And even if they did want to return to Russian rule (which they didn't), the just thing would've been to hold a referendum. They are a democracy after all.
Also, those so called "referenda" did not conform to Ukrainian laws.
Yet Ukraine had no intention at all to organize a "real" referenda under their laws. Instead, they preferred to keep on bombing those rebel regions in Eastern Ukraine. Now, they ask Russia to stop doing the very same thing.
Why should they cede their land to someone? And why should referendum be held only in one region, and not in the whole country? No country will agree to this. Will Putin organize a referendum if I suggest that my city separate from Russia and join European Union? Did Putin or Eltsin organize such referendum in Chechnya?
It doesn't matter whether Ukraine should or should not have hold such referendum. It is Russian soldiers who crossed the border and pulled the trigger first in 2014, not Ukranian. The war (as almost every war) is there because Putin and many Russians want more land, more glorious victories and more political influence, not because someone didn't organize a referendum.
During these last 30 years there's been 3 different referenda about Crimea, all with roughly the same outcomes.
> Also, those so called "referenda" did not conform to Ukrainian laws.
US independence did also not conform to British laws, the existence of Kurdistan is not conform with Iraqi or Syrian national laws, Catalonian independence would not be conform with Spanish law, yet there is a human right to self determination.
What's also not conform, with a whole slew of national laws, is violently overthrowing a democratically elected government, as it happened in Kyiv 2014.
You cannot compare US war for independence with Crimea occupation because in US it was an internal movement to become idependent from a metropoly, but in Ukraine the events that occured were caused by Russian military intervention with purpose of annexation of Ukrainian territories. Before Russian intervention in 2014, there were no significant efforts to become independent, there were no war and nobody was dying.
The same with Catalonia.
> What's also not conform, with a whole slew of national laws, is violently overthrowing a democratically elected government
First, their president wasn't overthrown, because he has left the country himself. Second, that doesn't give Russia a right to annex territories.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2018_Primorsky_Krai_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election
Worth watching this for a background of how the whole thing started. The guy was pretty on point with it, and it checks out from other sources too.
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis John J. Mearsheimer - The University of Chicago - 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Wait, what? Catalonia had nothing to do with Russia.
So it would only count as a regime change if he stayed to get killed by an angry mob?
> that doesn't give Russia a right to annex territories
But states and their parliaments very much have a right not to acknowledge a new central government that came to power trough violence.
The Crimean state parliament did not recognize the new Ukrainian government, thus held a referendum what to do about the situation [0]
Said state parliament was voted in power by the people of Crimea before anything in Kyiv even escalated.
You acting like that doesn't matter, so you can regurgitate "Russian annexation!" does not only deny the Crimean state parliament agency, it very casually denies the Crimean people, as represented by the state parliament, their own representation.
So unless you have evidence how Russia replaced the whole state parliament, how Russia actually meddled in the referendum, that long you are spreading disinformation when you keep calling the situation as annexation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum
It doesn't count as "been overthrown". Also, there is no evidence that he would have been killed. He might go under a trial in a court though.
There is one important thing you don't mention: the "referendum" was held after occupation of Crimea Peninsula by Russian military. Specifically, the article you refer to says that Russian military occupied Crimea on February, 27 and the referendum was held on March, 16.
Therefore, parliament could not vote freely as its members were not protected from pressure by Russian military authorities. You cannot vote freely when surrounded by enemy soldiers. Also at that time the territory was controlled by Russia and the parliament had no real power anymore.
Also, I do not know if Ukranian law at that time allowed a region to declare independence. You cannot hold a referendum whose outcome would contradict the law. For example, you cannot hold such a referendum in Russia.
> You acting like that doesn't matter, so you can regurgitate "Russian annexation!"
Let's look at the definition of "annexation":
> Annexation in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state and is generally held to be an illegal act.
Russian army has occupied the territory earlier that anything else happened. Therefore it is an annexation. There was no significant movement for independence of Crimea before occupation.
> it very casually denies the Crimean people, as represented by the state parliament, their own representation.
Do Crimean people or their Parliament now have a right to separate from Russia if they change their mind? They don't. Does it mean that Putin, as you say, "casually denies the Crimean people their own representation"?
I don't think there are many countries where a region has a right to declare an independence. There are things that you cannot change with a referendum.
Also, you need to know that Russians are not natives in Crimea. By UN standard, natives are those people, who live in place for 200 years.
Russians expelled native Crimeans from Crimea to Ukraine, to substitute Ukrainians died during genocide, and to Siberia.
They used situation with Crimean Goths as excuse, because Germans used Crimean Goths as translators.
