151–160 of 190 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, the largest ethnic group. The largest ethnic group in California is Latinos. What's the issue?
I think your assumption that people who say they're ethnically non-Russian are basically Russian and would be ok with annexation by Russia is wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
War on NATO, Russia loses quickly or we all lose if nuclear war.
That doesn't prevent their propaganda from saying what they say. The people are convinced that NATO won't hold up to its promises. Re nuclear weapons. I really doubt that this shit is still functional.
Ohh how I wish I could believe that. Once you have the fissile material together my understanding is that it's not that hard to actually build a bomb. The success rate of countries that have decided to start a nuclear program is pretty damn high, and through all those years of nuclear testing, there weren't a whole lot of duds that I know of.
It’s hard to know exactly how heavy Ukrainian losses in the first phase and this second phase were; I suspect we’ll find out that they were quite a bit heavier than media coverage would lead us to believe. Actually, if you read Western mainstream media front line reports, past the headlines and between the lines, a picture of very heavy losses emerges. Units completely depleted or rebuilt several times. Territorial D…
> Actually, if you read Western mainstream media front line reports, past the headlines and between the lines, a picture of very heavy losses emerges. You don’t even have to read “past the headlines and between the lines”. The most common estimates I’ve seen are around 120K killed+wounded for Ukraine, which are very heavily casualties. Not as heavy as the 200K the same sources are estimating for Russia, but still ver…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really doubt it's "zero". I've quizzed many many people I had connections with and literally all of them support the war up to some extent. The most common opinion is "we shouldn't have started this but we should win this war and take over Ukraine and Poland". It would be really strange to count such opinions as "anti-war".
Don't they see how immoral it is to take over countries against their will? Are they just bad, immoral people?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-allies-step-up-sanct...
Some people have questioned the legitimacy of that request and of the breakaway governments, but a Washington Post poll in 2021 found that over half of the respondents from those breakaway republics wanted to join Russia and only 12% wanted to rejoin Ukraine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/12/new-surve...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't they see how immoral it is to take over countries against their will? Are they just bad, immoral people?
That's not entirely a fair summary of the situation. The Ukrainian separatists asked for Russian help: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-allies-step-up-sanct... Some people have questioned the legitimacy of that request and of the breakaway governments, but a Washington Post poll in 2021 found that over half of the respondents from those breakaway republics wanted to join Russia and only 12% wanted to rejoin Uk…
The separatists are under Russian control. The Russian army has been fighting alongside them since 2014, when they invaded Donbas.
In the 1991 referendum, voters in Dontesk and Luhansk overwhelmingly voted against being part of Russia. Per your source, in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbas, 75% want to be part of Ukraine. In the Russian-controlled part of Donbas, 57% want to be part of Russia.
First point, why such stark difference? I think it's because Russia is very good at propaganda and they exercise it heavily in areas under their control.
Second point, this changes absolutely nothing about my claim that what Russia did and is doing is completely immoral, pure evil. They don't care about the people in the separatist republics, that's just a marketing spin that almost everyone can see through. It's about imperialism, revenge, power. Putin has been planing to absorb at least Belarus and Ukraine since a very long time.
After all, Russia invaded the non-Russian controlled parts of Ukraine, which, per your source, are heavily against joining Russia.
Even if some parts of Ukraine wanted to join Russia, it wouldn't give Russia the right to annex the territory.
I'm curious why you have this view, what's your background - nationality, ethnicity, feelings about the West? (I'm from the Czech Republic.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't prevent their propaganda from saying what they say. The people are convinced that NATO won't hold up to its promises. Re nuclear weapons. I really doubt that this shit is still functional.
> I really doubt that this shit is still functional. Ohh how I wish I could believe that. Once you have the fissile material together my understanding is that it's not that hard to actually build a bomb. The success rate of countries that have decided to start a nuclear program is pretty damn high, and through all those years of nuclear testing, there weren't a whole lot of duds that I know of.
Ed: rockets, targeting, etc are also tricky failure points.
