Posts by Kate Cook27

Watching Russian TV lately, you get the sense that every single politician is vibrating on the exact same frequency. There was this one guy who actually started off by saying it’s not right to claim Ukrainians don't exist or that their language is being stripped away—trying to sound reasonable about identity and all that—but then he immediately pivoted to how someone should explain to Ukrainians what life would be like under Russian rule... basically just more of the same. It’s always the same old script about how Ukraine and Russia should be building something together.
As Zelenskyy put it: Not with you. Honestly, anything is better than that kind of "brotherhood." What are we supposed to build with people who orchestrated that whole circus at the Drama Theater in Mariupol—where hundreds were killed—only to turn around and organize some concert there now? Like someone once said: It's a dance performed on bones and blood.

http://www.twitter.com/f_o_r_Ukraine...53545542840321

Thomas Walker84 said:The movie about Zelenskyy should definitely be titled "I don't need a ride."👍

I wonder who would play him... maybe Ewan McGregor. 🙂

It’s safe to say Zelenskyy became a hero overnight. All his previous missteps just seemed to vanish instantly—he just stepped right into the spotlight.
Zelenskyy’s leadership style since taking office has been a total shift from Poroshenko's. My take? Zelenskyy was clearly aiming for a peaceful resolution—really pushing for a diplomatic deal. That whole mine-clearing effort was probably his way of signaling that push for peace. Of course, the massive oversight was neglecting the military budget—Poroshenko actually did quite a bit more there, though I’m certainly no fan of his personally.
I remember someone asking if Poroshenko would have fled on February 24th, or if having Zelenskyy in charge was the better move. Honestly, I think Poroshenko might have stayed put too—he wouldn't have run. At the end of the day, Poroshenko took over during one of the most brutal stretches the country had seen since 1991, and despite all the drama, he "built the military"—because, let's face it, back in 2014, there wasn't really a functioning force to speak of.
On the flip side, Zelenskyy sort of brushed off military readiness, modernization, and hardware... so when everything kicked off on February 24th, that strength only existed on paper. You end up with a nation that’s been at war for eight years without long-range capabilities, basically just waiting for HIMARS to show up like rain that hasn't fallen in a year.

steelheron25 said:Crimea fell quietly because Ukraine was caught in such a heavy interregnum at the time, especially after the previous president made that rather unexpected move to flee to Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's stance during those opening days had a massive impact on how the international community viewed the entire war. Had he fled—which he could have done without much backlash, really—we likely would have been mired in debates over his legitimacy. As for that president who fled in 2014, word is he was already waiting in Belarus.
As for Donald Trump, I won't comment, nor do I wish to drag him into this specific discussion, but one has to admit that Barack Obama acted quite timidly back in 2014.

Ukraine has been dealing with a rough stretch since 1991, due to a lot of factors, but things really hit a breaking point in 2013 and especially 2014. Looking back at the response to the war then, everyone treated it like a civil war; sure, there were some sanctions against Russia over Crimea, but business went on as usual—money talks, after all. The US stayed out of it, and as for Europe or the EU? Well, what else can you expect? If you only listened to them, I bet Ukraine would have been forced to give up its occupied territory already. They always seem obsessed with "peace" without looking at the big picture—basically, they're advocating for peace through appeasement. Is it really surprising that some in Europe are wary of arming Ukraine for fear of escalating the conflict? 🙄.
And honestly, I don't buy that Yanukovych just bolted on a whim. He didn't just forget about his bank accounts... and that money ended up funding militias, gear, and whatever else was needed down the line.

Jessica Peterson2 said:Local collaborators who fled the newly liberated areas near Kharkiv are now whining about "mass filtration and repression" being in full swing, all while urging the local population to evacuate immediately. Honestly, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that this is just a pretext for forced deportations into Russia.

Anything is possible at this point. People are fleeing certain spots and won't even take their helpers with them—they just show up armed, make threats, grab vehicles, and bolt, leaving their supporters behind. Last night when the power went out, plenty of people in Donetsk were complaining about it—not that the Russian military cares, especially after seeing those videos of people celebrating rocket strikes in Belgorod... who knows, maybe some folks are finally realizing how much the Russians actually care about them. Though, let's be honest, some people will never see reason.

Jessica Peterson2 said:I don't make a habit of watching Russian state media, but I stumbled upon a Telegram thread this morning suggesting that those two collaborators everyone thought had been taken out actually survived. Apparently, they popped up on one of Putin's channels claiming the whole thing was just a false-flag FBI
operation designed to preempt any actual assassination attempts.

