Russian-Ukrainian-Polish Eternal Friendship Thread

[Bacle]

Yeah, for them, martyrdom would be the sweetest possible reward out there. Though on the flip side, this would mean that Ukrainians would have even more Nazis to worship as their heroes in fighting for their independence (they already have Stepan Bandera and his gang, after all). Still, it's a worthy sacrifice.

Way I see it, dead Nazi's/Neo-Nazi's are a boon to the rest of society.

Still not happy the media, western press, and western militaries ignore the whole neo-Nazi issue when it comes to Ukraine's current gov.

It would upend the whole narrative around the Ukraine, and the powers in the West cannot have the public cottoning onto it.

 

[Marduk]

Way I see it, dead Nazi's/Neo-Nazi's are a boon to the rest of society.

Still not happy the media, western press, and western militaries ignore the whole neo-Nazi issue when it comes to Ukraine's current gov.

It would upend the whole narrative around the Ukraine, and the powers in the West cannot have the public cottoning onto it.

Yes, we all know the power of propaganda and media narrative weaving.
But why the hell should the west use it yet again in the interest of powers hostile to itself, as if it wasn't doing enough of that?
Look at what the competitor powers in question do. Does Russian media spend a lot of time talking about the unsavory sides of their allied governments in Syria and Belarus, some of which are way worse than "some of our allies' troops have some pretty spicy beliefs"?
Hell no.

 

[Bacle]

Yes, we all know the power of propaganda and media narrative weaving.
But why the hell should the west use it yet again in the interest of powers hostile to itself, as if it wasn't doing enough of that?
Look at what the competitor powers in question do. Does Russian media spend a lot of time talking about the unsavory sides of their allied governments in Syria and Belarus?
Hell no.

So we need to support and accept Neo-Nazi's as allies, because 'Russia bad'?

And people wonder why fewer and fewer people want to be part of Western militaries, or view western powers as the 'Good Guys'.

Fuck the great power games, and fuck US military/economic/social supremacy, if it means abiding/allying with Neo-Nazi's.

 

[Marduk]

So we need to support and accept Neo-Nazi's as allies, because 'Russia bad'.

What does this have to do with the question of whether Russian expansionism in Europe should be countered?
Would you rather fight Russia without local support?

And people wonder why desert and fewer people want to be part of Western militaries, or view western powers as the 'Good Guys'.

Of course people who share the kind of logic you suggested would do so. But that can be interpreted in two ways - either the western governments should be more selective about their allies, no matter how few will it leave them with, or perhaps we should argue against this logic. I think the latter is way more sensible.
For one Russia doesn't consider this a problem at all, and for obvious reasons - despite the fact that they will happily ally with barrel bomb Assad or demographic weapon Lukashenko, somehow their lack of pickiness does not inspire proportionally greater hostility from even a picky westerner like you, and even less so from their own citizens.
This observable fact is a major reason for why i think the latter option is sensible.

Fuck the great power games, and fuck US military/economic/social supremacy, if it means abiding/allying with Neo-Nazi's.

And here we have a textbook example of not having thought out one's priorities.
Isolationism or great power games?
Being allied with countries that don't have spotless PR, or discarding allies because in a war for keeping their independence they employ even extremist militias?
Which question should have more influence on the decision taken in the end?
If you want to argue for isolationism, argue for isolationism rather than make excuses about things of little importance, if you want to play great power games, do it competently, and you know damn well how all those who do so answer these questions.

 

[Bacle]

What does this have to do with the question of whether Russian expansionism in Europe should be countered?
Would you rather fight Russia without local support?


Of course people who share the kind of logic you suggested would do so. But that can be interpreted in two ways - either the western governments should be more selective about their allies, no matter how few will it leave them with, or perhaps we should argue against this logic. I think the latter is way more sensible.
For one Russia doesn't consider this a problem at all, and for obvious reasons - despite the fact that they will happily ally with barrel bomb Assad or demographic weapon Lukashenko, somehow their lack of pickiness does not inspire proportionally greater hostility from even a picky westerner like you, and even less so from their own citizens.
This observable fact is a major reason for why i think the latter option is sensible.


