Russia-Ukraine War 2022 - Page 895 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Verv
#15326354
GandalfTheGrey wrote:Russia is right and sensible to be suspicious of US imperialistic ambitions. But apologising for blatant imperialistic actions by Russia itself as a round-about way of condemning US imperialism, won't earn you any credibility.


I am not trying to earn credibility - I am not a public figure. I am stating what I believe to be the truth semi-anonymously on the internet, and trying to have a debate, right... So, I am not actually concerned with being as persuasive as possible.

I am sure you already know that, but it may be useful to bring it back into this context.

You guys need to accept the fact that Putin is not the victim here. He is the aggressor. Regardless of how inconvenient or uncomfortable a US/NATO aligned Ukraine would be for Russia, it should never be use for justifying, or even apologising for the hell that Putin, and Putin alone, has unleashed via his invasion of Ukraine.


The issue is that if you zoom out far enough, and understand it within the context not just of the 2014 Euromaidan and Yanukoyvich, but in the context of the entire region and a trend of NATO expansion since the end fo the Cold War that was supposed to not be occurring, the moves that were made in the Ukraine make Putin and the Russian people the victim on the regional & global geopolitical scale.

Of course, in the context of the Ukraine being forced into this position, they are the double victim.

They are the victims of the United States in addition to being the victims of the Russians because they set them up on this collision course and encouraged them to proceed resolution through violence on the Donbass issue...

Like, remember this coming to light?:

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end.


Responsible Statecraft

Not to mention, it seems likely that the Ukrainians would have handled issues prior to the actual conflict far more delicately had they not been encouraged otherwise by their NATO backers and the CIA disinformationists trying to influence them.

Respectfully Verv, grow a spine and stop being hypocritical about this. Willingly launching a full scale war against a nation that did not attack you, and poses zero real threat to your existence or way of life is never "debatable". It is an outrage, and should be condemned unconditionally.


I think you are avoiding the elephant in the room: the Ukrainian leadership were corrupt clowns bought & paid for by the West, and the Ukrainian democracy was not really very functional.

Right now, regular Ukrainians are being pulled off the streets and sent to die on the frontline in a fight against the Russians largely because NATO wanted this fight.

It weakens Russia and, more importantly, the amount of money to be made by the Western oligarchs is absolutely fabulous.

I think stating this publicly is having a spine, especially considering that I have turned on my own neoconservative heritage in the process of coming to these conclusions.
#15326357
Verv wrote:

The issue is that if you zoom out far enough, and understand it within the context not just of the 2014 Euromaidan and Yanukoyvich, but in the context of the entire region and a trend of NATO expansion since the end fo the Cold War that was supposed to not be occurring, the moves that were made in the Ukraine make Putin and the Russian people the victim on the regional & global geopolitical scale.


As I already said, it is right and sensible for Putin to suspect NATO and the US's imperialistic ambitions. The US betrayed Russia when the cold war ended when they promised not to expand NATO eastwards, then proceeded to do so. Russia may even consider Ukraine a 'red line' as far as the limit of NATO goes. But I would just make two points about that. 1. Ukraine joining NATO should above all else be a the decision of a sovereign Ukraine, not Russia - and if you think otherwise, you are merely supporting the imperialistic ambitions of Russia, and 2. launching a full-scale invasion of sovereign Ukraine and unleashing all the horrors that go with that, is a totally unjustified, not to mention massively disproportional response to this "provocation".


I think you are avoiding the elephant in the room: the Ukrainian leadership were corrupt clowns bought & paid for by the West, and the Ukrainian democracy was not really very functional.


However corrupt and paid for the post 2014 leadership may be, it just amazes me how people can say this with a straight face - while completely ignoring the 100x more blatant corrupt and bought and paid for Yanukoyvich. I mean, you ask for context - how about the context of Ukraine being a complete vassal state of Russia under the bought and paid for Yanukoyvich - with basically no sovereignty at all. Why do you ignore that - and just pretend the era of 'bought and paid for' leadership only began after 2014? And then the pro-Putin stooges have the gall to baselesly label the completely understandable backlash by the people of Ukraine against the Putin-vassal-ship through the euromaidan as some sort of CIA plot. So yes, context, PLEASE!

Right now, regular Ukrainians are being pulled off the streets and sent to die on the frontline in a fight against the Russians largely because NATO wanted this fight.


