this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Why did Russia need guarantees to NOT invade a sovereign nation they had existing "guarantees" to not invade?
Maybe this
Or this
Might be some subjects in which guarantees would've averted the SMO.
Source
Citing Putin's own speech like a valid source is pretty hilarious. Thanks for the giggle.
I mean, it's the speech in which he lays out to his people why they're going to war. He'd be hard pressed to justify the SMO to all the soldiers if they didn't have all those well known grievances, don't you think?
Edit: wait, aren't things government officials say not valid sources for what the government thinks or wants now? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this one. Do you know of a valid-er source for what the Russian government and military wanted as guarantees to not have this war?
Well known grievances? I simply cannot agree with you there. Those are points for which we only have the Russian governments word, and dozens of denials from other governments across the globe.
Not to mention, the reasoning for the war has changed dramatically over and over, from "stop the Nazis!" To "oh they were totally going to join NATO and attack us!!!" To "The security of Europe!" And now "they were gonna get nukes!"
Never mind the fact that the Ukraine already gave up their nukes in exchange for Russia's assurances they wouldn't do exactly this. Or the fact that NATO obviously doesn't need the Ukraine as members since Russia can't even win a land war with a military a fraction of their size right across the border. Or any of the other facts Russia has bald faced lied about repeatedly.
Given the above factors I find it highly unlikely Putin was looking for or interested in any diplomatic out. He was looking for an excuse.
All three are on the speech from the very beginning, no change there. But here's some English sources in order.
Nazis: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ukraine-has-nazi-problem-vladimir-putin-s-denazification-claim-war-ncna1290946
Join NATO: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/why-nato-has-become-flash-point-russia-ukraine
Nukes: https://ria-ru.translate.goog/20220301/ukraina-1775795745.html
You're free to believe those grievances are not based in reality, but to claim that those grievances were not well known ever since beginning of the war to the Russian public is either dishonest or just lazy.
You people keep saying that, and yet Russia seems to be winning this war for like 16 months now. Ukraine in NATO means nukes within minutes of Moscow and Russia completely surrounded on the western borders except for Belarus, it is definitely something I would want if I were NATO.
An excuse for what, exactly? What, in your perspective, does Russia, both the government and the people, gain from taking part in this war that is so much more important to them that what was officially in the speech declaring the SMO in the first place?
Even if you believe Putin personally hates Ukrainian people or something and would risk his entire government just for that, those grievances are the basis of the rhetoric used for justifying the war internally, and guarantees from NATO about those (remember why we started this discussion?) would take a lot of the wind out of the sails of any war effort. War is just the extension of politics.
Dude, your Nazi reference article title literally says "Ukraine's Nazi problem is real, even if Putin's 'denazification' claim isn't". For starters he is very vague about the nazism part. You can find Nazis in any part of the world and while that is unfortunate that is not justification for one country to invade another. Now maybe if there were Nazis in the governing apparatus, then maybe. And I can see someone saying "well, that's Azov brigade. so Putin was right". Except that's not entirely true. While the original founder of the volunteer battalion was a known to have ties to nazis in both Russia an Europe he was removed from command before the battalion was formally incorporated into the national guard. But then you could follow up that while the leader was removed the members of Azov are still nazis. "Paradoxically—at least for purveyors of Kremlin propaganda, which holds that Ukrainians have been oppressing ethnic Russians—most Azov members are in fact Russian speakers and disproportionally hail from the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine.. Why would Ukrainian "nazis" be Russian speakes, especially if they're supposedly oppressing Russians? Doesn't really make sense. So the entire premise of going to denazify Ukraine is false.
As for joining NATO. Do you know who is the biggest motivator for countries joining NATO? Russia. Poland and the Baltics joined because of the historical precedent Russia has set. Poland famously was ripped apart by the secret MRP pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR. And the Baltic states publicly stated they want neutrality, which just lead to the USSR giving them an ultimatum: join voluntarily or we will invade. There's a reason baltic states consider their time in the USSR as a time when the country was occupied by foreign forces. Since the collapse of the USSR, despite what Putin says, Russia has chosen to not have good ties with it's neighbors. Literally the reason Finland joined NATO and Sweden is in the process of joining is because out of nowhere Russia decided to threaten those two countries (who so far have had no intention of joining NATO). And of course Ukraine. I can't find it right now, because it's a very specific thing to search for, but there are polls done in Ukraine about joining NATO and around 2014 those polls went pretty quickly from not wanting to join NATO to wanting to join NATO. What happened between not wanting to join NATO and wanting to join NATO? Just the annexation of Crimea and the Russian backed war in Donbas. The one country keeping NATO relevant is Russia themselves. Prior to the war in Ukraine there was a growing sentiment if NATO is even necessary anymore, but the war in Ukraine justified the existence of NATO to many of its members.
And your nuke reference doesn't work so I can't really comment about it. If it's about the statements from the Ukrainian ambassador and Zeleneskii about maybe reconsidering the budapest memorandum in regard of giving up nuclear power if security guarantees are not met. That was a maybe and if Russia was actually worried about that, then perhaps they should've acted in accordance to the Budapest memorandum and not annex Crimea? Once again we get back to Russia creating this situation in the place.
Those grievances are either false or indirectly created by the Russian interference. I don't see how anyone could take those grievances seriously.
