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Notes -
This is nothing compared to other Ukrainian public relation efforts.
First there was picking American transgender woman as official spokesperson for Ukrainian army, who then went on unhinged rant threatening to kill "Russian propagandists" all over the world.
(speaking in English, not Russian, so it is clear that it were not Russians in Russia who were target of this threat)
This speech is there, it is something you will hear from mouth of cartoon Evil Mastermind(TM) in corny B movie, just before Action Hero(TM) storms in and drops the villain into his/her/their/zir/xir own shark tank.
Someone in charge then noticed this does not make Ukraine look exactly like Avengers team and decided to suspend Cirillo.
So sanity prevailed and all will be good (optics) from now?
Well, Zelensky just decided to make honorary "ambassador of Ukraine", of all people, Marina Abramovic, world famous performance artist.
It sounds like 4chan fake news prank, but it is real, reported by mainstream media(and then vanishing from their pages).
Ukraine knows well what it is doing, Ukraine tries hard to signal it is on the right side and win hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds of people who matter, not yours.
edit: links
Given how hard the US right is now pulling for "1. feed Ukraine to Putin 2. ???? 3. PROFIT!" - it's hard to blame Zelensky for betting on the other side. He has people's lives at stake. If sucking up to whatever Western weirdo is what helps to get weapons to save a thousand of Ukrainian lives - worth it thousand times over. I mean, the US red tribe can't be both "fuck all those guys over the border" and then be wondering "why those guys over the border suck up to Democrats?!" Because that's their only option, if the right says upfront they want nothing to do with it. Ukraine is toast without Western help, they just don't have the resources to fight Putin alone, especially given they can't afford to get a million of their own killed people like Putin can. So yes, sometimes it would look stupid. Sometimes it will be stupid - desperate people don't always look very attractive.
I don't believe for a second that giving weapons to Ukraine is saving Ukrainian lives. Especially now that it's apparently devolved into a static almost trench warfare situation. Every weapon given to them prolongs the conflict by X amount, and certainly results in some amount of casualties during that interval.
Of course, if Ukrainians gave up immediately, most of their lives - except those who Russian would execute, torture to death or otherwise "disappear", but how many could they realistically kill? probably not too many, right? - would be saved, and they would live happily ever after under the benevolent rule of Putin. Too bad they are too stupid to realize that and give up finally...
I don’t think anyone supposes that Putin is a benevolent leader.
I don’t see Ukraine being particularly worse under Russian suzerainty than under some other conditions. It’s never going to be paradise.
That's one part of it. Another is that it's not like the alternative is between slaughter and no slaughter. Based on the observed behavior of Ukrainian national guard and police units and paramilitaries, any Ukrainian territory being recaptured would also result in mass executions and torture, "disappearances" etc.
What's your estimation on the amount of these that have happened in the territories Ukraine has already recaptured from the invasion?
How am I supposed to have estimations? After all, I'm sure nobody dares to try keeping track or count of these. In fact, nobody involved in any way has any incentive to raise the issue at all.
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