Maidan

[Estebonrober]

Posting this thread because the other one was derailed by this, and I worked on it for like twenty minutes to rebut the worst replies in the derailment of the thread. I apologize for contributing to the derailment. I'm sure it will be deleted so I posted it here.

Moscow sent in "agents provocateurs" with money and guns into all the southern and eastern provinces of Ukraine. They started crap in Odessa that led tio a catastrophic fire and huge loss of life, but they failed to actually get enough people to cleave to them – despite the money and the guns. The police successfully countered these Russians attempts at take-over in Odessa, Cherson, Zaporisha, and Kharkiv. They got better results only in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Partly this was a matter of these provinces have larger minorities of the population not identifying as Russian-speaking Ukranians, but as Russian-speaking Russians – but these still only represented a minority. But they were numerous enough – now salaried and armed by Moscow – to deter the local police in these two provinces, and the basis of that Girkin and the rest of Moscow's operative could stage an armed take over.

And that started the war in eastern Ukraine. And eventually the Ukranian army was on the cusp of defeating these "rebels" – since there were distinct limits to what Moscow could do by paying people and distributing guns – and at that point Putin covertly sent in the Russian army ("tourists" etc.), and that stabilized the frontline and set up eastern Ukraine as another frozen conflict ringing Russia.

That Moscow thinks it was only responding with a counter-coup to a supposed US coup – the CIA equivalents of Girking turning up with money and guns – only speaks of the redolent paranoia and conspiracy theories that dominate the political thinking in Moscow. (Why Ukraine doesn't exist etc.)

Your problem if you chose to rot your brain by giving credence to any of it. Hitting yourself in the head with a brick might do less damage,

This post in particular is amazing in its unintended projection of ignorance. It points fingers at all who question the narrative in Ukraine and condemns even having questions... well I will say fudge that.

Russia is bad. Putin is bad. The invasion was not just terrible, it is a mistake. Putin lost his mind and forgot to just keep playing the game of flip the nation like a tiddlywink. (Disclaimer over)

Ukrainian nazi bois are bad too... They are real, they suck, they are murderous bastards like far-right reactionaries everywhere, including the reactionaries now running Russia.
The US is fudging bad too, the inevitable meddling and promotion of the worst people around the planet never fails to amaze anyone actually paying attention. It has been for quite some time an altogether evil force on the planet, it ruthlessly murders and promotes murder of its perceived enemies worldwide. All in the name of the corporate west (not even America tbh), not in the name of democracy or human rights (as the branding states). if you are too diluted to see the overall reality of these facts than nothing I can say here will change your mind (my long post on blowback and Korea demonstrated very clearly that even when posting from the writings of the people involved some things are dug in too deep to change minds in some circles). For those of you who are concerned about reality and historical accuracy this will be important.

A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War

In 2014 Ukraine, great power gamesmanship, righteous anger at a corrupt status quo, and opportunistic far-right extremists toppled the government in the Maidan Revolution. Today’s crisis in Ukraine can’t be understood without understanding Maidan.

jacobin.com

They may also have played an even more sinister role in the events that unfolded. One enduring mystery of the Maidan Revolution is who was behind the February 20 sniper killings that set off the final, most bloody stage of protests, with accusations against everyone from government forces and the Kremlin to US-backed mercenaries. Without precluding these possibilities, there’s now considerable evidence that the same far-right forces who piggybacked on the protesters’ cause were also at least among the forces firing that night.


At the time, men resembling protesters had been witnessed shooting from protester-controlled buildings in the capital, and multiple Maidan medics had said the bullet wounds in police and protesters looked to have come from the same weapon. A Maidan protester later admitted to killing two officers and wounding others on the day, and crates of empty Kalashnikov bullets were found in the protester-occupied Ukraina Hotel, the same place a decorated military pilot and anti-Russian resistance hero later said she had seen an opposition MP leading snipers to. The government’s investigation, meanwhile, which focused only on the protester murders, started out filled with serious flaws and irregularities.

I suggest reading the article in its entirety. It is long and (surprise, surprise, surprise) nuanced. It condemns Russia and its meddling both open and otherwise, but critically it also sites and calls out western (mainly US) meddling in Ukraine. Suffice to say there is a lot to question, and no one should jsut assume they know the truth. So, if you are capable of reading and keeping an open mind to the evidence read into it. Its all propaganda at this point at some level since certainty (like the writings of people who gave the orders for example) is not available to anyone.

