The fact you are still denying they were coloinies of France, and are still being treated as such by France is bizarre.
— Jack Rogozhin
I absolutely didn't say that. — ssu

LOL...Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso were colonies (not allies) of France
— Jack Rogozhin
The African countries have been allies in the War on Terror (that curious war that started with 9/11, you remember). Operation Serval was widely appraised... and then things turned south (as usual they do). But back in 2013: — ssu

You did say that. I pointed out Niger was a French colony and you countered by saying they were allies. But at least we both agree Niger was a French colony and is still being treated as one

And no, Russia's corruption wasn't worse
— Jack Rogozhin

By that list I quoted it is. — ssu

That list is neither exhaustive nor the authority on the matter. But at least we can agree both Ukraine and Russia are corrupt

I pointed out Niger was a French colony and you countered by saying they were allies. — Jack Rogozhin

Allies in the war on Terror. Belarus is an ally of Russia. But Belarus has also been a part of Russia. And Russia influences Belarus a lot. Has a lot of forces in Belarus.

Please see the other thread about Niger.

I wouldn't presume to know his actual motivations. I don't know him and I'm not a psychologist.
— Jack Rogozhin
You don't have to be. A good start is to read what Putin has said and written. There's bound to be some links to his actual motivations on what he has written or what speeches he has given. — ssu

First, your name in the quotation came from the quotation function not from me — neomac

As you can see, that quote couldn't have come from the quote function as it was SSU's quote responding to me. To willfully misrepresent that is either a mistake or dishonest; i'll assume it was the former

I didn’t formulate my question appropriately. I was wrong in using the word “accusation” there. Mea culpa. What however I noticed is that ssu didn’t make any explicit knowledge claim first, it was you to introduce it while commenting his claims, to question ssu implicit knowledge claim. I didn’t find it fair because “if you can ground your claims about Russian imperialism on non-speech acts — neomac

SSU did make a knowledge claim about how I could know things. I, on the other hand didn't "ground my claims on Russian imperialism on non-speech acts" and you didn't show I did. Also you are mixing up two discussions here, try to stick the one that was at hand

Forth, to be clear, if I don’t understand your reasoning or your assumptions, and I feel like questioning them, then I’ll question them. I've been doing this for several hundred pages before you joined the thread and nothing could change it. That’s a philosophy forum after all. — neomac

I never said you can't question my reasonings...I made no assumptions. I said you can't misrepresent my reasoning and arguments as you are doing now. This is a philosophy forum after all

Unless your glibly usage of the verb “to show” shows otherwise. — neomac

My usage of the verb "to show" wasn't glib; it was accurate

I didn’t say that one has “to distinguish imperialism motivations from non-materialist motivations when one does so with imperialist and non-materialist acts”. — neomac

You did say that.

I took as premises your distinctions between motivations and acts, between imperialist acts and non-imperialist acts, and between imperialist motivations and non-imperialist motivations, and then concluded that also imperialist motivations and imperialist acts are distinct. If set M (set of motivations) is distinct from set A (set of actions), M is constituted by subsets M1 and M2 (e.g. imperialist and non-imperialist motivations), and A is constituted by subsets A1 and A2 (e.g. imperialist and non-imperialist acts), then M is distinct from A subsets as much as A is distinct from M subsets as much as M subsets are distinct from A subsets. This conditional must be logically true if we understand the notion of “distinction” in the same way. If not, I literally do not understand what you are claiming. — neomac

So what is your point here? I literally do not understand what you are claiming

Your final balance sheet of what you succeeded in showing and I failed at every round doesn't impress me and, worse, it shows nothing more than your lack of self-confidence to me. — neomac

This is just ad hominem and projection. It shows nothing more than your lack of self-confidence to me. And what do you mean by "final balance sheet"? It's a bizarre phrase for a philosophical discussion

All right, can you give me your definition of “selfishness” as a general characteristic that is not about motivations and psychologies? Because after a quick check on wikipedia — neomac

Yes: the quality or condition of being selfish...from Merrian-Webster. As I said, it's a characteristic

You see, there is a lot more to unpack in your “evaluating acts on their own to a great degree”. Each example of “immediate and primary causes” you listed is controversial and can be used to argue the opposite, namely that the alleged coups and their consequences were “immediate and primary causes” for Ukraine to look for Western support against a foreign power messing up within its territory, and discounting the fact that Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules. — neomac

No, nothing I said was controversial. You keep making claims without backing them up, and that is not appropriate for a philosophical conversation. Also, the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what is both wrong and anti-Humanist. According to you, American slaves and Native Americans needed to bow to its country's rules of slavery and oppression, and Japanese Americans would have been wrong to defy the US' internment of them...and all rebels, including the American Revolutionaries were inherently wrong. This is pure authoritarianism. Poroshenko literally said Russian Ukrainians of the Donbas would be cut off from state benefits and their own language and you want them to sit like good dogs and take it...because rules?

Maybe it's worthwhile making explicit why more people leave/defect Putin's Russia, than the other way.

BBC News Russian: Russian officer flees to Lithuania and requests political asylum
^{— Meduza, BBC · Aug 11, 2023}

Mar 22, 2023; Jun 23, 2023

Some give their reasons, though they may just try to appease authorities at their destination, or not.

I suppose some overall/unspecific categories/reasons could be freedoms, justice systems, living standards, politics, regress, oppression, fear, ... Seems less likely that some would do so to spy for Putin's Russia or sabotage their destination, though it has happened in cases where, say, a ragtag group of refugees arrives at a border post.

Leaving/defecting/fleeing (either way) takes resources/resourcefulness that not everyone has, and of course it takes motivation/rationale.

Kherson is Crimea's northern neighbor.

Russians stop providing insulin to civilians without Russian citizenship in occupied village in Kherson Oblast
^{— Tetiana Lozovenko · Ukrainska Pravda · Aug 11, 2023}

Destabilize/insurrect, propaganda efforts, invade, bomb, threaten, reenculturation efforts, sham votes, annex, force citizenship, landgrab, ... Imperialism, enlarging the world's largest country.

Ukrainska Pravda is hardly an unbiased, definitive source...no more than RT

Whatever happened to the Ghost of Kiev and the Snake Island "massacre"?

:

Source: Sirena Telegram channel, referring to the video message of Alexander Dudka, the so-called head of the village

And (as they incidentally point out) it's not the first such report.

