https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/03/us-sanctions-may-see-russia-...
> While a complete loss of Russian gas imports, currently making up almost half of Germany’s gas needs, “will lead to bottlenecks in some European countries”, supply shortages “would be limited to up to 10% of demand”.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/23/europe-winter-...
Elderly and poor will be hurt the most, that is true. If the source I linked to is correct, it claims it would only impact 10% of demand. While I don't know what that would look like in practice. I sincerely hope (and expect) that it would not lead to anyone, including the vulnerable, freezing to death, or getting seriously ill.
People in privileged positions often talk about making small sacrifices to fulfil some grand end. It always impacts the least privileged the most, whether that be through poverty or something like old age. We've just had 2 years of it with the pandemic, and now we're seeing it with war, and you've extended it to the boycott of a company providing a very necessary resource.
> it would only impact 10% of demand
What would it do to prices? My advice to you is to try imagining what it's like to run out of money before the end of the month and have to freeze your way to the next, then as an elderly person. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Avoiding WW3 should have higher priority than short-term gas imports.
But Germany thinks it will save its economy still buying gas from RUS, so there's that...
Another option is just to give up with your kind of argument, and pay up Russia. That's looking increasingly like shooting our own foot in long term. The idea he will stop and be happy just with Ukraine is dangerously naive and ignore his own steps and statements.
If this won't be a wake up call in Europe then nothing will. Ramp up military budgets (I hate the idea, but that's how you deter bullies and we have one greedy fucker right now next door), and prepare infrastructure for withdrawal of anything russian. Long term that's good for Europe and world too.
I have absolutely no idea why you say this, and I can assure you that I am not doing this.
Fuel poverty in Europe and the UK are among many reasons why those nations should take what's happening in the Ukraine very seriously. My concern is that the ruling parties don't take these things seriously enough.
To reassure you: I completely agree that states should look after their citizens who cannot eat or keep themselves warm. Unfortunately, this demonstrably does not happen.
The situation in Ukraine is dreadful, and I certainly do not think it is minor. Quite the opposite.
https://energyindustryreview.com/analysis/energy-poverty-a-t...
> You could just donate, or you could create some business opportunity, so Ukrainians will make business, export working hours, or export some products to world.
This makes sense, but I wonder if this would help in the short time. Maybe investing would help over the years; if Russia invades, investments may not help avoid the consequences?
What I see now, kremlin for sure have not prepared for long term war campaign, they just have not built hospitals for wounded (thanks to western sat photos, provided by official sources), and this is extremely important, because in real war, 80% wounded die within 24h if have not received medical care in nearest 1-2 hours. And if will be resistance, attacking forces will have very large number of wounded, so they will be forced to stop attack, because have not enough medicine institutions to heal wounded.
So I think, kremlin accounted for similar to 2014 behavior of Ukrainian soldiers, I mean, in 2014 many Ukrainian soldiers or even officers just drop weapons and surrendered, to avoid bloodshed, because they think it is not war, they think it is provocation.
Now I have some under the hood tools, and with them I see totally different reaction. I know that border guards tried to stop occupants; I know that pilots got very clear instruction "You could fire if you sure see enemy"; I know, in many places, air defense fires on "unknown aircrafts".
And it is important, that count of Russian military forces, prepared before occupation, where close to current Ukrainian army. And technical power of armies are similar now, except of aviation - Ukraine have approx few tens military planes and helicopters, but occupants have more than hundred, same thing with tanks. But Ukraine now have Stingers, Javelins, Bayraktars, and some other modern weapons, so powers similar.
So, I think, in approximately 30 hours, hot phase of war will end, and will continue similar to "ATO", mean struggle on east, but possible in few additional places.
Or if You have good understanding of Israel history, or history of Korea, their hot war phases, usually does not last more than few weeks, some oven few days, and between of those hot phases, where very-very long periods of economy struggle or just information wars.
I have before analyzed Japan success, and I think, they have V-shape economy grows on every big earthquake, because they had to rebuild lot of things from scratch, this is very good for market competitiveness. Ukraine before 2014 does not seen so large examples of market falls, because of this Ukrainian business was not ready for real life, and I think, now its time to change selves.
