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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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An interesting barometer here is Brexit and the Scottish independence question. Obviously Brexit went through, and from what I can tell there's zero English interest in even something relatively mild (like sanctions) if Scotland actually votes to secede. I don't think that this rules out punitive actions or even military action against seceding states, but after a clear referenda I think it is politically trickier.

On the other hand, there's the Catalonian independence referendum that got declared illegal by Spain and people arrested for voting, while the rest of the EU gave zero fucks.

There's the ethnic cleansing of Artasakh, 200k people ran away. Russian peacekeepers lost iirc 10+ soldiers. Allegedly a few massacres too.

No one gives a fuck, somehow. Azeris are 'reliable allies'.

People only give a fuck if there's a lobby group.

Armenians have been staunch Russian allies for decades and are close to Iran, they were screwed over by their allies. On /r/europe the attitude is typically ‘it sucks, but that’s what you get for trusting Russia’.

They snubbed Russia in 2010s and tried to cozy up to the West. Also Russia is very much occupied at the moment, which is likely what let Azeris get away with the ethnic cleansing.

I have strong doubts Russians would have just eaten getting their troops killed like this if they weren't engaged in Ukraine.