Red vs Brown Fur edition
TO WATCH FOR NEWS:
https://liveuamap.com/Live updates from Texan commie boomer in Donbass:
https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBentleyTexacFor Russiabros, analysis from Boris Rozhin:
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/ (has a telegram, lots of cool stuff there too)
QRD
"Modern Ukraine was completely created by Russia," Putin says in speech to the nation“
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1495832687227068422Putin: "We are ready to show you what true de-Communization means to Ukraine."“
https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1495833069676335104“PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE'S ADMISSION TO NATO IS A DIRECT THREAT TO RUSSIA'S SECURITY || NATO TRAINING CENTRES ESTABLISHED IN UKRAINE AMOUNT TO NATO MILITARY BASES“
https://twitter.com/FirstSquawk/status/1495840775082737664Putin says Ukraine is a "U.S. colony" with a "puppet regime"
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1495840971208429568“Russia claims Ukraine invaded Russia and says 5 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two APCs destroyed near Rostov.
https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1495745864320831492Putin, in televised address on Ukraine crisis, talks about a "nationalistic virus" says 1991 collapse of Soviet Union saw Russia robbed
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1495834881028411393“Putin: "Why did we have to transfer the rights to the territories that had been part of the Russian Empire?"“
https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1495832267687669763PUTIN SPEECH WAS PRERECORDED:
https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1495775697121517570Russia & Syria officially recognize LNR and DPR
https://mobile.twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1495845600834822147Syria recognizing LNR/DPR
https://twitter.com/the_ragex/status/1495847706555781123Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua likely to recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk republics shortly
https://twitter.com/the_ragex/status/1495850619487371265Putin Calls For Ukraine To Break Apart
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russian-president-putin-ukraine-break-apart_n_6213d491e4b0ef74d724b3a0"President Biden will soon issue an Executive Order that will prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine," Jen Psaki says following recognition by Putin of regions as "independent."
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1495858379243282434
>EU leadership @vonderleyen & @eucopresident say that bloc will react with sanctions "against those involved in this illegal act" of recognising Donetsk and Luhansk. >Suggests individual, targeted sanctions: not the big ol' war package that everyone has been talking up for weeks.https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1495853591764082700Communist Party of Russia has just endorsed Putin's call to recognise the DNR and LNR.
Zyuganov: "Look how zealous the Americans and British are now. They forced Ukraine to send almost all its troops to the Donetsk-Luhansk region. More than 100k in a patch of 40-50km."
https://twitter.com/pawelwargan/status/1495857447973572610For years Ukraine has demanded decommunization, but now that they will have
REAL DECOMMUNIZATION "Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began immediately after the revolution of 1917… "As a result of Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine arose, which even today can with good reason be called 'Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's Ukraine'. He is its author and architect. This is fully confirmed by archive documents… And now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call decommunization. Do you want decommunization? Well, that suits us just fine. But it is unnecessary, as they say, to stop halfway. We are ready to show you what real decommunization means for Ukraine."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tj7gQbJ5uM>>520908Tired: Lenin was a communist
Wired: Lenin was a German agent
Inspried: Lenin was "Ukrainian"
>>520912Somebody should tell him sharts are immune to irony.
Also, according to CNN, the US says Russian forces are less than 20 miles from Kiev.
>>520924>>520925OH NO NO NO ACE COMBAT BROS
Literally the last remaining fighter in their air force after one defected with a full unfired missile load and the rest ate shit on the tarmac.
>>520933Retards who let themselves into this.
The milklady at its finest
>>520945How? What wastage? What influence?
No, seriously, what did NATO lose here? A bunch of promises to a group of people they never intended to keep? Russia is fighting just to keep the status quo while NATO gets to just watch Ukranian civilians get murdered holding guns they're being pushed into using.
>>520931>>520924A Russian aircraft has been shot down over the Darnytskyi region of Kiev by Ukrainian Air Defence Forces, according to a source inside the Ukrainian Interior Ministry.
CNN reports that Kiev has been targeted by missile fire.
