This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Ukraine.
By now, wise people, people who avoid reading the newspapers (newspaper generally lie) have noticed that the news out of Ukraine is bad. After years of relentless and very stupid propaganda, even 'The Sun' ran an article which was basically fine. Torygraph ditto. A bit of lying around the end, some lies by omission but generally thoughtful and not grossly incorrect.
That's means something. Not at all clear what. Obsessive observers of the war believe Ukraine is likely to hold out until end of '26, early '27. However:
1- There's a financing issue, sure - Americans, unwilling since Trump inauguration to keep paying for what they started now only want to deliver weapons if Europeans, who were against it initially, pay for them.
Europe, as everyone knows, is mostly broke, with the exception of Germany, which isn't only because it typically doesn't shower money around. Paying through the nose for overpriced weaponry like e.g. Patriot or Aster 30 missiles ($ 2mil per unit) which then are going to be fired, best case, at cruise missiles of equal worth doesn't seem like a winning strategy, especially with the Geran spam being able to destroy anything that doesn't have a rare cannon SPAA sitting on top of it. If there's 50 of them in Ukraine, that's probably too much.
There was a plan of 'magicking' up money by making a loan to buy more weapons, covered by the frozen Russian assets, thus 'risk-free' because 'Russia is going to release those assets as war reparations'. Belgium, which would have ended up having jurisdiction over it refused to go along..
2- Materially, it's bad. We know the gist of the situation: Ukraine has too few men -line infantry is at 20-30% staffing , is outmatched in drones, artillery and air attacks. Russia, being larger, is able to mobilize troops and sustain operations. There is shortage of everything on the Ukrainian side. Civilian cars, drones, men. -save perhaps small-calibre ammunition which is barely used in this war. (allegedly <5% of wounds are from gunshot). Why there is a shortage of cars seems.. mysterious. Germany surely should be able to keep Ukrainians knee deep in cheap trucks. E.g. Dacia Duster cost €20k and there's 100k made per year. A mere 2 billion € a year could give Ukraine 1 4x4 car for every 5 servicemen. What gives?
Ukraine drops some bombs using their few planes, possibly even daily , but Russians sometimes delivers up to 300 a day, although the mean is 160 in 2025. Any bunker, HQ, supply dump close behind the front can be hit. That's pretty modest- just 40 sorties in an Su-34. Ukraine doesn't have what to use - France supplied 800 glide bombs... for the whole of 2024. Promised 1200 for 2025. 4 a day. If Americans have given more, we'd have heard about it. If GDP so high, why so few bombs? Where's the American UMPK? Does US have no huge pile of old bombs you can stick sheet metal & gps modules to? Are cheap, effective, good enough weapons only something despotic alcoholic nations can make ?
The true rate of attrition is unknown. Ukraine armed forces, internally seem to believe it's 8 Ukrainians for 10 Russians or something along those lines, if we go by the testimony of this International Legion guy who deserted earlier this year after being allocated to an especially dire 1st rifleman battalion with 50% odds of surviving one rotation. (or so he says). In any case, as Europeans and Americans have shown themselves unwilling to go and risk death, the required rate needed to have been something like 2:10 just to break even, demographics wise.
3- the front. right now, a some amount of troops is encircled at Pokrovsk. Supposedly very few (AMK_mapping, an autist who follows the war hourly says Ukrainians mostly withdrew), but then, it's unclear how dire the situation is, however GUR fed their spec-ops team to the front near Pokrovsk, in an effort to make evacuation easier, to probably little avail (there is an FPV montage of these guys getting blown up already). They operate 3 Blackhawk helos, one of them was apparently downed.
Overall, as you probably know, the situation on the front is bad. Ukraine cannot hold territory, cannot counterattack effectively. Previously, Russia was only being able to push one place at a time, now it's multiples. If you want an overview, here's an interview of AMK_Mapping, a rare pro Ukrainian OSINT account respected by people on both sides. Honestly he seems autistic. The 'mapping' means he's one of the people keeping track of the war online by obsessively reading Telegram channels, geolocating etc. The interviewer is pro-Russian, somewhat overly optimistic I think.
Going by the aphorism 'If you're reading this, it's for you', it looks like the American press is preparing the public for a closing act of the majestic capeshit arc that started with the Maidan massacre. Ukrainians are generally eager to negotiate, nobody believes in winning anymore, though the demands Russia has are not viewed as acceptable. I wonder what the frontline troops and officers would say in private.
I must have hallucinated the Russian Tanks rolling into Ukraine originally, were those a CIA op? These types of posts would be more convincing if you could resist falling into even the most absurd Russian propaganda positions.
