It's something watching Americans and many others, oblivious to the fact that we are on the precipice of another World War. Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking. The West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for.
> Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking
Whether it’s a direct confrontation of superpowers is absolutely still in the air. This can be constrained to proxies. (And from there, avoiding a proxy contest going nuclear. Non-proxy conflicts like Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan are out of our control on the nuclear front.)
> West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for
Yes. Unfortunately it seems that the temptation of appeasement isn’t a lesson learned long.
I don't see it. Russia is spent on their war with Ukraine. Whatever ambitions they had beyond that, those are fantastical now. I'm sure plenty of nations are studying the war there and seeing that it is expensive and difficult. And what do you even gain, a war torn country and a population willing to cause you a lot of trouble forever more? If Russia had instead invested their war spending into the economy they would be up far more than they're down.
I agree though, that the west should have done far more to help Ukraine.
I don't think that was the plan at any point. That's just what happened. The politicians in the west wanted things to go back to how they were before the war and never wanted to give enough aid to jeopardize that. Though that has long been impossible they still don't appear to have a coherent idea of what they want after the war. Even if it was unrealistic, it would at least form the basis of a plan, how best to aid Ukraine and what to negotiate.
There is no point to argue with russians here. They perfectly know they are lying. They are fine with whatever atrocities have been done by russian people.
At least once, @selivanovp is right here. Russia invaded because it could, and because the existing political system needed a war to consolidate power and justify oppression.
The alternative was internal political tensions, weakening economy, and eventually an end to Putin's rule. Don't forget that he is 72 and senile or, as Trump put it, "absolutely crazy".
Why would Russia, the largest country in the world, scarcely populated, try to steal more territory? I understand that Ukraine's territory is more valuable than the equivalent parts of Siberia, but still, is it that important?
Isn't it more obvious that Russia considers Ukraine part of its own backyard and doesn't want an aggressive, confrontational superpower to attract it in its sphere of influence?
"We're unwillingly and blindly stepping into a war, we should have done more war!"
Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think? Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
> Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think?
Who is “we”?
> Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
You realise that there were talks with Russia, including on “clear and safe and agreed boundaries”, right? Russia was a guarantor in the Minsk and Budapest memoranda. As for your point in the middle, it really is strange that smaller countries want to escape Russia’s sphere of influence, considering what they do to their neighbours in Moldova and Georgia, to name but two examples. Never mind Chechnya and now, of course, Ukraine. Russia’s behaviour is the main driving force towards NATO and the EU in Eastern Europe.
What about the Russian speaking Ukrainians? How do u think they felt when they tried to ban Russian?
West good, Russia evil? Cmon its way more nuanced than that. And the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainian elites are no better than the Russian elites. Or the Western elites for that matter.
Ukraine is a pawn in the Geopolitical power game. The people have been sacrificed on both sides.
Its the morally bankrupt and corrupt Elites who should be in the firing line.
This bullshit Russian propaganda talking point needs to die. “Russian-speaking Ukrainians” are Ukrainians.
I was at a birthday party in Kyiv about a month ago, the only non-Ukrainian guest. Most of the day most the guests were speaking Russian, even when cursing the Russian invaders and toasting to their deaths. These were “elites” economically speaking.
The idea that there are Russian speaking Ukrainians being oppressed like Jews in Nazi Germany is idiotic and not at all based in reality.
Source: I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, my wife is a Ukrainian whose native language is Russian. Every time we wake up in the night to Russian bombardment we curse the Russian invaders—in Russian!
You regurgitated Russian propaganda about Russian-speaking people in Ukraine which is clearly not based on your own experience and I provided a counterpoint based on actually living in Ukraine. If you think I have misrepresented the actual experience of actual Russian-speaking Ukrainians in actual Ukraine then by all means educate me.
Ukraine has a long history of resisting Russian subjugation, long before supposed CIA plots and conversations with Victoria Nuland. I wish there were some sinister plot to vanquish Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine; maybe then the Western powers would finally jock up and put an end to Russian imperialism once and for all. Sadly I’m afraid this narrative of Ukraine as pawn to destroy Russia is only a Russian propagandist’s fever dream.
What is there to explain? The US are obviously self-serving but that’s besides the point. They did not force Russia to invade their many neighbours, and nothing had happened has Yanukovych not been a massive corrupt puppet. Also, you don’t need to leak Russian openly discussing interfering with other countries, they broadcast their Great Russia fever dream openly.
