There has to be a tension inside Russia between the oligarchs and the politicians behind this war, which can't be Putin alone, other top ranking officials very likely agreed to this in discussion — Manuel
If you both can't make your arguments without smearing your interlocutors then it only reflects badly on your arguments. — Isaac
The loose hacker collective went on a spree of attacks against various Syrian government targets hosted outside of the disconnected country, including embassy websites in China, Australia, Saudi Arabia and other government sites including that of the Baath political party and the Syrian railway system. Most of those sites were flooded with junk traffic designed to take them offline, but some Anonymous factions hacked and defaced target sites, instead, including the Syrian embassy in Belgium and the Syrian Industrial Bank.
The US government had been covertly funding Syrian opposition groups since 2006, mainly the London-based Movement for Justice and Development in Syria and an associated satellite TV channel Barada TV. Special Activities Division teams were said to have been deployed to Syria during the uprising to ascertain rebel groups, leadership and potential supply routes.
If anybody will decide to organize a cyberattack or any war activities against Russia, we are going to use our all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy
Excuse me, min herre, but I fail to understand why your defensive alliance is headquartered in Germany and not in Poland? — Apollodorus
Moreover, why is Germany incapable of defending itself? Why can't it have its own nuclear defense system against those bad Russians, like Britain and France do? — Apollodorus
If they nuke Ukraine, they are killing (at least some of) the people they are saying they want to incorporate into Russia.
But if they do this, it's game over for Russia as a country. That's not happening.
Yeah, military often boils down to brute force. — Manuel
There are some interesting tactics or "discussion techniques" being deployed here. Do you think the forum should be renamed “the Talk Shop for the Woke” or “the NATO PR Office”? — Apollodorus
What are you babbling about? They can defend themselves, — Christoffer
Troops in Germany are there for defense. — Christoffer
because they're in NATO they are augmented in their defense. — Christoffer
Or "an open space for Putin apologists" like yourself. — Christoffer
Good to hear that. Sorry if people get confused when you talk about neo-nazis being in power and Putin saying that neo-nazis are in power in Ukraine. Now if I understand you correctly, you refer to 2014 and to the US involvement in the events in Ukraine.I have never said, implied, or alluded to the idea that Putin's attack is justified because Ukraine is currently dominated by neo-nazis. — Isaac
That's the quote from you.I made the point that the US should not be treated as saviours because they are willing to support no less unscrupulous a party if it serves their economic interests. — Isaac
You have to acknowledge that. I think this was the confusing part. — ssu
Nobody is treating the US as saviours. — ssu
Nobody is treating the US as a savior. — frank
I think NATO's response so far has been pathetic. Ukraine is not a member, but surely an ally, and a request from them for 100,000 NATO troops on Poland's border to help could not have been refused. Putin only understands one language - force. — Tim3003
we actually want US with us in Europe to handle this conflict. — Christoffer
time however, it's not fucking imperialism in the way you describe it, it's not US "fault", it's a lunatic called Putin and his delusional Soviet dreams. — Christoffer
I have to confirm that I'm supporting the narratives you assume I'm supporting? What kind of twisted rhetorical obligation is that? Why don't you simply read what I've written and respond to that? Why insert additional beliefs and then require me to disabuse you of them on pain of being assumed to then hold them?
I don't hold with this modern fetish for wearing one's heart on one's sleeve. If I have to preface every paragraph with "bombing innocent people is bad", or else be thought a monster then we're not going have a very productive conversation.
Likewise if all my comments are going to be skim read just to see which of the two available camps I fall into and then responded to with a series of stock phrases assigned to that group, then there's little point in me being here, the exercise becomes a piece of theatre, not a discussion. — Isaac
... by showing that it is (in part) the US's fault, Europe's fault. Had we left well alone Putin would have been robbed of both strategic gain and narrative excuse, but our meddling to further our own economic interests has, in fact, provided both. — Isaac
.. by showing that it is (in part) the US's fault, Europe's fault. Had we left well alone Putin would have been robbed of both strategic gain and narrative excuse, but our meddling to further our own economic interests has, in fact, provided both. — Isaac
You don't read what Putin actually says. He does explain his actions. — ssu
the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.
First, without any approval from the UN Security Council, they carried out a bloody military operation against Belgrade, using aircraft and missiles right in the very centre of Europe. [They carried out] several weeks of continuous bombing of cities and critical infrastructure. We have to remind of these facts, as some Western colleagues do not like to remember those events, and when we talk about it, they prefer to point not to the norms of international law, but to the circumstances that they interpret as they see fit.
Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya, Syria. The illegitimate use of military force against Libya, the twisting of all decisions taken by the UN Security Council on the Libyan issue led to the complete destruction of the state, to the emergence of a major hotbed of international terrorism, to a humanitarian catastrophe and a civil war that has not ended to this day. The tragedy, to which they doomed hundreds of thousands, millions of people not only in Libya, but throughout this region, gave rise to a massive migration wave from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
They ensured a similar fate for Syria. The Western coalition’s military activities on the territory of this country without the consent of the Syrian government or the approval of the UN Security Council are nothing but aggression, intervention.
However, there is a special place for the invasion of Iraq, which was carried out also without any legal grounds. As a pretext, they put forward supposedly reliable information from the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As proof of this, publicly, in front of the eyes of the whole world, the US secretary of state shook some kind of a test tube with white powder, assuring everyone that this is a chemical weapon being developed in Iraq. And then it turned out that all this was a hoax, a bluff: there were no chemical weapons in Iraq.”
there were promises to our country not to expand NATO even one inch to the east. I repeat – they deceived us, in other words, they simply conned us. Yes, you can often hear that politics is a dirty business. Perhaps [that is so], but not to this extent. After all, such cheating behaviour contradicts not only the principles of international relations, but above all the generally recognised norms of morality. Where is justice and truth here? Just total lies and hypocrisy.
in December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us,
Further expansion of the NATO infrastructure and the beginning of military development in Ukraine’s territories are unacceptable for us. The problem, of course, is not NATO itself – it is only an instrument of US foreign policy.
We see that the forces that carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014, seized power and are holding it through sham electoral procedures, have given up on the peaceful settlement of the conflict. For eight years, for eight long years, we have done everything possible to resolve the situation by peaceful, political means. All was in vain.
the leading NATO countries, in order to achieve their own goals, support extreme nationalists and Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who, in turn, will never forgive the Crimeans and Sevastopol residents for choosing reunification with Russia.
I don't hold with this modern fetish for wearing one's heart on one's sleeve. If I have to preface every paragraph with "bombing innocent people is bad", or else be thought a monster then we're not going have a very productive conversation.
— Isaac
:100: — jamalrob
that was in response to previous Russian aggression toward Ukraine. — frank
Putin is pushing back against Europe and breaking Ukraine's ties to Europe because of his own vision of Russia's future. — frank
that was in response to previous Russian aggression toward Ukraine.
— frank
...which was in response to previous NATO expansion...
...and so on back to the cold war. — Isaac
Putin is pushing back against Europe and breaking Ukraine's ties to Europe because of his own vision of Russia's future.
— frank
That's certainly one theory, yes. Your supporting evidence is...? — Isaac
This objective was clear even in the 1990's before the time of Putin. Russia has wanted to have Crimea — ssu
Please do not speak of your friend here again. — Baden
Do people need me to tell them that war is bad? — jamalrob
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