[Beren]

However, Ukraine's also in the West's/the EU's/NATO's neighbourhood.

[Rugoz]

1) Ukraine would fight anyways without Western Aid.

That is true, but it would be an insurgency, and all of Ukraine would look like a warzone.

The European Union's annual inflation rate was 8.1% in April 2023.

The inflation rate itself is not indicative of a "cost-of-living crisis".

[JohnRawls]

For Europe, Ukraine is a massive security issue, well Russia. It is not a question of allies or economy. Safety trumps economy in 99% of cases for humans.

[Beren]

For Europe, Ukraine is a massive security issue, well Russia.

Ukraine's not only Russia's neighbour, it's a buffer state between Russia and the collective West, to which Putin regularly refers as Russia's actual enemy, so it must exist and must be real. What's going on in Ukraine can be interpreted as a tectonic collision and the same could happen in Georgia as well, although it's not so tense there. However, Cuba is different because it's not a buffer state and it's especially not a buffer state between the West and Russia or China.

[QatzelOk]

Ukraine's not only Russia's neighbour, it's a buffer state between Russia and the collective West...

Just like Taiwan is a buffer between China and the collective West...

The collective WestTM includes the entire world except the countries the collective West is currently bombing and sanctionning.

Somewhat ironically for your narrative, this The collective WestTM is neither collective nor limited to the Western hemisphere or anglosphere.

I think "the West" currently means "smartphone-gazing non-citizens who like John Wayne movies."

[Beren]

Just like Taiwan is a buffer between China and the collective West...

Taiwan, while officially considered as part of China, is more integrated with the West than Ukraine, a sovereign nation, is. It actually tends to be a part of it, which is a problem. It's also a problem with Hong Kong, by the way, that they also still mean to be Western within China. Taiwan's been protected by the US 7th Fleet since the beginning for a reason and the US would do a lot more for Taiwan than it's been doing for Ukraine. So I wouldn't exactly call it a buffer state, in my opinion it's rather a heavily armed and guarded stronghold of the West.

[Rugoz]

Good job Putler.

Taiwan, while officially considered as part of China, is more integrated with the West than Ukraine, a sovereign nation, is.

Economically, this is wrong. E.g. Ukraine's export shares:



Taiwans:

[Beren]

Good job Putler.





Economically, this is wrong. E.g. Ukraine's export shares:



Taiwans:

So China's their number one trading partner, so what? It could be the same with Japan, it wouldn't make it less Western, especially than Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Taiwan trade the most with their biggest closest neighbour.

[litwin]

You hypocrite. For all your whining and cries about colonialism, you are playing dumb blind deaf regarding the rather obvious colonial, imperialistic grab of the Russian wanna-be empire.

[Sandzak]

South-Africa supplied weapons to Russia.

The Ukraine War has become the battlefield between the West and BRICS.

[litwin]

[skinster]

[QatzelOk]

So China's their number one trading partner, so what?

You are saying that this doesn't matter because ... the West is the West, Rome is Rome, and it will dominate every region of the world forever and ever?

What else doesn't matter to you? That the West doesn't make many things anymore? That our religious traditions are stale and retrogressive - almost like horror movies mixed with fascism?

That the West has driven many nations into poverty by overthrowing their governments, and then strip-mining the countries via the IMF and World Bank? This also doesn't matter to you?

I'm beginning to think that your nihilism is a symptom of Western decline, and that most of the West's oligarch class are equally ambivalent to the harm that has been done.... and continues to be done.

If countries want a better world that is more just and allows all regions to develop properly... I guess they will have to look elsewhere than the "I don't care about anyone else" Western oligarch class and their ass-kissers.

...we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization. It’s the same principle that has people shitting all over the sidewalks of San Francisco, looting Walgreens stores in broad daylight, pushing ineffective and unsafe vaccines (and lying about it), and arresting people for thought crimes. It’s a degenerate society. Morally bankrupt. Wicked...

[JohnRawls]

You are saying that this doesn't matter because ... the West is the West, Rome is Rome, and it will dominate every region of the world forever and ever?

What else doesn't matter to you? That the West doesn't make many things anymore? That our religious traditions are stale and retrogressive - almost like horror movies mixed with fascism?

That the West has driven many nations into poverty by overthrowing their governments, and then strip-mining the countries via the IMF and World Bank? This also doesn't matter to you?

I'm beginning to think that your nihilism is a symptom of Western decline, and that most of the West's oligarch class are equally ambivalent to the harm that has been done.... and continues to be done.

If countries want a better world that is more just and allows all regions to develop properly... I guess they will have to look elsewhere than the "I don't care about anyone else" Western oligarch class and their ass-kissers.

How Russians torture Ukranian civilians and well civilians who they catch from other countries: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/05/26 ... heir-cells

Tarasov and his four cellmates lowered their heads and put their hands behind their backs. From that moment on, Tarasov saw only the ground, his own legs, and the officers’ boots. Bending low into the dolphin pose, he exited the cell and stood facing the wall. “Wider! Widen your legs, I said!” one officer said, hitting Alexander in the calves until he was practically doing a split.