🤣 🤣 🤣.
Denis Pušilin might show up—rumor has it he’s gone missing. 🤣Maybe he’ll just cook up some fake flag operation—you know, claim he had no choice but to act just to keep from being taken out by the Ukrainians. He’ll probably play the hero, acting like he’s been standing firm over the Donetsk People's Republic for eight years, just waiting for the right moment to finally liberate the mountains of the Donbas.

James Phillips92 said:If Russians insist that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people, does that mean Russians are actually just Ukrainians?

I guess you could look at it that way—that Russians are just Ukrainians who got conned 😁 😁.

Andrew Miller102 said:Snake Island is a non-issue, much like Kyiv, aside from the fact that Kyiv is the primary metropolitan hub of Ukraine.

As far as I can tell, the Russians haven't backed down from Kharkiv. Once winter sets in, the situation is going to look entirely different. With the heating infrastructure being dismantled, a massive portion of the population in Ukraine is going to be freezing. Kharkiv is in particularly bad shape, considering the Russians have crippled the central heating plant that services a third of its 1.4 million residents.

If you take a look at the map of Ukraine's natural resources, you might start to realize what this conflict is actually about; nobody goes to war over thin air or empty fields. It's always been about the resources, and frankly, territory without them doesn't interest anyone. Seriously, look closely at the resource map. If you truly grasp what you're looking at, it becomes obvious why Russia isn't planning on walking away.☕

Sure, they showed some goodwill near Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Snake Island...
But it's not just up to the Russians.

Jessica Peterson2 said:About a year and a half ago, I ended up getting detained because I spat in someone's face. I basically leveled the guy after he started openly spitting on the Jews in our neighborhood. I have Tatar roots, but I told him straight up that I'm a Jew and asked what his problem was with my ethnicity. He went on such an aggressive tirade against me that it gave me enough opening to smash his "Great Russian" nose into a bloody mess.
P.S. Right after the scuffle, I had to sprint to a lab to get my blood tested. I wasn't exactly sure if my opponent was playing it safe regarding COVID, AIDS, or even hepatitis. 🤦

That kind of stuff was happening in Donbas from the very beginning. Even today, I don't really get why people push those myths about Jewish suffering—it's not like the Russians or the Soviets are tied to that narrative. Then again, seeing how some people claim Jews want to wipe out Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ukraine to build some new Jewish/Khazar state, I guess it's not surprising.

There’s this specific faction in Russia—call them a movement or just a fringe group—that tries to claim the Holocaust is a myth. Their whole angle is that it was some Satanist fabrication designed to make everyone who isn't a Jew feel guilty. Some people take it even further, claiming the whole thing was staged by Jews themselves. Honestly, does it surprise anyone that Lavrov would mention Hitler having Jewish blood? They love the idea that every single atrocity was just filmed on a movie set with actors, or that Ukrainians are actually killing their own people. Even that ambassador's take on Bucha fits right into that pattern.
It’s the same logic they use to claim the attack on the Theater in Mariupol was just a freak accident caused by nationalists blowing themselves up. To them, everything is a false flag. At this rate, they’ll probably start claiming Russian soldiers are just seeing ghosts in Ukraine too.

Jessica Peterson2 said:Unfortunately, they aren't really "in power." This whole concept of "local municipal government" is mostly just theater rather than anything substantial. It feels more like a fossilized relic left over from a brief period of genuine democracy back in the day.

Sadly, though maybe a few more will wake up eventually.

Timothy Williams5 said:Naturally.
Ukrainians are essentially just Russians.
Regardless of who actually comes out on top in this war, the victory will belong to Russia. 🎉

Are we fighting NATO soldiers, Ukrainians, lab-grown mutants, or those people spreading dark magic...?
Obviously not—Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, part of one single nation. We really need to move past how Ukrainians were treated as subhuman.

Jessica Peterson2 said:As far as I can tell, they've always been the opposition party.

Yeah, I get that—but in a setup like this, it's sometimes hard to believe anyone with a different perspective could actually "stay in power."

Jessica Peterson2 said:One representative already found himself detained for supposedly "discrediting the armed forces."
🤦
https://zona.media/news/2022/09/08/vyzvali

Is this actually their position—or just a little performance to make it look like they tolerate dissenting voices?

James Phillips92 said:The Russians are coming to save the day—since they clearly can't handle the front lines.

A whole new status quo 😠.