Anton Gerashckenko, advisor to the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, told reporters in a text message: "Strikes on Kyiv with cruise or ballistic missiles continued."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1571661/ukraine-kiev-explosions-russia-attack-aircraft-ont >>520951if we're looking at the material forces then the vast majority of what NATO spent on this was a few thousand handheld AT missile launchers, while Russia is being forced to lose tanks, jets, men, and, vitally,
intelligence on what NATO has that works and what doesn't.
>>520958>Not wanting capitalist war A means you secretly want hypothetical capitalist war B, C, D through Z to happenREAD UYGHUR READ.
YOU WOULD LITERALLY BE CALLING THE BOLSHEVIKS GERMAN AGENTS. AND ROSA A JUDEO-BOLSHEVIK
>>520974Ukraine wasn't part of NATO in the first place though. They had the option to join up dangled in front of them knowing full well that it was going to fuck them over. And then got rugpulled at the last second.
This is all being done because NATO and especially the US is a decaying husk desperately trying to do anything to buy a few more hours. For what, I don't know.
>>520961Putin is going to take over the whole world :O
He is literally Hitler/Napoleon/Genghis/Alexander the Great 2.0 He has gone mad with power and nobody can predict what his next move will be
>>520966They've already lost air superiority the fuck are you talking about?
Crimean Canal finally flowing with water after 8 years upon Russian takeover, which was essential for Crimean agriculture industry
https://twitter.com/akarlin0/status/1496872217610960896https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_CanalBefore and after being the peninsula being dried out:
https://twitter.com/shanggyangg/status/1496872346401001479>>520966Dude, you can't just crack open the armories and give randoms guns as a military doctrine. You have to prepare for that shit well in advance and build your military around it like Yugoslavia. All this retardation about him calling veterans back, telling random gopniks to go and grab guns to die in the service of the motherland, it's pure desperation and frankly embarrassing.
Nobody's going to want to die for his shitty government.
>>520980>the invasion beyond donbas was stupidI don't. I think its extremely aggressive but it makes sense. The consequences(NS2 and sanctions) for securing Donetsk city, which would require pushing Azov out of the oblast, including Mariupol, are the same as taking Kiev. I think putting in the peacekeepers was a test, and to try to force Ukraine to implement Minsk or fire on Russian troops, and they chose to fire. He either doesn't have control of his forces or he intentionally ordered troops to fire on uniformed and declared Russians.
Zelensky is being instructed by NATO not to surrender to cause more casualties, or he is being personally threatened by the military. Western media is also giving the impression that there is still a chance, in order to sacrifice as many people as possible for long term ethnic tension.
I think Russia tried to do a media campaign with their shock and awe liberation campaign to get a 'bloodless coup' and it worked for a few hours but the media pushback is making people not surrender.
>>521016>Dude, you can't just crack open the armories and give randoms guns as a military doctrineNot that Aussie anon, but I'm pretty sure the Red Army and the Black Army may disagree with you on that end, especially when you consider both BTFO of the white army.
This isn't to say I hope for the victory of the Ukranian government either, but there is a chance this can get out of control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iiXiq39sELivestream of Kiev
Anybody else hear choppers and shit in the distance or is that just trucks?
>>520966>If Zelensky chooses not to concede, this could end up being really embarrassing for Putin and the UR if they are forced to force a victory with pure numbers.The Ukranian military has lost their position in the air and on the sea, their infrastructure has been destroyed and there are Russian troops occupying Kiev. I doubt the Ukranian GOVERNMENT could make a comeback at this point.
>Potential for Anti-Putinist activity by non-controlled op commies.Maybe later down the line, but outside of a few anarchist cells and fledgling communist parties, I doubt they'll have any influence or meaningful resistance as of now.
>>521026Pushing back the front lines would be real war and I'm not a military person so I wouldn't know the possibility of doing only that. But this full invasion could end in a very messy fashion and obviously will have terrible diplomatic consequences, as in Finland joining NATO and harsh sanctions. Maybe occupation for a couple weeks.
