this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2022
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Why so? Putin has gambled big on this war as part of the "Greater Russia" idea. It is clear now that Russia cannot overthrow the Ukrainian government, but they want to at least destabilize Ukraine and force it into an uncomfortable bargaining position. Hence reallocating forces to the east. Putin's rule rests largely on satisfying Russian nationalists and looking tough. Flat out loosing a war could mean loosing more than his position of power. It could mean a one way ticket out a high window.
I'm not sure what makes it clear to you that Russia cannot overthrow the government in Ukraine. The reality of the situation is that Ukraine is being ground down militarily, and the west is losing the economic war with Russia. Russia is currently fighting this war with a very small percentage of its overall military capacity, and they haven't even bothered to call for general mobilization. Russia just committed 50k troops to doing war games with China and India. This underscores that the conflict in Ukraine isn't exactly straining their military capacity.
On the other hand, Ukraine lost its military industrial capacity back in March by their own admission. They're not able to replenish their military losses and rely on supplies from the west that's now making NATO stocks dangerously low. Arms packages from the west have been steadily reduced as a result, and this offensive looks like a desperate gamble to maintain collapsing support for the war in the west.
If anything, this has gone much better than even Russia could've predicted. Europe is now collapsing economically, and it's not even winter yet. We're seeing massive strikes and protests happening in many European countries, and these will only grow going forward. Meanwhile, prices in Russia remain stable, and inflation is slowing down with prices on essentials like food, energy, and fuel remaining low. Originally, Russia wanted a buffer from NATO in Ukraine, now it's looking probable that NATO will collapse entirely within a few years.
Anybody with a couple of brain cells to bang together understands that it's relative economic damage between the west and Russia that matters. While Russia relies on nice to have things from the west like iPhones and Starbucks, the west relies on bare essentials like food and energy. If shit hits the fan in Russia next year, then it's hitting the fan on a much bigger scale in the west as well.
It's also absolutely fantastical to think that Russia can't replace whatever it is relies on from the west with equivalent products from China and India which constitute world's major manufacturing hubs.
Russia has already gone through two large economic crises in the 90s and in 2014. There is no indication that this crisis will be any worse than that and people in Russia know what to expect. On the other hand, people in Europe have not experienced anything of the sort since WW2, and European leadership took no steps to prepare for the crisis foolishly thinking that Russia would collapse within a month of western sanctions.
Russia is self sufficient in food, energy, and all the essential manufacturing. There's literally nothing Russia imports from the west that can't and isn't already being replaced. Chinese exports to Russia have exploded already. Whether Russia wants to be dependent on China and India or not is beside the point, which is that they are doing it.
Meanwhile, Europe has no readily available alternative to cheap energy, fertilizer, and food that was imported from Russia. The only energy solution for Europe is to create alternative energy infrastructure such as mass nuclear, this will take years to do and require massive amounts of energy to implement. How fertilizer and food will be replaced remains unclear as well.
Massive strikes and protests are already happening in many countries such as UK, Czech republic, France, Italy, and Germany. Public discontent is growing rapidly, and will only get worse come winter. Turns out putting Ukrainian flags in your social media bio is different level of commitment from freezing and starving in the winter.
Seems like that's rapidly becoming a minority opinion. And of course, Europe is already bending the knee to US quite willingly.
The reason Europe is in the crisis it's in is precisely because European political class is owned by US and acts in the interest of US instead of its own people. US used Europe like a sacrificial pawn in its geopolitical games against Russia and now people in Europe get to pay the price. Europe could've had a friendly and mutually beneficial relationship with Russia after USSR collapsed in the 90s. Instead, Europe chose to act as a foot soldier for US.
People are protesting because their standard of living was predicated on having access to cheap energy from Russia. Propaganda is what you're doing by claiming it's anything other than this.
At the end of all this, Europe will have no choice but to bend the knee. Your demagogy is going to fall on deaf ears when people can't heat their homes or get enough food to eat.
Relying on cheap energy from Russia is what allowed Europe to become economically successful. This was recognized even back during USSR times. The stupid decision was to create an enemy out of USSR and then Russia instead of seeking peaceful coexistence.
It has everything to do with being a pawn of the US, and volumes of literature have been written on the subject. US has dominated European policy since WW2. The fact that you think this is propaganda shows just how ignorant and intellectually impoverished you are.
People are protesting because their standard of living is collapsing due to Europe starting an economic war with Russia. That's a simple fact that propagandists like you continue to deny. You can keep on screeching all you like, but that won't change reality of the situation.
They literally are protesting to get cheap Russian energy back.
It does not. over 60% of Russian energy imports have no replacement. Anybody with even bare minimum understanding of how energy markets work knows this. You can keep spewing your nonsense here all you like, but by the time winter rolls around you'll have hard time convincing anyone with your bending the knee speeches. Might even get your ass kicked.
Ah, we're back to the notion that Russia invaded Ukraine completely unprovoked and this was not a result of decades of NATO policy towards Russia.
You seem to be pretty happy being a pawn of the US regime that does all these things.
They literally are.
You clearly don't understand how food and energy production works if you think that.
We'll see what these people say when they're actually freezing.
It's very obviously not a threat. Simply an observation that people might react poorly to your rhetoric when they're starving and freezing their asses off. It doesn't appear that you comprehend that.
Brave words from someone who doesn't have to make any personal sacrifices.
First of all, Europe cutting itself off from Russian energy had zero negative impact on Russian energy exports to date. If anything, Russia is making more money from energy exports than it ever has. This idiotic policy only hurts people in Europe.
Second, the war is a direct result of western actions since the fall of USSR. This is a well documented fact. Here's what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Academics, such as John Mearsheimer, gave talks explaining why NATO actions would ultimately lead to conflict this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
These and many other voices were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
The war in Ukraine will not be won by the west, and all the west is doing is ensuring that more Ukrainians die and more people in the west suffer.
