- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
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Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.
West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.
Tankies on Lemmy: “oh no, Russia is being oppressed”
Angry libs on lemmy downplay CNN poll showing majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine
Imagine not helping your Allies when they’ve been invaded, unprovoked, and are fighting for everything.
To be fair, we tend to take US military help to Europe for granted in retrospect. Both FDR and Churchill fought hard battles at home to ensure the opposition to Nazi Germany, and at the time it is far from obvious that they would succeed. There’s also an element of luck to the fact that we had FDR and Churchill at the helm of these countries in these years - weaker leaders would have crumbled like France.
US military involvement in the postwar era has been a fucking mess, but we (Europeans) are eternally grateful for this - far from obvious - determination to help your allies when they’re being invaded.
Post script since there’s a bunch of Russian shills in this thread: We’re grateful for the efforts of the Red Army as well. The fact that Stalin was happy to cooperate with Hitler all the way until the invasion of the Soviet Union, combined with a common distaste for Soviet postwar policies in many liberated areas, however makes our appreciation of the Soviet political leadership at the time a bit more strained. Soviet military tactics were also inefficient and caused unnecessary suffering and losses within the Red Army - history does repeat itself.
Avengers theme plays
The White House must be angry libs on lemmy then.
They’re angry libs, yes.
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Good thing we listened to a few things Alexis Tocqueville had to say and we don’t simply follow majority opinion on everything, because sometimes the majority is wrong.
Heckin wholesome democracy, ignoring the will of the people to keep doing what you wanted anyway, after doing that for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq
“And that’s all I have to say about that.”
At a 2008 summit, NATO stated that it would attempt to expand to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them. Georgia was immediately invaded by Russia in response. Imo this makes it clear that NATO membership for either of those countries was so unacceptable that Russia would rather invade.
If we assume that Russia (and Putin in particular) is acting violently and irrationally like a wild animal, why did NATO continue to agitate Russia when the only possible outcome would be violence? Surely a neutral or even Russia-aligned Ukraine would be preferable to a war-torn Ukraine? This is proof that the US and NATO don’t care about the average person actually living in Ukraine, and indeed don’t care about the Ukrainian state beyond it being a useful (and profitable) proxy against a geo-political rival.
To be clear, I’m not excusing Russia here, but geo-politics aren’t about what’s “fair” or “right”, and if they were, the US would be a global pariah.
edit: sorry this is really long.
I think it’s clear that NATO support for Ukraine is not altruistic (it is simply not how international politics functions) but the Ukrainian people as such certainly do, in my eyes, have an ethical right to self-defence. If I were Ukrainian, I would want NATO weapons because they give me a better chance of fighting off the invader. After all, it’s not like the 2022 invasion was the first bit of tension between Ukraine and Russia post-independence, it makes sense to try and form a counterbalancing alliance with the ‘far’ imperial power to counter the ‘close’ one, it’s a common thing to do. e.g., Mali allying with Russia to counter French influence, Armenia allying with Russia to counter Turkish-Azeri aggression, and so on and so forth.
I think what I find disagreeble about peoples’ attitudes on here is their attitude towards the Ukrainian people’s struggle. Yes, ok, I also hate the far-right elements in the Ukrainian military and don’t care at all that they got smashed in Mariupol, but I certainly do care about the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION which is being denied to so many Ukrainians (there is clear evidence that outside of Crimea even Russian-speaking Ukrainians almost entirely oppose the invasion). Likewise
Yes, NATO does not care about Ukrainians, but an invasion was not the ‘logical’ response from Russia, and as per existing evidence was based on a complete misunderstanding of the realities on the ground in Ukraine from the Russian leadership which has become increasingly isolated and personalist (around Putin) in the past two decades but especially since COVID. There were a vast number of less escalatory and mutually destructive potential paths for the Russian leadership to have taken. After all, this war has gone terribly for Russia compared to their initial aims. Putin claimed (wrongly) that Ukrainian national identity was a Bolshevik creation with no real support, yet now a fervent Ukrainian national identity exists now more than ever before in both the east and west of the country. Putin thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would rally to his side, yet he has pushed them into the arms of the Ukrainian state more than ever before. Putin was afraid of Ukraine becoming aligned with NATO, yet now he has pushed them into the arms of the west completely and permanently. The invasion has killed tens of thousands of young Russian men, has caused considerable capital flight, large-scale brain drain, and empowered Prigozhin and other mercenary/sub-state militias (including Kadyrovites and such) to the point where a mercenary group was within a few hours of marching on Moscow(!) before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort (Prigozhin is still strong enough to be allowed to potter about diplomatic meetings, if you need any indication of the dire state of the Russian state). Putin claims to be conducting de-Nazification yet his policies since 2014 have uniformly strengthened the position of the far-right within Ukrainian state + society.
Plus the conduct of the Russian Army and its affiliated elements has been extremely inhumane. I would not say there is evidence of genocide, no (though the large-scale kidnapping of Ukrainian children and their Russification, if true on a systemic scale, would be an act of genocide-I do not think there is enough evidence to say either way yet), but there is evidence of systematic and systemic abuses on a VASTLY larger scale than we have seen from the Ukrainians. It is a catastrophe of Russia’s own making.
To get back on topic (sorry), I do not see how you can admonish Ukrainians for supporting any means for their national self-defence. They have every right to resist the invasion and to not want part of their homeland (territory and ‘land’ is important in all national identities/mythologies), no? There is no contradiction between supporting this right to self-defence and self-determination and hating the Nazi groups which, unfortunately, have an outsized power within the Ukrainian military (but do not completely control the state-Zelensky is Jewish and a Russian-speaker!). Yes, Ukrainian national mythology has its share of far-right and general awful elements to it, but unfortunately that’s common in a lot of Eastern Europe and as per studies Nazism and antisemitism do not have more support in Ukraine than in Russia or the rest of Eastern Europe. There has been plenty of polling/surveying on these topics in Ukraine. There is more so just a lack of understanding as to what the Banderites actually did in WW2, not real support for their actions/Nazi collaboration. That’s bad but not what some are saying on here.
To clarify my stance, I want the war to end as soon as possible so that all the people on the ground can stop killing each other for no reason. I also agree that Russia invading was, in addition to being wrong because war is bad, incredibly stupid and needlessly damaging to their own position (I was one of the people saying they wouldn’t launch an invasion because it seemed like it would backfire). We’ll see how the economic and geo-political damage ends up shaking out in a decade or so, I imagine. And of course it’s understandable for Ukrainians to take up arms to defend their land, though it will likely only prolong the suffering, especially if we agree that life on the ground under the Ukrainian state would be little better than living under the Russian one. I also recognize that Putin claiming the war was necessary for de-nazification etc was the equivalent of pretending to care about human rights to sell the war to the populace; yes there are nazis and the far right is a huge problem in Ukraine, but that isn’t something Russia actually cares about (beyond a potential insurgency, anyway).
However, the point of my comment was not to condemn Ukraine. Instead, it was to point out that the US is not interested in helping Ukrainians (something we clearly agree on), and that in fact they are more than willing to sacrifice them in a conflict to achieve their own ends, namely isolating/weakening Russia and opening up Ukraine to even more voracious imperial extraction.
I certainly do care about the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION which is being denied to so many Ukrainians
Do you support the right to self-determination for Ukrainians in the Donbas region? Do you support their right to live in peace, free from artillery bombardment and being terrorized by far-right paramilitary groups? Or do you only support the rights of Ukrainians that the state department tells you to care about?
I don’t think that is in any contradiction w/ my comment whatsoever.
I think a peace deal involving referendums in these areas (not under military occupation-creates unfair and unfree conditions for a referendum e.g., as in Crimea!) would identify the actual will of the people in these parts of the Donbas. I expect heavily that Crimea above all would vote to leave Ukraine and I think it has every right to do so ethically-speaking, though I do not think the referendum was carried out in free/fair conditions.
You can’t write two paragraphs excusing Russia and then say “I’m not excusing Russia btw.”
No country should be able to force ‘my way or a military invasion’ ultimatum on another non hostile sovereign state. If a government interprets a neighboring country joining a purely defensive treaty out of their own volition (no, Ukraine is not secretly run by the CIA after Maidan) as a hostile act, that only means the nationalism levels went out if control.
I’m normally very critical of the US, but neither them nor NATO can be blamed for this conflict.
For the first 40 years of NATO’s existence it sought to offensively undermine democracy and reinforce the states of NATO aligned countries in Europe through terrorism.
They then rather offensively carpet bombed Yugoslavia killing and wounding thousands of civilians ( many of whom were from Kosovo the people they purportedly wanted to help), 3 foreign diplomats by bombing a foreign embassy not in anyway involved in a conflict and completely destroying the infrastructure of Serbia.
They then offensively invaded Afghanistan where they destabilized the country, toppled the government and then put pedophile psychos in charge because they were the ones willing to work with us, killed nearly 100,000 civilians, and then ended up putting the original government back in charge 20 years later.
