US has no good options in Ukraine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

Yes. Proof of that is that crimeas takeover, unlike donbass, was essentially bloodless. People welcomed it. Not an excuse of course but it IS a diff story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

Yes. Proof of that is that crimeas takeover, unlike donbass, was essentially bloodless. People welcomed it. Not an excuse of course but it IS a diff story.

Right, exactly.

[Anonymous]

You’re not mentally equipped to fight this thing; and you never will be.

Great line from a great movie.

The US and European culture have to realize that our values, traditions and rules do not apply to the East. It (literally) is like we are from different planets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From CNN live updates:

US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "pure thug" while speaking at a St. Patrick's Day event Thursday.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-17-22/index.html

Highly undiplomatic... but perfectly true.

He also called him a war criminal yesterday. Telling it like it is.

Agree that Putin is a blatant war criminal, but Biden is as well. Voted for Iraq and Afghanistan wars which whether you like it or not were essentially the same
thing Putin is doing — “the regime is [anti-democracy / nazis] and they have [weapons of mass destruction / biolabs]”. Also has been arming Ukrainian nationalists and sent CIA to train them in their battle against Donbas separatists. Armed the Free Syria Army against Assad and many of the weapons ended up in ISIS hands. Supported bloody Libya coup. Not to mention all the drone strikes under Biden and Obama. Prolific, prolific war criminal just like Putin. Both men will burn in hell because there is nothing more shameful than sowing death and destruction during your time on earth.

To be fair, all US presidents have overseen foreign military adventures--covert or otherwise--resulting in death and destruction. As a nation, we were founded through violence and we promote our interests abroad with violence. We are also the world's largest arms dealer, not to mention the country with the most armed citizens (but that's a whole other subject). So Biden is just one more in a long line of presidents who have exerted American power through violent means.

Yep. I guess the founding fathers are war criminals, too, and are roasting in hell right now.

And so is Abraham Lincoln.

One key difference between Lincoln and Putin is that Putin waited 30 years after Ukraine's separation from Russia to attempt to pull them back into the fold, while Lincoln to action immediately. But that doesn't change the fact that Lincoln has a lot of blood on his hands -- yet we consider him one of our greatest presidents .. perhaps the greatest of all.

It is interesting that some leaders who have attempted to expand their territory are considered evil, while others are heroes. What is the criteria for determining which expansionist leader is a hero and which is a monster?

Catherine the Great conquered that land—Novorossiya. Immediately before that, it wasn’t part of Russia. In Lincoln’s case the enslaver states were not another country. In the case of Putin, Ukraine is a country with an established government, president and people.

Do we consider Lincoln one of our greatest presidents? I thought just Trump did, because he sure talked about Lincoln a lot.

If the US (Bush and Condoleeza Rice) had not said that Ukraine would become part of NATO one day, maybe this war would not have happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From CNN live updates:

US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "pure thug" while speaking at a St. Patrick's Day event Thursday.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-17-22/index.html

Highly undiplomatic... but perfectly true.

He also called him a war criminal yesterday. Telling it like it is.

Agree that Putin is a blatant war criminal, but Biden is as well. Voted for Iraq and Afghanistan wars which whether you like it or not were essentially the same
thing Putin is doing — “the regime is [anti-democracy / nazis] and they have [weapons of mass destruction / biolabs]”. Also has been arming Ukrainian nationalists and sent CIA to train them in their battle against Donbas separatists. Armed the Free Syria Army against Assad and many of the weapons ended up in ISIS hands. Supported bloody Libya coup. Not to mention all the drone strikes under Biden and Obama. Prolific, prolific war criminal just like Putin. Both men will burn in hell because there is nothing more shameful than sowing death and destruction during your time on earth.

To be fair, all US presidents have overseen foreign military adventures--covert or otherwise--resulting in death and destruction. As a nation, we were founded through violence and we promote our interests abroad with violence. We are also the world's largest arms dealer, not to mention the country with the most armed citizens (but that's a whole other subject). So Biden is just one more in a long line of presidents who have exerted American power through violent means.

