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On January 24 2022 08:43 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2022 07:37 KwarK wrote:On January 24 2022 06:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 24 2022 05:31 Sermokala wrote:
I mean they're supported by facts and they're from the GOP run investigation but okay. The senate Intel report (vol. 5) describes contact (by Manafort) with a single (alleged) "Russian intelligence officer," Konstantin Kilimnik (a person who cooperated with the US state dept for years by informing on Ukraine & Russia). The two had a prior relationship of consulting dealings. By contrast, the NYT story alleged that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of trump's campaign and other trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials." The two had a prior relationship in as much as Manafort is also a Russian asset lol. He was working for a Russian proxy in Ukraine previously. The idea that he wasn't contacting Russian intelligence, he was just contacting his old friend in Russian intelligence is absurd. He was contacting his handler. It takes a couple of assumptions to go from "Manafort worked for a Russian proxy" to "Manafort was a Russian asset with a Russian intelligence handler." Perhaps Manafort should have worked for the American proxy instead. But it's likely, based on the evidence, Manafort contacted Kilimnik for the purpose of making up on personal debts, as opposed to colluding with Russia in US election interference. In any case, the NYT story was false (although perhaps it was only 90% as opposed to 100% false).
It doesn't take assumptions it takes facts and evidence of which there is many.
The nyt story was about more than that and included the meeting between jr kush and Russian officials. The gop report confirmed that they were passing over their internal data. The obvious reason they would want this data is for their well known and proven interference campaigns in the 2016 election.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
In another of the now-famous after the fact discoveries of questionable US military acts in the Middle East, apparently US bombers almost destroyed a dam in Syria that would have killed many thousands of civilians, using questionable procedures and failing to destroy it only by a stroke of good fortune:
Near the height of the war against the Islamic State in Syria, a sudden riot of explosions rocked the country’s largest dam, a towering, 18-story structure on the Euphrates River that held back a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where hundreds of thousands of people lived.
The Tabqa Dam was a strategic linchpin and the Islamic State controlled it. The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground and everything went dark. Witnesses say one bomb punched down five floors. A fire spread, and crucial equipment failed. The mighty flow of the Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise, and local authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee.
The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”
“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.
In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb designed to destroy thick concrete structures, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians.
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Even with careful planning, hitting a dam with such large bombs would likely have been seen by top leaders as unacceptably dangerous, said Scott F. Murray, a retired Air Force colonel, who planned airstrikes during air campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
“Using a 2,000-pound bomb against a restricted target like a dam is extremely difficult and should have never been done on the fly,” he said. “Worst case, those munitions could have absolutely caused the dam to fail.”
After the strikes, dam workers stumbled on an ominous piece of good fortune: Five floors deep in the dam’s control tower, an American BLU-109 bunker-buster lay on its side, scorched but intact — a dud. If it had exploded, experts say, the whole dam might have failed.
Source
I guess we can consider ourselves fortunate that we avoided that bit of reenactment of Command & Conquer Generals, if only by a stroke of luck. It's clear that that Afghanistan drone strike wasn't a fluke of incompetence, though.
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So much for crazy reporting, the bomb that managed to not go off basically told everyone who did it. I guess the plan was to get away with it by not leaving anything behind. Oops.
