Wagner boss Prigozhin killed in plane crash in Russia
redtea @ redtea @lemmygrad.ml Posts 7Comments 816Joined 3 yr. ago
redtea @ redtea @lemmygrad.ml
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Those Ukrainians don't just 'feel' Russian they are Russian. They are ethically Russian and Russia issued hundreds of thousands of passports in the region a while back. The idea that someone can only be one 'nationality', etc, is a rather US way of looking at things. Loads of countries accept dual citizenship. I also reject the framing that insists or implies that Ukrainians must be of one ethnicity. That concept of an ethno-state is aligned with fascism.
FWIW I do not think that Russia should decide what happens in Ukraine. That's for Ukrainians to decide. Unfortunately, it's hard to parse what Ukrainians would want because the US is and has been heavily involved in manipulating politics, the press, and popular opinion. In that case, I kinda reject the question of whether Russia should have a say: the only two current options are who should decide between Russia and NATO. Ukraine deciding on it's own isn't really an option.
It's also tricky now because the separatist regions appear to have not only separated but also joined Russia. This could've been avoided if Ukraine had granted those regions more autonomy, as they agreed in Minsk II. As it is, the question now might be 'Should Russia decide what happens in Russia?' The lawyers will have fun working whether the law supports that. The answer isn't clear.
My view would still be no, not in Donetsk and Luhansk; that should be for the people of Donetsk and Luhansk to decide—if they're part of Russia and Russia was concerned with their autonomy, Russia can still grant it where Ukraine wouldn't.
This is all rather idealist, though. Only in communist countries do the 'people' decide what happens.
It's also still a warzone dominated by Russia; there will be an internal struggle between Russian factions. I'm not overly optimistic, considering Spain and Catalan, Britain and Wales, Scotland, and NI, and Kurdistan to Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, the US to Hawaii and Puerto Rico, to name a few similar situations.
Do you think the US should decide what Ukraine does because it's decided that it's okay to sacrifice Ukrainians to achieve its geopolitical goals?
This seems to be a poorly framed question. A big portion of the Ukrainian population is Russian. What does it mean for Russia to meddle in that context?
The lengths they'll go to ensure that losing a password never has to mean losing data again.
Good points. I also wouldn't be opposed to accepting that capitalists in Russia would/will try to become imperialistic in the monopoly of finance capital sense. In the one hand, the logic of capital might force their hand. On the other hand, capitalists are gonna capitalist, in part because they fetishise the hoarding of wealth like everyone else living under capitalism.
Whether Russian imperialism becomes a realistic possibility, though… I'd be interested in seeing some stats on that, interpreted in light of the idea that the next type of multipolarity will be quite different to the one at the turn of the twentieth century. Ig if anyone's done that leg work it'd be Michael Hudson but I've not come across it if he has.
dual circulation, BRI, and BRICS.
Have a feeling that this setting up of multiple, overlapping, support networks for Chinese trade and influence is going to go down in history as a masterstroke.
The US also has different networks that support it's hegemony but they're interconnected in a different way and ultimately rely on everyone else going what the US says because otherwise the US will otherwise destroy them. That's no basis for mutual development.
China's approach could surprise us and fall apart but the recognition of contradiction/antagonism built into the Chinese model hints at it's longevity.
It's really easy for them (the planes) to catch bird flu up there, they (the birds) just don't want us to know how common this kind of thing is.
Oh the international community isn't going to like that at all.
We could do with an emoji with that fucked around and found out chart but it's Xi or Chen Weihua holding the pointer. Have a feeling it'll be used more and more, moving forward.
I don't know what you think I've been trying to say. And I don't know what you're trying to say.
No idea what you think I've been trying to say, here, I'm afraid.
The source says, to repeat:
… the refusal of Ukraine to implement the provisions of Minsk 2 ….
What Russia did in response would be in Russia's statement. But here the writer is reporting that Ukraine refused to implement Minsk II.
If your link is only a translation of the agreement, it won't say anything about who violated it, so I'm unsure what good it does to comb through it. I don't see how the clauses are relevant without a factual chronology from after it's signing, such as the one in my link. I'll note that I'm happy to be presented with contrary evidence but also note that the source I provided is from Yale university—hardly a pro-Russian outlet.
Here's a Reuters link for anyone who doesn't want to open the PDF (I can't confirm they're both the same or if this one's as faithful translation): https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2021-12-06/
There is now a reply. I don't want to shock you, so make sure you're sitting down: in no way does the source support the view that Russia sought:
The return of Ukraine in its entirety to the russian nation for one.
Here is the quote, to save you scrolling up:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220308032650/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67903 Parts to note:
“I would like to emphasise once again that our men and officers are fighting in Ukraine for Russia, for a peaceful life for the citizens of Donbass, and for the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, so that no anti-Russia, which the West has been creating for years right on our border, can threaten us, including with nuclear weapons, as has recently become the case.