>>521034anon that is called blackface, it is extremely weird and creepy, something /pol/ would do, please don't do it.
>>521053This is SOOOO much worse that Nordstrom.
But yes I do agree that US's deterrence strategy was just insanely bad and had the effect of encouraging more aggression.
>Police warns Ukrainians to destroy homing devices for missilesbruh
I keep hearing sounds on the livestream that could easily be generic noise pollution, like tires off asphalt or trucks gunning their brakes, but given that the city square is dead as fuck I can only surmise I'm hearing the Battle of Kiev.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iiXiq39sE >>521026>>521050The "fog of war" makes it difficult to tell what's going on. One minute you could hear the Ukrainian army is collapsing and the next minute they clobber the VDV at the airport. Or one minute you could hear the Ukrainian army is repulsing the Russian army while everything is actually collapsing around them. Add in tons of misinformation and disinformation and that there are few "neutral parties" to the conflict then it's very difficult to tell what's going on.
I think it's an extraordinarily risky move, in any case. The invasion makes perfect sense if you assume that Ukrainian troops will stop fighting once Zelensky is gone, the puppet regime orders them to stand down, and it becomes clear that they're cut off. I mean, we basically watched the Afghan forces melt away last year when the U.S. left and they found out that the Afghan president had already fled (with a big pot of cash). If you think Euromaidan was U.S.-instigated and the Zelensky administration is propped up only by foreign interference, then you might think Ukrainians would act as Afghans did, and go into accommodation/acceptance mode instead of keeping fighting. But there's a difference between "corrupt regime backed by foreign power gets replaced by fundamentalist warlords" and "losing our sovereignty to an invader."
>>521084If the nationalist stuff is true, I feel like they'll keep fighting. There will definitely be insurgency
>>521089and then we all die
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/why-biden-didnt-negotiate-seriously?utm_source=urlReminder to read this article about the failure of Western diplomacy. I don't know that I agree, but it's interesting.
TL;DR:
>The West overcompensated for its appeasement of Hitler by refusing to negotiate with Russia whatsoever, counterintuitively pushing Russia closer to war than preventing it like they supposedly thought it would. (Personal opinion: maybe they thought their politicians would get roasted for being "soft on Russia.")>Certain people (the press?) lack cognitive empathy for Russia—how it views NATO expansionism—and instead rationalizes Russia's behavior by portraying Putin as an inscrutable, diabolical madman. >>521114No, the war part will take weeks imo. They will take Kiev pretty quickly but the rest of the country will do guerilla shit
>>521118yes
>>521114Kiev
soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iiXiq39sEJust jet sounds with some explosions so far, but evidently we have tank forces closing in.
>>521123Sounds believable, but I think the nationalists/nazis are hardcore. They also have tons of javelins, IEDs etc.
>>521126In rhetoric, I agree. The article is pretty interesting though about how we got here. But Putler is supervillain for life now, we burgoids will never stop hearing about him
>>520987Why should we critically support this though? to own fukuyama by showing him that "yes history is not over yet, can't you see? we still have Russia performing military actions along with the entire rest of the world so clearly the established liberal powers are going to collapse any minute now". Is this how desperate we have to be to prove old fukuyama wrong?
What do we even think the response is going to be from most Eastern European countries and NATO after this? Knowing what little I know from Eastern Europe, it will probably be outrage, increased russophobia (this is already a given in most places) and probably more countries turning towards NATO.
everything about this just reeks of "it's basically US imperialism like the US does but we're sure glad it's not the US this time around"
>>521124Both of them. Both have done horrific things to Russians and Ukranians alike.
Putin at least had an element of critical support from me when he decided to defend the LPR and DPR, but him using them as a launching pad to invade Ukraine and displace hundreds of Ukranian citizens doesn't help anyone and only furthers Russian hegemony and a war in which the Oligarchs of Russia, the Ukraine and the USA will benefit.
