This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It's clearly absurd to think that the current situation is one that Putin wanted. Whatever he was trying to achieve, it wasn't this.
I don't think his desire was to annihilate Ukraine, to be clear. I don't even think his initial goal was to annex Ukraine. I think his desire was to kill Zelensky and install Yanukovych as a friendly leader. Obviously things didn't work out the way he wanted and we're now on plan D or something.
This isn't supportable.
Putin desperately wanted to kill Zelensky except for the fact that he didn't even attempt a single decapitation strike against Ukraine leadership and still only attacks leadership in direct response to terror attacks against things like the Kerch bridge, much to the chagrin of his main detractors in Russia.
What evidence do you have Putin wanted to do this? He struck freely all over the country in the opening salvo of invasion, but just couldn't be bothered to specifically target leadership, many of which were still in their offices at the time?
What pro-russian or even neutral, non-western sources of information do you use to make your judgements about this conflict?
My evidence is that in the early stages of the invasion, Russian troops advanced on Kiev. My belief is that the goal in doing so was to capture Kiev and seize control of the Ukrainian government. I believe this primarily because it seems like a pretty decent plan if it works.
You seem to be reading me as alleging some kind of assassination plot? I'm not. I'm offering my explanation of the military actions we all saw play out.
okay, so you're arguing putin wanted to kill zelensky, but you're not alleging a plot to kill zelensky, but also the 25,000 riot police advancing on Kiev is evidence of your belief putin wanted to kill zelensky but this isn't evidence of a plot to kill zelensky
if it's not you alleging a plot to kill zelensky, then how is it evidence of Putin's desire to kill zelensky?
You're deliberately being obtuse. I'm drawing a distinction between an act of subterfuge and an open assault.
George Bush killed Saddam Hussein, but he did not assassinate Saddam Hussein. Putin intended to kill Zelensky in the exact same way.
I'm not reading into your post some alleged assassination plot, I asked you why you think putin wants to kill zelelensky and your proffered evidence is bad. The reason I don't buy it is because putin has the capacity to kill zelensky and other ukrainian political leadership and simply hasn't. He hasn't even tried. So what you're left arguing is he wants to kill zelensky, but only in a certain way based on evidence a military maneuver you've already admitted would have been smart policy anyway irrelevant of the desire to kill zelensky at all.
I'm deliberately attempting to get you to confront the issues in your own argument, however successful that's been. In any case, thanks for the discussion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What do you mean by "decapitation strike"? Lobbing a lot of rockets at the center of Kiev? First of all, he's not that precise. So he could ruin a lot of buildings, but without precise information about where exactly Zelensky is at certain point of time, it's just pointless. And I guess SVR/FSB aren't good enough to have real-time info like that. Second, most Soviet government buildings were designed with the scenario of "somebody is shooting stuff at our dear leaders" in mind, so even if they hit the right building, that doesn't mean they would kill him. In fact, Ukrainians had several targeted hits on Russian generals, and they frequently survived, either with some wounds or just with the need to change their pants. Third, Putin doesn't have air superiority, and missiles from way afar are vulnerable to interception, and if Ukrainians would concentrate their air defense abilities somewhere, it's near their capital. Fourth, there were strikes on Kiev, but they largely achieved nothing, exactly because Kiev is huge, and Russian targeting abilities are not that good.
There are other options, of course - like sending a small group of special ops operatives to execute the targeted kill. Ukrainians claim they captured several such troops, which of course we can disbelieve, but then we have no real way of claiming there were none, because Russians certainly wouldn't admit something like "we sent our best men to kill Zelensky and failed miserably".
The word "terror" has meaning. You can't just apply it to any thing you don't like. A strike against a piece of military infrastructure (weapons and material delivery over the bridge has been documented many times) is not "terror" - it's an act of war, and destroying bridges have been performed in war since bridges and war were invented.
I mean a strike aimed to kill Ukrainian political leadership, i.e., what the above user is claiming to know was Putin's intent. What evidence do you have that Putin was trying to kill Zelensky?