Aug 4, 2023

( :grin: Ghosts ... Nov 18, 2022 )

Yeah, none of this comes off as objective or supported either

And it not being the first report doesn't change that. There were lots of reports about the "Ghost of Kiev"--which was a total hoax--and Russian bounties in Afghanistan, which didn't make that true either

Ukraine's government and media have been caught many times spreading lies about supposed Russian war crimes:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainian-official-admits-she-lied-about-russians-committing-mass-rape-convince-countries-send-more-weapons/5783014

I wouldn't presume to know his actual motivations. I don't know him and I'm not a psychologist.
— Jack Rogozhin
You don't have to be. A good start is to read what Putin has said and written. There's bound to be some links to his actual motivations on what he has written or what speeches he has given. — ssu

First, your name in the quotation came from the quotation function not from me — neomac


As you can see, that quote couldn't have come from the quote function as it was SSU's quote responding to me. To willfully misrepresent that is either a mistake or dishonest; i'll assume it was the former — Jack Rogozhin

Then I don’t know what else went wrong in my quotation and I don’t mind to correct it. If you wish so, just tell me. This incident is however irrelevant to the point I was making and I also acknowledged that the word “accusation” was bad wording, so I’m not going to waste more time on such mishaps.

I didn’t formulate my question appropriately. I was wrong in using the word “accusation” there. Mea culpa. What however I noticed is that ssu didn’t make any explicit knowledge claim first, it was you to introduce it while commenting his claims, to question ssu implicit knowledge claim. I didn’t find it fair because “if you can ground your claims about Russian imperialism on non-speech acts — neomac


SSU did make a knowledge claim about how I could know things. I, on the other hand didn't "ground my claims on Russian imperialism on non-speech acts" and you didn't show I did. Also you are mixing up two discussions here, try to stick the one that was at hand — Jack Rogozhin

Ssu’s implicit claim came after you solicited him and he clarified on what grounds he made his claims. At the first round, your response seemed to me something like: Putin did not commit imperialist acts, therefore Putin didn’t have imperialist motivations. Were this the case, then you too in the end were making an implicit knowledge claim on Putin’s motivations, just you took Putin’s acts as more relevant evidence than Putin’s words to assess imperialist motivations.
But then at a second round you wrote “I'm not addressing the motivations here; I'm addressing the act. Those are not the same things”, so you are addressing just “the act”. And you wrote “when Russia extends greatly beyond the Donbass and begins regularly taking resources from that area and its citizens, then I will consider it imperialism”, so what I understood so far is that you can assess Russian imperialism based on such acts, independently from whatever Putin’s declared motivations were. I take such acts to be broadly “non-speech acts” because such acts are not talking and writing. So yes you were grounding your claims on non-speech acts actually or hypothetically committed by Russia, while ssu was arguing based on what was written and said by Putin, so broadly Putin’s speech-acts, to legitimise what Putin did (invading and annexing Ukrainian territories).
The point here is that your claims are implicit knowledge claims grounded on certain evidences relevant for your understanding of “imperialism” as much as ssu’s implicit knowledge claims are grounded on other evidences relevant for his understanding of “imperialism”. And as long as one just expresses one’s beliefs to illustrate one’s own implicit assumptions to an interlocutor who doesn’t necessarily share them there is nothing really challenging about it, one is simply talking past each other.

Forth, to be clear, if I don’t understand your reasoning or your assumptions, and I feel like questioning them, then I’ll question them. I've been doing this for several hundred pages before you joined the thread and nothing could change it. That’s a philosophy forum after all. — neomac


I never said you can't question my reasonings...I made no assumptions. I said you can't misrepresent my reasoning and arguments as you are doing now. This is a philosophy forum after all — Jack Rogozhin

The point is that if I misrepresented them, maybe it’s because I didn’t understand them and need to question your claims to understand them better, after all you do not seem to understand my claims either. And since we are at the beginning of our exchange, you joined just recently this thread, and we don’t know each other from other threads unintentional misunderstandings are likely to happen on such controversial political topics.

Unless your glibly usage of the verb “to show” shows otherwise. — neomac


My usage of the verb "to show" wasn't glib; it was accurate — Jack Rogozhin

Whatever makes you happy.

I didn’t say that one has “to distinguish imperialism motivations from non-materialist motivations when one does so with imperialist and non-materialist acts”. — neomac


You did say that.

I took as premises your distinctions between motivations and acts, between imperialist acts and non-imperialist acts, and between imperialist motivations and non-imperialist motivations, and then concluded that also imperialist motivations and imperialist acts are distinct. If set M (set of motivations) is distinct from set A (set of actions), M is constituted by subsets M1 and M2 (e.g. imperialist and non-imperialist motivations), and A is constituted by subsets A1 and A2 (e.g. imperialist and non-imperialist acts), then M is distinct from A subsets as much as A is distinct from M subsets as much as M subsets are distinct from A subsets. This conditional must be logically true if we understand the notion of “distinction” in the same way. If not, I literally do not understand what you are claiming. — neomac


So what is your point here? I literally do not understand what you are claiming — Jack Rogozhin

Again, I was asking questions for you to clarify your views, not making a point yet. The question was: “by distinguishing imperialist acts and imperialist motivations, are you suggesting that non-imperialist acts can have imperialist motivations and that imperialist acts can have no imperialist motivations?”. You had problems to understand the question, so I clarified in that piece you quoted, that my understanding is that since you distinguish motivations and acts then you also distinguish imperialist motivations and imperialist acts, because this is what your claims would allow me to logically infer. So I hope that after my clarifications you can answer the question.

Your final balance sheet of what you succeeded in showing and I failed at every round doesn't impress me and, worse, it shows nothing more than your lack of self-confidence to me. — neomac


This is just ad hominem and projection. It shows nothing more than your lack of self-confidence to me. And what do you mean by "final balance sheet"? It's a bizarre phrase for a philosophical discussion — Jack Rogozhin

Again, whatever makes you happy.

All right, can you give me your definition of “selfishness” as a general characteristic that is not about motivations and psychologies? Because after a quick check on wikipedia — neomac


Yes: the quality or condition of being selfish...from Merrian-Webster. As I said, it's a characteristic — Jack Rogozhin

Sure a psychological characteristic concerning people’s motivations. Not, say, a chemical characteristic concerning unicorns’ rainbow farts, or am I misinterpreting you?

You see, there is a lot more to unpack in your “evaluating acts on their own to a great degree”. Each example of “immediate and primary causes” you listed is controversial and can be used to argue the opposite, namely that the alleged coups and their consequences were “immediate and primary causes” for Ukraine to look for Western support against a foreign power messing up within its territory, and discounting the fact that Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules. — neomac


No, nothing I said was controversial. You keep making claims without backing them up, and that is not appropriate for a philosophical conversation. Also, the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what is both wrong and anti-Humanist. According to you, American slaves and Native Americans needed to bow to its country's rules of slavery and oppression, and Japanese Americans would have been wrong to defy the US' internment of them...and all rebels, including the American Revolutionaries were inherently wrong. This is pure authoritarianism. Poroshenko literally said Russian Ukrainians of the Donbas would be cut off from state benefits and their own language and you want them to sit like good dogs and take it...because rules? — Jack Rogozhin

First, yes it is controversial for one reason or the other, again you just recently joined the thread, and I’m not here to keep you up-to-date on what has been discussed in this thread. Just as an example, what you call “the Maidan coup” has sparked some controversy in this thread at least 7 months ago (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/776025), use the search function. Also the alleged Ukrainian war crimes sparked some controversies in this thread.
Second, I didn’t claim that “the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what”. My claim wasn’t about moral assessments of laws and related citizens’ attitude, it was about what Russia can claim as a legitimate threat against Russia. Even if Ukraine is repressing or oppressing a minority of its own citizens, that doesn’t seem to be a threat against Russia (so much so that Russia needed to distribute Russian passports into annexed territories to have a convenient pretext that Ukraine is threatening Russian citizens). If China tortures, imprisons, and persecutes Chinese muslim Uyghurs that doesn’t count as a legitimate threat against muslim states either. Right? BTW Russia too oppresses minorities up until now (like the Crimean Tatars which were occupying Crimea way before the Russians) that doesn’t make it a legitimate threat against other states (other than Ukraine of course, since Crimean Tatars are Ukrainian citizens too within Ukrainian territories), or does it?