Yep. I guess the founding fathers are war criminals, too, and are roasting in hell right now.

And so is Abraham Lincoln.

One key difference between Lincoln and Putin is that Putin waited 30 years after Ukraine's separation from Russia to attempt to pull them back into the fold, while Lincoln to action immediately. But that doesn't change the fact that Lincoln has a lot of blood on his hands -- yet we consider him one of our greatest presidents .. perhaps the greatest of all.

It is interesting that some leaders who have attempted to expand their territory are considered evil, while others are heroes. What is the criteria for determining which expansionist leader is a hero and which is a monster?

You got this the wrong way around - the Confederates were trying to expand their new state, while Lincoln was trying to maintain the status quo land mass of the United States.

Putin is like the Confederates - trying to take what wasn't his to begin with.

But Ukraine was once a member state in the USSR. Suppose the Soviets had immediately acted, in 1991, to try to pull Ukraine back into a rump-version of the USSR. Would that have been a "legal" war? If the answer is "yes" to that question, then isn't it the passage of time -- from 1991 to 2022 -- and the fact that Ukraine operated independently during this period, that distinguishes the actions taken by Lincoln from those taken by Putin?

NO. The answer to the question “would that have been a legal war is - NO! Ukraine voted in a nationwide referendum to affirm the vote in their Rada/Parliament to dissolve their ties with the USSR. The referendum had something like 84% turnout and 92% approved independence - even on the Crimean Peninsula, more than 50% approved separation.

Ukraine is not some situation in which political representatives voted to secede. Almost the entire population voted to secede and it followed that secession by negotiations and legal agreements as to the nature of the successor organization (CIS) and status of the Baltic fleet, nukes, etc.

There are no factual circumstances that existed would have justified Russia or the USSR to forcibly take back Ukraine - neither then nor now.

Prior to the Civil War, the south voted unanimously to withdraw from the union. Does this mean that Lincoln waged an illegal war?

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just posted.

Why don't you just humor me and explain the issue to me. Explain it to me to me in general terms. If two regions, A and B, are operating under a unified government, and region "B" votes to leave the union, under what circumstances is the president of "A" allowed to wage war on "B" in an effort to re-form the union?

If region B uses human slavery based on skin color.

So the Civil War was waged to end slavery? I think many historians would disagree.

In any case, I'm not looking for specific reasoning with respect to the Civil War -- rather, I'm looking for the general rule: when is a war legal, and when it is illegal, with respect to pulling regions "A" and "B" back together into a union that had previously existed. Thanks in advance for anybody who can give me a clear explanation without hurling insults at me or being impolite.

Name two.

With regards to Ukraine, in 1994 Russia acknowledged Ukraine as a sovereign nation and promised to respect its borders.

It isn't just that though. Under the USSR Ukraine was considered separate as well. In otherwords, Russia has never had a claim. Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc were all formally separate Soviet Socialist Republics. It'd be like the US claiming Mexico if NAFTA falls apart. Or France claiming Spain if the EU does.

The trolls are trying to use our general ignorance of history and structures in that part of the world against us. The USSR was dominated by Russia but it was not Russia. Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Turkmenistan etc withdrew from the Union under the terms and rights of the Union itself.

+1. Plus at the time of dissolution of the USSR Russia saw many of the federated states that wanted to leave as burdens or drains on Russia economically and were not that heartbroken to see them go. Kind of like when people point out in the US that Red States get more federal money than they pay in taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

As to the people of modern day Crimea considering themselves Russian. That is in part because in 1944 Stalin deported the entire indigenous Crimean Tatar population in 3 days. In 3 days every Tatar living in Crimea was rounded up and deported east to closed work cities. Tena of thousands died. Stalin resettled Russians and Ukrainians in the place of Tatars. The remaining population wasn’t allowed to return to Crimea until the late 1980’s.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 3014, Crimean Tatar posed persistent resistance and for the last 8 years have suffered human rights abuses. At the time of their deportation, Tatars were about 20 % of the population.

