Nazis are in Ukraine, and Nazis are bad people that should be stopped.
Russia is using this as an excuse for a shameless land grab.
These are not mutually exclusive statements.
IMO, it really wouldn’t be all that different to the US using the cartels as an excuse to invade Mexico and slurp up some new land. And yeah, I’m aware that Republicans are already talking about it, because they just can’t stop themselves from any% speedrunning the worst takes possible. To be completely frank, I wonder if Russia would keep giving a shit about the Nazis once they’ve taken the land. IIRC, like basically everyone else right now, Russia itself has an embarrassingly bad Nazi problem, so maybe Russia will invade Russia next.
To be somewhat fair, all of Russia’s claims in Ukraine (Crimea, the Donbas) would give them unparalleled access to the Sea of Azov and the northern banks of the Black Sea. Yes, I know they control a significant portion of the Black Sea already, but this would allow them to wrap the Sea of Azov nicely.
I know Russia states they’re there to kick the Nazis out of the Donbas and protect the Russian language minority in that region, but I also don’t believe any nation, especially a very nationalistic, neoliberal government like Russia’s, is out doing something out of the goodness of their hearts. Call me a cynic, but I think the expanded Black Sea control is more important to the government.
I see the expanded Black Sea control as a way to sure up control of Crimea. If they didn’t then the only physical connection between Crimea and the rest of Russia would be the bridge, which has shown to be quite vulnerable.
But man, you really think Russia invaded because of a “land grab”? Does that make any sense to you?
I mean, how many wars have Russians started in the past for access to a warm water port? Shit, how many times have they fought over just the Crimea? Access to the black sea has been one of the most strategically important national goals for Russia throughout history.
What, all of them, unanimously, assembling their bodies into a single collossal humanoid mass of flesh and bone? This is the problem with a nationalist worldview, you miss the actual dynamic driving the event. Which Russians?
This is the problem with a nationalist worldview, you miss the actual dynamic driving the event. Which Russians?
The actual dynamic driving the event is the same for whatever government is controlling the modern states territory… the whole point of historic materialism is to view the inherent motive behind the actions of state.
Whatever government controls Russia has the same material needs as governments in the past. They require access to trade routes and logistics wether they are soviets, federations, or imperial.
Then why are you talking about it in the same terms as naive nationalists who don’t know materialism? It’s some really sus shit to proclaim to know all this but then make zero effort to differentiate your rhetoric from the “inherently authoritarian ruzzian orcs” crowd, continuing to frame it as though people who happen to be born in a certain socially constructed polity are somehow inherently a problem, while arguing pretty unmaterialistically that Russians (not the Russian Federation, just Russians gestures vaguely) started the conflict in Ukraine rather than joining a conflict that had been ongoing for nearly a decade. I’m not saying you’re not a materialist, but I am saying i detect latent nationalist brainworms.
Then why are you talking about it in the same terms as naive nationalists who don’t know materialism?
I don’t know what you’re talking about? All I said was that the Russian state has always seen Crimea as a strategic asset.
continuing to frame it as though people who happen to be born in a certain socially constructed polity are somehow inherently a problem, while arguing pretty unmaterialistically that Russians (not the Russian Federation, just Russians
Lol, that’s quite the assumption to jump to based on the use of “Russians”. Do you get as pedantic if I were to say “the Americans benefited from chattel slavery”
started the conflict in Ukraine rather than joining a conflict that had been ongoing for nearly a decade. I’m not saying you’re not a materialist, but I am saying i detect latent nationalist brainworms.
A conflict they’ve been perpetuating for nearly a decade… you are the one trying to interpret the situation through a nationalistic lense. You’re literally aping the nationalistic justification for the imperial expansion of a capitalist nation.
Forget about the nationalistic dressing and actually apply some leftist theory… why does the west support Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe? Why does the US support Turkey, a state run by man who’s trying to turn it into a Islamic theocracy?
It’s all to control access to the black sea, the same reason the Russian state has always seen Crimea as a strategic asset.
Nazis are in Ukraine, and Nazis are bad people that should be stopped
Yes.
Russia is using this as an excuse for a shameless land grab.
It’s much more complex than this. One must understand the civil war, NATO expansion, as well as the cultural difference between Lviv, and Donbass/Luhask. With Kyiv kind of caught in the middle politically between them. Most importantly one must understand All of the things NATO could have done to prevent this.
Lviv was part of Poland. It became part of Ukraine when Germany/USSR both invaded Poland in 1939. It was historically Polish. Today Lviv is actually a hotbed of nazi apologia. Most of the monuments to nazi collaborators like Bandera and Stetsko are in Lviv. Many of the right wing militias are active in Lviv. Donbass Luhask was historically part of Russia, not part of Ukraine. During the early soviet period Lenin incorporated Donbass/Luhask into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (rather than making it part of the Russian part of the USSR). During the soviet period this was fine, but after the Soviet union collapsed, and Ukraine SSR became Ukraine, the white supremacists and nazis (Groups like C14, Right Sektor, Azov Battalion, and their predecessors like the Social-National Party of Ukraine) began to push for policies against Roma, Jews, and ethnic Russians. This meant a lot of ethnic tensions with Donbass/Luhask which has a lot of people who speak Russian, as well as Roma and Jews. This led to separatist movements in Donbass/Luhask/Crimea. People in those regions who speak Russian and identify as Russian, and before Lenin, were part of the Russia rather than Ukraine, felt like they would be safer with their own Republics, or in Russia, than they would be in Ukraine. Crimea held a referendum to become part of Russia in 2014. This received over 90% support. NATO/Ukraine media said it was a rigged vote. Russian media said it wasn’t. Russia then occupied Crimea to nominally enforce the referendum. This was called a land grab by NATO, it was called democratic support of a referendum by Russia. This kicked off separatist movements in Donbass/Luhask. The Ukrainian government then started a civil war against Donbass/Luhask to keep these territories as part of Ukraine. Donbass declared their own republic and so did Luhask. The Ukrainian Armed Forces committed a massacre in a trade union hall in Odessa 2014, burning a lot of separatists alive. They also began shelling separatist regions. There were a lot of civilian deaths, and Ukrainian right began to further radicalize, while receiving money/weapons/training through the NED (a CIA front) The civil war went on for 8 years.