Finally they offensively took the most prosperous country in Africa, a country with universal college, healthcare, jobs programs, and housing, a desert country that had a 200 year supply of water and bombed the fuck out of it, destroying the water supply, plundering the gold, supporting the precursors to ISIS, and turned the country into a place with fucking slave auctions.
But yeah NATO is a defensive alliance.
Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO - I protested against my country involvement when possible and do agree about them being either dumb decisions (Kosovo) or straight up war crimes (Afghanistan). They shouldn’t have happend.
My point still stand though. NATO doesn’t threaten Russia borders. It could be called ‘Anti-Russia-Country-Club’, but even then the only things threatened by existence of NATO are post-USSR legacy and economic interest. Not exactly arguments to mount a large scale invasion/ethnic cleansing.
Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO
You’ll just ignore their relevance to why NATO approaching your doorstep is, in fact, hostile and aggressive.
NATO was literally created to oppose the USSR and the left in Europe generally, and did not disband after the fall of the USSR, instead taking up further aggression and at greater range, and keeping a very clear encirclement position around Russia. The bases got larger, the spending increased, and membership was sought to undermine any countries stepping out of line of the American-imposed order.
NATO weapons are bombing Russia literally right now.
Are the Russians sincerely supposed to believe that NATO isn’t a threat
That’s sort of a hard reality to contextualize away
If NATO, as we both agree, is an aggressive group of countries that has a contemporary history of attacking countries that are not aligned with the West, despite many of these countries trying to align themselves with the West in good faith (Libya, Russia, and Iran all helped the West in the war on terror), then what is the appropriate way for Russia to react to the expansion of NATO to their doorstep? And I’m asking this as a genuine question, you’re Russia how are you reacting to the West surrounding you despite assisting them, when do you stop tolerating increased military encroachment?
I don’t think that Russia invaded Ukraine because of only NATO expansion, but it obviously played a role given that the peace agreement that was nearly agreed upon April 2022 had Ukraine agree to neutrality. I think a lot of it came down to the genocide of ethnically Russian Ukrainians in the East and Ukraine’s increased shelling of the region in February 2022 is probably what escalated the war into what we see today.
That’s a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
As a resident of one, I think it’s because they feel that Russia after Yeltsin has the exact same imperialistic principles USSR did. And it doesn’t matter to them that Russia did cooperate with the West, because they see those principles as enough threat. Thus, they have the same reason to fear Russia as Russia has to fear NATO.
Perhaps if NATO disbanded before 1999 we wouldn’t have current Russia, but that’s alt history.
Russia after Yeltsin
Russia during Yeltsin rolled in the tanks on its own parliament. The absence of foreign invasions was not for lack of malice, but for lack of capability.
The reason why ex-Warsaw Pact countries are flocking to NATO is because when the communists left power, the reactionaries resurged. And naturally the reactionaries in power wanted to be part of a right-wing alliance. But no matter what revanchists might tell you, living standards across Eastern Europe were better in the 1980s than they were in the 2000s.
why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
Because they are run by right-wing oligarchies that want to consolidate and protect their accumulated wealth and power? The imperialism is coming from inside the house.
That’s a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
Fellow ex Warsaw Pact resident here.
They wanted to join NATO because after the dissolution of the USSR these countries were pushed into a deep economic crisis, to which one of the solutions, apart from relentless austerity programs was the privatization of the shit ton of public assets they had. Of course lots of western companies were in on this since for them these assets were really cheap and they had a lot of money. The city hall of the town i went to university to became a fucking McDonald’s.
Thing is, a lot of people didnt like this, not just the austerity, but the handing of domestic assets to western companies. And they were not even that wrong about it! In Albania, in 1997 a series of bankruptcies of asset managing companies (most western owned) who were basically scamming people who barely came into contact with capitalism, telling them theyll get 50% interest rates for their money, led to a brutal uprising where ordinary people were sacking military bases, setting up machine gun nests in the borders of cities and overthrew the government (after half a year of protests).
In the meantime Russia was led by well-known alcoholic, Boris Yeltsin, who doesn’t strike me as the napoleonic conqueror people make him out to be.
So why did these countries join NATO? Because they DESPERATELY needed the money, but western companies wouldnt invest in (exploit) them if they dont have insurances (troops that could be sent against the people anytime an Albanian-type revolt breaks out or an anti-western government come in power who would try to renationalize assets) that their investments (exploitation) runs as smoothly as possible. And it works. People like to say that “ackshually the living standards went up in Eastern Europe”, but they never stop to check that it only went up because the rich got richer, pulling the average up. The working class’ lives stagnated at best, except the social net around them is rapidly brought down. Older people are not nostalgic for socialism here because theyre becoming senile, but because they see every time that they go to a hospital that the increasingly privatized healthcare system is crumbling.
Don’t believe me? It’s fine. But i would suggest that you examine who the current pariahs are in NATO: Hungary, whose government has to rely in a lot of things to the cheapest due to a ravaged economy (both by corruption and privatization), so they rely a lot on domestic production and trying to hand off as little stuff to western corporations as possible (and still fail at it, hence why they are still intact), and Turkey, who makes no secret of wanting to standing on its own feet and not rely on western corporations.
non hostile sovereign state
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non hostile sovereign state
For the past several decades NATO has utterly destroyed various countries around the world, while maintaining ruthless tradewars against the peoples of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, as well as a brutal colonial regime across much of West Africa. NATO won’t stop at invading your country either. They’ll maintain occupations in Syria and blockades of Afghanistan from now until the end of time.
NATO would rather see the people of Niger and Mali starve to death rather than pay market rates for their resources.
NATO will crow that countries in South America are too defiant, why, they didn’t even try and coup the brazilian elections last year!
NATO is, simply put, a defensive alliance of the world’s preeminent warmongerers.
Hosting NATO troops is the epitome of hostility.
Unfortunately for you some countries can actually resist. And resist they shall.
Oh I’d forgotten that Biden seized Afghanistan’s soveriegn wealth, causing a famine.
That famine was an investment in democracy.
They can, because hexbear. They’re Russian apologists.
Yeah yeah, I know Hexbear. I don’t agree with their pro-imperialism, but at the same time they are not wrong with their socialist takes.
That’s why it’s worth debating them - they are not inherently evil like fascists are.
In fascists’ defence, they have no theory to fall back on, it’s all just kneejerk reptilian brain brute force and brute words and brute cult of personality. That’s why I am befuddled whenever I see a leftist take an offensive realist perspective :/
non hostile sovereign state
Non-hostility is when you do ethnic cleansing against the ethnicity the neighboring country is named after, engage in a war right by the borders to support that ethnic ckeansing, violate your treaties to end that war, and cozy up your coup government to the military organization intended to encircle that country, an org that regularly engages in aggression.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia ‘green man’. There were tensions between Russian and Ukrainian nationals in those territories, but I’ve seen no data on large scale extermination operations.
Ukraine engaged in a defensive war with a force clearly backed by their stronger neighbor that just laid claim to another piece of their land (Crimea). This was a land grab in all but name, no matter how much propaganda tries to paint it as a legitimate independence movement. Blame for casualties of that war lies entirely on separatists and Russia.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia ‘green man’
The ethnic cleansing was and is part of official Ukrainian policy. Do you think the sneaky Rooskies infiltrated and forced Kyiv to drop Russian as an official language, one that could be learned and used in schools in Donbas? Did they cleverly rename the streets to Bandyerite fascist names? Did they create the Azov Batallikn, Righy Sector, etc - the Ukrainian fascist groups weaponized against the ethnic Russian civilians of Donbas and now directly incorporated into the government and armed forces? Did Russia secretly create the entire Kyiv side of the civil war that heavily targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure on the Donbas side?
Cool to learn, I didn’t know that.
Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia ‘green man’.
there have been reports of Ukranian paramilitaries shelling the Donbas going back almost a decade. multiple peace treaties were signed over it, all aiming to stop the ethnic cleansing. each and every one of those treaties were violated. this is all extremely well-documented. can you even prove that a single of these reports is fabricated?
Ukraine has used internationally banned cluster munitions in the donbass since 2014. A six year old playing in a field and dying to unexploded ordnance, whether that child is a Russian or Ukrainian speaker, is a horrific tragedy. These bombs are a form of terrorism sponsored by the post-coup Ukrainian state, and the nazi paramilitaries active in the area were and are state-sponsored terrorists.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
But I never said I support cluster munitions. Fuck them, and fuck the Nazis.
I did not just engage in a few hours of discussion to try and convince anyone that Ukraine is the shining beacon of hope and democracy. It isn’t, they have problems. So does every state. Some (like Russia) just seem to have comparatively more of those, or are not particularly good at dealing with them.
The problem though is that these issues are self-perpetuating. Both the current Russian and post-2014 Ukraine governments are the products of US interference. If we were truly spreading Democracy, then they would be capable of mediating these conflicts peacefully. Since Capital dictates the terms of our international intervention, it puts its own interests first, and it’s very interested in selling weapons. I just can’t accept the premise that selling more weapons will lead to any sort of long-lasting peace or democracy in the region.
