Before the USSR joined the allies, they signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. As part of that pact, they also agreed to jointly invade and occupy Poland, spreading their respective sphere of influence.
Yes they USSR did eventually join the ally cause, but only after getting stabbed in the back by the Nazis. The Nazi were now the enemy of both the allies and the USSR. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if only temporary.
This is historical revisionism. What the fuck do you mean EVENTUALLY joined the ally cause??? The soviets did absolutely everything they could to try and convince France and the UK to take action against Hitler but they were hoping Hitler would attack the USSR.
The ACTUAL historic timeline is like this:
1: The United States Bourgeoisie bankrolled the rise of fascism in Europe.
2: The bourgeois leaders of England, France, Poland, Finland and other Western European nations either ignored, enabled, or appeased Hitler’s worst behavior in the buildup to WW2.
3: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, England in particular, pushed for disastrous bilateral security arrangements which created a domino effect leading to war, while ignoring the USSR’s suggestion of collective, anti-fascist security arrangements.
4: The bourgeois leaders of these countries pursued a policy not of containing fascist aggression, but of diplomatically isolating the USSR, in the hopes that Hitler would go East and carry out an anti-communist genocide on their behalf.
5: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, having ignored or stalled collective security proposals from the USSR, actively made bilateral non-aggression pacts with Hitler before Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed, making the USSR the last in a long line of nations to sign non-aggression pacts with Hitler, after the USSR’s collective security proposals fell through.
6: The USSR only signed Molotov-Ribbentrop to buy time. The USSR only invaded East Poland to prevent a German front from forming right at the Soviet border. This is because attempts to make mutual security arrangements with Poland fell through. The Soviets only moved into the region after the existing government had literally fled the country, leaving it ungoverned. 2 million jews in eastern poland were saved from the nazis by this action.
7: The USSR tried to purchase a strategic corridor of land from Finland that the nazis could easily use to invade the USSR. The USSR not only wanted to legally purchase this land from Finland, but to trade Finland more acres of land in exchange. i.e. an asymmetrical trade that would have ultimately benefited Finland. Finland refused because the fascist leadership of Finland wanted to see Germany invade the USSR through this strategic corridor. This led directly to the Winter War. The Finnish lost the winter war but used their intelligence that they gathered during it to collaborate with the nazis.
8: When the North Atlantic allies finally teamed up with USSR after their strategy of appeasing Hitler backfired, they immediately attempted to make asymmetrical security arrangements that would have obligated the USSR to commit far more troops and resources to the war than any other ally, essentially using the USSR as a shield against the very fascist powers they had spent the better part of a decade appeasing. The British in particular kept stalling on arrangements and pretending to be confused.
9: When the war was over the North Atlantic allies, led by the USA, who came out of the war richer than any other country on Earth, immediately committed to rehabilitating nazis, blaming the USSR, who was decimated by the war, for causing the war, and created NATO to begin encircling the USSR, 6 years before the creation of the Warsaw pact.
10: The North Atlantic allies immediately set to using the Marshall plan to rebuild the fascist German, Italian, and Japanese economies, indebting them to the United States, and orienting them towards anti-communist policy.
11: The North Atlantic allies to tried to use the Marshall plan as a proto-IMF to privatize and deregulate the economy of the war-torn USSR, and open it up to foreign capital. That the USSR rejected this was framed as aggression and used as a justification for beginning the cold war.
But hey, don’t just take my word for it, or this rough outline of what is contained in well regarded books (I implore you to read some). How about we read Albert Einstein’s words spoken at the time these events actually occurred?
A lot to unpack in this speech but the basics of what Einstein says are:
The USSR made all efforts to stop the war happening.
The western powers(UK, France, US, etc) shut the USSR out of European discussions and betrayed Czechoslovakia.
Molotov-Ribbentrop was an unhappy last resort that they were driven to, that the western powers were attempting to drive the nazis into attacking the USSR and that’s why they would not help the USSR stop them.
The USSR supported everyone while the other powers (UK, France, US, etc) strengthened the nazis and Japanese.
In case you missed it, the cold war was fucking stupid. Furthermore I would argue that the US’s bad behavior at home and abroad ramped up MASSIVELY once they didn’t have a counterbalancing superpower they had to take seriously.
It is fucking wild that libs have in like the last 5 years or so all become cold war nuts that act like it was good. 10 years ago it was universally regarded as an incredibly dangerous farce that never should have happened and yet now the libs have all turned into rabid hawkish nationalists that spew red scare and cold war propaganda completely uncritically. I even see them spewing literal actual nazi propaganda these days that used to be regarded as loony and still is in historic academia at least.
Your against selling old stockpiles we are never going to use for the original sticker value? I mean Elon pretty much spent the same amount we have lend leased to Ukraine to buy Twitter…
It’s not even that much money making the whole situation more funny for the second greatest military in the world.
Your against selling old stockpiles we are never going to use for the original sticker value?
As if were ever getting paid for them. This isn’t cash & carry. The overwhelming majority of what we’ve sent has been on our own dime. And to that end, yes. I don’t support giving away shit that still work because that means replacements are needed. Quite expensive replacements, usually.
I mean Elon pretty much spent the same amount we have lend leased to Ukraine to buy Twitter…
…OK? That’s not really an argument for increased spending. He’s free to make whatever dumb financial decisions he wants.
I couldn’t care less which corrupt Eastern European government is the legitimate sovereign over eastern Ukraine. What difference does it make? Is it worth the hundreds of thousands of dead young men? Or the food insecurity crisis in the global south? The worldwide inflation?
People have been tricked into thinking enriching the pockets of Lockheed Martin & Co is somehow helping freedom and democracy.
Don’t get it twisted, that’s why we’re in Ukraine. It’s primary purpose is a mainline IV injection of cash straight into the military industrial complex. Hundreds of billions. Meanwhile we struggle for years to give a handout to the American people.
It’s a joke, I feel like we live in a parody movie sometimes.
