But Isaac is just a confused, truth-abhorring cretin -- he is Gollum, not Sauron. — Olivier5

He's a self-proclaimed professor who does not believe in education, or he lies about that and is a liar and unreliable interlocutor. Either way, his treatment of knowledge and facts is so bad that there's no point arguing anything with him. Boethius is so apologetic that it's a parody, Apollodorus follows Russia's "Sweden and Finland are Nazis" narrative so he's part of that delusion, confusion or agenda as well. Bottom line is that any interaction is just pointless, answer one thing, and a whole mouthful of apologetic bullshit spews out, next to "touch Nato and you are monsters". Takes energy to not be sucked into the black hole of such intellectual collapse.

The problem isn't the nukes, the problem is if someone gets into power who just doesn't care about obliteration. Rational states use Nukes as a deadlock for deterrent use, but just as we see people conduct acts of destruction with little intention of safety for themselves or others, the problem is with such people. If they reach levels of power that can initiate nuclear attacks then they are the threat to the world.

Since disarmament of nuclear weapons globally is a utopian dream that will never come to pass, the solution is to develop advanced defensive weapons that can automatically spot, track, and disarm/shoot down any nuclear weapon missiles. Such technology would be a safeguard for everyone, if any nation with nuclear weapons has these defenses, then the deadlock is fixed and there's no point in shooting anything since everything gets shot down.

Also I will never stop laughing at Christoffer's insistence that everything is 'really nuanced and subtle', which apparently means: NATO and the US are entirely blameless — Streetlight

It doesn't "apparently mean" anything like that other than you corrupting what I say in order to get a laugh. You know that it's entirely possible that we in Sweden and Finland need the security of Nato and at the same time can criticize its way of conduct. We can point out that being a member means having influence and since Sweden has a long history of diplomacy, being on the inside of Nato could help tame the more war-mongering nations part of it.

And what I refer to as the Putin trolls are people who, right when Russia conducts propaganda painting national figures of Sweden to be pure Nazis, these trolls begin painting Sweden and Finland as nazis as well. They act like clockwork.

Your strawman of what I write is the only thing stupid here. You have no idea of what the national debate is surrounding Nato, you have no idea of the actual nuances that are being discussed here as part of the process of determining if we're going to join or not. You don't know anything about the moral and philosophical discussion in process here in Sweden about all of this. All you do is strawman in order to laugh. That is stupid.

I've no interest in determining who is 'most' to blame, nor have I any interest in declaring my judgement on that, nor have any interest in whether it is possible to construct narratives supporting or opposing any given policy. I'm interested in exploring the extent to which my country (and it's allies) is to blame, and in whether my preferred narrative remains plausible. — Isaac

I don't care what you are interested in or want, no one is here to follow your interests but you argue in a way that requires everyone else to agree with you first and then discuss. The point is that what you are arguing has nothing to do with what I wrote since it's about what you are interested in.

The fact is that if we are discussing this from a moral perspective it is entirely necessary to determine guilt and if everyone can be blamed for something, then it's necessary to pinpoint the context.

You are only interested in your own set narrative, which means discussing with you is pointless, as has been stated plenty of times. Especially since you are dishonest and say just about anything to make a point. I have no interest in discussing your interests, you can play around with that on your own.

It's not impossible, just not something some of us have any interest in doing. — Isaac

And this is the reason why it's impossible to discuss with people like you since you live by dogma and not reason or rationality. The world is complex to the point where something can be good and bad and the moral decisions rather reflect the most good or least bad rather than blind idealism ignoring reality. If your "interest" gets in the way of rational thought then why are you even on a philosophy board? Truth doesn't care about your interests, you're just an evangelist for your own personal opinions.

And if you think I haven't been critical of NATO, you haven't been reading the thread. — Baden

I think the main problem is that it's impossible for some to criticize Nato AND condemn Russia. For me, I despise Russia, want Sweden and Finland to join Nato, and at the same time criticize Nato for past conduct. It's entirely possible to have complexity in all of this, but not for some it seems.

That I and SSU want our nations to join Nato in order to have a guaranteed defense against possible aggression from the east equals we are Nazis because Russia conducts that bullshit propaganda with peaceful figures like Astrid Lindgren, is a narrative that is so fucking moronic that it becomes satire. Are the Russian trolls and apologists really this desperate to push their agenda? :shade:

HAHAA!!!!

At least the Forum's Putin troll works like Clock-Work! Just as anticipated months ago, out comes the nazi card when Finland (& Sweden) will make their application. — ssu

Yeah, right when Putin and his minions start doing anti-Sweden and anti-Finland propaganda to the gullible Russian morons we start to see that narrative in here as well. It's disgusting really.

