this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.

“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

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[–] tomatopathe 91 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (80 children)

So from having had a few exchanges with pro Russian accounts on Lemmy (which seems to be infested with a few very active ones) this is a summary of their arguments:

  • "Ukraine is Nazi"
  • "Well far right parties got a total of under 6% of the vote, and they elected a Jewish man president"
  • "yeah but Bandera and whatabout America"

  • "Ukraine killed ethnic Russians"
  • "A huge percentage of their population are ethnic Russians, including in government, and they are fine, and were until the Russian invasion. And now it's Russia that has killed, maimed and raped more ethnic Russians, including civilians, than Ukraine every did or even could. Including their own people thorough incompetence and corruption".
  • "Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America"

  • "Ukraine is fighting because they are forced to by their colonial masters, the USA and NATO, and Ukrainians will keep dying so long as they keep being armed"
  • "Actually > 90% of the population wants to continue fighting for their country back, so what you're basically saying is you think Ukrainians should be abandoned to Russian enslavement"
  • "Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America"

  • "NATO and USA are colonialists and this is just more colonialism"
  • "Actually both Russia and China are actual, bone fide land empires, with ethnic minorities that are forced to live like colonized people - including doing the fighting for Russia while their families back home live in misery and squalor and Putin's Mafia collect mansions, private jets and yachts"
  • "Yeah but Bandera, and whatabout America"
[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (28 children)

There's a reason Western Europe focuses on the Nazis in the context of the Holocaust: the Nazis never saw the Western Europeans as a stain on the Earth like they did the Jews and the Slavs. Russians don't need to point to Jews to claim Nazism: they can point directly to the treatment of ethnically Russian Slavs during WW2 and the plans that Nazi Germany had for the eradication of Slavs.

Russia doesn't need to point at how Ukraine treats Jews because to Russia, the Holocaust is dwarfed in societal impact by the issues that motivated Operation Barbarossa. The Russians lost 19 million Russian civilians in the war, why would they care about the Jews?

Nevermind that minorities in China get so many advantages it's actually silly how much affirmative action goes on. Provinces dominated by minorities get significantly more funding per capita and even get loss-leading infrastructure projects like the Tibet and Xinjiang railways. Students from minorities get additional bonuses on gaokao (basically SAT, but imagine if schools didn't look at anything else). Minorities are exempt from family planning policies and get massive interest-free loans for starting businesses. They get proportional representation in government. Hell, there are 55 minority groups in China making up 8% of the population.

In the army? The prevalence of rural populations in the army has been observed AROUND THE WORLD. It's a function of rural communities being rather poor and underserved by governments in general, as well as the lack of economic opportunities that living on a farm provides. In fact, the entire notion of the underserved countryside is what allowed communism to rise in Russia and China.

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

25% ish of the Russian population live in huts and shit in holes in outhouses for a lack of plumbing (mostly ethnic minorities), all while the ruling Mafia collects yachts and private jets, and launches wars.

I'm not saying there isn't wealth inequality elsewhere, but how about a bit of perspective here. Russia cannot actually conscript too many ethnic Russians or use them as cannon fodder, since that is the only ethnicity in Russia that matters politically, since they are the middle class. Instead they send the colonized people, who happen to be those who shit in holes for a lack of plumbing.

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

Poor people are overrepresented in the army? No way!

[–] tomatopathe 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a conscript army. They shouldn't be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You say that, but conscription always has exceptions, which usually include having an important job or going to university, which would presumably skew the result towards more poor people in the army. There's also corruption of course.

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