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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd
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Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:
"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"
For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.
If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:
totally oblivious of cases like this
https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko
being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.
You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
Why do you care about those people on internet?
Any reasonable person understands that it is morally wrong for one country to attack another that has never threatened you.
Then one can say – forget about morals, the power decides the outcome. Turns out Russia is not as powerful as we thought and they got stuck in Ukraine and are losing positions every day, thanks for western support.
A lot of people just suffer from denialism. The fog of war doesn't allow us to see clearly what is going on in every detail but in a nutshell the reality is clear. Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.
People in the western countries have free access to all the information and most of us see it clearly.
For a lot of Russians it is harder to see in this way because they suffer from collective delusions that Ukraine is a bad country (nazis or not) that does not deserve to remain independent and Russia is going to take over Ukraine and make it a glorious part of Russia.
On balance Russia is wrong. But the cartoon cut out of “Russia bad” is over the top.
There was on-going anti Russian people attacks in the Donbas. If there were a community of Americans living in Mexico that came under attack I imagine Uncle Sam might have something to say.
The 2014 coup and Ukraine buddying up to Nato suggests Ukraine was in some sense threatening Russia’s interests (the same way the US flipped out re Cuba and the USSR and the same way the US will flip out over PRC and Cuba).
Now I do think these issues, while influencing Russia, were not the principal reasons behind the Russian war (ie imperialism). So on balance I think Russia is the bad actor. But it isn’t the carton some people pretend.
American citizens regularly get kidnapped by cartels in Mexico.
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There were indeed, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_Mariupol_rocket_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volnovakha_bus_attack
(please read the articles)
It wasn't a coup. If you make an inflammatory statement — provide the evidence.
The legitimately elected leader of the country was chased away by men with guns. How is it not a coup?
You can argue that it was a good and necessary coup, but I can't see how you escape framing the undemocratic and disorderly ouster of Yanukovych as anything other than a coup.
Do you have a video of him being chased away by men with guns? He was voted out by Rada.
"Coup" is a charged word, and is used to paint the protest, and post-Maidan government by extension, as illegitimate. So why not "Revolution"? Because it is reserved for events like American revolution, and pro-Ru Americans, despite them siding with Russians and Chinese, still venerate the Founding Myth?
The American revolution wasn't a coup, since it didn't topple the previous government but separated from it. George didn't have to flee to another country.
The US constitution, there's a coup.
Is it based on any academically accepted definition? Because then French Revolution isn't a revolution either.
My french constitutional lexicon says that a coup d'état is the overthrow of a power through illegal, usually violent, means by someone invested with authority.
Louis was overthrown, Georges wasn't. The ARW was secession, not a coup.
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Wikipedia is far from a trusted source especially on politically relevant topics. So nope won’t read it. I’ve read enough to understand the Donbas is complex and yes there were anti Russian actions occurring. Again doesn’t make Russia correct but it complies the narrative.
As for the 2014 coup, I think most people are aware. Just because you like the freedom fighters doesn’t mean it isn’t a coup. Moreover, a cursory understanding of how the cia historically operated means any degree of uprising that “supports” globalhomo is in part astroturfed.
That's a nice way to deflect. The cases when Russians bombed Russian population in Ukraine controlled cities and locations are well documented. Those two are the best documented though. I also recommend to read materials from the International Court (Russia has its representatives there defending themselves, so it's not in abscence)
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/166/oral-proceedings
If you read quality source, you'd understand there is nothing deeply complex about it.
"Everyone understand" is a fallacy (building consensus), and it's a bad way to introduce garbage arguments about CIA and "globalhomo". Please build a good argument for why it was a coup, but taking into account events like disappearance of Janukovich, Supreme Council of Ukraine (Rada) vote for removing him, shooting at the protestors, introduction of anti-Constitutional laws on the 16th of Jan and so on?
Even in the west it's called "the Maidan Revolution", no?
All of the things you list might be good reasons to have a coup, but there's no reason not to call a spade a spade.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FijiV_ISw2A
If you consider up to a million people in Kyiv alone a "small group", then it's a coup, sure.
I think the difference is important. Pro-Ru like to point that it was "undemocratic", and that it was instigated by CIA. While the first claim can still be supported (Janukovich wasn't deposed in an election), it is weakened by the demonstration of popular support of ousting of Janukovich. Even in Donetsk:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=d76wFtOzfds
If we are judging how popular or democratic things are by demonstration of public support Trump creamed Biden.
We generally think voting is the appropriate method.
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Russia is bad for attacking Ukraine unprovoked.
Even the war criminal Prigozhin who recently gained a lot of popularity in Russia said that it was a lie. Ukrainians were fighting clandestine Russian forces in Donbas.
Threatening “Russia's interests” or threatening Russia? Very different things.
Russian attack on Ukraine was a mistake even from the point of view of Russian supremacy because it was destined to fail. It has weakened Russia considerably and they are only themselves to blame for it. Now the question is why so many seemingly smart people don't see this? Even the baddies like Prigozhin have realized this. I can kind of understand why so many people in Russia have this delusion. The human nature of conformity forces them to adapt to follow even misguided leaders. But why many people in the west believe this nonsense that somehow Russia is going to win in Ukraine?
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When Putin said all he wanted was Crimea and the Donbas, people called him a liar, an imperialist, and a murdering conqueror. If the bear stands down and leaves Ukraine alone once it’s finished biting off those two chunks, as he stated, I won’t be surprised.
If Belarus is next for a weird contested election, I expect to see a repeat of wars and rumors of wars.
He already said he won't relinquish control of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine. He literally compared himself with Peter the Great. I think calling him an imperialist and a conqueror is fair, as he essentially said it about himself in his own words.
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He just wanted Crimea and the Donbass so badly he sent a quick strike and later riot police towards Kiev?
Maybe. Most of Ukraine's soldiers were around the Donbass region at the time, and well dug in - it could be reasoned that it would be quicker and less bloody to try and cut them off, or even decapitate the government, and then negotiate for Donbass/Crimea from a position of strength. That seems pretty doubtful, though. Given Russia's actions and rhetoric at the time, it looked more like they planned on totally overrunning the country.
We can only really speculate, at this point, on what Putin would have done if he had won.
If a stranger forces entry with a shotgun and a bowie knife, and you succesfully shoot him, the default assumption isn't that he only wanted to raid your fridge. So too with Putin and Ukraine, I'd say.
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Yes, Putin is a liar, an imperialist and a murdering conqueror. People have characterized him fairly.
Putin is a war criminal.
I don't see how the latter follows in any way from the former.
Or are those all separate claims?
I didn't understand your comparisons either. So, I just emphasized the basic truth.
What comparisons?
I demand you explain your reasoning. You can't just go and state things. This isn't /pol/.
I mean, this is going into circles. Your write something very unclear based on some references or comparisons that I am not familiar with, I don't understand them. You then say – what comparisons?
Maybe you should reflect on what DuplexFields wrote and try to rewrite it so that it makes sense. I cannot provide reasonings of things that I cannot understand.
I haven't written anything but simple questions about your own utterances. If you don't understand your own claims and refuse to explain them, why post here?
All I'm asking is that when you call world leaders epithets, you actually give a detailed reasoning why. I don't think that's incomprehensible.
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