risk WW3 over reclaiming territory that his nation did everything in their power to alienate over the past decade. He will benefit politcally from losing the Russian held territorys(the Ukranian far right will likely never lose an election in our life time), he knows he will lose the Russian held territories(I can see a path to retaking Kherson) but he is pretending this isn't the case and people on both sides are needlessly dying as a result of that.

If not for Russias invasion the war would have continued to rage on in a smaller scale in LPR and DPR as well. This issue needs a resolution and trying to hold people who do not want to be there is not the answer. Attempts to keep two fundamentally opposed groups in the same country failed after a decade plus of efforts to patch it all together. Ukraine losing territory is in the best interest of both parties they both want fundamentally different things. The only way for Ukraine to keep their Russian lands was to remain neutral between the west and Ukraine and to simply de facto allow LPR/DPR to run their own affairs (this is how Moldova handled their seperatist situation and Russia has not acknowledged Transnistria as a result), if Ukraines going into the EU and possibly NATO, the east is going out of Ukraine and that's entirely reasonable.

These people fighting to hold the East want the Easts land they don't want the Easts people.

 

[Vergilius]

I already laid it out. Either commit to ending this or sit down and be ready to make some concessions to end it. This ghoulish tactic of spending lives to just hurt your enemy without an actual victory in sight just doesn't sit right with me and reminds me too much of ww1

You haven't really laid it out, though. Do you want the West to put troops on the ground and risk total war with Russia? That would be incredibly risky given that several nuclear powers would be involved on opposing sides. Or do you want the West to give more equipment to Ukrainian soldiers? A case could certainly be made that more could be done, even if the help they've gotten is pretty unprecedented - but it DOES take time to train an army into using and maintaining weapons from various countries that is very different from what it is used to.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Well they disagree with your premise"? If the current govermment doesn't reflect their values nor that of the vast majority in their region or supposed to just be governed by people with whom want to go on an entirely different path?

Should the American Founding Fathers have fled to France or the Netherlands or something because they "no longer wanted to be part of the team"? This same logic delegimatizes many of the countries around the world whose existence was acheived by breaking away from multi ethnic empires on the basis of self determination. Somehow these borders are sacred and previous ones were not for.....reasons?

The founding fathers did exactly what the Ukrainians are doing now. Fighting an oppressive overlord, with international support, and they managed to send the imperialists back to their homeland. Anyone that identified as British could move to England or Canada but they couldn't keep any colonies.

 

[A Very Serious Cat]

You haven't really laid it out, though. Do you want the West to put troops on the ground and risk total war with Russia? That would be incredibly risky given that several nuclear powers would be involved on opposing sides. Or do you want the West to give more equipment to Ukrainian soldiers? A case could certainly be made that more could be done, even if the help they've gotten is pretty unprecedented - but it DOES take time to train an army into using and maintaining weapons from various countries that is very different from what it is used to.

Answered above. Give Ukraine some real material support so they have realistic hope of winning or bite the bullet and seriously attempt talks. The current position just results in lives being thrown away for no real benefit.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Then I would ask your government some serious questions, like where the fuck is the 1 trillion or whatever it is a year going if the supplies given so far are taxing on your forces?

The world.

 

[ferrisjso]

The founding fathers did exactly what the Ukrainians are doing now. Fighting an oppressive overlord, with international support, and they managed to send the imperialists back to their homeland. Anyone that identified as British could move to England or Canada but they couldn't keep any colonies.

They were part of the British Empire. Those were the established borders of the time. What makes these borders so legitamite and those so ilegitamite?

Ukraine is the ones fighting seperatists? I have no idea how you spun that the other way. Before Russia intervened Ukraine were the ones trying to quash LPR and DPR and sent Nazis after them. It took 8 years for Russia to intervene in this war.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

The immoral thing is not fighting for their nation(though i think their nation is wrong) in Zelenskys case its losing men in the name of acheiving goals he knows cannot be acheived. Even worse he is basically trying to lobby the west to risk WW3 over reclaiming territory that his nation did everything in their power to alienate over the past decade. He will benefit politcally from losing the Russian held territorys(the Ukranian far right will likely never lose an election in our life time), he knows he will lose the Russian held territories(I can see a path to retaking Kherson) but he is pretending this isn't the case and people on both sides are needlessly dying as a result of that.

