The Russian commander of the “Vostok” Battalion fighting in southern Ukraine said on Thursday that Ukraine will not be defeated and suggested that Russia freeze the war along current frontlines.
Alexander Khodakovsky made the candid concession yesterday on his Telegram channel after Russian forces, including his own troops, were devastatingly defeated by Ukrainian marines earlier this week at Urozhaine in the Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk regional border area.
“Can we bring down Ukraine militarily? Now and in the near future, no,” Khodakovsky, a former official of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said yesterday.
“When I talk to myself about our destiny in this war, I mean that we will not crawl forward, like the [Ukrainians], turning everything into [destroyed] Bakhmuts in our path. And, I do not foresee the easy occupation of cities,” he said.
RT was banned first day of the war due to links to the kremlin and propaganda. Wouldn't want people influenced by propaganda, of course! This is the west! We're free thinkers! Now let me see how the war is going in the non-biased Kyiv Post.
Why do posters from Hexbear defend Russia so much? They're not communist. If anything, they're right wing.
Putin has a government allied with Russian business oligarchs and the support of the Russian Orthodox Church. He promotes the military as heroes. He cultivates a cult of personality. He personally controls billions of dollars. That's textbook Fascism.
Criticizing this article isn’t the same as supporting Russia lol.
I swear someone could claim like "Russia is controlled by an army of demons" and if someone from Hexbear was like "actually that is not true you should stick to the realm of fact in your criticisms of Russia" posters you'd still get like "WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING RUSSIA? DONT YOU KNOW RUSSIA ISNT COMMUNIST".
If it was only that it wouldn't be an issue, but many comments here are pushing Putin's propaganda by trying to legitimate manipulated referendums and cherry-picking colateral damages of Ukrainian self-defense or Ukrainian extremists to try to inverse the burden of guilt. I don't know if they actually support Putin or if they are just blinded by their hate of the West, but the end result is that they do help carry Putin's propaganda and its fascist oligarc dictatorship.
Nowhere do I voice support for Russia. It's that any nuance with regard to the Ukraine conflict is seen as 'defending russia', which you've just proven, again.
Edit: nvm, you're that asshole that used the Sartre quote about anti-semitism to justify your anti-communism. You don't want to learn. Almost as if you're a bot
Pointing out blatant untruths, being anti-war and wanting accurate reporting rather that copium meant to inspire more people to thrown themselves to a pointless death is checks notes russian propaganda?
You would've supported the invasion of Iraq
So if you're anti-war, why do you support Russia who started the war and has shown they are adamantly pro-war?
We believe the war was started by a quagmire of situations going back as far as 1991, including things like the 2014 NATO-backed coup of Ukraine and the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. This war wasn't some random unprovoked territory grab dictated by Putin, it's the resolution of western interference in the region for decades. Ukraine had been shelling Donbas and Luhansk for years. NATO brought this war upon themselves, basically. Instigating and prodding at the situation for years.
Also, Russia and Ukraine, near the start of the war, floated the possibility of a ceasefire and NATO pressured them out of it. The USA saw the possibility of a proxy war and started drooling.
We don't support Russia so much as we see them as one unfortunate reality fighting another unfortunate reality. The war's true culprit is capitalism, and as a leftist the only conclusion you should reach is wars like this are senseless and they should immediately stop. And the only way I see this war to stop is if Ukraine immediately surrenders and loses territory, otherwise we'd just be back in 2014 all over again and the situation would repeat. I can vaguely see how that could be construed as pro-Russia, but it's more that I believe diplomacy with Russia is strained, Russia is volatile, and nothing is gained from open warfare with them. Everyone needs to stop fighting, whatever that takes, because the only winners in wars like this are wealthy capitalists, the rest of us lose.
deleted by creator
good post
I'm sorry no. Every time someone tries to say "oh well Russia was just pressured by NATO" that's all they leave it at.
How?
No really, explain. Explain how the only option for Russia was to invade their neighboring country and steal land. What negative effects would Russia be feeling right now if they hadn't invaded Ukraine?
"Well NATO was pushing up against their borders"
So fucking what?! Just because your country is so shitty that your neighbors choose to ally with someone else is not an excuse to invade them!
Have you ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Why did America freak out that Cuba was going to get missiles from the Soviet Union? What did the Soviet Union choose to do to stop the crisis? Could it be that it is entirely normal for a nation to not want an adversary’s missiles on their border? Has there been multiple examples of conflicts stemming from this issue all over the globe? Have you ever asked yourself a question about how conflicts start, and if other nations have ever behaved similarly?
Russia has no excuse and neither does NATO. The best case scenario is both countries lay down their arms and have socialists take power. Unfortunately we don't live in that kind of situation, so the only thing I can advocate is both NATO and Russia cease fighting. Ukraine shouldn't ally with NATO because NATO shouldn't exist.
What negative effects would Russia be feeling? I don't know, personally I thought Russia entering the war was a bad call and a strategic mistake. I can see the reason why it happened while still saying it's an open act of aggression. Russia probably could have negotiated with Ukraine about Donbas/Luhansk through better oil deals or something, no idea. Possibly could have tried straight up purchasing the land that Russian separatists occupied?
But Russia probably had reason to distrust diplomacy with Ukraine ever since 2014. For context, I believe that 2014 happened specifically because Ukraine's previous government was becoming too close to Russia and it made NATO nervous. I could easily ask, what negative effects would Ukraine be feeling if they hadn't had a western backed coup? Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych floated membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, which set off protests that were capitalized upon by western nations. Would it had been so negative had Ukraine entered a formal economic alliance with some former Soviet states? Who knows now.
