View Poll Results: Whom do you support and to what extent?

Voters
148. You may not vote on this poll
  • I support Ukraine fully.

    103 69.59%
  • I support Russia fully.

    15 10.14%
  • I only support Russia's claim over Crimea.

    4 2.70%
  • I only support Russia's claim over Crimea and Donbass (Luhansk and Donetsk regions).

    11 7.43%
  • Not sure.

    7 4.73%
  • I don't care.

    8 5.41%

Thread: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

  1. #6581
    StarDreamer's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Funny how someone still brings up marshmellow after he further gor discredited by that newyorker interview. The tankie hero that just happens to hold several hour long "discussions" with proto-fascist Orban... Funny how some of these extremes gathering to support Russia don't like to be exposed to be consorting with supposed "opposite" ideologies, when it is all just pro-russia bs.
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein
    https://www.politicalcompass.org/ana...2.38&soc=-3.44 <-- "Dangerous far right bigot!" -SJWs

  2. #6582
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    https://dlca.logcluster.org › plugins
    Ukraine Railway Assessment - View Source
    Ukrainian railway directly borders and cooperates with railways of Russia...Electric traction carries out 93,3 % of all freight and passenger traffic.
    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    Non-electric locomotives sit at 922…That's plenty. Ukraine has plenty of diesel ones they have been using them to man the electrified lines in absence of electricity.
    "Ukraine has plenty of diesel trains"... how do you know? if the destruction of the Ukrainian power grid doesn't let its electric trains run efficiently, it's not what is left of the 922 diesel trains that will be enough to replace them, because certainly many have already been destroyed, not to mention the destruction of railway lines which are essential for transporting heavy war material such as tanks, etc. Isn’t the Russian concerted effort to destroy Ukraine's rail network working? No? only the raping of the Ukrainian people is working well? just as only 13, 000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the Ukrainian war? Ukrainian soldier death toll

    ----
    When Stoltenberg says that “NATO is not party to the conflict”, who doesn't laugh? only you? NATO will not be 'dragged into Putin's war' in Ukraine

    The attacks on the Ukrainian power grid cause huge logistical difficulties for the Ukrainian army. And I find it strange that the NATO alliance demands that Russia behave ethically when is facing an apparently unequal fight, struggling not to be defeated by NATO+ Ukraine +EU. While it is true that there should be no excesses in wars, this rarely happens, if ever. What do you think the US would do if it were at a disadvantage?

    To be fair, Russia hasn't bombed the presidential palace in Kiev yet, but one of the first things NATO did in Serbia was to bomb a residence of the Serbian head of state. Milosevic Not Home as NATO Bombs
    They’re increasingly frustrated, and they want to up the ante by going after more lucrative targets in Belgrade.
    If Russia did that, I can't imagine what would happen.

    When I hear that the attacks on Ukraine's power grid are a war crime, it is an open question, the question of proportionality. Do you know that the US government has consistently opposed an international court that could hold US military and political leaders to a uniform global standard of justice? Can the ICC investigate the US? No, but the US can investigate the ICC and even impose sanctions, as has already happened.

    It is therefore inevitable to remember that war crimes committed by NATO/US are always carefully justified in every possible and imaginary way. Doesn't it make you laugh to remember that the US has already been condemned by the International Criminal Court for the sanctions the superpower imposed on the court itself? Let's see, which is the only country in the world always above the international law?


    Quote Originally Posted by StarDreamer View Post
    Funny how someone still brings up marshmellow after he further gor discredited by that newyorker interview.
    The name is Meirsheimer, he is a realist, not a dreamer. Discredit because he had one-hour meeting with the President of Hungary? what’s the problem? Afterall, Hungary belongs to NATO and the EU.

    American conservatives don't think Orban has leprosy, from what was seen a while back. Orban adresses CPAC on Dallas




    Did you not realize that the sooner a negotiated peace occurs, the less Ukrainian territory Russia will occupy?

