This is the only reasonable argument, but I know rabid liberals frothing at the mouth over more dead Russians don’t want to see it.
Still, for those who are still reasonable in their goals and ends, and the outcome they actually want to see, there’s only one solution.
The argument on the pro-UA side is that Putin has the “choice” to just up and leave Ukraine at any time. I’ve written before about why he doesn’t – not after all the sanctions, not after all the resources and troops committed. NATO/Europe will not say “alright you’re a good sport mate, we’ll drop the sanctions and pretend this whole thing never happened, deal?”. There’s a “warrant” out for Putin at the ICC, what makes anyone sincerely believe things can go back to where they were before for Russia?
It should hopefully be clear that the people calling for Putin to just “leave Ukraine” know they’re not being reasonable. These are some of the same people who also cheer when Ukraine gets new weapons to kill more Russians with. The goal for this segment is not peace, it’s actually to prolong the war.
I’m addressing the reasonable side, however, who might have been inadvertently taken in by this psyop. I mean, isn’t it weird how NAFO suddenly popped up everywhere and got media coverage? After they’re doing the exact same thing as the Lithuanian elves (because elves fight against orcs) did back in 2014, and it turned out the “elves” were NATO?
Saying Putin can just leave Ukraine is impotent rage. Yeah, sure, I’m just gonna give him a quick call. He really cares what some westerners think about his war, especially now that he has to contend against NATO intervention. I’m sure we can totally convince him he’s being a total nerd if we just yell about it on Twitter.
So if you actually want peace, what’s the reasonable solution?
Organise locally, petition your government to stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine. Organise and protest for a peace deal. I know it’s probably not what you want to hear.
But these weapons prolong the war. Just earlier today I saw a video of an APC full of 8+ Ukrainians get obliterated by a missile strike. Where did they get that APC do you think?
Do you want Ukrainians to stop dying? Me too. The most pragmatic way, the only one towards which we can actually do something, is to protest against our governments sending equipment that prolong this war.
Otherwise you have to realise this war is going to be fought to the last Ukrainian. Do you really think it’s weakening Russia in any lasting capacity? The fighting is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine has been losing population consistently since 1990 (a whole fifth of it lost, mostly, to emigration). What exactly is weakening in Russia? It’s Ukraine that’s being destroyed and will need to be rebuilt. It’s Ukraine that’s losing their population by the thousands. It’s Ukraine that’s shooting depleted uranium bullets on their own soil.
What you’re advocating for, when you advocate to prolong this war, is to kill every last Ukrainian and turn their country into a wasteland. The UA army is even using depleted uranium bullets now (courtesy of US and UK), which have polluted the land when they were used in Iraq. This is backed up by data, right? Depleted uranium has data behind it, it’s not speculation.
The reason the war is being prolonged is because it makes a lot of money to the military-industrial complex. It makes a lot of money to corporations due to the inflation. A blackrock affiliate said on hidden camera recently that when Russia blows up a grain silo, the price of wheat goes up. War is a great business opportunity, always has been. And then when Ukraine will need to be rebuilt, it’ll make Blackrock a lot more money.
But I’m not sure who they will rebuild the country for if there’s no one else left to live in Ukraine.
My solution is the only one that makes sense. Any other is purely impotent and just venting frustrations, not effecting any actual change.
Pinning for a bit to see if federation has anything to say about this.
I agree with your material analysis of the situation, but not of the solution.
Petitioning and protesting against western governments have been shown to be ineffective time and time again. It’s a waste of time and effort. The realistic conclusion to the dragged out war comes after a decade or so when a power broker (probably China) gets them to agree to a ceasefire as it was the case in Yemen.
I’m not trying to be defeatist, but there is nothing that comrades can do to affect the outcome of the situation in my assessment.
Petitions are useless, but widespread strikes demanding an end to the weapon shipments would surely be effective as long as they refuse to compromise. Unfortunately, long and principled strikes seem to be very rare in the imperial core (e.g. the ultimately disappointing railroad worker strike earlier this year in Amerika)
Unfortunately, long and principled strikes seem to be very rare in the imperial core
I imagine this has something to do with some like 60, 70% of us are in such ‘paycheck-to-paycheck’ straits that we can only really sustain a couple weeks of striking at any given time. Mix in right-to-work status, the corporates’ ease-of-access to scabs, and mass atomization, and it’s really no wonder.