European countries have agency and their own security interests. We are perfectly able to understand that the US are going to take advantage of the situation as much as they can get away with. It’s still better than a new iron curtain. It is really not difficult to understand why our interests are more aligned with the US than with Russia.
> The clear purpose in leaking this conversation is to embarrass Washington and for audiences susceptible to Moscow's message to portray the US as interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs.
THE whole argument of this one and similar "leaks" is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs". Ukrainians see it a little differently: "helping Ukraine escape Russia". But Russia sees it as "helping Ukraine escape Russia, thus interfering in Russia's domestic affairs". When Russians say that someone is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs" they mean that Ukraine is Russian and should not be touched by anyone other than Russia.
Yes, interesting introduction since the entire article is about the proof of US meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.
Also the article:
> The US says that it is working with all sides in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be and is striving to achieve these goals
> Various officials attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition [...] US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate moment.
> the US expresses frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow.
You present every quote to look like Ukrainians didn't want to ally with west and that was ONLY because US manipulated them. I'm a Pole. I know EXACTLY why Ukrainians wanted to escape Russia's side. US wanted that too, so they made steps to make Ukrainian wishes true.
How to spot Russian propaganda: They treat Ukrainians as Russians that didn't want to go to big bad west, but USA meddled and made them stray from one true Russian way, Ukrainians were only a tool with no agency whatsoever used against Russian peaceful ways.
I'm presenting the quotes exactly as they are in the leaked call and reported and commented by the BBC article. The US did scheme behind the curtains to get their favourites elected. This is meddling. It also suggests that meddling was indeed necessary, or at least helpful, to get what the US wanted- i.e. it's not simply "what the people wanted".
The article even suggests that the EU simply doesn't have enough cash at hand to attract the Ukrainians, and would rather play it more on the long term- but that the US was too impatient for that. Yet more evidence of active meddling of US in Ukraine' political choices, with the purpose of attracting a country in their sphere of influence, surely not motivated by the will of the people.
Now, this is not to say that in abstract Ukrainians wouldn't have preferred the West to Russia. But they have been at least in part the victim of a power play between the USA and Russia.
Russian trolls have blown that single call out of proportion. We, too, can have a phone call and discuss who we'd prefer the next Chinese leader to be; it doesn't mean we actually have much influence over that. We can even discuss right here on HN who we'd like to see as the next American president, and it would not be factually wrong to characterize the discussion as "people on the most popular Silicon Valley forum frequented by tech billionaires picking the next president." But it wouldn't be entirely truthful either, would it?
That’s not true. Russia was perfectly fine with a sovereign Ukraine, as long as it respected their own constitution and terms of separations from USSR: to be a military non aligned country.
It’s not so hard to notice, that all the problems started when the other side of Budapest memorandum decided to not respect it anymore. Since 2004 Ukraine became less and less sovereign, resulting in a puppet government installed in 2014 and starting the hot phase. It’s also not hard to notice, that at every step Ukraine could chose negotiations, but was pushed towards more confrontation by Western bakers.
In EVERY war I've ever gone over the cause was always, every time, that one side (and occasionally, e.g. WW1, four or five sides) thinks they can win the war and not make any concessions or generally just get what they want. Mostly they were initially right (say, the first 6 months or so)
Not much. It's related to a steady deterioration of economic conditions for poor people due to (mostly) east asian ... well, cheating, really. Extreme government support of companies (and one might point out that they signed international treaties stating they wouldn't do it, including but not limited to at the WHO, and didn't respect the agreements they made, they just directly and immediately violated them to make a few people very wealthy, with deplorable conditions for 99% of their population)
You do bad economically for too many people and you end up with a right wing government. You do well ... well, you get it.
https://archive.ph/3bvHg
It's something watching Americans and many others, oblivious to the fact that we are on the precipice of another World War. Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking. The West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for.
> Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking
Whether it’s a direct confrontation of superpowers is absolutely still in the air. This can be constrained to proxies. (And from there, avoiding a proxy contest going nuclear. Non-proxy conflicts like Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan are out of our control on the nuclear front.)
> West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for
Yes. Unfortunately it seems that the temptation of appeasement isn’t a lesson learned long.
I don't see it. Russia is spent on their war with Ukraine. Whatever ambitions they had beyond that, those are fantastical now. I'm sure plenty of nations are studying the war there and seeing that it is expensive and difficult. And what do you even gain, a war torn country and a population willing to cause you a lot of trouble forever more? If Russia had instead invested their war spending into the economy they would be up far more than they're down.