At least Putins invasion has shown that NATO's a paper tiger, and the Azov battalion can fuck off, but his invasion of Ukraine has come at the cost of Ukranian people being displaced from their homes, and I'd hardly say his motivations are benign.
I'll say it once, I'll say it again. The only people you should be showing solidarity are the Ukranian people, The LPR and the DPR.
>>521159Chechnya fell because of infighting and they bribe the shit out of the current warlord/"governor", who rules in an Islamist manner no other province would ever get away with.
I don't think they can do that kind of rapprochement with Ukrainian nationalists which define themselves as anti-Russia (rather than anti-Christian or anti-modernity) to a far greater degree.
>>521098Interesting article, thanks. Though now I'm behind on the inane drivel of the thread.
Thought this was particularly amusing:
>Not everyone would see the Ukraine crisis as a perplexing product of Putin’s eccentricities. Consider the current CIA director, William Burns. Back in 2008, the year George W. Bush fatefully badgered reluctant European leaders into pledging future NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns sent a memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that included this warning:
<Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
>Burns added that it was “hard to overstate the strategic consequences” of offering Ukraine NATO membership—a move that, he predicted, would “create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”
>So Burns predicted 12 years ago that pretty much the entire Russian national security establishment would be inclined to make trouble in Ukraine if we offered NATO membership to Ukraine—yet now that we’ve promised NATO membership to Ukraine and Putin is indeed making trouble in Ukraine, people like McFaul and Nichols say the explanation must lie somewhere in the murky depths of Putin’s peculiar psychology. >>521168Then you may as well give up on a good chunk of the worlds population. If you don't guide them and show them a better world is possible, a /pol/yp likely will.
Beggars can't be choosers anon.
>>521181I noticed that as well.
The American education system does more brain damage than eating lead paint, and most Americans do both.
>>521190Well now is a good time to show them the error of their ways as this anon said
>>521189 if not us then reactionaries.
>>521189based
780055 will never be a revolutionary
>>521190>implying the acts of the ukranian government represent the whole of the Ukranian people and thus they must bare the punishment for their governments fuck ups. So what, the civillians of Japan DESERVED two atom bombs dropped on them?
>>521195>By my estimation, less than 9% of the world population is really worth any sympathy.Then you'll never amount to anything. God save you if you actually do.
>>521197Zelensky has tripped into a vortex and found himself in one of his own comedy skits
If he’s not shitting his pants 24/7 I wonder how this nigha must feel knowing he is a bumbling comedian who failed upwards into being the head of state during a civil war, now is the head of state during a massive invasion, his military folded in days after he said Ukraine would stand strong and beat everyone, then he declared he would courageously stay in the capital with the people and now he can’t be evacuated anymore
From Zelenksy’s perspective this is like one of his own fucking satires, think he feels like he’s in a waking dream almost?
>>521209Шо, опять?
Чувак, мне поебать, вправду.
>>521205Damn you just reminded me that other Jeffrey Epstein associate just Epstein'd himself in prison.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/jeffrey-epstein-associate-jean-luc-brunel-found-dead/story?id=83001807It completely slipped my mind. I wanted to shows someone else. Thanks anon.
>>521188You can sell a limited advance on the Donbass front to the world as being necessary to protect civilians in the area, you can sell a buffer zone, you can't convince anyone of your good intentions when you're striking Kiev and advancing from Belarus and hundreds are dead already.
Should've stopped with recognition and peacekeepers, would have way more sympathy.
>>521209Donbass is independent from Ukraine and asked Russia for help
Russia can't invade someplace where they were asked to come
>>521208>So what, the civillians of Japan DESERVED two atom bombs dropped on them? Not surprising you cry about muh hiroshima and nagasaki. Hey, I don't even hate the Japanese Empire entirely but even I'm not that dumb. Those bombs prevented more casualties, simple.
>Then you'll never amount to anything. God save you if you actually do.You should try being less naive. Life isn't about how nice you are.
