this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Ukrainian government reacts to American billionaire Elon Musk's 'advice' to 'stop resisting Russia' and urging the world to 'sympathize with the Russian occupiers' (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5574803

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Lets see how many downvotes directly quoting the source gets me.

urging the world to 'sympathize with the Russian occupiers'

And we should have some sympathy for the Russian boys as well as the Ukrainian boys, because Russian boys, because boys didn’t ask to be on their frontline. They have to be. So there’s a lot of sons not coming back to their parents, and I think most of them don’t hate the other side. It’s sort of like as this saying comes from World War I, it’s like young boys who don’t know each other killing each other on behalf of old men that do know each other. The hell’s the point of that.

Elon Musk's 'advice' to 'stop resisting Russia'

Well, I think that what is likely to happen, which is really pretty much the way it is, is that something very close to the current lines will be how a ceasefire or truce happens. But you just have a situation right now where whoever goes on the offensive will suffer casualties at several times the rate of whoever’s on the defense because you’ve got defense in depth, you’ve got minefields, trenches, anti-tank defenses. Nobody has air superiority because the anti-aircraft missiles are really far better than the aircraft. They’re far more of them. And so neither side has air superiority. Tanks are basically death traps, just slow moving, and they’re not immune to anti-tank weapons. So you really just have long range artillery and infantry ranges. It’s World War I all over again with drones, thrown old drones, some drones there.

He “advised” Volodymyr Zelenskyy to abandon the counteroffensive and agree to peace talks with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin

Look, I think I would just recommend do not send the flower of Ukrainian youth to die in trenches, whether he talks to Putin or not, just don’t do that. Whoever goes on the offensive will lose massive numbers of people and history will not look kindly upon them.

Source

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Most of this is just general "war is bad for everyone" and the old "the ones fighting the war aren't the one who want the war". It's true but it's also really nothing new or especially smart.

Look, I think I would just recommend do not send the flower of Ukrainian youth to die in trenches, whether he talks to Putin or not, just don’t do that

This part though is what I find problematic. This way of framing the current situation suggests a few things:

  1. Ukraine is the one deciding for this war to happen
  2. All that would be needed to stop this war would be talking with putin about a truce
  3. Putin attacking Ukraine is sort of a "higher power" like a natural catastrophe that just has to be accepted

It also completely ignores a few things:

  1. The lines are only this stable because Ukrainians risk and lose their lives every day to defend them. Stopping this would mean a truce would be no longer negotiable. Because why would Putin suddenly stop the efforts to move the lines once resistance has stopped?
  2. Putin is the one responsible for Ukrainians going into this war and dying at the frontlines, just as he is responsible for the russian soldiers that are dying there

Also: Telling a nation to just roll over and be invaded is such an american thing to suggest.

Edit: This also misses the whole thing where other countries might accept you as a refugee if you desert the russian army, if you really didn't want to fight in this war.