Context always matters.Quote:
Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych was facing mounting pressure as the President of Ukraine for failing to sign the Ukraine-EU agreement in November 2013. The autonomous Crimean parliament supported Yanukovych while the rest of the country opposed him. At least 50 protesters were shot dead by the police in Kyiv. Ukraine was on the verge of a civil war.
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Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 1999 after the disastrous decadelong rule of Boris Yeltsin, who ran Russia into the ground.
In that year, 1999, Putin watched as America conducted a 78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had historically been a protectorate of Mother Russia.
That year, also, three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, were brought into NATO.
Against whom were these countries to be protected by U.S. arms and the NATO alliance, the question was fairly asked.
The question seemed to be answered fully in 2004, when Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the USSR itself, as well as three more former Warsaw Pact nations.
Then, in 2008, came the Bucharest declaration that put Georgia and Ukraine, both bordering on Russia, on a path to NATO membership.
Georgia, the same year, attacked its seceded province of South Ossetia, where Russian troops were acting as peacekeepers, killing some.
This triggered a Putin counterattack through the Roki Tunnel in North Ossetia that liberated South Ossetia and moved into Georgia all the way to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. George W. Bush, who had pledged "to end tyranny in our world," did nothing. After briefly occupying part of Georgia, the Russians departed but stayed as protectors of the South Ossetians.
The U.S. establishment has declared this to have been a Russian war of aggression, but an EU investigation blamed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for starting the war.
In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia's historic naval base in Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory.
TXAggie2011 said:
I'm not mocking anyone. I'm saying the "civil war" didn't start "before Russia entered the lobby."
And Crimea isn't in the Donbas or eastern Ukraine.
The United States no longer has enough rockets to field its own M142 HIMARS rockets much less support Japan, Korea, or Taiwan in the event of an attack from North Korea or China. Biden has stripped our weapon's caches bare. We are vulnerable. pic.twitter.com/ysUPBKX3vz
— @amuse (@amuse) March 20, 2023
Team Biden managed to drive Russia & China into each other's arms.
— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) March 20, 2023
I hope Ukraine is worth it. https://t.co/7VtXzN6X33
nortex97 said:The United States no longer has enough rockets to field its own M142 HIMARS rockets much less support Japan, Korea, or Taiwan in the event of an attack from North Korea or China. Biden has stripped our weapon's caches bare. We are vulnerable. pic.twitter.com/ysUPBKX3vz
— @amuse (@amuse) March 20, 2023
javajaws said:
Some of you'll are really delusional if you think Putin is doing this for "Russians" in Ukraine. He cares nothing about those people and is just using them as a pretext to get what he wants - the strategic benefits of having the eastern and coastal areas of Ukraine.
Rejecting the prospect of a ceasefire in a war with more bloodshed every day and no end in sight is madness. But that’s where the Biden White House stands on it.
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 20, 2023
pic.twitter.com/DU4vbST94F
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A group known as the Eisenhower Media Network, operated by the People's Power Initiative, is feeding money into a public relations effort to limit American military and financial support for Kyiv. And the man behind it is none other than Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream fame. Given his historic support for politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, along with various progressive policies, Cohen isn't exactly the Mega-MAGA monster you were expecting to find under the bed.
Glad I finally agree with that guy on something, and resistance/skepticism continues to build broadly among the American public.Quote:
Cohen isn't even attempting to deny his involvement. He provided a quote to the Daily Beast, saying, "I think the U.S. should use its power to negotiate an end to the war, not prolong the death and destruction by supplying more weapons."
This doesn't fit the media narrative regarding military support for Ukraine. And it's a narrative that is constantly repeated by many Republicans in Congress as well. We have to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes" because "democracy is in peril" or something. But that position isn't reflected among the American public anywhere near as solidly.
The latest poll from NBC News shows that support for providing more weapons and funding to Zelensky and his government has finally fallen below 50 percent. 49 percent supported more funding while 47% were opposed. Rather than being some sort of issue with near-unanimous consent, that poll paints the picture of an evenly divided nation.