All so that psychopaths can feel good about not bending the knee. Amazing how easy for you to fuck over lives of millions of people for your ideology. You are the definition of human garbage.
Europe could be doing that without sabotaging its economy. Absolutely nothing stops Europe from building out alternative energy infrastructure while continuing having a secure energy supply.
It's not propaganda. It's literally what pretty much every western expert has been saying for decades. It's absolutely surreal that people continue to deny this.
What about Bojo sabotaging the deal in April? https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1564666561335525377
Ah right, the thing you made up as opposed to thing that's actually happening.
Says the guy who's willing to fuck over millions for his ideology.
You clearly must understand that Russia isn't doing anything different than NATO here. In fact, the whole playbook for Ukraine was copied from the Yugoslavia playbook NATO used. NATO recognized the independence of breakaway provinces in Yugoslavia and then used that as a pretext to invade. Russia did exact same thing with LPR and DPR following historical precedent NATO set. Given your unwavering support for NATO this shows what a hypocrite you truly are.
Furthermore, as I've already explained, Europe destroying itself economically does not hurt Russia in any way. If anything, this puts Russia in a much stronger position with regards to Europe. Stuff like steel mills are shutting down all across Europe already. This is going to be a problem for Europe building any sort of military, especially given that current stock piles have already been depleted in Ukraine.
The west literally overthrew an elected government in Ukraine in 2014 and has been funding and arming a regime that courts literal fascists there ever since.
No, it was a very reasonable proposal. Only a two bit propagandist would argue otherwise.
That's right I despise your genocidal alliance. Just because I'm stuck in a western country doesn't mean I have to support the murderous regime. I'd love to move out, but it's not as easy to uproot your whole life as some idiots seem to think.
Come next year you'll get to see everything you hold dear crumble because of idiotic policies you support.
China is the biggest winner, and China becoming the dominant geopolitical player can only be a good thing. Certainly a far most sane and stable country than Russia. However, claiming that China is the only country that funds Russia is just plain old misinformation. Russia has lots of trade with India, Iran, Turkey, and many other countries including most of Latin America. BRICS is rapidly becoming world's dominant economy and Russia is a the centre of it.
Meanwhile, the west doesn't actually produce much of anything and with cheap and abundant energy being the thing of the past, Europe is now starting to deinudstrialize further.
That's not what actually happened. It was a violent coup that overthrew the government people voted for. You're either utterly ignorant or much more likely a liar.
It was a negotiation, and Ukraine was close to accepting the terms. This would've preserved most of the territory Ukraine had before the war. After the west sabotaged this negotiation Ukraine's position has been worsening with every single month.
That is precisely where the current European policy is leading you. So, if you think that's bad, then you should be opposing it, but since you're also an idiot you support it. This is a self fulfilling prophecy.
We'll just revisit this in 6 months and see what tune you're singing then.
It's hilarious how you keep talking about some moral superiority here. US runs a literal torture camp on Cuban soil and causing a famine in Afghanistan by robbing them of their foreign assets after hunting people for sport there for past two decades. These are your best friends in NATO. If you cared about human rights even a tiniest bit you'd be against NATO, but you're just fine with war crimes as long as they serve you because you're a depraved fuck.
You keep on hoping, reality isn't going to bend the knee for you though.
NATO is objectively not the lesser evil. Nothing Russia has done to date even begins to compare to the atrocities NATO is responsible for. The war on terror alone eclipses any intervention by Russia anywhere. You openly support the biggest terrorist organization in the world, and keep trying to make some false equivalence here. It's pathetic.
Oh you mean like 90% of done strikes that kill civilians. Or perhaps deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan that NATO has done?
I refuse to believe that anyone could so ignorant not to know these things. Which leaves only one possible conclusion.
It's not a one sided view of the situation. It's an objective fact. NATO has invaded and destroyed multiple countries in the past decades, and continues committing atrocities today. NATO is currently a direct sponsor of the genocide in Yemen. Russia is objectively the lesser evil here.
Provide examples of atrocities committed by Russia that come anywhere close to NATO atrocities. NATO literally murdered MILLIONS of people, and that fact that you think that's in any way comparable to the conflict in Ukraine really shows how utterly depraved you are.
NATO alliance is responsible for the invasion and destruction of multiple countries and murder of millions of people. Russia has done nothing that comes close to that. That's an objective fact.
NATO sponsors a literal genocidal regime in Saudi Arabia and is responsible for funding death squads, running coups, and overthrowing democratic governments all over the world.
Literal books have been written on how NATO/US is in fact directly responsible for killing civilians. The fact that you continue to deny this further illustrates how utterly morally bankrupt you are. Finally showing your true colors here.
just a couple of examples
Literally linked two books for you to read in the last comment. I linked you a source tallying the death toll from the war on terror earlier as well. I linked you an article showing how 90% of drone strikes in Afghanistan targeted civilians.
All these things are well documented and beyond any question. If you are genuinely unaware of them then you're far more intellectually impoverished than even I imagined.
People in countries with more rights bear more responsibility for the actions of their government. And the fact that NATO is responsible for some of the most horrific crimes against humanity does not reflect well on supporters of this genocidal alliance. That kind of shit cannot be supported or tolerated.
If you're claiming that Russia has killed over 6 million people then it's up to you to substantiate this fantastical claim. Russia has been involved in a few minor conflicts since the collapse of USSR, and these don't come anywhere close in scale to the wars NATO has started.
It's absolutely doing that both domestically, but especially so in countries that NATO subjugates. If you're comfortable with your personal freedoms being propped up by atrocities then you're the greater evil.