Putin has been pretty successful at killing people in leadership, the examples being in response to the first and second terror attacks on the Kerch bridge. Claiming he just doesn't have the capability to know where someone is precisely at what time to even bother trying at all isn't supported by the fact he has, in fact, demonstrated that ability to try and succeed at just that. He has demonstrated the capacity for very well calibrated strikes, e.g., on the SBU headquarters in response to the Kerch bridge terror attack. And yet, he didn't do that in the opening stage of the war even once. This doesn't support the claim the user was making. If you would like to provide evidence of their claim, I would like to see it.
Russia may not have air supremacy, but the RUAF does have air superiority over Ukraine with a demonstrated ability to strike at will deep into Ukraine around highly protected targets and even the anti-missile defense clusters of Ukraine itself.
Your claims about Russian capability are simply wrong. They have the demonstrated ability to perform targeted, precise strikes deep in Ukraine which are, at least on paper, heavily protected by anti-missile defense, as well as targeting and killing leadership. What pro-russian or even non-Western neutral source do you get your information from?
yeah, Ukraine also intercepts 135% of the fired missiles despite me being able to watch them being "intercepted" in live video by the targets they were fired at
I can use words however I like. Here, I'm using it to describe using a possibly unsuspecting truck driver in a suicide attack on civilian infrastructure with civilians currently traversing it. Something being done in war before doesn't mean it isn't a terror attack. You don't get to claim misuse of a word just because you dislike the connotations or agree with the underlying action.
Yes, congratulations, you discovered technique known as lying, congrats.
Are you now going to claim that military airports are also civilian infrastructure? That bridge is primary military logistic link into occupied areas of Ukraine.
More options
Context Copy link
Like whom?
Still not sure who do you mean as "people in leadership" that has been killed. Could you elaborate?
At just what?
Please stop with the abuse of the word "terror".
SBU headquaters is a building. It can't be moved. It's big. And yes, they managed to hit this huge building - even though SBU has nothing to do with attacking bridges and also, the funniest of all, SBU has been revealed to be thoroughly infiltrated with Russian agents (which probably coordinated the strike and that's the reason they were so accurate). But I'm not sure why hitting that building proves anything. Sure, they could hit another building in Kiev. They actually did, several times. So what?
He didn't use far strike capabilities in the opening stage of war at all. Because he was planning to a) capture Kiev and other central cities by ground troups quickly and b) achieve air superiority very fast. Only failing to do that, he had to resort to long-distance strikes. Of course, when he planned to capture (or kill, I'm not sure which he preferred) Zelensky, he planned it within the framework of his overall strategy, and by the time his strategy failed, he didn't have any capacity to do it anymore. I'm not sure what you refer to when saying "bother trying at all" - like, just shooting rockets at whatever hoping to hit Zelensky? Well, he's doing that for a year and a half now, at least the first part. I don't think he's actually stupid enough to believe any of them may actually hit Zelensky, so by now that option is closed to him.
No you can't, if you want to communicate with others. Otherwise wolves won't be flying the carpet by the grumble over the manatee because the gasket jumps blue ribbon. If you want to communicate with people, you need to use words in common meanings in commonly understood ways. And you actually know that, because you use the word "terror" not randomly. It's not some whim that puts random words in random places. You use it in common meaning to imply something that is factually false - i.e. you are lying. And I have called you out, repeatedly, on this lying - and if you intend to continue lying, I will just conclude that proclaiming known lies is how you prefer to communicate. You can say whatever you want, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
You are repeating Russian propaganda claims without any proof to it. Also, it can't be both "suicide" and "unsuspecting" - you need to separate your propaganda. Russian propaganda claims are often self-contradictory, but they rarely do it within the same sentence. And then you are lying again - the bridge is not a "civilian infrastructure", it is being used for military purposes all the time and is a legitimate war target, as anything in Russia connected to the war is (including all industrial infrastructure, all supplies used in war, all airfields and production capacities, etc. are). Civilians being present changes absolutely nothing - civilians can be present anywhere and are commonly used as human shields, including by Russians. This does not turn a military target into a a purely civilian one. We're not talking about kindergarten or a grain storage or a church (which Russians do attack, we have witnessed it just this week). We're talking about major supply artery which is used to carry military supplies. And any civilians that wanted to avoid the area of active warfare had a lot of advance warning. Nobody forces anybody to travel over that bridge, certainly not Ukrainians.
the reason you disagree with my use is because you know exactly what I'm communicating, so communication isn't the issue
do you dispute the way I used the word given my description?
