Thanks for articulating this, similar idea behind my sibling comment. Sadly i think the conclusion is that the vast majority of people are small minded, spiteful, and more or less accept whatever narrative the empire feeds them. Wish it wasn't like this

So you can't hate or dislike the USA dictatorship on your own? Only small minded people can think so?

I just seriously doubt that likes of Dotcom, Musk or Trump need to be on Putin payroll. They just all have their own agenda to sell "strong russia, good putin" narrative.

And "because he tweeted on X"?

I think you're going to need something a bit more substantive than that.

https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-am...

Its like Americans complaining about how Chinese or Indian hit movies are covertly pro-Chinese or pro-Indian propaganda pieces. Ever heard of Hollywood?

Hailing from a country that joined NATO in the 90s I wouldn't brand a person arguing this as being on communist payroll - just ignorant beyond measure.

Russia has been a consistently bad neighbour for decades now and I for one am happy that in my country it was the post-communists out of everyone who spearheaded the effort to have a deterrent in the form of NATO membership.

Finland and Sweden appear to agree, considering how they joined the alliance.

If anything, NATO is now more relevant than ever.

Also wrt to Finland -- if anything the story of Finland ascension into NATO supports the arguments that NATO is intentionally -- and aggressively -- pushing Russia to war. Finland has had close relations with NATO for years and during the same period Ukraine was more or less under the influence of Russia. So why havent the Russians cooked up some story about the Finns abusing ethnic Russians and invaded Finland a while back? Could it be that the Russians are sincere in their concerns that Ukraine hosting NATO troops is a matter of national security for them?

The world is being pushed towards nuclear war. And for what exactly? A Ukrainian government that has refused to engage with its neighbor on topics that its neighbor claims are matters critical to its national security while enthusiastically engaging with war mongering nations abroad on weapon deals that bring little value to the people of Ukraine. What would have been better for Ukraine? To find a way to make peace with Russia or to fight it for a decade? And please dont say this is for "democracy", "freedom", and "liberty". Who believes that the US and Europe is pumping tens of billions of dollars of military hardware to Ukraine monthly out of altruism?

I think people dont realize that the Russians are a super power. At some point they will lose self control and it will be a loss for mankind.

What's to say Russia won't wave the nuke card again, and again, if it worked the first time?

Also, do you ascribe any agency to the people of Ukraine? If they want to resist Russia, let them, I say.

And of course it's not out of altruism. (Well, some of the icing on the cake may be.)

It's because Russia is changing the status quo. That's a threat to the US. (And many other countries!)

Look: the Russian invasion sucks for everybody involved and in particular the Russian and Ukrainian civilians. War might be good for many things but at the very least it is not obviously good for politics. I think it’s not controversial to expect that Russian leadership would have much preferred to develop influence through significant mutually beneficial relations with its neighbors.

What is to be done however if at some point a third party with infinite resources is those neighbors to an impasse on topics of national security to Russia? And after this those third parties start arming those neighbors with advanced weapon systems? Exactly what do you expect the US would do in a similar situation?

People wishing that the war would stop are not simply siding with an invader or a bully. They are being practical and recognizing a legitimate grievance of the Russians. Unless your position is that we live in a world where nations are unequal wrt security expectations you have to acknowledge the reality that the Russians have a legitimate claim to be upset about.

This is completely false. "NATO encroachment" is a VERY recent talking point which is part of the neo-fascist narrative that Russia developed attempting to excuse its own inadequacies. You should google Foundations of Geopolitics which is basically a Russian version of Mein Kampf. This book is required reading for majority of Russian politicians, diplomats and high ranking military officials. Before Russia decided that it wanted to pursue a fascist state, NATO was not on its agenda at all.

This is completely false.

> neo-fascist narrative

Azov brigade?

In the U.K people are currently being jailed for years for mild social media posts. Hopefully the Axis of resistance will liberate the West. This American certainly hopes so.

