this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Ukraine escalated by violating the ceasefire. Russia escalated further by sending in troops. I didn't say it's "okay," but the blame isn't just on their side.
If Russia wanted to ensure the safety of the people of Donbas (which is a big if tbf), what should they have done differently, at any point leading up to the conflict? Because I'd like to condemn Russian escalation, but it's a little hard for me to do so if I don't have an answer to that question.
Which one(s)? There were so many from 2014 onwards that I lost track. I'm always skeptical anytime one side gets all the blame for violating a ceasefire.
If it really is about the people of Donbas and not annexing the land itself, they could have done what every country is supposed to do when the safety of people in a region is jeopardized – open their borders to refugees and asylum seekers. It would piss off Ukraine, but they could have just been like "Come across the border and we'll set you up with a Russian passport".
Minsk II was the one I was referring to, but it's a fair point.
Ok, let me rephrase that then. Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia, or should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country? Because I think that a lot of this mess could've be avoided if Ukraine had simply given them a referendum, but instead they banned opposition parties, which says to me that they knew how the people there would vote.
This is like saying that the US should've invaded Cuba when they started taking nationalizing property instead of doing what the other person said and accepting refugees and asylum seekers. There's always another way besides war and violence.
There isn't always another way besides violence. The German invasion of the USSR was a war of extermination. Laying down and dieing is not morally superior.
Fair enough. If you're defending yourself, then I suppose that's true. Which is incidentally another reason Ukraine has the right to defend themselves.
I don't think the US dumping tons of weapons is actually helping defend themselves, it just seems to be getting conscripts killed. If they had actually negotiated after that karkiv offensive maybe you could have made the case?
Well it's keeping them having some sovereignty over their own country instead of it falling in 3 days like everyone thought. Does Ukraine want to lose a bunch of their territory? That's the question and considering how hard they're fighting, it doesn't look like they do. If the average Ukrainian wants the ability to defend and keep their home, then I want that for them, too.
And war is unpredictable. Maybe Russia will lose the appetite for war soon, or maybe Ukraine will want to negotiate (but I'm sure they want to take what they can before then). Winter is coming.
It already has, and not in the way you think. In 2013 Ukraine had a president unwilling to take an IMF deal, and opted for the Russian one. The maidan coup happened and now they have a president who does whatever the money men want.
Even now there's a website up for openly privatizing Ukraine, and the ultimate outcome in a NATO victory explicitly is going to be the privatization of the breadbasket of Europe.
I mean, ya, the IMF sucks and further privatization of Europe is bad. But that doesn't mean you have to support Russia while they bomb and kill civilians or make fun of Ukrainian citizens for trying to defend their home and their lives.
The extent of "support" for Russia has been extremely critical on hexbear. You all just say that anyone not falling over themselves to slava ukraini is a Russia supporting Putin bot.
Not in any of the threads that hit the defederated servers at least. I've seen maybe two people from hexbear ever criticize Russia or mention something they did bad, while everyone else constantly shits on and memes on Ukraine and their defense effort. You guys say you do, but don't actually do it.
EDIT: I meant to say *federates severs.
Well you've been on lemmy for 3 months, and just started running into us in only the last month, meanwhile we've been chatting and having struggle sessions about this type of shit for years to various degrees. (especially since 22)
Ever since the illegal dissolution of the USSR, Russia has been a capitalist shithole, the treatment of LGBT people there sucks. They are what we made them, politically.
You construe a lack of support for Ukraine with 'shitting' on them. I want to see the US drop support for Ukraine because it would mean that people like you and I stop dying on a daily basis for lines on a map. There have been many chances for a negotiated end, and from where I'm sitting the US went out of its way to blow those opportunities.
The US did blow those opportunities because the people who own the US government profit wildly from this conflict. With no Afghanistan, they need another endless war to fill their wallets up with.
As always, death to america
No worries, they're getting the war with China all queued up as we speak.
Yeah good luck with that lmao
Please someone make it end lol
Have you considered that maybe that's because of the threads that you pay attention to? Step outside of the Ukraine war stuff if you want to actually test that hypothesis of yours.
If Russia was after lives they would be bombing the shit out of Ukrainian infrastructure. They currently hold the territories where the people who were being bombed by the Ukrainian government live.
