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mobby_6kl posted:Ukraine was never a theat to Russia. They are threat, but not in a strictly military sense.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:24
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Ah, but you see, Armenia is a member state of CSTO with Russian military bases on its territory. Armenia borders Turkey, a NATO member. It means Turkey can and should attack Armenia over threatening Turkey with the combined military might of six members of CSTO, including Russia!
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Jan 25, 2022 11:26
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Regarde Aduck posted:Your post describes exactly why Russia cannot allow the Ukraine to invite hostile Nato assets into Russias borders. I’m going to assume you simply forgot that this is not some distant nation that Russia is picking on. That what Nato thinks is acceptable is that it gets to place weapons right next to Russia. Would the US be ok with Mexico allowing a Russian-Chinese alliance to stage weapons on Americas borders? What about your hypothetical whataboutism?
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Jan 25, 2022 11:27
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The NATO troops on Russia's border are something like 4k light infantry. IIRC NATO doesn't even have nuclear missiles stationed in eastern Europe out of respect for Russia, while Russia has them in Kaliningrad close to a lot of European capitals. I think the US might not even give a poo poo about 4k Chinese light infantry stationed in Mexico. Maybe if some Fox News pundit will do an act about it with some props or something?
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Jan 25, 2022 11:29
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Paladinus posted:And then what? as a poster on a dead gay comedy forum? absolutely nothing, lmao
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Jan 25, 2022 11:31
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Truga posted:as a poster on a dead gay comedy forum? absolutely nothing, lmao Cool poo poo.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:34
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Hey there's actually a pretty famous example of a foreign imperial power attempting to conspire with Mexico to attack the USA, right after the US had actually launched a punitive military expedition into Mexico and what actually happened was the US ended up just giving Mexico a guarantee that its sovereignty would be respected.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:46
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Regarde Aduck posted:Your post describes exactly why Russia cannot allow the Ukraine to invite hostile Nato assets into Russias borders. I’m going to assume you simply forgot that this is not some distant nation that Russia is picking on. That what Nato thinks is acceptable is that it gets to place weapons right next to Russia. Would the US be ok with Mexico allowing a Russian-Chinese alliance to stage weapons on Americas borders? The "Chinese troops in Mexico" argument has been repeated verbatim by at least five separate people at this point (unless it's one poster coming back to post the exact same thing multiple times). What shillls are you getting your talking points from? Sputnik? RT? Greyzone? Truga posted:as a poster on a dead gay comedy forum? absolutely nothing, lmao Why even bother posting when this is the result steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 11:47
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Dwesa posted:They overthrew their pro-Russian puppet kleptocrat and decided they would rather join EU, NATO etc. Yes, emancipation is a threat to tyrants, which is good
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Jan 25, 2022 11:48
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Herstory Begins Now posted:It varies hugely? Which is why I'm curious given that sinteres seems to be assigning a kind of flat emotional pathos to ukranians. Personally I lived in czech republic and particularly prague had an especially negative view of russians for probably obvious reasons relating to the soviet era, but also in the modern era where they were viewed as responsible for much of the organized crime, gambling, and sex trafficking plus a bunch of other complaints that i don't have the depth of knowledge to judge the accuracy of. Eastern czech republic seemed to feel less antagonistic towards russians, though I might just not have picked up on it. yeah the second part about deep sadness tracks - and i've never been to czech republic and don't really know anyone from there so i cannot really claim anything one way or the other (except for the fact that afaik there aren't many russians living there, so idk if the hostility is really all that warranted?) i know a few folks from donbas (one living within DNR territory) and from what i can gather it all feels exceedingly surreal and deeply sad to them. it's apparently surprisingly easy to travel between DLNR and the rest of Ukraine (with obvious "passing through a warzone" caveats), which doesn't really help with answering the "why the gently caress is all this still going on" question as for myself, i'm from the baltics (not currently living there but constantly visiting), and "it varies" is probably the best i could describe the russophobia situation. it certaintly has gotten better with time, actually - i don't hear stories or see a lot of (any, tbh) ethnicity-based harassment and violence as of late, which certaintly wasn't the case in 2000s and apparently was much worse in the nineties (though i can't attest to that as was too young to remember anything of the sort). though i'm from the baltic republic that's a lil bit more, uh, russian-friendly than some others - i have heard much worse things from latvian russians, and i believe we have people from latvia in the thread who'd be better-suited to answer this (the "non-citizen alien" thing's kinda vile though, in my opinion). there's also a surprising amount of soviet nostalgia among the older cohorts of all ethnicities - especially when it comes to folks living outside major cities, where the economy ranges from "bad" to "non-existant, hope you like your generous 150 euro pension lol" this entire "it varies" thing is essentially the source of my distaste towards both the clancychat and reddit-tier "if asiatic russian hordes invade, each ukrainian/pole/lithuanian/what have you will surely take up arms and run into the nearest forest to fight and die for their Motherland" assessments. the reality is much more granular than it might seem from the news/twitter threads/self-selecting, self-proclaimed experts on the topic
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Jan 25, 2022 11:49
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re: the Chinese bases in Mexico talking point, i'm pretty sure we all agree on the reasoning behind Russia's actions. bringing it up for the tenth time doesn't really help discussion. though, to be fair, saying "putin is a vile, bloodthirsty tyrant who's gone Mad" for the tenth time doesn't really add much at this point as well  and also, HonorableTB posted:I think these are reasonable and accept even if toxxes are not a thing anymore, i expect a gentlemanly autoban (and would like to commit to one myself)
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Jan 25, 2022 11:56
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Paladinus posted:Cool poo poo. look, we've known since the 90s that russia doesn't want nato/west too close, but especially in ukraine https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/57569 read page 106 here back in the 90s, russia was in no position to do poo poo. in 2008 under bush during the bucharest conference, despite knowing russia's position, ukraine got told they'd get into nato "eventually". as a lovely state russia has lovely geopolitical goals, and since they're apparently in position to cause poo poo now, they're gonna exercise the power they have, when it's clear that otherwise everyone just kept ignoring them this is not an endorsement of russian actions or positions, this is a "what the gently caress else did people expect to happen after continuously ignoring everything out of russia". we can post about this poo poo all day, but the matter of fact is, the end result is basically the same as if russia/china said they'd station military bases between alaska and mainland USA, and canada said yes no problem
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Jan 25, 2022 11:56
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Since 2014 Russia has been the best living advertisement for continuing existence of NATO Regarde Aduck posted:Seems like the US and Ukraine are a bunch of clowns and I hope Russia can restore order in those nations in short time and with the minimum amount of casualties The LNR and DNR are very good examples of law and order if your idea of order is Mad Max warband. Might seem like a hot take but turning more of Ukraine into it is not beneficial for anyone, especially passenger planes flying over!
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Jan 25, 2022 12:07
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Truga posted:look, we've known since the 90s that russia doesn't want nato/west too close, but especially in ukraine I'm pretty sure everybody in is forums agrees that e.g the Monroe doctrine is legitimate, and I don't remember anybody making Very Rational Points About Geopolitics to explain away why it was necessary for the US to support the recent coup in Bolivia and the Anez government because of reasons that may be immoral, but are foundational to the workings of the international system or whatever. Why the double standard when if Russia does something similar, even a mealy mouthed condemnation is suddenly too much? Why is the usual indignant rage suddenly replaced with "I don't endorse their actions, but..." And if the reason is that US actions directly relate to you and Russian don't, as is the usual response, why feel the need to butt in about something that supposedly is outside of your concerns?