if yes, explain how my description, taking it as face value the underlying facts I communicated are true (i.e., turning an innocent driver into a suicide bomber against civilian infrastructure), is an improper use of the word as it's commonly used
if no, this complaint is flatly based on your opinion the underlying facts of what occurred, it doesn't have to do with my use of the wrong word, but with a factual dispute you want to bicker about using Ukraine nonsense while laughably accusing anyone arguing differently of using Russian propaganda
in either case, this is about you simply not liking the connotations and the use in behavior you agree with in a war on behalf of a side you're feel you're on
it's not about "misusing" words, despite you wanting to turn this dialogue into that when it's initially about someone claiming Putin wants to Kill Zelensky
if you're going to ask ppl to support a claim, you should lead by example instead of what appears to be trying to set yourself up to be some sort of lazy arbiter who chooses the null hyp and then demands others have some sort obligation to proof it wrong or it remains
Of course I understand. My first objection was formulated politely, because I admitted the possibility that you are using the word carelessly, just as people are using "fascist" or "racist" - without actually caring about its true meaning, just to throw some pejorative around. Now that you admitted you use it to imply that attacking infrastructure like a bridge is somehow act of terrorism, I know that you are not careless - you are lying.
Why would I take something you parroted from Russian propaganda (the driver part) and something that is just false (the civilian infrastructure) as true? No, I do not.
No, it's about me simply not liking the lies. Especially lazy lies, parroted copypaste from basest war propaganda. It would be decent to at least show some added value.
it doesn't matter which side I'm on - there were many wars and many sides, and destruction of bridges particularly is an extremely common occurrence and it always have been considered a legitimate military target by any side. And it would be stupid to use it as an act of terror - the impact on civilians is minuscule, the worst you could get is one or two cars? If you want to terrorize - you hit a school. You hit a theater. You hit a bus station or an office building or a mall. This all has been done by Islamic terrorists, by Chechen terrorists and by the Russian government. Because real terrorists know which targets are good for terrorizing. But hitting a bridge in the middle of a war - nobody ever considered it an act of terror except in most base and naked propaganda, the one which doesn't even care if it sounds plausible because it is aimed at people that would parrot anything their side proclaims. Go ahead, find me a war where hitting a bridge wouldn't be considered hitting a war target.
I gave very detailed treatment of this claim, and specifically pointed out the reasons it is reasonable to consider he tried, and the reasons he can't do it anymore. As an answer, I got vague references to Putin killing some top Ukrainian officials, which haven't been specified - so I suspect they are non-existant - and a lot of false implications in terrorism. Which, btw, are completely unnecessary - wanting to kill an enemy commander in war does not require any terrorist intent, if FDR could kill Hitler, or Hitler could kill FDR, they would, but neither could. So your bringing terrorism into the argument just shows you felt weak without it, and justifiably - because there was nothing to contradict my description of the situation. And, of course, it reveals your biases - you want to present it not just Putin treating Zelensky as en enemy commander - but Putin being so above mere mortals as being nearly a saint, so he'd only possibly want to kill Zelensky is he's a terrorist.
no, you don't understand and your comment makes clear you don't understand the argument I'm making and instead simply escalate rhetoric while framing your initial comment as not what it was
meh, not interested
lol
I think I understand the argument you are making here, though there could be a possibility it is too complex and nuanced for my weak mental facilities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
True, and I agree with that. But that argument has a very small payload, and I don’t accept that framing of the issue. I think if you look at it more through a geopolitical and International Relations (IR) lens, ask yourself what Putin should’ve done if you were in his situation. I can’t think of a good decision to make either, but his hands were tied.
Did you know that Yanukovych was the democratically elected President of Ukraine before the western backed Maidan coup happened?
No, they were not. But Russia refused to accept that it is not a superpower.
That’s not what the Minsk Accords were about.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Given what happened in the up to the coup', the rampant corruption within the Ukrainian government widely acknowledged interference on the part of the Russian foreign service, and prominant journalist's and opposition candidates getting "disappeared" etc... does anyone here actually believe that Yanukovych's election was anything more than a fig leaf
I wouldn't throw election safety stones in American houses.