In 2014, you also had what many believed to be a US-backed coup that put Petro Poroshenko into power. Petro Poroshenko rehabilitated a lot of the nazi collaborators from WW2, granting them hero status, and allowing more monuments to be built to them. He also cozied up with the radical right wing militias and incorporated them into the regular armed forces. He also advocated Ukraine joining NATO. Ukraine joining NATO was always Russia’s “red line” since Ukraine shares a border close to Moscow, and NATO membership means the USA can build military bases in your country, train your troops, put nuclear weapons in your country, etc. Russia doesn’t want American nukes right on the doorestep of its capital, and so finally, after 30 years of eastward NATO expansion, resolved to intervene in the Ukrainian civil war, to make weaken Ukraine, and make it more of a burden for NATO. This is why NATO hasn’t allowed Ukraine to become a member.
There’s also the matter of NATO expansion in general. Informal promises were made to Gorbachev in 1991 (which were declassified by the British much later) that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward if he dissolved the USSR and the Warsaw pact. He did so. But NATO kept expanding anyway. Russia tried to join NATO in 2002 but were rejected, which could have prevented the perception, on the part of the Russian government, that Moscow is being encircled by NATO. Since they aren’t allowed to be part of the collective security apparatus of the North Atlantic alliance, but the North Atlantic alliance keeps expanding to surround their borders, it was only a matter of time before they started to see this as a war-worthy provocation. Also the USSR tried to join NATO back in 1954, at the beginning of the Khrushchev thaw, but were also rejected, leading to the formation of the Warsaw pact in 1955, which was the Soviet answer to NATO. So there were a lot of changes to prevent this flare up of regional tensions. But I believe the USA never wanted to prevent tensions from flaring up. I believe the USA saw this as another war they could profit from by selling weapons, since it takes place far from their borders.
I blame Capitalism first, NATO/USA second, Russia third, Ukraine last. The nazi problem in Ukraine is (mostly) a byproduct of CIA-backed radicalization efforts in my opinion. Every country has right wing psychos, but only some of them come to power by getting money, weapons, and training clandestinely from the USA. I also view this as a European repeat of operation cyclone, which is where the USA gave money/training/weapons to Jihadists in Afghanistan to destroy the soviet-allied government there and bait the soviets into a costly occupation. I also view this as an extension of the cold war into the 21st century, except it’s now an economic conflict between the imperial core and the rising 2nd world (China/Russia) rather than a conflict between Capitalism and Communism. USA was also motivated to get rid of Nordstream 2. America wants to sell its liquid natural gas to europe at exorbitant prices, but europe is getting it for much cheaper through the Russians. Even with the sanctions, Europe is still buying Russian gas through the backdoor of India.
invade Mexico and slurp up some new land.
lol wait until you find out how Texas became a US state
IMO, it really wouldn’t be all that different to the US using the cartels as an excuse to invade Mexico and slurp up some new land.
that would depend on if the mexican govt had been bombing the shit out of northern Mexico for 10 years. Then your example would be accurate. Cartels arent the mexican govt though. And i don’t think the cartels are launching missiles into populated cities.
Would also require the Mexican government to be playing footsie with a hostile (to the U.S.) military alliance that would just love to station missiles pointed at Washington.
also, why do lib mayos always equate gangs with wignat identitarians?
is it because violent identitarianism is basically only a phenomenon in white countries and exceptionally poor countries?
The cartels are not trying to remove people of certain % Spanish DNA. They’re basically just another gang like the mafia, crips, etc
This is very different from going out of your way to kill Romani and Russian people with no reward other than their deaths
This narrative falls apart when you consider the fact russia was wanting peace around the start of march, and part of this peace deal was that Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO, but all the occupied land (excluding Crimea for you shitlibs there who think it is part of ukraine.) But Ukraine rejected it, since they want a regime change in russia, and control of crimea.
The narrative that the capitalists of russia would give up their most lucrative money making scheme (selling oil to the guzzling westerners) for a brutal war just to gain bombed out cities its completely devoid of historical materialist analysis, the capitalist would never chose an option which would hurt their profits if it didn’t force them to.
Honestly seeing leftists repeat this propaganda is disappointing, and I’m going to repeat this. You can criticise Russia, without having to use liberal-imperialist propaganda like “warm water-ports” or “occupying ukraine” or even a simple name like putler. The fact is, ukraine was conducting an extremely brutal war on separatist countries all because they seek their simple right for self-determination after their autonomy was rejected. This war came about because the west are paranoid imperialists who want to salt the earth.
And the de-Nazification comes from more of a cultural standpoint rather than an actual struggle against fascism itself, this part is true. But seriously they have more of nazi problem than ukraine? Which literally has an ex-president who’s an open Nazi and wears Nazi Imagery? I find this extremely hard to believe.