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Jan 25, 2022 12:26
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i'm not calling out the condemnations, i'm calling out the idea that this entire conflict was somehow completely unavoidable by the west. when one side completely ignored the positions of the other for like 20 years, you don't get to pretend that. it's insanely lovely for people of ukraine, but this entire poo poo was brewed by both russia and nato, not just one side
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Jan 25, 2022 12:32
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Truga posted:i'm not calling out the condemnations, i'm calling out the idea that this entire conflict was somehow completely unavoidable by the west. when one side completely ignored the positions of the other for like 20 years, you don't get to pretend that. it's insanely lovely for people of ukraine, but this entire poo poo was brewed by both russia and nato, not just one side "we reserve the right to invade any neighbor we want to enhance our revanchist project" is probably a principle worth ignoring
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Jan 25, 2022 12:34
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clearly, what's thousands of dead slavs over a principle amirite jesus loving christ dude
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Jan 25, 2022 12:38
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steinrokkan posted:The "Chinese troops in Mexico" argument has been repeated verbatim by at least five separate people at this point (unless it's one poster coming back to post the exact same thing multiple times). What shills are you getting your talking points from? Sputnik? RT? Greyzone?
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Jan 25, 2022 12:39
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Dude, that argument is like the most obvious one if you're reflexively anti-American rather than anti-imperialist, seeing as it's basically a one-to-one replacement of the countries involved. it's also the only other country that keeps stirring poo poo over the dumbest reasons. you can't really make that argument about modern day germany for example, it'd be weird e: not that germany isn't constantly stirring poo poo, but it's not doing it with their military
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Jan 25, 2022 12:47
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Truga posted:i'm not calling out the condemnations, i'm calling out the idea that this entire conflict was somehow completely unavoidable by the west. when one side completely ignored the positions of the other for like 20 years, you don't get to pretend that. it's insanely lovely for people of ukraine, but this entire poo poo was brewed by both russia and nato, not just one side i don’t think anyone is going to say that the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union were handled well by “the West,” but at a certain point you have to acknowledge that russia has its own agency and its stated motivation for instigating a crisis that could kill tens of thousands is an expansion of NATO that hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to happen. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 12:50
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nurmie posted:yeah the second part about deep sadness tracks - and i've never been to czech republic and don't really know anyone from there so i cannot really claim anything one way or the other (except for the fact that afaik there aren't many russians living there, so idk if the hostility is really all that warranted?) This has been my experience as well (except that I still live there, and just spent a few years abroad), down to thinking that I’m from “most Russian” of the Baltic countries. A bit more seriously on that, Latvia has way more ethnic Russians than Lithuania and Estonia combined, and it is firmly my belief that on a societal level it is the most comfortable of the Baltic states, for a Russian speaker - because informal support networks for Russians are easy to come by here. Formally, it is a poo poo show. Latvian state views proliferation of Russian language as a national security threat, from which everything else follows. It doesn’t help that many of the governments had Latvian ethnonationalists serve as kingmakers, so on top of the concern above we have some of the harshest immigration and naturalisation laws in Europe. Lithuania gave citizenship to everyone who has been a resident for 10 years, or was a descendant of a Lithuanian citizen as of the start of Soviet occupation, or was covered by the 1989 citizenship law treaty with Russia. Latvia, in contrast, only gave citizenship to those who were residents before the occupation. For everyone else the citizenship was issued on the basis of having a single Latvian citizen parent. Those who didn’t meet the condition were allowed to stay as non-citizens, which is a permanent residency status with no political rights (and which “weirdly” invites discrimination from certain groups). Naturalisation path for them is, simplifying, to pass 2 exams - history of Latvia and Latvian language. We still have a huge number of non-citizens in the country, but that’s a conversation for a different time. For instance, while it’s impossible to not learn Latvian in 30 years even if you just slightly care, Latvian government will not only explicitly deny citizenship rights to Russian veterans, but also to their family members - going as far as to deport them. https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,402b5b034.html Estonia did also have hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, proportionately probably even more than Latvia did. Most of them got Russian citizenship and left, whereas majority of ours still live here, and ~50% have received Latvian citizenship.
