> A Russian Tochka-U missile struck a civilian evacuation point at the Kramatorsk rail station on April 8, killing at least 50 and wounding around a hundred evacuees.[11] Russian attempts to deny the strike are completely false. Pro-Russian Telegram channels and the Russian Ministry of Defense initially claimed Russian forces conducted precision strikes on railway stations in Donbas before deleting the claims once heavy civilian casualties emerged.[12] Russian and DNR sources claimed both that the strike did not occur and that Ukrainian forces launched the strike as a false flag, ludicrously claiming that Russian forces do not use the Tochka-U missile—despite the fact Russia designed the Tochka, has demonstrably used it in previous strikes, and confirmed reports that Russia’s 8th Combined Arms Army (operating in Donbas) is equipped with the missile.[13]
-- https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens...
Other war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian...
I'll skip subject of Russia lying in general. Somehow poisoning of former spies and lying about it does not make me loose my sleep. What Russia does with its own population is disgusting though.
On this particular NATO issue I was that idiot that did not believe that Putin will really start the war. Now looking back I think the warning and the message from Putin was pretty clear and consistent. He went from wanting to join NATO, to bitching about the expansion, to annexing parts of Georgia and Ukraine when NATO had started to entertain the ideas, to starting accumulating large military presence on the border of Ukraine later on, to issuing the ultimatum and giving last warning, to finally starting the war.
>"Sure, in essence of fairness, US would probably be pissed if China would make Canada allies, but in all fairness, you also need to see that there's no US missiles butchering children in Mexican train stations."
Well. Mexico does not exactly let Russia to deploy their missiles. I am not sure what will happen if they would start the process. I think they will be given "offer they will not be able to refuse".
If we skip the Mexico and start count since say WWII you won't have much difficulties finding cohorts of children, women and civilians in general killed, maimed, starved, displaced etc. etc. All for way less reason than deploying missiles near the US. Of course it was all with good intentions and for a common benefit of humanity /s
The Russian government lies about everything. They lied about Crimea, Donbas, MH17 and a ton of other things. They have assasinated dissidents, journalists alongside former spies. Anything coming out of Moscow should be treated as flat out wrong, or at most indicative of what they want to do ( they're claiming Ukraine has chemical weapons? They're probably going to use chemical weapons on Ukrainian civilians).
They even deny invading Ukraine. We can't really discuss anything with them when they're living in a parallel reality.
You do not need to convince me. I know it.
As for journalists I've already said that Russia stinks when it comes to treatment of its own populace.
What about shooting civilian airliners out of the sky and lying about it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-17#Russian_media_coverage
Russia still denies Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 years later.
This is a bad comparison.
Russia used chemical weapons in a NATO country which harmed 3 and killed one (innocent UK civilian). The UK would have had cause for war. It should have at least responded in kind and assassinated Russians.
Sure. For some inexplicable reason they've decided to act in a rational matter and not to start WWIII.
>"It should have at least responded in kind and assassinated Russians."
Yep. And they did not. Probably to their credit they do not go down to the same level and do not for example behead people like their other enemy does.
Interestingly the UK does have a strange case of their own spy committing "suicide" and stuffing themselves in a duffel bag.
The sequence of events: 1) Ukraine government states that it is their priority to join NATO 2) Russia amasses troops at the border, states "don't join NATO, there will be consequences" 3) NATO and Ukraine say "you are bluffing, we'll do whatever we want" 4) Russia invades.
Where is the lie?
I would say the more complete sequence of events is more like:
-2) Ukrainians are largely against joining NATO according to public polls pre-2014 (with neutrality being also a clause in the Constitution)
-1) Russia annexes Crimea and invades Eastern Ukraine
0) Ukrainians become largely pro-NATO.
...
0) Russia invades Ukraine in 2014: annexes Crimea and funds an insurgence in its 2 eastern regions.
Please go whatabout something else, people are literally getting slaughtered over the delusions of an ageing autocrat who has lost touch with reality.
Isn't it a bit contradictory? If Ukraine can't join NATO, then promising it won't is irrelevant. Rather, it was their stated goal to somehow resolve the territorial intergrity question and then join NATO. So ineligibility was just a problem to resolve, not an insurmountable obstacle. And of course increasing military cooperation can be done without joining.
I agree that "calling bluff" is not the best word. Rather, it was politically infeasible for both Ukraine (runs counter to their stated goals) and the West (looks too similar to what Chamberlain did) to enter into an agreement with Russia. So it didn't happen.
> And of course, the real lie is that Russia was going to war no matter what. Leaked conversations of Kadyrov show that Russia was prepared to go in since last year, and the negotiations asking for impossible things was just a distraction. Like the Austrians did with Serbia in WWI.
Even if the leaks are true, how does it prove that the invasion was inevitable? Yes, Russia was preparing for war to make the threat credible and this preparation included making detailed plans. Doesn't mean that Putin couldn't scrap those plans.
> Please go whatabout something else, people are literally getting slaughtered over the delusions of an ageing autocrat who has lost touch with reality.
Your comment was better without this addition.
The result is that their promises about not attacking someone if "they stay out of NATO" are worthless crap and the only way for smaller European countries to stop them is with force of arms and help of a big military alliance.
Sure, in essence of fairness, US would probably be pissed if China would make Canada allies, but in all fairness, you also need to see that there's no US missiles butchering children in Mexican train stations.