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Curry Pervert wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:43 am

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 8:12 am She has it all backwards on Ukraine (provocation, proxy war) so any plan she has for "negotiated peace" isn't reliable at all.

You can deny it all you want, but it doesn't stop it being true.

My position on this is Putin used it as excuse not a reason. Big difference that does get him off the hook for invading another country. He was as given an excuse by NATO and EU policy. He didn’t have to do it but did. Which was as bullshit as un-negotiated eastern expansion of NATO without including Russia in the conversation.

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:51 am

Curry Pervert wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:43 am

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 8:12 am She has it all backwards on Ukraine (provocation, proxy war) so any plan she has for "negotiated peace" isn't reliable at all.

You can deny it all you want, but it doesn't stop it being true.

You have no clue and you don't even have a foundation to make judgements from.

There is an ongoing invasion (since 2014, full-scale since 2022) in which you are siding with the invader, and also telling a story that the invader is in fact the one being invaded.

And what is more, I don't think you actually would be reprehensible enough to do this if you knew what is really going on.

No one is calling Putin a good guy. But pointing out that NATO played into his game and therefore giving him “permission” to do an invasion was typical western hubris and short sightedness. There was a negotiated solution well ahead of this. It did include giving Putin some of what he wanted in terms of allowing Russian influence to prevail in some surrounding States and security guarantees. But I doubt Putin wanted that either, we wanted this conflict for internal political reasons and was given an excuse.

I try to avoid Whataboutism but our governments do and have done much worse, very regularly. Using similar excuses and disinformation on us. Russia is just doing the same.

A pox on both houses.

Gramsci wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:56 am

Curry Pervert wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:43 am

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 8:12 am She has it all backwards on Ukraine (provocation, proxy war) so any plan she has for "negotiated peace" isn't reliable at all.

You can deny it all you want, but it doesn't stop it being true.

My position on this is Putin used it as excuse not a reason. Big difference that does get him off the hook for invading another country. He was as given an excuse by NATO and EU policy. He didn’t have to do it but did. Which was as bullshit as un-negotiated eastern expansion of NATO without including Russia in the conversation.

Funny thing about this is had Ukraine been "together" and reform-minded enough to join NATO back when the three Baltic states did, it would have maintained its territorial integrity, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion! (Including Crimea, which, if you wanna get historical about it, was a Turkic enclave for centuries—which it kind of became once again, as an autonomous region w/in independent Ukraine—first invaded by Russia during czarist times.)

Respect of those borders is also what Ukraine was promised when giving up its nukes during the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. (Again, had Ukraine kept those nuclear weapons, Russia probably wouldn't be poking its nose there, either.)

What does this mean? Basically, Russia is not a good-faith negotiator, never has been. Most of this "issue" is a pseudo-problem, manufactured by Russia.

Gramsci wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 12:13 pm It did include giving Putin some of what he wanted in terms of allowing Russian influence to prevail in some surrounding States and security guarantees.

Such influence has been rejected by the Ukrainian people. And likewise can no such promises be given on surrounding states, it wouldn't be theirs to give. What credible threats have adjacent NATO countries hitherto posed to Russia? When has Putin had reason to fear Poland or the Baltics? He doesn't like other countries being in NATO (or the EU), that is clear, but Putin has continuously given his neighbours every reason they could want to become NATO members. As Ortho just indicated, had Ukraine been a NATO member there very probably would have been no invasion!

And even more, NATO wasn't even very popular in Ukraine before 2014! After those precise events, support shoots up.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 12:15 pmMost of this "issue" is a pseudo-problem, manufactured by Russia.

*thumbs up*

I’ll just finish up here by pointing out the glorious successes of western liberal interventionism.

It’s been going great. Biggly.

Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2024 3:36 am I’ll just finish up here by pointing out the glorious successes of western liberal interventionism.

Would be a relevant remark if there were in the Ukraine events any analogue to previous 'interventions', or if the situation even could be intelligibly described on the same lines.

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:51 am also telling a story that the invader is in fact the one being invaded.

I love a good strawman, but that one wasn't very good.

Curry Pervert wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2024 8:36 am

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:51 am also telling a story that the invader is in fact the one being invaded.

I love a good strawman, but that one wasn't very good.

Curry Pervert wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2024 6:47 pm

kokorodoko wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2024 12:17 pm it's not Russia waging war against Ukraine, but NATO waging war against Russia through Ukraine.

Glad you're finally getting it.

Right. It's Opposite Day as far as certain corners of the far left and far right are concerned.

Russia has never respected its neighbors.

Stay in its geopolitical orbit, and you end up stuck in a dictatorship like Belarus or Kazakhstan. Or in a semi-frozen, occasionally hot war (that mostly benefits Russia), a la Moldova and Georgia where the majority of citizens want one thing, but the government insists on another b/c Russia occupies a sliver of the land and threatens military action every time they speak up. To say nothing of the Armenia/Azerbaijan mess.

Leave Russia's orbit, and you ended up in a prosperous European democracy like Latvia or Lithuania that, while not w/o its problems, actually functions well and gives a shit about its citizens.

The first time I went to Latvia, it was almost as corrupt as Ukraine. You rarely heard the Latvian language on the street in Riga, and the (imported) Russian minority acted like they owned the whole fuckin' country. Now? It's not so different visiting Germany or Scandinavia.

Oh, but heaven forbid Ukrainians should be free to make a similar choice.