Ukraine-Russia War Take 2

Dunyain is on some kind of roll today

maybe

The Russians seemed pretty bad at the beginning but they've slowly adapted and are keeping up with drone warfare pretty well. I'd for sure take the Russians in a death match vs the cartels. They'd have no issue going atrocity versus atrocity with the cartel boys.

I like that comment !
Fwiw a dictator can be replace by another one easily ending up worst like luciom said .

- u dont see a contradiction in needing a buffer state and Russia being extremely hard to invade ?

- Putin says himself so he doesn’t consider Ukraine a true independent country, not fantastic tail but again , u can deny it by obscur theories u believe that could reject own Putin writings shrug .
To believe a strong Russian wouldn’t later come bite u in the a$$ is something when it’s what they do for more then a century ….
Btw I hate Saudi …hate theocracies…..hate dictators , etc.
But what you want me to do about it ?

- if u believe democracies should not intervene to defend vs other democracies when ask it’s fine but I don’t shrug.
Fwiw about your last comment I agree and the response is again this , the same one I gave previously….
Would it be ok if roles were reversed with Mexico for the USA ? No .
So would it be more ok then if it was Cuba or Hawaii? No again right ?
And this is where it makes no sense , if nato is the real reason, it’s already at 3 borders ….. 3 ….so all the supposed weapons and all the crappy reasons u try to find to say it’s unacceptable to be on Ukraine, nato could do it already in the 3 other borders , so why then it’s not a problem ?
Remember the reverse example with the USA ? Would it be acceptable on Cuba you think if they wouldn’t on Mexico soil ? Obviously not ….

And anyway, Zelenskyy just want reassurance and it could be easily done by Putin if he truly had no motivation to invade all Ukraine eventually .
U allow Ukraine join nato but if any armament is found , then the deal is off ?
Even that Putin is against because even vs an unarmed nato, he couldn’t touch it which obviously is what he wants ….like a dictator and other intervention he did before …..

Some dictator who suppresses his political enemies and so runs corrupt elections. granting at least universal healthcare - that's the Russian case.

The U.S. case as of right now is 13 billionaires in Trump's cabinet actively dismantling what social safety net we are clinging on to. This on the heels of the usual ritual where American "democracy" is practiced as us getting to choose between 2 people we all somehow collectively hate who all have the same agenda, an agenda antagonistic to the preferences of the public on the major policies.

At least Putin has some control over his oligarchs. Here, in this country, they are directly running government, their hands directly in the treasury. You picked a very bad moment to contrast the freedom of Russians to the freedom of Americans. In your defense, there haven't been too many good moments in recent history.

deuces do you realize that public healthcare in the best places in Moscow is still insanely worse than medicaid is in the poorest parts of the USA in quality term? or for you healthcare access is just a yes/no flag and terrible third world quality for everyone is better than very good quality for 80% of the people and **** quality for 20%?

like are you really the "if everyone has disgustingly low quality of access to something that's far better than if the average is 100x better but at least one person is kept out" kind of socialist?

I like the first phrase of deuces….

The word suppresses instead of killing.
And the uses of enemies for person just having a different political point of view ?

Way to go deuces….
Nah you certainly not an advocate for a Putin dictatorship garbage right?
We sure can trust u to have to have a moderate view on the war about Ukraine/russia ….

I dunno man. Those cartels are some real bad hombres. They just found a pile of chopped up bodies recently, and most of them were women. Rape is one thing, that has been part of war and conquest forever. But torturing and mutilating women is some next level depravity.

Tell that to the Hamas sympathisers.

Sorry, which research for public healthcare in Moscow have you done to make such a statement? Maybe share some youtube videos that can prove Moscow being insanely worse?

Can any Republicans explain what happened in January 2025?

The Dems cheated Bernie. But in the 60s when there was actually social momentum towards different modes of organization the leaders were frequently killed. When a politico is killed in Russia you assume it's Putin. In America it's always a question of who did it. But what if things look exactly the opposite for Russians?

I knew that pointing out the undemocratic and illiberal contours of the U.S. would be misinterpreted as endorsing Russia.

How did I know this? Because the people who think Ukraine is a worthy cause are the ones played like a fiddle by grown up Tracy Flicks. The idea that criticizing the U.S. isn't the same as loving Russia is too advanced for those types.

freedom and democracy and Ukrainian autonomy

- U reply with gibberish once again .
If u can’t get the point , nothing will .