Tarasov leaned his forehead against the wall, unable to think about anything but his burning ligaments. Then he heard a new command: “What holiday is it today? What day is it? Did your grandfather fight in the army? Answer the question!”

No matter what answer they gave, each of the inmates was given an electronic shock. “Your grandpas are turning over in their graves, you fascists.”

In late March 2022, Alexander Tarasov and Serhiy Tsyhipa were awoken by prison guards in the middle of the night. They had an odd question for the inmates: did either of them know Spanish? “Serhiy knows Portuguese,” Alexander recounted to Meduza. “They asked him to go comfort a Spaniard who had just been brought from Kherson.”

The new civilian hostage turned out to be a man named Mariano García Calatayud, a retiree from Spain who had been living in Ukraine since 2014. “Tsyhipa told him that everything would be fine, of course,” Tarasov said. “But Mariano was in shock: he didn’t understand where he was or who all of these people yelling at him were. He looked like an abused animal.”

Calatayud, who knew neither Ukrainian nor Russian, was constantly given electric shocks as punishment for not understanding the guards’ commands. “They taught him all of those positions: ‘In line,’ ‘Out,’ ‘Head down.’ From my cell, I would hear the guards and the special forces officers laughing: ‘It just took a few shocks to teach a Spaniard Russian,’” Tarasov recounted.

The Spaniard quickly became the cell’s tidiest inmate, wiping the shelves and door jambs before dust even had time to settle. His cellmate Evgeny Yamkovoy believes Calatayud was trying to “demonstrate” to the guards how compliant he was. “They singled him out for beating in the detention center. I saw his scars from the dynamo [electric shock device]. And one time the guard dog latched onto his leg. When it started to bleed, he couldn’t stand it, and he punched [the dog] in the head. Then the dog handler let him have it.”

Before he was brought to the Simferopol prison, Calatayud behaved fairly boldly around Russian security officers. “In the [Kherson] detention facility, when he was first taken there for protesting, he would say, ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ and do his exercises,” Calatayud’s common-law wife, a 39-year-old Kherson resident named Tatyana Marina, told Meduza. “The local guards lost their minds: he called them ‘puta madre’ — roughly ‘motherfuckers’ — to their faces.”

[Wels]

Russian delusion at its "finest"
Russian whataboutism has remained the same since the pre-1990ies, all propaganda and maskirovka.
But "it is not propaganda if you believe it"

[litwin]

[litwin]

Russian delusion at its "finest"
Russian whataboutism has remained the same since the pre-1990ies, all propaganda and maskirovka.
But "it is not propaganda if you believe it"

very useful information


How to pronounce “BELARUSIAN”: -rus in the name Belarus refers to the medieval region of Rus, not to the name “russia” (the Greek word for Rus adopted by Muscovy)

[Beren]

You are saying that this doesn't matter because

both Taiwan and Ukraine trade the most with their biggest closest neighbour, which doesn't make them less or more Western respectively in either case. Just because Taiwan trades more through the Taiwan Straight than other trade routes it won't make it more Eastern than Western, and just because Ukraine trades more with the EU than Russia it won't be more Western than Russian. Ukraine's still more Russian than Western, so to speak, although they mean to change that. I'm not sure if how much Western Taiwan is but I tend to believe they mean to return to Mainland China less and less as it's becoming more and more authoritarian, and Taiwan may Westernise and integrate with the West even more as a result despite trading with China the most, which may be the actual reason for rising military tensions around Taiwan.

What else doesn't matter to you?

Your posts matter less and less, actually.

[Szabo]

Ukraine's still more Russian than Western, so to speak, although they mean to change that.

I have to disagree with you here. How is Ukraine more Russian? Ukraine is a democracy and has had six presidents since its founding. Russia (medvedev was and is a drunk puppet) and Belarus have both had just one dictator.

Ukraine's never had this tradition of worshiping its leaders like Russia has.

Ukraine just passed a petition for legalising same sex marriage and has been looking to join the EU for a long time now.

Also, Ukraine doesn't grant as much power to the church as Russia does with its backwards conservatism.

Nevertheless, Ukraine is of course still a long ways off from being qualified to join the EU.

Prigozhin may have done it for his own sake and popularity. He must feel really indispensable.

Have you seen this? Posters have been popping up in Belgorod promoting him to be Russia's new president. The posters say:

YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN

A STRONG LEADER
NOT A BUNKERING COWARD

STRENGTH
CONFIDENCE
STABILITY

A passenger on a #Moscow-#Vladikavkaz plane was detained for reading a book in #Ukrainian language during the flight.

She was revealed by other passengers.

In Russia, a person is detained for reading in Ukrainian, and yet we have pro-putin members here posting videos of a Ukrainian woman apologising in Russian for stupidly revealing Kiev's air-defence systems, and all the while we still have people talking about oppressed Russian-speakers. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Kudos to Piers Morgan for admitting that the Iraq invasion was a crime, despite the fact that Saddam's Iraq was twice an aggressor nation, once in Kuwait and once in Iran before it itself was invaded.

[litwin]