• -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 days ago

    With…what army? The very same fascist paramilitaries that killed the trade unionists in Odessa? Or are we continously ignoring that part? Or the banderites? Azov being an example of both? Also, they had received explicit intelligence support from the U.S…

    Like are we for real right now? The largest threat to Russia’s security is the West, NATO and the imperialists that reside within them.

    • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      ALL OF THOSE THINGS THAT YOU LISTED ARE A BIGGER PROBLEM NOW THAN THEY WERE BEFORE THE SMO AND NOT ONLY THAT BUT THE CONVENTIONAL WESTERN MILITARIES ARRAYED AGAINST RUSSIA HAVE GROWN IN SIZE IN DIRECT RESPONSE TO THE PERCEIVED THREAT OF RUSSIAN AGGRESSION.

      Do you think that the American invasion of Afghanistan reduced the number of anti-American paramilitaries in the world? Because the exact same thing happened here - a big invasion to stamp out a small threat only managed to galvanize resistance against the big invader. Who would have guessed given how many times this exact scenario has played out in history.

      • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 days ago

        They were already an issue to Russia’s sovereignty before as I said and then backed up in the copypasta I literally just posted that you apparently “read”. Of course the issue would be larger in proxy military confrontation. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s not Putin’s fault for launching the SMO when it was gearing up to threaten the country on orders of imperialists. Caps-lock doesn’t change that either.

        American invasion of Aghanistan was imperialist. Russian invasion of Ukraine was not. There is no comparison there. This wasn’t a “Small threat” because you keep seemingly ignoring CIA and western-intelligence sponsored paramilitaries and political organizations that reorganized the country in a violent overthrow and murdered leftists and trade-unionists as we seen in Odessa. That is not a “small threat” that is a direct threat to the sovereignty of Russia.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Could those CIA and western-intelligence sponsored paramilitaries and political organizations have ever inflicted as much damage to Russia as this war has? Don’t get me wrong - intervening to stop the persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine by organized neonazis is good and I do think that they had legitimate security concerns about Ukraine basically being turned into a hotbed for fascists, terrorism, and organized crime. I realize I’m not privy to all the information they have access to, but I just don’t see the strategic advantage this war has for Russia.

          • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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            2 days ago

            Have you seen the sheer violence and devastation America will bring to the periphery when it dare revolts? Hell, not even revolting, simply just choosing a path that will slightly threaten the interests of private capital in those nations owned by America or even it’s allies that cling to previous colonial vestiges like a dying tick? I mean, Chile is a great example. Beyond that, America will install dictators and brutal leaders in nations like that or support them in Indonesia and the Philippines who will gladly purge political opponents or dissidents for them. Previously, in Russia when the USSR fell, America carved out the nation financially. Pepsi was buying Russian warships for debt.

            I’m sure you know this, but remarking and looking back on the brutality of what the Empire has done, what would it do now if given the chance? Just for a single moment when it’s enemies let it’s guard down like Gaddafi?

            The strategic advantage is preventing Ukraine from being used as a launching ground for an invasion, or “hotbed” for terrorists or threats to spawn and attack the nation backed by it’s major rival and leader of the imperialist hegemony that controls the world.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              I have no doubt that Ukraine would have become a staging ground for some future attack on Russia, but would that have actually been worse than this war already is? While the US-backed Ukraine regime might have launched border incursions or terrorist attacks or something, it’s hard to imagine the Europeans openly supporting Ukraine if they attacked Russia first.

              Instead, because of Russia’s preemptive invasion, NATO expanded onto Russia’s border with Finland. That seems bad.

              • TankieTanuki [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                2 days ago

                it’s hard to imagine the Europeans openly supporting Ukraine if they attacked Russia first.

                Not for me. The media does an excellent job of ignoring or hyperfocusing on whatever it takes to support their narrative.

                When Kiev sent military jets to bomb civilians in Donetsk in 2014, did it make headlines in the US? I don’t remember hearing a thing.