See, I’d try to create an argument against you, but it’s utterly pointless. If I link to a news story highlighting genocidal actions by Russia, you’d say it was propaganda. I show you a first person photo or video of the situation, you’d say it’s staged and fake. I link a Russia Today article where a high ranking administrator at RT says Russia should drown Ukrainian children, you either don’t respond or you call it fake and offer no supporting argument for it.
The Ukrainian War has become a litmus test of sorts. It shows you who’s actually capable of critical thought and evaluating dynamic situations, and who’s just as blinded by propaganda as the people they condemn.
You may think you’re the former, but consider how people aren’t bothering to genuinely argue and discuss with you because you seem like you’d just reject any evidence which contradicted your worldview.
So what exactly is your endgame here then? If you believe that the Russians are simply genocidal and want to ethnically cleanse everyone in Ukraine (who is ironically exactly the same ethnicity as they are), then how do you see the war ending? The complete and total destruction of the Russian state? If that’s not what you believe then this use of “genocide” is soft holocaust denial and extremely dangerous.
Everyone needs to sit around a table and negotiate to end this. And that’s likely going to need to involve Ukraine giving up something and Russia giving up something, in order for both sides to walk away from this with some way to look like they won. I don’t understand why you think that’s impossible, it was literally happening before Boris Johnson stopped it.
Criminals break into your home and these appeasers would have you negotiate with them and give them half your stuff. More weapons for Ukraine until they can stop every last invader.
A few things – for one, nothing is stopping Ukraine from negotiations with Russia. It’s their choice, and I support whatever they decide. No other country should be interceding on their behalf. It would be incredibly patronizing, imperialistic, and confirm Putin’s flawed casus belli that Ukraine has no true sovereignty. Now, if Ukraine were to directly ask the US or other countries to negotiate for them, that’s a different story.
Genocide is the appropriate term to use here. The atrocities in Mariupol speak for themselves. Additionally, Putin’s speech before the invasion insisted that Ukraine was historically Russian territory and that Ukraine had no strong independent cultural identity. Finally, Russia has kidnapped Ukrainian children – and freely admitted to it. Administrators in RT have suggested drowning the children. All of these fall under genocide: indiscriminate civilian violence and mass graves in Mariupol, insisting Ukraine has no true culture nor national identity or sovereignty, and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
As for the endgame, how the war ends, and what should happen to Russia – I don’t know. I truly don’t. I strongly value the notion of sovereignty and that countries deserve to have self determination. Any resolution must respect that, and since Russia is denying that Ukraine should have that, I don’t see an easy end to the war. The Russian invasion force being repelled back into Russia is the most likely situation I think, which ends up causing the end of Putin’s regime, one way or another. And personally, I don’t think Donbas or Crimea or etc should be bargaining chips in a negotiation either. After the war, all Ukrainian and Russia soldiers need to retreat from the areas, while UN peacekeepers observe the vote for independence from Ukraine. I would support whatever was decided.
Not to mention, if Russia walks away with a benefit from the war, it rewards them for their invasion. That cannot be the case.
Genocide is the appropriate term to use here. The atrocities in Mariupol speak for themselves.
No it’s fucking not. The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing. The misuse of it by liberals who clearly have no idea what it means or how important it is to victims of the shoah helps holocaust deniers by diluting its meaning, hence why you are a soft holocaust denier in your misuse of it. I STRONGLY urge you to look up Raphael Lemkin who coined it, and its origins.
Atrocities are atrocities. Horrible things that happen. But genocide is VERY specific and refers to the aim to annihilate an ethnicity and we MUST keep that meaning to be sure that legislation we have won in the past preventing genocides does not become diluted to the point that this legislation gets removed for its antiquation.
Finally, Russia has kidnapped Ukrainian children – and freely admitted to it.
This is one of those things that’s a mess. Moving children out of the fighting zone was objectively necessary. Would you prefer they not have been? What this has done however is create a narrative that can be used to maintain the “genocide” bullshit because it’s a pivotal pillar of the mindset liberals need to be kept in to maintain their support for the war.
Put it this way. If you did not believe genocide was occurring, then you would immediately have to reckon with the fact that the sooner this war stops the sooner people stop dying. It’s the cornerstone on which liberals maintain their hawkish support for more bloodshed, by convincing themselves they’re opposing a genocide by doing it they can maintain the belief that these hundreds of thousands of people would be killed by the Russians anyway if they did not fight.
This is nonsense of course. The war started in 2014, and Russia didn’t want anything to do with Donbas then. Ukraine had no army in 2014, when Russia took Crimea and could happily of taken Donbas without opposition. Ukraine having literally zero army back then is the reason the volunteer nazi battallions of Azov and Right Sector were the frontline against the Donbas rebellions at that time. Had Russia wanted this land, or to do genocide (for what purpose?) then would have been the time to do it. Instead what they engaged in was attempts to keep it Ukrainian while giving some political independence to the region (something like a devolved government, similar to Scotland as being part of the UK but also governing itself). They spent 8 years pursuing that before the war. You’ve read the Minsk agreements right?
The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing.
Not really.
The Polish jurist Raphaël Lemkin invented the term “genocide” in a book published in 1944 - not to describe what was later called the Holocaust, but to present the grievances and claims of exiled national groups [6]. Although some of these groups called themselves “governments in exile”, their status in 1940-45 was dependent on the Allies. In particular, the US and the USSR had the military power to re-allocate territory in Europe, and did, in 1945. Some nations disappeared in 1945: others might have. Lemkin’s evident political concern was to establish the permanent existence rights of nations, and to redirect the horror at Nazi atrocities into support for nationalism in Europe. That is propaganda: nationalist propaganda, substituting pro-nationalism for anti-fascism.
The term populicide would be better and less ambiguous when referring to a series of massacres against the same people. Unfortunately, it’s a much less common term.
You’re the only person who has left me a real message challenging anything. I’m more than willing to talk all day.
Russia is a brutal authoritarian state who is willing to do almost anything. But the fact is the life of an Eastern Ukrainian citizen will not appreciably change if they are ruled by Russia or Ukraine.
If there is no difference, then what are we doing this for? Killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, starving Africa, twisting the knife on the lower classes of the entire world… etc
All of this so Lockheed Martin’s stock goes up. I think it’s amazing they’ve effectively convinced a lot of people that war = good. That we should want more war.
