Latest Ukraine/Russia Thread

[Scholar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Call it whatever hippie label you want. In the end nations are determined by a gun to your face, not your hippie Yankee logic.

I agree, that is why we must support Ukraine and destroy the Russian empire, with guns.

[zazen]

3 hours ago, BlueOak said:

@zazen

While I agree clarification is helpful, imperialism only needs clarification because its problematic for the current direction the world is moving in, and so people want more room to manoeuvre their latest justifications for violence. In previous centuries when other powers were judged, that definition was fit for purpose. Do you think 1,000 years from now people won't be looking back at it all as barbaric just the same?

You are disconnecting things that are naturally connected.

Survival leads to security, which leads to wealth and eventually power. Its all one and the same. There is nothing keeping that power in check but other powers. No moral structure which cannot be bent, twisted, or ignored in the pursuit of it. Because all it takes is any one of millions of decisions, from millions of people enacted in policy at the expense of another country or local cultures, building up over time to create that imbalance. Russia frequently takes from its poorer minorities and gives to the Muscovite regions as an example, or just takes over their land ownership.

As well as providing security or a buffer, the Ukranian regions are rich in food, ports and resources; where Turkey sits, it becomes the center of the world in a non-globalised reality, and Russia wants direct access or eventually control over much of it. It also wants manpower, because it lacks it and shorter more defensible borders to guard along the coasts and mountain ranges.

A war is a war.
Defence can be argued to be anything and is frequently argued by those you hate to be why they do what they do. Its been used as the justification for most wars for millennia.

So if Europe go to war with Russia over them meddling in Poland and Romania I’ll turn around to you and say Europe is defending its eastern flank from Russia overthrowing their governments.

Then people will argue whose sphere it is in. If Russia owns Ukraine you or someone with your view will argue its on their doorstep, and thus justified. 

Over any length of time where borders or spheres shift, it's all nonsensical, and I really wish that could be agreed upon, but we're still having to go over this, with you or others threading needles to tell me violence on any large scale has any justification whatsoever. People the world over need to handle their own insecurities and resource or security challenges via cooperation and not force. - That means every country. No ifs buts or why nots. It means everyone reading this eats their hatred of the other and does what they can to stop it.

China keep expanding their borders, BTW, eradicating problematic cultures or absorbing them. I think it was you who asked me for a list of Chinese wars or atrocities last time? I can list them here if that helps. They have African ambitions for resources, and in the South China Sea, they want to replace the dollar in a trading empire. It’s the same pattern that any power wants to emulate until they meet a force or resistance to it.

There’s so much to go into so I’ll try stay on topic and be concise as this thread is veering off. I get where you’re coming from and it’s true there are systemic problems with power itself that cause it to justify itself. That’s what we have to watch out for and distinguish.

We’d all prefer cooperation over wars of course. But cooperation requires acknowledging Russia’s security concerns as valid rather than dismiss them as nonsensical and frame any action it takes as imperial. The West can’t seem to cooperate with others as it paints them as boogeymen.

The problem is when we conflate things that happen to coincide but aren’t truly motivated by each other. Survival, security, wealth, and power are interconnected in the long run, but that doesn’t mean every instance of war and defensive manoeuvring is imperial. Context and intent matter a lot.

Ukraine has resources and strategic value, but those are incidental to the primary driver of security. Russia’s focus on buffer zones stems from centuries of invasions through the very regions it’s now protecting. That’s not greed or exploitation but survival logic. The resources and geography of Ukraine are bonuses, not the motivating force.

Imperialism is about domination for profit and power far beyond what’s needed for security. When the US invades Iraq or Libya, thousands of miles from its borders, for oil or regime change, that’s imperialism. When Russia intervenes in Ukraine or Georgia, a stone’s throw from Moscow, to prevent NATO encirclement, it’s a defensive posture, even if coercive and ugly.

By conflating survival with imperialism, we risk mischaracterising defensive moves as imperialist ones, which leads to misdiagnosing the problem and proposing the wrong solutions - ones that could escalate conflict unnecessarily and which are as the West avoids the negotiating table and instead fights the phantom of Russia they have lingering in their psyche from the Cold War era.

The West is still fighting a phantom Russia - a Cold War relic that no longer exists. Instead of engaging with the reality of modern Russia, it clings to outdated perceptions of an expansionist, imperialistic power akin to the Soviet Union. This misperception clouds judgment and drives policies that escalate tensions unnecessarily. Now I get why Leo emphasises truth seeking as essential.

Edited Sunday at 03:51 PM by zazen

[Scholar]

Just now, zazen said:

But cooperation requires acknowledging Russia’s security concerns as valid rather than dismiss them as nonsensical and frame any action it takes as imperial. The West can’t seem to cooperate with others as it paints them as boogeymen.