The new president, Porochenko, was much harsher on Russian separatists in the east than his predecessors, which started the Donbas war in earnest. That's the moment above any I can point to that started all of this. Maybe if Yanumovych had remained president there could have been a more peaceful solution to Donbas. Who knows now
Yeah but this is all speculation and we live in reality. The reality is the war should cease immediately, for the benefit of people in Ukraine, Russia, and all refugees from the region. Only way I see that realistically happening is if NATO disengages and Ukraine loses territory.
Maybe once fighting finishes something new and better can get negotiated, but I'm not holding my breath that neoliberal countries like this know how to resolve long standing conflicts.
Maidan wasn't about NATO. Support for NATO membership of Ukraine only sky-rocketed once Russia invaded (after 2014, that is), and by now is overwhelming.
Maidan was about EU membership. Should the EU also not exist in your mind? And yes btw the EU is also a defensive alliance (it's a gazillion of things). Russia's invasion wouldn't have happened had Ukraine been a member. Hence why Russia's stooge Yanukovich was ordered to stop EU accession: Because then Russia wouldn't be able to invade, any more. Ukraine would be as safe as the Baltics and Finland have been all this time.
Oh and btw after the 2004 NATO enlargement (including the Baltics) Putin said that he saw no threat to Russia from that, and also that every country was free to choose their alliance.
Lmao
Ah fuck can't find the right snippet right now (it was a press conference with Schroeder) but have Putin saying the exact same thing about Ukraine, not the Baltics.
And the Duma says a lot of things, but it certainly doesn't dumat', not in this Russia.
I don't put a lot of stock in some YouTuber I've never heard of stiching together snippets of a lengthy diplomatic remark. That's a surefire way to lose context in an environment where there is tons of hedging and caveats as a matter of course.
But taking it at face value for the sake of argument: he said Russia's stance on NATO expansion hasn't changed.
Putin is saying in the snipped exactly what the subtitles say. My Russian is rusty and never was particularly good but it's still good enough to tell.
Also he's not any random youtuber. NFKRZ is Russian, and currently in Georgian exile (the other option would've been to get forced to fight in Ukraine). Probably the best (not excessively analytical like Vlad Vexler) source on Russia you can get in the west if you don't speak Russian.
I trust the translation, I don't trust that there is no important context lost (again, diplomatic speak is filled with hedging and caveats).
I've come to realize I gotta preface a lot of what I say on other instances like this: Russia is an imperialist country and I'd laugh if Putin got forcibly removed from power. I'm a communist.
No, the EU should not exist either. No neoliberal institution should exist, including things like the IMF, World Bank, USMCA, NATO, the EU. Should all become memories. Yeah except that's not the world we've got quite yet.
I can't really talk much about what should happen. Money, bosses, landlords, and banks shouldn't exist either, but too bad, right? And yeah we can say all day what would have happened had Ukraine become an EU member nearly a decade ago, but it didn't happen and now we're stuck in this situation. It's all alternate history now. Best case scenario I see right at this moment is a ceasefire even if that means Ukraine loses territory.
The EU isn't any more neolib than its member states, in fact, often much less so. It raised worker's rights and living standards pretty much everywhere, it's actually doing shit against anticompetitive behaviour because Berlaymont isn't nearly as caught up in national industry entanglements as, well, the national governments.
Is it without fail? No, no government is. But it's kinda telling that the forces behind Brexit wanted the UK out so that they could continue to park their assets in tax havens, regress on worker's rights, well, things nobs do.
All in all what you're seeing from the EU, overall, is European SocDem pan-continental compromise stuff. I can definitely fucking imagine worse, especially considering our history of being at each other's throat all the time.
Removed by mod
I wonder how American would act if Chinese leaders showed up at protests for Black Lives Matters protests, or Russian leaders showed up for Jan 6th protests?
Victoria Nuland showed up to the protests, and she has multiple emails that basically call it a coup.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957.amp
Also 2 weeks later was the Maidan Sniper incident that has overwhelmingly evidence of a false flag operated by the Ukrainian far right.
I know it’s hard to see that the world isnt Disney level “good vs evil”. It’s actually a little more complicated
Well Russia did stoke a ton of that culture war bullshit in the US. On both and all sides, of course, they don't care who comes out on top all they want is the US being dysfunctional (well, more dysfunctional than usual). The more controversy the better.
What makes you think they didn't do the same in Ukraine? Just that unlike Yanks, Ukrainians actually understand how Russians operate.
Foreign diplomat is abroad doing diplomacy. Curious. Coincidence? I think not.
Coup? Where? All I see is American arrogance. Americans also still believe that they started Libya and that it had something to do with Hillary.
You mean Berkut gave Right Sector rifles, then Right Sector shot protestors (including their own people), then Right Sector gave those rifles back to Berkut so the bullets in demonstrators could be matched to Berkut rifles? Overwhelming evidence like that?
Hey but at least you didn't claim Azov was involved who didn't even exist yet.
Indeed.
Victoria Nuland was not a diplomat. She ran the Bureau of Eurasian Affairs in an office based out of Washington DC. She deliberately flew to and took part in demonstrations against a democratically elected government. Again if Chinese or Russian officials did the same during Black Lives Matter 2020 or Jan 6th 2021 I think it would be negatively recieved. I understand you need to pretend that’s not true so you don’t have to admit to being wrong.
Added to that, the person Victoria Nuland picked to be prime minister in the phone call about the the 3 named opposition leaders became prime minister that very same month in an UNELECTED designation by an alliance of far right parties like Svoboda. Svoboda was specifically tied to the shootings in the square on February 20th. 7 days later they were helping choose the US picked prime minister. This wasn’t some magical event of peace, it was clearly deeply effected by US interests and has led to a decade of violence in the country. I’m sorry to hear you enjoy people dying for self righteousness, but here at hexbear we just want senseless violence to end.
I read "Bureau" and thought it was a state institution, and she diplomatic corps. I have no idea who she actually is.