Yes, I retract the inital argument, it was based on the data (supposedly from the Bank of Russia, shown in the chart before) that half of Russian exports are denominated in ruble, which seemingly was incorrect. — Jabberwock

Good that this little interlude is over.

However, the data can be completely correct even for commodities.

Saying the exports are denominated in Rubles just means that people needed to buy Rubles one way or another to then buy whatever it is. However, the contracts can easily just reference the international spot price in USD one way or another, and, even if the contracts are in rubbles commodities usually trade on a fairly short term basis so there would be winners and losers in any currency change. Additionally, commodities traders generally hedge against such currency fluctuations so the winners and losers can be completely different parties, all financiers in Shanghai for example, who provide markets for these sorts of derivatives.

And, obviously, saying have is in Rubles is the same as saying half is in hard currency of other nations, which in Russias is a significant amount of cash in addition to it's cash and precious metals reserves.

There was certainly the possibility of severe economic dislocations when the war and sanctions started as supply line disruption could have caused cascading failures in industry, infrastructure which then immediately spill over into financial chaos and civil unrest making the problem even worse.

I don't think anyone outside the Kremlin has any good idea of how close or far such a total system failure was due to Western sanctions. What we do know is that they did prepare for 8 years for that exact scenario and were able to mitigate it.

After nearly 18 months it's extremely implausible that Russia would have some severe economic problem now.

The main reason is that everything the West supplied, China and India also supplies. "Competitive advantage" of Western technology can easily be 1 or 2 %.

Unlike the cold war, there's no critical technologies today that the West is far ahead of everyone else.

So, it was certainly disruptive for a whole country to change supply chains on such a large scale, but substitutes do exist and it was pure Western hubris to believe that they didn't or there's something special about Western tech in today's market.

US politicians are starting to speak sense on the matter of Ukraine:

Ssu’s implicit claim came after you solicited him and he clarified on what grounds he made his claims. At the first round, your response seemed to me something like: Putin did not commit imperialist acts, therefore Putin didn’t have imperialist motivations. Were this the case, then you too in the end were making an implicit knowledge claim on Putin’s motivations, just you took Putin’s acts as more relevant evidence than Putin’s words to assess imperialist motivations.
But then at a second round you wrote “I'm not addressing the motivations here; I'm addressing the act. Those are not the same things”, so you are addressing just “the act”. And you wrote “when Russia extends greatly beyond the Donbass and begins regularly taking resources from that area and its citizens, then I will consider it imperialism”, so what I understood so far is that you can assess Russian imperialism based on such acts, independently from whatever Putin’s declared motivations were. I take such acts to be broadly “non-speech acts” because such acts are not talking and writing. So yes you were grounding your claims on non-speech acts actually or hypothetically committed by Russia, while ssu was arguing based on what was written and said by Putin, so broadly Putin’s speech-acts, to legitimise what Putin did (invading and annexing Ukrainian territories). — neomac

This is all supposition, and you admit it is. You cannot make a logical claim based on "it seems" and "what I understood" and assert it as fact. That is not just analytically incorrect, it is syllogistcally so. You must provide factual premises to synthesize a factual claim..and you don't do that here. Also, you clearly don't know what "speech act" means.

The point here is that your claims are implicit knowledge claims grounded on certain evidences relevant for your understanding of “imperialism” as much as ssu’s implicit knowledge claims are grounded on other evidences relevant for his understanding of “imperialism”. And as long as one just expresses one’s beliefs to illustrate one’s own implicit assumptions to an interlocutor who doesn’t necessarily share them there is nothing really challenging about it, one is simply talking past each other. — neomac

The one who needs to heed this admonishment is you, as you have been doing what you admonish against here this whole discussion, and you do it in the sentence right above. You make another false claim against me without supporting it in any way, which is not philosophical at all. Remember, what is asserted without proof or evidentiary support can be refuted without such

The point is that if I misrepresented them, maybe it’s because I didn’t understand them and need to question your claims to understand them better, after all you do not seem to understand my claims either. — neomac

This is not an excuse for misrepresentation. You should only claim, particularly in a philosophical discussion, your interlocutor is doing or saying something if you actually think they are. If you are not, you should either say "I think you are doing/saying this" or "i think you are doing saying this, could you clarify if you are or are not." Otherwise you are being unfair to your interlocutor and degrading the discussion

All right, can you give me your definition of “selfishness” as a general characteristic that is not about motivations and psychologies? Because after a quick check on wikipedia — neomac


Yes: the quality or condition of being selfish...from Merrian-Webster. As I said, it's a characteristic
— Jack Rogozhin

Sure a psychological characteristic concerning people’s motivations. — neomac

Your inference here makes no sense syllogistically or syntactically; motivations is neither mentioned nor implied. Again, you are imposing your erroneous belief and acting like it is a correct inference.

First, yes it is controversial for one reason or the other, again you just recently joined the thread, and I’m not here to keep you up-to-date on what has been discussed in this thread. Just as an example, what you call “the Maidan coup” has sparked some controversy in this thread at least 7 months ago (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/776025), use the search function. Also the alleged Ukrainian war crimes sparked some controversies in this thread. — neomac

It is controversial for those who deny the facts, such as the US sending CIA agents to Ukraine right before the coup, and Gloria Nuland and our ambassador to Ukraine discussing who should replace the deposed democratically-elected leader...as if they have substantial say. The fact Nuland recently visited Niger to sway events there shows she hasn't changed her spots

Second, I didn’t claim that “the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what”. My claim wasn’t about moral assessments of laws and related citizens’ attitude, it was about what Russia can claim as a legitimate threat against Russia — neomac

Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules — neomac

You did claim this and you did not just say that about Russia...you said what you said above, proving me right.

