My take on the Russia vs Ukraine thing.

[PissOnMyParade 447]

Basically, I think Putin is a heartless monster with more blood on his hands than Harold Shipman.

It's completely illegal, entirely unprovoked, and I stand in full solidarity with the Ukraine. I know my words on this fetish forum aren't exactly going to reach very far, and they pale into obscurity when you consider the heartache, fear, anger, rage, and destruction involved in this unwanted war. However, my heart goes out to every Ukrainian currently fighting for their country/life.

I propose that when Putin dies, we all organise a trip out to Russia for a huge collective disrespectful piss on his gravestone. Fuck that guy!

Edited February 27, 2022 by PissOnMyParade

[thirstierthanilook 20]

feel sorry for those who suffer there is a better future out there somewhere that's all i am sure of.  Billy Ocean when the going gets tough bass line in my head

 

 

[peebus10 140]

Completely deranged 

[thirstierthanilook 20]

yes it sure is, relentless. beer as a temporary solution is quite effective i've found when it all returns to normal i'll give it up... 

[steve25805 126,021]

I have a friend who had relatives in Ukraine and it was very worrying. Thankfully they have gotten out safely.

Unprovoked wars of aggression are never a good thing.

Trouble is there are too many in the west unable to take the moral high ground because of their own complicity in the invasion of Iraq.

If this war bogs down increasingly terrible things might happen. Chemical weapon attacks for example. I wouldn't even put it past him to oder a tactical nuclear strike on Kiev. Already in the news today there are reports of children in Mariupol dying of thirst and hunger.

There is a chance - and none of us will know a thing about it until or unless it happens - that people close to the top in Russia will have Putin removed by one means or another. Forced retirement into political oblivion if he is lucky. Perhaps a bullet if he is less so. Russia is after all a kleptocracy riddled with Russian mafia money. Thes guys don't mess around. If they or their wealth start being threatened by Putin's actions, he'll end up going the way of JFK.

[Almanaher 20]

On 3/23/2022 at 2:06 AM, steve25805 said:

Unprovoked wars of aggression are never a good thing.

Unprovoked wars? Russia was just provoked into this war by Western countries, led by the United States! They have been inciting Ukraine against Russia for years, spreading anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine. Russian-speaking people in Ukraine have been insulted, humiliated, beaten and even killed for 8 years. Imagine that Russia would start inciting Ireland against Great Britain, supply weapons to Ireland, and promote aggression towards Great Britain on the territory of Ireland? What would the UK do in this case? Would you have watched what was happening in silence? Or imagine that Russia would incite Mexico against the United States in such a way. Would the US be inactive in your opinion? There was a real genocide of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, and therefore Putin quite rightly decided to clean up all this evil from the territory of Ukraine. Putin is a great president and we Russians love him very much.

[steve25805 126,021]

52 minutes ago, Almanaher said:

Unprovoked wars? Russia was just provoked into this war by Western countries, led by the United States! They have been inciting Ukraine against Russia for years, spreading anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine. Russian-speaking people in Ukraine have been insulted, humiliated, beaten and even killed for 8 years. Imagine that Russia would start inciting Ireland against Great Britain, supply weapons to Ireland, and promote aggression towards Great Britain on the territory of Ireland? What would the UK do in this case? Would you have watched what was happening in silence? Or imagine that Russia would incite Mexico against the United States in such a way. Would the US be inactive in your opinion? There was a real genocide of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, and therefore Putin quite rightly decided to clean up all this evil from the territory of Ukraine. Putin is a great president and we Russians love him very much.

I will not engage in a political argument here. It is not what this forum is for. If one should develop the mods will probably close this thread. It is what I would do if I were still a mod and things got heated.

So I will limit my comments to asking who invaded who here? And whose nation is run by a despot, the invader's or the invaded?

 

[gldenwetgoose 21,487]

Thanks @steve25805 for your approach.

A quick reminder to all....    The General Chat area of the site is the one area where politics is allowed to be discussed.   However every other site rule still applies.

So in this thread you're welcome to express your opinions, you are welcome to discuss with complete respect how your opinions consider things from a different perspective, or to add factual information which others may not have been aware of.  To do that is healthy, educational and supports us all in understanding issues from different perspectives.

However if in the future any aspects of these posts break site rules (insulting or intimidating others, inciting violence, criticising the views and experience of others, arguing or simply failing to respect the views of others) then staff will be considering action needed.  In the first instance this is likely to be the removal of posts, but could also extend to warnings if member's are not able to follow site rules.

 

[Almanaher 20]

3 hours ago, steve25805 said:

So I will limit my comments to asking who invaded who here? 

Russia has invaded the territory of Ukraine. And it invaded with one single sacred purpose - the destruction of Nazism. Russia remembers its sad experience of 1941, when we waited for the Nazis to come first to our land. Then 25 million Russians died. And now we did not wait for the Ukrainian fascists to invade our country.

[steve25805 126,021]

8 minutes ago, Almanaher said:

Russia has invaded the territory of Ukraine. And it invaded with one single sacred purpose - the destruction of Nazism. Russia remembers its sad experience of 1941, when we waited for the Nazis to come first to our land. Then 25 million Russians died. And now we did not wait for the Ukrainian fascists to invade our country.

