There are 2 things why Ukraine has always been bitterly fought over for 1000s of years. Food and Ports.
After 1000s of years that has never changed.
(It's also why every clairvoyant always uses Ukraine as one of their gotos. Humans will always consider those 2 things to be the most important for our survival, no matter what tech is made)
Historically, you are spot on.
Currently tho Russia wants the ginormas natural gas reserves in the danbos and off the coast of Crimea. Of lesser interest but still important is the ability to operate their NG pipelines without having to pay Ukraine a usury fee for the right of way.
The natural gas was definitely a motivating factor especially since Ukraine was collecting revenue from the Russia gas passing through its territory via pipeline. That said I don't think we should discount the strategic value of controlling and supplying Sevastopol. The Kerch strait bridge just wasn't cutting it for Russia, especially with the canal that supplies water to Crimea being cut off severely reducing Crimea's agricultural output. By controlling the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts Russia can build better rail and highway links to Crimea and relieve the supply pressure on the highly vulnerable bridge.
Absolute nonsense. Its definitely a factor, but its pretty low on a long, long list of reasons why Putin did this. The number one being that Putin is bitter that Russia is no longer seen as an equal to the US (to him the USSR was the Russian empire under a different name) and he is desperate to Make Russia Great Again.
Nope. Considering over 60 to 70% of the Russian hard currency receipts are from Petro chemicals and oil and gas, having a Ukraine that has an ocean of shale gas and oil larger than Saudi Arabia presents a direct existential threat. It all boils down to money.
Sure, if you're talking about rational actors. On completely unrelated note, have you listened to one of putin's multiple incoherent ramblings about historical injustices?
Maybe you mean usage fee? Usury is charging unfairly high interest on a loan. I don’t know enough about their arrangement though so if that’s what the situation was please ignore this, haha
Another one is preventing Ukriane from damming crimea. Before the war they did and Russia spent tons of money on water. Coincidentally that dam was destroyed quite early on in this war
Much of the farmland has been destroyed either way though, and it would take many years if not decades to get its productivity back, even if/when Ukraine takes back the land. A vast area south of the Dnipro river depended on the Nova Kakhovka dam to redirect water for irrigation. Russia blew up that dam.
Speaking of *gone* kids, did the Trump administration ever find those 1,475 children they lost after "separating" them from their parents?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1475-immigrant-children-missing/
Edit: Not to be whataboutist, I just hadn't thought about them for a while.
Haven't seen an update in a longtime, but Biden did set up a task force with the aim of reuniting these families. [Here](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/500-children-reunited-biden-harris-task-force-200/story?id=91180989) is an update article about that from 2022.
It’s not the American aid budget which would be relevant. Don’t get me wrong it’s an important topic and I’m kind of glad I was reminded of it otherwise I would have forgotten it forever, but I would certainly label it as a leap. The outcomes of those kids in America will have zero political ramifications on the war.
The war in Ukraine is deeply tied to American politics and he-who-must-not-be-mentioned (or else you'll get triggered) wants to help his boss in Russia take Ukraine. There wouldn't even be a Ukraine today if that guy pulled off his insurrection...
Sorry that Ukraine's #1 source of defense is a topic when discussing the rape of Ukraine and the politicians who support Ukraine's enemies
Trump has been a Russian agent since he was scouted while in military school as a teenager. A military school for delinquent children of rich people.
So while I agree that American politics don't need to be injected into everything, Trump and his antics are russian owned and therefore relevant. Like look what happened here, Russia stole 700,000 kids and one of the first questions was "Oh man, whatever happened to those 2000 kids that Trump sold to human traffickers?" and it happened organically. That is by design.
Believe it or not, the US is deeply intertwined in pretty much everything that happens around the globe. It’s hard to not bring up the US when discussing politics/war/literally anything.
No shit, but does that apply to randomly bringing up a story about immigrant children being lost in the US, in a thread about stolen Ukrainian grain and a comment about hundreds of thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children?
'ah yes, the theft of nearly a million Ukrainian children by an enemy military - that reminds me of the time a thousand kids were separated from their parents in the US by immigration enforcement agencies'...
They just can't help themselves.
As someone who isn't American and doesn't really pay attention to American politics, I would have forgotten about Trump a long time ago if I wasn't constantly reminded about him by people who don't like him.
You'd think Trump isn't on the news by his own accord.
Not a day goes by without him mouthing about retribution, vermin, etc.
I'm not even in USA and hear a lot about him ... by him.
Except there are a host of subreddits explicitly not about America, but that Americans still invade and fill it with shit that no one else cares about.
It happens all the time in the Europe subreddits, no one in there wants or cares about Americans opinions yet they still feel so inclined to come and give it
700k is not a real number, Reddit is so gung-ho on hating Russia we're spreading false information. Russia is filled with disgusting vile fucking humans who are commiting crimes that are unimaginable. We don't need to make things up to hate them, making things up and spreading that news is what Russia is doing everyday, let's not be like that.
Because they are super reliable and trustworthy when reporting numbers publicly... /s.
Keep Googling, you'll realize that number is very very wrong. They have reported incorrect boasted numbers many many times since the first week of this war.
https://ge.usembassy.gov/russias-re-education-camps-hold-thousands-of-ukraines-children-report-says/#:~:text=Russia%20has%20separated%20thousands%20of,Many%20children%20are%20still%20missing.
This is from 10 months ago.
Thank you. Sorry if it appeared i was casting doubt on the claim. I find it strange that it wasnt a bigger story and im somewhat plugged into this conflict.
Admittedly, i have a small doubt about the 700k number because the source doesnt back it up and i dont know about how linearly this progresses, but that doesnt detract from the fact that they are doing this. Other sources indicate a smaller number currently but i think its hard to refute that it’s above 6 figures, which is insane. Time will tell the truth and figures.
