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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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I support an end to war and NATO instigated this war and keeps it going.
How do you figure? Despite what you say it was Russian troops crossing the border they could leave at any time.
You'd have to look at the situation from before the war started, like all the way back to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2004 Ukranian color revolution. NATO instigated the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which made relations between Ukraine and Russia much more tense. That's when Ukraine began more earnestly shelling the Donbas region as well, which is a region of people who've always been more sympathetic towards Russia. The residents there even speak Russian. The situation became more tense to the point Ukraine was floating NATO membership, which would have resulted in Russia being more surrounded than they ever have.
Russian troops could leave, and that would result in the same situation as before and would inevitably erupt into conflict again. NATO encirclement, ethnically Russian people getting shelled, Nazi Ukrainian troops in the region, Ukraine denying self-determination for people within its own borders. It would still be a geopolitical mess with potential for another war.
Russia has in fact called for ceasefires and peace talks multiple times already. Early on in the war Ukraine seemed willing to have talks, but NATO pressured them out of it. The situation now is that despite Russia calling for ceasefires, the position of the US and other NATO allies is that no ceasefire will be accepted unless Russia completely leaves the region. That's pigheaded and wrong. Any stop to the fighting should be accepted. That means NATO is calling for an extension to the war, not Russia.
The best possible way for this conflict to end is Ukraine cuts its losses, Russia annexes Donbas and Luhansk, and the fighting stops. Normal, average working class people are harmed as long as this conflict keeps going and as leftists we should be in favor of war ending, not persisting. Ukraine losing territory and the fight ending is a massively better situation than the fight becoming another decades long quagmire like Afghanistan or Syria.
Classic, Russia acts like a petulant child not accepting the fact that it can't live up to the glory days when it has complete dominance over it's neighbors so it manufacturers a reason why it must invade a country and blame NATO because the Ukrainian get support from territorial aggression. Allowing them to keep their holdings is the same as appeasement a bad idea in front of a conscript army. Please explain why Russia dashed for kyiv of they "just wanted to annex a bit of the east" lol u dummy. Listening to you is like being at the end of the human centipede Putin's at the front and I'm at the back.
Yeah it is appeasement. Is open warfare better than appeasement? Should they fight until the last Ukrainian? No, that's awful. War between capitalist states is not the realm of the working class or poor people. The victims of this war are people caught in the crossfire, Ukrainian, Russian, or otherwise, and ending the war even through territorial concession would be better than what's happening now.
I think Russia made a dash to Kyiv to flank the Ukranian army from mobilizing in the east so that Russian bases and supply routes could be established, but I have not followed troop movements much since last year. Russia made the correct assumption that Ukraine would focus most of its attention on defending the capital if it were threatened. I think that strategy worked because Russia captured not just Donbas and Lunansk, but Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well. You've made the mistake of thinking I'm defending Russia because I explained how I see the context. Russia shouldn't have invaded, NATO shouldn't exist, the 2014 Ukranian coup shouldn't have happened, people in Donbas and Luhansk should be allowed to exercise self-determination. None of the conflict should have happened and the primary cause of the situation is, like always, neoliberal imperialism. Maybe there were non-violent ways out of this conflict, but they're all imaginary now. We live in reality.
I don't know what people want from me here. Sorry, I don't see this conflict as pure territorial expansion ordered by Putin on this basis of his moral failures or greed or whatever. Because that's not what it is, and me saying that somehow means I've got Putin whispering in my ear like a witch in Salem hearing the voice of Satan. This conflict is one resolution in a long line of unresolved conflicts going all the way back to 1991, it's more than Putin, more than even just Ukraine and Russia.