James Phillips92 said:Maybe if they just handed over parts of Italy and Germany to the Russians, things would finally quiet down.

Russia all the way to Berlin🎉.

Maybe Orban will step up and offer to help negotiate soon. But what could they actually bring to the table? A new Minsk agreement or just another war in a few years?

http://www.twitter.com/nexta_tv/stat...Cy8dnp4MErAAAA

So, here’s the call for a peace deal. The Mediators? Berlusconi and Angela Merkel 🎉.

It’s pretty much what we saw over in Russia—politicians, journalists, and all sorts of people getting arrested, convicted, or even killed. It happened in the DNR too. Usually, it was because they wanted to do things differently, missed their mark, or maybe just tried to grab more than their fair share.
I won't even get into the countless ordinary citizens who lost their lives—and I'm not talking about those caught in bombings. I mean the regular folks whose homes were raided and who were executed simply because someone labeled them a traitor or a spy... though sometimes, it was just because some person decided they felt like killing that day.
I guess this is just the "new world order" in action—this multipolar setup meant to act as a barrier against a decadent West.

William Anderson5 said:That isn't the only issue. The real problem is that most laypeople simply don't grasp the laws of history or geopolitics. Most people lack the historical perspective required to understand how to navigate geopolitical shifts. There hasn't been enough effort to explain that the world Russia is trying to build would be far worse than the one we currently inhabit. People don't truly comprehend what the collapse of NATO or the European Union would actually entail, nor do they have any inkling of the domino effect that would follow. Most can't draw parallels to past eras to recognize the looming dangers. Very few people know anything about Europe in the interwar period or how the world stumbled into WW2, so they can't see the patterns necessary to prevent a repeat today. To the average person, these concepts—much like the war in Ukraine—remain abstract until it’s already too late.

In my view, that's the most dangerous part of all...

👍. What kind of world does Russia want? We're getting a front-row seat. They want to drag us back three centuries. Regardless of all the wars the USA is responsible for, Russia is looking to set a precedent right now. They are the textbook definition of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile." That's their whole MO. They took Crimea, fought in the Donbas, established a status quo, and now they're back for more. Now they've arrived with this idea that everything from Kharkiv to Odessa should be annexed to Russia. Even Denis Pushilin mentioned wanting some kind of 300-kilometer buffer zone between the DNR and NATO. Basically, they'd just come back in a few years to grab the rest—Kyiv and whatever else they can get—just to maintain that buffer. And if they had just maintained the status quo, Ukraine would never have joined NATO. I mean, who would ever give up territory? Look at how Mexico hasn't budged on Mexico for 20 years. Ukraine would have to surrender massive chunks, like Crimea and the Donbas.

You only have to look at who they worship—just check the murals. Back in 2014, Stalin murals started appearing in the Donbas. At the time, they claimed he was there because he was a great statesman and leader who defeated fascism. People were mesmerized. But they weren't celebrating his actual achievements; it was something else entirely. In the Stalin era, anyone could be branded an enemy or a traitor, convicted without evidence, sent to a gulag, or simply killed. That’s exactly what those people in the Donbas wanted, and that's what they achieved. That's what the DNR and its counterparts have become. Anyone can be labeled a traitor or a spy, sentenced without an investigation, or thrown into "underground prisons"—you name it. In environments like that, having a different opinion is a dangerous game.

rowdytiger13 said:I'm sure they'll try, but Putin has been setting the stage for years.
It isn't going quite according to his playbook, though, since the goal was a quick, decisive win. He got tripped up by the classic pitfalls of authoritarian regimes—cronyism, nepotism, and rampant corruption. He clearly underestimated how much backbone Ukraine actually has and how little support they had internally, not to mention miscalculating his own military's weaknesses.
As for the rest... he’s effectively strangled any critical thinking in Russia that might reach the public eye. Literally. In an environment like that, you can pretty much get away with anything (except crossing certain lines).
He made the EU dependent on Russian energy—not every single nation, but certainly Germany, which is the economic engine of the continent. European politicians looked Putin right in the eye and fell for his logic. They were convinced he wouldn't start a war or use energy as leverage... they were wrong on both counts.
A huge number of politicians have also become beholden to Russian money, making them easy targets for blackmail.
He isn't on his knees by any stretch, but the EU is definitely feeling the squeeze. Starting with Viktor Orbán.

So, what's next for Europe? This winter looks tough. There's plenty of Orbán-style influence scattered across the EU.