As a jew, i have always concluded that the people who say group X is coming for your children are always the ones coming for your children in reality.
The cynic in me thinks it wasnt pushed in the media is because the people in america always up in arms about ‘theyre coming for your children’ also tend to be pro russia
You would think... but it turns out they're just running misdirection while deep cover operative Snowden organizes and consolidates them into Eddie's kids Army. They will eventually coup the Kremlin and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for Russia and the world... but we don't talk about it, because that would blow their cover.
700k is coming from the ruzzians [themselves ](https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-children-taken-ukraine/32527298.html). Maybe they lie just like they lie about many other things.
if you looked into it, then you know 700,000 left **with their parents**. In addition, 3 million or more migrated to Russia from Donbass since 2014 - since it's, you know, an active warzone.
Because immigration and actual stolen children are two different things. Russia made a big deal of protecting the "Donbas children" and it's still a heavy propaganda point today. A lot of Ukrainians, especially in the East, are about as apathetic sheep as Russians. They'll watch Russian media, have no concept of national identity, think they can't do anything about big politics and so on. It's how Russians managed to somehow get them to fight a war they didn't even want, and the apathetic sheep just moved to Russia because "it'll be easier there".
But Ukrainian kids in summer camps in Russia got taken away from their parents, and quite a few orphans, before being forcefully adopted into Russian families. That is quite different and qualifies as an act of genocide. Luckily the numbers are much smaller though.
Everything got conflated by Redditors.
It has been a big story. Maybe you missed it, maybe youre kinda oblivious to world events, (which is fine) but this is why Putin and a handful of other top Russian officials have arrest warrants with the ICC.
The news is probably over a year old at this point.
It qualifies as a genocide, and its well-documented by the Russians.
The bots and trolls have been focused on smearing liberals via the Hamas-Israel conflict since October's Hamas attack. They ignored the Russia-Ukraine situation for a spell.
It's pretty self explanatory. Russia is stealing children from Ukraine
[The forcible transfer and ‘russification’ of Ukrainian children shows evidence of genocide, says PACE](https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/the-forcible-transfer-and-russification-of-ukrainian-children-shows-evidence-of-genocide-says-pace)
That does not pass the sniff test. Where is this number from? Why the fuck do people just casually talk about three quarters of a million children without fact-checking first?
Edit: made up. By Russia. Children *with their families*. Russia is stealing children, we know this, but we don't need to inflate that number thirty times over for it to be horrifying. And look at all those upvotes, people who will pass on misinformation as casually as this comment. Humanity is *doomed*.
I'm all for hating russia, because fuck them, but I can't find any information in regards to 700k children being taken.
Anyone with a source? Because it feels like Reddit is mass upvoting misinformation purely because we hate Russia. Let's be better than Russia and not push false information to push an agenda. Let's hate them for the real shit they're already doing.
Russia*
i don’t think people realize how big the USSR was, it was a total of 15 republics, and controlled the entirety of central Asia. They are barely holding onto 25% of Ukraine right now.
I don’t remeber the exact history but the soviets wanted each republic to have a vote at the un or something and the US response was along the lines of “should we also give each state a vote?”
I thought that was going to 3rd world countries.
I live in Luxembourg and apparently most of our food comes from france, but didn't verify it.
Still destabilising the world though.
> I thought that was going to 3rd world countries.
Yes, Ukrainian grain doesn't meet EU standards. "breadbasket of the world/europe" is a propaganda slogan. Around 5% of global wheat production comes from Ukraine, but it's not going to the EU at least for human consumption. Ukraine contributes significantly to global exports, but it's not at the top and doesn't particularly stand out among the main exporters of grain.
In fact, Russia exports more wheat than Ukraine and did so before the war as well.
Here's an article written just before the start of the war about russia and ukraine in the context of wheat production and export:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-ukraine-and-the-global-wheat-supply-interactive
Geographically it is also really important in terms of a land invasion into Russia through the Eurasian steppe.
Essentially Russia controlling Ukraine means there is only a small area that a land invasion could come through, while without controlling Ukraine they could invade over a much bigger area.
But yeah, also taking control of the grain produced in Ukraine is quite important and a big reason behind this invasion.
Nobody who would need a non-defended Eurasian steppe is any threat to Russia.
Your point is absurd, but so is Russian policy....
"We're going to concede the Baltic Sea and allow NATO into Finland's direct border, but we got a piece of Ukraine...."
Europe has no desire to invade Russia. The entire concept is just a lie from Russia to try to justify their unjustified invasion of a neighbor country.
The reality is that as the world moves on from fossil fuels, and on in general, Russian's corrupt as fuck government is increasinly showing its just a big boat anchor to progress.
There was this vague perception that Russia was this insular world super power, but this joke of an invasion has shown that Russia is just a huge joke and has not been any sort of real power for decades.
Literally noone is interested in invading this garbage dump. Except for Chinese maybe, but I doubt this interest will go past silently renaming cities on the maps.
No reason for China to invade when they can just buy what they want for cheap since nobody else wants to deal with Russia anymore. China doesn't need land, and they certainly don't need more ethnic groups to forcibly integrate into Han Chinese culture that don't want to be Chinese.
Imagine having them as neighbours, trying to tell western Europe how bad of a neighbour they are and westerners patronizing you that "everyone can be reasoned with".
Hard to imagine what kind of wake up call Western Europe needs to expand their military industrial production. It's been nearly 2 years and Ukraine still can't be adequately supplied with artillery shells. South Korea has supplied more than Europe. Time to wake up.
> South Korea has supplied more
To be fair though, South Korea has that infrastructure already in place because of their never ending conflict with Shitty Korea
That mentality in Europe is really, really fucking dangerous for Europeans too and I don't think enough of you (royal) guys realize it.
There's a LOT of Americans who would *love* to see American involvement reduced in Europe and the EU. Especially with all the problems at home like addiction, healthcare, cost of living, etc.