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...
The ruling class in Moscow isn’t just attacking some other ruling class. They’re attacking _my_ Europe.
I don’t care about any military-industrial complex, or even the military in general. But the moment that some misguided person decides to launch rockets at Europe, I’m not willing to just sit back and let that happen.
Which Americans did. In World War II.
With donations, war bonds and by accepting massive sacrifices to their quality of life through rations, price controls and more. We did this when we felt threatened. Last I checked, the Canadians weren’t rolling tanks into Syracuse.
This is an inchoate line of argument. You ask for precedent and then object to it being in the past.
WWII was the last time America was attacked by a foreign state. Ukraine is being attacked by a foreign state. The analogy shouldn’t be lofty enough to go over one’s head. If Russia rolls tanks into the Baltics we’ll have a new analogy for the ensuing half century. For the time being, I’m fine letting the precedent age.
Please do not try and take an immensely complex topic and boil it down to the point it has no meaning.
Yes, the Soviets defeated the Nazi's with some distraction, tech and assistance from the Allies. China did a whole ton of work against Japan, they fought the longest and hardest.
Also, without the Marshall Plan (of which the Soviets were fearful of and denied themselves participation), Europe would not be Europe right now. Maybe Russia wouldn't be an economic wasteland today, forcing their gangster gov't to use an invasion of a sovereign country to prop up their oligarchy.
Don’t worry about our level of education. We’re fine, thanks.
Mine doesn’t involve the United States at all. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a citizen of Europe who wants to live in peace, but feels their community is under attack by a nostalgic Russian dictator with an inferiority complex.
Not resisting and not getting involved is what my grandparents did when the Nazis were rising to power. I’m not going to make the same mistake.
9 Eastern European countries in the former Soviet sphere joined NATO and the EU and are currently going through one of their longest periods of growth and peace in their history.
There can be no long term prosperity with Russia.
However, being US/EU vassals is better for us. I personally think that's mainly because the so called west has all the money in the world. That's the root cause. Not culture, values, etc. Those are all secondary to having money for so long.
While I understand the stated reasons for the invasion, and they are much more valid then America's struggle to steal as much resources as possible from all over the world under the guise of "democracy" and "WMDs", I fear we'll be next. I don't want to be under their boots. My family has suffered enough under the Soviets
It fucking sucks to be on the outskirts
Your country could look like Austria by now if you wouldn't be so corrupt.
Look in the mirror first.
How do you explain Slovenia or Estonia or Poland with your world outlook?
Corruption does not happen in a vacuum. Ultimately, the responsibility lies to those with power. What I am saying is geopolitics are not decided by the common person. You seem to disagree and that's fine
I think society is a slow, lumbering beast that's hard to turn around, and very unpredictable.
I think that elites generally control things and the average person can't do much.
But if <<only>> elites control <<always>> things and only in <<their>> favor, then we can't explain how developed countries happened.
Long story short: the common person can't do much in general, but sometimes they can. Otherwise we can't explain stuff like Taiwan or South Korea or Estonia or Czechia or Slovenia or Ireland or whatever. So that means that the common person has a super low chance of changing anything, but that's their only hope. Giving up means that you have <<no>> chance, <<ever>>. And that's how you end up with Ukraine pre-2008 or Moldova pre-2014.
See Solidarnosc in Poland for a great example.
For example in Poland they managed to raise their economy enough that people just stopped leaving.
So even the demographic part is self inflicted. Corruption -> poverty -> people leaving the country.
The problem is local. Corruption.
And I'd take Western elites over Russian ones any day of the week. There are 0 (ZERO!) developed countries in the Russian sphere of influence.
So at the moment, I could suggest most trustful for me organization and person, who are ready, and please be patient, I believe, after Monday hot phase will end, and people will answer faster. Also I will give more info as will got news.