Even if Ukraine is repressing or oppressing a minority of its own citizens, that doesn’t seem to be a threat against Russia (so much so that Russia needed to distribute Russian passports into annexed territories to have a convenient pretext that Ukraine is threatening Russian citizens) — neomac

Actually it is a threat against Russia and their people as it is fomenting violence and murder right at their border, which can spill into their own territory. And it is being done against their own ethnic people who were citizens of their country only thirty years ago. If Mexico had annexed San Diego 30 years ago and started slaughtering the Americans within their new borders, the US certainly--and rightly--would militarily step in

And you must certainly disapprove of all of the US's military border crossings/bombings since WWII. I agree with you there.

If China tortures, imprisons, and persecutes Chinese muslim Uyghurs that doesn’t count as a legitimate threat against muslim states either. Right? BTW Russia too oppresses minorities up until now (like the Crimean Tatars which were occupying Crimea way before the Russians) that doesn’t make it a legitimate threat against other states (other than Ukraine of course, since Crimean Tatars are Ukrainian citizens too within Ukrainian territories), or does it? — neomac

This is a terrible analogy. Firstly, this action against the Uygures is still in dispute; the UN admits they have no evidence of such a persecution. Secondly, the Uyghurs are not ethnically Russian and the posited persecution is neither at the Russian border or involving shellings at that border

However, the data can be completely correct even for commodities.

Saying the exports are denominated in Rubles just means that people needed to buy Rubles one way or another to then buy whatever it is. However, the contracts can easily just reference the international spot price in USD one way or another, and, even if the contracts are in rubbles commodities usually trade on a fairly short term basis so there would be winners and losers in any currency change. Additionally, commodities traders generally hedge against such currency fluctuations so the winners and losers can be completely different parties, all financiers in Shanghai for example, who provide markets for these sorts of derivatives.

And, obviously, saying have is in Rubles is the same as saying half is in hard currency of other nations, which in Russias is a significant amount of cash in addition to it's cash and precious metals reserves. — boethius

As I wrote, it is now impossible to determine how much Russia trades in rubles and how it is affected by the exchange rate, as that depends on the terms of the contracts and the info coming out of Russia seems rather contradictory.

There was certainly the possibility of severe economic dislocations when the war and sanctions started as supply line disruption could have caused cascading failures in industry, infrastructure which then immediately spill over into financial chaos and civil unrest making the problem even worse.

I don't think anyone outside the Kremlin has any good idea of how close or far such a total system failure was due to Western sanctions. What we do know is that they did prepare for 8 years for that exact scenario and were able to mitigate it.

After nearly 18 months it's extremely implausible that Russia would have some severe economic problem now.

The main reason is that everything the West supplied, China and India also supplies. "Competitive advantage" of Western technology can easily be 1 or 2 %.

Unlike the cold war, there's no critical technologies today that the West is far ahead of everyone else. — boethius

That is absurdly untrue. Even China is very much reliant on the Western technology:

https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/china-more-dependent-us-and-our-technology-you-think

Most of Russia's industries now have a choice: go back to the eighties (which will make them completely uncompetitive anywhere outside the domestic market) or fold. All Russia has left is the resource trade and even that will suffer, as most oilfields and gas fields were serviced by Western companies. You cannot buy such equipment and knowhow through parallel import.

As I wrote, it is now impossible to determine how much Russia trades in rubles and how it is affected by the exchange rate, as that depends on the terms of the contracts and the info coming out of Russia seems rather contradictory. — Jabberwock

If you understood anything about how the commodities market works internationally -- or then read and reflected on even a small part of what I explained about it -- you would know that any imbalance between the international spot price and unclosed contracts relative the Ruble would be small and short term.

Instead of pretending like you know anything about what you're talking about and that maybe there are 10s of billions, or hell why not hundreds of billions of dollars worth of unclosed commodities contracts in Rubles could have been out there: that for some unexplained and irrational reasons that have zero evidence actually exists, the Kremlin, knowing that their currency could be a weak point, decided to commit for the long haul to Ruble prices for their commodities and have taken a severe hit now that the Ruble is cheaper to buy.

Or, you know, you could be honest and just say you have no clue what you're talking about but happy to learn.

hat is absurdly untrue. Even China is very much reliant on the Western technology:

https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/china-more-dependent-us-and-our-technology-you-think

Most of Russia's industries now have a choice: go back to the eighties (which will make them completely uncompetitive anywhere outside the domestic market) or fold. All Russia has left is the resource trade and even that will suffer, as most oilfields and gas fields were serviced by Western companies. You cannot buy such equipment and knowhow through parallel import. — Jabberwock

We are talking about Russia and what critical supplies Russia needs for their economy to simply function.

Obviously, since Russia's economy has not collapsed and nearly entirely cut off from Western supply chains, it's able to source what it needs from mostly China.

I'm also talking about critical technologies.

You also don't know how licensing works. That you need to purchase a license doesn't mean you can't produce whatever it is, it's that you can't export it into the Western economies as it's protected by a patent.

The fact the authors of the article you cite (from the spin machine that is the Heritage Foundation) don't understand the difference between capacity and licensing render their analysis completely useless.

Now, compare this situation where China is spending big to license technologies in order to be able to export those technologies back to the West to the technological differences between China and the West during the cold war, then you'd understand my point.

Instead of pretending like you know anything about what you're talking about and that maybe there are 10s of billions, or hell why not hundreds of billions of dollars worth of unclosed commodities contracts in Rubles could have been out there: that for some unexplained and irrational reasons that have zero evidence actually exists, the Kremlin, knowing that their currency could be a weak point, decided to commit for the long haul to Ruble prices for their commodities and have taken a severe hit now that the Ruble is cheaper to buy.

Or, you know, you could be honest and just say you have no clue what you're talking about but happy to learn. — boethius

Yes, I am happy to learn, just point me to the source that specifies that the portion of the Russian exports denominated in rubles is negligible.

We are talking about Russia and what critical supplies Russia needs for their economy to simply function.

Obviously, since Russia's economy has not collapsed and nearly entirely cut off from Western supply chains, it's able to source what it needs from mostly China.

I'm also talking about critical technologies.

You also don't know how licensing works. That you need to purchase a license doesn't mean you can't produce whatever it is, it's that you can't export it into the Western economies as it's protected by a patent.

The fact the authors of the article you cite (from the spin machine that is the Heritage Foundation) don't understand the difference between capacity and licensing render their analysis completely useless.

Now, compare this situation where China is spending big to license technologies in order to be able to export those technologies back to the West to the technological differences between China and the West during the cold war, then you'd understand my point. — boethius

It seems you have a problem with distingushing between technologies and products, which is quite amusing from someone accusing me of ignorance.

