351–360 of 427 posts
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> Russia is ahead of the west both in ballistics & air defense This is an absolutely absurd claim. I will say that it is flat-out FALSE.
Well, the US President and Pentagon disagree with you. As do the receiving ends of those weopons systems.
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> really is a tradegy donbass and crimea situation had to be resolved this way “It’s unfortunate those pesky Ukrainians had the audacity to exist, which forced us to invade their sovereign country, shell their cities to rubble, and mass murder their civilians. Just like we were forced to mass murder Chechens, Georgians, and Syrians. And might have to mass murder Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, Romanians, or Kazakhs in the…
> Just like we were forced to mass murder Chechens Just like the US "was forced" to mass murder Iraqis because, in addition to fake WMD claims, the US intelligence was linking Saddam to Bin Laden. I wonder how exactly you would characterise Khattab, among other "prominent" "freedom fighters", and his role in the Chechen wars. Would you be willing to accommodate similar kind of characters in your country of origin and…
If nothing else, the Iraq war led to a sharp political change in the USA. With any luck the senseless war of aggression in Ukraine will lead to similar changes in Russia. But since Russia is a fascist dictatorship, peaceful politics is outlawed and any changes are likely to be more violent.
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The 1999 apartment bombings in Russia attributed to Khattab (among others) were most likely a false flag operation undertaken by the Russian state security service, under orders from Vladimir Putin. Using self-terrorism killing hundreds of your own civilians as a pretense for launching a war and mass-murdering tens of thousands of your unhappy oppressed colonial subjects while obliterating their cities is a hell of a way to cement personal power.
Off topic rant here but I'm getting tired of headlines with the word 'quietly' put in them to make things seem more sinister then they are. Can HN make a filter to automatically remove this unnecessary qualifier. They can even do so quietly, for ironic effect.
In this case, it's not 'quietly' because it's sinister, it's 'quietly' because it's extremely embarrassing. The US used all its political might to force a global boycott of Russia. Now it's telling farmers to buy Russian fertilizer. I'm no expert, but even I know Russia is a (the?) leading source of fertilizer. And to do this when we were already suffering high inflation? It's a blunder at best.
In this case it would have been better to say "US embarrassingly urges use of Russia fertilizer"
Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.
Since RUB exchange is so constrained, its "market rate" is also meaningless. I too can issue a currency, set its value at 1,000,000 USD per unit and declare monopoly in trading it.
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What makes the pope, a man who has dedicated his life to the study of religion and God an expert in global politics, that a quote from him has more value than a comment from anyone here. He mentions in the article that an unnamed world leader told him Russia would get upset at NATO being so close to their border. Putin has publicly mentioned this multiple times before the war with Ukraine. Finally, Ukraine has the ri…
> Finally, Ukraine has the right to join any alliance it wants No, it doesn't have this right to join ANY alliance, as it may violate one of the conditions (military bloc neutrality) under which their sovereignty was granted to them by the USSR, which Russia is a legitimate successor of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31746866
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Sign multilateral treaties declaring Ukraine won't join NATO ?
And what about Ukraine? Why should it's sovereignty be surrendered? Why are you blaming the victim of agression they didn't surrender? When else would you apply that same logic?
[1] https://zakon-rada-gov-ua.translate.goog/laws/show/55-12?_x_...
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> Finally, Ukraine has the right to join any alliance it wants and for Russia to invade over that is bullshit. In geopolitics, nobody has any particular rights. Whoever has the bigger stick and better propaganda gets their way. One could argue that there’s no reason to have sanctions on Cuba, that Palestinians should also have the right to self determination, that America doesn’t have the right to interfere in the de…
So "do this or we'll invade"? Why does it matter if a NATO country is on the border anyway? In the age of ICBMs, stealth bombers, and drones is the real concern that some large NATO force would march over the border for a land invasion of Russia?
This question, no matter how well intentioned, is irrelevant.
Russia views NATO as an existential threat. It’s irrelevant whether you agree with that NATO is such a threat or not. Russia does not want NATO on or by its borders. They’ve been making this clear since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
You can disagree with them, argue in favor of NATO expanding eastward, or specifically making Ukraine a member state, etc. These are all moot points.
Russia has made their position extremely clear. The war is obviously not a surprise.
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> Appeasement would be a better choice? Pope Francis says Ukraine war was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/14/pope-francis-u... "The pontiff warned [..] against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil" "We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one [..] so…
What makes the pope, a man who has dedicated his life to the study of religion and God an expert in global politics, that a quote from him has more value than a comment from anyone here. He mentions in the article that an unnamed world leader told him Russia would get upset at NATO being so close to their border. Putin has publicly mentioned this multiple times before the war with Ukraine. Finally, Ukraine has the ri…