Ukraine War: *title amended by MNHQ* Putin POV

[Amrapaali]

This is a thread for people interested in both sides of the conflict. I have to admit from the off I have no skin in the game. I am not Russian, Ukrainian nor am I ethnically any kind of European or Briton.

I am just a cosmopolitan professional currently living in Britain. This may obviously change as my job or family circumstances change and I move to some other country. I am setting this stage just to re-iterate that I have no innate loyalty to any one country or state involved in this crisis. Of course, it goes without saying I am more than upset at the loss of innocent life in this war.

But I have been very disturbed at the way the media and politicians here have been frothing at the mouth. Almost all of them shriek "Russian propaganda" at Putin while doing the same thing unironically here. The very casual references to liquidating Putin, canonising Ukrainian fighters, the almost gleeful reports of Molotov-cocktail making, the self-congratulatory sympathy tears on TV breakfast sofas... There have been no attempts at actually analysing the war or presenting facts impartially without the anti-Russia outrage.

Here are a couple of interesting articles that gives a glimpse of what might have led to this moment.

These arent Russian troll bots. One is by a well-respected journalist and the other is an academic and expert. In fact British security maintained a big dossier on one of them, John Pilger for more than 40 years because he dared to put forward Kremlin’s view as well.

consortiumnews.com/2022/02/28/the-consequences-of-humiliating-russia/

independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/john-pilger-war-in-europe-and-the-rise-of-raw-propaganda,16065#.YiYAR8MPouI.link

Please share any other material you may come across. I would like to know more about Russian AND Ukraine without the media dictating to me what I should think.

There have been excellent articles in the independent and the guardian about the wests role in Putins rise to madness. War is terrible and the western complacency towards Russia after the fall of the USSR has been shocking. Our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have led us to turn a blind eye to Syria, Crimea and many others. I'm not sure it's very difficult to understand and these answers certainly don't give Putin any legitimacy. Once this is over they can explain their actions in The Hague.

Not a very persuasive argument.

Have you watched any of the videos of Syria following the chemical attacks by Putin?

Try to be neutral after that?

Just to say I actually think we in the U.K. are very culpable for these war crimes for benefiting as a result of our relationship with Russia.

I hope these events bring a change to that.

Some people might be interested in the background to this war but not as a means of excusing or justifying the war and mass indiscriminate killings - Putin invaded a sovereign country and has cluster bombed residential areas and targeted at least 2 nuclear facilities - no background whatsoever can have any bearing on that.

There is nothing coming out of Russia (or our fearless Westernb leaders have probably gagged it). ANd Putin is obviously being inscrutable.

Seriously. Putin has published essays on his opinion of Ukraine sovereignty. i wouldn'y describe threatening the world with reprisals for trying to help Ukraine as inscrutable and neither is telling other countries leaders (France & Turkey) he intends to take all of Ukraine. Perhaps you could try clicking on some Google search results which don't look like they will support your agenda. Unlike Russia we still have access to the www.

I find it fascinating this desperate need to somehow make Putin’s POV valid?

I do wonder if this a way to justify the potential sacrifice of the Ukrainian people that might come to bring about peace. Does it make it more palatable if we convince ourselves that Russia had a point?

99% of the time, a situation truly has both sides.

When we get a situation that's ludicrously lopsidedlike thispeople, especially professional contrarians, rush to find Both Sides.

The problem is, in this case, they have to dig deep and distort the truth. They have to ignore Russia's annexation of Crimea, and Putin's own statements about the illegitimacy of Ukrainian identity and statehood.

Some of them, like Pilger, are so invested in West Bad (especially America) that they jut can't ever admit the West might be right. Must be media blackout! Ironically they're taking the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" tack that's historically landed the US in trouble.

Meanwhile, in Russia, you can't even call this a war, they've blocked social media, and it was already one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist. But, it's the BBC and CNN and the New York Times that are bad.

@Amrapaali

Well said *@Welshholiday* very succintly put.

Free press and freedom of expression all flies out the window when there seems to be an invisible gagging order on any voice of dissension.

The case of the Russian conductor being forced to denounce Russia was horrible to read about. Why should any one be forced to take a stand? Especially if they have absolutely nothing to do with miliatry or political decisions

If you are talking about poor innocent Gergiev, thus is really just about the worst example you could have picked. Yes there have been some ridiculous excesses, such as the attempted banning of a course on Dostievskii at Milan University. I and many fellow Eastern Europeanists also feel that the curbs on academic exchange are going too far in targeting precisely the kind of people most likely to be critical of the regime. But Gergiev just so happens to be exactly the kind of warmongering and regime stooge we should be targeting. He's far from an apolitical artist- ffs he gave a "victory concert" in South Ossetia back in 2008 after the Russian campaign in Georgia! I suppose you think ostracising Leni Riefenstahl after WWII was wrong as well? How about Gründgens or Furtwängler?

It's ironic how people like Pilger have the freedom to complain about being gagged.

What they're really angry about is not getting a platform, which they aren't getting because their work isn't as good as they think it is, and because part of the job of being a professional contrarian is not to work in the mass media.

Curiously I do have an inkling about why Putin wants to invade, it still makes his invasion wrong. Ukraine is in the right for defending their borders.