Ok, according to what you’re saying, Mexico can never join BRICS if the US says no. Is that what you think? The US can be a pretty rabid animal too, as you say.
What do you think would happen if, hypothetically speaking, a nearby state such as, let’s say, Cuba started hosting the military assets of a hostile power?
What about even a distant nation such as oh I don’t know maybe Iran or one of the koreas started making weapons the US felt threatened by?
Just thinking aloud here I don’t know.
Nobody is offering Ukraine nukes, that’s what the Budapest memorandum was all about, knock it off.
Cuba had its revolution and had its own arsenal provided by the USSR and has survived everything the US threw at it so far and Ukraine will survive russia too, but a moat would be handy :)
and has survived everything the US threw at it so far
The point being the US threw a lot of shit at it because of course the US wouldn’t tolerate those missiles being there, and Russia won’t tolerate NATO being in Ukraine.
If China made a defensive alliance with Mexico that included a military base in Tijuana, Mexico would suddenly be in need of some democracy and freedom.
Continuing to deny this basic reality means your position isn’t connected to reality.
Peace requires a sustainable security situation for Russia not just for Ukraine and for Russia that means no NATO since NATO is hostile to Russia. It’s clear and denying this is just putting your head in the sand.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
Does the US have to place nukes in Ukraine so that by removing them russia will stop attacking it?
But by all means, if Trump starts threatening Mexico with some bullshit invasion to clean out the cartels, they should by all means ask China and anyone else to help out, sure! That’s how it works in a bipolar world (there is no multipolar world, russia’s empire is gone and China+US will make sure it never returns)
NATO is not hostile to russia, NATO prevents russia from invading its western neighbours, which is obviously a bummer to russia.
The sustainable security solution is: russia respects borders and other countries’ sovereignty. The end.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
Yeah so the obvious conclusion is that peace in Cuba required satisfying the US’s demand to not have a Soviet military presence there.
Likewise peace in Ukraine requires not having a NATO military presence there.
Pretending that NATO isn’t hostile to Russia is also simply disconnected from reality. You need to connect your world view to reality.
Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
You get that in this analogy Ukraine is taking the place of Cuba, right? Like NATO is using Ukraine as a disposable proxy to bleed Russia… okay well the metaphor falls apart because the details are really different, but Cuba was threatening the US in a vaguely similar way to how Ukraine is threatening Russia, and the peace deal was that Cuba would remove all the missiles and in exchange the US would remove it’s missiles from Turkey and not massacre the Cuban population. So the equivalent would be Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO (not that NATO was ever going to let them), disarm, and stop trying to wipe out Russian speaking Ukrainians.
NATO is not hostile to russia
NATO’s explicit purpose is and always have been the destruction of the Russian state and the pillaging of it’s resources and it’s beyond bad faith to state otherwise.
NATO is not hostile to russia
Ukraine’s coup government was threatening to construct nukes shortly before the US proxy war there began. I would cite my sources but I know you won’t care 😉
Well, BRICS isn’t really a formal alliance but if it were? Yeah, joining a hostile alliance while sharing a border with the US is asking for trouble, and the US has committed all matter of atrocities in latin america. I do think an outright invasion would be less likely than their usual method of military coups and death squads.
So just to reiterate, you are okay with America invading Mexico to enforce its will on them?
Half of Mexico is still under US military occupation, they already have a buffer zone between them.
Mate, it’s not hard.
It’s a yes or no question.
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When did the last military coup in Latin America, orchestrated by CIA ,happen? I am not saying that the US is great but at some point, we need to talk about the present. And at the present(and recent past), the US is not trying to overthrow a government, at least not by using military force in Latin America.
As far as the war in Ukraine in concerned, the US is doing the right thing, even if they are doing it because it benefits them. This is the only time since WW2 that the US is doing the right thing. Have you ever wondered why historically neutral countries like Sweden want to join NATO now? What caused that change?
Mexico has every right to join the Warsaw Pact and i would be on Mexico’s and Russia’s side if the US invaded Mexico for wanting to join an alliance.
Now let’s talk about how NATO is threatening Russia. How would that happen? If Ukraine joined NATO, do you think NATO would invade Russia? You do realize that Russia has nukes, right? NATO is not about invading Russia, it’s about preventing Russia, a big country with nukes, from invading smaller countries with no nukes.
In 2014, Brazil, the coup on Dilma Roussef from the Worker’s Party received backing from the USA. In 2018, the unlawful conviction of Lula from the same party, was not only backed but also had strategical support from the USA through instructions on how then judge Sergio Moro should conduct the trial and how he should work with and favour the prosecution, even by the use of fake witnesses and evidence.
They also had the heaviest of hands against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela a few years later.
So the USA never stopped meddling and forcing their way on South America, really.
Did the US deploy military troops in Brazil?
The last coup was Bolivia in 2019, unless we’re doing the old it’s not true because it hasn’t been declassified yet shtick
Did the US deploy military troops in Bolivia? You do understand the difference between saying “yeah, we support you” and then local forces do a coup and literally invading and using your own troops to violently overthrowing a government. Dont you think there is a huge difference there?
You know exactly what someone means when they say the US did a coup, stop playing dumb.
NATO and BRICS are fundamentally different. You cannot compare them in good faith. NATO exists for the explicit purpose of destroying Russia. BRICS does not exist for the explicit purpose of destroying NATO, or America for that matter. It’s an extremely bad faith comparison.
Also yeah America would flatten the Mexico City if Mexico tried to join BRICS. They’ve already agitated for a coup a number of times in the last decade.
“How dare ex soviet nations try to ensure their own protection after Russia showed multiple times they like to invade ex soviet nations!”
I remember another time when some dictator wanted a bigger sphere of influence and started occupying other countries. Appeasement didn’t work than and it didn’t work with Russia.
Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them
Fuck that bully shit. They don’t own Ukraine and Georgia and they can make their own decisions. If Russia wanted a nato buffer zone they should have offered incentive. Look what they got instead…
I find in all Russia’s statements kind of ridiculous that it would have a say in how other sovereign countries handle their safety. Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
It’s not pretty but this is how the world works. If a man is holding a gun to your head, and says he’ll kill you if you don’t give him your wallet, do you hold onto the wallet out of principle because robbery is immoral?
The man with the gun to his head doesn’t have much of a choice if he wants to live. You, though, have a choice between criticising and defending the man with the gun, and you’re choosing to defend him.
Bruv you’re not this dense. NATO, an alliance constructed for the express purpose of destroying Russia, which did not disband when the USSR was destroyed, which continued to advance towards and encircle Russia for decades after the fall of the USSR, which refused the RF’s attempts to join the alliance, which has engaged in numerous illegal wars of aggression, is the man holding the gun and I swear to god just because you were born there that does not make them the good guys.
Ohhhh, I get hexbear now.
Wow, what an amazingly terrible worldview.
“I told you I was going to rob you if you tried to defend yourself, it’s your fault.”
That’s the genesis of the word “tankie”, much misused today: they say they are communist, but then advocate for the law of the strongest and can’t conceive of an alliance that isn’t more than vassalage and sending in the “tanks” against their allies to ensure they don’t fall out of line. That’s why everyone ran away from the Warsaw Pact when it ended whereas NATO endured.
It’s actually appalling how much seething hate they have towards communists
Alone, you do what you do to stay alive.
That’s why the world and people need its alliances, unities and consequences for harmful actions. The world doesn’t work by giving up to the worst offender.
Russia is holding a gun to Ukraine’s head and saying it’ll both kill and take everything.
The world doesn’t work by giving up to the worst offender.
Yeah it does. Everyone does what America says or America either coups their leader or launches an illegal war of aggression and starts slaughtering their people. I
lol, thug ethics. AKA offensive realist geopolitics. The great do what they want and the small accept their fate.
Jesus christ bro Realpolitik is all there is and all there has ever been. When you live on a planet where a bunch of gerotocratic psychopaths could push the big red button at any time you don’t play games. You know America is the baddies, right?
you do know there’s been an ongoing civil war in Ukraine since 2013 and that fascists have been genociding Russian speakers in the independent republics that have been trying to split off from Ukraine in that time, right? and you know that Ukraine violated multiple peace treaties in the process of doing so?
And we know that the separatist fascists are Russian plants. The future will tell us how much there’s a real independence movement instead in the areas.
Nevertheless, conquering and genociding whole Ukraine is not approvable
the idea that no one can think for themselves and must all be plants, shills, or dupes because they don’t support your worldview is just plain racist. those damn asiastics, how could they possibly want to live their own lives and be free from shelling by a coup government that’s trying to annihilate them – it must be plants.
Yes. We don’t need entertain such ideas from who have them
engage with people as people and acknowledge that they very frequently have needs, wants, and desires that cut against your myopic worldview.
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That is certainly a take.
Do you know what the very first action of the coup rada was?