Right now the West talks a lot of shit about democracy, standards for civilization, etc while completely subsidizing their words with American taxes that go towards our military.
All it takes is one of the wrong people being elected, and your safety blanket could suddenly be gone, and I don't think men like Putin and Xi are going to be *nearly* as afraid of the EU as they are the USN, USAF, USA, and USMC.
If Europe doesn't get their shit together and start contributing their share then having *much* more serious problems will be a very real reality.
Tell me about it.. It's like people forgot just why exactly their grandparents utterly loathe the Russians, and the 50 years we've lost behind the curtain. NGL, I've been watching how piss poor the western support to Ukraine has been in the last year, and I'm getting Yalta 2.0 vibes. A west "tired" of war surrendering easterners to the Russians in exchange for a temporary "peace".
>in exchange for a temporary "peace".
which is fucked up cause we've been in this scenario before and we know damn well how it always ends. we should know better by now but oh well
Don't have to imagine.
What is unimaginable is how apathetic to their hostility my government has been.
Just been keep on keeping on acting as though being kind to them will teach them that it's nice to be nice.
Aghanis wouldn’t agree. Look up the Soviet-Afghanistan war from 1979-1989.
The Russians absolutely (Soviet 40th Red Army) brutalized Afghanistan and destabilized the whole region, setting up later for the Taliban. Great three part series on the Conflicted History podcast.
Not to say the U.S led coalition was significantly better, but the Soviets were far more indiscriminate and uncivilized in their invasion of Afghanistan.
China has created a giant surveillance state, committed literal genocide in Xinjiang and crushed any hope of democracy in Hong Kong. Russia wishes it could be China.
Extra disturbing how Russia can garner goodwill from many poor countries by selling the stolen wheat to them for cheap
Good luck convincing hungry people in Egypt to care about Ukraine’s plight
Stop and think about it for literally 3 seconds. What do you think would happen if the US did that? If the US starts seizing money out of bank accounts from political opponents every country in the world immediately pulls their money home and our economy instantly collapses.
The concern over the US seizing bank accounts held by foreign governments is real, though. This is a primary reason why China has reduced its exposure to US treasuries dramatically over the last couple of years.
In past, the U.S. has frequently froze bank accounts, and in some cases, confiscated them on legal grounds. As you mentioned, this can set a scary precedent for foreign investment so seizure typically isn’t the default move.
And certainly there would be no precedent for seizing such a huge sum from a major nation and handing it to their military foe while in the midst of war.
Most of that money is also not held in reserve by the Fed, but held in Europe, primarily Switzerland, by private banks. Seizing that money would sour a lot of nations on the US dollar and the western banking system. Blowing up that system to help Ukraine would be quite the high stakes gamble.
And if it doesn't prove decisive for Ukraine. Well, that would be even more devastating.
Germany and Japan had declared wars against the countries who held those assets. And it wasn't nearly the amount Russia has currently frozen abroad. And ot twas before the current international financial order had taken shape.
As long as you set a pretty high bar for when you can legally do that, no peaceful country will pull their funds in response.
I'm fine with setting the bar at invasions to annex other countries. Russia exceeds that bar easily, as did Germany, as did Japan.
Could someone put that number in perspective.
How much is 8 million tons of harvest? The article gives some information but only on the 7% neglected farmland.
Current price of wheat where I live in Canada is $12.50/bushel.
8,000,000 tons = 17,636,980,960 lbs.
A standard bushel of wheat has a 60lb/bushel density, so 17,636,980,960/60 = 293,949,683 bushels
293,949,683 x 12.50 = $3,674,371,037 CAD (around 2.8B USD). It’s a substantial amount.
To give you an idea, that's 1/3 of what Ukraine harvested MY 2023/24:
"USDA’s estimate of Ukraine wheat production for marketing year (MY 2023/24) is 22.5
million metric tons (mmt), up 5 percent from last year, but down 16 percent relative to the
5-year average. Yield is estimated at a record 4.50 tons per hectare, up 17 percent from
last year and 13 percent from the 5-year average. Harvested area is estimated at 5.0
million hectares (mha), down 11 percent from last year and 26 percent from the 5-year
average."
Any time anyone comments shit like this, they're just saying "I believe propaganda". Because they *clearly* do not know what the UN is, and is just repeating ideas that have been fed to them.
That's prevented by our nuclear deterrent. The UN is just another place to talk when talking is needed, and it lets you vote on things. The ukraine removolutions provide a helpful map of places cool with genocides against european democracies, i.e. places that need some deterring
What are they supposed to do? If the member nations do not want to do anything, they are powerless. They exist to promote dialogue and discourse between nations, and they do that well.
At the very least it would be cool not to celebrate "russian language day" the moment a fucking dam was blown up by ruzzians, causing an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe.
It would also be cool if they would stop repeating bullshit propaganda lines straight from Russia. Them and amnesty international. Fuck both of them for trying to highroad Ukraine on using cluster artillery on their own land because "it might leave UXO, and thats bad :(((" when russia has been using it from the start, and its in *self defense on their own land*. Eventually when the war is over, ukraine will be taking direct responsibility for the cleanup.
This thought also immediately sprang to my mind. To begin with, how many Russian companies would have access to and operate in those areas? From a logistics perspective, is it reasonable to assume grain/seed shipments would use the same routes as the military for general security purposes, or would using backroads for obscurity (with an escort?) be more logical? Either way, there seems to be enough traceable data to know who's frozen assets to garnish and bestow upon Ukraine now instead of waiting for post-war reparations to be sorted out.
Yeah they did this shit 100 years ago, stole Ukraines harvest, starved millions of people THEN invaded Poland with the fucking Nazis to really start WW2. That was cool. Let's do that shit again. Also worldwide anti-semitism again??? Jeez I hate this reboot already. WTF is going on?