They have been bombing tons of infrastructure. They've been hitting all over cities, hospitals, dams and reservoirs, etc. They're probably not going to bomb the places they currently control for obvious reasons but that doesn't mean they're not hitting places with civilians they don't currently control.
I mean they haven't. You should look at what the US did in Iraq for a comparison.
There are countless of well-documented examples of the American empire sponsoring terrorist attacks, sabotage and assassinations against Cuba. To this day the American empire upholds an illegal an unprovoked blockade of the island as well as occupying the land on which the Guantanamo naval base and torture black site is placed.
Before the revolution, America ran Cuba as a colony, leeching off the hard work of Cubans. If anything, the history of American relations with Cuba has been one of profound violence.
But okay, most of the times they made sure to put in a middle-man to do the actual dirty work which absolves them of all sin I guess.
That's basically what Russia was doing in Ukraine by propping up pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. But I guess it's fine when they do that, bendy they succeeeded, it's only bad when America does it, because they failed.
And are you saying you would've been fine if the US did a full-scale invasion of Cuba then, because they did all that other stuff? Otherwise, that was all unrelated and besides the point.
Oh! Well then we see eye-to-eye in that case. I think Western support to Ukraine should be limited to accepting refugees and providing humanitarian aid, not weapons. I think Ukraine should be open to ceding territory in negotiations in order to end the war and prevent further loss of life. There's always another way besides war and violence. I'm all about peace, glad we're in agreement.
They tried, using a proxy force of Cuban exiles.
Right, but they didn't full out invade, like Russia is doing. They definitely considered it, though lol. And it would've sucked for the people of Cuba if they did, just like it did for Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, or the populace of every other country that's ever been attacked.
Correct, they were repelled from the beaches by Socialists
I mean the US didn't. US-backed Cuban exiles did. There's a big difference. If US had attacked with it's full might, you guys would've been saying Cuba should surrender as much as Ukraine should right now, because there is no way they would have won. They would've been a smear of an island, probably closer to Haiti. They goodness Kennedy didn't listen to his warhawk generals on this point at least.
Putting American boots on the ground is not the only way that the United States brings death and destruction to a region to further (or protect, as some Amercan politicians call it) American, and more broadly western, hegemony (or American interests, as craven ghouls call it). The use of proxy forces like in Afghanistan during the 80s, coups like those carried out in Chile in 73 and, well really most of South America in the latter 20th century, sanctions against countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and the DPRK (which are explicitly put in place to make life worse for the people living there and produce people who would be willing to commit violent acts to overthrow the local government not adequately subordinate to the United States), facilitating the mass murder of people opposed to the pro-america regime or too supportive of communism like in Indonesia and South Korea several times, all bring massive loss of life and terrible suffering. The crimes against humanity carried out by the United States and on their behalf are so terrible and widespread that it is difficult to name a country that has not had blood spilled to advance American hegemony in it. Like Cuba.
At that though, the United States is no stranger to directly deploying troops to crush opposition to American hegemony. Like in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan again, and the RSFSR immediately after the revolution. War is terrible, but it is not out of the question to enforce American hegemony.
In Ukraine, the United States is not interested in preserving democracy or the self determination of the Ukranian people. It never has been in any of the countries or among any of the organizations that receive its support. The United States ultimately wants to have control over the Russian economy to use as a source of cheap labor and resources. That was the USSR and later Russia were denied, several times, entry into NATO, an ostensibly defensive alliance for the region that Russia is in, and the purpose of the rapid privatization of post-soviet economies after '91. Ukraine is caught in the terrible position of being used to advance the United States' goal in the region. Support for Ukraine will be dropped when the United States government believes that it is no longer useful or viable to support them against Russia, after who knows how many people are dead and permanently injured, and how many more whose entire lives have been destroyed.
Russia has fought through proxy forces and propaganda a ton as well. They were doing the same thing in Ukraine in Crimea and the Donbas regions and it's partially what led to this whole mess. Yes, America bad I would love for them to leave all those other countries alone. But that doesn't mean no one else can do evil in the world. Blame the people causing the dead and permanently injured, bombing out whole cities with civilians, not the ones giving Ukraine a chance to defend against it. The difference is the US was the aggressor in those other scenarios while in this one they are just helping out the defender. Yes it's to help their own interests, but the Ukrainians don't care, they just want someone to help them defend their land and home and families.
