In a heartbeat. If two criminal organizations want to fight over some land, that’s none of my business. Also worth noting that in a war, the greatest danger comes from your own government, not the enemy because the enemy will accept your surrender and your own government won’t.
You've grown spoilt on an age of peace. But that kind of abject self-interest is probably the first to leave one in front of the chopping block, or worse, enslavement.
That’s exactly what the Ukrainian government is doing with their men, so you’re right in an ironic way. If I was Ukrainian I would be praying for my government to collapse.
In that case I'd fight of course, but luckily most wars are for land and resources (which don't belong to the people anyways), so it literally doesn't matter who wins, you'll be paying taxes regardless.
Take the chance to freshen up on eastern European history and the absolute dark footprint that russia has cast on it during the centuries. There is a reason why eastern europeans would rather die than be under russian occupation.
It's not just about borders, it's about oppression, torture, destruction, and then borders again in a few years. To STILL not see what the russian world is about is truly an exercise in idiocy. Sorry, I had to answer a genuine question with a genuine statement
> why eastern europeans would rather die than be under russian occupation.
From what I gathered, people above a certain age say that their country was better under Soviet Union. Additionally, people say (probably rightly so) that Orbán is pro-Putin. Why is it the case?
> From what I gathered, people above a certain age say that their country was better under Soviet Union.
Rather a minority of people above a certain age. Like, these days you can go to the shop and buy a banana. Other things, too. I still remember the queues, at the end of which... there was nothing.
>From what I gathered, people above a certain age say that their country was better under Soviet Union
Assuming this is true, it's because these are soviet leftovers who had a low education, were indoctrinated from a young age, and lived during the dream phase where you were told what to do, where to live, etc. Then came the bill when everything collapsed because this didn't work.
I can make everybody happy tomorrow by emptying the state coffers and institutionalizing national NEETDOM, can't promise our happiness will last long but we can try!
And regardless of what they think, it was shit.
Edit: about "why is Orban pro-putin?", this is a joke right?
No, I'd rather not spend my time on what seems to be a promising exercise in moving the goalpost. Not sure I'd classify hungary as eastern European (I was mostly referring to slavs) but sure you can find at least a pro russian guy among eastern europeans, especially dictator ones.
Well, from what I gathered, people think the Earth is flat. And I think the way I gathered that data is considerably less creative than the way you did if you managed to come up with that inane conclusion.
In fact, you're so wrong that we're no longer in the realm of having opinions. You're objectively wrong. Look up comparisons of the economic growth of nations to the west of the Berlin Wall and to its east. Germany's alone would suffice, but have at it.
And then you think bringing up outliers means anything... If chess is so difficult why is Magnus Carlsen so good at it? Therefore, chess is an easy game, gotcha. yawn
In the end, it’s the people who fight that determine if the thing they are fighting for is worth their lives.
Dying for some lines on the map sounds bad, but if it were only lines on the map, then the people probably wouldn't choose to die for them, would they?
Nobody wants to die, but if someone is ready to give up their life for some cause, then who are you to tell them they can't?
It's the fate of Ukrainians that is at stake and its the Ukrainians that determine if changing that fate is worth the costs of their lives.
I am not going to tell them they can't, they can do as they see fit, of course.
It is a very subjective topic, however. I might save my family even if it meant the death of hundreds of people, or not, it is a moral dilemma for sure. I do not have an answer.
Some people may believe "less people dying" is always favorable.
Seems like most people who have replied to my comments want justice over saving millions of people's life. Fine by me, but the assumed and voiced moral superiority is baffling.
To have done "the same", he would have needed to force Russian citizens living in occupied Kursk to pick up guns and throw their lives away fighting other Russians. Which he didn't.
Russia did force people from occupied territories to fight in Ukraine.
You are taking a side though. Your position that absence of violence is more important than justice means that you expect Zelensky to just roll over and give Russia what it wants, which basically means a complete annexation of Ukraine.
You accused others with having a voice of moral superiority, but your "I did not pick a side" is just that.
There are only two possible outcomes to this war. Either Ukraine still exists as a sovereign nation, or it doesn't. The first will require continued fighting. There is no possibility for Ukraine to remain sovereign without violently kicking Russia out of its land.
What you described is black and white thinking, however, and there is much more to it than just "either Russia wins or does not win", pretty sure there can be a compromise, you know, a middle path, that is good enough for both parties and consequently there will be less deaths.
If people want to die for justice, so be it. Up to them, but:
Would you talk about suicide bombers in the same vain though?