I support Ukraine. The reality of my nation's behavior and small nazi minority in Ukraine does not change my position. I support understanding the truth.

'Protest sniper' in Kiev media hotel

web.archive.org

Ukraine crisis: bugged call reveals conspiracy theory about Kiev snipers

Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet tells EU's Cathy Ashton about claim that provocateurs were behind Maidan killings

www.theguardian.com

Kiev snipers: Who was behind them?

Ukraine is sparring with Russia over the identity of snipers who killed scores of people, police as well as protesters, last last month in Kiev. Solving the mystery could bolster or delegitimize Ukraine's leaders.

www.csmonitor.com

He Killed for the Maidan

Here's why my news organization decided to shed some light on a dark moment in Ukraine's revolution.

foreignpolicy.com

Snipers stalk protesters in Ukraine as Kiev hotel becomes makeshift morgue

Doctors who have seen bodies near Independence Square say they were killed by 'single bullets to the head, heart and lungs'

www.theguardian.com

Ukraine ex-pilot blames lawmaker for ties to Maidan snipers

A former military pilot who became a national icon in Ukraine after spending two years in a Russian prison has accused Ukraine's parliament speaker of being associated with snipers who fired on protesters during the country's 2014 uprising but retracted her statement hours later.

apnews.com

The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: Revelations from Trials and Investigations

My paper and several video compilations presented recently at the virtual 10th World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European...

jordanrussiacenter.org

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

"He kept working toward European Union membership, and to that end pursued a free trade agreement with the EU as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan the West urged him to take. That financial lifeline came with a heavy price familiar to the many poor countries that have turned to the West for bailouts: the elimination of tariffs,"

Does The Jacobin support tariffs?

 

[Kyriakos]

Always a good idea to read (or converse) about the background of a war, if one wishes to discuss the actual war. Thread should be of great use

 

[red_elk]

I was aware about most of these things in regards to snipers identity, but thank you for bringing this up and providing comprehensive details.

 

[innonimatu]

We do need a thread to contextualize the war in Ukraine, especilaly as there will be all kinds of contortions soon to explain away NATO's defeat there. [snip] Moderator Action: Edited by Birdjaguar

I do not know if it gets mentioned in one of the pieces linked to by @Estebonrober, but there is the famous RAND paper about strategies to "weaken Russia" which recommended using Ukraine as a tool. This was a war that the US desired and did everything it could to provoke. It was a policy recommendation for the US government and it's obvious it was followed on.

In my opinion the plan of the western neocons by 2021 was to cause a war, strike Russia with economic sanctions, hope for high russian casualties in the war, and wait for a combination of economic crisis and war weariness to politicaly destabilize and collapse Russia, a redo of economic and political chaos of the 1990s there, only now perhaps also dissolving the Federation r(won't say that was a plan, but it likely was a hoped-.for outcome in some minds). The prospects of looting Russia's vast natural resources made sure certain european governments, the ever-greedy germans first and foremost, would buy into the plan and fully support it. As they saw it then it was a sure thing, involving only some transient economic pain for Germany before Russia was again compelled to supply reources and got "opened for business" in 1990s terms, ideally with a government even weaker than Yeltsin's and foreign control of assets taking over from the russian oligarchs. Dumb, but greed makes germans dump, refer to their quest for lebensraum in ww2...
My poing is: this was no mere american plot to weaken Russia and sow chaos in Europe, per the logic of remaining the sole world hegemon by weakening rising rivals. This was also a plan with buy-in from important factions within Europe, hoping for a new orgy of looting in the east, remembering what they had had in the 1990s.
What this has in common, in thinking in capitals east and west of the Atlantic, is that Ukraine was to be just the tool. Ukraine does not matter beyond its use to weaken Russia. So it was always bound to be dumped once it was used.

Even after the abject failure of that plan, when Russia simply shrugged off santions and showed it knows how to fight a modern war, the US and its poodles stuck to it, still hoping for a russian collapse because... wishful thinking. Hey, Russia is justa gas station, dumb mongols right? Right? Surely it will be defeated by NATO's super-weapns and strategies. There's the recent description of using ukranians as "cheap soldiers" to die for NATO, by the outgoing polish PM. The poles, being neck deep in project Ukraine, sould know. There's Boris and the UK officialdom (Sunak is smarter and has kept his distance from the project) saying that Ukraine isn't doing enough in recruiting 17 to 70, it should throw more men (and women!) at the meatgrinder. Ukraine was used. And the reaction to the failure of the plan has been: how dare they fail us?!

