this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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If so, was it polled somewhere?

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[–] winterayars 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Russia could make that happen, you know. They could pull their forces out. Right now, that would end the conflict.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you think we’re in charge of the Russian military? The war is going to end eventually one way or another. We might as well push for the path that preserves Ukrainian lives.

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago

Are we in charge of the Ukrainian military? Not that it really matters, but still.

Russia can unilaterally end the conflict. Ukraine cannot (yet). Calling on Ukrainians to surrender while they still want to defend themselves is cowardice. I would rather support their continued struggle.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And Ukraine could have prevented all of this by simply abiding by the several peace deals they signed before the war started. What's your point?

[–] winterayars 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, so Russia deciding to invade Ukraine is the fault of the Ukrainians? Cool. Very normal opinion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You just insulted me with the sole thrust being that I'm not in your echo chamber.

I'm referencing real world events. Do you not believe Ukraine broke both Minsk I and II as a lead up to the war? Do you not have google?

e: And what's this weasel bullshit where you slipped in 'Ukrainians' like I'm going after the citizens and not the government? The Ukrainian people haven't had a legitimate government since 2014 when the one they actually elected themselves was deposed in a far right western backed coup.

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you not believe Ukraine broke both Minsk I and II as a lead up to the war?

What I think is that it doesn't matter in the context of an aggressive war against a country that was not threatening Russia.

Minsk I came about after the Russian military had invaded and annexed Ukrainian territory. The first of these two agreements is already taking place after the initial aggression and thus are not really factors in the question of whether Ukraine should defend itself from that aggression.

With that said, Minsk I saw violations on both sides and fell apart for that reason. Minsk II was fundamentally similar to Minsk I and thus was going to struggle to escape the same fate. While the Russians claimed that Ukraine violated the terms of Minsk II, they also claimed that they were not a party to Minsk II and thus were not violating it with their own troop buildup. Of course, they also claim that Ukraine's supposed violations of Minsk II were justification for further Russian invasion, despite claiming to not be a party to the treaty. That's some duplicitous behavior and, again, if I were in Ukraine I would not want the Russian military in my country.

All that said, the point that Minsk I and II are not justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They sure as hell were not justification for the initial invasion of Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk (not existing yet during those) and they're not justification of Russia's continued invasion deeper into Ukraine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What I think is that it doesn't matter in the context of an aggressive war against a country that was not threatening Russia.

Lol well that's just a fucking lie. Zelenksy was openly threatening to host nuclear weapons for Nato on the eve of the invasion. Do you have a selective memory or are you just fucking ignorant of the entire history of this conflict and should therefore shut the fuck up?

Minsk I came about after the Russian military had invaded and annexed Ukrainian territory.

They didn't invade; they were already there. The legitimate government of Ukraine leased the naval base to them in Crimea and when the western backed coup government wanted to revoke the lease they simply stayed. Accuse them of squatting.

The first of these two agreements is already taking place after the initial aggression and thus are not really factors in the question of whether Ukraine should defend itself from that aggression.

Well that's just fucking stupid. Peace treaties don't count if they came after a war?

Sorry you just lost my attention with that one

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Zelenksy was openly threatening to host nuclear weapons for Nato on the eve of the invasion

Do you understand that there's a difference between hosting weapons in your country and (let's say) invading another country and (for example) launching missile strikes at civilians? (And can i just say? That Wikipedia page just keeps going and going.)

Let's also not forget about Russia continuously threatening to nuke Ukraine without commensurate nuclear threat from the other side. (They just keep doing it!)

Really, if we go back to the start of this (the pre-Crimea days), Ukraine had two futures. In one, it grew closer to Russia and came under the Russian sphere of influence. In the other, it grew closer to the West likewise. It was leaning in the direction of the West, but when Russia attacked it sure as hell pushed hard in that direction. Now everyone in the region wants to get in on NATO and Russia is claiming that's "provocation". That's nonsense, and it's shameful and pretty slimy to carry water for their nonsense.

They didn’t invade; they were already there...

I dunno how to tell you this but the entirety of Crimea is not Russia's private naval base. No, not even if Vladimir Putin really wants it.

...western backed coup...

You mean the Revolution of Dignity??? That's what you're talking about here, right?

Well that’s just fucking stupid. Peace treaties don’t count if they came after a war?