Because Russia is the invader. It lied about the troop movements being a prelude to invasion. It lied about the reasons for invading. It has committed, and continues to commit, war crimes. It has made nuclear threats to dissuade others from helping Ukraine defend itself. It has threatened Finland for daring to join NATO.
> pretty sure there can be a compromise
Why do you think this?
Russia can stop their unlawful invasion of a sovereign country any time they want. That they have not done so ought to be a QED that they don't want to stop.
> Would you talk about suicide bombers in the same vain though?
Would you talk about the invasion of your own country in the same vein?
I don't know where you live. USA? Imagine Russia had in 2014 annexed Alaska the way they've annexed Crimea, and in 2022 started trying the same on the states of Washington and Montana, and briefly had control of the I-90 as far as Chicago before being repelled.
If that happened, would you say "pretty sure there can be a compromise"?
The "compromise" Zelenskyy is offering Putin is: "get out of my country that you've illegally occupied, and I won't keep shooting drones into your oil refineries".
The "compromise" Putin is offering Zelenskyy is: "Be our puppet or die".
Nothing about Russian state behaviour looks like they're willing to behave. Not the military action, not the broad-daylight assassinations (not only in Ukraine, but also in Germany and the UK and Turkey), certainly not the war crimes.
Right now, the Russian government is acting, and talking, as if Ukraine isn't even a real country.
Would you have protected Iraq against its invasion by the West, knowing it was based on lies and led to massive destruction, loss of life, and destabilization? What about Lebanon right now, with Israel's ongoing actions - shouldn't we ask the same question about justice and sovereignty there, too? And here's another tough one: would you speak about suicide bombers the same way? They often claim they're acting for justice - perhaps not your justice, but justice nonetheless. Does that justify their actions, or do we make distinctions between subjective and objective justice? Just because someone believes their actions are justified doesn't mean they're morally acceptable.
In summary, the question of whether boundaries or human lives matter more is a complex one. The dilemma is whether compromising sovereignty for the sake of peace or minimizing deaths is truly just, or if it's more just to stand firm for a nation's right to self-determination - even at the cost of more suffering. The comparison to Iraq, Lebanon, and suicide bombers underscores how subjective "justice" can be. What one side believes to be justice doesn't always align with what is objectively right according to international law or human rights principles (more about it later).
The core issue here is how we define justice in conflict situations: is it about preserving borders and sovereignty, or about protecting human lives? It's a deeper, more nuanced question that forces us to reflect on the values we prioritize in these difficult circumstances.
Ask the people who tried to scale the Berlin wall before the collapse of the Iron
Curtain. Oh, you can't, because they're dead. Shot. Because they were on the wrong side of the boundary.
> getting conscripted by Putin as cannon fodder to go after the next country.
Is it not just speculation? Does it have any merits? Would he do it? What makes you think that it is going to happen, that he wants to do it? Could he actually attempt to do it?
> Is it not just speculation? Does it have any merits? Would he do it? What makes you think that it is going to happen, that he wants to do it? Could he actually attempt to do it?
I am referring to NATO, UN, ICC, Amnesty International & Human Rights Organizations, global backslash, fear of uncontrollable consequences (wrt. current allies like China and India, as they are Russia's key trade partners).
So there are those deterrents: legal charges, sanctions, political pressure, military retaliation, geopolitical fallout, and internal resistance within Russia itself.
Even Russian oligarchs and elites might resist, fearing total international isolation.
There are many reasons to not be afraid of what we might believe Putin would do ("getting conscripted by Putin as cannon fodder to go after the next country" and so forth).
NATO only applies if they go specifically for a NATO country — which is why Ukraine wants into NATO in the first place, and why the invasion of Ukraine got Finland to join in a hurry. Also this is only a risk while NATO continues to still exist, which is threatened both because Trump has explicitly said: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68266447
> Amnesty International & Human Rights Organizations, global backslash, fear of uncontrollable consequences (wrt. current allies like China and India, they are Russia's key trade partners).
None of this stopped them so far, why would it start?
Especially on trade: Russia is a petrostate, their main export is fuel, the invasion of Ukraine by itself sped up the European transition away from fossil fuels in general and their fossil fuels in particular, and everyone Russia does business with — including "allies", though that's too strong a word for their relationship with India — has every reason to take advantage of the price ceiling to get discounts even when they don't explicitly take part in the actual ceiling itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_crude_oil_price_c...
> There are many reasons to not be afraid of what we might believe Putin would do ("getting conscripted by Putin as cannon fodder to go after the next country" and so forth).
