Ukraine-Russia War Take 2
Here is what the preliminary take on the Ukraine thread disappearing is:
The site was hit with a massive spam attack where hundreds of spam threads were created. In the case where, for example, I see a single spam thread and delete it, that is called a soft delete, and mods can still see them but forum members cannot. Those deletion can be undone.
When a massive attack hits with hundreds of threads, an admin uses a different procedure where the hundreds of spam threads are merged and then hard deleted, where the threads are gone, and no note is left behind. As I have mentioned with my own experience of just soft deleting a large number of posts, sometimes a post or thread gets checked or merged accidentally and is deleted by mistake. Dealing with hundreds of spam threads takes a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.
It appears that our Ukraine thread may have gotten caught up in that recent net of spam threads. If so, it is likely gone for good. I cant say this for sure, and am awaiting comments from admins on this issue. Yes, this sucks. And hopefully there was some other software glitch that caused the disappearance, and we may recover it in the future.
But in the meantime, I have created this new Ukraine-Russia War thread to enable the conversation to continue. Obviously continuity with earlier discussions will be lost. There is no way around that. So as best as possible, let's pick up the conversation with recent events and go from there.
If you have any questions about this, please post them in the mod thread, not here. Let's keep this thread going with posts about the war, not the disappearance of the old thread.
Thanks.
Did you guys know that Putin and Zelensky have derivations of the same first name, as they are both named after Vladimir the Great of Kiev?
I realize that we all live in a world where Ukraine is a completely independent country, and should be, and should be able to make any military and economic alliances they want. But Putin doesn't believe that. He believes it is part of Russia, because it has been historically. He actually wrote a manifesto in 2021 where he explicitly articulated this. He certainly does not think Ukraine is or ever should be part of military alliances with Western Europe, and we are seeing in real time the lengths he is willing to go to make sure this doesn't happen.
Maybe I am the rube, but I just dont think the concern that Putin is going to strike West into Poland if he ends up with Eastern Ukraine is super warranted. And even if he wanted to, I seriously doubt he could. He amassed 60,000 troops on the border of Ukraine for a "training exercise," no one did anything, and the invasion was still a disaster. You really think Putin thinks he could send an army to the border of Poland and no one would do anything and he could successfully invade? Not a chance.
And I dont think Trump believes that to be the case either.
You can find similar nonsense throughout history written by despots like Putin and Hitler justifying their actions, it doesn't make them right.
The truth of the matter is at the end of the day might and leverage is what makes right, and what decides what is nonsense and what isn't. Winners get to write the history books.
Most of the rest of the world never bought into post WWII western liberalism and the idea that history was over and every border was written in stone, and no big country ever gets to take over a smaller country ever again. They just went along for awhile because it made strategic sense while they built up their strength, and they didn't have the power and leverage to do anything about it.
Now the world thinks it is strong enough to push back, and is telling Europe and the US that they dont have the power and leverage anymore, and hence dont get to tell them what is right or wrong anymore.
Now maybe Russia is right and maybe they are wrong that Ukraine is part of their sphere of influence. But that isn't going to be decided by any international courts or tribunals. It is going to be decided on the battlefield and in diplomatic meetings between leaders that have power and leverage.
and I am sure that you will find a good excuse to send hundreds of thousands to their deaths like a good liberal.
Defending the country is not a liberal thing .
Communist , monarchies, theocracies, dictatorship, democracies , etc all do it .
It’s about giving a damn about the country you live in,
A concept u don’t seem To comprehend and A concept that is the reason why u can live freely without having the worry of being invaded .
U make me remind of this clip that seem to perfectly describe the kind of man it is being aim at , which represent you :
Glad not too many Americans were thinking like you , europe would of been entirely Nazism by now ….
Ps: I hate military and I’m glad I live in a place where they don’t need me .
I’m eternally grateful and respectful to them for that .
oh and that "why dont you WeAr A SuIt" question might be the nut low of all questions I may have ever heard.
send him and whoever planted that idea question straight the the gulags of Russia or N. korea.
Coming from the husband of MTG, not surprise by that question .
U see what kind of man it take to go out with an insane woman like her , a dumb twit.
Zelensky wants to keep the war going so he can continue with martial law so there will be no election which he would lose.
Notice everything Trump is attempting to do is for the betterment of the people. Stopping the war is obviously good for both sides. Relocating the Gazans to a better place makes sense. Rebuilding Gaza without terrorists makes sense. Israel no longer having a homicidal neighbor would be good.
Vlad is a smart man who simply wants what is best for his country.
Are you really that stupid ..?
Zelensky even admit he would immediately resign if nato would accept ukrayne to join .
But keep eating those Russian robot nonsense on Twitter and Facebook .
All of America's soft power and and respect in the free world disappeared yesterday, in 10 minutes.
I do hope the European meeting on Sunday acknowledges that America is no longer an ally to be trusted while Trump and his ilk are in charge.
The truth of the matter is at the end of the day might and leverage is what makes right, and what decides what is nonsense and what isn't. Winners get to write the history books.
They get to write the history books until they don't. Putin can grab what he likes now and tell the world he is right, but the "truth of the matter" is that within our lifetimes Ukraine will very likely end up back in the hand of the Ukrainians.
Did you guys know that Putin and Zelensky have derivations of the same first name, as they are both named after Vladimir the Great of Kiev?