Oh please :roll: Ukraine is desperately trying to muster a defence against a blatant act of aggression by their much bigger and more powerful neighbour. As any nation would. How on earth you can twist this reality as Ukraine being unjust and a stooge of NATO is just beyond me.
#15326361
Just the usual facts:
- NATO never promised not to expand eastwards.
- The countries that joined NATO wanted to join. Guess why.
- Ukraine wanted to join in 2008 but was rejected.
- In 2021, there were 4650 NATO troops in countries bordering Russia.
- No nuclear weapons are stationed in Eastern Europe.
- NATO countries did not supply weapons to Kiev until Trump sold a bunch of Javelins in 2019.
- Yanukovych rigged the 2004 election which led to the Orange revolution. The guy would always cling to power no matter the cost.
By Rich
#15326366
GandalfTheGrey wrote:Willingly launching a full scale war against a nation that did not attack you, and poses zero real threat to your existence or way of life is never "debatable". It is an outrage, and should be condemned unconditionally.

It was not a full scale invasion, nor was it anything close to an all out war. Why do people keep insisting on repeating this drivel. I posted this video before.



These analysts openly confess, that they didn't believe that Russia would invade because they had no where near enough troops. Yes the Ukrainian nationalists probably had to kiss goodbye to northern Luhansk, but given the size of the Ukrainian armed forces with reserve mobilisation and militias, they should easily have been able to hold the rest of Ukraine with minimal loss of territory. And there's no way they should have lost the Crimean isthmus. That displayed a staggering level of cowardice, incompetence and corruption. And its no use Zelensky and his cheer leaders whining about treachery, that's the one key point that they should have deployed reliable troops and officers.

Putin tried to ride two horses in 2014 and he tried to do the same thing in February 2022. Ukraine left the soviet Union as a state of nations not a nation state, similar to Czechoslovakia leaving Austria-Hungary in 1918. Germans were the second ethnicity of Czechoslovakia not Slovaks, contra to the impression the international liberal lie machine likes to give. Putin sought two incompatible aims, the annexation of territory and stopping Ukraine from becoming a Ukrainian nationalist nation state.

This is still not an all out war, not even close. Attacking nuclear power plants is an obvious step for any serious path of escalation. Of course Russia has already escalated by supplying advanced weapons / technology to Iran and North Korea. Even technologically sophisticated china would like to get its hands on Russian anti ship technology.
By Rugoz
#15326367
Rich wrote:This is still not an all out war, not even close. Attacking nuclear power plants is an obvious step for any serious path of escalation.


Apparently every war that doesn't go nuclear is not an "all out war". :roll:
#15326372
Rugoz wrote:Apparently every war that doesn't go nuclear is not an "all out war". :roll:

Attacking a nuclear power plant in order to stop its energy production, is a long way short of using tactical let alone strategic nuclear weapons. NATO moved away from MAD to flexible reponse, precisely because going to an all out strategic nuclear strike to avoid a defeat, didn't seem fully credible and hence weakened deterrence. Attacking nuclear power plants provides an excellent intermediate rung on the ladder of flexible and incremental escalation. Yes Russia's red lines are very soft, well spotted, but the Liberal idiots seem to presume that NATO red lines are hard and unyielding, which they are most certainly not. One of the ways that Russia has escalated is by infringement of NATO's sovereign territory. NATO just accepts these and tries not to talk about them. Another possible path of escalation is attacks on NATO satellites.

I know what you're trying to do. I know what the leadership of the West are trying to do. You're all trying to boil the frog. But whose the frog? For you @Rugoz and for many in leadership positions within the military, security and analysis establishment, the frog is Putin. The idea has been to ramp up support for Ukraine, bit by bit, salami style as was imagined in reverse in this clip form the nineteen eighties.



And of course you're rather like Hitler in the late nineteen thirties with his salami style rearmament on the one hand feeling pleased with yourself with all the relatively advanced weapons you've supplied, but on the hand you're chiding yourselves for not going faster.

However there's one thing that you don't seem to clock. For most western political leaders, Putin is not the frog! For most of our western political leaders, the frogs are the western electorates. The western publics are gradually being boiled to accept a settlement that they would have found absolutely outrageous in May 2022 after the comprehensive defeat of the Russian attack on Kiev. After the failure of Obama's surge it took nearly a decade to boil the frog, the American people to accept total victory for the Taliban.
Last edited by Rich on 04 Oct 2024 14:55, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By litwin
#15326373
GandalfTheGrey wrote:Russia is right and sensible to be suspicious of US imperialistic ambitions. But apologising for blatant imperialistic actions by Russia itself as a round-about way of condemning US imperialism, won't earn you any credibility.

You guys need to accept the fact that Putin is not the victim here. He is the aggressor. Regardless of how inconvenient or uncomfortable a US/NATO aligned Ukraine would be for Russia, it should never be use for justifying, or even apologising for the hell that Putin, and Putin alone, has unleashed via his invasion of Ukraine.

