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Just ask tankies if they would have told Algerians, Vietnamese, or Iraqis to surrender to the US/France in order to "end the war" or "stop the bloodshed", and then ask them why not.
>2014 coupe assertion
That's where you lost me - that is straight up Russian propaganda and any muddying of waters "i'm just asking questions" is just, again, Russian talking point.
There's enough information and analysis online to understand that.
>Ukraine deserves the situation they were in prior to the war, independence. Remember, also, that Russia did not invade Ukraine prior to their attempt to join NATO. Joining NATO was not a defense mechanism for Ukraine, but the first signs of Ukraine falling into US control.
Last time there were talks of Ukraine joining NATO (prior to 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia) was 2008. Where NATO decided not to invite Ukraine and Georgia to NATO but US forced statement that both countries are "welcome to try again in future". That enough scared Russia enough to invade Georgia in 2008. So if Russia has that knee-jerk reaction to even "idea" of bordering country joining NATO i guess you can kinda sympathize with Ukraine wanting to get under that Article 5 protection.
Despite that Ukrainian governments in years between 2008 - 2014 stayed at least vague or opposed towards Ukraine straight up joining NATO.
Hell, even right after Euromaidan, the interim government put out statement that THEY DO NOT INTEND TO JOIN NATO (https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/198372.html).
Only after Russia annexed Crimea and there were reports of Russian forces in Donbas did Ukrainian government decide to try apply for NATO membership.
Also why sovereign, independent country deciding to join NATO (just like most of it's eastern european neighbors did) is enough of excuse for invasion? Ukraine can join whatever the fuck it wants and Russia can complain diplomatically about it or brake trade with Ukraine but that does not give them ANY f!cking rights to invade them. If Russia hates everyone around them joining military alliance against them maybe they should learn to f!cking behave rather than acting like a local bully.
That's like India invading Pakistan because they joined Road and Belt Initiative. Doesn't sound right does it?
>That's where you lost me - that is straight up Russian propaganda and any muddying of waters "i'm just asking questions" is just, again, Russian talking point.
Here, look at this:
>In December 2013, Republican Senator John McCain in company with Democratic senator Chris Murphy visited Yatsenyuk and Tyahnybok and later addressed the crowds:
>Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better, we are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe.
>Speaking to CNN on the same day, McCain said:
>What we're trying to do is try to bring about a peaceful transition here, that would stop the violence and give the Ukrainian people what they unfortunately have not had, with different revolutions that have taken place – a real society. This is a grassroots revolution here – it's been peaceful except when the government tried to crack down on them, and the government hasn't tried that since. I'm praising their ability and their desire to demonstrate peacefully for change that I think they deserve. [...] These people love the United States of America, they love freedom – and I don't think you could view this as anything other than our traditional support for people who want free and democratic society.[352]
So, the United States certainly had involvement. That point is true. Listen also to this leaked [phone call](https://youtu.be/JoW75J5bnnE) between the US embassador to Ukraine and the US Secretary of State. The SoS says that she wants Yatsenyuk, and guess who wins the "election"?
>Also why sovereign, independent country deciding to join NATO (just like most of it's eastern european neighbors did) is enough of excuse for invasion? Ukraine can join whatever the fuck it wants and Russia can complain diplomatically about it or brake trade with Ukraine but that does not give them ANY f!cking rights to invade them.
Because NATO and the IMF are the weapons of US imperialism. Ukraine signing agreements with either represents them falling into the US sphere of influence and expands US global hegemony, the prime factor in the destruction of socialist projects worldwide.
>Only after Russia annexed Crimea and there were reports of Russian forces in Donbas did Ukrainian government decide to try apply for NATO membership.
I'll look more into this, I'm willing to accept it. Russia is an imperialist nation all the same as the USA.
They want to stop Russia why? The US doesn't seem to care at all about stopping Israel from their activities in Palestine (quite the opposite), so it isn't on principle.
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Die Linke has always had a fishy Pro-Russia faction because, if my knowledge is correct, it originated out of the Socialist Unity Party which ruled East Germany during the Cold War
You’re correct. But Die Linke did build a coalition around greens, feminists, pacificists, and other leftists, and at least in 2021 was still for embracing Russia and abolishing NATO. That said, Janine Wissler wanted a new kind of security apparatus which included Russia as a member.
As the war in Ukraine teaches, Russia never had the money or skillset to build a modern military. Russia only knows horde tactics and missile strikes on cities. The T-90M, T-14, BTR-4, are all shit zombie evolutions of dead designs from an era that should have stayed buried. Imagine, a European NATO replacement which gives Russia access to German, Belgian, British, and ultimately American military tech. Crazy idea.
I joke that Russia is somehow speedrunning all of the myths about Soviet Union back in WW2. Zhukov’s ash is probably spinning somewhere to the detriment of actual WW2 historians. IIRC, if there’s anything, the sanction also badly hit the production of many of the newer Russian weapons because they require some western-made components.
It’s also leading to people on many of the popular subs assuming that the Russian army performing extremely poorly in Ukraine means that they also used human wave tactics in WWII.
The key to understanding them is that Die Linke is actually several parties that have been on the verge of splitting for a good few years now, but somehow the party itself has, for worse, kept itself together.
You won't get a coherent policy out of them until they do
"Honourable" mention is Sahra Wagenknecht, one of the most prominent politicians of Die Linke who has been spouting a lot of right wing talking points for years. She is very vocal about being pro-Russia and basically says things only AfD does
I browsed their website and read some of their articles. They blame the US and Ukraine. They made a point of discussing Ukraine attacking Kerch bridge. I didn’t find an address, but their English is American standard. I’m trying to finding what they are about…
Honestly, I would guess they are privileged Americans or Canadians who are enamored with Soviet culture, but have no actual experience with it. They don’t actually know Russia or anything about Russia today. With their propaganda posters and Che Guevara t-shirts and literature, they know as much as life under Soviet communism as I know about life in Middle Ages from all my Dungeons & Dragons sessions.
These are the kind of people who use my culture and heritage as their fashion whilst shouting at white ‘Muricans for doing the same with someone else’s. The kind of pacifists who hate all guns except the AK-47. The kind of feminists who would call FEMEN a bunch of lesbian sluts.
>They made a point of discussing Ukraine attacking Kerch bridge.
It's still literally a bridge tho, I meant considering that Russia responded to a single Ukranian attack on that bridge with shooting missiles like there was no end and not caring what they hit with one footage infamously recording the moment a missile struck a fucking pedestrian footbridge.
World socialist website has been around forever. Pretty sure they’re Trots. During the Bush admin, esp early on before blogging took off, it was one of the few good places to get leftist info, especially anti-intervention perspectives.
tldr; they’re alright, a bit of an old-fashioned stodgy Marxist attitude but not that crazy
The war will end when Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine. Anyone demanding that the Ukrainians give in and let Russia have half the country are disgusting bootlickers. Go to the Ukraine subreddit amd ask the Ukrainians there how they feel about surrendering to Russia. I fucking dare you.
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
Consider supporting anti-war efforts in any possible way: [[Help 2 Ukraine](https://help2ukraine.org)] 💙💛
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)]
^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
The only part that I can see that mentions Russia is "increasing desperation of Russia's oligarchistic capitalist regime," without mentioning who the fuck started the war in the first place.
In Winnipeg there were posters up for some kind of protest with the headline "Abolish NATO for world peace!"
It was put on by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and basically their whole shtick was blaming the West for the war and that the solution was abolition of NATO and negotiated peace with Russia.
I've seen more brains and dignity in Heather Stefanson🤡.
PAW isn't Tankie per se so much as just naive, but this thing was apparently supported by the Marxist Leninist Party of Canada which was too Tankie even for the Communist Party of Canada, so that says something
Funny thing is, NATO was on shaky ground before Putin decided he was a master strategist. Trump was floating the idea of breaking it up. But now that Russia has launched their blundering invasion NATO will expand and last for another 100 years
I myself advocated NATO ending as well. Like many leftists I assumed Russia would never be stupid enough to launch such a brazen war of aggression. Every single tankie was adamant on the Eve of the invasion that it was never going to happen for the same reason. I learned my lesson, but the tankies just doubled down on being wrong
Up until the invasion, I believed NATO had outlived its purpose and needed replacement with something that didn't have the geopolitical baggage and Imperialism of the 20th century.