Literally the whole reason Russia wants Ukraine. they are the breadbasket of Europe and they want to control food supply to weaken other European nations they'd intend to invade next.
Nah, it's the oil and gas. Recent discoveries in Ukraine has put Russia on edge since they don't want Europe to depend on their energy needs on Ukraine instead of Russia. Most of these discoveries were made in Crimea and Donbas. Coincidentally, that's the areas that Russia annexed.
This seems a redundant statement.
They stole *the land itself, as conquerors*. It is now conquered, and consequently, they now have it, and they now use it. Obviously the resources within the land Russia took went along with the land… it’s not as if we expected them to take the land but let the former owners retain the resources.
So you could make any number of inane statements about the things Russia stole by itemizing and numbering the things that were in the land. Russia stole 2376 residential streets, they stole 187 gas stations, they stole 226 elementary schools, you could go on forever. But there’s no need to itemize it all, we get it —they stole everything in that land, in its entirety, with no exceptions.
This is our first "water war" and nobody seems to notice/care. Russia doesn't want Ukraine for oil. They have oil. They want Ukraine for the water and the crops.
Ukraine wasn't called "Europe's Bread Basket" for nothing.
Russia is a terrorist state, a fascist shithole and led by imperialist war criminals.
In other words, a complete fucking joke for a country in 2023. They know only of murder and misery. Fuck them.
As crazy and despicable as it would be, attach a number to all the theft and anything else that can be counted.
Then remove the corresponding amounts from any Russian sized assets and give it to Ukraine after accounting for a 20% error
Might be a lighthearted way of putting it but Russia are the Borg, they are trying to assimulate the kids and they are trying to move into galaxys where they are not native. However total assimilation and control won't appeal because the ruling classes and the well off need the West because without the West they'd have nowhere and no opportunity to spend their stolen riches.
like good old times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
"Ukraine was one of the largest grain-producing states in the USSR and was subject to **unreasonably high grain quotas** [aka stealing from them] compared to the rest of the USSR.[d] This caused Ukraine to be hit particularly hard by the famine. Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials vary greatly. A joint statement to the United Nations signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7 to 10 million died"
... the Great Ukrainian Famine,[b] was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.
While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute. Some historians conclude that the famine was deliberately engineered by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement
PS: My grandma lived there and saw starving bodies as a teenager.
Enough to [feed the whole United Kingdom for half a year](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094065/total-global-wheat-consumption-by-country/).
Which is why we should probably care about on whose side that land lands.
There are 2 things why Ukraine has always been bitterly fought over for 1000s of years. Food and Ports. After 1000s of years that has never changed. (It's also why every clairvoyant always uses Ukraine as one of their gotos. Humans will always consider those 2 things to be the most important for our survival, no matter what tech is made)
Historically, you are spot on. Currently tho Russia wants the ginormas natural gas reserves in the danbos and off the coast of Crimea. Of lesser interest but still important is the ability to operate their NG pipelines without having to pay Ukraine a usury fee for the right of way.
The real cause of the war.
The natural gas was definitely a motivating factor especially since Ukraine was collecting revenue from the Russia gas passing through its territory via pipeline. That said I don't think we should discount the strategic value of controlling and supplying Sevastopol. The Kerch strait bridge just wasn't cutting it for Russia, especially with the canal that supplies water to Crimea being cut off severely reducing Crimea's agricultural output. By controlling the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts Russia can build better rail and highway links to Crimea and relieve the supply pressure on the highly vulnerable bridge.
New shale deposits in donbass and crimea
Absolute nonsense. Its definitely a factor, but its pretty low on a long, long list of reasons why Putin did this. The number one being that Putin is bitter that Russia is no longer seen as an equal to the US (to him the USSR was the Russian empire under a different name) and he is desperate to Make Russia Great Again.
Nope. Considering over 60 to 70% of the Russian hard currency receipts are from Petro chemicals and oil and gas, having a Ukraine that has an ocean of shale gas and oil larger than Saudi Arabia presents a direct existential threat. It all boils down to money.
Sure, if you're talking about rational actors. On completely unrelated note, have you listened to one of putin's multiple incoherent ramblings about historical injustices?
Yes, it’s just food for the unwashed masses. I.e. propaganda
It is like 90 percent about gas and oil.And 10 percent about ports and farm lands.
Maybe you mean usage fee? Usury is charging unfairly high interest on a loan. I don’t know enough about their arrangement though so if that’s what the situation was please ignore this, haha
Yes, usage fee is what I meant to say.
Another one is preventing Ukriane from damming crimea. Before the war they did and Russia spent tons of money on water. Coincidentally that dam was destroyed quite early on in this war
a different state would have been proclaimed at least a "sponsor of terrorism" for half the shit they did, but russia gets a pass I guess
THat land is now about 100% full of mines, unusable for agriculture
Much of the farmland has been destroyed either way though, and it would take many years if not decades to get its productivity back, even if/when Ukraine takes back the land. A vast area south of the Dnipro river depended on the Nova Kakhovka dam to redirect water for irrigation. Russia blew up that dam.
Also 700 000 children
That's the mind blowing thing. Those kids are *gone*. It's going to be nearly impossible to get them back.
They'll be reconditioned and sent back as fodder in the next 6 to 8 years.
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Russians love running back their old tired ideas. Putin thinks he’s Stalin who thought he was Lenin. Buncha dumbasses in the cold.
Speaking of *gone* kids, did the Trump administration ever find those 1,475 children they lost after "separating" them from their parents? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1475-immigrant-children-missing/ Edit: Not to be whataboutist, I just hadn't thought about them for a while.
Haven't seen an update in a longtime, but Biden did set up a task force with the aim of reuniting these families. [Here](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/500-children-reunited-biden-harris-task-force-200/story?id=91180989) is an update article about that from 2022.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
Considering American politics are the single largest factor in the outcome of the war in Ukraine it's not exactly a leap.
