451 posts shown.
Kate Cook27 said:So, what was Ukraine supposed to do?
Nancy Gomez26 said:I have a suspicion that such pamphlets weren't even being printed after '48. It would be quite interesting to actually get my hands on an original one from before '48 today.
casualcrane20 said:Putin can label this aggression however he likes, but relying solely on political rhetoric is a dead end. On a deeper level, this is a confrontation between the USA and Russia. We can debate who pulled the trigger first—personally, I’d say the Americans, and not by any stretch of the imagination recently. The stakes are massive: on one side, you have the American global monopoly on both military and financial power; on the other, Russia's struggle to remain a global superpower. Every resource will be deployed as needed, barring nuclear weapons (let's hope). It is tragic that Europe isn't capable of actively defending its own interests, so it will inevitably pay a heavy price.
Brandon Clark4 said:It is quite fascinating how this "leaked" into the press. Not even through WikiLeaks, mind you, but just... out in the open.
High-profile leaders within the European Union are pointing fingers like frantic children, insisting that Vladimir Putin is the sole architect behind the chaos looming this fall. However, I find myself skeptical that the average American will simply swallow such a narrative. As they say, you can't polish a turd.
Noah Diaz said:Russia is one of those incredibly rare countries that is truly self-reliant in almost every sense.
During the Cold War, they manufactured everything under the sun—from sewing needles to space stations. Frankly, talking about sanctions against them feels a bit ridiculous. For instance, they won't just jump on a Boeing or an Airbus; they'll simply stick to their own Boeing or Lockheed Martin models.
rowdytiger13 said:By the way, this guy is explicitly stating they were ordered to commit war crimes—specifically, to execute prisoners.
When someone asks him what happens if one of them actually tries to surrender, he just coldly replies that they’ll be shot.
So, there's your confirmation of a war crime:
casualcrane20 said:Whether they actually possess those resources or not is still up for debate, but one thing is already certain: the EU doesn't.
Terry Green3 said:That’s not how an economy works. Not under capitalism, anyway. Maybe if the EU started implementing five-year plans and centralized schemes like the USSR used to.
Noah Diaz said:Everyone knows exactly who started this fight and who is just trying to survive.
The real issue is that most people don't think for themselves; they let someone else do their mental heavy lifting.
At this rate, paying through the nose for energy costs is just another way of shooting ourselves in the foot.
urbanotter said:Unfortunately for me, I’m running a much larger setup with a 1,000-gallon tank, and my engine burns through fuel a bit faster at about 5 gallons an hour.
It seems these "sanctions" have kept my boat tied to the dock for two months now, and it’s genuinely threatening the livelihoods of four or five families who depend on this work.
Sadly, these sanctions don't just impact the people sitting around, waiting for an excuse to walk down to the local coffee shop to kill time by coming up with clever nicknames for Vladimir Putin.
feralhawk45 said:Given where the lines are drawn right now?
feralhawk45 said:Why is there this widespread assumption that the end of the war in Ukraine rests solely on Putin's shoulders?
The moment Putin finally calls a truce, the finger-pointing will start immediately, blaming the USA, the EU, and NATO for everything else.
swiftjackal11 said:Sanctions hurt Russia just as much as they hit Europe. But there really isn't any other way. Europe could have stepped up and said, just like Al Gore once did, "this isn't our fight." If they had, fuel would be $3.25 right now and we wouldn't be seeing so many Ukrainians or even the existence of Ukraine being
.
swiftjackal11 said:To really get the issue, you have to put yourself in those shoes. Say I run a shop ten feet away from yours. But for reasons only I know, every single time you walk in, I bring up your wife. 😁Because of that, you aren't going to shop with me anymore; you'll just go to the shop a hundred feet away instead. You wouldn't call that a shot to your own foot, would you?
redtinker39 said:If Ukraine had a nuclear bomb war situation, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this, though there'd be plenty of other reasons to worry since they'd have to maintain some sort of decent relationship with Russia, right? But then again, how could Ukraine even manage a nuclear program when they don't have any space to test anything? I mean, look at Russia—they've got all that vast territory in Siberia, Kamchatka, and Novaya Zemlya where there isn't a single living soul around for miles! Meanwhile, Americans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen always have their own colonies to work with, don't they?
slyfox43 said:Honestly, they should have just let him finish his term from some villa in the suburbs of Moscow.