Except that's not entirely up to NATO is it. Every single neighbor of Russia could choose not to join NATO. Ukraine didn't want to join until Russia annex Crimea, Finland and Sweden didn't want to join until Russia threatened them. This "net" around Russia is because of Russia and not because NATO wants this. If we talk about NATO as an extension of American imperialism then American has bigger problems than Russia, primarily China. If there's any part where the US would want to increase its military presence it would be on the eastern coast of Asia, not eastern Europe.
To regain part of their imperial hegemony that they lost to the EU during euromaidan? Ukraine was in the backpocket of Russia until the maidan revolution, do you really think Russia wouldn't want that power back? This was their shot before Ukraine joins NATO, because Russia can't touch them once they're in NATO (which is why they haven't tried to take the Baltics back, as it's another region I'm sure they'd want back). I think it's obvious they'd do that, because they did go into Belarus (and I think also into Afghanistan) to quell the upcoming revolution there. Russia is the living example of "War is just the extension of politics".
Cool, at least you now acknowledge that those claims have been known since before the SMO and therefore that guarantees over it would have helped prevent it happening even if Putin really wanted it by taking away wind from the sails of the government.
It doesn't go into much detail other than "they say they're not racist, some Jewish people even drink with them sometimes." Yeah, there is disagreement over the role of the Nazis, and the first source I provided was specifically one that shows that there are indeed Nazis not only in society but as part of the government, even if I disagree with some of their conclusions there. Azov is a far-right paramilitary that has been specifically targetting Russian-majority regions like Donetsk since 2014 when they tried to become an independent republic after the 2014 coup. Have something from the time talking about their war on a separatist group, which is not very nice in my opinion.
Besides not having anything of substance other than "they're nice lads to me personally," your source also includes this line, which I think is a terrible look no matter who is saying it.
Not only is "speaking better " a really weird way to put it, but just because they know a language doesn't mean the represent the people there, specially since both Donetsk and Luhansk voted to become independent before they went there. Either way, the fact that there is a paramilitary with explicit Nazi symbology occupying a separatist region and destroying monuments to those who killed the Nazis in the first place, while also celebrating known Nazi collaborators like Bandera should at least be cause for concern.
The USSR and the Russian Federation are entirely different things. In fact, the guy who made Putin who he is now is Yeltsin who is famous only for illegally dissolving the Union and selling out the entirety of the country. To skip over that and pretend they are a continuous government is misleading. You are probably referring to this article in which it's shown that NATO was seen as a threat in eastern Ukraine. After the Euromaidan coup, those eastern regions promptly either tried to get independence (Donetsk/Luhansk) and have been at war with Ukraine since, or in the case of Crimea have joined Russia and have very high polling opinions of their own referendum. And we must always remember that NATO has backed the 2014 coup, which is a common cause for the Crimean annexation that people often ignore. Guarantees such as removing Azov members from the government and military and banning Nazi symbology (instead of the currently banned communist ones) could have helped de-escalate the conflict.
No idea what happened there, Google failed me. Here's a fixed one on yandex. I'm not sure on the official "why" of getting nukes in Ukraine, but it was something that was discussed at the time, and is a huge threat to the Russian national security, specially considering the previously ongoing Donbass war. Imagine if during the Cuban missile crisis Cuba was actively at war with Puerto Rico or something of the sort. Guarantees such as "Ukraine will never have NATO nukes" would have been great de-escalation tactics.
Yes, it also depends on both the government of Russia and Ukraine, but most notably not the Ukrainian people. There has been no referendum on joining NATO since the promise in 2014. Russia could've chosen to de-escalate, but the NATO-backed Ukrainian government could also have tried to de-escalate themselves. That's what the "guarantee" you were so flabbergasted about a while back could've been.
Yes, which is why NATO is not participating directly in this conflict, but using it as a proxy war to throw western ukranians at eastern ukranians with minimal cost to their own personnel. This war is basically a risky investment for them, if it succeeds, great, if it doesn't they cut their losses and leave Ukraine in shambles, and it won't impact them at home much. Specially the USA who won't have to deal with the blowback from the Azov battalion like the EU will.
But either way it doesn't matter much because NATO can act in two fronts at once. They are still acting in the South China sea while this war is ongoing, though it doesn't fit as neatly into the news cycle. In the case of Ukraine, Ukraine itself along with the EU can focus there more, while in China they can better use the resources from Australia and Japan. They're big enough to do multiple things at once.
Those grievances are the moral justification for the war, whether you believe that they are based in reality or not. Although I don't have hard data on this at hand, I think it's very likely that the Russian foot soldiers at least believe these grievances on some level, and such a risky SMO would not happen without military support. By making guarantees such as "1) Azov is disbanded, 2) Ukraine won't join NATO, 3) the war on Donbass will end, 4) no nukes for Ukraine," the Russian government would have a much harder time getting their people to willingly go to the front lines. Those are just some random ones I can think off the top of my head, but the smart ambassadors probably have some better compromises to be reached. However we both know that NATO has been wanting this war since 2013, since Russia is a critical ally of their enemies such as Syria, China, Cuba, Venezuela and now Niger and compromising would actually reduce the chances of their desired outcomes.