What you seem to be saying is that if someone doesn't want to submit to your EU-NATO Empire, they should be destroyed. Sounds Nazi enough to me. And a bit unhinged, to be honest. — Apollodorus

Russia is executing civilians, killing children, raping women and terrorizing the population of Ukraine while the Russian people, outside of the very few opposing the war and Putin, support this war, all while Putin himself has sent the Wagner group to Ukraine, a group that's literally neo-nazi. There are enough reasons to condemn and be hard against Russia and none of that has anything to do with Nato.

Russia has no right to decide on anything outside its borders, so that's literally what I meant, let them do whatever they want within Russia. The rest of the world does not have to do anything to them or adhere to any of their demands. As long as we are safe from their nukes, they can do whatever the fuck they want. It's basically giving them what they want, the freedom to be their own empire and feel pride for themselves being different from the west and the rest of the world.

The will of Russia is to be their own, so let them. Should the rest of the world also be under their rule? If they want to be left alone, then we leave them alone, that's it.

But none of this is possible for you to understand. You are clearly a Russian apologist who keeps defending Russia and Putin in every possible way. Why don't you move there and you can build the anti-western home you always wanted? It seems you admire the Russian empire and must criticize Nato in every possible way just so the "Russia is bad" doesn't solidify itself.

The problem for you is that Russia is in fact fucking bad, what they do in Ukraine is systematic killing of civilians and that warrants us to say that Russia can fuck off. There's been enough pages of apologists who keep doing whataboutery at every report of Russian war crimes and actions against the Ukraine people. But at this time its clear that the Russian army is filled with despicable aswipes under the rule of morally depleted men with masculinity problems.

To call us Nazis for being hard on Russia for what they are actually doing is such bad taste that you can fuck off yourself.

Want to make a bet? When Finland and Sweden announce they are seeking membership in NATO, the aerospace of either or both countries will be infringed by Russian aircraft. — ssu

Most definitely. I almost hope that they fuck something up and crash or misfire something so that the diplomatic fallout against Russia gets even worse. Wouldn't surprise me if they did, since their stupidity keeps trying to reach a new level.

They really amped up the Bond villain vibes — Count Timothy von Icarus

And people in here back in the early days of the invasion called me a moron for describing Putin's and Russia's actions in a way that sounded like that. Oh, the irony that they now almost go beyond what I wrote back then. :ok:

Putins regime already starting to demonize Sweden for it's own people and convince them that prominent Swedes are (were) evil nazis. It surely will do the same for my country, but it started with the Swedish "nazis". Perhaps as Russians don't hate enough Swedes. — ssu

They point out that Astrid Lindgren is a nazi and Russians are falling for it. They are making it very hard not to view the entire nation of Russia as fucking stupid. From this to their stupid war strategies to how they now say Israel supports nazis because they support Zelenskyy, who's a nazi according to Russia. :rofl:

It's downright pathetic to the point it becomes comedy. I would laugh hard if it weren't for all the children being killed or the torture and executions of civilians by Russian forces. Russia can go and fuck themselves, hard. Let all the critics of the war and Putin out of Russia and let the rest sit there in their own pool of bullshit. Let them rot in their own stupidity until there's nothing but a Mad Max wasteland with a delusional billionaire king. All of these Russians want to be free from Western influence, so be it, let them do whatever they want. Let us put up anti-air defense weapons around their borders so no nukes will fly out whenever someone has dementia and then let them be alone, isolated from the "western nazis". Let's stop all the trade and every interaction with them, they don't want to be part of the western world anyway, so fuck'em. Let them play empire for themselves until they realize just how stupid they are.

I had hopes the Russian people would get angrier toward Putin and the people in power, I guess I was wrong.

A North Korea with vast oil reserves, though. It makes an important difference. It's also a much larger country than NK, and can't be isolated the same way as small NK. My take is that Russia will remain an important country in this world no matter what happens. — Olivier5

At the same time, the reports of climate change show a much worse outlook than previously thought, so the need to move away from oil needs to happen sooner. This war might even be good for the work against rapid climate change since it rips the band-aid off politicians with too much crap for brains. Now there's an incentive to actually move away from oil that's not about that climate change that's too complicated for their tiny capitalist brains, and instead, they will see it as a prosperous economic change for the better when cutting oil ties with Russia.

This extreme cut from oil supplies and increase in oil prices is exactly what is needed to push the climate solutions, that needed a push, into fruition.