IMO, it really wouldn’t be all that different to the US using the cartels as an excuse to invade Mexico and slurp up some new land.
There’s no need to make up scenarios. The US already did this with Cuba, Africa, and the Middle East. Mr. Putler is just inspired by American policies like his predecessor Hitler
I’m only being mostly facetious. Liberals claim that he’s worse than Hitler, but like Hitler, Putin is likely somewhat inspired by American policies since when was the last time the US was punished for any of its aggression and invasions? If you were Putin, it doesn’t make much sense politically to be more polite than the US. I still think he’s a fascist for tolerating and utilizing Nazis in his fight, but so is every other Anglo president for utilizing Nazis in their special forces and PMCs as well as allowing Nazis any privileges and protections because . Liberals keep justifying Ukraine’s glorification of Nazis by saying “there are white supremacists and Nazis everywhere” but get upset when you want to deal with the ones in power at home first.
Putin’s not literally a Nazi in the same vein as Hitler, but he is the forever president of an ultranationalist fascistic government of a major European power using minority russian-language-speaking populations on the border of adjacent countries as justification to invade and annex large chunks of land.
8 year conflict in the Donbass aside, the Ukraine conflict bears a lot of superficial similarities to the circumstances around the Munich agreement and invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He’s not a forever president Russian elections are just designed in such a way that they are ludicrously easy to rig as they have an initial election and then the president chooses when to hold the next one so he just only calls them once the momentum of any potential electoral threat has died back down.
also Putin is not a fascist he is a liberal. just because someone is a bad person it is not the same as them being a fascist. Navalny is a fascist by contrast
the similarities between the munich agreement and the Ukraine war are that it is a government that used to contain the contested region agreeing not to attack it and then attacking it anyway. That is not fascism that is war. By that metric Napoleon was a fascist for returning from Elba
Russia is using this as an excuse for a shameless land grab.
This literally just ignores the entire history of the Minsk agreements and Russian-Ukraine relations between 1991-2014, also the fact there’s been a brutal civil war on Russia’s border for the last 8 years
Honestly not a bad take compared to many others I’ve seen regarding this shit show. Russia doesn’t really give a shit about Nazism in Ukraine and is using this war to secure it’s strategic assets around the region that had been in under Russian/Soviet control for centuries before the breakup of the USSR. 2014’s coup threatened any sort of cooperation in Crimea and hence Russia proceeded to annex it.
Or NATO was going to install nuclear launch sites next door to Russia. But if you gloss over that fact then yes, Russia bad.
Analogy: Mexico lets a US adversary install nuclear launch sites just south of the USA border. How do we think that would go? Mexico would be the pawn.
What’s happening in Ukraine is a result of USA/EU actions, and Ukraine not being smart enough to pick up a history book and see how the USA uses poor countries as fodder. They must be shoveling mass money and cocaine at Zelensky. It’s all literally a case of “well well, the consequences of our actions.” The USA just wants resources and nuclear launch sites.
Russia doesn’t really give a shit about Nazism in Ukraine
they certainly do. But America has trouble relating because we were all cushy and safe over here while Russia was ratfucked by Nazi Germany. Russians still know the songs about the Great Patriotic War.
Or NATO was going to install nuclear launch sites next door to Russia. But if you gloss over that fact then yes, Russia bad.
Why? What’s the difference of having launch sites in kieve compared to having launch sites in Germany, or even on a submarine in the artic circle? It’s not the 60’s anymore, we already have more than enough capacity to Russia if it came to nuclear war.
Ukraine not being smart enough to pick up a history book and see how the USA uses poor countries as fodder.
Yeah, because historically it’s been America who’s done horrible things in their country? Has the US used and abused it’s allies? Of course, just go ask the ask the Kurds. But it’s ignorant to believe that Russia hasn’t practiced their own form of militant imperialism. Militant imperialism that has and is still personally effecting their country.
The USA just wants resources and nuclear launch sites.
Yes, we are super desperate for …sunflower oil and wheat?
Where did this insane theory about nuclear launch sites come from? America hasn’t expanded launch sites since 87’. If NATO was wanting more sites, don’t you think they would have put some in Poland by now?
they certainly do. But America has trouble relating because we were all cushy and safe over here while Russia was ratfucked by Nazi Germany.
Lol, yeah… Putin hates Nazis, which is why they have a pmc named Wagner, whos previous co founder was a self confessed neo nazi.
Nazism is a problem everywhere in the post Soviet eastern block, including Russia. While the soviets were in power they strictly banned nazi imagery, for obvious reasons. When Gorbachev loosened state control over media and other censorship laws, the swastika became an anti state and anti communist symbol.
This was often adopted by criminal organization in and around the Soviet block. These same criminal organizations had the capital to buy up state controlled companies as the soviets auctioned off state companies to private interes, becoming some of the oligarchy now controlling the Russian state.
they don’t launch missiles from dedicated launch sites or missile silos in the ground anymore, they use stealth aircraft or fighter jets to carry the missiles for hypothetical first strike scenarios. airbases that close to russia could let them attack the capital before they could meaningfully retaliate. rando military officers promoted via emergency aren’t going to be as willing or able to push the big red nuclear retalliation button as the career politicians and generals in the capital. ICBMs like the ones carried by nuclear subs are easier to detect and intercept (or more realistically retalliate against the launcher), because they have to reach high altitudes to fly with less wind resistance, while nukes deployed via even normal un-stealthed aircraft can be camouflaged more easily, as they don’t have to have the range or size of ICBMs. they don’t necessarily know just from radar if its a nuke on the plane and not a normal missile, for example, and weapon systems like low-altitude cruise missiles launched from planes relatively closeby to the target could take a path through terrain that would conceal it from radar by using treetops and mountainlines as cover.
