Ukraine-Russia War Take 2

Zelensky was democratically elected. Ukrainian law forbids elections during wartime and that was enshrined in law years before Zelensky was elected. You've no credible evidence he's corrupt. You must get your info and subsequent worldview solely from right wing X as in hard right.

lol

Sorry, I was thinking of the war when posting but meant when under martial law. And it's not practically or logistically possible to hold normal elections when they've been invaded, have people displaced etc. And you know this too. But West Bad etc ergo Zelensky Bad and so on.

Zelensky and all the ukrainian political elite are hopelessly corrupt , as ukraine was in 2021 one of the most corrupt countries on earth according to international corruption indexes (on par with Russia, among the worst countries worldwide after subsaharian african countries).

That doesn't excuse the invasion at all, but it can never be forgotten that we aren't talking a normal first world country (or healthy developing country) being attacked, rather an utterly hopeless failed state with an exceptionally low per capita gdp (half Belarus !!!, which is already terribly low).

We aren't talking "one of us". A well standing member of the international community, a reasonable partner, a decent travel companion. They never were, they never came close to be.

Putin still had 0 justifications to attack, and we did well spending a tad to cause a lot of trouble to Russia (weaking Russia is in our interest), but personalizing it toward some sort of "moral duty" we purportedly have for ukrainians no, really no.

Rudy knows

Besides having disputed territory in Crimea and Donbas, a certain level of actual anti corruption is needed as minimum requirements to even be considered for NATO application. Ukraine was laughably far from those metrics.

In 1938 Germany launched an invasion Czechoslovakia that was initially repelled. Fearing a larger war, many nations involved themselves in the resulting diplomatic dispute. This would end with the "Munich agreement", famously waved by British conservative politician Neville Chamberlain as he promised peace in Europe. It gave the green light for Germany to invade and occupy parts Czechoslovakia.

Now, most of you know this, and many of you probably dismiss this and roll your eyes at people bringing it up in the context of the Ukraine war.

What many of you perhaps do not know, is that one of the countries involved in the spat was Poland. They saw Germany's failed initial invasion as a pretext for their own border skirmishes, and they used the diplomatic fallout to demand their own geographical conquests in Czechoslovakia, which were granted.

Hitler would famously not respect the Munich agreement, but would come occupy what remained of Czechoslovakia. A client state, the Slovak Republic (Slovakia) was created, and its military and arsenal came under German control. In addition, Czechoslovakia was an industrial powerhouse and had a modernized army consisting of 35 divisions. The arms taken from the conquered territory would be used to arm about about half the Germany land army, including thousands of artillery pieces, millions of small arms and half a thousand tanks.

With this modernized and now well-equipped army, Poland would come to reap the efforts of their diplomatic meddling. Germany started their invasion of Poland about 11 months later. In addition, the Slovak army would supply 3 infantry divisions and its arsenal to the German war effort. Slovak territory would also be used as one prongs of the invasion, assisted by the German 14th Army.

Poland would, as we all know, fall quickly. Especially since was also invaded from the east by the Soviets, who saw this as an opportunity to expand their borders. Something they would, also somewhat ironically, later come to pay for.

Throughout the subsequent World War II, Czechoslovakia would be dubbed the "arsenal of the Reich", serving as an important industrial hub to equip the German forces and keep the German economy afloat.

Diplomats in 1938 would use much of the same arguments about Czechoslovakia that we now see mirrored in this thread: It wasn't worth going to risk war over, it was hardly a proper country, parts of it were basically German.

They were idiots.

I never said corruption didn’t exist in Ukrainian politics. I asked for evidence that Zelensky is corrupt. Seems that some of the right wing posters here who previously seemed pro Ukraine are now attempting to justify Trump's Putin friendly stance because reasons and excuses. Dun Seems to have undergone a similar u turn.

So again is there any evidence Zelensky himself is corrupt?

YES, the indexes as i mentioned. Unless you think transparency international is a complete fraud but they put Russia at the same level of ukraine.

https://www.transparency.org/en/publicat...

Check the link for the 2021 corruption data on Ukraine.

Then i mean if you believe a country can be at the bottom of the list of international corruption (outside africa) without all the leadership being involved not sure what i can tell you.

I don't see any U turn, it was ok to pay some money for russian soldiers to die, russian gear to be exhausted and so on with 0 western blood involved, that was the rational to help ukraine, and ofc the invasion was and is completly unprovoked and unjustified.

According to many publications and journalists Russia has cultivated a relationship with Trump since his first wife Ivana. The only counterpoints I've seen are baseless whateaboutism or calling every coincidence surrounding the relationship a hoax.

Putin clearly favors Trump. Trump spouts Russian propaganda including that Ukraine initiated the war. Our allies claim Trump gave them 3 weeks to negotiate Ukraine's surrender. It's kind of impossible to dispute that with regard to this situation, Trump is acting as a Russian agent. The US gets: an end to our alliances, our investments incinerated, emboldened Putin, weakened NATO. There's no benefit for USA or our allies. Only Russia.