Also pretty much nobody grows and sells any of their own food anymore. There really aren’t many “cottage industry” food providers that can be bartered with.
Every house having a couple chickens, or a little vegetable patch, or a side business in something barterable could effectively support a strike.
It’s just not possible here and now, though.
Petitioning and protests without broader organisation will almost always fail to secure any meaningful change. The curious thing is why anyone thinks such a basic and unorganised strategy would ever work after so many decades of it failing. That’s why we must stand for the organisation of the workers. Then we can petition and protest.
I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s in the US’ and NATO’s best interest to keep this war going. Bringing Ukraine into NATO just creates an extra buffer between Russia and the rest of western Europe. I have no idea how this war ends, but I don’t think it ends with Ukrainian Jimmy Fallon dancing on Putin’s grave
Ukraine will never even get into NATO, after the war started they admitted it was just bait and they told zelensky to keep the lie up. Merkel admitted Minsk I and II were only signed to gain time to train and equip Ukraine. NATO provoked Russia into this war as much as they could.
There’s also the thought that if they can make Russia fail “hard enough” in the Ukraine, it will force Putin out in disgrace. This may be part of the “no negotiation, no way we can ever give him even a token win” mindset.
Even before any tangible aggression, there’s been years of degrading relationships between the West and Russia, and I suspect it’s because Putin wasn’t anywhere near as convenient a partner as Yeltsin was. He at least knows how to try to be cut-throat.
They’ve definitely been harping the “will this end Putin” angle since day 1 of the operation. Last year it was “ooh, look, the sanctions are moderately inconveniencing the oligarchs and they’ll surely toss him out any minute now”. This week it’s the Wagner guy. Probably next week it will be something even zanier-- I bet someone’s putting a bow on an OceanGate sub and mailing it to Moscow as we speak.
No matter how you feel about Putin personally and his actions, he has at least kept the country somewhat stable. Russia has historically had problems with seperatist movements, and there is huge amount of both atomic and conventional weapons and associated knowledge we’d sort of rather not end up scattered to the winds. If Putin were to be forced out, especially under any terms but his own, it’s doubtful there would be a smooth transfer of power. OTOH, I do await the popcorn if/when the West tries to pull another Juan Guiado and bless some convenient stooge with no local credibility.
Honestly, thanks for this. Seeing people around the world prodding more and more Ukrainians to go die and kill in the meat-grinder because of some misguided sense of nationalism for country whose language they can’t even type is truly a weird sight. And whenever some politician even advocates for pragmatic peace talk necessities like temporary ceasefires, they’re derided as pro-Russia. I think another solution you didn’t mention is also to petition governments to pressure Ukraine into letting more Ukrainians to migrate and welcoming those who come, specially the poorest ones (as well as migrants from other countries). There is no sane reason that men aged 18 to 60 who do not want to participate in the war should be forced to remain there against their will, and if Germany can spare the tanks it can also spare housing, food and language courses.
When Ukraine loses, these people will move on to the next thing in the media cycle and a year down the line will pretend they always knew Ukraine was always going to lose.
Edit: you’re correct, peace deal is the ultimate goal but there’s also other stuff one can do before then. All in all it begins at home.
I don’t think they will move on that cleanly. The duopoly false opposition parties in liberal democracies backing this genocidal proxy war have made it a counter cultural thing to not support sending more arms. When they stop printing “UA is killing 100k Russian per cubic diamond second squared” articles it’ll be the big bad conservative party’s fault they didn’t have enough defunct wunderwaffen to kill 1M Russians per cubic diamond second squared to ethnically cleanse Crimea for that nafo beach party there this summer.
The issue with the Russians turning around and going home is that there’s nothing to stop the Ukrainians from going full purge and wiping out everyone they percieve to be ethnically Russian that’s still living in East Ukraine. And I’d bet good money that the narrative will turn into “Leftover Putinist insurgents attacking Ukrainian forces” to cover it up.
Additionally if Russia retreated to their borders Ukraine would push into Russia at this stage. Like abandoning is not a real option for either side, you need a peace deal or at least a ceasefire to do anything.