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On January 24 2022 09:41 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2022 08:43 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 24 2022 07:37 KwarK wrote:On January 24 2022 06:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 24 2022 05:31 Sermokala wrote:
I mean they're supported by facts and they're from the GOP run investigation but okay. The senate Intel report (vol. 5) describes contact (by Manafort) with a single (alleged) "Russian intelligence officer," Konstantin Kilimnik (a person who cooperated with the US state dept for years by informing on Ukraine & Russia). The two had a prior relationship of consulting dealings. By contrast, the NYT story alleged that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of trump's campaign and other trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials." The two had a prior relationship in as much as Manafort is also a Russian asset lol. He was working for a Russian proxy in Ukraine previously. The idea that he wasn't contacting Russian intelligence, he was just contacting his old friend in Russian intelligence is absurd. He was contacting his handler. It takes a couple of assumptions to go from "Manafort worked for a Russian proxy" to "Manafort was a Russian asset with a Russian intelligence handler." Perhaps Manafort should have worked for the American proxy instead. But it's likely, based on the evidence, Manafort contacted Kilimnik for the purpose of making up on personal debts, as opposed to colluding with Russia in US election interference. In any case, the NYT story was false (although perhaps it was only 90% as opposed to 100% false). It doesn't take assumptions it takes facts and evidence of which there is many. The nyt story was about more than that and included the meeting between jr kush and Russian officials. The gop report confirmed that they were passing over their internal data. The obvious reason they would want this data is for their well known and proven interference campaigns in the 2016 election.
Well I do notice that you are not offering up those facts and evidence. And I don't think the NYT story had to do with the trump tower meeting, as that was with a Russian lawyer, not a senior Russian intelligence official.
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On January 23 2022 20:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 17:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 23 2022 06:54 Belisarius wrote:
Yeah that's an incredibly dumb opinion. There are plenty of places still doing reliable journalism, and they are not the publications Trump was friendly with.
The baseline media standard in the US might not be high, but the idea that Trump was somehow working to raise it is absurd and dangerous. The idea that Trump undermining traditional journalism is a good thing is really puzzling to me too, considering that the alternative is fringe media, conspiracy theorists and plain old online lies. Trump attacks the traditional media not because they are bad or biaised, but because they expose his lies. I agree with this. He calls anyone/anything that disagrees with him "fake news", regardless of whether the news is objective and/or factual. He doesn't actually critically examine different sources or pieces for accuracy and decide that some things are good, reliable journalism while other things aren't worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Show nested quote +On January 23 2022 17:17 EnDeR_ wrote:On January 23 2022 12:02 KwarK wrote:
It’s weird that you keep coming up with the worst takes so reliably. Laypeople should absolutely not be reading medical studies and evaluating their conclusions themselves. They also shouldn’t be designing their own bridges and generating their own nuclear power.
There isn’t a truth in the middle where people decide for themselves. Liberals don’t advocate for mass vaccination as a tribal thing, virologists advocate for it and liberals advocate for doing the thing the experts recommend. I'm going to disagree with you on this one. I've had some success with vaccine-hesitant people by just googling studies together. In addition, if you're so jaded about journalism and facts like confusedzerg seems to be, this may be the only way out of the rabbit hole for some. When KwarK wrote "laypeople", I understood that to mean (perhaps tautologically) "People who can't understand what they're reading shouldn't be drawing conclusions about what they're reading, and if they can understand it, then they're no longer merely a layperson". When you (EnDeR) discuss a peer-reviewed study with a layperson, I think the additional lens of clarity and understanding that you provide helps a layperson to be a little less of a layperson, if that makes any sense. (I have similar success with the minority of anti-vaxxers who are actually willing to read through a study with me, as I can provide context and a background of statistics to help them understand, rather than throwing a journal article at them and walking away, expecting them to figure it all out on their own.)
Perhaps, but I'd think that anyone that has completed university is capable of reading a medical journal article, and I'd certainly classify these as laypeople. If by laypeople we mean those that did not go to uni, then yes, but that's be an odd definition of laypeople as 40%+ of the population has done so.
In any case, I think the main premise is flawed. What's the danger? That people would read something, form the wrong conclusion and do something daft? In a vacuum, yes, that'd be something to worry about. In reality, people are already taking very questionable decisions based on something they've read online. As I see it, if the opinion is formed because they read an article, presumably that means they'd be open to discuss the article and perhaps they could be guided to a different conclusion. Whereas the alternative is what we have now, where we can't even argue about facts because there are none to be found.
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On January 24 2022 17:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
Perhaps, but I'd think that anyone that has completed university is capable of reading a medical journal article, and I'd certainly classify these as laypeople. If by laypeople we mean those that did not go to uni, then yes, but that's be an odd definition of laypeople as 40%+ of the population has done so.
