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.

Putin is an unelected and increasingly irrational dictator, whose people are terrified of him. Putin’s Russia is an enemy of Britain, has been for a long time, including murder on British soil and waves of cyber espionage against us. Now he’s threatened nuclear war against anyone who stops him doing whatever he likes, and is invading his peaceful neighbours.

This isn’t an issue you can be neutral about without spreading pro-Putin propaganda.

If you’re genuinely interested in learning more about what’s going on in his head then this article is very good: www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340

This is how these discussions always go - some reference to the Azov battalion (who of COURSE are bad), examples of Ukrainians being racist because of course that means they should be invaded for the crime of not being western liberals... Citing Al Jazeera because who cares about Qatar essentially keeping slaves. It's tiresome propaganda and no different imo to the Nazi propaganda posters citing Britain's appalling actions in India as a way to justify the Holocaust via whatabouting.

If we had access to various intelligence services files, we would mostly like have a better analysis.

[quote Thewindwhispers]Putin is an unelected and increasingly irrational dictator, whose people are terrified of him. Putin’s Russia is an enemy of Britain, has been for a long time, including murder on British soil and waves of cyber espionage against us. Now he’s threatened nuclear war against anyone who stops him doing whatever he likes, and is invading his peaceful neighbours.

This isn’t an issue you can be neutral about without spreading pro-Putin propaganda.

If you’re genuinely interested in learning more about what’s going on in his head then this article is very good: www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340[/quote]
Thanks for that link. Many things on that article jarred a bit (especially the "Putin is trying to take down the entire world order" hyperbole) but interesting to know about the NATO threat

@Welshholiday

I think it is important to consider that, while invading another country is wrong, so is biased and inflammatory comment and “news”. Accepting that one is not comparable to the other, state and corporate manipulation of information flow risks turning functioning democracies into pseudo totalitarian states. Even at a time of war we should aim to preserve what has been good about the west or the battle will be purely nationalistic and absent any morality.

Elon Musk, for example, is to be applauded for refusing to ban Russia Today from his systems. Even if all they tell us are their lies, better that they retain the freedom to tell lies and we retain the freedom to hear and dismiss their lies, than that we allow the state to decide what we are allowed to hear.

You make a good point here.

I saw a video of Justin Trudeau (of all people) stating that we'd seen a slide towards authoritarianism in western countries.

The example that he used to illustrate his point? "We've allowed fake news and false information to flow." In other words, to avoid totalitarianism we need greater levels of censorship.

It was an absurd statement. But I do expect that leaders such as him will use this horrific crisis as a backdoor for increased state control.

This isn't about Russia or Russians, this is about one man launching a war in order to shore up his own regime. In fact, the poor bloody Russians could be about to find themselves living under a more North Korean-style dictatorship. The Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom of those people too.

Honestly, at least the non-German and non-Russian fuckwits who supported Hitler and Stalin had a belief in their twisted ideologies. I despair at today's fuckwits who twist themselves in knots supporting any kind of wrong because their only position is anti-West. I used to work with an elderly Russian woman who said that those who had to live in the Soviet Union saved their biggest contempt for those who supported the regime but who didn't have to live there. There are a lot of contrarian whatabouterists out there at the moment who would shit themselves if they were dropped in Nizhny Novgorod and told that's where they lived now.

@Ncwinc

You sound like Donald Trump.

You might be on to something there, Ncwinc.

stairway

I'm not sure where I put that I didn't want to know everything. However the articles cited are not great or balanced sources. The NATO argument has long been used by those who support letting Russia expand with buffer states. Personally, I find sacrificing countries a difficult issue morally.

I don't want Russian or Ukranian people to suffer but unfortunately Russia has chosen a particular path which will have global ramifications for decades at least.

USA destroyed Iraq because it largely dislikes dictators and didn't understand the ramifications of destaising the Middle East.
Most people don't understand Russia and the fact its never been a democracy. The current form of russian government is not that different to the Tsarist ruling class, in that power rests in the hands of a few rich people.

