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In this Ukrainian village, almost no men are left
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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Bizarre to read how Ukrainians fighting a Russian invasion and having men dead because of that is now NATO's fault somehow.
I like these looks at logic and ideology totally bizarre to me. Lemmy is great for that
NATO, specially the US, has meticulously blocked off all options other than an invasion by being an anti-Russia org and repeatedly not letting Russia join NATO because of that, backing the 2014 fascist coup in Ukraine to sideline the Minsk agreements against the interests and wishes of Eastern Ukrainians
and the subsequent killings of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, like Donbas, DPR, and LPR, by the coup gov for resisting.
They are also the ones blocking negotiations with Russia. So yes, this is NATO using Ukraine for a proxy war.
These excuses for Russian aggression and how they just had to attack because NATO is a meanie organization and there was an unfriendly government in Ukraine and you just can't have that and they literally made us attack them are just as ridiculous to me as US excuses about freedom, democracy and whatnot that they use to invade countries.
Fuck Russia and their attack on Ukraine, they are the ones who caused the death of those Ukrainians. They are literally the ones killing them.
Ukraine could negotiate if it wanted to, but they don't want to give in to Russia for obvious reasons, either just losing parts of their land to Russian land grab or worse, being subjugated by them. Russia on the other hand could stop this just by leaving. That'd be the end of it. And they wouldn't have to give up their lands or anything. Could just go home.
Russia literally invaded them but it's NATO that's bad for supporting their defense. The logic astounds me.
What do you think your country should do if the world's most war-mongering and most powerful superpower is making a military alliance specifically against your country, and is coup'ing neighboring ones if their population doesn't want to do so?
What if your country has tried repeatedly to join it, but has been refused every time? What if your country's socialist system which this military alliance was formed against in the first place has already been overthrown and taken over by capitalists, and they still don't stop? Seriously, what the fuck else is there to do?
Tell that to the Eastern Ukrainians who this fascist government doesn't represent, and has been killing for resisting.
I certainly wouldn't be calling for an invasion of neighboring countries on the basis of not liking their government. Not justified for Russia, not justified for anyone imo. But hey, can't have governments who aren't aligned with us, gotta invade and even blame them for being invaded.
Not start a war over not being allowed to join an international organization for one. "If you don't let us in on your military alliance I'll start attacking". What a mindset.
They did negotiate with Russia, or their self-proclaimed states did. NATO didn't prevent that. Neither is it preventing Ukraine's government from doing it. No idea what you were on about there.
You haven't answered what else you think they should, or even could, do.
NATO is an organization of primarily imperial core countries, not really an international one.
I think they should stop attacking other countries. It's really simple as that. It would be healthy to find some other ways to deal with unfriendly governments other than attacking them. Or just learn to accept that not everyone is aligned with you, as most do in similar situation. Though the idea that attacking and invading them is the only imaginable way is very on brand.
International just means "existing, occurring, or carried on between nations." There's two or more different nations, it's inter national.
Ukrainians are literally being dragged off the street by the regime to be thrown into the meat grinder. Meanwhile, most Ukrainians aren't even in Ukraine anymore. In fact, Russia has the highest population of Ukrainian refugees at the moment.
I don't know if you've noticed that Ukraine is trying to defend their country against a Russian attack.
I'd be interested to see the source for these numbers. They seem hard to believe.
The fascist regime that the west installed in Ukraine in a violent coup that overthrew the democratically elected government is sacrificing the people of Ukraine in a proxy war between NATO and Russia.
here you go, could've found this in 2 seconds of googling instead of making a clown of yourself here https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/
Riiight. The evil dogs must be taken down, so Russia literally had no choice but to invade. NATO literally forced them!
I wanted to see the source you are using to know who they considered refugees and what areas are counted for Ukraine's population. And especially what source/numbers you are using for Ukraine's current total population because the total from your link or the estimates I've found are nowhere near any of the even lower end estimates I've seen.
You seem to be somehow upset over me asking for your sources. I'm not sure why that is, making a claim and someone asking for a source is fairly normal internet discussion stuff. Nothing to be upset over.
LMFAO Stoltenberg literally admitted this already. Update your talking points. 😂
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
Moving them goalposts when faced with the facts eh.