It makes no sense to cooperate with a nation that invades other countries. The whole reason why nations wanted to join NATO is because they wanted self-determination. Putin, as his first act in office, invaded another country and genocided it's people until they submitted to his rule. That's what happens to nations that want to be independent of the corrupt influence of the russian imperialist dictatorship.

It's gaslighting. Russia keeps invading soveirgn nations, the nations react in fear and seek western assistance, which is then used as a reason to further invade these countries. Nobody has ever invaded or attacked Russia. It doesn't make any sense because nobody cares to rule over moscovite barbarians. They can have their empty, worthless land all to themselves.

[Leo Gura]

Putin is sick of the ignorant gall of American hegemony, especially in his backyard. It's as simple as that.

You think you have a right to his backyard. And his response is to tell you to go fuck your mother. And you do a surprised Pikachu face because you don't even understand Russian culture.

If the Chinese told you that they will make Texas into a Chinese communist culture, the proper Yankee response would be to laugh and tell them to fuck off.

Edited Sunday at 04:10 PM by Leo Gura

[Scholar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Putin is sick of the ignorant gall of American hegemony, especially in his backyard. It's as simple as that.

No it's not at all as simply as that, this is an absurdly bias and simplistic viewpoint. You are not a systemic thinker whatsoever, you just like to be controversial by playing one-sided moral relativism.

[zazen]

21 minutes ago, Scholar said:

It makes no sense to cooperate with a nation that invades other countries. The whole reason why nations wanted to join NATO is because they wanted self-determination. Putin, as his first act in office, invaded another country and genocided it's people until they submitted to his rule. That's what happens to nations that want to be independent of the corrupt influence of the russian imperialist dictatorship.

It's gaslighting. Russia keeps invading soveirgn nations, the nations react in fear and seek western assistance, which is then used as a reason to further invade these countries. Nobody has ever invaded or attacked Russia. It doesn't make any sense because nobody cares to rule over moscovite barbarians. They can have their empty, worthless land all to themselves.

Cooperation doesn’t mean condoning. If that’s your standard then no one should cooperate with NATO or US - they should be globally shunned. Also, understanding isn’t justifying which many here seem to conflate me or Leo with doing.

I agree those countries should have self determination and they are valid to want to lean West after their experience of Soviet Russia. I just think Ukraine especially is a unique strategic threat to Russia considering its history.

If Eastern Europe’s historic experience of Russia makes their aspiration towards a “defensive” alliance like NATO valid - then surely Russias historic experience of being invaded from Ukraine makes its own security concern valid also.

Especially if the alliance Ukraine wants to be under the umbrella of is one which has not been solely defensive but offensive, and is operated by countries in the West that are antagonist. If it was a benevolent, defensive actor - Russia wouldn’t perhaps fear it as much and could entertain living side by side.

Imagine if Texas decided to separate from the US tomorrow if it felt the gov had become too liberal. Would the US government simply let it go? Of course not. The Civil War itself is proof of this - the US fought a brutal war to prevent Southern states from seceding, not because of imperialism but to maintain the nation’s integrity.  

If Scotland voted for independence tomorrow, the UK wouldn’t just roll over. London has already resisted such moves, arguing that it would fracture the union and weaken the nation. Same with Catalonia in Spain cracking down hard on Catalonia’s independence referendum in 2017, declaring it unconstitutional, arresting leaders, and suppressing the movement with police force.

When regions seek to secede, the larger nation invariably resists - not out of greed or imperialism, but because it views secession as an existential threat to its unity, economy, and security. The idea that Russia’s actions to maintain unity and prevent fragmentation are uniquely “imperialistic” ignores the reality that all nations resist fragmentation for the same reasons - though it’s unfortunate how bloody and violent they can be.

 

Edited Sunday at 04:12 PM by zazen

[Bobby_2021]

55 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The gall of Americans to complain about imperialism.

Americans and British whining about Russia being imperialist is the biggest joke. 

You know sometimes when women cheat, the first they do is to accuse her husband of cheating out of the blue. Because that is a good veil to mask her own immorality. If you confront her of this, then basically you and her are on the same page. Something like that is happening here. 

Same way by loudly accusing Russia and China of being imperialist merely because they exercise some level of influence among their neighbors is childish. All major nations of the world should be allowed to have spheres of influence. 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

To really understand this situation it's easy, you just gotta look at it from Putin's POV:

Why the fuck would I allow Slavic Ukraine -- the birthplace of Russia -- to fall into Western Yankee hands? What shit is this?! Fuck these Yankee interlopers.

That's what this war is about.

Yankees are too ignorant of Russian culture and history to understand any of this. It's as if Texas fell into Chinese hands. That's the closest analogy.