The real issue isn't what he did while in office, but how things unfolded after he fled; those protests and petitions he tried to stifle with heavy-handed crackdowns are actually constitutionally protected parts of the "democratic process" that our colleague seems to think belong to him personally—rather than recognizing them as anything other than a "perverse coup."
Noah Sullivan said:My apologies—I'll dive into the details a bit later since I have to run, but for now:
Have you by any chance had the opportunity to read that Mearsheimer article in Foreign Affairs from 2014—the one linked earlier?
You can download it right here: In his piece "Why The Ukraine Crisis is The West's Fault : The liberal Delusions that Provoked Putin," Mearsheimer lays out a provocative argument regarding the origins of the current instability. He essentially contends that the West—specifically through its expansionist policies and the promotion of democratic ideals in regions where they don't necessarily take root—has inadvertently backed Russia into a corner. It’s a perspective that challenges the standard narrative of pure aggression, suggesting instead a series of strategic miscalculations by policymakers in Washington and Brussels. The core of the argument rests on the idea that the push to integrate Ukraine into the EU and NATO was seen by Moscow as an existential threat—not because of some inherent hatred of democracy, but because of the geopolitical reality of spheres of influence. Mearsheimer argues that the West ignored the basic tenets of realism, believing that moralizing about democratic values would somehow insulate them from the harsh realities of power politics. Instead, this approach triggered a defensive reaction from Putin that shifted the entire regional security architecture. It is a cynical, albeit structured, critique of liberal internationalism. He suggests that by attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark, the West actually destabilized the very region it hoped to secure, effectively handing Russia a pretext to intervene. It's the kind of high-stakes political chess where one side thinks they are playing a game of spreading liberty, while the other side sees nothing but a tightening noose.
Alright, I misspoke—I should have said "perverse coup." What was truly perverse wasn't just the event itself, but how the Western media later rebranded it as this glorious democratic revolution aimed at toppling a dictator. In reality? It was the removal of a democratically elected president.
The way Ukrainians freely and democratically elected him after getting burned by Yushchenko was exactly how they should have replaced him through standard democratic procedures—those very same procedures the West supposedly swears by (unless, of course, those in power decide otherwise). As you pointed out, the fact that Yanukovych said one thing, did another, and likely thought a third is just the standard playbook for politicians everywhere. In a functional democracy, the only remedy for that kind of inconsistency is voting them out during scheduled elections. In this specific case, there were two major reasons why things should have played out differently. First, the EU's offer was frankly meager compared to what Russia was putting on the table; from a purely economic standpoint, Yanukovych's decision—made strictly within his legal authority—was justifiable in the short term. If the voters felt that move was a mistake for their long-term future, they could have simply rejected him at the next election. Second, and more importantly, there isn't even any evidence to suggest that the peaceful phase of Euromajdan in late 2013 actually had the support of the majority of the population. To prove that, you need an election. Instead, we got that bloody period—the violent overthrow of Yanukovych in early 2014—which was orchestrated by a tiny minority of Ukrainians, specifically the extremists within the Right Sector. That’s why we didn't see a legitimate democratic transition following the established rules.
Of course, Afterward—once the dust finally settles and we can actually see through the smoke—we’ll be left staring at the wreckage of our own making. So, Yanukovych flees to Russia while they go ahead and annex Crimea—it’s a mess, plain and simple. His political faction didn't stand a prayer of winning another election even if things had stayed stable—but, of course, elections were still mandatory. So they went through with them, but under circumstances that were undeniably disastrous for democracy.
That coup—while perhaps not born of pure malice—was undeniably unjustified and illegal. Looking back, the whole thing feels downright absurd. It’s entirely possible the actors involved genuinely believed they were doing the right thing at the time, but history has a way of exposing those delusions. In hindsight, it seems they triggered a catastrophic chain reaction—one that has culminated in the current, massive evil we see today: an existential threat to the Ukrainian people and their nation, coupled with the terrifying prospect of even greater devastation—namely, the looming shadow of nuclear destruction.
I think you’d agree that, looking back, it would have been far better to simply wait for the elections—especially since Yanukovych was actually willing to call for early ones—rather than rushing headlong into that coup. Or am I missing something?
I'll pick this up later—right now, I really have to run.