    Meirsheimer says and he is right:” The reason the United States used those nuclear weapons was that it was desperate to avoid having to invade the Japanese home islands. If you fast forward to the Ukraine situation, assuming that the Ukrainians are rolling up the Russian forces inside Ukraine and they’re pushing the Russian forces out of Ukraine, it’s easy to imagine the Russians using nuclear weapons in Ukraine because they would not have to fear nuclear retaliation. Ukraine has no nuclear weapon, and the United States is certainly not going to use nuclear weapons if the Russians only use them in Ukraine
    Because the alternative to this is global nuclear war.

    ---
    Allies at odds. Macron, finally, is beginning to realize what is going on: the fragmentation of the western world. Macron warns bluntly that Biden's agenda could "fragment the West”

    The choices made, are choices that will fragment the West because they create such differences between the U.S. and Europe.
    The French leader has argued for months that Biden’s determination to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward Asia means that Europe needs to take greater leadership on the world stage and be less subservient to Washington.
    …Macron noted pointedly that “the cost of the war is not the same in Europe and in the U.S.”
    He also stated, “the United States is primarily looking after the United States. And then looking to their rivalry with China, making France and Europe an adjustment variable"
    That’s it, Europe is nothing more than an adjustment variable and an afterthought.

    Biden keeps ignoring Europe. It's time EU leaders got the message- Politico

    Former United States President Donald Trump was a useful bogeyman for Europe. His successor, Joe Biden, is proving much trickier — a friend who says all the right things but leaves you in the lurch when it counts.

    The underlying dynamic is one of polite indifference. Despite Washington’s renewed commitment to NATO and massive outlay of arms and funds to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, the U.S. remains steadfastly focused on what most perceive to be its main existential challenge: China. In that equation, Europe is often an afterthought.

    Amid an energy crisis that has large parts of the European Union economy staring into an abyss, French President Emmanuel Macron has led the charge against Biden’s IRA, accusing Washington of maintaining a “double standard” on energy and trade.

    what the Europeans are discovering is that the Ukraine war is just one facet of the U.S.’s larger strategic duel with China, which will always take precedence over EU interests.
    That was true under Trump, and it remains true under his successor. It’s just that the message is delivered in a different style.

    In the long run, Biden’s polite indifference may prove more deadly.

    In Washington, Macron

    “The United States produce cheap gas but sell it to us at high price,” Macron told French executives on November 8.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:45 PM. Reason: Derogatory.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  3. #6583

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    The reason for the “93%” was because I read this, and I misunderstood what I was reading,
    The 93% figure is given in context of a single region and that context is made extremely obvious.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    "Ukraine has plenty of diesel trains"... how do you know? if the destruction of the Ukrainian power grid doesn't let its electric trains run efficiently, it's not what is left of the 922 diesel trains that will be enough to replace them, because certainly many have already been destroyed, not to mention the destruction of railway lines which are essential for transporting heavy war material such as tanks, etc. Isn’t the Russian concerted effort to destroy Ukraine's rail network working? No? only the raping of the Ukrainian people is working well? just as only 13, 000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the Ukrainian war? Ukrainian soldier death toll
    Hey, Ludicus. Be careful there. You are venturing away from arguing the validity of targeting electricity infrastructure to hurt train transports there as you start to argue the importance of targeting locomotives and train tracks. Suddenly, there are many other options to hurt Ukrainian military without causing terror to the public. Do you have any data on how many of the diesel locomotives Russia managed to strike so far? From your own source we know for a fact that Ukraine has hundreds of diesel locomotives. That's plenty and we have a source for that. Where is your source that Russia managed to destroy hundreds of them already. What's really not working is your defense of Russia's raping of Ukraine.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    When Stoltenberg says that “NATO is not party to the conflict”, who doesn't laugh? only you? NATO will not be 'dragged into Putin's war' in Ukraine
    The attacks on the Ukrainian power grid cause huge logistical difficulties for the Ukrainian army. And I find it strange that the NATO alliance demands that Russia behave ethically when is facing an apparently unequal fight, struggling not to be defeated by NATO+ Ukraine +EU. While it is true that there should be no excesses in wars, this rarely happens, if ever. What do you think the US would do if it were at a disadvantage?
    To be fair, Russia hasn't bombed the presidential palace in Kiev yet, but one of the first things NATO did in Serbia was to bomb a residence of the Serbian head of state. Milosevic Not Home as NATO Bombs
    They’re increasingly frustrated, and they want to up the ante by going after more lucrative targets in Belgrade.
    If Russia did that, I can't imagine what would happen.
    When I hear that the attacks on Ukraine's power grid are a war crime, it is an open question, the question of proportionality. Do you know that the US government has consistently opposed an international court that could hold US military and political leaders to a uniform global standard of justice? Can the ICC investigate the US? No, but the US can investigate the ICC and even impose sanctions, as has already happened.
    It is therefore inevitable to remember that war crimes committed by NATO/US are always carefully justified in every possible and imaginary way. Doesn't it make you laugh to remember that the US has already been condemned by the International Criminal Court for the sanctions the superpower imposed on the court itself? Let's see, which is the only country in the world always above the international law?
    Ah, the audaciousness of the argument that bi-weekly Ukrainian civilian infrastructure targeting by Russian cruise missiles is a rare occurrence. No matter how you try to shift focus from the rapists you defend it doesn't matter. NATO soldiers could be shooting babies on the streets of Belgrade in 1995 and it wouldn't change the moral validity of what you're arguing here. You have deliberately, yet poorly, lied in defense of Russia's attacks on civilians. TWC have never seen such a religious and disgusting defense of any issue at any point of its lifetime. It's mind boggling to witness.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:46 PM. Reason: Continuity/disruptive.
    The Armenian Issue

