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Notes -
for Germany and France (and likely most of NATO), it surely was a delay game and they've admitted as much
whether or not Russians considered themselves "seriously bound" by any of it, they did implement their part of it
I can see the fortifications built in the Donbass and Lugansk on archived google maps. I read press covering their construction. Were those there in 2014 or did they magicked into existence?
I watched in real-time how Mariupol was used this way, including Ukrainian army and their militia pals attacking civilians trying to flee on backroads.
"large" = number of men and it is indeed true that Ukraine had more men under arms than any other country in Europe in 2021 behind Russia
you talking about Russia being bigger or spending more money is entirely irrelevant to the statement I made
how many men under arms in 2014? in 2021? Claiming the military didn't grow in size is simply nonsense.
I watched artillery shells targeting apartment buildings and city squares in Donetsk for 8 years with Ukrainian politicians bragging about the children in Donetsk hiding in basements instead of going to school. Or are you going to claim they were shelling themselves?
I watched them being burned alive in the Trade Unions House in Odessa on live stream in 2014.
I stopped reading there. Please read my comments more carefully.
They didn't, and they didn't even try to.
Donbass and Luhansk was captured in 2014. You were talking post-2014. Which fortifications specifically do you mean?
How exactly did you watch it in real time? You were present in Mariupol at that time? Where exactly and what did you do there? How did you get out?
No it didn't. Italy has more even if you stretch "men under arms" to include non-fighting personnel. France has more. UK has more. Germany maybe has more too, hard to say since I didn't find exact figures, but I think that's enough.
Not that it would be any problem if Ukraine has 2x more military and above France and UK and Italy taken together - but they didn't.
It is extremely relevant as Ukraine's military was minuscule compared to Russia's and so was Ukrainian military budget, and you're trying to present it as if Ukraine was trying to beef up to wage war on poor peaceful Russia. While what happened was the opposite - Russia has been beefing up their military for years, spending tons of money on it, and Ukrainians were largely dicking around before 2014, and continued to half-ass it after because they believed Crimea is as much as Putin would dare to go.
No, you watched some propaganda lies on TV (or Youtube, same difference). Now you are parroting them. In fact, in 2021 in Donetsk area there were 7 civilian causalities of war and in Luhansk - 1 civilian. For the whole year. This is "official" data from the Russians controlling Donetsk and Luhansk themselves, so they didn't have any incentive to undercount (and also it may mean that "civilians" were same gangsters just without official uniform - but we don't have a way to know it). This, of course, incompatible with constant shelling apartment buildings - what happens when that happens, we can see very well when Russians do it - not in propaganda lies, but in reality. One Russian attack produces more casualties usually than the whole fighting (instigated by Russians) produced for a year before Russians decided to "protect".
From the same source, overall number of casualties since the beginning of 2014 Russian invasion - both military and civilian - was 5038 (likely about 90% of them military). In 2022, the casualties among mobilized in Donetsk/Luhansk were in tens of thousands, and the number of civilian casualties unknowable. I guess this is how the Russian "protection" works.
Could you provide the names of three such Ukrainian politicians and where they bragged about that? This sounds very much like blatant propaganda, next thing you will tell me they crucified a little boy in underpants?
No, the kids in the basement obviously weren't shelling themselves (if such kids existed at all). But very possibly the gangsters that controlled the territory were shelling them, such cases were documented - the reason varying from infighting to just stirring shit up to promote one's own standing among other warlords. Or the Russian military, whose stormtrooper-like aiming capacities are widely famous now. Whatever they did, they probably couldn't top downing of a civilian airliner, so it was all small change to them undoubtedly.
You seem to get around - you were personally present in Donetsk, Mariupol, Odessa... Or wait, do you mean you watched some propaganda videos carefully prepared, edited and narrated to you, by Russian TV perchance, that's what you mean? Oh. I see then. You saw a video of a fire. Somebody told you some narrative about what happened in this fire. Since you saw the picture of a fire, you somehow believed this narrative is the holy truth and now consider yourself an eye-witness. If you don't understand the difference, I probably have no hope of penetrating the armor of your belief. But if you would care to research what happened, you'd know there was a fight between pro-Putin and pro-Ukraine protestors, which unfortunately devolved into throwing Molotov cocktails on both sides. Only one of the sides - the pro-Putin one - fortified themselves in the building. Which turned to be a very stupid idea when having an incendiary device fight - because when the fire followed, inevitably, they didn't have the means to retreat from it. But nobody forced them into the building, and they were giving as much as they were getting - so the "slaughter" here is not appropriate. They went out looking for a fight, they had the fight they were looking for, and they died, because of how they chose to conduct that fight. Regrettable, but hardly innocent lambs led to slaughter.
I don't know any way of carefully reading parroted propaganda lies that would make them anything but parroted propaganda lies, sorry.
pot meet kettle
that ends this discussion
So you admit to deliberate posting of parroted propaganda lies and accuse Jar of doing the same?
no
in the future, if you were looking for something resembling a genuine dialogue, this is not how one would start it
cheers
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