It’s not only about revolting, but without a free press, economic sanctions are one way to get people to know that something is going on. Russian citizens may not even know what is happening, but when they suddenly can’t buy thing, when Apple Pay stops working, when costs skyrocket… that gets people to pay attention.

I'm being totally serious about this: as a first generation American, 9/11 caused me to rethink what this country was doing abroad.

Obviously the loss of life was terrible. People in my town died in the Twin Towers.

But I grew up mostly with American propoganda. I didn't know that the US had a long history of overthrowing governments in the Middle East and South America, and generally meddling in their affairs.

Not to mention trading Oil with corrupt Arab leaders who hold their countries hostage.

There is not an equivalence between the bad behvaior of the American and Russian state. I'd say Russians are worse in some ways, and Americans are worse in other ways -- largely because Americans are more powerful and influential.

So I'm basically agreeing with your argument, although I don't think it's "fair" for the people to suffer (e.g. all the people who died in 9/11). However Americans also have to realize that we largely haven't faced any consequences as people, except a few outliers of terrorist attacks.

(throwaway since I usually don't comment about politics)

In psychology, there's a mechanism that tells us to look for extraordinary causes for extraordinary events. And I don't mean here something seemingly supernatural - just something that affects you in a big way. For this reason some people, when they lose their loved ones, can't simply agree it was an accident and look for some kind of conspiracy, a bad actor, a murder.

My point is, even those russians who know the situation well on the level of knowledge, could be emotionally detached and think that's just how the world works - but now that they see unprecedented response, it can sink in emotionally that their government has really done something terrible.

> But I grew up mostly with American propoganda. I didn't know that the US had a long history of overthrowing governments in the Middle East and South America, and generally meddling in their affairs.

I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory.

The US has a free press, and its unfortunate history of overthrowing or supporting governments was and is well documented by the press and by historians in the United States. This documentation and publication resulted in many public scandals, lawsuits, and public intrigue, particularly through the 1960s to 1980s when the US's activities in this regard were perhaps that their peak. The resulting history is taught in universities and in elementary schools across the USA.

Now, there are well-known political parties or other people with a vested interest in spinning things in their own way, as is the case in any country, but if you think the United States press is anything like the press in Russia, or that its public is anywhere as ignorant of the facts as the public in Russia and similar countries, or if you felt you were unaware of the US history in this regard while it was going on, then you perhaps led a sheltered life. But it wasn't for lack of trying on part of the US press.

Look at my shit, even if as smelly, it is better documented than yours.

> I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory.

Dismissing every argument with whataboutism seems to be flavour of the day, even when it is not whataboutism.

You're welcome to your own opinions, and your own blithe dismissals, but you are not welcome to your own facts.

I lived during most of the period discussed by the GP. Everything from the Bay of Pigs to supporting the Shah to Iran Contra to the invasion of Grenada was well covered and well criticized in the US press. And the US invasion of Iraq was highly criticized in the US press even as the US government was facing an uphill battle to convince the world that it was proper by brandishing fake bottles of poison at the UN.

The US has done a lot of bad stuff. But claiming that the press just went along with it is historical revisionism, full stop.

Having "free" Press does not absolve US of its crimes.

That's even ignoring the fact that the Press itself is a propaganda tool for the US military-industrial complex, while steeping in biases of its own.

You're welcome to live in your own bubble of facts.

There’s merit on both sides here. I think the key is that OP was making a personal Point about their own reflection. However well documented in academic texts or small newspapers thinking about how the US has meddled and more is not mainstream in the US, especially on the centre right. 911 did something similar for a number of my friends too - they started looking at some of that history in more detail, and it became important in their decision making.

[Deleted]

Putin talks about 15000 civilian victims in Donbas.. yet there are no names whatsoever? Nobody tried to submit the case to international institutions? Such questions did not arise in your research?

I can’t speak to exact numbers but it isn’t just Putin making those claims. Many Russian-speaking Ukrainians have made similar claims.

everyone in Russia knows what's going on

but when Apple Pay stops working, when costs skyrocket the blame will be on companies and on the west

take it from ex-Russian

Half of them will blame the west, because, as in every country, roughly half the population believes whatever stupid authoritarian bullshit they are fed. Not much different from the West, just travel to a sundown town and ask who won the last election, or whether it's a good idea to get the 'rona vaccine.

The other half knows better, but also knows better than to talk about what they know publicly. Which is how Russia differs from the West.

>> everyone in Russia knows what's going on

Maybe in your circle.