Sure, Russia can get raw materials from China and other countries. But it cannot source from there production lines, machinery parks, in fact, it cannot even get spare parts for the Western equipment it already has. It cannot extend its maintenance contracts, without which its machinery will be useless sooner or later. China cannot provide to Russia its licenced technologies, even illicitly, because then it would risk breaking those licenses - it would simply not be worth it. Russian industry faces forced obsolescence, and, due to the nature of today's equipment, it will be sooner than later. Today most equipment has software and firmware that needs to be customized and updated, otherwise it becomes junk. Chechens could not even steal tractors properly, because they had a kill switch. E.g. Microsoft will stop renewing licences in September - it would not be a problem twenty years ago, as everything could be cracked and would work as well. Now half of it is SaaS, with some Russian companies having a significant part of their business in the Western cloud, which will be simply switched off. Sure, you can move everything to a Russian operator, but costs time and money.

Will those problems collapse Russian economy? No. They will just make it even more obsolete and uncompetitive than it was before.

Ukraine desperate for help clearing mines, says defence minister
^{— Daniel Boffey · The Guardian · Aug 13, 2023}

... Great lengths gone to install then remove mines. Seems almost absurd.

I'll take the tedious task of ruling with an iron fist. — Nov 30, 2022

Well, maybe democracy and all that isn't worth putting up a fight for? (Such a sentiment would certainly please dictators, theocrats, and such, [...] — Jul 8, 2023

Yeh, it is.

In general, there's much to be said about democracy of course: technicalities, implementation, practicalities, ... A large topic in its own right. ^{(Nov 4, 2013; Feb 19, 2020)}

The Economist Democracy Index might be the most common of this sort of thing, and uses a handful of categories to assess a society's status. Others use different methods. Most (that I know of) differentiate autocracy—anocracy—democracy on some weighted scale / to varying degrees. Some societies haven't changed much over time, some have seen a sudden regress (← direction), some have moved slowly (e.g. → direction), etc. Anyway, various renditions/reports taken together can give an impression of what's (been) going on around the world:

Democracy
^{— Bastian Herre, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Max Roser · Our World in Data · 2013-}
The animated map that explains the world
^{— Zack Beauchamp · Vox · Apr 22, 2014}
Forms of Government, 2018
^{— National Geographic}
Despite global concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic
^{— Drew DeSilver · Pew Research Center · May 14, 2019}
The Shifting Global Balance of Autocracy and Democracy
^{— Thomas Carothers, Saskia Brechenmacher, Staffan I Lindberg, Carnegie · Apr 8, 2022 · 56m:19s}
Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022
^{— Raul Amoros, Nick Routley, Sabrina Fortin · Visual Capitalist · May 13, 2022}
The State of Democracy
^{— Martin Armstrong · Statista · Feb 17, 2023}
Mapped: The State of Democracy Around the World
^{— Avery Koop, Joyce Ma · Visual Capitalist · Apr 24, 2023}

For recent years and perhaps for some time to come, I'm expecting a drop (further), if mapped out later. (Check the African situation (thanks @ssu); Russia (apropos); Ukraine (apropos; Jul 23, 2023); Afghanistan (Dec 20, 2022; Aug 14, 2023); maybe Ecuador (sort of peripheral in this context); ...)

So, what the heck is the deal?

What, if anything, should be done?

Ssu’s implicit claim came after you solicited him and he clarified on what grounds he made his claims. At the first round, your response seemed to me something like: Putin did not commit imperialist acts, therefore Putin didn’t have imperialist motivations. Were this the case, then you too in the end were making an implicit knowledge claim on Putin’s motivations, just you took Putin’s acts as more relevant evidence than Putin’s words to assess imperialist motivations.
But then at a second round you wrote “I'm not addressing the motivations here; I'm addressing the act. Those are not the same things”, so you are addressing just “the act”. And you wrote “when Russia extends greatly beyond the Donbass and begins regularly taking resources from that area and its citizens, then I will consider it imperialism”, so what I understood so far is that you can assess Russian imperialism based on such acts, independently from whatever Putin’s declared motivations were. I take such acts to be broadly “non-speech acts” because such acts are not talking and writing. So yes you were grounding your claims on non-speech acts actually or hypothetically committed by Russia, while ssu was arguing based on what was written and said by Putin, so broadly Putin’s speech-acts, to legitimise what Putin did (invading and annexing Ukrainian territories). — neomac


This is all supposition, and you admit it is. You cannot make a logical claim based on "it seems" and "what I understood" and assert it as fact. That is not just analytically incorrect, it is syllogistcally so. You must provide factual premises to synthesize a factual claim..and you don't do that here. Also, you clearly don't know what "speech act" means. — Jack Rogozhin

The fact I’m stating is nothing other than my understanding of your views. As I repeated many times, I’m not sure to understand your claims, so I’m expressing how I understood what you said so far, and “it seems” and “I understood” are intentional warnings to signal that. You too keep misunderstanding what I (and others) say and render your own misrepresentations as a factual claim as you just did by attributing to me inference I didn’t make. Instead of repeating that I’m misrepresenting you, even though I’m literally quoting your claims, can you try to clarify better what you meant in those quotes?
Since you know, what does “speech act” mean in your own words? I’m eager to share your superior knowledge.

The point here is that your claims are implicit knowledge claims grounded on certain evidences relevant for your understanding of “imperialism” as much as ssu’s implicit knowledge claims are grounded on other evidences relevant for his understanding of “imperialism”. And as long as one just expresses one’s beliefs to illustrate one’s own implicit assumptions to an interlocutor who doesn’t necessarily share them there is nothing really challenging about it, one is simply talking past each other. — neomac


The one who needs to heed this admonishment is you, as you have been doing what you admonish against here this whole discussion, and you do it in the sentence right above. You make another false claim against me without supporting it in any way, which is not philosophical at all. Remember, what is asserted without proof or evidentiary support can be refuted without such — Jack Rogozhin

I still have no idea what you are talking about though. You keep accusing me of misrepresenting you, but adding no clarifications about the claims I allegedly misrepresented in order to rectify my misrepresentations, and keep avoiding to answer my questions directly. So I’ll cut with this pointless exchange over my alleged misrepresentations by asking you more directly: do you distinguish imperialist acts and imperialist motivations as you distinguish acts and motivations? Yes or no? If so, would this distinction imply that non-imperialist acts can have imperialist motivations and that imperialist acts can have no imperialist motivations?

The point is that if I misrepresented them, maybe it’s because I didn’t understand them and need to question your claims to understand them better, after all you do not seem to understand my claims either. — neomac


This is not an excuse for misrepresentation. You should only claim, particularly in a philosophical discussion, your interlocutor is doing or saying something if you actually think they are. If you are not, you should either say "I think you are doing/saying this" or "i think you are doing saying this, could you clarify if you are or are not.” Otherwise you are being unfair to your interlocutor and degrading the discussion — Jack Rogozhin

Well I don’t really see why reiterated expressions of “it seems”, “I understood” and “am I misinterpreting you?” can not do the same job as “I think you are doing/saying this”, but if that will make things more clear to you then I’ll give it a try. Glad that you got rid of your glib “you don't get to tell me how I make my arguments, just as I don't get to tell you how you make yours”.