To be honest that is just Russian state propaganda. Yes there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine and you have shown pictures of them. But there are also neo-nazis in Russia too, as well as in the UK, in France, in Germany, and most other western nations. But they are not the ones running the country anywhere, including in the Ukraine. Ukraine's president is himself Jewish.

So the nazi thing is just an excuse for armed invasion, an attemnpt at a military conquest. Putin in any case is more of a Nazi than Zelenski, despot that he is. Zelensky has never sent agents abroad to commit state murder on foreign soil. Putin has many times, including in my own nation of the UK.

And the notion that the Ukraine could ever carry out a successful invasion of Russia is just daft. Ukraine is not nazi Germany.

Edited March 25, 2022 by steve25805

[Almanaher 20]

9 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

To be honest that is just Russian state propaganda. Yes there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine and you have shown pictures of them. But there are also neo-nazis in Russia too, as well as in the UK, in France, in Germany, and most other western nations. But they are not the ones running the country anywhere, including in the Ukraine. Ukraine's president is himself Jewish.

So the nazi thing is just an excuse for armed invasion, an attemnpt at a military conquest. Putin in any case is more of a Nazi than Zelenski, despot that he is. Zelensky has never sent agents abroad to commit state murder on foreign soil. Putin has many times, including in my own nation of the UK.

And the notion that the Ukraine could ever carry out a successful invasion of Russia is just daft. Ukraine is not nazi Germany.

I personally helped with humanitarian aid to refugees from Donbass who came to my city. I talked to dozens of people and they all say that they have been shelled by Ukrainian Nazis for the last 8 years. I also have many friends and relatives from western Ukraine and they all said that in recent years they have been beaten for Russian speech, Russian symbols. This is a genocide of the Russian-speaking population and nothing else. Are you aware of how the NATO bloc, which your country is at the helm of, together with the United States, conducts "peacekeeping operations", for example in Iraq or Yugoslavia? How many civilians were killed there? Aren't you ashamed of your country?

[steve25805 126,021]

2 minutes ago, Almanaher said:

I personally helped with humanitarian aid to refugees from Donbass who came to my city. I talked to dozens of people and they all say that they have been shelled by Ukrainian Nazis for the last 8 years. I also have many friends and relatives from western Ukraine and they all said that in recent years they have been beaten for Russian speech, Russian symbols. This is a genocide of the Russian-speaking population and nothing else. Are you aware of how the NATO bloc, which your country is at the helm of, together with the United States, conducts "peacekeeping operations", for example in Iraq or Yugoslavia? How many civilians were killed there? Aren't you ashamed of your country?

I have never supported our invasion of Iraq in 2003. But unlike you I was free to speak out against my own goverment at the time.

I have a Latvian friend who is half Russian and who had Russian relatives in Ukraine. They felt safe there until the invasion and have now fled the country. The people of Latvia itself are also afraid of you. 

As for the Donbass, Russian itself armed and encouraged the insurgents in what was then still part of Ukraine. The Ukrainians were angaged in resisting an armed uprising inside it's own borders encouraged by Russia.

I know my country is run by a bunch of incompetents right now, but yours is the one acting truly shamefully at this time. Yours is the one bombing and shelling cities, killing women and children. That the Ukrainains are motivated to fight is demonstrated by the fact that after more than four weeks your armies are at a virtual standstill and you are resorting to terror bombing and shelling.

[Almanaher 20]

1 hour ago, steve25805 said:

I have a Latvian friend who is half Russian and who had Russian relatives in Ukraine. They felt safe there until the invasion and have now fled the country.

The fact that he had to flee is only the fault of Ukraine itself, which chose to be a puppet of the United States. Putin has warned a hundred times that the United States should remove its tentacles from our borders from the territory of Ukraine. Ideological Russophobic feeding, 30 chemical laboratories (the presence of which the United States itself recognized), the genocide of the Russian-speaking population.... - this is all the USA. We got tired of putting up with it and we realized that there is no other way except military cleansing. If the Western community had heard Putin in time and stopped their activities in Ukraine, then this would not have happened now.

1 hour ago, steve25805 said:

The people of Latvia itself are also afraid of you. 

There is no need to be afraid of us, because Russians are the most peaceful and kind nation. Where Russia is, there is peace and security.

1 hour ago, steve25805 said:

As for the Donbass, Russian itself armed and encouraged the insurgents in what was then still part of Ukraine. The Ukrainians were angaged in resisting an armed uprising inside it's own borders encouraged by Russia.

These rebels, as you call them, wanted only to speak Russian fluently, to listen to the song "This Victory Day" on May 9. And these Banderites stripped orders from veterans of the Great Patriotic War, poured kefir on them, there are many video testimonies to this, filmed by Banderites themselves, exhibited by them with pride. Shame and shame. And that is why the Donetsk and Lugansk republics wanted to separate from Ukraine.