>>521211>From Zelenksy’s perspective this is like one of his own fucking satires, think he feels like he’s in a waking dream almost?The whole scene where he keeps asking for help publicly to groups with increasing visibly desperation only to have them turn their backs on him in response is comody kino
THOUGH.
>>521221The edge
Mate in life you have to show some humanity or compassion or you end up being a social pariah
If you don't have some empathy people will naturally be repulsed and won't accept you
>>521195>>521202>>5212289% of 8 billion: 720,000,000
Europe population: 748,385,739
🤔
>>521221>Those bombs prevented more casualties, simple.The bombs were dropped because the Japanese wanted to surrender to the USSR, not the USA. "Preventing more casualities" lead to death of thousands of innocent people who were killed for the actions that they themselves didn't commit.
>You should try being less naive. Life isn't about how nice you are.<calls me naive while being a misanthrope devoid of sympathy or empathy. In order for a revolution to succeed, it has to be majoritan. This is edgelord insurrectionist shit that I'd hear from a 13 year old maoist or an edge lord anarcho-individualist. If you don't plan to educate the masses and show them better, to actually allow people to grow and develop and learn from their mistakes and lead them down a better path, then you will fail as a revolutionary.
Good time to remind everyone that East Germany and the USSR in its de-nazification actually allowed Germans, nazi defectors and soldiers who despised hitler and his crimes into their ranks. These men would later provide military aid to African communist freedom fighters during the cold war >>521251Legalism and confucianism
Qin shi huang died and his empire collapsed while the Han survived
I will leave it to you to figure out why I typed this
>>521256MUH SAD PANDA!
PUTIN NO!
SPARE THE CRUISE MISSILE STRIKES!
>>521212my sides
>>521218they will be better western allies than a democratic government
>>521267I'm not the misanthrope and I'm supporting your pov by showing that the legalists didn't appeal to the people to better them and their empire collapsed
While the Han appealed to the people to better them through confucianism and they survived
;/
>>521231No, I'm saying you'll never be a revolutionary, you'll never succeed in your revolution, and you'll be a footnote on the history books- a sad little LARPER from an anonymous bunker building forum.
And even if you don't do any of these things, then you'll still prove my point of amounting to nothing, because you not only didn't bother to try, you outright refused to.
>Tfw you produce and star in a political satire about some dipshit that becomes the president of Ukraine based on a random political rant about corruption that went viral, then actually do become the president of Ukraine based on a satire about Ukrainian corruption that went viral
>Tfw now you are a bumbling comedian turned president of an entire country of tens of millions of people that is embroiled in a civil war and is a chess piece in a game between Russia and America
>Tfw run around begging NATO for cash and funding, then arrogantly bluff to Russia that NATO has your back and you will probably join, sorta like your character in the show
>Tfw then Russia launches a full scale invasion while the civil war is still ongoing so you have to run around begging NATO for help, only for them to turn their backs, won’t even kick Russia out of SWIFT, also sort of like the show
>Tfw decide to save face and say the Ukrainian army will win because….because they are Ukrainian, they fold in a few days, Washington predicts Russia will win by the end of the week
>Tfw decide to stay in the capital of your country to look brave, now the invasion of the capital is about to begin, your family is already targeted by assassins, and you probably can’t be evacuated anymore
>Tfw you were just a comedian less than a decade ago
<Mfw invasion started on Chris Chan’s birthday
The merge literally turned Zelensky into his character from servant of the people
Tf is this timeline
If I was Volodymyr I’d be dropping ecstasy by now nigha
>>521248cringe
>>521264based
>>521280He's the Atlantic Council guy too
Jesus these guys are pathetic.
>>521293That explains why he wants the rivers of Ukraine to run red with Russian blood
typical lolifag butthurt about his media going away
https://southfront.org/russian-advance-in-ukraine-and-its-brief-analysis-by-igor-strelkov/Was posted before, but this has an interesting analysis.
