Tell HN: If You Are in Russia
Regardless, you won't be able to pay for any of these services at the next billing period so they will be terminated one way or another.
Back up your stuff, move your service while you can or you risk losing everything, this is not a drill.
Understand that the level at which this is currently playing out means that it could very well happen that governments will sanction businesses in the West that continue to work with and do business with Russian entities, businesses or individuals.
Some may decide to do this unilaterally for reasons all their own, some may give you warnings, some won't. Contrary to how these things normally play out the speed with which sanctions are being enacted and their severity should not be underestimated. Effectively threatening the world with nuclear annihilation has put the pressure on in a way that I have never seen before, leading to a degree of unity that is unique and which will speed up the process of ordering and implementing these sanctions to unprecedented levels.
Use the time while you have it.
If you are a private individual from a Western country get out while you can, even if that means a detour via Dubai or China. This could very well get ugly and you don't want to get caught in a country where lots of people are being made to believe that you and/or your country of origin are the cause for their hardship. Waiting it out is a risk you probably can not afford. Some Western governments have already ordered their citizens out of Russia.
I hope sincerely that all of this will be behind us soon and in a way that minimizes bloodshed on both sides, but I especially wish that for the defenders, who had no agency at all.
1,128 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 518 ms ] threadWorth mentioning that even though Binance was founded by a Chinese guy and is banned in the US, they're saying they'll cooperate with sanctions. So if your savings are in Binance, maybe move them to a wallet where you hold the keys, not some server overseas.
Something you should be doing anyways by default, war or no war.
Self-custody is one of the pillar of what makes crypto interesting.
Exchanges, as the name implies is a place where you move your crypto temporarily to perform an exchange. Once that is done, you get your funds out.
If you leave your crypto (or fiat for that matter) on an exchange, what happens next (confiscation, hack, exchange owner runs with the money, etc ...) is the result of you ignoring this basic tenet:
Not your keys, not your coins.
The Russian banks seem to have stockpiled currency, so I assume they will be able to keep the loop going.
Also I just noticed elsewhere on HN that Namecheap has officially sanctioned Russia themselves.
They’ve been banned from the US/UK central banks and can’t settle transactions in those currencies at all. Maybe more by now.
Four of its journalists are being trialed right now because of January 2021 protests. They are accused for sharing a motivational video addressed to students not to stay silent.
Yesterday russian censorship started to block DOXA site, because they published anti-war debate manual. They switched their domain then got sanctioned by Namecheap.
It is very hard to host something inside country if you are targeted by censoring.
Getting an index of torrents around is the trick.
Most if not all above is not valid right now about Putin and his clique.
(feel free to replace Jewish with another minority, it's probably also true)
If my understanding is correct, I agree with GP. My understanding of Russian history suggests that Russian politics 101, throughout the regimes, has been to pick (and murder) scapegoats during crises. If you feel that you're a potential target, now is a very good time to make sure that you have a way to survive this.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen...
I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision, not to justify it or engage in whataboutism.
The wars started by the US typically have the goal of establishing a democratic government. Japan is an example of a successful outcome. Iraq has a functioning democracy now. This policy is often criticized as "nation building." The long term goal is not for the US government to control these countries.
In the case of Japan, the US rebuilt an enemy after they attacked the US without a declaration of war and made them an ally and trading partner.
I'd argue that even China and Russia, while not allies - are also not enemies.
I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country. We have done some really bad stuff. We’ve done a whole lot of shady stuff that is complicated to pass simple judgement on. But the US has done good stuff as well. They loan money, send aid, rebuild, provide. Some times the motives are duplicitous in these acts of good. But the bottom line is, when I travel abroad I feel like I can confidently say “we’re like a two year old, sometimes we do sweet/good things, and other times we’re naughty.”
When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.
And so I’m honestly curious, is Russia as a foreign actor just that much more self interested? Or do we not hear about it in the West, because it doesn’t pay to report on it.
The red army took Berlin and ended the Nazis. It was an Allied victory but it came about because Russia put their full might into stopping Hitler.
This is not insignificant if you don't like what the third reich was up to.
It came at a tremendous cost to mother Russia, 20M of her sons died in the process.
I encourage you to visit the war memorial in Treptower Park. It is built out of the red marble stripped from Hitler's Reichschancellery, and it is a hauntingly powerful place.
Not to mention that a significant part of the Soviet Union's losses in WW2 came about from a similar disregard for the lives of its own soldiers.
This is not to discount the sacrifice made by those who fought and died, though.
(And Treptower Park is, as you say, hauntingly powerful. I've been there on three occasions when visiting Berlin.)
Spending your citizens lives cheaply is not a noble thing.
The US had nukes and its manufacturing and soldier population was massive. Coupled with the Western allies Germany was going to lose once America entered the war (see Churchill’s memoirs). USSR did accelerate it though.
Is there any country in history with comparable economic and military power to the US that has a "cleaner" record in terms of "bad stuff"? I'm specifying comparable power to specifically exclude tiny nations that never had the capacity to do "bad stuff."
Strongly recommend Dan Carlins podcast on the rise and fall of imperial japan to learn more.
We need a place where Snowdens of the world could go.
There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ
It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on.
The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa.
The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them.
Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stability in Syria? Supporting a bloody dictator. Protecting Snowden? Ugh, just cheap propaganda. Developed Covid Vaccine? Totally rushed and fake numbers.
If you believe "the West" to be the good guys then everything that Russia does will appear bad.
Russian Fed is an organized crime family with a hundred million hostages controlled by mob bosses Putin is a dictator.
US would 100% attack and invade any country in their “sphere of influence” if they felt threatened, it’s just that their soft power is better and nobody even dares to try.
The idea that Cuba was minding its own business is laughable.
Nobody wants a psychopath neighbor on a moscow leash with nukes 90mi from their border…
I guess Russia doesn't want a neighbor on a US leash with military bases on their border either...
The funniest thing was his hearse braking down and having to be pushed by his soldiers. Really summed the mans contributions…
Try to tell me with a straight face that the previous Afghan government was democratic and represented the will of the Afghan people. You cannot.
Iraq's democracy is about as successful as Russia's, that is, not at all.
The US installed a dictatorship in South Korea, and overthrew or contributed in the overthrow of many more.
South Korea's an interesting example. It was a dictatorship, now it's a thriving democracy. Ditto for Japan, Taiwan, West Germany. Sometimes things turn out alright.
"Justified"? Probably not, but we'd have to determine what alternative actions America/allies should have taken instead and compare.
I mean, "avoid all US-caused civilian deaths by letting AQ continue to operate from Afghanistan with impunity after 9/11" would not obviously have been the right thing to do.
Few of those can be said about Iraq which is far away enough to seem some sort of abstract topic.
So, having war at home (vs. in a newspaper) is completely novel for us and therefore unacceptable.
I live in Sweden but I'm not allowed to vote in national elections while I look just as Scandinavian as your average Sven. There are hundreds of thousands of people living in Sweden who do not look like Sven at all but are allowed to vote. Is Sweden being racist against me? No, they're just discriminating in who is allowed to vote, only those with Swedish nationality have that right. I´m not a Swede, hence I do not get to vote. This is a form of discrimination, but discrimination does not equate "bad" - I would not advice any country to allow foreign nationals to vote in their national elections.
I think that in this case, multiple nato members think this makes Russia direct threat to them. You know, Poland is possibly next, because Russia always wants Poland. Eastern Germany used to be under Russian control too, what it means to Germans? Estonia probably sees themselves as target too. All satelite previously occupied by Russia republics. Russia is expanding again toward Europe and if Ukraine is easy, other European/NATO countries expect same treatment. If NATO countries further West did nothing, it would be sign that these countries will abandon others again .
Basically, Ukrainians fight for Polish, Slovak and what not freedom too.
Putin arguments about Russian history points toward expansion. Putin arguments about being entitled to Ukraine due to them being forced into USSR or Ukraine not being real nation points toward expansion.
Russian recent history is not a history of peaceful trustworthy nation either.
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Edited to add: the material help is not coming there from pure empathy alone. Germany did not provided actual guns able to kill because of them feeling bad for refugees. This was major change against previous policies and cant be explained by "we feel bad for their president after seeing his cool videos". It can be explained only by "we think we have stake in outcome and it matters to us".
Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine. So like I've said, it's fear mongering by our politicians to keep people living in fear, it's getting to comical levels now, I get offers for psychological counseling at work due to the Ykrainey situation.
Russia is a nation, why are you taking offense on that statement? It is not an insult.
> Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine
I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.
>I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.
Source?
first full English transcript I could find: (the English language Kremlin site where it was hosted is nonresponsive, and most major media is just carrying excerpts.)
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censor...
> So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land.
Read the whole thing. If you're going to defend Russian policy online you should have a clear idea what you're defending.
And the pre-written victory announcement state media recently published and then pulled back announcing the reformation of a single union of all the Russias (Belarus, “Greater” Russia [i.e., just plain Russia], and “Little” Russia [Ukraine]).
There is nothing to contradict the view, that Putin doesn't want to restore the old Tsar or Soviet borders.
"NATO currently holds security dominance in Estonia, but according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former top economic adviser, Andrey Illarionov, “Putin has his eyes on eventually reclaiming Estonia”.
John Aravosis, “Putin wants Finland, Baltic States, says former top adviser,” http://americablog.com/2014/03/putin-wants-finland-baltic-st...
There's also no barely veiled threats by the US that we would nuke Iraq or Afghanistan etc. nor drop the ISS on them.
And it’s not like Putin cares about the people in the Donbas soo mich that he just had no other choice besides invading the rest Ukraine to protect them. I’m sure that Russia could have pressured Ukraine into allowing some UN supervised referendum in the region if they cared even the tiniest bit about that.
US bombing Serbia was long overdue, and should have happened sooner so the genocidal war started by Serbia would end sooner. The war robbed me of my future, yours probably too, and you're still apologizing the atrocities.
And it was Yugoslavian army that did those things.
The fact that you can't see the irony in supporting bombing of independent countries and at the same time not supporting it for those same stated reasons is unbelievable.
No, Serbia's leaders didn't like Croatia's and Slovenia's independence (or any ex-You country to be more exact), and did what Russia is doing now to Ukraine. So you're crying "not fair!" when US bombed Serbia to stop its expansionist appetite, but it was all right when Serbia's army invaded and wanted to annex Croatia as a part of "Greater Serbia". Cry me a river.
Propaganda/media is one of the most useful ways to steer a population, it even doesn't have to be particularly good propaganda if its voluminous and exclusive.
There is no more Belarus as a country. It is Russian puppet state with an appointed governor Lukashenko. Occupied by the Russian army at the moment. Those who were against are either in prisons or fled the country. The country is North Korea basically at the moment. Most of the people (~60%) hate Lukashenko and Putin.
And 60% is not that much to be honest.
Propaganda works and CAN justify aggression in eyes of the people.
It was very obvoius. They released a video of helicopter hits, high res artsy photos of destroyed armor, some dude flying a drone over a disabled UA tank zooming out to the Russian tank column and the Snake Island POWs calling home.
-- https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...
Because some rando on GitHub is such an authoritative one!
Sheesh...
The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist. The entire parasitic elite class just got cut off from everything they stole during all these years. The entire human potential of Russia just got nullified for at lest 20 years. The push towards green energy (and I hope nuclear fusion) just got accelerated. NATO and EU memberships just became essential for any European country. The prospects of nuclear disarmamant are nullified.
The war isn't exactly a blitzkrieg now, but it still has a good chance to succeed -- but that's not what matters. It's the consequences that matter. They will affect the course of human history.
I think the west (Europe and USA) will be perfectly fine. It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.
I sure hope, you know who to thank for that.
I’m not too sure about this. The main problem is there isn’t a new form to replace it with, or a new government to replace Putin with that would act any different - for instance, not constantly assassinating people in Europe with chemical weapons.
It does seem like a good time to leave, although an even better time would’ve been before the currency collapsed.
This. I'm tired of the personalisation of the behaviour of the Russian government. Putin didn't launch this war all on his own; he's the head of government, he isn't Napoleon Bonaparte.
I'm uncomfortable about the sanctions regime that is being imposed. If the Russian economy is destroyed the result will be chaos, even if the war ends tomorrow, and Putin is deposed. I don't relish the prospect of political chaos in a country with more nuclear warheads than any other.
But pronouncing psychiatric diagnoses on him isn't very enlightening. If he's a megalomaniac, then half the world's governments are headed by people who are similarly mentally ill. Discounting aggressive foreign leaders as "mad" is bound to lead to incorrect conclusions and bad decisions.
He seems to be motivated by some pseudo-mystical beliefs about Russian national history and destiny. I imagine that by now, there are few at senior levels in the Russian administration that don't share his views. Oligarchs are a different kettle of fish; they're not nationalists, they're egotists. But from what I've read, oligarchs have nowadays been largely supplanted in government by old buddies of Putin from the intelligence services.
I suspect his generals will be the first to crack. They will be worrying about mutinies in their largely-conscript army. Their soldiers didn't sign up for a civil war against their "brothers" (which is what this war is, according to Putin). And generals tend to be practical, rational people.
So maybe I'm wrong; maybe he does have a Napoleon complex.
Most of the world knows that most Russian civilians are also just victims of Putin and a corrupt system. I really hope there's a solution here, where after this is all over, Putin and his buddies can be executed for war crimes and the West can help both the Ukrainians and the Russians rebuild. Ironically the solution in Russia might actually come from Ukraine: it seems like they were able to really deeply root out corruption in their country, with help, in the early 2010s. Maybe after Putin is gone, we can somehow use the same strategy in Russia? I know the scale is completely different, but I'm a hopeless optimist.
Unfortunately, given the current state of world politics, I am afraid we will instead get a new version of Treaty of Versailles. In which case you will be right.
It's one of the rare case (nuclear war threats), where it may be the safest solution. Especially now that a few public figures in Russia have officially standed against that war. There may be an opportunity to reach a critical mass at home.
