[commodorejohn]

Don't you think you might be going a bit overboard with your good vs. evil categorization?

Given the circumstances? No. Raion is quite right that this isn't on the Russian people (the fine fellow behind pdp-11.ru - to name just one example - actually stuck his own neck out by publically protesting this,) but in terms of what Putin and his underlings are doing? It was straight-up Bad even before we learned what they were doing to civilians in captured territory. I do feel a bit sorry for the schmucks on the ground who got conscripted into this (those of them that aren't engaging in atrocities, anyway,) but...nope. There are many occasions in international conflict where one might argue that it's a case of two comparably shitty parties being shitty to each other and people on the ground getting caught in the middle; but this is very clearly not one of them.

[Shiunbird]

A grain of sand of good news:

The family my girlfriend and I were hosting managed to move on successfully to Spain.
I haven't had the chance to meet them personally (the keys were handed over by a friend), but they left the place impeccable and even fixed the control dial of my washing machine. =)

They are originally from the east, so no hope for them to return home soon, but they have where to semi-permanently stay in Spain.

[lunatic]

I'm not trying to defend the Russians. I'm just saying that we are not fighting for the Ukrainians and they are not fighting for us. Case in point: we are now supposed to cheer for the Asov people, even though we wouldn't want to have such groups in our own country. We are currently supporting everyone who fights against the Russians; just don't tell me they are fighting for democracy.

We have seen British and US ships hit by Exocet missiles fired by 3. world countries. Ukraine may be one of the poorer countries in Europe, but it's still the 2. largest country in Europe. When the Russians now destroy Mariupol, it's a horrible war crime. When the Russians intervened in the Syrian civil war, it was just ... brown people nobody cared about.
I am generally missing a long term perspective and a stronger fine tuning in terms of choosing our friends. Just saying... we shouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future our current "friends" might not like us any longer.

[Raion]

The AZOV ideology nobody is remotely advocating for, bringing it up is a bit of straw grasping IMHO. The worst thing I've seen in coverage of the war is them dipping 7.62 rounds into lard to intimidate any Chechens in the Russian army. They don't make up the whole of the Russian military and as long as they aren't committing war crimes against anybody I'm not cheering them on but I'm not going to particularly attack them until I have some ammunition. I'm not been able to find any particular non-russian linked sources for supposed crimes, you got to remember that the unit is tiny at around 900 members as of right now and that doesn't represent the entire Ukraine people.

I'm not going to say oh poor Chechens in regards to the bullets in lard because that's a myth, it pays no harm to Muslims because the sin revolving pork only applies even the most conservative forms of Islam if you eat it of your own volition. You're allowed to eat pork if you're starving or being tortured or whatever. So being shot with a pork laced bullet is not a sin.

My problem with this war is the rhetoric that the Russians are using is reminiscent of holodomor and other forms of Ukrainian erasure. The Ukrainian language is quite unique having very different phonology and influence from Polish and other languages.

The Ukrainian people are worth saving. The Russian federation failed to make a peaceful transition to a functional and healthy world power in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union so instead it became a despotic government known for funding terrorism and producing instability in the world that even pales in comparison to the United States.

Case in point, the Russians are supporting a despotic ruler in Syria. I'm not saying that I want a more radical Muslim leadership out there but I am strongly for the right of people's self-determination and the repression of Kurdistan is something that falls on both Syria and Turkey.

Don't try to attack my viewpoints here because I'm going to be pretty damn consistent across the board. I don't believe that the Russian people for a second have any culpability in this war as long as they are not actively Putin supporters. That's the same view I hold towards Chinese people, I actively cut ties with my friends that supported Taiwanese erasure or that are pro unification and it's only because that's such an egregious violation of my own personal views that I can't reconcile that with them.

What Russia has been doing to Ukraine has consequences for all other former Warsaw pact and former Soviet republics if we do nothing. I fully believe that we are watching history rhyme with the Sudetenland/Czechoslovakian erasure questions that were being asked in the 1930s.