>Probably the bloodiest fighting and casualties rate is currently coming from the Donetsk theater, as the enemy is defending the deeply echelonized fortified zone, along with its most combat-ready and experienced units.>Tomorrow, the fighting will continue with the following main objective: to prevent the enemy’s withdrawal and relocate his units westward.(obviously meaning today)
Seems the Ukrops, like most anons and everybody other than the cry-wolf US intelligence, expected them to just reinforce the republics, and the Ukrainians have their heaviest hitters still in the east, with the Russians mostly just pinning them down.
I bet that's why the Chechens are being sent in, they're going to slaughter the Azovites like pigs.
The official statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/25/pers-f25.htmlI'm usually not a huge fan of the WSWS (they're quite contrarian and sectarian), but their statement here is very accurate and thoughtful. It's one of the best I've seen so far from a socialist organization about the conflict.
>>521303>To be specific, you're projecting your fantasies of being a revolutionary and part of history on to me. I couldn't care less if I'm in the history books or not. You typed all that out because of your own insecurities or something.So you're basically admitting that you're an edgelord who'll never amount to nothing. I don't subscribe to greatman theory, anon. I'll probably be a footnote too, if I'm ever. I don't delude myself into thinking this board will lead the revolution, online spaces can't and don't. But I take pride that at I'm nothing nothing like you, that I'll never be anything like you, because insignificant as my actions may be on an international scale, insignficiant as my being may be on even a regional one, I can at least die knowing I've made a difference in people's lives and helped others. That's something. I don't need to flex and give examples, because the movement isn't about me, it's about the people advancing in the face of great odds. If I'm to be a barely seen cog in a greater machine, that doesn't bother me. So long as that machine marches ever forward. And you wanna know the best thing about it, if the anons who are responding to you are calling you an edgelord git who won't amount to nothing, then I know that I walk amongst men with principles, not tiny gnats like you.
Again, unless you actually unfuck your shit, you won't amount to anything. God save you.
Ukrainian Culture Minister who's staying in Kyiv:
>They will never take Kyiv.>>521339>get woke-scolded for "all-lives mattering" i have cancer now
>>521351 (me)
Drafting and introducing are different things I'm retarded. It stands yo reason that this will be passed though.
>>521377SEKRET ZOMBONI OUTBREAK
the war is just a cover guise
>>521375>>521365all makes sense in the light of
>>521380 tbh.
It's to destroy the infected zomb*ids.
>>521389Just seems awful convenient that it's about 6am for you guys and you have this neatly packaged story from a UK newspaper sourced by a UK intel agency.
How was the commute?
>>521329Absolutely nobody is remotely surprised retarded fucking trots would say this.
WSWS glows ultraviolet
>>521382Probably the case.
Remember at the start of COVID when they were freaking out about how many bodies China was burning, even taking janky air quality readings from a field outside of Wuhan to try and construct a narrative that they set up a body burning facility?
…And then when Italy openly admitted to being at max capacity for cremating bodies nobody noticed, much less raised a fuss about it.
>>521407The people of Donbass shouldn't be abandoned to a regime full of oligarchs based around banning their language and holding a coup every time their guy wins an election. Abandoning them at this point probably means an Azov-led bloodbath anyway, they've been more than happy to kill civilians the last eight years of war.
There is, however, a middle ground between doing that and seizing cities nowhere near Donbass while denouncing Ukraine's existence as a Soviet plot.
>>521414Trots just have to contrary Marxist Leninist positions. Note how it is the total opposite of the PSL's position.