This is what I mean - silence. Nobody has anything to say. You believe a certain thing very strongly and yet cannot articulate any meaningful response.
The best you could come up with is “mariupol”
You would kill every Ukrainian male and doom their demographics for a century if it meant putting Russia behind a quarter century.
Ok what about it? I’m not sure what this changes. They destroyed various cities. Bombed many civilians. All sorts of stuff. I still don’t think the life of a Ukrainian would be appreciably different under one government or the other.
Yep. In the US you are given two options. One is trash and the other is worse.
I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Trump and the other Republicunt politicians who bow down to him. For whatever reason he has determined being anti-war is politically advantageous.
Which might work out for him. Inflation & instability & war aren’t great sales points for a presidential election. Biden’s numbers jumped for a little bit after the invasion but people will get fatigued with an endless stalemate. And worse, if Ukraine loses we essentially threw away hundreds of billions.
High stakes game our politicians are playing being so hard and loose with money
I don’t think thats fair. I think the idea is that a dictatorship invading a democracy in eastern europe is something the free world can’t allow to happen, same way they couldn’t if Iran invaded The Netherlands, and this is why all of europe and the US are helping them defend themselves.
They claim the richest chunk of the political establishment of the richest country on the planet with the most roided up intelligence/military apparatus in human history is in the pocket of the arch enemy of said country and said intelligence behemoth
Compared to that every statement is resonable. Arguing nuances while ignoring the ignorance of the premise is past the borders on ridiculousness.
Russia is much less a dictatorship than USA… The ‘free world’ caused unimaginably more suffering, death, and injustice in the world than Russia ever has. Sending weapons in support of Kiev regime (yes, it’s a regime by definition) only prolongs the suffering of people, both Ukrainian
and Russian.
Russia cannot lose this war. If faced with an actual prospect of being defeated (which is not realistic in any capacity) it would employ nuclear weapons, which would be disastrous for us all! So west is really only gambling on prolonging the conflict to destabilize EU, hurt Russia’s resources, and in the process destroy entire generations of Ukrainians.
The lesson to be learned from WWII is that appeasement of land-hungry countries is not a solution for long term world peace. Because of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland and Austria, Hitler learned that the world would simply let him take whatever he wanted if he bared his teeth.
Putin views the fall of the USSR with bitterness, and wants to bring the USSR back. From his prior incursions into Chechnya and Crimea, he had learned that he could take whatever territory he wanted and the world would turn a blind eye out of fear of starting a larger conflict. He had hoped that Trump would be reelected, reducing the likelihood of a united West against this offensive he had been planning for years.
So, he had plans to take Moldova after Ukraine. He expected Ukraine’s inexperienced, ex-actor president to flee like Hamid Karzai when his forces made a beeline for Kyiv. Instead, Zelenskyy stood his ground, lead the defense of Ukraine, and marshalled materiel support from NATO. Ukraine is choosing to fiercely defend itself; even if pacifists who want to minimize total casualties were to get the US and NATO to cease all support for Ukraine, “allowing” it to be overrun, there would be no speedy end to the conflict. And then, even if Russia were to claim all of Ukraine, the bloodshed would not stop there, as he would continue to take former USSR member states.
The you aren’t a pacifist. A pacifist considers violence and war as unjustifiable by definition.
Pacifism is an untenable position because the only way to ensure control of the actions of another is through force and domination due to a pesky thing called free will.
A pacifist is an idealist that has chosen not to contend with the reality that someone else may choose to be violent towards them. They have, through this unjustifiable position, determined that because pain is bad all violence has no justification, even in the defence of oneself. Pacifism is enabled by a core belief that all violence propagates violence.
Pacifism often limits this understanding of violence to the physical, as far as I’m aware no pacifist is against violence such as forced imprisonment of criminals.
Yeah, best to appease countries like the US who don’t officially take land, but will invade, overthrow, or fund opposition if you do not do what they say. It’s funny to be seeing the grandstanding of Americans and the world coming together to moralize about Russia. Where was all this during the 20 years of Iraq? Apparently the biggest bully on the playground gets to dictate what’s right.
No, you’re completely right. Other countries should’ve denounced the US for Iraq. But the fact that that didn’t happen doesn’t mean Russia gets a pass here too.
Absolutely, Russia is 100% wrong for invading Ukraine and it should be denounced and countered. I just find it interesting how strongly people feel about one invasion over another.
And then you have other conflicts and genocides around the world too. From a historic geopolitical perspective, I understand why Ukraine and Russia has way more attention, and it’s not like I think we should pay less attention to it. I just hope going forward we do this for other global conflicts.
As a liberal, this war has shown me that the US military and defence budget can be a force for good. It’s a tool to be used by the wielder. The left can use it to help the world and maintain peace. I’d personally argue it’s our duty, both ideologically and geopolitically. The US has done a lot of unsavory things to get where we are, the West overall even moreso – it’s time we gave back and made up for it.
Putin is (quite contrary to western MSM-taught propaganda) a very pragmatic and laid-back leader, moreso than most if not all of the western leaders. He was never known for making rash or risky decisions. The Russo-Ukrainian war was forced by the west, Putin never wanted it to happen, but he damn sure prepared for the eventuality.
Pragmatic? Sure. No risky decisions? Get outta here. Only reason he was elected in the first place is because he orchestrated a false flag terrorist attack.
Laid back? Craziest part of your post. Russian leaders have to be like Stalin to survive. Paranoid and ruthless. He is the furthest thing from laid back.
Generally speaking yes but it’s a nuanced thing. For example Japan was more or less forced to attack the US in WW2. US was aware of this when they cut off oil to Japan. They were essentially forcing the issue - declaring a war unofficially. They fully expected some attack from Japan at some point in the near future.
Japan’s war machinery was focused in Asia - they didn’t want to go to war with the West. But to keep feeding their growing industrial base they needed resources… and all the good resources in the region were controlled by the European powers. In order to keep pushing forward in China, they needed to take Dutch/British/French territory in SE Asia. If they attacked one, they knew they would be at war with all. So they just sneak attacked all hoping that the American/European will to fight wouldn’t be as strong as theirs. Just like the way they won their war against Russia at the start of the 20th century. Unfortunately for them, the US was more than willing to fight and die for control over the Pacific.