Thats the joke.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is your evidence that he wasn’t democratically elected?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't believe for a second that this was an inevitable war forced on a reluctant Putin. He had choices at every point - the most important of course being the choice to invade Ukraine, which he could have simply not done. Now, he may have decided that war was the best path forward for his interests - and maybe that was even a rational decision based on the information he had at the time. He certainly wouldn't have been alone in thinking that Ukraine would not be able to put up much of a fight. But I highly suspect that if he had known the path that the future would take, he would have chosen differently.
His hands were not tied. He made a decision - and it was the wrong decision.
Yes. I'm also extremely confident he no longer has popular support in Ukraine.
nor was the kiev coup (the second one in 2 decades) against a legitimately elected president some sort of inevitable action
framing these sorts of things as if the US & satrapies' behavior is some sort of natural, inevitable event and the only agent here was Putin is disingenuous
no, I doubt he would have made a different decision at least on the general question of whether a direct physical confrontation with Ukraine was necessary or not
how would you know? political opposition is banned in Ukraine and mild criticisms of the war effort at the very least earn people a visit from the secret police and a humiliating beatdown which is filmed and posted to the internet
I have made no such claim or implication and it is disingenuous of you to say that I have. My view is that there are a lot of people with meaningful agency. Putin, Obama, Biden, Yanukovych, Zelensky, and many, many more people all have made many different decisions that have all combined to lead us where we are now.
I am not arguing that Putin is the only person in this situation with agency. I am arguing that he is a person with agency - and in particular, it was his decision to begin this war.
It's my assessment that Putin is currently extremely unpopular among Ukrainians, and that Yanukovych is perceived as being aligned with Putin. Do you think I'm wrong?
when anyone in this discussion talks about the behavior of not-russians, you turn the convo back to the russians and insist on discussing the agency of the russians and what they didn't "have to do,"
perhaps this pattern of framing was unintentionally, but what it does is remove context of actions of any party in the conflict
no, Putin isn't the only actor who caused the war anymore than a person who is badgered and bullied and eventually fights back is the person who "decided" to start a fight
Ukraine didn't have to bomb ethnic russians for 8 years killing 15,000 of them, Ukraine didn't have to ignore the minsk agreement or the minsk II accords
Ukraine was in a civil war with a large part of "Ukrainians," wanting to be inducted into the Russian Federation, so no Putin isn't currently "extremely unpopular" among "Ukrainians" and he wasn't "extremely unpopular" in 2014 when the western-caused violent coup happened which caused the civil war to begin with
this is another example of your framing, unintentional or not
I struggle to believe you can say this with a straight face.
I struggle to believe you don't think putin is popular in the breakaway regions which are full of ethnic russian "Ukrainians"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
People keep raising Ukrainian bombings of their own "ethnic russian" regions as something that's supposed to be analogous to "bullying Putin", when there is no evidence Putin cares any about "ethnic russians".
he talks about them repeatedly, he sent them help, he's given them dozens of billions in aid and cheap gas among other things, and he launched a war ahead of a planned Ukrainian offensive on their territory
that's evidence
you can claim the above actions have ulterior motives, but you cannot claim the above isn't evidence
I can very much claim the above isn't evidence of his motivation being "ethnic Russians" because he doesn't do all that for the ethnic Russians who don't live on the territories he wants to grab.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How do you choose to interpret the Minsk Accords? If the west is unwilling to respect your security concerns. The problem I see in your logic is that it fails to take the Russia side of the equation seriously. This is why I ask you the same question the pro-western side can’t answer either. Given the events leading up to the crisis, if you were Putin, what would you have done?
Interesting that you seem to suggest coups can be justified in light of this logic. It wouldn’t surprise me why the west would believe it. That’s the inherent nature of political hypocrisy and duplicity. But it’s also good to know that disputing democratic elections is now in vogue if the vote goes the wrong way. The US proved that when it disputed the results of the people in Donetsk and Luhansk.
If Russia would invade and conquer Spain they would complain about security concerns posed by Portugal.
Russia's problem is that they want to be treated as superpower. They are not. That is why West refused to treat their demands seriously (and they demanded for example demilitarization of Poland and similar nonstarters).
Try to unfuck Russia. Starting from stealing less.
Definitely avoid speedrunning population collapse in Ukraine and Russia by increasing scope of ongoing war.