>PSL Statement on Russian military intervention in Ukraine>The Russian military operation in Ukraine highlights that the world has reached a dangerous fork in the road. It is critically important for people in the United States, who are receiving the bulk of their information from the capitalist media that functions as an echo chamber for the U.S. government, to know that the current crisis is the byproduct of a long effort by the United States to establish absolute domination throughout Europe. The U.S. policy is aimed at undermining Russia’s security by surrounding it with advanced missiles that can reach their Russian targets in less than 10 minutes. >For the last three months, the Russian government simultaneously called for negotiations about their security concerns while at the same time amassing troops at the Russia-Ukraine border and at the border of Ukraine and Belarus. Putin announced that Russia would militarily intervene in Ukraine after the United States and NATO rejected their fundamental demands that Ukraine not be incorporated into NATO and that Ukraine, which shares a 1,200-mile border with Russia, not be used as a staging ground for advanced missiles that target Russia. >In essence, Putin and Russia were demanding that Ukraine be a neutral country and never a member of NATO. It was precisely through the territory of Ukraine that Russia was subjected to the Nazi invasion of World War Two and earlier invasions by Western powers. In World War Two, when Ukraine and Russia were one country (the Soviet Union), more than 27 million people died resisting the Nazi invasion of their homelands. >At this critical moment, it is imperative that the U.S. government change its reckless, provocative stance of encircling Russia and relentlessly expanding NATO eastward. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has attempted to incorporate almost every former Soviet/Russian European ally into NATO, which is an offensive military alliance. >After having all of its demands rejected by the United States and NATO, the Russian government decided to invade Ukraine. As of this moment, major military operations are underway. The Russian government said it will not occupy Ukraine but that it intends to carry out the “demilitarization” and “de-Nazification” of the country. It is unclear what these terms actually mean. In some segments of the Ukrainian state – particularly the police and military – there is considerable Nazi influence. In the political life of Ukraine, the power of fascist groups has waned considerably in recent years and they do not exercise decisive influence inside of the administration of President Zelenskyy. >The United States and European powers have vowed to impose a total sanctions regime on Russia, cutting the country off from the world economy and targeting its most vital industries. An initial volley of sanctions was announced by Biden today. These target some of the largest banks and corporations in Russia and are especially aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to access foreign currency and high tech markets. A series of sanctions have already been imposed since 2014, with Russia’s incorporation of Crimea after the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev. More measures are likely to follow. Taken together, the events of the last two days constitute a profound and historic rupture in the existing geopolitical order and will have cascading consequences for years to come.>A preventable tragedy >The deadly fighting currently raging across Ukraine is a tragedy. In any war, the working class of the nations involved are the ones to bear the brunt of the hardship and suffering. From 1922 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union the peoples of Ukraine and Russia lived in peace. They were partners in a socialist planned economy and together they defeated the fascist, Nazi invasion of 1941 at the cost of 27 million Soviet lives. The bourgeois-led counter-revolution that dissolved the Soviet Union separated the peoples and republics. This animus and hostility that followed was the predictable outcome of the end of socialism and the beginning of capitalist competition. >While we do not support the Russian invasion, we reserve our strongest condemnation for the U.S. government, which rejected Russia’s legitimate security concerns in the region, with total intransigence that they knew could provoke such a war. This is the consequence of decades of U.S.-NATO bullying and humiliating Russia. The Party for Socialism and Liberation demands that the U.S. government and its allies in the imperialist NATO military alliance immediately cease their provocative behavior designed to escalate the crisis and provide security guarantees that can be the foundation for the restoration of peace – the cornerstone of which must be a pledge to end NATO expansion. This is what can bring relief to the people of Ukraine. >A highly explosive situation has been developing in Eastern Europe not only in recent weeks and months, but for many years. What happened last night and the terrible violence to come was preventable, but decisions made by NATO powers at every key juncture since the end of the Cold War set the region on a collision course that was bound to come to a head sooner or later.>Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp of Eastern Europe, the imperialist NATO military alliance has steadily expanded eastward, absorbing 14 formerly socialist states between 1999 and 2020. Three of these countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — were former republics of the Soviet Union itself. In 2008, a war broke out between Russia and Western-allied Georgia after Georgian forces attacked the pro-Russia breakaway region of South Ossetia. >In 2014, a coup supported by the West took place in Ukraine that replaced the neutral government of Viktor Yanukovych with a staunchly anti-Russia government. This coup created the essential preconditions for the current crisis and war. It did not come out of nowhere in the last few months. Under the Trump administration, the United States withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty, which were cornerstones of the arms control architecture of Europe. >Actions elsewhere in the world compounded the tensions. In 2011, NATO carried out the destruction of Libya on the basis of UN Security Council resolution 1973 – which Russia allowed to pass based on false assurances from the West that it would not be used to justify a regime change operation. Around the same time, a civil war broke out in Syria, a close Russian ally. Russia intervened in Syria militarily to prevent U.S.-backed reactionary fundamentalist forces from seizing control of the country. >A turning point in world politics>The speech given by Vladimir Putin last night announcing the invasion made it clear that he was prepared for an intense and long-term confrontation with the West. Starting with the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Putin listed a litany of aggressive actions by the West and called on all segments of Russian society – military and non-military – to do their part in the coming mobilization, which undoubtedly will involve profound economic turmoil inside of Russia. Putin’s intention appears to be to change the balance of forces in Europe and turn the geopolitical tide with a major military intervention. >The plight of ethnic Russians, especially those in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, factored heavily into the speech delivered by Putin, which was directed towards the Russian public. Putin has been outspoken in recent days about his opposition to the Soviet policy on nationalities and considers the creation of modern Ukraine to have been a grave error on the part of Vladimir Lenin. As the PSL pointed out in our Feb. 22 statement:>“[T]he policy promoted by Lenin was the cornerstone of maintaining peaceful relations and unity among the peoples of the Soviet Union from the Russian Revolution until the beginning of the USSR’s collapse. By organizing the new, socialist state along the lines of the right to self-determination, Lenin was striking a blow at what was called “Great Russian chauvinism” — the domination of the Russian state and the Russian nationality in the territory of the just-overthrown Russian empire. Along with the administrative transfer of territories, this was a way of ensuring that the peoples of the newly formed socialist state could live together in peace and equality, replacing the brutal domination characteristic of the Czar’s regime. The principle of self-determination laid the basis for multinational unity that was the foundation of the Soviet Union’s great successes — for instance, 4.5 million Ukrainians fought alongside Russians to defeat fascism in World War II.” >There is no guarantee that Russia’s effort to reverse the geopolitical situation in its favor will succeed. So far, the events of the past several days have allowed U.S. imperialism to secure key objectives. The critical NordStream 2 pipeline that would have brought massive amounts of Russian gas into the European market is no longer going forward. NATO troops have been and will continue to flood into the Eastern European members of the alliance, including the Baltic countries that share a border with Russia. Just today, the Pentagon announced that it was sending 7,000 additional soldiers to Europe. While Russia clearly aims to install a friendly government in power in Kiev, public support inside of Ukraine for the country’s membership in NATO – which has never been a completely dominant position – will undoubtedly surge in the aftermath of the invasion.>The conflict currently exploding in Ukraine and rippling throughout the region and the entire world is hugely dangerous. The reckless and provocative actions of the U.S. government and its allies must cease immediately. The economic warfare being unleashed against Russia – which will first and foremost affect the country’s working class – will only deepen the crisis, as would troop deployments anywhere in Europe. >Recognizing that Russia has legitimate security concerns does not require an endorsement of all its military actions, nor Putin’s suggestion that Ukraine has no basis to exist as an independent county, nor his larger geopolitical strategies. The role of the U.S. anti-war movement is not to follow the line of countries in conflict with U.S. imperialism, but to present an independent program of peace and solidarity and anti-imperialism.>The menace of war can only be defeated by international solidarity among the peoples of the world and a resolute struggle against U.S. imperialism, which must demand the abolition of NATO. No war on Russia!https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-statement-on-russias-military-intervention-in-ukraine/ >>521423Even doing nothing (let alone a limited advance to create a DMZ) would get fewer people in Donbass killed than your proposal.
Also Donetsk and Luhansk threw out their oligarchs and deserve our solidarity as socialist states, while Kabul's been run by the rich since '92
>>521450Who will russia not invade after not invading Ukraine? Don't know, but I know simps will suck russian cock no matter who russia doesn't invade next!
>>521451They don't care about you, larper. You're no threat to the powers that be. Seethe.
>>521452Catholic Dwarf
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