Greater free speech huh? Let's see shall we:

72-year-old Russian woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for anti-war posts on social media [1] https://therecord.media/russian-woman-sentenced-to-prison-ov...

A Russian American Is Sentenced in Russia Over Social Media Posts [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/world/europe/russian-amer...

US-Russian dual national jailed for 12 years on treason charges for $52 donation to Ukraine [3] https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/international/ap-us-russ...

Russian man whose daughter made anti-war painting sentenced to two years in prison [4] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/europe/russian-man-sentenced-...

>This American certainly hopes so.

Press X for doubt on this one :)

Would you like to reconsider who has greater free speech rights?

American as apple pie. You're a hacker, see where the IP I'm commenting from is located. What hubris to think millions of Americans aren't completely fed up with this fascist empire. If you're still unsure, for 20 years now Congressional approval hasn't cracked 30%.

Are you talking about this stochastic terrorist who incited riots and called for the murder of hundreds of innocent people? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/14/woma...

If yes, I think you are utterly delusional at this point.

Terms like "stochastic terrorism" are just linguistic tricks to fool the population into voluntarily relinquishing their civil rights.

Claiming that Russia has greater free speech right is laughable. Maybe if you compare to North Korea...

Don't get me wrong, the United States wants the same for its citizens but our annoying Bill of Rights and Supreme Court have slowed the descent into tyranny.

One thing seems certain to me: we were never free. Those in power will do as they please. Here or in Russia it’s all the same.

Russia has its interests. It puts them above human rights. We have our interests and guess what we do the same.

Need I remind you that we fabricated reasons to invade Vietnam and Iraq and in the process we killed millions of civilians? Or do you need a list of all the governments we admit to have toppled over the years?

Our misguided belief that we occupy some moral high ground is objectively making the world a worse place. By our hands and by the fact that we are enabling other countries to act the same (eg Iran and Russia). How about instead we concretely define principles and standards that we apply uniformly? Why do we have to pretend like we are uniquely act with impunity on the global stage?

As for the NATO enlargement narrative I don't know why people still try to push this when it's clear as water that Russia wants to annex more and more territory, even their conditions for ceasefire are mostly about Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.

And are you saying NATO can’t be enlarging because Russia wants to annex territory so that means NATO hasn’t been enlarging?

Its regime is exactly that delusional, yes.

Super power that cannot defend it's own borders during the hot war. I guess their superpower army too busy conquering Moon and Mars or far away galaxy.

And you know what's not happened when Ukraine started to capture Russia territory? Putin and his gang said nothing at all about nuclear weapons during last 10 days. Not even single hint even though he like to talk about them every time when his ass not in danger.

This is because they are criminals and bullies and these kind of people only understand force.

> A Ukrainian government that has refused to engage with its neighbor on topics that its neighbor claims are matters critical to its national security

If the "matters critical to its national security" involve unprovoked invading of other country, then it's good they don't care, even assuming your biased rhetoric has anything close to reality.

Thanks for bringing up the example.

MAD prevented WW3. What do you think happens if the US thinks it can cause significantly more harm to China and Russia through first strikes?

There's no evidence for the existence of such a plan.

And (prior to the invasion) there wasn't even an active plan to bring Ukraine into NATO. It was taken firmly off the table in 2008.

It's just a dictator lying to you, and his own people. It's what they do for breakfast.

This really shouldn't come as any kind of a surprise.

So what your are saying is a falsehood based on the current realities on the ground.

Which, specifically?

I suppose any of the thousands of regular aircraft that Ukraine has "could" deliver a nuclear payload. But that would be a pretty stupid way to launch a first strike, and doesn't change the MAD equation in any way.

It's incredible the convoluted things people tell themselves to explain away the simple and obvious reality:

The only reason Finland and Sweden joined NATO was because Russia invaded Ukraine and started a genocide, while threatening Finland and Sweden with the same (and nukes).

The option is to let Russia freely commit genocide with rape, murder, and terrorism.

Only to then steer their target to the next country and do exactly the same.

