[oceanplexian]

I listened to him speak for two hours. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war, how many more lives should be sacrificed to avoid compromise? What about prioritizing the value of human lives over drawing lines on a map between two very broken, very corrupt countries?

[inglor_cz]

I don't really get how you can even begin to trust anything that Putin promises or signs.

Russia has a long tradition of treating treaties as scraps of paper, and they have a recent history in this regard with Ukraine.

Their long-term aim is to absorb Ukraine and exploit its industrial and agricultural potential for further imperial expansion. The next will be the Baltic countries and after them Central Europe.

Whatever peace will be signed now will last precisely as long as it takes Russia to rebuild their offensive capabilities for the next round of war.

All the dead are fault of Putin and his imperial ambitions. Our only choice is whether to submit and become serfs in a neo-Russian empire, or fight back and help Ukrainians fight back.

[docmars]

I'm not sure how anyone begins to trust our own military or elected Establishment leaders who start and fund endless frivolous wars for decades, for greed, leaving the Middle East absolutely laid to waste.

Bush, Obama / Hillary, and Biden are no different than Putin, if not far worse. They deserve no more trust from Americans than a serial killer who took out members of your family for fun. They are reckless abusers, for greed and continued power.

[inglor_cz]

If I were a Middle Easterner, I would agree. Or South American, for that purpose.

(With one huge caveat, both the Middle Easterners and the South Americans are perfectly capable of starting various shit themselves. Don't deprive them of agency by painting them as blind and obedient puppets of Washington. Especially the Middle East is a very ancient civilization with a tradition of backstabbing and betrayal going deep into the Antiquity. They don't have to learn that from some Westerners.)

But in the context of European security, the main problem of the last decades was either the USSR or Russia, not the US. It was Soviet tanks that rolled through Czechoslovak cities in 1968 to crush our attempt at political independence, not American ones.

Context matters, and for former Soviet Bloc nations, Americans are an ally against potential reestablishment of Russian rule.

[docmars]

But today's Russia is explicitly against the Bolsheviks and any form of the USSR altogether. Russia has moved well beyond that, so it isn't a matter of reestablishing former Russian rule under the same horrible terms as before. They are prospering now, are they not?

In 2023, a trusted, world-renowned expert — Bill Gates — stated that Ukraine is one of the single most corrupt nations in the world, and that he feels very sorry for the people there. [1] That says a lot, doesn't it?

Zelenskyy shuts down churches, imprisons political protestors and American journalists, and launders money back to the U.S. war machine after we "fund" them every month or less — to the order of $113 million per day now. How could anyone not see clearly what's happening there? It seems that people are so blinded by their hatred for Russia, that what the people are suffering in Ukraine on Ukraine's own accord isn't enough of a problem, despite how gaping it is.

1. https://x.com/RG_SargeXB/status/1758499201468768291?s=20

[inglor_cz]

Russia may be explicitly against Bolsheviks (though recycling the Soviet anthem!), and Putin's Russia is indeed more akin to the former tsarist Empire than to USSR, but the tsarist Empire was fairly evil, too. Just ask the Poles or the Jews. Russian empire didn't grow to its huge size by trade and friendship, it was conquest.

Ukraine is corrupt. So what? Ukrainian corruption is a threat to no one. Not a single nation from Finland to Bulgaria considers itself vulnerable to Ukrainian military aggression, because they aren't an imperial nation and don't seek to dominate others. They were perfectly fine within their 1991 borders and never attempted to annex any extra territory by any means.

It is Russia's problem, in the words of great Václav Havel, that it does not know exactly where it ends.

All the hatred for Russia stems from their former heavy-handed rule of other nations. If they sincerely tried to make amends, it would slowly go away. They are now trying to rebuild their former imperial system. OF COURSE that nations which escaped their tyranny once are going to hate them.

It is freaking simple: we, as in Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc. DON'T WANT TO BE THREATENED OR ATTACKED BY RUSSIA. That's it. We have had enough experience with Russian rule. It is primitive and brutal at the same time. Never again.

[KingOfCoders]

"Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc. DON'T WANT TO BE THREATENED OR ATTACKED BY RUSSIA."

Exactly. Last time Russia and Germany signed a deal to cut Eastern Europe in half, then each invaded countries on their side of the line (and cut Poland in half). Sadly this is not how it is teached in Russia. Which is one of the reasons for what is happening now.

Russias goals haven't changed. Luckily Germany (currently) wants nothing of it.

[za3faran]

> specially the Middle East is a very ancient civilization with a tradition of backstabbing and betrayal going deep into the Antiquity.

As a "Middle Easterner" (a colonialist term by the way), I didn't realize that the "Middle East" was one conglomerate culture. Thank you for teaching me about my history /s

[inglor_cz]

Civilization is an umbrella term that usually covers multiple cultures.

We also speak of Western civilization, even though it doesn't equal to one conglomerate culture either.

As for 'colonialist' term ... sigh, do I care how people call Europe on Arabic or Turkish forums? Every cultural region has some lingo that reflects its history.

'Europe' itself is a Phoenician word that means "country of sunset". From their perspective, it was. Hereby I am forgiving old Phoenician colonialists (and they indeed colonized much of the Mediterranean) for naming some continent according to their local perspective. That is what people tend to do.

[za3faran]

So your statement is a tautology. You'll find good and bad people in any group; there's nothing inherent in "middle eastern civilization" that promotes backstabbing, and in fact you'll find the opposite.