I can say a hell of a lot about how some nations in Europe are responding to this and others are barely lifting a finger but I'm going to refrain because I don't want to potentially offend the sensibilities of anybody here. Just know that while I support Ukraine you are 100% fully entitled to your own opinions regardless of what I say and I'm not going to persecute you over a different view. I mean for a significant period of time in the United States there were third reich sympathizers for a variety of reasons up until 1945 and all of their crimes were exposed.

[lunatic]

The AZOV ideology nobody is remotely advocating for, bringing it up is a bit of straw grasping IMHO. The worst thing I've seen in coverage of the war is them dipping 7.62 rounds into lard to intimidate any Chechens in the Russian army. They don't make up the whole of the Russian military and as long as they aren't committing war crimes against anybody I'm not cheering them on but I'm not going to particularly attack them until I have some ammunition. I'm not been able to find any particular non-russian linked sources for supposed crimes, you got to remember that the unit is tiny at around 900 members as of right now and that doesn't represent the entire Ukraine people.

I don't care too much about the current stories. What I care about is that we have know for several years who these people are and where they stand. Just because they hate the Russians and the Russians hate them doesn't make them our friends. They would hate us as well if we stop sending them money and weapons. Even if we all win together, they will hate us in the future, because a peaceful, democratic Ukraine that joins the EU, plays nicely with all the other kids, and pays back debt for the next 100 years isn't what they want.

Generally, I don't believe anything the Russian media is saying, mostly because they have been lying all the time. I am merely criticizing the opposite trend: why should be believe everything the Ukrainian side says? Why should we treat all their propaganda as news without questioning it?

The Ukrainian people are worth saving.

So, who is not? Where is your limit? That's part of the problem.

What Russia has been doing to Ukraine has consequences for all other former Warsaw pact and former Soviet republics if we do nothing. I fully believe that we are watching history rhyme with the Sudetenland/Czechoslovakian erasure questions that were being asked in the 1930s.

I can say a hell of a lot about how some nations in Europe are responding to this and others are barely lifting a finger but I'm going to refrain because I don't want to potentially offend the sensibilities of anybody here. Just know that while I support Ukraine you are 100% fully entitled to your own opinions regardless of what I say and I'm not going to persecute you over a different view. I mean for a significant period of time in the United States there were third reich sympathizers for a variety of reasons up until 1945 and all of their crimes were exposed.

It's about getting our own priorities straight. Defense isn't just military. It's also psychological. If we wanted to identify completely with the position Ukraine has, we should have added them to NATO years ago. There have been reasons why Ukraine could not join NATO. For years we have been negotiating about a 2% (of GDP) defense spending goal. For years our idea of war was "fighting terrorism" and bombing people who can't shoot back. Turns out bombing some desert isn't everything. We need a clear plan and a clear idea how to win. This isn't a movie where the good guys automatically win. And our opponents, in this case the evil Russians, need to know and understand that they can't beat us. Our realistic goal can't be to destroy the Russians. Our goal has to be that they stay where they are, leave us the f* alone, and deal with their own autocrats in the way they like. Everyday you can read articles arguing for all out war against the Russians for the sake of freedom. I really question that these people have considered all the consequences.

[Raion]

The consequences of a full kinetic war with Russia are quite extreme and a last resort. As much as I dislike the current country of Russia and how it has stolen land from nearly every country and has a centuries long history of abuse and persecution that it has not moved beyond, I am not willing to accept the collateral damage that would result even if nuclear weapons would not be deployed. It would very likely mean the destruction of multiple major cities in both Russia and Europe, probably tens of millions if not more dead, needless destruction of our economic output and long-standing hostilities that would probably never go away even in our grandchildren's lifetimes.

Now what I want to see is Russia acknowledge Ukrainian sovereignty, the uniqueness of the Ukrainian ethnicity, culture and language, and unilaterally withdraw from the country. I would be fine with having them part of NATO and the EU, and that appears to be the will of the majority of Ukrainians by a large margin. However I think maybe some concessions are in order. Limitations of military bases and weapons deployed in Ukraine, perhaps. Maybe we can keep it just to defensive things like THAAD and Patriot installations. But I don't see it happening with Putin in power because he doesn't play diplomacy he plays saber rattling. You need to use caveman politics with him. When he hoots and beats at the ground and screams you have to do it just as loud. There's a lot of things that both the United States and Europe could do to saber rattle in a way that's going to piss him off but not ignite a war. Nobody has a stomach for that is the biggest problem.