There is no easy answer to this and essentially the solution will be the least worst, but it has to be the least worst in the long run, not a lurching from one to the next until it becomes untenable.

But I really font see how you get to a diplomatic solution with a country that doesn't believe in diplomacy.

Trying to understand international relations doesn't make someone pro-Putin. In years to come, our kids and grandkids will be learning about this war in their history lessons, and will be looking at the circumstances that led up to it. What the op is doing here is no different.
To discuss something does not mean you condone it.

Pucelleaux I don’t think anyone on this thread has justified the invasion. We just want to be able to access information to get a more balanced viewpoint. Russia is by no means the first country to attack/invade another country and yet for the first it seems there seems some kind of media control.

Western pov is not some sort of coordinated homogeneous blob op. It is made from all sorts of political views from left centre right and thanks to the www we can see these different opinions. And they’re mostly arriving at the same consensus: he is an evil dictator that poses great threat to world peace. That’s probably because it’s true, op.

Your title mentions Russian pov, but that has been silenced and anyone not towing the line (which is Putins pov- not Russia’s!) can find themselves with a long jail term or worse.

I think you’re trying to be clever op but it is clear many thousands of innocents are dying in bouts of Russian shelling and gunfire assaults. Are Ukrainians shelling residential Russian neighbourhoods or indiscriminately firing at civilians?

You display poor judgement op, in my opinion.

How can we possibly know the Russian point of view when Russians who oppose Putin end up shot or poisoned? How can we know what Russians feel about this war when just mentioning the words 'war' or 'invasion' in relation to Ukraine can get you six years in prison, fifteen for a second offence? How can we know what Russians think when they do not have free speech?

@Change123today

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.

Yes also they’re stopping Russians see the truth, some Russians are going on the dark web to watch BBC and other Western news stations to see what’s actually going on. Russian people are actually being stopped in the street and asked to hand over their phones. This is all very Nazi Germany and you don’t hide the truth if you’re in the right. They know what they’re doing is wrong, it’s the classical Kremlin denial too.

That along with all their propaganda and bot farms on social media trying to skew public opinion against Ukraine and convincing the masses it’s ‘just like Iraq’ (it isn’t, it turned out intelligence was false but the West went in to remove a dictator not to make it part of the British Empire. The West going to Iraq would be like us going into Russia now actually) and all the imbeciles on Twitter who hate their own country (U.K.) falling for it all, lapping all this up (like their Brexit propaganda) it’s just classic Kremlin tactics. It’s psychological warfare.

I don’t believe a word that comes out of the Kremlin, many Russians don’t either they’re just scared.

@EsmaCannonball

How can we possibly know the Russian point of view when Russians who oppose Putin end up shot or poisoned? How can we know what Russians feel about this war when just mentioning the words 'war' or 'invasion' in relation to Ukraine can get you six years in prison, fifteen for a second offence? How can we know what Russians think when they do not have free speech?

Very well said, @EsmaCannonball

The Russian people are also victims of Putin

How can we possibly know the Russian point of view when Russians who oppose Putin end up shot or poisoned?

Particularly when the sources used aren't Russian. It's a western version of the Russian point of view, one of which is a known contrarian.

Interesting thread.

I don't think there's 'two sides' necessarily but I do think the entire situation is pretty complex. Eg it was the UK that announced Putin was at war initially. Why the 3rd party proclamation? Because it was difficult to tell the difference between one day and another in a country that's been fighting its neighbour for eight years with tens of thousands of civilian casualties and atrocities on both sides. Until the big push that happened a couple of days later, it really was just a question of degree. Until then everyone had bobbed along kind of uneasily, for a long time, and Russia let a lot of Ukraine violations in the region go including unspeakable acts by its neo Nazi militia.