And here we have a textbook example of not having thought out one's priorities.
Isolationism or great power games?
Being allied with countries that don't have spotless PR, or discarding allies because in a war for keeping their independence they employ even extremist militias?
Which question should have more influence on the decision taken in the end?
If you want to argue for isolationism, argue for isolationism rather than make excuses about things of little importance, if you want to play great power games, do it competently, and you know damn well how all those who do so answer these questions.

Ukraine are not 'allies' by any stretch of the imagination, and I will not pretend they are, just because some people cannot stop poking the Bear, or attempting to poke the Bear.

 

[Marduk]

Ukraine are not 'allies' by any stretch of the imagination, and I will not pretend the are just because some people cannot stop poking the Bear, or attempting to poke the Bear.

Why are you acting as if the whole mess was about Ukrainian ultranationalists driving tanks towards Moscow?
The mess is about Russia deciding that it is entitled to some imperial holdings west of its borders, and the specifics of which and how many vary depending on how much the leadership feels it can get away with at the moment.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Ukraine are not 'allies' by any stretch of the imagination, and I will not pretend they are, just because some people cannot stop poking the Bear, or attempting to poke the Bear.

Ukraine: *exists as a sovereign nation*
Bacle: Stop poking the Russian Bear.

 

[Bacle]

Why are you acting as if the whole mess was about Ukrainian ultranationalists driving tanks towards Moscow?
The mess is about Russia deciding that it is entitled to some imperial holdings west of its borders, and the specifics of which and how many vary depending on how much the leadership feels it can get away with at the moment.

Please do not put words in my mouth.

I never said that was the issue, it's that the gov in Kiev is rather Neo+Nazi friendly and that thier civil war has the West supporting Nazi's because 'Russia bad'.

Ukraine: *exists as a sovereign nation*
Bacle: Stop poking the Russian Bear.

Ukraine's sovereignty isn't the issue, thee fact the the current Ukrainian civil war has the West supporting Nazi's, because we could not just leave Eastern Europe alone when there was no reason to get involved (Ukraine isn't in NATO or an ally of the West) and could not accept a Russian friendly Ukraine so we pushed the Maiden shit...

There are no good guys in the Ukraine situation, just two sides full of greedy assholes with different goals is ng the people of Ukraine as pawns.

 

[WolfBear]

So we need to support and accept Neo-Nazi's as allies, because 'Russia bad'?

And people wonder why fewer and fewer people want to be part of Western militaries, or view western powers as the 'Good Guys'.

Fuck the great power games, and fuck US military/economic/social supremacy, if it means abiding/allying with Neo-Nazi's.

FWIW, I suspect that 80-90% of Ukrainian protesters on the Maidan were not Neo-Nazis or far-right extremists. But that's just a gut feeling/intuition of mine.

Ukrainians generally weren't inclined to vote for far-right parties even in western Ukraine other than in 2012, when the far-right Svoboda Party got a lot of support in Galicia.

 

[Marduk]

Please do not put words in my mouth.

I don't put words into your mouth, i described in what situation your comment about "poking the bear" would be reasonable appropriate.

I never said that was the issue, it's that the gov in Kiev is rather Neo+Nazi friendly and that thier civil war has the West supporting Nazi's because 'Russia bad'.

How do the details of ideological sympathies of the current elected government in Kiev weight in on the question of whether it is in the interest of USA and its NATO allies for Ukraine to remain sovereign from Russia?
It goes back to my question of what good comes out of being obsessively picky about one's allies internal politics.
And my conclusion being nothing, just problems, and laughter of competing powers who don't give a damn about such things.