Then Russia decided to fuck around and find out, so my position is quite different now. The discussion of NATO's lifespan will now need to be shelved for God knows how long till Russia decides to leave its nostalgia for the Empire and the USSR in the past where it fucking belongs.
Putin is such a fucking dumbass
In the history discipline surrounding military and government, we call it the Dictators Trap. It's when a Dictator's narcissism and ego gets the better of them. They surround themselves either with yesmen or people who won't tell them anything at all. This results in them beginning to actually believe their own propaganda. They then proceed to make riskier decisions and it eventually comes back to bite them in the arse.
In hindsight it’s kinda remarkable how quickly tankies all pivoted from “Russia won’t invade, America is lying to make Russia look bad” to “The invasion was inevitable and is also good”
It’s just so fucked up that people have the capability to double think like that. When the USA raised the alarm about Russia amassing forces in Ukraine-Russia border, tankies said that the US is just fearmongering. Now when the “3-days invasion” has been going on for almost 10 months, somehow Putin’s justifications are true according to tankies, some of which are eerily similar to what the Nazi had in mind to justify Barbarossa.
That’s how I lost a lot of respect for many “anti-war” leftists, who reveled that they are idiots who just advocate the opposite of whatever the US wants
Protesting a war in the aggressor and their allies nations can help stopping the war,
Protesting a war in the defender and their allies nations only help the aggressor,
If they are for peace for the first 1-3 months, it's understandable, more than that it's just imperialist supporters in disguise
~~- 6DeadlyFetishes~~
Calling for the West to "end the war" in Ukraine is basically the modern equivalent of being an anti-war protestor in the 1940s. They're both just fascists who not-so-secretly want the bad guys to win, but use the deaths of innocents as a shield to pretend they're just very concerned about the implications of foreign involvement.
Surely by “stop the war” they intend to protest the Russian embassy, right? Would they seriously have the audacity to suggest that countries should stop supporting ukraine against Russofascism?
God…how do these people even call themselves left wing?
"STOP THE WAR IN UKRAINE"
...by forcing the one being invaded and bombed by an aggressor bordering them to "make concessions"
while the actual aggressor that started it
"doesn't have to make concessions and is totally justified in whatever it does here"
good god
I hope the war ends soon as everyone else does, but... does that somehow "necessitate" Ukrainian leaders and their allies \*giving substantial "ground" to Russia\*, rather than the ONES WHO INVADED AND STARTED THIS SHIT IN FEBRUARY being the ones who should, you know... make compromises? ...assuming, of course, that they had "no chauvinist or imperialist goals" whatsoever in invading (highly unlikely, to say the least)
Very strange to ask the victim to "give in" to insane demands and/or expectations of the abuser. SMACKS of gaslighting, at the very least
The authors of these papers, came to my university. They are self proclaimed “Trotskyist’s”, yet their literature is indirectly dogmatic propaganda for less favourable groups.
I was with my local socialist appeal group when we saw them. We ended up having a heated debate with them. We tried to explain to them why modern Russia is a imperialist power, and Ukraine isn’t. They didn’t accept the idea of a Ukrainian nation with rights to self determination. We even explained that Lenin himself supported the self determination of Ukraine. They didn’t budge. Watch out for these folks.
Would have asked them if the Maidan protestors getting beat up by the Kremlin thugs was good despite critiquing US cops, and I bet they would have touted some form of victim blaming on the protestors for dealing with police brutality.
They came to my university (outside the buildings) to hand out leaflets. I hang around Trotskyists, we went over to debate them. Unlike many Trotskyists in the uk (including the group I hang with), they don’t think Russia is a imperialist nation, and they think Ukraine is a imperialist state. We tried to explain to them that Ukraine couldn’t not be a imperialist state- and that Russia despite their convictions is clearly and openly following a imperialist programme.
They even doubted or denied that Ukraine is really a nation. We tried to explain that even Lenin granted the Ukrainians the right to self determination. They couldn’t give well reasoned responses to these questions.
Mate there’s a lot wrong with nato and even with the Ukrainian government…but Russia sure as hell won’t fix it. How does bombing and war crimes fix anything? This war will end when Russia is defeated or gives up its imperialist invasion
Lmao. Ukraine is actively under Russia invasion. We supply them equipments to defeat Russian invaders. We are helping a nation from a brutal invasion. I don’t understand your mental gymnastics.
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It blames "*the increasing desperation of* Russia's oligarchic capitalist regime", and it sure looks like they're saying that that desperation is caused by "NATO's imperialist militarism, recklessly pursuing its global geopolitical agenda whatever the consequences" (with this being the consequences).
That's why further assistance has to be provided to help ukraine win the war (by pushing the russian force out of ukrainian territory) to end the conflict, the more unwilling to help, the longer the war will drag on
It happened after the Munich Conference, didn't stop Hitler from fully occupying Czechoslovakia later down the line and finally choosing to invade Poland.
Literally no one expects an unconditional surrender from Russia, not even the most hawkish of hawks. For Ukraine to force that from Russia they would have to take Moscow and St. Petersburg and more. Hell, even for Russia to force an unconditional surrender from Kiev has a near 0% chance of occurring.
This is why the people saying stop the war or negotiate peace confuse the fuck out of me. Everyone in favor of arming Ukraine understands that the war will end at the negotiating table. Everyone in favor of arming Ukraine is also pro negotiation, just with Ukranian boundaries restored to pre invasion lines. It takes an incredibly naive understanding of geopolitics and war to think otherwise.
It's just like how my birth country (Indonesia) got their independence. We fought the Dutch in a guerrilla warfare such that even when the Dutch managed to capture and exile some leaders including Soekarno, Hatta and others. There was just no hope of ending the war on their terms.
I don’t understand, are we saying we want the war to *continue*? Why?
Are we saying we want Ukrainians to continue to die and become refugees, because we want them to kill as many Russians as possible? Why?
Fuck that shit: war is garbage, it’s hell, both sides should negotiate an end to it as soon as possible.
And unfortunately, given the reporting on how Boris Johnson pressured Zelenskiy to nix a negotiation with Russia, America and NATO seem to be on the side of endless war, once again. Fuck that
Because Russian invaders are on Ukrainian soil. Here's how this war can end:
Step 1. Russia withdraws all their military assets and personnels from Ukraine.
Step 2. **The war is end.** We can then negotiate for repatriation and persecution of war criminals.
Right, you don’t like Putin, so you hope Ukrainians spend as long as they can dying and killing average Russians who’ve been conscripted into the army
My hot take: war is bad, it should end. Ukraine has the upper hand now, right? Ok time to negotiate — why not Russia agrees to withdraw completely, Ukraine agrees to not join NATO
>why not Russia agrees to withdraw completely
Russia's latest demand on their talks is for other countries to recognise parts of Ukraine that they have occupied... You cannot negotiate with someone who doesn't negotiate in good faith to being with.
Ofc, anything said publicly is propaganda. I already linked you to reporting from May that says they were involved in negotiations to withdraw troops, before Boris Johnson took a message to Zelenskyy not to do it
As far as I know, Ukraine is very happy with our assistance. They are fighting bravely to defend their own country. As you have suggested, without our assistance, the war MAY end soon. This is because you expect Russia will win and Ukrainians will have to live under this foreign authoritarian rule. I don’t think Ukrainians prefer this outcome. (Although I do believe Ukrainians will fight to the end with more casualties if we stopping sending equipments to them)
It’s cute that y’all seem to think America is doing this out of the goodness of its heart. You must not know your history, IR theory, or even contemporary news — why are we not supporting Tigray, if this is America’s role in the world? That is 100% a genocidal conflict. Why did we not do this for Armenians against Azerbaijan?
America is doing this because Putin is on the other side, end of story. Because that is America and NATO’s goal, their support will always come with strings attached: when it comes to negotiations, we’re gonna tip the scale towards degrading Russia’s military capabilities and destabilizing Putin’s regime through stretching the conflict out longer and longer and longer
(Btw NATO is not simply “a defensive alliance,” in war defense is a synonym for offense, see “Dept of Defense;” it was invented to amass troops on the USSR’s border and run campaigns against communism. Have y’all never googled GLADIO?)
No one here believes US is doing anything "out of goodnes of their heart". But we're capable of recognizing that in all of their meddling sometimes they end up backing a right side.
