Russian invasion of Ukraine

[jonnysensible]

be hard for Ukraine to respond in kind, how do you destroy the civilian infrastructure of a country like Russia where one fifth of people don't have indoor plumbing

[Kralljin]

I can't speak for YUPPIE for I don't think they were talking about going easy on Russia. I think they were just saying war crimes shouldn't be tolerated against the likes of Russia.

Just makes no sense in the context of war crimes because the Allies also certainly took the gloves off in WW2.
Not saying they were worse (they weren't), but even the Allies didn't want to prosecute Luftwaffe Officers at Nuremberg for bombing cities because they themselves turned any major German city to rubble during '43, '44 and '45, which would've been a massive display of double standard.

Allies accepted nothing but unconditional surrender, that's anything but going soft.

I don't think terms of WW2 apply to this war because even though the Allies were the good guys they were fighting on the offensive

The entire reason why they wanted unconditional surrender is because they wanted to avoid another WW1 scenario where Germany has strategically lost but was never pushed off enemy territory, thus feeding the stab in the back myth.

Germans had to accept that their forces were utterly defeated, even if the Nazis had just packed up their things and left occupied territories, the Allies would've pursued them into Germany to force their surrender.

The plus is no one will feel obligated to help Russia out of its financial hole. Just need to find enough energy alternatives.

Eh, politics waits for no one.

If we're at WW2, nobody wanted to help Germany either, but especially the US realized the economic and strategic value of Germany in the upcoming Cold war.
Russia still has a ton of natural resources, something countries like China will gladly buy and they would absolutely not mind to gain at least something out of this war.

[The Stormbringer]

No, not really.

The point is pretty simple, one cannot go that easy on Russia because one is not able to exercise the same amount of control over Russia as the Allies did over Germany / Japan once this is over, that is the issue with the Germany / Japan <=> Russia ananlogy.
If any aid from the Allies had to gone to fund any dubious shit on Germany's / Japan's part, the Allies would've moved in hard and cleaned up that shit.

That's kinda the problem, i don't want to further demonize Russia, but i also am not naive to just blindly give them aid post war because the West sure as shit cannot enforce that any of those funds don't vanish on Oligarch's bank account or even worse to (re)fund their military.

Post-War aid can come in the form of food, fuel, clothing, etcetera. It doesn't have to be cash.

[Kralljin]

Post-War aid can come in the form of food, fuel, clothing, etcetera. It doesn't have to be cash.

...which means the cash they have left can be spent on anything else.

Disregarding that, this is Russia we're talking about, a massive importer of grain, gas, fuel and so forth.
The problem aren't the lack of basic goods, what Russia bites in the ass is the absence of (high) tech.

And you can't even put it past this clique to just take all these goods, sell them to other countries (to buy another Yacht) while the rest of the population starves and then blame it on the West for the lack of aid.

[Ripster42]

...which means the cash they have left can be spent on anything else.

Disregarding that, this is Russia we're talking about, a massive importer of grain, gas, fuel and so forth.
The problem aren't the lack of basic goods, what Russia bites in the ass is the absence of (high) tech.

And you can't even put it past this clique to just take all these goods, sell them to other countries (to buy another Yacht) while the rest of the population starves and then blame it on the West for the lack of aid.

I think you mean exporter. Probably just a typo/brainfart.

[Kralljin]

I think you mean exporter. Probably just a typo/brainfart.

Oops, yeah obviously, Russia doesn't have to buy grain, gas or fuel.

[Vulturia]

It's one thing to be cheering for them to be getting their asses kicked in the know, yeah. But to be watching live footage of human beings literally getting split in half from explosions or crawling with all their limbs blown off and bleeding out while screaming in agony - and then viewers cheering "fuck those orcs!" - isn't that kind of straight-up fucked up?

I've been following combat footage hubs and logs and it's been a little more than disturbing how up-in-arms people are over it.