Years of literally studying to be a careerist liar - as that clip above plainly demonstrates - produces a lifetime of doing things like this.👇
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 20, 2023
Good luck on your new MSNBC show, Jen, where you'll undoubtedly spend your time lecturing everyone on the dangers of "disinformation": pic.twitter.com/oFGlec0oqj
Just 5 months ago Zelenskiy asked parliament to approve Andriy Pyshnyi as the new chairman of the central bank.
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) March 22, 2023
This year he already can afford brand new Rolls Royce.
We should send more billions to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/lzFl95QgTI
In 2016, Victoria Nuland told Congress that US advisors serve in 12 Ukrainian ministries, US-trained police operate in 18 Ukrainian cities, the US Treasury helped close 60 Ukrainian banks while protecting depositors, and the US spent $266 million on training Ukrainian soldiers. pic.twitter.com/scOUCQQsdg
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 22, 2023
It's a lengthy piece. I wouldn't want any of our Ukraine 'yay war!' cheerleaders to hurt themselves trying to suffer through it, but I'm glad more 'out there in the real world' folks are considering/reading such analyses.Quote:
To appreciate the Russian perspective, we should consider some basic historical facts. Americans were profoundly shocked by our loss of more than 50,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War; in World War II, the toll was approximately 450,000. Now contrast that with historical memory in Russia. It is impossible to know the Soviet death toll from 1941 to 1945, but it was surely greater than 20 millionabout 1 in 7 of all people, adults and children. Only 3 percent of Russian men born between 1923 and 1924 survived the war. Now go back a few more decades. During World War I, the revolutions of 1917, and the civil war that followed it, more than 10 million lost their lives, not just from violence but, even more so, from hunger. In 1812, Napoleon's Grand Army, the largest in European history up to that point, reached Moscow, which burned to the ground. In 1898, Nikolai Sukhotin, director of the General Staff Academy (the Russian equivalent of West Point), calculated that Russia had spent 353 of the previous 525 yearstwo-thirds of its history as a nationwaging war.
Is it any wonder, then, that war means something different to Russians? In their conquest of the Russian lands in the 1230s, the Mongols wiped out whole cities and then ruled for more than two centuries. Even after their defeat, the Mongols' successors in Crimea continued to raid Russia, burning Moscow twice, in pursuit of slaves to sell in the Middle East. "Crimea" is not just the name of a geographical space seized by Putin's Russia in 2014. It is also a constant reminder of horrific battles, such as the raid on the Sevastopol fortress by the British and French during the Crimean War (18531856) and by the Nazis in World War II.
The Russian church has often elevated military leaders, not for dying for the faith, but simply for their military prowess in defense of the Motherland. In 1988, the church canonized Dmitry Donskoy, the first Russian leader to defeat the Mongols in battle. Alexander Nevsky, generally considered by Russians to be the greatest countryman in their history, was proclaimed a saint for his victories over the Swedes and Teutonic knights in the 13th century. He is now the patron saint of the FSB (Putin's successor to the KGB). Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, who fought the Turks in the 18th century, has become the patron saint (I am not making this up) of nuclear bombers.
President Putin chose May 7 for his inauguration in 2000 so it would lead directly into the May 9 holiday. An honor guard wore uniforms recalling those of the Napoleonic Wars. Imagine the mockery if an American president's inauguration featured uniforms from the war of 1812. To us, 1812 was another world, and I know no one who, when visiting Washington, recalls how the British burned it. For Russians, on the other hand, history, especially military history, is not something in the past. Kerry's comment about Russians behaving as if it were the 19th century presumes a linear view of history, in which later is better (or at least more sophisticated). But for Russians, history is cyclical. As Carleton astutely observes, "national identity . . . assumes that history . . . repeats itself, extending back for centuries through a pattern of confrontation in which the actors' names may change but not the primary action." So understood, all wars become the same war, "a single paradigmatic one that pits Russians against an implacable foe, where they are always the victims but never the vanquished." Hitler really did plan to exterminate or enslave the Russians, and the Nazi thousand-day siege of Leningrad was designed to lead not to the occupation of the city but its elimination from the face of the earth. Seeing all wars as one war, many Russians read such intentions anachronistically into all earlier conflicts and presume them in all present conflicts.