Right, that’s kinda my point. It was the other person’s claim that they invaded Ukraine to stop the US putting installing missile sites. Neither silos or airbases really makes any sense. North west Poland is closer to Moscow by the way of the crow than all but a small part of Ukraine.
and you don’t think they would use that “small part” of ukraine? you don’t think having access to ukrainian airspace, ideally someday without russian military euipment within its borders, would be helpful at all? like maybe we would want to launch a multi-pronged attack from several locations at once or something?
no one said it was the only reason, there’s also the consistently broken ceasefires and ethnic cleansing of russian speakers in the donbass and luhansk republics. and the american interference in ukraine’s government. see any UN report from before 2020.
and you don’t think they would use that “small part” of ukraine?
Not really, it’s basically a salient flanked by Belarus. Not exactly somewhere you’d want to put sensitive equipment. Especially compared to Poland, where they have buffer states.
ideally someday without russian military euipment within its borders, would be helpful at all?
I mean, we were talking about Russia’s justification of invading Ukraine. Now that justification includes Russia already being there?
like maybe we would want to launch a multi-pronged attack from several locations at once or something?
Why? What would the west materially gain by fully mobilizing and invading a nuclear power? NATO doesn’t care defeating Russia in a totalitarian war, they mostly care about Russian competition in central Asia and the Middle East.
Why invade when you can bankrupt the government via proxy war, just like they did with the USSR. If NATO really wanted to set up an invasion, they wouldn’t be slow walking more aggressive military aid.
broken ceasefires and ethnic cleansing of russian speakers in the donbass and luhansk republics
There’s been no evidence for this…
Again, you are aping the justifications from a militaristic capitalist state, while completely ignoring historical materialism…
i wasn’t talking about invading and mobilizing, but a multi prong nuclear first strike to take out nuclear launch and control facilities. an invasion may or may not happen afterwards to secure the region.
as for evidence of ethnic cleansing, i already mentioned the UN reports but i’ll post.
The problem with this take is that why would Russia take pieces of land in Ukraine just to invite unprecedented sanctions against itself? Russia has lost hundreds of billions of US dollar assets and their oligarchs have been hit even harder, with overseas assets and properties seized.
The annexing of Crimea in 2014 invited sanctions that practically erased Russia’s economic growth that had been gaining ground since 2001, which took near 4 years (44 months!) to even get back to the pre-sanctions level (even worse than the 2009 global financial crisis and the Covid recession in 2020). So it’s not like they didn’t anticipate this would happen.
Yes Russia is lucky their economy didn’t collapse, but what is the point of a land grab in Ukraine when you lose businesses from your European partners? Tens of billions and years of construction went into Nord Stream (both pipelines) just to be abandoned, and then bombed? It is clear that Russia felt that it had to make this decision because the situation had devolved to the point where an invasion of Ukraine has become the least worst for them (emphasis here is failure of diplomacy).
The imperialism of the 21st century is one of super-imperialism, where you can simply cut off their financial access to the world’s most liquid asset (US dollar) and watch them struggling to survive. This is how the hegemon gets its “free lunch” from the rest of the world, simply through printing currency out of thin air and having total control of that currency, which comprises 85% of the world’s transaction. And this is why de-dollarization is at the forefront of the countries who wish to escape the claws of US imperialism.
It’s both, Russia did make its economy more resilient to sanctions, but ultimately it is not an industrial nation but one of resource colony.
Make no mistake, Russia is food and energy self-sufficient, it will survive even in the harshest sanctions, but it would still be very painful for the transition because it lacks many industries. It would have taken years to rebuild the Soviet era industrial supply chain if they were really cut off access to imports from the rest of the world.
Russia got lucky that China and the rest of the world didn’t join the Europeans in sanctioning them. One factor could be that the US overplayed its hands, by seizing all of Russia’s foreign reserves ($300 billion) and cutting off SWIFT access actually had the unintended detrimental consequences as it scared the other countries into thinking that they better find ways to get out of the US dollar regime in one way or another, or this too would be their fate one day if the US isn’t happy with them.
or this too would be their fate one day if the US isn’t happy with them
They already knew this, since this behavior from the US is hardly new. Just look at Cuba, Iraq, Iran, DPRK, etc. Although I guess the difference here is scale, since if you sanction Iran or Cuba that’s not going to affect most of the world’s nations, so it’s relatively easy to ignore.
I think they do care a little bit in that for the last 8 years those nazis have been engaged in a civil war right next to the Russian border and believe that ethnic Russians are inferior. Russia doesn’t need to be ruled by saints to be annoyed at that turn of events
you got here 12 days ago lol, please learn more about this community before wildly misrepresenting its views. you’re on a communist queer forum and Russia is capitalist and homophobic.
I guess my attempt at sarcasm fell flat. I agree, Russia is capitalist and homophobic and I’m a communist queer so I hope y’all let me post on your forum.
but yeah I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm because we see a lot of unironic comments like that on lemmy. If you had an older account I probably would’ve assumed it was sarcasm.
Nazis are in Ukraine, and Nazis are bad people that should be stopped.
Russia is using this as an excuse for a shameless land grab.
These are not mutually exclusive statements.