Why are you ignoring the evidence that this has already happened three times?
Why do you insist on treating this as a hypothetical?
Game theory would like to have a word. If I'm Putin and I know you will not defend your country if threatened, what's to stop me from annexing it? And then the whole world? After all, we don't want people to die in wars. It's much better for them to die in concentration camps.
There are a LOT of things preventing Putin from doing what he SUPPOSEDLY wants, but regardless, you are not Putin, you do not know what he wants or would do. Putin cannot simply just invade countries at whim, assuming he wants to do that.
But does it actually avoid deaths though? One of them will have to stop, if neither does, there will be more bloodshed, that is a given, right? If Putin does not stop, shouldn't Zelensky do?
So do you think the world should have let Hitler take it over in WWII? Not just Europe, but an empire stretching continents?
People are willing to fight for freedom, even if they might die in the process.
By your logic, you're saying everyone should just surrender to violent bullies. Most people don't think that kind of subjugation is a life worth living -- not if they can help it.
OK, so imagine Hitler didn't have death camps, but otherwise was the same. Invading all of Europe, for democracies to fall to fascism. And then he'd start invading the rest of the world.
You think that would have been preferred then? You would prefer that today we would live under a fascist Third Reich, instead of democracies, so that we could have saved the lives of those who fought in WWII?
I mean, you're free to prefer that. But everyone who fought did it because they thought it was worth it to die, to save democracy so they and their children and their children's children wouldn't have to live under fascist rulers from another nation.
Maybe you don't think Ukranians should fight. But Ukranians clearly believe it's worth it. And people in the country honor those who die for it. And I do too.
Have you spoken to any Moscovites about living standards recently? Like this is so stupid. I would not trade for Russia's brutal treatment of dissidents but we don't exactly have a great record on that front in Western countries…
There is no alternative. Europe tried to peacefully coexist with Germany in the 1930s. Standing up to imperialist dictators is the least bloody option.
Russia must be made to kneel, just as Germany and Japan had to in WW2.
Any other "peace treaty" will only lead to Russia rebuilding and attacking again, leading to yet another war, having learned the important lesson that aggression works.
We want it to stop NOW, but that's wishful thinking just as world peace is. The sooner you internalize that, the better.
Deterrence works. That's why the cold war is remembered as the cold war and not the hot war. Zelensky knows this while Trump is publicly taking all leverage (NATO membership, security guaranties) off the table while the Russians have not even started negotiating - and why would they? Trump is doing all their work for them
Sure - moving a few dozen nuclear warheads to Kiev and telling Russia "Kiev has nukes now, make one step further into Ukraine and we'll make sure they'll hit the Kremlin by end of day today".
And then tell Putin "hey Putain, feel free to call our bluff".
Might as well get it over with at that point. If Putin does decide to strike first, yeah, Washington or NYC gets hit. OK. We'll live. Russia will be flattened by the entire world's nukes at that point, and the likes of China will be inclined to join in on the fun and take a whole bunch of Russian land.
Clearly, you're unfamiliar with the prosecution of a nuclear conflict.
I wouldn't count on NYC being the only place hit. In fact, I wouldn't count on any of our port cities and even any mainland military infrastructure surviving the initial strike. Additionally, energy infrastructure would be severely crippled. None of that even counts the disruption to electronics and communication wrought by the EMP blasts. And no, none of it's coming back. I can assure any Russian readers that the same would happen to you in a nuclear exchange with us. The initial strikes would be unfortunate for europe, as I think they would likely fare the worst.
But as bad off as we'd all be, the worst would be yet to come. The secondary strikes are where the knockout blows would be dealt.
Nuclear war, (any war really), is raw and nasty. Don't expect "limited" strikes. By your own admission, we would send a massive retaliatory strike to Russia. It defies logic for them to send a limited strike our way. That's not how nuclear war works.
> Can anyone tell me what the alternative is that would result in less people dying? This needs to stop NOW.
There's a logical flaw in what you are saying. Forcing Ukraine to accept a truce right now, without any security guarantees will result in a LOT MORE deaths. Russia will re-arm, using their oil and gas money, and in a year finish the job. Right now, Ukraine can hang on, but if Russia gets its shit together during a truce it's game over.
What could happen is that they negotiates a truce with security guarantees from the US or at the very least a no-fly zone. But Trump doesn't want that, Trump doesn't want to do anything, he want mineral rights to offset the cost of the last president gave Ukraine (Not $350 bn, that number is lies, its ~$70bn), asking for $400bn rare earths and other metals. I can only assume he will only give new weapons under the same terms. A shameful shakedown. And even if Ukraine agrees to this, Trump has said he won't enforce a no-fly zone or give a security guarantee.
