Invasion of Ukraine • Page 159

so you don’t think it’s possible for Ukraine to escalate this war?

 

If I was to define “escalation” it would also include the fact that Ukraine is not at war with Iran, North Korea, or China, yet those countries are giving weapons to Russia and Russia is launching them into Ukraine.

War is war, and Ukraine needs to do what it has to do. Sorry that Putin is only now realizing this, but there is no ‘rules for thee, but not for me’ in war.

 

I wonder what possible motivation those countries could have for wanting to arm an opponent of a US proxy? Couldn’t be anything to do with decades of overwhelming American aggression could it? Nah of course not, because this all started in Feb 2022, right?

 

I'll never agree on principle that a defending country being attacked/genocided is escalating just cuz they decide to fight back. Shitty reasoning and easy to say sipping your PSL at your 9-5 posting on a miche ass forum. And yeah it is pretty simply a matter of an aggressive nuclear power starting this.

 

Your position is the one that has sent tens of thousands of Ukrainians to their unnecessary deaths. A negotiated settlement could have been achieved years ago. But you and others in this thread would much rather see the war continue and escalate and more Ukrainians die. That's the privileged position to take when it's not you or your family dying

 

People can argue in circles all day about the cause, but I won’t entertain the idea that Ukraine committed any sort of punishable crime by wanting to choose its own alliances, or that they are “escalating” a war by receiving weapons from allies when Russia has already been doing that.

The point of my comment was that what Putin calls ‘escalation’ is exactly what he is actively doing with his own allies. If Putin doesn’t want Ukraine to receive NATO weapons then he should immediately end all shipments from Iran, North Korea, or China. Why should the aggressor call dibs on support?

The war should be fought until the resistance (Ukrainians) decide that they no longer have to fight. No one else gets to make that call for them. It’s their home.

 

Oh I'm very privileged to not have my home war torn absolutely. It's amazing though the way you seem to justify Russian invasion by making the profound statement that defending one's homeland costs lives. Yes many brave Ukrainians have indeed died defending from invaders(not their fault). War is senseless. It's almost as if invading is the root of the issue here. You can't expect folks to not die for their home. This reads as defense of Russian aggression to me, I really don't understand your point?

 

Any claim that people in this thread want to see more Ukrainians die is a BS statement that should be discarded.

 

I don't want any more Ukrainians to perish defending their homeland. Gee wouldn't it be amazing if Russia ended the invasion today?

 

I shared an article several posts ago that you clearly haven’t read.

“The negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in the early weeks of the Russian invasion — which were held predominantly in Turkey — were another chance to end the war, Darden said. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine had agreed on the outlines of a tentative agreement to halt the conflict. The U.S. and U.K. governments, however, worked to sabotage the deal and prolong the war, according to multiple reports.

By May 2022, Ukrainska Pravda, a pro-Western Ukrainian outlet, reported that former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the West would not support a peace deal even if Ukraine was ready to sign one. The West, Johnson said, preferred to fight Putin because he was less powerful than they thought.”

Progressives Were Pilloried for Wanting to End the Ukraine War in 2022. Things Have Only Gotten Worse.

This could’ve been over years ago.

 

The West would be wrong to end a negotiation deal, and I’d hope Ukraine could go through it if they so wish.

I’d have to see the actual negotiations on paper to believe they were in anyway favorable to Ukraine because none of the outlined negotiations made available to us have been favorable for Ukraine. We all know what Ukraine wants but Putin won’t negotiate with it all on the table.

 

I could see how that claim could be used to push your narrative but I don't believe you can draw a informed conclusion from that without knowing all of the details.

 

“I think it’s safe to say that Ukraine is unable to generate the combat capability needed to achieve military victory, and right now the momentum on the battlefield, despite Ukraine’s push into the Kursk region of Russia, favors Russia,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and international affairs professor at Georgetown University. “Because of that reality, I think that the Ukrainians themselves and Ukraine’s supporters in the West need to have truthful, even if painful, conversations about how to end this war sooner rather than later.” (Again, from this article: Progressives Were Pilloried for Wanting to End the Ukraine War in 2022. Things Have Only Gotten Worse)

Why are you people so enthusiastic for the Ukrainians to fight a war they can't win? Every day this war drags on their negotiating position gets worse and more Ukrainians die.

 

I try not to set the terms of surrender for a country defending its Homeland that I am not a part of. I see that as pretty distasteful.

 

No, what's distasteful is ignorant Westerners supporting tens of thousands of Ukrainians being sent to their deaths fighting a NATO-led proxy war.

 

I think perhaps you view Vladimir Putin is slightly more humanitarian than I would give him credit for

 

or, we read your article, and many, many others pushing the same narrative, and we do not accept it

but what would I know, I'm stupid

 

That is also escalation yes

Fighting back is not escalating. Try this:

Conflict escalation - Wikipedia

 

My point has always been that the West does not act in a way that demonstrates concern for Ukrainian lives. There were policies that could have been enacted to prevent this war and save live, to shorten it and save lives. The West was not interested.

Also, I still find this "right to choose alliances" thing very strange. They actually do not have that right. No one has the right to join NATO. There is an entire accession process that actually excludes many countries for various reasons.

 

I agree with you that the United States does not act in a way that demonstrates concern for Ukrainian lives in the slightest, all while pretending to do so very loudly and very performatively. personally, I think the US is worse towards Ukrainians than a country staying completely neutral and not taking an official stance on this invasion at all, and the only countries treating Ukrainians worse than the US right now would be Russia and any partners directly contributing, like North Korea or Belarus.

I take issue with the framing of that entire narrative in the article though, which has Russia acting and negotiating in good faith and with the noblest of intentions completely baked into it and paints The West as the aggressive and deceptive expansionists when Russia is the one actively invading a neighboring country. it is deeply silly on its face to say that The West wants war more than Russia when Russia is the one actively making war on and invading a neighboring country.

I understand that no country has an explicit right to join NATO or any other alliance for that matter, but countries do have the right to make their own sovereign decisions about security & defense and about which countries or alliances they would choose to work with or attempt to be a part of whether their larger and more powerful neighbor likes it or not.

 

TBF when I read "choose alliances", I didn't necessarily think NATO right away because of that process and rather thought of the economic ties and relationships Ukraine seemed to want with Europe over Russia. That doesn't seem like a valid reason to invade Ukraine and if the US did that to a neighbor just for having stronger economic ties with China or whatever, we'd all be rightfully livid.

 

Would we all also be mad if the US provided covert support to nazis to help overthrow a democratically elected government that chose to have closer ties to Russia?

 

yes, if that happened we would be mad. luckily it didn't.

we would absolutely be mad though if a large powerful country sent soldiers wearing masks and unmarked uniforms into a smaller and less powerful neighboring country to seize strategic sites and invade their territory all while denying that they had any soldiers inside the smaller country at all until changing their tune and then saying oh just kidding those were our soldiers all along and this is actually part of our country now

 

...That's exactly what happened in 2014.

 

I know! I can't believe Russia thought they were fooling anyone with their Little Green Men

so silly