That's a bold assumption 
I've done a postgrad in mathematics, and a general (no medicine/bio and not much stats) STEM undergrad, and I wouldn't be confident to get more than a basic idea of what a medical article was saying, and I don't think I'd be justified expecting anyone to trust my assessment of it either.
(And this is not for a lack of pride, I'd trust myself above almost all my peers who didn't study bio / medicine).
EDIT: That said, I largely agree with your second paragraph.
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Also, haven't seen much talk of it, but what are people here's thoughts on the current situation around Ukraine?
I haven't followed past events on it much, but to me this is bloody terrifying, and I'd like some perspective on whether that fear is well-founded or not.
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On January 24 2022 16:51 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2022 09:41 Sermokala wrote:On January 24 2022 08:43 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 24 2022 07:37 KwarK wrote:On January 24 2022 06:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On January 24 2022 05:31 Sermokala wrote:
I mean they're supported by facts and they're from the GOP run investigation but okay. The senate Intel report (vol. 5) describes contact (by Manafort) with a single (alleged) "Russian intelligence officer," Konstantin Kilimnik (a person who cooperated with the US state dept for years by informing on Ukraine & Russia). The two had a prior relationship of consulting dealings. By contrast, the NYT story alleged that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of trump's campaign and other trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials." The two had a prior relationship in as much as Manafort is also a Russian asset lol. He was working for a Russian proxy in Ukraine previously. The idea that he wasn't contacting Russian intelligence, he was just contacting his old friend in Russian intelligence is absurd. He was contacting his handler. It takes a couple of assumptions to go from "Manafort worked for a Russian proxy" to "Manafort was a Russian asset with a Russian intelligence handler." Perhaps Manafort should have worked for the American proxy instead. But it's likely, based on the evidence, Manafort contacted Kilimnik for the purpose of making up on personal debts, as opposed to colluding with Russia in US election interference. In any case, the NYT story was false (although perhaps it was only 90% as opposed to 100% false). It doesn't take assumptions it takes facts and evidence of which there is many. The nyt story was about more than that and included the meeting between jr kush and Russian officials. The gop report confirmed that they were passing over their internal data. The obvious reason they would want this data is for their well known and proven interference campaigns in the 2016 election. Well I do notice that you are not offering up those facts and evidence. And I don't think the NYT story had to do with the trump tower meeting, as that was with a Russian lawyer, not a senior Russian intelligence official.
You seem to be reflexively ignoring the gop report aspect of it. I think that says everything that needs to be said about this.
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On January 24 2022 18:14 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:
Also, haven't seen much talk of it, but what are people here's thoughts on the current situation around Ukraine?
I haven't followed past events on it much, but to me this is bloody terrifying, and I'd like some perspective on whether that fear is well-founded or not.
Yeah it scares me too. The number of troops deployed makes it look like more than just a threatening gesture. Russia is a major trading partner of the EU so I'm kind of skeptical of the US official's threat of crippling sanctions in response to an invasion. And our strategy of sanctioning everybody always seems to hurt the common people of the countries we target more than their leadership. I'm sure China is watching closely too with Taiwan in mind.
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My armchair perspective is that Russia can’t be allowed to take Ukraine. Appeasement is not the answer. There isn’t some point where Russia is just suddenly friends with everyone. Stop them in their current form. I think we should be doing everything up to and including troops to prevent Ukraine from being taken. Because I think troops would end up being used some time after anyway. I reject the idea that conflict with Russia can be completely avoided, just based on what we are seeing now.
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I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war?
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On January 25 2022 03:52 Vivax wrote:
I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war? I didn't want to make the obvious comparison but lets get it over with.
Remember what happened last time a dictator decided they should own a neighbouring country and the world went "let him have this one, it will be enough and we should avoid a war at all costs"? Europe was so determined to avoid another war after WW1 they ended up creating WW2 instead of smothering Hitler's Germany in its crib.