The same NAFO trolls that say Putin should just up and leave have no argument for the opposite (that Ukraine should abandon fighting this war) because they would be forced to admit that it’s not a realistic solution whatsoever if they actually engaged with it. Thus their only argument is “Ukraine is the one that’s getting invaded why would they abandon the fight?” which is a deflection.
In it’s own delusional way, the ‘establishment’ is starting to voice the same opinion: https://web.archive.org/web/20230623064703/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/western-approach-to-ukraine-is-delusional-l2qx7q6zs (if anyone can get around the pay wall, that’e be great – the is a photo of the print version floating in Twitter but I lost the link).
Protesting is useless. Run up to the Iraq war saw the largest protests in history all over the world, and they did nothing.
China has to step in, and that won’t happen for years.
I personally have checked out from following the Ukraine conflict.
Liberal protesting won’t work. What’s needed is organised action by workers of all countries standing in international solidarity. Protests might be one tactic in that movement, but not the only tactic. When it is the only tactic, like with Iraq, it creates the impression that protests are useless. The perception of that uselessness is now built into the narrative. But don’t lose heart. We can create a new narrative. We have a world to win and we can win it.
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I didn’t say Russia won’t stop fighting no matter what happens. Russia has been, from day 1 (well, for years before the war technically), trying to engage in negotiations. What they won’t do is simply take their troops, take their equipment, and leave.
Ukraine is starting to kidnap men off the streets to send them to the front. It’s also quite interesting how this seems to happen mostly in the eastern Russian speaking regions. Although I can’t say how many men were nabbed off like this, it still happens, and there’s resistance to it; if people willingly lined up to go to the front they wouldn’t need to fetch them off the streets.
And you can say that once they’re sent to the front (after mobilisation and going through boot camp, hopefully they still get that at least) they’ll be fighting, but it’s not like they have much of a choice. As a soldier not fighting is not your prerogative, Ukraine even made the penalties to desertion and refusal to fight harsher (a few more years in prison) after the war started.
Ukrainians as a people don’t form a single homogenous group. Ask the people of the Donbass what they think of the war, they’re supposed to be Ukrainians too. And I’m sorry but “wanting peace and agreeing to let go of contested regions”, as your acquaintances used to think, is not a vector for change, it’s just words in the air. Where were those peace activists when Azov was terrorising civilians? When Luhansk was being shelled by mortar fire? They seemed perfectly fine with their government killing its own people, up until Russia stepped in. From what you’re saying it seems they always held these beliefs, they just didn’t surface until now. If they actually believed in self-determination for the Donbass then why are they mad at Russia now?
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Do you want Ukranians to stop dying?
Overwhelmingly, the Ukranian population supports continued resistance. I wouldn’t want anyone else but myself to be able to decide how I use my life. The same goes for them.
Is it copious amonts of bloodshed? Yes. Are people profiting from it? Also yes. But we aren’t forcing their hand or manipulating Ukraine into continuing the war.
I’d prefer a peace deal, but I’d rather keep supplying arms in the meantime. Mostly as leverage, because otherwise I’m sure Putin would only settle for a more Russia-favored peace deal in that case.
How much they’re willing to risk more bloodshed for that better leverage is up to the Ukranians. It’s their lives.
Which of these Ukrainians support the resistance? Those that are safe in Kyiv, or the Russian-speaking ones that are sent to the front?
You lost me at “psyop” frankly.
why?
“rabid liberals frothing at the mouth” and then you call yourself reasonable. Gtfo
“Wahhh wahhh wahhh, why are you calling me out for my shitty political beliefs?”
Found your yearbook picture.
Man, that’s an insult to purse-rats. This is a bit more their speed.
That’s an insult to worms. Worms have a necessary role in the environment and clean up trash and detritus.
Aaaah, that’s fair!
Ad hominem. Do you have an argument against the points made in the post?
So basically, your solution is appeasment and just let Russia steamroll Ukraine and start biting at Poland’s feet? Let’s give them part of Czechoslovakia while we are at it. Yeah no. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
Slava Ukraini is what the Ukrainian Collaborationist Schuma force yelled as they assisted the 3rd SS division in exterminating everyone in my ancestors village.
I hope you eat shit and die Nazi.