Ukraine's sovereignty isn't the issue,

Ukraine's sovereignty is the thing that's on the line.

thee fact the the current Ukrainian civil war has the West supporting Nazi's,

Have you stopped supporting Trump because various controversial figures, some with quite spicy political views, supported him too?

because we could not just leave Eastern Europe alone when there was no reason to get involved (Ukraine isn't in NATO or an ally of the West)

With that reasoning the west will never get more allies.

and could not accept a Russian friendly Ukraine so we pushed the Maiden shit...

Now you are spouting off the Kremlin line.
If Ukraine was Russian friendly, there would be no Maidan shit to support.
Ukraine wanted into EU, Russia said hell no, we won't be having any of that, you're coming to our not-EU with less money, whether you like it or not, and pulled the many strings it held in Ukraine to make it so.
Then Maidan shit started.

There are no good guys in the Ukraine situation, just two sides full of greedy assholes with different goals is ng the people of Ukraine as pawns.

Yes, there are no "good guys", but its geopolitics we are talking about, not a fairy tale, so that should come as obvious.
Now the question is, who are "our guys"?

 

[Husky_Khan]

Ukraine's sovereignty isn't the issue, thee fact the the current Ukrainian civil war has the West supporting Nazi's, because we could not just leave Eastern Europe alone when there was no reason to get involved (Ukraine isn't in NATO or an ally of the West) and could not accept a Russian friendly Ukraine so we pushed the Maiden shit...

There are no good guys in the Ukraine situation, just two sides full of greedy assholes with different goals is ng the people of Ukraine as pawns.

It was a plurality of the Ukrainian people that pushed that "Maiden shit" as you call it. The support the West gave Euromaiden was so terrifyingly diplomatic while the Yanukovich government still had the support of the state military police forces. The Euromaiden protests lasted for several months, during the Winter, and had to endure the Titushkas and police and Berut raids blockading or raiding or burning their camps. And yes there was violence on both sides, but far more Protesters were killed then State forces, with sixty being shot and killed in one day. And despite the descriptions here of a "violent revolution" Yanukovich agreed to step down peacefully and resigned, leaving the country.

The Euromaiden protests weren't anymore fomented by NATO and the West then Russia was for American domestic instability in 2020 and 2021.

THEN the Russians decided they could not accept a Ukraine that wasn't friendly enough to Russia and pushed the entire Civil War where they took over Crimea, and fomented a Civil War in the Eastern provinces, cleaving away literal provinces from the Ukrainians for the audacity of protesting against a Russian-friendly Ukraine government successfully. They also did a pretty good job shooting down a Malaysian airliner with Russian supplied SAMs and trying to cover it up.

So yes, there are two distinct sides. The side currently in control of Ukraine was popularly elected back in 2019 after the previous government which was seen as more pro-Ukrainian nationalist and pro-Western was voted out by the Independent Candidate who sadly for you, isn't pro-Russian enough, I guess because he's contingent on Russian withdrawal from the Donbass for negotiations.

FWIW, I suspect that 80-90% of Ukrainian protesters on the Maidan were not Neo-Nazis or far-right extremists. But that's just a gut feeling/intuition of mine.

Ukrainians generally weren't inclined to vote for far-right parties even in western Ukraine other than in 2012, when the far-right Svoboda Party got a lot of support in Galicia.

I think the citation is that 10-20% of the Azov Battalion back in 2014 might've expressed "Neo-Nazi" sentiment. But it in all honesty, it's one of Bacle's hangups. He's terrified of White Supremacists everywhere. He's implied I'm a White Supremacist before because I don't support Confederate Iconoclasm to the scale he does.

 

[Bacle]

FWIW, I suspect that 80-90% of Ukrainian protesters on the Maidan were not Neo-Nazis or far-right extremists. But that's just a gut feeling/intuition of mine.

Ukrainians generally weren't inclined to vote for far-right parties even in western Ukraine other than in 2012, when the far-right Svoboda Party got a lot of support in Galicia.

I didn't say that the Maidan was full of Neo-Nazi's (though I would not put it past them to act as agent provacutuers) and think the Maidan had far more western involvement than any Western gov will admit.