If they go out protesting, they will be fired from their jobs -- their only source of income. Not exactly a good decision, especially during the crisis times.
The sanction squeeze shifts the calculus.
They won't starve to death in March, but it won't be long before buffers are empty. There is a window to do something about it.
Putin is unlikely to win this war, Ukraine have been given near unlimited anti-tank weapons by the EU/US, and have air superiority now with extra MiG's donated by NATO and TB2 drones from Turkey. Locals are set and prepared for guerrilla warfare. All the usual allies have distanced themselves from Russia. The writing is on the wall.
Is it likely that another oligarch will take his place? Is there any indication that top military might force his replacement? Is any of the economic suffering imposed now likely to force everyone to come out to the streets?
Edited: 'gorilla warfare'
Sorry for being that guy but even though gorilla warfare would be genuinely horrifying, the term is actually guerrilla warfare. Which funnily enough can be translated as "warfare warfare".
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44501/reports-that-ukr...
My company has two ongoing long-term projects (both took about 10 years), which now increasingly look like wasted time and money. If I'm cut off from my income source, I won't be able to retain key people, and will have to halt the development on both projects.
Endgame for Putin: Live safely in a bunker, for 10-15 more years, then die from natural causes, happy that he made (literally, _made_) history.Endgame for Russia: after the death of Putin, in about 20 years from now we go the old tried-and-true route: crash, Perestroika, re-integration with the west -- but this time, we will be disarmed and de-fanged. Then we remain in that subdued state until the next drastic world-changing event (such as the advent of strong AI), and after that all bets are off.
I am not sure you are aware of this in Russian media, but most of the media shown in the west about Russian military, is of young conscripts who clear have no desire to be in the war, and claim they had no debriefing they would be deployed in Ukraine. The narrative (true or not) in western media is that Putin is using non-ethnic russians and young concripts as cannon fodder in the frontlines to wear off the ukrainian forces.
My point is that the general sentiment in the west is that the economic choke is necessary to avoid escalating NATO involvement (And nuclear threats). But in the west the sentiment is (for the majority) not antagonist to the Russian population itself .
Blame Putin.
I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible and we all can resume our lives in peace. Including you Russians.
I don't see how that can happen with Putin, but fortunately he is far from being the only person who can lead Russia.
It's so easy to think to yourself that you cannot make the world a better place and then to give up and only care about yourself.
Well, sometimes it fires back.
You should start thinking about future Russia. Maybe it's not too late to turn this catastrophe to a victory of the Russian People. Maybe you are not alone.
Ukraine is a desperate attempt to defend the state against much more powerful enemy. Ukraine is used as a pawn by the West. It is sad.
If NATO was willing to risk attacking Russia, they would already be fighting in Ukraine, which is a much lesser risk. They'll arm Ukraine but they won't fight there.
It saddens me that Russia won't be able to contribute human capital towards any of these goals for at least 20 years.
The Kuwait war was after an invasion by Iraq and at the invitation of the government there, and the US were restrained enough to halt at the Iraq border.
The Syrian war was not started by the US, and it has played a minor part there. In fact, it is Russia that has indiscriminately bombed Syrian cities and targeted civilians and hospitals there.
Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and the refusal of the Taliban to end their protection of a terrorist organisation that had repeatedly attacked American targets internationally before their deliberate targeted murder of thousands of American civilians. This does not seem comparable to Ukraine.
The Iraq war stands out for me as the unjustified and imperialist war of modern times. It seems to me that the atmosphere post 9/11 was used as a pretence. But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators. In Ukraine we are seeing widespread civilian resistance to the invasion. But Blair and Bush should answer for their war crimes.
By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention.
Bombing of Serbia was a bombing of European cities, specifically bombing of civilian population centers far from the front to terrorize the population. Also without UN approval.
They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand.
Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.
Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?
In a way, they were implementing a century old policy of a guy named Vaso Cubrilovic who argued that Albanians should be expelled[2] from the lands Serbia (precursor of Yugoslavia) took in 1913.
What NATO did, is stopping exactly this from happening.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crime...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albania...
And as for that supposed policy of Albanian expulsion, by how much did the percentage of Albanians diminish during the Serbian rule of Kosovo? And by how much did the number of Serbs diminish during the Albanian rule of Kosovo?
https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-mome...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-l...
Multiple ethnic "serbs" were convicted of genociding muslims.
Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia are a different thing, same as ethnic Bosniak in Serbia are a different thing. Also I found it telling that used Serbs in quotation marks.
Justifying bombing of Serbia because of Bosnia would be like justifying bombing of Belgium because of the Netherlands. Yeah, sure they are kinda allies but that's it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War
NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders.
Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.)
Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.
Nobody said it was out of the blue, but it was illegal, wrong and plain terrorist like.
>The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any issues. How did this happen? Lucikly, the mad man died in 2000.
And the best proof of NATO lunacy is that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 because they feared Serbia which at that point wasn't in Kosovo for almost 10 years, during which Kosovar population carried out pogroms of Serbs while the UN forces just watched.
Also Milošević died in 2006, never convicted of any war crimes. Later rulings on other people incriminated him but the same can be said for Tuđman. So, I guess if you die early you are not a war criminal.
>Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities.
It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote. As a minority from Serbia, there's lot of problems in that country but minority representation is not one of them. If I wanted I could go through life without ever using Serbian language, I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.
>While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine.
Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.
Yeah, I guess he stopped existing in 2000 and had nothing to do with the peaceful referendum.
> Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.
How can you believe this? Which part of Ukraine declared independence? What country was supposed to be created out of this independence? Which leaders decided they wanted to create a new independent territory?
> I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.
Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.
> It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote.
In Croatia and Kosovo, there is no low percentage threshold. You are automatically in. There's no reason to believe the threshold is achievable, given that people in general do not vote.
Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?
>Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.
I am not talking about EU citizens moving to another country, I am talking about minorities living in Serbia.
I am a part of minority that lived in the now Serbian territory for over 250 years and there's no legal requirement for us to learn Serbian. You can live your perfectly happy life without it. We have our schools, our communities so learning the Serbian language is not a requisite although most people learn it because it offers some benefits.
I found it odd that you thought I was talking about foreigners.
You mentioned that this cannot be said for a lot of EU countries. Turks born in EU do not have to learn German. Immigration within EU is free from language requirement too.
I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive? Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them. Similar things exist for Czech and Hungarian. No one is forcing these minorities to go to schools to learn Croatian.
> Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?
And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?
So Turks in Germany can have schools in Turkish for their children? Do you have a source for this?
>I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive?
Because language rights are central for the survival of minority communities.
>Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them.
Yeah, when they are not being stoned in Kosovo or have their Cyrillic signs smashed in Croatia.
Sure: https://www.schulentwicklung.nrw.de/materialdatenbank/materi...
That's the official lesson plan for non-German lessons in NRW; other German states have similar plans (teaching is devolved to the states in Germany). Notice that this is the plan used in the state-sponsored lessons; private schools are free to use their own plans.
1. The right to mother tongue: wherever in the world, the child must learn the mother tongue(s) of their parents to support the cognitive and psychological development.
2. The right to participate in the society as an equal: the child must learn the official language(s) of the society well enough to be able to understand and participate in the democracy, business, art etc.
On top of that, the bulk of the school curriculum can be in a yet another language, no problem, as long as these rights are ensured as well.
>And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?
They were not immediately annexed, no. Russia didn't even recognize them for a couple of years.
Crimea for some reason was annexed, despite leadership in Crimea wanting the same status given to two countries mentioned above.
Similarly, Ukranian army is not targeting Russian civilians in these regions and is not banishing them to Russia. There is no displacement of millions of Russians in Ukraine.
If you are trying to say "NATO bombing of Serbia is justified", therefore "Russia war against Ukraine should be too", therefore hypocrites, it does not really work.
With the 5 veto powers, this basically means nothing.
It has nothing to do with imperialism as i don't see any annexations made by the US, nor puppet governments.
Ukraine, on the other hand, had territories chipped away from it, separatists backed up Russia for years and years, and now a surprise attack without forward notice. It's completely incomparable to Iraq.
Anyway back to the topic - we europeans look at this war as existential threat to our democracy, its not about just Ukraine anymore. That's why thousands javelins and stingers were provided by US, UK and other states which allowed them to defend till now. After Ukraine, it would be increasing russian circle towards west - baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. Thats 100 million of people who know very well how horrible the life is under russian oppression and terror.
Its also in US interests that this pans out with russians losing and stopping their imperialism - Europe is by far the biggest US ally (count 500 million relatively rich people), losing it would mean US power becomes progressively marginal in this world. Nobody free wants that, there are plenty of bullies out there, small and big.
It should also be said that, who is a bully depends on whose interests one happens to align with. Maybe transatlantic interests are always magically aligned forever but somehow I doubt it. One should wonder why or how that comes about, and at whose expense.
Who gives a f*k what some murderous dictator wants or not. That's undefendable position these days. He had done enough evil in this world in past 20 years and cost lives of millions civilians including many children that he can shake hands with Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Anything Russian is a big no-go. I guess they really have to build their tanks from wood now, since they failed with Armata tanks so badly (but for Russia predictably).
Do you also point out some traumatic events from Hitler's childhood as some form of excuse for his actions? He was also just trying to expand his country to what he seemed as more ideal setup and give it better future. This abhorable little man stands against everything western democracies value very dearly.
He managed to do 1 thing almost perfectly though - unify whole Europe and in fact most of the world in a way that leaders were failing for decades. Its just that its against him and his crooks and murderers. Hopefully the momentum will remain for long. As they say, the society is defined by common enemy, and well he is the best there could be right now. He would be comical if his actions were not killing hundreds of people every single day right now.
Well, of course, because then America would have had to give Iraqis the same rights as other Americans, or build a discriminatory system where "real" Americans enjoy more rights than them.
Not that colonizing Iraq would have been justified, but since the war wasn't justifiable anyway - the decision to not colonize Iraq was not out of goodwill, but because it was cheaper that way.
I'd also remind you that we have insufficient evidence to suggest that the aim was naive altruism. It could have been naively ideological: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
Not plausible? I think you've been watching too many Marvel movies where good vs evil is "obvious"
As for the WMDs, I referred to Saddam's history, not to America's discredited invasion pretext.
Did you forget the /s? Honestly can't tell if this is satire or not...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...
But there was a coalition of naive countries going along with the US.
And it wasn't a surprise attack without serious diplomatic attempts. And even then, the US did actually worry about the legality of the invasion.
It was a mistake, but it's not the same.
Invading Iraq was on the agenda way before 9/11. The people that decided it are anything but naive.
>There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.
Why not? The second largest oil producer in the world is invaded because of altruism out of their great heart. Geopolitics have nothing to do with that.
I believe is someone is naive here is you. At least you should respect as a valid and plausible theory(not calling it conspiracy in order to denigrate it) that the biggest army in the world are interested in controlling the energy producing countries just like any other empires before. And remember that was USA the ones that ousted the British Empire from Persia and the ones that toppled the democracy there.
If America's plan was to take Iraq's oil, what went wrong with the plan, given Iraqis still control their oil?
I'm not pro-Putin or pro-Russia, but I'm looking at things objectively. If I had a browser history I could pull them from there but now the search engines are inundated with propaganda and I cannot find them. It is too late to get objective facts right now, unfortunately.
It is scary how facts become "facts" and now for you it is heresay from some random HN poster (me). Disinformation campaigns are effective.
Again, I'm not pro-Russia but just look at this thread to see that the pro-Ukraine crowd silence anything not 100% in their favour. We see the same thing in anti-Israel discourse online as well, where both sides vehemently do their best to silence any voice not on "their side", no matter how factual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
that would be Al-Qaeda which emerged in 1988 out of the afghan mujaheedin who were financed until 1990 with more than 600 Million tax dollars by the CIA to kick out the Russians. Better luck this time? the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn.
1988 is also the year of the Halabja massacre pinned on Iran first by the US but it turned out that Saddam Hussein (at that time an Ally of the United States) carried out this largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history,[2] killing between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injuring 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.
If the US attack Belarus with an unjustified casus belli like in the Iraq war, it would still be a huge deal just like the current war in Ukraine - despite everybody knowing Lukashenko is also a dictator.
The elephant in the room & the key difference between Iraq and Ukraine: There are substantially more people in the West who consider Ukrainian people are "one of us civilized people" compared to the Iraqi people.
You really should educated yourself about Yemen. It is the worst war-caused humanitarian crisis going on in the world today. Worse than what is happening to the people of Ukraine, by far.
When it comes to the middle east and further away places (geographically and culturally) the political willpower is often more oriented toward alliance contracts with other nations and idealogical reasoning... not perceived existential threat.
[edit] changed wording (socially -> culturally)
All people in eastern Europe fear him and russians. We will do anything to stop the grazy wannabe-Hitler and russians.
- Ukraine is a democracy (not without its problems but getting better) and part of the west
- Casus belli were 95% lies (ok, this one is similar to some US wars)
- The attacker uses "culture wars" as casus belli (Putin refers to "degenerates" et al)
- The part of the attacker's casus belli that mentions Russian Empire also touches on several other east and north european countries -- perhaps this wasn't intended and the whole thing was just crazy rambling or perhaps there's something there
- The attacker is a crazed dictator who has been in power for 22 years and who might be lashing out due to his own deteriorating health
- The goal is to annex the whole country (there was extensive lying that it wouldn't be, but the actual goal has been revealed several times by video representations and accidentally published documents)
- The leader of the attacking nation has lost all credibility in the world's eyes
Not lying means that diplomacy has a chance.
Nor does the US act unilaterally. It's always a coalition.
Fair warning though, some of these things look rather shady so use some common sense and be careful with your local legislation (See MrDisposables response)
edit: To elaborate on the last part see what happened in Kazakhstan recently. Their outage lasted luckily only shortly but you might not have to think about only western sanction but also Russias distaste for VPNs as well as the possibility for having your internet cut. Sure Kazakhstan is a lot smaller in terms of internet infrastructure, but there didnt seem to have been a way around their shutdown. You are then only left with satellite as well as maybe coverage from the neighboring countries. Both getting really expensive with a devaluing currency and at high threat of sanctions.