If not for Russias invasion the war would have continued to rage on in a smaller scale in LPR and DPR as well. This issue needs a resolution and trying to hold people who do not want to be there is not the answer. Attempts to keep two fundamentally opposed groups in the same country failed after a decade plus of efforts to patch it all together. Ukraine losing territory is in the best interest of both parties they both want fundamentally different things. The only way for Ukraine to keep their Russian lands was to remain neutral between the west and Ukraine and to simply de facto allow LPR/DPR to run their own affairs (this is how Moldova handled their seperatist situation and Russia has not acknowledged Transnistria as a result), if Ukraines going into the EU and possibly NATO, the east is going out of Ukraine and that's entirely reasonable.

These people fighting to hold the East want the Easts land they don't want the Easts people.

 

[Blayt7hh]

What is your suggestion then?

The West just abandon Ukraine to the mercy of Putin?

What's YOUR suggestion?

That’s been suggested quite a few times on this board. It’s not lost on me that everyone suggesting it is the most avid anti liberal alt right poster with the possible exception of serious cat. I haven’t seen enough of his other posts to know that he is that, but this opinion leads me to think he is.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Answered above. Give Ukraine some real material support so they have realistic hope of winning or bite the bullet and seriously attempt talks. The current position just results in lives being thrown away for no real benefit.

Who said we aren’t giving them serious support? We’ve given them a ton of support. So much so that they’ve stalled out the second strongest military in the world.

We can’t hold talks on their behalf. If they want to surrender or negotiate peace maybe we could help them. They have no interest in just making peace right now though. So what do you want? You want us to cut them off so they eventually get ground down and have to surrender?

 

[Blayt7hh]

The founding fathers did exactly what the Ukrainians are doing now. Fighting an oppressive overlord, with international support, and they managed to send the imperialists back to their homeland. Anyone that identified as British could move to England or Canada but they couldn't keep any colonies.

Not a bad analogy, but England went to war with multiple European powers across all its colonies during the revolution. It’s an important factor to why we won; they chose to to send less fighting power to America to win the war elsewhere.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

They were part of the British Empire. Those were the established borders of the time. What makes these borders so legitamite and those so ilegitamite?

Ukraine is the ones fighting seperatists? I have no idea how you spun that the other way. Before Russia intervened Ukraine were the ones trying to quash LPR and DPR and sent Nazis after them. It took 8 years for Russia to intervene in this war.

Russia intervened immediately by funding and arming the Donbas separatists and annexing Crimea, when their puppet government was overthrown and they lost control of Ukraine, who was looking for a more prosperous relationship with the EU and the West.

 

[ferrisjso]

That’s been suggested quite a few times on this board. It’s not lost on me that everyone suggesting it is the most avid anti liberal alt right poster with the possible exception of serious cat. I haven’t seen enough of his other posts to know that he is that, but this opinion leads me to think he is.

I'm a leftist. Just throwing that out there.

Also the 2016 primaries and Russiagate led to a dynamic where Russia and Russia related issues was very important to many leftists political development. It was the big driver of all the recent schisms in the left. A lot of leftists if not a large majority are pro LPR/DPR/anti Zelensky.

 

[MeatheadMike]

The immoral thing is not fighting for their nation(though i think their nation is wrong) in Zelenskys case its losing men in the name of acheiving goals he knows cannot be acheived. Even worse he is basically trying to lobby the west to risk WW3 over reclaiming territory that his nation did everything in their power to alienate over the past decade. He will benefit politcally from losing the Russian held territorys(the Ukranian far right will likely never lose an election in our life time), he knows he will lose the Russian held territories(I can see a path to retaking Kherson) but he is pretending this isn't the case and people on both sides are needlessly dying as a result of that.

If not for Russias invasion the war would have continued to rage on in a smaller scale in LPR and DPR as well. This issue needs a resolution and trying to hold people who do not want to be there is not the answer. Attempts to keep two fundamentally opposed groups in the same country failed after a decade plus of efforts to patch it all together. Ukraine losing territory is in the best interest of both parties they both want fundamentally different things. The only way for Ukraine to keep their Russian lands was to remain neutral between the west and Ukraine and to simply de facto allow LPR/DPR to run their own affairs (this is how Moldova handled their seperatist situation and Russia has not acknowledged Transnistria as a result), if Ukraines going into the EU and possibly NATO, the east is going out of Ukraine and that's entirely reasonable.

These people fighting to hold the East want the Easts land they don't want the Easts people.