The pictures I'm taking about have been taken and shared since the invasion. This is not 'historical' in the sense of pre-dating the invasion.
In any event, if the people you're talking to are discussing reasons for the invasion, the salient facts are the ones that pre-date the invasion. Nobody had the benefit of being able to see facts or pictures taken after the invasion before it occurred; these newer details could not have factored into the equation beforehand. Which may explain (I have no idea because you're talking in the abstract and not providing receipts) why people would bring up the (highly relevant) historical context.
Ukraine is under martial law. Eleven opposition parties have been suspended. The communist party was banned and it's assets seized. This is not what democracy looks like. It is in no way pluralist. Maybe you have a different definition of pluralist democracy than I do.
Will things improve after the war? It's hard to say now but considering that Ukraine went after the communist party eight or more years ago, it's unlikely. The fate of 'pro-Russian' parties depends on who wins the war. They'll either be demonised or praised for being 'right all along'. You can guess how the narrative will be rewritten, either way.
Unfortunately, the aftermath of this war will be terrible for years. That outlook is even bleaker if Ukraine loses with any kind of quasi-military intact. They are now even more heavily armed than before, they will be pissed at losing, and they will be more battle hardened than ever. So even if Russia wins, the political landscape will look different throughout the region, but it's unlikely to become a pluralist democracy. (Please notice the 'ifs' in this paragraph, I have made no prediction as to who will 'win'.)
You can refer to whatever you like. You are imputing motive on people for saying things you don't like. That does not mean that the imputed motive is the real motive. Some people have a more nuanced take on the war than you are willing to accept. Having a nuanced understanding of a complicated issue requires an understanding of as many factors as possible.
Looking at a process (e.g. war) in all its relations (internal, historical, political economic, to start with) is the basic Marxist approach and yet is alien to the liberal/bourgeois approach, so I understand if this is unfamiliar to you. If you want to see whether communists do this kind of thing with any other topic (it's literally every topic) please pick up almost any Marxist text. Marx's 'Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte' is a good example of this 'historical materialism'.
I don't want to impute motive to you, so I'll just say that I don't understand why you're trying so hard to erase or apologise for the fact that Ukraine had and has a Nazi problem. Nobody that I know of is claiming that the Nazis are in control of every state civil or military organ. Usually, the claim is that the yanks funded anti-Russian, pro-west separatists and the Nazi militias to provoke Russia. Read that how you will.
I have no idea what timeline you're working with. The US was meddling in Ukraine since at least 1994. This ramped up in 2005. It supported a coup in 2014. Then the civil war started. The US was involved from before and throughout.
The Minsk II thing is in the link:
More than anything else, it was the refusal of Ukraine to implement the provisions of Minsk 2 – especially the provision that would give the predominantly Russian-speaking regions a special constitutional status – that caused Russia to threaten military action against Ukraine. Time after time in recent weeks, Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov made it clear in meetings and press conferences that the key to resolving the situation in and around Ukraine was the full implementation of Minsk 2, and many hoped the Normandy format meeting of representatives of the leaders of the four countries in Berlin on Feb. 10, two weeks after they had met in Paris for eight hours, would produce enough progress toward the full implementation of Minsk 2 to ward off the threat of a Russian invasion.
I'm glad you've brought that up. Because it, too, suggests that Russia invaded Georgia for the same reason: yank meddling and provocation:
Though Georgia is located in a region well within Russia’s historic sphere of influence and is more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Bush nevertheless launched an ambitious campaign to bring Georgia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Russians, who had already seen previous U.S. assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not extend eastward ignored, found the prospects of NATO expansion to the strategically important and volatile Caucasus region particularly provocative. This inflamed Russian nationalists and Russian military leaders and no doubt strengthened their resolve to maintain their military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. …
Amid accusations of widespread corruption and not adequately addressing the country’s growing poverty, Saakashvili himself faced widespread protests in November 2007, to which he responded with severe repression, shutting down independent media, detaining opposition leaders, and sending his security forces to assault largely nonviolent demonstrators with tear gas, truncheons, rubber bullets, water cannons, and sonic equipment. Human Rights Watch criticized the government for using “excessive” force against protesters and the International Crisis Group warned of growing authoritarianism in the country. Despite this, Saakashvili continued to receive strong support from Washington and still appeared to have majority support within Georgia, winning a snap election in January by a solid majority which – despite some irregularities – was generally thought to be free and fair.
Now where have we seen that kind of thing before—I mean since?
Bush was also involved in provoking Russia in Ukraine, btw, before his eventual successor went ahead and pulled the same stunt again, knowing what the result was in Georgia:
In remarks likely to infuriate the Kremlin, Bush said Ukraine should be invited during this week's Nato summit in Bucharest to join Nato's membership action programme, a prelude to full membership.