You know sovereignty isn’t real, right? Like it’s just not? Countries invade whoever they want whenever they think they can get away with it? Most of Europe just went in to Iraq illegally and murdered a million people? Ukraine sent a lot of troops on that adventure. The US just kills people and topples governments all over? France controls colonial possessions in Africa? Canada de-facto runs a bunch of African territory through it’s ruthless resource extraction firms? South Korea and Okinawa are under US military occupation? North Korea only remains Sovereign because they can make Seoul glow in the dark if the US tries something? The west uses ruthless monetary manipulation, dumping of consumer goods and food, outright piracy and theft, to control other countries?
This isn’t model UN.
And it’s time to stop the invading shit
Okay, and? Like… that’s… a nice sentiment, but that’s all it is.
Yeah and? That’s what we can do on this platform. Comment on things
Putin isn’t going to end the invasion because some people from some obscure Reddit clone said so.
So then we agree, America must be defanged at all costs
Somewhat true (all costs is a troublesome term), but also disregards the rest of the issue
It really doesn’t. American aggression is found around every corner if you look at thr history and impetus behind this conflict.
Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
Then “the west” should let them make their own decisions instead of instigating coups everytime they decide against western interests.
Of course, in the most simplified form. But I take it you maybe don’t mean Monaco or Uruguay or Botswana etc.
Yes I mean “the west” in the geopolitical term, not the geographical term. I think it’s the one that gets the point across the clearest. I could also use the term imperial core or imperial triad, but I’m not sure if many would understand it.
Yeah I get it. It somewhat scratches off Botswana.
Imperial core or triad is an interesting and new take yes… Could be USA+Russia+China. Isn’t that more than “the west”. Some can’t decide if Russia is west or not.
I see some applying that term to US and changing the rest between anyone maintaining neutral relations with them. Yeah probably not an accurate idea.
I regret to inform you that you have failed your introduction to 21st century history class Like just little things.
Do you know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol? Did you know that it’s an incredibly important strategic asset? What do nation states do when an incredibly important strategic asset is threatened? Do they defend it?
Did you know Crimea has a 30 year long history of seeking more autonomy, or even independence, from Ukraine?
Do you know what the very first action of the coup Rada was?
Do you know what “encirclement” means?
I know Plato’s Allegory of the Cave gets used a lot when discussion the hegemonic power of western propaganda over western people, but come on bruv.
Do the words “Minsk II” mean anything to you?
Are you aware of the tariff agreements in place between Russia and Ukraine in 2013?
Do you know who Bandera was?
Do you know what the Russian Federation’s stated causus belli for the invasion is?
What do you know?
I don’t have the time for the classic tankie “reply with a wall of text and deflections”, I actually have a real job to attend to. But some main points.
Do you know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol? Did you know that it’s an incredibly important strategic asset? What do nation states do when an incredibly important strategic asset is threatened? Do they defend it?
Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
Tell me, do you also support Israel’s claims on Palestinian territory?
Do you know what the Russian Federation’s stated causus belli for the invasion is?
Yes.
Do you know what the causis belli for the US’s invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
What do you know?
I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
Yes? Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
Tell me, do you also support Israel’s claims on Palestinian territory?
Non-sequitor?
Do you know what the causis belli for the US’s invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
… Okay so you know that UA was shelling Donbass and killing people for years, and the Rada was very openly hostile to the Russian speaking Ukrainian minority, right?
I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
Could I get a sticker instead?
Also that’s not a wall of text you dork it’s like 10 sentences.
Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
So if the US has a fleet statinoned in another contry’s territory, should they just be allowed to take it?
Non-sequitor?
What don’t you follow?
Do you also support US-backed countries to take territory as they see fit? Or does that only apply to countries you like?
Okay so you know that UA was shelling Donbass and killing people for years, and the Rada was very openly hostile to the Russian speaking Ukrainian minority, right?
A Russian-backed separatist group starts a conflict and Ukraine responds.
Does Ukraine not have the right to defend their territory?
Could I get a sticker instead?
You can get some crayons to munch on.
I don’t have the time for the classic tankie “reply with a wall of text and deflections”, I actually have a real job to attend to. But some main points.
This whole “unlike you tAnKiEs I have a job” thing just makes you look insecure and childish.
You know that, right?
Eli5 that Pluto shit I toned out the Cave hard when I took a philosophy class
I found this funny and topical example.
Basically some dudes are tied up in a cave so they can only look forward. Behind them some other dude’s are making shadow puppets. The tied up dudes think the shadow puppets are the real world because they can’t look anywhere else and don’t think there is anything else. But then there’s something about if you’re skeptical you can escape the cave and see the real world outside.
The second part is important too: when someone escapes the cave and sees the outside world for the first time, it’s painful because things are so bright. After a while, the escapee’s eyes adjust, and they come to see how much better and more real the outside world is. They decide to go back and free their friends in the cave. But when they descend back down, their friends make fun of them because they can’t see very well in the dark anymore and so aren’t very good at talking about the shadows. Their friends think that they are just making up a big story about some magical “outside world” to cover for how bad they’ve gotten at talking about the shadows.
Even some otherwise good regular leftists have absolute dogshit takes on Ukraine. It’s like they’re allergic to even being coincidentally on the same side as the US State Department that they start falling all over themselves to be like “Remember guys, US Bad,” and start like saying that we should be pushing Ukraine to give up territory to appease Russia so they don’t use nukes. When we already know because of Crimea that Putin will almost certainly just regroup and try again if they give him anything.
Yes, I couldn’t understand it, because to most NATO members, NATO is the backbone of their security, but I’ve realised that many lefties’ reaction to NATO is akin to atheists’ emotional-dogmatic view of religion: They’re ever suspicious, never forgive nor forget past crimes, they reject all redeeming qualities and twist themselves to oppose benefitting them at the axiom level.
I would say most leftists (specially the libertarian type), are not on the side of Russia on this.
Tankies have just been really loud with their mental gymnastics lately.
OK so you’re siding with the state dept on Ukraine but when was the last time you agreed with usa foreign policy around the world? Why do you think they’re in any way acting on behalf of anyone in eastern Europe?
And here it is, perfect example.
Whataboutism
I thought ‘tankie’ came from a video game. Turns out it’s been around since the USSR decided to roll into Hungary.
The Hungarian uprising was killing Jews in the street. It was anti-Semitic from the beginning and the “Jewish Bolshevik” idea from the Nazi era was a motivating factor with the fact several leaders of the Hungarian government were Jewish cited as a battle cry.
https://www.jta.org/2006/10/25/lifestyle/1956-crises-decimated-two-communities
After the uprising, 200,000 Hungarian Jews fled the country fearing it signaled a return of the antisemitism of the recent Nazi-collaborationist regime of the 1940s.
Sending the tanks in to stop this was a good thing. It would have been better if the anti-Semitic uprising was stopped before the pogroms started.
Ok tankie
Yup. Thankfully they were able to crush the revolt before the fascists were able to re-establish the Arrow Cross Party.
Órban still has fond memories of that…he was 7 in 1956, he probably remembers.
Which is funny, since crushing the revolt was the only reason it took people like Orban so long to regain power.
It’s amazing how much they support imperialism when it’s “their people” doing it.
Read Settlers
That’s because you don’t understand what imperialism means. US/EU capital is looting and exploiting the former socialist block and controlling it through western capitalist media, NGOs, and military bases. That’s imperialism. The Russians preventing Nazis from doing ethnic cleansing along their border and demanding not to be threatened with a gun to the head is not imperialism.
Funny how living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU, but that has not been the case for the ones that chose to be kept under Russia’s sphere of influence. 🤔
Looks like the EU is really bad at looting, they should learn from Russia.
There was a massive dip in all those places in the 90s with shock therapy. A lot of people are still worse off in a lot of ways and angry. Hence AfD, Orban, PiS and all those other angry nationalists.
Also, if you want to be fair, you should compare for example Poland to west Germany. Polish workers toil for German capitalists, and yet, somehow, they’re getting exploited way more than the German workers. Less pay, worse services, worse infrastructure, less worker’s rights. That whole arrangement is super-exploitative. Meanwhile foreigners bought most of that country. Treated like a colony basically.
The Russians got fucked even worse than Poland in the 90s, which resulted in a backlash which Putin made himself the head of. What Russia is doing is self-preservation. Any state with the means to preserve it’s sovereignty from a hostile takeover would try to do so, it’s not just something an imperialist state would do. Hence Russia is not doing an imperialism here.
Hell, compare East Germany to the
reichWest Germany. West Germany’s economic conquest of East Germany was incredibly ruthless and brutal, and East Germany never recovered from having it’s entire economy pillaged and burned.
living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU
Yeah the living standards sure did improve after one of the worst demographic disasters in that era. Easy for things to get better when you start from the bottom I mean come on do better.
Have some compassion, some people just want to crank their knob to exploitative porn without questioning why so much of it comes from Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.
So, why didn’t Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
They both started from the bottom, right?
The Balts were immediately used as forward positions for NATO and were allowed to keep their state programs and industry. Belarus got the same treatment as Russia.
You should probably know the answer to your own snarky questions before you ask them.
So, why didn’t Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
If you think that the answer to this is simply “because Russia bad” you have the mind of a child.
since joining the EU
I hope you understand how this is an incredibly cherry-picked range. It’s like saying “look how steadily the American economy grew from the period of 1930 to 1940”.