No, that's not the argument. The argument is that whether or not they broke a cease fire has no bearing on whether past or future invasions of their country are justified. The Russian invasion was unjustified from the start. It doesn't magically become justified because Russia claims the other side broke a peace treaty. Russia could withdraw at any time. They could have even withdrawn to Crimea and probably been fine. Again, they claimed to not even be party to the treaty!

These are some pretty shameful arguments, overall.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean the Revolution of Dignity??? That's what you're talking about here, right?

Oh shit I didn't know they gave it a glorious sounding name. I guess fascists didn't have anything to do with it and then immediately making a Nazi war criminal a national hero with a holiday on the first day of every year. Fuck I didn't know you were going to post entire wikipedia articles with the name of the thing you googled to find it.

I guess when you overthrow the democratically elected leader of a country and then immediately start passing laws to marginalize his biggest voting bloc it's fine as long as you call the coup something patriotic.

Yeah. Your arguments (i.e. using multiple question marks so as to mug to the audience) are pretty fucking shameful.

whether or not they broke a cease fire has no bearing on whether past or future invasions of their country are justified

Baby brain

It was leaning in the direction of the West

Are you just stupid, or are you deliberately lying right here? Yanukovych was couped precisely because he WASN'T leaning towards the west. Did he flee to Poland when your fascists were threatening his life?

launching missile strikes at civilians?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/19/zrjy-j19.html

If you don't want your civilians to be hit by rocket fire then you shouldn't use them as human shields. And you shouldn't support a regime that deliberately puts its own citizens in harms way to score propaganda points.

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah. Your arguments (i.e. using multiple question marks so as to mug to the audience) are pretty fucking shameful.

I, uh, do not think you're going to get very far trying to claim the (if you prefer) 2014 Ukrainian revolution was some kind of Nazi plot. I don't really feel the need to engage further on this, I'll simply say: you are wrong.

Baby brain

Oh good, now we're doing this.

Yanukovych was couped precisely because he WASN’T leaning towards the west

Yeah, because there was a significant chunk of Ukraine that wanted to integrate more with the West while Yanukovych was a lot more hesitant. Like I said, there were two paths they could go on.

If you don’t want your civilians to be hit by rocket fire then you shouldn’t use them as human shields

This is, uh, a fucking disgraceful argument to make. Yeah you found one example of where the Ukrainian military got a little too close to civilians. Now how about the rest of them?

UN investigations have concluded the invading Russian forces have committed many types of attacks against civilians which constitute war crimes.

A few samples from the article:

The Commission’s evidence shows that in areas that came under their control, Russian authorities have committed wilful killings of civilians or persons not involved in fighting (hors de combat), which are war crimes and violations of the right to life. [...]

The Commission established a pattern of widespread unlawful confinement in areas controlled by Russian armed forces, targeting broad categories of men, women and children. Confinement in dedicated facilities across Ukraine and in the Russian Federation was accompanied by consistent methods of torture against certain categories of persons by Russian authorities.

The Commission found numerous instances of rape and sexual and gender-based violence committed by Russian authorities as they undertook house-to-house searches in localities that came under their control and during unlawful confinement...

And yes, they did find some Ukrainian war crimes were committed, but not on the same scale:

The Commission also documented a small number of violations committed by Ukrainian armed forces, including likely indiscriminate attacks and two incidents qualifying as war crimes, where Russian prisoners of war were shot, wounded and tortured.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh good, now we're doing this.

You said that breaking peace treaties isn't a valid justification for starting a war

This is after I already said you exhausted my patience with extremely stupid shit you said earlier

Why do you feel like your opinion is worth hearing if you spend zero time informing yourself to have one?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Damn too bad they’re not going to do that, so what should we do about that? We support a negotiated settlement to the conflict in order to achieve peace, you support marching every single Ukrainian person into a meat grinder to die. Which of is more right wing?

[–] winterayars 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This isn't about us. What "we" should do is to support and show solidarity with the side being attacked by an imperialist, dictatorial state and help them defend themselves.

When the Finnish were defending themselves in the Winter War it would not have been just to say "they should just surrender to save their lives". The Finns did eventually surrender, but only after they had stomped the Soviet army all across Finland. They continued fighting not to die but so that they could live.

The Ukrainians are fighting now not to die but so that they can live in (relative) freedom.

Again, this "we should just capitulate to whatever warmongers want" stuff is shameful and cowardly, doubly so for people on the Left.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lol of all the examples, you pick another group of Nazis as a favorable point of comparison!! Wtf. Thank GOD the Soviets beat the Finnish Nazis in that war and then went on to beat the German Nazis after that.