You should open Odnoklassniki for a change. Or any propaganda website that gets tens of millions of readers per day. And those who know the truth would never open that because there is zero pieces of truth in them.

exactly. They were all fine with Putin, being Putin... since 97. Now, remote workers cannot get their salary because of the SWIFT sanction, Apple Pay stops to work and NOW suddenly it is serious?

The struggle is real (TM).

They were all OK with Putin because he was up there, next to the god, doing his tsar things that didn't appear to affect people down here much. He also did populist things and stoked Russian self-pride, which was a welcome development because the pride was all but destroyed during the Perestroika and what's left of it was exchanged for frozen chicken legs generously provided by the Bush administration.

In other words, he was tolerated with some approval. Not much thought was given to the trade-offs and some goodwill was assumed when these were made.

This approval is still there, but now it hinges on keeping masses fed with propaganda bullshit, to keep them believing that their fight (and suffering) is for the right cause. But when your life comforts take a nosedive, it will work only for so long.

So pulling a rug from under the unwashed gray masses is the exactly right thing to do in this situation. It's literally the only thing that could shake them off their consumerist nirvana, force to look around and realize how much they willingly exchanged in past 20 years for something that not only wasn't guaranteed, but could also be completely taken away on a very short notice.

But at what cost? I am pretty sure that everyday Russians do know that something is going on but I have trouble justifying broad sanctions against the poor and middle-class citizens of Russia, Iran or Venezuela - especially since many of them oppose their authoritarian leaders. After all their real crime is simply losing the birth lottery by being born in an authoritarian regime.

According to polls, even run by West outlets, Russians do support Putin in big numbers.

If you don’t trust the official election polls in Russia, why would you trust their opinion polls to be honest. If I were Putin, I would certainly be tempted to manipulate opinion polls to make it look like I am more popular than I really am.

As for western media, while no doubt less manipulated than Russian media, I don’t think it is safe to assume that western media is above manipulating public opinion to suit their agenda.

For example, I find it curious how little coverage the Ukraine-Russian conflict has received by western media until last week when this conflict has been a hot war since 2014.

There are lots of polls done by non-gov-aligned news agencies or even paid by foreign outlets. All of them paint the same picture.

Even here in Lithuania we got quite a few people eating up Russian propaganda and supporting Putin. I’ve no doubts it works even better in Russia.

Any media is biased. That’s how humans operate. The key is to watch different sources. And don’t get into „both sides have some truth“ BS. No, sometimes one side is flat out lying. But IMO it’s important to understand the other side narrative to understand their logic.

Here in Lithuania we got non-stop coverage of Ukraine since 2014. But I’m sure we get no coverage on stuff that is far away and public doesn’t care much.

Because covid and other things. A lot more was reported since last September where I am from.

And it was really boring for years. Another shelling, another handful of men dead, another Russian exercise

Fox news openly supports Putin... Recently they blamed Greta Thunberg for the Ukrainian war...

Didn't see any revolting Americans when the Iraq War was initiated.

If Iraq happened today I think more people would be upset and protest.

In 2001 I don't even think I had a cellphone, we didnt have social media like we do now, the only source of news was the News Paper and TV.

If it happened now we would be blastered on twitter with videos / photos of it happening in real time like we are know. Much more aware of war crimes happening.

We can't change what happened in the past but I would like to think we can change the future, and Iraq doesn't happen again.

(I was living in NZ at the time still at school when 9 11 happened)

I remember getting completely shut down by my American friends when I told them about atrocities committed by US soldiers and that Saddam had no nuclear weapons. It was like talking to a wall at the time. You don't understand - we are fighting this war for the world's safety, blah-blah.

Maybe the next US war will be different ? I doubt it. US propaganda makes Russian propaganda look like amateur hour. Stuff that doesn't fit the mainstream narrative will be shutdown hard, while stuff that fits it will be amplified continuously.

Yep, and EU is no better... they even banned RT... imagine banning CNN when USA attacked afghanistan.

But this is the start of the war, and there is A LOT of propaganda everywhere... everyone in the west is trying to show russia as losing everywhere, while they're conquering basically everything, on the other hand, they say that russians have destroyed whole cities, and only two short clips of the same building are showed, and now fearmongering like this reuters article.

I live in the balkans, and (obviously) I'm against any kind of war... but what putin is doing is no different than americans choosing a random middle eastern country (or even yugoslavia in 1999), and destroying the fuck out of it... but somehow it's different when americans do it.

At the time of the Iraq War I thought US mainstream media were nothing more than bloodthirsty warmongers, liars, and dogs of the state [1]. I still hold a grudge against them TWO DECADES later for the lies and war propaganda they spread during this time.