You might want to read this paper on the Maiden massacre before claiming it was a "revolution." Long story short, protesters and police were shot at by snipers from far-right paramilitary groups, which was then covered up by the new government and the NATO-affiliated press, to make it seem like they were murdered by the (democratically elected) government. Then this government which was friendlier with Russia and tried to maintain neutrality got toppled, and US diplomats directed the appointment of the interim prime minister, which led to unrest and revolt in the eastern parts of Ukraine that did not support the coup, including armed insurgency in Donetsk and Luhansk, and then we got the Azov paramilitary being sent there to quell this revolt.
Following this rough timeline you can see how the war has very little to do with "USSR imperial hegemony" as if the USSR wasn't always voluntary union from the very start. The official and moral casus belli of this war is still to maintain broader Russian national security and to support the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (and Crimea), against the encroachment of the NATO-backed government allied with the Azov paramilitary that is known for destroying anti-fascist symbols, banning/imprisoning political opponents and imposing their unpopular government on the separatist eastern regions (PDF), not to mention banning elections.
To call that a "revolution" would mean that things changed for the better and the current government better represents the will of the people. If that were the case they'd be really popular in the east and wouldn't need to send brownshirts to fight there, right? You frame Ukraine-Russia amicable relations as "being in Russia's pocket," but how would you argue against the opposite claim the the previous democratically elected government was just following its democratic mandate of ensuring neutrality and amicable relations with both the EU and Russia, without having to swastika-tattooed soldiers to kill dissenters?
This all started with "what guarantees should be given" and I've shown you some which you have not really refuted. All else is just bonus information to get you thinking a bit more.
I don't think here's anything for me to reply. I think it's pretty obvious you take everything Russia says at face value and without any question of whether it's actually true or not. With the guarantees you even go as far as to say it doesn't even matter whether the concerns are true or not as long as Russians believe it, which means there's nothing even to address because Russians will believe what they want to believe.
And when Russian statements get questioned you drown out the criticism with an information dump that may or may not be related to the actual criticism. It would take me days to go through everything you wrote to explain why something is wrong or why it's not even relevant to the discussion. It's a common disinformation tactic and it would be a waste of my time to respond to that because you're going to reply with another information dump.
No, but I acknowledge that Russia has demands, and has had those demands ever since before the war. Also most of the sources I provided were from US-based outlets so claiming that it comes straight from Russia is misleading.
Hmmmm, no? Russians will believe what they're shown with their own critical view, much like you and me. By having NATO at the very least address those grievances instead of pretending they don't exist (or as they actually did, escalating), it wouldn't surprise anybody that they'd get more galvanised. It's strangely common here to see people who just completely disregard the support for this war from the Russian people. They're human too, y'know.
And when questions are questioned I answer then. It's not my fault you were so off the mark that I needed to contextualise the whole thing.
Take your time, no rush. You might learn a thing or two, and then I might learn a thing your two from your reply.
It's a common disinformation tactic to provide a fuckton of sourced information that contextualises all that is being said and provides argumentation and conclusion. Come on now, if you don't like forum discussions why did you even come here to discuss something you don't really care enough about?
This one is shorter, how about that?
Everyone has demands. I could demand right now that you change your opinion. Does that mean my demand should be taken seriously? No. I have no problem acknowledging Russia has demands. I have a problem taking those demands seriously because every single demand is baseless or self-inflicted.
Except their critical view is being twisted by state propaganda. Any Russian inside Russia has to fully reject all major information channels from within Russia to even have a chance for an objective critical view.
Two questions. What grievances? The ones you mentioned or the ones Putin mentioned? Because you brought up slightly difference grievances than Putin. And the second question is how is NATO supposed to address them? For instance the one about Nazis in Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO. The one about nukes isn't actually related to NATO either, it's related to the countries that signed the Budapest memorandum.
Where precisely did NATO itself escalate the issue. Last I checked NATO itself hasn't done anything except reject the unrealistic proposal Russia presented. It's entirely unrealistic to demand NATO stop it's open door policy in regards to Ukraine, demand NATO forces out of NATO countries and demand that NATO countries themselves refuse to support Ukraine.
That's an interesting thing to say, because most vocal Russians on Reddit actually claimed to be against the war and blamed "the west" for demonizing Russian people for supporting the war. I agree that they're human too but clearly the support is not as clear as you make it seem to be.
The rest of the comment is not relevant to the discussion.
Yes, it means that I'm aware of your demand and that I choose not to comply because you haven't provided enough justifications. On the other hand I'm de-escalating the situation by showing how the flaws in your reasoning. NATO could've done the same thing, but instead they chose to pretend the coup was a revolution, and all is right in the world. And you are now choosing to not read all the information which I provided, then throwing your arms to the sky and proclaiming that "there's no such information."
So is ours. Welcome to the internet where bourgeois newspapers do their darnedest to control the narratives. However you don't need to "fully reject" the outlets much as I haven't "fully rejected" mnsbc or other USA news there, just read them critically. They still have the internet and a lot of them speak English, so if they want they can check multiple sources, which is how you actually develop critical views, not by just discarding the ones you don't trust 100% percent. You may notice I didn't outright discard any of your (rare) sources.
You might want to elaborate on that. Since I'm not the President of Russia, I think you should go with the Putin ones of blocking Ukraine from NATO, ending the Donbass war and removing the Nazis from government. It's all in the speech, if you read it.