The world was already way to lax when Russia blatantly annexed the Crimea, and shock, horror, here they are ready to take some more.
You think Putin is going to stop with Ukraine? Will this one be enough? How about Poland? Maybe give him half of Germany?
No one wants a war with Russia, but when Russia thinks it can reform the USSR by force then the only option is to prepare for war. Wanting to avoid a conflict is entirely why we are in this situation because we let Putin get away with Crimea, so why shouldn't he try again?
And sure Russia can complain about the advancing NATO but that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Russia wants to expand its sphere of influence and (most of) the former USSR has absolutely no desire to go back, NATO 'advances' on Russia because the only way countries near Russia can defend themselves is by having an alliance like NATO at their back.
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I think NATO should stay out of Ukraine.
I feel like its antagonistic to Russia to talk about adding Ukraine/Georgia.
Do we think Russia would actually invade Ukraine without NATO hanging over its head? I think its wrong for them to try to destabilize Ukraine but I dont think theyd invade.
I think our country would be pissed if China or Russia had troops or missles in Latin America.
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NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of? Preparing to invade Ukraine?
Georgia and Ukraine are sovereign nations, and they can do whatever they fucking like. They don't need to ask Russia for permission.
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On January 25 2022 04:05 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2022 03:52 Vivax wrote:
I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war? I didn't want to make the obvious comparison but lets get it over with. Remember what happened last time a dictator decided they should own a neighbouring country and the world went "let him have this one, it will be enough and we should avoid a war at all costs"? Europe was so determined to avoid another war after WW1 they ended up creating WW2 instead of smothering Hitler's Germany in its crib. The world was already way to lax when Russia blatantly annexed the Crimea, and shock, horror, here they are ready to take some more. You think Putin is going to stop with Ukraine? Will this one be enough? How about Poland? Maybe give him half of Germany? No one wants a war with Russia, but when Russia thinks it can reform the USSR by force then the only option is to prepare for war. Wanting to avoid a conflict is entirely why we are in this situation because we let Putin get away with Crimea, so why shouldn't he try again? And sure Russia can complain about the advancing NATO but that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Russia wants to expand its sphere of influence and (most of) the former USSR has absolutely no desire to go back, NATO 'advances' on Russia because the only way countries near Russia can defend themselves is by having an alliance like NATO at their back.
Great summary of the issue, I join it and would only further point out that "Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war?" is a meaninglessly over-generalized question that ignores the world of possibilities at play with respect to what "risking a war" can possibly mean. There are bad war-risks and there are good war-risks and all sorts of risks of war in between that vary in accordance with the circumstances at issue.
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On January 25 2022 04:06 Sadist wrote:
I think NATO should stay out of Ukraine.
I feel like its antagonistic to Russia to talk about adding Ukraine/Georgia.
Do we think Russia would actually invade Ukraine without NATO hanging over its head? I think its wrong for them to try to destabilize Ukraine but I dont think theyd invade.
I think our country would be pissed if China or Russia had troops or missles in Latin America. Ukraine wants into NATO because its their only option to defend against Russia, if there was no threat out of Russia then Ukraine wouldn't need NATO.
How can you say its unfair for Ukraine to want to defend themselves from a hostile neighbour via a defensive pacts when Russia literally annexed the Crimea?
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On January 25 2022 03:52 Vivax wrote:
I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war?
There's some obvious differences. In the west, we have a free and independent press. If one source of media is bought off by NATO, there's dozens of others that can look at a satellite image and see the obvious buildup of Russian troops and military equipment. Plenty of newspapers exist that would love to break a story like that. The Russian media is state controlled. In the last decade or two, a significant number of Russian journalists/newscasters have walked off the job because they know they are being told to report lies from the Russian government. What's left is empty suits regurgitating Kremlin talking points.