I do blame gthe neocons in Washinton for starting it. It goes back to Brzezinski's theories, followed on by Kagan, Nuland and the rest of the neocons in Washington. This was no improvisation out of spontaneous events in 2014. It was a long-tem plan, persistently pursued, by a small but unfortunately politically very influential cabal of warmongers. They kept trying until they got luckly and managed to install a puppet government in Kiev. See Nuland's comments during the coup about whom to appoint to govermment, and f* the european governments - because those at the time could see the intention and didn't want to go down the path of eacalating tensions there. And her comment about how much the US has spend in buing influence there.

After 2014 there was an immediate attempt by the americans to have Sevastopol delievred to them, which prompted the reaction everyone in european governments knew would happen: Russia moving to secure its permanece there. There was also the first ukranian civil war where Kiev's junta installed by the americans in reaction to the losso of Ukraine tried to ban all things russian by force, stroked discontentment at the coup into widespread rebellions and was nearly defeated militarily, the fighting being frozen only because Putin didn't want to escalate and hoped for the situation in Ukraine evolving eventually towards a more reasonable government.

Russian strategic miscalculation. Politics in Ukraine was owned by the oligarchs and the "west" offered them better prospects for looting. They saw that in Russia the oligarchs were on a leash and sometimes even got arrested, had their empires confiscated or just "died". So the chocolate king who suceeded the 2014 coup junta aligned with the US. And started the second ukranian civil war, at american instigation, trying to seize back those rebel territories to prepare the isolation and retaking of Crimea. Sevastopol remaining the prize he had to eventually seize and deliver to his western allies. New defeat. New russian strategic miscalculation. Putin, again careful to avoid escalation, signed up for Misnk II and again denied recognition to the breakaway territories, still aiming at constitutional reform within Ukraine and having a neutral neighbour with a pro-russian population inside.

Afther the chocolate king came Zelensky, the "peace candidate". Whom upon being elected quickly ditched talk of peace and incorporating the breakaway territories through the Minsk roadmap, and instead embarked on shrill militarism, resuming shelling of Donetsk and very obvioulsly preparing a third attempt at retaking those territores by force. Finally the russian goverment got tired of contemporising and waithing and (even to my surprise) intervened directly this thrid time. Zelensky talking in Munich in early 2022 about acquiring nuclear weapons may have weighted more than talk of NATO expansion...

Now, after one and a half years of war, as both NATO weapons and ukraine's manpower got exausted, Unkarine has been used up fully. It's now an problem to be rid off, for Biden especiialy who is up for relection next year. He was happy to let is neocons play around, what's a million dead or two abroad? But power politics inside the US matter and defeats must not cme too close to elections. So Ukraine is in the process of being now dumped, as I predicted long ago, when this crap started. It ends either with surrender, which will take a military coup to kick out the US-puppeted government in Kiev. Or with total defeat for Ukraine (and NATO as the string-puller and weapons provider). Because the second is worse for all western governments than the first, I think they are now planning to Diem their former star Zelensky. He knows too much to be offered a safe path to exile, he has to suspect he won't be allowed to outlive his usefullness, so no surrender disguised as "peace" with him in power, he wants to delay is death. So my best guess is that NATO itself is now conspiring with the ever-solicious ukranian oligarchs to arrange another coup and place in Kiev another governments that can surrender. And present it was a ukranian failure, not a NATO failure.

That this was a war that NATO was too incompetent (they spent 20 years bombing goat herders, sorry "fighting insurgents") and too incapable (weapons industry as rent-seeking) to ever win was obvious after the first couple of months and the (quite logical for Russia) shift to attrition. The russian governmnt was not dumb. They knew the "NATO" plan and made sure it failed in its two assumptions: the russian economy continued to function perfectly with reduced trade with the "west", and the fighting of the war was carried out in an extremely casualty-averse tactics, substituting an overwhelming logistics and materiel advantage for personnel.

