Russia invades Ukraine

[VDZ]

Don't get me wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with Ukraine refusing Russian dominance and fighting for their rights. Americans have this saying that goes, "it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". I personally disagree with it, but I can respect that people feel that way and go through with their convictions. After all, yielding is easy, but resisting is difficult. Ukraine was forced to choose and preferred risking invasion over being Russia's puppet. There was the choice to give in to Russian demands, but Ukraine took a stand to prevent:

In every scenario being "friends" with Russia we will end up with their fucked laws like being unable to even get together on the squares, post what you think, freely speak of your shit on public. They have fucking mind police, m8. Ppl were literally arrested for reposts long before invading Ukraine. Their own social network - the Vkontakte - are monitored by FSB agents all the time, ppl can get swatted for wrong words. I ain't want that shit in my home. Nothing of it. Not a single bit.

Risking invasion to avoid moving towards that situation was a choice. Not a choice anyone can blame the Ukrainians for (rather, Russia should be blamed for forcing them to choose), but there was - and still is - the option to make concessions to Russia (and with how the invasion has been going for Russia, Ukraine is in a fairly good position for negotiations, meaning they could get peace with limited concessions).

I was simply answering the question of who else other than the "average russian pleb" can change anything. And as I don't see Russia succeeding in conquering all of Ukraine and forcing an unconditional surrender, and I doubt Ukraine is either interested in or capable of forcing an unconditional surrender on the Russian side (note: that means conquering Russia, not just driving them out of Ukraine), the only answer is those involved in the peace negotiations. If Ukrainian negotiators can convince the Russians to fuck off, the war ends. This requires either diplomatic pressure (e.g. the war causing problems for Russia making them want to end it) or concessions, or more likely a combination thereof. The more concessions Ukraine is willing to make, the sooner the war ends, but the less independence or authority Ukraine will have afterwards.

Not your country, not your right to speak of it, pack your shit and leave.

By that reasoning, nobody outside of Ukraine or Russia should be discussing this at all. You are free to disregard my opinion - and those of most people in this thread - as they're simply the observations and opinions of someone unrelated to the conflict. But over here in the West we have the right to express our opinions on any matter - and our culture is in fact currently encouraging us to discuss this specific conflict - so even though some of my opinions might be unpopular, I am free to express them. Would you rather have things be more like Russia, where you're not allowed to voice opinions if they're unpopular?

We aren't superior, live better or whatever. We just work our asses ultra hard while russians get drunk the fuck out.

From my limited experiences with Russians online, they seem to be demoralized by the practical reality of their lives. Why work your ass off when the results of your hard work will just be taken away by some corrupt authority at the snap of their fingers?

Whoever speaks about "ukraine dosen't want peace and considers war better option", again, VDZ, should also end their life at sign of such stupidity. because, again, Russia isn't a country, it's a Mordor. You don't ally with Mordor, you don't talk to them, you don't befriend them. It is a Mordor. They want you dead. There is no "be friends" option at this point. They want your shit, they want you dead, there is no "diplomacy" with murderers - you can't do it. They want you dead in every scenario. This isn't a civilized ppl but glorified shitheads from Imperialist era.

Likely the closest thing to Mordor in history was the Mongol Empire, spreading all throughout Asia and even reaching Eastern Europe, on their way utterly annihilating any places that dared to resist. Do you know what they did to places that did not resist but surrendered and simply accepted Mongol tyranny? Those places alone were spared. It's more practical to keep people in fear than to massacre them, as the latter is guaranteed to cause resistance. The threat of harm is far more powerful than harm itself.

Once again, I am not judging Ukrainians, or saying it's wrong that they don't want to yield to Russian demands; in fact, given the way things have been turning out (Ukraine being unexpectedly successful in repelling the Russian invasion) this may well end up being the better choice. All I'm saying, as a practical matter, is that this conflict will not end until either Ukraine convinces Russia to give up or Ukraine makes concessions to convince the Russians to leave.

Each of you reading this, jerking off to ponies and whining about your poor lives should understand that each second of your peace bought by Ukrainian blood. Each. We are the crossroad between Elves and Murloks. Literally.