That's quite easy to say when you aren't the one being blown up, when it's people far away who are getting tortured, murdered and executed. All invaders have a choice to go to jail or surrender. They instead came to kill ukrainians for being ukrainians.
Go ahead and feel bad for the poor products of the system and hate the system instead of the people. Ignoring the personal agency ruskis have, all of which they use to kill and torture, or alternatively, passively support it with inaction.
We can feel bad for those ruskis who either actively fight to change their country's imperialism (extremely few), or those who at least actively reject their ruskism in all forms (change name, say that they are not russian, also almost nobody). We can feel a little bit bad for the ruskis who at least actively protest against the war.
I will take the gamble that a random dude with limbs torn off is neither of these, and freely cheer for it, thank you.

[jonnysensible]

lol @ the Bonham Carter clan cousin getting nicked. Whenever you google aristocratic English families they are full of wrongun's. Always nice to see one eat shit. Now do George Osbourne.

[Ripster42]

lol @ the Bonham Carter clan cousin getting nicked.

An opaque statement so... Guy was arrested for violating sanctions for deripaska.

[jonnysensible]

An opaque statement so... Guy was arrested for violating sanctions for deripaska.

he holds a bunch of property in the UK for oleg. https://www.tatler.com/gallery/art-d...urrey-for-sale

Hes been trying to flog it for a while. 4 other properties held too. Alot of English aristocratic families are involved in money laundering the foreign ultra rich.

[YUPPIE]

thing I don't get is people love to throw shade at Russians for not launching an insurrection against Putin, and that because of that, they're complicit in whatever he does

But look at Iran right now. Those officials have no qualms about killing civilians like open season. Just straight-up machine gun fire and grenades right into the crowd. Complete massacre right now.

Can you really blame peasants/civilians for not wanting to die like that? Especially when civilians have no arms/weapons.

[Endus]

thing I don't get is people love to throw shade at Russians for not launching an insurrection against Putin, and that because of that, they're complicit in whatever he does

But look at Iran right now. Those officials have no qualms about killing civilians like open season. Just straight-up machine gun fire and grenades right into the crowd. Complete massacre right now.

Can you really blame peasants/civilians for not wanting to die like that? Especially when civilians have no arms/weapons.

If you're out protesting that regime? Then you're not supporting it, obviously. You're one of the victims being potentially shot at.

If you're not going to protest out of fear of being shot, or the like? That's where you're complicit with and supportive of that regime. Maybe out of fear rather than ideological preference, but you're still supporting them.

It doesn't really matter, in the end, if you're the Nazi patriarch fingering your Jewish neighbours to be hauled off by the SS because you're a "true believer", or if you just want the Nazis to accept you and leave you in peace. What matters is that you're fingering Jewish neighbours and supporting the Nazi Reich. You're still a Nazi, in this example. Just one who has enough empathy to feel bad about it. But not enough empathy to stop.

[Gabriel]

thing I don't get is people love to throw shade at Russians for not launching an insurrection against Putin, and that because of that, they're complicit in whatever he does

But look at Iran right now. Those officials have no qualms about killing civilians like open season. Just straight-up machine gun fire and grenades right into the crowd. Complete massacre right now.

Can you really blame peasants/civilians for not wanting to die like that? Especially when civilians have no arms/weapons.

Though shit. Each nation has the leaders they deserve.

[YUPPIE]

If you're not going to protest out of fear of being shot, or the like? That's where you're complicit with and supportive of that regime. Maybe out of fear rather than ideological preference, but you're still supporting them.

Like the other poster implied, it's easy to talk about these things when posters are not in on the action/out there. I mean, you don't even have to propagate the Russian torture conspiracies - just look at Myanmar right now. They torture every dissenter to the bone before killing them for proof of what happens when you oppose a tyrannical regime.

If I were in a regime like Putin's and unable to leave, I would just keep my head down for sure. Doesn't make me a shitty person or complicit in anything.