All right, can you give me your definition of “selfishness” as a general characteristic that is not about motivations and psychologies? Because after a quick check on wikipedia — neomac


Yes: the quality or condition of being selfish...from Merrian-Webster. As I said, it's a characteristic
— Jack Rogozhin

Sure a psychological characteristic concerning people’s motivations. — neomac


Your inference here makes no sense syllogistically or syntactically; motivations is neither mentioned nor implied. Again, you are imposing your erroneous belief and acting like it is a correct inference. — Jack Rogozhin

But I wasn’t making an inference of the kind you suggest. I was simply making explicit what I thought and still think you are leaving implicit, based on ordinary semantics. Indeed, strictly speaking, the Merrian-Webster definition doesn’t mention nor implies that “selfishness” is a characteristic for that matter, the words used are “quality” and “condition”, not “characteristic”. But if you implicitly assume that English speaking people have enough semantic competence to understand that “quality” and “condition” equate to “characteristic” in that context, then I too can implicitly assume that English speaking people can have enough semantic competence to understand if “selfishness” is a psychological characteristic or non-psychological characteristic, if it’s about people’s motivations or it’s not about people’s motivations. Besides relying on the Merrian-Webster definition simply shifts the burden of the semantic clarification from “selfishness” to “being selfish”. So I’ll cut with this pointless exchange over my alleged misrepresentation by asking you more directly: is “selfishness” a psychological characteristic about people’s motivations to you? Yes or no? If yes then, “selfishness”, as a general characteristic of politicians, is still a claim about their psychology and motivations, as I said. If no, enlighten me what kind of characteristic is that?
Notice also that here you are not using “I think you are doing/saying this” (i.e. “I think your inference makes no sense…”) but actually presenting as a fact you misrepresentation of my claim as a “syllogistically or syntactically” inference.

First, yes it is controversial for one reason or the other, again you just recently joined the thread, and I’m not here to keep you up-to-date on what has been discussed in this thread. Just as an example, what you call “the Maidan coup” has sparked some controversy in this thread at least 7 months ago (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/776025), use the search function. Also the alleged Ukrainian war crimes sparked some controversies in this thread. — neomac


It is controversial for those who deny the facts, such as the US sending CIA agents to Ukraine right before the coup, and Gloria Nuland and our ambassador to Ukraine discussing who should replace the deposed democratically-elected leader...as if they have substantial say. The fact Nuland recently visited Niger to sway events there shows she hasn't changed her spots — Jack Rogozhin

Well, then it’s controversial because it wouldn’t make much sense to me to claim that there is a controversy about facts for those who agree on the facts. I think what you are trying to say is that there is an overwhelming large consensus over certain facts (like CIA agents and Gloria Nuland). The problem however is not necessarily on denying such facts but on questioning if such facts are enough to support the claim that the Revolution of Dignity was a coup as Russia and pro-Russian propaganda claims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity). But again, I’m not interested in restarting the debate about these facts as such. And as long as you keep accusing me to misrepresent you at every exchange for whatever reason (including irrelevant editing incidents), instead of clarifying better your views, I don’t feel encouraged to widen the debate over other subjects. My focus is on your claims about “imperialism” and ”legitimate threat”.

Second, I didn’t claim that “the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what”. My claim wasn’t about moral assessments of laws and related citizens’ attitude, it was about what Russia can claim as a legitimate threat against Russia — neomac


Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules — neomac


You did claim this and you did not just say that about Russia...you said what you said above, proving me right. — Jack Rogozhin

I claimed “Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules”, but that’s it. “No matter what” is your spurious addition. And, I didn’t mean to make a moral claim either. To me “must” can legitimately express a rule-based injunction that can apply to maths, logic, juridical laws, morality, games, etc. (e.g. if you want to play chess, you must abide by chess rules), so with that statement I meant to make a legal and political claim: sovereign states (like Ukraine, Russia, the US, Switzerland, etc.) impose their rules over their citizens within their territories by using their coercive power, so citizens must abide by them if they do not want to pay the consequences. This holds for democratic and non-democratic regimes, moral and nor moral laws. And since we were talking about legitimate threats AGAINST Russia, my point was: can imposing rules to its own citizens by a sovereign state (Ukraine) be a legitimate threat against other sovereign states (Russia)?
BTW even here nowhere you are saying “I think you are doing/saying this”, but you keep asserting your misrepresentations of my views as a fact, proofs. And yet you admonish me to do otherwise with your views. I almost feel like complaining about this treatment. But my spider-senses tell me that you have a very good excuse or justification that makes you happy, right?

Even if Ukraine is repressing or oppressing a minority of its own citizens, that doesn’t seem to be a threat against Russia (so much so that Russia needed to distribute Russian passports into annexed territories to have a convenient pretext that Ukraine is threatening Russian citizens) — neomac


Actually it is a threat against Russia and their people as it is fomenting violence and murder right at their border, which can spill into their own territory. And it is being done against their own ethnic people who were citizens of their country only thirty years ago. If Mexico had annexed San Diego 30 years ago and started slaughtering the Americans within their new borders, the US certainly--and rightly--would militarily step in

And you must certainly disapprove of all of the US's military border crossings/bombings since WWII. I agree with you there. — Jack Rogozhin

First, if Russia didn’t spill violence and murder into Ukraine by supporting militarily the separatists FIRST, and so be a legitimate threat AGAINST Ukraine, its people and its territory (according to your own notion of “legitimate threat”), things wouldn’t as likely have reached such a scale to be a legitimate threat AGAINST Russia and its borders, assumed that’s the case. Indeed, what does it mean “it can spill into their own territory”? How could such violence and murder spill into the Russian territory and become a threat against Russian people and territory exactly? Let’s not forget that Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, that Ukrainian military couldn’t match in the past and still can hardly match the Russian war machine with the current Western support, and a quite effective repressive machine within its own territory against unwanted political movements or social unrest?
Second, I find the claim “And it is being done against their own ethnic people who were citizens of their country only thirty years ago.” quite problematic for several reasons:
1. thirty years ago they were citizens of the Soviet Union not of Russia,
2. if ethnic Russians are Ukrainian citizens they must abide by the Ukrainian rules in Ukraine as much as ethnic Ukrainians who are Russian citizens must abide by the Russian rules in Russia,
3. if ethnic Russians feel persecuted they can still flee Ukraine as much the Jews fled from Nazi Germany, being so close to the Russian border it shouldn’t have been that difficult, and since Russia was so keen on saving the ethnic Russians in Ukraine with all the land they have, they could have helped them with the same efficiency the Soviet Union deported Crimean Tatars from Crimea to relocate inside Russia as they have relocated Ukrainian children.
4. if protecting ethnicity was a reason for invading and annexing, how about all Ukrainian citizens of those annexed areas which weren’t ethnic Russians or just pro-Russia?
5. Russia itself is a multi-ethnic country and repressed the separatist movements in Chechnya supported by many ethnic Chechens, why can’t Ukraine do the same within its territory and its ethnic minorities?
6. There are Russian minorities also in other Russian neighboring countries, like in some Baltic States, if such minorities complain about prosecution and want to separate from the State that is hosting them, Russia should see it as a legitimate threat against Russia, and so again invade and annex those territories too, but if that’s the reasoning all neighboring countries with Russian minorities should see Russia as a legitimate threat against their security with all non-assimilated Russian minorities, right?
Certainly, I do understand that Russia is concerned about ethnic Russians around the world and can exercise diplomatic and coercive pressure to protect them, if they are threatened. But can this predicament be qualified as a legitimate threat AGAINST Russia? Or AGAINST Russia more than or with greater priority than a legitimate threat AGAINST Ukraine? And consequently justify invasion + annexation by Russia of Ukrainian territories?
Concerning your last remark, I “must certainly disapprove of all of the US's military border crossings/bombings since WWII”, if I shared enough of your assumptions. That's not my impression.