For the banking, is that transactions out of the country or any transaction, so also from money you get from out of Russia? I was more looking through the sanction perspective
Do you know if that also applies for legal entities or only natural persons? That would mean a Russian holding company for the shares? Its a structure common even inside the EU as well for tax reasons.
How does this work with Gazprom owning Nord Stream 2 AG (incorporated in Switzerland)? Exempting legal entities would make the law extremely easy to circumvent, so I'm guessing that's not it.
JetBrains, s.r.o., producers of IntelliJ (and a bunch of other IDEs such as Android Studio, PhpStorm and CLion) are incorporated in the Czech Republic, but in practice, all the development is done in Russia.
I still hope this can be settled. If Ukraine gives up the areas that were basically constant civil war anyway... Continued escalation is to nobody's benefit. I don't think the Russian population wants this war either.
PS for what it's worth I also was really opposed to my own country helping the US to invade the middle East (eg Iraq, Afghanistan). But two wrongs don't make a right.
But basically the status quo is that these areas would be no good for Ukraine anymore because they're shot to crap and full or armed rebels (or green men). It's not like it's actually useful territory for building housing or running commercial activities etc. It's also pretty clear Russia would keep playing that game even if they retreat.
I would assume they'd gladly give up this territory (and Crimea) at this point for the war to stop. And then go full NATO or at least EU for future protection. I don't think Russia will ever give up the war without some kind of compromise because they would lose face.
Either way, I hope a consensus will be reached soon because this BS war is killing real people.
Energy independence is a great thing to have but not relevant if you have no country left :( I doubt Russia will give up without any kind of compromise. And the rest of the world can't make this into WW3 by intervening.
It would be great if you could kick Putin out altogether but he does have a lot more spare rersources. I just have a feeling that soon there will be nothing left to fight for :( Hope I'm wrong.
But if you have two separate entities with clear split responsibilities things should work just fine. For example the EU-based company takes care of running the the product and contracts development services from a Russian company.
It's amazing how much people will close an eye if they like the product!
JetBrains should be boycotted too.
Break this law if you can. Weigh the probability of being prosecuted in the mass of others breaking these laws versus the probability of facing real hardship from the economic sanctions. Doubly true if you have a family you're taking care of.
Mind you, thanks to the rise of remote working - and virtual office spaces, I guess, begrudgingly, although I'm confident those are aimed at extroverts that need to see people and wave their arms and stuff - living in a city is no longer a requirement for working at companies you want to.
JetBrains does have offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg but they're technically a Czech company with their head office in Prague, Czech Republic.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30459985
It says:
"The most important thing you can do for Ukraine now is to READ and SHARE verified information about Russia’s attack on Ukraine."
I think they started the war by attacking Ukraine. We shouldn't try to read too much into it.
The company is Czech but the founders and most of the top folks are russian, fwiw.
Bringing up some other terrible thing for comparison does not change in any way whatsoever the severity of what is happening in Ukraine. Whataboutism propaganda is designed to muddy the waters around that indisputable fact.
When evidence fly in the face of a narrative, whataboutism isn't a defense. Whataboutism would be if they said it's fine for Putin to commit atrocities in Ukraine because the US commits atrocities in various countries. That's not what was pointed out. It was pointed out that the narrative doesn't follow past precedent.
Interestingly, the political party in the US which most favors Putin - the GOP - is also the most comfortable with the US committing atrocities on foreign soil (and at home TBH). Not a coincidence if you ask me. Looks like there can be messed up people in more than one country!
You claim “this isn’t about the human suffering caused by Russia”. You sure about that? I think most people feel like a primary issue with invading another country is the amount of human suffering it causes.
Oh people most definitely do, an I am sure you and I both do. But clearly the countries imposing sanctions, almost every single one of which engaged in a bloody war of agression in the recent past, don't. Actions speak louder than words. >
But sure, US citizens might not have had much say in whether the US invaded Iraq. That doesn’t mean that sanctions wouldn’t have created political pressure which could in turn have made an invasion less appealing to the neocons in power at that time. So while I’m sorry to see average Russians (or at least those opposed to the war) suffer as a result of these sanctions, I can also acknowledge that sanctions may actually put pressure on Putin to de-escalate this conflict, and also warn him of the consequences of future aggression. It’s possible Putin will ignore these sanctions, but doing so risks improving the position of his opponents within Russia.
And the point is that you got this information from the ruling class who were for those wars. Or their allies abroad.
And as for Ukrainan democracy, from the Freedom house report in 2019 it sits between Burkina Faso and the Philippines.
The Russian aggression case is much clear cut, but it may not look like it is clear cut if you live inside a different information bubble (especially if you want to believe that your country did nothing wrong, or that it's just "an internal matter", or that "we don't want foreign missiles at our doorstep; the USA wouldn't want Russian missiles at cube why should we accept <insert threat>".
What we're learning in this day and age is that information poisoning cannot be cured by just throwing more information.
I mean, should we not be imposing economic sanctions on Iran and NK? Sure, they hurt ordinary citizens, but they’re still a strong bargaining chip.
I’d argue that a large number of ordinary citizens would be brainwashed with or without sanctions because of the degree to which dictators like Putin have subverted the media.
That's just a somewhat deniable -- i.e. more chickenshit -- way of saying the exact same thing.
Ergo: Yes, it's whataboutism.
Not all Russian companies wanted the war, not all companies are complacent, and they only financed it by contributing to the GDP of the country.
Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now.
As someone who was from a country where sanctions were supposed to destabilize our leader, it doesn't work, never did, never will. In the tough times people rally behind their leaders, just look at Zelensky or Boris Johnson right now.
Look at what happened to Ceaușescu... Putin risks to end up like him.
Tell me, if Google banned you from all their services because you only lived somewhere and you were a "soft liberal", would you support Google in their decision or would you dig in and go the other way? Or in more simpler terms, take football fans, are they hungry at their ultras when they get fined for something or are they angry at UEFA?
All Europe is doing by these discrimination measures is creating a siege mentality among Russian citizens.
But in any case, the whole point is that sanctions are unfair, as they will hit plenty of people that are not involved in the war in any way and do not support it. "We" use them because "we" believe that they work (I hope so, but you might be right of course, I'm no expert), not out of spite for a whole population.
>not out of spite for a whole population
You may see it that way, but you and average Russian were consuming different media up to this point, and if we admit or not, media has an enormous influence on our worldview.
These sanctions and moves spread an unambiguous and clear message which can’t be blocked by state news channels which is “no matter what your government says, nobody supports you”.
>“no matter what your government says, nobody supports you”
Exactly my point, people at this point flock toward their country not against it. They develop this "so fuck 'em" mentality which would just enable wars to go on.
Did you rally behind your leader because of sanctions?
More importantly, what would you suggest, given your previous experience? Start an actual war to depose the leader (not always turning out great, and I'm assuming your country wasn't a nuclear superpower)? Leave everything as it is, let the leader invade neighbors with no repercussions?
>Start an actual war to depose the leader (not always turning out great, and I'm assuming your country wasn't a nuclear superpower)? Leave everything as it is, let the leader invade neighbors with no repercussions?
I don't know, I am not a world leader but I know that those sanctions are not going to have the intended consequences, just about the opposite.
If I had to say something, I would recommend to let them battle em out, with substantial military aid to Ukraine. Throwing out common Russian people from universities and jobs across Europe is just going to feed a siege mentality and its plainly speaking, racist.
where is this happening? who is advocating this?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_i...
It really isn't. It's a short of counterfactual and it's actually quite useful in checking if you are morally/intellectually consistent. This strategy even has a name (some Bostrom thing that I can't remember right now).
It’s not a wild stretch to say that the whole thing was financed through selling gas and oil to the West.
Google and Apple removed Russian opposition apps from their app stores and Facebook censored groups that they used to coordinate because, you know, “we have to comply with the laws of the country we operate in”. They also pay taxes in Russia.
Are you trying to hold Russian IT companies to a higher standard than SV giants?..
Energy prices may soar soon for Western consumers and companies. BP and Shell may need to write off multi-billion-valued stakes in Russian gas companies. Air travel routes between Europe and Asia may be about to get a lot crappier. So there are many ways that companies and individuals outside Russia will also be paying a price to put the squeeze on Putin and his military in response to what they've done.
That's not what you're doing. Whataboutism is a method of _stopping_ interrogation via deflection and redirection.
I think a lot of people that engage in whataboutism do actually think they're trying to start a discussion or analyze the situation more deeply. They just fail to see what their actually doing due to not being particularly skilled analysts (trying to be nice here...).
> he basically did nothing.
Unwarranted assumption
People are reacting appropriately given the situation.
NameCheap operate an office in Kharkiv, a city which currently finds itself under Russian rocket attacks and indiscriminate shelling with cluster bombs, and you create an account to criticise the company for stopping operations in Russia and then imply people are overly emotional and foolish about this issue?
If I operated a business which had staff and operated in Kharkiv I would do exactly the same thing.
So what tool can we use to make you see that your whataboutism propaganda is shit? So far you haven't seemed able to get that, so any tips would be welcomed.
There is absolutely no justification what Putin (NOT "the Russians" mind you) is doing right now.
But to answer your question: yes, I do feel that about US companies as well, and I have avoided them (or services offered by them) where ever possible in the last two decades. But sadly it's way easier to avoid Russian services, than US services.
Reply to all those saying this is not whataboutism: The question as posed has no value and is meant only to obscure the issue at hand.
Here are some critical questions that would have been worth asking:
- Russia has a legitimate gripe against NATO expansion. Why aren't you citizens of Western democracies doing something to keep your governments from expanding?
- Sanctions will hurt average Russians that have no voice in their government. How do you citizens of sanctioning countries justify this?
- US arms makers will make a fortune off of this conflict. Give me one good reason not to tax the revenues at a 100% windfall profit rate.
Dropping the intellectual equivalent of "No, you!" is just lazy.
>Russia has a legitimate gripe against NATO expansion.
The successor to the occupying CCCP, that did wildly shady stuff all over the Caucasus, invaded Georgia, supported a rebellion in Donbas, annexed Crimea and invaded a corrupt but nonetheless somewhat democratic Ukraine using GRAD strikes against cities has a legitimate gripe over countries WILLINGLY joining a defensive pact.
Don't get me wrong, NATOs involvement in MENA was/is pointless and counterproductive, even criminal, but it's a voluntary alliance.
I will always support self-determination. Ukraine was obviously justified in wanting to join BUT you cannot expect a country that counts casualties in the millions every time it gets invaded to not get its hackles up about a nuclear armed alliance specifically aimed at containing it expanding up to its doorstep.
I look forward to seeing Putin on trial in the Hague, but if you're not willing to do a hard-headed logical analysis of the situation then you're doomed to watch history repeat itself in an endless cycle.
NATO started out bordering Russia, it hasn't “expanded up to it's doorstep”. Get a map and a list of the original NATO countries.
EDIT: Anyone interested in this topic, search YouTube for Norther European Plain. There are quite a few good videos.
IIRC Romania is in NATO, Moldavia isn't. So invading Moldavia too would just, by eliminating a bit of border with a neutral country, give him an even longer border with NATO. Thus even more putting the lie to his alleged "Must avoid NATO countries on my border!" motivation.
OTOH, if Moldavia is already in, then AFAICR from its shape on the map the length of the Russia / NATO border would hardly change at all (because Moldavia's western and eastern borders are about equally long), so neither would the "calculus".
Why; is there anything wrong with it?
[P.S:] Oh, and it wasn't my "calculus" originally; it was @usrusr's. At least if I understood them correctly.
If you meant neutralized in the military sense (combat ineffective) I agree.
If you meant politically (seeing as you wrote 'friendly' for Belarus): Ah yes, when I get kicked in the teeth I tend to be quite neutral about it afterwards.
His overt claim that Ukraine naturally belongs to Russia I his war announcement speech and the premature, quickly deleted victory announcement from state media announcing that the victory in Ukraine was to be follows by a new pan-Russian union between Belarus, Greater Russia (a historic term for Russia proper) and Lesser Russia (a historic term for Ukraine) suggest that “neutralized” is not the goal.
> They already succeeded temporarily once with the Warsaw Pact.
None of the Warsaw Pact members (especially not Ukraine, which was a republic of the USSR) were neutralized, or even merely friendly, they were Soviet-dominated states that would be invaded of they strayed from the Soviet line too far.
Yes, establishing the borders the metropolitan state had and the control of the peripheral states it exercises under the Warsaw Pact might be what Putin wants, but that goes far beyond “neutralized Ukraine” and threatens a number of current NATO members.
Is this the propaganda you're talking about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Or maybe the Russians have hacked the official Twitter account of the National Guard of Ukraine to post this vile racist shit https://twitter.com/ng_ukraine/status/1497924614865002497
That said, there's no justification for the Nazi crap.
But more to the point, if it's such a small force why is part of the National Guard of Ukraine. Disband it and send the members suspected of war crimes to stand trial at The Hague. I'm sure a nation looking to join the EU would have no problems doing that.
edit: Also something that's bothering me...what do you mean they are "explicitly neo-Nazi"? Is that somehow different to being a Nazi in your mind? Weird thing to point out...
When a different word is appropriate, then I'll use it.
> Not everything is 'whataboutism'.
No, but your comment was.
> But more to the point, if it's such a small force why is part of the National Guard of Ukraine.
Because they were very effective fighters.
> Disband it
I hope they do.
> and send the members suspected of war crimes to stand trial at The Hague.
This is what should happen to anyone suspected of war crimes. No qualification is needed.
> what do you mean they are "explicitly neo-Nazi"? Is that somehow different to being a Nazi in your mind? Weird thing to point out...
