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Salamandre
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posted October 08, 2023 12:53 PM |
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Doomforge said:
Yeah, pretty hard for a soviet mind, eh?
Well, at least I have a mind. Sheep don't.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 08, 2023 12:54 PM |
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Err, no. False narrative, yet again. It was your pet president, Donald Trump, who decided to pull out of the INF. Prior to that, the president rivalling Trump when it comes to being influenced by the wrong lobby, the great George W., had decided to cancel the ABM treaty already.
While the Trump administration did everything possible to blame the Russians for the withdrawal, citing non-compliance of Russia, Trump would have pulled out anyway, because it was a move directed against China who never ratified INF.
Paradoxically, the US moves out of treaties limiting nuclear tests and developments and deployments haven't been directed against Russia. They are no NATO thing, but a US thing. The US have interests beside NATO, involving Australia, Japan, South Korea (and Taiwan) and they also were paranoid about the threat of smaller states or terrorists might be able to fire anything at them.
What may play a role, though, is that early in 2019 the Ukrainian Secretary of State declared their willingness to develop their own mid-range nuclear missiles, after INF was buried, which Poroshenko confirmed (before Zelensky got elected, probably because of his promise to end the conflict with Russia; this may have done more bad than good, though: for Putin, any formal peace with Ukraine would have opened up Ukraine's road into NATO and EC).
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Salamandre
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posted October 08, 2023 01:54 PM |
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I see nothing there proving it was a false narrative, you are doing circles around. I never said it was directed to Russia, but that the move coincides with Nato expansion up to russian borders, and this is how Russians took it, as a threat.
Look, there is no "NATO expansion provoked the war", nor "Donbass aggression provoked the war", nor "American arrogance ignoring all Putin proposals provoked the war", nor "USA withdrew from nuclear treaty provoked the war", there is a sum of all those things pilling up. When you constantly push the limits to see how far you can go, at some moment it breaks.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 08, 2023 04:48 PM |
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That IS the false narrative; that you have any idea about how and why decisions are made. Putin and his advisors cannot have overseen or overheard that Trump (who was obviously Russia's favorite) was complimenting Putin and didn't have ANY intentions along with NATO to escalate things in Europe, since the attention of the US in general and the Trump administration specifically was shifting to China.
And the European members of NATO were not keen on antagonizing Russia either, due to them having good deals in place with Russia.
Biden's election actually didn't change anything in regard to China, but Biden administration didn't compliment Putin either.
There is also the fact, that due to Russias attack Putin now faces two new NATO members, one of which having a fairly big border with them, so the situation with a view on NATO has definitely not improved fpr Russia and I doubt this wasn't forseeable. Russia also didn't make a lot of fuss because of that.
Bottom line is, the NATO narrative doesn't make any sense for me and I strongly doubt that "NATO" has been part of the equation leading to the war.
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Doomforge
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posted October 09, 2023 12:46 AM |
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Salamandre said:
Well, at least I have a mind.
Nope. You're just repeating Russian propaganda and calling it "free thinking".
Too bad it's neither free, nor thinking.
The problem with that propaganda is that it's a combination of victim blaming and false dichotomy.
The invasion was never THE solution to whatever problems Russia may have. Hell, it never was a solution in the first place because it solves nothing at all. It only makes Russia seem even more of an existentional threat to its neighbors, which means Sweden/Finland joining NATO in response and countries like Poland ordering thousands of new MBTs, HIMARS launchers and planes.
NOBODY forced Putin's hand. It was his decision to start a war. There were other ways to deal with whatever he perceived as danger.
What's wrong with diplomacy? Should we go back to solving every issue with conscripted fools killing each other? Is pre-WW2 Europe your idea of how the world should work?
What's your point here? You say you're not pro-war. Then what are you supporting here? All I see is you trying to give Russians some sort of an excuse for invading. Too bad there is none.
Salamandre said:
I see nothing there proving it was a false narrative, you are doing circles around. I never said it was directed to Russia, but that the move coincides with Nato expansion up to russian borders, and this is how Russians took it, as a threat.
Russia would take a wet fart as a threat, since they had their mind on a war for a long time. If it wasn't "Ukraine wants to join NATO", it would be a false flag operation. Whatever. A country that wants to invade doesn't need a deliberate cause. Casus belli has been fabricated for thousands of years of human history - whenever it was necessary.
You put way too much attention to "why". It matters not. What matters is what they did in response to that "why", valid or not.