IMO, it really wouldn’t be all that different to the US using the cartels as an excuse to invade Mexico and slurp up some new land. And yeah, I’m aware that Republicans are already talking about it, because they just can’t stop themselves from any% speedrunning the worst takes possible. To be completely frank, I wonder if Russia would keep giving a shit about the Nazis once they’ve taken the land. IIRC, like basically everyone else right now, Russia itself has an embarrassingly bad Nazi problem, so maybe Russia will invade Russia next.
I don’t want to put a bunch of preludes and explain myself etc.
But man, you really think Russia invaded because of a “land grab”? Does that make any sense to you?
The Russian Federation, famously short on land
To be somewhat fair, all of Russia’s claims in Ukraine (Crimea, the Donbas) would give them unparalleled access to the Sea of Azov and the northern banks of the Black Sea. Yes, I know they control a significant portion of the Black Sea already, but this would allow them to wrap the Sea of Azov nicely.
I know Russia states they’re there to kick the Nazis out of the Donbas and protect the Russian language minority in that region, but I also don’t believe any nation, especially a very nationalistic, neoliberal government like Russia’s, is out doing something out of the goodness of their hearts. Call me a cynic, but I think the expanded Black Sea control is more important to the government.
I see the expanded Black Sea control as a way to sure up control of Crimea. If they didn’t then the only physical connection between Crimea and the rest of Russia would be the bridge, which has shown to be quite vulnerable.
It’s literally just to stop NATO expansion, protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine is just an incidental political benefit
The “warm port” and “land grab” theories are pure nonsense that ignore the last 8 years of Eastern European history
I mean, how many wars have Russians started in the past for access to a warm water port? Shit, how many times have they fought over just the Crimea? Access to the black sea has been one of the most strategically important national goals for Russia throughout history.
Not the dreaded warm water port discussion. When will we ever grow as a society?
Honestly, give climate change another 30-40 years and it prob won’t be an issue you hear about ever again.
What, all of them, unanimously, assembling their bodies into a single collossal humanoid mass of flesh and bone? This is the problem with a nationalist worldview, you miss the actual dynamic driving the event. Which Russians?
The actual dynamic driving the event is the same for whatever government is controlling the modern states territory… the whole point of historic materialism is to view the inherent motive behind the actions of state.
Whatever government controls Russia has the same material needs as governments in the past. They require access to trade routes and logistics wether they are soviets, federations, or imperial.
Then why are you talking about it in the same terms as naive nationalists who don’t know materialism? It’s some really sus shit to proclaim to know all this but then make zero effort to differentiate your rhetoric from the “inherently authoritarian ruzzian orcs” crowd, continuing to frame it as though people who happen to be born in a certain socially constructed polity are somehow inherently a problem, while arguing pretty unmaterialistically that Russians (not the Russian Federation, just Russians gestures vaguely) started the conflict in Ukraine rather than joining a conflict that had been ongoing for nearly a decade. I’m not saying you’re not a materialist, but I am saying i detect latent nationalist brainworms.
I don’t know what you’re talking about? All I said was that the Russian state has always seen Crimea as a strategic asset.
Lol, that’s quite the assumption to jump to based on the use of “Russians”. Do you get as pedantic if I were to say “the Americans benefited from chattel slavery”
A conflict they’ve been perpetuating for nearly a decade… you are the one trying to interpret the situation through a nationalistic lense. You’re literally aping the nationalistic justification for the imperial expansion of a capitalist nation.
Forget about the nationalistic dressing and actually apply some leftist theory… why does the west support Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe? Why does the US support Turkey, a state run by man who’s trying to turn it into a Islamic theocracy?
It’s all to control access to the black sea, the same reason the Russian state has always seen Crimea as a strategic asset.
“Access to infrastructure that allows the movement of critical goods” isn’t really captured by the phrase “land grab”
Yes.
It’s much more complex than this. One must understand the civil war, NATO expansion, as well as the cultural difference between Lviv, and Donbass/Luhask. With Kyiv kind of caught in the middle politically between them. Most importantly one must understand All of the things NATO could have done to prevent this.
Lviv was part of Poland. It became part of Ukraine when Germany/USSR both invaded Poland in 1939. It was historically Polish. Today Lviv is actually a hotbed of nazi apologia. Most of the monuments to nazi collaborators like Bandera and Stetsko are in Lviv. Many of the right wing militias are active in Lviv. Donbass Luhask was historically part of Russia, not part of Ukraine. During the early soviet period Lenin incorporated Donbass/Luhask into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (rather than making it part of the Russian part of the USSR). During the soviet period this was fine, but after the Soviet union collapsed, and Ukraine SSR became Ukraine, the white supremacists and nazis (Groups like C14, Right Sektor, Azov Battalion, and their predecessors like the Social-National Party of Ukraine) began to push for policies against Roma, Jews, and ethnic Russians. This meant a lot of ethnic tensions with Donbass/Luhask which has a lot of people who speak Russian, as well as Roma and Jews. This led to separatist movements in Donbass/Luhask/Crimea. People in those regions who speak Russian and identify as Russian, and before Lenin, were part of the Russia rather than Ukraine, felt like they would be safer with their own Republics, or in Russia, than they would be in Ukraine. Crimea held a referendum to become part of Russia in 2014. This received over 90% support. NATO/Ukraine media said it was a rigged vote. Russian media said it wasn’t. Russia then occupied Crimea to nominally enforce the referendum. This was called a land grab by NATO, it was called democratic support of a referendum by Russia. This kicked off separatist movements in Donbass/Luhask. The Ukrainian government then started a civil war against Donbass/Luhask to keep these territories as part of Ukraine. Donbass declared their own republic and so did Luhask. The Ukrainian Armed Forces committed a massacre in a trade union hall in Odessa 2014, burning a lot of separatists alive. They also began shelling separatist regions. There were a lot of civilian deaths, and Ukrainian right began to further radicalize, while receiving money/weapons/training through the NED (a CIA front) The civil war went on for 8 years.
