Ukraine-Russia War Take 2
Here is what the preliminary take on the Ukraine thread disappearing is:
The site was hit with a massive spam attack where hundreds of spam threads were created. In the case where, for example, I see a single spam thread and delete it, that is called a soft delete, and mods can still see them but forum members cannot. Those deletion can be undone.
When a massive attack hits with hundreds of threads, an admin uses a different procedure where the hundreds of spam threads are merged and then hard deleted, where the threads are gone, and no note is left behind. As I have mentioned with my own experience of just soft deleting a large number of posts, sometimes a post or thread gets checked or merged accidentally and is deleted by mistake. Dealing with hundreds of spam threads takes a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.
It appears that our Ukraine thread may have gotten caught up in that recent net of spam threads. If so, it is likely gone for good. I cant say this for sure, and am awaiting comments from admins on this issue. Yes, this sucks. And hopefully there was some other software glitch that caused the disappearance, and we may recover it in the future.
But in the meantime, I have created this new Ukraine-Russia War thread to enable the conversation to continue. Obviously continuity with earlier discussions will be lost. There is no way around that. So as best as possible, let's pick up the conversation with recent events and go from there.
If you have any questions about this, please post them in the mod thread, not here. Let's keep this thread going with posts about the war, not the disappearance of the old thread.
Thanks.
this is so very illustrative of the hypocrisy of the West and its supporters.
I've brought up Bucha several times, it was downplayed because things happening in Gaza are worse as if comparing all of Gaza to one town in Ukraine are comparable. I posted the documentary several times, but for some reason I'm guessing it's not been watched.
The details of the talks have been discussed in depth, multiple times for over a year. I've explained in detail how BoJo was not responsible for "scuttling" them. How the guarantee a future invasion. How USA didn't force Ukraine to continue fighting. How Ukraine is not warmongering for continuing to fight.
For some reason I doubt Victor would agree that Hamas giving up 3/4 of their weapons, and agreeing that Israel get veto rights over any international aid would be a good deal.
Victor previously got banned for this. He continually posts this debunked nonsense, then disappears when it gets debunked again. He will then come back, claiming the same debunked nonsense while adding nothing to back up his claims, and sometimes even those opposite: posting a snippet of an article to intentionally mislead... from an article claiming that snippets of the negotiations were posted in an attempt to mislead. It's the same nonsense for over a year. Repeat lie, disappear when refuted, come back and repeat lie. It's straight out of the Kremlin propaganda book.
Victor: your article disagrees with you. Post one legit source which claims that was their offer, because it literally was not.
Oh hey didn't even need to mention that Victor tries to downplay Russian warcrimes. He is still doing it even after having his fallacious reasoning and disgusting actions explained to him.
I mean what point is that even trying to make? Ukraine should have compared the massacre of one of their towns to the future conflict in Gaza and realized that they don't have things so bad, so they should set themselves up to get massacred in the future? Please explain.
various negotiators have come forward. here is one
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/...
the point is that you and West dont think the Palestinians and Hamas have a right to resist. in fact you yourself supported an Israeli response.
Nowhere in that article does it say what you claimed.
I'm for a two state solution with Hamas as part of the government, how much more clear can I be? I don't believe that was your point either, you're pivoting because you realize how vile it is do downplay a massacre.
I am not downplaying anything. I am pointing out how bad the Western supported Israel is.
The western far right wants to stop spending money for Ukraine, and if they were to be able to choose how it ends, they would like Ukraine to hang Zelensky and everyone connected to him and become Belarus 2.0, not for it to be destroyed
ya they certainly want that. however some people simply want peace. I don't enjoy being called far right because I dont want a nuclear Armageddon
A poor take. Russia is the driver of this conflict.
Ukraine fights hard and a Russian strategic is unlikely for now, but Ukraine does not pose an existential threat to Russia nor to the Russian regime - thus Russia can rather safely end the conflict whenever they want.
However, Russia through its imperialism and irredentism very much represents an existential threat to Ukraine, so Ukraine can not safely end the conflict whenever they want.
