War in Ukraine — Megathread

Total nonsense...

 

It's really astonishing how some people have the nerve to complain about extending aid to a pro-US nation, especially when you take into account that the funds we provide constitutes only a small fraction of our massive military budget. And not to mention, that a significant portion of the equipment and weaponry that has been sent to Ukraine, has consisted of items that were approaching their expiration date. These weapons, vehicles, and gear would have incurred substantial costs if they were to be disposed and dismantled at a scrapyard. From an economic standpoint, it doesn’t get anymore cost-effective than this — not only is it cheaper sending this stuff overseas, but it also helps the Ukrainians in their efforts to defend against Russian savagery and barbarism.

We should be giving more if anything. We’ve been way too slow and late in supplying more powerful weapons as of late especially when the counter offensive operation by Ukrainian forces are currently underway.

Yes. If Ukraine does not succeed in pushing out Russia, there will be more wars, not fewer. Because it will show the imperialists and authoritarians of the world that if they can unleash enough destruction and bloodshed, they can have anything that they want and their ambitions realized. All the more reason why we need to do everything in our power to ensure the Ukrainians are victorious.

 

What’s with all the people sucking off Putin in this thread and places like Twitter/X?

He invaded another country and started a war which has killed thousands of civilians, many of whom were children.

I can't help but think that if we could go back in time, the very same people would be supporting Hitler right now, saying what a noble chap he is.

 

You do you and I'll do me. That's what's great about democracy. Unfortunately, democracy will be abolished if Trump is elected, as he will never give up the presidency once he has it and he'll be a fascist dictator.

 

I don't see why EU taxpayers should shell out another 24 billion euros to be stolen by Ukraine, the second most corrupt country in Europe (only second after Russia).

Why are we paying for someone else's war and bearing the consequences of rampant inflation?

 

I remember people saying this before he was elected first time. I told them they have very little faith in the institutions of this country. I would still tell the same.

 

I was going by what Trump said at a Townhall on CNN awhile back. He said during his term he found out that European NATO countries weren’t paying their fair share based on their GNP and made them pay hundreds of billions. Sorry if I was misinformed regarding the Ukraine war contributions.

Hitler wanted world domination and declared war on the U.S. shortly after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor so there is no comparison to Hitler and Putin. Another difference is the millions of people killed in the German concentration camps. I think the American people want a secure southern border prioritized if we have to support a senseless war with no end in site, especially with our enormous federal deficit.

 

Imagine, Russia causes a Red Revolution in Mexico, starts pumping heavy weapons/missiles into Mexico while training the Mexican military in Russian War tactics and signs a strategic war alliance with them, sending Russian agents to Mexico. The missiles would be pointed at standby in you country's direction. Would your country just sit idle and watch? Really???

 

Trump was a neophyte president the first time. He now knows how to corrupt the levers of government to his advantage; he plans remove the institutions of this country, lock up anyone who isn't loyal to him and crown himself king.

 

I think you are still overestimating that narcissistic moron...

 

I hope I am. I really do.

 

This is a silly way of addressing the "NATO encroachment" argument that Putin and Russian state media likes to use to manipulate the narrative.

You do realize that NATO didn’t budge until Russia begin a campaign of encroachment in the nineties. NATO does not represent a threat of invasion to Russia, his problem is that NATO country means a country he cannot bully, hence the reason why all these countries want to sign up (like with Finland recently). Countries have sovereignty and can choose their allies, thank you very much.

 

Ukraine is totally corrupt and the EU keeps sending money to those crooks. European taxpayers should not be forced to fund this nonsense.

Ukraine’s defence minister resigns after Zelenskiy removes him from post | Ukraine | The Guardian

We are sending money to Ukraine just to be stolen by Ukrainians.

 

You mean like the US and Israel have been doing for decades and decades and being largely ignored by most of the western world?

 

Yeah, same thing in US. Well over $100 billion dollars in support of the Ukraine war at taxpayers' expense while inflation is still over 200% of the Fed target rate (meaning more than double!), and that's building on top of previously high massive inflation. If inflation ever gets back to the target rate, that doesn't mean prices drop (on average). The vast majority of prices will continue to go up, just not as quickly, and all of the previous inflation price increases are already baked in.

 

I condemned Bush just the same. That was another senseless war based on lies.

One atrocity does not excuse another.

 

Tchaaa! I have mxed feelings on the whole shebang. Even simply if you just look at the financial/economical sides.

If we simply let them "slog it out", most likely Putin will be the winner, the old Soviet Union will be back.

Europeans will have to re-introduce conscription, have to "up" military spending. With Ukraine, Russia will control a large part of the energy and grain market.

