[chrysler]

>> Sure, they would have if Naftali Bennett was allowed to conclude a peace agreeemnt JUST LIKE NIKOLAS SARKOZY DID in the Russo-Georgia war. The question to you is WHY DID THE US BLOCK IT? Answer that directly, don’t dodge!

This is a misrepresentation of events. The Israeli PM has clarified that his comments were taken out of context: https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-bennett-walks-back-cl...

When the war started, the West was pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia at any cost. When the Bucha massacre was uncovered, the pressure stopped.

Russian propaganda has tried to paint this change as "the West forcing Ukraine into war", which is blatantly false.

[EGreg]

I don’t follow “Russian propaganda”, I think for myself. Every source I have shared with you is a mainstream Western source, including experts whose JOB it was to deliver analyses for their governments. If I lived in Russia, I’d be surrounded by Russian propaganda and also would have to cut through it like any independently-thinking person. If anything, I am constantly exposed to “US propaganda” since I live here, and it is a concerted effort to shut out anything that is even slightly away from the predetermined, official line, (in this case that the invasion is “unjustified and unprovoked”). After 9-11 it was going to be “Islamofascism” but that didn’t poll well, so they switched to “they hate us for our freedoms” and “weapons of mass destruction”. You can sometimes tell propaganda by how contrived the phrase is (eg “hacking the election”) and how it is repeated verbatim like it was normal and not contribed at all. In Russia it is “special military operation”. Everyone has propaganda.

The attempt to label what half the world believes as “Russian Propaganda” is itseld a deligitimization tactic. Even within the most hawkish countries (like UK) there have been tons of voices clearly not on Russia’s payroll, but just as systematically ignored. This is a systemic problem:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqE7UTptgGg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-blames-nato-russia...

https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...

The Israeli PM walked back

No, that lame attempt by someone at Business Insider to try to spin it was already addressed in the Krystal Ball video I posted. Did you watch it? They argued that it was a mistranslation and the US “stopped” the peace deal, rather than “killing” it. Oh great. Not exactly “walking back” anything, the title is misleading. Any other sources for this?

When the war started, the Weat was pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia at any cost.

This seems… untrue. Nah, stronger than that, every available piece of evidence points the other way. Almost like Ukraine was led down a path where all pro-Russian doves were sidelined or eliminated, and all hawks were promised EU and NATO membership if they stayed the course.

What you said can’t possibly be true starting with the fact that the real-life timeline doesn’t match up. Bucha happened in late March, while the US killed the Bennett negotiation in early March.

Even solidly pro-Ukrainian media in Ukraine admitted that Boris Johnson traveled to Kyiv to kill any peace deal. To quote this Ukrainskaya Pravda article:

As soon as the Ukrainian negotiators and Abramovich/Medinsky, following the outcome of Istanbul, had agreed on the structure of a future possible agreement in general terms, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared in Kyiv almost without warning. "Johnson brought two simple messages to Kyiv. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not. We can sign [an agreement] with you [Ukraine], but not with him. Anyway, he will screw everyone over", is how one of Zelenskyy's close associates summed up the essence of Johnson's visit. Behind this visit and Johnson's words, there is much more than a simple reluctance to get involved in agreements with Russia. Johnson’s position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelenskyy should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2022/05/5/7344096/

This totally contradicts your narrative, but to any person who’s been following the events since 2014 it makes sense that US and UK promised great things to Ukraine if they would leave Russia’s orbit up to and including having their population having a war with Russia. That’s been their MO since the beginning so it would be very strange if suddenly they would be “pressuring” Ukraine into an agreement.

2013: Before any invasions, armed conflicts, here is USA’s top people (including the very recently candidate for President, who hated Russia as he was a PoW in a USSR prison) fomenting a revolution against any Pro-Russian government — in this case Yanukovich who killed the extremely unpopular NATO integration that pro-NATO Yuschenko was pushing through against the wishes of the majority of Ukrainians … so McCain openly advocated for regime change: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg

2015-2019 Angela Merkel, Zelensky and Poroshenko all admitted that Minsk II was just “a way to give Ukraine the time it needed to build up its armed forces”. Poroshenko even calls the army “his baby”. The same army that is now conscripting and sacrificing huge numbers of men to double down on the counteroffensive:

At least they stopped the nonsense about people “lining up around the block to fight” and saying Ukraine doesn’t need to forcibly draft men into the war, while most propaganda says that Ukrainian men lined up around the block to fight:

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/02/26/ukraine-finds-st...