I mean I'm ultimately against banning media, I linked to RT a few days ago to make a point about the propaganda they spread, back at the time of the Iraq War I was a huge Jon Stewart fan and watched him every night just crap on that bad ol' media using clips from the media and you can't really do that effectively while banning that same media. However, I've got to say, I don't think banning American Media in the early Bush era would have been a preposterous idea. I mean at the end of the day the US media succeeded in selling that war to the "coalition of the willing". US war propaganda is probably more dangerous than Russian war propaganda because it's more sophisticated in the way it manufactures consent and has this veneer of journalistic freedom.

[1] A wiki article that summarizes popular criticisms of US media from this time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War

Eg.Yugoslavia's issues were internal.

Ps. A lot of people left RT because of it's propaganda and it's idiocracies even before the ban.

Yugoslavias issues were internal, until nato/usa started the bombings in 1999.

It doesn't matter that they left, the problem is the lack of free speech, because RT was the only medium that reported some things that most european newshouses avioided.

Obviously RT is displaying propaganda now, but so is everyone else, sadly.

Mail.ru is still an accessible propaganda site fyi.

> Maybe the next US war will be different?

Depends on if there's another incident akin to 9/11. Right now, if you tried to run the Iraq playbook again it would fail. But if something major happens which makes the US populace feel insecure, that could change.

I do think that there's a lesson in how difficult it would be to actually change the minds of Putin supporters in how slow the US reassessment of Iraq has been.

> US propaganda makes Russian propaganda look like amateur hour.

That's because US government narratives get continually sharpened and refined against the grindstone of challenges from the free press. This is different from countries where the government shuts down the press, such as Russia where the ridiculous canard that Ukraine needs to be "denazified" actually flies.

This. Dissidents would be cast as pro-Evil and purged from social media for misinformation.

Then we shouldn't accuse the average Russian citizen of not overthrowing their own government because while they do have cellphones today they live in a country with an extremely tight grip of media. If your argument holds for 2001 america, it's the same now for Russians.

How can we let more average Russian citizens have access to real facts? It's now a crime in Russia to publish 'lies" about the Russian army. It's hard. And it's even harder because any information you manage to smuggle through is always tainted by coming from the corrupt west.

Just thinking aloud: what if the information reaching Russians does not come from the west but from other countries, all other countries, the global south, the far east? They can't be all corrupted by the west, can they?

The US is the country of protests, there were plenty of protests against that war. I’ve been to a few myself.

Me to. I protested 2 times against the war in Irak. I was still in high school then and almost everyone was protesting.

Oh, it's good to know that. Maybe Russia could get away with the invasion without sanctions just letting his people protest against the war. No matter if the outcome of the war is the same, or if Putin is elected again (as happened with George W. Bush in the US).

Putin tried to run the GWB playbook with his invasion but he got impatient. He didn't have a 9/11 handed to him like GWB did. Putin's excuse is too flimsy about a Nazi genocide against Russians. There wouldn't be any sanctions whatsoever against Putin if he had planes flying into a building in Moscow.

Putin is playing the kosovo card.

An area with a minority, self declared independence, minority and majority fighting every now and then, and then the "outside player" deciding to attack the whole country to "protect the minority".

For us in the balkans, america has always been a bigger threat to peace (and still is), especially after having plane fly above our roofs to bomb a country 200miles away, and not that long ago, we were still a same country.

His mistake is to mix up these plays. If he had stuck to that balkans play it would all be a lot harder to argue with from a western perspective. We just don’t know enough t about Eastern European politics/beefs. But he’s also talked about Russian security and nato expansion and denazification which is so stupid as to make a mockery of any sensible rationale.

Sanctions against the US for the Iraq war would have been totally legitimate. What exactly is your point?

That the US is arguably the most powerful nation in the world and that sanctions by smaller economies vs empires like the US are like Palistinian children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks.

It is easy to claim that sanctions against the US would have been legitimate when it is clear to most that they would have had little to no meaningful impact.

This was true during the first iraq war... and even then barely.

Now, just china imposing sanctions, would seriously fuck with US economy. Add on EU to that, and the situation would be pretty bad for americans.

The point is that there were no sanctions, and there won't be the next time the US decides to invade another country. So punishing Russia this time gives the US an unfair advantage, and that's not good for anyone outside the US.

It's more than that. There are other impact:

* There are a lot of Indians openly support Putin. I guess there is an excuse to justify the invasion because Russia is not the first one doing that.

* Inside China there are a lot of debate. Russians invasion obviously breaks the international law. But if US did the same thing in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria ...(Let's not debate if US conducted good invasion to avoid to going to rabbit hole), also indirectly caused humanity disaster and refugees, why put Russia in a different standard?

