CharlesDarwin1809

I guess I see Ukraine as the “lesser evil” by far:

• Russia is invading and trying to dominate its smaller neighbours, while Ukraine isn’t
• The Russian state has seemingly carried out assassinations of people it didn’t like (Alexei Navalny, Alexander Litvinenko, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili) - I think Ukraine has only carried out assassinations of Russian military figures, and only after Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine
• Ukraine seems to allow protests which are critical of the government, while Russia hands out severe punishments, including long prison sentences, for activists who disagree with the Russian government
• According to the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe), of which Ukraine and Russia are both members, Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election “was competitive, voters had a broad choice and turned out in high numbers”, although it notes some criticisms of the process, while in Russia, the OSCE wasn’t even invited to the 2024 presidential election, perhaps because Russia knew they’d be rigging the vote

I’ve noticed that tankies like to point out that far-right figures exist in Ukraine. Yes they do. But they exist in Russia too. In fact, some Russian far-right figures have influence over the Russian government. Perhaps that’s why Russia is pursuing an imperialist foreign policy.

Edit: I just want to point out that I’m not saying the Ukrainian people or the Russian people are worse or better than the other side. I’m only talking about their governments. To me the current Ukrainian government seems like the “lesser evil” compared to the current Russian government.

It’s certainly the general gist of what tankies say.

I don’t think it’s the EU buying Russian energy though, I think it’s particular EU countries buying Russian energy, like Orban’s Hungary did.

But tankies told me that Russia is a peaceful democratic country, and that Russia has no will whatsoever to act aggressively towards its neighbours, even on the internet.

In fact, tankies told me that westerners are the only people in the world who are ever aggressive, malicious, or evil.

A lot of the attitudes of the Russian government definitely worry me. It’s worrying to think how they might behave in the next few years. If the chance of a Russian “victory” in Ukraine starts looking slimmer, maybe they’ll lash out. Obviously I hope they don’t though.

Definitely a good point about the popular vote, I noticed that in the past that he never got a majority of the popular vote.

And yes I think the Electoral College is too flawed. I’d like to see it abolished, personally. I don’t see why voters in less populated states should get more say than voters in more populated states.

Hopefully the US and Europe can be on good terms again in the future, but who knows. I guess it depends a lot on how the 2028 election turns out.

Ah yes, the evil EU, maliciously expanding itself by accepting new members who democratically want to join the EU

Source for image:

I think some Europeans (certainly in my country of the UK) are still quite naive about Trump. Maybe they think “sure, Trump can be a bad person to some countries, but he’d never be a bad person to MY country”

One day, whoever is in the White House will choose to act immorally towards a particular European country (whether it’s Ukraine, or the UK, or Poland, or Finland, or whoever) and that European country, on its own, won’t be able to do much about it

TLDR: If Europe unites, it protects Europe from potentially hostile big powers, such as the US, China, Russia. A big entity like the EU has more leverage to say “no” than any individual EU country does.

We have different ways of looking at it, so no I don’t think there’s a lot of point in more discussion. Sometimes people have different views.

I would definitely like a situation where everyone in Ukraine and everyone in Russia can decide their futures democratically but yes, that’s not likely to happen soon, particularly because Russia seems to have very little democracy.

Zelenskyy apparently had an approval rating in Ukraine of over 50%, and sometimes over 60%, earlier this year, and also apparently 71% of Ukrainians think that new elections should only be held after the war ends.

Russia has no right to invade Ukraine to impose Russia’s will on Ukraine, such as the demand that Ukraine can never join NATO. Any flaws Ukraine may have don’t justify Russia’s murderous aggression.

If you view things differently then okay, but I guess that’s how I view it.

Nobody should be drafted and forced to fight

I would definitely prefer a situation where nobody is forcibly drafted or pressured to sign up for fighting.

it seems clear to me that there is/was some genuine support for it… Whether it’s 40%, 60%, 80%, whatever, I don’t have enough evidence to determine

There might well have been some legitimate support for certain regions of Ukraine to join Russia. I don’t think that gives Russia the right to start invading Ukraine though. I don’t think Russia would be happy if a country where to invade Russia to “liberate” Chechnya, a region which tried to become independent from Russia. The Russian government claims to care about the will of the people when some people are allegedly wanting to join Russia, but it clearly doesn’t care about the will of the people in other cases.