2015-2018 - constant training and arming of radical groups, including neo-nazi elements, just as we have been arming radical groips with jihadist elements in parts of the world:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/ri...

2019 - Arestovich openly says Ukraine needs a big war with Russia so it can emerge victorious as part of NATO. He eerily predicts all the elements of the war (like Dick Cheney 1994 video about Iraq) and then says it is preferable to being in Russia’s orbit 10 years later. He became the advisor to Zelensky, like Kellyann Conway was to Trump:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8

2021 - Ukraine absorbed the radical paramilitary groups into its army and they have been trained and armed for years to take on Russia. USA wants to avoid the “failure scenario” of how the Russo-Georgian war was brought to a quick end by Sarkozy. There has been peace and relative prosperity ever since. (I was in Georgia a few weeks ago, and it’s still a very poor country, but its economy was not destroyed, its population didn’t flee in the millions, and it doesn’t fear Russian attack at all. That is the result most reasonable people would want.)

US killed the deal with Bennett, and Boris Johnson personally told Zelensky to keep fighting since Russia appeared much weaker to the West than thought. Here we are a year later - and USA doesn’t want any peace agreements to happen.

Non-mainstream media in US, such as The Hill, Kim Iverson, Krystal Ball, progressive voices, conservative voices, Tulsi Gabbard, etc. are not all “Russian Propagandists”, despite what major hawks like Hillary or John Bolton would say, neither is the pope or the entire population or India or China or the heads of state if Brazil etc. Something else is going on here.

[chrysler]

You said that Naftali Bennett was prevented from brokering a peace deal.

He said that it was not the US, France, or Germany that put an end to any peace talks. Rather, it was Russia slaughtering hundreds of civilians. "The Bucha massacre, once that happened, I said: 'It's over,'" Bennett recalled.

If you want to argue over timelines, then I'm sure he'll appreciate your input.

Bucha was uncovered in early April 2022 and external pressure on Ukraine to make peace with Russia dissipated quickly after that. There was no way to keep making such demands to Ukraine while they were excavating mass graves. There was no option to give up and leave people on occupied territories to that fate.

Overall, your entire premise how the US is forcing Ukraine into war against their will is deeply flawed. Fighting off Russian invaders has near-universal support in Ukraine. This is not something they have to be coerced into.

[EGreg]

Look, I know that’s an easy one-dimensional narrative. All Ukraine wants to fight off Russiam invaders and we’re just helping them. Too bad reality is never that simple.

I have Ukrainian developers. I visited them in Ukraine. I was at their wedding in Chernivtsy when they got married years ago. I was in Kyiv multiple times. I have lots of info from the inside.

Let’s leave aside the residents of Donetsk, Luhansk etc. who clearly “don’t count” for you in this analysis. Although it would be interesting to hear what you think their position is regarding Russians.

Let’s also leave out the entire republic of Crimea, which in 1991 voted to be INDEPENDENT of Ukraine with overwhelming majority (over 95%), but was ignored, then got absorbed into Ukraine by a 54% majority vote… and has since repeatedly insisted on autonomy in Ukraine, signed agreements which Ukraine’s federal government renegged on, etc. And then finally voted in 2014, unsurprisingly, to leave Ukraine, and Ukraine retaliated by cutting off their water. Never mind all that. Let’s focus ONLY on the people on “the true Ukraine”, you know, the one dominated by Ukrainian armed forces and not Russian armed forces. (Because no matter who is in charge, someone is always keeping the monopoly of force there — look at Catalonia’s independence referendum.)

OK so what do we know about this population? The support for continuing the war with Russia is only around 54-58% in EASTERN AND SOUTHERN UKRAINE — the ones most affected by the war. Hardly the “near-universal” consensus that you claim:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fight...

THAT IS SUPER SIGNIFICANT if you care about actual humans who are affected, and not just flags and countries.

I claim that if the war or the draft seriously came to Northern and Western Ukraine, many would suddenly want it to end. Very easy to be a keyboard warrior from your couch — but obscene to volunteer OTHERS to die for your geopolitical ambitions. Same here:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508037/americans-support-ukrain...