This is a near perfect way of how Russians think. 

Plus, the geopolitical reality that Putin has to face is a west who is dexterous in regime change operation and coups. The discussion of Ukraine Russia should start with the CIA orchestrated coup in 2014. Perhaps this is imperialistic western expansion for you. @Scholar

This is also why NATO expansion is not perfectly by authentic interests of a country. There is plenty of coercion involved evidently as seen from Georgia and Romania. The western backed NGOs would never allow a legitimate election of a Russian friendly leader. 

[Scholar]

44 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Plus, the geopolitical reality that Putin has to face is a west who is dexterous in regime change operation and coups. The discussion of Ukraine Russia should start with the CIA orchestrated coup in 2014. Perhaps this is imperialistic western expansion for you. @Scholar

 

CIA didn't orchestrate shit. Stop dismiss the will of the proletariat you capitalist enabler!

 

1 hour ago, zazen said:

Cooperation doesn’t mean condoning. If that’s your standard then no one should cooperate with NATO or US - they should be globally shunned. Also, understanding isn’t justifying which many here seem to conflate me or Leo with doing.

I don't think this makes sense. The reason why nations join Nato is not because they are forced to, but because the benefit from it. Past soviet slave-states wanted to join NATO because they knew Russia could at any point have the desire to enslave them once again. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

If Russia wanted to maintain it's sphere of influence, it should have offered the eastern block a better alternative to the US, rather than using KGB to inflitrate their political systems so they can use dismiss the will of the people in favor of corrupt oligrarch business.

The people have chosen, they want democracy, they want prosperity. They don't want corrupt russian politics in their country. Everything else is utterly irrelevant.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Putin is sick of the ignorant gall of American hegemony, especially in his backyard. It's as simple as that.

You think you have a right to his backyard. And his response is to tell you to go fuck your mother. And you do a surprised Pikachu face because you don't even understand Russian culture.

If the Chinese told you that they will make Texas into a Chinese communist culture, the proper Yankee response would be to laugh and tell them to fuck off.

Both America and Russia are fighting for influence in the region, but Russia is more cutthroat and brutal about it. Even understanding both sides, don't we have to pick one or the other at a certain point? Especially given that most Ukrainians want to keep their independent state (except for some regions on the border with Russia), isn't the Ukraine/America side in the right here? It's the triumph of stage orange over stage blue. 

[Leo Gura]

26 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

but Russia is more cutthroat and brutal about it.

Yes, but it is their region. Yankees got no business is Ukraine.

[Scholar]

19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, but it is their region. Yankees got no business is Ukraine.

This is a profoundly naive and silly view. The entire world should be interested in upholding the standards of national soveignty. The only reason why nations don't go into wars over territory in this day and age is because we as a world community have decided it is unacceptable. If you no longer enforce this norm, it will cease to be a norm.

By your logic, Hitler should have simply been allowed to invade whoever he wants, it wasn't the buisness of the US to get involved. What a silly and myopic view of politics. The fact that Ukraine aligns with western values, and that this is in the interest of the US and NATO in general, they should help Ukraine against this Russian invasion.

The genocide alone is a valid Casus Belli against Russia.

[Nemra]

People in the sphere of Russian influence are becoming tired. That's a VERY important thing, regardless of what Putin feels.

Of course, an abused child would want to have less abusive parents. But some people complain seeing the child not wanting to stay with the same parents.

[Scholar]

3 minutes ago, Nemra said:

People in the sphere of Russian influence are becoming tired. That's a VERY important thing, regardless of what Putin feels.

Of course, an abused child would want to have less abusive parents. But some people complain seeing the child not wanting to stay with the same parents.

The logic of this is like, an abused girlfriend cheats on her abusers with another guy, and once the girlfriend breaks up with the abuser, he uses that as a justification to rape her.

And everyone nods "Yes, clearly this is the abusers girlfriend, he has all the right to rape her, it is none of the guys business to protect his new girlfriend from her ex! In fact, he is the one who provoked the rape by making the girl cheat on the abuser! His evil non-abusing influence brainwashed the girlfriend into wanting to break up with her abuser, horrific!"

Edited Sunday at 06:33 PM by Scholar

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Scholar said:

This is a profoundly naive and silly view. The entire world should be interested in upholding the standards of national soveignty. The only reason why nations don't go into wars over territory in this day and age is because we as a world community have decided it is unacceptable. If you no longer enforce this norm, it will cease to be a norm.

By your logic, Hitler should have simply been allowed to invade whoever he wants, it wasn't the buisness of the US to get involved. What a silly and myopic view of politics. The fact that Ukraine aligns with western values, and that this is in the interest of the US and NATO in general, they should help Ukraine against this Russian invasion.