Bold of you to assume they can read
I’m sure some of them also said “fuck this shit”. But those who today say “fuck this shit” aren’t Nazis either. Your logic is unsound.
A more specific slogan, such as “heil Hitler” or “death to Jews” would certainly be abhorrent and extremist today, but the usage and implicit meaning of “Ukraine Heroes” has likely changed. The phrase is a clarion call. Context is everything.
I’m sorry to hear about what occurred in your ancestors’ village. But I’m not sure you can make the leap that people using a multipurpose catchphrase today are of the exact same political persuasion as those who used it 80 or so years ago.
Multipurpose? It only has one purpose: nazi dogwhistle
I’m not sure that’s accurate, can you provide any sources?
The phrase first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in different variations, when it became popular among Ukrainians during the Ukrainian War of Independence from 1917 to 1921.[1] The response “Glory to the heroes!” first appeared during the Ukrainian War of Independence or later in the 1920s among members of the League of Ukrainian Nationalists.[2] In 1930s it became widespread as a slogan of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN),[3] as well as Ukrainian diaspora groups and refugee communities in the West during the Cold War.
The League of Ukrainian Nationalists (Ukrainian: Леґія українських націоналістів, romanized: Legiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv or ЛУН, LUN) was an Ukrainian nationalist organisation created in Poděbrady on 12 November 1925 out of three groups, the Ukrainian National Alliance, the Union of Ukrainian Fascists, and the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.
The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; Ukrainian: Організація українських націоналістів, romanized: Orhanizatsiya ukrayins’kykh natsionalistiv) was a Ukrainian nationalist organisation established in 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups. The OUN was the largest and one of the most important far-right Ukrainian organizations operating in the interwar period on the territory of the Second Polish Republic.[17][18]
The OUN was mostly active preceding, during, and immediately after the Second World War. Its ideology has been described as having been influenced by the writings of Dmytro Dontsov, from 1929 by Italian Fascism, and from 1930 by German Nazism.[19][20][21][22][23][24] The Organization pursued a strategy of violence, terrorism, and assassinations with the goal of creating an ethnically homogenous and totalitarian Ukrainian state.[23][25]
From Wikipedia.
“Multipurpose catchphrase”???
That’s what you call a war cry used before the OUN committed some of the most vile warcrimes of the Second World War? You are an absolute ghoul.
Also you have no goddamn clue what the Schuma or Hewies were do you? “Fuck this shit?” They gleefully committed those exterminations, razing over 600 villages and committing hundreds of thousands of murders and rapes. The Schuma numbered 300,000 ARMED UKRAINIAN MEN ASSISTING THE SS. That’s a lot of people that didn’t say “fuck that shit” huh?
Also “your logic is unsound”???
You being a moron and not understanding the concept that phrases and slogans have different meaning in other cultures that aren’t your own isn’t “unsound logic”, that’s you having the worldview narrower then a pinhole. But it’s very easy to be arrogant and ignorant, so I don’t blame you.
But I promise you that for decades before this war, going to Poland, Belarus, the Baltics, Southern Russia, Romania, or Ukraine and saying “Slava Ukraini” would get the absolute shit beat out of you by anyone in earshot. It is on the same level as “Heil Hitler”.
Nice nazi dogwhistle there, cracker; should we fly you and yours upside down when Ukraine’s counter-offensive fails? Take your ass home to whatever lib instance you registered with. Anything is better than letting western-funded fascism fester on the planet; and that you don’t see things that way tells me exactly who you are, what you are, and whose water you carry.
It would appear the concept of Leninist ‘patient education’ is lost on yourself.
Another maxim: you catch more flies with honey than you do with shit.
I share your frustration but your language serves only to widen the divide between those who get the reality of things and those who have been brainwashed by the Western media. They are victims too, in a way.
Nah, the concept isn’t lost on me; I just wasn’t put on this earth to waste my breath educating the sons and daughters of settlers. If some poor lost liberal really needs someone to pat their head and rub their tummy for getting the bare basics right, there’s other people for that. Until these crackers stop killing my brothers and sisters, and I start seeing them put themselves in the way of this country’s killer pigs, that will never be me.
Slava Ukraini
True, there’s one other pragmatic solution you can do, which is to join the foreign legion in Ukraine.