[chrysler]

Nothing you wrote refutes what I said.

A poll conducted last month asked if respondents agreed with "under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territories, even if the war lasts longer and will threaten independence".

  Results:
  - West 86%
  - Center 84%
  - South 86%
  - East 75%
  - Overall 84%

The same poll asked if respondents agreed that Ukraine should give up any of its territories for the best possible peace deal.

  Results:
  - West 9%,
  - Center 12%
  - South 8%
  - East 12%
  - Overall 10%

I call this near-universal support for the war.

[_kbh_]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fight...

>> Gallup collected these data Sept. 2-11 across all regions of Ukraine, including the Donbas

They literally surveyed the occupiers and there was still majority support for the Ukrainians to retake all their land.

That’s hilarious.

[lisasays]

I was at their wedding in Chernivtsi when they got married years ago.

Of all places. As if you'd be able to find even a single person in that city right now who even remotely agrees with anything you've been posting in this thread.

[EGreg]

Well, a single person is going too far. Obviously there is diversity of thought throughout various cities.

But having said that, yes I specifically mentioned Chernivtsi because it is in Western Ukraine and to show that I am acquainted with people who live there. Cities like Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi and Lviv are historically Polish Galicia, they really have had quite anti-Russian sentiment for a very long time.

Even during Soviet times, the USA tried to reach them with Radio Liberty —- started by the CIA (bet you didn’t know that). People living there are the ones who hope the most that USA will come and help them escape having to deal with “the Russian-speaking world”. Many of them don’t like the Eastern Ukrainians, calling them “katsapy” as far back as 70 years ago. And the Russians — well, they are “Muscovites” while Ukrainians are the “true Russians” in their view.

Again, this is not everyone but a prevailing sentiment. Just like with sunnis and shiites and kurds, it is a very convenient tinderbox for an outside power (the US, say) to come in and play one side against the other, just as they have done in many other countries. (And KGB used to do as well, eg with Palestinians in Israel/Jordan etc.) It is a playbook that predates the US by millennia. In the Bible, the Egyptians worried about Jews becoming numerous and siding with their enemies etc. Anyway, Wikipedia has a textbook entry on “proxy war” that literally describes it all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war

A lot of far-right groups enjoyed the most support in Western Ukraine. Svoboda, a far-right nationalist party, got 38% of the vote in some regions, in 2012 — before ANY Russian invasions at all. They have been the lynchpin on which the US staked its hopes when it sent John McCain and others to foment a revolution:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg

The BBC did a nice documentary on this back when it was still allowed to point out the truth:

2014: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY

2015: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s

and PBS had a very in-depth special about the two very different sides of Ukraine:

2014: https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-battle-ukraine/

You can see very clearly a country divided, between the anti-Russian and pro-Russian regions. But also, very importantly, between young and old.

A generation that grew up since 1991 feels Ukraine is their COUNTRY, with a flag, and many are willing to fight and kill/die for their national identity, and for national territory.

By contrast, the generation that grew up in the USSR remembers what it’s like to have the “brotherhood of nations”, and being able to freely travel and have families across Republics, the way that a resident of NY or California regards themselves today as a citizen of USA, a federation.

But if California or Texas ever split off, you can bet your butt that a new generation might very well grow up ready to die for the Republic of California dlag with the Bear, or the Lone Star, against the USA and teach in the schools all the grievances about how USA took the land from Mexico, and oppressed spanish-speaking peoples (after they genocided native Americans and enslaved Africans of course).

You can always play on resentments and nationalist movements. That’s why Turkey is so worried about the PKK, for instance, or Israel was worried about PLO and Hamas, or Spain about Catalonia, the list goes on. An outside power coming in to destabilize the region does exactly what USA has done — and it almost always leads to misery for the regular people who live there. Iran did it in Yemen, and now the people are starving for a decade. We have started to do it now in Taiwan.

[lisasays]

By contrast, the generation that grew up in the USSR remembers what it’s like to have the “brotherhood of nations”,

Oh sure. The older generation in Ukraine knows all about the "brotherhood of nations", and how great things were in the Brezhnev era.

Way too many other hallucinations in your post for me to unpack. Simply put, the "proxy war" narrative is pure bunk. And you will not find any meaningful contingent in Chernivtsi, this place where you claim to have friends and personal connections, who subscribes to it.