After expelling of natives, Crimean land was used as prize for soviet officers. They had no experience of agriculture in dry climate, so they cut vines and tried to farm potatoes, which caused famine. Also, Crimea was cut from RF, so RF was unable to help.
To fix situation, Crimea was returned back to Ukraine, to rebuild economy, because Ukrainians knows Crimea climate for more than millenia and Crimea was part of Ukraine since breakup of Russian Empire. However, Russians portait this return of Crimea as gift to Ukraine and want to stole it back.
It's the same strategy Russia used to annex neighboring countries before WW2. - first they get their military in by any means necessary - then they take down any means of mass communication, TV towers, radio etc. Any leaders of the opposition will be killed or jailed. Only censored Russian propaganda will be shown. - then occupation army will establish a puppet government which will stage a referendum which asks to join Russia in some form. At that point it's rather irrelevant how the people vote because as Stalin said, it's not important who votes but rather who does the counting.
I think Anne Applebaum in one of her books has described how it went down in the countries that Russia annexed. Looked eerily like following a flowchart and evidently still works and sounds plausible to some people.
Scottish independence referendum seems to be a rather good example how such independence referendums really should look like to be accepted by the world.
>hold a referendum. They are a democracy
These don't match. Democracy is rule of the majority. The minority is powerless and can be abused as much as the majority wishes.
Protections of minorities are by most republics understood to be integral to a healthy democracy. Not simple rule by majority. That's why most voting systems are not FPTP.
If you do bad things and get away with those, quit preaching at least.
Normal people in all countries are like this.
Analogy: Definition, a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects. "works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature"
Anytime anyone brings-up Western aggression, people cry whataboutism and so the topic cannot be discussed anymore.
It's fine for people to say that two wrongs don't make a right or that even if the Iraq invasion was based on lies about weapons of mass destruction that doesn't make Putin's invasion of Ukraine any less evil or harmful or destructive. But most people don't even bother and just cry whataboutism.
Whataboutism makes sense, victims of abuse are not allowed to abuse others just because they were abused themselves. But it's not whataboutism to critically analyse and compare what is the justification of the Iraq War and Ukraine invasion. President Biden probably wouldn't just cry whataboutism, he would state clear and convincing reasons why the Ukraine invasion isn't justified and why the Iraq invasion was. It's not whataboutism to analyze, compare, collect evidence and come to a judgment.
This is literally lie. There are both discussions and articles about Iraq, Afganistan and what have you all the time. Especially here in HN. Hey, why do you dare to talk about Iraque when you did not stopped Balkan conflicts, you never attempted to help Tibet or stop genocide going on in Chine, so no talking about anything until those two stop.
Whataboutism is not about analyzing or drawing paralel nor anything like that. It is transparently bad faith. Somehow twisting Ukraine and Eastern Europe in EU deserving punishment for Iraque and Syria from Putin, because Americans something something.
"Why dont countries surrounding Ukraine lock their borders to refugees, like I guess, they apparently demanded other countries surrounding conflicts to lock their borders ..." something something.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30558245
Mikeb85
"> invades Iran The difference between Ukraine and all the other countries invaded in the last 50 or so years is that Ukraine is a real democracy and liberal, modern society.
Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc... are not the same as Ukraine."
femiagbabiaka
"Truly amazing. This statement shows that you know very little about the history of Ukraine or Iran, Syria, Iraq."
Mikeb85
"It's truly amazing how much whataboutism and Russian propaganda there is in the US."
Mikeb85 is claiming that Ukraine is not the same as Iran, Syria, Iraq as a "a real democracy and liberal, modern society". femiagbabiaka challenges this claim and is stating that Mikeb85 doesn't know the history of those countries. Mikeb85 responds with "So much Russian propaganda and whataboutism".
Honestly, where is the whataboutism in what femiagbabiaka said?
Answer: no whataboutism.
All femiagbabiaka said is that Iran, Iraq, Syria were/are real societies not deserving to be bombed by stronger powers just like Ukraine; whether that is true or not is debatable but what is not debatable is not there is no whataboutism in that statement.
My pet peeve is people mis-using "whatboutism", calling whataboutism at the very mention of other countries such as Iraq; and above is a simple example of that.
Mis-using whataboutism to just kill all discussion such as on the topic of justified Western or Russian aggression.
It is not even example of you trying to discuss it in context other then Ukraine.
Here is the message of Mikeb85 with proper formatting and it is clear here that he is using his claim of Iran, Iraq, etc.. as not being modern, liberal, democratic etc.. as justification for Western Aggression.
Mikeb85
"> invades Iran
The difference between Ukraine and all the other countries invaded in the last 50 or so years is that Ukraine is a real democracy and liberal, modern society.
Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc... are not the same as Ukraine."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30556335
Ekaros
"I wonder would these actions be then applied equally. Let's say USA invades Iran. Should we then terminate all of the domains and tlds hold by any USA based entity. Reclaim all of the IP space hold by them too? Surely it would solve some starvation issue, and be just, but do we want that?"
Common justification for Western aggression in Iraq and Afganistan is that these countries are not worthy of the same protections as Ukraine since they are not democatic, liberal and modern. When somebody challenges that claim, the response is simply labeled "Russian Propaganda and Whatboutism" killing the discussion.
Any questioning of the justification for Western Aggression is responded with "Russian Propaganda and Whatboutism". One cannot even discuss with Mikeb85 whether his claim is true or not, as backed by evidence.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30548787
Razengan
"Not resorting to Whataboutism, but try to see how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan (two in a row, and the subsequent occupation for 20 years no less!) by the US was seen as “just” by all the nations now condemning Russia. Take a look at maps of NATO expansion:
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t37zf4/countries_j...
If America was concerned about Russian nukes in Cuba, shouldn’t Russia be concerned about an alliance encroaching up to their literal border?"
selfhoster11
"This is basically whataboutism. I don't consider myself well informed enough on any Middle Eastern conflicts, but if I found anything objectionable there, I'm happy to call out both the US and Russia on their BS. BTW, "NATO expansion" was there for a reason, and you don't get to claim that the new members didn't want to join of their own initiative. Every post-communist country that wants to keep their self-determination is worried about falling back into being Russian puppets once more."
Razengan raises the perfectly valid point of how come invasion of Iraq and Afganistan was not met by any outcry or sanctions by those countries who supposedly value countries sovereign rights?
selfhoster11 instantly replies with "whataboutism" and so kills the discussion that way.
Question: how is asking about what makes the Ukraine invasion different from the Iraq invasion, whataboutism?
Answer: It's not whatboutism.
People just throw blindly throw whatboutism when there is any discussion about other countries even when there is zero whatboutism. In this example, selfhoster11 doesn't even bother to come-up with any explanation on the differences between Iraq and Ukraine and just cites "whataboutism" like it's a magic word.
Russia would be committing Whatboutism if they just said since USA got to invade Iraq and Afganistan and violated those countries rights', we should be able to do the same to Ukraine. Basically, USA committed a wrong and so we get to do the same as well.
But that's not what Russia is saying, what Russia is saying that there is such a thing as justified aggression versus a threat; USA's justification for the Iraq invasion was Iraq having WMDs. Russia's justification is threat of Nato Expansion and the interesting discussion would be if that justification is valid or not. But no, most discussions just cry "whatboutism" and all discussion ends there.
- We have this and that reason to do {thing}.
- These reasons are laughable and you still don't have excuse to do {thing}.
- What about when you did {thing} with ever worse reasons stated?
In this case I would say whataboutism is justified, or at least, no constructive dialogue is possible.
You are right with the last sentence. Unfortunately few people are interested to find out what's true in our world nowadays — for them it is more important to feel justified with their position regardless if its true or false.
When talking to anyone else, "you" means one individual, like Putin, plus one can be sure an American won't remember a single thing he did more than a year ago and that can be dismissed as a digression in any case.
That's what's wrong with whataboutism.
- it’s pointless to insist on zero hypocrisy before entertaining the ideas of another because there’s no such thing in any human and never has been. You’re a hypocrite. So am i. Get over it.
- “what about x?” distracts from the issue being discussed and usually has absolutely nothing to do with it anyway
For example, imagine something like this:
Pro-Invasion guy: “Putin is right, the US pushed them into this, they’re acting in self defense!”
Not-Bullshit guy: “Oh come on, it’s not like the US or NATO launched an attack from a base of operations within Ukraine.“
PIG: “What about the US invasion of Iraq under the Bush doctrine of preemptive war?”
The two are entirely unrelated for a myriad of reasons. It’s a purely emotional reaction meant to vindicate your fragile little ego, and nothing more. Worst of all, it wastes time and effort that’s better spent working the real problem. We could have been finding ways to help the Russian people circumvent Putin’s news censorship instead of this just now, which would have done a hell of a lot more to promote the cause of human liberty than this discussion, and possibly could have indirectly saved lives in the long run.
But here we are…
Ukraine, for instance, seems to be a divided country, much like the US, where there is an approved narrative and near blanket censorship.
Some Ukrainians want to return to Russian rule, and some want the West to intervene. In Russia, there are citizens who love and ones who hate their government. Some embrace the West, some distrust and hate the West (especially America—based on the mainstream narrative, which is heavily censored).