And what they did was wrong in every possible way.
Salamandre said:
Look, there is no "NATO expansion provoked the war", nor "Donbass aggression provoked the war", nor "American arrogance ignoring all Putin proposals provoked the war", nor "USA withdrew from nuclear treaty provoked the war", there is a sum of all those things pilling up. When you constantly push the limits to see how far you can go, at some moment it breaks.
Except that Russia is not some weak kid pushed around by a bully at school. "Breaking" means some sort of emotional response. What Putin did was planned for over a decade and started in 2014 by the annexation of Crimea.
Nobody "snapped" here. It was all according to plan.
Fortunately, the "war" part of the plan is a total flop.
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Salamandre
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posted October 09, 2023 06:24 AM |
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Doomforge said:
What Putin did was planned for over a decade and started in 2014 by the annexation of Crimea.
Russia didn't "annex" Crimea, Crimea voted through referendum to join motherland of Russia and leave Ukraine, one of the most corrupted and poor countries in Europe. It was free and fair. You spend time asking sovereignty for peoples, then deny them when it goes against your narrative.
Human Rights Investigation
And remember, all pilling up of grudges against Russia, economic sanctions, NATO military expansion, west mainstream biased and aggressive reports, all this started because we were told Crimea was annexed through military coup, and THIS was the ultimate proof that Russia is imperialist.
And was all a lie, the whole thing crumbles in pieces when we look close.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 09, 2023 08:06 AM |
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You know, Austria voted for joining Germany as well in 1938. And I say, if Germany occupies Silesia, we can get a majority to vote to become part of it. Doesn't mean anything. And is whataboutism. Plain fact is, Russia started a war against Ukraine. And Russia is one of the guarantee powers of Ukraine, making it not only an act of war, but an act of betrayal as well.
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Salamandre
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posted October 09, 2023 08:26 AM |
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You know, in order to deflate a conflict, you have to find common ground, then start from it. If you claim fact 1 is not acceptable, fact 2 neither, facts 3-5 even less, then there is no common ground to start from. And then, when reality shows that you made up facts 1-4, but you keep saying that fact 5 is unacceptable, therefore the proof that you lied on facts 1-4 doesn't matter and is "whataboutism", any chance to deflate is gone, moreover you lose any credibility about the will to step back.
And here we are.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 09, 2023 08:45 AM |
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Doomforge
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posted October 09, 2023 02:22 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Russia didn't "annex" Crimea, Crimea voted through referendum to join motherland of Russia and leave Ukraine, one of the most corrupted and poor countries in Europe.
You know that separation/secession referundums are outlawed by every country by default, right? They are illegal and will not be respected, no matter the result - see Catalonia/Spain. A group of people cannot decide they can leave the country. This is because secession violates the constitution of each and every country there is.
Russia cannot organize a "referendum" on a country they have no jurisdiction over.
Whatever they did after the annexation is meaningless. They annexed Crimea in the first place, which makes it an invasion by default
Not to mention, they are the ones counting the votes, so they may as well pull a Kim Jong Un and declare 102% support rate. With no UN/OSCE observers, who's to judge, exactly? oh, maybe the AH SO OBJECTIVE altright "observers" that Russia invited? 
Here are some basic facts for you, bud:
"On March 11, the OSCE chair, Switzerland's Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, declared the referendum as unconstitutional and therefore the OSCE would not send observers."
"OSCE military observers attempted to enter the region four times but were turned away, sometimes after warning shots were fired, which was another reason given for not dispatching referendum observers."
"OSCE also published a report about their observations which "produced significant evidence of equipment consistent with the presence of Russian Federation military personnel in the vicinity of the various roadblocks encountered"."
Seriously, what a joke. A "referendum" made by inner Russian voting circle, backed up by AK-47s.
And a pro-putinist calling it fair. No surprise there.
Also, let's get this out of the way right away because I can sense your response from here: please, no "you should support independence referendums!!!!" whataboutism. It's not THE matter of the discussion. Currently, they are illegal. Their legal status has nothing to do with russian invasion and can be a subject of a different debate.
Salamandre said:
It was free and fair. You spend time asking sovereignty for peoples, then deny them when it goes against your narrative.
Secession isn't sovereignty. And it is outlawed by every penal system of every country. Otherwise, nobody in their right mind would stay in a poorer country if they could join a richer country instead. Polticians would be busy "buying" new territories for their country instead of doing whatever they were elected to do. The world would be one giant mess, basically we'd go back to colonies and empires grabbing new lands.