No it's not. Neo-Nazi is the accepted term since the National Socialist part of Germany no longer exists. They're new Nazis. It's right there in the word.
And it's explicit because they use symbols the Nazis used and they call themselves Nazis.
How? I don't remember saying the invasion is justified. I was addressing the claims of propaganda.
Just looks at their crimes at Wikipedia:
> On 11 August, Azov battalion, backed by Ukrainian paratroopers, captured Marinka from pro-Russian rebels and entered the suburbs of Donetsk clashing with Donetsk People's Republic fighters.
They're killing Russians.
> In early September 2014, the Azov battalion was engaged in the Second Battle of Mariupol. Regarding the ceasefire agreed on 5 September, Biletskiy stated: "If it was a tactical move there is nothing wrong with it ... if it's an attempt to reach an agreement concerning Ukrainian soil with separatists then obviously it's a betrayal."
They don't believe Russians.
> As of late March 2015, despite a second ceasefire agreement (Minsk II), the Azov Battalion continued to prepare for war, with the group's leader seeing the ceasefire as "appeasement".
They don't believe Russians.
> In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.
They cooperate with US.
> According to Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, foreign fighters are not allowed to serve in Ukraine's military. Despite the Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, the regiment still has foreign fighters, including an ex-British army serviceman Chris Garrett and a 33-year-old former soldier of the Greek army and French Foreign Legion known by the nom-de-guerre of "The Greek".
They allow British and French to kill Russians.
And so on.
Nothing you wrote is the tiniest evidence that they are nazis, completely besides the point.
Doesn't change the fact though that they certainly are self-identifying Nazi, in a sad perversion of "the enemy of the enemy is my friend"
Perhaps they are falling to the same misperception you seem to fall to, equating nazism with "against Russia". Tell that to a Frenchman, tell that to a Pole. Tell that to a Jew of any nationality. No, actual Nazism was not "against Russians". That wasn't part of their identity at all. Actual Nazis literally didn't give a shit about Russians in specific, they just wanted the land and the people currently on it happened to be Russians. But they would have tried exactly the same on any other ethnicity.
Are you member of Azov regiment or know them personally? If not, then list your arguments, please.
For Russians, anybody who is strong and against RF (or is ally of US) is Nazi, including Jews. It's like a gold medal for the enemy of RF.
What lead me to that claim: Just eight years of sometimes watching from afar (very far) and initially being quite confused by the occasional evidence (or what seemed like it?). Eventually I came to assume that they were effectively taught "from the same schoolbooks" (maybe not literally, but who knows) this Russian misappropriation of the term nazi and then simply applied logic: "if I'm against Russia then I guess I'm a nazi, heil whatever that guy was called!"
Quite unlikely (understatement!) that they actually are out to build a fourth reich and work on an Endlösung. I wrote "self-identify", not "are": I'm German and we like to think that we know a thing or two about actual nazism. But I wouldn't be surprised if occasionally some poor chap fell too deep into the ideological rabbit hole and inadvertently produced propaganda ammunition for Putinists. I suspect that the propaganda battle might be going much less bad for Putinists if the Ukraine was led by someone not quite as immune to being called a nazi (I guess bookies stopped taking bets for Time Person of the Year already?)
But the sanctions are meant to make people angry, go out and send a strong signal to their leaders they want a change. This is the most the West can do.
For some reason unknown, Ukrainians believe so which resulted in that atrocious situation where both the US and European countries are not willing to step in and protect Ukraine. Even Zelensky himself had high hopes for that, based on what he said a few days ago.
Both US & EU are lending tremendous support in materials, training (over the past 8 years), and coordinated economic sanctions far beyond what anyone would have predicted. Sounds like Europe is also offering energy grid support soon.
What those countries will not do is directly intervene using their own military forces – Ukrainians would have to be crazy to ever expect that. Two nuclear-armed powers in direct conflict on the battlefield = nuclear holocaust. You could say that's merely conventional wisdom based on wargames and other geopolitical assumptions, but... does anyone really want to test that theory??
All countries are equal, but some are a bit more, right? I agree 100% that awful things done by one country do not justify in any way atrocious actions in another. That said, for some reason most people to decide to pick a side very quickly blaming all the world evil on one person and country.
Frankly speaking, the USA, EU, Ukraine share the same amount of blame for what is happening now. You are right, it was Putin not anyone else who made the decision to invade Ukraine, but things are more complicated here than the world is now preferring to see.
Protests in Russia are significant, for a regime that punished protest so harshly and responds to it otherwise so little.
But you blame the victim anyway.
> Frankly speaking, the USA, EU, Ukraine share the same amount of blame for what is happening now.
This is why it's so important right now to help Ukraine and hinder Putin.
Well, it's yet another reason why it's so important right now to help Ukraine and hinder Putin. Seems a bit shallow to put self-redemption as the first (or even worse, only) one.
Would recommend a sober look in the mirror as well as maybe getting a copy of Chris Hedges "War is a force that gives us meaning". The "there are no innocence in war" is a textbook warcry right out of conflicts like Yugoslav one. Its the tactical dehumanization of the enemy. To have a one dimensional caricature to rally people against. Its what makes it logical to escalate the conflict to ethnic cleansing. Its great for polarization after all and you get people to join you who would never associated with you in the first place. It even works in prisons. And its absolutely horrible. And has the additional benefit of whitewashing yourself, after all, nobody is innocent.
Lets call your post for what it is, its warmongering. And the fact that you are rightfully outraged doesnt change that. What you are doing is creating and perpetuating a narrative that sets the stage for atrocities against the civilian population. They are all guilty after all, so you get to be as well.
I am honestly shocked that people dont get that there is a whole lot of room to escalate from where we are now. And i am very much afraid that people dont grasp that. Or worse, they do but prefer to embrace their emotional reaction on the topic. Or take it out of a strategic calculation. But at the end the malice or stupidity spetrum is completely irrelevant. It all has the same result.
When big power structures collide the vast vast vaasst majority of the affected are nothing, not even pawns, not even innocent, since the question makes almost no sense.
It sucks, but the world is connected and finite, this leads to a lot of the issues we see at these times.
Only thing I regret that they didn't suffer enough to withdraw troops from my country. Stomach problems hardly compare to ruined cities and lives lost. Screw Russia and your rhetoric.
Now then, what you said.
Do you also hold that against all the Germans when they started both World War 1, and World War 2? They did nothing. There was no resistance movement within Austria or Germany of any significance to stop their war machines. People where complacent. How did they get away with it? Would you let Russians also get away with it, if they say they are sorry and have changed?
You are misinformed: They didn't.
> and World War 2?
Germany was collectivel de-Nazified after that, so yes: That obviously was held against all Germans at the time.
> Would you let Russians also get away with it, if they say they are sorry and have changed?
So, no. Why should they get away with it so easily when the Germans didn't?
Russia lead on most nukes, US everything else, but China is 3rd and we know they have some very disciplined military and a far larger population.
Here in the UK we have been forbidden in law from interacting with any Russia entity, so Russian bank accounts are frozen, cant provided good's or services to any Russian entity.
#НетВойне #РоссияНеМолчи
Also, stable-coins (BUSD on Binance / DAI on Uniswap) or anonymous coins (MobileCoin via Signal or Monero via a wallet like Guarda) may prove helpful in the face of collapsing Ruble.
The truth is I know my kids will make absolutely terrible choices if I leave everything up to them. I myself made a lot of bad choices growing up with unsupervised internet access. And on todays web it seems the pitfalls for a curious young person are even deeper and more plentiful. I'm simply trying to spare my kids some of the same problems I suffered by providing some guardrails until they are older and more mature.
Yeah, so what? How the fuck else are they supposed to grow up?
I wouldn't be putting their software on mine or my childrens devices that's for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations...
Europeans pretend to care and sanction everything except for the oil and gas that is funding that war.
There should always be a difference between government and people.
All these sanctions are harming normal people, essentially economic carpet bombing.
When Trump criticized German dependency on gas and was slowing the construction Nord Stream 2 he was criticized and laughed at.
Which is why the west fucked up in Syria and Russia got a great deal. Now Syria blocks gas pipeline options from Qatar at Russia's behest.
The result would be exploding prices, shortages and rationing of gas, potentially even power cuts at night or reduced availability of power to industry.
But the EU countries could absolutely do it if they really wanted to.
But this is also a big escalation.
Energy exports are the lifeline of the Russian economy. Canada just banned crude oil imports from Russia yesterday. Without a delay Russia just stopped diplomatic relations with the country and withdrew all diplomats.
It's basically a declaration of war to them, because if it spreads and even countries like China theoretically were forced to join in, they would really collapse.
And if Russia is pushed I to a corner there's no telling what they might do.
Yesterday I was filling bags with sand to make a fortification for local defenders. I hear artillery as I am writing this. And by the way, you get used to it.
In the last few days I received about 20 emails offering support, none of them were from russian devs. One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.
I see a few russian companies and personalities openly condemn the aggression (such as JetBrains) and I'm very grateful to them. However most are silent, or have very weak Instagram post "no war" with a sadface, or even worse - post with "we are out of politics".
And that's IT people, which are presumably more informed. Unfortunately, due to misinformation most russian people have no idea what's happening here, that's why sanctions should affect regular people, and not just putin and his close allies.
Either way you have connections to actual Russians, now is the time to use them.
What alternative do we have left? Sanctions is just the least bad thing.
At the end of the day, no sane person would place their family in mortal danger to maybe possibly potentially make life easier for a large number of unknown far away people.
Yes, see Romania 1989. Over 1000 people died in the streets but we got the job done.
> At the end of the day, no sane person would place their family in mortal danger to maybe possibly potentially make life easier for a large number of unknown far away people.
US military personnel did this. Invading Iraq increased the risk of terrorism in the US to make life easier for a few haliburton board members.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
[1]: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C...
Every democratic country in the world had at one point a few brave souls who were both sane and put themselves and their families in mortal danger to “maybe possibly potentially make life easier for a large number of unknown [not yet born] people”.
So yeah, it happens and is relatively common in history. I hope the Russian people find some extra courage and get Putin to step away from Ukraine and also Russia.
Sending troops to Ukraine to stop the invasion would quickly escalate the war and hurt a lot more people than economic sanctions.
It's prefer Russia to be poor if we have to fight them.
Yes, there is no better alternative than sanctions.
They're at war. Preparing to be bombed. Let's cut them some slack.
edit Realized that my comment was aggressive. Rewrote it a bit. Apologies for the first formulation.
I really can't see a fix for it. You have to keep containing Russia: there is no chance in hell to ever have a sustainable democratic government there, Putin or not, because people are wholeheartedly against it - they don't respect any government that doesn't make them frightened as hell.
All online spots - forums, bbses, etc. - had at least one troll reposting from the offical news. More places than one had these as mods or admins. Agitating and stirring the pot was a daily occurence, which was quite effecient given that migrant communities tends to comprise people that aren't exactly well off and generally happy with life. To give an example - people discussing faking a divorce to double their unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. So given them an outlet to vent was working well. Conversely, those who were better established steered clear of these and formed smaller clusters of their own.
So what the GP is experiencing is likely related to them being (originally) a part of one of these poorer bubbles and the effect just lingers on.
The US was was relatively good at integrating migrants into a certain idea of america, but that's not the norm around the world, and I don't think that vision of america exists anymore. Maybe in the upper-middle class, but certainly gone in the lower classes.
Not to mention Brits who moved to Spain because there were "too many bloody immigrants" at home.
Yes, after Soviet Union fell, we Russians found out that all we've been taught about capitalism was true: unemployment, dog-eat-dog competition, class divide and all that stuff. It's not at all a paradise we have imagined. It's time for you to see that all you've been told about Communism was true, too: McCarthy was an idiot, but he was right. There are no "good Russians" waiting to be liberated from "evil Putin". There are "evil Commies" who Putin wholly represents.
Stop trying to "fix" Russia. It is impossible. It has to be contained, made as weak and irrelevant as possible to present less danger.
Specifically here, social media sentiment tends to be poor evidence of anything broader, due to being dominated by the vocal minority of people who post the most, as well as a non-trivial number of bots.
On the other hand, I know where you're coming from. I grew up in NYC feeling pretty much American, but my family is Russian and I speak the language. Over years of encounters with my own extended family and the social network around them, I've struggled to not overgeneralize, to keep context in mind, and to remain open.
But it's hard when you repeatedly encounter so many deeply cynical, bigoted, punitive, and hatefully-normative personalities. I'm hardly a counter-cultural outlier, but I do deviate from the suburban right-wing-materialist worldview that this particular Russian community prefers, so I may as well be from Mars. For that I was told to my face, multiple times, that I'm not normal ("not normal" is the exact phrasing they use) - and because of that I deserve and should accept the criticism and abuse coming my way. And it just keeps coming - casual racism that's basically accepted wisdom and notably bloodthirsty (nuke em all and don't look back!). Then, habitual low-level fraud that no one even recognizes as such (you should really file for divorce! then you can do (a) and (b) and get this [social benefit!]), the elevation of hustle and cunning above all other forms of intelligence, and smug superiority when it comes to political and ethical questions.
The war is some kind of last straw for me. Now, I hear a group of people speaking Russian, I feel an instinctive revulsion. It's not good, but it is what it is.
The other day I spoke with this older Russian lady that works at the local pub - she overheard some of us patrons talking about the situation, and she went into a 20 min rant about western media being pure propaganda, that Putin was such a great guy, and that there was no real war. It was quite bizarre, as she's been living here since the mid-90s.
They dont…That makes no sense. Instead of sanctions, a more effective strategy would be to provide Russians with free VPNs so that they can access western news media.
Some people do prefer what the "voices in their head" are telling them (and while propaganda is big, it is not all of it)
Sanctions do matter as you're seeing all of Putin's acolytes feeling the heat these days
https://tb-manual.torproject.org/bridges/
They believe in the propaganda mostly, celebrate the victories over "nazis" and support Putin.