Read above, but I'm also not the French ambassador so they could think of clever compromises too, so long as they actually acknowledged the Russian moral concerns. They didn't even go that far. (though I could be wrong there, fetch me a source disproving this, will ya).
Those weapons would't be developed locally, they'd come from the USA as has been happening in other EU countries. A simple official statement "no, we won't give them nukes" would've been cool I think. Obviously they didn't do it because, again, this war has been a long time coming and NATO wanted it. Ukraine is the one paying the price.
Read the sources, you'll see that the Maidan coup was backed by NATO, that they have been supplying weapons for the war on Donbass, and that right now they are providing material support for Ukraine, which is not (and probably will never be) a NATO country. There are leaked calls in which US diplomats basically choose who should become prime minister, the previous spitballing of nukes and now even the destruction of Nordstream and the providing of cluster munitions. Since you're not bothering to check the sources I'll only provide the ones you ask for.
Not really, Ukraine is not in NATO so they could stop all of those things there. In fact it's possible they stop doing it in a while after this failed counter-offensive of their own volition. It is at least less unrealistic than the Ukrainian government demand that the Russian forces need to pack it up and go home, abandoning all of their costly victories in the war, in order for there to be any peace talks. Always remember that this support started with the Donbass war which has killed thousands and displaced millions, and even Zelenskyy himself has said it was a huge mistake.
Oh wow, Russians on reddit, a website that literally banned Genzedong for being critically supportive of the SMO. That certainly doesn't include any biases in your anecdotal experience that need to be accounted for. Apparently the support public opinion on Putin is up since the beginning of the war, but I don't really like statista as a source and search engines are flooded with "Americans think Russia bad" NYT articles so I'm not bothering with that. Feel free to find better sources that give more foundation to your experience, but the proxy speculation I was using for the support is that the Russian military has spent the past 18 months at war while their country receives an absurd amount of sanctions. This is hard to maintain without public support, but I could be wrong.
The rest of my comment is very relevant to the discussion because apparently you seem to think that providing sources and discussing on an internet forum is "disinformation," which I think is why you don't provide any yourself. I'm sorry to tell you, but if you come here saying nonsense and people provide counterarguments with evidence backing them, you're just wasting everybody's time with your speculations and hearsay if you don't respond on their level. You should probably read before you write.
Well? You were so ready to prove me wrong and I'm still waiting. I've given you days to find the sources for your claims, but I guess it's hard to find sources for made up shit. Maybe you should follow your own advice and read before you write, otherwise you just end up self-owning yourself.
Nah, I actually wrote a thing out but lemmy 0.18.3 was buggy as hell and it didn't post, and it ruined my mood for this. Since you've shown yourself to be so lazy that you couldn't just google the statistics of English speakers in Russia (hint, wikipedia has some easily digestible data), it's pretty clear you're just wasting my time and moving the goalposts, misrepresenting your own sources and generally acting in bad faith, and the comment thread is so hidden that engaging with your bad faith won't even help to reach even actually curious lurkers. No point in it for me really, prove yourself right all you want in an endless thread talking to yourself. Maybe this talking to this lad instead, you both think alike.
As evidence of your nonsense:
What is the official name for that coup, Coup of Dignity?
Actually read those and point me where the actual de-escalation is in there. Literally dismiss Russia's claims offhandedly while claiming "changes in transparency" or other political non-statements.
Your honour, I didn't kill him, it was my brain who told the finger to pull the trigger.
Military defence alliance can't control its members, logically.
lmao, find me an official Russian source denying their support for the independence of the eastern republics.
Yes. Find me a single case in modern history where a peace talk only started (read: not a surrender) only after the winning party abandoned all their military gains. You can probably think of one or two, but that's a good exercise nevertheless.
Had to check, you don't even read what your own sources say.
Honestly, go waste somebody else's time with your
nonsense. If you really care that much that none of Russia's demands go answered, go join the foreign legion or something, I've head they even help with student loans. Just dont pester some rando correcting your "what guarantees" vagueposting.
Lol, you became a caricature of the same things you criticize others for and then some. Absolutely unhinged reply.
Care to elaborate?
You tell others to "read before you write" but then yourself don't do it. Like you said, it's quick google to see that "a lot" of Russians don't speak English. But instead of doing a quick google to see if you're full of shit you just write it out anyway. No regards to you own "read before you write" mantra. In fact every place where I specifically asked for proof is a place where you're either completely wrong or partially wrong.
Then there's the whole "we're here to have a discussion, why are you even here to discuss something if you don't care about it?" as if you're open to discussion. Except when I actually push back you turn around and go "No point in discussing, nobody else will see it" which is entirely contradictory to US having "discussion".
Then there's the deliberately vague part which is how the entire thread started. Your first comment literally "maybe this or maybe that and maybe something else would've happened". Could it be any more vague? I even pressed you on specifically mentioning what you mean by guarantees and your response was somehow even more vague, telling me to read Putins speech and figure them out on my own. You did something similar the second time when I asked proof of a lot of Russians speaking English and you told me to go find the data myself. Any and all attempts for any specificity out of you is met with vagueness or deflection. Which makes it pretty ironic for you to call people questioning your vagueness as vagueposting.
And then you pull out every "debate" lord trick in the book. You say I'm wasting your time, I'm moving goalposts, I'm in bad faith. You call me names, like "debate pervert". And then you pull a series of "evidence of nonsense" where you're just raging.