Respectfully Verv, grow a spine and stop being hypocritical about this. Willingly launching a full scale war against a nation that did not attack you, and poses zero real threat to your existence or way of life is never "debatable". It is an outrage, and should be condemned unconditionally.


so many lies.ru , you took it form RT page for sure.


so you are an Orthodox, serv or Greek ? still can not get over your defeat in Kosava ? :lol:
#15326378
What did Putin and the miliary leadership hope for when they launched the SMO? Obviously I don't know for certain, but my guess it was something along the lines of

1 Logistically isolate the capital Kiev, by cutting off transportation links west, north and east, seizing the Hostmel airbase in a coup de main was a key part of this operation.

2 They hoped that the success of 1, would lead to panicked withdrawal from the Donbas Maginot line, allowing them to advance through the defences, virtually unopposed that had been built up over 7 or 8 years. its important to note that in the case of a successful surrounding of Kiev the most nationalist units might have withdrawn west to deal with compromises and what they saw as traitors. Fear of a negotiated "sell out" could well have caused the Donbas defense to dissolve.

3 Even if 2 failed to come to pass, they expected to overrun northern Luhansk and outflank the Donbas defences from the north.

4 They hoped to breakout from Crimea securing the water channel and access to the Dnieper and further undermining Ukraine's Donbas defences from the rear.

5 Following on 4, they hoped to cross the Dnieper and the lower Bug and slice through south western Ukraine cutting off Odessa from the the rest of Ukraine. If the Donbas defence collapsed as hoped all the forces and supplies from Crimea could be concentrated in this Patton style (let the enemy worry about the flanks) armoured thrust.

This wasn't far fetched. In these shock situations success has a positive feed back loop. There's a spectrum of resistance. At one end some people will fight to the death, but many others will bend to what they see as inevitable. Only a moron could think that Russia was going to overrun Ukraine in 3 or 4 days, but the above was plausible. Note the weakest link in the plan should have been the Crimean breakout. there's no way that the Ukrainian armed forces should have let Russia get away with that. But aside from that it was plausible and maybe Russia had men on the inside of the Ukrainian defence of the isthmus. If the Russians could have achieved even say a 75% encirclement of Kiev, they would have been in a very powerful position both to negotiate and to pursue further military advances in the east and south.
By Rugoz
#15326384
Rich wrote:Attacking a nuclear power plant in order to stop its energy production, is a long way short of using tactical let alone strategic nuclear weapons.


Not at all. Attacking a nuclear power plant, if it leads to a reactor meltdown, can be worse than a nuclear bomb. Hiroshima is habitable today, Chernobyl is not. Chernobyl released 400 times as much radioactive material as the Hiroshima bomb. Of course modern bombs are more powerful but they actually use less uranium (fission is only the trigger). The amount of fallout produced largely depends on whether they're detonated in the air (usually) or on the ground.

Rich wrote:For you @Rugoz


If you think I approve of the Western "strategy" you haven't been paying attention. :lol:
#15326398
Rancid wrote:Where's @Igor Antunov?

Image
“Who, me?”
#15326405
I wonder how Russia is planning to survive next year economically because by the looks of it, Bin Salman is pissed that Saudi Arabia is loosing profit and market share from oil(Opec price controls and limits of production backfired and failed) so they are going to spike production after November/December and predicted oil price might drop to under 55-50 range to like 49-48 per barrel :lol:
User avatar
By litwin
#15326410
Verv wrote:You could say that one of the reasons why many Westerners end up being vaguely supportive of Russia is the fact that the West has to deal with its own imperialist past, @litwin , which means simply saying no to every project that would interject us into new spheres of warfare.

Ukraine remaining part of the Russian sphere of interests seems quite natural.

There is talk that the Ukraine would have become a staging ground for NATO weaponry and American missiles, like Poland had become, which obviously poses a threat to Putin.

The US was turning Ukraine into part of its own geopolitical puzzle, and not for the sake of securing peace more broadly, but for the sake of amplifying American power abroad.

Now, was the invasion the right thing for Putin to do? That is debatable. But the US precipitated this conflict through meddling in the 2014 Euromaidan, and by also supplying the Ukrainian regime with the express purpose of setting them on a collision course with Russia that would likely only lead to armed conflict.

The whole situation is further complicated by questions of autonomy and self-determination for the people of Luhansk & Donetsk. But, again, that is a really complicated thing...

As far as all these emotional reports of the historic violence of Russian soldiers, I am right there with you. A lot of terrible things were done in WWII, and none of them were ever addressed, which is incredibly sad.

Vuhledar after liberation by Moscow empire vs Stockholm after invasion by NATO
https://x.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1841811796115497394
User avatar
By litwin
#15326542
Verv wrote:I am not trying to earn credibility - I am not a public figure. I am stating what I believe to be the truth semi-anonymously on the internet, and trying to have a debate, right... So, I am not actually concerned with being as persuasive as possible.

I am sure you already know that, but it may be useful to bring it back into this context.



