Ukraine

[Anders]

Torture, rape, killing of unarmed prisoners, killing of civilians, not only in bombings, but in going from house to house, concentration camps, genocide like the holocaust, taking children away from their families and country, to make them part of your culture. I will never accept this.

[BurtReynolds]

Wait until you find out about every war that has ever been fought.

You should know and accept what war actually is. Then maybe you'd be less likely to want it.

[Anders]

Russia (or the Russian political elite) wanted this war, not me, nor Ukraine.

[Stickman]

Russian Soldier Shows 'Awful' Camp Condition, Says Half of Men Sick

[simple schoolboy]

Wait until you find out about every war that has ever been fought.

You should know and accept what war actually is. Then maybe you'd be less likely to want it.

You can believe some hanky panky went on with Maidan, but there were legitimate aspects of most of those color revolutions. Georgia rightly has no love for Russia and also has a frozen conflict to constantly be irritated by.

Putin's demand seems to be the personal loyalty and affection of the majority of Ukraine. I don't know how the Ukrainian government can deliver that concession.

Unless Ukraine has a time machine, they can't go back and ask George Bush to uninvite them from starting the NATO application process. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, as France and Germany's unreliability should have already been clear.

[Anders]

NATO had next to nothing to do with the war starting. Russia sees themselves as an empire that can and will do whatever they want against their neighbors.

[BurtReynolds]

NATO had next to nothing to do with the war starting. Russia sees themselves as an empire that can and will do whatever they want against their neighbors.

[simple schoolboy]

NATO had next to nothing to do with the war starting. Russia sees themselves as an empire that can and will do whatever they want against their neighbors.

We don't have to agree with Russia that it's a valid justification, but it certainly played a part in their concerns and justifications.

Putin has pretty explicitly compared the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia with his special operation.

[simple schoolboy]

Maybe the Ukrainians have indigenous ways of knowing/ shooting down drones, Mr. Western Imperialist 'expert'

(I think the typo JE is supposed to be "HE")

[96583UP]

pretty wild that Russia's military is so ghetto that one of their SU fighter planes crashed into their own residential apartment building after takeoff

i am sad for those russian civilians who died in that crash, and for the poor russians being conscripted into human wasteland on the front lines

and it's comical that Iran is wading in here like this - if there were ever a regime that was ripe for regime change it is them right now ... maybe Israel can give their protestors a nudge

[Anders]

NATO had next to nothing to do with the war starting. Russia sees themselves as an empire that can and will do whatever they want against their neighbors.

We don't have to agree with Russia that it's a valid justification, but it certainly played a part in their concerns and justifications.

Putin has pretty explicitly compared the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia with his special operation.

Obviously Putin and the Russian political elite are no fans of NATO, they despise it. But Putin has said a lot of things, and he wants nothing less than full control of Ukraine. "Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space."

Georgia 1991-1993
South Ossetia 1991-1992
Abkhazia 1992-1993
Transnistria/Moldova 1992
North Ossetia 1992
Tadjikistan 1992-1997
Chechnya 1994-1996
Dagestan 1999
Chechnya 1999-2009
Georgia 2008
North Caucasus 2009-2017
Ukraine 2014-2022
Syria 2015-2022
Central African Republic 2018-2022

[BurtReynolds]

That's just bullshit rhetoric for plebs. Countries don't invade other countries for those reasons. but then again I know you think we invaded Iraq to spread freedom and democracy to the poor and oppressed of the world.

One of the actual, primary reasons (but not the sole reason) for the invasion is to prevent the expansion of NATO (a strategic military alliance of most of the most powerful nations on Earth, purpose built to combat Russia), and western influence in general (A West that views Russia as an enemy since Boris Yeltsin left), to it's very doorstep.

[Anders]

Ukraine was decades away from joining NATO, and had not applied to join. Putin’s Russia has in fact attacked/invaded a number of places that has not been anywhere close to joining NATO. Full Russian (Putin’s Russia) control, full Russian sphere of influence, is what matters. Of course Ukraine going against Russia’s agenda, in various ways, meaning Putin losing control, is the key piece of the puzzle. Putin considers Ukraine as a part of his greater Russia, and nothing less will do. Had they staid the line like Belarus (a vile dictatorship in Putin’s pocket), the invasion would not have happened.

[Anders]

I don’t think this topic should be about Iraq, as it’s an whatsaboutism intended to steer the topic away from Putin’s criminal and terrible invasion of Ukraine, and also an attempt to paint me an idiot, with no potential for valid thoughts on Ukraine.

I did not support the invasion of Iraq. In a thread about ranking the US presidents, Jorge was surprised that more did not have GWB last, based primarily on the Iraq-war. I pointed out what an awful dictator Saddam Hussein was (genocide, a nation living under a terror regime), and that the nation was now a burgeoning democracy, with a growth in population. I knew an Iraqi man at the time (before the invasion) that had to flee the country, that told me horrible things about the regime, that made a great impressiom on me. Sadly the world has too much oppression.

I fully believe all people in this world are of equal value, and everyone deserves to live without fear of murder, rape, bombs (US or Russian), or the oppression of a horrible regime. Sadly that is not the world we live in.

[Anders]

I do have relatives in the Kherson region. I have visited them, and I know them well. My Ukrainian sister in law and my niece are part of my closest relatives, and we celebrate holidays and birthdays together. Thankfully they live in Oslo, but her parents are still in their house back home, mostly spending the days in their basement. They fully support Ukraine, and do not wish to be a part of Russia. They are on the other side of the river, so if Kherson city is liberated, they will be fully on the front line, but still in occupied territory.

[simple schoolboy]

I do have relatives in the Kherson region. I have visited them, and I know them well. My Ukrainian sister in law and my niece are part of my closest relatives, and we celebrate holidays and birthdays together. Thankfully they live in Oslo, but her parents are still in their house back home, mostly spending the days in their basement. They fully support Ukraine, and do not wish to be a part of Russia. They are on the other side of the river, so if Kherson city is liberated, they will be fully on the front line, but still in occupied territory.

Some were speculating this announcement was a prelude to abandoning the city so they can form a more defensible line elsewhere. Any updates on that?

[Anders]

I do have relatives in the Kherson region. I have visited them, and I know them well. My Ukrainian sister in law and my niece are part of my closest relatives, and we celebrate holidays and birthdays together. Thankfully they live in Oslo, but her parents are still in their house back home, mostly spending the days in their basement. They fully support Ukraine, and do not wish to be a part of Russia. They are on the other side of the river, so if Kherson city is liberated, they will be fully on the front line, but still in occupied territory.

Some were speculating this announcement was a prelude to abandoning the city so they can form a more defensible line elsewhere. Any updates on that?

Can’t find anything definitive. Don’t think they are in the city yet , but Ukrainian forces do seem to be on the offensive.

[Anders]

Oleshky filled to the brink with Russians I'm told.

[simple schoolboy]

[Anders]

Reports of fighting inside Kherson City tonight, but frontlines supposedly still not in the city.