Once again, "NATO bad". Because decades of Putler strong-arming/invading other countries, funding political opponents/rebels and conducting assassinations of people who opposed him didn't give enough idea how Russia operates. They toootaaaallyyyy needed so much baiting from the West to invade Ukraine.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
I mean, it's obvious. Secret US intelligence knew that Putin was such a fragile little bitch boy that calling out his Show of Strength as a transparent bluff would -obviously- cause him to petulantly act out and go through with the invasion because he didn't wanna look like a pussy in front of all of his cronies.
Really it's our (The US's) fault for not realizing that every Fascist fuckhead is the exact same kind of thin skinned petty loser that will start fights over perceived slights to their macho 'alpha male' ego.
(/s)
- - - Updated - - -
Also the fuck you mean 'The US baited Russia into that'? Putin being a pissbaby isn't our goddamn problem.
If he was so scared about his neighbors moving into the arms of Western powers, he'd have done more to cultivate a working, diplomatic relationship with them rather than keep up the USSR tradition of making everyone who has to deal with you fucking miserable.
The thread has been warned several times not to derail discussion by trying to find excuses for genocidal mass-rapists. Cease and desist.
Flarelane, I think you meant to post this in this thread.
I can understand the confusion.
Rather it's a warning the both of them could use. This thread definitely has an issue with certain people having a hard time recognising that moving where a border is through force is a bad thing, and so is the assorted war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed.
The distinction is whether the people in question think that the war is caused by a megalomaniacal Russian dictator attempting a bald-faced land grab and making up petty excuses as to why… or that some nebulous shadow cabal pan-global military alliance secretly duped an otherwise loving and beneficent innocent Russia into planning out and executing a multi-phase land invasion of a neighboring country.
Because the former is what happened, and the latter is one of the aforementioned “petty excuses,” believed and parroted by only the blindingly ignorant or maliciously disingenuous.
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.
Lemme see if I can approximate an answer… Clearly it’s because Ukraine wanted to join NATO! Which scared Russia! And they wouldn’t have invaded if Ukraine hadn’t wanted to join NATO!
Now one might ask the obvious question of “if Russia wasn’t going to invade why did Ukraine think it needed to join NATO?”
To which one would have to answer, obviously, with… Shut up!
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.
And bingo was his name-o
Let's see if you actually leave, or if you just keep returning.
Fuck off with this bullshit. Russia is in control of it's own actions. Putin wants to restore the old U.S.S.R. before he croaks, that's all this is about. Not the West, not Nato, not Nazis, not any number of bullshit reasons Russia gives. This is all about retaking the old territory. If Putin got away with it in Ukraine, he would be going after Moldova, or Estonia, or Lithuania by now.
Stop trying to excuse away Russia's unjustified aggression.
Princesses can kill knights to rescue dragons.
I think some people's world view is basically (at least among Swedish left - which is not "liberals" btw):
"America is always evil in one way or another. It's important to always stand against them. Find the reason why they are evil in a given circumstance."
Instead of looking at what the reality is and what has happened. It's always America's fault in some way in their view.
I wouldn't call it contrarianism - but swallowing the propaganda-lies that you tell others so much that you start believing them yourself.
And that is even worse when people get to positions of power. (Which ties more closely to Russia's invasion of Ukraine - how much of the stupid propaganda do they believe themselves?)
Some mad lad videoed themselves setting fire to a $50 million su-34 at an airfield east of the Urals, about a thousand miles from Ukraine. No vision of the aftermath because you'd really want to leg it after starting the fire but it will have done some damage.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=6ffc93483d6e
Rumours are that Valeri Gerasimov himself would have died in Ukrainian strike to military targets in Sevastopol, Crimea.
https://www.newsweek.com/valery-gera...rumors-1858042
Rumors are circulating that Russia's top general, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, was killed in an attack on annexed Crimea by Ukrainian forces on Thursday.The unverified rumor of Gerasimov's death appears to have begun circulating after X (formerly Twitter) user WarVehicleTracker, which tracks vehicles and losses in Ukraine, shared an image purporting to show a message published by a Russian Telegram channel called "Ordinary Tsarism," which has more than 34,000 subscribers.
"Gerasimov died?" wrote WarVehicleTracker.
The message in the image read: "According to preliminary data, Valrey Gerasimov, who was in a command post near Sevastopol at the time of the attack, was killed in the attack on Crimea."
WarVehicleTracker's post has been viewed more than 60,000 times at the time of writing, and prompted hundreds of social media users to question whether Gerasimov had been killed in Crimea.As finnish news sites put it, it is far too good to be true that even Ukraine doesn't believe that they would have succeeded in eliminating someone of such rank as Gerasimov...But hey, always positive that orks in Crimea get some dakkaA Newsweek search found that the message purportedly published by the "Ordinary Tsarism" channel didn't exist at the time of writing. It isn't clear if the message was deleted, or if it was fabricated by social media users. Newsweek has emailed the author behind the channel for further clarification.
The X user WarVehicleTracker told Newsweek they first saw the image and message on social platform Discord.
Questions asked by X users as rumors swirled include: "Is Gerasimov dead?"; "What happened to Gerasimov?"; "Did they off Gerasimov?"; "Gerasimov died?"; "Did Ukraine really kill Gerasimov?"; and "Gerasimov, where are you?".
"Until Russia proves that Gerasimov is alive, we should just assume he is dead," one X user wrote.
Another added: "Not holding my breath but if Gerasimov got iced in the Crimea swarm, that would be... eventful."
Gerasimov's Wikipedia page was also temporarily edited to state that he had died on January 4, the day of the Crimea attack.
There is no concrete evidence to suggest that Gerasimov has been killed, nor is there evidence that Gerasimov was in Crimea at the time of the attack. The Kremlin hasn't commented on the rumors, and Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.
The New York Times reported in December 2022 that Ukrainian authorities attempted to assassinate Gerasimov as he visited the front lines in Ukraine.
I mean, hasn't he been believed to be killed before? Could be wrong on that one, but I seem to remember it was him.