  4. #6584
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    The 93% figure is given in context of a single region and that context is made extremely obvious. I
    When I was initially researching the percentage of electrification of the Ukrainian electrical grid, this came up, and I misunderstood that it is not the whole percentage, just a part of it.

    https://dlca.logcluster.org › plugins
    Ukraine Railway Assessment - View Source
    Ukrainian railway directly borders and cooperates with railways of Russia...Electric traction carries out 93,3 % of all freight and passenger traffic.

    -----
    Do you have any data on how many of the diesel locomotives Russia managed to strike so far?
    None? certainly not. But, curiously, you know that the actual (unknown) number of diesel trains are enough to make up for the transportation deficiencies caused by the bombing of the Ukrainian power grid. That's a bold assertion. From what you say, it can be assumed that the Russians don't target Ukrainian trains or the rail networks, and that the bombing of the power grid has no effect on rail transport, which is mainly done by electric trains, which are the most numerous. They are merely experts at raping the Ukrainian people.


    bi-weekly Ukrainian civilian infrastructure targeting by Russian cruise missiles is a rare occurrence
    Probably not. But the question is, they do spend millions to selectively target civil buildings? The ones that are hit by anti-aircraft defense are many, and they will fall where? they don't count?

    NATO soldiers could be shooting babies on the streets of Belgrade in 1995 and it wouldn't change the moral validity of what you're arguing here.
    Really? but it is a pity that I have never heard you speak of the atrocities committed then, or during the multiple wars and American/NATO invasions around the world, over all these years in this forum. Just show me one post of yours making that condemnation.

    TWC have never seen such a religious and disgusting defense of any issue at any point of its lifetime
    I can say the same about your religious and disgusting conviction about the good guys and bad guys in this story, but there are no good guys and bad guys here, what is happening is also a proxy war in the attempt of NATO/US to achieve world hegemony.
    ---
    Even Macron understands what's happening, Macron says new security architecture should give guarantees for Russia

    The West should consider how to address Russia's need for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine

    Macron said Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture.

    "This means that one of the essential points we must address - as President Putin has always said - is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia," Macron said.


    Macron's remarks suggested he was sympathetic to Moscow's need for security guarantees - a demand that was the focus of intense but failed diplomacy in the run-up to the war.

    On Feb. 8, just weeks before Russia's invasion, Putin said at a joint news conference with Macron in Moscow that Russia would keep trying to obtain answers from the West to its main three security demands: no more NATO enlargement; no missile deployments near its borders; and a scaling back of NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels.
    --
    Edit, in fact, as Macron has put it,Europe is a mere adjustment variable and an afterthought.

