re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Boris Johnson said it to Zelenskyy in early April.

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Why was this said? Answer the entire question.

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I support peace. PERIOD.

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Then you should start blaming the Russians too.

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I want an end to what should have been an avoidable war. I do not want NATO fighting a proxy war "down to the last Ukrainian" because WE think WE can "press Putin". Ukrainians should not be our cannon fodder!

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Do you think Ukrainians don't want to fight?

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But here's the way this works for Ukraine:
• Ukraine could have declared itself militarily neutral.
• It didn't.
• The cost was Crimea.
• Ukraine could have avoided playing footsie with NATO and mistreating Russian-speakers.
• It didn't.
• The cost was a Russian invasion.
• Ukraine could have negotiated a peace with formal concession of Crimea and small areas of the Donbas.
• It didn't.
• The cost is more blood, treasure, and territory.
• Rinse and repeat.

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What a bunch of nonsense. 'Hey Ukraine, concede territory formally to an invader, something which has been exceedingly rare in international politics since 1945, because my interest here is PEACE! Also I'm going to repeat Russian propaganda about Russian native speakers and pretend like nothing relevant has happened on the battlefield since April!'

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OLM is dishonest about his true position. The pro-Russia crowd understands that under the current circumstance Russia is not having military success. So advocates like OLM are advocating for an arguably “neutral” change in circumstances that will produce conditions that will increase the odds of Russian military success.

OLM’s advocacy is to convince people that the west, and particularly the United States, should not provide any military assistance to Ukraine. His unspoken point is that when the US stops supporting Ukraine, there is a significantly increased probability of a Russian military victory.

While I tolerate and do not engage OLM, his actual propaganda goal is clear. He’s dishonest when he asserts he is afraid for the US. He is trying to get others to buy into a change of circumstances that would be specifically targeted at putting Russia in the best possible position for a military victory.

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as usual you have returned to your bullshite ways

i hate to take up for OML but the dude was on here and the PT in December and January and hell almost all last year until the invasion saying we needed to commit american troops to protecting ukraine and taiwan.

he isnt some putin cock sucker, anything but.

he sees that putin doesnt have an off ramp and OML fears nuclear weapons being used and the thought of that for him is so devestating it causes paralysis where he is willing to bow down to putin.


but dont think for 1 min he is some Pro=russian bot.

stop with that bullshite.

and ftr he has a point about not providing military assistance. We are in debt to our eyeballs and ukraine was not spending their designated full % of GPD on defense for the last decade leading up to this. They very much gave off the perceived notion that protecting ukraine was not important, obviously that was wrong, they just were realy naive but have shown they are willing to fight and sacrifice anythign for thier homeland.

I happen to take ole putin at his word that he wants to restore the russian empire and would rather deal with him in ukraine and stop him now than to end up having to fund a war in western europe and rebuild once we wipe the floor with Putins arse.

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other icon-kissers


What is that supposed to mean?

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A week or two there was a video of a drone grenade strike on a RF soldier getting head from another RF soldier in a trench or something. I believe the Russian response was that the soldiers were "taking turns kissing the icon," which is something that Orthodox folks do.

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• Ukraine could have declared itself militarily neutral

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And what would Russia do? Stay out of their affairs? Respect their borders? No they would not.

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• The cost was Crimea.

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Do you think Putin would have left Crimea alone if only Ukraine would have not flirted with tgd West? No, I do not. The minute their puppet was forced out if office they jumped on Crimea.

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Then you should start blaming the Russians too.

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As I have. Russia shares huge blame in it's diplomatic failures during the run-up to war, as well as the attack. But once war breaks out, the fact one side or the other is to "blame" really has no relevance. Blame in war is assessed in the end by winners and cast on to losers.

So blame aside, at some point one has to be a realist. War is hell, and reality in this situation sucks. It sucks that this war was avoidable, and yet it was fought. It sucks Ukraine will lose territory. It sucks that Russia is powerful enough to dictate terms to Ukraine. It sucks that there were so many miscalculations. But it is what it is.

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It sucks Ukraine will lose territory. It sucks that Russia is powerful enough to dictate terms to Ukraine. It sucks that there were so many miscalculations. But it is what it is.

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It also sucks to talk to someone who repeats this unironically, ignoring literally everything that has happened on the battlefield since April. If you had your druthers, Ukraine wouldn't have made it to Luhansk Oblast like they just have along the Northern flank. Russia isn't in the position to be dictating terms, but you keep ignoring that for some weird reason I can't quite tease out. And for some reason, you can unironically suggest that Ukraine formally concede their own sovereign territory without a second thought. You clearly don't follow international politics at all and should sit this out for a while.

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My understanding is that Pravda (Pravda.ru) generally only refers to Russian Pravda which dates back to the Soviet Union. Ukrainian Pravda (Pravda.ua) is a completely different entity and is actually decent journalism and not pure propaganda

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then I stand corrected. Thank you. I just saw the pravda.com and thought "here we go again."

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For you folks that follow this closely, what is the hold up with Ukraine not making another big push? It seemed they went through several areas very easily last week.

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I think the going theory is a mixture of resupply/regrouping and priding Russian defense for the next big weak spot. I think the Crimean bridge both dual purpose to send a message Ukraine can reach and to see what Russia does with troops/equipment in response to further prod for that next weak spot.

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Then you're poorly informed. Russia had an intense national interest in maintaining its Crimean naval bases. The thought of simply ceding them to NATO because Ukraine signed an alliance paper was anathema. When we organized a coup to unseat the democratically-elected, fairly-elected president whom you term a puppet, Russia determined the Crimean risk too great. They walked into Crimea the day the US-backed coup forced Ukraine's president to flee.

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When the interim government took over for the Russian puppet, they told Putin that they would not seek NATO membership, Russia didn’t care. They wanted Crimea back. They had already given it up once.