Many Eastern European countries in the EU are still being hollowed out and suffering massive brain drain. The model of “tributary state” accurately applies here.
They didn’t improve at all. The rich are better off, thanks to mass privatization of public property. For the middle/working class, quality of life stagnated at best.
Source: I live in an ex-soviet country.
Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.
You mean a western led coup with assistance from neo nazis to remove the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. With the explicit goal of “Latin Americanising” Eastern Europe and privatizing and selling off all their assets. The Ukrainian government still has a website up today for selling off anything not bolted down to the highest bidder. Shock doctrine 2.0.
West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.
You mean forcing Ukraine to start a counter offensive using NATO combined arms tactics for witch Ukraine had neither the equipment or required training to execute. And with no will from the west to give Ukraine the required equipment (F-16 saga anyone?). How do you do a combined arms offensive without a fully functional air force? The worst part being that the west knew this, and still forced Ukraine to go ahead with the offensive anyways, knowing there was little chance of success.
Tankies on Lemmy: “oh no, Russia is being oppressed”
More like people saw this coming and think the loss of life over this attrition war is tragic. How does Ukraine win an attrition war against Russia? What is the exit plan? This is just Afganistan all over again in some ways.
The west forced Ukraine to defend itself?
Were they supposed to welcome the Russians with open arms?
They were supposed to not ethnically cleanse Russian speaking people in the eastern provences for 8 years, repeatedly breaking treaties and making threats about hosting nuclear weapons for NATO.
And the US was supposed to not support a violent coup to overthrow the democratically elected government and replace it with a one aligned with the fascist militias they used in that coup.
If this had happened to a weastern ally we would be at war to liberate the entire country let alone protect the regions facing immediate violence.
I believe they mean by continuously sabotaging peace accords and talks
Yeah exactly. What has Ukraine accomplished since the sabotaged peace talks by Boris Johnson? Is the territory gained vs Russia since then worth all the life lost, the economic cost, etc.
Tankies on Lemmy: “oh no, Russia is being oppressed”
Literally no one thinks this, but by all means, have fun in your fantasy land lol
Tankies on Lemmy: “oh no, Russia is being oppressed”
Said literally no one here, besides you trying to frame communism as war loving imperialists.
Now that I’m speaking of war loving imperialists, what does that bring to mind?..
You’re commenting on an article explicitly saying the US isn’t sending weapons for the purpose of defending Ukraine…
You straight up butchered that straw man
He is in pieces
How could you do this
The US dares to coup a democratically elected government, and then its neighbor invades at the behest of people the new government were persecuting after two different ceasefires are broken by Ukraines puppet government.
Dronies be like “oh no our wholesome smol bean azov fighters are being oppressed”
I hope we can keep supporting Ukraine. This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil. The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia and the Russians just couldn’t have that so they invaded. The support the world provides to Ukraine is support provided for all Democracies.
This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil.
I mean yeah, if you ignore like 200 years of history, then entire history and purpose of NATO, any understanding of the nature of geopolitics and power whatsoever, everything about the economics and politics of all the involved parties, the entire timeline of events between 2013 and now, and a number of other things, it would be clear cut.
Democracy is when you ban all left-leaning parties in your country and burn a hall full of trade unionists alive, and the more parties you ban and trade unionists you burn alive the more democratic you are. I don’t see what’s so hard for these tankies to get!!
The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia
What?
Euromaiden!?!??? Like a major defining moment in Ukrainian history!
The one where NATO backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine? That seems like the opposite of fighting to get out from under foreign thumb
The one that happened because their leader was passing laws making him a dictator and violently putting down protesters leading to more protests causing him to flee. Also any support came after that was over, not before.
I mean there’s a recording of Victoria Neuland talking about setting it up from months before but whatever.
See, if he were a legitimate leader he would have let the west supplant him in a violent coup WITHOUT reacting to it. That makes it justified post hoc.
You have to let the nazis march. It’s the rules.
So people in their country should never fight if their leader is working to surpress their rights and become a dictator. They just have to wait for elections that will never be fair again if they even happen. Also he did react to it by fleeing, Putin is not the leader of Ukraine, he has no business reacting to anything.
Putin did march his nazies into Ukraine after that if that’s what you mean.
That’s what a win win looks like. No need to be quiet around it. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Now everyone gets to replenish and modernize their weapons, test them in real conditions while making sure Russia gets enough of a bloody nose to not fucking try this shit ever again.
Russia did the ‘fuck around and find out thing’. It was their choice and the only way they can win is by tankies convincing every other country that just saw rape, murder, pillaging and terrorism getting used on another country in Europe by a rabid bear that somehow Russia was justified and should be allowed a free pass. But it’s not working. The rabid bear is rabid, but there’s ways to deal with that.
Because now they makes sure that every country around them is joining the anti rabid bear alliance.
The way the OP framed the article is to create the idea that somehow Russia is good because US military is bad. But that’s a fallacy. The US military is perfectly capable of doing bad shit on behalf of the US, but that does not mean everyone else is good. Sometimes clobbering Nazis is win win and Russia should have know that. Their feeble at reframing may work on Fox brainwashed Republicans who are reduced to “Putins kills gays and is strong so Putin is good”, but it turns out Putin is a cuck taking it into the ass by his own chef.
Yep, but could you please edit out the “cuck taking it in the ass” business? “Humiliated” works and doesn’t make you sound like a “homophobic trumptard”. We’re managing to have a civilized discussion here and I don’t want to see this devolve more into reddit.
Even worse than that, it’s a misrepresentation of the cuck/bull relationship dynamic!
Ones gotta insult tankies in the way they understand. Doesn’t make me homophobic. Cuckolding is a specific fetish that tankies are fascinated with, it’s not a blanket judgement about anyone gay.
Being homophobic is ok as long as it’s a bit to own le tankies
Wtf where did you pull that from? Tankies like to cuck? Hahahaha.
You have some good takes, so I can’t block you, but I have no idea where this is coming from, lolRule of projection. Read up on Roger Stone’s stones activities. It’s deep man.
https://medium.com/queertheory/the-right-faces-its-cuckholding-sex-fantasies-1351ed88a8ae
reddit
Maybe go back
Maybe fuck yourself or block me if you feel offended by something that’s not an insult to a reasonable person.
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It’s funny because inane corrections of a good post is exactly what happens on Reddit
It’s not inane, maybe I’m a cuck who likes to take it in the ass. Now what? How are you supposed to offend anyone with that? In what way is putin like me?
PS: I’m not trying to be hostile, btw, I just think it’s filthy language that we absorb and then becomes mainstream and all of a sudden we’re like “cuck this, that cuck that” and we already have enough of that around. :/
PPS: back again. I’m not trying to stop anyone swearing or to police speech, if you wanna say it, whatever. Swearing is a healthy practice that helps vent and we have plenty of shit, dick, fuck and assholes to go around, I just don’t see how that is a good offense, does it help you vent to see putin be fucked in the ass? Maybe he likes it, lol (ew), it just gives me 4chan PTSD :)
“maybe im a cuck …now what?” touché! 👍🤣
Well you are not supposed to feel insulted. Context matters. Why would you be insulted, you enjoy cuckolding, good on you, love and let love. No issues with that, we all have our fetishes and one man’s insult is another’s climax - imagine you have a degradation fetish, man /r/the_donald would be so hot. The insult wasn’t aimed at you. You didn’t feel offended. So working as intended.
That’s the point - it’s insulting for tankies because they love strong macho Putin image whose definitely not a bottom. never, totally ever, ok, only a bit if you ask nicely with a coup.
What is annoying on the internet is that everyone thinks it’s about them and every statement has to be minimally offensive to everyone because of this, main character syndrome. It’s not nonsensical, it’s actually giving the right wing it’s power.
So no, I think I won’t be doing that. I’ll continue dishing out highly targeted insults and everyone else can learn that they are not meant to be offended because - as you say, there’s nothing offensive about it unless you are a right wing schmuck with a masculinity complex.
Look, it’s just trashy 4chan+r/the_Donald talk, but ok, use it to your heart’s content if it means that much to you and holds such expressive value to you, we’re all adults here and I’ll just stop reading :) have a nice day.
I agree with you, it undermines his position and makes him look childish, but you tried.
Anti Rabid Bear Alliance. I’d like to petition to change NATO to ARBA.
It’s not a win win for the Ukrainians, who are losing lives. The article shows what’s been said all along: the US doesn’t gaf about Ukraine or it’s people. The US is only involved to make money and to prop up the US’s dying empire.
Without the US more ukrainians would die and Russia would have overrun them by now and subjugated them into the shitshow they call motherland.
So it’s a win win.
Ask Ukrainians which version they prefer - US involvement or not. Oh wait, it’s pretty clear they prefer the kill rabid bear with Himars version.
The only version they’d like even more is killing bear with ATACMS and F16.
So fuck off tankie.
Ask Ukrainians which version they prefer - US involvement or not.
