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Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.


Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins


Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.


Yesterday's discussion post.


  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    hexagon
    M
    hexbear
    41
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Here we go again...

    Putin may hold the fate of humanity in his hands

    The war in Ukraine is the most morally unambiguous battle for freedom against tyranny since World War II. The Ukrainians did nothing to invite attack other than to start building a democracy in a place where dictators once ruled, yet Russia is committing horrific savagery and aggression in the service of a dictator who smothers the truth with lies and unflinching repression of dissent.

    Russia’s bland, stone-faced führer, Vladimir Putin, is following Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Like Hitler, Putin justifies his actions as a response to past humiliations of his country and makes bogus claims to the territories he intends to seize by force. As Hitler did 75 years ago, Putin is discovering his weakness in the face of the economic, technological and industrial power of the democratic nations arrayed against him. Unlike Hitler, though, Putin has a way to counter that advantage; an ace in the hole — or, rather, in a missile silo.

    Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization and most of the people on the planet. It has long been assumed no leader would be so insane that he would start a nuclear war that would end with the destruction of his own nation, as well as his enemies, yet Putin has not-so-subtly been rattling that saber as the tide of war has turned against him.

    To almost everyone’s surprise, the Ukrainians have repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv and have exposed the incompetence and low morale of the Russian military machine. Now, with a flood of significant weaponry flowing into Ukraine from the United States and European democracies, there is a real possibility that the Russians could lose their war of aggression. The question is, would Putin accept a defeat that would not only be a huge humiliation, but would seriously threaten his hold on power in Moscow?

    Putin has an alternative to capitulation. He could use those unthinkable weapons in his arsenal, at least the tactical nukes that would devastate a battlefield opponent and put the world on notice that he just might be desperate enough to ratchet it up another notch to his bigger weapons.

    This lone, deeply cynical and ruthless man in the Kremlin may hold the fate of humanity in his bloody hands, and we really do not know if there is a limit to what he is willing to do.

    :matt-jokerfied:

    THE UNITED STATES IS THE ONLY COUNTRY TO DROP NUKES ON ANOTHER IN WARTIME. IT KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FOR NO STRATEGIC GAIN. THE UNITED STATES HAS A FIRST-STRIKE POLICY. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      hexbear
      15
      2 years ago

      The Ukrainians did nothing to invite attack other than to start building a democracy in a place where dictators once ruled

      That, as well as ignoring past treaties, shelling the Donbass, discriminating against Russians, inviting Russia's enemies to place military installations on the border to Russia, scheming to draw Russia's enemies into a war to annex Crimea, arming and encouraging Nazis and refusing any serious diplomatic solution.

      But other than that, Ukraine did nothing to provoke the war.

    • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
      hexbear
      15
      2 years ago

      I continue to be amazed that you can read this shit. I was just finishing the first sentence and I was already about to go into a full Matt Christman rage. Why would someone write this? I have a family to support, and I make compromises all the time because I need or want money, but I would never do something like this to myself or the world.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      hexbear
      14
      2 years ago

      Cartoonists should not write articles. Jesus.

      • jackmarxist [any]
        hexbear
        12
        2 years ago

        This is quite literally the model "free press" article. It checks all the boxes

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      hexbear
      13
      2 years ago

      The war in Ukraine is the most morally unambiguous battle for freedom against tyranny since World War II.

      Palestine, Vietnam, Cuba, South Africa, Angola, Bolivia, China... The list goes on and on.

    • wrecker_vs_dracula [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      11
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      IT KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FOR NO STRATEGIC GAIN.

      I take issue with this. The USSR declared war on Imperial Japan on August 9th of 1945. The US nuclear strikes were effective in deterring the Soviets from prosecuting their war on the main Japanese islands.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      hexbear
      10
      2 years ago

      And bacteriological weapons. I can't think of any specific instance where the US has used nerve gas but it's allies have. But we're supposed to be worried about Russia deploying weapons of mass destruction and not, like, France selling Ukraine nerve agents like that time they gave Saddam the weapons he used to gas the Kurds.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        hexbear
        4
        2 years ago

        I'm sure theres some experiment buried in the files or covered up where they just wiped out a village or gassed POWs to find out what nerve gas does.