Yes, for example I am 100% fine with couping genocidal leaders, also when they were elected as long as there is plausible less murderous alternative. (note: not claiming that this specific one was genocidal, just giving a clear example where it would be blatantly correct if alternatives were exhausted)
I am not treating democracy procedures as the highest virtue. Note that in this specific cases current ruler had no support from population. Whether Maidan was a coup or not is an interesting question BTW.
If the Warsaw Pact incorporated Mexico and Canada, the US would complain about being surrounded by an encroaching military alliance.
No. No, they really don’t.
What do you think the Minsk Accords were? This is about right up there with thinking if Putin just spent a little more money on domestic social programs, NATO wouldn’t try to expand into Ukraine.
And what’s your empirical evidence for this?
To which part it refers? That Russia wants to be treated as superpower? That they are not one? That they demanded removal of all NATO military from Poland (which includes Polish military)?
For what? For that I am 100% fine with couping genocidal leaders, if alternatives failed?
And? Not sure whether you prefer realpolitik or some naively idealistic answer but neither works out well for Russia.
Yes.
Yes.
Then you should have no problem with the way they’ve responded, given that the US is unlikely to behave any differently in comparable circumstances.
I think that for empirical evidence whether I am 100% fine with couping genocidal leaders, if alternatives failed - then comment here suffices:
I am fine with it
Which of two? First seems obvious, second is also obvious given that they are unable to win war against Ukraine supplied a bit by NATO countries and run into series of hilarious failures.
USA would likely respond differently, and in fact as far as Canada goes they already proactively responded differently by ensuring that Canada and USA cooperates and Canada benefits from powerful USA rather than being endangered. (not sure about Mexico)
not sure why you think that I would be fine with USA responding in such way, or even in a noticeably less evil and murderous one. I am not some cultist treating all USA actions as fine (and yes, I know about United Fruit Company and Abu Ghraib).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Ukraine isn't Spain and wanting your security concerns to be respected w/re to a country which is on your border and <300mi from your capital isn't demanding someone pretend you're a superpower, but pretend you're a country with any sovereignty whatsoever, something which is clearly a bridge too far for the US and its satrapies.
there is no serious argument that Russia, or any country, doesn't have legitimate security concerns in what happens in the country directly on its border and arguing a country claiming such is akin to demanding the world treat them as a superpower is nonsense
are you under the impression that Russia is not far more unfucked now under Putin than before he came to power?
Russia swallowing up over 10,000,000 ethnic russians seems to be a good strategy to stave off population collapse
What pro-russian or at least neutral, non-Western sources of information do you use to form your opinion about this topic?
That exact same argument would apply to Ukraine. Are they justified in treating every dead Russian as a slight reduction to “security concerns?” Maybe they should have invaded first.
Russia isn’t playing at being a superpower because they have security interests. Everyone has those. They’re playing it because they’re acting on them in a way that normal powers either can’t or won’t.
sure, now what? would Ukraine be playing at superpower? no
no, russia isn't playing at being a superpower because they're engaged in a conflict on their border <300mi from their capital in a region full of ethnic Russians
normal powers engaging in wars similar to the Russian/Ukraine war is not only one of "normal powers," but is seen all throughout history; it only seems reasonable to try to label this as something "normal powers" don't do because you've only known a world with an ascendant global hegemon, but this isn't the normal state of world conflict, and trying to label any country which doesn't immediately fall into line w/re a conflict on its border within a few hundred miles to its capital full of people who are co-ethnics with that country as one "pretending to be a superpower" is ridiculous
or is Azerbaijan pretending to be a Superpower because it invades Armenia and steals their land? also no
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It so happens that Poland also borders Ukraine and in its vital security interests is reducing Russian influence there. And yes, this directly conflicts with Russian interests. You cannot satisfy both. To say nothing about Ukrainian security concerns which are far more serious than Russian one, given that Ukraine invading Russia was absurdity and Russia continues invasions and threats of invasions.
Demanding that only Russian security concerns should be treated seriously is absurd. Maybe it should be treated more seriously from realpolitik perspective if they would actually be superpower.
And it so happens that basically everyone in that region except Russia has security concerns in direction almost exactly opposite from Russia. For obvious reasons.