A note about the conduct of the war, and casualties. I believe the best estimates of casualties in the war so far are around 10:1 in russia's favour.With total ukranian casualties well above half a million by now. NATO's orders for the Ukranians to "take territory" incurred a terribly bloody price for the ukranians. They were not irrational for NATO, mind you: remember that the original (sole!) NATO strategy relied on destabilizing Russia by (besies economic pressure) creating war wearinessthere due to mass casualties. When Russia shifted to defense all along the line of contact and attrition only in chosen points, NATO's only way to attempt to cause casualties and this salvage something of the original (sole!) plan was to order the ukranians to attack, never midn the kranian losses. The goal of the "offensives" was not to "take back the occupied territory", that was a lie for public consumtion. Because saying that the goal was to cause war dead in Russia's lines even at the cost of much greated casualties in Ukraine's side just couldn't be admitted to publicly as a strategy, could it?
It was uttersly stupid of course. Russia's ssperiority in materiel and logistics, and its prepared defenses, made sure it was a blooodbath tor Ukraine with minimal losses for Russia. But that was all the NATO planners had planned. And ukranian soldeirs are cheap, remember?

Now, after that failure and with both wweapons and cheap soldiers russing dry, the propaganda arms of the NATO states have been ordered to change narrative. No more the "reconquer all territory of Ukraine". Now the face-saving surrender plan is to order the ukranian puppet government to recognize the loss of all territory it no longer controls (the exact opposite of the narrative just 3 months ago!) and to beg for peace in exchange for a meaningless "NATO membership without weapons". As meaningless as NATO membership for other european countries btw: the US never had any intenton of fighting a real war in Europe for any of them. That was the reason why the US congless had article 5 written as it is. And the reason why de Gaulle, who was a real patriot not a corrupt boot-licker, told them to sod off and had France develop nuclear weapons.

The problem is that "the west" has few de Gaules left. The last in France was Chirac. Politicans in power in most NATO countries now are a bunch of amoral, incompetent, corrupt warmongers, who remain in power not because they have any "merit" in managing the state for the common welfare of their countries, but because they were skilled at propaganda use on their home fronts. The ukraine war is another defeat for them and their current plan to deal with it the usual: to produce propaganda depicting defeat as a victory.

 

[Zardnaar]

We do need a thread to contextualize the war in Ukraine, especilaly as there will be all kinds of contortions soon to explain away NATO's defeat there.[snip}

I do not know if it gets mentioned in one of the pieces linked to by @Estebonrober, but there is the famous RAND paper about strategies to "weaken Russia" which recommended using Ukraine as a tool. This was a war that the US desired and did everything it could to provoke. It was a policy recommendation for the US government and it's obvious it was followed on.

In my opinion the plan of the western neocons by 2021 was to cause a war, strike Russia with economic sanctions, hope for high russian casualties in the war, and wait for a combination of economic crisis and war weariness to politicaly destabilize and collapse Russia, a redo of economic and political chaos of the 1990s there, only now perhaps also dissolving the Federation r(won't say that was a plan, but it likely was a hoped-.for outcome in some minds). The prospects of looting Russia's vast natural resources made sure certain european governments, the ever-greedy germans first and foremost, would buy into the plan and fully support it. As they saw it then it was a sure thing, involving only some transient economic pain for Germany before Russia was again compelled to supply reources and got "opened for business" in 1990s terms, ideally with a government even weaker than Yeltsin's and foreign control of assets taking over from the russian oligarchs. Dumb, but greed makes germans dump, refer to their quest for lebensraum in ww2...
My poing is: this was no mere american plot to weaken Russia and sow chaos in Europe, per the logic of remaining the sole world hegemon by weakening rising rivals. This was also a plan with buy-in from important factions within Europe, hoping for a new orgy of looting in the east, remembering what they had had in the 1990s.
What this has in common, in thinking in capitals east and west of the Atlantic, is that Ukraine was to be just the tool. Ukraine does not matter beyond its use to weaken Russia. So it was always bound to be dumped once it was used.

Even after the abject failure of that plan, when Russia simply shrugged off santions and showed it knows how to fight a modern war, the US and its poodles stuck to it, still hoping for a russian collapse because... wishful thinking. Hey, Russia is justa gas station, dumb mongols right? Right? Surely it will be defeated by NATO's super-weapns and strategies. There's the recent description of using ukranians as "cheap soldiers" to die for NATO, by the outgoing polish PM. The poles, being neck deep in project Ukraine, sould know. There's Boris and the UK officialdom (Sunak is smarter and has kept his distance from the project) saying that Ukraine isn't doing enough in recruiting 17 to 70, it should throw more men (and women!) at the meatgrinder. Ukraine was used. And the reaction to the failure of the plan has been: how dare they fail us?!

