[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.

[EGreg]

Well, you know better. It’s all bunk. Very confident.

Also, Poland is getting nukes and soon we will be close to nuclear war — over something that could have been avoided 15 different ways. I guess I’ll just defer to your judgment in all things. What seems like double standards and insanity to me is actually the only correct and moral thing, and there’s nothing to worry about (or if humanity is destroyed it’s for a good cause — Ukraine will be free from the evil Russians).

[_kbh_]

> Also, Poland is getting nukes and soon we will be close to nuclear war — over something that could have been avoided 15 different ways. I guess I’ll just defer to your judgment in all things. What seems like double standards and insanity to me is actually the only correct and moral thing, and there’s nothing to worry about (or if humanity is destroyed it’s for a good cause — Ukraine will be free from the evil Russians).

Polands getting nukes because Belarus now has Russian nukes.

Belarus having Russian nukes is in direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum by the way, which Belarus has signed.

Poland having nukes has nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with Russia placing nukes in Belarus and also routinely threatening to nuke half the western world into oblivion.

Why does Poland getting nukes place us any closer to the world ending then there being nukes in Kaliningrad?, of which there have been for years at this point.