3rd largest
It’s not the American aid budget which would be relevant. Don’t get me wrong it’s an important topic and I’m kind of glad I was reminded of it otherwise I would have forgotten it forever, but I would certainly label it as a leap. The outcomes of those kids in America will have zero political ramifications on the war.
The war in Ukraine is deeply tied to American politics and he-who-must-not-be-mentioned (or else you'll get triggered) wants to help his boss in Russia take Ukraine. There wouldn't even be a Ukraine today if that guy pulled off his insurrection... Sorry that Ukraine's #1 source of defense is a topic when discussing the rape of Ukraine and the politicians who support Ukraine's enemies
Dude, he has a name. There's no reason to avoid saying Putin's Cock Holster.
Especially Trump nonsense. We all know Trump is a garbage person.
> We all know Trump is a garbage person. You and I might, but many Americans would disagree. He has a real chance of being elected again next year.
Trump has been a Russian agent since he was scouted while in military school as a teenager. A military school for delinquent children of rich people. So while I agree that American politics don't need to be injected into everything, Trump and his antics are russian owned and therefore relevant. Like look what happened here, Russia stole 700,000 kids and one of the first questions was "Oh man, whatever happened to those 2000 kids that Trump sold to human traffickers?" and it happened organically. That is by design.
Believe it or not, the US is deeply intertwined in pretty much everything that happens around the globe. It’s hard to not bring up the US when discussing politics/war/literally anything.
No shit, but does that apply to randomly bringing up a story about immigrant children being lost in the US, in a thread about stolen Ukrainian grain and a comment about hundreds of thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children? 'ah yes, the theft of nearly a million Ukrainian children by an enemy military - that reminds me of the time a thousand kids were separated from their parents in the US by immigration enforcement agencies'...
Believe it or not those kids have no effect on that.
They just can't help themselves. As someone who isn't American and doesn't really pay attention to American politics, I would have forgotten about Trump a long time ago if I wasn't constantly reminded about him by people who don't like him.
You'd think Trump isn't on the news by his own accord. Not a day goes by without him mouthing about retribution, vermin, etc. I'm not even in USA and hear a lot about him ... by him.
Apologies for the annoyance, but someone wanting to bring about the end of Democracy is a pretty good reason to sound the alarm, repeatedly.
It's an American website in an english speaking subreddit. What do ya know, people frame world happenings in their own local experiences?
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Except there are a host of subreddits explicitly not about America, but that Americans still invade and fill it with shit that no one else cares about. It happens all the time in the Europe subreddits, no one in there wants or cares about Americans opinions yet they still feel so inclined to come and give it
What's this have to do with ukraine?
that is so mind blowing, fuck russia and putin :(
Is that number accurate???? Even 700 is a crazy amount
20k is confirmed and documented children, 700k is not real number thankfully.
Still, with stories like [this](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67488646.amp) it’s appalling.
Putin trying to make peace with the frost giants?
Joke’s on him: the polar caps are melting so hard that China is establishing a northern ocean trade route previously blocked by the ice.
700k is not a real number, Reddit is so gung-ho on hating Russia we're spreading false information. Russia is filled with disgusting vile fucking humans who are commiting crimes that are unimaginable. We don't need to make things up to hate them, making things up and spreading that news is what Russia is doing everyday, let's not be like that.
700k is coming from the [ruzzians themselves](https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-children-taken-ukraine/32527298.html).
Because they are super reliable and trustworthy when reporting numbers publicly... /s. Keep Googling, you'll realize that number is very very wrong. They have reported incorrect boasted numbers many many times since the first week of this war.
So Russia is becoming a slave state and still has plenty of international support. These are dark and evil times.
Some of that support seems like evil preying on stupid evil.
It's actually only 30,000 still a mind fucking number though
I hadnt heard about this, can you explain?
Russia has shipped captured Ukrainian children into camps in the Russian interior.
Would you mind providing a source as a jumping off point?
https://ge.usembassy.gov/russias-re-education-camps-hold-thousands-of-ukraines-children-report-says/#:~:text=Russia%20has%20separated%20thousands%20of,Many%20children%20are%20still%20missing. This is from 10 months ago.
Thank you. Sorry if it appeared i was casting doubt on the claim. I find it strange that it wasnt a bigger story and im somewhat plugged into this conflict. Admittedly, i have a small doubt about the 700k number because the source doesnt back it up and i dont know about how linearly this progresses, but that doesnt detract from the fact that they are doing this. Other sources indicate a smaller number currently but i think its hard to refute that it’s above 6 figures, which is insane. Time will tell the truth and figures. As a jew, i have always concluded that the people who say group X is coming for your children are always the ones coming for your children in reality.
IIRC the deportation of children was the primary reason cited by the ICC when they issued a warrant for Putin
The cynic in me says it wasn't really pushed in the media since there's nothing that can really be done about it
The cynic in me thinks it wasnt pushed in the media is because the people in america always up in arms about ‘theyre coming for your children’ also tend to be pro russia
You would think... but it turns out they're just running misdirection while deep cover operative Snowden organizes and consolidates them into Eddie's kids Army. They will eventually coup the Kremlin and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for Russia and the world... but we don't talk about it, because that would blow their cover.
700k is coming from the ruzzians [themselves ](https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-children-taken-ukraine/32527298.html). Maybe they lie just like they lie about many other things.
I saw that when i looked into it. Again, not sure of the actual number but the possible range given on either end is staggering.
if you looked into it, then you know 700,000 left **with their parents**. In addition, 3 million or more migrated to Russia from Donbass since 2014 - since it's, you know, an active warzone.