Not making judgement of which is correct or wrong, just saying it's difficult to convince certain population if different standards were applied.

India has a similarly authoritarian nationalist govt and looks a lot like Russia 20 years ago. I am very nervous about the direction India is heading.

What sanctions against the American economy following Iraq war, would have pushed Americans to revolt?

We had big protests. They were not big enough unfortunately.

There were plenty of protests - I remember seeing one walk by (including most of the faculty) in my university cafeteria at the time.

Then you didn't look very hard.

I remember massive protests in Europe at least. --Largest ever-- anti-war rally that go straight to the Guinness book of records.

Apart of breaking a new world record in number of people participating, they were a total lose of time.

All the opposition to a regime gathering together in a street, so can be conveniently netted and arrested like a school of fishes, is just making the life much easier for dictatorships

While the protests to a large extent took place outside of America, the Feb 15, 2003 protest against the Iraq War was the largest protest ever at the time. The protests were certainly more enthusiastic and open than what we see in Russia, you can speculate on the reasons why.

> Didn't see any revolting Americans when the Iraq War was initiated.

Evidently you didn't want to see.

was Iraq a pacifist country? BTW Ukraine is invaded since 2014, so the War is happening since 2014. Putin just brought it to a larger scale after to believe that EU and USA were weaker after pandemics and Afghanistan.

Americans revolting no, but I'm sure the Iraqis would have something to say about revolting Americans. ;-)

At this point, it doesn't look at all like we can practically expect a popular revolt. For me there are two outcomes to target with the sanctions:

* Make life unpleasant enough for the oligarchs that they replace Putin with someone less intent on ruining the nice thing they had going.

* Handicap Russia's ability to wage war. This includes eliminating their ability to buy supplies and destroying their morale.

It's the second goal that is, in my mind, the motivation for the economy-destroying sanctions.

It would be great if Oligarchs around the world were uncomfortable.

This should be and opportunity to catalogue just exactly who the oligarchs are and what are their assets and how are they affected.

Might also be helpful to declare that anything confiscated from an oligarch will be given back to the Russian people/state after everything has calmed down.

That's what's happening in part to frozen assets of the Afghan Central Bank [1], so it's not entirely beyond the realms of possibility – but how that would work in practice in Putin controlled Russia I have no idea.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/executive-order-...

I honestly thought the revelation of the Panama Papers would trigger something similar, here's hoping this new conflict will help move the needle...

Oligarchs don't run the country. They have zero control. It's like saying let's sanction Elon Musk for Iraq. The country is run by the military. Protesters are jailed for 3-5 years.

Putin has a direct tie to all ologarch money - they need to give him his cut for "protection" (from him) so as to not get poloniumed.

So any hit to a Russian Oligarch can eventually lead to a personal hit to Putin.

However, with all the resources of an entire nation under his singular pudgy fist, im sure he has plenty of shell-assets all across the west.

Also, ne thing we are not talking about is how the Russian mafia is profitting.

There is a huge Russo-Israeli mafia (speocifically in NYC (Kutchner fam)) and they apparently own a ton of real estate in NYC. This is who co-opted 1980s Dnald Trump...

If you arent familiar with this part of history, its been well hidden - but the Russo-Israeli Mafia in NYC is powerful. Follow the money and all that...

The human cost of all of this is going to result in a shitstorm of suffering on the part of young russian women as human trafficking is going to spike in the next ~18 months.

> * Handicap Russia's ability to wage war. This includes eliminating their ability to buy supplies and destroying their morale.

But if we still fear the atomic war, he can still threatens Europe with that.

Nuclear weapons are very delicate and expensive to maintain, especially if you have thousands of them. After having seen the awful state of their tanks and army trucks, I'm less worried about their nuclear abilities.

me too. Said that, they definitely can reach Germany.

Their weapons can reach any country in the world, including the US. I don’t think anyone in any intelligence community would refute that.

That is a legitimate worry but there’s no counter to it other than reminding Putin that a nuclear attack would cause a massive automated, nuclear counter attack that would destroy him too.

There’s no defence against submarine based warheads; enough will get through.

It’s the reason that NATO isn’t going establish a no fly zone over Ukraine. They know it too.

At this point, what do you think that Putin has to loose?

The guy is 70 years old. An old, lonely, bitter man. His wife left him in 2013 and his kids are far away from him. All his Wealth is blocked, he will never be able to enjoy his life outside of his little empire. He has nothing to loose.

He could choose the bunker, but maybe he decides to bring the whole world with him. And if he decided already, nothing that we do, will make him happy. We are just deciding to die without even a fight.