I agree though, that the west should have done far more to help Ukraine.
The plan certainly was to create another Soviet-Afghanistan war in hopes to cut Russia "down to size". Geopolitics.
Whether that works time will tell.
What is certain however, is the number of the dead and the destruction of Ukraine.
I don't think that was the plan at any point. That's just what happened. The politicians in the west wanted things to go back to how they were before the war and never wanted to give enough aid to jeopardize that. Though that has long been impossible they still don't appear to have a coherent idea of what they want after the war. Even if it was unrealistic, it would at least form the basis of a plan, how best to aid Ukraine and what to negotiate.
Its always the new accounts pushing the weirdest narratives.
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Stop lying. Russia invaded, because they wanted to steal territory and invade.
There is no point to argue with russians here. They perfectly know they are lying. They are fine with whatever atrocities have been done by russian people.
At least once, @selivanovp is right here. Russia invaded because it could, and because the existing political system needed a war to consolidate power and justify oppression.
The alternative was internal political tensions, weakening economy, and eventually an end to Putin's rule. Don't forget that he is 72 and senile or, as Trump put it, "absolutely crazy".
[flagged]
Why would Russia, the largest country in the world, scarcely populated, try to steal more territory? I understand that Ukraine's territory is more valuable than the equivalent parts of Siberia, but still, is it that important?
Isn't it more obvious that Russia considers Ukraine part of its own backyard and doesn't want an aggressive, confrontational superpower to attract it in its sphere of influence?
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The meaning I get from your comment is:
"We're unwillingly and blindly stepping into a war, we should have done more war!"
Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think? Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
> Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think?
Who is “we”?
> Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
You realise that there were talks with Russia, including on “clear and safe and agreed boundaries”, right? Russia was a guarantor in the Minsk and Budapest memoranda. As for your point in the middle, it really is strange that smaller countries want to escape Russia’s sphere of influence, considering what they do to their neighbours in Moldova and Georgia, to name but two examples. Never mind Chechnya and now, of course, Ukraine. Russia’s behaviour is the main driving force towards NATO and the EU in Eastern Europe.
You are repeating bullshit propaganda.
What about the Russian speaking Ukrainians? How do u think they felt when they tried to ban Russian?
West good, Russia evil? Cmon its way more nuanced than that. And the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainian elites are no better than the Russian elites. Or the Western elites for that matter.
Ukraine is a pawn in the Geopolitical power game. The people have been sacrificed on both sides.
Its the morally bankrupt and corrupt Elites who should be in the firing line.
This bullshit Russian propaganda talking point needs to die. “Russian-speaking Ukrainians” are Ukrainians.
I was at a birthday party in Kyiv about a month ago, the only non-Ukrainian guest. Most of the day most the guests were speaking Russian, even when cursing the Russian invaders and toasting to their deaths. These were “elites” economically speaking.
The idea that there are Russian speaking Ukrainians being oppressed like Jews in Nazi Germany is idiotic and not at all based in reality.
Source: I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, my wife is a Ukrainian whose native language is Russian. Every time we wake up in the night to Russian bombardment we curse the Russian invaders—in Russian!
I never said anything about jews or even implied it. U assumed? And ran with it.
And ur comment addressed nothing about how the elites in the west are using ukraine as a pawn to take down russia like Afghanistan with the soviets.
Both sides have their propaganda and bullshit.
You regurgitated Russian propaganda about Russian-speaking people in Ukraine which is clearly not based on your own experience and I provided a counterpoint based on actually living in Ukraine. If you think I have misrepresented the actual experience of actual Russian-speaking Ukrainians in actual Ukraine then by all means educate me.
Ukraine has a long history of resisting Russian subjugation, long before supposed CIA plots and conversations with Victoria Nuland. I wish there were some sinister plot to vanquish Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine; maybe then the Western powers would finally jock up and put an end to Russian imperialism once and for all. Sadly I’m afraid this narrative of Ukraine as pawn to destroy Russia is only a Russian propagandist’s fever dream.
Can you explain this?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
What is there to explain? The US are obviously self-serving but that’s besides the point. They did not force Russia to invade their many neighbours, and nothing had happened has Yanukovych not been a massive corrupt puppet. Also, you don’t need to leak Russian openly discussing interfering with other countries, they broadcast their Great Russia fever dream openly.