Ukraine v Russia is a bit different, though. I view it as an independence war starting in 2014 from the Euromaiden protests. Ukraine was firmly in Russian sphere - and it has been for hundreds of years. As soon as they want to pivot away from Russia with the coup in 2014, Russians come and annex Crimea. Then of course we have the slow 8 year fighting in the Donbas which eventually led to all-out war.
You’re quite correct, though you left out that the West has been pushing for war since at least 2004 with the orange revolution and subsequently the 2014 illegal coup. The western orchestration and support was vital for these to occur and destabilize Ukraine. It caused a shift toward russophobic politics that sparked a civil war.
Why do you think US is giving more and more military aid if Russia has no chance of winning? For example before they wouldn’t give tanks - that was a red line. Then we sent tanks.
Then we wouldn’t send airplanes - then we did.
Now we’re sending cluster bombs and uranium ammunition, something that’s akin to using chemical weapons.
Why? The situation is getting increasingly tense. This war could last a long time but the support from the West will not last forever. And by the “West” we mean the USA. That’s where overwhelming majority of the aid comes from.
Trump wins in 2024 and goodbye Ukraine ggwp. Russia just has to hold the line and eventually they’ll annex Crimea + Donbas + Donetsk
The same reason General Popov was dismissed then attacked by state media. The same reason Prigozhin encountered minor resistance on his march to Moscow.
Morale is low, stockpiles are depleted and industry is decimated, partially by sanctions and partially by mobilization.
Russia is using WWII tactics with cold war era equipment. Thousands of artillery pieces don’t mean a whole lot if you can’t put counter-battery fire on a HIMARS. Thousands of mobiks aren’t going to be effective if they don’t have modern training and equipment. Russia wasted hundreds of guided missiles on residential targets with no strategic value in the middle of a war.
The war is already lost. The only question now is how many more Russians have to die on Ukrainian soil before Putin starts to care.
I don’t know where you get your info from, but morale in Russia is at an all-time high after the total defeat of Ukrainian offensive.
And talking about ‘cold war era equipment’ is frankly silly… Do you call Ka-52s, Krasnopols, Lancets, etc. cold war era equipment? This Russian hardware has been proven the real gamechanger on the battlefield, decimating Ukrainian armored formations relentlessly. But you are right about one thing, the war has definitely been lost, though by the West.
The west hasn’t even joined the war, they’ve handed Ukraine their old spare tech and used the opportunity to upgrade their own stockpiles and done so in a manner to ensure their own security needs and combat effectiveness aren’t diminished.
Imagine being so utterly clueless to think even a fraction of the might of western military has been directed at the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is pushing back Russia with western scraps and beta tested hardware.
The Ukraine’s 72nd mechanized brigade was built with fresh NATO-trained troops and western equipment. And it failed abysmally. NATO is a joke. An utter joke.
I know you are either a troll or a tankie, but it invite you to look up the winning record of Russian presidents in elections. The last time the will of the people ousted a leader from power was the the Czar. Not very democratic.
The US is by no means a perfect country and the United States elections process has many issues, but Russian elections are a joke.
No, I am going off the opinions of Russians I talk to. Yes, Putin is popular, but not to the extent that elections will tell you. Also, no one who has a chance of winning is allow to run.
Many Russians don’t feel comfortable expressing honest opinions on social media.
Putinland will ceace to exist if the retards in control don’t realise that using nuclear weapons is a dumb idea.
Putinland is run by maffia that have their boot on the Russian populations neck. The rest of the world simply can’t allow those criminals to spread their terror beyond their borders. Democracy has to be defended, or we stand to loose it. Which would be bad for humanity as a whole. If Putinland would be a democracy, they would not have tried to invade a neighbour.
Russians have existed since before 1000ac and the ‘free world’ is here for about 200 years really. Well not counting usa, which did crazy shit to natives, but was inactive outside its own borders mostly. Who you consider the ‘free world countries’ actually?
Who you consider the ‘free world countries’ actually?
If you can walk into a crowded space in a country and shout “Fuck [Country] and [Country’s Leader],” go home safely that day, and your life doesn’t change whatsoever over the next couple weeks, it’s a “free world” country.
And in those 200 years the West used two nuclear bombs to kill or maim hundreds of thousands of mainly women and children, for example. Nothing that Russia ever did even remotely compares to that.
I guess we are talking only russian foreign affairs and not what /russians/ did to other nationalities inside russia? In that case yes, probably not as many civilian casulties from Russians compared to that 250k in japan in hiroshima and nagasaki from americans. If we do take into account domestic affairs, Stalin’s 20mil always wins :)
Stalin’s ‘20 million’ are a joke, no real historian ever believes those phantasmal numbers. It’s like you believe that Germans with their KZ industry were mere amateurs. 🤦🏼♂️
Responding to myself. I don’t actually believe what I wrote, I just wanted to point out reductive statements are are easy to make and maybe too broad a brush for an entire group. It is possible to oppose the US funding of this war without being in Putin’s pocket. What about the nine democrats who either voted against military aid or failed to vote?
Never thought liberals would be pro-war, but here we are.
I’m pro “defend yourself from an invasion.” Why aren’t you?
“yourself”
Yeah, fuck the French for helping the colonies fight off the Brits. Everyone knows they should’ve just let them crush that little rebellion
Ok so how about them Russians when they lost the most lives in WW2 for the Allies to win?
Before the USSR joined the allies, they signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. As part of that pact, they also agreed to jointly invade and occupy Poland, spreading their respective sphere of influence.
Yes they USSR did eventually join the ally cause, but only after getting stabbed in the back by the Nazis. The Nazi were now the enemy of both the allies and the USSR. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if only temporary.
This is historical revisionism. What the fuck do you mean EVENTUALLY joined the ally cause??? The soviets did absolutely everything they could to try and convince France and the UK to take action against Hitler but they were hoping Hitler would attack the USSR.