    History teaches that the OSCE - the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - is gone. The current war in Ukraine would be an opportunity for OSCE intervention - after all it is a conflict in Europe. But nothing. Already in NATO's attack on Serbia and the dismantling of Yugoslavia the OSCE was nowhere to be seen. As the Soviet period came to an end and the OSCE, a key element of the détente process during the Cold War, was replaced by the US in the conduct of the Cold War process.
    Still in Paris and in 1990, the then US Secretary of State, John Baker, warned the US president that "it is precisely the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe that could pose a real threat to NATO" (and NATO was the US mask).
    For history would remain the phrase " the European Union" uttered in February 2014 by Vitoria Nuland in a telephone conversation with the American ambassador in Kiev about the future of the country.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:41 PM. Reason: Insulting.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  5. #6585
    antaeus's Avatar Cool and normal
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    And then the question is always "why do nations seek to join NATO?"

    They aren't asked to join. They seek to join. Why is this the case?
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB MARENOSTRUM

  6. #6586

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by antaeus View Post
    And then the question is always "why do nations seek to join NATO?"

    They aren't asked to join. They seek to join. Why is this the case?
    Obviously they've been tricked by the evil west to a join a future war against poor oppressed Russia.

  7. #6587
    Stario's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2 View Post
    One can't make this argument, because no one asked the people there before the separatists took over and killed and tortured anyone who disagreed.
    Is that what CNN told you.😆


    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2
    A person choosing to ignore you is not cancel culture.
    ...deleting and/or banning my social media posts, sensoring me and/or freezing my bank account because I have an alternative opinion is 'cancel culture'...

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    Putin has no right to claim any country as his buffer zone. In the free world we have this principle that countries can take a look at the options and approach whomever they think they might have the best ride with.
    To my understanding DPR and LPR did not want to be part of Ukraine (yet Ukraine declared an "Anti Terrorist operation" and commenced shelling the region since 2014).


    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis
    what Russia offers its own people and does to others makes it a no-brainer that the ride would be better with the west
    I dunno perhaps, perhaps not...used to think so 💯% but not so sure now.
    I ain't a big fan of 'cancel culture', the 'woke' movement, and things such as digital vax passports/digital passports/no right to bodily integrity and the appalling way countries such as Murica, Canada, New Zealand, Australia etc...treated those who declined experimental vaccines...
    Also seen many a livelihoods/businesses destroyed here in the west due to lockdown mandates over last two years.
    ...And then there is that unelected organisation called WEF - "a rot" on the world economy...
    The west is very sick right now imo, and I am not sure if the "ride" is all that good...might be less shitier but still s*hit🤒

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus
    ...there are no good guys and bad guys here, what is happening is also a proxy war in the attempt of NATO/US to achieve world hegemony
    This is fairly spot on👍
    Last edited by Stario; December 04, 2022 at 01:28 AM.

  8. #6588
    nhytgbvfeco2's Avatar Praefectus
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Stario View Post
    Is that what CNN told you.😆
    Feel free to enlighten us on what legal referendum took place before some terrorist groups funded and supported by Russia declared secession.


    ...deleting and/or banning my social media posts, sensoring me and/or freezing my bank account because I have an alternative opinion is 'cancel culture'...
    Is that what he's doing by ignoring your posts? Did not realise Cyclops had such powers. Now I'm scared.
    To my understanding DPR and LPR did not want to be part of Ukraine (yet Ukraine declared an "Anti Terrorist operation" and commenced shelling the region since 2014).
    How did Russia react when Ichkeria didn't want to be part of Russia?
    Also, their "desire for independence" is not evidenced by anything. Some armed thugs took over, held a "vote" at gunpoint, and managed a voter turnout of, what was it, 34%?

    This is fairly spot on👍
    Yea lmfao makes perfect sense, and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a proxy war by Russia to assert global hegemony. Actually, I think we can sum the Russian invasion of Ukraine up as an act of aggression by Tuvalu.