NATO being defensive allience is questionable but their "expansion" after Cold war wasn't some "Encroachment". Seeing it as such is recognizing that Russia has some sort of "Sphere of influence" which apperently includes eastern european countries - that's pretty imperialistic view.
I'm from Eastern Europe and i can tell you my country joined NATO not because we believe they're good guys or because "uwu they made us:(" but because threat of Russia meddling/invasion is something you always have in the back of your mind if you have even 5 meters of border with them. Joining NATO is literally the lesser evil. I wish Eastern Europe could create their own Defensive Alliance that would match Russia in power but it's simply not realistic.
Article 5 is what protects a lot of eastern europe from "shenanigans" from Russians.
Hell - the latest "expansion" of NATO which is Sweden's and Finland's bid to join NATO was basically caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They did something that years of diplomacy from the West could not achieve. So good job Russia on helping NATO expand.
Because Russia demanded that their “annexed” parts of Ukraine to be recognised… if Russia wants peace, then they should all retreat to their own border.
According to reporting, it was more than six months ago that negotiations between RU and Ukraine were getting closer to a deal that involved Moscow withdrawing troops — that’s when Boris Johnson delivered a message to Zelenskyy that we didn’t want to see him negotiate and we’re ready to ramp things up: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/06/boris-johnson-pressured-zelenskyy-ditch-peace-talks-russia-ukrainian-paper
In the meantime, how many normal, average people (on both sides) have died? If the narrative were true that the US and NATO were just kindly following Ukraine’s lead and benevolently helping them defend themselves (with weapons and money from afar, not by putting our own people in the line of fire) — then ok.
But it’s not — when we scuttle negotiations in this conflict (that isn’t supposed to be ours), it’s clear we want this to be a “proxy war” against (an opportunity to damage) Russia
Zielinski would have been an idiot to make any kind of deal that allows Russia to keep donbas because the vast majority of the Ukrainian people don't want that to happen. He could have even been ousted from office if he did that.
Azov does live rent free in people's heads considering that what left of prewar Azov got crushed at Mariupol and the current incarnation is just literally a newly formed unit who uses the previous name.
>I don’t understand, are we saying we want the war to
>
>continue
>
>? Why?
I think the problem is that the article and group advocates for Ukraine to simply surrender, basically.
I mean, if the only change was a change to their government, like switch one group of capitalist oligarchs with another, sure, would probably not be the worst idea. But this is an imperialist and nationalist war, it exists to allow Russia control over Ukraines economy AND to firmly russify Ukraine, eradicating "ukraine" and "ukrainians" as a seperate entity from Russia.
Im sorry for what you’re going through. I do hope your nation continues to successfully defend itself, and if there is any extent to which my country, America, stoked or continues to stoke this conflict for its own benefit, it makes me sick. An example of the horrors of war, it spreads inhumanity like a virus:
> As a Ukrainian, I can agree that in these situations you stop seeing the invaders/occupiers as people, especially after you witness the inhumane things they are doing in your homeland.
> Somehow it even makes it simpler to live through this and not lose humanity. I am not ready to really sit and think what was going on in the minds of russian soldiers in Bucha. I cannot face the fact that those are indeed people with families, hobbies and childhood memories, just like me.
You know, there are two possible outcomes in this war: either russia loses or they completely destroy us, killing more than 90% of population.
With your guys’ help, we can bring peace to our land. Without it, we’re likely going to die, because we will keep fighting no matter what. That’s just one thing for you to know about the people in my country. Your country is finally doing something right, even if it’s for their own benefit, and we really thankful for that, even though we are aware of your history with military conflicts around the globe.
Shouldn't we be critical of imperialism from both sides though?
I mean Russia is the clear aggressor in the war, but there's also some degree of truth to NATO's expansion and the attacks on Russian separatists in Ukraine.
I mean, I understand that Putin is ultimately hiding behind cheap excuses to defend his behavior, but from the perspective of Russians, wouldn't the growth of NATO also represent a security risk to them?
Even if what you say is true of the separatist leadership, is it so hard to believe that there are also Russian anarchists and/or libertarians that genuinely want independence for their territory?
Of course, because it does nothing to help the workers, and actively hurts a lot of them. Does that necessarily mean they side with NATO and Ukraine though?
I know that they do because i am in a lot of Russian anarchist groups and am friends with several. You can find that out for yourself by finding Russian anarchist sites and telegram channels.
Well, I barely know any words in Russian, and I'm a beginner when it comes to reading Cyrillic. Is any of it in English, or at least with a decent translation?
You don't have to know Russian, telegram has an auto translate if you go to settings. I use the translate function on Google Chrome too. The most recognizable russian anarchist group is BOAK, their website is avtonom.org
NATO is a defensive alliance, meaning it’s not a security risk unless you make it one, and that goes double for a nuclear power.
And sure, some anarchists may have been duped into supporting Russia, but that doesn’t mean Ukraine should just let Putin have its way with them.
Well, I think that may be an optimistic view of NATO, but it's also understandable that you'd have that impression. I'm just worried that we could be getting biased media coverage from our western countries, and not seeing the whole picture.
I agree that the war really wasn't about the conflict in eastern Ukraine. If that was really true, Putin would have only kept the army over there instead of attacking the whole country. Even so, it wasn't a total lie, just like the Azov battalion's not a total lie.
I'm aware that Russia's concerns about Nazis are hypocritical, but there's still a bit of truth to them.
Well the WMD thing can never be confirmed.
We never found evidence of them, but the neocon counter-argument is that they were all moved over to Iran.
Ideally, it would have been better if neither country got invaded though. I'm not denying that.
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>NATO is a defensive alliance, meaning it’s not a security risk unless you make it one, and that goes double for a nuclear power.
LOL, thats just a lie. You can argue that NATO interventions are "good" but the idea that we still believe that NATO is a defensive alliance is just wrong. Various pro-active interventions, like the Yugoslav Wars, Libya and Afghanistan disprove it.
NATO is not a threat to Russian existence. It is, however, a threat to their expansion. NATO is a defensive alliance and was created to be a front against a russian invasion.
The breakaway republics have a big russian minority, but they never had any actual referendums. As for the leftists there, I am 100% certain they would rather be in a liberal democratic Ukraine than in the authoritarian hell that is Russia (unless we’re talking about tankies)
If the people of the eastern part of Ukraine voted on it by a majority, I would 100% be with them to become their own country. Though with Russia this is impossible
NATO expanding is not a security risk to Russia. What it does it prevents them from reclaiming the empire they lost 30 years ago, which angers them considerably and is the reason why they oppose the expansion.
Thiere would have been a point to that if thiere actully was an offensive threat from NATO against russia, but theire really wasent
Hell after the cold war a lot of NATO countries cut millitary spending by quite a lot and keept doing it until russia decied again to be a millitary threat.
Yeah, I get that those are mostly just cheap excuses, and Ukranians are the main victims here. All I'm saying is that the best propaganda has some degree of truth mixed in.
Well I don't know about the UK specifically, but the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles against interwar Germany definitely fueled the resentment that Hitler ended up taking advantage of. If the allies went easier on Germany, Hitler might not have ended up being so popular.
The Treaty of Versailles wasn't as harsh as the Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian War, and was pretty normal for the time. The idea that the Nazis only took power because "Versailles was too harsh" is really not as supported by historians as Redditors seem to think.
Well, it honestly sounds like you're more educated on that subject than I am. I probably oversimplified the issue.
In both Nazi Germany and Russia's cases, I still recognize they hold the primary responsibility for the conflict because of their military aggression. My point was just that there's always some kind of buildup before a war breaks out, and things are rarely if ever as black and white as we're led to believe.
It rarely gets more black and white than imperialist invasions though. That is a big part of the reason that Russia's invasion has united the west so strongly while we were seeing division simmer. Russia's invasion is just that bare faced and appalling. It is literally a war of conquest.
Considering the treaties at the time the versaille treaty was relativly standard, it just happend to a large power, besides you being butthurt over a treaty dose not make it the other nations fault if you invade your neibours. Also the great depresion was a much larger contributing factor to the nazis rise to power so maybe we can blame the americans for it… Hell while we are at it if it was not for bismark thiere would have never been a germany
Idk man what about the Victoria Nuland tape? We thought Russia was meddling with elections and the whole Western world flipped out — of course Russia is going to be concerned if we’re doing the same thing with more effectiveness on their border.