Serhiy Prytula https://www.facebook.com/serhiyprytula/posts/505236280960977
Back and alive https://www.facebook.com/backandalive/posts/2231987336958691
For others, either I think they are ineffective (like official government organizations, which accumulated huge money, but don't have spent them), or they have not created reliable system organization, or I just don't know them good enough.
They might not care? Significant casualties might be part of the calculation, if it's an all-or-nothing move by their leaders. The existence of their mobile crematoriums suggest something like it.
It is impossible.
I know Russians very deep, they are not demons. Russian outlook, as I know, is very close to just ordinary beggars, some are criminal, but not many.
So most of them have not strong moral values, but they don't want to be wounded or die. So they will not care too much, if they just need to press button or "just attach box to pipe in concentration camp".
And we also know, that Russian army is in reality not high tech army, most their weapons are based on 1960th technologies, no electronic computers at all, paper maps, old analogue radio, etc, so their technologies cannot work without people (US have large number of modern automatic weapons).
And even before invasion, we know about very low morale in Russian army, but if Russian soldiers will conclude, that nobody will care wounded, they will surrender just after see Ukrainians without any shoot.
Without Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, Russia loses sea access to the Black Sea and thus the Mediterranean for their navy (and also for trade), which historically has been a primary determinant of Russian military influence in Europe. Otherwise, they only have northern ports which are frozen and easily choked off (and ports way over on the Pacific - imagine having to sail your navy around Eurasia in order to attack or defend).
More importantly, Ukraine's geography is easy to move large forces across, in that respect a major battlefield (with due respect to Ukrainians). Napoleon and the Nazis both crossed through that region on their way to Russia, and when Russia attacks West, they go through Ukraine. Russian wants to control it and to prevent others from controlling it.
By controlling Ukraine, Russia can put more pressure on, have more influence over, Ukraine's neighbors, including Poland, and further cut off Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia from their NATO allies.
Finally, Putin wants glory - don't underestimate the personal characteristics, such as ego, of unaccountable dictators - and to recreate the Soviet empire and the illusion of power. An independent, democratic Ukraine both undermines that appearance (and perception is everything for dictators) and embarasses Putin's claim to power as an authoritarian dictator.
That's untrue. Sevastopol is the main port and naval base in the Black Sea, but Russia has plenty of others, and some are even undergoing expansion - Novorosiisk ( the backup one). Sevastopol is in Crimea, but was shared under an agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian navies. So in reality, Russia gained nothing there besides an extra front for their current invasion of Ukraine.
Romania, Bulgaria doesn't border Russia , Turkey is not on the land border and they have decent relations with them. But sure, they're likely not happy with that either - they just can't and will not do anything about it. With Crimea/Ukraine - they could.
I have never seen someone claim that Novorosiisk was a sufficient port. Maybe it's a capacity issue?
> Sevastopol is in Crimea, but was shared under an agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian navies.
It is in a foreign country, an unfriendly one. That greatly limits Russia's freedom of action.
Putin view Ukraine as a natural part of the Russian Empire - they are his vassals.
They can't have a free and prosperous Ukraine that has 'gone to the side of the west'.
The Crimean peninsula is just a bonus.
Hitler yes. Napoleon no. The French neither attacked nor retreated through what is now Ukraine.
That "Mystery of Russian Soul" lies among the lines of "Kiev - mother of Russian cities" (term of 12th century Primary Chronicle) and too many other historical facts. Like Wild Steppe (south of Ukraine) were fought for and liberated from Crimean Khanate by Russian Army. Modern Kherson, Nikolayev, Sevastopol, and Ekaterinoslav(Dnipro/Dnepropetrovsk), were established by Gregory Potemkin (Empress Catherine times) and populated by peasants from Russian heartlands - Tambov, Ryazan, Pskov, etc.
All that is well known and well remembered facts by Russian public. So we should not expect that Russian people will be so against all that. If in doubt then see the above.
Peter Zeihan predicted this in 2017. There is first of many wars to come.
The fact is that democratic countries with leaders elected yesterday are at a disadvantage to these perpetual dictators with low accountability and strong convictions.