Monkey see, Monkey do. If Putin gets away with his land-grab, other countries will follow.

 

It's curious how after so long, the 2nd Iraq war is still an excuse for Russian bots.

- If anyone criticizes Russia over the invasion of Georgia, there comes the bots, "but what about Iraq?"

- Anyone criticizes Russia for invading Crimea, there comes the bots, "but what about Iraq?"

- Anyone criticizes Russia for their actions in Syria, there comes the bots, "but what about Iraq?"

- Anyone criticizes Russia for invading Ukraine, there comes the bots, "but what about Iraq?"

Sorry to disappoint you, but one wrong doesn’t justify another wrong. If I kill a person, doesn't mean you get to kill someone else for free.

Also, seems like some of you guys have forgotten what it means to have an ’anti-war’ stance. The "anti-war" position at the time for the Iraq war was NOT "make fake peace and then annex parts of Iraq for America to exploit and oppress to only further grow its military-industrial complex. It was for the US to get the hell out of Iraq. The anti-war position for Russia is for them to GTFO of Ukraine.

True, but let’s not put the misadventures of the US in Iraq to what Russia is doing on equal footing please. What the US did in Iraq pales in comparison to what Russia is doing in Ukraine. The barbaric acts carried out by Putin’s orcs are too much to list:

A) execution-style killings
B) raping Ukrainian women and girls
C) looting and pillaging everything on site
D) indiscriminate bombings that hold no strategic purpose or value
E) torture (beatings, hooding, castrations, etc)
F) kidnapping/abducting Ukrainian children (15000+) and relocating them to Russia or Russian occupied territories with the intention of erasing their Ukrainian identities through Russification. We call this cultural genocide.

Not even in the same ballpark.

Because Russia can't be allowed to win nor to save face. Putin has to lose.

The problem of allowing Russia to keep parts of Ukraine is that it justifies the invasion, the rapes, the torture, the genocide and emboldens Russia to do it again. Other countries will follow which @Joeseph Stope already pointed out.

It also validates the concept of the ‘Russian world’(Russky mir), that is, that Russia has an entitled dominion over anywhere where people speak Russian - this would immediately put a target on a bunch of countries bordering Russia.

 

What are the sources on this? Other than articles from Ukrainian websites with no source/evidence? This entire war is a fuckload of sourceless he-said she-said. I don't trust any news without reliable proof.

Also, what you've listed sounds exactly what the US has been doing for half a century, for example in Vietnam, Guantanamo Bay, etc.

 

It's Europeans who are losing here. We are paying crazy taxes just to maintain this nonsense of sending at least 20 billion euros per year to Ukraine, plus weapons, plus other "aid". On top of that Europeans are paying crazy prices for oil, gas and energy while the US is profiteering from the situation.

Europe is actually buying Russian oil and gas resold by third parties. It's the most stupid attitude ever.

I am sick of spending my whole life always paying for someone else's problem. My taxes are over 50%, and many people, like me, are thinking enough is enough.

People in Europe can no longer just work and be left alone. Politicians come to steal directly from our salaries to "fund" (and steal on) their latest nonsense.

 

What encroachment in the 90s? Russian economy was in shambles then. Ukraine gained independence on August 24, 1991.

Sounds more like the collapse of the Soviet Union rather than any gain.

The only encroachment the Russians did in the 90s was to the supermarket.

 

The conflict is very well documented. Have you not seen the graphic content and images that have emerged from this war? The atrocities are clearly visible. The Bucha massacres. Plenty of photos of dead Ukrainians lying on the street with their hands tied behind their backs killed in execution style. How about the mass grave exhumations in Izium? Have you seen the pile of bodies? What about the Kramatorsk train attack? Indiscriminate missile strike on innocent civilians while they were simply attempting to evacuate. Women and children lying dead on the floor dead with their luggage nearby.

You also have indiscriminate bombings of maternity and children hospitals in Mariupol. A theater filled with children was also bombed deliberately. There are also videos circulating of a Ukrainian POW getting castrated in Pryvillia and another POW getting beheaded. I’d share all the verified photographic evidence, but I’m not sure If I would be violating any terms of service on this site due to how gruesome some of the images are. Just go to Wikipedia and search Russian War crimes. You can see some of the appalling images for yourself.

We are receiving information and news regarding Russian-related atrocities through investigative reporting conducted within Ukraine, often by independent media outlets, or from raw intelligence provided by the intelligence community. The United Nations have their own independent human rights council. You can read their latest report here:

Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine

International non-governmental human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have documented the forced transfers and the existence of 'filtration' camps that Ukrainians have been subjected to, in addition to other various systematic war crimes. You know how these organizations work, right? They deploy researchers and investigators to conflict zones and areas with human rights concerns to gather firsthand information and report on what they observe.