I don't think you understand my post it had nothing to do with Russia. I was saying we should support them if they want to keep fighting . However encouraging them towards a peace deal is still ideal
It's incredibly dangerous rhetoric. The idea that Ukraine and its supporters are "warmongering" because they are not willing to end the conflict as soon as possible even if that means setting up the perfect scenario for Russia to invade again on more favorable ground is incredibly short sighted and sets a dangerous precedent for any future invaders. Not even Putin pretends this war is anything but an imperial conquest anymore, yet people st
again this logic is nonsense because we can simply get a deal where we can arm Ukraine to the teeth to prevent round two. We out produce Russia in everything except man power and artillery shells and a pause would actually benefit Ukraine to allow us to catch up in artillery production. obviously no one is suggesting a peace settlement where Ukraine losses its standing army and weapons that's not a peace settlement thats called surrendering. I don't want Ukraine to surrender its different. I just want them to accept a small lose of land to save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Were in year 3 this war it is in a stalemate with no hope of total victory. continuing is warmongering
I don't think you understand my post it had nothing to do with Russia. I was saying we should support them if they want to keep fighting . However encouraging them towards a peace deal is still ideal
Support to Ukraine must come with the understanding and message that when it comes peace deals and diplomacy, Ukraine will be decider and the one who says what is acceptable.
Not because you don't want peace or because "we want to destroy Russia" or similar nonsense that some suggest, but simply because any other message is very easy for the Russian regime to exploit in propaganda, to create chaos and to sow cracks in the already shaky coalition that Ukraine depends on.
who from Ukraine is the decider? is the public allowed to vote? are individuals allowed to opt out of the fight?
ya they certainly want that. however some people simply want peace. I don't enjoy being called far right because I dont want a nuclear Armageddon
if you fear a nuclear Armageddon it means you think Putin would use nuclear weapons offensively.
if you think that could happen, how can you think that appeasing someone who is willing to use nuclear weapons offensively can be a good strategy? how can you think that caving in to the imperial requests of someone with nuclear weapons can be a stable equilibrium long term?
the only way to avoid nuclear weapons being used against you is to CREDIBLY signal that you are fully willing to destroy your enemy even at the gravest cost for yourself.
which means you have to CREDIBLY be WILLING to use nuclear weapons yourself if needed and never cave in.
pacifist signalling is literally the biggest causal threat of nuclear war, it's basic game theory.
Support to Ukraine must come with the understanding and message that when it comes peace deals and diplomacy, Ukraine will be decider and the one who says what is acceptable.
Not because you don't want peace or because "we want to destroy Russia" or similar nonsense that some suggest, but simply because any other message is very easy for the Russian regime to exploit in propaganda, to create chaos and to sow cracks in the already shaky co
Ukraine as a functioning state is done, no matter what.
they lost millions of working age people who fled to the EU and elsewhere and most of them won't come back, + all the military age men who died or got permanently maimed and so on.
their demographics were horrible even pre war with huge emigration of working age people and low fertility.
and unlike rich countries, they can't fix 1.2 fertility (or lower) with immigration.
even if somehow we find a way to get a somewhat acceptable deal, and the many hundred of billions to rebuild Ukraine, there is no fixing demographics at this point anyway.
demography is destiny and Ukraine destiny is to disappear.
we should have a plan for that and no 1 talks about that.
who from Ukraine is the decider? is the public allowed to vote? are individuals allowed to opt out of the fight?
As is standard for pretty much any country in the world, the Ukrainian government holds sovereign power of its borders.
As per 60 other countries it has an active draft (there are 23 additional countries which can use a draft if they need to, the US included) meaning civilians are called up for military service. Most of the time, these are stipulated to only be authorized for defense of your country, so you can't draft soldiers for an invasion. Russia is an example of a country which on paper functions like that, but which in practice uses press-ganging to force drafted personnel into their invasions.
I understand that for someone from the US, which has not had its borders threatened in a very long time and which holds an extremely powerful professional army that makes the draft very unlikely, this is an alien concept. For those of us from smaller nations with aggressive neighbors, it is done out of necessity. I myself have done both mandatory and professional military service, meaning I was drafted, but I also voluntarily signed up for additional military service.
