puporing

We don't know it based on his behavior.

Again you're feeding the fear mongering big bullies use to intimidate people to coercion. Ukrainians have decided they will fight when bombs dropped, so can the rest of us.

So? I am ethnic Chinese but I don't want to be moving back to China anytime soon. That says nothing about what someone's beliefs or situations are. In Canada a large chunk of the population are immigrants, but they clearly want to be Canadian.

That depends on the collective will of "the west", and their understanding of the situation. Putin can't do it quickly either as he and his army have also been weakened. And then the swinging countries left such as US and China.

I cannot verify this claim, how did you verify it? All I know is Ukrainians as a whole are voting for independence at this time. I didn't say that can't ever change, but it has to be changed (if that were to be the case) not through manipulation.

In my view you need equal or greater force. So you kind of answered it yourself. Unfortunately this does mean more investment in self-defense based military and tactics. While simultaneously educating the public about dictatorships vs democracies.

It's only difficult because you are not fully understanding the ramifications of dictatorial regimes. Have you lived in one? Or do some research on the victims of such regimes. Not on the "winners" of them, but on the victims. Well we don't want war to start in the first place. But there has to be security guarantees from the rest of the alliance so that war doesn't start.

Taiwain doesn't think it's China, neither does HK. You're just bowing down to dictatorship regimes. That's all you're doing.. by succumbing to their so called "supreme power".

Yes but you are talking about territory transfer. There're international laws that govern that. Even if it's true that 100% of Crimean population wanted it, there're still international and constitutional laws that everyone else is abiding by. Those Crimeans should just immigrate.

They should have a say in their independence (as a country), not as some state within it.

Well you just answered my question, that it was hardly done in "Good faith". And I will refer you to this for the views on this "referendum": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#:~:text=According to the Gallup's survey,families%2C while 5.5% disagree.

Clearly there's disagreement about that. Putin always want more territory to belong to them. By saying it always belonged to them. I'm sorry but you're going nowhere with this. This is the same talking points Putin uses to justify the invasion.

This is the same talking points that people like Putin, Xijinping uses, now Donald Trump. This line of thought is being used to crush Ukraine who as a whole want independence from Russia and Putin. -- And you're not really addressing the question: Should any state just be allowed to have a referendum to join another country territorially? Picture some province or territory in Taiwan that started a similar thing. Or a province in Canada starting a similar thing.

@Breakingthewall That is a tricky situation and question. But should that have been allowed to happen in the first place? All of a sudden any state (as part of a nation) can just start some referendum to join another one? You see how quickly this will become a huge mess. What was the voter turnout? How much did Russia's influence such as manipulation tactics played a role? If Russia was acting in good faith (eg, not there to take more regions), they should just relocate people who wanted to immigrate to Russia.

I don't know if they were "promoting" hostility. Someone started it first, and then you get a response. Just like how if someone punched you in the face over and over you might have some kind of response than just allowing them to keep doing it. Because Ukrainians now are firmly in the democratic camp, Putin also feels more hostility towards them.

But the rest of the people will still keep reading what they're saying.. so putting on ignore doesn't change that they are spreading misinformation.

The opposition to Putin is most likely the result of his own long history of murdering all of his opponents, elections meddling, etc. Truth finds its way out.

You're the fallacy and propagandist. You seem to be working for Putin. You wouldn't even have a country left if Ukraine and allies wasn't still fighting. What you will have is Putin's regime, it will be even worse than Trump's current one. Do some research before you start shooting down democratic nations. -- And if you fundamentally agree with Putin's regime, well, you have really lost your mind and I don't think there's an easy way to come back from that.

I honestly struggle to know if this guy is just a fool or a bad actor trying to brainwash people to join maga. I've tried to "reason" with him over and over, nothing has changed.

No you can say the same about Trump. He's more of an idiot so he is less calibrated this is true, which gives you more of an appearance of "honesty". But you are a fool to think he doesn't do "backroom deals", such as with the likes of Putin. You are a fool to think he isn't just saying all these "nice sounding things" to keep his power, more so than other leaders.

@Leo Gura time for another mod to retire with a screaming match that ooh... Actualized is bad, Leo is a dictator etc. Edited 2 hours ago by Applegarden8 He corrected himself.

We don't hate Americans, just Trump and his devil friends. They need to be called out for what they are. I don't go out of my way to boycott anything. I don't want to fuel this needless conflict provoked by a narcissist in the white house. Plays exactly into their hands to further the needless conflict so that they can then say stuff like "Ukraine started it". It's the exact same game Trump is playing with Canada/Mexico.

Wrong. You are not even close to the truth. Ukraine is fighting the fight for all of us.

Still better than siding with Putin who is rapidly trying to convert everyone to his regime.. made up of death squad inside the country to murder anyone who doesn't agree with him. He's not just "on the right", he is an extremist who will use whatever it takes to spread his dictatorship ideology. Something like this forum couldn't exist anymore. -- And yes by supporting Trump or (not calling him out) is by extension supporting Putin's regime. Trump and his friends are currently doing his bidding if you haven't noticed. Of course they are very good at fooling you guys and playing "sleight of hands" tricks all over the map to cover up this obvious thing that is happening. Such as by pretending like they care about you, or they care about "the country". These are all just tricks to cover up their dictatorship alliances happening. -- By the time Putin actually takes over America it will be too late.

Zelensky wasn't gonna do it if there's no security guanrantees, he may as well have not got into the war in the first place and just surrendered to Russia in that case. And since Trump doesn't want to publicly pick a side against Putin, there's no deal.