Skiluros

Without impactful actions (including ones that are not on the radar of US/Russia), the statements are pointless.

I don't want any Ukrainian minerals going to corrupt Americans regressives. We should agree to this only tactically and back out off it ASAP when the time is right.

Just like the US and UK backed out of the Budapest memorandum.

Reminds me of tankie scum, but Russia/China are replaced by Saudi Arabia. The same sort of whataboutism, denial of basic facts, white washing of mass scale human rights violations and pretend innocence.

Good point. 😆

As strange as this might sound, I do walk around Kyiv a lot (although not on the left side of the river) since I don't have a car and I prefer to walking to standing in a packed subway train.

I will put my trust in Zelenskyy and his team (keep in mind I didn't vote for him in 2019, but I respect him for his courage and commitment to fighting back against russian genocidal imperialism).

My personal take is there is nothing to gain from working with Trump. He is a corrupt right wing authoritarian oligarch, of course he is going to back Putin. Might as well "rip off the bandaid" now and deal with reality. A more sober public posture towards Trump and US oligarchs (and implicitly parts of American society) might actually push the EU to act with haste and avoid putting their heads in the sand.

I am not saying this will work, but we don't have many good options. In such a situation, you might as well go with a high risk, high reward strategy.

He's been low key rooting for russia, which makes sense as he is a racist oligarch.

They have the economic and military capabilities. It's a lack of courage and genuine desire.

Surprised I haven't seen this one (I live in Kyiv).

Shitpost all you want, just don't act like you're actually being legit.

At the very least a strong majority of russian are genocidal imperialists (if not an overwhelming majority). The victim/junkie positioning merely provides cover for their actions.

They know what they are doing. They know what they are doing is bad and they will keep on doing it until they think they can get away with it.

This is enablement of russian genocidal imperialism.

Rather than taking a sober and realistic look at their actions and attitudes, we get this bullshit.

If you actually had to deal with russians, you would never in a million years behave in such a manner.

Be thankful you don't have to deal with them.

I’m not excusing, I’m explaining because without understanding there’s even less chance of changing anything. There’s a reason Russians don’t want to do anything, and it’s not because they would be comfortable within their culture. They don’t see a way out, they’re trapped in there, if you even try to get out you get beaten up so many decide that as you can’t change anything anyways, you can just as well acquiesce, that’s less mental load. That’s taking the big picture at face value.

You're playing into their victim-hood narrative that the russians openly use for misinformation and promotion of their imperialist goals. Who is responsible for the current state of affairs in russia? The people of Botswana? The people of Uruguay?

No, it's the russians who voted Putin into power in 2000 (even though they knew the nature of the KGB) and then elected him again in 2004 when he shut down most mass scale independent media. And the elections of 2000 and 2004 are generally seen to be fair.

It's the russians who went with the comical Medvedev seat warming exercise and supported the invasion of Georgia in 2008.

Yet you keep trying to sweep this all under the rug, with claims such as "they are trapped there" to try and position them as innocent victims. When in reality they only have themselves to blame for the state of affairs in their country.

This is too much essentialism for me.

Everything the russians do is explained by cultural context. Any and all alternatives are not viable because of the cultural context. We shouldn't judge russian for being proud of putin because of the cultural context.

This is not a viable approach. At the end of the day, all positive social/cultural change is driven going against the grain. If the russians don't want to do anything, we should take it face value and not come up with excuses.