Putin is a snake. I would say he’s the most dangerous man in the world. He absolutely cannot be trusted, and his agenda really does involve damaging and weakening other sovereign nations seemingly for the sake of it.
The only game he knows and when he sees a winning move he can get away with he can't not take it.
For one, Putin seems to want to reassemble the USSR as a vanity project. Further, this all started (years ago) when the Ukrainians removed out their Moscow friendly president. Putin doesn't like reminders that months of sustained protests can really effect change and remove leaders, especially so close to Russia.
Crimea is the only "warm water" port that Russia has access to to gain access for the end and the Atlantic.
The Ukraine has a ton of farmland. This may be more valuable soon because China imports a ton of food and if you're planning on a Sino-Russo alliance cut off from western powers, food is important.
Similarly, it shares a lot of the fresh water sources with the rest of Europe. I don't know if it's something he can attempt to monopolize, but controlling water into the region is at least as good as natural gas, and less seasonal with less ability to diversify like to green energy.
The USSR located some specialty heavy industry in Ukraine. If it still exists, it might be valuable. I read, but can not confirm, that it was part of the strategic goal of the USSR to make sure each constituent state wasn't self sufficient to encourage national unity. But that could just be BS. Reasoning like that is almost certainly why Crimea was given to the Ukraine.
This is bullshit propaganda, sorry. Russia has over 1000km of coast at the Black Sea, to the East of Crimea.
I will say, even if it were true, that wouldn't justify what Russia is doing. But I can see how it would be useful for domestic consumption.
Its straight out of Imperial Russia's propaganda book. Kind of proof that Russia since ~1600 has always been the same country, just with a different coat of paint (the one between 1917 and 1991 happening to be red paint).
Putin has almost exclusively bad things to say about the USSR, it is the Russian Empire he wants to restore.
But you contend that Putin doesn't want the western tip of Ukraine, but instead to reclaim Finland, Alaska and parts of Poland? Because that's the only difference in his territorial ambitions.
Very similar to what WW1 and WW2 causes.
- In approx 1900, Germany becomes one country (before, there where many small principalities, and no central power lasts long).
So appear new country, powerful country, and they look on world and see colonial system, where nearly ALL powerful countries has colonies. I mean whole world where divided between top countries.
First, Germany tried to reach an agreement with top countries, to cut some colonies from other countries and assign to Germany, but without fast success, because pre WW1 agreements system where extremely sophisticated, and they just cannot rebuild this system fast.
Than German powers conclude, that they could faster got wanted if make war, that's all.
To be more precise, Russia is large, but economically, it's position is worst in world, except Mongolia. - Russia have longest in world size of land borders, near no borders on mountains, very little number of possible sea ports; extremely large territory is just ice, nothing could grow there.
- Russia really have reliable access to sea only in few places - Baltic, Black sea/Azov, and on Pacific, this is extremely little, for so large number of citizens (approx half of US).
BTW, current Russia situation is much better, than for example 200 years ago, because that time they had neighbors, who demand very high fees for access to sea. To solve this, Russians occupied their neighbors - 300-200 years ago, Russians near constantly invade neighbors and assimilate them into their empire, so now they have another problem, google Belfast.
Now, Russians trying to work less crude, they trying to place puppet governments in all neighbors countries.
Ukraine have borders with three EU countries, and is one of the largest counties on Black sea, so Ukraine is extremely interest for logistics.
And unfortunately, current Ukraine don't have effective government system, as I said on another comment, current Ukraine officials are extremely corrupted and extremely illiterate.
So Russians concluded, that Ukraine could be easy target for occupation and/or to place puppet government, and prepared for invasion and invade.
I don's think, Russians really plan to assimilate Ukraine, most probably, planned scheme where similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact
BTW exists excellent movie, very good show atmosphere in Warsaw Pact countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Spies_(film)
It's not 'what it has' it's 'what it is'.
Putin views the Ukraine as 'part of Russia' - that's it.
I don't understand why people have such a hard time with this.