The ACTUAL historic timeline is like this:
1: The United States Bourgeoisie bankrolled the rise of fascism in Europe.
2: The bourgeois leaders of England, France, Poland, Finland and other Western European nations either ignored, enabled, or appeased Hitler’s worst behavior in the buildup to WW2.
3: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, England in particular, pushed for disastrous bilateral security arrangements which created a domino effect leading to war, while ignoring the USSR’s suggestion of collective, anti-fascist security arrangements.
4: The bourgeois leaders of these countries pursued a policy not of containing fascist aggression, but of diplomatically isolating the USSR, in the hopes that Hitler would go East and carry out an anti-communist genocide on their behalf.
5: The bourgeois leaders of these countries, having ignored or stalled collective security proposals from the USSR, actively made bilateral non-aggression pacts with Hitler before Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed, making the USSR the last in a long line of nations to sign non-aggression pacts with Hitler, after the USSR’s collective security proposals fell through.
6: The USSR only signed Molotov-Ribbentrop to buy time. The USSR only invaded East Poland to prevent a German front from forming right at the Soviet border. This is because attempts to make mutual security arrangements with Poland fell through. The Soviets only moved into the region after the existing government had literally fled the country, leaving it ungoverned. 2 million jews in eastern poland were saved from the nazis by this action.
7: The USSR tried to purchase a strategic corridor of land from Finland that the nazis could easily use to invade the USSR. The USSR not only wanted to legally purchase this land from Finland, but to trade Finland more acres of land in exchange. i.e. an asymmetrical trade that would have ultimately benefited Finland. Finland refused because the fascist leadership of Finland wanted to see Germany invade the USSR through this strategic corridor. This led directly to the Winter War. The Finnish lost the winter war but used their intelligence that they gathered during it to collaborate with the nazis.
8: When the North Atlantic allies finally teamed up with USSR after their strategy of appeasing Hitler backfired, they immediately attempted to make asymmetrical security arrangements that would have obligated the USSR to commit far more troops and resources to the war than any other ally, essentially using the USSR as a shield against the very fascist powers they had spent the better part of a decade appeasing. The British in particular kept stalling on arrangements and pretending to be confused.
9: When the war was over the North Atlantic allies, led by the USA, who came out of the war richer than any other country on Earth, immediately committed to rehabilitating nazis, blaming the USSR, who was decimated by the war, for causing the war, and created NATO to begin encircling the USSR, 6 years before the creation of the Warsaw pact.
10: The North Atlantic allies immediately set to using the Marshall plan to rebuild the fascist German, Italian, and Japanese economies, indebting them to the United States, and orienting them towards anti-communist policy.
11: The North Atlantic allies to tried to use the Marshall plan as a proto-IMF to privatize and deregulate the economy of the war-torn USSR, and open it up to foreign capital. That the USSR rejected this was framed as aggression and used as a justification for beginning the cold war.
But hey, don’t just take my word for it, or this rough outline of what is contained in well regarded books (I implore you to read some). How about we read Albert Einstein’s words spoken at the time these events actually occurred?
A lot to unpack in this speech but the basics of what Einstein says are:
The USSR made all efforts to stop the war happening.
The western powers(UK, France, US, etc) shut the USSR out of European discussions and betrayed Czechoslovakia.
Molotov-Ribbentrop was an unhappy last resort that they were driven to, that the western powers were attempting to drive the nazis into attacking the USSR and that’s why they would not help the USSR stop them.
The USSR supported everyone while the other powers (UK, France, US, etc) strengthened the nazis and Japanese.
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The fuck does that have anything to do with my comment? Lmao
Maybe you’ve always been able to defend yourself without anyone coming to your aid, but believe it or not, it’s quite helpful.
I’ve been sold bullshit wars for decades. You can not sell it to me. This is not the way I’m sorry.
What part of Russia invading their territory is bullshit exactly?
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Never thought conservatives would be against a small country fighting for their freedom and join hands with our cold-war enemy. How patriotic of them.
In case you missed it, the cold war was fucking stupid. Furthermore I would argue that the US’s bad behavior at home and abroad ramped up MASSIVELY once they didn’t have a counterbalancing superpower they had to take seriously.
It is fucking wild that libs have in like the last 5 years or so all become cold war nuts that act like it was good. 10 years ago it was universally regarded as an incredibly dangerous farce that never should have happened and yet now the libs have all turned into rabid hawkish nationalists that spew red scare and cold war propaganda completely uncritically. I even see them spewing literal actual nazi propaganda these days that used to be regarded as loony and still is in historic academia at least.
I’m in no manner against ukraine fighting. My problem is with the US spending money on it.
Your against selling old stockpiles we are never going to use for the original sticker value? I mean Elon pretty much spent the same amount we have lend leased to Ukraine to buy Twitter…
It’s not even that much money making the whole situation more funny for the second greatest military in the world.
Source: https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
As if were ever getting paid for them. This isn’t cash & carry. The overwhelming majority of what we’ve sent has been on our own dime. And to that end, yes. I don’t support giving away shit that still work because that means replacements are needed. Quite expensive replacements, usually.
…OK? That’s not really an argument for increased spending. He’s free to make whatever dumb financial decisions he wants.
I couldn’t care less which corrupt Eastern European government is the legitimate sovereign over eastern Ukraine. What difference does it make? Is it worth the hundreds of thousands of dead young men? Or the food insecurity crisis in the global south? The worldwide inflation?
People have been tricked into thinking enriching the pockets of Lockheed Martin & Co is somehow helping freedom and democracy.
Don’t get it twisted, that’s why we’re in Ukraine. It’s primary purpose is a mainline IV injection of cash straight into the military industrial complex. Hundreds of billions. Meanwhile we struggle for years to give a handout to the American people.
It’s a joke, I feel like we live in a parody movie sometimes.
See, I’d try to create an argument against you, but it’s utterly pointless. If I link to a news story highlighting genocidal actions by Russia, you’d say it was propaganda. I show you a first person photo or video of the situation, you’d say it’s staged and fake. I link a Russia Today article where a high ranking administrator at RT says Russia should drown Ukrainian children, you either don’t respond or you call it fake and offer no supporting argument for it.
