On what grounds do you call the Ukrainian (or is it just Crimean) government of 2014 and before a nazi government?

From r/rust probably.

Absolutely they can be sanctioned – they already were since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. And now even more.

I think the only question is: will it help?

Revenge action from the massacres like this was bound to happen. Too bad it removes a lot (though not all since scale still matters) of the moral high ground Ukraine could have stood on before.

If there is no open discussions, ane everybody just attributes to oppenents as “liars”, that actually means, that parties are not interested in listening to others, and find some kind of truth.

Yes, but this assumes that all parties are discussing in good faith. That there’s at least an official respect for truth. I find it very difficult to find such a sentiment from Kreml’s attitudes and behaviour.

Perhaps wikipedia should be fined until they delete it.

That sounds good in theory, but what is the standard of checking the proofs? None of the parties are exactly impartial. Also since Russia uses lying as a primary political tool, how can we trust anything they say?

It’s a pretty big mistake to take anything Kreml says at face value. At least since Putin took power, lying has been their number one tool. It’s prudent to demand actual, real, irrefutable proof on everything they say before believing it.

Is lying really the best way to improve society?

I would really have to try hard to find a community that would admire Hitler but apparently admiring Stalin, another mass murder seems to be perfectly fine!

One important difference is that Hitler lost the war, and Stalin won the war. Hence Germany was strongly compelled to remorse both internally and externally, whereas Soviet Union (and now Russia) has been proud about most things it did, and did little or no penitence.

In retrospect and in the slightly longer run, losing to allied countries in WW2 was a superb move. That probably doesn’t apply generally, since countries usually don’t survive a total defeat in a war.

If you want, I can give you a link towards those alleged atrocities made by socialists.

Here’s some input for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes – I’d be interested in knowing how these can be countered.

Yeah the real fascists are those who call people fascists. I think I’ve heard this in r/conservative

Chop garlic, onion. Saute in olive oil, throw in a can of crushed tomatoes. Throw in one or several of: black beans, kidney beans, tuna fish, tofu cubes, whatever. Season with peppers, salt, chili, herbs as you like. Takes about 5-10 minutes.

Probably pasta works best in combination, but quinoa and others may too.

Do you think it would be better if they had prepared for it? Plus also: it’s not only the US who is doing this.

Peaceful countries usually are not prepared for war. That’s not a reason to not wage one when shit hits the fan.

I don’t think this was created by Biden admin, more like Clinton, Madeleine Albright and the Bushes. Granted, he’s not exactly doing his best to defuse any of those peoples’ bad decisions (except for Afghanistan, although that was planned by Trump administration)

This is kinda what those reserves are for, isn’t it?

Yes, but waste not. Many government programs utterly fail in bringing any help for the people who need it. Some even outright prevent help.

Is defensive war as bad as offensive war or are they equal?

That is not a bad point, but then the question is: how much should we allow a dictator to dictate what’s happening on the other side of their border? Hitler was allowed leeway several times, and every time he grew hungrier and then the whole world was on fire.

Plus there’s the fact that Ukraine (=its democratically chosen leaders) itself did not want to be part of Russia. Should they have been forced to be by the international community? What kind of a standard does that set? The US did similar things in South America, Iran. They were allowed to do that due to similar reasons as Russia is allowed to do what it’s doing now, but in principle we can probably agree that it was an evil thing to do, right? And that they should have been stopped if that had been possible.

Having my children threatened by war does wonders to previous viewpoints, yes. It brings the theoretical wankery down a notch or two.

I really cannot stress enough how little I want that to happen right now. I’m extremely grateful that NATO exists and is strengthening. I have a fear that it’s not strong enough yet to face everything that might be coming.

Now, if we ever end up in such a happy situation where it’s not actually needed anymore, then sure, bring it down. Personally, I regard even 0.1% GDP military spending a gross violation against humanity. Like Yuval Harari recently said in an interview, every cent of that money is away from some more important problems like healthcare, education and fighting the climate change. But when the alternative is slavery in a totalitarian state then we must do that gross violation then. And now every nation in the world is forced to spend even more on militaries.

This all should very well be added to the long list of crimes against humanity that Putin is growing. But of course he will never be prosecuted. They never are.

Russia has since then demanded u.s. and nato to stand out of ukraine, but were ignored.

Why exactly should their demands be obeyed? They are totally unreasonble.