Ukraine was part of the USSR, and about 20% of its population are Russian, but I don't think those facts justify Russia invading and trying to force Ukraine to submit to Russian rule. The Russian government seems to control Russian TV and media to the point that a sizeable chunk of its population believe Putin's story that Ukraine is the aggressor, and that Putin is freeing Russian patriots who have been victimised under Urkainian rule. However, despite the Russian media propoganda, many Russians access other news sources and so they know that Putin has invaded Ukraine for his own reasons, which they do not agree with. Thousands of Russians have been arrested for protesting against the invasion of Ukraine, so I believe that many Russians oppose Putin's war on Ukraine. These basic details, along with the harrowing news reports and interviews with Ukrainian refugees, convince me that Putin is totally unjustified in carrying out an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. This is why I am donating to DEC to support the Ukrainian people.

And IMHO, Putin wasn't planing on stopping with Ukraine. There are lots of other Soviet territories to be annexed if he succeeds. Lots of 'reasons'/excuses to invade them too.

Well would you say Bush had a valid point @heldinadream? Civilian casualties in the Iraqi war upto 200,000. Why is his righteous invasion alright? Is it a matter of scale? Millions versus hundreds of thousands?

A million people marched in London to try to stop that war. Many more millions were against it and against Bush and Blair’s decision.

Sorry, meant former Soviet territories, of course.

Whether the U.K. is currently friendly with them or not, I’m not that interested in seeing the POV of countries whose leaders have journalists arrested or murdered for criticising them.

So essentially the 'other side' is that Ukraine has less right to self determination than Russia and the West should sacrifice Ukranians sovereignty to keep Putin happy and an uneasy world peace - which actually isn't peace but not physical war.

And then after Ukraine, we agree to the same with the next country that Putin determines is necessary on his way to creating buffer zones, aka as recreating the USSR.

Any better articles btw?

It's farcical that anyone tries to justify the violence and destruction. Putin and Lukashenko demonstrated their taste for individual murder many times and more recently mass cruelty and murder when they lured hundreds of desperate people into Minsk this winter and dropped them in the forests to fight border guards or freeze to death. Reading your post puts me in mind of, one doth protest too much.

Anyone who blames the average Russian in the street is an idiot. Thousands are trying to demonstrate. Hundreds of thousands of us in GB demonstrated against the Iraq war that the Russian Bot factory likes to bring up as one its whataboutery tricks. We couldn't change it. At least we were not beaten or worse by the police.

Among the general beatings and carting away of old people who grew up post war. I've heard harrowing recordings of young female demonstrators picked up at the demos in Russia this weekend being sexually threatened in lock up. I've seen footage of the Russian riot police picking out young, attractive women from the crowd. The demo-ing public trying to stand up against a regime run by a brutal mix of bought politicians and organised crime is the Russian side you need to know about and support.

Wow

There was a (respected MidWestern academic, Russia expert) guy on radio blaming west for Ukraine invasion, ignoring Russian concerns about NATO etc. Those voices are being heard.

But this ignores what Ukraine wants - which seems to be to align with the EU. It is not the job of Ukraine to be the buffer between Russia and "The West" because Russia, despite vast wealth of natural resources, is as a state afraid of its own people, controls the internal media and does not allow any form of dissent against the state.

So essentially the 'other side' is that Ukraine has less right to self determination than Russia and the West should sacrifice Ukranians sovereignty to keep Putin happy

This is a much more succinct way of putting it!

The worldusfullofgs , like most people I know relatively little about this situation. It’s hard to find much information about why Russia attacked on the BBC for example. It seems most western news is purposely spouting pro western propaganda.
However from what I can gather from non news sources there has been a genuine fear among Russians about NATO, the US and the position of nuclear weapons pointed at them close to their border. I cannot say if this is a rational fear or not, however we do know that the USA destroyed Iraq because it wanted their oil.
I think you can want to understand the Russian viewpoint and care about Ukrainian civilians. For one thing I do not support the idea of forcing Ukrainian men to fight, if they don’t want to they should be allowed safe passage out. I don’t support the invasion or putin either , however if the Russian economy collapses there maybe food shortages leading to famines world wide. Nothing wrong with being told everything surely.

@LizzieSiddal

Russia has invaded an independent and democratic country. I’m not really interested in what Putin believes to be true, he’s a war criminal.

And whilst when this is all over, (hopefully we won’t have all been nuked) we will analyse and learn lessons. I suspect the main conclusion will be the West has been far too arrogant and complacent re Putin, Salisbury, Syria, Crimea etc etc etc, there are many warnings and we’ve ignored them.

This!!

OP
Referring me to read anything written or presented by John Pilger has completely blown your credibility. Sorry.

I can't take any analysis seriously from the people who two weeks ago were claiming that concerns about Russia invading Ukraine were NATO propaganda. The Russians I know are against the war.

Putin if he wanted to just ‘support’ the east of Ukraine - which I still don’t agree with but as part of his story I could just about go oh ok there is a pocket of people who feel that regardless of living in Ukraine they feel Russian…but he went for the lot to overturn and wanted to put in a puppet government. He used words put of his own mouth saying the government is nazi and Ukraine people have been brainwashed. Then put in drastic measures to ensure no reporting in Russia to balance it out.

I haven’t seen Ukraine try to overtake Moscow or bomb Moscow - I see one man invading another country - violently.

I don’t blame Russia or Russian people - I blame Putin and his mates.