He also said that there could be no deal with Moscow over the US administration's contentious plans to locate elements of its controversial missile defence system in eastern Europe.…
Bush said after talks … in Kiev[:] "I strongly believe that Ukraine and Georgia should be given MAP [Membership Action Plans], and there are no tradeoffs - period."…
Germany and France are leading opposition from within the EU to such a move, arguing that it would needlessly antagonise Russia and provoke a new crisis between Russia and the west. …
In central Kiev, several hundred protesters defied a court ban and shouted anti-Nato slogans in Independence Square, the focal point of the 2004 pro-western "orange revolution" protests, which swept Yushchenko to power. A few thousand protesters were massed in the square today ahead of Bush's arrival. For many Ukrainians, joining Nato is not a priority. Only 30% of respondents in the former Soviet state support the move.
Who knows why Germany and France changed their tune by the time it came to Ukraine a few years later? We know why Ukrainians wanted the yanks to gtfo; they saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to be sacrificed for US goals. Unfortunately, corrupt officials sold the people out.
Turns out it's hard to point to a war that doesn't have grubby US fingerprints all over it.
Damn, I don't know what you've started here but the number of presumably white people coming up with all sorts of reasons to argue why black people shouldn't have reparations is… is it a white settler moment? Then to follow this up with 'you need to include white people or they're not going to like it' is… maybe Malcolm X was onto something about white liberals.
Both sides might have violated the first Minsk agreement. As to who violated it first? My understanding was that Ukraine did. Eventually it broke down. As for the second, it depends whether you consider an omission as bad as an action. Ukraine violated Minsk II by ignoring it, which led to the SMO: https://macmillan.yale.edu/news/frustrated-refusals-give-russia-security-guarantees-implement-minsk-2-putin-recognizes-pseudo. Interestingly, France and Germany were part of these talks and officials have stated that they only ever intended to delay a war to better arm Ukraine; i.e. the NATO/Ukrainian side never intended to honour the agreement from the beginning.
Good points. Soft power seems to have been starting to work in Ukraine, too, until Maidan in 2014. For me, the key thing is 'approaching Russia's rivals'.
On the one hand, Russia's not going to like that. On the other hand, if we accept that Russia exercising soft power in e.g. Belarus and Kazakhstan means hard power isn't necessary – they're already within its orbit/under it's wing – then when e.g. Ukraine approaches the US and turns away from Russia, the US has already effectively taken control of Ukraine before Russia invades. Albeit through soft power.
And that throws a different light on the civil war in which Ukrainian militias are shelling ethnic Russian Ukrainians for being 'separatists'. Because it means it's being supported by Russia's arch-rival, the US, a country well known for such destabilising and provocative antics, as the recent history of West Asia attests.
I don't know why or how you interpreted what I said as meaning that Ukrainians
I said it is difficult to parse what Ukrainians want i.e. from what I am told Ukrainians want. The means of information distribution are not owned and controlled by ordinary Ukrainians. Further, almost all the press to which I have access is western; it doesn't even pretend to be Ukrainian although it frequently pretends to speak for them. They know what they want; I'm just not privy to that information.
On this topic, more broadly, I can recommend a book called Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti. It's similar to Manufacturing Consent but in my view significantly better because it begins with concrete analysis and moves towards a theory of the political economy of news media whereas Herman and Chomsky begin with a model and set out to illustrate it's truth.
Starting an analysis of what Ukrainian people think by relying on outputs that are owned and controlled by particular interests (frequently US/western bourgeois interests, inside and outside Ukraine) will not explain what ordinary Ukrainians want. This does not mean that Ukrainians don't have a view or can't be trusted to decide their own fate.
I said that Ukraine deciding on it's own isn't an option because it's materially not an option. The west and Russia are already involved. Zelensky cannot do what he wants or what he thinks the majority of Ukrainians want because and for as long as NATO is running the show. To paraphrase a famous quote, we make history but not in conditions that we choose. It seems idealistic to suggest that Ukrainians can just decide what they want to do and have it happen. It also seems idealistic to suggest that Ukrainians would all think the same.
You'll also note that I said, to quote:
And I reiterated:
I don't know what you're referring to in relation to 'smaller Russian republics', I'm afraid. You'll have to be specific and I would have to do some research. If you're trying to probe my view on self determination, I'm in favour of self determination but it's problematic to suggest that the future of any region should be determined exclusively by and for a single ethnicity.
If I wasn't clear, the concept of an ethnostate is or is dangerously close to being fascist; the idea of breaking up Russia into states along ethnic lines is fascist. In the inverse, this might also apply if Russia expelled all ethnicities other than ethnic Russian from the annexed regions of Ukraine, for example. We'll have to see how that plays out in the short, medium, and long term.
Before asking me another question, I'm going to say that it feels like you're asking loaded questions and misinterpreting me to try to catch me out. I'm not going to play along for much longer if it continues.