Would Poland vote to become US' 52th state? probably. Should it work lke that? absolutely not. Unless you want the Supreme United States of The World to rise, of course.
This is one major pandora box you really don't want to open.
You also CANNOT open it, because making a secession referendum is illegal by default. Unless you violate international right, annex a country and then do your standard Putinist nonsense from there. Meaning, agression first, referendum later. Thus, referendum cannot support aggression, as by the time aggression happened, referendum didn't take place yet.
Salamandre said:
And remember, all pilling up of grudges against Russia, economic sanctions, NATO military expansion, west mainstream biased and aggressive reports, all this started because we were told Crimea was annexed through military coup, and THIS was the ultimate proof that Russia is imperialist.
Because it is, lol. No other country in the world (except US, which is obviously imperialistic) does the invasion thing and no country at all (even imperalistic US) does the annexation bullcrap. Nobody cares for border pushing anymore except for putinists and their ridiculous obsession with reinstalling "zones of control" and expanding Russian Empire.
And Crimea obviously was annexed, because if Ukraine had anything to say, the results of the so called "referendum" would be immediately discarded as unconstitutional. They couldn't, because Russian military was already there in the first place.
Salamandre said:
And was all a lie, the whole thing crumbles in pieces when we look close.
Exactly. This is why your pro-russian propaganda falls to pieces every time you try to open your mouth and present another strawman or any other fallacy there is in vain attempt to deny that it's the Russians that started it all, invaded another country and began a war.
This, however, is not up for debate. Facts don't need debating over.
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Ghost
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posted October 09, 2023 03:03 PM |
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@Doomfotge
~ Catalonia/Spain ~
It's not the same thing. We know because we have Åland  We don't give a independency to Åland, we own Åland. But I can tell you that if we give a independency, and then Sweden attack to Åland, because Sweden want Åland or they melt into the state. We don't want to give Sweden. War or not, never to Sweden.
Crimea? Is autonomy? Never been! Ukraine own Crimea, and Russia robbed Ukraine. Think about we've Russians, they conquest some area. It's robber.. A good that thing never happened.. I can tell you, Russians buy our cottage, cabin, plot, etc near Russian border.. They interested in area.. Why? Doesn't know!
So bad metaphor..
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Salamandre
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posted October 09, 2023 05:09 PM |
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You two complete well each other.
Doomforge, you mix apples and oranges. I never brought into discussion the legality of Crimea secession, but its "annexation by force", as claimed in mainstream.
When you have a vote at 97% for, then international polls matching at 91%, there is not much left for imagination, except when you don't want it to succeed and need to invent a narrative. I don't deny the presence of Russian military during the referendum, I only don't see any evidence that people voted a gun on their head. So is irrelevant and even ordinary, considering the status of Autonomous Republic, its past, its ethnic components, intrinsically linked to Russia and so on.
That the international community, or Ukraine, recognize - or not - the referendum, it's again irrelevant to me, but I accept their position. Ukraine has a very bad reputation at handling minorities, it is galaxies far from the joyful and bewitched democracy you wish it to be, so what should matter, imo, is what Crimean - which consider themselves as Russians - want best for their fate.
It is interesting to note that the sudden economic sanctions after the secession, were directed both at Russia and Crimea, which means that the international community knew they voted free and fair, you don't inflict further pain upon a military colonized and oppressed people. That was a punishment for going rogue and stepping outside the lines.
But again, the legality wasn't my point.
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Doomforge
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posted October 09, 2023 08:17 PM |
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Legal problems aside... this so-called referendum also lacks credibility.
No international observers that can be actually identified as non-biased; No environment to peacefully vote (armed troops of a foreign country don't help); Lack of proper encouragement (the sole fact that it's illegal will scare most law-abiding citizens, skewing the results towards "rebels" who have nothing to lose).
Now, long before war, there was plenty of research that showed Crimean citizens as majorly pro-Russian. That is undeniable.
However, just because a part of another country is pro Russian does not give Russians any sort of... "right"... to just take it by force.
We, as international community, shouldn't agree with Russian reasoning here, because it's in our best interest - humanity's best interest - that this thing doesn't become the norm.
Otherwise, there's PLENTY of countries that have large minorities in neighboring countries (or even "majorities" in areas close to borders) and would be willing to annex parts of those.
And then... we're back to Pre-ww2 standards of having wars every couple years. And those standards suck.