Imagine if Mexico invaded Texas in 1950 and 'won'. A lot of Americans would want to 'take it back'.
Now I don't believe that this analogy is real in terms of the Ukraine situation (Imagine if those Mexicans wanted to be Mexicans and definitely did not want to be part of the USA...), but you can see how Putin + Co. propaganda would like you to see it.
I'm wary that there will be much of an insurgency in Ukraine - it's big, open, spread out, there are few places to hide.
We'll see.
A better analogy would be Australia and Canada. Both were part of Great Britain and both became independent after the British Empire collapsed.
Example of the Queen's representative interfering in local politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...
Ironically it happened the other way round.
Didn't Biden explicitly say yesterday that they were preparing for the war and in fact built field hospitals, brought blood supplies, etc.?
Analytics said, Russian have TECHNICAL resources for war, but unknown in which condition those resources.
This remember me old anecdote, in 1960th, American analytics count overall area of all Russian secret enterprises, than compare it with American rocket enterprises, and give to Senate defense comitee prediction, how many rockets USSR already build, to suggest huge increase of defense spending.
Members look on this prediction, and asked one simple question: how they could been sure, that all those enterprises made just rockets? And where Soviets build cars, trains, other mechanics? Analytics could not answer to this, and where got out with shame.
Returning for technical resources, we have not before invasion know, what will be used.
And sure Biden insured for worst possible case, he thought, and we also thought, that Russia will attack with modern high precision weapons, but fortunately, this does not happen.
Now we know exactly, that Russian army mostly have extremely old machines, approximately 1970th if account from Western technical level, not Russian.
Thanks for sanctions on Russia, they have not modernized much machines for modern level.
And 1970th machines, are totally depend on people, they are not automatic at all, and to be exact, they are just support for infantry, which is extremely vulnerable for Ukrainian weapons.
Second question where, if Ukrainians will resist, or like in 2014 will drop weapons and surrender - we have Great answer for this question.
If Ukrainians where not resist, Russians would be used Ukrainian medical infrastructure.
So, kremlin mistaken. To be honest, all mistaken, underestimated Ukrainian forces and Ukrainian people, and overestimated Russians.
Because of these mistakes, I could talk to you from Kiev, and we still resist, and I believe, we will win, all world will win, with independent Ukraine.
I browsed Ukraine web shops and found at least Spar has an open webshop: https://shop.spar.ua/ . If anyone has an address to order for I'll try ordering some goods for the front line, bunkers or what do I know.
In the longer term I'll do what I already do to China:
I happily pay 20% more for small goods not made in China and in fact I try to avoid buying Chinese.
At the same time I'll happily pay even a bit more for Lithuanian goods after their brave stance the last few months. (Lithuanians, make sure "Made in Lithuania" is visible on everything you ship. You guys rock!)
In some cases smaller European countries' manufacturers prefer to put "Made in the EU" because it's more reputable. No idea if the Lithuanians do it too.
These two contacts seem most trustful for me:
https://www.facebook.com/serhiyprytula/posts/505236280960977
https://www.facebook.com/backandalive/posts/2231987336958691
I will write additional info when will have.
How do you hope to defeat Russia without coordinating with the lawful and most powerful institutions in the country? Note also that probably all foreign government assistance, especially the motherlodes of assistance from NATO states, including cyber, will be going through the Ukranian government.
> You could just donate, or you could create some business opportunity
How will creating business opportunities do anything to protect the freedom of the Ukranian people or defeat the Russian invasion? It seems like a major distraction from a crisis.
> any government got totalitarian power and does not account on people
Calling the Ukranian government undemocratic is a leading talking point of Russia and their allies. How do we distinguish what you are saying from them?
All your points seem to reduce support for and divert it from the Ukranian government and their military. Isn't that absurdly dangerous in this moment?
> I'm Ukrainian activist for 10+ years, have been on Maidan, etc, know many other activists.
With due respect, in this atmosephere, how can we take the word of an anonymous person on the Internet? Would you trust such a person? How would you distinguish them?