Also lmao at calling Ukraine a free country compared to Russia, it’s just as fucked politically even prior to this invasion, now they’ve banned all left wing parties and are putting up statues of Nazis all over the place, fuck off, this has nothing at all to do with freedom.

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finland allied with the Nazis after the Winter War, in an attempt to regain their sovereignty from the USSR. They were not allied with Nazi Germany during the Winter War--and after the war, the leadership of the USSR agreed that Finland was not a particular risk and could be left alone.

Also lmao at calling Ukraine a free country compared to Russia

Ukraine is a far, far freer country than Russia. Of that there should be no doubt. On what merit, what axis, is Russia a freer society? Perhaps there is one, but Russia today is a corrupt, dictatorial, fascist state whose ruling party routinely imprisons or assassinates its political opposition or just general dissidents. They're also hardcore anti-gay, among other things.

Ukraine did suspend a number of pro-Russia political parties recently. Even if it was specifically targeting left-wing parties that still pales in comparison to Russia's treatment of political opposition and let's not forget that Ukraine is currently waging a defensive war against Russia. Also Zelensky is Jewish so i doubt he is putting up Nazi statues or in favor of doing so. I presume you're referring to activity of the Azov Battalion or some other group inside Ukraine and while those are dangerous and problematic, the Nazis in the Russian army are (I suspect) a more serious threat to the Ukrainian people right now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Russia and Ukraine are basically the same politically, except for there are more Nazis in power in Ukraine. Prior to the invasion Ukraine was categorically ranked as the most corrupt country in Europe, Zelensky himself is in the Panama papers, they absolutely are not good on gay rights either, they overthrew their democratically elected president in 2014 in a CIA backed coup to put in a government handpicked by the U.S. (we can listen to Nuland picking the government on leaked phone calls), they’ve banned political opposition and all leftist parties (not pro-Russia, just all leftists. Being leftist generally means having semi sane takes like not wanting everybody in the country to die, so they had to be banned by the Nazi regime).

Also I didn’t say Russia is a free country, but Ukraine is easily just as bad if not worse, it’s a total farce to make this about freedom or democracy or any of that shit. Hell if democracy in Ukraine was real the war wouldn’t be happening, Zelensky was elected to end the conflict in the Donbass, he went to the front lines and told the Nazis to lay down arms and they told him to fuck off lol. You can watch the video of that happening.

[–] winterayars 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Russia and Ukraine are basically the same politically...

Now you're just saying shit you wish were true. Come on. There are some pretty big differences.

...except for there are more Nazis in power in Ukraine.

The president of Ukraine is Jewish and his family fought and died in WW2. This doesn't mean there's no problem, but that is not indicative of a country overcome by Nazis.

Your characterization is grotesque and you're literally repeating Russia's propaganda about the war. Do you not see that? Or do you see it? Do you know what you are doing with that argument?

they overthrew their democratically elected president in 2014 in a CIA backed coup

This is great, you pro-Russia fuckers are all using the same arguments so i get to re-use my links! You're referring to the Revolution of Dignity, here, for those who don't know.

And you're going to have to provide a source and some details as far as what, exactly, you claim the CIA did. I haven't heard any credible claim that they were more than indirectly involved in propaganda and if that's the standard then Russia was doing the same damn thing if not more.

...we can listen to Nuland picking the government on leaked phone calls...

Presumably you're referring to these leaks, where she talks about how (for example) she doesn't think Vitaly Klitschko should "go into the government". Well, Klitschko became Mayor of Kyiv in 2014 so that's a bit of a blow to your theory.

...they’ve banned political opposition and all leftist parties (not pro-Russia, just all leftists. Being leftist generally means having semi sane takes like not wanting everybody in the country to die, so they had to be banned by the Nazi regime).

And this is just straight up factually wrong. None of this is correct.

Also I didn’t say Russia is a free country, but Ukraine is easily just as bad if not worse

I didn't say you did. I asked: on what merit is Ukraine worse than Russia? You have made that claim multiple times but have not provided one, I see, and nor have you provided a source for your claim. Surely you're not seriously going to claim elections or civil liberties, where Russia is much worse than Ukraine and not just a little worse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I get to reuse my links

Lmfao it’s Wikipedia bwahahaha you idiots are all the same.