Yeah there’s just one little problem here fam: the US backed a coup there and installed pro-war neo-nazis in power, there was no question about it left to the Ukrainians.
Well in that case you should support US sending weapons even more, just fascists fighting fascists, right?
At this point I support the US sending the F-16s tomorrow, yesterday, whenever they want really, it’s not like anything short of nukes or direct NATO involvement has any chance of flipping the current situation around.
Let’s see those toy planes shot down by Russia’s anti-air and extremely dug-in defenses, I’m sure it’ll do very well for morale in the Ukrainian army and support back at home in the US!
Eh, we’re not in there for a couple reasons and they all make sense. It would preclude NATO from ever entering because of the non-aggression portion of the agreement, and it would put Russia in a corner where they have to either admit defeat (which putin won’t do) or go nuclear which is bad for everyone but especially bad for Ukraine.
Yes, the US is making money helping Ukraine uphold international law and russia is losing money committing war crimes to the last Ukrainian.
If Russia’s aims are ‘imperialistsic’, is it losing money?
Yes, you spend blood and treasure to conquer land and then brag about it in history books.
You impose your rule on that land and your peasants rejoice at your statesmanship and feel blessed to join such a great nation, or else…
My point is that nobody doing that would be doing it for free. This applies the apologia for all other empires to Russia. I.e. that empire builders do it sometimes by accident but always for benevolent reasons. That’s incorrect. Empires are built by extracting wealth and to extract wealth.
I think you agree with this as I’m reading your second paragraph as sarcasm. If you do agree, then it’s not possible to conclude that Russia will lose money. It may do, if it loses, although even that is questionable. If it wins, it will gain wealth. Or it’s capitalists will do so. There’s a contradiction between your two paragraphs.
If Russia’s motivations are imperialistic (I haven’t seen evidence for that, myself, but it depends on one’s definition of imperialism), there would be no point if it cost more money to achieve than would be recouped after. Until it’s over, it’s not possible to say that it’s already most money. It’s costly, but that’s different, and doesn’t answer, ‘Costly for whom?’
(Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not saying that Russia will not exploit whatever parts of Ukraine it keeps hold of. It’s capitalist. Of course it will. I’m suggesting that this war doesn’t amount to a land grab simpliciter.)
One counter to this is that the US is spending money to ensure that Russia does lose money. Time will tell whether I’m right or wrong but I think this drastically overestimates the strength of the US. It doesn’t have an industrial base (except in vassal and puppet states). So it cannot match Russia’s military output.
And the industries the US does possess are governed by the logic of finance capital not industrial capital. Money spent does not indicate how much has been bought. $10bn spent on weapons, for instance, doesn’t mean you get $10bn worth of weapons by the time you factor in all the sales teams, admin, embezzlement, and middle managers, etc.
The US seems incapable of providing Ukraine with the arms that the Ukrainian military is asking for. It’s publications have started to admit this more and more. Due to the above-mentioned logics, the US doesn’t have the intellectual-ideological or industrial capacity to ramp up manufacturing. The US certainly has people bright enough to figure it out but they’re inconsequential in the face of a military-industrial complex designed to make as much money as possible rather than to ‘win’ wars.
Oh look, the “NATO is anything I don’t like” Russian apologist tankie guy is back at pulling out fake shit out of their ass.
The US is the second largest manufacturer on the planet, and insources its military production.
Ukraine is complaining that we can’t send them Soviet era military structure compatible weaponry. The US had largely phased out “dig a trench and use artillery to make a breakthrough” back in the late 80s, because we could attain air superiority against Soviet tech.
What exactly is a tankie? I wanted to upvote this post when I saw its content, but I found the tag from the OP about the “quiet part” to be off-putting as though this quote from McConnell is a negative thing. I don’t like or think McConnell is a good person, but to me this quote reads as a way to sell continued support for Ukraine to the crazier parts of our government. Like a “oh, you don’t want to spend money on Ukraine because it’s the right thing to do? Well here, how about because it’s making money for Americans.” Sure, maybe not the reason I support funding and arming Ukraine, but if it convinces people who aren’t already in support, then I’m for it. If anything, it seems shrewd.
I’ve seen a lot of posts/comments on Lemmy about tankies recently and I’m confused about what that means. Haven’t quite been able to determine from context since the context seems different depending on the post. Sorry if it’s a dumb question.
A subsection of people who are so far right they ended up on the left again, strongly aroused by military (tanks) symbols, manliness and strength while simultaneously being convinced that Russia is the good guys and therefore whatever they do must be good because US is bad.
There’s a few varieties here. Roger Waters and Noam Chomsky for example who basically are the US is bad so anything is the opposite of what US says (down to denying russian genocide in syria because, well, they are against the US).
There’s the cosplay section of milbloggers and western cosplay russian twitter specialists who usually are Canadian or German or Alabama white males in their basement cosplaying to be in Ukraine fighting for Russia
And of course plenty of russian males who actually buy the narratives.
Most of them have one thing in common - they just can’t handle reality and therefore escape into increasingly insane contortion… basically Republicans meet Covid again.
Basically it means someone who supports Russia - usually Communists (which is fine) who - for some reason think Russia is still communist (which is dumb)
Literally no communist thinks Russia is still communist
There seems to be a startling overlap on lemmy between Communists and Russia supporters. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a comment either from hexbear or lemmy grad in favor of Ukraine over Russia.
If it’s not because they think Russia is on the side of communism, then what the hell is going on in their heads?
This is not true. I’ve talked with people in person at socialist organizations that were claiming that putin was secretly Marxist at the beginning of the invasion. There def are campists who will double down on nonsense.
Fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian
The real question is why does russia want to kill Ukrainians to the last Ukrainian.
gottem
Seriously, to listen to hexbears talk about the Ukranian invasion, you’d think that the US talked Ukraine into invading Russia just for fun, and that Russia was simply left with no choice.
The killing can stop absolutely any day now - all Putin has to do is pull out and pay for his mess, easy peasy
You should do more listening to hexbears because that sounds nothing like us.
All you have to do is read through this very thread to find numerous examples of hexbears acting like US liberals are primarily (or second only to Ukraine itself) for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“Why could Ukraine have just bent over and let Russia take it over??? And why couldn’t the rest of the world just pretend it never happened?? What about 'Murica in the middle east???”
Sounds pretty familiar to me.
I don’t see any of that, personally.
Any chance the liberal in your head is editoriakizing some straw men?
It’s literally everywhere in this thread. There’s history lessons abound about how bad Ukraine is (with no noticeable criticism of Russia) but no example of what should be done now except to have them give up their sovereignty, their most valuable land, and giving in to Russian’s demands.
It’s insane to me that these are the same people who would probably say that the US shouldn’t have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan, or that the US shouldn’t invade Cuba. In their view, since the US did a coup there once, I guess all their people deserve to die and lose their sovereignty? How does that make sense?
“No, we just want the US and Europe to stop giving them weapons to defend themselves!” OK then, then what do you think will happen? More deaths and then a loss of sovereignty obviously. Why is this on them and not on Russia, who simply have the option of stopping their aggression and walking away?
It’s literally everywhere in this thread. There’s history lessons abound about how bad Ukraine is (with no noticeable criticism of Russia) but no example of what should be done now except to have them give up their sovereignty, their most valuable land, and giving in to Russian’s demands.
Show one example, lib.
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Russia repeatedly made peace talk attempts early on. Western powers that actually call those shots rebuffed them. Boris Johnson himself intervened, allegedly.
The answer to the real question, which is why Russia isn’t unilaterally ending the war, is that its objectives have not been met and/or the status quo is acceptable to them. The former is the exact same as saying why Russia invaded in the first place.
So why do Western powers want this was to go to the last Ukrainian? NATO military tactics that assume air dominance without the air dominance. Zero expectation of a win, despite the propaganda.
Ukraine dragged one of their own negotiators into the street and shot him in the head.
Russian conditions to even consider peace were pretty insane, like keeping all the territory their initial conquest managed to claim, removing the baltics and other countries bordering Russia from NATO and forbid Ukraine from joining any alliance. Not only could Ukraine not fulfill all those conditions, they would never accept that.
You are confused and are including open demands Russia made of the US / NATO prior to the invasion. Russia has not demanded that Ukraine somehow de-NATOify Baltic countries.
Russia’s initial negotiation demands were things like this:
- Denazification.
- Demilitarization.
- No application to NATO.
- Independence for Luhansk and Donetsk.
- Recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
These are in no way insane demands given the context of NATO encirclement, the civil war and ethnic cleansing at their doorstep, and the fact that Russia is obviously never giving up Crimea. It is also… the lead-in to negotiations, which Ukraine started balking at around the same time reports came out about Western prevention of Ukraine participating.
Yea, even those were in no way reasonable. Those terms are obviously so Russia can keep conquered territories while removing Ukraine’s ability to defend itself so Russia can take the whole thing in a few years.
Also there was no ethnic cleansing, no idea where you’re getting that. The baltics joined NATO like 15 years ago and Ukraine’s application was denied so there’s none of that either. And even if both were true those terms mean annexation for Ukraine in the future so in no way acceptable.