The best thing Trump and the US can do from now on is just to not get involved in teh war. I can see Trump supporting Putin out of spite.
Right. Just when America pulls back, Europe should escalate. Awesome!
/s
Right now Europe needs time to build. The calculus has radically changed. They need to build out in a fashion that is massive, but also both quick and quiet. This situation is too serious for rash action. Especially where victory is not guaranteed.
America is pulling back because it has lost its moral compass. Republican leadership has made it inconceivable to many Americans that you can have Win-Win situations internationally. At least that is the only explanation which explains for me what is happening.
Europe is already in this war and it is costing us money and European lives if we want or not.
I don't mean to rain on your parade, but humor me for a second.
Let's say that Putin is not the only person in Russian leadership who supports war with Ukraine. What then? I mean we get rid of Putin, and the next guy is worse.
I know. I know. That would never happen in a million years. But humor me. What then? Do we have a plan for "we took out Putin and it didn't change anything"?
Or is this whole thing just a fly by the seat of the pants kind of thing?
> I don't mean to rain on your parade, but humor me for a second.
Feel free, this is no parade for me. And if anyone is taking me seriously*, they need serious alternatives to my beliefs.
* which would be their first mistake, as I'm a software engineer not a geopolitical military analyst
> I mean we get rid of Putin, and the next guy is worse
What would "worse" look like?
Putin is already at war, has a massive propaganda network and fake elections, yet still feels unable to have another round of mobilisation due to the internal political fallout.
Putin is already threatening nuclear weapons, has already updated doctrine — "The doctrine now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia." - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4v0rey0jzo
The only way to be worse, is to actually use them.
If the history books are any good indicator, Putin going away tomorrow won't really change anything, the problem has always been with Russia as a whole, not just its leader - ask most of the EU countries that have some historical beef with them.
Cold war was rather less theoretical in Europe than in the USA. The USA got to argue about missile gaps and sending conscripts to prevent domino effects; we got to watch troops and tanks doing maneuvers by shared land borders they themselves had fortified.
A forum like HN will be familiar with the misdeeds of the CIA/NSA/Five Eyes; much of Europe with the KGB/Stasi/ etc. from allied/puppet states.
Friends in the UK got married, the father of the bride talked about fleeing torture in (communist) Poland. The current prime minister of Poland was part of the movement that overthrew communist rule, leading to his own arrest: https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/donald-tusk
Russia gets the blame for pulling everyone's strings in the cold war.
Finland: got invaded, Russians tried to overrun the entire country and install a puppet government, but eventually managed to capture only a part of Finland that they have not returned to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: tried to appease Russians, still got invaded, governments overthrown, puppets installed as replacements, a large part of the local population was deported to Siberian labor camps in multiple mass actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_deportationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi This was followed by a 50-year military occupation that saw severe violations of human rights, suppression of national identity, and developmental retardation that left these countries severely behind of their free counterparts.
Poland: Russians colluded with Hitler and invaded from both the west and the east in September 1939. Germans started burning Jews in ovens, Russians set up an industrial operation to murder Polish politicans, lawyers, officers and other national leaders by tens of thousands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Hundreds of thousands were murdered in total and 1.5 million deported to Siberia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_c... In Poland too, Russians installed a dictatorship at the end of WWII that severely held the country back until the 1990s.
The rest of the journey southward on the European map remains homework for you to complete.
After that, we can philosophize why no one likes Russians, if that still remains unclear.
Those countries all were allied (or were going to side with) with nazi Germany, so they are all square.
But even regardless of wars - there was always some degree of russophobia without any good reasons. Maybe it's just a fear of a big neighboring country, I don't know.
As for Katyn - you are right, it was indeed a crime by USSR's Stalin and it's a shame USSR hasn't admitted to that crime until as late as 1990.
Also, the poster above gave you actual examples that you're handwaving as "regardless of wars" and then go on to say "russophobia without any good reasons"?
Please don't try to wash this over as "USSR" or blame it on Stalin. It's called Russia now and Putin is in charge, but the fundamentals haven't changed, they're still russifying captured territory by displacing local people and they still have no regard for basic human rights.
Hahaha, do you honestly believe that Putin has any interest in stopping?
This isn’t the first time Putin has invaded another country, had the west capitulate for “peace”, then two years later Putin invades somewhere else.