- again see number 1 , using words that are not in accordance to reality and even your first paragraph doing the exact opposite to make the apology for Russia trying to convey a similarity .
Comparing something that isn’t comparable at all ( cheating vs killing ) and the second paragraph, diminishing of what really happens by using words that are far less destructive of what happening in Russia .
Suppressing vs killing
Ennemies vs different political faction.

And then u come here and at Putin didn’t kill anyone ?
No proof but then , ho I have no proof but the U.S. did everything to mess up election in Ukraine …
Jfc …

Sorry if I wasn't clear. The main thing I wanted to convey is that you are being owned by grown up Tracy Flicks. Those of us who weren't home schooled on a boat can remember these people. None of them are in this forum. If you want more explanation of who that is I can provide it.

These Tracy Flicks are putting nonsense into your brain. The are putting emotionally driven content wrapped around a poison pill and you are swallowing it whole. You need to understand this: It's not a coincidence that everything you think about this topic is what people who we would all recognize, in any other context, as bad people, want you to think.

I never said Putin didn't kill anyone and I don't think that. I'm just saying that, for example, when an election is challenged and overturned like in 2000 with the overturning swinging the election, and the governor of the State in which this occurs is the brother of the candidate who is the beneficiary of this, Russians might take a cursory look at the scenario and decide there was blatant corruption happening. Here we go back and forth and argue, don't even consider the family ties, and in the end somehow know less about what happened the more information that comes out. But when we see a political opponent of Putin die we just assume Putin killed him.

I don't think Russia wants Ukraine neutral because they fear invasion so much as other threats. Maybe they are afraid of the possibility of a first strike weapon being staged somewhere in Ukraine. Maybe surveillance. Maybe the Black Sea naval port is crucial for them holding the threat of a nuclear counter strike. We really don't know the significance of Ukraine as security interest, but we know that Russia does and they absolutely insist, upon the death of many of their soldiers, that it will not be controlled by NATO, a military alliance conceived and dedicated to their destruction.

If we can agree being a hypocrite is bad...you would need to advocate for the same policies across the spectrum of countries. Right now we give weapons and diplomatic support to the Saudis, a damn monarchy in 2025. They cut people's heads off for "sorcery". Google is telling me there were 354 beheadings in 2024, a number apparently on the high side historically as they are upping the number of women and foreigners they execute. You organize a nonviolent protest there and they will kill you.

Do you hear G7 world leaders speaking out against the human rights record of the Saudis? In fact, the U.S. supported a bid to get the Saudis a seat on the U.N Human Rights Council. They aren't just bad to their own people either. They are bad to everyone they can get their sandy little fingers on. The use their oil money to spread a very reactionary brand of Islam far and wide, funding schools and extremist clerics. And then our politicians go there and bow and shake hands and get all networked in with them. Why would you believe these same people when they tell you we have to spend all our money on weapons for Ukraine to defend democracy? You shouldn't believe a damn word from their psycho mouths.

What I want you to do about the Saudis is study the example and stop trusting American oligarchs to tell you what to think about anything. If everyone did this we would eventually not have to worry about the Saudis because we would have politicians who would untangle us from them, even if it meant taking them down. All you have to do is attack their water distribution and they collapse as a country. Right now they are being pinned by Iran who can do this whenever they feel sufficiently threatened. I mean to say they aren't ****. They are being propped up by us and we don't have to keep voting in people who recreate this situation.

What if I told you Ukraine was a functioning democracy before a violent coup in 2014 ushered in the current regime? because that's a fact. If we the U.S. were going to defend democracy then, by definition, we should be supporting Russia and sending them billions of dollars to restore Ukrainian democracy.

Should our policy be to spend any amount of money to defend democracies around the world? I ask again, what do you care what some dumbasses halfway around the world are doing? Does it affect you? Does it affect the U.S.? I don't see that it does directly. It's not your responsibility. That's one of the best benefits of having countries, that when some people in another country act stupid it's not your responsibility to intervene or deal with it if it doesn't affect you.

No one said it's not a problem. I just said Russia, for their own reasons, has always drawn a red line at Ukraine. It's like you keep asking me why wear a bullet proof vest when you could get shot in the face. I don't know the specific reasons behind the apparent inconsistency, suffice to say there are a lot of geopolitical differences between Ukraine and Finland.

It doesn't work like that. Admittance to NATO cannot be conditioned on some nonmember continually affirming that you've met some condition. Do you have any idea what that would entail or how impossible to enforce?

If NATO have been in the business of "destroying Russia" for 80 years, are they just biding their time, or is there a chance your hypothesis is wrong?