The Ukrainian War has become a litmus test of sorts. It shows you who’s actually capable of critical thought and evaluating dynamic situations, and who’s just as blinded by propaganda as the people they condemn.
You may think you’re the former, but consider how people aren’t bothering to genuinely argue and discuss with you because you seem like you’d just reject any evidence which contradicted your worldview.
Well said!
So what exactly is your endgame here then? If you believe that the Russians are simply genocidal and want to ethnically cleanse everyone in Ukraine (who is ironically exactly the same ethnicity as they are), then how do you see the war ending? The complete and total destruction of the Russian state? If that’s not what you believe then this use of “genocide” is soft holocaust denial and extremely dangerous.
Everyone needs to sit around a table and negotiate to end this. And that’s likely going to need to involve Ukraine giving up something and Russia giving up something, in order for both sides to walk away from this with some way to look like they won. I don’t understand why you think that’s impossible, it was literally happening before Boris Johnson stopped it.
Criminals break into your home and these appeasers would have you negotiate with them and give them half your stuff. More weapons for Ukraine until they can stop every last invader.
This is just bloodthirsty nationalism. And completely detached from reality.
Ukrainians defend their right to exist.
Russians: how dare they
A few things – for one, nothing is stopping Ukraine from negotiations with Russia. It’s their choice, and I support whatever they decide. No other country should be interceding on their behalf. It would be incredibly patronizing, imperialistic, and confirm Putin’s flawed casus belli that Ukraine has no true sovereignty. Now, if Ukraine were to directly ask the US or other countries to negotiate for them, that’s a different story.
Genocide is the appropriate term to use here. The atrocities in Mariupol speak for themselves. Additionally, Putin’s speech before the invasion insisted that Ukraine was historically Russian territory and that Ukraine had no strong independent cultural identity. Finally, Russia has kidnapped Ukrainian children – and freely admitted to it. Administrators in RT have suggested drowning the children. All of these fall under genocide: indiscriminate civilian violence and mass graves in Mariupol, insisting Ukraine has no true culture nor national identity or sovereignty, and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
As for the endgame, how the war ends, and what should happen to Russia – I don’t know. I truly don’t. I strongly value the notion of sovereignty and that countries deserve to have self determination. Any resolution must respect that, and since Russia is denying that Ukraine should have that, I don’t see an easy end to the war. The Russian invasion force being repelled back into Russia is the most likely situation I think, which ends up causing the end of Putin’s regime, one way or another. And personally, I don’t think Donbas or Crimea or etc should be bargaining chips in a negotiation either. After the war, all Ukrainian and Russia soldiers need to retreat from the areas, while UN peacekeepers observe the vote for independence from Ukraine. I would support whatever was decided.
Not to mention, if Russia walks away with a benefit from the war, it rewards them for their invasion. That cannot be the case.
No it’s fucking not. The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing. The misuse of it by liberals who clearly have no idea what it means or how important it is to victims of the shoah helps holocaust deniers by diluting its meaning, hence why you are a soft holocaust denier in your misuse of it. I STRONGLY urge you to look up Raphael Lemkin who coined it, and its origins.
Atrocities are atrocities. Horrible things that happen. But genocide is VERY specific and refers to the aim to annihilate an ethnicity and we MUST keep that meaning to be sure that legislation we have won in the past preventing genocides does not become diluted to the point that this legislation gets removed for its antiquation.
This is one of those things that’s a mess. Moving children out of the fighting zone was objectively necessary. Would you prefer they not have been? What this has done however is create a narrative that can be used to maintain the “genocide” bullshit because it’s a pivotal pillar of the mindset liberals need to be kept in to maintain their support for the war.
Put it this way. If you did not believe genocide was occurring, then you would immediately have to reckon with the fact that the sooner this war stops the sooner people stop dying. It’s the cornerstone on which liberals maintain their hawkish support for more bloodshed, by convincing themselves they’re opposing a genocide by doing it they can maintain the belief that these hundreds of thousands of people would be killed by the Russians anyway if they did not fight.
This is nonsense of course. The war started in 2014, and Russia didn’t want anything to do with Donbas then. Ukraine had no army in 2014, when Russia took Crimea and could happily of taken Donbas without opposition. Ukraine having literally zero army back then is the reason the volunteer nazi battallions of Azov and Right Sector were the frontline against the Donbas rebellions at that time. Had Russia wanted this land, or to do genocide (for what purpose?) then would have been the time to do it. Instead what they engaged in was attempts to keep it Ukrainian while giving some political independence to the region (something like a devolved government, similar to Scotland as being part of the UK but also governing itself). They spent 8 years pursuing that before the war. You’ve read the Minsk agreements right?
Not really.
(Source.)
The term populicide would be better and less ambiguous when referring to a series of massacres against the same people. Unfortunately, it’s a much less common term.
Are we really quibbling over 6 years here? Being off by a handful of years on the date doesn’t materially change the point.
You’re the only person who has left me a real message challenging anything. I’m more than willing to talk all day.
Russia is a brutal authoritarian state who is willing to do almost anything. But the fact is the life of an Eastern Ukrainian citizen will not appreciably change if they are ruled by Russia or Ukraine.
If there is no difference, then what are we doing this for? Killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, starving Africa, twisting the knife on the lower classes of the entire world… etc
All of this so Lockheed Martin’s stock goes up. I think it’s amazing they’ve effectively convinced a lot of people that war = good. That we should want more war.
Do you know about the atrocities at Mariupol?
Do you mean besides destroying the city?
Yes.
This is what I mean - silence. Nobody has anything to say. You believe a certain thing very strongly and yet cannot articulate any meaningful response.
The best you could come up with is “mariupol”
You would kill every Ukrainian male and doom their demographics for a century if it meant putting Russia behind a quarter century.
Ok what about it? I’m not sure what this changes. They destroyed various cities. Bombed many civilians. All sorts of stuff. I still don’t think the life of a Ukrainian would be appreciably different under one government or the other.