I do blame gthe neocons in Washinton for starting it. It goes back to Brzezinski's theories, followed on by Kagan, Nuland and the rest of the neocons in Washington. This was no improvisation out of spontaneous events in 2014. It was a long-tem plan, persistently pursued, by a small but unfortunately politically very influential cabal of warmongers. They kept trying until they got luckly and managed to install a puppet government in Kiev. See Nuland's comments during the coup about whom to appoint to govermment, and f* the european governments - because those at the time could see the intention and didn't want to go down the path of eacalating tensions there. And her comment about how much the US has spend in buing influence there.

After 2014 there was an immediate attempt by the americans to have Sevastopol delievred to them, which prompted the reaction everyone in european governments knew would happen: Russia moving to secure its permanece there. There was also the first ukranian civil war where Kiev's junta installed by the americans in reaction to the losso of Ukraine tried to ban all things russian by force, stroked discontentment at the coup into widespread rebellions and was nearly defeated militarily, the fighting being frozen only because Putin didn't want to escalate and hoped for the situation in Ukraine evolving eventually towards a more reasonable government.

Russian strategic miscalculation. Politics in Ukraine was owned by the oligarchs and the "west" offered them better prospects for looting. They saw that in Russia the oligarchs were on a leash and sometimes even got arrested, had their empires confiscated or just "died". So the chocolate king who suceeded the 2014 coup junta aligned with the US. And started the second ukranian civil war, at american instigation, trying to seize back those rebel territories to prepare the isolation and retaking of Crimea. Sevastopol remaining the prize he had to eventually seize and deliver to his western allies. New defeat. New russian strategic miscalculation. Putin, again careful to avoid escalation, signed up for Misnk II and again denied recognition to the breakaway territories, still aiming at constitutional reform within Ukraine and having a neutral neighbour with a pro-russian population inside.

Afther the chocolate king came Zelensky, the "peace candidate". Whom upon being elected quickly ditched talk of peace and incorporating the breakaway territories through the Minsk roadmap, and instead embarked on shrill militarism, resuming shelling of Donetsk and very obvioulsly preparing a third attempt at retaking those territores by force. Finally the russian goverment got tired of contemporising and waithing and (even to my surprise) intervened directly this thrid time. Zelensky talking in Munich in early 2022 about acquiring nuclear weapons may have weighted more than talk of NATO expansion...

Now, after one and a half years of war, as both NATO weapons and ukraine's manpower got exausted, Unkarine has been used up fully. It's now an problem to be rid off, for Biden especiialy who is up for relection next year. He was happy to let is neocons play around, what's a million dead or two abroad? But power politics inside the US matter and defeats must not cme too close to elections. So Ukraine is in the process of being now dumped, as I predicted long ago, when this crap started. It ends either with surrender, which will take a military coup to kick out the US-puppeted government in Kiev. Or with total defeat for Ukraine (and NATO as the string-puller and weapons provider). Because the second is worse for all western governments than the first, I think they are now planning to Diem their former star Zelensky. He knows too much to be offered a safe path to exile, he has to suspect he won't be allowed to outlive his usefullness, so no surrender disguised as "peace" with him in power, he wants to delay is death. So my best guess is that NATO itself is now conspiring with the ever-solicious ukranian oligarchs to arrange another coup and place in Kiev another governments that can surrender. And present it was a ukranian failure, not a NATO failure.

That this was a war that NATO was too incompetent (they spent 20 years bombing goat herders, sorry "fighting insurgents") and too incapable (weapons industry as rent-seeking) to ever win was obvious after the first couple of months and the (quite logical for Russia) shift to attrition. The russian governmnt was not dumb. They knew the "NATO" plan and made sure it failed in its two assumptions: the russian economy continued to function perfectly with reduced trade with the "west", and the fighting of the war was carried out in an extremely casualty-averse tactics, substituting an overwhelming logistics and materiel advantage for personnel.

A note about the conduct of the war, and casualties. I believe the best estimates of casualties in the war so far are around 10:1 in russia's favour.With total ukranian casualties well above half a million by now. NATO's orders for the Ukranians to "take territory" incurred a terribly bloody price for the ukranians. They were not irrational for NATO, mind you: remember that the original (sole!) NATO strategy relied on destabilizing Russia by (besies economic pressure) creating war wearinessthere due to mass casualties. When Russia shifted to defense all along the line of contact and attrition only in chosen points, NATO's only way to attempt to cause casualties and this salvage something of the original (sole!) plan was to order the ukranians to attack, never midn the kranian losses. The goal of the "offensives" was not to "take back the occupied territory", that was a lie for public consumtion. Because saying that the goal was to cause war dead in Russia's lines even at the cost of much greated casualties in Ukraine's side just couldn't be admitted to publicly as a strategy, could it?
It was uttersly stupid of course. Russia's ssperiority in materiel and logistics, and its prepared defenses, made sure it was a blooodbath tor Ukraine with minimal losses for Russia. But that was all the NATO planners had planned. And ukranian soldeirs are cheap, remember?