The tone of your post makes it fairly clear you blame Ukraine for defending itself in a manner which means Russia kills Ukrainian soldiers. I have absolutely no idea what your alternative to this is, and the entire thing sounds naive. Do you think they should capitulate? Do you somehow think this will somehow lessen the horrors of Russian aggression? Do you think Russian ethnic cleansing and massacres of civilians would suddenly stop?
grow up guys, the yanks are obviously calling the shots in ukraine, as they are in israel
Putin has spent much of his tenure selling his country out to China, ceding land, selling energy at bargain basement prices since long before the full-scale invasion began, building pipelines that are economic losers for everyone except his wealthy friends, letting the Chinese buy up huge stakes in the LNG projects tax-free, permitting them to chop down the Taiga in the far east.
Just recently, Kommersant reported how secondary sanctions ar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGbbVjuI...
Another update on Russia-China relations, how secondary sanctions are harming their trade operations and harming Russian domestic production.
talk to the mod who runs this thread who explicitly linked a post from the I/P thread from almost 5 months ago
I cant help but respond to bad faith arguments. its a weakness of mine.
Nothing bad faith about it. What is bad faith is your constant hypocrisy and justifications for a Russian invasion. I don't see how you've tied these things together at all by downplaying Bucha. Please explain. (Asking again although you've refused to explain multiple times now, because it's a bad faith argument.)
again this logic is nonsense because we can simply get a deal where we can arm Ukraine to the teeth to prevent round two.
This is a big ask, there is nothing simple about it. It has been brought up every time and refused every time.
We out produce Russia in everything except man power and artillery shells and a pause would actually benefit Ukraine to allow us to catch up in artillery production.
This has proven far more difficult than you're making it as well. Europe has not held their weight and there is a lot of evidence so suggest that if there were any type of peace deal that they could stop their production improvements.
obviously no one is suggesting a peace settlement where Ukraine losses its standing army and weapons that's not a peace settlement thats called surrendering.
Let me double check this.
Nope, it's being suggested by every pro Russian outlet and their useful idiots.
[quote
I don't want Ukraine to surrender its different. I just want them to accept a small lose of land to save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Were in year 3 this war it is in a stalemate with no hope of total victory. continuing is warmongering[/QUOTE]
Calling it warmongering is exactly the dangerous rhetoric I am pointing towards. Your peace requirements have proven unrealistic to date. Look up Putin's peace requirements from June, 2 months ago. Not only does he still want a new government, Ukraine to be demilitarized, to promise to not join NATO, but he also wants them to give up territory under their control which would give him an extremely easy way to attack important cities in the future. There is one country which is warmongering, and it is Russia.
t_d: Just so you know, you're getting the mild version. Previously it was argued that if Ukraine could not defend itself without resorting to "slavery" (draft) then Ukraine failed somehow. Yes all of the arguments about size, economy, military, political coercion, and attempts to subvert Ukraine's politics have been pointed out.
Not one has Russia's methods for recruitment been brought up by this group. However it is widely believed that Ukraine "kidnaps" people and sends them directly to the front. (Regarding training time, it was argued that Wagner did not use cannon fodder and that they had training.)
27o: major parts of both conflicts have gone over your head if you believe what you said.
pgb: trying reading/posting something other than us state dept propaganda
Refer to my last post.
I love how it is simultaneously USA's fault for not forcing Ukraine to capitulate for "peace", yet when Ukraine is given agency to determine things on their own it is proof that USA controls them.
I'll leave the other topic for the other thread but just lol. Completely ignorant of what is happening.
"The West, using the political powerhouse Boris Johnson, convinced Ukraine (the country they already control) to continue fighting on despite Russia wanting to give back all territory except Crimea!" Can't make this stuff up.
edit: well I can't. Russians can and they find useful idiots to believe it.
how is Ukraine given agency? they canceled elections ffs. they are shanghaing people off the streets all day long to get sent to their death. does that guy have agency?
and actually, last time they had elections they elected the guy who wanted peace.
t_d: Just so you know, you're getting the mild version. Previously it was argued that if Ukraine could not defend itself without resorting to "slavery" (draft) then Ukraine failed somehow. Yes all of the arguments about size, economy, military, political coercion, and attempts to subvert Ukraine's politics have been pointed out.
Not one has Russia's methods for recruitment been brought up by this group. However it is widely believed that Uk
Well, that's sad to hear, but not surprising.
Rather obviously if the US was Ukraine's suzerain in 2022 then Ukraine would have been far better equipped. For that matter, there would not have been an invasion to begin with.
People holding such fanciful ideas also sound frightfully naive on US-Europe relations if they think such an approach would somehow have gone over well with other European countries.