The genocide alone is a valid Casus Belli against Russia.

I'm not saying Putin shouldn't be challenged once he invades another nation. But Yankees were encroaching on his back yard for a decade before his invasion. So to act like Yankees are innocent here is absurd levels of Yankee bias and narcissism.

Edited Sunday at 06:42 PM by Leo Gura

[Nemra]

15 minutes ago, Scholar said:

The logic of this is like, an abused girlfriend cheats on her abusers with another guy, and once the girlfriend breaks up with the abuser, he uses that as a justification to rape her.

And everyone nods "Yes, clearly this is the abusers girlfriend, he has all the right to rape her, it is none of the guys business to protect his new girlfriend from her ex! In fact, he is the one who provoked the rape by making the girl cheat on the abuser! His evil non-abusing influence brainwashed the girlfriend into wanting to break up with her abuser, horrific!"

Interestingly, those people have NOTHING to loose.

[Scholar]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm not saying Putin shouldn't be challenged once he invades another nation. But Yankees were encroaching on his back yard for a decade before his invasion. So to act like Yankees are innocent here is absurd levels of Yankee bias and narcissism.

But this is not true. Other sovereign nations being worried about Russian hostility, after they experience decades of abuse from the USSR, have the right to invite anyone to their territory including the americans. If Russia doesn't like it, they need to build better relationships with their neighbours instead of invading them.

Of course the US will act in it's geopolitical interest, but all of it was justified given that Russia has been invading and attacking nations even after the soviet union fell.

 

If China were to establish trade relations with Mexico, and in Mexico you had corrupt US oligrarchs filling their pockets in favor of a corrupt US regime that keeps the mexican people poor, then of course I would criticize the US for invading Mexico, even if China was playing around in it's backyard.

[Lyubov]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Putin is sick of the ignorant gall of American hegemony, especially in his backyard. It's as simple as that.

You think you have a right to his backyard. And his response is to tell you to go fuck your mother. And you do a surprised Pikachu face because you don't even understand Russian culture.

If the Chinese told you that they will make Texas into a Chinese communist culture, the proper Yankee response would be to laugh and tell them to fuck off.

The two viewpoints here are really difficult to reconcile and sometimes I think the narrative itself is greater than the boundaries of each super power. Either you believe in the rights of each country or you believe in spheres of influence. In reality, de facto truth is every country acts self interested and will overstep lines, rules and truth to strengthen their lack/fear based world view. The solution? I have no idea. We talk big and try to solve this issue with truth and rules based order but I think we are deep in competition and it has to run it’s course.

[Nemra]

@Scholar, there are a portion of people that think those Western NGOs are the problem. They want some Russian NGOs to feel safe. I have never seen a Russian-backed NGO that wasn't doing propaganda.

But no, those Western NGOs are there to corrupt the youth and brainwash them with Western values!

[Scholar]

13 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

The two viewpoints here are really difficult to reconcile and sometimes I think the narrative itself is greater than the boundaries of each super power. Either you believe in the rights of each country or you believe in spheres of influence. In reality, de facto truth is every country acts self interested and will overstep lines, rules and truth to strengthen their lack/fear based world view. The solution? I have no idea. We talk big and try to solve this issue with truth and rules based order but I think we are deep in competition and it has to run it’s course.

There is always a vying for power, and thankfully, in the 21st century most of that happens through non-militaristic means. People don't realize this, but that is progress.

We don't want to go back to a time where countries steal land from each other through military force. That is something that as a world community we should deem unacceptable and punish harshly, even if countries still engage in self-interested coercive ways of manipulating the world. Instead, people  here seem to justify this regression by pointing to some sort of hypocrisy in the present. You can argue that the US shouldn't engage in various ways of coercion it does, but using that argument to excuse away the violations Russia engages in is inappropriate and whataboutism.

 

18 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Scholar, there are a portion of people that think those Western NGOs are the problem. They want some Russian NGOs to feel safe. I have never seen a Russian-backed NGO that wasn't doing propaganda.

But no, those Western NGOs are there to corrupt the youth and brainwash them with Western values!

It's just the America-Bad culture. It's the deep self-hatred western societies have engrained in themselves through remnants of self-hating Christian ethics, exploited by various propaganda apparatuses.

[Nemra]

7 minutes ago, Scholar said:

It's just the America-Bad culture. It's the deep self-hatred western societies have engrained in themselves through remnants of self-hating Christian ethics, exploited by various propaganda apparatuses.

Couldn't agree more about self-hating Christians.

Those people will concoct a conspiracy theory out of thin air to justify their hate towards progress.

They are more prevalent where I live.

For them, everything is about the "degeneration" of the West. My brain hurts when listening to them.