So you've no evidence Zelensky himself is corrupt. Just that corruption exists in Ukraine ergo Zelensky is corrupt. I'm dismissing that but will take on board any actual evidence that Zelensky is corrupt.
I'd call it the beginning of a u turn as both you and Dun now appear to be engaging in quasi apologia for America's new We Love Vladimir stance.

ofc hes "corrupt". they all are. thats how the world runs.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy

the Guardian

Revealed: ‘anti-oligarch’ Ukrainian president’s offshore connections

Not that "corruption exists in ukraine". That corruptions is so extensive in Ukraine it's impossible to think anyone can acquire any political or economic power in that country without being fully corrupted.

And it isn't only him. It's the totality of ukrainian elite since inception, both the pro russia one and the pro europe one, everyone with economical or political power, because that was the way in soviet society and unlike other eastern european countries with centuries of succesful western history before the soviet parenthesis, Ukraine, belarus and Russia only ever experienced full corruption from the bottom up in all their history.

It's a mafia state attacked by another bigger and more dangerous mafia state. and **** you with the "quasi apologia"

anyway there is pushback from the right (several republican senators as well)

At the end rational people on the right including me (just check this thread pre-elections) knew Ukraine was the big problem of Trump foreign policy for us, same as tariffs where the big problem of his policies for the economy. Nothing surprising here. We had hope for ukraine given some of the names in the admin.

Still TBD though what actually will happen is what matters, nothing has changed, until actual facts happen, we should wait

Your first paragraph is again , corruption exists ergo he's corrupt. Second paragraph is basically going on about corruption that I never actually disputed. Twice you were asked to provide evidence that Zelensky is corrupt, hopelessly so to use your own terminology and Twice you've failed to adequately do so. Get back to me when you've actual plausible evidence against Zelensky himself.

As for it being a mafia state, we'll, you'd know considering your own country s one so I'll defer to your expertise in this regard.
Hey- don't engage in apologia for Trump's Putin hard on and you won't get called on your apologia. Fair enough?

I didn't engage in any apologia, defining ukraine as a failed, hopelessly corrupted, ultra poor country , which it objectively was pre war (and now it's just a lot worse , again objectively, having lost most working age people and with infrastructure destroyed), doesn't justify the unprovoked aggression *especially if i repeatedly wrote it doesn't justify it*.

BUT it clarifies why it would be an out of proportion disaster to take it into the EU as some people are proposing to do.

IT's not "corruption exists ergo he is corrupt". It's "Ukraine is provently more corrupted than the most mafia-ridden provinces of Italy were at the peak of mafia power". And in those days, it was IMPOSSIBLE to have any economical or political power in those areas without the mafia on your side.

At those levels of endemic corruption, it's IMPOSSIBLE to be president of the country without also being a mafia guy basically. Again: this applies obviously to Yanukovic as well, to the whole pro-russia side in ukraine. It applies to everyone.

Ukraine and Russia are kleptocracies. This used to be fully uncontroversial. Liberals need to fight for "justice" though, even when they fight for their own self interest, so they sanctified Zelensky (which was a huge mistake).

Rational rightwing people never need to cover simple self interest in moral grandstanding.

Now that the USA doesn't want to help ukraine anymore if push comes to shove, in our european self interest, we should just let ukraine die the death Trump chooses for it and move on without throwing any more good money after bad. There is no good investment we can made there without america on our side.

Ukraine is a failed state that will never be able to recover , demography is destiny, we should give up on it (if the USA decide to give up on it) and move on

Read your penultimate paragraph again. Then tell me again how you're not engaging in apologia.

It just isn't, it's simple realpolitics.

Apologia is to defend putin "reasons", justify his actions.

Saying "we have to give up" isn't apologia even if it ends up being something putin likes, it's trying to pursue our self interest.

It's like saying: ofc we all knew China has genocided the uighurs, but we decided trading with China was more important so we didn't react. It isn't apologia.

You appear to be justifying Trump's stance. So I stand by my observation

If you take over a country by fixing their elections via the CIA and other corrupt agencies, then install your own puppet regime, I can assure you, whoever the president is isn't gonna be someone who's on the up and up. By default, he's also gonna be corrupt (and the fact that he "lost" half the hundreds of billions of dollars that was sent to him should be a small hint).

When I was saying Trump and Putin were close allies against a common enemy over 5 years ago, people thought I was going crazy and clueless but now it's being proven I was correct. A lot of republicans are still worried about Putin taking over the world and think Zelensky's the victim here (especially Mark Levin) but that doesn't mean every republican knows and understands this.

People still think you're going crazy and your CIA conspiracy theory isn't doing much to dissipate such thoughts.

I mean, PB is fullbore Qanon and would gladly support any member of this forum's execution if he was told they were enemies of Donald Trump.

Not important. The Western interest resides in frustrating Putin's revanchist aggression. Poland was a fairly unpleasant and highly anti-semitic state in 1939, for that matter.

over/under on when this guy gets fired?

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21...