Anyway, I agree it's not a great cause for optimism. It would only take a couple of them going off to give the world a bad time. If nothing else they're dirty bombs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not entirely a fair summary of the situation. The Ukrainian separatists asked for Russian help: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-allies-step-up-sanct... Some people have questioned the legitimacy of that request and of the breakaway governments, but a Washington Post poll in 2021 found that over half of the respondents from those breakaway republics wanted to join Russia and only 12% wanted to rejoin Uk…
I think it's an accurate summary. The separatists are under Russian control. The Russian army has been fighting alongside them since 2014, when they invaded Donbas. In the 1991 referendum, voters in Dontesk and Luhansk overwhelmingly voted against being part of Russia. Per your source, in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbas, 75% want to be part of Ukraine. In the Russian-controlled part of Donbas, 57% want to be…
I think this dehumanizes them. They chose to become part of Russia and the fact that they have mostly become part of Russia doesn't erase that choice.
> In the 1991 referendum...
A lot has happened since 1991. Don't you agree that a poll from 2021 is more relevant now?
> First point, why such stark difference?
An obvious explanation would be that only the areas where enough people wanted to leave Ukraine were controlled by the separatists.
> Second point, this changes absolutely nothing about my claim that what Russia did and is doing is completely immoral, pure evil.
If you mean that it's never moral to support separatists, I disagree completely.
> I'm curious why you have this view
I'm from the US. We are, first of all, a nation founded by "separatists", who also fought against other separatists to remain a single nation. I think each separatist cause needs to be evaluated on its merits, but in general (when something like slavery isn't involved) I think the people of a smaller region should be free to leave a larger nation if they wish. If I didn't believe that, I'd have to apply for British citizenship.
And the US is also a nation that's done exactly what Russia is doing, many times. We nearly started a war because Russian weapons were too close to the US (in Cuba), just as Russia demands that Western weapons stay out of Ukraine. And we've invaded many nations on pretexts weaker than Russia's in this war. If we accepted those actions as precedents, they would justify Russia's actions in this war. Everything I hear seems to be tinged by a bit of an "it's only OK when we do it" attitude, so I feel that this war is about power and imperialism for the US as much as it is for Russia.
And perhaps also for Ukraine. Ukraine has even demanded the return of Crimea, where even in 1991, only 54% wanted to be separate from Russia. After all that's happened, do you think Crimea really wants to return to Ukraine?
My ideal solution would be a fair and binding vote on separation for all the regions in question, but I know no party would accept that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ukraine is a sovereign actor here, it is defending itself against aggression. Of course they accept and demand weapons from the West, because surrendering or losing this war means a lot of death, suffering and loss of freedom. At the very latest after Bucha it is clear that leaving Ukrainian population under Russian control will cause terrible suffering. So what should they negotiate about, what do you think Ukraine…
> Ukraine is a sovereign actor here Not really. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/09/12/ukraine-the-cias...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm from around that region so I'm quite familiar. Just because Putin says those people are Russians so he can claim some clay, doesn't make it a fact. Sure some are ethnically Russian, but that doesn't make them Russian citizens of the Federal Russian Republic. They are Moldovan citizens. Transnistria is a rouge separatist nation that's not internationally recognized and only exists on paper because Russia is a nucl…
> I'm from around that region so I'm quite familiar. Not sufficiently familiar then. "It is estimated that about 250,000 out of 500,000 people living in Transnistria hold Russian citizenship." That's as of 2020, "passportization" has continued since then. https://warsawinstitute.org/russia-hands-passports-diaspora/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that it is an extremely silly justification to start a war which resulted in these numbers spiking ~100x for the civilian population in the affected areas.
I don't think Donbas is the entire justification is it? Also, we probably had even less justification to invade Iraq yet we stayed for 20 years. Makes it really hard to take any of the moralizing from the US & NATO seriously.
But, anyway, Donbas is the primary justification for the population of Russia. The other one - that this is all a pre-emptive strike to forestall some kind of NATO invasion against Russia proper - is significantly harder to believe in and thus doesn't have as many adherents.