Regardless, Russia will not be able to survive on oil alone and they have little else of value except for some minerals that could be found elsewhere if needed. At least, that would be a diplomatic card to pull in the future, if Russia goes down into the cutter economically, the world can demand them to remove their stupid leaders, dismantle nukes, and only then they will give them transactions for their minerals. This would, however, demand that Russia really tanks its economy, far beyond what we've seen recently.

It's gonna be interesting to see what the post-war status of Russia would be. Let's say they make some bullshit up, withdraw their troops and present a "victory" on May 9th. Even if some sanctions are lifted, Russia has created a bad taste in the mouth of everyone who previously did business with Russia. Even if sanctions are lifted, many will not want to do business with them. And what about Facebook and websites deemed "extremist" in Russia, that will probably stick.

I see little opening for Russia to be anything other than a new North Korea, even if the war ends. I wonder how long it will take before the population has had enough. Even the pro-Putin soviet-hags and old farts who see their boys come home in coffins seem to be on the critical side against Kremlin. While the young in the major cities seem to hope that the end of the war will make things return to normal, only to realize that nope, there's no such thing as normal anymore, which might lead them to leave as the last highly educated people to do so since there's no real academic or engineering future in a nation like Russia, as long as it's not about making future war crime weapons, which they might not be able to do as there's little import of tech that can support it compared to tech that could counter it being developed outside of Russia.

Russia will be a mess, all thanks to Putin and his minion's bullshit. Hopefully, the Russian people will wake up to that reality soon and do something about it.

We shall see... IMO, this talk about nukes is just blah, designed to scare opponents and placate supporters. — Olivier5

Obviously, they want to scare off any further help for Ukraine because they are losing. All military-strategic experts pointed out that they needed to create a corridor as soon as possible between Russia and Crimea and push out Ukrainian soldiers from cutting off that line and that Russia could easily do that with regular mechanical warfare... but they still haven't so either they don't have the means to do it or they just demonstrate the same level of incompetence and stupidity that they've shown so far in their strategic efforts.

By population that amounts to just over half the world abstaining. Funny how readily you forget the grossly disproportionate power Western countries have in the UN. — Isaac

But population means nothing as a pure number without any context and 141 nations voted for the resolution, 35 abstained, and 5 against. Only the five nations that voted against can really be positioned to be fully against. The abstainers could have voted because they weren't fully on board with the consequences and fallout of this war or the actions against Russia.

But I guess you would stretch things to fit your narrative of things, that's what you keep mr doing professor expert. Just because you don't believe in democracy or education and such things doesn't mean the world shapes around your opinions.

In other news:

Ukrainian Astronomers Discover ‘Exocomets’ around Another Star
By Briley Lewis on April 14, 2022

Astronomers from the Main Astronomical Observatory (MAO) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv recently published a discovery of five new exocomets—comets orbiting a star other than the sun—in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). They also independently confirmed a handful of exocomets that were previously detected by other researchers. — Olivier5

I thought Ukraine "was being destroyed"? How on earth can they do this while being destroyed? :sweat:

and he is not the suicidal type. — Olivier5

That's up for debate though... never doubt a lunatic.

The use of nukes against Ukraine is still incredibly unlikely to lead to a strategic nuclear exchange with NATO. — boethius

A tactical nuke would however put them in a position where they have nothing left in terms of diplomacy with the west. Russia would solidify its existence as a criminal nation and they would probably not be able to heal any diplomatic ties for a very very long time. It's basically the nail in the coffin for Russia as a nation, slowly disintegrating down into a nation that's falling behind on any front. In 20 years, the world will have moved past them in every way, probably putting up defensive systems around the nation to block any attempts of nukes going out of it while the technological advancements outside of Russia will make them look like the stone age.

Many here argue for each nation to be responsible for their own development, that it's each and every independent nation's right to develop however they want. That also means that actions stretching outside of a nation can have consequences; that becoming an isolated nation is part of the internal development each independent nation is responsible for. No one is to blame for Russia's failures and how they're now treated. The rest of the world can choose however they want to interact with Russia and if they don't want to interact with them, then Russia has no right to demand anything.

However the outcome of this conflict may be, there will be no way for Russia to "heal" even if the war ends as long as the top people, including Putin stays in power. As long as they are there, Russia will be isolated. The only way back for Russia would be to conduct a total reform of government, to show the world that they're not the crazy asswipes they are now. They brought this on themselves.

However, if Ukrainians do "win" and push the Russians back to their borders then certainly everyone would agree that's failure, and nukes would be the only thing left at that point. — boethius

Ukraine might continue to fight as long as there's material support from the west. They had massive morale going into defending their country and being able to push back the big bear Russia this much would seriously have boosted their morale even further, combined with the anger of the war crimes.