The song that describes Putin right now:

"I am alone, this bitter man that I've become Hold my breath, laid to rest Drown in my tears, there's nothing left of me I am alone, the angry man upon his throne I can't pretend, the great descent Take my hand until the end You see me on the horizon I am the air you breathe I sold my soul to the seven seas Condemned and lost, pulled off course I will never leave, I'm always yours"

Any given day - Bitter Man

Can’t say I disagree with the sentiment.

I can’t see what he has to gain from this war. There’s no upside for him.

All I can think is that he’s got something like Parkinson's, knows he’s on the way out and just wants throw his weight around one last time.

Honestly though your guess is as good as mine.

There are various commentators who came to the conclusion he wants his legacy to be the restoration of the Russian empire. If that's truly the case, the move of attacking Ukraine while not caring about economic consequences makes sense. Or at least it made sense until the sanctions became so heavy.

if that is the case, he won't stop in the ukraine...

Oligarchs don't run the country. They have zero control. It's like saying let's sanction Elon Musk for Iraq. The country is run by the military. Protesters are jailed for 3-5 years.

Cornering a dictator with a nuke is the stupidest foreign policy I can think of.

The definition of an oligarch is "someone who is part of a small group that runs a country." (Wiktionary)

So, you can try to claim that Russia doesn't have oligarchs, but if they exist you can't say that they don't run the country.

EDIT: For example, if the country is run by the military as you say, then the top leaders of the military would make up the oligarchy and each of them would be an oligarch.

I'm unsure how any dictator could run a country in the absence of some form of supporting oligarchy.

Sure, but the sanctions are aimed at the rich businessmen not military leaders (who aren't necessarily all that rich). Eg Khadorkovsky was the richest oligarch of Russia, has been jailed and became a major opponent of Putin.

Wonder who are the oligarchs of USA by that definition?

What makes you think you know better than anyone else who is actually running Russia?

I am Russian, and I know some billionaires ("oligarchs"). They don't spend much time in Russia and don't support Putin in any way. More than anyone they realise how fucked up the regime is, which is why they stash money abroad. Putin does what he wants.

An American billionaire is a successful businessman. A Russian billionaire is an oligarch.

I just can't believe any thinking person believes that punishing the Russian people has any chance of getting rid of Putin.

He has had all the time in the world to insulate himself and plan exactly for that situation. I bet he doesn't even come in contact in person with anyone he doesn't know from the Soviet days at this point and the people he does are probably guilty of all kinds of things themselves if Putin was done away with.

If russians didn't support Putin, it wouldn't matter if he lives or not and if he's isolated (which is called an imprisonment btw) or not.

Russians have to decide: do you want to continue living in peace with the rest of the world, or not. In the former case, retake control of your country and stop invading, raping and murdering Ukrainian civilians.

The purpose of sanctions is to persuade Russia to stop the war, not to get rid of Putin.

Even if some might want it to go further, it won't, because the coalition will not hold. If Putin stops the war and pulls back to pre-invasion boundaries, the group of countries imposing sanctions will not continue to hold out for Putin's ouster in addition.

An outright revolution by the Russian people is not necessary, though we might hope for unrest which degrades Russia's ability to wage war. The suffering of Russia's common citizens isn't desirable. But it can be justified, since Ukrainian citizens have it far worse.

Americans about US wars: 'we cannot do anything about our government - they engage in wars and we couldn't stop them if we tried'

Americans about Russian wars: 'the average Joes need to go out to the streets and bring Putin down'

this is a silly caricature.

historically, a majority of Americans supported both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when they started, and public opinion did not turn against them for several years, and even then it was not an overwhelming majority.

Obama campaigned on the folly of those wars but chose to stay involved because it was believed by many that some level of success could yet be achieved for the people in those countries, who were in many cases partnering with the US.

Nevertheless, the eventual unpopularity of those wars did in fact lead to "regime change" in the US, because the US is a (somewhat) functioning democracy.

Americans are in fact at this very moment preventing the US from engaging in this war in Ukraine.

> Americans are in fact at this very moment preventing the US from engaging in this war in Ukraine.

The US getting more directly involved in Ukraine was never a likely outcome, for reasons that have nothing to do with American public opinion. Throughout the Cold War, both the USA and the USSR made a policy of never directly engaging in conflict on the same soil, because the risk of it escalating into a nuclear war was just too great. Instead, they would fight proxy wars where at most one country was a direct combatant, and the other country merely provided material support to an ally.

We can expect the war in Ukraine to continue following the same playbook, and for the same reason. And other NATO countries will also avoid sending their own troops into Ukraine for fear of creating a slippery slope that pulls NATO's nuclear powers into the war.

this is all very true, but does not negate what i said. the American public does not want to risk nuclear war.