Is the implication here that you believe Russia is richer than Europe? Because that's uh... and interesting take on relative world economies. A sanity check through claude and grok both come up with Russia having about 10-12% the economy size of the EU. If you insist on PPP then at best 20%.
We've been hearing a steady beat of these triumphant "the ukrainians are definitely beaten now, they'll submit any day now" on the motte for years at this point. It's not happened yet. Would you be willing to make a bet?
What part of
Is hard to understand?
More options
Context Copy link
And yet, despite being 1/5th of the population and 1/5th of the economy, they're still winning what EU leadership is painting as an existential conflict.
What, does it say about the EU that it can't win a war against a foe 5x weaker ?
Russia is not fighting the EU, Russia is fighting Ukraine, a country with a tenth of its GDP and a third of its population pre war: your logic is precisely backwards. Why can Russia not defeat Ukraine after nearly four whole years of fighting, what does that say about its military, economy and politics?
This is a way too good joke to be buried this far down the comment chain late in the week, but here goes. Two Russians were sat on a bench in Moscow chatting gravely:
"They say we are fighting the EU and NATO now, but they say Russia is still winning even after nearly four years!
Wow, has the fighting been hard?
Well, we have taken over a million casualties, hundreds of thousands are dead, and we have lost: Tanks (4217, of which destroyed: 3131, damaged: 159, abandoned: 390, captured: 537), Armoured Fighting Vehicles (2321, of which destroyed: 1884, damaged: 38, abandoned: 124, captured: 275), Infantry Mobility Vehicles (411, of which destroyed: 329, damaged: 18, abandoned: 12, captured: 52), Towed Artillery (537, of which destroyed: 333, damaged: 101, abandoned: 5, captured: 98), Self-Propelled Artillery (988, of which destroyed: 820, damaged: 53, abandoned: 7, captured: 108), Rocket and Missile Artillery (535, of which destroyed: 435, damaged: 44, abandoned: 2, captured: 54), Surface-To-Air Missile Systems (352, of which destroyed: 264, damaged: 60, abandoned: 4, captured: 24), Radars (111, of which destroyed: 69, damaged: 32, captured: 10), Aircraft (168, of which destroyed: 146, damaged: 22), Helicopters (166, of which destroyed: 132, damaged: 32, captured: 2), Naval Ships and Submarines (28, of which destroyed: 21, damaged: 7), and Trucks, Vehicles, Jeeps, and Trains (4302, of which destroyed: 3560, damaged: 107, abandoned: 54, captured: 581).
Wow, that's a lot: a big chunk of our reserves held since Soviet times, and a lot of those strategic airframes we do not even make anymore, that is going to take a lot of replacing! How about the EU and NATO? What have they lost?
They haven't turned up yet. However, the USA (the biggest contributor) has been spending about 0.2% of GDP annually. It's about the same for the EU too.
Ha, fucking rekt am I right?"
Without foreign supplies and finances, the war would have been over by fall of '22.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It says that they haven't committed troops because they think Russia will spaz out and start lobbing nukes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
EU is best described as a person living paycheck to paycheck that uses payday loans. It is not about the size of the economy, but what the countries have spare. And it is not much. This is why funding for Ukraine has been sluggish. EU is big, but a lot of it's resources are tied in welfare, EU projects, the countries do have steadily increased debt to gdp ratio, growth is anemic at best and so on. France is in fiscal trouble, Germany's export oriented economy is not doing terribly well. We are also in a trade war with USA, with China while bearing the bulk of the negatives from sanctions on Russia.
More options
Context Copy link
The tanks were downstream of the coup, which was downstream of the bloodbath at Maidan, after which every major western government demanded Yanukovych steps down. The coward he was, he did so, thus in a way, bears partial responsibility for the utter shitshow that followed.
Who do you think asked for the bloodbath at Maidan?
You should read the narrative of it, even the semi-official one.
The riots units initially, despite having plate carriers and body armor suffered 2x many casualties as the 'peaceful protesters', to the point they retreated despite having partial cover. Then they got the whole of blame for the massacre of the protesters on the square despite being outgunned, withdrawing etc. As mentioned previously, even the obviously not very neutral Ukrainian court found that some of the dead protesters were shot by other 'protesters', and not by accident, deliberately.
I believe that others have called you out on this completely insane narrative around Maidan that is needed to make it into an original sin for Ukraine rather than Russia and Yanukovych fucking up (on the 21st of Jan they sent US$2 billion on condition he cracked down - which he did), I guess it is now my turn:
We have the full list of deaths, and the days they occurred - it's ~108 for the protestors and 12-18 for the police depending on your start and end points. More details emerged in 2023 to fill in the gaps, but some remain. However, the fact there are gaps, does not mean that every area of uncertainty was a CIA op.