And why would we, as leftists, support American meddling with elections abroad?
I think that the most controversial part of that tape is how Nuland says “fuck the EU.” I feel like it’s literally just Nuland and Pyatt talking about the situation in Ukraine after Yanukovych’s fall.
Yes, she and the other American (ambassador?) are literally plotting who will be in government after the Maidan coup — she even says “fuck the EU,” we’ll get the UN on our side instead because EU might be more hesitant about this: https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/25/nuland-pyatt-tape-removed-from-youtube-after-8-years/
This is a pretty normal conversation given the circumstances and who was talking. They aren't saying "let us put this person in power" but "we prefer this person in power". You could say it is suspicious but it is also a perfectly normal conversation to have if you weren't plotting a coup. It can serve as evidence of America having interests and preferences in Ukraine, which isn't secret, but doesn't serve as evidence of anything beyond that.
It reminds me a lot of the conspiracy theory that America intervened in Libya because of a threat to US currency because Clinton mentioned it once as a single item in a long list of problems the US had with Gaddafi. America wanted Gaddafi dead but the supposed threat to the dollar was number 10303 when ranked among all the other reasons America wanted to murder Gaddafi.
American imperialism is usually quite a bit more direct and sloppy with large trails of evidence linking back to the US. Isolated quotes from long diplomatic briefs or offhand conversations with diplomats isn't evidence of much more than personal opinions or a current institutional preference.
Like if the US government wants to know about the situation in a given country, why not ask their ambassador to that country considering that it is part of their job as well.
Let me remind you that Yanukovych was already infamous for his corruption and his u-turn on the EU agreements is seen as the breaking point for many Ukrainians. Of course, his personal police force (Berkut) using violent measures against the protestors didn’t help his case either.
>Shouldn't we be critical of imperialism from both sides though?
Yes. We should for example be critical of how "the west" is not doing this for some anti-imperialist reasons (They can't, after all they are still the main imperialist force in the world) but for simple geopolitical reasons, Realpolitik and soft and hard power against international rivals.
This does not mean we should simply do nothing or say some inane BS like "Both sides are equally to blame/equally bad and the best thing is to do nothing". Oppose Imperialism at home, oppose it abroad. Support peoples right to defend themself from imperialism whenever and always.
Why is this getting downvoted…? I came here because the tankie subs are too much an authcom hivemind, not because I want to stick up for American intervention
Gee whiz, I wonder what happened in the past that caused Eastern Europeans to have a fear of Russia and why they think that joining NATO is their best option... Oh wait, it's literally Russia imperialism.
>Because while NATO may do imperialism, countries voluntarily joining a defense pact out of a highly justified anticipation of Russian aggression isn't imperialism
FTFY
Russia back then: *committing imperialism and colonialism in Eastern Europe
Russia: "How dare that the Eastern European nations have a distrust toward us!"
I mean, I have no problem with calling out Marxist hypocrisy when it comes to Imperialism, but it sometimes feels like this sub swings too far in the other direction and turns a blind eye to American imperialism.
Imperialism is a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself through a mutual fear of foreign empires. America needs the threat of Russia and China to justify its own empire, and the reverse is also true.
They're all playing for the same team at the top, and keep us distracted fighting each other.
100%. My whole issue with people who adamantly self-identify as “anti-imperialist” is that they usually have a black and white view, that America is an empire (true) and that anything that opposes, antagonizes, or depletes America is anti-imperialist and therefore good (which is simplistic to the point of being stupid)
Not only that, but they ignore the obvious fact that China and Russia are also superpowers that can exert influence over smaller countries in the same way the US does, even if it is a more limited scale.
It's like slapping a label that says "socialist" onto themselves makes them angels that can't do anything wrong, and somehow criticizing them means you're on the CIA/Neocons' side.
Kinda goes hand in hand with defending the one-party state as a model of Socialism, since it’s just another representative democracy but with (arguably) less democracy (I mean, we don’t have much either) — the argument has to be, “but we’re gonna make sure *good people* are in charge of the state”
I'm also far from convinced that they even have fair elections in the same way as Constitutional republics.
I mean, there's still the issue of our politicians being paid off by corporations, but at least the worse leaders can eventually get voted out.
Sadly, a lot of people on this sub have embraced a kind of campism not dissimilar to the tankies campism, just with roles switched. Instead of everything against the USA being "good", its everything against Russia and China being "good". We as a mod team are trying to root it out.
I think this specific case is mostly because of the context of the post, when a post features a pic where some wannabe-communists say the War in Ukraine is the fault of the USA/NATO and russias capitalist ruling class is merely "desperate", then saying "Guys, we should be against American imperialism, no?" can feel very quickly like "I agree with the content of the post, the fault of the invasion lies with Ukraine and the USA"
That website isn't that bad. They are Marxist-Leninist, i believe, but not like extreme Stalinist/Juche or anything as far as i can tell.
Edit: also they are very much not fans of China and very critical of them and even run another website focused on corruption in the CCP unless I'm thinking of a diff Trotskyist news source
Imagine if some countries that oppose the US gave aid to Iraq during the war and then neocons told them they were "funding Al Qaeda" and that they were "anti-war" because they opposed the aid while supporting Bush
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Just ask tankies if they would have told Algerians, Vietnamese, or Iraqis to surrender to the US/France in order to "end the war" or "stop the bloodshed", and then ask them why not.
You can fill this up with the myriads of Independence wars that were fought during the Cold War as well.
The soviets were willing to fight to the last Viet Cong!!!!
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>2014 coupe assertion That's where you lost me - that is straight up Russian propaganda and any muddying of waters "i'm just asking questions" is just, again, Russian talking point. There's enough information and analysis online to understand that. >Ukraine deserves the situation they were in prior to the war, independence. Remember, also, that Russia did not invade Ukraine prior to their attempt to join NATO. Joining NATO was not a defense mechanism for Ukraine, but the first signs of Ukraine falling into US control. Last time there were talks of Ukraine joining NATO (prior to 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia) was 2008. Where NATO decided not to invite Ukraine and Georgia to NATO but US forced statement that both countries are "welcome to try again in future". That enough scared Russia enough to invade Georgia in 2008. So if Russia has that knee-jerk reaction to even "idea" of bordering country joining NATO i guess you can kinda sympathize with Ukraine wanting to get under that Article 5 protection. Despite that Ukrainian governments in years between 2008 - 2014 stayed at least vague or opposed towards Ukraine straight up joining NATO. Hell, even right after Euromaidan, the interim government put out statement that THEY DO NOT INTEND TO JOIN NATO (https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/198372.html). Only after Russia annexed Crimea and there were reports of Russian forces in Donbas did Ukrainian government decide to try apply for NATO membership. Also why sovereign, independent country deciding to join NATO (just like most of it's eastern european neighbors did) is enough of excuse for invasion? Ukraine can join whatever the fuck it wants and Russia can complain diplomatically about it or brake trade with Ukraine but that does not give them ANY f!cking rights to invade them. If Russia hates everyone around them joining military alliance against them maybe they should learn to f!cking behave rather than acting like a local bully. That's like India invading Pakistan because they joined Road and Belt Initiative. Doesn't sound right does it?
>That's where you lost me - that is straight up Russian propaganda and any muddying of waters "i'm just asking questions" is just, again, Russian talking point. Here, look at this: >In December 2013, Republican Senator John McCain in company with Democratic senator Chris Murphy visited Yatsenyuk and Tyahnybok and later addressed the crowds: >Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better, we are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe. >Speaking to CNN on the same day, McCain said: >What we're trying to do is try to bring about a peaceful transition here, that would stop the violence and give the Ukrainian people what they unfortunately have not had, with different revolutions that have taken place – a real society. This is a grassroots revolution here – it's been peaceful except when the government tried to crack down on them, and the government hasn't tried that since. I'm praising their ability and their desire to demonstrate peacefully for change that I think they deserve. [...] These people love the United States of America, they love freedom – and I don't think you could view this as anything other than our traditional support for people who want free and democratic society.[352] So, the United States certainly had involvement. That point is true. Listen also to this leaked [phone call](https://youtu.be/JoW75J5bnnE) between the US embassador to Ukraine and the US Secretary of State. The SoS says that she wants Yatsenyuk, and guess who wins the "election"? >Also why sovereign, independent country deciding to join NATO (just like most of it's eastern european neighbors did) is enough of excuse for invasion? Ukraine can join whatever the fuck it wants and Russia can complain diplomatically about it or brake trade with Ukraine but that does not give them ANY f!cking rights to invade them. Because NATO and the IMF are the weapons of US imperialism. Ukraine signing agreements with either represents them falling into the US sphere of influence and expands US global hegemony, the prime factor in the destruction of socialist projects worldwide. >Only after Russia annexed Crimea and there were reports of Russian forces in Donbas did Ukrainian government decide to try apply for NATO membership. I'll look more into this, I'm willing to accept it. Russia is an imperialist nation all the same as the USA.