What happened after Crimea annexation was appealing, and now it's even worse. It's a society brainwashed into imperialism and they want return of Russia as a global power and revenge on the west.
There are some exceptions, but they are rare. Possibly because of fear, I don't know.
They have western media and had for decades. They don't care, it's all lies for them. Also they have almost no influence over what happens. They barely protest and elections are a farce.
So - sanctions aren't targeted at regular Russians. They target the oligarchs that actually run everything in Russia. Regular Russians are hit by collateral damage, and it will be very harsh collateral damage. But I have no sympathy when I hear from my friends in Ukraine hiding in Kyiv metro for the whole weekend and having no contact with their families in shelled towns.
Ultimately the responsibility towards victims of war is more important than unemployed people in invading country.
I've had a coworker posting on FB how he's supporting Putin and "Russia doesn't start wars, it ends them."
He left Russia for US in early 2000s, returned for a year in 2018 and is now in London.
The general idea is that a war in a foreign country (even a neighbor) is pretty easy to ignore (especially if state media doesn't cover it). If you don't have relative or friends there, you could easily go on believing exactly what the government reports--that it's a limited military operation, etc. You're busy at work, you've got a lot going on, so maybe you should spend some time looking into it, but maybe next week.
However, if the value of your currency drops 25%, and your mortgage interest rate jumps 10% overnight you're much more likely to ask: "what the hell is going on". Those are significant changes that will really impact you. Suddenly you're a lot more motivate to do some research and see what's happening. Maybe when doing that research, you find some of the media of Kyiv being bombed or residential areas in Kharkiv being hit repeatedly by cluster bombs.
---
My theory for sanctions is different. My ideal sanctions wouldn't hit the average worker at all. They would hit _only_ the oligarchs and those close to or with a hand on the levers of power. But we don't have access to targeted sanctions that hit the oligarchs hard enough to get them consider taking actions that don't also hit the average worker.
I feel deeply sorry for those Russian citizens who have very limited power over their government, and will nonetheless be hit harder and feel the sanctions more deeply than those closer to power. But I also feel that it's necessary, as a tool to try and minimize the amount of time that Ukraine spends under siege.
I would be shocked if you could find just one actual major mainstream western media organization that tells the other side of the story.
Here, shock yourself.
It is not a story explaining the reason why Russia felt it was necessary to conduct special military action in the Ukraine. It does not explain why Russia believes they are helping to liberate the DPR and LPR from nationalists and return the borders of the republics.
I can throw you tons of support and understanding for Russia and Donbass from western media, loads of people questioning the supplying of arms to Ukraine and the involvement of the West. But I don't have all day for that.
Let's be reciprocal: please link any Russian media article (that isn't from Novaya Gazeta, where journalists routinely suffer "unexplainable" deaths) that suggests that Putin has ever done anything wrong, you know, without sugarcoating it in any way.
Seems like you’re grasping at straws if you have to resort to digging up 7 year articles to prove your point.
If there are really “tons” of stories explaining the Russian perspective on this matter why don’t you show me ONE recent story that takes the latest developments into account?
I already provided one but you didn't like it.
Please answer my question before keeping with that Russian gish gallop.
Only if one is too stupid to read it. It's not supposed to show that the Washington Post sympathizes with Putin.
> This is a story about Tucker Carlson sympathizing with Putin.
Exactly. You have not only Tucker Carlson but the whole Fox "News" network and other similar organisations in the USA and in Europe sympathizing with Putin.
> It is not a story explaining the reason why Russia felt it was necessary to conduct special military action in the Ukraine.
Russia didn't feel it was necessary to conduct a "special military action" in "the" Ukraine; it felt it was necessary to conduct a war in [no article] Ukraine.
No, they would not. They voted in very large majorities to be part of an independent Ukraine. Of course, now they are ruled by Russia-linked gangsters, so it is impossible to know what their citizens would like. Common sense suggests that they would rather be part of Ukraine, somewhat democratic, and relatively rich, instead of part of Russia, ruled by a warmongering dictator, and relatively poor.
Here are some questions we should ask: “ Ukraine regards both the DPR and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as terrorist organisations.” - Now why would the people side with a government that deems them a terrorist organization? That’s a little strange..
- Why is the official currency used in DPR and LPR the Russian ruble? Again, strange for a people that wish to be independent from Russia.
Why is the official timezone used in DPR and LPR UTC+3 (Moscow time) Again, strange for a people that wish to be independent from Russia.
If your country is always right and the rest are always wrong, that could be a hint. In Western media you'll find voices for and against the war. In Russian media it's barely acknowledged that there's a war ongoing.
Stop this bullshit, it's not working.
> the other 200 countries in the world have absolutely no idea whats really going on in that area
Yes, over 200 000 Ukrainian refugees that moved to Poland last 5 days have no idea what is really going on. They left everything on days notice and moved to a foreign country cause they love Russia so much.
> have no idea about this area’s history
even if it was true (and it isn't - history is taught everywhere and Russian version of history is famously biased) - why would history matter? History won't make killing people right suddenly.
> what the locals in DPR and LPR really want
Even if all of them wanted to become part of Russia - why would it matter more than people of Ukraine who want to be part of EU? There's more people outside of the occupied parts.
What you're doing is disgusting. I hope they pay you enough.
Same with Germany and Austria, don't get involved. Germany and Netherlands, just a border dispute. Germany and France, none of your business. Germany and the Soviet Union, why would you care?
It's almost as if we could ignore all the international law we created after WW2, jeez.
The sad thing is that you'll wonder why your state is widely seen as fascist and oppressive, and think of your nation as the victim of the rest, only because they react negatively to your state's questionable foreign policy.
You can have a tyranny and nobody would care for the most part. Be North Korea if you want. Just don't spill it over people who don't want it.
Why do you support Hitler approach to foreign policy only because it's Putin instead of Hitler? It's something you should be asking yourself.
Your officials even call it решение украинского вопроса, "the solution to the Ukrainian question", ffs.
Ah, but that's where you are wrong, you see: We have something called "journalists" and "reporters", people whose job it is to go there and write newspaper stories or film newsclips showing and telling what is going on. A bit like your Propaganda Commissars, except these people report the truth in stead of what the governmentvtells them to.
> have no idea about this area’s history
Ah. Like how Ukraine has always been a part of Russia, is the Cradle of the Rodina, except at the same time also has always been a hotbed of gay Jewish Nazism, right?
Generally, the sanctions are designed to try and convince Putin that Russia cannot afford a war against Europe/NATO. They do this:
- by targeting the money of Putin and anybody in Russia with enough money to conceivably have influence over Putin (presumably, these sanctions don't hurt common people);
- by targeting directly or indirectly the financial reserves of Russia to make it hard for Russia to bankroll the army (these most certainly do hurt the common people, too).
I'm sure that there are also propaganda/counter-propaganda operations, but these are very likely to be illegal/covert, so no country is going to publicize them.
> One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.
Innocently asking the question seems fine; as you say we generally don't know the personal circumstances of online contacts. But once appraised of it a quick reply would be human, at least to the effect of "good luck, keep as safe as possible & please ignore my question until happier times are restored"
I have friends in Ukraine and I can hear siren wailing while talking with them via Skype.
There are already about 30 thousand members of Russian IT-industry who signed open letter against this war. Yesterday it was about 20 thousands.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rSmclqedrhTASIsyXLOz39pU...
All Russian should do right now — go outside of your house, gather with other Russsians and strike & show your protest "by hands" near your city administration!
Signing "open letter", "petitions" or just "keep placard" would NOT has any effect — so do not waste your and our time & lives!
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897
You call it "operation", it's not operation, it's war.
You ask to prevent human casualties, but thousands are already dead.
A lot of people signing from companies such as Yandex - a search engine that promotes propaganda and hides evidence-based journalism. From VK - a social network that bans opposition communities and spreads misinformation. You can't have it both ways folks.
Many are running the hell away from Russia and that's something the government has already got concerned about. Unlike the letter.
For now they are promising tax benefits for programmers and IT-companies, cheap mortgage and safety from being conscripted. The last one is scary.
Would these Russians get in trouble for using my US based VPN?
I want to support Russians during this difficult time but I don’t want them to get in trouble. I disagree with sanctioning and punishing ordinary citizens for the actions of the rich and powerful 1%. Imagine how it feel being a US citizen and getting punished for Donald Trump’s decisions. It’s wrong and makes no sense.
Of course it does. The responsibility for the actions of the political class has to be carried by the local population. Post-war Germany wasn't like "oh that wasn't our country, you're looking at it with the wrong scope! It was just Hitler!" - I hope you see how this still holds, even though the most Germans would never have approved of Hitlers atrocities. This is not a 1%-issue, you seem to misunderstand the dynamics of power. The leaderships (here: Putin) power can only be sustained when its delegated to them by their people. Your throne is worthless if nobody listens to you, and if people listen to you depends on their trust in you acting on their behalf. If your actions lead to their economic demise, you lose their support, and in consequence, your countries policy will change. This isn't the West seeking to have russian civilians suffering. Its Russia, the country, as a whole, that started invading Ukraine and made nuclear threats, to which the world is now retaliating by any means necessary.
So who else is responsible for making sure countries aren't crazy dictatorships where “1 man does things, not the country, as a whole”, if not the population of that country?
Or, to turn your usual whataboutism back on you: So you're advocating the Saddam Solution. If a nation won't itself take the responsibility for the dictators it accepts and condones, others must take it for them.
Those are the only two alternatives. So in saying that Russia won't be responsible for getting rid of Putler, you're inviting others to come in and get rid of him for you. Thank you, I hope someone will!
Oh, and if you try to counter that "That will only lead to WW3, with nukes!"... Well, then the priority becomes figuring out how to make a first strike either so overwhelming or so surprising that there is no response from Russia. If the Russian people has any problems with that, maybe they should reconsider their stance on responsibility for their own leadership.
> So why should I suffer the consequences for something in which I had no control over and nothing to do with? It is injustice.
You had and you did. You, collectively as a people, have not deposed the dictator. Whose responsibility is that, if not yours?
Germany underwent collective de-Nazification after WW2, because the nation of Germany was held responsible for democratically voting Hitler into power and not gettting rid of him when he turned the country into a crazy dictatorship. So why shouldn't the same go for the Russian people and nation?
That is justice, not "injustice".
When a whole nation turns evil, you should.
Calling a whole nation evil is bigoted and ignorant as it gets. The Ukrainians deserve to be invaded but even if they didn’t, there are countless brave Russians risking their lives speaking against an evil murderous government, and you call these people evil? Shame on you.
Yes if they do anything illegal and it's traced to your account.
> Would these Russians get in trouble for using my US based VPN?
Maybe, depends on laws in Russia.
> I want to support Russians during this difficult time
How about Ukrainians?
Since when are VPN operators held accountable for their user’s actions? There are plenty of free VPNs out there. We don’t hold Cloudflare responsible when someone makes a death threat using it’s free Warp VPN. Because that makes no sense. If someone committed a crime using my VPN the Netflow /backbone transit logs would prove I didn’t do it and the case against me would be thrown out.
> How about Ukrainians?
They are already getting plenty of support and don’t need VPNs because their internet isn’t censored.
If he was planning on buying subscriptions for Russians then some operators will hand out his details if something illegal was detected.
If he was planning on setting up a VPN of his own on his own connection... then he's in trouble.
Imagine child porn and how hard that would be to fight.
... I no longer buy this. The war is, unfortunately, very popular with ordinary Russians. And I hope you don't have any illusions that the citizens sincerely support their dear leader Putin.
I don't know what would convince you, but if you're American I will assume that you can't read Russian. So for an English source look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_2022_Russ... which is far from unbiased source, but it has a good list of references. So far the anti-war protests gathered barely a couple of thousand of people across the whole country. Even if you multiply those numbers times 10 (because people are afraid of police), and then by another factor of 10 (because official numbers may lie) you will still get a negligible number like 0.01% of the population.
At the same time Berlin alone has had 100k+ people on the streets.
But if you can read Russian, then just take a peek at pikabu.ru and d3.ru (which are like reddit in Russia) or any popular livejournal accounts. You will find too many anti-ukrainian sentiments describing us all as literal nazis [1].
Our soldiers are also finding smartphones of dead Russian soldiers and there has been quite a few photos of their communication back home ( https://i.imgur.com/1OZXgfw.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/oXUL2FJ.jpeg ). The first photo is his communication with his sister where she's asking about the war and "hohols" (derogatory term for Ukrainians), the second photo is his communication with his "beloved girlfriend" where the girlfriend asks to show no mercy to "them", "them" being hohols ... errr ... Ukrainians, I presume, because we, allegedly, would show no mercy to them; which is ironic because if you guys could just fuck off back home it would be really swell.
[1] calling Ukrainians nazis is a fucking bullshit -- our president is jewish, who got elected in an actual election by 73% of the country. Oh yeah, and the runner up candidate (ex-president) is also jewish. And yes, we, unlike Russia, did in fact have an actual elections. If Russians are so against nazis then why the fuck Russian PMC (private military corporation) Wagner is involved here (on the Russian side, of course) whose commander is this fucking asshole with an actual nazi insignia: https://newlinesmag.com/wp-content/uploads/utkin-tattoos.jpg ( from this article https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-wagner-group-files/ )?!
At this point I believe that Russia is pretty much North Korea -- their rulers have such a tight grip on their citizens that the citizens are now truly brainwashed into thinking that their dear leader is God incarnate and that the rest of the world is indeed out to get them.
I am Ukrainian living in Kyiv. On 24th of February I woke up from the sounds of rockets bombing the shit of my city. I've been a programmer since as long as I can remember myself, but now I'm making Molotov's to help repel the invaders because I'm now 100% sure that I will be "cleansed" on some trumped-up charges of being a nazi in case Russia does indeed take over Ukraine. And cleansed here means imprisoned or killed, and I'm not being dramatic here, this is the exact term used by Russia as one of their explicit stated goal of this so called "special operation&q...