I honestly had a good laugh over your entire comment because it epitomizes your hypocrisy.
What is that number again, I can't seem to find the wikipedia article on it. \s
Really silly of you to come back and not even look into it. If you want something even more precise, I challenge you to find something called "English proficiency index," but the entire point there is that you wasted my time asking for source on some incredibly easy to find non-politicised source for data to deflect from your baseless speculation on how "Russians fall for everything" of their own propaganda. I wonder what you'll think of the countries lower on that index. If you even look for it, that is.
You seem to be mistaken. It's not that I didn't read it, it's that I didn't feel like adding it in the comment because it's such easy to find info. But since you seem to be incapable of doing a basic google search to verify, and I think I should be your personal source-fetching bot, I'm stubbornly not giving you the source because I "gave up" on you. On the other hand you also came out with your own claim of "lots don't speak English," with no source to contradict me, which is funny because you had a whole week to find one.
I can be petty sometimes, and if you keep pestering me I'll only be petty from now on because you're just a silly person with silly behaviour and I ain't got time in my life to take you seriously.
Everyone has limits, and you seem so stuck on completely failing to grasp even your own sources that I don't see why I should bother. I usually engage with silly people like you in forums because other, more curious and interested people might read it. Since you're just being (intentionally?) silly and misreading your own sources on NATO or not remembering the official NATO name for the coup is "Revolution of Dignity," I don't think there's much use to this one here and you're free to go pester somebody else.
I like how you accuse me of "vagueposting" by being vague in your accusations. My very first comments were being made about they hypothetical guarantees you took so much issue with. You still haven't shown how those guarantees would've not prevented the war or been sane de-escalations.
Since you always seem to forget: de-escalate war on Donnetsk and Luhansk, recognise their independence or at least do proper procedure on it, disband Azov and ban neo-nazi symbology, reinstate Russian as a co-official language, guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO and there'll be no nukes in Russia's critical neighbouring countries.
I bet each of those would've been welcome there, but alas, NATO only cared about "transparency," from your own sources, and did not consider a single of Russia's complaints as valid. Now please, go off again on "what guarantees????" as if I haven't said that like 4 times now.
Those complaints are in the literal declaration speech ffs, but no I did not tell you to figure out on my own. Go read the comment again, I specifically quoted the specific sections. Your memory seems a bit wonky even though I've been apparently living rent-free in your mind for a week now. I don't live rent-free in my own home, can we switch that? Go re-read the whole thread.
As I said, I actually did put the source there, but lemmy bugged out and didn't post, which led me to realise I didn't want to bother with you anymore because you're playing dumb. This last comment was specifically about how you're playing dumb so hard you couldn't even search for English speaker statistics per country, as if it's some huge gargantuan task. I bet you did that just to distract from the main point of Russians being able to critically analyse text, though you probably don't even remember that. Do you only know English, by any chance?
Ah yeah, the old debate trick of saying "fuck off, you're being an arse, go pester somebody else." I'm not "debating" with you anymore, nor was I ever to begin with. I just want you to find something more worthwhile to do with your life because I don't have an obligation to correct every single arrogantly ignorant person on the internet, just because they're feeling lonely. I do it of my own volition when I think I might change or learn something. As I said before, nobody else is watching, and you don't seem to have much interest in either learning or teaching, so this is indeed "a waste of my time." You might find more interest if you send a letter to your congressperson.
I guess the internet is weird, people can't differentiate fun mockery from actual anger. I was mocking how incredibly ignorant you were showing yourself off to be, by either stating complete unsourced nonsense, or asking for sources for things that are literally in the links you provided, or even failing to understand how military alliances work. Obviously since I have no hope for you I won't actually put the effort to explain why those are problems, I guess you'd just deflect to something else as always.
Yep. I stand by that.
That's cool, at least something good came out of this whole interaction. I also enjoyed how you came back after the obvious bait of "care to elaborate." Seems like you really like me. But I don't like you, go find somebody who reciprocates.
Now, if you reply (and you're obviously gonna reply, you just can't leave me be), before your own comment list in your own words every single demand from Russia wrt the war, and whether they've been conceded on or ignored. I wonder if you'll find something, but please don't come back without making it clear you understand those demands clearly.
Jesus... And you tell me how I misrepresent sources. But unlike you I actually take effort to explain why you're wrong. EF EPI evaluates the English proficiency based on who took the test. It is not even an estimation of how big part of the population actually speaks english (on any level). It just states that from the russian people who chose to take test they proficiency is at B2 level. Also, you still didn't even bother to link a source.
I also didn't add any sources because most of should be an easy find, funny how you give me shit about it but then turn around and do the exact same thing. Also what the fuck? I never claimed "lots don't speak English". You're literally making shit up about what I supposedly said.
Anyway since you now indirectly asked for it, and it seems it's not that easy of a search for you, I give you the source that Russians in general don't really speak English. I hope your Russian is good. Actually that wasn't a quick search, a quick search would've found you an English site that actually gave a far more generous estimation (about 10%), but I'm guessing you would've taken an issue with a random English side stating the obvious so I dug a bit deeper to find a more official source, specifically to prove how fucking wrong you are.
Maybe you should considering it's becoming more and more apparent how little you actually know about the shit you're talking about. You might actually learn something from me.