It would benefit humanity as a whole if we just kept borders taboo. What emerged after WW2 is sacred, unless it develops naturally/non-violently, like Czechoslovakia's division.
Not to mention that Russia has the biggest country in the world and also very low population density. Do they SERIOUSLY need more land? Resources? Obviously not. Not that we need another Lebensraum nonsense.
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Salamandre
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posted October 09, 2023 10:26 PM |
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Reading should be done carefully, details are in the devil :
On March 11, the OSCE chair, Switzerland's Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, declared the referendum as unconstitutional and therefore the OSCE would NOT send observers. The incident you report was about military OSCE observers which were not on official mission, but invited by Ukraine, on their own. So basically you have a few foreign military, without any accreditation, no mission papers, who are attempting to sneak in Crimea. Which, at THAT moment, has already voted separation from Ukraine and prepares for the referendum to join Russia.
Now, The United Nations Development Program conducted a series of polls in Crimea between 2009 and 2011 about the question of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia with a sample size of 1200. The results in favor of joining Russia were around 70%, against around 14%. Link
As you can see on that page, every poll, every research (2 polls in 2009, 4 polls in 2010) conducted by international polling institutes give same results, an overwhelming majority for joining Russia.
In sociology such results are interpreted as evidence. Yet the majority of mainstream medias continue to claim the referendum was conducted under the cover of assault rifles and, thus, the result was obtained through violence This is dishonest and a lie, period.
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Doomforge
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posted October 10, 2023 12:46 AM |
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Salamandre said:
Reading should be done carefully
Exactly, bro. Look above...
Doomforge said:
Now, long before war, there was plenty of research that showed Crimean citizens as majorly pro-Russian. That is undeniable.
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What you quoted is well known to me, there have been other surveys and research panels devoted to the subject over the years as well, showing from 60 to 80% Crimeans being pro-Russian and willing to join Russia if necessary.
HOWEVER... like you said yourself... details are in the devil, right?
And those are the details:
- Russian propaganda does not refer to pre-war research, they refer directly to the AK47-backed garbage they "performed" after invasion. This is their, ahem, ultimate argument. Well, this particular one has actually very little value.
- There were other surveys conducted after 2014 that indicated a sharp decline in pro-Russian orientation of the Crimeans, probably caused by many people not supporting Russian aggression, propaganda and unnecessary militarization throughout the entire process. Most likely, many were also disillusioned by Russia itself. You mentioned Ukraine is among the poorest and most corrupted countries; that is correct. However, Russia isn't really that much better: it is also a poor, corrupted country plagued by many issues such as suicide rate, divorce rate, crap life expectancy, HIV infection percentage, domestic abuse acceptance and a crapton of other factors. On top of it all, it is ruled by a tyrant surrounded by completely deranged people like Medvedev, which can't last three days without producing another ridiculous article ending with a nuclear threat.
- no matter how high the support is, all of what I have mentioned above - the fact that Russia has no jurisdiction in Ukraine, cannot order a referendum and cannot act on unconstitutional law without forcing its will through invasion/annexation - still applies. Yes, many Crimeans felt Russians. This is, however, not an argument for taking land by force.
- This also supports border revisionism, which could essentially trigger a dispute around "border accuracy" between most, if not all countries. If we were to follow suit, most of known world should go to war in order to revise the "unjust" borders. That is madness. And it's pointless anyway. We, as civilization, have collectively moved away from land-grabbing. There are some open disputes (like Taiwan, Kuriles and many others), but what Russia did was on another level, something everybody hoped we've moved away from ever since WW2 ended - all the Zones of Control/Lebensraum bullcrap. It's dead. Why ever revive it? That's right, we should not. Preserving the status quo is the very best thing humanity can do.
This is an unsigned agreement that lasted for several decades. Finally broken by none other than uncle Vladimir and his ridiculous notion of reinstalling the Russian Empire. Blah.
In other words, what Russians did was objectively, morally, logically and strategically terrible for everyone - us, humanity, Ukraine, and finally - Russia itself. I'd argue that whatever "pros" they managed to get out of the whole landgrabbing nonsense doesn't outweigh the massive cons, such as (for example) 2500+ confirmed tank losses, thousands of killed young men, sanctions, USD rising above 100 Rubles, and many others. All of that for what, 5% of Ukrainian territory and a constant war with no end at sight? sigh... GENIUS. Whatever their plan was - it failed.