  9. #6589
    Kyriakos's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Even if
    a)US sells vast amounts of weapons to euro countries (as it has started to do again, on account of the proxy war vs Russia)
    b)almost half of Europe (Russia is the other half, and I don't see Belarus being in nato either) ends up permanently in nato
    this still does nothing to change the geography of things, which dictates than any Russia-China block will always dominate Eurasia. So ultimately, unless US's core goal is to sell more weapons and protect its own military industry, the numbers simply don't add up to control of resource-rich countries in Eurasia.
    Λέων μεν ὄνυξι κρατεῖ, κέρασι δε βούς, ἄνθρωπος δε νῷι
    "While the lion prevails with its claws, and the ox through its horns, man does by his thinking"
    Anaxagoras of Klazomenae, 5th century BC










  10. #6590

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    When I was initially researching the percentage of electrification of the Ukrainian electrical grid, this came up, and I misunderstood that it is not the whole percentage, just a part of it.
    https://dlca.logcluster.org › plugins
    Ukraine Railway Assessment - View Source
    Ukrainian railway directly borders and cooperates with railways of Russia...Electric traction carries out 93,3 % of all freight and passenger traffic.
    No, you didn't just misunderstood.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    None? certainly not. But, curiously, you know that the actual (unknown) number of diesel trains are enough to make up for the transportation deficiencies caused by the bombing of the Ukrainian power grid. That's a bold assertion. From what you say, it can be assumed that the Russians don't target Ukrainian trains or the rail networks, and that the bombing of the power grid has no effect on rail transport, which is mainly done by electric trains, which are the most numerous. They are merely experts at raping the Ukrainian people.
    A page ago you yourself gave the number of diesel locomotives, at 922, so no, not unknown number of diesel locomotives. You are completely altering what I said to make a case for yourself. Every single point you said there is not grounded on my posts, your posts or the sources.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    Probably not. But the question is, they do spend millions to selectively target civil buildings? The ones that are hit by anti-aircraft defense are many, and they will fall where? they don't count?
    A moment ago you claimed it is so. Now you're saying its probably not. Yikes.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    Really? but it is a pity that I have never heard you speak of the atrocities committed then, or during the multiple wars and American/NATO invasions around the world, over all these years in this forum. Just show me one post of yours making that condemnation.
    Completely irrelevant.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    I can say the same about your religious and disgusting conviction about the good guys and bad guys in this story, but there are no good guys and bad guys here, what is happening is also a proxy war in the attempt of NATO/US to achieve world hegemony.
    You can't with a straight face. We do have better guys and worse guys in this conflict and the distance between them is quite far and wide. I am not the one literally defending terrorization of the civilians. You are.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:48 PM. Reason: Disruptive.
    The Armenian Issue

  11. #6591
    Mithradates's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    The West should consider how to address Russia's need for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine
    Let me just quote ISW:

    ISW has extensively documented how the Kremlin demanded “security guarantees” and declared “lines” as part of the ultimatum it presented the US and NATO before launching the February 2022 invasion. Russia’s demanded security guarantees entail partially dismantling NATO by returning NATO to its 1997 borders, and grants Russia a veto on future NATO expansion by demanding NATO suspend its “Open Door” policy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred to these precise demands on December 1, as ISW previously reported. The Russian demand for supposed “security guarantees” is part of a larger Russian information operation that portrays NATO as having provoked the 2022 Russian invasion by threatening Russia. The security guarantees that Ukraine, NATO, and the rest of Europe would accept from Russia following the Kremlin’s unprovoked and brutal war of conquest against Ukraine might be a more appropriate topic of conversation for Western leaders considering negotiations with Moscow.

  12. #6592

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by antaeus View Post
    They aren't asked to join. They seek to join. Why is this the case?
    Why indeed aren't countries lining up to seek security and cooperation with Russia instead of NATO?

    Quote Originally Posted by Stario View Post
    ...deleting and/or banning my social media posts, sensoring me and/or freezing my bank account because I have an alternative opinion is 'cancel culture'...
    Russia has just made it known that having an alternate opinion there can get you 15 years of imprisonment or a role as cannonfodder. I hate the woke stuff and the excesses of our left, too, but I don't want to fight a cancer by getting rabies.