Perhaps you wanted to use a different choice of words? "Prevent" implies a much more direct cause and effect relationship than we can reasonably infer in this case.

While Obama was talking out of one side of his mouth regarding tire Iraq, he was starting a bombing campaign in Syria and Libya with the other

And a majority of russians support the war now... some because they support putin, some because they want putin to protect the russian minorities in ukraine, and a lot of them because of the propaganda in russia. Yes, some people don't want that, and articles like this one now is a part of anti-russian propaganda.

America had its own share of propaganda, that brought popular support for those wars... some even very fake one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony America also had hippies and other anti-war groups, so the situation is not that much different.

Americans weren’t the first to do sanctions though? Not even close. In fact, EU countries were asking America to, and are still asking for more.

Americans can change government during election every few years if they don't like it. Russians can't. That's why the only way is 'the average Joes need to go out to the streets and bring Putin down'.

Except you get 3-15 years in jail for protesting in Russia.

Go watch how people go with bare hands to protest russian forces literally this minute.

And yes, they don't risk 3-15 years of jail. They have hundreds of times higher chance to die.

But they don't use it as an excuse.

There is a very small number of protesters. We'd need a million people to rise up in Moscow alone to make a difference. Putin has too much support among his voters atm. And the iron curtain only solidifies his propaganda machine.

>> There is a very small number of protesters.

You sure? Or just speculate to support your point?

I follow russian anti-war channels where people share videos of protestors. Numbers are very small I'm afraid (more cops than protestors).

You should join some groups in viber/telegram of people that actually live there, and see for yourself.

The only small numbers are russian army that wants to take a 44 mil country with weapons, cities, etc by their demotivated 150k troops that don't have the slightest clue how to fight.

I'm Russian and yes I am a member of the telegram groups you mention.

You could get shot in the head during Euromaidan[1] demonstrations in Ukraine (2013-2014). And they were able to remove Viktor Yanukovych from office.

Many other countries escaped from Russian influance thanks to mass demonstration (Poland, East Germany, ex USSR nations).

It is not easy, but there is not other way. Only Russian can dethrone Putin, no one else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

Yanukovich had far less support and had opposition. Ukraine's military presence was a fraction of Russia's. Already more Russians have been arrested in protests so far this week than in Maidan, but unless millions rise up it's impossible to remove Putin. When you shoot at a king and you miss you only solidify his position.

Furthermore Maidan had assistance from the US. No such thing exists in Russia.

There are only so many jails, temporary detention facilities, and judges to give the verdicts.

Tell that to Stalin

In his times there were no easy ways to organize masses of people due to lack of efficient decentralized means of communication.

Social media is mostly banned. Posting anything online against the war is a 15 year jail sentence.

You have a solution to this problem 2 posts up in the chain.

When was the last time the US invaded, with an intent to never, ever leave? When was the last time the US invaded, and slaughtered civilians, on purpose, just to spread terror.

Not by accident, or a rogue element, but purposefully.

When was the last time the US jailed, not by a mistake in justice but on purpose, all who dared speak out about her actions? And killed them when possible?

Many reading the above will say "But this one time...", yet that is the point. It is an aberration for such things in the US, not the norm. Not the standard.

Russia is not even remotely the same. It is a dictatorship, lead by a single, non-elected, blood thirsty, malicious murderer.

The whataboutisms are so weak, and paper thin here, it is absurd.

The u.s. is the most warlike country on the planet.

I say this as a US citizen hasn't improved of any of the US invasions and wars in my lifetime.

The idea that bombing and invading Syria Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow defensive wars is a joke

> When was the last time the US invaded, with an intent to never, ever leave? When was the last time the US invaded, and slaughtered civilians, on purpose, just to spread terror.

I'm against war in Ukraine and against Russian dictators, but Putin doesn't want to never leave, he wants to install pro-russian government, like USA does in attacked countries. But yes, we didn't hear about slaughtering civilians in our west-centric media, only from those russian propagandists like Assange and Snowden.

> When was the last time the US jailed, not by a mistake in justice but on purpose, all who dared speak out about her actions? And killed them when possible?

Like with Snowden, Assange and journalists involved in panama papers or Epstein case (who hanged himself in constantly observed cell)?

What is different from my perspective about Russia: USA is still one of the best economies in the world, still have democratic rulers where you can change them and wants other countries to become like it (which means better than their current state). Russia just wants other countries to work for Russian might. We had anecdote in Poland, that USSR is not that bad, because it takes coal from us for free, but in exchange we build ships for them for free. So, while many Poles would not really fight that much if USA wanted to take over the country, we would (and do alredy in Ukraine) oppose Russia with all we have.