I dont remember the details or how true it is, but I remember there was a story that Russian cyber hackers hacked some some DoD server, with their goal being to discover what plans the US had in place to defeat Russia militarily. And they were surprised and disappointed when they discovered no plans had ever been made.

It isn’t just about me and what I believe in from where I pick up my sourceS !

As in if I’m wrong, well tens of millions of people are wrong too with direct knowledge of dealing with Putin for over 2 decades , being his neighbours….

What do you based your knowledge upon ?
We could apply it to you too….

Ps: no idea why you bring a whataboutism from something happening 25 years ago in like you said previously,” at the other end of the world “.

Exactly…
Deuces has a some kind of big conspiracies roots mixed with some strange ideology about how the world should be , how we should react to it, without a shred of pragmatism in it…..

- exactly, we don’t know but it certainly because of nato like you believe it is because all those things Russian could be afraid off, could be done on 3 other countries ….
It’s simple, Putin believes, written by himself , Ukraine isn’t a country by itself it belongs to Russia .
Now u say u know better than what Putin wrote ? Fine….
And again , elrazor has a big point u should ponder on ….

- I told u , I hate Saudi but I’m pragmatic .
Energy is at the base of all modern society …
Sometimes u just play the cards u get dealt with .

- thx for your concern but I’m far from trusting us oligarch lol.
But contrary to you it seem, I don’t believe the US oligarch control the entire world beside Russia and China …..
So yeah I trust all those countries actions by worthwhile knowledge of what Russia and Putin are instead of believing 5he contrary because the US oligarch would be that powerful
(And yet those almighty oligarch couldn’t control the US deep states or you believe those anonymous US oligarch are the deep state ? )

- why you believe it was a coup from the west ?
Yanukovych Clearly seem to change a political path he previously held to join Europe in 2013 under the pressure of Putin.
Actually it seem it prevented a coup by Putin in 2014 going against people will and an election happened . Unless u pretend no pressure was made by Putin for Yanukovych changed his mind ?
Now when a leader changed drastically a major political turn in the country and have massive protest , it seem to me normal to make election shrug .

- already answered….big powerful Russia with Putin or any dictator having nuclear nukes isn’t a great idea for starters.
And other reasons like just look at his past invasions too…

- again if you don’t know the reasons and why it seem so contradictory , more often then not it’s probably a lie.
Trump is a grand champion about it, no wonder they 7nderstand each other so well .

- many successful treaties work like that , non proliferation of nukes works like that for example .
Regardless , they could have ideas like that as a base to start with and 3pm that it’s unacceptable for Putin.
That should speak volume about Putin intention …..
Actions are louder then words .

I'm speaking above the details a bit there. The Soviet Union was eventually defeated and NATO was a significant factor in it. But a lot of the threat assessments of the cold war were hyperbolic (and some even understated like a few close nuclear calls). What the ratio was at State who actually wanted the Soviet Union to fall to those who were thinking we gotta keep this gravy train going - who knows?

Whether NATO wanted to destroy the Soviet Union or use it as a pretext machine, it definitely wanted to harm the Soviet Union and it succeeded. There was a brief rapprochement but it didn't last long. Meanwhile NATO has been creeping East, I don't think under some plan to deliver a huge bouquet of flowers to the people of Russia. They also planned to destroy Ukraine, which they have pretty much done, so that they could have fun rebuilding it as a modern, AI infused, technologically controlled country of the future. What they want to do to Russia is break it up and manipulate the parts.

My thinking on this matter comes from conventional sources, mainstream academics who actually had actually studied the history and current dynamics if the region. These are people like Jeffrey Sachs, JOhn Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen or Stephen Kinzer. These are mostly centrists or even conservatives, very mainstream thinking. There are also many former cold war era advisors who are against arming Ukraine. I have these people's books and most what I say comes from them. They hold posts at the most prestigious schools in the U.S. (Cohen passed away a few years).

What you probably don't know is that the people telling you "to the last Ukrainian" would forget everything they know about Russia in one good night of drinking and a proper hangover. Your sources don't know much. These are the Tracy Flicks I was mentioning earlier. They are young careerists who have no regard for truth, just trying to cozy up to power. They wrote some paper in college titled like "Why Putin is the Bogey Man" so they can work at a think tank or as a staffer. The people saying Russia is going to invade Europe are not serious. No one serious thinks that is even a super remote possibility. They just know that you don't know any better and that they can tell you anything that attaches to a narrative you accept internally because you see it as having broad consensus.