I don't think Ukraine will settle easily, they want justice for Russia's crimes and they might fight until every single Russian in Ukraine is killed, captured, or sent home.

Untrue.

Lot's of conventional military options still available.

The use of nukes against Ukraine is still incredibly unlikely to lead to a strategic nuclear exchange with NATO. — boethius

Tactical nukes won't be the same as regular nuclear weapons.

But the problem is that their regular efforts have been pathetically bad so far. Even when all the experts said that the battle for the eastern region would be more conventional mechanical warfare in open areas and that Russia has the advantage, we haven't even seen that yet.

They continue to fail because they're stupid. Only stupid armies dig trenches in the Red forest. This kind of stupidity is obviously more widespread than just those soldiers and leaders in Chornobyl. And they can't use air superiority because of their inability to use high-tech GPS missiles, so the pilots need to drop down under 5000 meters in order to strike at visible range, which is dangerous because of ground troop MANPADS.

So all they have is maybe bunker busters and large long-range missiles that do massive damage. But that could lead to such devastation that Ukraine needs to retaliate in order to stop it, meaning firing at a much larger scale into Russian territory, especially to take out those launch sites.

The thing is that the conventional military options from Russia should have been seen by now, but they aren't, because it would risk diluting the entire Russian army to the point where the nation is seriously undefended. The Russian army is stupid, low on morale have worn out old tech (some drones found were fueled by a DIY water bottle because they didn't have the actual tanks), they are pretty pathetic and there's little for them to do but just brute force try with what they have.

The only thing that is a large risk is that they blow Kyiv up with a nuke right before May 9th to spin some bullshit story that they "had to". But if they do, the rest of the world will do everything in their power to destroy Russia, and rightfully so (not talking about nukes, but about other means, including extreme isolated economical means).

They may not see it that way, nor care. US used Nukes against Japan and Russia could use the exact same reasoning of needing nukes to save the lives of their soldiers. — boethius

The consequences of the nukes in Japan should not be understated. It wasn't trivial, it was world-defining and there weren't any political or existential consequences imagined before the bombings as there were after the bombings. Historical context is very important here.

If anyone in the world were to nuke a city today, that nation would be in such serious trouble that they might as well nuke themselves in the process. Russia won't care, of course, but it would solidify their isolation to the point where I think not even China would feel comfortable dealing with them. Russia would become persona non grata everywhere and that's all fine and good in their opinion... until it isn't.

People forget that the reason such consequences didn't happen for the US was that there were no protocols, no modern international law or any such things in place as we have them today. The world changed for the better after world war II to prevent such acts to happen again with the US very much at the helm of such preventative acts. The reason they still have nukes is for the same reason anyone has them, as a deterrent.

Russia on the other hand doesn't talk about nukes in the same way, they have them as actual military options. So it's an ocean between how Russia handles nukes and how the US handles nukes, regardless of the US being the only nation who previously used them before. The argument that "because they used them before, everyone else is innocent and the US is always the guilty one", in this context, is a ridiculous logic that has nothing to do with Russia's actions right now.

The use of nukes post the use in Hiroshima/Nagasaki is an extremely different matter than in a world that had never seen those consequences. The disregard of such historical context makes it impossible to discuss these things in a modern context and it becomes a ridiculous circle jerk of changing perspectives based on a "pick and choose" historical reference rhetoric. The fact is that no one in their right mind would use nukes today, the US would never use nukes as an offensive measure because the consequences would be so extreme that even if it doesn't lead to nuclear war, the political fallout would be suicide for the US if they did and they absolutely know it. Russia however, does not have the same mindset as they have nuclear arms as actual military options, not just as a deterrent, its part of their war machine in another way.

Russia's reasoning doesn't matter, only their actions do. And if they use nukes, they can sit there and think that they're on top of the world, but their nation will become an isolated cesspool of decades-old technology in a nation just living through survival of national food supply and rusting cars with no actual progress.

The Russian people will care when their nation is in the gutter, at least the people will care when they realize what they could have had if not for the fat and rich elite in the Kremlin fucking their nation up so hard. This is how revolutions happen and if things go down this route, there will be civil war in Russia.

Unclear. As has been discussed at length, only the West is angry with Russia and no one else seems to care about it. If anything the large majority of the world feels satisfactory schadenfreude that the reckless and cynical warring ways of the West is coming home to roost (regardless of "who started it"). — boethius

But this isn't true, the majority is against Russia's invasion, as seen through UN's votes.