I'm not upset about anything, I just think you're an artless troll.
"NATO didn't sign our treaty so we just had to attack" is not a very convincing justification for a damn invasion at all. Russia chose to attack instead of dealing with an unfriendly government. Which is fucked up.
I wonder if people who think NATO expansion was a fine justification would be fine with the US invading countries to prevent them from joining military alliances they oppose. I know I wouldn't be.
You literally wrote this: "Meanwhile, most Ukrainians aren’t even in Ukraine anymore". And I asked source for your claims.
I just want to see your source for this claim. I'm happy with the source for the other claim.
Weird way to say NATO has been expanding towards Russia since the 90s.
If you think US would be fine with countries that border it joining an alliance with Russia you're even more ignorant than I thought. Go read up on the Cuban missile crisis.
I literally provided you with a source. Maybe work on that reading comprehension of yours?
Governments aligning themselves differently to how you'd like is no justification for invading them and killing their people.
Would you be fine with the reverse, USA or Germany or someone invading if those countries had been joining CSTO for example? Would a military alliance aligned away from those countries be a justification enough for attacking them and killing their people? I wouldn't think so.
And tell me, are you fine with the US behaviour there? And I didn't say they'd be fine with it, I said I wouldn't be fine with them doing it.
Your source doesn't prove that "most Ukrainians aren't even in Ukraine anymore". If anything, based on all estimates of current Ukrainian population I could find compared to the refugee numbers you provided, it argues against that point.
What number are you using for Ukraine's current total population?
Interesting way to describe the west overthrowing a democratically elected government in a violent coup.
This isn't a hypothetical, we already know what the west does.
Not being an utter imbecile, I understand that this would be the only possible outcome. Provoking such an outcome is either idiotic or intentionally malicious.
Go look up the population of Ukraine before and after the war. If you really can't figure out how google works then come back and I'll help you.
And how do you feel about that, do you think it is proper justification?
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
You provided the figures for how many refugees there are and have claimed that proves that "most Ukrainians aren’t even in Ukraine anymore". But the total refugees from that source are nowhere near the estimates for current Ukrainian population, even on low end. So I'm not sure how that proves your point. Maybe you've misunderstood something but I have been googling this and the numbers I've found go against what you are saying.
So yes, please help me. It's kinda what I've been asking since the start but you've been pretty standoffish about it.
I think that's how the world works, and feels have nothing to do with it. The reality is that no great power will allow another great power to surround it with its proxies. So, either you think that there should be constant war between great powers, or you accept boundaries.
See above.
Let me rephrase that, most fighting age males have fled Ukraine at this point
Those who remain are not interested in fighting either as even western media admits now https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-military-recruitment.html
And do you feel like that is proper justification for invading and attacking countries, killing people?
But that shows that the current population is ≈37,9 million, pre-escalation (2021) ≈43,5 million, pre-war ≈45,1 million. (The total ever in 1992, ≈51,8 million.) Can you explain to me how your numbers prove that "most Ukrainians aren’t even in Ukraine anymore"?
E: Seems you've edited the comment
Talk about moving the goalposts, eh. But anyway we can probably agree that "most Ukrainians aren’t even in Ukraine anymore" isn't true then?
I've already explained that feels have nothing to do with anything. I do however think it's idiotic to provoke wars based on feels when the outcomes are obvious.
Sure, I misspoke there.
I was more thinking if you thought that Russia (or in other cases US) would be in the wrong in invading other countries in such situations and being against such wars.
I mean, I did quote it back to you verbatim many times and we both made it amply clear that it was population we were talking about, you also talking about "population of Ukraine" and so on. So not sure I believe that instead of simply just having been wrong. But it's fine either way.
You're just doing moralizing here which serve no practical purpose.
Do you really refrain from calling out such invasions and wars because that "serve no practical purpose"? I find that surprising.
Do you really not understand that provoking wars simply results in mass death and suffering? Or perhaps you enjoy other people dying and suffering, I'm begging to think the latter is actually the case here.
I'm just saying I'm against such wars. Aren't you?
I am against wars, and NATO provoked this war by pushing past Russia's red lines. Russia responded the exact same way NATO would've responded if Russia was the one pushing into NATO. So, if you're against senseless wars then you should be against NATO expansion.