Most consider what happened to Tatars to be genocide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. [/b]It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years[b], until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

Any country that starts making claims like this is not fit to be part of the modern world. We are not going to entertain ancient territorial claims and we are not going to be redrawing borders, this has to be a firm line in the sand.

The invasion of Crimea set a terrible precedent that should have been handled swiftly.

[Anonymous]

According to the republicans posting in this forum, Parker Brothers had no idea what it was doing when it made the first RISK game board in the 1960's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

As to the people of modern day Crimea considering themselves Russian. That is in part because in 1944 Stalin deported the entire indigenous Crimean Tatar population in 3 days. In 3 days every Tatar living in Crimea was rounded up and deported east to closed work cities. Tena of thousands died. Stalin resettled Russians and Ukrainians in the place of Tatars. The remaining population wasn’t allowed to return to Crimea until the late 1980’s.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 3014, Crimean Tatar posed persistent resistance and for the last 8 years have suffered human rights abuses. At the time of their deportation, Tatars were about 20 % of the population.

Most consider what happened to Tatars to be genocide.

yes, deporting and replacing populations, and then legitimizing occupation, is the Soviet playbook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

As to the people of modern day Crimea considering themselves Russian. That is in part because in 1944 Stalin deported the entire indigenous Crimean Tatar population in 3 days. In 3 days every Tatar living in Crimea was rounded up and deported east to closed work cities. Tena of thousands died. Stalin resettled Russians and Ukrainians in the place of Tatars. The remaining population wasn’t allowed to return to Crimea until the late 1980’s.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 3014, Crimean Tatar posed persistent resistance and for the last 8 years have suffered human rights abuses. At the time of their deportation, Tatars were about 20 % of the population.

Most consider what happened to Tatars to be genocide.

yes, deporting and replacing populations, and then legitimizing occupation, is the Soviet playbook.

+2. This is why I don't understand why anna netrebko supports the crazy.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it looks like Russia has rallied and Ukraine is being pounded. How long can this go on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, it looks like Russia has rallied and Ukraine is being pounded. How long can this go on?

Look at Syria.

[Anonymous]

this is why the US is broken. it's time for the GOP to purge itself of the nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erdogan had a phone call with Putin and these are his 4 demands for a cease fire:

• Ukraine to be neutral, no NATO membership
• Disarmament
• De-Nazification
• Zelensky agreeing negotiations on Donbas with Putin

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1504793432052666368?s=20&t=Ehjiem5GqGA2cbUTX-kfdg

I guess no one has the guts to tell the Big Guy he's losing.

This is easy enough to do. Both save face.

1 is easy, wouldn’t have happened anyway
2 means no foreign military bases in the country. It can keep its army.
3 can be a meaningless ritual like a decree banning nazi ideology and display or smth
4 is de facto reality, just needs documentation

Done.

Russia also wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which Ukraine understandably *really* does not want to do.

Crimea is gone. Zelensky knows it’s gone.

Oh I know it is. And part of the reason is because Crimea was never really part of Ukraine historically. [/b]It had been part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years[b], until the Turks briefly took it. Then Khrushchev gave it to the Ukrainian SSR. The people in Crimea honestly do consider themselves primarily Russian.

So yeah — that’s not to excuse Putin taking it. No one should be annexing parts of sovereign states. But it’s a bit different in terms of what the people there want than trying to do anything with western Ukraine.

Any country that starts making claims like this is not fit to be part of the modern world. We are not going to entertain ancient territorial claims and we are not going to be redrawing borders, this has to be a firm line in the sand.

The invasion of Crimea set a terrible precedent that should have been handled swiftly.

So why are you applauding Israel? Why Eritrea? Why the split of Sudan?