1 hour ago, steve25805 said:

Yours is the one bombing and shelling cities, killing women and children. That the Ukrainains are motivated to fight is demonstrated by the fact that after more than four weeks your armies are at a virtual standstill and you are resorting to terror bombing and shelling.

It is precisely because the Russian special operation differs in methods from NATO's "peacekeeping" operations that our troops are moving so slowly. NATO If we, like NATO, carried out carpet bombing, the operation would have ended long ago. But we cannot afford such barbarism. Our soldiers are forced to dislodge the Nazis from residential areas. Our troops are creating humanitarian corridors for the departure of civilians, but the Nazis do not let them out, hiding behind a human shield. Your TV channels will not show how hundreds of people in the liberated territories of Ukraine meet our troops. These emotions cannot be faked, they are sincere. And these people are vying to tell how the Nazis kept them in basements for weeks without food and water, as hostages.

[steve25805 126,021]

@Almanaher, you certainly have a different perspective, and I feel a lot of what you are spouting is Putinesque propaganda.

For one thing whilst there may well have been an element of Russophobia amongst some Ukrainians, to talk of genocide is utter nonsense.

However, this site is not really a forum for political argument, and I don't really wish to engage in that here in any prolonged way.

So I am just going to agree to differ and move on.

There are many things all forum members here have in common, but politics is never going to be one of them. Better to leave it for politics forums.

Enjoy your day.

[Almanaher 20]

21 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

 

So I am just going to agree to differ and move on.

There are many things all forum members here have in common, but politics is never going to be one of them. Better to leave it for politics forums.

Enjoy your day.

I agree! It's better not to continue.

21 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

Enjoy your day.

Likewise!

[Sophie 24,410]

I just want to say thank you @steve25805and @Almanaher for behaving in an adult and civilised manner. It is really nice to see and not something I often see on forums.

Thank you! 

[TMN_Femboi 1,074]

I personally don't like either side.

Selenskyj has received too much money and too many gifts to still be called a democrat. That includes people who are in charge of Ukrainian television, meaning that while it is totally possible that he rose to power in a technically legitimate way, the exact circumstances of that might be questionable. Meaning that we have extensive propaganda on both sides, just with the Russian one being a lot more extreme.

He also banned pro-Russian channels from Ukrainian television. I always hate stuff like that, one only forcefully shuts up his opposition once he no longer has any proper arguments for his own side. I, too, live in a country where the state heavily influences the media and it is more than annoying.

Another thing I don't like is how he is forcing pretty much all men to stay in the country to help defend it. Defending a country should be the task of the military and not bound by gender. That makes him directly responsible for some civilian casualties, he is doing the same thing Putin is doing, just indirectly.

Of course, Russia is still the main issue here. Whatever the true reason behind this war might be, it definitely isn't what is being stated in Russian media and henceforth must be something that would put Russia in a bad spot.

The Russian military is also shelling civilian targets, which is something that should not happen in any war, regardless of participants. I just wish that people would still talk about it as much when it's happening in other places, America and Israel have been doing so for years, but somehow the world only has an Issue with it when Russia is doing it.

Russia might be the worse one, but in the end, we have too many people dying for something they do not support on both sides, on one because they're forced to, on the other because they're being lied to.

 

EDIT: Just saw sth about the USA and yes, they are somewhat involved in this whole mess as the chief of the mistake called NATO, but please, don't go after the countries affected by the symptoms, do your best to stop the cause instead. Otherwise, people will die and nothing will change.

Edited March 25, 2022 by TMN_Femboi

[steve25805 126,021]

1 hour ago, TMN_Femboi said:

 

The Russian military is also shelling civilian targets, which is something that should not happen in any war, regardless of participants. I just wish that people would still talk about it as much when it's happening in other places, America and Israel have been doing so for years, but somehow the world only has an Issue with it when Russia is doing it.

Well yes, but the west as you say is itself riven with hypocrisy. US drone strikes have proven criminally indiscriminate, killing many more civilians than genuine enemies. And as for Israel, it's behaviour towards the Palestinians is notorious, yet anyone who criticises it is called an anti-semite by our own political leaders and thrown out of parties. And Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen with impunity, and we say and do nothing because we want their oil and money.

Yes we are right to condemn Russia for what it is doing I believe, yet we in the west are so selective in what we choose to condemn and what we choose to turn a blind eye to that our political classes certainly lack moral inegrity and are nowhere near the moral high ground. And many western politicians who condemn Russia for an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state are the very same ones who supported such an attack when we were the ones doing it in Iraq under a similar amount of false pretexts.

Edited March 25, 2022 by steve25805

[Sophie 24,410]

Hi everyone... 

Firstly I want to thank you for being mature and civilised in this topic, it is a breath of fresh air and nice to see. 

However... Unfortunately we have made the decision to close the topic. The situation in Ukraine is a very sensitive topic and with topics like this things can get heated  quickly and it is very easy for people to get hurt, even if it was unintentional. The last thing we want is for people to get upset when it could be avoided. 

So with that said I am locking this topic before things get out of hand. I'm not targeting or blaming anyone in particular, but I feel it is in the best interest of the forum to prevent it before it happens. 

Thank you for understanding.