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Zelenskyy fires recruitment officials for accepting $10,000 bribes to help Ukrainian men dodge the draft: 'bribery during war is treason'

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  • I wasn't talking about you personally. My point is that geopolitical situations are more complex than the people here on their high horses would like everyone to believe. Russia is wrong for invading Ukraine and should get out. We should also see how to prevent this in the future, but people are apparently content with the "crazy dictator" explanation. Okay, so how do we prevent crazy dictators from getting into power? The US had played a strong influence in Russia ever since the fall of the USSR and it could be argued that Putin is a result of US policy toward Russia. Is there no merit in examining events from this angle?

    • I think there is merit in separating two things which are only related if they serve your point.

      Look, I also read Shock Doctrine and watched Adam Curtis' recent footage of the fall of the USSR, I understand what russia has been through and how the US gloated about "winning" the Cold War. From there up until 2014 you have a lot of actors, from the IMF to the homegrown oligarchs living the ancap dream to Yeltsin destroying russian democracy in 93 (should any country have intervened then?) and other forces that shaped a path that was only shaped by the US with neglect, greed and giving bad examples, but the US is not russia's caretaker, nor should it have been.

      From 2014 onwards and the annexation of Crimea, the West just upped their neglect to the maximum, kept western media quiet about Girkin's failed campaign in the Donbas (and let russian media have a party presenting its own views unopposed) and pretended that nothing was happening because we were busy with other things and really didn't want to get into a fight with russia. And since it was just a hybrid war, we mostly told Ukraine to STFU, like we did Transnistria and Georgia. Meh, "it's the russian sphere of influence", "Crimea used to be part of russia", maybe if they have this and we deepen our economic connections, they'll stop and be brought to reason, let's keep Ukraine neutral, maybe that will work...

      After Feb 2022 there was no margin of doubt that russia would only stop claiming more territory if it was forced to stop by force and the sooner the better. Anybody who hasn't changed their mind about russia's intentions after seeing russia attempt to storm Kiev is never going to change their POV on this. After that, russia's word lost all crediblity, so there was a mask-off moment and all of putin's speeches just sounded like "Bin Laden" with nukes to me, but maybe you like his batshit hypocritical critique of "satanist" american imperialism.

      I have no idea what the basis for negotiation with russia is going to be now, because it can not end this war feeling that this brazen aggression was worth it, since they will come back to finish the job when they are better prepared (russia is great at glorifying the sacrifice of its people for bits of land in history books as an example for the future generations) nor can it accept that it already wasn't worth it, because they imagine that after what they did, defeat means more 90s hardship for them, so here we are 💀

      • US foreign policy basically created Russia as it exists today, an imperialist capitalist country with it's own ruling class competing for the world's resources. So just as all imperialist hegemons have done, Russia is invading a sovereign nation. As always there's a context that embodies the politics of the time.

        • US created modern russia

          (and everything else that happened since 1989 that goes beyond america bad)

          modern russia is an imperialist country that competes for the world resources

          (it has never stopped being so and Poland+Baltics warned us and we didn't listen)

          There's a context, but the fact is that countries should be stopped from invading (and annexing) other countries, no matter what their sob story is.

          If some disturbed kid goes on a rampage on a school, first you stop the shooting, then you investigate wtf caused it to start and stop it happening again, maybe some other school kids bullied him...none of it matters once it got to the shooting part.

          I could say the same for Napoleon, for Hitler, for Vietnam, hey look, here's Chomsky on that:

          https://chomsky.info/20060109/

          The United States went to war in Vietnam for a very good reason. They were afraid Vietnam would be a successful model of independent development and that would have a virus effect—infect others who might try to follow the same course. There was a very simple war aim—destroy Vietnam. And they did it.

          When you take the context into account, maybe it helps understand why it's happening, but it's still a war crime that has to be stopped.

          PS: if you think the world can withstand going back to 18th century multipolar conquest politics with nuclear weapons on the table, you don't appreciate the miserable suffering that means for most of us. The nuclear era only allows one or 2 poles, more than that and you get an unstable solution. So russia better stop it, go back and cozy up to China, because it's not getting its empire back if we can help it (that's one of the few things China and the US agree on).

      • Regarding negotiations, I've seen the position "Russia out of Ukraine, NATO out of existence" which I think would generally be fair, but I don't think it'll actually happen since there is an interest in prolonging the war.

270 comments