Comment on Ukraine updates: Russia orders nuclear preparation drills
maynarkh@feddit.nl 4 months agothe UA attacks on civilians
I feel this is going to be a thing to unpack, but on the one hand, attacks on enemy power infrastructure, even if civilian casualties are a result is fair game in war, for both sides by the way. What is not fair game is levelling a city like Mariupol.
That said, wars of aggression are a crime as per the UN’s standpoint, and only one side is taking territory here.
On the other hand, if UA strikes Russian targets - as they are at war - why is that a NATO escalation? Why is that not a UA escalation? And where else can you escalate after the Russians tried to take their capital and kill their leadership? At this point if UA had Moscow under siege and sent entire regiments of special forces after Putin personally, even that would just be proportionate retaliation.
unconfirmed reports of the french foreign legion being deployed
And that would be a Really Bad Thing™ if France was deploying troops into an unwilling country. Poland, Estonia and Hungary all have US troops stationed there ever since they managed to get the Russian troops out. They have their reasons. UA has all the rights to invite foreign troops as much as they want into their sovereign territory. Russia has no say in who gets to deploy into Ukraine, Ukraine alone does.
Beetle_O_Rourke@hexbear.net 4 months ago
jagoff
It is beyond fucking ridiculous that after sending hundreds of billions of dollars in military equipment to a backwards colony of neo-nazis with the explicit purpose of attacking Russia, to claim that they are acting independently, and that there is no link to NATO.
Storm Shadows, Illegal cluster munitions, Leopards, Abrams, Depleted uranium shells, 155m artillery, and HIMARS are all manufactured from NATO stockpiles. If not for nato, the war would have been over in less than a month, and none of the infrastructure damage in the subsequent two years would have happened, to talk nothing of how the most fertile farmland in Europe is now contaminated thoroughly with landmines, heavy metals, and unexploded bombs.
Russian mainland was not being bombed. Russian mainland is now being bombed. If you do not see how that change escalates the conflict, you would do well to remove your head from the sand. Beyond that, deliberate targeting of civilian areas is a war crime. The electric grid has military significance in a way that random border towns do not. It is asinine to say that Russia is the party deliberately targeting civilians when they launch nationwide missile volleys with <40 civilian deaths. Contrast the ukranian drone attacks on border towns which regularly kill dozens in a single town, and the “”““DAESH””“” attack on the concert hall with almost 200 civilians killed, where the attackers fled towards ukraine in a complete opposite of every other confirmed DAESH attack where the attackers stayed behind to inflict maximum casualties.
A scenario that would 500% result in the use of nuclear weapons is not proportionate retaliation ya dingus.
Were you cheering on the incursion of Saudi forces into Bahrain in 2011? The government asked for the protesters to all be murdered, so it’s a good thing, right? The only factor in the ethics and/or rationality of a military deployment is if the troops were invited. /s
So to be clear, we have gone from “NATO has absolutely nothing to do with this conflict despite the overwhelming majority of offensive materiel coming from them” to “NATO boots on the ground are good because they were invited”. Some logical consistency would be nice, but I suppose that is too much to expect from a nazi apologist.
You made a deeply ignorant post.
DarkThoughts@fedia.io 4 months ago
Go back to your Tankie safe space.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 4 months ago
I didn’t claim there is no link to NATO. NATO is fighting a proxy war against Russian interests in Ukraine, that’s plain as day, just as China, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea are fighting against NATO interests. I just don’t see that NATO ever threatened military action against nations supplying the Russian side. Do NATO countries fire off weekly nuclear threats against Pakistan, Iran, China or North Korea for sending munitions to Russia? Does Ukraine?
Yes, there are far-right elements in Ukraine, yes, some are even in the government. That doesn’t make the entire nation of Ukraine a “colony of neo-nazis” any more than the Nazbol party existing, or Dugin having had such a cushy place in Russia means Russia is ruled by Nazis.
I thought the party line was three days? Or is that too fantastical a claim nowadays.
Overwhelmingly RUSSIAN landmines, heavy metals from RUSSIAN military machinery, and unexploded RUSSIAN bombs. And the Russians are even proud of having dropped and continuing to drop most of it. You are presenting a false dichotomy. Russia was not obligated to murder all those people, Russia was not obligated to flatten Mariupol, Russia is not obligated to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is obligated to defend itself. Russia has a choice to stop this war, Ukraine does not. Not if it still wants to exist after.
Sure, if all Ukrainians would just shoot themselves in the head, this war would be over sooo much faster. Why can’t they just die already?
It is. If Ukraine retaliated in a proportionate way against Russia, Russia would escalate the conflict. The use of nuclear weapons is an escalation, the threat of nuclear weapons is an escalation, sieging the opponent’s capital after your capital was sieged is the same action returned. If the Ukrainians did to Russia what Russia did to Ukraine, there would already have been a nuclear exchange.