I realize that we all live in a world where Ukraine is a completely independent country, and should be, and should be able to make any military and economic alliances they want. But Putin doesn't believe that. He believes it is part of Russia, because it has been historically. He actually wrote a manifesto in 2021 where he explicitly articulated this. He
We can make it 'not a chance'. Just like we should have with Ukraine
They get to write the history books until they don't. Putin can grab what he likes now and tell the world he is right, but the "truth of the matter" is that within our lifetimes Ukraine will very likely end up back in the hand of the Ukrainians.
there aren't necessarily going to be enough Ukrainians for that to happen tbh.
the country was depopulating fast even before the war , with estimates being 45m people in 2020 vs 53m people in 1993.
that was for a combination of emigration and low fertility. trend was already "extinction level" because of significant net emigration.
now they are 37m (2023 estimate) and that's counting people in the donbass as Ukrainian yet.
working age population got hollowed out by war casualties and mass emigration (refugees).
demography is destiny and Ukrainian demography has already collapsed irreparably
i got it.
trump will get gaza for israel, so lets take all palestinians there and put it them in ukrayne....
ps: mind as well get all those US illegal immigrants too in there to repopulate ukrayne with non russians.
It really sucks so many ******ed Americans got duped by obvious foreign influence during the election. Might be too late now lol. Wishing we had ole Genocide Joe right about now.
Did you guys know that Putin and Zelensky have derivations of the same first name, as they are both named after Vladimir the Great of Kiev?
I realize that we all live in a world where Ukraine is a completely independent country, and should be, and should be able to make any military and economic alliances they want. But Putin doesn't believe that. He believes it is part of Russia, because it has been historically. He actually wrote a manifesto in 2021 where he explicitly articulated this. He
Putin likely did not write that paper. This is just cultural / political habit from the Soviet Union, where you had scholars write essays and then publish them under the name of political leaders. The idea of the scholar / mastermind is culturally important, so the system perpetuates the myth of their brilliance.
As for your geopolitical analysis, you are making the mistake of assuming national interests matter and you are also assuming the the actors making decisions are well informed. There is not much to indicate that this is the case, Putin seems to live in his own bubble largely without critics or skeptics.
Other than that, you seem to think that large wars are the result of plan and intent. Most large wars are the result of a series of mistakes. These mistakes can be anything from mistakes on the ground to miscalculations in the higher ranks.
To secure peace you need to avoid positions that make mistakes critical. For example if a Dutch fighter pilot makes an error and crashes in Belgium, there will be an aftermath and some diplomacy will be necessary, but there will be no risk of war or armed conflict.
Regardless, the discussion is academic. There can be no peace in Ukraine without security guarantees, and Russia is refusing any peace deal that has security guarantees. It should be obvious to anyone who is not a naive idiot or a shill why they do this.
Are you really that stupid ..?
Zelensky even admit he would immediately resign if nato would accept ukrayne to join .
But keep eating those Russian robot nonsense on Twitter and Facebook .
Ukranians should be allowed to do whatever they want to do, including join forces with western nations, or keep fighting to death to defend and reconquer territory stolen from them.
The only thing Trump's government should be discussing is whether he will keep helping Ukraine or not, not what they should or shouldn't do.
Americans having elected Trump, knowing his position on this matter beforehand because he said it many times, means they don't really want to keep sending resources to this war. Right or wrong, it's their decision, the resources, money, manpower are theirs. Not yours.
putin has just announced that he is prepared to mediate peace talks between zelensky and trump
Just watched the whole video:
~43:30 is where Zelenksy epically ****s up. Trying to directly challenge Vance in front of the press like that made no sense whatsoever. Even in private a direct approach like that is going to trigger a backlash from just about anyone. Let alone in front of the world, let alone with a guy who is so thin-skinned. At that point the choice for Vance and Trump was to either be like, "oh yeah you're totally right and we were wrong" or be humilated, and to curb stomp Zelenksy and humiliate him. Can't believe he was stupid enough to put them in that spot.
I watched it too. I was surprised at how petulant and demanding he was the whole time.
We did it, Victor!
All of America's soft power and and respect in the free world disappeared yesterday, in 10 minutes.
I do hope the European meeting on Sunday acknowledges that America is no longer an ally to be trusted while Trump and his ilk are in charge.
I think it goes beyond that
If America is so fickle that 2 out of 3 terms are entrusted to a MAGA chud and if MAGA chuddery has now become the core of the Republican Party which has a massive advantage in any general election in perpetuity then the moral of the story is America can’t be trusted as an ally forever
I’m curious who steps in as the ‘leader of the free world’ and given England’s isolationism and France’s ongoing flirtation with the Le Pens of the world and now Germany’s whatever the fuck they’re doing there really isn’t an obvious answer
All of America's soft power and and respect in the free world disappeared yesterday, in 10 minutes.
I do hope the European meeting on Sunday acknowledges that America is no longer an ally to be trusted while Trump and his ilk are in charge.
If this overly hyped 10 minutes is really forming your world view I'm concerned about what's going on in your real life.
Talk about an over response.
Just watched the whole video:
~43:30 is where Zelenksy epically ****s up. Trying to directly challenge Vance in front of the press like that made no sense whatsoever. Even in private a direct approach like that is going to trigger a backlash from just about anyone. Let alone in front of the world, let alone with a guy who is so thin-skinned. At that point the choice for Vance and Trump was to either be like, "oh yeah you're totally right and we were wrong" or be humilated, and to curb stomp Zele
I watched it too and everything seemed to be going well until Z challenged Vance. Vance looked particularly dumb in that interaction. I heard Z was told to keep his mouth shut by many different advisors and politicians. He couldn't help himself and now here we are. It's a regrettable situation. I also heard there were things that went on behind the scenes that lead to this. This was a classic know your audience and know your roll situation.