And, no, politicians taking part in demonstrations isn't exactly unheard of in Europe. Also abroad. I mean for one you have to go to Belgium to protest the EU so there's that.
She saying "yeah he should be prime minister" also doesn't mean that she dictated that he should become one... a couple of years back I said that Biden should become President of the US. Does that mean that I putsched the US? Nah, it simply means that I think he's a (vastly) better idea than Trump.
And in any case none of that matters as there were elections quickly after that. The interim government was in power for only a short while, and btw right-wing parties lost heavily in those elections, and elections since. Any iffiness that may or may not have existed during and directly after Maidan was cured afterwards, as befits a democracy, by elections.
I just don’t even know what to say anymore. You are an Internet poster, you are not running the US state department for Eurasian affairs. Saying what your opinions are is not the same as a Bureau Chief at the state department.
Added to that, Nuland goes out of her way to dismiss the EUs interests in those leaked phone calls. The US doesn’t want what’s best for Ukraine, or the EU. They are funding this war out of self interest. If you can’t see that I got nothing left to say.
The US isn't funding this war Europe is. The US is sending military surplus that should largely be assigned negative monetary value because if Ukraine did not take it the US would have to pay to decommission it.
Gods the fucking US exceptionalism wafting through all that supposedly leftist talk. "Nothing ever happens without the CIA being behind it". Guess what, beyond the brink of your burger are people making their own decisions.
And speaking as a EU citizen: Please stop worrying about us. No the US is not some imperial overlord telling us what to do. Stop the pretence.
Do you enjoy being wrong constantly?
Also I bet you can’t wait to be supplied solely by US energy companies the next century. You will really see just how wonderful of a place we are.
Financial vs. military, exactly what I said.
Also no we're not buying US gas. We don't import much LNG in the first place but mostly from Norway and the LNG we import is mostly Quatar. We still consider the US's talk about NordStream to have been nothing but commercial self-interest how naive do you think us to be.
Down the line we're going to import ammonia from Canada and Namibia, completely replacing natural gas.
Bruv if you could read you'd see the numerous comments saying we don't support Russia.
"here look at this"
"two days later russia started the war ! Can you belive it , i consume imperial core media ! "
I notice none of those are located in the area labeled Russian Federation.
You may notice that they form concentrated barrages along lines of advance, such as one might make if one were about to launch a maneuvering assault, upon two territories recognized just earlier that week as sovereign states by Russia, and with which it signed defensive pacts.
Are you suggesting there was even the remotest possibility that Ukraine was going to invade Russia? Cuz I've heard some dumbass takes, but my God.
No! But actually, yes! Here is a high-ranking Azov fascist talking about various things (how the west supports them because they enjoy fighting and killing, how the Maidan would have been a "gay pride parade" if not for a very active fascist element) but most importantly what would happen if "Russia split into five or so Russias". This has been the US State Department's goal since 1993, to divide up Russia into a group of powerless fractional states and enslave them through austerity and debt peonage, so they can exploit their natural resources and labor cheaply - EXACTLY as they did to the Balkans, directly across from Russia.
The threat of the fascist Kiev regime is that it is attacking, subjugating and ethnically cleansing the Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens of the Donbass, who formed militias and fought back against their extermination for eight years. If the AFU had launched a huge invasion and pushed deep into the region, it would be too late for Russia to reverse the operational momentum - ESPECIALLY if, as was continuously threatened, Ukraine joined NATO or their invasion (overtly) included NATO personnel, at which point Russian intervention would start a nuclear war - and they would be left with a group of victorious, energized, viciously anti-Russian fascists on their doorstep. Would those fascists diligently stay on their side of the border? No, of course not. As Andriy Biletsky, founder of the Azov battalion puts it, it is their "crusade to lead the Aryan peoples of the world against the Jewish-led untermenschen". Russia would be subject to continuous destablization by Nazis crossing the border, with the ultimate goal of bringing down the Russian state.
Ukraine, or crucially rather the US State Department puppetting Ukraine, vigorously waved a red flag in front of Russia's nose for eight years, getting closer and closer until finally Russia was forced to invade or face a direct threat to its existence. And how gradually they invaded! It took about a week for the Duma to vote on recognizing the DPR and LPR as sovereign states, and then vote on signing a defensive pact with them, and then finally start moving soldiers into position.
Here are some interesting images
Russian early warning RADAR coverage. Notice the gap RIIIIIIGHT there in eastern Ukraine.
What does Vladimir Putin think about this?
The US couldn't even accept nuclear missiles hundreds of miles from its coast in Cuba (a situation IT PROVOKED by moving missiles into Turkey) so why should Russia accept them along its very border?
And in case you're wondering about the depths of Nazi fanaticism that have been painstakingly and expensively cultivated in Ukraine with the help of the US
Wait, I'm ootl what happened?
deleted by creator
really? this is how I find out???
You will forget again by tomorrow. It's a very human coping mechanism. Then some meany will remind us again. The only reason I'm not so surprised is because I wake up every day with a riddle of tattoos covering my body.
Pizza Hut won the cold war.
You don't have to support Russia to question the validity of news sources...
Everything you say about Russia is true, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a proxy war where US is trying to weaken Russia. You can just be against a senseless war that's killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying lives of millions more. Anybody who is even minimally engaging with reality can see that this war will only end one way. What the west is doing is prolonging it without changing the outcome. People of Ukraine are being cynically thrown into a meat grinder so that US can score a win in a geopolitical chess game with Russia.
deleted by creator
Russia is not interested in conquering Ukraine. They're interested in goals like keeping Ukraine out of NATO, maintaining access to the Black Sea, and not having ethnic Russians who don't wish to be a part of Ukraine killed on their borders.
deleted by creator
What would you call the annexed regions if not conquered? “Liberated”? Get a grip
I would call them annexed. The people in them do not want to remain part of Ukraine, they're fine with being part of Russia, and that's the touchstone here.
