Ukraine Women's Battalion - That's not what she said

kropotkin1951 wrote:

When I wanted to find an old Ukraine post I typed in Ukraine and up popped the thread you started. It took less than a minute and was extremely serendipitous and hilarious all at once.

When the war drums are pounded by the Western propaganda machine you dance to the tune. You now have stated in other threads it doesn't matter how many of these women were murdered over the last eight years because they are just Russian pawns. I call that getting in step with the great NATO narrative.

I never said it doesn't matter nor that they are Russian pawns. Funding insurgents doesn't make them pawns. Funding the Ukraine military doesn't make them pawns either.

I have not defended Ukraine's treatment of Donbas or Crimea. I only defend the principle that it is an internal matter for Ukraine to solve without foreign interference imposed on the central government.

Separatists wouldn't have so much support if they didn't have very valid serious complaints. I am not discounting their right to self-determination. Perhaps I am not so shocked at restrictive language laws given that I have been subject to them for most of my life right here in Quebec. Even now indigenous Quebecers are fighting for the right to an English education.

Russia annexed Crimea and is trying to annex Donbas based on the Russian language being spoken in those areas. Not exactly shocking that Ukrainians are against Russian language rights and want everyone speaking Ukrainian which isn't to say that it is right.

In my opinion many on the left want a multipolar world believing it would be more peaceful. Any expansion of NATO makes a multipolar world less likely therefore countries that want to join NATO are doing the wrong thing. The left doesn't want to support that kind of self-determination.

The left can't outright support the invasion of Ukraine but at the same time the collective left argues that Russia is justified in demanding that no countries on its borders join NATO which is a sovereign matter.

While there may have been verbal assurances decades ago that NATO wouldn't expand there was never any signed agreement. Ukraine started the pre-application for NATO membership in 1992. The Budapest agreement in which Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons was 2 years later and did not include any agreement excluding NATO membership. Ukraine should have demanded it in exchange for giving up their weapons.

The notion that there is some balance between Russian and US power is cold war thinking. The cold war is over. The US won and became the world's only superpower.

Pondering wrote:

Those who throw the first punch are the ones to hold responsible for the violence. Separatist movements don't have to be violent.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

"More than 30 people were killed in violent and chaotic clashes in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa on Friday as pro-Ukraine activists stormed a building defended by protesters opposed to the current government in Kiev and in favour of closer ties with Russia.
The violence continued on Saturday as Ukraine said its forces had attacked pro-Russian separatists in the industrial east of the country at dawn near the town of Kramatorsk."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/ukraine-dead-odessa-buildi...
You seem to have missed this part:
" The clashes reportedly began after protesters gathering for a rally in support of a unified Ukraine were attacked by pro-Russia activists armed with clubs and air pistols. ""
There are claims that the pro-Russian activists are paid by Russia which seems quite likely.
I originally saw the video of the following arrest on Youtube. It was filmed by CNN and Ukrainian civilians were asked to witness.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/16/europe/ukraine-sbu-russian-spies-intl/ind...

Quote:

Some of the suspects are classic infiltrators: Russian citizens, brought to the Donbas region at the beginning of the war, who live among the population. Others are political sympathizers. But the man leading today's sting, who we're calling Serhiy, says most people spy for money.
"There are fewer and fewer ideological traitors," he says. "Even those who supported the aggression of the Russian federation in 2014 in the Donbas, during the creation of the so-called DPR and LPR [Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics] -- when they saw what happened with Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Bucha and dozens and hundreds of other localities, they started to change their world view about Russia."
The suspect this weekend tells the investigator that he was offered just 500 hryvnia, or around 17 dollars, in exchange for targeting information. He says he was recruited through the messaging app Telegram by someone identifying himself as "Nikolai."...
He says he tries to keep his anger at bay, but it's hard not to take the betrayals personally.
"Every time I arrest someone like him, I know one thing: I'm from here myself. My loved ones, all my relatives, are from Lyman" -- a nearby town that has been under heavy Russian bombardment for weeks -- he says.
"At the moment, they have no place to live, they have nothing. They have nowhere to come back to. I remember it every time. I remember the Kramatorsk railway station every time," he says, referring to a Russian airstrike in April that killed at least 50 people.
"We were picking people up, piece by piece."

Once Russia invaded Ukraine had two choices. Surrender to Russia or beg for help from other countries. They tried negotiation but Russia wants Ukrainian land and they aren't willing to negotiate it away. Russia's idea of negotiation was do as we say or we will take what we want. 

The general consensus of the established left seems to be that NATO caused Russia to invade because they expanded into areas under Russian influence and right up to Russia's border. That implies that Russia has a right to maintain dominance over those countries regardless of the desires of citizens and those citizens do not have the right to choose the devil they prefer. This is justified by claiming they were subject to western propaganda so what they want isn't right or isn't what is best for them. 

I think the established left is upset because things are not rolling out as expected. The hope was that a rising China, EU and Russia would balance out US power so we would have a multi-polar world rather than US domination. The very long list of US atrocities during its reign as sole superpower suggests a multipolar world might be more condusive to peace. 

NATO expansion upsets the applecart as does helping Taiwan break away from China. If the US is the biggest bad guy then anything that strengthens the US is bad. The thing is that's an opinion not a fact. 

When given the freedom to associate with whomever they choose some small countries seem to prefer the US/EU/NATO over Russia/China. Others hope association with Russia or China might save them from economic exploitation by the US. Unfortunately it seems they just get economically exploited by China or Russia leaving them no better off.