141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained and five voted against

The way you describe what "the rest of the world" feels are your own feelings not reflected in the real world. And the risks to Europe is there because we live next door to Russia so it's fully reasonable that a nation on the other side of the world won't care, but so far the global condemning of Russia's actions are very consistent anyway.

And if they use nukes they're done. There will be harsh diplomatic consequences for nations who support Russia if they nuked a major city. Even if they just use tactical nukes on military objectives, it would be a diplomatic nightmare for nations turning to Russia.

And who would want to? They have nothing but oil really, look at their export variety. When the world moves on from oil dependency, what would Russia really have? I mean, we're talking about decades of economical progress, it took this long for Russia to get on their feet after the soviet union fell and the sanctions and economic collapse they see now has thrown them back 30 years. If the sanctions keep in place and no one wants to work there as a career choice, and people in Russia rather move out of the country if they want to work in anything other than farming, then the coming 30 years won't see an economic heal that we've seen previously since the early 90s. That will also happen during 30 years of progress in the west.

Russia will be a shithole if things stay in place and any nuke from them would be the nail in the coffin. If they aren't aware of this, that's their stupid hubris talking, the same hubris that put them in the embarrassing position they're in right now.

Moscow and Saint Petersburg would get nuked in return. You don't want that. — Olivier5

Lavrov is now threatening the world with a third world war involving nukes and he's blaming Ukraine for it :lol:

Russia has nothing left but this. It's clear that the invasion is a massive failure so they will try and do anything to show Russian might and power again. When they realize the world is laughing at their pathetic army and pathetic attempts at fooling anyone but the hardcore Putiners in Russia and internationally with their propaganda, they either have the choice of nuking everyone or live in shame. But nuking everyone will make them the worst people in the history of mankind so they have little choice but to live in shame. Russia is rapidly becoming a real dumpster fire of a nation, where no one will want to live, work, or be associated with. That legacy will haunt Putin and his minions until someone breaks it to reform the country.

Could be, but we don't know what the result will be of new weapon tech coming into Ukraine. And if they get more planes in the air, that can have a tremendous counter to stationary troops. And the kamikaze drones are especially deadly for small squads to attack with, they could also be used in city warfare where artillery could be too damaging.

Ukraine also has to think about offense rather than defense. The risk of a long period of war is greater if a smaller region has concentrated battles and the rest of the nation is spared. Russia can maintain battles if the entire military isn't diluted to just this one war and therefore can keep rotating its military. But if Ukraine gets more offensively aggressive and tries to take back regions and cities now that the Russian army is at its lowest point in terms of morale, resources as well as the sanctions keeping their war chest down, then Ukraine has a good chance to push back Russia even further, making it almost impossible for them to win the coastal region corridor to Crimea, which seems to be the point Russia aims for as the end of this war. If Ukraine does this before May 9th, then there's very little "win" that Putin can show off and it would be an extreme failure on his part. It could save Ukraine and even dismantle the Russian elite, throwing Russia into internal chaos that will require more attention from Russia than any war, effectively ending the war completely. These new weapons need to be used for offensive efforts to kill off supply lines and groups of Russian troops. If they could even fire at the Russian-controlled border regions to the very east, it would seriously damage any movement within the most densely Russian-controlled parts. But most effectively, if they could create bombardments, drone runs, and artillery into Russian-controlled areas at random, they would tank the morale even further as no Russians would be safe from the risk of getting killed. The Russian troops aren't broken by low morale, it's when the morale is low that you break them.

This is underlined by the fact that Russia telegraphed their recent missile test to the Pentagon as harmless and the Pentagon described it as routine — Baden

But it is routine. Those missiles would show up on defense systems and it would create a Defcon problem and raise tensions unnecessarily if not communicated as a test. There's no "collaboration" between Nato and Russia in such a sense, it's routine to inform about events so that there's no unintentional retaliation that could escalate to full conflict.

From learning, reading, researching, philosophizing? Never.

You're one of those apologists I refer to. I won't even bother reading it because you and Isaac have just proven to be noise. And the mods don't give a fuck about this thread so why should I bother to discuss things with you? Enough has been said, you want to parrot on, go ahead, I'll focus on more able people because I've had enough of Putin apologists, Russian trolls, and people up in their own ideological asses. What you and everyone like you keep asking for is to make arguments that have already been made, but ignored or drowned out, so why should I bother debating with people like you? I'm waiting for the mods to clean this thread up, which they never will because it's "a political thread". :shade:

I used to think so but I then checked on the corresponding Reddit thread, and found it better than here... — Olivier5

I'm not surprised.

You are the one proving my point the most Mr people-don't-need-education-professor-expert. Impossible to take you seriously and I don't.