If China tortures, imprisons, and persecutes Chinese muslim Uyghurs that doesn’t count as a legitimate threat against muslim states either. Right? BTW Russia too oppresses minorities up until now (like the Crimean Tatars which were occupying Crimea way before the Russians) that doesn’t make it a legitimate threat against other states (other than Ukraine of course, since Crimean Tatars are Ukrainian citizens too within Ukrainian territories), or does it? — neomac


This is a terrible analogy. Firstly, this action against the Uygures is still in dispute; the UN admits they have no evidence of such a persecution. Secondly, the Uyghurs are not ethnically Russian and the posited persecution is neither at the Russian border or involving shellings at that border — Jack Rogozhin

Firstly, “disputed” as the claim that the Revolution of Dignity was a coup. Or that the Ukrainians committed a genocide in Donbas. Can you post a link with the UN admitting “they have no evidence of such a persecution”? Anyway the UN is not the only relevant source about the Uyghurs’ case. BTW the UN also condemned Russian aggression of Ukraine (https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12407.doc.htm), this is not controversial either, or is it?
Secondly, I’m still trying to understand your notion of “legitimate threat“ (“a legitimate threat to the security of a nation and its borders, and the safety of its people, is a legimtiate threat”, and I’ll ignore that it would be a very bad definition, being evidently tautological), I think you are conceiving it as a geopolitical general principle not as a principle that just happens to be so narrow that it can practically apply only to the Russian state, people and borders. Indeed, there have been and are lots of proxy conflicts and inter-states and intra-states threats in the world (think of the conflicts in the Middle East between major powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, or the case of Islamic terrorism) which are grounded more and religion then ethnicity. So the analogy with Uyghurs case was a way to test how your notion of “legitimate threat“ works in other scenarios.
Anyways, since you now insist on ethnicity and borders, I'll reformulate the hypothetical case of the Uyghurs: the Uyghurs are Muslim, ethnically Turkic, living in the Xinjiang and confining with another Muslim and ethnically Turkic state, namely Kazakhstan, so if China is oppressing Uyghurs, would this be a legitimate threat against Kazakhstan (let’s forget that the Kazakh government wants to preserve good relations with China, it’s just a hypothesis), to the point that they would be justified to invade and annex Xinjiang, if they only could?
And if you still don’t like the Uyghurs analogy, how about the inter-ethnic conflicts on the border between Azerbaijan and Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Armenia and Azerbaijan? Which state’s acts are “a legitimate threat” against which state? Which state would your notion of “legitimate threat” justify territorial invasion and annexation from which state? In other words, let’s see if you can find a real case good enough analogy to illustrate how your notion of “legitimate threat” applies on other non-Russian related scenarios. Because if you can’t , well that’s a problem to me.
Besides, your second comment makes me wonder how narrow is your notion of “legitimate threat”: e.g. by “nation” and “its people” you mean “citizens” or “dominant ethnic group”? A threat against the safety of the people of a given state can be qualified as a “legitimate threat“ against the State no matter if such people are living within their State or somewhere else? For example, Ukrainians ethnically Jewish are suffering as well the horrible consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and fighting for that too (https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-recount-stories-of-survival-endurance-escape-after-1-year-of-war/, https://genevasolutions.news/ukraine-stories/in-ukraine-jews-embrace-their-double-identity, https://www.npr.org/2022/10/01/1126217137/jewish-ukrainian-father-son-soldiers-russia-war), Zelensky himself is a Ukrainian Jewish president, so is Russia a legitimate threat against Israel given that Russia is murdering and willing to murder ethnic Jews in Ukraine?

Your inference here makes no sense syllogistically or syntactically; motivations is neither mentioned nor implied. Again, you are imposing your erroneous belief and acting like it is a correct inference.
— Jack Rogozhin

But I wasn’t making an inference of the kind you suggest. — neomac

Yes you were

The problem however is not necessarily on denying such facts but on questioning if such facts are enough to support the claim that the Revolution of Dignity was a coup as Russia and pro-Russian propaganda claims — neomac

I agree here and this is what we should be discussing

I claimed “Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules”, but that’s it. “No matter what” is your spurious addition. — neomac

Yes you did, and it's reprehensible...and I made no spurious addition and you haven't shown I have. Using your inane, reprehensible logic, slaves should have followed America's rules for slaves and blacks in jim Crow should have followed its rules of segregation

First, if Russia didn’t spill violence and murder into Ukraine by supporting militarily the separatists FIRST, and so be a legitimate threat AGAINST Ukraine, its people and its territory (according to your own notion of “legitimate threat”), things wouldn’t as likely have reached such a scale to be a legitimate threat AGAINST Russia and its borders, assumed that’s the case. — neomac

This is an unfounded lie. What happened first is the US backed coup led to 50 Russian Ukrainians being burned alive in the Trade House and Donbass Russian Ukrainians rejecting the coup being shelled and terrorized by Azov Nazis. The fact you ignore that is also reprehensible. And calling it a "revolution of dignity" when it was a foreign-backed coup where citizens and police were executed by CIA-trained snipers is both erroneous and disgusting

Here's some reading on that Trade Union House slaughter of anti-coup Crimeans by pro-coup right wingers https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ukrainian-rightists-burn-alive-39-at-odessa-union-building/

The Ruble's not doing too well. Worth less than a penny.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/14/economy/russia-ruble-slump-ukraine-war/index.html

This is an unfounded lie. What happened first is the US backed coup led to 50 Russian Ukrainians being burned alive in the Trade House and Donbass Russian Ukrainians rejecting the coup being shelled and terrorized by Azov Nazis. The fact you ignore that is also reprehensible. And calling it a "revolution of dignity" when it was a foreign-backed coup where citizens and police were executed by CIA-trained snipers is both erroneous and disgusting — Jack Rogozhin

The supposed 'coup' was preceded by three months of protests with dozens of thousands of participants. Were those all CIA agents?