Russia is not interested in conquering the whole of Ukraine, because most of the people in the western part do want to remain Ukrainian, not Russian.
deleted by creator
I think a firm majority of people in the annexed regions want to leave Ukraine and are at least fine with joining Russia.
deleted by creator
My understanding is that while Russia annexed Kherson, they did not annex Kharkhiv.
I'm very confident the parts of Ukraine that have been trying to leave since 2014 mostly want to leave. I know ethnic Russians and Russian speakers are most heavily concentrated in the east, not just in the pre-war separatist regions but surrounding them, too. I'm sure war breaking out caused a lot of people who were on the fence to pick a side, and I can imagine someone who speaks Russian at home but wasn't radical enough to be part of a pre-war separatist movement throwing in with the much stronger country, that speaks their language, that doesn't have troops running around with neo-Nazi patches and flags.
What I've seen is breakdowns of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, which are predominantly in the east. I've also seen pre-war election results that show these eastern regions disagree with western Ukraine on national politics.
deleted by creator
The reality is that Ukraine lost its sovereignty when the legitimate and democratically elected government was overthrown in a coup. That's when the war started between the regime in western Ukraine backed by the west and the east. Western media actually reported on this as well
I agree that at this point Ukraine is basically fucked. There was a possibility to make a deal back in March last year, but US and UK decided to sabotage it. Now, Russia will likely go all the way and there's not going to be an Ukraine left when this war ends.
Ahh, the rare sane hexbear user I still have hopes for you lot you're definitely not as bad as lemmygrad.
However, let me add something:
You leave out the scenario of Russians getting kicked out of the country. Which is going to lead to Putin being sent to his Dacha, and if not and he somehow clings on Ukraine having all its territory opens NATO membership which means that the Russian general staff is going to shit bricks and rather putsch than attack.
He a) wouldn't do that and b) since when is Ukraine antisemitic you're confusing it with... pretty much all other countries in that area and c) you don't need to invoke far-right fucks (who are a tiny minority btw) the rest of the country would, well, send him to a Dacha.
And ever if: At that point we'd be in the situation many predicted in the first days of the invasion: Fall of the government, but Ukrainians then fighting a partisan war. And Ukraine right now is just in way too good a position to switch to that.
All in all, the way forward to quick peace is clear: Help Ukraine win this thing. It's both the best option from a direct humanitarian POV by cutting the war short, as well as the best option for wider humanity and the future: Not allowing states intending to conquer to get away with such behaviour. Discouraging wars of aggression is important by itself and one of the reasons why Ukrainians fight so hard, they see the universalism in their own national struggle it just all aligns so well.
“If we make sure every last Ukrainian dies, they will finally have peace”
Ahh, reading comprehension, in some places truly a luxury.
you are welcome. Since you are asking for more people to die than less people to die, and you say it’s for peace. I’ve decided simplifying your long ass post for everyone.
I'm asking for less people to die:
Because, you see, less people tend to die in a short war than in a long war.
Hence why I'm questioning your reading comprehension.
A short war with more intensive fighting. That's just throwing more people into the meat grinder.
Long-range systems can, *drumroll*, disable things from a distance. Right now Ukraine needs to get quite up and close and personal to overcome those lines. One of them incurs more casualties.
"To stop the meatgrinder we must meatgrind more people"
Indeed have you ever tried to stop a bulldozer you're not sitting in without risking spraining an ankle?
Your metaphor of stopping a bulldozer by throwing people at it does not convey the point you think it does
I'm talking about storming the cabin.
deleted by creator
Ukraine send like two and a half Leos out to see if a frontal assault would work, and it didn't, so they didn't do it again. The vast majority of western systems are still intact and in any case: If things like MBTs and APVs don't get destroyed you're not using them. Things get shot at in wars and it's no secret that a direct artillery hit will kill any tank.
Meanwhile, though, Ukraine is inflicting heavy attrition on Russian artillery, as well as choppers. Don't let the lines on maps confuse you there's a lot happening that isn't visible there.
That would mean that all those people who joined since 2014, 2022 are far-right? Which would mean that the whole of Ukraine is far-right. Which makes no sense when you look at the election results with Svoboda having one seat in the Rada.
Ukraine built its army from 2014, recruiting ordinary people, training them according to NATO doctrine (giving status and independence to NCOs, mission command, such stuff), with NATO help, we sent like a gazillion of instructors. Many many Nazis left Azov after they were integrated into the National Guard, and the whole thing was actively depoliticised.
Are there still Nazis in Azov? Almost certainly. But the days of them dominating and openly running around with SS runes on their helmets are definitely over. Just as a side note btw Azov is and always was Russian-speaking, Ukrainian nationalism gets complicated.
No. Ukrainian generals have been very clear about this from the beginning: The offensive is going to drag on for a very long time due to the lack of materiel to do anything big. Conditions have improved somewhat with Stormshadow and Taurus is bound to come soon but Ukraine has no weapons with which it could just obliterate Russian artillery en masse which would then allow them to bring in slow and vulnerable materiel to clear minefields etc. to enable them to break through the line with heavy armour. They, as already said, have to slowly grind down Russian artillery where they can.
The other way would be actual air superiority. Dunno if those F16s will suffice to switch to full NATO strategy but it's certainly going to give the Russian side quite some trouble.
Speaking of NATO strategy that's probably the reason this impression exists: Yeah if Ukraine had a fully equipped NATO army they'd disable the whole Russian rear from the air, then parachute in armour to attack the Russian lines from the rear and the whole thing would be over in no time. The kind of not war but beating you saw on TV so many times. Like Operation Desert Storm. But Ukraine doesn't have a fully equipped NATO army, it's a Soviet-style army half-way switching to NATO doctrine drip-fed some NATO surplus.