  13. #6593

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    I very much recommend you read this, The “Moscow Rules”: Ten Principles for Working with Russia. It was written in 2019, before the war, and rings very true now as the events have unfolded. From the introduction:

    Russia’s actions and statements are guided by an understanding of the world that is consistent, and consistently expressed. And yet, they repeatedly cause surprise, alarm and dismay in Western capitals.

    Western leaders often find it hard to understand that Russian assumptions persist unchanged: that Moscow believes in a hierarchical, rather than rules-based view of international relations, spheres of influence and the limited sovereignty of neighbours, the ‘right’ to a defence perimeter extending into or well beyond the territory of others, a right to oversight of countries where Russian ‘compatriots’ reside, and a default to Darwinian assumptions when these principles are not accepted.

    This lack of comprehension of the fundamentally different Russian approach to international relations leads to errors that recur time and again in Western assessments of what Russia might do next, and how the West can best manage the relationship with Moscow.
    EDIT: It is a concise article that takes very little time to read and is, in my opinion, worth yours.

    https://icds.ee/en/the-moscow-rules-ten-principles-for-working-with-russia/
    Last edited by Septentrionalis; December 04, 2022 at 05:18 PM.

  14. #6594
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    It is not really relevant whether the percentage of electric trains in Ukraine is 90% or 60%, or how many trains have been destroyed. What is important to know is that the destruction of the rail network is not insignificant.

    As of June 8, the Kyiv School of Economics estimates that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused some $2.7 billion in damage to railway.

    Last August, “Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, infrastructural destruction includes the destruction of at least 24 000 kilometers of roads, 6 000 railway lines and 41 railway bridges” Ukrainian infrastructure damage - Railway Supply

    Six months later, any update is welcome
    ----
    Finally, some good news?
    Survey: Americans want to scale back military entanglements
    According to a new poll, perhaps not surprisingly, many Americans across party lines would like the U.S. to have a less interventionist and meddlesome foreign policy.
    What the survey shows quite clearly is that there is a large segment of the electorate whose views are barely represented in the political and policy debates in Washington.
    It is time for the US to care more about the socio-economic welfare of its citizens, and less about its role as the world's policeman: Biden just now remembered to include Cuba (which was already blacklisted as a sponsor of terrorism) in the new blacklist of countries which do not respect religious freedom, and Blinken says, “The United States will not stand by in the face of these abuses".

    This is a perfect joke, if we remember that year after year, U.N. votes to support the resolution against the U.S.-imposed embargo.This year was the 30th consecutive vote in which the global community once again condemned the cruel, unjust, and illegal U.S. blockade against Cuba and once again, the U.S. stand alone. This year, 185-2 vote was similar to previous years. (Only in 2016 Obama broke with 25 years of US’ opposition to the resolution by abstaining on the UN vote)

    As Macron says, for the American foreign policy, Europe is an adjustment variable, an afterthought. And he adds that Europe must accommodate Russia. These wise statements caused a political earthquake in Europe, and I heard some political commentators today asking in outrage if Macron has gone mad after returning from Washington.
    --
    Ah, and Europe is sinking even deeper economically, by shooting itself in the foot, now that the Arab countries have joined Russia (OPEC+) after Europe imposed a price cap at $60 ceiling on the price of Russian oil, which will no longer be sold to Europe at the end of this month. The Arab countries, which do not like the US or Europe, will profit even more.

    I don't have time today, but tomorrow I will deal in depth with the topic of the Ukrainian war.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:42 PM. Reason: Insulting.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  15. #6595

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    It is not really relevant whether the percentage of electric trains in Ukraine is 90% or 60%, or how many trains have been destroyed. What is important to know is that the destruction of the rail network is not insignificant.
    As of June 8, the Kyiv School of Economics estimates that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused some $2.7 billion in damage to railway.
    Last August, “Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, infrastructural destruction includes the destruction of at least 24 000 kilometers of roads, 6 000 railway lines and 41 railway bridges” Ukrainian infrastructure damage - Railway Supply
    Six months later, any update is welcome
    In your attempts to contradict everything I say and to defend Russia's raping of Ukraine, you have dug a deep hole here. No one argued that Russia's strikes on rail network was insignificant. In fact, it was given as a viable alternative for Russia to target. However, by arguing that it was significant you undermined your argument on Russia's need of targeting Ukrainian electricity grid to hurt Ukrainian railway. I did warn you about that earlier. This made it even more clear that you defended Russia's targeting of civilians just for the sake of defending Russia and not as a logical place of thought.