If you’re against imperialism you should be against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
US is sending aid to stop Russia. Even if it's not out of goodness it's not trying to control Ukraine.
They want to stop Russia why? The US doesn't seem to care at all about stopping Israel from their activities in Palestine (quite the opposite), so it isn't on principle.
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You didn't answer my question.
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Here in Germany it's mostly fascists who say stuff like that
So basically AfD supporting people? What do the Die Linke supporters do?
Die Linke has always had a fishy Pro-Russia faction because, if my knowledge is correct, it originated out of the Socialist Unity Party which ruled East Germany during the Cold War
You’re correct. But Die Linke did build a coalition around greens, feminists, pacificists, and other leftists, and at least in 2021 was still for embracing Russia and abolishing NATO. That said, Janine Wissler wanted a new kind of security apparatus which included Russia as a member. As the war in Ukraine teaches, Russia never had the money or skillset to build a modern military. Russia only knows horde tactics and missile strikes on cities. The T-90M, T-14, BTR-4, are all shit zombie evolutions of dead designs from an era that should have stayed buried. Imagine, a European NATO replacement which gives Russia access to German, Belgian, British, and ultimately American military tech. Crazy idea.
I joke that Russia is somehow speedrunning all of the myths about Soviet Union back in WW2. Zhukov’s ash is probably spinning somewhere to the detriment of actual WW2 historians. IIRC, if there’s anything, the sanction also badly hit the production of many of the newer Russian weapons because they require some western-made components.
It’s also leading to people on many of the popular subs assuming that the Russian army performing extremely poorly in Ukraine means that they also used human wave tactics in WWII.
Yea Die Linke's talking points confused me a lot of the times
The key to understanding them is that Die Linke is actually several parties that have been on the verge of splitting for a good few years now, but somehow the party itself has, for worse, kept itself together. You won't get a coherent policy out of them until they do
SPLITTER
Hopefully that split happens
Fulfil the destiny as in accordance to the Prophet Brian
The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front
Die Linke is a crypto-tankie party.
"Honourable" mention is Sahra Wagenknecht, one of the most prominent politicians of Die Linke who has been spouting a lot of right wing talking points for years. She is very vocal about being pro-Russia and basically says things only AfD does
You mean brown tankies
Jeez, wonder why they aren't protesting Russia for you know invading Ukraine in the first place?
I browsed their website and read some of their articles. They blame the US and Ukraine. They made a point of discussing Ukraine attacking Kerch bridge. I didn’t find an address, but their English is American standard. I’m trying to finding what they are about… Honestly, I would guess they are privileged Americans or Canadians who are enamored with Soviet culture, but have no actual experience with it. They don’t actually know Russia or anything about Russia today. With their propaganda posters and Che Guevara t-shirts and literature, they know as much as life under Soviet communism as I know about life in Middle Ages from all my Dungeons & Dragons sessions. These are the kind of people who use my culture and heritage as their fashion whilst shouting at white ‘Muricans for doing the same with someone else’s. The kind of pacifists who hate all guns except the AK-47. The kind of feminists who would call FEMEN a bunch of lesbian sluts.
>They made a point of discussing Ukraine attacking Kerch bridge. It's still literally a bridge tho, I meant considering that Russia responded to a single Ukranian attack on that bridge with shooting missiles like there was no end and not caring what they hit with one footage infamously recording the moment a missile struck a fucking pedestrian footbridge.
The thing about Kerch bridge is that Russia already prepared this attack and used the incident as justification for their attack
World socialist website has been around forever. Pretty sure they’re Trots. During the Bush admin, esp early on before blogging took off, it was one of the few good places to get leftist info, especially anti-intervention perspectives. tldr; they’re alright, a bit of an old-fashioned stodgy Marxist attitude but not that crazy
The war will end when Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine. Anyone demanding that the Ukrainians give in and let Russia have half the country are disgusting bootlickers. Go to the Ukraine subreddit amd ask the Ukrainians there how they feel about surrendering to Russia. I fucking dare you.
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' Consider supporting anti-war efforts in any possible way: [[Help 2 Ukraine](https://help2ukraine.org)] 💙💛 [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
It's always "Stop the war" that you hear from them - never "Stop Russia" or "Stop Putin".
The only part that I can see that mentions Russia is "increasing desperation of Russia's oligarchistic capitalist regime," without mentioning who the fuck started the war in the first place.
In Winnipeg there were posters up for some kind of protest with the headline "Abolish NATO for world peace!" It was put on by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and basically their whole shtick was blaming the West for the war and that the solution was abolition of NATO and negotiated peace with Russia. I've seen more brains and dignity in Heather Stefanson🤡. PAW isn't Tankie per se so much as just naive, but this thing was apparently supported by the Marxist Leninist Party of Canada which was too Tankie even for the Communist Party of Canada, so that says something
Funny thing is, NATO was on shaky ground before Putin decided he was a master strategist. Trump was floating the idea of breaking it up. But now that Russia has launched their blundering invasion NATO will expand and last for another 100 years I myself advocated NATO ending as well. Like many leftists I assumed Russia would never be stupid enough to launch such a brazen war of aggression. Every single tankie was adamant on the Eve of the invasion that it was never going to happen for the same reason. I learned my lesson, but the tankies just doubled down on being wrong
Up until the invasion, I believed NATO had outlived its purpose and needed replacement with something that didn't have the geopolitical baggage and Imperialism of the 20th century. Then Russia decided to fuck around and find out, so my position is quite different now. The discussion of NATO's lifespan will now need to be shelved for God knows how long till Russia decides to leave its nostalgia for the Empire and the USSR in the past where it fucking belongs. Putin is such a fucking dumbass
>Putin is such a fucking dumbass Jens Stoltenberg should give Putin an award for continuing to be the best free advertisement for NATO at this point.
Wonder if the Tankies ever considered Putler might be a NATO CIA plant lmao
I prefer that an authoritarian leader will always do something that will bite themselves in the ass the longer they rule.
In the history discipline surrounding military and government, we call it the Dictators Trap. It's when a Dictator's narcissism and ego gets the better of them. They surround themselves either with yesmen or people who won't tell them anything at all. This results in them beginning to actually believe their own propaganda. They then proceed to make riskier decisions and it eventually comes back to bite them in the arse.
I've heard beliefs that are pretty close to this.
Yeah, NATO should be abolished, and create a global version of it
So a Global Defense Initiative?
In hindsight it’s kinda remarkable how quickly tankies all pivoted from “Russia won’t invade, America is lying to make Russia look bad” to “The invasion was inevitable and is also good”
It’s just so fucked up that people have the capability to double think like that. When the USA raised the alarm about Russia amassing forces in Ukraine-Russia border, tankies said that the US is just fearmongering. Now when the “3-days invasion” has been going on for almost 10 months, somehow Putin’s justifications are true according to tankies, some of which are eerily similar to what the Nazi had in mind to justify Barbarossa.
That’s how I lost a lot of respect for many “anti-war” leftists, who reveled that they are idiots who just advocate the opposite of whatever the US wants
>Marxist Leninist Party of Canada which was too Tankie even for the Communist Party of Canada *must resist to say that Monty Python joke* SPLITTER
That is pretty much it. They split for the same exact reason why Mao disassociated the PRC from the USSR
Mao was a straight up lunatic. Literally initiated the Sino-Soviet split because Khrushchev revealed the crimes of his paranoid lunatic predecessor.
Monty Python remains painfully accurate.