I guess there's also the question of how this regime that we're now suddenly told is evil got to where it did when our national and regional government invited it - and Ukraine, and the Ukrainian president - to launder its money through our property market, extended the invitation for twenty two years and as part of the EU worked together with the US to embed Russian investment at every point of Western economic infrastructure. Don't forget Russia was warring with neighbours throughout that entire period.

Going back to the specific area again, Russia is currently a peacekeeping force in Armenia following the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, which is one that drew in Syria, and which Ukraine may or may not have exported white gas to and which the Stans are definitely implicated in. Obviously Russia is pretty useful at keeping a lid on that little lot for the moment.

So yeah Putin has ramped up the threat level and displaced a lot of people but he's not doing it out of nowhere and without assistance. And nobody gave much of a shit about any sovereign state he invaded over the past 22 years including Ukraine from 2014 onwards

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

You didn't see his statement surrounded by air hostesses then? The one where he said he regarded a no-fly zone as akin to a declaration of war?

If you don't know what he's saying about this special operation to liberate Ukraine from Nazis and fascists, it's not because it's being censored.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60633482

But "a more balanced viewpoint" on the invasion of one country by another is .. what exactly?

I guess there's also the question of how this regime that we're now suddenly told is evil

It’s been ‘evil’ for the last 10 years at least. It’s not sudden. What’s sudden is how our (and other) governments are suddenly up in arms about it. A British woman was indirectly poisoned after an assassination by the Kremlin in British soil and they still did nothing (much). Money talks as they say

@EsmaCannonball

This isn't about Russia or Russians, this is about one man launching a war in order to shore up his own regime. In fact, the poor bloody Russians could be about to find themselves living under a more North Korean-style dictatorship. The Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom of those people too.

Honestly, at least the non-German and non-Russian fuckwits who supported Hitler and Stalin had a belief in their twisted ideologies. I despair at today's fuckwits who twist themselves in knots supporting any kind of wrong because their only position is anti-West. I used to work with an elderly Russian woman who said that those who had to live in the Soviet Union saved their biggest contempt for those who supported the regime but who didn't have to live there. There are a lot of contrarian whatabouterists out there at the moment who would shit themselves if they were dropped in Nizhny Novgorod and told that's where they lived now.

So basically could it be considered that a certain leader is a modern day, atlia the hun, Genghis Khan, ect

@BookkeeperBobby It was bad when he did this in the past & it's not my fault if other people didn't care at the time - I did care about Crimea but was told that it was fine because they wanted to be Russian. And the reason our governments have sucked up to the Russian government is they've been a bunch of venal bastards which isn't much of a surprise.

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,

I don’t know much about the history of all this.

But I keep reading this and it doesn’t make any sense to me.

If Putin is worried about NATO being close by, why is effectively expanding Russia’s borders to neighbour FOUR nato countries by waging a war that will require a permanent Russian military presence in Ukraine.

I’m not a clever person when it comes to history, war, politics, international relations etc, I admit.

But it seems a complete contradiction in logic

His antics are being reported it's true, but often without context. Eg I hear a lot of talk about how Ukraine can't be Nazis because their president is Jewish. And yet Ukraine, like many European countries, does have a significant number of neo Nazis in it. And alone, I think, in Europe it has a neo Nazi battalion that is part of the national army. So yes there are elements of the Ukrainian state that are specifically Nazi. This is not incorrect. Putin is utilizing the information in a misleading and dangerous way, but he is not saying anything that isn't true.

@BookkeeperBobby agree about the Neo Nazis in Ukraine.

countercurrents.org/2021/12/u-s-and-ukraine-only-two-countries-vote-against-un-resolution-condemning-nazism/

BookkeeperBobby

But Putin neglected to mention that Ukraine recently passed a law criminalising antisemitism - m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-696680. It definitely isn't a perfect country but few are - we have Farage who is prepared to use racist memes to get what he wants and Tommy Robinson, of course. And uncomfortably, it's ww2 that ironically quelled the rise of fascism in this country.

I'm not sure what could justify an invasion but I'm sure an invader would look for anything.