                The CIA can also do a false flag (e.g. Gulf of Tonkin) whenever it pleases, and compliant media would make it the biggest story of the decade. They’ve been priming the public for years with fake news about Russian covert ops, like Putin trying to hack the energy grid in the US.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  I think we’d be seeing a situation similar to the collapsing support for Israel, where despite media manipulation there’s been a reversal against Israel and its only getting worse for them. The masses have turned against them and already several European countries have ended arms trade with Israel because the restive masses continue direct actions against the arms supply chain.

                  A different world where people were as critical of Ukraine as they have become of Israel would be catastrophic to the empire.

                  Maybe I’m giving the Europeans too much credit.

              • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                2 days ago

                Yes it would be very much worse. Genocide in Donbass was already ongoing and Russian intervention thwarted massive AFU assault against DPR and LPR. It would be massacre.

                Secondly, Russia somewhat recovered after even the nightmarish 90’s, which for US planners mean it was not enough, this time they would loot even nails and most likely aimed for balkanisation. Imagine Yugoslavia but much worse.

                Thirdly, the real target of entire endeavour was nor even Russia but China, taking over Russia would means economic, political and military trouble for China, encircling it and probably (or rather certainly looking at last 5 years) also destroying most of its Belt and Road initiative gains.

                Finally, Finland was licking boots of every protofash and fash since 1918. It was de facto already NATO member, it changed nothing.

                I cannot stress this enough, no matter how you do dislike Russia, its intervention in Ukraine stopped imperialists in their tracks to yet another round in world domination and started an event chain that could potentially lead to demise of imperialist core and quite possibly save us all and planet.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  This has nothing to do with any “dislike” I might have for Russia. My understanding is that Russia has been heavily shaped by the Western-orchestrated collapse of the USSR and the ongoing isolation of Russia to keep it on the periphery; there’s very little I can hold against their government without taking that context into account.

                  Furthermore, this doesn’t effect the critical support I have for Russia in the war. Defeating the US/NATO bloc is a good thing, even if I disagree that starting a war was the best way to defend Russia or to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

                  I just wonder if there was an alternative: give humanitarian refugee status to ethnic Russians and rescue them peacefully for resettlement in Crimea (which is one piece of Ukrainian territory that I understand Russia needed to take in order to defend itself from the rest of Ukraine, and which it took bloodlessly), and then defensively prepare for any aggression.

                  But this probably comes from ideological priors - I don’t understand the connection people have with their land. It’s something I’ve never had. I’m probably trivializing the trauma of moving people around to keep them safe and improve their economic conditions, but I think fewer people would have died or been maimed by becoming Russian citizens proper and defensively preparing for Ukrainian aggression. Even if that came at the cost of dispossession.

                  • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
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                    1 day ago

                    give humanitarian refugee status to ethnic Russians and rescue them peacefully for resettlement in Crimea

                    This is a horrific proposal. You are literally suggesting that Russia aid Ukraine in its Nazi project of ethnically cleansing the Donbass. This is no different from the faux-humanitarian proposals to “relocate” Palestinians from Gaza, i.e. aid “Israel” in their genocidal ethnic cleansing project.

                    I don’t understand the connection people have with their land.

                    Therein lies the problem and why you can’t see that Russia had no choice. Most people are intrinsically tied to their land, it is their home, it is part of who they are. Just like Palestine is and always will be the homeland of Palestinians and they would rather die than leave it, so the Donbass and Novorossiya is the home of millions of ethnic Russians. They were born and grew up there. Their parents were born and grew up there. They have been on their land for generations and are not going to willingly leave it. And being forced to do so would cause them immense generational trauma just like the Nakba did for the Palestinians.

                    What you are suggesting would have been absolutely and utterly political suicide for a Russian government to do. It would have been viewed not just in the Donbass but in most of Russia proper as a heinous betrayal of the Russian people. As capitulating and selling them out for the illusory promise of a few more years of peace.

                    Capitulating to Nazis and giving them what they want does not bring peace. It only emboldens them to go even further.