Now, after that failure and with both wweapons and cheap soldiers russing dry, the propaganda arms of the NATO states have been ordered to change narrative. No more the "reconquer all territory of Ukraine". Now the face-saving surrender plan is to order the ukranian puppet government to recognize the loss of all territory it no longer controls (the exact opposite of the narrative just 3 months ago!) and to beg for peace in exchange for a meaningless "NATO membership without weapons". As meaningless as NATO membership for other european countries btw: the US never had any intenton of fighting a real war in Europe for any of them. That was the reason why the US congless had article 5 written as it is. And the reason why de Gaulle, who was a real patriot not a corrupt boot-licker, told them to sod off and had France develop nuclear weapons.

The problem is that "the west" has few de Gaules left. The last in France was Chirac. Politicans in power in most NATO countries now are a bunch of amoral, incompetent, corrupt warmongers, who remain in power not because they have any "merit" in managing the state for the common welfare of their countries, but because they were skilled at propaganda use on their home fronts. The ukraine war is another defeat for them and their current plan to deal with it the usual: to produce propaganda depicting defeat as a victory.

Probably want to wait for shooting to stop before you deckear victory.

Look fairly stupid if Ukraine wins.

My prediction was wars over 6-18 months that was in June. Didn't pick a winner though.

 

[r16]

ah , that was great for the reputation of CFC . This thread is currently no doubt the weirdest in Off-Topic and the lack of responses was making it look like it was just a case of being Monday , with people not yet in their offices in some advertising agency .

 

[Kyriakos]

Maidan was the catalyst for what we are seeing today. That doesn't mean, of course, that it was fine/normal that Ukraine had to be tied to Russia or else. But Ukraine's geographical position would make any transition to "the west" very dangerous - as we witnessed in real time.
Maybe it'd have been different if the USSR did not allocate the heavily russian-identifying parts to Ukraine, like Crimea. And maybe that would also have meant Donbass would have been Crimea in that timeline.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

the first thing I did when I saw a innonimatu post is ctrl+f page for "neocon" and sure enough I found it.

 

[Senethro]

Grandiose vengeance in the imagination against an enemy that is simultaneously repugnantly weak and morally vile, but also such a singularly threatening enemy to the entire world that you should carry water on behalf of authoritarians.

 

[r16]

most impressive it is , this lack of heat . This presence of ... everbody except ... those who should have tearing down the place . Uh , oh , ah , ı clearly understand the reasoning that people should be given a place of their own , as it is now convenient . Say what , ı will still be offering NO security guarantees at all to the good side and stuff . What's more , it is like totally expected that this forum will stick to defending the elected President when America decides to stage the next coup and appoint the head of the Military . Please no sudden discovery of the corruption in country with 15% of all aid (civilian or whatever) directly sold on arrival under American supervision and stuff .

neocon is a catchy thing and they might have generally supported it but this is an US Democrat concontion , stirring and shaking and everything without the negativity of the 20 years of the War on Terror thing . So successful in the end that they have hitched on Israel's doing the well known Israeli things .

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, it's not like the military side would be in favor of Stan ^^
Sometimes it's not (called) a coup if "your" side wins. Depends on development level (or just geography) too.

 

[r16]

most definitely not prolonging the war so that they will be dead before they can fight us . You know , such Turkish logic really numbs people .

 

[Crezth]

Grandiose vengeance in the imagination against an enemy that is simultaneously repugnantly weak and morally vile, but also such a singularly threatening enemy to the entire world that you should carry water on behalf of authoritarians.