I wasn't going to specifically address one part of your ramblings, nothing there deserved to be addressed because it was all bullshit. So don't throw out some easy gotchas like YOU getting the name wrong.
I've been trying to tell you for a while now, the demand of those guarantees is baseless. What is the justification for those demands? Should the rest of the world just roll over for Russia because they have concerns? Please, enlighten me how are they justified?
You say that, but then you also claim you won't even give me the time of day. Another empty statement by you.
Well if being deliberately wrong is fun mockery then by all means, be a joke.
I do actually like you. You're part of my daily entertainment.
I'm just going to stick my hand in your playbook and say every single demand is easy to google so you should know that I know what they are. I don't need to give sources to things that are easy to google. Did I get it right?
Accidentally posted before writing fully, if you're wondering about the deleted comment.
like patience... lots and lots of patience...
What's the "correct" name again, big guy? Say it in ALL CAPS like you like to do, like we're in the 90s internet still.
Just two that are obvious, tolerating of Nazi symbology and members in Azov (your initial source on this did not go into detail on how exactly Azov doesn't allow Nazis in it anymore after being explicitly created by them 10 years ago), and de-escalating the war on Luhansk and Donnetsk and recognising their desire to be independent. I'm not sure how somebody could be against those things, let alone deny that they've been happening for 10 years now. The rest are more complicated, find a friend to talk to about those. But please, don't address the important bit and go talk about random unrelated things like language levels, which is a tangent on top of a tangent on top of a tangent.
About as much as Mexico. Not a bad number at all, and nowadays we have cool tools like google translate or yandex. I can't actually read Cyrillic script but using those tools you can see that they name something like "school languages" in which 20-30% of people study a foreign language at school but don't use it day-to-day. That's a very big number if you compare it to other non-EU developed countries. Hopefully you yourself know Russian and can help correct if I mistranslated it. That'd be the first time your knowledge would contribute to the conversation.
erm, no? Aren't we on an English site?
On the other hand your other source isn't particularly "official," it's just a blog in Russian. You could've provided the English one instead, but I guess you preferred to obfuscate it all. The only source listed is the Russian census, which comes straight from the Russian government. Since you like those sources and clearly are fluent in Russian, you can help me translate the excel file hosted in the Russian Govt website here to check on those "study languages." I'm not the one who throws away sources because they're from "propaganda outlets" here, you are. From the very beginning of the discussion.
lol
You do know that when a person uses "when" it means that they won't do it when the "when" clause isn't true? You have not shown any new info, and also don't seem willing to learn. But no, I won't give the time of day to randos on the internet just because they demand it, get some irl friends.
Please elaborate on why every thing there was wrong, since you're so sure of it. Do a whole a paragraph per statement. I'll be sure to pat you on the back. The mockery was pointing out how ridiculous your statements were, if you didn't catch it.
That's sad.
But although I find you incredibly annoying as a person, your silliness is also entertaining. Like an overly-aggressive Chihuahua or something. Or a Mensa teenager.
No, you didn't get it right. You got it wrong. Congrats. Here. I even hid it in the previous reply for ease of fetching later. I wonder if you can find where the easter egg was.
If you think you're making me angry or something, and you take pleasure in that: no, you just bore me. You're boring, not nearly as witty as you think you are, and about as engaging as playing an idle game while on the bus or waiting for the food to boil. If you're doing this out of some sadism, you're probably going to be more efficient about it by frying ants. If you want to learn, go read a book or two, I recommend "Blackshirts and the Reds." And if you want to help Ukraine, go join the foreign legion. But you're definitely not "schooling" anybody here, specially since it's literally just you and me now, and the Jigglypuff lullaby sounds like the Yellow Parenti speech next to your writing.
Come on mate, surely you have somebody who cares more about what you have to say in your life.
You do understand what justified means? You just gave me examples of the demands, not how they're justified.
I'm sure you don't. I can understand being critical of those things but that is not justification. If your neighbor beats up their wife/girlfriend do you think it would be justified to kick down their door, beat the man into submission , kill their children, thrash the entire apartment and call it a job well done? Would it be more justified if you before-hand told that you would do it?
You do realize you're the one who brought up language levels?
Because in this case the English source looks better than reality?
I guess your Russian is not that good then. It's a blog post that goes over the 2020 population consensus data. That numbers there are official numbers. More than 99% of Russians stated they know only Russian.
I honestly don't have anything else to say about the rest of your comment. It goes too off the tangent to really focus on any individual part there. You're just going on and on about how you don't care but you still keep coming back.
It is definitely justified to ask your neighbour to stop killing your other neighbours, joining Nazis and not letting the people there decide on whether they want to be independent or not. Imagine if the USA had a terrorist group called the keykeykey, and those groups went around killing people for being black or hispanic, and are waging war on the southern regions of Texas. I think you'd agree that it would be justified for Mexico to go "Could you remove keykeykey people from your government? They literally want to kill mexicans and black people in your borders." Wouldn't be so nice for the USA to say "no fuck you" like NATO did, would it? Before you ask me "when did NATO ignore the issue," read your own initial source from nato.int you linked a while back.