But, the nitpick: Wagner kind of cancels out with Azov, doesn't it? That shit really reflects pretty badly on Ukraine; I think she should disavow them.
I just keep thinking about how Jean Luc is looking down on us from orbit, slowly shaking his head whispering “Savages.”
It's an unpopular fact but it's still true.
Putin isnt Hitler. He's a monster hes just not that specific monster.
Do you really believe this would end at Ukraine?
I agree. He wants to be like Stalin. He wants to be greater than Stalin.
Finland went to war over it, took huge losses but managed to fight back well enough to stay independent even though some territory was lost.
Countries that gave in to these demands without much resistance to avoid huge bloodshed were occupied shortly and lost their independence for 50 years. Multiple rounds of deportation to siberia and executions of anyone who had military, police or government background were done over the next years so in the end it's not clear if the loss of life was any smaller for these countries if it would have been if they fought back.
So in hindsight it seems better choice was to fight back and have a chance of freedom.
PS. it's not single demand at all, you should read more of Putins speeches and writings, especially those meant for Russian audiences. For example the one televised on 21.02.2022 where he goes on and on about some mystical "west" that has tried to destroy the russian for over a century and how ukraine has no right to exist anyway etc. That NATO talk is mostly for western audiences, internally the message seems to be more about re-establishing the russian empire (which he seems to think is god given right) and talk about superiority of the russian civilization (ruskiy mir). So everything indeed sounds eerily similar to sittuation and delusions that led to WW2.
It's a bullying tactic and infringes on a country's sovereignty.
I dont want Ukraine to be pro Russian but I dont want Kyiv to be shelled more. I dont want a nuclear war more.
It absolutely is a bullying tactic, but it's also the desperate act of a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).
No it’s not. Not if being at peace means being subjugated by a despot.
You’re a fool.
I have friends and family who are suffering because of this. I dont use my words lightly.
Hearing westerners cheerlead for this war is painful, most especially when it could have been prevented just by saying NATO ends at the western Ukrainian border.
It does though. Latest Putin demands involve complete demilitarization of Ukraine. For what purpose? Invading it better afterwards?
Sweden and Finland do not pose such a threat. Finland is on the border too but a much less exposed portion.
The costs of this invasion were clear from the outset. Russia isnt going into this thinking it will come out stronger and ready to conquer the world. It's a fairly desperate and high stakes ploy to shield their jugular.
This is more a nationalist Russkiy Mir/Russkaya Zemlya kind of mental jerk, as evidenced by that article that RIA Novosti published (and then pulled)[0]: if they don't take now what they consider theirs(Ukraine), then they never will if they join NATO. To have one people split in two (though Ukrainians largely disagree) is unacceptable to them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...
Ah, good to hear you know more about how Russia sees these things than they do themselves.
Because Stalin sure didn't seem to see it your way in the winter of 1939.
Aren't you beginning to sound ludicrous even to yourself by now?
What is it about Putin's lie about being willing to stop an invasion if NATO ruled out Ukraine ever joining that makes it any more convincing than the others?
Attitudes like yours are far, far more responsible for the suffering of your friends and family than anything NATO ever did, and not because NATO members haven't done a lot wrong in other theatres of war.
* The sheer overwhelming strategic significance of the Ukrainian border. It is where Russia almost lost to the Nazis.
* His willingness for Russia to endure such an extreme cost. Russia will pay dearly for this invasion and we have watched him for 20 years enough to know that minimizing cost and acting in a rational, measured and brutal manner is the norm.
* The fact that if this goes badly he could very well have his head on a stake. Russia paying dearly very much puts his personal safety at stake.
I wouldnt believe a deadbeat liar telling me that he'll have my money by Friday, but if he's telling me to back off or he'll punch me I will.
The extreme stakes make it far more likely that he wants the expansion he made the declaration of war speech about (and even more to crushing the idea of a potential successful large democracy full of Russian speakers), not an empty promise concerning something that wasn't likely to happen anyway and is of little interest except in ensuring ease of invading Ukraine. The Ukraine border is of zero strategic value to NATO since they're not remotely interested in or capable of mounting a ground invasion against a nuclear power whose terrain is where world conquerors go to die (and pretty much the only conceivable circumstance where they might have done it is in response to Russia invading Ukraine... the thing he actually did). They don't exactly have happy memories of fighting in Finland either, which is where their border with a newly galvanised NATO will end up instead.
It's even more transparently bullshit version of the preemptive defence doctrine than WMDs in Iraq, to the extent he had to manufacture a secondary excuse for domestic consumption because even a public that buys the idea he's shelling Kiev to defending the Donbas from atrocities won't believe he had to do it to save the country from NATO invasion.
Based on the Paradox of Tolerance it would be “Peace is the highest priority amongst the peaceful, except against a non-peaceful entity.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
You cant accept every argument someone makes. Because they’ll realize it in short order and then make stupid arguments to manipulate you.
“Russia needs to protect itself from Ukraine” is a dishonest, stupid argument.
NATO does want to threaten it. NATO does want Ukraine to join and Ukraine wants to join it.
NATO's ability to threaten Russia from Ukraine's border would jump considerably.
They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.
I'm frankly appalled at the number of times I have had people tell me that Ukraine "would never have joined NATO". It was well on its way to membership.
Im also terrified at the number of people willing to be dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO trying to secure a strategic advantage on Russia's border.
Why is NATO fucking with a nuclear power?? Russia isnt Libya. Russia can destroy us.
> They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.
Are you truly so stupid that you don't understand what you're replying to, or do you just think everyone else here is, so they'll buy your pro-Putin talking points?
The point was that if Ukraine joins NATO, that's not because of NATO actively trying to expand eastwards but because Ukraine themselves have been begging to be admitted. You know, almost as if they were an independent nation that decides for itself which alliances it will (try to) join, not someone else's "border", satellite, puppet, or general plaything... Oh well, I take back the "you know" bit, because this concept of sovereignty for any country near Russia seems as impossible to grasp for you as it is for Putin.
> ...dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO...
Keep trying to shift the blame. Only Putler's Russia is dragging the world down that path.
Seems to have already succeeded in dragging you down the garden path.
I'm failing to see the threat of NATO to Russia otherwise. NATO only ever goes against dictators and acts of ethnic or religious cleansing and such things as territorial conquest, etc.
But even given Putin, his regime having access to Nuclear Weapons, I still doubt NATO is a threat. Look at North Korea, even though US has military bases in South Korea, no one is touching North Korea.
So in my opinion, it's pretty clear to me the whole NATO thing is false pretense and justification hiding an ulterior motive, very similar to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Let me know if there's something I don't know otherwise.
NATO invaded Libya after promising to leave it alone after stopping their nuclear weapons program.
NATO supports Saudi Arabia's war of aggression against Yemen. I shouldnt have to remind you that Saudi Arabia is run by a brutal dictator.
NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.
It's has always threatened Russia. It will always threaten Russia. Putin is staking everything on this war in a desperate attempt to push back that threat with one hand on the nuclear button, making it abundantly clear that all we have to do is back off.
> NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.
Only to the extent of defending against Russian aggression.
> It's has always threatened Russia.
How can it, when it provides a path for Russia to join them? A path which Russia never seriously pursued.
Russia demanding Ukraine to never join amounts to demanding that Ukraine must remain relatively defenseless against Russian attack.
We're not the ones doing the invading.
And what does Ukraine need? Ukraine needs to protect itself from Russia.
Can't you stop echoing Putler's lies, please? Thank you.
Blood has been spilled earning freedom from tyrany ever since people have existed. Because it was worth it. Because it was cheaper than continuing to pay the price in blood of tolerating tyrany. Blood will continue to be spilled in the name of freedom for as long as people continue to tyranize each other, because it will continue to, at some point, be worth it.
It might be cheaper over the long run to keep freedom than to constantly abandon it - and then only later, when it is much more difficult to effect change, to attempt to reclaim it. But even that may not be an option, for many are too stubborn or ignorant to learn from the mistakes of history or others - no, they must make the mistake themselves, and leave it to their children to pay the price.
If it were about democracy NATO would respect the results of the crimean referendum (if pew research says thats what 90% of crimeans want and it does im inclined to believe them).
We are not the good guys bringing peace, freedom and democracy to the world. We are an empire threatening another empire along its most exposed border at the exact point where it was almost defeated by the Nazis.
Belief that our leaders are the bringers of peace, freedom and democracy is going to end very, very badly. Our leaders want power.
Sure. For some carefully chosen definition of "Crimeans".
Was that poll held before (which I doubt) or after (like the infamous "referendum") Russia had invaded, transported out hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tartars, and shipped in as many Russian national(ist)s to replace them?
Listen, man: I suppose it's possible that you somehow are neither intentionally peddling Putin's propaganda, nor a dimwitted dupe who has hook-line-and-sinker fallen for it. But as you must have noticed by now, quite a lot of us here think you come off very much as if you belong to at least one of those categories. Maybe you ought to have a good long think about why that is, and whether perhaps it's you who should open your eyes and rethink your values?
No, not necessarily.
It depends on the alternative.
> a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).
A) Ukraine is its own country, not Russia's border.
B) Only one actor in this drama is being explicitly hostile: Putler's Russia.
PS: I’m Russian and I want this war to stop immediately.
Putin is just trying to restore the idea of Russian Empire and/or Soviet Union. Same as Hitler trying to restore the German Empire.
The fact that Putin is using Ukraine's possibly joining NATO as an excuse to invade does not mean he would not have invaded anyway. It's entirely likely he would have seen that as a further sign of weakness and simply found another excuse. So no, I don't agree that what you said is true and I don't understand how you can be so sure of it.
Putin is not unaware that Russia will come out of this bloody and bruised and nearly broken (potentially completely) and he's not irrational either.
No, you quite obviously don't.
Even if you're right, Eastern European countries would be stupid to put their trust in Russian dictators staying benevolent. They were smart and joined NATO.
NATO is made to promote democratic values, Putin runs a dictatorship, how does that work?
In a world where Russia also sought to promote free democracies and started with itself, then Russia being in NATO would make sense.
Central Asian Islamic extremists?
> NATO is made to promote democratic values, Putin runs a dictatorship, how does that work?
Russia wasn't clearly a dictatorship when it was admitted to the Partnership for Peace, or when Putin wanted direct admission to NATO without the usual accession process, though, yeah, it is now.
Someone who was unreasonably optimistic might think NATO membership would have mellowed Putin rather than just letting him jam up the alliances consensus-based processes.
But ok, lets imaging you are right. So you are saying that, it is NATO fault that Russian invades Ukraine simply because they didn't take Russia into NATO? Right?
Of course, the formal application doesn't exist, since countries of that size and importance usually don't apply officially to something unless they already have an agreement that it's just a formality. They would just look silly if the applied and got rejection.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace
It's hard to see how those activities could be compatible with NATO membership. It would simply have provided Russia with security guarantees while providing cover for it to cause as much trouble as it wanted.
Triggered? Is this the kind of discussion we want here on HN?
But yes, if you forget what happened from 1939 to 1943, you can look in horror how evil Soviet Union invades Germany. Or you, an example closer to you, you forget Pearl Harbor and look now USA invades Japan and kill innocent Japanese soldiers and civilians.
> Russia got what it wanted. A war.
I don't know if Russia wanted a war. But for the moment, just take a break and take a look who profits and who is a loser of this war.
The biggest loser is the people of Ukraine, followed by the people of Russia. The second-biggest loser is the EU. The winner is clearly the USA and its military and oil industry, followed by the China, which will profit from the trade with both sides.
Now, that we know who benefits from the war, let's think about again who really wanted the war.
Yes, that is exactly what you are doing.
> Just trying to point that it's not black and white,
Exactly. That's called relativism or whataboutism, and is a typical tactic in the defence of evil.
> There are many subltleties to discuss.
Only if one is trying to defend evil by focusing on irrelevant "subtleties" so as to distract from the actual issue.
> But yes, if you forget what happened from 1939
You mean when the Soviet Union unprovokedly invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland?
> to 1943, you can look in horror how evil Soviet Union invades Germany.
Just because the Nazis were even better than Russia at being evil doesn't make Russia good.
Since you have a history of breaking the site guidelines, I was going to ban you for this post, but decided not to because emotions and pressure are so high right now. Please don't break the guidelines again, though.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There's a big difference between Ukraine saying it won't join (that's up to them) and NATO acknowledging Russia "sphere of influence" arguments by preventivly saying they won't be allowed to.
Putin has explicitly told us why he went to war, and it is to do with reversing Russia’s territorial losses since 1991 or even 1917.
Listen to what he says: he claims Ukraine is a fake state and that it is really part of Russia. In 2005 he claimed that the collapse of the USSR was a geopolitical tragedy and a further tragedy because it meant that many "fellow citizens" were now outside of Russia's borders. I.e. Putin wants to re-establish Muscovite control over vast swathes of territory he believes are Russia's right to control.
Putin wants his name in history books.
Putin wants to expand his dominance in northern Asia. 140m citizens is not enough; he wants to add 45m Ukrainians to have 185m! He is a colonial dictator in his homeland and does as he pleases!
But also, Russia's belief that it's entitled to decide for another sovereign country which clubs it can and cannot join reveals what Russia's actual intentions were. [EDIT: The relevant club for Ukraine is actually the European Union.]
The so-called "anti-Imperialists" on the far left like George Galloway who have always seen NATO as the enemy, and have always supported anti-NATO countries like Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China with 95% of their throats, have a really odd understanding of what imperialism is. Is this war the most blatant, non-galaxy-brained instance of "imperialism" that we've seen in many of our lifetimes?
Just because US is warmongering doesn't mean russia can too.
This kind of argument only derails conversations and doesn't achieve anything.
[1] https://ibb.co/xgqRWG3
>It's an unpopular fact but it's still true.
absolutely not. The events of the last few days show exactly why Ukraine was right to want to join NATO. Ukraine knows Russia probably better than anybody else in the world.