I see you've never seen Estonia or Latvia on a map. Nor realize NATO is already there. Why have they not been invaded while since 2008, Georgia and Ukraine have? Total mystery.

You are just parroting lies manufactured by russian propaganda. Here you go, read it from the source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21598

Also don't you dare make them lose their temper.

Russia isn't under threat from NATO, as it's a defensive alliance. They seem to understand that as well, as they pulled their air defense systems from the region bordering Finland.

> I think people dont realize that the Russians are a super power.

The soviet union was a super power. If anything people realised that Russia's supposed power is mainly posturing.

And it was high time for that. In the past some western governments attempted a policy of appeasement - all it achieved was emboldening Russia.

Russia pop 145 million. GDP 2.24 Trillion.

Brazil, pop 205 million, GDP 1.92 Trillion.

Brazil isn't anyone's idea of a super power. Difference is Russia has or had a lot of Soviet cold war era weapons and weapons manufacturing. With the emphasis on the increasingly had.

So yes you are right. And I agree about the wife beater logic.

I don’t expect them to stop fighting invaders. But what I do expect is to engage with their people and their neighbors on these issues in hopes of avoiding war and maintaining territorial integrity. They didn’t. Why I wonder?

This is a lot like asking, in regard to events of August 1939 -- "Do you deny that Poland has ethnic Germans in it territory"?

Of course it did, and in fact (though this is largely forgotten) Poland was abusing its German population somewhat (far more than anything Ukraine has ever done to its Russian-speaking population). But Hitler's claims of the extent of such abuses were wildly exaggerated and overdrawn. Just as the depiction above of Ukraine "crushing those Russians because of their dissent" (without providing specifics) is wildly out of touch with reality.

And his stated rationale of the need to to start a full-scale war in order "protect" this population was a big lie of course, created specifically to appeal to people gullible enough to believe such things. Putin's claims of the need to "protect" the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine are equally baseless, and are designed with a similar intent in mind.

But what I do expect is to engage with their people and their neighbors on these issues in hopes of avoiding war and maintaining territorial integrity.

Ukraine did engage with Russia on the issues -- they just weren't willing to bend over and give Putin everything he wanted. More specifically it definitely sounds like you were expecting the Ukrainians to agree to permanent large-scale territorial concessions. Because since 2014, that's been the bare minimum of Russia's terms for "avoiding war".

If we dismiss everything the Russians say and accept everything said by those arming Ukraine there is no point for debate on this topic: we can only accept the mainstream media narrative that Ukraine must fight and we must support it endlessly.

All I can say is we had similar situations in the past and decades after the fact we realized we were lied to. Too bad millions died I guess?

If you listen to Russians, then you're left with an impression that they are being surrounded by US weapons on their borders. If you look at the numbers, then that turns out to be a blatant misrepresentation of truth. For example, the US fielded ~5000 main battle tanks in Europe at the end of the Cold War. In 2013, the last 10 were removed. The opposite is true: post-Cold War era has brought rapid disarmament to Europe, which has emboldened Russia to invade Ukraine, because disarmament has limited how much and how quickly allies could help Ukraine.

> But I think it’s kind of obvious that the core Russian desire is to keep nato far from its borders.

Ironically, this is "obvious" only if you accept the premise that Russia is determined to violate the security of its neighbors.

But to address one aspect of what you're saying now:

I think it’s kind of obvious that the core Russian desire is to keep nato far from its borders.

This is broadly correct, and perfectly understandable.

However the war was never really about NATO expansion in the first place. And even if it were -- it definitely wasn't a rational response to that concern. And it certainly wasn't a response that the current regime was "pushed" into in any meaningful sense (as would seem to be youre implication here).

It's really upsetting to hear something so dehumanizing, have you ever interacted with russian people? would you say this about any other massive group of people?

Unfortunately EU and US governments are not much better since they all put dumb limits on weapons usage and never supplied Ukraine enough weapons to actually get any superiority.

Intelligence operative or peasant. Pick one.