You actually want Russia to win this thing? Why? From Putin’s casus belli, one of them is absolutely just historically wrong (that Ukraine and Russia were always a single people). Note that at the time when the Russian Empire was a thing and Ukraine was part of Russia, India was part of the British Empire, and China was partially subjugated by them. I’m sure we all agree that that was a shitty thing, and that the current situation is far better, right?

Another casus belli was stretching some numbers a lot (that Ukraine is nazi country).

Only his worry that countries are moving westwards to Nato made some sense. But attacking/threating them completely invalidates his position and absolutely proves that any Russia-adjacent country that wants to be in Nato has an extremely legit reason to do so.

Oh and then there’s the “degenerates” claim which is just so stupid that I cannot even laugh at it. If you don’t like gay people, you can just not fuck them.

It’s not a good vs bad guys fight. It’s about geostrategic and world resources’ domination.

Yep. In a time when the world should be uniting against climate change[1], the nation whose 4 largest exports are fossil fuels, and who has done nothing to improve that situation, decides to lash out. I mean we were losing that fight already, but now?

There actually is evil in this equation here. In comparison, the good (not perfect, but that was never required) guys are actually working to solve this problem.

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/#:~:text=The IPCC is now in,to its latest Methodology Report.

Russia has only a bad option or a worse option to choose.

What are those bad and worse options?

Allowing free elections, free press and not killing your political opponents? Obeying term laws and letting go of power once your term is over? That would’ve removed Putin from power 10 years ago.

Not discriminating against minorities, sexual and otherwise? This doesn’t matter the power plays at all, but is actually one of the key points Putin made in his speeches against the west. He hates “degenerates” and thinks the west is deliberately spreading that.

Perhaps the bad option would be to not attack a neighboring country with the explicit goal of killing a jew and his family?

Letting their partners leave them if they abuse them?

Yeah, such horrible options they have.

Your point was exactly that, don’t try to backtrack on that. You literally compared Russian empire’s atrocities to US atrocities, suggesting that the former doesn’t matter because the latter is somehow larger, which is actually a controversial opinion.

Try reading. It’s fun and educational.

Ah, I see.

Disturbing. But aren’t retaliatory strikes always possible for every nation with nuclear weapons?

Oh, you actually mean this is a measurement contest in which only the winner matters?

We cannot perhaps. I can. My country hasn’t had death sentence for 70 years, and that’s true for most of the western world.

US obviously has problems in this area as well.

Indeed. Which is why it’s a bit bizarre why the left tends to defend Russia. Well, at least they did before this most recent blunder.

You need to perhaps read a history book if you think Russia hasn’t caused their share of all of those.

Almost completely irrelevant. We’re trying to suppress a tyrant. It’s not supposed to be easy. We have plenty of wood and coal. Sure, it’ll hurt the environment, adding to the long list of crimes against humanity that Putin is accruing.

You should try suppressing tyrants some time. It sucks for a while, but afterwards everything’s better. How long has Xi being leading China, btw, and how long do you think he’s going to keep doing it? Do you think his mind is getting younger? Do you think he’s magically protected against a similar kind of dementia that’s gotten to Putin? He’s only 1 year younger.

A multipolar world has always existed: civilized and non-civilized. Russia was in the middle for a while (which seemed to have been some sort of a ruse) and now went full-on to the other side. Perhaps west did something to prevent them from coming to the civilized side, if so, that’s absolutely deplorable.

Even so, nobody forced Putin to keep clinging to power, to keep imprisoning and poisoning his political opponents. That’s 100% on him.

When shit meets fan, it often happens that enemies become friends. For instance, in 1939 Finland the communists and the right (who had fought a bitter war against each other just 20 years prior) joined to fight against the aggressor, Soviet Union.

Gun referred to this https://theconversation.com/putins-public-approval-is-soaring-during-the-russia-ukraine-crisis-but-its-unlikely-to-last-177302 which refers to https://www.levada.ru/2022/02/04/odobrenie-institutov-polozhenie-del-v-strane-doverie-politikam/ which shows that Putin’s approval rating was 69% in January 2022.

Now, I suppose it could be higher now. I already had no idea why russians seem to support Putin as much as they do for 22 years, so I don’t claim to know how their minds operate.

Putin’s approval rose to 69% (nice)

I think that approval rating was measured before Putin started the war against Ukraine.

Clowns? Why do you do this?

edit Oh, you wrote this 2 days ago. Perhaps that was a somewhat valid sentiment back then.

Good sources, I appreciate it, for what that’s worth. Although, I’m not sure what an article from 2004 can say about an event that happened in 2014.