If anything Ukraine's refusal to promise neutrality is just a convenient - in Russian view - excuse for the invasion. Blaming Ukraine like you do is just a victim blaming.
If Ukraine wants to break up with Russia and join other alliances because it's an ass and offers nothing Ukraine wants, who is Russia to stop it?
This is not a fact. It is at best an educated and optimistic opinion.
Not even that. It is at best an uneducated and wildly optimistic opinion.
Russia agreed to respect Ukrainian territory if they give up their nuclear arsenal.
Maybe before russia starts demanding something they should first keep their promises first
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
> Shortly afterwards, Hitler reneged on his solemn promises to respect the integrity of Czechoslovakia
> Today, the Munich Agreement is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states".
Giving in to the demands of the aggressor may "stop" the war for the time being, yes. It doesn't actually solve the problem.
If you really get into it, there's an argument that it bought valuable time; that maybe it was only ever supposed to be a delay, but I think that might be giving too much credit - a positive sure, just perhaps not the intention: Chamberlain returned to London declaring 'peace for our time'.
To whom? To Hitler? Because the Allies didn’t prepare for what was coming.
Democratisation through osmosis has utterly failed. The result has been the subjugation of Hong Kong, genocide in Xinjiang and the invasion of Ukraine. Taiwan is next unless we wake up and make it perfectly clear to these people we absolutely will meet force with force and that we have plenty of hard power to use alongside our soft power. It may be too late for Ukraine, we failed them miserably by playing nice too long, but it's not too late for Taiwan.
The fact that Taiwan has been a us ally for decades and the US has strongly implied in the past and now clearly stated that they will defend them matters. The US had never even implied they would defend Ukraine and had no treaty obligation to do so.
Also China is not Russia, while it's building a formidable navy, air-force and ground force and may be more capable than their Russian conventional counterparts, their nuclear deterrent may not be enough to deter an American intervention in Taiwan. Their nuclear force is small, and though rapidly growing, currently not enough to reliably threaten the US, the destruction is not so mutually assured in the China US equation.
Do you think Russian leaders should allow this to happen?
Take for example the Middle East: there is no way you could solve the problem by talking, especially now. Palestinians believe this is their soil, the Israeli think otherwise, the former send rockets, the latter shoot these rockets and send their pilots, the pilots see the attackers tied to children on the roofs... This has gone too far over the years.
In all those months it seems that only China and the Winter Olympics really did delay the attack.
But you're right that their use against cities full of civilians is wrong, very likely a war crime.
I also agree that it seems like Putin delayed the invasion after the Winter Olympics. And damn you Putin for invading during the Winter Paralympic Games (Fri 4 Mar to Sun 13 Mar). What a shame. (Side note: I am happy to see each Olympics brings the Paralympic Games more and more into the spotlight. I look forward to the day that events are rightfully held in parallel.)
Iraq and Syria were obliterated. Afghanistan didn't fare much better and was the longest war in U.S history.
Russia has been killing people in its so-called "sphere of influence" my entire life as well. Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine.
Parts of Africa, such as the Congo and Somalia, have been de-facto war zones for decades.
I don't mean to sound harsh but your comment about humanity, or even certain cross-sections of it, having somehow transcended war, strikes me as naive and in denial of what the "post war" (as in post-WWII) era has actually been like.
Granted, the US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east; I get that they wanted to retaliate after 9/11, but instead of rooting out the ones responsible directly they made up a motive (WOMD in Iraq) and did a full scale invasion there; I'm not saying Iraq was a pleasant, peaceful country or that Hussein was a nice guy, but the US invaded it under false pretenses and dragged other countries into it, eventually leading to the rise of IS and a lot of other things that I only have a superficial knowledge of.
But Europe hasn't done any of that, as far as I'm aware they've held a "live and let live" line since the fall of the USSR.
Care to elaborate what's your definition of defense in this instance? Do you consider that Russia is "defending" East Ukraine population by attacking Kyiv? (like NATO was "defending" Kosovo people by bombing Northern and Central Serbia and even Montenegro)
"Defense" applies to Kosovo population (of course, official Serbian line is to dispute that too), but I don't see how NATO comes into the picture?
For example, Panama, Chile, Germany, Japan, South Korea all turned out better after US intervention. But Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya got worse.
It is tough to choose the lesser of two evil, when you are in a democratically free country, you do wonder if the opportunity shows up, should you go help others overturn their dictator, and if so, will they then be able to establish a free democracy or will that just replace one dictator with a worse one? But what also happens is the fear, that if more and more countries lose freedom and democracy, and become dictatorships, then countries in free democracies get scared that they will be next, which tend to push them to act and try and overthrow other dictatorships when the opportunity shows up.
Just so you know, there used to be a single Korea. One of them is doing OK now, although it took like 35 years after the US invaded before SK transformed itself into a democratic country, which Koreans did IN SPITE of American support for their dictator. The other one is possibly the worst regime currently active on Earth.
South Korea is really not an American FP win.
Sorry but please dive a bit into non-western news reports to get a real world view
The US does a lot of warmongering everywhere. It mongers at China, it mongers at Russia. It's in fact a big bully, all the more dangerous because of the knowledge that they are slowly becoming obsolete. The EU in a lot of ways acts as a sock puppet for the US, so this is definitely the result of a shared responsibility. Collectively, we should have been better. We were not. Now Ukraine is suffering.
Also, recognizing independence for Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine would have helped with the current situation too.
https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/02/02/natokatstvo
Edit: actually, I think the google translate version is plenty readable.
https://novayagazeta-ru.translate.goog/articles/2022/02/02/n...
This is of the main guys who did the talking in the 90s, so you might want to have a gander at it.
What would happen if NATO seriously offered to take both Ukraine and Russia as members TODAY?
Putin wanted to skip the readiness steps applied to aspiring members and just be jumped in. Readiness is quite important, because NATO doesn't work by voting but consensus/unanimity.
> but I am pretty confident Russia would have no fear of NATO if it was not sent off
They weren't sent off, they were admitted to the Partnership for Peace (the onboarding path for membership) before Putin even came into office, and never formally pursued anything farther, Putin specifically indicating that he found applying the accession process used for aspiring members to Russia rather than a direct invitation for full membership improper.
> Also, recognizing independence for Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine would have helped with the current situation too.
Would it? How? Would it stopped Putin from escalating attacks from those areas and then claiming that attacks on them, combined with the historical “fact” that Ukraine was an unjustly created entity ripped from Russian territory, justified the invasion of the rest? How does that work?
So what you're saying is that these states in question don't deserve the right to self-sovereignity. The people in the independent states wanted in NATO and not the other way around.
The only weird thing is that so many Westerners thoughtlessly regurgitate it.
Putin had demands that were de facto impossible to fulfill, they read as if the US/European governments had power over e.g. the desires of the inhabitants of the Baltic states. They all wanted into the EU/NATO after the Cold War for reasons that aren't hard to empathize with.
In a security-political sense, making concessions that impact your weakest allies is a surefire way to destabilize your own alliance.
Also, why do we have to make concessions in terms of Ukraine and guaranteeing that Ukraine won't join EU/NATO? Putin should have been talking to Ukraine about that and giving concessions to Ukraine in exchange for staving off any alliance memberships - but it's now clear why he didn't.
Because these were literally Russia's ridiculous "demands".
Consider what would have happened if "The West" handed Putin a detailed list of the sanctions that are in effect now A WEEK AGO.
Lower costs and lower risks. That's why far-sighted politics are so important.
Putin would say that is why he attacked Ukraine. His cheerleads would then blame Biden, claiming Putin had no choice.
So this is easy to say now, but I don't think there would have been any takers for this three weeks ago when for instance Germany was still firmly in the mistaken mindset that all of this is so unlikely that they don't need to prepare for it at all.
Overall, assuming the universe has some arrow towards something we arbitrarily defined as "progress" has no rational scientific basis, AFAIK? "Adaptation" we have proven, but that has nothing to do with what we see as progress. Adaptation may very well be less brain, less culture, less humans.
I think if you want to have only certain types of developments and behavior you need to continuously and forever fight against the randomness of the universe, whose forces, have no purpose or direction.
War and aggression never was off the table - it became more organized and carried out by large-group actors. Individual violence is down, it cannot compete with organized humans. Then the nuclear deterrent may have prevented a few invasions. The post WWII peace period in the countries most here (including myself) care about was not that long, and we still had wars even so (Yugoslavia, and at the edges of "Europe" in former Soviet areas).
You don't need to fire a single shot, you only need to move the units closer to the border, so aggresor needs to keep some of his units on his own territory "just in case".
Yeah, it would be nice if we lived in a world, where we can solve problems without involving the army at all, but it's not here yet.
Perhaps OP's feeling is that the large blocks had some sort of non aggresion deal, and step by step the rest of the world is going to be part of such non aggression terms as soon as they join other alliances or make their own economic dependencies. That was the hope for many.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre
I really hope that Ukraine won't go down like Czechnya but I fear in the end, Putin only knows one trick.
Lebensraum really scares people. Religious conflict are concerning, but the French wasn't directly worried that the UK might go after them next once the Northern Ireland situation got settled.
Now it's close to home, happening to people like us. Now it's a genuine concern and those who are close enough in Europe are forced to process those worries, go through them, make scenarios, visualize the loss because it may be their loss soon.
When Russia was bombing the hell out of Syria very few people felt the visceral hate or fear they feel now. And I bet far fewer people remember that this is even more recent than the Crimean invasion and that they've kept bombing Syria well into 2021. When Russia was invading Georgia we just watched the news and shook our heads. Same when Russia and Turkey were fighting their proxy wars in the Caucasus, Western and Central Asia. All too far from us to care.
It was all about thoughts and prayers until the bombs hit close to home.
Maybe USA didn't care. I remember, as a child, my Polish parents being glued to the TV, watching the situation unfold in Chechnya.
As far as I know, my country accepted quite a few Chechen refugees. Dhokhar Dudayev was recognised as a hero in Poland. We named a landmark after him.
I don't think Sreberenica is forgotten or was ignored in Europe. The West seems to be slow to wake up -- and Putin got high on his sequence of "successful" wars. I don't want to deny that hypocrisy exists here, but it doesn't justify Putins crimes anywhere.
The diplomatic relationships since Russia Federation's birth have been problematic and idiosyncratic. Russian people wanted recognition of their value. West decided to not follow similar approach with other past enemies countries -- and this was due to the cold war. Somehow Russia's "Monroe" doctrine is surprising now to us, despite all the warnings by political science and diplomats since 2014. (at least/off the top of my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&t=2893s) And our own similar reactions and actions.
It is known that Putin made multiple attempts to establish partnerships and ensure Russia was part of the West. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s... I would say all sides need to take a breather and attempt an honest discussion among equals -- if it's not too late.
For example, while Pozner insists that Russia did nothing wrong during the 90s, he's conveniently forgetting to mention the Chechen Wars. Which wasn't a conflict the west was a party in, but it wouldn't exactly be fair to say Russia was a peace-loving nation during that time.
Also while he says there's plenty of proof of Putin trying to join NATO or the EU, I can only find proof of half-hearted attempts to join NATO, it doesn't seem he was very serious about any of it. Back in 2009 the Russian delegation to NATO, while open to the suggestion of joining NATO, also said "Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power." [2] Those aren't the kind of things you say when you're actively trying to join NATO.
In any case, I agree that the west should've done more to ensure democracy in the early Russian Federation was a success. And while the Wolfowitz Doctrine was widely condemned and was heavily changed it definitely cemented belief in Russia that the west was only interested in isolating it.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/deep/interv/p_int_vladimir... [2] https://euobserver.com/news/27890
Here is the first google result from before 2008 [1]. Anyone paying attention in the 90s will recall when Russia was signalling a renewed interest in joining NATO.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/p...
I'm surprised that some people still haven't learned that his words don't mean anything.
I remember this interview; even at the time it came across as trolling. Key words: "unexpected gesture", "would consider", "treat as equal partner".
For reference, "treat as equal partner" is the putinspeak for "recognize our right to control half of the continent".
No wonder nobody took him seriously.
Would you think Russia and the rest of Europe be a good match? How many values do they share? Not many. Russia's actions have proven not letting them in NATO was an extremely good decision. I would not want to side with a country like that.
"Make up your own mind!" ( = Use some of the search terms I've fed you to Google for similar shit and hopefully take it for "independent science") is what the anti-vaccine trolls say, too.
And the very first teaser quote from that Guardian article:
> "George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’"
Yeah, that attitude pretty conclusively shows why Russia doesn't belong in a mutual-defense alliance of countries big and small.
This is probably two magnitudes worse concerning the risk for further spread.
The pretense is not what is interesting but the sheer size of the endeavour.
I can't think of another country of any kind, much less a major power, overtly invoking the whole set since Hitler, but if it's so common, please list the examples you are thinking of.
Maybe they thought there would be a repetition of the rather clean Krim expedition.
Maybe the shadow elite are against the war.
I don't know.
This is not comparable to how one gets elected to an upper house in most countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_council_of_russia#E...
These are rubber-stamping yes-men of a single party state, obedience is the only thing required, thinking is not involved.
Mujahideens volunteering in Bosnia and creating a muslim army and committing numerous crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_mujahideen
Croatian army ethnically cleansing croatian territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm
Kosovo Albanian Liberation Army which was designated as terrorist organization by the US, but that conveniently changed before NATO bombing of Yugoslavia committing their share of crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army
Than there is also NATO bombing destroying numerous civilian targets and killing civilians on all sides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_during_Ope...
etc etc.
So many atrocities, where one is too many. I long for the day where each side will punish all their vile murderers and crime doers and not as it is often done, protect them, excuse them, or even celebrate them after the wars. Or even better, when ordinary people would not fall for the propaganda of their countries and stop wars from even happening.
That's one (big) factor, but Putin's casual mention that nuclear weapons were on the table if anyone got in his way was also a good way to get everyone's attention.
Since Yalta-Potsdam conferences world doesn't recognize the right of conquest.