However, when the current Ukrainian gov started looking the other way in regards to the Neo-Nazi's acting as part of their military force, and the Western media was/has been silent on the issue...after that, I stopped believing that there was a 'good side' to the Ukraine conflict.

I don't put words into your mouth, i described in what situation your comment about "poking the bear" would be reasonable appropriate.

How do the details of ideological sympathies of the current elected government in Kiev weight in on the question of whether it is in the interest of USA and its NATO allies for Ukraine to remain sovereign from Russia?
It goes back to my question of what good comes out of being obsessively picky about one's allies internal politics.
And my conclusion being nothing, just problems, and laughter of competing powers who don't give a damn about such things.


Ukraine's sovereignty is the thing that's on the line.


Have you stopped supporting Trump because various controversial figures, some with quite spicy political views, supported him too?


With that reasoning the west will never get more allies.


Now you are spouting off the Kremlin line.
If Ukraine was Russian friendly, there would be no Maidan shit to support.
Ukraine wanted into EU, Russia said hell no, we won't be having any of that, you're coming to our not-EU with less money, whether you like it or not, and pulled the many strings it held in Ukraine to make it so.
Then Maidan shit started.


Yes, there are no "good guys", but its geopolitics we are talking about, not a fairy tale, so that should come as obvious.
Now the question is, who are "our guys"?

'Our guys' type thinking is what ended up with the US funding Osama and Saddam, then having both turn on us/go rogue.

I'd rather have fewer allies that we know are on the up and up, then continuing to throw money and support at extremist proxies in attempts to fuck with Russia or China.

 

[WolfBear]

Opinion | Putin to Ukraine: ‘Marry Me or I’ll Kill You’ (Published 2022)

He’s not particularly concerned, though, with what’s in Ukraine.

www.nytimes.com

US weighs more military support for Ukraine to resist Russia if it invades

The Biden administration is weighing new options, including providing more arms to Ukraine to resist a Russian occupation, to try to raise the costs for Russian President Vladimir Putin should he decide to invade the country.

www.cnn.com

US and Russia to hold talks on Ukraine in potential sign ‘diplomacy is not dead’

US secretary of state Tony Blinken to meet with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov amid fears of Russian attack on Ukraine

www.theguardian.com

Ukraine’s Frontline Civilians Still Think War With Russia Won’t Come

Despite daily shelling and gunfire from Kremlin-backed separatists, locals believe war would prove too costly for Moscow to want to start.

www.bloomberg.com

Germany Prepared to Pay 'High Economic Price' to Defend Ukraine

Germany says it is prepared to pay 'a high economic price' to defend its values, as NATO members engage in another week of intense diplomacy amid Russian troop buildup close to Ukrainian border

www.voanews.com

 

[WolfBear]

It was a plurality of the Ukrainian people that pushed that "Maiden shit" as you call it. The support the West gave Euromaiden was so terrifyingly diplomatic while the Yanukovich government still had the support of the state military police forces. The Euromaiden protests lasted for several months, during the Winter, and had to endure the Titushkas and police and Berut raids blockading or raiding or burning their camps. And yes there was violence on both sides, but far more Protesters were killed then State forces, with sixty being shot and killed in one day. And despite the descriptions here of a "violent revolution" Yanukovich agreed to step down peacefully and resigned, leaving the country.

The Euromaiden protests weren't anymore fomented by NATO and the West then Russia was for American domestic instability in 2020 and 2021.

THEN the Russians decided they could not accept a Ukraine that wasn't friendly enough to Russia and pushed the entire Civil War where they took over Crimea, and fomented a Civil War in the Eastern provinces, cleaving away literal provinces from the Ukrainians for the audacity of protesting against a Russian-friendly Ukraine government successfully. They also did a pretty good job shooting down a Malaysian airliner with Russian supplied SAMs and trying to cover it up.