    Meanwhile in Kherson:

    Photos: The emotional scenes as the 1st train from Kyiv arrives in liberated Kherson
    So when Kherson, liberated nearly two weeks ago from eight months of brutal Russian occupation, greeted its first passenger train from Kyiv on Saturday, it was a moment to celebrate.


    Ukrainian Railways staff prepare for departure from Mykolaiv on the train headed to Kherson. The train was fitted with improvised armor and pushed empty cars ahead of it as precautionary measures.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 04, 2022 at 05:43 PM. Reason: Continuity.
    The Armenian Issue

  16. #6596
    Abdülmecid I's Avatar ˇAy Carmela!
    Moderation Overseer Civitate Patrician

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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    No insults please. Also, for the umpteenth time, discuss the conflict and its repercussions, not the alleged motivations of your interlocutors. Next comment that claims another member is spreading propaganda/lying intentionally/being manipulated by a puppet-master gets an official warning for defying moderation.

  17. #6597

    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    https://www.newsweek.com/russian-sta...-war-3-1764477

    She later added: "Either we win in the way we consider our victory, or there will be World War III, sooner or later. I don't see any other way."
    I see another option in three steps:

    1: Russia is driven out of Ukraine.

    2: Every European nation bordering Russia joins NATO, crushing Russia's dreams of empire.

    3: Russia seethes.

  18. #6598
    antaeus's Avatar Cool and normal
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by Coughdrop addict View Post
    https://www.newsweek.com/russian-sta...-war-3-1764477



    I see another option in three steps:

    1: Russia is driven out of Ukraine.

    2: Every European nation bordering Russia joins NATO, crushing Russia's dreams of empire.

    3: Russia seethes.
    Russia is really the only party here that has agency over the end of the war. Ukraine can't unilaterally stop fighting and survive. Russia can at any point.

    In this respect one outcome is a kind of North Korea style armistice, where Russia is largely driven out of Ukraine, but never officially ends the war.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB MARENOSTRUM

  19. #6599
    Stario's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2
    Feel free to enlighten us on what legal referendum took place before some terrorist groups funded and supported by Russia declared secession.
    I know Zelenskyy and CNN said it was terrorist and the Ukrainians at the time even called it an "Anti-Terrorist Operation" and NOT war (ironic eh!?).
    But remember this is the same despot that banned all major opposition parties of Ukraine and lied when he tried to claim Russia fired a missile into Poland when in fact it was Ukraine that was responsible.

    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2
    Is that what he's doing by ignoring your posts? Did not realise Cyclops had such powers. Now I'm scared.
    Some user on a game forum muting another =/= "cancel culture". I think you missed the point completely here...

    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2
    Some armed thugs took over, held a "vote" at gunpoint, and managed a voter turnout of, what was it, 34%?
    Because you've read it on Wikipedia or heard it on CNN so it must be true!?


    Quote Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2
    Yea lmfao makes perfect sense, and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a proxy war by Russia to assert global hegemony.
    In fact Putin (at the time) made a public declaration, condemning the onset of the US invasion of Iraq as a “great political error."

  20. #6600
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

    Macron says Europe needs to prepare how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table, and Scholz
    urges diplomacy. We must avoid dividing world into Cold War-style blocs | Reuters
    ----
    Yuri Slezkine, Russian historian and scholar of the creation of the nationalities that made up the Soviet Union Yuri Slezkine, was in Lisbon two days ago for a conference on the Soviet empire (UC BerkeleyHistory Department)
    RUSSIA: IMPERIAL BREAKS AND CONTINUITIES - Culturgest

    Y. Slezkine made an analysis of the development of Soviet politics, from the October Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall, passing through the Soviet opposition to Nazi Germany and the relationship with the USA. Slezkyne says, in an interview to “Publico”,
    “The West has repeatedly sent Russia to the devil”, Ocidente mandou “várias vezes a Rússia para o diabo”

    In the Soviet Union, he says, the idea was that nationalism was a false consciousness, a bourgeois smokescreen to hide what really mattered, which was the class struggle. Russians were underrepresented in the party leadership in the early years, which changed in the late 1930s. It was a truly cosmopolitan organization. The goal was to institute ethnic boundaries, ethnic promotions, ethnic preferences, ethnic elites, ethnically defined territories. A book was written with the title The Affirmative Action Empire - De Gruyter

    It was certainly the first deliberately constructed ethno-territorial federation, with each individual classified by nationality, including a policy of indigenization, which we can define as the promotion of people based on their ethnic origin.