European countries have agency and their own security interests. We are perfectly able to understand that the US are going to take advantage of the situation as much as they can get away with. It’s still better than a new iron curtain. It is really not difficult to understand why our interests are more aligned with the US than with Russia.
> The clear purpose in leaking this conversation is to embarrass Washington and for audiences susceptible to Moscow's message to portray the US as interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs.
THE whole argument of this one and similar "leaks" is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs". Ukrainians see it a little differently: "helping Ukraine escape Russia". But Russia sees it as "helping Ukraine escape Russia, thus interfering in Russia's domestic affairs". When Russians say that someone is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs" they mean that Ukraine is Russian and should not be touched by anyone other than Russia.
Yes, interesting introduction since the entire article is about the proof of US meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.
Also the article:
> The US says that it is working with all sides in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be and is striving to achieve these goals
> Various officials attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition [...] US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate moment.
> the US expresses frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow.
The year is 2014
You present every quote to look like Ukrainians didn't want to ally with west and that was ONLY because US manipulated them. I'm a Pole. I know EXACTLY why Ukrainians wanted to escape Russia's side. US wanted that too, so they made steps to make Ukrainian wishes true.
How to spot Russian propaganda: They treat Ukrainians as Russians that didn't want to go to big bad west, but USA meddled and made them stray from one true Russian way, Ukrainians were only a tool with no agency whatsoever used against Russian peaceful ways.
I'm presenting the quotes exactly as they are in the leaked call and reported and commented by the BBC article. The US did scheme behind the curtains to get their favourites elected. This is meddling. It also suggests that meddling was indeed necessary, or at least helpful, to get what the US wanted- i.e. it's not simply "what the people wanted".
The article even suggests that the EU simply doesn't have enough cash at hand to attract the Ukrainians, and would rather play it more on the long term- but that the US was too impatient for that. Yet more evidence of active meddling of US in Ukraine' political choices, with the purpose of attracting a country in their sphere of influence, surely not motivated by the will of the people.
Now, this is not to say that in abstract Ukrainians wouldn't have preferred the West to Russia. But they have been at least in part the victim of a power play between the USA and Russia.
Russian trolls have blown that single call out of proportion. We, too, can have a phone call and discuss who we'd prefer the next Chinese leader to be; it doesn't mean we actually have much influence over that. We can even discuss right here on HN who we'd like to see as the next American president, and it would not be factually wrong to characterize the discussion as "people on the most popular Silicon Valley forum frequented by tech billionaires picking the next president." But it wouldn't be entirely truthful either, would it?
That’s not true. Russia was perfectly fine with a sovereign Ukraine, as long as it respected their own constitution and terms of separations from USSR: to be a military non aligned country.
It’s not so hard to notice, that all the problems started when the other side of Budapest memorandum decided to not respect it anymore. Since 2004 Ukraine became less and less sovereign, resulting in a puppet government installed in 2014 and starting the hot phase. It’s also not hard to notice, that at every step Ukraine could chose negotiations, but was pushed towards more confrontation by Western bakers.
[flagged]
Nothing was aimed against Russia. They wanted to expand and destroy the nation next to them. They got ready for mass murders and invaded.
There was no provocation and no threat to Russia
Russia is a dangerous mafia state. Nothing will change that fact.
[flagged]
Please avoid swipes like this in HN comments, and avoid ideological or nationalistic battle.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This response suggests knowledge that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent.
Practical.
[dead]
[flagged]
[flagged]
In EVERY war I've ever gone over the cause was always, every time, that one side (and occasionally, e.g. WW1, four or five sides) thinks they can win the war and not make any concessions or generally just get what they want. Mostly they were initially right (say, the first 6 months or so)
[flagged]
Excuse me, who invaded whom again?
Nato invaded Ukraine, installed Nazi regime. Russia is a liberator - every russian agent here will tell you.
[flagged]
And you have the gall to call other people brainwashed.
Scared of getting drafted to the front if you don't fulfill your propaganda quotas?
[flagged]
How much of this is related to the fact that a lot of the countries now have right wing government?
Not much. It's related to a steady deterioration of economic conditions for poor people due to (mostly) east asian ... well, cheating, really. Extreme government support of companies (and one might point out that they signed international treaties stating they wouldn't do it, including but not limited to at the WHO, and didn't respect the agreements they made, they just directly and immediately violated them to make a few people very wealthy, with deplorable conditions for 99% of their population)
You do bad economically for too many people and you end up with a right wing government. You do well ... well, you get it.