I'm just surprised you're against Russia's war in Ukraine. I didn't expect that.
Sometimes people get so hung up on their ideologies that they permit something for some people or side that they'd absolutely condemn for the other. It's all too common. But I shouldn't have assumed that was the case here.
You're arguing with a person driven by anti-Western/NATO viewpoints; you'll never get a fair response. Even if they find something to back up their claims, it'll be a biased source. Expect sputnik news or some other direct Russian propaganda source. Just gotta get used to that on Lemmy.
Edit: Removed the "t" word as apparently that's a slur now.
There is literally no such thing as an unbiased source, and the core bias of the corporate media is the bias of the capitalist class.
The whole concept of the “left” or ”right“ “bias” being inversely correlated with factualness is garbage. These kinds of graphs, which try to convince us that centrism equals factualness, are garbage:
The workings of corporate media were explained about forty years ago in Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent.
A five minute introduction: Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
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I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Sometimes I'm just curious where people got their numbers from. This time both for because the first argument seems unlikely and second I wanted to know if they count the occupied areas and those forcibly moved for example.
I completely understand, but remember that for some people this is just a matter of ideology. Any response will be filled with so many bullshit claims that you'll have to spend an hour digging through random articles, YouTube videos, and googling drive-by statements in order to refute them.
They argue by shooting dozens of points at you hoping that you'll just say "ah shit, this person is quoting X, Y, and Z so they must be correct", knowing that no reasonable person would spend the time required to refute each and every BS statement they've made. (gish galloping, for the uninitiated)
I did this once before, and it took much longer than expected to refute each bullshit source. When dealing with these people you either don't engage, or enjoy them feasting on your free time.
You're responding to the wrong person, chief.
Damn, sorry. Don't know how I managed that.
No worries.
Lol, the Russian total includes people who were already in Russia before they invaded, but no other country does. Might be skewing the number there, a bit.
Not really the gotcha you seem to think it is. The fact that lots of Ukrainians were happy living in Russia even before the war illustrates that Ukrainians weren't exactly anti-Russian.
The most pro-Russian, pragmatic, and morally flexible Ukrainians would be the ones to be living in Russia even post-2014 invasion. I think most of the ordinary people were somewhat neutral before the invasions. Plus, you know, a population always contains a spectrum of opinions. The Eastern part of Ukraine was known to have a reasonable amount of pro-Russian people in it before 2014, that's part of how Putin justified invading.
I'm sure even now most Ukrainians aren't exactly anti-Russia anymore than Americans were anti-Afghanistan when we (needlessly) invaded to go after the Taliban. A vocal minority were rabid about killing them all, while most people were only interested in killing the actual terrorists, if they were in support of the invasion at all. Likewise, I'm sure most Ukrainians don't find Russia to be evil in general, only the people in power responsible for the invasions.
Finally, I must point out that while Russia is merely at the top of the list with muddy population numbers, not-Russia absolutely curb stomps yes-Russia.
The vast majority of people, when faced with an invasion, run away from the invaders, not towards them.
Ukraine was already in a civil war past 2014, and most people in eastern Ukraine are ethnically Russian or have family ties to Russia. They do not see this as an invasion. A few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 clearly show the dynamics in Ukraine. First, here's the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here's how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
So, the most likely scenario is that people from western Ukraine would've fled to Europe, while many in central and eastern Ukraine would've gone to Russia.
Good data, I wasn't gonna bother digging it up, but I'm glad you did. I think it's important to remember that all realities are more mixed than we like to infer from plots and our preferred view. That is, while the geographic opinions are strong, neither the East nor the West of Ukraine are a monolith in their opinions.
I think you're being a bit generous with the claim that central Ukrainians would have favored Russia as a destination, especially considering the data you brought. I also think you're being generous with just how pro-Russia the East actually is, again considering the data you presented. I would also like to point out that the current front lines overlapping with public opinion tendencies is mostly a coincidence. Russia was intending to fully conquer Ukraine and failed. The current front line is only minimally influenced by the loyalty majority of the locals.
Still, I want to thank you for bringing the data. Good numbers are always better than no numbers.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this lecture
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I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Ah yes, disinformation as reported by mainstream western media. 🤡