Anyway, I hope the Ukrainian people can determine their own future, whether that’s being close to Russia, or close to the EU, or neither, or splitting the country, or whatever. Also I think they should have the right to join NATO if they wish, regardless of what Russia wants. Would Russia willingly accept it if the US said to Russia “you can’t join a military alliance”? Russia would surely not tolerate being lectured by the US.

I wouldn’t regard the DPR as legitimate myself, due to reports like these about the “referendum” which established the DPR:

There were a number of irregularities with the count and procedure, and it seems unlikely that the figures announced are an accurate reflection of views in the region, with most of those who disagreed with the proposition staying at home.

CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward reports from eastern Ukraine there were glaring irregularities with the vote, and that it did not come anywhere near international standards. Booths out in the open, people openly voting twice, and other irregularities raised serious questions about the legitimacy or the operation.

If you have a different view then fair enough.

I’m sure Ukraine’s democracy is flawed but I also just don’t think Russia should be invading Ukraine, or making demands of Ukraine, for example the demand that Ukraine can never join NATO. If Ukraine were to democratically choose to become a strong ally of Russia then fair enough, but that’s not the same as Russia using force and threats to make Ukrainians behave a certain way.

Obviously the war is terrible though since it is causing so much suffering, for both Ukrainians and Russians to be honest.

Yes military intervention is often bad. I guess I do believe in defence though. I wouldn’t want my country, the UK, to be taken over by force, so I think defence makes sense. The UK has a lot of flaws but I think a successful invasion of the UK could make life here much worse.

If the capitol police had stopped guarding the government buildings in Washington and let the Jan 6’ers take full control, and then Congress held a vote in favor of the the Jan 6’ers demands, would that be a legitimate vote?

When Russia murders political opponents, does that make its votes legitimate? I don’t think Ukraine is killing political opponents without even a trial.

There’s also regions in the US that are economically neglected, providing a fertile breeding ground to the far-right, which is, frankly, way more urgent to address than any other concern on the planet. I mean, if the US goes full Nazi, then what does it matter if it maintains it’s influence over the far reaches of Eastern Europe?

Yeah the US has economically neglected parts. I’m not American myself, I’m European, and over here we have Russia waging the largest war on our continent since World War 2. Zelenskyy did win an election in 2019, an election which, as far as I can tell, was more legitimate than Russian “elections” for a long time.

If you want to focus on America then fair enough. Here in Europe I don’t want a future where Russia can invade any part of our continent, whenever they want, and rule it without question. If Ukrainians willingly chose to be close to Russia then that would be fine, but that isn’t what has happened.

I’m not American. I get what you’re saying though. But the quote of Tom Morello in the article, after the bit I quoted with “vote your ass off”, then says:

…but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see…

But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off

I think this is reasonable. A “corporate Democrat”, even if bad, can be better than a Republican in many cases. The Democrat might end up being less bad, for lots of disadvantaged people, than a Republican would be. These aren’t ideal choices to make, but you have to deal with reality as it is.

Ukraine’s current government came about because of the Euromaidan uprising, where a bunch of armed men stormed government buildings in the capital in the west, and declared a new, pro-Western government.

What I read is that Ukraine’s parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from the presidency, and hold a new presidential election.

I think it would be good if Ukraine could have new elections, with all regions that are legally part of Ukraine being able to vote. That would include Crimea, the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

I guess the reason that’s currently impossible is because the Kremlin gave weapons, troops, and assistance to rebels in the Donbas, to help them violently take control of the region. Then Russia increased its invasion in 2022.

Ah. I am sorry to hear it.

I see. Well if Merz is unpopular then I hope Germany finds an alternative to AfD (AfAfD, I suppose…) to rally around, in time for the next election.

I see, thanks for explaining. Maybe his mistake is similar to that of our previous prime minister, Keir Starmer: thinking that emulating right-wing populism will take votes from them. It didn’t work for Starmer and maybe Merz will find the same thing.

I actually think Starmer was a decent man who was trying to do good things in many areas. I think Burnham (our new prime minister - yes it’s hard to keep up with them all) is also good though.