Post AdRiuvy4hsTPXcyhwe by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
(DIR) More posts by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
(DIR) Post #AdQG5AhrfkOgJqxvN2 by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-02T01:44:44Z
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No peace will be possible until Russia is brought on its knees and Putin's head is transfixed on a stake.Until then, it's our duty to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it needs to win the war against the ogres. We can't afford our brave brothers and sisters to lose.Слава Україні 🇺🇦 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-attack-bombardment-1e381d5e7fa71fb5549af354e3649681
(DIR) Post #AdQG5CFDxCfx5ba50S by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T03:17:14Z
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@blacklightUkraine never had a chance against the much bigger and technologically advanced Russia. Sending more weapons only means sending more Ukrainians to death. This blowbak from the Belgorad attack is just one example. Their future is indeed dire due to foolish provocation. Stop the killing and insanity. They need to negotiate any peace arrangement they can, but it will be difficult.
(DIR) Post #AdQMLXaexSxDeNmfdw by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-02T04:27:25Z
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@Bernard If Russia gets away with this, it won't stop with Kyiv. Putin wants the old USSR borders back, and something more.This is how world wars begin - with a lunatic in charge of a powerful army who decides to grab as much as they can.Had the world supported Poland and Belgium unconditionally, and immediately thrown all of their military power against Hitler, history may have taken a different bend.
(DIR) Post #AdRLv8vQEaDEmWrsS8 by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T15:57:31Z
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@blacklight I have heard that wild speculation many times but have seen zero evidence or statements from Moscow to support it. Unless you have evidence, you are repeating NATO propaganda. Putin is not a lunatic and cannot be rationally compared to Hitler.Donetsk and Luhansk chose to be part of the Russian Federation. War could spread elsewhere outside of Ukraine if NATO further threatens Russia's security. This is what we in the West can avoid doing.
(DIR) Post #AdRYvwTJJtvHqsQkQi by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-02T18:23:17Z
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@Bernard here's the fact check + sources of the 2005 speech where he called the break up of the USSR the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, and called it his mission to revert as much of it as he could: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/06/john-bolton/did-vladimir-putin-call-breakup-ussr-greatest-geop/.And this is Vladimir Solovyev, TV propagandist and often spokesperson of the Kremlin's line, recently stating "the only guarantee for our safety is to reach the Atlantic" https://nitter.net/Gerashchenko_en/status/1732041019930145153.He made similar statements in the past, he called for a nuclear WWIII initiated by Russia ("we're all going to die one day anyway": https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-comforts-viewers-nuclear-war-we-all-die-someday-1701580), and he clearly stated that Ukraine was "only the beginning" https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/top-putin-propagandist-says-the-ukraine-war-is-just-the-beginning/About Donetsk and Luhansk, I have several friends who live or used to live there. Before 2014 they didn't mind what they were part on. Half-Ukrainian, half-Russian families are very common, and kids traditionally learn both the languages. Putin just blew on the fire of ethnic divisions that nobody used to care of earlier, and used the Stalinist excuse of "protecting Russian-speaking groups" as a pretext for an invasion. If his goal was just to grab those two Russian-speaking regions, then why didn't he stop there? Why the bombs on Kherson, Kyiv, Odessa, all the way to Lviv on the Western border? Why did he take the Zaporizhzhia plant? Why did he try and stop so many times even grain exports? Why did his troops leave hundreds of km of landmines behind them? The answer is simple: he just wants Ukraine to collapse (all of it): if he can't have it, then he'd rather turn it into a failed State.Which, from a historic point of view, puts him in a position that is actually even worse that Hitler's, and makes him deserve an even worse death.
(DIR) Post #AdRiuvy4hsTPXcyhwe by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T20:15:12Z
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@blacklight Stating that the breakup of the USSR was a disaster is true if you look at what happened during the 90's. The war hawk Bolton's characterization that it means Putin wants to reconstitute the USSR is unfounded. Your other references are from people in Russian media and not from Putin or the Kremlin. Media pundits say all kinds of things.
(DIR) Post #AdRj72pszv9cJhvGwi by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T20:17:24Z
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@blacklight Ukraine will likely be turned into a dysfunctional rump state to ensure it is less of a threat to Russia. Putin wanted it to be a neutral country and promise not to join NATO, but we ignored that demand. Hitler and Napoleon invaded Russia through Ukraine and killed tens of millions of Russians. Putin's main job is to protect the country. Had we in NATO not ignored the red lines and rejected the treaty they offered, Ukraine would be in a much better place today.
(DIR) Post #AdRsnQvciBaomwtSsK by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-02T22:05:53Z
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@Bernard Who's Putin to have a say on the alliances of another sovereign and independent State? I've been to Kyiv several times before the war, and I remember seeing EU flags on the streets and meeting people who were mostly pro-Europe. If the people of a country want to take a certain political side, who's Putin to say if it's right or wrong?Belarus is an example of a pariah State passively aligned with Moscow and governed by a dictator who keeps death penalty legal. And it borders EU and NATO country. Did we ever complain that Belarus should be aligned with us or stay neutral, or threaten to invade it and reduce it to a failed State? No, because that's not how the right to self-determination works.About invading Russia through Ukraine - we're not in 19th century anymore. We don't need an old fashioned land invasion to attack a country, and Putin knows it quite well. And, if we really wanted a land invasion, we could also start it from Finland (a NATO member now, thanks to Putin's reckless war), Poland or any of the Baltic States. So that argument also doesn't make any sense.