This I disagree with. Ukraine's independence has no bearing on us being at peace with Russia. If Ukraine had unconditionally surrendered to Russia on day 1, NATO member countries would still remain safe because Putin does not want a nuclear war. If Ukraine had yielded to Russian demands before the war, it would hardly have been in the news even; perhaps there would have been some international criticism like with the annexation of Crimea, but that would've been it. Non-NATO countries around Russia would be at risk of invasion...but they were before the invasion of Ukraine as well. There was barely any objection to them invading Georgia or Chechnya. Russia and NATO have been at each other's throats for over 50 years in the past, in a far, far more hostile manner than in the present (we were de facto at war), yet it never escalated to direct conflict, only proxy wars and indirect aggression. There is no reason to believe Ukraine's independence or lack thereof relates to the safety of NATO member states. (If anything, there is now a slight risk of Ukraine wrecking Russia too hard and, combined with Western diplomatic hostility and sanctions, making them desperate enough to pull the nuclear trigger. I certainly hope the Russian leadership won't go that far, though.)

Russians themselves do nothing about it. They whine about rusophobia, spotify ban, prices and war being bad. Their maximum is admitting "there is a conflict" because they would be jailed for 15 years of prison for speaking truth. Not even a single shithead said anything before Belgrad were bombed the fuck out. They are pussy nation. They did nothing to Putin for 20 years. They did 0 shit to stop the war. They do nothing to prevent this. They won't do anything to stop it. They don't and won't help us. Each and every russian is to blame for death of my people. They blindly let Putin do it. They pay taxes, taxes are used to fuel the war machine. Russia attacked bc they are bloody imperialists with pussy attitude.

Thats been my take from day 1. I got downvoted to shit for saying it. The "Russians are equally as much victims of Putin" is literally no different from saying "Nazis were just as much victims of Hitler". Its the Russian people who give Putin his power. All the Russian cucks who claim to be anti Putin will get drafted and obey their orders like everyone else. At what point does personal accountability come into it when youre literally invading a country and killing people? I swear the popular opinion that I see online is 'never' its always Putins fault. It's such a dumb opinion. Whether they like it or not, Putin represents and leads them therefore they are accountable and deserve every shit they get.

Yeah, just rise up and have an extremely high risk of having your life completely destroyed while having a very low chance of accomplishing anything, it's so easy. I can't believe the average person isn't heroically sacrificing themselves for a slight chance of overthrowing a dictator (something which also has a high likelihood of just bringing another dictator into power, especially in a power structure like Russia's; it's more of an oligarchy than a true dictatorship, so power will probably go to whoever most pleases the oligarchs (the same ones who are currently pleased with Putin)). Americans didn't even stop Bush from unjustly invading Iraq on 100% false premises and causing 110,000* civilian casualties, and that was in a country where freedom of speech is strongly protected legally. How can you expect Russians to do that when even a peaceful protest is likely to get you years of jailtime?

* That's documented deaths. Estimated deaths vary widely but are believed to very possibly be multiple times that.

[ErdTod]

Dewd, we can't negotiate with russia because there are ZERO guarantees they won't fuck us up again in a year or two. Give up whatever they want for peace? Okay, they withdraw from their very poorly executed war today, build more weapons and come back tomorrow to get more. Nothing guarantees that won't happen. Moreover, before the war russia was "the guarantee" of Ukraine's territorial integrity - so it's way more likely they won't respect such documents.
You don't negotiate with terrorists - not because you don't want peace, don't want people to die or w/e - you don't negotiate with terrorists because as soon as you give them what they want, they demand more.

[BoxingRock]

novellas of hot takes

seriously tho are u fuckin bored my man

[Halbertz]

Yeah, just rise up and have an extremely high risk of having your life completely destroyed while having a very low chance of accomplishing anything, it's so easy. I can't believe the average person isn't heroically sacrificing themselves for a slight chance of overthrowing a dictator (something which also has a high likelihood of just bringing another dictator into power, especially in a power structure like Russia's; it's more of an oligarchy than a true dictatorship, so power will probably go to whoever most pleases the oligarchs (the same ones who are currently pleased with Putin)). Americans didn't even stop Bush from unjustly invading Iraq on 100% false premises and causing 110,000* civilian casualties, and that was in a country where freedom of speech is strongly protected legally. How can you expect Russians to do that when even a peaceful protest is likely to get you years of jailtime?

I would say that right point of view is somewhere in between. As Russian that voted against current president (heh elections), I would say that being called orc and shit, just because flag in your profile has wrong toothpaste pattern, is not a big pleasure. But was it justified? Hell yes! I reckon that if at least 2/3 of your fellow countrymen support THIS, you should carry collective responsibility. Will all this international sanctions and hatred motivate me to revolt (I guess violent ways implied) against current regime? Ehm, no. Right now it is pure suicide, there no internal or international support on this -- opposition was wiped out and CIA's coup invitation still not in my mailbox. So I guess I'll stay home and play videogames.
BTW "what about ..." is cringe, really. Mentioning Iraq, Yugoslavia and so on, you won't shape their opinions (especially Americans because bombing sand people is based). All Russian politics is "whatabout" -- if for a moment our elected government just clean the mess instead of looking for bigger pile, Russia today will be a better place.