Russia has been complaining about that for 10 years now, and Azov only got more entrenched in government while the Donbas war got escalated and fed supplies by NATO. I think you mistake me saying that Russia had some valid points with me thinking that they're perfect and above criticism. But they certainly have a point that declaring war on a separatist region after a coup is incredibly abhorrent, and to do that while glorifying Nazi collaborators like Bandera, toppling monuments to those who defeated the Nazis and having people with swastika tattoos and Nazi symbols in their paramilitary death squad just makes it too on the nose.
Now you're talking about the subsequent war (in very inaccurate terms, I must add), instead of the guarantees that NATO could've done before the war to avoid it happening. But since you like individualistic and simplistic analogies, have another one. If your town has a keykeykey faction going around killing minorities and preventing them from even getting their own representation in government, toppled their preferred mayor and are doing terrorist attacks on the regions most populated by black people and mexicans, would it not be justified for bigger neighbouring city (that has a lot of mexicans) to ask for it to stop over 8 years, and after it proving fruitless to send in a swat team as requested by the local population? If it were me, I'd be begging for that swat team after 1 year, let alone 8.
Now imagine that this bigger city has been blocked from interfering there by another bigger city on the other side, which specifically sells weapons to this keykeykey, and no matter how many pretty speeches on the ~~UN~~ congress they make, the rival city refuses to concede to even disbanding or stopping selling weapons to the keykeykey. You can complain all you want that the Russian forces have "thrashed the apartment" but this war has been going on for 10 years now, not just since 2021. You can probably see how your analogy fails to properly represent the death toll (thousands) and civilian displacement (more than 1 million people) of the Donbass war as "beat their wife," coming right after the 2014 coup, which is why I usually don't do analogies.
I think you misunderstand there buddy, I don't throw away sources. I read them critically. You can give me any sources I can reliably read and we can talk about them. Problem is, when I do talk about them you change subject. Which I bet is why you chose a blog in Russian rather than a text I can read. Unlike you, I don't have Russian language proficiency, and I'd like it if you respected that.
I guess your English is not that good then, I said it's from the census in the reply:
Oh, I see. I guess we will never know why all those statements you threw out which I mocked were "obviously wrong." Nor your taking issue with me paraphrasing you saying that "lots don't know English" as if I made it up. Or your confusing statement that NATO doesn't call the 2014 coup the "Revolution of Dignity." Or that the USA backing a coup doesn't implicate the defence organisation they lead. Or that Russia denies their support for the LPR and DPR. Or your myriad of other bizarre claims that you throw around and then immediately forget about in the following reply.
You throw so much bullshit at such an alarming rate, but don't even acknowledge when shown to be incorrect on each (even complaining that my reply debunking some was too long), which is the hallmark of a bad faith debatebro. Grab a microphone and camera, learn to talk really fast and go own some libs in uni campuses like the Ben Shapiro impersonator you want to be.
Just in case you completely skipped it, here again is a source on the Russian demands before the war that you keep ignoring. Next comment is going to be like "and yet again I see no sources, I'm very smart."
It's a saturday, cooking day. Me staring at the food boiling is just mildly less entertaining than you. Ironically it also requires a bit more effort. It's like morbidly browsing mensa teens on quora, but this one actually has a parasocial relationship with me.
Edit: not to mention, when I did not come back, you came crying to me a week later that I didn't prove you wrong enough, and you have a deep need to prove wrong or be proved wrong. Debatebros are so needy.
Have you read your source? Not a single mention of nazis or the war in Donbas. So go read your own source and then come tell me how those demands are justified.
Good point, I mixed up the articles about this, the Guardian doesn't even list the demands one by one. Here's one that lists all demands, which don't list the Nazis or Donbas directly, though those have been complained about before (see Putin speech earlier on). Then you can see this slightly newer negotiation development which acknowledges the DPR and LPR and demands the end of militarisation there and denazify (and therefore the end of the paramilitary death squads).
Now, you don't seem to understand that Russia can demand whatever it wants, even different things that were not in previous demands. That means that they'll often drop or return to demands depending on their conditions, and I'm not Putin's personal spokesman and don't have to 100% agree with which of their demands is the most important. What prompted this whole conversation is what NATO could've done to de-escalate the conflict. Do you know a single guarantee made by NATO to reduce the likelyhood of war or prevent it going on for another 2 years with the risk of nuclear warfare? I'd be happy to hear it.
Also you seem to confuse the meaning of "justified" there. You asked for sources on what demands have been made, those are up in the first paragraph. They don't justify anything though, only prove that the demands have been made in the past. Now after that you need to verify the veracity of those demands, and here are some sources that you might enjoy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, on Azov and Nazis being trained and supplied by NATO and the Ukraine government, and just the wikipedia article on the War on Dombas because you don't seem to even be aware of it. Then once you come to a conclusion on whether the demands exist and are factual, you can decide if disbanding the Azov brigade and recognising the LPR and DPR are morally justifiable or not. "what sources?????"
cute how you ignored everything else, though. Makes you look very sensible and intellectual. You should make an account here
How long are we going to talk in circles? I have been explaining how none of the demands are justified. Like you said Russia can demand whatever it wants, but whether those demands should be met depends on how reasonable or justified they are. It should be apparent that what NATO could've done to de-escalate also follows the pattern of satisfying reasonable demands. If none of the demands are reasonable there's nothing NATO can do to de-escalate, right? So, aside from the dissolution of Azov and recognizing LPR and DPR as legitimate (both of which are arguable whether NATO could even do something or if meeting those demands even matter considering they weren't even in the first demands) what else could've NATO done?