In 2014, you also had what many believed to be a US-backed coup that put Petro Poroshenko into power. Petro Poroshenko rehabilitated a lot of the nazi collaborators from WW2, granting them hero status, and allowing more monuments to be built to them. He also cozied up with the radical right wing militias and incorporated them into the regular armed forces. He also advocated Ukraine joining NATO. Ukraine joining NATO was always Russia’s “red line” since Ukraine shares a border close to Moscow, and NATO membership means the USA can build military bases in your country, train your troops, put nuclear weapons in your country, etc. Russia doesn’t want American nukes right on the doorestep of its capital, and so finally, after 30 years of eastward NATO expansion, resolved to intervene in the Ukrainian civil war, to make weaken Ukraine, and make it more of a burden for NATO. This is why NATO hasn’t allowed Ukraine to become a member.
There’s also the matter of NATO expansion in general. Informal promises were made to Gorbachev in 1991 (which were declassified by the British much later) that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward if he dissolved the USSR and the Warsaw pact. He did so. But NATO kept expanding anyway. Russia tried to join NATO in 2002 but were rejected, which could have prevented the perception, on the part of the Russian government, that Moscow is being encircled by NATO. Since they aren’t allowed to be part of the collective security apparatus of the North Atlantic alliance, but the North Atlantic alliance keeps expanding to surround their borders, it was only a matter of time before they started to see this as a war-worthy provocation. Also the USSR tried to join NATO back in 1954, at the beginning of the Khrushchev thaw, but were also rejected, leading to the formation of the Warsaw pact in 1955, which was the Soviet answer to NATO. So there were a lot of changes to prevent this flare up of regional tensions. But I believe the USA never wanted to prevent tensions from flaring up. I believe the USA saw this as another war they could profit from by selling weapons, since it takes place far from their borders.
I blame Capitalism first, NATO/USA second, Russia third, Ukraine last. The nazi problem in Ukraine is (mostly) a byproduct of CIA-backed radicalization efforts in my opinion. Every country has right wing psychos, but only some of them come to power by getting money, weapons, and training clandestinely from the USA. I also view this as a European repeat of operation cyclone, which is where the USA gave money/training/weapons to Jihadists in Afghanistan to destroy the soviet-allied government there and bait the soviets into a costly occupation. I also view this as an extension of the cold war into the 21st century, except it’s now an economic conflict between the imperial core and the rising 2nd world (China/Russia) rather than a conflict between Capitalism and Communism. USA was also motivated to get rid of Nordstream 2. America wants to sell its liquid natural gas to europe at exorbitant prices, but europe is getting it for much cheaper through the Russians. Even with the sanctions, Europe is still buying Russian gas through the backdoor of India.
lol wait until you find out how Texas became a US state
This is all fair and I can’t dispute it, but have you considered that all of it is Russian propaganda?
Ok. But if NATO is gonna continue to arm nazis in Ukraine I think the people of Russia can have a buffer between them.
that would depend on if the mexican govt had been bombing the shit out of northern Mexico for 10 years. Then your example would be accurate. Cartels arent the mexican govt though. And i don’t think the cartels are launching missiles into populated cities.
Would also require the Mexican government to be playing footsie with a hostile (to the U.S.) military alliance that would just love to station missiles pointed at Washington.
also, why do lib mayos always equate gangs with wignat identitarians?
is it because violent identitarianism is basically only a phenomenon in white countries and exceptionally poor countries?
The cartels are not trying to remove people of certain % Spanish DNA. They’re basically just another gang like the mafia, crips, etc This is very different from going out of your way to kill Romani and Russian people with no reward other than their deaths
This is an official regiment of the Ukrainian army.
Not just “nazis are in ukraine”.
Lol 3 Nazi symbols on their flag. They couldn’t fit anymore?
This narrative falls apart when you consider the fact russia was wanting peace around the start of march, and part of this peace deal was that Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO, but all the occupied land (excluding Crimea for you shitlibs there who think it is part of ukraine.) But Ukraine rejected it, since they want a regime change in russia, and control of crimea.
The narrative that the capitalists of russia would give up their most lucrative money making scheme (selling oil to the guzzling westerners) for a brutal war just to gain bombed out cities its completely devoid of historical materialist analysis, the capitalist would never chose an option which would hurt their profits if it didn’t force them to.
Honestly seeing leftists repeat this propaganda is disappointing, and I’m going to repeat this. You can criticise Russia, without having to use liberal-imperialist propaganda like “warm water-ports” or “occupying ukraine” or even a simple name like putler. The fact is, ukraine was conducting an extremely brutal war on separatist countries all because they seek their simple right for self-determination after their autonomy was rejected. This war came about because the west are paranoid imperialists who want to salt the earth.
And the de-Nazification comes from more of a cultural standpoint rather than an actual struggle against fascism itself, this part is true. But seriously they have more of nazi problem than ukraine? Which literally has an ex-president who’s an open Nazi and wears Nazi Imagery? I find this extremely hard to believe.