Whoever is Russia's enemy means to destroy it utterly. No special evidence is required to characterize Ukrainians resisting Russia as "fascists" or "Nazis," and NATO support of Ukraine can be meant only to destroy Russia. Only recently, many Russians maintain, the massive influx of Western economic and cultural influences after the fall of the USSR almost destroyed Russia "spiritually."
👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/zWdd6PGPnI
— BeerBurp (@beerburp23) March 23, 2023
🇷🇺🇺🇦North of Avdiivka, soldiers of the 132nd Motorised Rifle Brigade of the Russian Separate Guards (former 3rd Gorlovka Brigade of the NM of the DPR) advanced west of Novobakhmutovka in recent days.#Russia #Ukraina#UkraineWar #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar#UkraineRussianWar
— ®️ Report War 🌍 (@ReportWar1) March 23, 2023
Despite Iran supplying deadly missiles and drones to Russia, Biden has decided to waive Trump’s sanctions against the state sponsor of terror and genocide. China will be paying Iran to supply electricity to Iraq. https://t.co/2ppzqiJqZ3
— @amuse (@amuse) March 24, 2023
Ukraine war map as of today Mar. 24 with #Kherson, #Kharkiv and #Bakhmut front updates.
— Ripe World (@ripeworldnews) March 24, 2023
Around the city of Avdiivka, Russian forces have made advances along the reservoir in Pervomais'ke.https://t.co/Nwwa8troER
In Oct. 2014, after Ukraine had already begun shelling the Donbas, a speech from President Petro Poroshenko went viral when he said, "Our children will go to schools and kindergartens — their children will sit in basement bomb shelters." pic.twitter.com/Sd0NxMm2DM
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 22, 2023
Russia is using mass artillery against troops in fixed positions. This 3 to 1 assumption is nonsensical they just bomb everything until the Ukrainians retreat and the Russians advance. Rinse and repeat this is why the war has been so slow.
— Dovahkin (@gunzoned) March 22, 2023
The USSR threw unending waves of humanity at the Nazis. Their losses in Stalingrad were abhorrent and seemingly stupid. But they did win the most deadly battle ever fought using the tactic.nortex97 said:
You sound like a Biden voter.Russia is using mass artillery against troops in fixed positions. This 3 to 1 assumption is nonsensical they just bomb everything until the Ukrainians retreat and the Russians advance. Rinse and repeat this is why the war has been so slow.
— Dovahkin (@gunzoned) March 22, 2023
"There's a very flawed argument going around among some folks in the policy community," @georgewbarros of ISW told @Newsweek, that "we've been sending #Ukraine all of these weapons, & they still haven't made a major breakthrough since Kherson in Nov." 1/3https://t.co/1tC4J1ggRW
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) March 23, 2023
nortex97 said:
I don't support either side, I don't trust Biden to look out for America's interests, and I don't frankly care one iota if Putin takes Kiev, either.
HTH/sorry to hurt your precious feelings!
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Strengthening the Sino-Russian alliance while spending a multiple of what we did in Afghanistan in a decade, in a little over a year (with an open checkbook looking forward) while getting a few hundred thousand needlessly killed in a land war in Asia/eastern Europe and depleting our military/reserves/cash/banking system/causing massive economic inflation is not some cause I have to just reflexively salute patriotically.
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Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.
TH36 said:
So then what do you do with tyrants? Let them run free?
Putins a tyrant, no matter what fake rhetoric you gobble up that makes you think it's NATO's fault.
You are way, way over your ski's on this one. It's putting it charitably to call him a military strategy moron. His distrust/hatred of the 'von's' of Prussian military leadership, and vigorous pursuit of Stalingrad at the expense of actual strategic objectives (Crimea etc), as well as his timing of…launching into a war with Russia were, to count a handful of idiotic decisions absurd.LMCane said:
you have very little grasp of the military art or doctrine if you think Hilter was a moron when it came to waging war.
so somehow he just lucked into conquering every country in Europe and having his troops a few miles from Iran and the Suez Canal...
