I find it even more outraged they take another chance by saying it's all provocations by Ukraine and the US has been behind Ukraine for a "long time". How long can it be goddamn it? Why didn't it affect the 1993 referendum, let alone the four gas crisis? Why didn't NATO sanction Russia then (as long as the US is NATO mostly) like it does now, if it's got an interest? Turkey for once is more distinguished of an ally, despite playing both sides,
I've heard plenty about "provocations" and I really can't make sense of it. What provocations? Threats abiout negative consequences if Russia starts a war? And therefore Russia feels like it has no choice but to actually start the war? Where's the logic?
Why do you say asking a communist or a anti-communist Ukrainian is roughly the same? Are they alot more concerned with the far-right associations thrown around as East vs West Ukraine? I think this misconception should be dead by now..
Well, for a while we were all under a threat of being in a war, and if you take one look at the map and compare sizes of Ukraine and Russia and take in account that we have no military alliess willing to fight for us and no other strategical advantage you'll understand that this, to put it mildly, isn't an even playing field. And now this threat became a reality. Whatever convictions people used to have before, whatever their political affiliation was, no one likes Russia here anymore, for obvious reasons. And everyone would prefer US/EU over Russia because at this point we would prefer Taliban over Russia - however insane it sounds Taliban voiced their concern about senseless bloodshed that is happening here and civilian casualties, both current and potential. And even if we assume that US/EU are getting exactly what they wanted and are secretly happy that this war is happening, they still aren't the ones who made the decision to start it. They are still sending us help and accept people fleeing from here and provide our terrified little kids with hot meals and shelter. And all of our people in the East and West part of the country, left-wing and right-wing, suspected this is how things are going to play out for quite a while, so obviously everyone preferred US/EU. I hope I understood your question correctly and my answer makes sense, if not then please explain what I've got wrong.
I think what you say about targeting anti-communists by Putin is a bit confusing, when taken into account the highest support for socialism in Russia currently, more than ever before, now that Putin really has the chance to scribble up an USSR-lite. What am I missing?
I must be missing something. I think Russians liking socialism and Putin saying Ukrainian govenment is anti-communist and we have far-right nutjobs all over the country to explain his agressive decisions to his own people makes perfect sense. Did I misunderstand something?
Another thing I don't understand is the non-action on the West. Why have they not intervened by now?
Because they are protecting their own interests, obviously. Russia is not directly threatening them, so they would rather not do anything that significantly threatens their own safety or economy. That is reasonable.
Putin is mentioning NATO all the time: NATO this, NATO that, NATO is a threat to Russsia...okay, but we're not in NATO and that's why NATO is not intervening now. If an attack on us would seriously damage or threaten NATO in any significant way, they would definitely intervene, so justifying this war by whatever issues Russia has with NATO makes no sense. (This is more of an aside, I'm not saying that is your opinion
@callme).
Also, does Russia really attack civilian targets in Kiyv?
Yeah, and not only Kyiv, unfortunately. My Internet is not fast enough at the moment so I can't find the right videos but if you look it up there is substantial evidence, multiple examples of residential buildings being hit by missiles and left partially destroyed, burning, footage of missiles stuck in a middle of someone's living room, footage of wounded civilians, footage of a Russian tank suddenly swerving and running over a civilian car, squashing it with the driver still inside for no fucking reason other than because they can. I find it ridiculous that in modern day and age Russian minister can go on TV and make an official statement that they are not attacking any civilian buildings and they suffer no losses, yet anyone can get on youtube or tiktok and find way many examples of both civilians being attacked and Russian soldiers being killed, too many for it to be fake.
Also, why are those Neo-Nazi factions not what Russia says they are?
Because Russia says that our governemt and everyone who supports them are Neo-Nazis, when in reality Neo-Nazis do exist here but they are a very small (but vocal unfortunately) minority. And unfortunately small Neo-Nazi organisations like this exist pretty much everywhere, including Russia itself, there is nothing particularly notable about ours compared to the rest of the world. They are not in power, they are not numerous and they are not commiting heinous crimes against the Russian-speaking population right left and center with the government looking the other way like Russia says. I
am a Russian-speaking first generation Ukrainian, both of my parents were born and raised in Russia, and the worst discrimination I even suffered here was one Karen customer at work that was complaining about unrelated stupid thing to my manager that also compained that me speaking Russian to her was a political statement - to what my management promised her to punish me severely and then started laughing at her BS as soon as she walked out the door. I once had a perfectly civil discussion with a very far-right guy that prevously volunteered to war in the self-proclaimed "republics" about his political opinions: he was speaking Ukrainian, I was speaking Russian, we understood each other, he didn't threaten or insult me, he didn't care when I told him my parents are both Russian (although he did say that it makes me Russian too, but he also told me he doesn't mind Russians at all as long as they don't support Putin). So no one is eating Russian-speaking babies here as the Russian media claims.
Why did those two republics break away from Ukraine?
Well, that is a complicated story. To put it simply, Russia tried to send their unmarked soldiers there to take over the local administration and quietly force local admisitration so sign the documents required to make those territories a part of Russia like they did with Crimea - but unlike Crimea they faced resistance and an armed conflict statrted. The general population didn't expect it at all and was absolutely confused as to what is going on and couldn't even understand if they are still a part of Ukraine or they are a part of Russia now. And then a couple of very resourceful wealthy men decided that chaos is a ladder and this is a good opportunity to declare these territories independent with themselves as supreme leaders, because ruling their own little country would be pretty neat. To justify it, they began to spread Russian scary fable about Neo-Nazi government being in power in Kyiv and viewing the Russian-speaking population of the region the same way original Nazis viewed national minorities in Germany, which is why they must separate from Ukraine to prevent Nazi regime from being installed here and local population from being exterminated. Many locals believed them and started to support separation from Ukraine, Russia also supported the "republics" - kind of supporting their independence, but also kind of hinting that it's just Step 1 and by the way did you know that these lands were also gifted to Ukraine like Crimea but earlier and really are historically Russian? And then 8 years of small local war conflict and then eventually a full-blown war...
if it were not so deluded!