I don’t even know which sense you mean it in but it goes both ways. There are no good guys, or I guess “non-authoritarians” playing this game. At the end of the day our side is willing to kill the world for its coffee. Certainly we are willing to kill Gaza for its land and actually we have always been willing to kill people to take their land. It’s just harder to do now. Hence this whole nonsense about the United Nations. If you look at how these GA votes have been going the West starts to look less like a city on a hill and more like a floating battleship hovering above the world, ready to smite in an instant anything that threatens its $5.50 (not including tax) hot n ready cheezy pizza deals. Certainly the bulk of the world is not at all convinced or moved by our strident acclaim for Ukrainian sovereignty. Indeed it’s because they aren’t stupid. Gustavo Petro has also been talking about this continuously and in front of the UN.

 

[Senethro]

I don’t even know which sense you mean it in but it goes both ways. There are no good guys, or I guess “non-authoritarians” playing this game. At the end of the day our side is willing to kill the world for its coffee. Certainly we are willing to kill Gaza for its land and actually we have always been willing to kill people to take their land. It’s just harder to do now. Hence this whole nonsense about the United Nations. If you look at how these GA votes have been going the West starts to look less like a city on a hill and more like a floating battleship hovering above the world, ready to smite in an instant anything that threatens its $5.50 (not including tax) hot n ready cheezy pizza deals. Certainly the bulk of the world is not at all convinced or moved by our strident acclaim for Ukrainian sovereignty. Indeed it’s because they aren’t stupid. Gustavo Petro has also been talking about this continuously and in front of the UN.

I agree with your condemnatory assessment of the global situation. I do not agree that we should look favourably upon Putin, or the little Assads favourably due to it.

 

[Crezth]

I agree with your condemnatory assessment of the global situation. I do not agree that we should look favourably upon Putin, or the little Assads favourably due to it.

Sure. But I don’t think anyone is arguing for that.

 

[amadeus]

It’s funny how events just perfectly manage to fit, like a finely-crafted jigsaw puzzle, the story of a PNAC/IMF/IBM/WTO/WKRP global domination plot.

I wonder if you could do that backwards, and write a whole thing starting from the present and then working in, albeit hamfistedly, all these required elements.

 

[r16]

laughing at weirdos rarely change the things that happen . It is why Great Powers so suddenly end up grinding brakes and eventually on fire just before they hit some wall . Like , it is even a book , in which we are promised to be bloodlessly defeated in some space war . In like 20 or 30 years time , after letting/enabling Poland conquer places ... No doubt because of the questions of how many Poles it takes to change a light bulb and so on .

 

[Estebonrober]

(while Ukraine far-right parties have actually even lower votes than in most of Europe)

Yea and this is actually making a larger point for me, the spread of reactionary parties especially across Europe is going to lead to considerably more violence.

It's not ideological bias, it's pavlovian response to the same rethoric from pro-Russians.

no one deny that there are scums in every nations, but what does it have anything to do with this thread? (except to try to derail it again based on false equivalence)

Open a new thread about them and people will be free to talk about how much they have in their own, and if it's worst or better than their neighbors.

So, shut down discussion because you do not personally like the implications of the posts? So, the only thing the "RD" thread can "discuss" at this point is body counts and war porn? Thats a real nice take.

Well, Gaza doesn't hold elections either. Are they fascists?

How can you expect a country in total war and being partially occupied with drone strikes all accross the land to hold elections?

Ah notably it would be much more difficult in Gaza since about 80% of it is literally rubble at this point.

See when you post replies like this it gives away the game. I know you are familiar with the relative devastation of the two areas, yet you seem to think I won't call you out on this obvious reality. Ukraine could hold them in the parts they control, they choose not to...Hamas chose not to before the conflict turned into an ethnic cleansing campaign...

That said yea Hamas (militant wing) is literally worse than fascists in most contemporary settings. They are even more regressive in their overall goals and behaviors.

 

[Estebonrober]

I wish it was possible to sticky this somewhere in the thread so that people don't bring the N-word accusation against Ukraine over and over and thereby reinforcing this Russian propaganda point, either unwittingly or on purpose.
The state did and still does utilize folks with far-right convictions in the army, for obvious reason: they make highest grade soldiers. Their total percentage in the Ukraine's armed forces is now even more minuscule than it was in 2014. For obvious reason: they are getting killed, wounded or just grow up.

It's against the Ukrainian law. No elections during war time.
Not that the law can't be changed by our Parliament or something, but at this moment this is what it is.
IMO elections are a privilege of a financially stable and a peaceful country, which we aren't at this point. Not to mention millions of Ukrainians under Russian occupation, safety and security concerns etc.

The take basically excuses war or siege communism behavior over the last 120 years. I'm sure you did not mean it to, but the justification is exactly the same and it is wrong.