On 12 April 2014 Igor Girkin, an FSB officer sent from Russia to instigate violence has led militants to attack SBU headquarters in Sloviansk. Odessa fire was on 2 May.

The supposed 'coup' was preceded by three months of protests with dozens of thousands of participants. Were those all CIA agents? — Jabberwock

The most important development is typically left out of the "US Coup" narrative: That after few months Ukraine held democratic elections after the revolution where the ultra-nationalists lost (the Svoboda party was out of the new administration). And since then there has been many governments and a party that didn't exist in 2014 won the Parliamentary and Presidential elections, which is now leading Ukraine.

But somehow they are CIA backed nazis. Even if lead by a Russian speaking Jew.

Your inference here makes no sense syllogistically or syntactically; motivations is neither mentioned nor implied. Again, you are imposing your erroneous belief and acting like it is a correct inference.
— Jack Rogozhin

But I wasn’t making an inference of the kind you suggest. — neomac


Yes you were. — Jack Rogozhin

You should write “I thought you were making an inference” or “I still think you were making an inference”. Unfortunately you are wrong as a matter of fact and beyond any reasonable doubt.

The problem however is not necessarily on denying such facts but on questioning if such facts are enough to support the claim that the Revolution of Dignity was a coup as Russia and pro-Russian propaganda claims — neomac


I agree here and this is what we should be discussing — Jack Rogozhin

Too late for that, I think your own notions of “imperialism” and “legitimate threat” may likely be part of your main assumptions in discussing about the alleged coup, so I think you too should be focusing on such notions of yours even before talking about those facts. At this point, if you are not willing to clarify your own notions, then neither am I in discussing your understanding of those facts.

I claimed “Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules”, but that’s it. “No matter what” is your spurious addition. — neomac


Yes you did, and it's reprehensible...and I made no spurious addition and you haven't shown I have. — Jack Rogozhin

Yes I did, and I’ll do it again easy-peasy. You attributed to me “the notion citizens have to abide by their country's rules no matter what” while my original quote was “Ukrainian ethnic Russians and Russophone are still Ukrainians and must abide by Ukrainians rules.” (dot sign included). So there is no final “no matter what” in my original quote, you spuriously added it and then presented it as a factual report of what I said or meant. But you are factually wrong beyond any reasonable doubt. If you think you could infer it from my original quote, then your inference here makes no sense syllogistically or syntactically; “no matter what” is neither mentioned nor implied. If you thought you were making explicit what I left implicit, then you are still factually wrong beyond any reasonable doubt: indeed, what I left implicit at most is “if they do not want to pay the consequences” and not “no matter what“. Finally, and more importantly, I didn’t make a moral claim, but a political and legal one that holds for any state. So yes, you are factually wrong beyond any reasonable doubt no matter how you want to play it.
Oh, and if you don’t like to waste your time, then let me warn you that I don’t care about your emotional blackmailing.

First, if Russia didn’t spill violence and murder into Ukraine by supporting militarily the separatists FIRST, and so be a legitimate threat AGAINST Ukraine, its people and its territory (according to your own notion of “legitimate threat”), things wouldn’t as likely have reached such a scale to be a legitimate threat AGAINST Russia and its borders, assumed that’s the case. — neomac


This is an unfounded lie. What happened first is the US backed coup led to 50 Russian Ukrainians being burned alive in the Trade House and Donbass Russian Ukrainians rejecting the coup being shelled and terrorized by Azov Nazis. The fact you ignore that is also reprehensible. And calling it a "revolution of dignity" when it was a foreign-backed coup where citizens and police were executed by CIA-trained snipers is both erroneous and disgusting — Jack Rogozhin

Focus, I was talking about your notion of “legitimate threat” as it applies in the inter-ethnic conflict between Ukraine and Russia. And even if, for the sake of your argument, one was willing to concede that there was a “coup”, it remains the fact that it was widely welcomed by the dominant ethnic group in Ukraine as much the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea was widely welcomed by the dominant ethnic group in Crimea (which however is a minority in Ukraine). So much so that Ukrainians are asking support from the US against Russia, not from Russia against the US.


Dude, if it is of any consolation, you must know I take no particular pleasure in damaging your goofy self-promoting beliefs and claims. Actually it’s getting more and more boring. In any case, I’m here to entertain myself, not to tolerate your incontinent lack of self-confidence. I’m not your therapist and I have no pity for you.

Another detail missed is that Yanukovych was ousted by a parliamentary vote of 328-0. Sure, one can question the legality of the vote itself, but the fact remains that those who did that were all legitimately elected members of parliament, voting unianimously.

, yeah, there are some effects: Russia’s central bank raises interest rates to 12% after the ruble plunges (Anna Cooban, Vasco Cotovio · CNN · Aug 15, 2023). I'm wondering how it's felt on the streets.

It should be noted that the ruble has dramatically lost value also to the Chinese yuan and the Indian rupee. About 70% of Russian-Chinese trade is done in yuan and the ruble. Two years ago it was 30%.

I'm wondering how it's felt on the streets. — jorndoe

Russians will soldier on and just try to cope with it. It's not like they could be angry on the ballot box and choose a different leader and party in the oncoming presidential elections next March. Besides, they have it quite easy compared to the Ukrainians.

Furthermore, Russia did experience also higher inflation that for example the eurozone, even if now isn't so rapid:

They're all right. Discuss the lot, too.

The sham referendums were engineered in Moscow. And imposed on Ukraine. In total violation of international law. This land grab is illegal and illegitimate. — Jens Stoltenberg (Sep 30, 2022)

I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory, and get NATO membership in return. It is important that we discuss this. It must be up to Ukraine to decide when and on what terms they want to negotiate. I'm not saying it has to be like this. But that could be a possible solution. — Stian Jenssen (Aug 15, 2023)

Trading territory for a NATO umbrella? It is ridiculous. That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations. After all, why should Russia voluntarily abandon provocations, hybrids, and traditional behavior without losing? Obviously, if Putin does not suffer a crushing defeat, the political regime in Russia does not change, and war criminals are not punished, the war will definitely return with Russia's appetite for more. Attempts to preserve the world order and establish a "bad peace" through, let's be honest, Putin's triumph will not bring peace to the world, but will bring both dishonour and war. This applies to any format of a new "division of Europe": including under the NATO umbrella. Then why propose the scenario of a freeze, so desired by Russia, instead of speeding up the supply of weapons? Murderers should not be encouraged by appalling indulgences... — Mykhailo Podolyak (Aug 15, 2023)

Then why propose the scenario of a freeze, so desired by Russia, instead of speeding up the supply of weapons? — Mykhailo Podolyak (Aug 15, 2023)

Here one major problem "Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it": https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/17/politics/us-weapons-factories-ukraine-ammunition/index.html