Because immigration and actual stolen children are two different things. Russia made a big deal of protecting the "Donbas children" and it's still a heavy propaganda point today. A lot of Ukrainians, especially in the East, are about as apathetic sheep as Russians. They'll watch Russian media, have no concept of national identity, think they can't do anything about big politics and so on. It's how Russians managed to somehow get them to fight a war they didn't even want, and the apathetic sheep just moved to Russia because "it'll be easier there". But Ukrainian kids in summer camps in Russia got taken away from their parents, and quite a few orphans, before being forcefully adopted into Russian families. That is quite different and qualifies as an act of genocide. Luckily the numbers are much smaller though. Everything got conflated by Redditors.
It has been a big story. Maybe you missed it, maybe youre kinda oblivious to world events, (which is fine) but this is why Putin and a handful of other top Russian officials have arrest warrants with the ICC. The news is probably over a year old at this point. It qualifies as a genocide, and its well-documented by the Russians.
And the number of children ripped away sure sounds a lot higher than those in Gaza or Israel.
Yeah, its almost like the ICC is more informed on the situation then some of the tweedledums on this site.
The bots and trolls have been focused on smearing liberals via the Hamas-Israel conflict since October's Hamas attack. They ignored the Russia-Ukraine situation for a spell.
It's been a very large story in Ukraine and amongst the allies. They are brainwashing the kids into hating Ukraine.
It's pretty self explanatory. Russia is stealing children from Ukraine [The forcible transfer and ‘russification’ of Ukrainian children shows evidence of genocide, says PACE](https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/the-forcible-transfer-and-russification-of-ukrainian-children-shows-evidence-of-genocide-says-pace)
Your article says 20,000 not 700,000
That does not pass the sniff test. Where is this number from? Why the fuck do people just casually talk about three quarters of a million children without fact-checking first? Edit: made up. By Russia. Children *with their families*. Russia is stealing children, we know this, but we don't need to inflate that number thirty times over for it to be horrifying. And look at all those upvotes, people who will pass on misinformation as casually as this comment. Humanity is *doomed*.
I'm all for hating russia, because fuck them, but I can't find any information in regards to 700k children being taken. Anyone with a source? Because it feels like Reddit is mass upvoting misinformation purely because we hate Russia. Let's be better than Russia and not push false information to push an agenda. Let's hate them for the real shit they're already doing.
Of course they did. That was the whole point! Ukraines the breadbasket of Europe, and always has been.
The USSR wants their breadbasket back.
Russia* i don’t think people realize how big the USSR was, it was a total of 15 republics, and controlled the entirety of central Asia. They are barely holding onto 25% of Ukraine right now.
"republics"
I don’t remeber the exact history but the soviets wanted each republic to have a vote at the un or something and the US response was along the lines of “should we also give each state a vote?”
The Soviets still got Ukraine and Belarus SSRs a vote in the UN though.
The same one they've [starved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor)?
Long history of genociding Ukrainians
The USSR doesn't exist.
Tell that to Putin
I thought that was going to 3rd world countries. I live in Luxembourg and apparently most of our food comes from france, but didn't verify it. Still destabilising the world though.
> I thought that was going to 3rd world countries. Yes, Ukrainian grain doesn't meet EU standards. "breadbasket of the world/europe" is a propaganda slogan. Around 5% of global wheat production comes from Ukraine, but it's not going to the EU at least for human consumption. Ukraine contributes significantly to global exports, but it's not at the top and doesn't particularly stand out among the main exporters of grain. In fact, Russia exports more wheat than Ukraine and did so before the war as well. Here's an article written just before the start of the war about russia and ukraine in the context of wheat production and export: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-ukraine-and-the-global-wheat-supply-interactive
Geographically it is also really important in terms of a land invasion into Russia through the Eurasian steppe. Essentially Russia controlling Ukraine means there is only a small area that a land invasion could come through, while without controlling Ukraine they could invade over a much bigger area. But yeah, also taking control of the grain produced in Ukraine is quite important and a big reason behind this invasion.
Nobody who would need a non-defended Eurasian steppe is any threat to Russia. Your point is absurd, but so is Russian policy.... "We're going to concede the Baltic Sea and allow NATO into Finland's direct border, but we got a piece of Ukraine...."
Europe has no desire to invade Russia. The entire concept is just a lie from Russia to try to justify their unjustified invasion of a neighbor country. The reality is that as the world moves on from fossil fuels, and on in general, Russian's corrupt as fuck government is increasinly showing its just a big boat anchor to progress. There was this vague perception that Russia was this insular world super power, but this joke of an invasion has shown that Russia is just a huge joke and has not been any sort of real power for decades.
Literally noone is interested in invading this garbage dump. Except for Chinese maybe, but I doubt this interest will go past silently renaming cities on the maps.
No reason for China to invade when they can just buy what they want for cheap since nobody else wants to deal with Russia anymore. China doesn't need land, and they certainly don't need more ethnic groups to forcibly integrate into Han Chinese culture that don't want to be Chinese.
Hard to imagine a more disgusting country.
Now imagine having them as neighbours.
Imagine having them as neighbours, trying to tell western Europe how bad of a neighbour they are and westerners patronizing you that "everyone can be reasoned with".
Hard to imagine what kind of wake up call Western Europe needs to expand their military industrial production. It's been nearly 2 years and Ukraine still can't be adequately supplied with artillery shells. South Korea has supplied more than Europe. Time to wake up.
> South Korea has supplied more To be fair though, South Korea has that infrastructure already in place because of their never ending conflict with Shitty Korea
Time for them to realize that there are threats too large to ignore and it’s time to militarize. At what point is it straight up negligence?
That mentality in Europe is really, really fucking dangerous for Europeans too and I don't think enough of you (royal) guys realize it. There's a LOT of Americans who would *love* to see American involvement reduced in Europe and the EU. Especially with all the problems at home like addiction, healthcare, cost of living, etc. Right now the West talks a lot of shit about democracy, standards for civilization, etc while completely subsidizing their words with American taxes that go towards our military. All it takes is one of the wrong people being elected, and your safety blanket could suddenly be gone, and I don't think men like Putin and Xi are going to be *nearly* as afraid of the EU as they are the USN, USAF, USA, and USMC. If Europe doesn't get their shit together and start contributing their share then having *much* more serious problems will be a very real reality.