Oh another tidbit: Russia mobilised all its reserves to the front, quite some while ago. Ukraine didn't they're rotating troops in and out. Which is why you see renewed conscription drives in Russia, which then poses the question on what kind of equipment they're supposed to be equipped with, not to speak of the additional instability doing that causes.
deleted by creator
Because I truly believe that war is horrible the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this war is a human tragedy, working people all over the world have to deal with the fallout of this war with rising energy costs and higher foodprices which certainly also caused the deaths of people, meanwhile this war is used in many western countries to push extreme austerity which will lessen the quality of life at best.
This war and all wars are a human tragedy, and at the start of it I certainly wasn't in Russias corner and I'm still not but I have lost all sympathy for Ukraine and the West because not only have there been many off ramps for Ukraine to end this conflict but western politicians have contributed to this misery. They've contributed to the deaths of so many lives. People like Boris Johnson that sabotaged the peace talks, Biden that keeps on sending more and more weapon over there so more and more people can die. I've since stopped looking at how much money they've given but around spring it was 100bn USD which would've been enough to combat world hunger for 3 years. Ukranian officials like yes Zelensky who is a clown that personally doesn't suffer from this and uses it to push his own persona and does a cool photoshoot in his sick operator outfit.
Ukraine has not approached the negotiating table in any serious manner because they insist on demanding everything back including Crimea, which just won't happen especially not in this position, so the ukranian leadership is happy to get some money from the west so they order people like you and me to walk into artillery fire or into landmines not for any reason because there haven't been any real gains but just because that's how the money is flowing in.
Ukraine totally could negotiate a peace it would be incredibly easy because Putin seems eager to want to negotiate but what Ukraine wants isn't a restoration of the border situation before the war they want Crimea as well, they are not serious about peace and everyone knows it, Ukraine will never surrender and so the only thing that can stop this senseless war is when the endless amount of money flowing into Ukraine stops or when the people of Ukraine have had enough of their bloodthirsty corrupt leadership and overthrow them.
Edit: Also sorry but quite a few people from other instances literally say fascist shit that reminds me of rhetoric that was used during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and we all know how that turned out, calling russian ethnicities in Ukraine 'occupiers' is surely not going to lead to violence towards that group.
How many of those involve not giving in to the aggressor?
Is this one of these "pacifism is when I kick you and you don't defend yourself" bits?
the moral purity of ''not giving in to the aggressor" doesn't make anybody less dead.
It does: It dissuades the aggressor.
Germanic tribes, and this continues over to Ukraine culturally (because Rus), had the battle cry "better dead than slave". A village would fight down to the last woman, elderly, and child. Because even if the aggressor overcame them they'd be left with nothing but their own losses. Thus, they wouldn't even try.
If Russia is allowed to get away with this, Taiwan will be next. A gazillion of small-scale empires in unstable regions all around the world will say "well, seeing that noone cares our time to get away with it".
Millions if not billions of people more will be dead.
I'm sorry but this is definitely shit you only say when you're very far from the action. Would you want your grandpa drafted and sent into a minefield to "dissuade the aggressor"? Grandma and the children too apparently, better dead than governed by another neighboring authoritarian shithole?
I think I'd rather just flee with my family to a country right next door that has a nuclear deterrent and NATO membership. Literally why would "they need to all fight to the death instead" be your first thought? I can't imagine it coming from a position where you think Ukrainians are as human as you are.
People back then couldn't flee like that. You're taking it all well too literally.
And yes I have Ukrainian refugee neighbours. Soldiers knowing their families are safe with friends isn't exactly bad for morale, either.
lol no you don't, you've been lying through this entire thread, I bet even if you had them you wouldn't know about it because when I asked you to go outside and talk to people you ignored it, literally stop being a NEET go outside and talk to people
How, pray tell, would I know my neighbours are Ukrainian when I never talk to people?
Checkmate, projectionist.
Checkmate liberal![smuglord smuglord](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/97a4a756-428f-4517-846a-1c810805ad28.png)
You are a german NEET go outside, maybe when you spend some time among real life people you can get your priorities straight like instead of arguing with the scary putin-bot tankies online you can figure some way to organize so that the AfD, that's the fascist party in case you forgot, doesn't poll in second place. Unless you yourself aren't a NEET but a fascist and want the AfD to 'Take back Germany' in which case fuck off.
AfD polls 8% in my state, greens are 2nd largest party, good try.
Holy shit mate, stop watching Marvel movies and get some perspective; this isn't the first time one nation has invaded another. The world didn't end when America invaded Iraq.
The Iraq war was wrong for a multitude of reasons, and many countries (including mine) wanted to do nothing to do with it, but one thing sets it apart very clearly from the current situation:
Iraq wasn't a war of conquest. Russia's war against Ukraine is. The US hasn't waged a war of conquest IIRC since Hawaii, it's always been foreign meddling instead but never out-right imposition of rule and they've gotten less and less bad at how they're doing it over time. I mean compare the Iraqi or Afghani government during occupation with the likes of Batista.
Then, and this (as well as that Marvel reference I couldn't give less of a fuck) makes me think you're American: It's the first war by a major power in Europe since WWII. We thought we had that shit behind us, that Yugoslavia was a regrettable exceptions caused by small-minded autocrats exploiting ethnic tensions for their own benefit. But, nope, actual full-scale war has come back to Europe because unlike the rest of Europe Russia hasn't gotten the memo that imperialism is soooo 18hundreds. As a yank you wouldn't understand.
Well what the fuck is it then?
A war of avoiding national embarrassment and getting re-elected. The equivalent of starting a bar fight because someone picked up the gal you eyed through your whisky glass for two hours.