Of course. They just don't have a right to drag the rest of Ukraine into Russia at the same time. On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement on the grounds of "why should I care if a country's capitalist class loses some of its economic base?"
No, but if that's what was happening we could all then be criticizing a peacetime government for acting injustice upon segments of its population, instead of advocating for an end to a war. The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere? (Since there's pretty much at least one oppressed group in every country worldwide at least one other country could claim a right to "protect" them based on shared heritage or language.)
Just because Russia (might) have the military capability to do so when all these other countries might not doesn't mean they should.
I don't see how you can hold these two positions simultaneously. If part of a country wants to leave, and the government of that country says, "No, and we'll use force to stop you," and another country says, "Hey, seperatists, we'll support you," then where do you stand on all that? You're pro-seperatist while being anti-supporting seperatists? That doesn't make any sense, you could look at just about any successful seperatist movement and see that they recieved foreign backing from someone and that it was likely a crucial factor in winning, for example, French support in the American revolution. This foreign support is generally less motivated by altruism and more by the assisting nation's geopolitical goals, but it's all the same to the seperatists who need it to survive.
To me your stance is coming across as, you support the seperatists, but also they should've backed down immediately when Ukraine used force to avoid a war, but in that case it seems like you don't actually support the seperatists in practice.
They're about different things. One is an opinion about bottom-up, community activism and the principle of self-determination, and is a belief that exists independently of the material conditions and reality of global politics. France only supported the Americans in order to "get back" at England. They later regretted it when the Americans supported the French Revolution. When I say I support separatism, I am thinking specifically about how Lenin released all of the Russian Empire's colonial nations, regardless of how it might adversely impact the Soviet states' security prerogatives.
Like I said with France and the 13 colonies – no country is actually saying that or has ever said that. France didn't go "yeah, we love what you're trying to do 13 colonies and support your beliefs wholeheartedly", they went "oh cool, this will help us regain New France one day and really piss off our archrivals." Likewise, Russia, having lost Ukraine (and the Eastern Bloc), is trying to regain its lost glory, and it just so happens that they can exploit Donbas separatism in order to do so.
My understanding of the Donbas is that it was largely populated by Russians from the Russian SFSR during the era of open borders within the Soviet States, which also makes things different than Catalans, Kurds, and Scots, for example.
Saying "oh cool, this will help us regain New France one day and really piss off our archrivals" is still supporting them. That's my point, seperatists often rely on geopolitical rivals supporting them for ulterior motives. You can't really cleanly separate bottom-up political activism from opportunistic rivals with ulterior motives, because in practice the former will generally rely on the latter. Generally when you're fighting a civil war, you don't have the luxury of turning up your nose at offers of assistance for the sake of purity. So if your position is supporting seperatists movements except when they recieve foreign backing, you're not going to find yourself supporting many seperatists movements in practice, at least in cases where they have to fight.
If this was still like 2018, I'd be out there supporting the various brokered deals that included Russia at the table. Framing the current conflict as a civil war is inaccurate, as it lost the characteristics of a civil conflict when Russia attacked the rest of Ukraine in February 2022. What was a protracted, simmering war between a fraction of the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed Separatists on the fringes of the nation's territory, with a dynamic akin to plenty of regions around the world throughout the latter half of the 20th century and the start of the 21st.
I wouldn't say that's my position. I support separatism, but I also oppose war in most of its forms, since it means the destruction of people's livelihoods, and heritages, which of course cost many lives in the process too. People here often talk about ending the war in Ukraine as fast as possible because of the violence, so wouldn't the morally and ethically consistent viewpoint be to support what would prevent war too, not to argue for or justify foreign interventionism? No war but class war, you know?
Within the context of Ukraine, the DNR and LPR didn't have the relationship with Russia that, going back to the French and American Revolution example, the American colonists had with the French. American separatists didn't become subordinate to French military leadership or to French foreign policy goals. The newly-independent Americans didn't then ask to join the French Empire.
As an aside, France's support for the Americans failed them in their ambitions and led to the collapse of the Ancien Regime, which if we're to take it as indicative of the outcome and legacy of foreign-backed separatist conflicts, means that this isn't gonna be good for Russia long term.