Yea, even those were in no way reasonable.
They’re very reasonable, especially as a starting point for negotiations.
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Ukraine haw a very serious Nazi problem that liberals everywhere recognized right up until it became inconvenient for the war narrative. The Nazi problem is part and parcel of the civil war and failure to abide by Minsk II, as those Nazis were the tip of the spear against ethnic Ruasians in Donbas. Disempowering and jailing Nazi war criminals shouldn’t be controversial.
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Russia wants to prevent encirclement and to treat Ukraine as a neutral buffer. Given NATO’s advancements despite the fall of the Soviet Union, this demand is already a half-measure. Ukraine being militarized and used as a Western forward military base is not something Western countries would tolerate if the roles were reversed.
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Ukraine isn’t joining NATO anyways, not anytime soon at least. This is a formalization of the aforementioned neutrality.
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Independence of Luhansk and Donesk is a demand that says, “you couldn’t abide Minsk II and that leaves this as the only option”. Ukraine and their Western masters had nearly a decade to democratically deal with the breakaway states per their own agreements and chose to instead ramp up a civil war targeting ethnic Russians right on Russia’s border. The failure od the status quo ans the West’s ability to follow their own rules is the proximal issue Russia is reacting to.
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Ukraine isn’t getting Crimea back. This is a formalization that would simply amount to normalizing relations in peacetime.
Those terms are obviously so Russia can keep conquered territories while removing Ukraine’s ability to defend itself so Russia can take the whole thing in a few years.
Russia could take the whole thing any time they wanted to, lol. They have complete air superiority and a much more powerful arsenal and manpower and tactics. They could do the American thing - the NATO thing - and destroy the rest of the country, targeting Kyiv and civilian infrastructure en masse. Instead, they are choosing a war of attrition that achieves many of their objectives without just rolling over the whole country.
Neutrality is far safer for Ukrainians and always was. A neutral Ukraine wouldn’t have been invaded by Russia in the first place.
Also there was no ethnic cleansing, no idea where you’re getting that.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like… at all. It’s been going on since 2013/2014. Please educate yourself on the derussification efforts undertaken by Ukraine targeted at ethnic Russians as well as their ruthless targeting of the Donbas.
The baltics joined NATO like 15 years ago and Ukraine’s application was denied so there’s none of that either
None of what?
And even if both were true those terms mean annexation for Ukraine in the future so in no way acceptable.
Ukraine is already not a sovereign state, lol. Their political leadership was chosen by Nuland et al behind closed doors as part of Euromaidan. Neutrality would actually be the most sovereign they have any chance of being, toyed with through economic courtship rather than couped and destroyed.
And again, Russia can annex Ukraine wherever it wants to. Most of it, at least. Poland would probably claim Western Ukraine for itself with various bullshit excuses.
- It had some nazies prior to about 2020. Not even close to the amount of nazies Russia has though so that’s a meaningless point.
- The countries joining NATO are joining because Russia keeps threatening them. If Russia just wanted a neutral zone they should really stop invading their neighbours. Georgia and Ukraine got invaded and Russia is doing a proxy war in Moldova as well so it seems the only thing causing NATO advancement is Russia.
- Except they also demanded demilitirization. So no allies or self defence.
- One if the points of that agreement to even take effect was that Russia removed their troops from the regions which they never did.
- They may now, depending on how the war goes.
No idea what these points are other than just lies. Russia has never had complete air superiority and definitely doesn’t now. Russia is targeting civilians constantly, like the largest mass graves in recent history were found in territories takes back from Russia. As for the equipment and manpower: Like Russia is rolling out museum pieces as tanks I have no idea where you are getting this info from. They do have more manpower since they are conscripting like everyone.
None of that was in reference to NATO encirclement. As in it was already encircled 15 years ago and Ukraine wasn’t joining NATO.
The political leadership Nuland ‘selected’ was the leader of the opposition party that was going to be in power anyways. That’s like some foreign politician saying they really like the reform party in Estonia to win after they already got the most votes.
Can’t find any ethnic cleansing done in Ukraine outside the Tatars by the Soviet union.
I’m guessing you mostly watch Russian state media since absolutely no one else thinks Russia could just take Ukraine if they wanted at this point. I’d suggest going to some other sources.
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As opposed to the alternative, surrendering to Russia to the last Ukrainian.
This argument assumes that absent US backing Ukraine and Russia would not be at war. Ukraine is not just a pawn between a Russia-US struggle, it’s a state which has asked for assistance in an existential struggle with a much larger authoritarian aggressor. Ukrainians are dying because of Russian aggression, not US backing.
So as someone not close to this war, and as someone who’s always been open to the idea that the worst outcome for the war is for it to be drawn out for a long time, and that the west should think more clearly about what’s really going on here, but also as someone who would probably have picked up a gun and prepared to die if an invading force I didn’t like came for my country … what’s the alternative for the Ukrainians here? Or, do you think Ukraine should be conquered and are fighting an unjust war?
Upholding the Minsk agreement would have been an option up until 2022 at least.
It’s tough to hold an agreement as the only participant
by all accounts, Russia held to the letter of that agreement until it was violated. what on earth are you talking about.
I think they made several attempts to keep it intact, but Ukraine couldn’t keep it’s pet Nazis under control and they kept violating the cease fire.
Christ sake. France and Germany are both on the record saying they never intended to honor the agreement and were just playing for time to arm Ukraine.
Russia openly states that their goal is the elimination of Ukrainian identity. Literally genocide. And here you are being smug about it, believing your edgy contrarian sentiment is justified by the evils of a country which is not even party to the war.
Talk about rent free mind rot.
Trying to rob the word genocide of all meaning in the way your doing serves only to trivialise actual genocide.
Actual genocide like forced deportation of children? Or do you require actual gas chambers before you care?
Pop quiz, without researching, what was the bloodiest genocide last year?
Yemen?
Tigray
When you’ve lost the plot, deflect
What a shock, the person accusing other people of not caring about genocide can’t actually answer the question, because they don’t actually give a shit about genocides themselves, they just use it as an emotional cudgel to try and win debate points.
It’s not that I can’t answer the question, or that I deny evidence of genocide in Ethiopia, China and Yemen. In fact, I want to make it very clear that only one of us in this conversation is a genocide denier. It’s that your attempt at deflecting to a completely unrelated topic is pathetic (and frankly lazy) whataboutism.
More than anything, I don’t understand why so many leftists want to die on this particular hill. It just makes it feel like your stated values are merely ideological lip service.
removing children from a warzone isn’t forced deportation. those kids were returned when requested.
‘Put the children back in the warzone!
Also let’s stop pretending the west is above that. Key difference is that we let the people fleeing western’ foreign policy’ drown in the mediterranian sea, rather than housing them.
It’s interesting how the republicans believe in Keynesian economics, but exclusively when it’s applied for feeding the military industrial complex.
In this situation I agree with the need to support Ukraine, but I wish they would make the same realization about infrastructure investments as well.
A broken clock is right twice a day, as long as it makes them money, they don’t give a shit who benefits and who loses.
Feeding the MIC is a bipartisan effort, never forget that.
A key difference being that the Democratic party supports state spending on infrastructure in other areas as well. So their understanding of the economy is at least consistent, and your moronic effort to equate “both parties” is, sadly, irrelevant to the point being made here.
Fuck russia. We’re destroying that shithole and ensuring continued Western dominance on the cheap. Putin fucked himself and we’re just helping that process along.
We’re destroying that shithole and ensuring continued Western dominance on the cheap
LMAO, libs on their way to analyze geopolitics: https://piped.projectsegfau.lt/watch?v=L2quonm59Kc
Let’s go over some facts we can source from Western sources:
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Russia is outperforming every single EU economy except for Spain
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Russia is firing 40 to 50 thousand artillery shells A DAY while the United States can only produce 30 thousand A MONTH, which allows Ukraine to fire about 4000 to 5000 in comparison. Russia is able to fire IN A SINGLE DAY what the United States takes A MONTH to produce, got it?
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The so hyped Ukrainian “counteroffensive” has been going on for THREE MONTHS and they haven’t even been able to breach the first line of Russian defenses, let alone produce any gains to justify all the equipment and men they wasted
The plan to isolate and crash Russia’s economy failed, so did the plan to send Ukraine garbage Western equipment without proper training while expecting miraculous results from offensives that do not posses air support and are outgunned 10 to 1 in artillery, I’m not so sure if “shithole” and “western dominance” are words that correctly describe Russia’s situation here.
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it’s not “the quiet part” as you imply. your insinuating that we made this war happen for the reasons he gives. no, context is king. he is merely trying to justify our involvement in the face of criticism. russia has long wanted to grab more countries. putin is a dictator, have you heard? he poisons opponents and attacks other countries to smash them back into his idea of what russia should be.
I wonder if there was a more efficient way of employing people without having executives from the MIC getting almost all the benefit?
funneling money to the executives of the MIC is the entire purpose of the defense budget. why would they suddenly stop now?