Mods have been wallowing in low quality themselves on this thread, and have consistently played the anti-NATO flute. Disappointing. — Olivier5

Yeah, it seems that it's impossible to be both critical of the west and still understand things like Sweden and Finland's will to get security through Nato. I think the biggest problem is a black and white fallacy: the reason for the invasion can only be one or the other, and the will to join Nato means supporting everything they do, and being in Nato means supporting the US in everything they do (which makes little sense to the educated about Nato), and being critical of Russia means Russophobia and so on and so on...

This lack of complexity or lack of understanding that a situation has more sides than two is the biggest problem in this thread. It's a circlejerk for everyone who spent years criticizing Nato and the US, siding with Russia because of it. But things change, things get complicated, and being rational means understanding more sides than one. This thread is filled with self-righteous ideological BS instead of accepting what Russia is actually doing in Ukraine. Ignoring the obvious war crimes and genocidal behaviors of a nation just to score some points on the anti-Nato board. It's sickening the level of apologetics going on in here. Fucking whataboutism everywhere, trying to shift the discussion from what is actually going on to a topic closer to the heart of the one writing. Ego-boosting their intellectual delusions by trying to sound smarter than all experts in the field, cherry-picking evidence, and rhetorically ignoring everything that is hard to counter, choosing only segments easy to twist their tongue around. All while the mods ignore the cesspool quality of this thread. :vomit: I expected some level of moral understanding, some level of understanding of pragmatic hard choices, but this thread is just as bad as any Reddit thread on the subject. I rather turn to the real people around me actually researching this shit than continue trying to convince people who're stuck in their own echo chambers.

Or we're just tired that predictions and analysis made before turned out correct but the apologists keep saying the same things anyway. Logical arguments are made and countered by "where's the evidence" while the evidence to the contrary is Fox news, some unreliable bloggers, and extremely politically biased opinion pieces. If there's little understanding of what is a logical argument with educated predictions and what is actual evidence, there's no discussion that's possible. I'm tired of the low quality in this thread and mods don't care because it's a "political thread" so the bar for quality is set lower than Reddit and the bar for ad hominems is set to bottomless. What's the point when most posts are just Putin apologetic BS?

That's a lie. — Olivier5

He doesn't know what he's talking about, he's all over the place and can't hold two thoughts in his head at the same time. What can we expect from someone who's against education; a breakdown of the ability to actually discuss with any kind of progression of thought. This thread is just going on repeat now, with them continuously holding the same drawn line however things get explained to them. Can't discuss with people unable to do normal philosophical scrutiny and arguments.

Where's the story that Ukraine was making headway with it's anti-corruption drive? — Benkei

Well, if you took some time actually looking into this you would have seen it, it was pretty much shown in earlier posts of this thread at earlier points of this conflict, not that you care about it but go ahead and do some research.

Thanks for the info. I was trying to give a fair hearing to the idea that the Ukraine invasion was provoked or partially provoked by the US. The more I learn, the more absurd that seems.

Do you agree with that? Or do you still think provocation was part of the story here? — frank

Provocation is there, but not in any concept other than in the delusions of Putin and Russia. Nato will never attack Russia so any idea from them about acting to be secure from that risk is pure nonsense. Russia even wanted to join Nato back in the day but was rejected due to an unstable democracy and society.

I maintain that there are two parts to all of this. Finland and Sweden joining Nato are a prestige hit on Russia, losing neutral borders and key sea areas of the Baltic sea. While old soviet nations joining Nato means blocking any attempt to restore the old empire's geographical borders.

Ukraine was on the edge of joining Nato and the EU, blocking any attempt by Russia to restore a major key area of the old Russian empire. So this invasion was not any provocation other than a delusion of Ukraine already being "part of Russia". This is also the major insanity that made the Russian army fail so far. They thought Ukraine would willingly accept Russian rule, but instead, Ukraine showed that they don't want anything to do with Russia. This was "news" to the delusionals in Russia.

But to the point of US provoking, I'm interested to hear what you mean by that? Nato is still misunderstood, almost intentionally (so it's easier to be apologetic to Russia), and people don't understand article 5 or how the process of joining or how decisions are made within Nato. Some think Nato is being controlled by the US and when pointing out that it's a rule by the many, they still position that everyone is being controlled by the US anyway, which is batshit insane. Sweden and Finland joining Nato are being described as an act "controlled by the US" and I just think that idea is delusionally indoctrinated bullshit by people unable to hold more thoughts than their own ideological skewed ideas in mind. We want it because we have fucking lunatics in Russia sitting on military might that we need to be able to shoot down if needed.