I'm 100% against the war, but the American hypocrisy here is next level.

This isn't an ethnic genocide. Had Putin wanted to kill civilians you wouldn't have 100s of deaths but millions like in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just like the US he is looking to overturn the government.

The reality is that some people in Ukraine (Donbas and large portion of the East) do support Russia. Truth is never black and white.

You are right that there are many people in Ukraine who support Russia.

However, we should not forget why this is so.

During WWII and after WWII, the Russians have forcibly moved a very large number of people from the territory that is now in Ukraine, to various unpleasant locations in the Soviet Union, mostly in Siberia.

Then they have brought Russian colonists, who were settled usually in the houses from which the natives had been evicted.

The descendants of those Russians brought in Ukraine, mostly by Stalin, have obviously not been happy with the independence of Ukraine, when they have become a 2nd rate nationality from a previously privileged one, like also the Russian colonists from other former parts of the Soviet Union, e.g. the Baltic countries or Georgia.

I agree that the Russians, now in minority, have their rights like anyone else, and they should not be persecuted by the new majority, but at the same time I do not believe that people who have so recently occupied by force the land on which they live now have the moral right to request "democratically" that their present country should become again a part of the empire which gave them houses and jobs, but those houses and jobs were provided by what was stolen from the former inhabitants.

Most definitely. And I believe that was the option Putin proposed to Zelensky, as long as he agrees to not join NATO.

> Had Putin wanted to kill civilians you wouldn't have 100s of deaths but millions like in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is this some grim joke? Had putin wanted to kill civilians, he could use nuclear weaponry in various forms to kill billions.

But putin, like everyone in this world, is limited by various factors, like army morale, or the patience of its neighbors. The economical situation of russia is terrible, but it can always get worse, and making a full scale attack against civilians, would end up with even more dramatic response like even China sanctioning them, or EU sanctioning them completely with complete disregard to own economy (no gas) or some kind of alliance actually attacking a nuclear empire for the first time in history (not counting the Japanese who didn't expect USA to develop the technology so fast), or... Simply putin would be killed by some highly ranked officer.

> Just like the US

What is it with all this symmetrism on HN? putin invaded Ukraine without casus belli.

Or maybe he actually doesn't want to kill the civilians but wants to overthrow the government that he believes is targeting Russians in Eastern Ukraine and wishes to deploy US missiles on Russian borders?

I don't think we can find a diplomatic solution unless we truly try to understand the enemy. Saying he did this with no reason doesn't help this.

There's always a reason for any war. Bush had a reason to invade Iraq after all, didn't he? What was the real reason?

Putin views this as a proxy war between US and Russia. Cuban missile crisis was similar: US placed nukes in Turkey, too close for Russia's liking. Russia said they'd place nukes in Cuba. After US threatened WW3 a deal was reached and both sides pulled their nukes.

We could have achieved a similar deal and saved countless lived. But for whatever reason nobody wanted to negotiate with Putin. That would be fine if NATO would actually protect Ukraine instead of leaving them to fight on their own.

You are saying that Pooking kills civilians because he don't want to kill civilians. It's looks like you are as crazy or rational as Pooking, so you can reason like him. However, normal people cannot think like crazy people, so they just declare a crazy person as «crazy» and try to isolate them instead of understanding them.

Actually, I tried to understand Pooking by inducing paranoia in myself. When I did that, all his actions become quite logical. He sees RF as victim of evil NATO. Any action of NATO is a step in evil plan to destroy RF. RF is so smart, so they see the evil plan of NATO, while others are blind, or pretend that they doesn't understand, or are playing their roles in the evil plan. Your text is quite logical when I'm switching to «paranoia» mode.

If you add the variable of the gas supplies found in Crimea, it makes even more sense.

He wants to keep control over Europe and that would have been an instant loss as soon as production went live.

I believe the takeover over Crimea was primarily for this. The rest was a result of what he thought "preparation" to cement commodities/gas within his influence.

He's a bit jealous of China too. Russia has all this territory and doesn't even remotely gets the respect he screams for, at least he isn't getting it from the west.

It's a tiny man with a big ego.

I can agree on many issues regarding the Iraq war, I think we all heard about the "weapons of mass destruction" that turned out to be false (well, never proven at least). It wasn't the only reason, though [1]. A very important quote from there:

> UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the war as illegal, saying in a September 2004 interview that it was "not in conformity with the Security Council"

However, I find comparing Ukraine to Iraq simply unconvincing. The latter had a recent history of aggression [2], which largely fueled the suspicion about the "weapons of mass destruction".