I mean that’s the entire point. Ever read “war is a racket”?. It still holds up today.
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
And why shouldn’t he?
Not a single lib will change their minds after hearing this.
russia can end this whenever they want by restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, if they think the US is benefiting so much from it at their expense. The US is just making it much harder for russia to reach its maximalist goals: to conquer Ukraine. One of those is a war crime, the other one is supporting international law.
International law is when you support a government coup to replace the pro-Russia government with a pro-EU/pro-NATO government.
International law is when russia does not annex Crimea because of the unfavourable internal affairs of its neighbour. You know, your power ends at “these” borders and from there to here you can’t threaten the Ukrainian President.
The coup government illegally removed the previous president, so they don’t get to complain when Crimea illegally votes to join Russia.
Yea, well, did you hear about how the President escaped and the Parliament voted to destitute him. And when you invade Crimea to do a mock referendum, that’s awesome international law. Not even Iran and China recognize the annexation of Crimea, because you can’t invade a country and referendum an annexation unilaterally.
The parliament had no constitutional authority to vote to expell him without an impeachment hearing, which he never got. It was an illegal move.
The referendum in Crimea is as legitimate as the acting president of Ukraine.
Most of the people living in Crimea work for the Russian Black Sea Fleet you dork. They didn’t have to invade Crimea, they already had a huge military instalation there. And no one cares about international law, least of all NATO.
Also Crimea has been trying to get autonomy or leave Ukraine for thirty years.
The US isn’t making it much harder, it’s making it pay.
Indeed, making russia pay for trying to conquer a sovereign country by helping that country defend itself.
This is a little ahistorical.
Wouldn’t happen if you didn’t try to conquer countries
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
Alright but what would guarantee Russia’s safety after they do that? It’s obviously not in their interest. What they want is to negotiate a peace treaty, which is why they are holding their defense line so strongly until their opponents are exhausted.
Who the fuck is threatening russia? It’s all imagined bullshit.
If a coup happened tomorrow in Canada and the new government was suddenly allying itself with China and asking for Chinese military bases to be placed along the border with the US I guarantee that America would invade Canada within the year to “protect itself” against the “Chinese invasion.”
When you’re a country on the other side of the world and you’re trying to put troops in place to surround a country you’ve arbitrarily decided is your “enemy” then that’s a clear, open threat.
Would you have believed Russia saying that their troop buildup on the border of Ukraine in 2021 was “defensive?” If not why would you expect Russia to believe the same of nato? Russia at the time was claiming there was no intent to invade, just like NATO does.
Russia has a long history of invading its European neighbors and an unabashed imperial ambition (pathetic shithole though it is). When was the last time a nato country attacked russia?
You forgot the part where the Us first needs to annex Quebec a few years earlier.
What I heard were rumors that the “UN” could sort of hold Ukraine’s occupied territories “in escrow” as a DMZ buffer, but it’s not a final solution (we know how these handovers have turned sour in the past), because eventually you’d have to divide it, or create a new country…the essential is that russia does not get rewarded for its aggression with territory to brag about in the history books and that there is no chance that any native pro-russian Ukrainian in the buffer zone suffers reprisals…
those territories are independent republics that have been embroiled in a civil war with Kyiv for 9 years. Ukraine’s fascist factions within the military have been shelling those republics in violation of multiple peace treaties that have been signed over the past 9 years. securing the independence of those regions is Russia’s entire pretext for invading - in response to requests for military aid from said republics.
They aren’t independent republics anymore, they’ve been annexed by the Russian Federation
sure but forgetting the historical context just provides justification for NATO aggression
I could even imagine a scenario where if they had become independent republics, russia parked tanks there and said: “peace now”, it could have worked, but Putin got greedy. Then to pile on the catastrophic stubbornness, russia annexed parts of them, plus parts of 2 other oblasts in mock referendums that nobody recognizes. There is no defense, it’s a land grab and a clumsy one at that.
can you see how if you were living in those cities and multiple peace treaties were violated, that you might prefer joining the larger power that speaks your language to remaining at the mercy of death squads that howl for your blood?
If you speak russian and you want to move to russia and you like daddy putin’s policies, you always could join Russia: they’ll give you a passport and welcome you with open arms, nobody is stopping you, they have plenty of space and can use the manpower.
Nuclear Arms. The ones they accepted from Ukraine in return for security guarantees. Which they violated when they took Crimea already.
How on your mind do you think attacking Ukraine guaranteed their security? Like how was that a “oh this will make us more secure move” By driving all other Neighbors into NAtOs nuclear shields ?
That’s big brain energy right now. I’m afraid of the entire neighborhood, especially the guy next door who gave me their shotgun in exchange for safety 2 decades ago , let me rape their wife and abduct their children and annex their house, that’ll show the neighborhood, especially if I manage to show that I barely can take the front lawn before getting spanked.
Not a single lib will change their minds after hearing this.
Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine? What opinion are they not going to change?
Because the reasons to support Ukraine are supposed to be noble and not completely self-interested. That’s why there is popular support for it. McConnell admitting that it’s about funneling money into the military industrial complex, at least in part, ought to make at least some people reconsider their assumptions
Ah I see now. It’s about the motivations behind the support. Thanks for the insight!
It’s actually quite interesting. Personally, I try to remain neutral on politics but I’m definitely fed a left-leaning social media diet. Within that content, the general reason to support Ukraine is still self centered. “Go beat up the Russian military because they’re the bad guys and our cost is super low.” The nobility of this support feels like a happy side effect. But the really interesting part is that “funneling money into the military industrial complex” simply isn’t focused at all. This is the first time I’ve considered that aspect.
You don’t need to go super far left to find convincing arguments against US foreign policy. Noam Chomsky is a mainstream intellectual after all, and he coined the phrase “consent manufacturing”.
The idea that the US acts in total self interest should be presumed true in all cases, but that doesn’t on its own defeat the idea that its intervention in Ukraine is good. The logical next step is to ask ourselves whether this intervention ever had any chance of changing the outcome of the conflict at all. If it didn’t, and most people here would agree that it didn’t, then the US’ involvement amounts to wartime profiteering at the cost of human lives.
edit: I should also add, there’s good reason to believe that NATO expansion is what caused the conflict, and that the west did this in spite of clear and explicit warnings from Russia
neutral on politics
Yeah… About that. There is no neutrality in politics.
Why don’t you go look up what the US and Saudi did to Yemen over the last decade and decide how you feel about sitting on that fence.
Go beat up the Russian military because they’re the bad guys and our cost is super low.
They’re not beating up the Russian military. They’re fertilizing the fields of Ukraine that the Rada is going to sell to Blackrock. There’s nothing noble about this. NATO pushed and pushed and pushed until the RF took the bait, and now they’re bleeding the RF using Ukrainians because they don’t give a shit about Ukrainians. Christ this is so frustrating ISTG if people would just read Sun Tzu they’d understand everything and we wouldn’t need to have these absurd conversations over and over.
Opposed? Liberals are fully on board with endless war in Ukraine. It’s a bipartisan consensus.
This thread is evidence of it. The quiet part gets shouted and rather than accepting that this is what MLs have been saying for two years, the libs are doubling down. Will they now accept the truth behind the quip, ‘To the last Ukrainian?’ Not a chance. Oblivious.
Ya that’s my understanding was well. Which is why I asked the question.
Your question was: Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine?
The answer is no. I dunno what to tell you.
are we the baddies when the only domestic manufacturing we do is cancer tank shells & child murder bombs?
Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,
But that is not correct. Several U.S. citizen have died fighting in Ukraine.
Fair, but those were volunteers. Obviously he is referring to Americans deployed by the government in some form, nobody died in the line of duty so to say.
Speaking as a civil serviceman, “we [the State] haven’t lost a single American in this war” is accurate. Speaking as an American, “we [the American people] haven’t lost a single American in this war” is inaccurate.
In addition to volunteers there’s the American journalist Brent Renaud, who was killed by Russian forces last year.
who and what
?
You don’t know who Hideo Kojima is?
This. Is. An. Investment. In. Democracy.
Did he go into suspend mode again while saying the quiet part out loud?
To all the people not wanting to extend the proxy war against the war crime committing Russians: what do you expect will happen if you stop funding Ukraine defense against war crimes? You think Russians just go home? You think China and North Korea don’t look around at adjacent territories licking their lips? Do you understand what deterrence means?
Before you respond like a tankie that America is an imperialist shithole, America is not the one (this time) committing war crimes, RUSSIA is.
These people are monsters, and the idiot liberals that have happily jumped on their barbarous murder machine are too.
You sent tens of thousands of people to die in a futile meatgrinder while acting like you’re good people “”“helping”“” those you were killing. In reality what was happening was that you didn’t care about what happened to those people as long as it harmed some russians.
The consequences of decades of anti-russian racism all came to a head in this war, with liberals LOVING the opportunity to be openly racist pieces of shit.
All excused by what? Some fucking lines on a map? I don’t give a shit about lines on a map, I care about the tens of thousands of people’s lives wasted on this shit, both ukrainian and russian.