[Gabriel]

Like the other poster implied, it's easy to talk about these things when posters are not in on the action/out there. I mean, you don't even have to propagate the Russian torture conspiracies - just look at Myanmar right now. They torture every dissenter to the bone before killing them for proof of what happens when you oppose a tyrannical regime.

If I were in a regime like Putin's and unable to leave, I would just keep my head down for sure. Doesn't make me a shitty person or complicit in anything.

But it does. Life isn't fair. Sometimes you don't get to live long happy life AND be a good person.

[Endus]

Like the other poster implied, it's easy to talk about these things when posters are not in on the action/out there. I mean, you don't even have to propagate the Russian torture conspiracies - just look at Myanmar right now. They torture every dissenter to the bone before killing them for proof of what happens when you oppose a tyrannical regime.

If I were in a regime like Putin's and unable to leave, I would just keep my head down for sure. Doesn't make me a shitty person or complicit in anything.

This is why I used the Nazi Reich as a historical example. Because historians are all in pretty clear agreement that the average German citizen, the average member of the German military in that period, was just as much a Nazi as Goering or Goebbels or Eichmann. That is the banality of evil; that literally all it takes is "I was just following orders" or "I just went along with it". That's what evil is. You didn't have to be an SS captain or the head of a death camp to be an evil Nazi, the vast majority fit that bill, and were fully supportive of the Nazi Reich and everything it stood for.*

What you're saying is that you'd have been a Nazi, in Nazi Germany. And you want us to believe that doesn't make you a "shitty person". Do you not see how that logic does not remotely follow?

* The caveat I'll allow on this is that they did not carry personal responsibility for the actions of the worst of them, but they do share the systemic responsibility for the horrors committed on their behalf and with their support. That's a matter of how much liability they personally carry, legally speaking, however, not their moral character.

[YUPPIE]

This is why I used the Nazi Reich as a historical example. Because historians are all in pretty clear agreement that the average German citizen, the average member of the German military in that period, was just as much a Nazi as Goering or Goebbels or Eichmann. That is the banality of evil; that literally all it takes is "I was just following orders" or "I just went along with it". That's what evil is. You didn't have to be an SS captain or the head of a death camp to be an evil Nazi, the vast majority fit that bill, and were fully supportive of the Nazi Reich and everything it stood for.*

What you're saying is that you'd have been a Nazi, in Nazi Germany. And you want us to believe that doesn't make you a "shitty person". Do you not see how that logic does not remotely follow?

really don't in an authentic way, man. If you were protesting a dictator and some secret police force came by and tortured you for a day before letting you go with a warning, are you gonna protest again? Hypothetically speaking.

I don't think so.

THAT's why I just pin all the blame on Putin.

[Veggie50]

really don't in an authentic way, man. If you were protesting a dictator and some secret police force came by and tortured you for a day before letting you go with a warning, are you gonna protest again? Hypothetically speaking.

I don't think so.

THAT's why I just pin all the blame on Putin.

Yea… guess that’s why we see mass protests from the 300k russians that fled the draft, right?

[Endus]

really don't in an authentic way, man. If you were protesting a dictator and some secret police force came by and tortured you for a day before letting you go with a warning, are you gonna protest again? Hypothetically speaking.

I don't think so.

I sure wouldn't be stopping at protesting, at that point, I guess. If it comes down to supporting such a regime and its violent abuses, or opposing it, I'll take the latter.

The alternative is essentially saying that their torturing me was the right thing to do and I support them having done so. Which is obviously unreasonable.

THAT's why I just pin all the blame on Putin.

Literally no different than trying to blame the whole blame for the Nazi Reich on Hitler and not the millions of Germans who slavishly supported his regime.

Sometimes, it's okay to recognize that Nazi fucks were Nazi fucks.

[YUPPIE]

by the logic of you guys, Navalny is the ultimate badass despite being a pretty bad person.

Guy got poisoned, marched back into his country, has been tortured for some 1.5 years and is still going to oust Putin.