Comparing saddam husein [3] to Volodymyr Zelenskyy also fails spectacularly.

The comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis is a miss too: in Ukraine the opposite happened, the nuclear weaponry was removed which was the Ukraine's part of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [4]. However russia doesn't respect its part:

> 1. The Russian Federation [...] respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

That's why I call it symmetrism: on one side there's an aggressive country, run by a tyrant with proven crimes against humanity, on the other a democratic country that wants to be free and independent and choose its allies. But putin considers it aggression.

It's one thing if it's a valid casus belli - people thinking so I consider to be unreasonable.

Another thing is, that putin calls a lot of things an aggression against russia. Recently he called sanctions such aggression. So now pretty much the entire world, in this madman's mind, has attacked russia and *IF* we accept the casus belli used against Ukraine, we have to accept a cassus belli against any other country putin attacks next. In other words, the idea behind cassus belli corrupted to the point where it's useless. It's like defining "cold" as colder that a quadrillion °C - now everything is cold, even the center of the Sun. The word became useless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Copy-paste of a comment from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfArW6zppYw

Here’s the situation and the order of events that led to this invasion:

Pro-Russian government was in power pre-2014.

Violent coup overthrew the government in 2014 and installed a pro western, anti Russian government.

This caused the mostly ethnic Russian region of Donbass to declare independence and break away from Ukraine, resulting in war.

Russia tacitly supported them, but did not recognise them.

The Minsk Accords was supposed to end the fighting in 2015, but Ukraine has not lived up to the agreement.

Ukraine has been shelling and bombing the region on and off for 8 years now.

Putin finally decided enough is enough and recognised the region as independent.

He sent troops into the area to protect it and his invasion of Ukraine is meant to destroy the Ukrainian military to prevent them from attacking Donbass.

Now its up to you whether you think Putin is sincere or he's just using it as an excuse to grab Ukrainian territory. Geopolitics is complicated and believing anyone is innocent in geopolitics is ludicrous at best.

> Pro-Russian government was in power pre-2014.

Sounds about right.

> Violent coup overthrew the government in 2014 and installed a pro western, anti Russian government.

That's already where the chain breaks. Ukrainian people, not military, overthrew the government. Of course that can be argued, how do we know that - did the majority agree with the protesters? You could make a poll, but to be sure the results aren't manipulated, you have to make a referendum... Or just an election, in which who was elected? Did Putin send observers to control the elections, did he point out the problems with the system? No? Well, that's where this narration breaks. The world is full of such subtle solutions like election monitoring; it's ridiculous to claim benevolence but skip those solutions and go straight to violence.

This is ethnic genocide. Just look at Ukrainians in Crimea, Donbas, or RF: they are extinct. Ukrainian language and literature are forbidden in RF. Crimes against ethnic minorities are not prosecuted. IMHO, Ukraine should just nuke few millions of Russians to protect millions of Ukrainians. Pooking is crazy.

It didn't work with North Korea, it won't work with Russia. Populace there is unarmed, disorganised and divided, while the Putin's gang is very organised and not shy of using violence against dissenters. When NATO says "we're trying to push russian joes to fix their government", they really mean "we're afraid to confront your bully, he's just too strong and cruel for us."

In case you haven't noticed, North Korea hasn't exactly invaded South Korea recently. The sanctions haven't created a revolt, but they've almost certainly eliminated the North's ability to wage an offensive war.

Doing the same to Russia should be our target. If we cannot end the totalitarian regime without starting World War III, we can still neutralize it as a threat to the rest of the world.

> Populace there is unarmed

So, we should give them weapons?

> disorganised and divided

You think that overthrowing their government would work? Maybe with some "special military operation" perhaps?

> "we're afraid to confront your bully, he's just too strong and cruel for us."

Or maybe - we have a rule where we don't try to assasinate leaders unless strictly necessary. And before you say about Iraq and nin Laden - that was USA operation, not NATO. But I still think that would be best solution which minimises losses in people. But try to do this, even bin Laden was not found in one week, it would be much harder to find Putin in some vault. Plus, after he is killed, there will be some other former KGB agent to replace him.

> we have a rule where we don't try to assasinate leaders unless strictly necessary

And yet, here we are. Maybe this is the rule that needs to change. How many of these wars will we see in the coming decades if we simply start assassinating the leaders of aggressive countries?

I understand there are often power vacuums and things can be worse afterward, but maybe a good, 20-year run of assassinating aggressive world leaders would lead us to a better place.

Why is it always the average Joe that has to pay his life for the leaders?