By the way, you like to act as if Russia’s escalations and threats are just elements of nature. If Russia, a nuclear power feels threatened, it will use nuclear weapons, that’s just the way of things. But if France, a nuclear power, has people carrying small arms into battle against invading soldiers, that’s an irresponsible escalation. The threat of shooting a FAMAS at a Russian conscript is an escalation, the threat of shooting an ICBM at Rotterdam is just the way of things.
NATO has a duty to avoid escalating the war, can’t have soldiers in Ukraine, can’t send weapons to Ukraine, because that is an escalation. Russia doing all that isn’t. Please stop the double standard, Russian has as much duty of being human as the rest of us. It’s not a force of nature, it’s people doing despicable things.
I wasn’t aware France would be sending soldiers to help Ukraine violently quell a sectarian protest and uprising of Ukrainian people. My impression is that if they send French soldiers in there, it’s to shoot invading Russian soldiers. I get that Russians don’t always get the difference due to the times they sent soldiers to countries to quell popular (mostly communist by the way) revolutions and install puppets to serve Russian imperialistic goals, but the secret is that if you are in a foreign country, shooting civilians is usually not a good reason to be there.
Never said that. It’s obvious NATO has a vested interest in Ukraine winning the conflict. It’s just NATO is not a direct belligerent in the conflict, just as China, Iran, North Korea or Pakistan aren’t. Otherwise, there would be an arctic front to it, with Russians in Alaska or US troops in Vladivostok.
TeddyKila@hexbear.net 4 months ago
So the government is filled with nazis but it is somehow unfair to say that they are nazis.
biaoqing-copium
maynarkh@feddit.nl 4 months ago
You don’t do much reading, do you? I’ve said that the fact that there are Ukrainian Nazis does not mean all Ukrainians are Nazis, and indeed it is a national chauvinistic train of thought that assigns such negative traits to nationalities.
Please stop repeating the lies of far-right governments who would throw you in jail.
Maoo@hexbear.net 4 months ago
NATO is the military wing of the global seat of capital. It does not need to threaten to invade as its first course of action. Instead, it first makes economic threats and supports coups.
Has the US instigated sanctions on those countries? Have any of them faced a coup attempt lately? Is one of them frequently bombed by Israel? These things are not separate.
As a general rule I recommend not minimizing Nazis. “Some” is minimizing. There was a period where you couldn’t find a picture of “brave UA soldiers” without a wolfsangel or swastika or sonnenrad, nor a UA politician not shaking hands with them. The head of the MoD said and says Nazi shit all the time and the entire country has been rehabilitating Bandyera as a national hero, putting the committers of pogroms on street signs.
Oh, and don’t forget: ethnically cleansing ethnic Russians for over a decade and violently suppressing the left.
If you defend that shit you are a Nazi sympathizer.
And if this is news to you then why do you think you should have opinions? Isn’t humility better?
If Russia acted like NATO does it would have been over in days, yes. NATO has prolonged this war but not on its own: Russia has shown massive and unexpected restraint, or at least unexpected if you’re used to the tactics of the “civilized” West.
Russia could have, but did not, destroy the entirety of UA’s infrastructure in a few days.
While much of that is disputable it’s also a deflection to avoid the point that was made. You’re falling into a trap in thinking that NATO can’t take blame if Russia does something bad. This is embarrassingly bad logic.
Do you know why Russia invaded Ukraine? You seem to think it had no cause and was not responding to anything for which NATO shares blame.
Ukraine is in a much worse position because it’s following NATO dictates. Its only option is to follow NATO dictates because it hasn’t been an independent country since at least 2014, not because it’s the only strategic option.
Ukraine could have signed a peace deal days into the invasion.
Right now, UA’s future is being thrown away because it’s being used as a proxy for Western interests, not because it’s the best, let alone only, option.
You have it completely reversed. UA is on the path to its own destruction due to the decisions of its captured state. It’s forced into massive debt, its assets sold off to imperialists, is suffering huge losses in population by sending them into a meat grinder commanded by Nazis, and it will still 100% lose this war. There is no serious person that thinks UA will win.
So much hypothetical and make-believe nonsense. It is a flagrant escalation and you should respect yourself more and recognize the obvious.
Russia has been repeatedly threatened and has never used nukes. It’s only a member of NATO that has ever used nukes and it was on two large civilian population centers. A very basic grade school history lesson contradicts you.
Do you see how you had to massage your language to be more passive and therefore avoid the obvious? France entering a war by sending troops is an obvious escalation and per NATO’s own logic is basically dangling a nuclear conflict over everyone’s heads via Article 5.