Stop the forcible transfer of civilians in Ukraine to Russia

Ukraine: One year after full-scale Russian invasion, victims’ rights must be at the heart of all justice efforts

Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas

Summary Executions, Other Grave Abuses by Russian Forces

Ukraine: Russian Forces’ Trail of Death in Bucha

Ukraine: Executions, Torture During Russian Occupation

Wikipedia: War Crimes in the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

There is very clearly a systematic and deliberate strategy on the part of the Russian military to spread terror amongst civilians by mass executions, rapes, torture, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Let’s not act like the Russians have only a few bad apples in its ranks, like the US army has had in past. This is not case for the Russians. Thousands of them are doing it. You’re greatly inflating what the US did. The US is not going around trying to annex and conquer territories as well.

You’re welcome to criticize US foreign policy all you want, especially regarding the War on Terror (Iraq war was a failure), but you can not use it as a way to deflect from what is happening in Ukraine or compare it to Russian aggression as if it's remotely the same. That’s false equivalence.

The Chechen Wars obviously...

 

For context it's good to remember @AnthonyMcDonald is a Russian himself. I think he said he's now living in the US though but born and bred in Russia. For all we know he's rocking a Putin mouse pad.

 

I was born and raised in California, lol. I moved to Russia for work. I just have more of a perspective of the whole situation other than "Russia bad" spoon-fed to me by western media.

Also, @ZFire, most if not all those articles quote eyewitness reports as hard evidence. More he said, she said.

 

Oh those Chechen bad guys you mean... and Putin's lap dog Ramzan Kadyrov lol.

Encroachment on Afghanistan is next... oh wait, been there lol.

 

...and the ladies too

 

Can't argue with that lol.

 

Biden is going to stretch this war out, for as long as possible. It's too profitable for the Military Industrial Complex, to end it by dropping our military and monetary support to Ukraine. Biden is against peace negotiations, so it will no doubt be going on at least for the rest of his term and the next one if he wins the election.

 

Yup, just as I expected, you didn’t actually read anything. Otherwise, you’d realize that HRW conducted interviews with Ukrainian victims as well, those who were subjected to sexual violence, torture, and witnessing the murder/execution of their love ones. These accounts were substantiated by eyewitness reports, victim testimonies, and photographic evidence. I mean, you had 25 women and girls who were raped in a basement in Bucha by Russian orcs, 9 of which ended up pregnant afterwords. Are you seriously going to suggest that a positive pregnancy tests aren't solid proof?

Some accounts from victims in the links I sent you:

So the mother finding her son and brother in law dead by a building (along with other bodies), hands tied behind their backs with bullets to their head is not evidence of any wrong doing, but a matter of ‘he said, she said’. Got it.

More evidence of execution summaries:

Unlawful killings of civilians:

Kharkiv Rape:

Tell you what, you show me some evidence of the Russian troops on the ground doing anything other than acting like monsters, then I’ll start to take you seriously. Until then, you can keep your both sides drivel to yourself. It makes you come across as a Putin apologist.

The Russians are acting like the Nazis in this context. 'They're not all bad' really doesn't cut it, given all the evidence we see coming out of Ukraine. Because that's what the evidence is telling us. It's telling us if there are any decent Russians, then they are very, very few and far between.

Dzhokhar Dudayev had Russia figured out since day one. Shame no one was paying attention to him at the time.

 

"said that she saw".
"Olha said"
"told human rights watch"

No, that's not solid proof. Do you know how many people get pregnant daily? Not to mention interviews are just more he-said, she-said. Where is the photographic evidence? I'd love to see some. Anyone can falsely testify, especially if they are disgruntled about the SMO, not to mention want to rile up support from the West. Most Ukrainian citizens are obviously not happy with the whole situation.

Why should I be the one to provide evidence? The burden of proof lies on the accuser. There's plenty of "unbiased" evidence, same as yours, showing the Russian military being humane, with photographic evidence, etc.

This phrase alone shows your toxic bias against Russians. Do you have any idea what insane racial segregation and Bandera worship was happening in Donbas and Luhansk for decades before the SMO? How Ukrainian nationalists would beat up Russian citizens in the street for not knowing the Ukrainian National anthem by heart? Or do you think Putin acted for no reason at all? I doubt you were very interested in what was happening there for many years before it was brought to the spotlight of western media because "Russia Bad".