Ok so what happens if a government says, "No you can't secede and I don't care how many of you want to?" Nations aren't generally keen on giving up territory, especially in cases where the relationship is exploitative. Renouncing force means renouncing the threat of force, which can often leave very little leverage for a seperatist movement to work with.
Personally though, I'm inclined to agree somewhat with your point that seperatism isn't always worth the conflict, and for that reason I wouldn't necessarily agree with the stance of being predisposed to support seperatist movements. Imo, it's better to take a pragmatic view, evaluating the specific conditions on a case by case basis.
I would argue that if Russia withdrew and the seperatist movements surrendered, there would still be a conflict between the Russian speaking population and the Ukrainian government. I suppose it'd be possible for Russia to offer citizenship and relocation assistance to everyone, but it would mean displacing a lot of people and I'm not sure it's realistic. Do you have examples of historical precedent in a comperable situation?
I don't think it's unreasonable that the DNR and LPR would want to join Russia for legitimate security reasons at this point. If you want to label them as Russian proxies and Ukraine as a US proxy, I don't mind, but I think the reality is that while both are influenced by foreign governments, they also both represent some degree of genuine support.
I don't think you can extrapolate like that from a single data point under pretty different conditions.
This is what happens with every seperatist movement pretty much though, and yet i dont see many calls for arms and civil war Cascadia, Scotland, Catalonia these days. The people there know it would mean the destruction of everything they hold dear.
I mean, I don't think there's any way of getting around displacing people - if it joined Russia I'm sure there are people who'd want to leave for Ukraine, and of course we're already talking about the reverse.
I can't think of specific examples but there's definitely been examples of mass migration or offering of citizenship due to "political solutions" meant to avoid conflict and reduce the spectre of war. Just off the cuff though, I can think of how people of Northern Ireland are able to hold Irish passports, or the numerous migrations that happened in the 20th century when borders were changed or imposes as parts of treaties (the part of Germany that is now Poland, the Muslim/Hindu migrations between Pakistan and India during partitioning, etc)
These aren't good or something I'm arguing for, but I believe that it was preferable to all out war.
Me too, that's why I said it at the end as an aside, it was more of a glib comment than an actual thesis.
I'm perfectly fine with a negotiated settlement. Ideally, the areas where more people want to stay in Ukraine should stay with Ukraine and the areas where more people want to join Russia should join Russia. That would minimize the amount of displacement while allowing people to live under the government of their choice. My real issue is that Ukraine won't negotiate at all, even on Crimea, and I just think that's unreasonable.
This was the biggest example that came to my mind and it's not exactly comparable but it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of relocation.
For the same reason that every country tells its own seperatist movements "no". I believe that Russia should've waited things out because its the open state of war that gives Ukraine enough diplomatic cover to push to its pre-2014 borders. Had it done so I think given another decade or two, Ukraine would have to accept reality and cede it formally in exchange for concessions of some sort (again, thinking of historical precedent).
While I've been describing and explaining sovereignty as a concept I do believe it presents inherent flaws indicative of its origins with European royals and its having been imposed across the world.
Of course not, but a war with shifting frontlines (since I was suggesting it as an alternative to invasion) would be inherently more destructive. (Although forced relocation can be committed as a war crime too).
That's kind of a fair point I think but I don't think the Donbas would ever be able to join Russia in this timeline. Without Russian intervention, the separatists likely lose and the years that follow establish precedent for Russia control of Crimea but also for Ukrainian control over Donbas. I think it's a valid, if cynical, argument to say that Russia should've cashed out with Crimea instead of going all in to try to take Donbas, but it means leaving the separatist out to dry. I do kind of agree with it though, I guess it comes down to what happens to the separatists if Ukraine wins, and I've seen people say they'd be genocided but I don't really buy that, seems speculative and like propaganda.
Valid, but cynical arguments make up a lot of foreign policy takes :/. Part of why I speak how I do is because I want to live in a world that one day won't be ruled by realpolitik and for people to matter when it comes to the foreign policies of nationstates.
I'm inclined to agree.
They did do that. My coworkers aunt was finally granted Russian citizenship and was ecstatic. They granted citizenship to a number of refugees in the war.