Okay, so what you're saying is that our genocidal war in Iraq that killed a million people, displaced 30 million more, poisoned their soil and DNA with depleted uranium and created ISIS...You're saying all of that was done for even stupider reasons than the ones you think are driving the Russian Federation now.
Is that supposed to make the US look better, and not monstrous?
Or, more relevant question, why on Earth should the country that lied to start that war be trusted about anything, ever again?
Nobody has been able to give me a compelling answer that doesn't just boil down to "because other countries must be worse, have to be worse, for my worldview to make sense." And I get it, I've been there. I was a bit of an American chauvinist for a while. But the more familiar I became with history, especially in the 20th century, the more it became clear to me that America has no equivalent in the scale of it's evil.
Btw just curious, (and not the smug condescending internet kind of "curious", the real deal): Have you ever checked out Blowback? If you're a podcast person it's fantastic, season one is about the Iraq war and it really goes into depth on the history and context behind the war. Some of the reasons you mentioned, some others. Highly recommend.
I don't know the British Empire has to be pretty close lol
No. Yanks are idiots I said it before and I'm certainly willing to repeat it. The age of enlightenment by and large never reached them.
Nope and honestly I'm not particularly interested because I was already arguing with idiots back then that they're making a heap of mistakes, I'm sure there's details in there that I don't know but I'm well-versed in the overall gist of it all from back then.
If you're up for crying and laughing at the same time though I have something for you. The history of the USA ones, the subtitles are quite good.
Please, for god's sake log off before you strain something.
This is actually disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. The Americans murdered a million Iraqis, and in the last few years at least 400,000 Yemenis, plus god knows who else and in what numbers.
Are you a child, an american, or did you only start paying attention to history in February 2022?
The troubles were not an inter-state conflict.
Cyprus is a vastly complicated situation as Turkish Cypriots were in favour of British rule and Greek Cypriots wanted unification with Greece while it was a dictatorship.
I mentioned Yugoslavia. Do you read comments before replying.
Georgia is basically the same shit as Ukraine just in a bit less worse. While we're at it we can also mention Transnistria: Again, Russia. As said, it's Russia which didn't get the memo.
Only because the Irish didn't manage to win.
Now this definitely was an inter-state conflict, because Cyprus managed to break free from the British empire. And if we excluded complicated situation then we would have to exclude all wars, including the Ukraine war.
You mentioned it and then said it didn't count because of reasons. I'm saying it does count because it was a war and it was in Europe. Although under your criteria this should also be excluded because it wasn't an inter-state conflict. One of the ways that NATO justified its bombing was by saying it wasn't a state but a supranational organization and thus wasn't beholden to the UN charter.
It was another situation where a western-backed revanchist government attacks a separatist area and then Russia moves in to stop the shelling.
Hmm
Hmm. It's weird how in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine a western-backed revanchist government started attacking civilians in a separatist region all of a sudden. And how all three countries had "market liberalizations" against the will of their people. I guess it's just one of those coincidences that seem to happen whenever the US has an interest in a place.
Ah yes, the US murdering millions of people in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq and so on was just "foreign meddling".
You are fucking disgusting.
So when are you going to Ukraine to sign up for the frontline?
You're definitely gonna do that right?
I'll have to inform you that I'm a conscious objector (spent my time in catastrophe relief) and by now too old.
But yes there's plenty of German reservists in Ukraine. Also what does that have to do with anything I said, I was glossing Ukrainian sentiment. Did you merely wanted to be right on the internet (in your own mind).
How is this an excuse? The Germanic tribes of Ukraine used to fight down to the last elderly person I hear.
Dude I'm two countries away. If Russia gets through Poland and half of Germany, sure, I'll be in the trenches. Probably wouldn't do much good but if I can't be of more use somewhere else, that's where I'll be.
Well that's better! Someone so interested in tales of Germanic valor should be ready for another Volkssturm. What I don't get is why you wouldn't sacrifice yourself in Ukraine, what with the blood relation and all. Maybe Ukrainians aren't quite as Germanic in your mind after all?
Are you Völkisch or something? I'm getting distinct Nazi vibes from your line of thinking.
But I do have a song for you.
I'm mocking you. You're the one that drew a line from Germanic tribes and their heroic culture to modern-day Ukraine. These are some pretty völkische theories you got there.
Removed by mod
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
Their choices are to keep fighting, which will not change this outcome, or negotiate an end to the war so they can stop dying and start rebuilding. Their negotiating position will only weaken as the war continues absent some one-in-a-million stroke of luck.
This isn't "I kick you and you don't defend yourself." It's "I kick you, you defend yourself, lose, and choose to either walk away or keep getting beaten up." And that's not even digging into the actual causes of the war, which are nowhere near as clear cut as Russia one day waking up and deciding to attack out of the blue.
[citation needed].
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting. Heck even if Russia occupied all of Ukraine they'd keep on fighting. It's not in your hands whether they fight or not, and their motive is just, so why not help them? Because you're a defeatist? Come on.
Yeah, that's why they've been kidnapping people to the front lines, because the Ukranian people want to fight so much. That's why they conscripted prison inmates and forbid any man undder 60 from leaving when the war broke out, right. Because of all that popular will to fight.
There's been plenty of court cases and firings over improperly handled conscriptions. Prison inmates IIRC weren't conscripted but given a choice. Plenty of Ukrainians -- also men -- returned from other European countries to fight, left countries where they had a free welfare ride and working permits. Plenty of women fight in the army. It surely must be terrible over there /s.
Meanwhile Russia is force-conscripting pretty much any man they can get their hands on and sending them, without equipment, into meat grinders. Have a look at Storm Z units.
deleted by creator
Technically they fired every conscription officer in the country for bribery so I'm not sure that really supports your case.
"They want to keep doing something you think is futile and causing senseless deaths, so why not help them?"