So yes, there are two distinct sides. The side currently in control of Ukraine was popularly elected back in 2019 after the previous government which was seen as more pro-Ukrainian nationalist and pro-Western was voted out by the Independent Candidate who sadly for you, isn't pro-Russian enough, I guess because he's contingent on Russian withdrawal from the Donbass for negotiations.



I think the citation is that 10-20% of the Azov Battalion back in 2014 might've expressed "Neo-Nazi" sentiment. But it in all honesty, it's one of Bacle's hangups. He's terrified of White Supremacists everywhere. He's implied I'm a White Supremacist before because I don't support Confederate Iconoclasm to the scale he does.

TBF, there was a long process of escalation in Ukraine in the early 2010s:

-First, Yanukovych got several members of the opposition to defect in 2010 even though AFAIK the Ukrainian Constitution said that members of each political party have to vote as a single bloc
-Secondly, Yanukovych changed the rules of the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election ahead of time in order to favor his party by focusing more on a winner-take-all component
-Thirdly, Yanukovych put Tymoshenko on trial and Ukrainians were worried that he was acting increasingly authoritarian and that he would not allow genuinely democratic elections in the future
-And then finally, this fear that Yanukovych will become a tyrant, combined with his shift away from Europe, caused Ukrainians to overthrow him before his presidential term was actually due to expire

 

[Marduk]

I didn't say that the Maidan was full of Neo-Nazi's (though I would not put it past them to act as agent provacutuers) and think the Maidan had far more western involvement than any Western gov will admit.

Do you think the majority of Ukrainian citizenry wanting to be in EU is just western disinformation and its not believable they would want that?
Do you think it is fair and not justifying of mass popular protest if the government of Ukraine would decide to disregard that will and opt for closer ties with Russia instead?

However, when the current Ukrainian gov started looking the other way in regards to the Neo-Nazi's acting as part of their military force, and the Western media was/has been silent on the issue...after that, I stopped believing that there was a 'good side' to the Ukraine conflict.

'Our guys' type thinking is what ended up with the US funding Osama and Saddam, then having both turn on us/go rogue.

It also ended up with Operation Paperclip. South Korea and Taiwan, outright authoritarian states in their early days. And supporting Kurds against ISIL. So its not like these decisions always go bad.

I'd rather have fewer allies that we know are on the up and up, then continuing to throw money and support at extremist proxies in attempts to fuck with Russia or China.

You know damn well that there is no end to the purity spiral, and there is no reward for using it.
Imagine what Taiwan would be if people thought the same way few decades ago.

White Terror (Taiwan) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The repression that characterized the White Terror has been compared by scholars to fascist regimes elsewhere, particularly Nazi Germany, as well as Francoist Spain, which had its own White Terror.[13] The legacy of authoritarianism during White Terror in Taiwan has persisted into the following decades.[14]

The "extremist" Ukraine of today is far more civil and democratic than Taiwan was back then.

 

[WolfBear]

Do you think the majority of Ukrainian citizenry wanting to be in EU is just western disinformation and its not believable they would want that?
Do you think it is fair and not justifying of mass popular protest if the government of Ukraine would decide to disregard that will and opt for closer ties with Russia instead?


It also ended up with Operation Paperclip. South Korea and Taiwan, outright authoritarian states in their early days. And supporting Kurds against ISIL. So its not like these decisions always go bad.

You know damn well that there is no end to the purity spiral, and there is no reward for using it.
Imagine what Taiwan would be if people thought the same way few decades ago.

White Terror (Taiwan) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The "extremist" Ukraine of today is far more civil and democratic than Taiwan was back then.

Worth noting that plenty of countries had their own White Terrors:

White Terror - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

TBH, what I don't quite get is this: Russia wants to invade Ukraine in order to prevent the West from stationing missiles there, right? So, why not wait until missiles are actually stationed there? And why not do such a preventative move in the Baltic countries as well? Because they're NATO members? But see, if Russia believes that the threat of Western missiles in the Baltic countries is only hypothetical and that there is thus no need for Russia to invade the Baltic countries right now, why exactly can't Russia also apply identical logic to Ukraine?