The issue is that if you zoom out far enough, and understand it within the context not just of the 2014 Euromaidan and Yanukoyvich, but in the context of the entire region and a trend of NATO expansion since the end fo the Cold War that was supposed to not be occurring, the moves that were made in the Ukraine make Putin and the Russian people the victim on the regional & global geopolitical scale.

Of course, in the context of the Ukraine being forced into this position, they are the double victim.

They are the victims of the United States in addition to being the victims of the Russians because they set them up on this collision course and encouraged them to proceed resolution through violence on the Donbass issue...

Like, remember this coming to light?:



Responsible Statecraft

Not to mention, it seems likely that the Ukrainians would have handled issues prior to the actual conflict far more delicately had they not been encouraged otherwise by their NATO backers and the CIA disinformationists trying to influence them.



I think you are avoiding the elephant in the room: the Ukrainian leadership were corrupt clowns bought & paid for by the West, and the Ukrainian democracy was not really very functional.

Right now, regular Ukrainians are being pulled off the streets and sent to die on the frontline in a fight against the Russians largely because NATO wanted this fight.

It weakens Russia and, more importantly, the amount of money to be made by the Western oligarchs is absolutely fabulous.

I think stating this publicly is having a spine, especially considering that I have turned on my own neoconservative heritage in the process of coming to these conclusions.


Chechen muslism have shown to "ortodox" IMPERIALISTIC slave (like you) Guzenko «Thirteenth» his real (near WC) place :lol:

:lol:


https://x.com/i/status/1842593282074755078



https://x.com/wogoa1/status/1842916297727942997
#15326572
More mronic discourse from the Liberal so called experts. :roll:



Note I'm not saying this guy is a moron, its more plausible that he's just a pathological liar. Now remember what the Liberals said from 2014.

1 By cutting off water and trade, combined with sanctions we can strangle the Crimea economy.

2 Even if Putin builds a bridge we can supply Ukraine with weapons so they can destroy the Bridge anytime we want.

3 By repetitively shelling Donetsk city and by the threat of the resumption of shelling even during the quiet periods combined with sanctions we can strangle the Russian Donbas economy.

4 Putin would never dare to launch even medium scale invasion of Ukraine, so he will be forced to just give back Crimea and what he controls of the Donbas and hence also there's no need to properly defend the Crimean Isthmus.

Note how this liar just repeats the claim that it was a full scale invasion. It wasn't. But he also claims that the invasion has failed. This is just bollocks. Maybe it will ultimately prove a failure. I have no crystal ball. But so far its very far from failure. And this is why the fall of this minor settlement Vuhledar is such a catastrophic blow to Ukraine's morale. Ukraine has been struggling to get back Crimea for over ten and a half years. And at no point in those ten and a half years have the Ukrainians been further from achieving that objective as they are in October 2024.
By Rich
#15326593
Rancid wrote:WHo said this?

OK prior to the SMO, outside of Ukraine the military threats to the bridge couldn't be made overtly, but as soon as the SMO started people started openly talking about destroying the bridge. The implicit threat was always there for anyone who was half way knowledgeable about the situation.

Looking at the big high level picture, the Russian problem was that the Soviet Union and the Communist party of the Soviet Union was not a Russian nationalist state. This was very different from the Chinese, Vietnamese or Cambodian Communist parties that were nationalist from the start. And despite the Soviet Unions repressive, violent and often ideologically unstable nature, there was space for non Russian nationalists to operate throughout nearly all of its 74 year history (I'm including the time before it was officially called the USSR). The most highly developed nationalism in the Soviet Unions final years was actually Armenians in the territory of Nagorny Karabach. A territory the Armenians controlled for a quarter of a century, and which they managed to lose five minutes after throwing in their lot with the anti Russian western liberals.

So Russian nationalists needed to start carving out Russian territory well before the collapse of the Soviet Union as the Serbian nationalists did before the collapse of Yugoslavia, although even there it was Croatian nationalism that took the early lead not Serbian. I would suggest that if the Yugoslavian state had controlled the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet as the Soviet Union did, then Serbia would be significantly bigger now. Self satisfied Liberals love to sit around congratulating themslves about how Putin has lost. "Putin has lost! Putin has lost!" We here that refrain over and over and over again. The truth is Russia lost well before Putin took on the reins of power. Its been very hard for Russian nationalists to accept that in the big picture they had lost well before Putin came to power, so they could focus on realistically salvaging what they could.

As I've said before Putin tried to ride two horses in 2014. Even at the beginning of 2022, he was still trying to ride two horses. But it is perfectly understandable that Russian patriots have had great trouble coming to terms with reality. We in Britain with our pathetic fantasies about the Special Relationship are hardly in a position to judge. It is true that there is a special Relationship. In fact the United States has a very special relationship. Its just not with Britain.
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