The 2x casualties claim of security forces vs protestors is clearly not true as a narrative, unless you cherry pick an exact tiny window, as you have from one source that otherwise highlights how insane and unprovoked the attacks on the protestors were, and only look at casualties not deaths for the three hour window - remember it started with 3 protestors being shot on the 22nd of Jan (plus the tortured body of Yuriy Verbytskyi being found), then on the 18th of Feb you have the police using live rounds to stop a march - 11 protestors and 4 police were killed, then you have the police trying to clear the square - 17 protestors, 5 police died then, including actions by police and "titushky" irregulars. They were certainly not outgunned then, though they failed to break the protestors' lines and clear the square.
The "obviously not very neutral Ukrainian court" records you mention but not cite (https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164 for those who can read Ukrainian) found that 10 protestor deaths could not be attributed clearly to gunfire from police lines (Berkut) over the full period, but that other positions (Alfa in particular) or irrgular titushky fire from government supported could have done it, or perhaps friendly fire, accidents or deliberate protestor action. I do note that the Canadian academic Ivan Katchanovski (who really hates Ukraine, fine he can, but it's his theories being spun as some kind of fact from the court when they are his own supposition and it did not go through peer review) who cites parts of the 2023 verdict left those comments out and jumped straight to the false flag idea and that it was all a trick, despite that not really working - the fighting was already in full swing by that point.
Even best case, that still leaves 98 deaths directly from police and government action, who definitely deserve the blame for starting and escalating each major event in the timeline. They used live ammunition first, attacked the square, disappeared and tortured to death protestors prior and all of this was with Russian support and backing.
Last iteration was about two months ago.
Possibly because a previous case cited brought awkward citations on who might have been responsible.
The previous english-language translation copy link provided no longer works, but Katchavonoski excerpts are here, though I can't promise they are the same translation previously reviewed.
From two months ago on a case, which was a summary for FCfromSSC-
///
This is one of the cases which Ivan Katchanovski likes to cite as proving his Euromaidan-culpability false-flag thesis that he's spend his last decade publishing on. His inclination to refer to parts of it is directly correlated to how the contents support his thesis that the government was falsely accused for shooting protestors. For example, Katchanovski likes to gloss over section seven, and particularly the Court's scope exclusions that begin on page 13 noting-
Aka, any action not found guilty in a Ukrainian court of law is excluded from the verdict.
Which, in a steelman, is defensible in the judicial process, but not necessarily in a truth-seeking process where whether something happened as opposed to whether it was proven in a court of law. Particularly when the court of law approach might be complicated by things such as known evidence destruction or defection of key witnesses / perpetrators to a country outside of the court's jurisdiction, like Russia.
As such, Ivan Katchanovski is inclined to ignore, not comment on, or push past the court record's acknowledgement of an unproven-but-not-disproven, but highly relevant claim, of-
I.e., an alleged- but never proven and thus disregarded for this court's purposes- core thesis of the 'government false flag' theory.
Now, Person_376 is not one of the person-descriptors identified in no_one's document. But, in short, the RSP were one of the armed elements in the Maidan Protestors, who were generally in the back / the deterrence for the police to charge and clear the square by force. Their existence / presence is about as old as Euromaidan itself. One of the sniper attacks on the morning of 20 Feb came from a building they had a heavy presence in, which is what this court case is about, which is also old news.
The anti-Euromaidan propaganda narrative is that these RSP key actors were Euromaidan provocateurs / foreign agents (of western powers) who staged in waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to blame the Yanukovych government and escalate the situation, with the intent to bring about the consequence the collapse of Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
The pro-Euromaidan propaganda narrative is that these RSP key actors were Ministry of Interior provacateurs / agents who were staged in waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to blame the protestors and escalate the situation, with the intent of suppressing the protests as part of the broader Ministry of Interior crackdown buildup, but which had the unintended consequence of collapsing the Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
Both pro- and anti-Euromaidan narratives are largely in agreement that the RSP key actors at the center of this case were staged false flag elements waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to escalate the situation, with the consequence of collapsing the Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
The difference is in whose false-flag agents they were, and the intended result of the orders.
The court case doesn't take a position on this distinction, but Ivan Katchanovski likes to insinuate it does, and he is one of the main Reputable Scholars (TM) for the Euromaidan Is To Blame propaganda narrative.
///
End report.