Unfortunately, Putin never gives up. There is a very intriguing biography (written by a Polish author, but perhaps it has been translated to english - never checked: https://www.empik.com/wowa-wolodia-wladimir-tajemnice-rosji-putina-kurczab-redlich-krystyna,p1294732402,ksiazka-p) that shows how "I give up" was never in Putin's dictionary. Not when he was a child, a teenager, a grown man. This dude is stubborn as a mule. Nothing good can come out of this. If US plays this well, it may finally trigger the collapse of Russian Federation, just like the arms race and aftermath of Afghanistan fiasco finally defeated USSR three decades ago.
You may think this is some sort of "I hate Russians" thing, but nah. This is what must happen if we want to live in a world where you don't have to worry about Russian imperialism and nuclear threats. Putin's regime must end.
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Salamandre
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posted October 15, 2023 05:40 AM |
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Moving here.
Doomforge said:
Facts are not opinions.
The only fact you constantly refuse to acknowledge is that a sovereign country was invaded by an imperialistic neighbour.
I don't even get why are you arguing. It's rather obvious and not open for debate.
This is not about me acknowledging a fact, but about you constructing a narrative out of a context and a timeline. If I go by YOUR logic, in 2014 Ukraine declared war on its ethnic Russian minorities, sit on every Minsk accord, was heavily armed by the USA, then constantly bombarded and killed thousands of civilians - kids, women, elders, therefore Russia had the right and the duty to intervene and defend his own. Just because it was on purpose poorly reported in the mainstream doesn't make it less of a fact, the graves are there.
It's rather obvious and not open for debate. See?
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Ben80
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posted October 15, 2023 09:21 AM |
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Edited by Ben80 at 09:23, 15 Oct 2023.
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CNN: Humanity could have appeared much earlier if not for Putin. Who walked along the shore and used a stick to throw single-celled organisms back into the ocean...
(single-celled organisms that were dropped were blue-yellow in color, they jumped up and squealed: “What are we for ???”)
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Doomforge
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posted October 15, 2023 10:22 AM |
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Salamandre said:
If I go by YOUR logic, in 2014 Ukraine declared war on its ethnic Russian minorities, sit on every Minsk accord, was heavily armed by the USA, then constantly bombarded and killed thousands of civilians - kids, women, elders, therefore Russia had the right and the duty to intervene and defend his own.
This is not my logic.
I firmly belive that whatever happened at Ukraine is UKRAINIAN business in the first place. Not Russian, and not American for the matter.
Russia has no sovereignty over Ukraine unless it forces itself upon Ukraine, and that's what happened.
Pretty much every country has minorites of its own people in neighboring countries. This is just another Pandora's box - are they treated well? are they misrepresented? are they respected? no? WE INVADE. Ugh. Now, who gets to judge if they are not treated well? The invader, of course. Whenever you combine the role of a judge, jury and executioner, you get a mess. This has been a casus belli many times, and (historically) most, if not all of it was just BS excuse to invade.
Could Ukraine do things differently? I don't think it would matter. Crimea got annexed in 2014, not 2022. Russians started this war a decade ago. Putin made many aggressive claims against Ukraine's sovereignty many times in his speeches over decades of his rule. But, back then, nobody thought an actual war can happen, so things were completely different.
You say I put things out of context, but how would you contextualize that Putin explicitly denied that Ukraine had ever had “real statehood,” and said the country was an integral part of Russia’s, huh? Does this look like "but Russian citizens are misrepresented"? Or does it look way more sinister?
I think Latvia tried to go in the right direction by attempting to expel citizenship-less Russians from its country entirely, however, they did back away from this plan IIRC.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. If there's a will, there's a way. If there's no way to blame someone for something, you can always perform false flag operations. Russia prepared for this invasion for years.
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Salamandre
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posted October 15, 2023 10:40 AM |
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Indeed, you are right, it was neither Russian or American business, but OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) with the mediation by the leaders of France and Germany.
They did nothing to fix the conflict and even declared later they didn't care or expected any improvement.
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Doomforge
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posted October 15, 2023 10:46 AM |
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Salamandre said:
They did nothing to fix the conflict and even declared later they didn't care or expected any improvement.
That's because, starting from League of Nations, through United Nations and ending at OSCE, these organizations lack any sort of power or influence. These projects have always been a failure at enforcing international law.
Thing is, Russia never actually even pretended that it's about Donieck or Lugansk. What the hell were they doing shelling Odessa with Shahed-136 drones, huh? Does this look like an operation to defend the minorities? cmon.
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This thread is pages long: 