The poster I was replying to was blaming the US for spending Ukraine lives, which is outright wrong. You can blame Zelensky for fighting if you want... but he really is just representing the will of his people who would rather defend themselves than surrender. If he didn't have their support, he wouldn't have lasted this long.

Also I don't blame him for wanting to risk WW3 over his country being invaded. We aren't going to oblige him on that... but you can guarantee that if the US, Russia, or any other superpower was invaded, which ever guy in charge would absolutely start WW3 over it.

 

[A Very Serious Cat]

The poster I was replying to was blaming the US for spending Ukraine lives, which is outright wrong. You can blame Zelensky for fighting if you want... but he really is just representing the will of his people who would rather defend themselves than surrender. If he didn't have their support, he wouldn't have lasted this long.

Also I don't blame him for wanting to risk WW3 over his country being invaded. We aren't going to oblige him on that... but you can guarantee that if the US, Russia, or any other superpower was invaded, which ever guy in charge would absolutely start WW3 over it.

I think it would be naive to think the USA doesn't call the shots in Ukraine right now. No way the aid that has been given didn't come with certain strings

 

[A Very Serious Cat]

That’s been suggested quite a few times on this board. It’s not lost on me that everyone suggesting it is the most avid anti liberal alt right poster with the possible exception of serious cat. I haven’t seen enough of his other posts to know that he is that, but this opinion leads me to think he is.

I'm jaded to the point of disliking government in general and will just vote for whoever is most likely to leave me the fuck alone

 

[Blayt7hh]

I'm a leftist. Just throwing that out there.

Also the 2016 primaries and Russiagate led to a dynamic where Russia and Russia related issues was very important to many leftists political development. It was the big driver of all the recent schisms in the left. A lot of leftists if not a large majority are pro LPR/DPR/anti Zelensky.

I wasn’t calling you out but if you’re of the belief that the US supporting a nation we were friendly with and traded with is somehow insidious of us, you’re wrong. You’re also wrong if you think they’re only fighting back because “we told them too.” I don’t know if you’ve said these things or not, but they’re attitudes that a lot of right wing posters have had about this war.

 

[MeatheadMike]

That’s been suggested quite a few times on this board. It’s not lost on me that everyone suggesting it is the most avid anti liberal alt right poster with the possible exception of serious cat. I haven’t seen enough of his other posts to know that he is that, but this opinion leads me to think he is.

I've noticed this too... its really telling of who is really influencing alt right media sources.

 

[ferrisjso]

Russia intervened immediately by funding and arming the Donbas separatists and annexing Crimea, when their puppet government was overthrown and they lost control of Ukraine, who was looking for a more prosperous relationship with the EU and the West.

I will say Ukraine got screwed by trading their nukes for Crimea. But regardless Crimea was still Russian. Russia didn't plan to take Crimea from the start but leaving Russia's orbit and going into the West's orbit and potentially NATO means all of Ukraine is forever lost to Russia's orbit. Crimea was simply too strategically important to let that happen.

The Donbass isn't as important but the same general dynamic underlies this invasion. If Ukraine goes into the western orbit all these areas are forever lost and Russia is taking back these areas before that happens. Even so Russia's plan A was to use Donbass to politically make Ukraine neutral this invasion is only happening because that failed and instead of being given autonomy and influence in the govt LPR/DPR were shelled for years. They tried that plan for about 8 years.

Also both the US and Russia installed puppet governments. But the Russian puppet won via regular election, the US one was elected after overthrowing the Russia one via coup.

 

[MeatheadMike]

I think it would be naive to think the USA doesn't call the shots in Ukraine right now. No way the aid that has been given didn't come with certain strings

They are defending themselves against a nation that is unfriendly to us and as a result limiting their sphere of influence.... obviously its mutually beneficial.

But the bottom line is if Ukraine didn't want to fight, there would be no way we could make them.

 

[ferrisjso]

I wasn’t calling you out but if you’re of the belief that the US supporting a nation we were friendly with and traded with is somehow insidious of us, you’re wrong. You’re also wrong if you think they’re only fighting back because “we told them too.” I don’t know if you’ve said these things or not, but they’re attitudes that a lot of right wing posters have had about this war.

Yeah those were not my arguments though I feel the Ukranians are being used. There pride and passion doesn't change their fighting is a waste of time because they aren't retaking much if any land from Russia.

Zelensky and Ukraine is right wing and most of the left considers them to be fascists and part of a larger fascist problem in eastern europe. By and large we consider supporting Ukraine against leftists to be the insidious thing like many US allies.