There’s no need to make up scenarios. The US already did this with Cuba, Africa, and the Middle East. Mr. Putler is just inspired by American policies like his predecessor Hitler
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I’m only being mostly facetious. Liberals claim that he’s worse than Hitler, but like Hitler, Putin is likely somewhat inspired by American policies since when was the last time the US was punished for any of its aggression and invasions? If you were Putin, it doesn’t make much sense politically to be more polite than the US. I still think he’s a fascist for tolerating and utilizing Nazis in his fight, but so is every other Anglo president for utilizing Nazis in their special forces and PMCs as well as allowing Nazis any privileges and protections because
. Liberals keep justifying Ukraine’s glorification of Nazis by saying “there are white supremacists and Nazis everywhere” but get upset when you want to deal with the ones in power at home first.
how is Putin a successor to Hitler. Putin is not a nazi he’s not a good person but he is not a fascist
Putin’s not literally a Nazi in the same vein as Hitler, but he is the forever president of an ultranationalist fascistic government of a major European power using minority russian-language-speaking populations on the border of adjacent countries as justification to invade and annex large chunks of land.
8 year conflict in the Donbass aside, the Ukraine conflict bears a lot of superficial similarities to the circumstances around the Munich agreement and invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He’s not a forever president Russian elections are just designed in such a way that they are ludicrously easy to rig as they have an initial election and then the president chooses when to hold the next one so he just only calls them once the momentum of any potential electoral threat has died back down.
also Putin is not a fascist he is a liberal. just because someone is a bad person it is not the same as them being a fascist. Navalny is a fascist by contrast
the similarities between the munich agreement and the Ukraine war are that it is a government that used to contain the contested region agreeing not to attack it and then attacking it anyway. That is not fascism that is war. By that metric Napoleon was a fascist for returning from Elba
“He’s not a forever president, it’s just that the selective mechanism of the presidency allows him to remain president forever”
yeah but it’s not like he took power in a coup or designed the Russian electoral system.
“Chinazi” vibes
This literally just ignores the entire history of the Minsk agreements and Russian-Ukraine relations between 1991-2014, also the fact there’s been a brutal civil war on Russia’s border for the last 8 years
Honestly not a bad take compared to many others I’ve seen regarding this shit show. Russia doesn’t really give a shit about Nazism in Ukraine and is using this war to secure it’s strategic assets around the region that had been in under Russian/Soviet control for centuries before the breakup of the USSR. 2014’s coup threatened any sort of cooperation in Crimea and hence Russia proceeded to annex it.
Or NATO was going to install nuclear launch sites next door to Russia. But if you gloss over that fact then yes, Russia bad.
Analogy: Mexico lets a US adversary install nuclear launch sites just south of the USA border. How do we think that would go? Mexico would be the pawn.
What’s happening in Ukraine is a result of USA/EU actions, and Ukraine not being smart enough to pick up a history book and see how the USA uses poor countries as fodder. They must be shoveling mass money and cocaine at Zelensky. It’s all literally a case of “well well, the consequences of our actions.” The USA just wants resources and nuclear launch sites.
they certainly do. But America has trouble relating because we were all cushy and safe over here while Russia was ratfucked by Nazi Germany. Russians still know the songs about the Great Patriotic War.
Why? What’s the difference of having launch sites in kieve compared to having launch sites in Germany, or even on a submarine in the artic circle? It’s not the 60’s anymore, we already have more than enough capacity to Russia if it came to nuclear war.
Yeah, because historically it’s been America who’s done horrible things in their country? Has the US used and abused it’s allies? Of course, just go ask the ask the Kurds. But it’s ignorant to believe that Russia hasn’t practiced their own form of militant imperialism. Militant imperialism that has and is still personally effecting their country.
Yes, we are super desperate for …sunflower oil and wheat?
Where did this insane theory about nuclear launch sites come from? America hasn’t expanded launch sites since 87’. If NATO was wanting more sites, don’t you think they would have put some in Poland by now?
Lol, yeah… Putin hates Nazis, which is why they have a pmc named Wagner, whos previous co founder was a self confessed neo nazi.
Nazism is a problem everywhere in the post Soviet eastern block, including Russia. While the soviets were in power they strictly banned nazi imagery, for obvious reasons. When Gorbachev loosened state control over media and other censorship laws, the swastika became an anti state and anti communist symbol.
This was often adopted by criminal organization in and around the Soviet block. These same criminal organizations had the capital to buy up state controlled companies as the soviets auctioned off state companies to private interes, becoming some of the oligarchy now controlling the Russian state.
they don’t launch missiles from dedicated launch sites or missile silos in the ground anymore, they use stealth aircraft or fighter jets to carry the missiles for hypothetical first strike scenarios. airbases that close to russia could let them attack the capital before they could meaningfully retaliate. rando military officers promoted via emergency aren’t going to be as willing or able to push the big red nuclear retalliation button as the career politicians and generals in the capital. ICBMs like the ones carried by nuclear subs are easier to detect and intercept (or more realistically retalliate against the launcher), because they have to reach high altitudes to fly with less wind resistance, while nukes deployed via even normal un-stealthed aircraft can be camouflaged more easily, as they don’t have to have the range or size of ICBMs. they don’t necessarily know just from radar if its a nuke on the plane and not a normal missile, for example, and weapon systems like low-altitude cruise missiles launched from planes relatively closeby to the target could take a path through terrain that would conceal it from radar by using treetops and mountainlines as cover.