Almost none of the people on HN have anything to contribute to the Ukranian military. At the same time, all of the things related to actually living as a person in any country, at war or peace time, revolve around jobs, the economy and technology, things people on HN have a lot to do with.
https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/
If you want to donate I would try to find some small scale relief effort that probably has no free Central bank money raining over it.
Given the success of Turkish drones against older Russian weaponry during the recent conflict in Artsakh, maybe the Turks could be convinced to test the drones against more modern versions? Although your point is correct, that the time to have arranged this has passed.
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...
Many people here could participate in their cyber efforts, and/or know others who could. I would think HN would be an especially fruitful recruiting ground.
Also, public support worldwide is essential, as is evidenced by both sides' intense investment in it.
Unfortunately, Ukrainian government extremely corrupted, and Ukrainian army affected by this corruption.
- Ukrainian officials so much feared about potential military junta (btw, like Putin and all officials of exUSSR countries), so purposefully hold army weak, make all possible to assign least initiative army tops, and slow down reformation of army.
For example, I hear from insiders, that to build in Ukraine factory of NATO standard rifles/shells, West have to "hook Ukrainian tops balls", because all normal human measures where ineffective.
Other important thing, you may not believe, but just today I seen calls from most trusted Ukrainian activist, to buy to Ukrainian army food.
Tell me, how possible, army in Kiev does not have normal food supply?
- Even in USSR regulations, written, that every military unit, should have long last food supply for at least 10 days, and today is just 3rd day of invasion, and we hear calls. I think their supplies are just plundered by officials.
If you interested, later I will supply long list of what where designed for army in Ukraine, but Government does not made payment or used some other bureaucracy tricks to not buy those things.
> probably all foreign government assistance...will be going through the Ukranian government
Sure. Western officials MUST at least show, they act openly, because Western people will not understand.
But in exUSSR countries, many things are not done acting openly, because extremely large part of officials here working from USSR times, they just do not have modern habits.
And even young officials are not ordinary persons from street, but mostly relatives of old officials.
For example, after 2014 revolution, activists created database of Ukrainians with good western background, even from ivy League, who want to become officials, even considering extremely low compensations and begin from very beginners positions. - Totally about 3000 persons enroll, but less than 200 where accepted by govt organizations, and in just one year only about 30 still worked there, all others quit, because of extremely toxic atmosphere. - In Ukraine now near 300k people considered government workers, and approx 80k officials.
> How will creating business opportunities do anything to protect the freedom of the Ukranian people or defeat the Russian invasion?
You remembered me words of Poroshenko, who once said words, which every person lived in USSR or in other totalitarian country, understand absolutely right, as: "do not critique me! Or Putin will invade!"
And it is extremely important, that Russia invades its neighbors all few hundreds years it exists. And I have not seen any serious scientific foundations that this Russian behavior will end in some observable future.
So we have situation, very similar to Israel-Iran, one of our neighbor will be our enemy forever, constantly waiting for good opportunity to attack us.
You really think, we should not make reforms now?
Sure, I don't ask to drop support on official channels just now, but hot phase will not last more than cup of weeks, and than we will return to the same words, "do not critique me! Or Putin will invade!"
> Calling the Ukranian government undemocratic is a leading talking point of Russia and their allies. How do we distinguish what you are saying from them?
Easy. I talking with people, I answer all questions, and I learn, and act, but nearly no one of exUSSR presidents will. We name this phenomena, "they become bronze man".
> in this atmosephere, how can we take the word of an anonymous person on the Internet? Would you trust such a person? How would you distinguish them?
I'm understand your words very well. Because I have worked as CTO of startup, and have to hire people I cannot get much info about.
So what to do? - I have talked with few candidates, asked them questions; than I have tried to work with them; for some of them I created test assigns, etc. And yes, some of my choices where mistakes, but others where good enough fit.
You may say, that we in Ukraine should make similar, again and again choose new officials on elections, but Ukraine have elections for more than 20 years,and results are very far from good for now.
For example, Poland is just few years ahead, but their results far better, even 10 years ago, they perform much better, and last year I hear opinions, Poland just become country of 1st world.