I don’t think it’s a very sensible solution if you value life, but you do you.
One of the reasons I critically root for the other side is that they have literally blown up redditors. At least somebody gets to live the dream.
So basically, your solution is appeasment and just let
RussiaAmerica steamrollUkraineIraq and start biting atPoland’sAfghanistan’s feet? Let’s give them part ofCzechoslovakiaIran while we are at it. Yeah no.Slava UkrainiDeath to America 🇮🇶Removed by mod
I am honestly confused, so please don’t take this too negatively, but it seems to me that you’re making the point that what the USA did in Iraq was terrible (which I agree to), but using that as an argument that Ukraine should just take more or less the same treatment from Russia?
The difference here is that the USA supports Ukraine, whereas Iraq was alone in its fight.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that’s relevant to the point. If we make this analogy, with how the invasion of Iraq by the USA was bad, why should we treat the invasion of Ukraine by Russia differently?
The USA has global hegemony right now, while Russia doesn’t have the economic capacity to be a hegemon. The USA has been bombing and destroying countries for its entire existence and is currently using Ukraine to try to do the same to Russia. It is powerful enough and dangerous enough that nearly any action that opposes US hegemony is a good thing for the rest of the planet. It’s already caused enough damage that it is now fundamentally an existential threat to humanity.
In this lens, who does it make sense to support? Russia, who has repeatedly asked NATO to not expand eastwards after its application to join NATO twice got rejected, or Ukraine, who had a US-backed coup back in 2014 that was unpopular enough that Crimea and the Donbass voted to leave Ukraine? A coup that replaced the democratically elected pro-Russian government with an anti-Russian one who has been shelling the Donbass for almost a decade. The Ukraine border is geographically the hardest for Russia to defend (which is why they aren’t particularly worried about Finland joining NATO), a weakness exploited by Operation Barbarossa. Which side has Azov again?
We support Russia because we support any and all actions that bring an end to the war in the Donbass as soon as possible. We support them because it was Ukraine who violated the Minsk agreements, proving that they can’t be trusted to not push into Russia and extend its shelling of russian-speakers in the Donbass into the entirety of Russia as soon as they somehow won against Russia. More importantly, Russia losing would mean it at best becoming a puppet state to the US and at worse being balkanized. Both outcomes would be objectively bad for China and every country that currently depends on Russia to resist US aggression (Cuba, Iran, Syria, everyone currently being sanctioned etc.).
We don’t support Russia because we think it’s good or is a worker’s paradise. We support it because supporting US-backed Ukraine is objectively the wrong position to take. You can’t ignore a nation’s national security concerns and not expect them to react violently when said concerns are violated.
Liberals have such a hard time thinking in anything other than a black and white moral lens when it comes to the adversaries they’ve been conditioned to hate, yet they reserve a bunch of grey space when it comes to their own history and figures, even as those same living figures continue to commit horrendous atrocities in the name of capitalism.
Like you said, recognizing that the US is the greatest terroristic hegemon on Earth at the moment means that Russia losing this war would objectively be bad for the future of the global south and socialism at large. If Ukraine becomes a NATO state and Russia becomes further balkanized, these “progressives” will never get their wish for the uncorrupted socialist paradises they fantasize about. Acknowledging that means subscribing to material reality, not because we “stan dictators” of whatever the fuck. It doesn’t mean we like that two countries who essentially used to be siblings are forced into a meat grinder. We want it to end and we recognize who the real aggressor is.
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Because the USA is still heavily involved in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The same USA that destroyed Iraq is now pursuing its interests in another region of the world.
Let’s give them part of Czechoslovakia while we are at it
…which is exactly what the West did in the years leading up to WW2, they let Hitler annex parts of Czechoslovakia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement) while at the same time showering him with economic and military treaties.
As they say: every accusation is a confession.
Czechoslovakia
Aww did the gang get together again?
Slobber Zucchini indeed you worthless fascist-supporting scum
Putin only intervene to stop genocide from Euromaiden NATO puppet and even the NATO admit that Putin achieve protection of ethnic minority and not the Ukraine takeover that only existed in the imagination of Pax Americana fanatics. Your belief that humanitarian intervention will lead to evil outcome is disproven.