And for clarity on the difference in theory intended results. The anti-Euromaidan conspiracy is that the false flag was intended to collapse the government and usher in the pro-Western government as happened IRL, even though that included various other factors beyond the control of western conspirators such as the local party mayor withdrawing city riot police from the conflict area rather than supporting state security. The pro-Euromaidan conspiracy is that the false flag was intended to sow chaos and amongst protestors and help legitimize the otherwise planned lethal force crackdown, which included security force authorization for live fires and other shootings, which was expected to suppress the Euromaidan but instead backfired as happened IRL.
Given that Yanukovych was content to wait out the protests, and did not need the massacre, and given the timeline on the day of the massacre given by Ukrainian themselves first shots around 5 am, then a lop-sided exchange between riot units and the 'snipers' which saw the riot units retreat bc they incurred 2 dead, 20 wounded despite having serious body armor. Mind you, the 'snipers' were not very discriminate, as in, BBC published a video of their crew under fire.
That's a novel claim that the police withdrew because of an order by a .. local city mayor, and not because they were facing a pretty serious gun battle during which they incurred, what, 20 wounded and 10 dead were somehow in the chain of command of Berkut, which was run by the ministry of interior, which, for Americans is the ministry that runs law enforcement, prisons and so on.
I see you're back to ignoring the Yanukovych administrations actual actions in the final days, the external state (Russian) pressures and incentives that were used to drive his changes towards those actions, and claiming as novel the mechanical form in which the Maidan Revolution succeeded, which was that there was a critical lack of elite and and party support for the lethal force crackdown that Yanukovych and the Russian-aligned interior ministry had attempted to initiate.
Unsurprising, and I look forward to your next attempt to claim that perfidy was obvious at play but that it couldn't possibly have been at the behest of the sitting government.
I ask you again, does the initial shootout on that last day that saw 20 wounded riot cops, who mind you, were wearing assault-rifle proof plates vs 10 wounded 'protesters' look like an 'attempted lethal crackdown' or more like unprepared riot cops attacked by a stronger force amply armed with assault rifles and worse. (.308 /7.62x54mm rifles also feature in the testimony iirc).
@Dean seems to have covered everything important, and did a great job doing so, but one last hanging point to not leave any elements unaddressed: How were the police wearing "assault proof plates", why does that even matter, and why do you keep claiming the police were outgunned as a narrative?
It is rare for riot police to wear heavy plates, although some might and I do not see many photos of Berkut in plate carriers or vests at the level 3/4 Russian GOST (that can take a few 7.62 hits before shattering) in the famous photos from the days, it's all soft kevlar stuff so they can move. See for example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Riot_police_Berkut_on_Euromaidan.jpg .
It's not a central or even relevant point though, why does it even matter what armor people were wearing? Lets say we can prove all Berkut casualties on all days were wearing the thickest plate possible to buy, what changes? We have the deaths 108 for protestors, 12-18 for police - which we all surely agree on, and there was no day where more police died than protestors, often by large margins, which we all presumably also agree on. Something like 50 protestors were shot fatally on that last day (I assume you mean the 20th of Feb?) so far far more died than the police - whatever equipment you give to Berkut/the government none of that changes, this was security forces firing on large numbers of protestors with equipment well below theirs by any narrative, even your own.
More options
Context Copy link
And I see you're still inclined to ignore the Yanukovych administrations actual actions in the final days, as well as @The_Golem101's points on the broader events of that morning, as well as all the other previous exchanges and your own court case documents you used to link to so proudly.
As such I look forward to your next attempt to claim that perfidy was obvious at play but that it couldn't possibly have been at the behest of the sitting government.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Was Yanukovych a Russian citizen? How does a Riot in Ukraine justify annexing Ukrainian territory and then invading Ukraine? Ukrainians killed Ukrainians over some corrupt bullshit and therefore Russia should get to conquer all the territory? If this is how Russia conducts business then no wonder so many Ukrainians saw fit to violently oppose a corrupt deal pulling them into the Russian sphere of influence.
https://old.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/5jjswq/the_refugee/
The sacred innocent Russian must be protected from all by force, and this sacred innocence means Russia is never ever in the wrong. Subjects of the Russian sphere are rewarded with largesse, how said largesse gets distributed internally isnt Russias problem. Chechnya is a financial dumptster fire that Russia drowns with oil sales because Kadyrov cracks his own peoples skulls on Russias behalf not just for own benefit.
To be in Russias imperial sphere is great for ruthless rulers that have no qualms subjugating their own people, since Russia does not care and in fact often helps out directly. The problem of externally aided subjugation of course is that beyond a certain point it becomes external support required subjugation, and if the patron falls (Yugoslavia, Soviets) or loses interest (USA, British India) then the internal tensions boil over beyond the local authorities executive capability. Unsurprisingly smarter countries recognize the futility of this bargain and try for internal stability rather than seeking fickle external patronage. Ukraines misery is borne from Yanukovichs mistake in assuming he could use his internal repression tools and that his Russian patron had enough strength to overcome escalating dissent.