[Procne]

Likely the closest thing to Mordor in history was the Mongol Empire, spreading all throughout Asia and even reaching Eastern Europe, on their way utterly annihilating any places that dared to resist. Do you know what they did to places that did not resist but surrendered and simply accepted Mongol tyranny? Those places alone were spared. It's more practical to keep people in fear than to massacre them, as the latter is guaranteed to cause resistance. The threat of harm is far more powerful than harm itself.

And now let's look at the countries not resisting Russia and how they fare - Belarus, and ... actually pretty hard to find a country welcoming russian leadership. Or the Russian people who were forcibly settled in Siberia - how is russian government taking care of them. They live like animals and are the source of barbarians for the russian army. Or take a look at countries Russia controlled after the WW2 - Poland, east Germany, Czechoslovakia - and let's compare them to the countries that were controlled by USA after the war - west Germany or Japan. How were those countries treated? Which of them rebelled against their overlords? How did the life change after that rebellion? Being subject to Russia always ends badly for any country.

Ukraine's independence has no bearing on us being at peace with Russia. If Ukraine had unconditionally surrendered to Russia on day 1, NATO member countries would still remain safe because Putin does not want a nuclear war. (...) (If anything, there is now a slight risk of Ukraine wrecking Russia too hard and, combined with Western diplomatic hostility and sanctions, making them desperate enough to pull the nuclear trigger. I certainly hope the Russian leadership won't go that far, though.)

True to some extent. Russia wouldn't attack directly, but they already started doing some provocations at EU's borders. Hopefully, while they're busy in Ukraine, they will be spread thin to continue those. Also Russia has their puppets / supporters in the EU as well. With the outrage caused by the war and warcrimes committed by russian army, those supporters will lose their power (although with both candidates with France's presidency I guess it's impossible), and the Europe will put more effort to be less dependent on russian gas. The whole conflict also shows how weak russian army is (both to the world and to Putin), making it more likely other countries would choose to resist Russia, and making Russia less likely to start another war. And it also prodded NATO countries to increase their defensive budgets and to actually start caring about their defenses. None of it would happened if Ukraine simply surrendered.

Yeah, just rise up and have an extremely high risk of having your life completely destroyed while having a very low chance of accomplishing anything, it's so easy. I can't believe the average person isn't heroically sacrificing themselves for a slight chance of overthrowing a dictator (something which also has a high likelihood of just bringing another dictator into power, especially in a power structure like Russia's; it's more of an oligarchy than a true dictatorship, so power will probably go to whoever most pleases the oligarchs (the same ones who are currently pleased with Putin)). Americans didn't even stop Bush from unjustly invading Iraq on 100% false premises and causing 110,000* civilian casualties, and that was in a country where freedom of speech is strongly protected legally. How can you expect Russians to do that when even a peaceful protest is likely to get you years of jailtime?

I don't know if I had the guts, being a coward, to rise up like that. But it's thanks to people like that, who in the past rebelled against Russia time and time again, that I'm not Russian now.

[WowGain]

Would you rather have things be more like Russia, where you're not allowed to voice opinions if they're unpopular?

holy shit go jump in a lake you fucking worm, how fucking pathetic can you get that you start trying to whine at a ukranian who is telling you that you're fucking retarded that "oh boo hoo you're taking away my freedom of speech!!!! wahh!!! youre like russia!!!!!!!"

please go away and never come back, genuinely.

[CorwinOfAmber]

Don't get me wrong

TL:DR


shut up retard

[MadNomad]

Americans didn't even stop Bush from unjustly invading Iraq on 100% false premises and causing 110,000* civilian casualties

yeah, russia is terrible because there is war in ukraine, but it's perfectly fine that the ones in charge of USA made a lot of people in iraq die, or infiltrated poland with US soldiers

it's also perfectly fine that in poland ukrainian has more rights than a pole, just like in france frenchman has less rights than arab

multikulti, yay

[DonVelD]

Americans didn't even stop Bush from unjustly invading Iraq on 100% false premises and causing 110,000* civilian casualties

yeah, russia is terrible because there is war in ukraine, but it's perfectly fine that the ones in charge of USA made a lot of people in iraq die, or infiltrated poland with US soldiers

it's also perfectly fine that in poland ukrainian has more rights than a pole, just like in france frenchman has less rights than arab

multikulti, yay

[MadNomad]

if they are so helpful to ukrainians why haven't they helped homeless poles during all of these years? if you're a homeless pole just starve in a ditch!