There's no provocation that is reasonable as a reason for Russia's acts either in Ukraine or elsewhere. Russia is pretty much proven to be a war criminal at this point, on the brink of genocidal acts. Anyone defending these acts should take a long hard look in the mirror and either reject it or accept being part of it by defending it. It was a long time since we had this clear cut good and bad dichotomy in a war conflict and I, as mentioned earlier, position that we've had too many years of grey moral acts on the world stage where proxy wars and corporate neoliberal immoral acts made people confused as to how to act in this modern world, that we forgot that we can actually have a time where we have a delusional dictator murdering people and invading major nations.

I think that people who are questioning the moral high ground that the world exists upon against Russia forget that the peacetime after world war II is unique in historical measurements and that we take for granted how our modern world won't see a maniac leader like Putin cut from the same cloth as figures like Hitler, rise to power.

We think that world war II is in the past, that people are smarter and won't accept that kind of bullshit anymore. But that kind of comfort is extremely dangerous and I think this war is an example of that apathy. We either condemn the acts, stand up against such crimes, or let our apathy fuck everything up again to let our children condemn our actions and behaviors.

I will not be part of future analyses of stupid human behavior, I will be part of the ones who stood against such bullshit. History will show who's stupid and gullible.

I think he (Putin) will portray this as he has been correct all along. See how treacherous Finland and Sweden have been? The West is out to get fortress Russia all along! That's the official line in Moscow. Old puny enemies are gathering up. So likely we will be portrayed as nazis too who discriminate ethnic Russians and are the worst scum on Earth. — ssu

Of course, Putin's entire way of handling any issue is to turn it into being "planned all along". Some experts are already pointing out that we are being compared to a Hitler alliance in Russian media. It's laughable really.

The sinking of the Moskva could mark a serious escalation in the conflict. And I think as long as the West is content with its role as cheerleader, happy to "fight until the last Ukrainian" it will not bode well for Ukraine. — Tzeentch

Or it doesn't bode well for Russia. Not sure why big wins for Ukraine tend to make people say it's bad for Ukraine. The sinking of Moskva is a major blow to Russia and especially to the fighting morale that was really bad, to begin with.

Putin will most likely throw everything into Ukraine in the coming weeks, trying to get a win before May 9th. I don't think Russia can do much, they will keep losing. The only thing I'm scared of is if they use tactical nukes to level Kyiv just to show something to the Putin circle jerkers. But if that happens, Russia would be completely fucked.

And now I don't understand why Ukraine didn't join earlier. — frank

Join Nato? Because they had too much corruption up until just recently. They kicked out the pro-Russian people and started working against state and societal corruption. Nato demands a core focus on democratic stability so they couldn't have joined earlier. And this is probably one reason why Putin acted to invade now, the timetable became shorter, if not now, then never and he would never have had any chance of reclaiming Ukraine. The problem for Putin is that he sees Western standards as weak, so I guess he thought that when the pro-Russian people were kicked out, Ukraine would have sunken into the decadence of the west and would be easy to invade, but if he actually understood history, then he would know that people fighting for freedom are the fiercest of all.

when I and Christoffer already discussed the matter a month ago and then discussed the frantic communication between Stockholm and Helsinki and the shuttle diplomacy before this. — ssu

We've discussed a lot of things that then happened. For example, war crimes occurring. Generally, the Russian apologists deny on repeat until things actually show up as facts and then move on to the next thing they can nag about until that is settled and so on and so on. Instead of doing any induction of actual facts and reports.

Many continue to position that Ukraine might be in a dire position, but so far Russia has lost so heavily that I'm not so sure they could manage a new effort. While Russia, with a cut-down economy and no technology to repair what they have, and elite troops killed off, generals killed off, Putin jailing his FSB comrades, Moskva gone, Istanbul locking entrance to the Black Sea for further Russian ships, enormous losses of soldiers, pressure about war crimes, pressure about supposed acts of genocide, convoy after convoy cut in half etc. etc. Even if they scramble together recruits without experience, it will just be new stupid and uneducated kids not knowing what they sign up for and with less experience than troops so far. All while if we join Nato, the pressure from the north will make Putin sweat even more while they default on payments and crash the economy even more.

So how on earth is the situation dire for Ukraine compared to Russia? As I've been saying a lot, Russia is all muscle, brute force and toxic masculinity with no brains, the equivalent of a group of hooligans screaming their way down the street. The only thing they have are nukes, without their nukes Russia would be gone in an instance. Maybe Anonymous could hack their launch codes and coordinates to self-deploy nukes on themselves in their silos, that would be the day. Of course, that's impossible, but I would have liked to imagine Putin's reaction if it happened.