You know what would be even more senseless than dying in a trench? Dying in an FSB torture cellar while your family gets raped.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
Stuff you don't want to hear so didn't hear, apparently: Russian torture cellars. Other things you might not want to hear include Russians castrating POWs.
I said the war is lost and Ukraine should negotiate. You said:
I pointed out how ridiculous it is to say "why not help them" is to someone who just said they believed the war was lost. Rather than continue this conversation, you went off on a tangent. Brilliant.
It's not a tangent. Even if Ukraine lost (and it didn't, and you made no actual argument on why I should believe so) with the kind of atrocities Russia is committing in occupied territories tons of people would, and, well, do, fight against the occupiers.
Would anything convince you?
And yes, bringing up allegations of war crimes is a total non sequitur in a discussion about whether the war itself is winnable for Ukraine. No war crime is excusable, but every side of every war commits them.
Yes. It would involve military analysis.
That's not even close to a military analysis. What about artillery attrition? Logistics in the rear? What's the average time between Russians setting up an ammo depot and it getting blown to bits? Conscription getting riskier and riskier for Putin?
How many reserves have the sides committed to the front? Hint: Russia committed everything quite some time ago while Ukraine didn't and is rotating troops so they can get some well-deserved R&R.
Putin does, certainly when it comes to regime stability. Russia? I very much doubt it because there's also sane Russian. Europe will continue support indefinitely don't confuse us for fickle yanks and you're severely underestimating the morale boost incurred by fighting a defensive war. For Ukraine, this indeed is an existential war. Read Clausewitz.
No. Much of Russia's production and stocks are in the east. Also that's like such a non-issue.
...at a state where Russia, Russia, is importing metals from China. Metals. Russia. Do I need to need to use more italics. I don't have any insight on the details but it's well-known that Russia is lacking workers because tons are either a) dead, b) on the front, or c) in hiding to not end up a) or b), and that seems to be so bad that it affects mining and refining.
Now China might be happy propping Russia up, but internally the Z-patriots are going to scream bloody murder incurring debts with China. Long story short: Russia's internal situation is becoming more and more volatile.
Do you think you know the answer to any of these questions? I don't see any sources. The bottom line is that Russia has shown the ability to hold its territory for quite some time.
Lol let's see if Europe's support will last another winter of higher energy prices. The U.S. is the big spender, anyway.
This paragraph is so mind-meltingly stupid I hardly know where to start.
You'd know about it if you actually followed the war in military terms.
Are you European?
So you're saying that it's cheaper for Russia to import from China than keeping production inside? How is that supposed to work?
That was in a day and age where people still had children, and it's no wonder it exploded it was pretty much at zero during Tsar times.
Have Russian press reporting about the military shortfall, and that's before the war started, not counting the sky-high incurred losses. Sure, Russians per se still exist but they're increasingly I nearly said grandmas but the better term would be grandma age.
No sources on all those questions, then.
Jesus Christ... Russia is a big country. Mines and mills are expensive and undesirable to live by so they don't build them everywhere unless it's necessary. Ore deposits are not spread evenly throughout countries, nor are mills. Unfinished products are not very economical to ship long distances. So Russia could have all the (for example) steel production capacity in the world, but if its capacity is mostly in Western Russia and you have a factory in Eastern Russia right across the border from a Chinese steel mill, it's probably cheaper to import than buy domestically.
People have kids today you doofus, and not only running production capacity but building it all while fighting a war is an even greater indication of their labor availability than if they had started with a strong industrial base.
Points at the utter failure of the joke of a counteroffensive to even breach Russia's first line of defense after months of hype about retaking Crimea
You mean the ones forced to fight because they were kidnapped off the street and will be shot if they try to leave? Or the fascists that are in charge?
Part of the reason why Russia does not want to occupy all of Ukraine.
Nor yours, but it is in the hands of NATO leadership who have stymied peace negotiations at every opportunity.
[citation needed]
Why would we want to help people get forced into a meat grinder?
How slava ukraini you still feeling after 8 months of being wrong and Ukraine eating shit?
lol, reread what you're responding to, comrade. Friendly fire.
How’s reclaiming those territories going?
Oh you are disgusting
Disgusting is cheerleading who knows how many more deaths that if anything will only weaken Ukraine's bargaining position.
Removed by mod
Federatin is great I really forgot all the deep, nuanced, informative conversations I used to have on Reddit. I am learning so much here!
I don't know, we really have to look at defederating from some of these hostile communities. That rude user just told me to kill myself, whereas my polite Hexbear comrades would only send me an emoji of pig shit if we had a serious disagreemt.
Minsk I a treaty they've signed that was about greater autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts like them being allowed to speak russian a treaty that was very quickly broken.
Minsk II a treaty that did the same thing which again was broken.
and these are the off ramps before the war during the war you had the peace talks when the russian army was outside of Kiev whose content is dubious because so far only the russians said what it was about
and more importantly every peace talk after that Ukraines position was a restoration of the 2014 borders aka they want Crimea back which sorry is just not reasonable, hell for a lot of those peace talks russia wasn't even invited it was a bunch of countries like Germany, UK and Ukraine but not you know the country currently participating in this war.
This is one of those bits where I say that a country isn't about some piece of land but the people in it which guess what the ukrainian government is feeding into gigantic blender.
I DON'T CARE ABOUT SOME IMAGINARY LINES.