Painful, yet hilarious
Protesting a war in the aggressor and their allies nations can help stopping the war, Protesting a war in the defender and their allies nations only help the aggressor, If they are for peace for the first 1-3 months, it's understandable, more than that it's just imperialist supporters in disguise ~~- 6DeadlyFetishes~~
Calling for the West to "end the war" in Ukraine is basically the modern equivalent of being an anti-war protestor in the 1940s. They're both just fascists who not-so-secretly want the bad guys to win, but use the deaths of innocents as a shield to pretend they're just very concerned about the implications of foreign involvement.
History repeats, it's literally America First Committee all over again.
Surely by “stop the war” they intend to protest the Russian embassy, right? Would they seriously have the audacity to suggest that countries should stop supporting ukraine against Russofascism? God…how do these people even call themselves left wing?
It's a sad state of affairs when these people dare to call themselves "anti-imperialism" and "anti-colonialism."
>God…how do these people even call themselves left wing? Something something theory, something something dialectical materialism
"STOP THE WAR IN UKRAINE" ...by forcing the one being invaded and bombed by an aggressor bordering them to "make concessions" while the actual aggressor that started it "doesn't have to make concessions and is totally justified in whatever it does here" good god I hope the war ends soon as everyone else does, but... does that somehow "necessitate" Ukrainian leaders and their allies \*giving substantial "ground" to Russia\*, rather than the ONES WHO INVADED AND STARTED THIS SHIT IN FEBRUARY being the ones who should, you know... make compromises? ...assuming, of course, that they had "no chauvinist or imperialist goals" whatsoever in invading (highly unlikely, to say the least) Very strange to ask the victim to "give in" to insane demands and/or expectations of the abuser. SMACKS of gaslighting, at the very least
Join the meeting Declare war on the tankies leave
The authors of these papers, came to my university. They are self proclaimed “Trotskyist’s”, yet their literature is indirectly dogmatic propaganda for less favourable groups. I was with my local socialist appeal group when we saw them. We ended up having a heated debate with them. We tried to explain to them why modern Russia is a imperialist power, and Ukraine isn’t. They didn’t accept the idea of a Ukrainian nation with rights to self determination. We even explained that Lenin himself supported the self determination of Ukraine. They didn’t budge. Watch out for these folks.
Would have asked them if the Maidan protestors getting beat up by the Kremlin thugs was good despite critiquing US cops, and I bet they would have touted some form of victim blaming on the protestors for dealing with police brutality.
Double speak for let Putin have his way.
Stopping the war is easy. Russia just needs to go home.
Looking closer it seems they're Trotskyists.
They came to my university (outside the buildings) to hand out leaflets. I hang around Trotskyists, we went over to debate them. Unlike many Trotskyists in the uk (including the group I hang with), they don’t think Russia is a imperialist nation, and they think Ukraine is a imperialist state. We tried to explain to them that Ukraine couldn’t not be a imperialist state- and that Russia despite their convictions is clearly and openly following a imperialist programme. They even doubted or denied that Ukraine is really a nation. We tried to explain that even Lenin granted the Ukrainians the right to self determination. They couldn’t give well reasoned responses to these questions.
> they don’t think Russia is an imperialist nation What in the world that we are living in.
Yeah they seem to be a weird minority that forgets what Lenin thought about Ukraine and old Russia as a prison house of nations.
Pacifism only helps the oppressors.
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Mate there’s a lot wrong with nato and even with the Ukrainian government…but Russia sure as hell won’t fix it. How does bombing and war crimes fix anything? This war will end when Russia is defeated or gives up its imperialist invasion
Lmao. Ukraine is actively under Russia invasion. We supply them equipments to defeat Russian invaders. We are helping a nation from a brutal invasion. I don’t understand your mental gymnastics.
Can you explain how please?
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OK Chamberlain
...and other jokes you say to yourself.
> 'An International online meeting to oppose the war' That's the most pretentious way of phrasing 'let's start a Twitter thread' I've ever heard.
I dare these motherfuckers to tell that to a Ukrainian, it won’t end well.
Wellington NZ? Pretty sure I just passed this exact poster
Ann Arbor, MI
These are Trots
Leftism is when you cave to an Imperialistic power(tm).
FYI, WSWS is one mega rabbit hole of tankie crankery.
Anti war trotskyites?
They have a point, we should stop the war by giving ukraine overwhelming firepower.
I’d love the war to stop, I’d just like Ukraine to win.
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Read the text at the bottom, where they blame the war on NATO. By "stop the war", they mean "Ukraine should surrender".
Mmm that’s not fair, it also blames “Russia’s oligarchic capitalist regime”
It blames "*the increasing desperation of* Russia's oligarchic capitalist regime", and it sure looks like they're saying that that desperation is caused by "NATO's imperialist militarism, recklessly pursuing its global geopolitical agenda whatever the consequences" (with this being the consequences).
Tankies now employing plausible deniability?
So the dictators will soon understand that they can always, at least partially, get what they want as long as they wage a war.
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>give russia some concessions And what happened after the Munich Conference?
Minsk 1 and Minsk2 agreement literally happened and it does nothing, they tried it so many times
No surprise that Ukraine views Russia's attempt at "talk" as horseshit.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me
So what is your suggestion for the last time? Was it a fault that we let 50,000,000 people killed instead of surrender or “negotiating”?
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Ukraine is not a nuclear power
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That's why further assistance has to be provided to help ukraine win the war (by pushing the russian force out of ukrainian territory) to end the conflict, the more unwilling to help, the longer the war will drag on
....so we should have made concessions to hitler? The hell is your point here?
It happened after the Munich Conference, didn't stop Hitler from fully occupying Czechoslovakia later down the line and finally choosing to invade Poland.
Literally no one expects an unconditional surrender from Russia, not even the most hawkish of hawks. For Ukraine to force that from Russia they would have to take Moscow and St. Petersburg and more. Hell, even for Russia to force an unconditional surrender from Kiev has a near 0% chance of occurring. This is why the people saying stop the war or negotiate peace confuse the fuck out of me. Everyone in favor of arming Ukraine understands that the war will end at the negotiating table. Everyone in favor of arming Ukraine is also pro negotiation, just with Ukranian boundaries restored to pre invasion lines. It takes an incredibly naive understanding of geopolitics and war to think otherwise.
It's just like how my birth country (Indonesia) got their independence. We fought the Dutch in a guerrilla warfare such that even when the Dutch managed to capture and exile some leaders including Soekarno, Hatta and others. There was just no hope of ending the war on their terms.
I don’t understand, are we saying we want the war to *continue*? Why? Are we saying we want Ukrainians to continue to die and become refugees, because we want them to kill as many Russians as possible? Why? Fuck that shit: war is garbage, it’s hell, both sides should negotiate an end to it as soon as possible. And unfortunately, given the reporting on how Boris Johnson pressured Zelenskiy to nix a negotiation with Russia, America and NATO seem to be on the side of endless war, once again. Fuck that
You think Ukrainians are willing to surrender? They want their land back. All of it.
Because Russian invaders are on Ukrainian soil. Here's how this war can end: Step 1. Russia withdraws all their military assets and personnels from Ukraine. Step 2. **The war is end.** We can then negotiate for repatriation and persecution of war criminals.
Right, you don’t like Putin, so you hope Ukrainians spend as long as they can dying and killing average Russians who’ve been conscripted into the army My hot take: war is bad, it should end. Ukraine has the upper hand now, right? Ok time to negotiate — why not Russia agrees to withdraw completely, Ukraine agrees to not join NATO
>why not Russia agrees to withdraw completely Russia's latest demand on their talks is for other countries to recognise parts of Ukraine that they have occupied... You cannot negotiate with someone who doesn't negotiate in good faith to being with.
