Comment by koiueo
2 days ago
There's no logic behind russia's pretexts.
In 2014-15 they started shelling civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, then used that as a pretext to increase their military presence by pretending it's all local militias fighting back the shelling the ruskies themselves started.
The pretext was fully fabricated, the militias theatre was fully fabricated. Nothing made sense. To anyone with a pinch if intellect the truth was obvious...
Yet, the legend of Ukrainians murdering other Ukrainians for using russian language has rooted so much, even now some ppl believe that bs.
In case of Bulgaria, ruskies could attack, then attack again pretending russian-speaking population needs protection in the light of the first attack.
And right-wing nutheads in EU gonna believe that, and blame NATO for offensive expansion
No
Logic
Whatsoever
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You are right that the Russians have been frequently somewhat mistreated in the former Soviet Republics where they have become minorities.
However, this is an extraordinarily hypocritical claim, because this has followed a time when for various durations, between a half of century and two centuries the Russians have mistreated the minorities of those places in a much more ferocious way, inclusively by robbing them, murdering them or sending them to forced labor in Siberia.
In Ukraine, there are many places with Russian colonists who have been installed after WWII in the houses that before the war belonged to various other nationalities, which were then killed or dispersed to Siberia by the Russians.
Yes, Russians have been mistreated after the separation of the Soviet Republics, but this is much, much less than what their fathers have done around WWII and before it, and many of them have still inherited what their fathers have stolen from the other nationalities.
Had the Russians treated better the others when they had the power, they would have not been so hated, so they would have been much more likely to be treated correctly.
> Yes, Russians have been mistreated after the separation of the Soviet Republics
The fuck you're talking about?! Mistreated how?!
Give a specific example
That's missing the point.
When a toddler does something inappropriate, "but he did it to me" is not an excuse. If both kids did something bad, I want both to apologize, and both to move on. It's also not a contest for who did something worse. I want Ukraine to apologize to Poland. I want Poland to apologize to Ukraine. I want both nations to move on.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Indeed, that's doubly the case when it's nations -- a civilian hit in a retaliatory strike often has nothing to do with an atrocity. I don't know where you are, but I'll pretend the US. If someone whose father died in Guantanamo, or whose child was killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan, killed your mother, would they be "right"? Would it be hypocritical of you to complain?
Or if you want to punish a dictator, does it make sense to starve the people in his nation -- most of whom probably want him out even more?
I am perfectly aware of all of Russia's wrongs. You missed most of the big ones, from holodomor, to about a half-millennium of other torment of people in Ukraine.
You try to do right for your own soul. Apologizing doesn't weaken you.
And you don't punish children for the sins of their fathers.
> Best propaganda is usually all true but selective of facts. In any group of more than a million people, some will do something bad
This seems a trivial detail but I think it's a profound mechanism of the current disinformation climate
What you've listed here is not what russia lists as a reason for attacking Ukraine. And even if it was, it's still really shitty pretext.
Yes, these are very much among Russia's pretexts.
There were others as well. Most have at least some basis as well. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/422nd_Unmanned_Systems_Regimen...
And yes, it is still a really shitty set of pretexts.
Where are you from?
You see, I've been in Ukraine in 2014, and I've been observing everything from the front seat, so to say.
Generally what ruskies say does not matter. Not a single word.
But specifically, the pretexts they may be stating now (I don't follow what they say), may be different from what they stated in 2014.
It baffles me that after so much bs spewed by russian propaganda, people waste their effort trying to synthesize a coherent story.
The only rock fact: ruskies say whatever gives them tactical advantage at the moment.
As with many conflicts this one goes back a long way. Ukraine gave up its nukes to Russia in exchange for a non aggression pact that the invasion broke.
Also bad for the world. The lesson, as with Iran and Iraq, is: you’d better have nukes and never give them up. This is the opposite of the lesson we want if we want to contain proliferation.
The global taboo on use remains. If someone breaks that and gets away with it we are into civilization ending danger territory.
Ukraine never had its own independently controlled/operated nukes. The USSR deployed nukes on various territories but all command and control was completely centralized within Russia. Ukraine/Belarus/Kazakhstan returned the Soviet nukes to Russia under the same agreement and received some nonbinding assurances and cash in exchange - it was nothing like a formal pact. Had any of these countries tried to reverse engineer the nukes, they'd likely have been invaded by the US, Russia, and most other major world powers, so it was largely an offer they couldn't refuse.
Russia claims those assurances ended with the US actively advocating on the ground in Ukraine for the overthrow of their government in 2014, as the assurances included not interfering in domestic politics or using economic coercion. But the US also sanctioned and was working to overthrow Belarus as far back as 2006, so those assurances had been pretty much dead for a long time.
Outside of that I completely agree with everything else you said, especially with people not appreciating how far back these conflicts go. The whole Bandera stuff has no real parallel in the West, so I think most people wouldn't really be able to 'get it' even if they had the facts, which they overwhelmingly do not.
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> As with many conflicts this one goes back a long way. Ukraine gave up its nukes to Russia in exchange for a non aggression pact that the invasion broke.
From the Guardian (12 days ago): "Kyiv’s decision to honour second world war fighters who killed about 100,000 Poles has revived simmering tensions". Bandera was a Nazi collaborator and today's Ukraine politics worships Bandera. Lots of streets are renamed to honor him. Eastern Ukrainians are considered second class - or as some politicians said: "There are 2 million people too many".
The US (look up Nuland and her quote about 'fuck the EU') fueled with $5B the nationalism in Ukraine. Now imagine, the US would fuel with $50B the nationalism in Belgium and the the flemish would attack wallonie. You know what would happen? France would support the wallonie. Nothing to see here.
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That's the point he's making though - this kind of response just validates Russian propaganda, makes Russia look good and makes Ukraine look bad.
If you want Ukraine to win the information war then this isn't that helpful?
Unless of course you are actually pro-Russian and you're just playing this game at a higher level in which case... congrats because that is effective
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