So I have made conclusion, that I have to make something more, something other, than just participate in elections.
I'm not too much scientific person, to write foundations to trust me, I'm practitioner.
Very annoyingly.
(I can only chalk the downvotes (this comment was grey at time of my reply) up to pOlItIcS)
And Bank of Ukraine accept wire transfers as well. But I just donated to Come Back Alive cause I don't trust the bank of Ukraine effectively using the money.
Donate and help Ukraine!
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page-images/26184-imag...
Winning the ground war will probably be easy for Putin. Governing the resulting quagmire will be much more difficult.
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"[1]
1. https://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/12/frank-wilhoit-the-tr...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory#Polit...
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-treasury-stripped-by-oust...
We never came up with a reason for war in Afghanistan for 20 years and haven’t been out of Afghanistan for 2 months, but Americans are already bending over backwards to start another one. Unreal.
Literally nobody wants another war, hence why everyone is outraged at Russia for invading a peaceful Ukraine based on the paranoid delusions of a mad man.
Putin is insane, but the US has given him every reason to believe that striking sooner than later is in his best interest. They didn’t have to do that, ya know. Americans have plenty of problems at home, and it is absolutely shameful that they can’t focus on them. Many parts of America are utter slums.
Once you are violating human dignity and human rights in such an obvious way you are in no way a legitimate leader. Election victories can never be a justification for blatant human rights violations.
(This doesn’t even touch on whether the election was legitimate in the first place.)
Also, whataboutism isn’t very helpful in the current situation. It’s a pointless distraction and doesn’t make anything Putin does currently any less wrong. In general, whataboutism is just so incredibly unhelpful and pointless. It’s extremely dumb (or extremely clever in an evil way if you have an agenda).
(This is dangerously close to whataboutism, but just another point: you mention the EU removing him, however as far as I can tell there was no EU involved in his removal.)
Western liberal dogma holds that democratic consent justifies global terrorism of virtually any kind. As Chomsky says, the US state apparatus is the world’s largest terrorist organization.
Ukraine is being invaded here. By Russia. Neither the EU nor NATO are involved. You make literally no sense at all.
Also, the tyrant slaughtering his own people was disposed of by them. You can make all the legalistic arguments in the world, that won’t change that his own people disposed of him. So you talking about the USA literally makes no sense.
So what if I were to agree that the US is the largest terror org in the world. Doesn’t change a thing and is pure irrelevance.
Source please.
Who spear-fished Podesta again? As well as the DNC? And 4,000 other Clinton-related email addresses? And why did that same group also attack the World Anti-Doping Agency, MH17 researchers, senior NATO members and Russian political opposition and journalists?[1]
Who was Manafort providing internal polling data to, and why was that worth forgiving $20 million worth of loans? [2]
When even the Republican Senate Intelligence committee has this to say, it's clearly "debunked"[3];
> The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Parts of this effort are outlined in the Committee's earlier volumes on election security, social media, the Obama Administration's response to the threat, and the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.
Here's what Mueller had to say, sure, "debunked"[4]:
> The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month.
[1] - https://www.secureworks.com/research/iron-twilight-supports-...
[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/08/manafort-rus...
[3] -https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
[4] - https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download
Unfortunately, we have not seen understanding with any government. Looks like, all people who got to government or state organizations, work on classical totalitarian scheme - "for friends all the best, for all others - severity of the law". Mean, system is so much disbalanced, that any government got totalitarian power and does not account on people. And laws are created, to make all people offenders, and with very wide possibilities of interpretation, so state officials and their friends become above law.
If you really want to help Ukraine, better to contact volunteers-entrepreneurs, who where on Maidan, and who struggle for economic freedoms, and support Ukrainian army as private persons, without government/state.
You could just donate, or you could create some business opportunity, so Ukrainians will make business, export working hours, or export some products to world.
Business opportunities much better, because Ukraine now have critically huge dependence on Russian market, close to 50% of all trade, need much-much more export to world.
Thank You!