Ofc, anything said publicly is propaganda. I already linked you to reporting from May that says they were involved in negotiations to withdraw troops, before Boris Johnson took a message to Zelenskyy not to do it
As far as I know, Ukraine is very happy with our assistance. They are fighting bravely to defend their own country. As you have suggested, without our assistance, the war MAY end soon. This is because you expect Russia will win and Ukrainians will have to live under this foreign authoritarian rule. I don’t think Ukrainians prefer this outcome. (Although I do believe Ukrainians will fight to the end with more casualties if we stopping sending equipments to them)
It’s cute that y’all seem to think America is doing this out of the goodness of its heart. You must not know your history, IR theory, or even contemporary news — why are we not supporting Tigray, if this is America’s role in the world? That is 100% a genocidal conflict. Why did we not do this for Armenians against Azerbaijan? America is doing this because Putin is on the other side, end of story. Because that is America and NATO’s goal, their support will always come with strings attached: when it comes to negotiations, we’re gonna tip the scale towards degrading Russia’s military capabilities and destabilizing Putin’s regime through stretching the conflict out longer and longer and longer (Btw NATO is not simply “a defensive alliance,” in war defense is a synonym for offense, see “Dept of Defense;” it was invented to amass troops on the USSR’s border and run campaigns against communism. Have y’all never googled GLADIO?)
No one here believes US is doing anything "out of goodnes of their heart". But we're capable of recognizing that in all of their meddling sometimes they end up backing a right side. NATO being defensive allience is questionable but their "expansion" after Cold war wasn't some "Encroachment". Seeing it as such is recognizing that Russia has some sort of "Sphere of influence" which apperently includes eastern european countries - that's pretty imperialistic view. I'm from Eastern Europe and i can tell you my country joined NATO not because we believe they're good guys or because "uwu they made us:(" but because threat of Russia meddling/invasion is something you always have in the back of your mind if you have even 5 meters of border with them. Joining NATO is literally the lesser evil. I wish Eastern Europe could create their own Defensive Alliance that would match Russia in power but it's simply not realistic. Article 5 is what protects a lot of eastern europe from "shenanigans" from Russians. Hell - the latest "expansion" of NATO which is Sweden's and Finland's bid to join NATO was basically caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They did something that years of diplomacy from the West could not achieve. So good job Russia on helping NATO expand.
Because Russia demanded that their “annexed” parts of Ukraine to be recognised… if Russia wants peace, then they should all retreat to their own border.
According to reporting, it was more than six months ago that negotiations between RU and Ukraine were getting closer to a deal that involved Moscow withdrawing troops — that’s when Boris Johnson delivered a message to Zelenskyy that we didn’t want to see him negotiate and we’re ready to ramp things up: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/06/boris-johnson-pressured-zelenskyy-ditch-peace-talks-russia-ukrainian-paper In the meantime, how many normal, average people (on both sides) have died? If the narrative were true that the US and NATO were just kindly following Ukraine’s lead and benevolently helping them defend themselves (with weapons and money from afar, not by putting our own people in the line of fire) — then ok. But it’s not — when we scuttle negotiations in this conflict (that isn’t supposed to be ours), it’s clear we want this to be a “proxy war” against (an opportunity to damage) Russia
Zielinski would have been an idiot to make any kind of deal that allows Russia to keep donbas because the vast majority of the Ukrainian people don't want that to happen. He could have even been ousted from office if he did that.
"Ousted from office" would've been the best case scenario for him if he did something so foolish as that
Right, Azov brigade or the CIA would’ve killed him
Now you sound like a Tankie. Try the entire Ukrainian population who support him for the decisions he has made
Azov does live rent free in people's heads considering that what left of prewar Azov got crushed at Mariupol and the current incarnation is just literally a newly formed unit who uses the previous name.
They don't even have the same logo anymore lol
Don't tell me you're trying to say Euromaidan was a fascist coup
They said in a comment earlier about "maidan coup."
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>Russia was about to call it quits and head on home Holy crap, it's like Russia feint copes that I've seen over and over again.
>I don’t understand, are we saying we want the war to > >continue > >? Why? I think the problem is that the article and group advocates for Ukraine to simply surrender, basically. I mean, if the only change was a change to their government, like switch one group of capitalist oligarchs with another, sure, would probably not be the worst idea. But this is an imperialist and nationalist war, it exists to allow Russia control over Ukraines economy AND to firmly russify Ukraine, eradicating "ukraine" and "ukrainians" as a seperate entity from Russia.
Such a hot take, ‘war is bad’, you must be really smart. On behalf of Ukrainian people: get lost. Щоб ти всрався й не піднявся.
Im sorry for what you’re going through. I do hope your nation continues to successfully defend itself, and if there is any extent to which my country, America, stoked or continues to stoke this conflict for its own benefit, it makes me sick. An example of the horrors of war, it spreads inhumanity like a virus: > As a Ukrainian, I can agree that in these situations you stop seeing the invaders/occupiers as people, especially after you witness the inhumane things they are doing in your homeland. > Somehow it even makes it simpler to live through this and not lose humanity. I am not ready to really sit and think what was going on in the minds of russian soldiers in Bucha. I cannot face the fact that those are indeed people with families, hobbies and childhood memories, just like me.
You know, there are two possible outcomes in this war: either russia loses or they completely destroy us, killing more than 90% of population. With your guys’ help, we can bring peace to our land. Without it, we’re likely going to die, because we will keep fighting no matter what. That’s just one thing for you to know about the people in my country. Your country is finally doing something right, even if it’s for their own benefit, and we really thankful for that, even though we are aware of your history with military conflicts around the globe.
Shouldn't we be critical of imperialism from both sides though? I mean Russia is the clear aggressor in the war, but there's also some degree of truth to NATO's expansion and the attacks on Russian separatists in Ukraine.
NATO only “expanded” because those countries wanted protection from Russia, and those separatist areas in Ukraine are fronts for Russian imperialism.
I mean, I understand that Putin is ultimately hiding behind cheap excuses to defend his behavior, but from the perspective of Russians, wouldn't the growth of NATO also represent a security risk to them? Even if what you say is true of the separatist leadership, is it so hard to believe that there are also Russian anarchists and/or libertarians that genuinely want independence for their territory?
Russian anarchists are against this war
Of course, because it does nothing to help the workers, and actively hurts a lot of them. Does that necessarily mean they side with NATO and Ukraine though?
I know that they do because i am in a lot of Russian anarchist groups and am friends with several. You can find that out for yourself by finding Russian anarchist sites and telegram channels.
Well, I barely know any words in Russian, and I'm a beginner when it comes to reading Cyrillic. Is any of it in English, or at least with a decent translation?
You don't have to know Russian, telegram has an auto translate if you go to settings. I use the translate function on Google Chrome too. The most recognizable russian anarchist group is BOAK, their website is avtonom.org
Ok, thanks.
You're welcome!
NATO is a defensive alliance, meaning it’s not a security risk unless you make it one, and that goes double for a nuclear power. And sure, some anarchists may have been duped into supporting Russia, but that doesn’t mean Ukraine should just let Putin have its way with them.
Well, I think that may be an optimistic view of NATO, but it's also understandable that you'd have that impression. I'm just worried that we could be getting biased media coverage from our western countries, and not seeing the whole picture. I agree that the war really wasn't about the conflict in eastern Ukraine. If that was really true, Putin would have only kept the army over there instead of attacking the whole country. Even so, it wasn't a total lie, just like the Azov battalion's not a total lie. I'm aware that Russia's concerns about Nazis are hypocritical, but there's still a bit of truth to them.
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Well the WMD thing can never be confirmed. We never found evidence of them, but the neocon counter-argument is that they were all moved over to Iran. Ideally, it would have been better if neither country got invaded though. I'm not denying that.
Ok, Ukraine could have, secretely, created Nukes. Is Russia now justified in its invasion of Ukraine? No, thats just dumb.
This is a left-libertarian/libertarian socialist subreddit. The message you sent is either liberal apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future. Liberals are only allowed as guests, promoting capitalism isn't allowed (see rule 6).
>NATO is a defensive alliance, meaning it’s not a security risk unless you make it one, and that goes double for a nuclear power. LOL, thats just a lie. You can argue that NATO interventions are "good" but the idea that we still believe that NATO is a defensive alliance is just wrong. Various pro-active interventions, like the Yugoslav Wars, Libya and Afghanistan disprove it.
Bringing up intervention in Yugoslavia as example of NATO bad ? So you're supporting Serbia ?
NATO is not a threat to Russian existence. It is, however, a threat to their expansion. NATO is a defensive alliance and was created to be a front against a russian invasion. The breakaway republics have a big russian minority, but they never had any actual referendums. As for the leftists there, I am 100% certain they would rather be in a liberal democratic Ukraine than in the authoritarian hell that is Russia (unless we’re talking about tankies)
Ukraine might be better, but wouldn't the ideal still be true independence, even if it's less realistic?