Hell, Putin originally invade Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Every one made “pease” with Putin, and few years later he invades the rest of Ukraine. If Trump sell out Ukraine now, it might end the “official” war, but there will be endless civil/insurgency warfare in Ukraine for decades. The Ukraine’s have zero interest in allowing a foreign country simply take their land without a fight.
Yeah, at the end of the day its hard to agree with the language and demeanor of the administration, but I struggle to disagree with the outcome. What are Zelensky's aims? To secure additional funding for their war machine? If so: I don't see how that benefits anyone; certainly not the Ukrainian people. If the goal is to secure more favorable peace terms, which I do believe is a laudable goal, then I fail to understand why he approached this conversation the way he did. Insinuating that the Trump administration had aligned with Russia, regardless of its validity, is not the way to accomplish this.
A ceasefire without security guarantees is just a temporary pause for russia to rearm and continue on. None of the justifications for russia's invasion have changed, and this would mean the US will roll over for anything.
Sure; so maybe his focus should be on attaining those security guarantees. If not from the United States, then from other countries; is the United States the only World Police on the globe? Why is the Moral Onus on the United States to be the only ones willing to say "Yeah if you invade Ukraine again we'll put boots on the ground"; why isn't anyone asking Germany, or the UK, or Poland, to make those some guarantees to Ukraine? I mean, sure, there's genuine concerns about Article 5 if anyone in NATO makes those guarantees, I don't know what the impact of that would be, but looking past that for a second: Its utterly insane to me how much of this conversation involves placing some kind of Moral Responsibility on a country half the world away from the conflict.
> and this would mean the US will roll over for anything.
This is a war between Ukraine and Russia, not the US. Nobody should want western powers to enter this war because of the potential consequences. But if western powers make security guarantees, isn't that what you risk?
What exactly do you think the outcome is? Just because Trump is selling out Ukraine to Putin, doesn’t mean the Ukraines are just going to lie down and take it.
What are Zelensky’s aims, they’re pretty damn obvious, do everything in his power to remove a foreign aggressor from Ukrainian land. Why would expect people who have been invaded to not defend their country and their land?
I generally expect that a country's leader should do everything in their power to defend their country, land, and people, as you say. Of course, what we're talking about here is: Zelenskyy's power is not infinite, no one's is, and today he spoke with an administration that is far more realistic and desirable of peace than the previous one. My question was: What was Zelenskyy's aim in speaking to the administration today; not what were his general aims.
Look: I do not believe the world will be a more peaceful and prosperous place if America continues the path of providing billions of dollars in weapons and military aid to the Ukraine war effort. My question to others is: Do you believe I'm wrong in this assessment, and that the world will be more peaceful and more prosperous if we continue funding this war? Or, is it that: Do you believe that Peace and Prosperity are not Generally Good things we should strive to achieve?
Is the aim to negotiate for peace, and in that negotiation ensure Russia gets nothing? If so, do you believe that to be a realistic thing Ukraine can ask for right now? Even if the United States is brokering the negotiation, and wants this for Ukraine, what can the United States bring to the table to help make it happen? Is your suggestion that the United States go so-far as to guarantee Ukraine's security through direct military intervention?
That's where my brain is at on this; its a horrible situation, but if the goal we're optimizing toward is Peace and Prosperity, and I believe those goals to be laudable, and if we admit that the United States is not All Powerful (as proven by our billions in military aid up to this point not as of yet Increasing Peace and Prosperity in the region): What options does the United States have left to help Ukraine? Do you want to lace up your boots and go to war for them? Or, is it just, do you want to send them another hundred billion in military aid, so the war can continue in a stalemate for another three years?
You seem to be under the impression that a long lasting negotiated peace is possible with Russia. Remember, Russia started this war, and did so by breaking its previous negotiated peace with Ukraine.
If you take the view that “Peace and Prosperity” can only be achieved by surrender, the. Putin will simply do what he’s always done. Invade neighbouring countries then sue of “peace”, and will keep doing that until he’s claimed the entire of Europe. And all of Europe will live under whatever “Peace and Prosperity” Putin deems we’re allowed.
And yes, funding this war will ultimately result in a longer, better peace, and greater prosperity, by making it clear to Putin that he can’t just take what he wants. Otherwise we might as capitulate now and give Putin his every demand, regardless of how absurd it is, because apparently “Peace and Prosperity” means handing everything over to the most violent individual in the room.
Trump just stated to the media before departing JBA that Putin has communicated a desire for peace to him. Granted: its possible we did not know that before literally just twenty minutes ago, and we obviously don't know the framework that peace will happen under, and that absolutely does matter.