Unfortunately, the Republican senators mentioned also have a very hard time allocating funds to programs that help Americans too.
Yep. In the US you are given two options. One is trash and the other is worse.
I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Trump and the other Republicunt politicians who bow down to him. For whatever reason he has determined being anti-war is politically advantageous.
Which might work out for him. Inflation & instability & war aren’t great sales points for a presidential election. Biden’s numbers jumped for a little bit after the invasion but people will get fatigued with an endless stalemate. And worse, if Ukraine loses we essentially threw away hundreds of billions.
High stakes game our politicians are playing being so hard and loose with money
I don’t think thats fair. I think the idea is that a dictatorship invading a democracy in eastern europe is something the free world can’t allow to happen, same way they couldn’t if Iran invaded The Netherlands, and this is why all of europe and the US are helping them defend themselves.
Not sure how you could get “pro-war” from that.
You don’t think thats fair…
Have you read the first comment in this thread?
They claim the richest chunk of the political establishment of the richest country on the planet with the most roided up intelligence/military apparatus in human history is in the pocket of the arch enemy of said country and said intelligence behemoth
Compared to that every statement is resonable. Arguing nuances while ignoring the ignorance of the premise is past the borders on ridiculousness.
ah, I see what you’re getting at
Russia is much less a dictatorship than USA… The ‘free world’ caused unimaginably more suffering, death, and injustice in the world than Russia ever has. Sending weapons in support of Kiev regime (yes, it’s a regime by definition) only prolongs the suffering of people, both Ukrainian and Russian.
Russia cannot lose this war. If faced with an actual prospect of being defeated (which is not realistic in any capacity) it would employ nuclear weapons, which would be disastrous for us all! So west is really only gambling on prolonging the conflict to destabilize EU, hurt Russia’s resources, and in the process destroy entire generations of Ukrainians.
The lesson to be learned from WWII is that appeasement of land-hungry countries is not a solution for long term world peace. Because of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland and Austria, Hitler learned that the world would simply let him take whatever he wanted if he bared his teeth.
Putin views the fall of the USSR with bitterness, and wants to bring the USSR back. From his prior incursions into Chechnya and Crimea, he had learned that he could take whatever territory he wanted and the world would turn a blind eye out of fear of starting a larger conflict. He had hoped that Trump would be reelected, reducing the likelihood of a united West against this offensive he had been planning for years.
So, he had plans to take Moldova after Ukraine. He expected Ukraine’s inexperienced, ex-actor president to flee like Hamid Karzai when his forces made a beeline for Kyiv. Instead, Zelenskyy stood his ground, lead the defense of Ukraine, and marshalled materiel support from NATO. Ukraine is choosing to fiercely defend itself; even if pacifists who want to minimize total casualties were to get the US and NATO to cease all support for Ukraine, “allowing” it to be overrun, there would be no speedy end to the conflict. And then, even if Russia were to claim all of Ukraine, the bloodshed would not stop there, as he would continue to take former USSR member states.
Don’t call people who want to let Putin profit from his warmongering “pacifists”.
Pacifism is the cowardice to defend oneself.
That isn’t entirely true, imho. I live by the motto “Hope for peace, but prepare for war”.
The you aren’t a pacifist. A pacifist considers violence and war as unjustifiable by definition.
Pacifism is an untenable position because the only way to ensure control of the actions of another is through force and domination due to a pesky thing called free will.
A pacifist is an idealist that has chosen not to contend with the reality that someone else may choose to be violent towards them. They have, through this unjustifiable position, determined that because pain is bad all violence has no justification, even in the defence of oneself. Pacifism is enabled by a core belief that all violence propagates violence.
Pacifism often limits this understanding of violence to the physical, as far as I’m aware no pacifist is against violence such as forced imprisonment of criminals.
I never did say I was a pacifist.
Yeah, best to appease countries like the US who don’t officially take land, but will invade, overthrow, or fund opposition if you do not do what they say. It’s funny to be seeing the grandstanding of Americans and the world coming together to moralize about Russia. Where was all this during the 20 years of Iraq? Apparently the biggest bully on the playground gets to dictate what’s right.
No, you’re completely right. Other countries should’ve denounced the US for Iraq. But the fact that that didn’t happen doesn’t mean Russia gets a pass here too.
Absolutely, Russia is 100% wrong for invading Ukraine and it should be denounced and countered. I just find it interesting how strongly people feel about one invasion over another.
And then you have other conflicts and genocides around the world too. From a historic geopolitical perspective, I understand why Ukraine and Russia has way more attention, and it’s not like I think we should pay less attention to it. I just hope going forward we do this for other global conflicts.
As a liberal, this war has shown me that the US military and defence budget can be a force for good. It’s a tool to be used by the wielder. The left can use it to help the world and maintain peace. I’d personally argue it’s our duty, both ideologically and geopolitically. The US has done a lot of unsavory things to get where we are, the West overall even moreso – it’s time we gave back and made up for it.
Putin is (quite contrary to western MSM-taught propaganda) a very pragmatic and laid-back leader, moreso than most if not all of the western leaders. He was never known for making rash or risky decisions. The Russo-Ukrainian war was forced by the west, Putin never wanted it to happen, but he damn sure prepared for the eventuality.
Pragmatic? Sure. No risky decisions? Get outta here. Only reason he was elected in the first place is because he orchestrated a false flag terrorist attack.
Laid back? Craziest part of your post. Russian leaders have to be like Stalin to survive. Paranoid and ruthless. He is the furthest thing from laid back.
Any evidence for that or are you simply taking russophobic nonsense at face value?
This has to be a joke commentand no one is recognizing it. Right?
Generally speaking, if you’re the invading party in a war, you were not forced into it.
Generally speaking yes but it’s a nuanced thing. For example Japan was more or less forced to attack the US in WW2. US was aware of this when they cut off oil to Japan. They were essentially forcing the issue - declaring a war unofficially. They fully expected some attack from Japan at some point in the near future.