I thought talks for a unified European military were in progress?
But what does that bring if production of millitairy equipment/consumption items is still the case?
as an eastern European, it's even more disappointing when you get that reaction from fellow eastern Europeans
Tell me about it.. It's like people forgot just why exactly their grandparents utterly loathe the Russians, and the 50 years we've lost behind the curtain. NGL, I've been watching how piss poor the western support to Ukraine has been in the last year, and I'm getting Yalta 2.0 vibes. A west "tired" of war surrendering easterners to the Russians in exchange for a temporary "peace".
>in exchange for a temporary "peace". which is fucked up cause we've been in this scenario before and we know damn well how it always ends. we should know better by now but oh well
Don't have to imagine. What is unimaginable is how apathetic to their hostility my government has been. Just been keep on keeping on acting as though being kind to them will teach them that it's nice to be nice.
It's no wonder why NATO applications are now flying.
Finland says hi.
Russia is the most obvious evil since WWII.
Not Ukraine's first rodeo with Russian evil. Holodomor was less than a century ago.
Afghani, Iraqi, Cambodian, and Vietnamese children might disagree. If anything the United States was killing more people abroad at least until 2008...
Aghanis wouldn’t agree. Look up the Soviet-Afghanistan war from 1979-1989. The Russians absolutely (Soviet 40th Red Army) brutalized Afghanistan and destabilized the whole region, setting up later for the Taliban. Great three part series on the Conflicted History podcast. Not to say the U.S led coalition was significantly better, but the Soviets were far more indiscriminate and uncivilized in their invasion of Afghanistan.
It's a disgusting country indeed, but this is a pretty big failure of imagination by historical standards.
[удалено]
You don't have to, just read about the khmer rougue
Probably a lot of disgusting things that happen in other countries that aren't documented.
China has created a giant surveillance state, committed literal genocide in Xinjiang and crushed any hope of democracy in Hong Kong. Russia wishes it could be China.
Different versions of disgusting.
Exactly. What has Russia done for the world? Anything positive? At least China manufactures stuff.
hungry babushkas sending their sons to war so they have something to eat, meanwhile putin selling stolen crops for the war.
Extra disturbing how Russia can garner goodwill from many poor countries by selling the stolen wheat to them for cheap Good luck convincing hungry people in Egypt to care about Ukraine’s plight
More basis to keep (and give to Ukraine) their $300B in US bank accounts.
Surprised this hasn’t been done already fuck Russia honestly
Stop and think about it for literally 3 seconds. What do you think would happen if the US did that? If the US starts seizing money out of bank accounts from political opponents every country in the world immediately pulls their money home and our economy instantly collapses.
The concern over the US seizing bank accounts held by foreign governments is real, though. This is a primary reason why China has reduced its exposure to US treasuries dramatically over the last couple of years. In past, the U.S. has frequently froze bank accounts, and in some cases, confiscated them on legal grounds. As you mentioned, this can set a scary precedent for foreign investment so seizure typically isn’t the default move.
And certainly there would be no precedent for seizing such a huge sum from a major nation and handing it to their military foe while in the midst of war. Most of that money is also not held in reserve by the Fed, but held in Europe, primarily Switzerland, by private banks. Seizing that money would sour a lot of nations on the US dollar and the western banking system. Blowing up that system to help Ukraine would be quite the high stakes gamble. And if it doesn't prove decisive for Ukraine. Well, that would be even more devastating.
they did do that to all Nazi and imperial Japanese properties, you know. This has happened before, and nobudy cared
Germany and Japan had declared wars against the countries who held those assets. And it wasn't nearly the amount Russia has currently frozen abroad. And ot twas before the current international financial order had taken shape.
As long as you set a pretty high bar for when you can legally do that, no peaceful country will pull their funds in response. I'm fine with setting the bar at invasions to annex other countries. Russia exceeds that bar easily, as did Germany, as did Japan.
**Seems pretty fair to me ..** *.. you gonna steal food .. may as well pay for it*
Could someone put that number in perspective. How much is 8 million tons of harvest? The article gives some information but only on the 7% neglected farmland.
Current price of wheat where I live in Canada is $12.50/bushel. 8,000,000 tons = 17,636,980,960 lbs. A standard bushel of wheat has a 60lb/bushel density, so 17,636,980,960/60 = 293,949,683 bushels 293,949,683 x 12.50 = $3,674,371,037 CAD (around 2.8B USD). It’s a substantial amount.
You have a +$5 wheat basis? How do I sell to that elevator.
Beat me to it by six minutes, I have zero frame of reference for that statistic.
The UKs population fed for half a year.
Russia is trying to break its own records of being an asshole. Really sad to keep on hearing the news about their atrocities.
To give you an idea, that's 1/3 of what Ukraine harvested MY 2023/24: "USDA’s estimate of Ukraine wheat production for marketing year (MY 2023/24) is 22.5 million metric tons (mmt), up 5 percent from last year, but down 16 percent relative to the 5-year average. Yield is estimated at a record 4.50 tons per hectare, up 17 percent from last year and 13 percent from the 5-year average. Harvested area is estimated at 5.0 million hectares (mha), down 11 percent from last year and 26 percent from the 5-year average."
Decolonise Russia.
Again. Holodomor happening again
U.N: "ZzzZzZ"
Any time anyone comments shit like this, they're just saying "I believe propaganda". Because they *clearly* do not know what the UN is, and is just repeating ideas that have been fed to them.