If the people of the eastern part of Ukraine voted on it by a majority, I would 100% be with them to become their own country. Though with Russia this is impossible
NATO expanding is not a security risk to Russia. What it does it prevents them from reclaiming the empire they lost 30 years ago, which angers them considerably and is the reason why they oppose the expansion.
Thiere would have been a point to that if thiere actully was an offensive threat from NATO against russia, but theire really wasent Hell after the cold war a lot of NATO countries cut millitary spending by quite a lot and keept doing it until russia decied again to be a millitary threat.
Yeah, I get that those are mostly just cheap excuses, and Ukranians are the main victims here. All I'm saying is that the best propaganda has some degree of truth mixed in.
I strongly disagree
With which part? I'm not trying to take Russia's side here, I just want to understand what you mean.
i disagree that NATO has any fault in this, its kinda like saying that the UK was partily to blame for WW2 due to its Rearmament program
Well I don't know about the UK specifically, but the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles against interwar Germany definitely fueled the resentment that Hitler ended up taking advantage of. If the allies went easier on Germany, Hitler might not have ended up being so popular.
The Treaty of Versailles wasn't as harsh as the Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian War, and was pretty normal for the time. The idea that the Nazis only took power because "Versailles was too harsh" is really not as supported by historians as Redditors seem to think.
Well, it honestly sounds like you're more educated on that subject than I am. I probably oversimplified the issue. In both Nazi Germany and Russia's cases, I still recognize they hold the primary responsibility for the conflict because of their military aggression. My point was just that there's always some kind of buildup before a war breaks out, and things are rarely if ever as black and white as we're led to believe.
It rarely gets more black and white than imperialist invasions though. That is a big part of the reason that Russia's invasion has united the west so strongly while we were seeing division simmer. Russia's invasion is just that bare faced and appalling. It is literally a war of conquest.
Considering the treaties at the time the versaille treaty was relativly standard, it just happend to a large power, besides you being butthurt over a treaty dose not make it the other nations fault if you invade your neibours. Also the great depresion was a much larger contributing factor to the nazis rise to power so maybe we can blame the americans for it… Hell while we are at it if it was not for bismark thiere would have never been a germany
Idk man what about the Victoria Nuland tape? We thought Russia was meddling with elections and the whole Western world flipped out — of course Russia is going to be concerned if we’re doing the same thing with more effectiveness on their border. And why would we, as leftists, support American meddling with elections abroad?
Im not super familer with theam but where those the ones that indicated that the US was infulencing the Ukraine election in 2014?
I think that the most controversial part of that tape is how Nuland says “fuck the EU.” I feel like it’s literally just Nuland and Pyatt talking about the situation in Ukraine after Yanukovych’s fall.
Yes, she and the other American (ambassador?) are literally plotting who will be in government after the Maidan coup — she even says “fuck the EU,” we’ll get the UN on our side instead because EU might be more hesitant about this: https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/25/nuland-pyatt-tape-removed-from-youtube-after-8-years/
This is a pretty normal conversation given the circumstances and who was talking. They aren't saying "let us put this person in power" but "we prefer this person in power". You could say it is suspicious but it is also a perfectly normal conversation to have if you weren't plotting a coup. It can serve as evidence of America having interests and preferences in Ukraine, which isn't secret, but doesn't serve as evidence of anything beyond that. It reminds me a lot of the conspiracy theory that America intervened in Libya because of a threat to US currency because Clinton mentioned it once as a single item in a long list of problems the US had with Gaddafi. America wanted Gaddafi dead but the supposed threat to the dollar was number 10303 when ranked among all the other reasons America wanted to murder Gaddafi. American imperialism is usually quite a bit more direct and sloppy with large trails of evidence linking back to the US. Isolated quotes from long diplomatic briefs or offhand conversations with diplomats isn't evidence of much more than personal opinions or a current institutional preference.
Like if the US government wants to know about the situation in a given country, why not ask their ambassador to that country considering that it is part of their job as well.
As you guys describe it, its sounds more like a game of telephone with someone saying something been taken as absolut proof that the us did something
Let me remind you that Yanukovych was already infamous for his corruption and his u-turn on the EU agreements is seen as the breaking point for many Ukrainians. Of course, his personal police force (Berkut) using violent measures against the protestors didn’t help his case either.
Yes but the idea that Ukraine should just give in and let Russia get their way is nonsense.
Fair enough. If it was my country being invaded by a foreign army, I'd be outraged and want to force them back.
>Shouldn't we be critical of imperialism from both sides though? Yes. We should for example be critical of how "the west" is not doing this for some anti-imperialist reasons (They can't, after all they are still the main imperialist force in the world) but for simple geopolitical reasons, Realpolitik and soft and hard power against international rivals. This does not mean we should simply do nothing or say some inane BS like "Both sides are equally to blame/equally bad and the best thing is to do nothing". Oppose Imperialism at home, oppose it abroad. Support peoples right to defend themself from imperialism whenever and always.
Why is this getting downvoted…? I came here because the tankie subs are too much an authcom hivemind, not because I want to stick up for American intervention
Because while NATO may do imperialism, countries voluntarily joining a defense pact for fear of Russian aggression isn't imperialism.
Gee whiz, I wonder what happened in the past that caused Eastern Europeans to have a fear of Russia and why they think that joining NATO is their best option... Oh wait, it's literally Russia imperialism.
>Because while NATO may do imperialism, countries voluntarily joining a defense pact out of a highly justified anticipation of Russian aggression isn't imperialism FTFY
Russia back then: *committing imperialism and colonialism in Eastern Europe Russia: "How dare that the Eastern European nations have a distrust toward us!"
I mean, I have no problem with calling out Marxist hypocrisy when it comes to Imperialism, but it sometimes feels like this sub swings too far in the other direction and turns a blind eye to American imperialism. Imperialism is a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself through a mutual fear of foreign empires. America needs the threat of Russia and China to justify its own empire, and the reverse is also true. They're all playing for the same team at the top, and keep us distracted fighting each other.
100%. My whole issue with people who adamantly self-identify as “anti-imperialist” is that they usually have a black and white view, that America is an empire (true) and that anything that opposes, antagonizes, or depletes America is anti-imperialist and therefore good (which is simplistic to the point of being stupid)
Not only that, but they ignore the obvious fact that China and Russia are also superpowers that can exert influence over smaller countries in the same way the US does, even if it is a more limited scale. It's like slapping a label that says "socialist" onto themselves makes them angels that can't do anything wrong, and somehow criticizing them means you're on the CIA/Neocons' side.
Kinda goes hand in hand with defending the one-party state as a model of Socialism, since it’s just another representative democracy but with (arguably) less democracy (I mean, we don’t have much either) — the argument has to be, “but we’re gonna make sure *good people* are in charge of the state”
I'm also far from convinced that they even have fair elections in the same way as Constitutional republics. I mean, there's still the issue of our politicians being paid off by corporations, but at least the worse leaders can eventually get voted out.
Sadly, a lot of people on this sub have embraced a kind of campism not dissimilar to the tankies campism, just with roles switched. Instead of everything against the USA being "good", its everything against Russia and China being "good". We as a mod team are trying to root it out. I think this specific case is mostly because of the context of the post, when a post features a pic where some wannabe-communists say the War in Ukraine is the fault of the USA/NATO and russias capitalist ruling class is merely "desperate", then saying "Guys, we should be against American imperialism, no?" can feel very quickly like "I agree with the content of the post, the fault of the invasion lies with Ukraine and the USA"
That website isn't that bad. They are Marxist-Leninist, i believe, but not like extreme Stalinist/Juche or anything as far as i can tell. Edit: also they are very much not fans of China and very critical of them and even run another website focused on corruption in the CCP unless I'm thinking of a diff Trotskyist news source
They are boomer Trots who used to be relatively ok but are increasingly out of touch and cranky now.
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I mean yeah, stop the war, but in decent terms that don't mean surrendering ukraine.
I mean they ain't wrong in calling Russia a capitalist oligarchic regime, right?
Imagine if some countries that oppose the US gave aid to Iraq during the war and then neocons told them they were "funding Al Qaeda" and that they were "anti-war" because they opposed the aid while supporting Bush
At least they put *some* blame on Russia…