But security concerns people somehow only mention Russian security concerns.
I was claiming that Russian demands are not satisfiable, after getting what they demanded they would be more powerful and escalate demands. So blocking and neutering them was a good step, if cooperation was not viable.
You seems to be confused about relation between USA and Poland. It does not mirror USSR and PRL.
I am claiming that trying to fix Russia would be far more worth it than vastly increasing scale of a war. And that Putin has not really focused on unfucking Russia and its systematic problems.
Large part of improvements were due to horribly bad start and high oil/gas prices.
No one, not even Russia, is demanding only Russian security concerns be addressed. Two countries can have security concerns in the same area and can have goals which are mutually exclusive and yet that doesn't mean either side's "concerns" or interests are illegitimate. Your comment was an attempt to frame Russia's repeated warnings and security concerns as not just counter to Poland or whatever else, but illegitimate and to be ignored.
Russia has a long history of abiding by its agreements and its demands are entirely reasonable. I cannot say the same for the US or its satrapies. This situation is not one of an expansive Russia, but one of an expansive US repeatedly encroaching on Russian regional interests over the last 30 years, including entering fake agreements (Minsk Accords) which it never even intended abiding by and instead using it to buy time to build a military. Claiming that Russian demands are "not satisfiable" given nearly 100 years of satisfactory agreements with Russia which have been tossed recently specifically because of US violation and encroachment is plainly ridiculous.
pretty much any communication, speech, or press release by Putin or the Russian government mentions other's security concerns; this is a flatly ridiculous claim to the point where it makes me think you are not engaging in good faith or don't have a clue what you're talking about
What pro-russian or at least neutral, non-Western sources of information do you use to form your opinion about this topic?
even a passing understanding of the situation in Russia before Putin and after Putin, even during wartime, proves this to be a ridiculous belief and claim
Since when? With whom? Definitely not for 100 years in Russia-Ukraine relations or Russia-Poland relations.
You seems to continue being confused. Poland is not satrapy of USA, has distinct priorities, relations, situation, pathologies, peculiarities and context.
To repeat: Poland is not satrapy of USA. Even Belarus is not really a satrapy of Russia.
This continued assertion makes me think you are not engaging in good faith or don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Not at all, its attempts to recolonize Poland (see say https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-unveils-security-guarantees-says-western-response-not-encouraging-2021-12-17/ - not a great source but as starter example may be fitting) are not reasonable at all and they can fuck off. There is a reason why Poland send hundreds of tanks into Ukraine within first months of war. And I really like irony of tanks made on order of USSR blocking now Russian imperial ambitions and killing Russian soldiers.
I was referring to commentary on internet that keep to referring how we should care about Russian security concerns - and very often not mentioning security concerns of others. I admit that official Russian communication tends to be more subtle.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
As Putin, I would understand that the west has no interest in respecting any particular commitment towards me and has a long term interest in weakening me and my regime. I would see it as a priority to maintain and build as much strength as possible to deter and combat attacks both overt and covert.
I don't know for sure what I would have done in Putin's shoes because I don't know what information he had in front of him. But as a matter of personality I tend to see war as a last resort and to be relatively risk-averse, so it's quite likely I would not have invaded. I would weight the downside risk of an outcome like the one that has occurred - or others that would be very different but also negative - more heavily than he did.
Not at all what I said - we could argue about whether or not Euromaidan was justified but that's not the point I was making. I was saying that Putin installing him as leader of Ukraine now would go against the will of Ukrainians now. Whether or not they wanted him to be PM back in 2014 has nothing to do with that.
The first half of this seems very much at odds with how I read your last post. The last part about Euromaidan I don’t see what relevance there is in the way you’re responding to it.
Take this as an indication you are reading me wrong then. I am being entirely consistent.
Here, let me explain. I began by saying that my belief was that Putin had intended to install Yanukovych as a friendly leader.
You responded by asking if I knew that Yanukovych was the "democratically elected" leader before the "western backed coup" - with those quoted phrases clearly being chosen to imply that Yanukovych was removed from power against the will of the Ukrainian people and that if Putin were to re-install Yanukovych he would simply be rectifying a wrong.
I countered by asserting that regardless of whether or not Yanukovych had popular support in the past he clearly doesn't now.
That's the relevance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link