Since Peace of Westphalia historical grounds for aggression were not valid.
In his speech Putin dived directly to Rus, denying centuries of political development.
That is the main reason Russia is dangerous to everyone: not because of an attack on Ukraine, but because of dismantling the current world order.
WW3 is not "Russia against the world". WW3 is every country seeing the possibility of quietly entering the fry and getting out in a better position.
Putlin. Or Putler.
I also find it kind of hypocritical (but isn't that to be expected in war politics) of the European NATO members that they were completely fine with breaking up Yugoslavia, arming separatist movements, taking sides in a civil war and bombarding a sovereign country, and then ending it up with another war and a three month (THREE MONTHS) constant bombing of a sovereign country with the use of weapons with depleted uranium. This led to some Italian army members receiving hefty compensations from Italy after they were diagnosed with cancer. I talked with some of them, this is actually how I found out about the subject. In the end that money is worthless when you know that you have cancer. And what I am most appalled by is the fact that my generation knows nothing about this, and that the people that suffered the bombs cannot do anything about it. They live with the traumas from the bombardment and with the fear that them or their children will one day get cancer.
You don't "bomb a country" with depleted uranium. That's used for its high density, which gives a lot of kinetic energy to conventional ammunition made out of it: Armour-penetrating shots. Anti-tank ammo, not bombs.
Are you saying Ukraine is no big deal and anyone complaining about it should shut up, or are you saying it's a shame that people didn't take the other wars more seriously?
Either way, you should be more specific in your complaint so people can disagree or not, without having to guess what you mean and inadvertantly assume you're pro-invasion and trying to undermine the global response to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Star_Trek#21st_cen...
We're right on schedule. This is obviously no joking matter but this scenario has been with us for decades already.
Despite all our progress, our greed and petty squabbling make me feel like the future that star trek pointed us towards is slipping further into the future. I'm sure now that even in a post scarcity world, humans would still find ways to fight, burn, waste, and regress. Sorry, Gene.
“A matter of internal security: the age-old cry of the oppressor.” - Picard (The Hunter)
“The past is written, but the future is left for us to write. And we have powerful tools, openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity. All they have is secrecy and fear. And fear is the great destroyer.” - Picard (Broken Pieces)
While I understand the world view and it's utopian appeal. I believe what your youth might have been missing is an incentive to critically think and search for information that is not curated for you.
In the last decades there has been not much (imo) implying we are anywhere even heading towards such a society. I believe it can only be perceived that way if you omit the large parts of society and especially the world as a whole. Local things like changes in living standard for most of the population, crime rates, organized crime. International things like piracy, human trafficking, corruption in different parts of the world. If you look beyond a local bubble, there doesnt seem to be much implying much was heading towards a society you refer to.
I do not wish to imply you don't think critically, just that there are too many topics for anyone to inform themselves about all of them. At best we are aware of what we know more about and what we know less about.
Regarding critical thought:
While I believe it is important to teach youth about independant thought and critical thinking, I also want for young people to have a somewhat sheltered youth and not to worry about all the horrible things in the world. As so many things it's complicated.
It's given me a new appreciation for how important it is for children to grow up with truly idealistic visions in their cultural surroundings. It's terrible that in these times, there's no TNG equivalent that I'm aware of.
By the way, one TNGie to another: try to hold off on that disappointment. As a species we're just starting to get the hang of rationality, the scientific mindset, and self-governance. We're babies. It'll take a long time, we just need to try not to do any irreversible damage before we get where we're going.
May you live in interesting times...
Have you been living inside a watermelon.
Why didn't you destroy Saudi Arabia instead? Because they pay their tribute in oil, and you had to destroy "someone", and Afghanistan was the first in the alphabetical list of countries that met the criteria for destruction?
These are the only 2 numbers you should look at.
[1] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/yemen-crisis
- "any contact to less developed civilizations is strictly forbidden".
- "do not interfere in any way and don't take a side in conflicts of sovereign civilizations".
Both of them were crucial. If we followed these principles, the world would be much happier and peaceful place.
What do we do instead? Bomb democracy into societies not yet ready for it, force trade agreements to detriment of less developed countries, incite and profit from wars that would either never happen or finish much earlier if we left those people alone.
If we were James T Kirk and Jan Luc Picard instead of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, we should not need to worry for the future of human species.
But countries like Russia would be free to invade Ukraine and others because of the "don't interfere" and "don't take a side" policy. It's like the "I did nothing" poem. NATO was founded to try and prevent another country from building an empire like Germany tried in WW2, because at the time it was like that poem, first they came. Which was about politics and religious groups initially, but it applies to Germany's conquest of Europe as well.
The "don't interfere" policy would also apply to Russia. And if they still try, the others would be responsible not to let them interfere. In the same way as others would need to stop China, USA, and Zimbabwe when they attempt to interfere with another sovereign state on the lesser level of development.
Yeah, good luck with that.
> And if they still try, the others would be responsible not to let them interfere.
Yup. That's why Ukraine should have been let into NATO long ago.
>> If we followed these principles, the world would be much happier and peaceful place.
And less developed civilizations would have polio, ox carts, and witch medicine.
Just try to look objectively, and you'll see that a vast majority of people in Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Afghanistan lived much better and safer life then after a series of foreign interventions and introduction of "democracy".
If we go a bit further in the past, the whole population of South and North America got annihilated by the diseases that came with the colonial forces. So yes, they would definitely be better if we had a Star Trek approach.
And people in those countries also live a safer life with modern medicine, airbags, concrete in buildings, modern roads or telephones that they don't developed. You can't take just the good parts of modern societies while claiming that those societies are evil and refusing to improve them. This is just hypocritical.
15 years ago Russia was participating in NATO and even US-lead exercises like BALTOPS. Putin suggested to join NATO in the early 2000s.
I think that issue there is that Star Trek is a fiction.
So far, humanity still hasn’t felt the need to unify or try to provide for all people. We’re way off from that utopian vision.
The Star Trek universe explicitly had a third world war, which was absolutely devastating. In that sense we're doing really well!
As you notice, at the end of the 20th century we almost had this kind of "federation" when the US and its allies were the only center of power in the world. The US arrived at that point by winning an economic and cultural war. But its coalition failed to entrench itself, grew weaker and more bloated and now we are facing these dangerous rifts between different factions of humanity.
Note: in the current emotional climate this may sound like war apologism. It is not - war is unspeakably horrible for everyone involved. But this is what an impartial alien looking from an orbit would deduce about the humanity.
Regardless of the outcome of the current flareup, I believe we're seeing the end of "Pax Americana". There is no way to accurately predict what will come next.
I too am a trekkie and we could still obtain this vision.
So far only world sanctions have been brought against Russia.
If the Russian people rise up and protest/overthrow their government. It would tell the world that such extreme sanctions are enough to crush a nuclear power and prevent war. That we are indeed post-war. That borders become less important. Instead of war, we take that money and invest in ourselves. We start building tall.
If the Russian people don't do this. It means we are not post-war. It means we haven't broken the cycle. It means in about 2100, the cycle hits again and we have another massive war.
Star Trek: Birth of the Federation captured this quite well in its endings representing Loss, Allied Victory, Domination ( 2/3 of the galaxy controlled) and Total Conquest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A8N1N-dREc
Contrast this with the Cardassians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_RbUKsaj0
But then, looking at some comments here cheering suffering of others and passing judgement reminds me of the episode 'encounter at far point', maybe Q was right after all.
It's sad, but honestly, Russians tolerated the situation for far too long and the externalities were paid by everybody around them.
But we still haven't stopped buying oil/gas.
And if we did, China might buy it instead.
Or you know Putin can declare that the operation was succesfull and retreat back to Russia. Then he can spend the rest of his time spinning a story of how this was his plan all along. I don’t care as long as he is not making his people murder others at scale.
What service will you move to that will exclusively act in your best interest?
Best bet is to pick a side.
Americans can't be this shallow. This is ridiculous. THINK about what you are suggesting with these sanctions regimes. Sanctions are a crime against humanity, too.
>They should share some of the pain.
Such utter totalitarian-authoritarian nonsense. Did 9/11 stop the US from bombing innocent people in the Middle East?
Your experience is valid and interesting. Still, unless you’ve got a better alternative, and until sanctions do actually cause those potential harms, I think they are the best weapons we have.
No, bad actors/dictators produce extreme poverty and hyperinflation.
> Guys who are in power can even more easily hold to the power and use force against the populous.
Too bad for the populace. Maybe they should have got off their arses and got rid of the bad guys a little earlier, eh?
> Destroying free media and maxing propaganda and sadly average person falls for propaganda if it is fed to him daily.
Do you really think it's sanctions from the West that have turned Russian media into propaganda mouthpieces?
So .. Why are we supporting the KSA by shipping it weapons and refuelling their planes, then?
Because we learned that genocide by sanctions is an effective weapon, as per Iraq, Libya, etc. Alongside the children of Yemen, we are directing this same policy at the children of Russia.
It's not the rest of the world that keeps putting dictators in power in Russia, is it? It's the Russians.
Yes of course there is: That's the only way to do it. What else do you think economies and states are, if not people?
NATO, EU, Switzerland and a few others are not trying to hold Russians accountable. They are trying to hit the Russian economy strong and hard to demonstrate that Putin's Russia cannot afford a war against the West. That's after Putin and his representatives articulated several times and in no uncertain terms the threat of a nuclear attack against the West.
Are people going to suffer for it? Absolutely. That's the definition of a war, even if it the West has chosen to use money to wage it, rather than deploying soldiers.
Is it worth it? Time will tell, I suppose.
All I can tell you is that in the past week, I have spent time role-playing/strategizing the entire situation with friends (that's how I evacuate stress, YMMV) and, based on the information I have at hand, I would have done the same if I was playing the West.
edit Clarified.
I would need to double-check, but I'd be surprised if it didn't hurt Napoleon's army, as well as Hitler's and Mussolini's, for instance. I remember that one of the reasons for which the Allies won WWII is that towards the end of the war, the Wehrmacht had considerable difficulties finding fuel for their panzers and logistics and had insufficient ammo for extended fights.
Hurts bystanders, too, of course.
Gas isn't just used for heating people. About 20% of Europe's power is generated using gas, and there is not enough spare capacity to compensate for that.
Germany is currently looking to extend the operating life of its nuclear powerplants and will indeed have to consider replacing them despite pledging not to. France and the UK are ahead on this, with the latter investing heavily in small-scale nuclear reactors. The first of those will still take another 10 years to arrive, though.
Even if gas was just for heating buildings, what you're asking for would kill quite a lot of elderly and vulnerable people. In the UK alone, it's estimated that 3000 people die each year due to fuel poverty already, and the UK is far from the coldest country in the region. Europe is not California.
You are of course correct that we should reduce dependence on fossil fuels (Russian or otherwise), and it was a major error of judgement by our leaders (over several decades) to get us into this position, but that cannot be rectified overnight.
It's pure hypocrisy that you want the other side to suffer now, but you want to roll off your reliance on Gazprom on a timescale of a decade as to not be inconvenienced.
Do you think Amazon should stop doing business with the USA, or are you saying you do not believe the international community should hold the USA accountable for their murderous incomprehensible actions around the world?
Not to Saudi Arabia, not to USA/UK/France, not to Israel.
Libya, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, etc are not worthy victims (see manufacturing consent).
The war fervor and demand for generating damage against "the others" is at an all time high and is very clearly propaganda.
There's no context (2014 to now, interesting things have been happening in Ukraine) nor desire for peace. It's full on white Vs black and calls for action, not diplomacy.
Those of us who have been following Geopolitcs for a while and remember Iraq and others... Will be way more skeptic than to buy a simplified narrative of us Vs "terrible them".
This isn't political, but a result of sanctions applied by politics.
Don't get me wrong, I am not really defending the big players, because they generally have a lot of trashy things going on.
I'm really just pointing out the obvious results of political changes.
I'm sure the Ukrainians feel the same way about the anti-Ukrainian trope saying they are being run by neo-Nazis.
How, exactly?
Responsibility is a very precisely defined concept: how are they all responsible?
By not having removed Putler from power.
Passport used to travel is called foreign passport.
By this logic 9/11 was fully justified.
It seems the lesson of 9/11 was not learned, and there will simply be more events just like it until Americans understand, they do not have the exceptional moral authority to get away with crimes against humanity and war crimes, if they're not willing to grant those same 'rights' to other nation states too.
Oh wait, they do grant those 'rights' to other nation states, its just a matter of whether those states have the moolah to keep American military industrial complex partners in caviar ..
I mean, fair game.
is every american responsible for the countless deaths the US and their profitable war machine caused?
how about anyone living in [1]?
I safely bet the majority of people on this planet would prefer money spent on conflicts be invested in research, development, health and education.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_confli...
Let's also wish for freedom for all, especially the defenders. Minimized bloodshed under a foreign dictator isn't a good outcome.
And is Europe racist? Oh yes, we are. The cries against having brown people given asylum came from every corner of society. And now everyone is welcoming our brothers and sisters, as they should.
I don't want a world war but we sure are getting there. The status quo will have to change. The good guys are most certainly not in charge.
Can't we discuss realities in a more open way without the low hanging strawman arguments?
Like yours, you mean? Yes, please try.
However, Europe is one of the least racist places in the world, and one of the places where millions of non-white people moved to and started a new life.
The tirade about a supposedly racist Europe is pretty ungenerous. Of course there are racist people in Europe here and there, but Europe as a whole is one of the least racist places in the whole world.
Short statements aren't tirades by definition, though I understand your sentiment. Can't help but notice certain non-european country is working overtime to unite the world against against the threat they have very much encouraged. And that they have done, and continue to do, much worse things. We shouldn't let this go unnoticed. Context matters
Don't get me wrong, I wish that there was no war, and that everybody could live in peace and prosperity, in Ukraine and in Russia, but what OP does is trying to limit the impact of our economical sanctions on the Russian economy