(DIR) Post #AdRwyR6UndfkKnTtEO by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T22:52:43Z
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@blacklight If you look at a map of Russia, you can see it is twice as big as the US and borders 16 countries. Security is more important to them than freedom. Last century Hitler invaded through Ukraine and killed ~30M Russians 1 in 7. NATO is very hostile to Russia. If Ukraine stayed neutral, there would have been no problem. If Mexico were to align with Russia or China and start installing missile silos and taking other armaments and training, we could be sure of a conflict here.
(DIR) Post #AdRxF89SW61OThpN2m by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T22:55:44Z
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@blacklight If you also look at the path of NATO expansion after the US promised not to move NATO east of Germany, you will see what Russia sees as a threat. Now that Finland is no longer neutral, Russia is building up its military along its border. This is all about NATO expansion up to Russia's borders which they have repeatedly stated they will not tolerate. If a country near them ignores this, there are consequences. It is reality and not about right or wrong.
(DIR) Post #AdRxn04R4HmpGFd0lc by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-02T23:01:49Z
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@Bernard it is wrong in the 21st century, period. It was wrong when the US saw Cuba as a threat and it actively tried to sabotage them. It was wrong when it actively interfered with the politics of Nicaragua, not to mention Vietnam and Korea. It is wrong for Russia to do the same with Ukraine.A country must have no control whatsoever over what another sovereign country does - that's the whole point of self-determination. They can try and leverage decisions with diplomacy, but when diplomacy fails they should just STFU and accept that other people with another flag who live on the other side of the border have all the rights to decide what they want to do with themselves.Ukrainians elected Zelenskiy, not Putin.
(DIR) Post #AdRyNboIELfUjXXAlE by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-02T23:08:27Z
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@blacklight Do you think it was wrong of the US to coup Ukraine's democratically elected leader in 2014?Your notion of right and wrong does not comport with international reality. There is no higher authority above a nation. Nations must therefore do whatever is needed to protect themselves.
(DIR) Post #AdSXjcQc6s6FPuglhA by blacklight@social.platypush.tech
2024-01-03T05:44:34Z
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@Bernard who shot to peaceful protesters in Independence Square has to be clarified. If the shots were actually not fired by police forces, then the real culprits need to be punished.But these reports ignore the simple fact that Yanukovich was a corrupt and very unpopular leader who stuffed all the levels of government with clientelism. My own friends were protesting in those days, risking their own lives together with tens of thousands of others - rest assured that they aren't American agents.Later on, Zelenskiy won the elections on a strongly pro-European platform. Not with 51% of the votes, but with nearly 75%. Ukrainians were so desperate for change after being treated like a satellite of Russia that they democratically elected a comedian with no political experience because he promised them closer ties with Europe and less corruption. That definitely wasn't a coup, and the current government isn't illegal. Assuming that Yanukovich's ousting in 2014 was a coup (and I still have many doubts about that), then how do you call ousting a president elected with nearly three quarters of the votes years later?As a parallel, take Belarus. Following the Russian textbook, Lukashenko jailed anyone who could pose a political threat to him, exiled his main political opponent, ended up with an election that was almost a joke, and quashed protests with forced incarcerations and gratuitous police violence. Did the EU call that a coup and invaded Belarus in response? Sure, we condemned them and put sanctions on them, but not a single soldier crossed the border. Then why should we allow Russia to behave differently?> There is no higher authority above a nation. Nations must therefore do whatever is needed to protect themselves.Absolutely not. International law exists for a reason, and the right to self-determination is an integral part of it. Invading a nation with internationally recognized borders is a violation of the UN treaties that most of the countries (including Russia) signed. Just because nobody seems to give a fuck about the UN and its resolutions and laws nowadays it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. If we remove those founding international treaties, then only diplomacy, nuclear deterrent or greater military power are what separates a civilized world from a jungle of nations dropping rockets on one another.
(DIR) Post #AdSb7Vpia7HHm7W3yy by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-03T06:22:34Z
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@blacklight International bodies help facilitate relationships and agreements between countries, but they generally lack enforcement mechanisms. I watch many UN meetings and see what goes on. It is disheartening at times to see how big power players have already coerced other representatives to vote a certain way. The ICC is toothless. The US will not sign on to it because many of its people would be locked up.
(DIR) Post #AdSbO7Xw8H3vNF7PGa by Bernard@friends.ravergram.club
2024-01-03T06:25:32Z
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@blacklight Military interventions are done for a reason. It could be a last resort defense or for opportunity. I see Russia's intervention in Ukraine as an example of the former. They do not want or need any more land, but they need to protect themselves from enemies at the gate. We should avoid ever pushing a country to that point.I understand Zelensky also ran on a promise of peace with Russia, but he did not do that. Perhaps he was tricked, coerced, or enticed. We don't know.