    A Soviet leader called the Soviet Union in the 1920s a communal apartment. Like communal apartments where there is a family in each room, and everyone shares the kitchen and bathroom.
    At the end of the Soviet Union, the residents barricaded their doors, switched to using the windows, while the guy in the middle (Russia), was left scratching his head wondering what he was going to do. Today Russia is an apartment by right, but it is different from all the other divisions, since Russia is the only multinational federation.

    There were two reasons why this war was launched. One has to do with NATO and the United States, and the other has to do with Ukraine. The Bolsheviks somehow created artificial borders, made arbitrary decisions, like transferring Crimea to Ukraine.
    The point is that Ukraine is a patchwork and a recent creation.

    These are the two reasons for the invasion: on the one hand, Ukraine was being turned into a Western satellite, and on the other hand, the Eastern Russian-speaking population was being converted into Ukrainians. Ukraine was clearly being transformed into a mono-ethnic state.
    At first, Putin wanted to perhaps reverse the installed regime in Ukraine and turn it into a pro-Russian regime. Now the plan is to occupy as much of the Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian territory as possible. In 2014, a substantial proportion of eastern Ukrainians were strongly pro-Russian, and anti-Kiev.
    Over these eight years, this sentiment is even more intense. It is very difficult to imagine their reincorporation into Ukraine. It is not enough to accept one-sided propaganda. The Western media adopted the Ukrainian line without questioning it.
    The Ukrainians have been getting weapons from NATO for 8 years, long before Putin decided to launch this war.
    One of the reasons Russia launched this war was that the US and NATO in general were arming Ukraine. The West was saying that Ukraine was not going to be part of NATO anytime soon, but in the meantime was sending them arms to make it a de facto member.

    After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia genuinely wanted to be part of Europe - there was the slogan "from Lisbon to Vladivostok" - it was the dream of many people, including all sorts of leaders, as well as Putin. Obviously, Russia was rejected.

    Historical insensitivity on the part of the West has contributed to this, but more importantly Russia is too big to be part of an alliance.

    But what happened, as Slekzine says, is that they sent Russia to the devil several times.

    You can't imagine any country facing an approach from a clearly hostile military alliance and telling it to advance its borders and point missiles at its territory. You can't imagine that with the US.
    What is different about the Cuba crisis is that both sides have made concessions.

    In 2014, the Russian military could, if it wanted to, have conquered this area that it is now trying to conquer. Putin chose not to do so. At the time, it seems that Putin did not want to take any part of Ukraine, with the exception of Crimea. He wanted to make sure that the Donbass remained pro-Russian, autonomous, and acted as a guarantee against Ukrainian entry into NATO.
    If this plan had worked, there would be no war.

    The invasion was not the result of a long-term plan by Russia. If not for the promise in Bucharest (the 2008 NATO summit) to eventually accept Ukraine.

    If the country that borders yours is extremely hostile and wants to join a hostile military alliance, and is getting stronger every day, we have a problem. They don't have to join NATO, they are already part of NATO.

    Slezkine says that, as a historian, he cannot imagine any Russian ruler saying that if Ukraine wants to join a hostile military alliance, it has the right to do so. The only reason to submit to something like that is to think that you are too weak to resist. Obviously, Putin did not think that being too weak to resist.

    Besides being an empire because it is a multinational state, Russia is also an empire because it sees itself as a sovereign actor. If NATO is getting closer and more hostile, it all depends on whether Russia considers itself strong enough to resist. Russia thinks it is.
    Last edited by Ludicus; December 05, 2022 at 09:02 AM.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

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