But Yeah, as I said, let Russia invade Ukraine and spend decades using its bayonets to prop up a disliked nominally neutralist Russian puppet regime there while also dealing with crippling Western sanctions and becoming more and more dependent on China. If the remaining, western Free Ukraine will outperform nominally neutralist Russian puppet Ukraine, then Ukrainians should vote with their feet by moving in huge numbers to Free Ukraine.

 

[Bacle]

Do you think the majority of Ukrainian citizenry wanting to be in EU is just western disinformation and its not believable they would want that?

I think it's definitely possible that that fewer Ukrainians wanted to be in the EU than the 'official' poll's from the time suggest. Particularly when it comes to the citizens of eastern Ukraine.

As well, given that Brexit happened and why, I'm not sure the EU is something sane people want to join.

Do you think it is fair and not justifying of mass popular protest if the government of Ukraine would decide to disregard that will and opt for closer ties with Russia instead?

I think Ukraine is/was a corruption ridden shithole, that has been been run roughshod over by it's neighbors (not just Russia, looking at you Poland, and of course the Mongol's ran through there back in the day as well), and that the US and West would have been better off not getting involved with Ukraine in the first place.

It also ended up with Operation Paperclip. South Korea and Taiwan, outright authoritarian states in their early days. And supporting Kurds against ISIL. So its not like these decisions always go bad.

They've gone bad and cost US civies, or dragged us into fights we had no need to be in, too many times.

Also, SK took the US civie ship building industry and plays a game with their northern neighbor to bilk aid out of US and China, and Taiwan tries to hold us hostage to their tech fab industry.

Both are situations where older gens could have killed the CCP in the crib, but chose not too, and the younger gens are paying for their mistake, and are being forced to abide the games both SK and Taiwan play in their hostage situations.

You know damn well that there is no end to the purity spiral, and there is no reward for using it.
Imagine what Taiwan would be if people thought the same way few decades ago.

White Terror (Taiwan) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The "extremist" Ukraine of today is far more civil and democratic than Taiwan was back then.

This isn't about a purity spiral, it's about how the Western narrtive around Ukraine ignores the Neo-Nazi issue and how corrupt Ukraine's govs have been, and the risks accosiated with possibly engageing actual Russian troops in combat if NATO forces enter Ukraine.

I am someone able to look at a larger picture than the US MIC wants the public to look at, and acknowledge facts that are incovienent to the narrative of Western powers, because I was born after the Cold War ended, and do not automatically assume Russia never has any legit points or reasons.

After all, the underlying point of NATO's eastward push is to put weapons closer and closer to Moscow, for first strike use, even if no NATO politician or military leader will admit it.

 

[WolfBear]

After all, the underlying point of NATO's eastward push is to put weapons closer and closer to Moscow, for first strike use, even if no NATO politician or military leader will admit it.

What kind of an idiot would want to launch a first strike against a nuclear power?

 

[Bacle]

What kind of an idiot would want to launch a first strike against a nuclear power?

Ask the people in the Pentagon and NATO command that.

I mean I get it, it would make WW3 a little more 'winnable' in their minds, but they are also Cold Warriors who sent people to die to 'contain' Russia, so they are deep in the 'sunk costs fallacy' regarding pushing NATO east/poking the Bear.

 

[WolfBear]

Ask the people in the Pentagon and NATO command that.

I mean I get it, it would make WW3 a little more 'winnable' in their minds, but they are also Cold Warriors who sent people to die to 'contain' Russia, so they are deep in the 'sunk costs fallacy' regarding pushing NATO east/poking the Bear.

If America's leaders REALLY wanted WWIII, they would have attacked the USSR sometime between 1945 and 1955 while the US still had an overwhelming nuclear advantage against the USSR. I mean, if nuclear war was allegedly inevitable, why not attack while your country still has an overwhelming advantage?