If you have to use this bad faith logic, don’t you think that means you already kind of know you’re wrong? Deep down? Instead of doubling down and doing Nazi apologetics, which I hope is reluctant, you could instead take a break and resolve this cognitive dissonance, maybe even do some readings.
Not while pretending it’s anything other than a belligerent and escalatory organization. Initially staffed with literal German Nazis by the way. We’re telling you what NATO is and why escalation is bad for Ukrainians and you’re acting like you should be able to go tell teacher that the Russians are hypocrites or something.
My conclusion is that you have an unrealistic idea of what the possible outcomes here are. Only someone who hates Ukrainians or who (even erroneously!) thinks they can win would think “but it’s only fair!” is comparable to their destruction.
You’re also confused about this being a Good Guy vs Bad Guy issue. All of your argumentation is centered around deflecting blame to Russia when you’re presented with basic facts about NATO’s role. Rather than acknowledge, you think it’s great argumentation to say, “Russia bad”, as if there is a person here that’s saying Russia is good. This is a fantasy you’ve constructed to avoid having an adult conversion.
Sounds like your answer to their question is yes: you cheer the Saudi invasion of Bahrain and NATO’s support for it. Truly monstrous.
I suspect you learned of this for the first time during this conversation, but that doesn’t make your response any better. Bloodthirsty LARPing.
Wrong. While there are plenty of dum-dums in NATO, they don’t think UA will win lol. Their actions have consistently led to UA losses in order to try to hurt Russia. NATO countries have decided to sacrifice the Ukrainian people for this project and they keep hoping it will exhaust Russia. At this point, UA will not recover for generations unless Russia takes the whole thing and pumps it full of resources, as NATO countries will just strip the remainder for parts.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 4 months ago
Even if it were so, Russia provides it a raison d’être. NATO would not be existing in 10 years if Russia hadn’t been starting wars of aggression, or was not outspokenly adopting a policy of aggression. There is no NATO without a hostile Russia. If NATO is a problem, then Russia is a fundamental part of that problem.
Yeah, so shooting those people and kidnapping their children will provide a great way for them to build a better social consciousness and not double down on chauvinism. The shit Russia is doing to them provides a great environment for a Nazi resurgence. It has to be certainly really helpful to all the good people in Ukraine to argue for less Nazi shit, because there obviously isn’t a clearly definable enemy trying to destroy their national identity and ethnically cleanse them.
There is no justification for levelling cities and kidnapping children. None.
You are arguing against yourself here. You said that if UA killed Putin and sieged Moscow, then you said “that would 500% result in the use of nuclear weapons”. I’m saying that then if UA did what the Russians did to it, made a proportionate response, then Russia would escalate the war. Shooting people who are coming and already shooting at you is not escalation. Threatening to nuke people if they don’t die is.
Please read Article 5. It doesn’t say what you think it says.
Yes, NATO’s goal is that if Russia decides to attack one member, they have to fight all members. And it works in preventing war, how many neighbours has Russia been at war with who weren’t in NATO? How many NATO countries did it attack?
Yes, defending your country from people who burn your cities and steal your children has no point, we should all bow down to Putin. Is that what you’re saying? Apologists for the Russian genocide have been saying this for years now, yet it somehow hadn’t come to pass. I think you are just in a spiral of wishful thinking.
No. Please go and work on your basic reading comprehension.
Yeah, Ukraine has no agency. If you are not just repeating Russian propaganda here, you could try harder to think for yourself.
Like it has always done with its colonies. I grew up in one of them, I know how that looks like. Incompetence, theft and agitation. That’s all Russian-style leadership is capable of.
So yeah, the US may not be the best led country, and it has indeed committed gross crimes against humanity, and an alliance with them may indeed be a deal with the devil. But you can’t ally with Russia, you can only submit to them. The US may swindle you out of your money, but Russia will rape your women and kidnap your children, and by the way, also rob you of your money as well. And Russia is trying its hardest to make sure there is no other way.
I think you just don’t understand what Russia did and is still doing to Eastern Europe, and you are sitting in a cushy chair ideologizing and damning people for ideological impurity, when if you were in their place, you would have to live with a daily fear of being robbed of your dignity, your freedom, and your life, even just for the crime of showing pronouns in your username.
Miaou@jlai.lu 4 months ago
Such a long post to avoid explaining why the Russian official is justified. Half of what you wrote is in bad faith (not destroying critical infrastructure… Out of good heart? Really?) or simply not relevant (should we invade every fascist government out there? Besides, nothing better to consolidate an authoritarian government than a war, so good job Russia on that front ?)
Miaou@jlai.lu 4 months ago
If we assume the latter, why does that justify the initial Russian offensive ? I keep reading tankies saying Russia was threatened by Ukraine but I never see anything to back that up.
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
"Don’t make me turn this rape into a genocide"