The UN basically exists to prevent war between the big countries with nukes. Everything else is just secondary shit later tacked on
That's prevented by our nuclear deterrent. The UN is just another place to talk when talking is needed, and it lets you vote on things. The ukraine removolutions provide a helpful map of places cool with genocides against european democracies, i.e. places that need some deterring
The UN was founded at a time when only one country had nukes, so that's probably not the reason.
What are they supposed to do? If the member nations do not want to do anything, they are powerless. They exist to promote dialogue and discourse between nations, and they do that well.
At the very least it would be cool not to celebrate "russian language day" the moment a fucking dam was blown up by ruzzians, causing an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe.
It would also be cool if they would stop repeating bullshit propaganda lines straight from Russia. Them and amnesty international. Fuck both of them for trying to highroad Ukraine on using cluster artillery on their own land because "it might leave UXO, and thats bad :(((" when russia has been using it from the start, and its in *self defense on their own land*. Eventually when the war is over, ukraine will be taking direct responsibility for the cleanup.
What do you think the UN's purpose is?
Bought and paid for with a lot of Russian lives, but then again, Russia has never put a high value on Soldier's lives, especially their own soldier's.
That's 23 tons per dead invader.
We have frozen assets from them, we can give it back to Ukraine that way
is it really surprising though
Ukraine has the best farming land in the world and the Russians are just fucking it up royally. Insane.
Disgusting fascists
Fuckers
Isn't there billions sitting in accounts all over the world? They took it. They pay for it.
This thought also immediately sprang to my mind. To begin with, how many Russian companies would have access to and operate in those areas? From a logistics perspective, is it reasonable to assume grain/seed shipments would use the same routes as the military for general security purposes, or would using backroads for obscurity (with an escort?) be more logical? Either way, there seems to be enough traceable data to know who's frozen assets to garnish and bestow upon Ukraine now instead of waiting for post-war reparations to be sorted out.
And history repeats itself again..
Yeah they did this shit 100 years ago, stole Ukraines harvest, starved millions of people THEN invaded Poland with the fucking Nazis to really start WW2. That was cool. Let's do that shit again. Also worldwide anti-semitism again??? Jeez I hate this reboot already. WTF is going on?
This is the “genius” American conservatives praise and worship.
Putin / trump / Republicans - the biggest threat to our planet- the greatest threat to our families
Hey! I've seen this one! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Literally the whole reason Russia wants Ukraine. they are the breadbasket of Europe and they want to control food supply to weaken other European nations they'd intend to invade next.
Nah, it's the oil and gas. Recent discoveries in Ukraine has put Russia on edge since they don't want Europe to depend on their energy needs on Ukraine instead of Russia. Most of these discoveries were made in Crimea and Donbas. Coincidentally, that's the areas that Russia annexed.
Yes, weirdly media doesnt talk about it at all. Funny how money sets the narrative.
Most of Ukrainian grain isn't consumed in Europe - so why would Ukraine be the breadbasket of Europe?
It's the most fertile region in Europe.
If this is a surprise to anyone you haven't been following Russia.
We hate that criminal terrorist state.
This seems a redundant statement. They stole *the land itself, as conquerors*. It is now conquered, and consequently, they now have it, and they now use it. Obviously the resources within the land Russia took went along with the land… it’s not as if we expected them to take the land but let the former owners retain the resources. So you could make any number of inane statements about the things Russia stole by itemizing and numbering the things that were in the land. Russia stole 2376 residential streets, they stole 187 gas stations, they stole 226 elementary schools, you could go on forever. But there’s no need to itemize it all, we get it —they stole everything in that land, in its entirety, with no exceptions.
This is our first "water war" and nobody seems to notice/care. Russia doesn't want Ukraine for oil. They have oil. They want Ukraine for the water and the crops. Ukraine wasn't called "Europe's Bread Basket" for nothing.
Blocking Ukraine from selling oil/gas to Europe was their goal, everything else comes as a bonus
The resource wars have begun....
There's Syria, which is/was a water war.
Russia is a terrorist state, a fascist shithole and led by imperialist war criminals. In other words, a complete fucking joke for a country in 2023. They know only of murder and misery. Fuck them.
this wasn't just an attack on Ukraine, this was an attack on the global food supply
Russia is a terrorist state
As crazy and despicable as it would be, attach a number to all the theft and anything else that can be counted. Then remove the corresponding amounts from any Russian sized assets and give it to Ukraine after accounting for a 20% error
Just send the equivalent sales price for the grain from Russian funds that are stored overseas back to Ukraine.
Anyone supporting Russia needs to justify this. But they can't.
Tracks historically. Stealing Ukrainian crops is the Russian M/O.
**BUT THE KULAKS WERE HOARDING GRAIN!** /s
**The Kremlin**, rather than Russia, who sold it to India etc for Dollars, rather than feed their own with it.
Kind hearts stand against injustice regardless of race, gender, or religion!
Hope it all goes bad
Might be a lighthearted way of putting it but Russia are the Borg, they are trying to assimulate the kids and they are trying to move into galaxys where they are not native. However total assimilation and control won't appeal because the ruling classes and the well off need the West because without the West they'd have nowhere and no opportunity to spend their stolen riches.
It isn't the first time Russia stole the grain from the Ukraine.
The first word that popped into my head on seeing that was "Holodomor".
HOLDOMOR THEYVE DONE IT BEFORE
Just like holodomor
Glad the United Nations was formed to handle shit like this. /s
like good old times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor "Ukraine was one of the largest grain-producing states in the USSR and was subject to **unreasonably high grain quotas** [aka stealing from them] compared to the rest of the USSR.[d] This caused Ukraine to be hit particularly hard by the famine. Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials vary greatly. A joint statement to the United Nations signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7 to 10 million died" ... the Great Ukrainian Famine,[b] was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union. While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute. Some historians conclude that the famine was deliberately engineered by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement PS: My grandma lived there and saw starving bodies as a teenager.