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Jan 25, 2022 12:53
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Truga posted:clearly, what's thousands of dead slavs over a principle amirite Seems like they're the ones doing the killing over trying to preserve the principle of being able to invade whenever they want.
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Jan 25, 2022 12:58
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Dude, that argument is like the most obvious one if you're reflexively anti-American rather than anti-imperialist, seeing as it's basically a one-to-one replacement of the countries involved. There is no need to imagine they're getting talking points from somewhere, people can come up with stupid rear end arguments entirely on their own. Or they read it from one of the previous posters and agree that it's a good point. Like half the politics posters on this forum can't even understand the world through anything but an American framing, no matter what the topic is. That they would try to center the discussion around the flaws of America is entirely unsurprising, but it is not evidence of getting talking points from Sputnik, because they do that for literally every topic. It’s an American talking point to an extent that Russians don’t ever mention it even (excluding extremely online Russian whataboutists). The Zvezda/Sputnik/RT “equivalent comparison” is Russian missiles in Cuba. With their stated mindset, trying to imagine hypothetical China-Mexico alliance is unnecessary and stupid.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:00
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QuoProQuid posted:i don’t think anyone is going to say that the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union were handled well by “the West,” but at a certain point you have to acknowledge that russia has its own agency and its stated motivation for instigating a crisis that could kill tens of thousands is an expansion of NATO that hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to happen. i agree, but also in 2008 NATO leadership could have said "see, russians keep saying they'd be real mad if we really took you in" and then kept doing nothing instead of going all "oh yeah, sure, we're definitely letting you in *wink wink nudge nudge*" every few years and then doing absolutely nothing anyway. that's the real headscratcher to me. if ukraine was in nato by 2014 none of this bullshit would fly either, but nope, gotta string them along. wtf?
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Jan 25, 2022 13:05
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Formally, it is a poo poo show. Latvian state views proliferation of Russian language as a national security threat, from which everything else follows. It doesn’t help that many of the governments had Latvian ethnonationalists serve as kingmakers, so on top of the concern above we have some of the harshest immigration and naturalisation laws in Europe. Reminds me that the permit for commercial passanger transport now requires proof of intermediate Latvian proficiency, which caused taxi prices in Riga to double over night
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Jan 25, 2022 13:09
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Arzachel posted:Reminds me that the permit for commercial passanger transport now requires proof of intermediate Latvian proficiency, which caused the taxi prices in Riga to double over night Is that why I paid 70 euro to take my bicycle from downtown to ZZK on Ulmaņa and back? 
cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 13:12
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s an American talking point to an extent that Russians don’t ever mention it even (excluding extremely online Russian whataboutists). The Zvezda/Sputnik/RT “equivalent comparison” is Russian missiles in Cuba. With their stated mindset, trying to imagine hypothetical China-Mexico alliance is unnecessary and stupid.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:26
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Latvian state views proliferation of Russian language as a national security threat, from which everything else follows. It doesn’t help that many of the governments had Latvian ethnonationalists serve as kingmakers, so on top of the concern above we have some of the harshest immigration and naturalisation laws in Europe. As a country bordering Russia and wich used to be part of the USSR, I would see everyone of Russian descent as one more excuse to be invaded by Russia. Same with everyone who speaks Russian.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:28
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Alchenar posted:Regardless of our origins, I think we would all appreciate it if posters did the minimum bar of 'check wikipedia' before posting takes like 'the russian and ukranian orthodox churches don't appear to be in conflict or anything as far as I know'. This is a pretty lousy attempt at an own. They're not exactly engaged in a holy war, the differences between the churches are basically just about nationalism.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:30
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It's important to note re: Russians in EE that the Baltics and Ukraine are in a unique position versus other EE countries, in that they have a significant minority of Russians in their population, where's Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary have none (aside from transient workers, which are still very few and far between). Now, in my personal Polish experience, it's super easy to latch on to common negative propaganda about Russians, because it's the dominating view, and since there are no Russians around to confront it with, that's what most people would go with. Conversely, older people who remember when Russians were around, have a warmer recollection of Russians just because of the human contact factor. And having said THAT, I found every Russian I ever met, in Poland or in the west, not particularly pleasant or making me feel like I'd want to spend more time with them, but that might be very well on me, not them.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:31
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:As a country bordering Russia and wich used to be part of the USSR, I would see everyone of Russian descent as one more excuse to be invaded by Russia. Same with everyone who speaks Russian. I can point you to a few political parties where you’d fit right in. I hope you’re white, Christian, and don’t have tuberculosis.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:36
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Sinteres posted:This is a pretty lousy attempt at an own. They're not exactly engaged in a holy war, the differences between the churches are basically just about nationalism. Which makes religious violence (that already occurred and to lesser extent is still taking place) less violent?