If Cuba decided to 'restore its borders' aka if it attacked the US base on Guantanamo Bay and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Cubans throwing them against the US army blender I would call for the Cuban people to rise up against its government because it doesn't care about its people and I hope you would too, if Mexico decided to take back California I'd have that same stance. It's called being anti-war, something I'm sure you'll now quote how "actually your stance isn't anti-war my which calls for sending billions of military equipment is actually anti-war"
My guess is that you don't know what war is like or have never interacted with anyone that had to flee a war, you really have two options here you can go outside and talk to any ukrainian woman that fled because of the war, tell them to their face that they are giving in to the aggressor when they say how angry they are at the ukrainian government because they don't know where their husband or their two brothers are. You know what I'll make it easier for you find any person in real life that has had to flee a conflict and how they feel about 'giving in to the aggressor'. Or if you feel you don't need to do that go join up the ukranian army do your part to fight the aggressor I mean it's only war right, you've seen some TikToks with war footage and some phonk music accompaning it, war is absolutely poggers I'm sure you'd have a blast fighting some russian orks.
...broken by the separatists. Also Russian was never outlawed.
It's unreasonable to not give in to a conqueror? It's that "Pacifism is when I kick you and you don't defend yourself" thing, again.
You may not. The people living in those areas (fled or not) do, though. They do care whether there's rule of law, whether they have a say in how things are run, whether there's a criminal installed at the top of things by the occupying force. After Ukraine got its independence many Tatars returned to Crimea that should tell you something.
Ukrainians, no matter the ethnicity, don't want to be ruled by Moscow. It's as simple as that. Before the war, some still had hopes that good relations with Moscow are possible, but not any more. Do you want to be ruled by Moscow? See neighbours disappear in torture cellars?
damn I was so sure this ukrainian woman I was talking to really wanted the war to end but she must not be a true blooded ukrainian women amiright? Again you are just some edgy person that doesn't get out enough and you channel that into playing up how much of a big powerful person you are by yelling "WAR WAR WAR NO ME WANT BLOOD WAR NOW BOMBS MINES BLOOD SKULLS WAR" it is good to see though that you will not go outside so there's that you don't seem like a pleasant person to be around.
Also this isn't a creative exercise you aren't supposed to just make up lies lol
Everyone wants the war to end. By the way of Russia losing it because Russia being allowed to win means even more war in the future: Peace on the agressor's terms is not peace, and thus cannot be the goal of any pacifist.
If the Kiev coup regime was concerned about aggression, they could have simply not done eight years of ethnic cleansing in the Donbas and ignored a ceasefire🤷♂️
Are there any OSCE election monitor results you want to back up your "coup regieme" claim?
Also, the breakaway Russian puppet states were the ones to break the ceasefires.
Google Operation Aerodynamic, i'm not gonna spoonfeed you information you'll just petulantly spit out to preserve your protofascist worldview.
Must've been a colossal failure, what with Svoboda having exactly one seat in the Rada.
K
the first 2 , they just involved West Ukraine giving in towards accepting 30 % of your citizens to have Human and Democratic rights as well .. (please read up on Minsk 1 & 2 )
Ah, the old myth about the poor disenfranchised Russian minority. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives? A neighbouring belligerent empire, perhaps?
Ah, the old myth about the perfidious, untrustworthy minority with dual loyalties who are surely plotting with The Enemy. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives?
Certainly not the vast, vast, majority of Ukrainians. Even among the Ukrainian far-right that's a tiny minority.
A tiny minority with military and political power who have been attempting genocide in the Donbas for eight years, yes.
Name them. Who are you talking about? Through which party do they act? What battalions do they field? How are they operating independently of the general staff?
Because if you mean Azov the current battalion isn't the old Azov, it's been diluted by ordinary people to the point where it's an ordinary battalion. If you're talking about Right Sector they're under general staff command when it comes to military, and have literally zero political power left in the Rada.
And those genocide claims are also bullshit. Poroshenko lost an election (among other things) over being too heavy-handed, yes, but even then anything that went down was a far cry from genocide. It's not even comparable to Russia's bombing campaign which deliberately targets civilians at their most vulnerable to inflict maximum casualties, apartment complexes in the night and shopping malls during shopping hours kind of shit.
deleted by creator
How can it be hammered in to your skull that this is not a story book where good guys win by virtue of their righteousness?
This is geopolitics. An empire wants to conquer an outlying resource rich region it has not been able to bring under it's control. It has provoked a small outlying nation to act as a proxy to weaken it's enemy. Ukraine isn't making decisions. They're just ammunition in someone else's war and the best thing for them would be to mutiny against Kiev and end the slaughter. Status quo antebellum is not on the menu.
I thought liberals were all about lesser evils
We don't. However America is worse. So it is nice to neoliberal infighting. Bonus, America losing is better overall for world peace.
Removed by mod
What part of that comment can be construed as pro-Russia?
The part complaining about a lack of Russian state-controlled news media?
That's not what he meant and you know it. He's making light of an obvious double standard regarding the standing in which we hold two sources with obvious national biases.
They might not know it. There hasn't been a lot of particularly complex analysis here and they very well might be operating on the level of "bad news bad, good news good".
Honestly, why are we even wasting time here?
Hell, I dunno. This sort of thing got through to me eventually, maybe I'm hoping I can change minds myself.
Fair, fair.
Ah, I see you already came to a similar conclusion!
That's not what I meant dickweed
You're an idiot
Because you have the reading comprehension of a grade schooler and are apparently incapable of handling such complexities as "Just because they're winning doesn't mean we support them" and "everybody in this conflict is an asshole except the non-Nazis soldiers being slaughtered so defense contractors can put in new pools in Arlington".
This isn't some law of attraction thing. Admitting that Ukraine is at best stalemated isn't going to cause them to magically lose.
There's a lot of layers to this. Among them the problem that yanks and other westerners with an exceptionalist world outlook have been convinced that only the good guys win, and that to win means to be the good guy no matter how abhorrent they are. So to accept that Russia is winning or, at least, that Ukraine can't win, means accepting that Russia is in fact the good guy. Which is clearly nonsense, but then neither you nor I are making the claim.
Keep talking