Turns out Russia underestimated its internal leverage within Ukraine in 2014, and spent a decade rebuilding its levers of influence and subversion to prosecute a more direct extermination of Ukrainian independence. Its easy and very fun to clown on Russias massive failures in the Kyiv axis and Kharkiv/Khereon reversals, but Russia did have a successful lightning campaign past the Kerch strait bottleneck and even up to Kherson because of successful infiltration.
More options
Context Copy link
One can argue that countries have no right ever to forcibly intervene in another country based on that country's own internal affairs, and many do, but it is a rule more honoured in the breach than the observance.
"Forcefully intervene" as a euphemism for conquest is cowardly. Russia is attempting intervention here in the sense that forcible rape is a form of spirited disagreement about sexual relations. Russia is not intervening in Ukraine's internal affairs, they are attempting to obliterate entirely the concept of Ukrainian internal affairs.
Go and talk to the Yugoslavians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Afghanistanis, the Libyans. The Cubans, the Argentines, the Bolivians and the Brazilians. Hong Kong, if you like. Nobody likes being the subject of conquest, 'military intervention' bombing campaigns, foreign-backed coups or assassinations; no nation capable of carrying them out refrains from them.
It is simply a fact that strong nations see themselves as being justified in violently reordering other countries to suit themselves, while making spirited denunciations any time it's done by anyone except themselves. Nobody except members of the country in question are fooled by the old Russel conjugation of 'I am saving the people of poor Country X from their tyrannical leadership and bad upbringing / you are installing a puppet government and will be taking a warm interest in future cultural affairs / he is a conqueror embarking on a program of annexation'. There have been no formal declarations of war since 1945, do you think that 'good' nations have embarked on no wars? Let us not forget that Russia is no conqueror but is only, aha, 'embarking on a special military operation to protect Russian-speaking citizens and rid the world of the Nazi scourge'.
I think that your view is too cynical by half. Your view, which I would paraphrase as
is not so different from
Both the IRBO and the state of law in the US are not perfect, but they are clearly distinct from their respective baselines.
While some of the conflicts you have mentioned were clearly waged by powerful states for ulterior reasons, and I have been opposed to GWBs adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq from the start, I also notice that most of the wars waged by the left were not for outright conquest and annexation. A few of the wars might even have been net positive, like interfering in the genocidal mess that was the Yugoslavia civil war. In retrospect, I can not say I am especially proud of NATO for sitting out the Rwanda situation, for example.
Russia's war in Ukraine is one of straightforward annexation. This is markedly different to what GWB did. Thus, it is in the interest of the proponents of the IRBO to make Russia pay as high a price as possible, to deter both them and other states from trying the same in the future.
If this also means that Putin fails to conquer Ukraine, that is a bonus, but for the international supporters of Ukraine that is not the essential outcome. The goal is to make the war net negative for Russia by making them pay a high price in blood and economy.
As long as the Ukrainians are fine with dying for that, it seems like a no-brainer for the West to give them the materiel to continue their war.
I take your point, and would prefer to split the difference by saying that the international rule-based order is a polite fiction that constrains smaller and weaker countries most of the time, but doesn't change the fundamental reality that larger, more powerful nations have international interests and will find a way to justify violent warfare, regime change and other such things in pursuit of them. This is true IMO regardless of one's feelings on the morality of the matter.
I personally am not sure I find straightforward annexation in the general case to be clearly worse than regime and culture change as America tried to carry out in the Middle East (for example). I am quite willing to believe that Russian are fairly unkind and extractive rulers, and among the people you would least like to be occupied by, although I also find @Botond173's point convincing:
On a personal level, I find the West's attempts to destroy their enemies (and their friends) through slow corrosion to be... unappealing, perhaps. Having long since lost faith in the liberal project, the attitude of, "Don't worry, you* will choose to dissolve your country" repels me as much or more than blunter, more ham-handed attempts to do the same thing.
*or the leaders who pass our filtering process.
I have heard this argument before, and acknowledge its force, but I think it's important to acknowledge that 'the Ukranians' are not a homogenous group. There was a huge exodus of young men who fled recently when Zelensky relaxed the borders, and apparently it has become commonplace to Ukranian families to send their male children abroad before they reach 18. As with many wars, I am not convinced that the young men actually doing the dying are doing so voluntarily, and being a young man myself that weighs upon me with disproportionate force.
In short I find your position broadly reasonable and defensible, but disagree.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link