Also my debater accepted the argument and wrapped himself in that straw.
From both a humanitarian and a strategic perspective, embracing Russian defectors is the very most important thing that we can be doing right now that we aren't already doing. The only reason not to do so is hate.
No, the most humanitarian thing to do is end a war in which civilians are actually being killed.
Not embracing those who supported Putin get to this point but suddenly flee when they're personally inconvenienced.
My wild hope for this situation is that somehow Putin and his gang are ousted, and we can Marshall Plan Russia into a successful, prosperous European democracy. Even make them a partner with NATO like we tried to do before. Admittedly the Russian people would have to want that, so that's a precondition, but I'm hopeful.
It's not. There's many ways in which you can get in contact with russians. And many of them actually support putin.
Yes, you can say people are indoctrinated. But maybe so is putin - that's the problem with determinism.
hitler was not one guy. putin is not one guy.
I'm against lifting sanctions when putin dies. Much more has to be done.
Ask someone like Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky why they stayed to fight and be jailed instead of fleeing. Fleeing doesn't help.
Russia hasn't been conquered since the most recent Russian Empire was formed. But regimes have fallen from within...
Khodorkovsky hasn't stayed after he got out.
And Navalny overplayed his hand. It appears he really thought it was about him, not the movement he had created, otherwise he'd have had his wife run for office, which is what wives of those arrested in Belarus did.
People who don't wont to fight are bad as soldiers so why force them?
Ask the Russians who are bombing them and preventing them from leaving. Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians.
Or ask the Russians who started the war. Ask the Russians carrying out their leadership's orders.
Russians are the ones taking away Ukrainians' choices.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/02/25/russia-i...
And that people on the outside are helpful was proven in World War II were many germans fled.
Ah yes so effective. Only 40 million killed.
They were german citiciens after all, so they were all 100% responsible for the war and holocaust?
It is a complex world and oversimplifying solutions rarely help.
Russians are claiming the contrary.
But I guess you believe the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can.
>the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can
the Russians are indiscriminately bombing Ukrainian residential areas, including using prohibited cluster and vacuum munitions.
When it comes to eating, the Russians are marauding stores for food and alcohol as Russian military supply is broken and stolen in typical Russian fashion.
Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely. They are not covered by geneva convention and I don't think Russia signed no-use treaties for them (it doesn't make these munitions less horrible).
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-oldvideo-notrussia...
without knowing of a minimum of related history, you're still feeling like you cam meaningfully comment.
>The narrative of the russian officials is like the ukranian army places its heavy units in residential areas which makes them difficult to attack without causing collateral damage.
You feel necessary to repeat Russian propaganda again. According to that Russia propaganda the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad are guilty of Stalingrad destruction not German Nazi.
Anyway, if Ukrainians are hiding heavy units in residential areas when why all this tremendous amount of videos of the widespread residential destruction by Russian bombings contain no Ukrainian weaponry? Showing destroyed Ukrainian tank which was hidden in the children sandbox would be a great propaganda scoop for Russians, yet somehow they still haven't managed to show anything like this.
On the other side there is huge number of Russian tanks, armor carriers burnt on the city streets. Why those Russians were in the city? It is very reasonable to suspect that in those cases the Russians have been using the cities as human shield. Tons of videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-pBMdUWhws , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge07_whd1v0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPbavvcP38
>Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely.
again, you either repeat propaganda or more likely talking what you don't know about.
Cluster - the "spines" of the Uragan and "Smerch" cluster missile in the attacked areas is a clear evidence, like here for example https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1497205591814684678?s=...
Vacuum - in the linked video the explosion is pretty characteristic of vacuum munition https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H6Hj5VoZN_k . And there is a number or reports of Russian TOS-1 "Buratino" - vacuum munition missile launcher, and that weapon "shines", ie. extremely damaging in cities, not open field.
It does not, as only a very tiny fraction of those who want to get out, can actually get out. And some choose to stay because of family, buisness, whatever.
But those who left will be the reminder of the status quo for everyone - especially if it was the well educated who left.
"And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice."
But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.
"They can stop it."
And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?
Why not? Or are you in support of them?
> And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?
I'm not American. Ask a yank.
> But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.
Ask a woman who's been raped why she wore a short skirt... You should be asking why Russia is killing civilians, not why Ukrainians are defending them.
But you get the point, that your possibilities as an individual (with maybe responsibilities for a family) are quite limited to stop the actions of a whole state?
And like I said, leaving the state is very effective protesting. No more state support anymore from that person, but one more who had enough. That gives the remaining something to think.
Any support this is actually the case besides "the ukranian officials said ... "?
They. Have. To stop. Putin!
Examples:
Yet here is the problem: western countries allowed Putins regime to exist and grow in it's power for 15+ years and no one cared until this terrible war started. But before there been a lot of other events.
No one gave a damn when Putins olygarchs got rich and moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of Russia. They owned tons of real estate abroad, their children study abroad and most of their families moved to live abroad.
Around 2012 mass protests in Russia was supressed and a lot of people landed in prison. Some opposition leaders were killed.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine and annexied Crimea. Again there been little resistence from EU and US who supposedly have to guarantee sovereignty to Ukraine after this country gave up nuclear weapons.
When Navalny was poisoned and then imprisoned. Again no one really cared.
"Maximum penalties were fines of several thousand rubles or imposed labor of up to 200 hours" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...
That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people?
We have good examples of non-violent protests that won against such regimes:
We did in GDR. We went to te streets. The machine guns were mounted on the top of every single train station. We went to the streets anyway. Not with stones, but candle lights.
We have examples as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor#Strategy_and_tactics
We have literature about it https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
We have as well examples of violent protests through the History that worked (I don't support it, but we cannot deny their efficiency) https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-violent-protests-...
Don't underestimate Russian capabilities when it comes to punishing regular people - 18millions went through gulag system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very little since distances are too big. No one gonna notice if 1000 people in small russian city will land in prison.
Again I wish that people in Russia were as brave as those in ukrainians protecting their home, but I personally is not the one of brave ones. I wish I could do more to prevent this. Sorry.
Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I dont think so.
For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.
Yes, after killing 30 million+ people. It would have been much easier if Germans didn't enable them or someone took out Hitler in 1938.
And we punished Germany for generations because of it. The US still has military bases there to this day.
But after Trump made the actual decision to pull out all US troops, there was rather lots of whining, because the military bases are important for the local economies ..
Poland, who fought Germany with the biggest % casualties, ended up in a much worse state than Germany, because of russian occupation in the form of communism (Germany had a healthy part to take over after USSR collapsed) and no participation in the marshal plan.
So I have doubts if we can speak about Germany being punished for generations.
No, it just ensures that the only people left in Russia are the ones who support Putin.
And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice. Why should Russians? As another poster said, even autocracies need a certain level of support to operate. It's not fair to punish Russians but their country is literally waging a full scale war while threatening the west with nukes. They can stop it.
Or we can all wait until Kyiv looks like Grozny, millions have died and we're sacrificing the Baltic states to "prevent nuclear war"...