The Moskva has now sunk, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. — Olivier5

It's pretty clear how big the incompetence is in the Russian military, all the way to the top. I've positioned this right at the start of the war, Russians are just marketing and blunt large force, but no brains. It's like a brainless brute forcing itself into another nation, but they have nothing but that. Without their nukes, Russia would have been overthrown by now, there would have been little reason not to just cut off Putin and his minions. Russia's nukes are the ONLY real power they have, outside of it, there's nothing. Pretty pathetic in my opinion, all talk, and no real might. There's always been a toxic-masculinity attitude out of Russia, but this whole war put a spotlight on just how pathetic all of it really is, an entire military built upon it resulting in immature bullies conducting war crimes and big warship fleet leaders thinking they have nothing to worry about.

You may have your own views on this, but at least in the modern nation state there is a clear division between political leaders and military leaders. But even the assassination of military leaders is a controversial topic, as we have seen with the targeted killing of Iranian general Soulemani.

Military leaders plan and execute military operations and Putin cannot be said to be "part of an operation" in a military sense, though he is of course involved, but indirectly. — Tzeentch

Yes, but Russia isn't a normal modern state playing by the same rules, as seen with the war crimes happening. And Putin is very much involved, probably more than normal heads of state. And the fact he is jailing people in his inner circle now shows that he's at the helm of everything.

Modern nations play by the international rules of law, which Russia doesn't so they've lost the protection of being handled like any other nation. We can't treat criminal states with the same rule book.

Things can be strategic and yet impermissable under international law. — Tzeentch

They already broke such laws. If a criminal is shooting at the police after the police have shouted at them to put down the weapon and apply to the set rules of society, the police have the authority to shoot down the criminal. This is for the protection of other people around. So if Russia breaks international law, there's justification to take out their head of state and people involved with letting war crimes happen. This is to protect such things from happening in the future, to protect other people from being victims of those war crimes. Killing Hitler earlier would probably have destabilized and fastened the collapse of the Nazi regime, it would have been the correct thing to do, much like it is now.

No, the UN charter and similar international legal documents are active at all times, unless specified otherwise, like with International Humanitarian Law, for example. — Tzeentch

So, Russia's leaders don't apply to this and therefore have no protection from it, like states following international law.

It's hard to say whether Hitler couldn't also be considered a military leader, and therefore a legitimate military target. — Tzeentch

He was a legitimate target, he ordered troops, he gave the order for children and old people to oppose the alliance when entering Berlin.

Besides this, even if we consider him a strictly political leader (which he certainly wasn't) he was the orchestrator of a genocide. — Tzeentch

And what is happening in Ukraine right now? What about how Putin and his minions spread the rhetoric that being a "Ukrainian" is "invalid". It's still up for debate if there's a genocide going on, but there's a lot constantly being uncovered.

As much as I condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I don't think Putin matches either of these criteria by any stretch of the imagination. — Tzeentch

I think that's where we differ. Many said the same about Hitler, Stalin and Mao back in the day when information were still being gathered, but I have no problem considering Putin being cut from the same cloth as other authoritarian despots.

which forbids the targeted killings of non-combatants under international law. — Tzeentch

If the head of state is ordering top military generals on matters of military actions, isn't that like killing generals on the battlefield? They're part of the operation. If Putin is in direct line of command, it's strategic to take him out in order to disorient the chain of command of the ongoing conflict.

Isn't what you are referring to regarded in peacetime, like if some nation conducts an operation to kill a president without that nation being in direct open conflict with the nation conducting that operation? Otherwise (and if our modern international laws of war existed back then) if Hitler didn't kill himself, having the invading alliance troops in Berlin send in an operation to kill Hitler would not have been a violation in such times of war.

This in not rocket science. It' basic historical knowledge. — ssu

He's unable to grasp such things, he's opposed to formal education, so I guess he's opposed to learning basic historical knowledge. Or at least it's hard to learn such things if expecting students to learn by themselves without guidance. If this would have been a normal thread on this forum he would have been banned for low-quality posts a long time ago, but here he can roam free.

Dr Professor
— Christoffer

Just 'Professor' will do, thank you. — Isaac

Ok, dr Professor Expert.

You're still arguing the same premises that you've done for over a hundred pages, so it doesn't matter what people tell you since you don't even really answer to the premises and points others make, just cherry-pick what is needed to repeat yourself once more. You think people don't need education and you continue to be a Russian apologetic, there's nothing any argument seems to adjust or change, just like a detailed argument against your other ideas didn't change anything. What's the point of having philosophical arguments if you just parrot yourself through hundreds of pages. Discussing with you is irrelevant and pointless.