Japan’s war machinery was focused in Asia - they didn’t want to go to war with the West. But to keep feeding their growing industrial base they needed resources… and all the good resources in the region were controlled by the European powers. In order to keep pushing forward in China, they needed to take Dutch/British/French territory in SE Asia. If they attacked one, they knew they would be at war with all. So they just sneak attacked all hoping that the American/European will to fight wouldn’t be as strong as theirs. Just like the way they won their war against Russia at the start of the 20th century. Unfortunately for them, the US was more than willing to fight and die for control over the Pacific.
Ukraine v Russia is a bit different, though. I view it as an independence war starting in 2014 from the Euromaiden protests. Ukraine was firmly in Russian sphere - and it has been for hundreds of years. As soon as they want to pivot away from Russia with the coup in 2014, Russians come and annex Crimea. Then of course we have the slow 8 year fighting in the Donbas which eventually led to all-out war.
You’re quite correct, though you left out that the West has been pushing for war since at least 2004 with the orange revolution and subsequently the 2014 illegal coup. The western orchestration and support was vital for these to occur and destabilize Ukraine. It caused a shift toward russophobic politics that sparked a civil war.
Russia cannot win this war. Even if they used nukes.
I think you know this.
Why do you think US is giving more and more military aid if Russia has no chance of winning? For example before they wouldn’t give tanks - that was a red line. Then we sent tanks.
Then we wouldn’t send airplanes - then we did.
Now we’re sending cluster bombs and uranium ammunition, something that’s akin to using chemical weapons.
Why? The situation is getting increasingly tense. This war could last a long time but the support from the West will not last forever. And by the “West” we mean the USA. That’s where overwhelming majority of the aid comes from.
Trump wins in 2024 and goodbye Ukraine ggwp. Russia just has to hold the line and eventually they’ll annex Crimea + Donbas + Donetsk
And if they’re lucky maybe Odessa
What exactly makes you think Russia couldn’t win?
GDP.
The same reason General Popov was dismissed then attacked by state media. The same reason Prigozhin encountered minor resistance on his march to Moscow.
Morale is low, stockpiles are depleted and industry is decimated, partially by sanctions and partially by mobilization.
Russia is using WWII tactics with cold war era equipment. Thousands of artillery pieces don’t mean a whole lot if you can’t put counter-battery fire on a HIMARS. Thousands of mobiks aren’t going to be effective if they don’t have modern training and equipment. Russia wasted hundreds of guided missiles on residential targets with no strategic value in the middle of a war.
The war is already lost. The only question now is how many more Russians have to die on Ukrainian soil before Putin starts to care.
I don’t know where you get your info from, but morale in Russia is at an all-time high after the total defeat of Ukrainian offensive.
And talking about ‘cold war era equipment’ is frankly silly… Do you call Ka-52s, Krasnopols, Lancets, etc. cold war era equipment? This Russian hardware has been proven the real gamechanger on the battlefield, decimating Ukrainian armored formations relentlessly. But you are right about one thing, the war has definitely been lost, though by the West.
Progress has been made slow but steady by minefields. Is your Russian state tv really telling you Russia has totally defeated the Ukrainian offensive?
Maybe stop sniffing the glue.
Steady how? Still waiting for that ‘big break’…
The west hasn’t even joined the war, they’ve handed Ukraine their old spare tech and used the opportunity to upgrade their own stockpiles and done so in a manner to ensure their own security needs and combat effectiveness aren’t diminished.
Imagine being so utterly clueless to think even a fraction of the might of western military has been directed at the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is pushing back Russia with western scraps and beta tested hardware.
The Ukraine’s 72nd mechanized brigade was built with fresh NATO-trained troops and western equipment. And it failed abysmally. NATO is a joke. An utter joke.
I know you are either a troll or a tankie, but it invite you to look up the winning record of Russian presidents in elections. The last time the will of the people ousted a leader from power was the the Czar. Not very democratic.
The US is by no means a perfect country and the United States elections process has many issues, but Russian elections are a joke.
That’s what the western propaganda machine has been telling you. All western-backed polls paint a different picture, Putin is loved by Russian people.
No, I am going off the opinions of Russians I talk to. Yes, Putin is popular, but not to the extent that elections will tell you. Also, no one who has a chance of winning is allow to run. Many Russians don’t feel comfortable expressing honest opinions on social media.
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Putinland will ceace to exist if the retards in control don’t realise that using nuclear weapons is a dumb idea. Putinland is run by maffia that have their boot on the Russian populations neck. The rest of the world simply can’t allow those criminals to spread their terror beyond their borders. Democracy has to be defended, or we stand to loose it. Which would be bad for humanity as a whole. If Putinland would be a democracy, they would not have tried to invade a neighbour.
Russians have existed since before 1000ac and the ‘free world’ is here for about 200 years really. Well not counting usa, which did crazy shit to natives, but was inactive outside its own borders mostly. Who you consider the ‘free world countries’ actually?
If you can walk into a crowded space in a country and shout “Fuck [Country] and [Country’s Leader],” go home safely that day, and your life doesn’t change whatsoever over the next couple weeks, it’s a “free world” country.
And in those 200 years the West used two nuclear bombs to kill or maim hundreds of thousands of mainly women and children, for example. Nothing that Russia ever did even remotely compares to that.
I guess we are talking only russian foreign affairs and not what /russians/ did to other nationalities inside russia? In that case yes, probably not as many civilian casulties from Russians compared to that 250k in japan in hiroshima and nagasaki from americans. If we do take into account domestic affairs, Stalin’s 20mil always wins :)
Stalin’s ‘20 million’ are a joke, no real historian ever believes those phantasmal numbers. It’s like you believe that Germans with their KZ industry were mere amateurs. 🤦🏼♂️
Lol, ok sure, if you say so.
Doesn’t sound like you thought a lot about very much, considering your comment is an obvious disingenous strawman.
Responding to myself. I don’t actually believe what I wrote, I just wanted to point out reductive statements are are easy to make and maybe too broad a brush for an entire group. It is possible to oppose the US funding of this war without being in Putin’s pocket. What about the nine democrats who either voted against military aid or failed to vote?
Yes, it is possible to be a moron in congress, there’s a reason they’re called representatives.
Morons representing morons. LOL