                    I think fewer people would have died or been maimed by becoming Russian citizens proper and defensively preparing for Ukrainian aggression.

                    They did become Russian citizens proper. Russia gave citizenship to all the residents of the liberated regions, and additionally took in millions of people who fled from Ukrainian occupied territory that Russia has not yet liberated. This is a defensive war against the Banderite Kiev regime’s aggression against the Donbass, it has been since 2014.

                  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                    1 day ago

                    My understanding is that Russia has been heavily shaped by the Western-orchestrated collapse of the USSR and the ongoing isolation of Russia to keep it on the periphery

                    Correct, but it’s not 90’s now, they had spend quite significant effort to change this and dialmat dictate we acknowledge that they are now not only not isolated but one of two main forces driving antiimperialism and global south cooperation. They also, while still remained capitalist, reversed much of the neoliberal organisation from back then.

                    starting a war was the best way to defend Russia or to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

                    It’s not that i disagree with you, but they did tried everything else first but Ukraine western handlers were pushing for war hard to the point of treating formal international agreements they signed and ratified like empty scraps of paper. Again, they only intervened literal days before AFU planned offensive that would end with a massacre in Donbass.

                    give humanitarian refugee status to ethnic Russians

                    Majority of Ukrainian citizens who emigrated from Ukraine since 2014, did so to Russia. Russia did exactly what you said.

                    and rescue them peacefully for resettlement in Crimea

                    Again, Russia taken in literal millions of people running from economic and later military violence by UA government. Also it’s very similar argument as “why they couldn’t just resettle Palestinians to Jordan”. People of Donbass clearly decided their selfdetermination in 2014 (same as Crimea). Donbass also got a long history of not wanting to be in Ukraine, Lenin in one of his biggest L’s just told them to shut up and suck it up, Stalin did the same in 30’s (with more reason though), and same was in 1991 and 2014. They simply don’t want to be Ukrainian and have over a century of consistent history of it.

                    and then defensively prepare for any aggression.

                    This is also what USSR and later Russia do since 1945 (or really in various conditions since 1800). Needles to say, it didn’t worked.

                    I don’t understand the connection people have with their land

                    Fair enough, but it is one of the main components of nationalism, arguably one of most important ideological constructs of modern world, and was equally important for millenia before. Probably originated in neolithic sunk cost effort or something like that :)

                    I’m probably trivializing the trauma of moving people around to keep them safe and improve their economic conditions

                    I also have mixed feelings about that, i definitely do acnowledge what you mention here, but also i do support resettlement in certain situations (like most of WW2 and post WW2 by USSR), i guess it largely depend on situation. USSR did not had any genocidal intent doing that (as lack of Latvians living on the shores of Arctic sea clearly shows), and it was even the opposite - imagine the shitshow in the 90’s without post war resettlements of Germans, Poles etc.

        • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 days ago

          Small threat is relative here. If you think that a fringe paramilitary is a threat on par with multiple countries’ conventional militaries, then you are a moron.

          • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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            2 days ago

            Yeah man, the dudes who couped Assad were just fringe paramilitaries. They didn’t have explicit backing of the imperialist hegemony, weapons, funding and intelligence support.

            This didn’t happen in Ukraine whatsoever and were just some fringe paramilitaries that happened to take over suddenly despite having backing, funding, intelligence support and covert weapons support all the way back to the 60s where they then suddenly just took over a nation bordering a major rival of that hegemony. It just all happened out of nowhere, jumbles of images and such because I’m such a fucking moron.

            Get real.

            • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              2 days ago

              Ukraine in 2020 was nowhere near the state of Syria in 2025. This is a totally illegitimate comparison.

              • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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                2 days ago

                Not at all. As much as a comparison for a intelligence officer being the reason behind a worker’s state degeneration, right? You’re totally right. That’s what you want to hear, right?

                Slavi ukraini and fuck putler, right?

                You’re already done with me. I’m done with you. I’ve tried.