Right, that’s kinda my point. It was the other person’s claim that they invaded Ukraine to stop the US putting installing missile sites. Neither silos or airbases really makes any sense. North west Poland is closer to Moscow by the way of the crow than all but a small part of Ukraine.
and you don’t think they would use that “small part” of ukraine? you don’t think having access to ukrainian airspace, ideally someday without russian military euipment within its borders, would be helpful at all? like maybe we would want to launch a multi-pronged attack from several locations at once or something?
no one said it was the only reason, there’s also the consistently broken ceasefires and ethnic cleansing of russian speakers in the donbass and luhansk republics. and the american interference in ukraine’s government. see any UN report from before 2020.
Not really, it’s basically a salient flanked by Belarus. Not exactly somewhere you’d want to put sensitive equipment. Especially compared to Poland, where they have buffer states.
I mean, we were talking about Russia’s justification of invading Ukraine. Now that justification includes Russia already being there?
Why? What would the west materially gain by fully mobilizing and invading a nuclear power? NATO doesn’t care defeating Russia in a totalitarian war, they mostly care about Russian competition in central Asia and the Middle East.
Why invade when you can bankrupt the government via proxy war, just like they did with the USSR. If NATO really wanted to set up an invasion, they wouldn’t be slow walking more aggressive military aid.
There’s been no evidence for this…
Again, you are aping the justifications from a militaristic capitalist state, while completely ignoring historical materialism…
i wasn’t talking about invading and mobilizing, but a multi prong nuclear first strike to take out nuclear launch and control facilities. an invasion may or may not happen afterwards to secure the region.
as for evidence of ethnic cleansing, i already mentioned the UN reports but i’ll post.
https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf
https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12483.doc.htm
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14823.doc.htm
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ukraine-has-nazi-problem-vladimir-putin-s-denazification-claim-war-ncna1290946
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRMMU_Report.pdf
https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ukraine/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/02/the-historian-whitewashing-ukraines-past-volodymyr-viatrovych/
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/white-supremacists-other-extremists-respond-russian-invasion-ukraine
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality-of-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-is-far-from-kremlin-propaganda/
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s-got-a-real-problem-with-far-right-violence-and-no-rt-didn-t-write-this-headline/
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/azov-battalion
The problem with this take is that why would Russia take pieces of land in Ukraine just to invite unprecedented sanctions against itself? Russia has lost hundreds of billions of US dollar assets and their oligarchs have been hit even harder, with overseas assets and properties seized.
The annexing of Crimea in 2014 invited sanctions that practically erased Russia’s economic growth that had been gaining ground since 2001, which took near 4 years (44 months!) to even get back to the pre-sanctions level (even worse than the 2009 global financial crisis and the Covid recession in 2020). So it’s not like they didn’t anticipate this would happen.
Yes Russia is lucky their economy didn’t collapse, but what is the point of a land grab in Ukraine when you lose businesses from your European partners? Tens of billions and years of construction went into Nord Stream (both pipelines) just to be abandoned, and then bombed? It is clear that Russia felt that it had to make this decision because the situation had devolved to the point where an invasion of Ukraine has become the least worst for them (emphasis here is failure of diplomacy).
The imperialism of the 21st century is one of super-imperialism, where you can simply cut off their financial access to the world’s most liquid asset (US dollar) and watch them struggling to survive. This is how the hegemon gets its “free lunch” from the rest of the world, simply through printing currency out of thin air and having total control of that currency, which comprises 85% of the world’s transaction. And this is why de-dollarization is at the forefront of the countries who wish to escape the claws of US imperialism.
not luck they have spent decades making their economy more sanction proof in the lead up to this as they saw it coming
It’s both, Russia did make its economy more resilient to sanctions, but ultimately it is not an industrial nation but one of resource colony.
Make no mistake, Russia is food and energy self-sufficient, it will survive even in the harshest sanctions, but it would still be very painful for the transition because it lacks many industries. It would have taken years to rebuild the Soviet era industrial supply chain if they were really cut off access to imports from the rest of the world.
Russia got lucky that China and the rest of the world didn’t join the Europeans in sanctioning them. One factor could be that the US overplayed its hands, by seizing all of Russia’s foreign reserves ($300 billion) and cutting off SWIFT access actually had the unintended detrimental consequences as it scared the other countries into thinking that they better find ways to get out of the US dollar regime in one way or another, or this too would be their fate one day if the US isn’t happy with them.
They already knew this, since this behavior from the US is hardly new. Just look at Cuba, Iraq, Iran, DPRK, etc. Although I guess the difference here is scale, since if you sanction Iran or Cuba that’s not going to affect most of the world’s nations, so it’s relatively easy to ignore.
I think they do care a little bit in that for the last 8 years those nazis have been engaged in a civil war right next to the Russian border and believe that ethnic Russians are inferior. Russia doesn’t need to be ruled by saints to be annoyed at that turn of events
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you got here 12 days ago lol, please learn more about this community before wildly misrepresenting its views. you’re on a communist queer forum and Russia is capitalist and homophobic.
I guess my attempt at sarcasm fell flat. I agree, Russia is capitalist and homophobic and I’m a communist queer so I hope y’all let me post on your forum.
hell yeah
but yeah I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm because we see a lot of unironic comments like that on lemmy. If you had an older account I probably would’ve assumed it was sarcasm.
The Nazi problem in either case is not comparable. You’d get actual Nazi battalions in Russia if liberal darling Navalny got his way.
I wasn’t comparing. I don’t think any Nazis are excusable Nazis.