In regards to why I think the ukrainians are worth saving I answered my own question to my original post. They don't want to be subjects of Russia. They know what it's like and they have since the Soviet Union and prior. They are worth saving because they want to be saved and because unlike say the Middle East or Afghanistan they are a people that are close to our culture and hearts and we can better understand them. I fully believe that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan failed as a result of an inability to read the will of the Afghan people because they are such a different and unique people. Like many people in this world I think that the sooner the US and other countries from the West get out of the Middle East the better it is for everybody involved. I don't support war with Syria primarily because while my heart aches for the Kurdish people and such it's not our war to fight and they ultimately would come to resent us just as how the Iraqis did. Some of you might not remember but Bush had shoes thrown at him by a reporter because of his administration's actions in Iraq.

Europe is different. This is a people that we understand and have a duty to help in my opinion because if we don't stand up for Ukraine, then next goes the Baltics, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Czechia, the former territory of the German Democratic Republic and more. Nobody wants a reignition of the Warsaw pact or anything.

Putin is very much this generation's Hitler in my opinion and I will be honest about and clarify one of my last statements.

When I said that people in the United States had sympathies towards Nazi Germany this is because good people can be taken in by bad ideas and everybody has a limit before they understand and can recognize that such an idea was bad. I'm not interested in witch hunting people who disagree with me. This is a discussion and more than anything I want to bring light onto why people like me might feel this way.

I feel much more attached to the politics of Europe and East Asia because number one I am of European descent with a large proportion of ethnic makeup from countries that have been affected by wars. I feel connected to East Asia because I am a huge fan of Chinese culture, speak the language and practice religious beliefs from that area. I constantly quote Confucian and Mencian statements. I feel no attachment to the Middle East in that regard and think that after a long time of hanging out with various Muslim people that they know better than anybody else how to feel resentment towards the West because the West won't leave them alone. I don't think that we can have a healthy relationship with Muslims until we give them the space to work out their problems themselves. Problems that were partially given because of greedy European powers.

That's all I have to say for now and I hope that everybody understands my positions a lot better. I'm not really interested in turning this into a debate, but I'm more than happy to watch other people debate about this as adults. Have fun guys.

[mamed]

hot take but i think world wars are idiotic just let russia take ukraine fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that

[lunatic]

hot take but i think world wars are idiotic just let russia take ukraine fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that

Right, hot take. Let's just say I disagree nonetheless. Yes, world wars are idiotic.
But a plausible plan would be to make this adventure so costly for Russia that they have to settle for peace and then salvage and secure the rest. Let's not try this stunt again with (just guessing...) Georgia in the future, but if Sweden or Finland want to join NATO, let them in quickly and quietly now. Let's not invest our resources into bombing some desert in Africa or Asia, but get our defense up. This basically means that if there should be another war, we won't have to send 1980s surplus. Then wait until Russia collapses on its own (1917, 1989, ???: three times' the charm) or Putin stops being president.

[mamed]

hot take but i think world wars are idiotic just let russia take ukraine fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that

Right, hot take. Let's just say I disagree nonetheless. Yes, world wars are idiotic.
But a plausible plan would be to make this adventure so costly for Russia that they have to settle for peace and then salvage and secure the rest. Let's not try this stunt again with (just guessing...) Georgia in the future, but if Sweden or Finland want to join NATO, let them in quickly and quietly now. Let's not invest our resources into bombing some desert in Africa or Asia, but get our defense up. This basically means that if there should be another war, we won't have to send 1980s surplus. Then wait until Russia collapses on its own (1917, 1989, ???: three times' the charm) or Putin stops being president.

I think thats partly why this is on blast in the media, nobody gave a f when they invaded before in 2014 social pressure to join nato look look we are helping please join and become a global citizen. Sanction your pants off but FUCK WORLD WARS they dont work

[robespierre]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cxAdPmh9d5U