Okay I'm going to stop you there. Do a proper analysis. You seem to want me to think your whole argument for you rather than making yourself clear.
First, have the demands ever been made? You flip flop on that a lot.
Then, are the demands based in facts? You also seem to flip flop on whether that is true.
And only then can you tell me whether they are morally justifiable or not.
And after that tell me why or why not can NATO validate and concede on those demands, and whether they're partly to blame for this war.
Since those are the only ones you cited right now (because your memory is very wonky), focus on Azov and the two independent republics.
You have a whole week to write because I won't reply until next Saturday, since I'm no longer cooking. Don't get too lonely.
And back with the vagueness.
We already established demands. The last two comments we've explicitly discussed demands. But don't worry, I've got you. Here's the official draft that we first discussed. Bunch of legal jargon so I'll condense it to some key points. I'll also add the points you brought up afterwards (the nazis and DPR and LPR)
No idea where you get that considering I've pretty consistently said that they're unreasonable (with the exception of the nazi and DPR/LPR thing), which pretty much implies they're not based in facts.
Somehow I have to make your points? Whatever, lazyass.
NATO cannot segregate itself so obviously they can't comply with this.
This one is the most reasonable one, but even that is not that clear cut. Some of those missiles are a part of the missile defense system that NATO won't remove so that's not a fulfillable demand. But NATO has given Russia a chance to come to an agreement here. Back in 2011 Biden visited Moscow to discuss a missile defense co-operation which Russia turned down. Similarly there was the IMF treaty (which also covers some of the missiles in question) that got scrapped under the pretense that Russia wasn't complying with the treaty. So one could make the argument that Russia themselves creates a situation where they could make such demands. Do you need sources for those or are you capable of googling those two things yourself? Eh fuck it, IMF wiki and missile defense co-operation that never got off the ground.
It's again one of those things that seems reasonable except for the fact that NATO countries that are in the EU literally cannot accept this. For instance Georgia is planning to join the EU. If Georgia joins the EU then they get protected by EDA which means it gets protected by the same countries that would here have to agree to never protect Georgia. It's an obvious conflict of interest for EU and thus by extension also for NATO.
Not sure what more NATO could do there. You don't seem to be aware that the US hasn't provided funds to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion since 2017. The biggest NATO member doesn't support the Nazi battalion. I really don't see what else NATO could do besides wag their finger at Ukraine who claims their battalion is not longer a nazi battalion. But I'll be happy to concede this point because I seriously doubt NATO doing something about the nazis would've deterred Russia. It didn't even make it into the first round of demands.
I'll also concede this point mostly for the same reasons as the previous one. But also because Russia could've just walked into DPR and LPR like they did in Crimea and say "this is mine now". Nothing really happened over Crimea, nothing would've happened over those two regions either. The acknowledgement of those regions wouldn't have prevented the war, Russia wanted to take a bigger bite.
How about no. Those two are the least relevant in the list of demands, they weren't even in first list of demands.
Don't worry. I'll pester you whenever you're online.
!remindme ~~7 days~~ 1984 years
Edit: go away
In that case all should be good considering the US and NATO did respond, NATO also publicly if I may add.
That applies to both Ukraine joining NATO and previous post-soviet countries joining NATO.
Unless you want to provide with a clear source where NATO calls it a revolution I'm going to claim they didn't, because I couldn't find where they said that.
I guess then it should be extremely easy to point where NATO calls it a revolution.
I think you're seriously underestimating how strong Russian propaganda machine is. I'm sure you're seen Russia claim that the west betrayed them with the NATO advancement. It's something that maybe you've seen some poor quality western sources also claim, just one example to show that this claim has also spread to the west. That is not true at all. In fact it's deliberate Russian propaganda
Anyway
Considering the rest of this statement hinges on their ability to speak English my question is, source on a lot of them speaking English?
Well you're the one going around "guarantees this" and "guarantees that" but at no point do you explicitly state what you mean by guarantees. You listed a few but those were presented more like your personal opinion on what they might be, rather than what you claim they are. But I guess you're referring to the speech so I guess that at least gives some clearer context on what you meant.
I did, this is false. Your sources stated that the US was backing the coup, not NATO.
Source on the spitballing?
The fuck does this even mean? Ukraine is not in the NATO so NATO shouldn't allow Ukraine in at all and also move all of its forces out of the Baltic states and Poland? Or did you mean only the last part of those unreasonable claims, that NATO countries shouldn't support Ukraine? The latter NATO literally cannot fulfill because that is a decision of individual countries.
How is that unrealistic? It's unrealistic to expect that your borders be respected before there can be peace talks? Especially if the entire war is either at a stalemate or slightly in your favor? I'd understand if there's a relatively clear prediction that Ukraine will lose, but that's currently not the case.
You mean with the Russian backed coup in Donetsk and Luhansk? Russia obviously denies that but both region are russian-backed. That war is just as much on Russia as it is on Ukraine. A
Funny.
I actually don't have an issue with that, I was just pointing out how there are Russians who would be happy to claim opposite. I'm aware that Russians support the war and in my opinion their refusal to oppose the war makes them also responsible for this war. This isn't a case where they can say it's their government and they couldn't do anything, they don't want to do anything about it either.