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Jan 25, 2022 13:36
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I can point you to a few political parties where you’d fit right in. I hope you’re white, Christian, and don’t have tuberculosis. Can you also reason against what I posted? Russia is stuck in the "thinking" of military expansionism that was the big thing in the first half of the last century. A lot of that was excused by ethnic Russians, Germans or whatever living in the territories to be occupied or that they used to belong to the aggressor at some point.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:44
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Paladinus posted:Which makes religious violence (that already occurred and to lesser extent is still taking place) less violent? In the sense that I don't think battle hardened Ukrainian Orthodox militias are likely to form the radical core of an insurgency, which was what this was originally about, yes.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:44
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Mokotow posted:Conversely, older people who remember when Russians were around, have a warmer recollection of Russians just because of the human contact factor.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:47
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Mokotow posted:And having said THAT, I found every Russian I ever met, in Poland or in the west, not particularly pleasant or making me feel like I'd want to spend more time with them, but that might be very well on me, not them. uh, yeah, this might be on you lol speaking of polish people, there's the Conversation that almost always occurs whenever i meet someone who's 1) polish, 2) male (exclusively, never had this Conversation with anyone who wasn't male), 3) age 20-40, 4) in circumstances that result in us speaking for longer than half an hour (eg at work, or at a friends' gathering and so on). the Conversation goes something like this: first, they give me the pondering look; then, they say something along these lines: well, you know, our countries don't really like each other, and, uh, there's a lot of negative history, but you're nice, and russians are good people! to which i awkwardly answer: uhhhh, yeah, i guess? i prefer not to remind them i'm not actually from russia; i get the feeling that it would ruin the moment Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:As a country bordering Russia and wich used to be part of the USSR, I would see everyone of Russian descent as one more excuse to be invaded by Russia. Same with everyone who speaks Russian. glad you're not a country bordering russia then (i would hope so, at least) nurmie fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 13:51
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:Can you also reason against what I posted? It's not a particularly interesting argument, especially in the context of hypothetical aggressor, Russia, clearly demonstrating that they don't even care to pretend that they're threatening Ukraine to protect Russians in Ukraine.
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Jan 25, 2022 13:59
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It's not a particularly interesting argument, especially in the context of hypothetical aggressor, Russia, clearly demonstrating that they don't even care to pretend that they're threatening Ukraine to protect Russians in Ukraine. And this was not the excuse to hold a totally free referendum in Crimea, facilitated by benign forces?
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Jan 25, 2022 14:07
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:And this was not the excuse to hold a totally free referendum in Crimea, facilitated by benign forces? It was, and yet it's entirely irrelevant to the ongoing situation, and would be, e.g., generally irrelevant to Latvia (or any other Baltic state), if we return to the post of yours I replied to.
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Jan 25, 2022 14:16
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:And this was not the excuse to hold a totally free referendum in Crimea, facilitated by benign forces? The security benefits don't justify institutional racism and a society perpetually split across ethnic lines. I see no reason to believe that being harsher against their Russian population would have saved Ukraine from what happened in 2014. Unlawful occupation finds a way.
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Jan 25, 2022 14:19
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