Another obvious difference is the invasion target: Ukraine. Has Russia even accused NATO of posturing to invade Russia? It is Russia threatening to invade Ukraine on the pretext that ethnic Russian people in Ukraine are being treated badly. There is no threat to Russian land at all, only Ukrainian land.
There's also history. Russia has already taken Ukrainian land: the Crimean peninsula. We allowed it to happen and that was a mistake. Putin will take whatever he can get away with and we taught him a dangerous lesson back then. Within the last year, his forces also invaded Kazakhstan.
I personally think he put a bunch of troops on the Ukrainian border in order to draw attention there and test NATO's response while he invaded Kazakhstan with barely any international protest. We're already appeasing him. This is 100% on Putin. Back during the Bush and Obama administrations, there was a belief that Russia would join Europe, including NATO. It would have been great for Russia and the Russian people, but probably not for Putin personally, so it didn't happen. He is a dictator seeking more power while the west is a bunch of democracies trying to create stability.
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On January 25 2022 04:05 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2022 03:52 Vivax wrote:
I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war? I didn't want to make the obvious comparison but lets get it over with. Remember what happened last time a dictator decided they should own a neighbouring country and the world went "let him have this one, it will be enough and we should avoid a war at all costs"? Europe was so determined to avoid another war after WW1 they ended up creating WW2 instead of smothering Hitler's Germany in its crib. The world was already way to lax when Russia blatantly annexed the Crimea, and shock, horror, here they are ready to take some more. You think Putin is going to stop with Ukraine? Will this one be enough? How about Poland? Maybe give him half of Germany? No one wants a war with Russia, but when Russia thinks it can reform the USSR by force then the only option is to prepare for war. Wanting to avoid a conflict is entirely why we are in this situation because we let Putin get away with Crimea, so why shouldn't he try again? And sure Russia can complain about the advancing NATO but that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Russia wants to expand its sphere of influence and (most of) the former USSR has absolutely no desire to go back, NATO 'advances' on Russia because the only way countries near Russia can defend themselves is by having an alliance like NATO at their back.
I found a decent article on the region in question, it's in German though, 'sanctioned' information if you will since it's from the centre for political education so I assume it's not one-sided.
https://m.bpb.de/207590/kommentar-der-donbass-albtraum
So now that I'm a little wiser, I think you're grossly exaggerating in your reply (Hitler?reforming the USSR?What?). We're talking about two regions. Donbass and Donetzk. Historically they have had ethnical tensions for a few decades already and the Russians seem to use an approach where they offer their citizenship to people born there and likely even arms them to further their influence over the region, while the west counters it by supporting Ukrainian nationalists who fire artillery at settlements in there if the Russian news are to be believed. It's a cultural conflict that's being escalated.
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United States42778 Posts
On January 25 2022 04:06 Sadist wrote:
I think NATO should stay out of Ukraine.
I feel like its antagonistic to Russia to talk about adding Ukraine/Georgia.
Do we think Russia would actually invade Ukraine without NATO hanging over its head? I think its wrong for them to try to destabilize Ukraine but I dont think theyd invade.
I think our country would be pissed if China or Russia had troops or missles in Latin America.
Did you miss that they already did? A few years ago a bunch of enthusiastic Russian tourists that looked suspiciously like their army occupied eastern Ukraine with their vehicles that look a lot like tanks. They shot down a passenger jet and annexed a province.
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On January 25 2022 04:17 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2022 04:05 Gorsameth wrote:On January 25 2022 03:52 Vivax wrote:
I'm curious. Do folks here read the accused nations newspapers too before forming an opinion?
Because after reading an article on tass to see what their government is claiming (I'd prefer a native language article but I don't speak Russian), they claim that NATO is doing what they are accusing Russia of doing. So now we're in that good old feedback loop 'arms-race' style where you don't know who started it/who's telling the truth. Like kids when they incessantly say 'no,you'.
What scares me in particular is that many seem to believe there's a not-so-bad-outcome in a conflict anywhere when we're talking about nuclear superpowers. Would any of you elect your officials knowing in advance that they would not be opposed to risking a war? I didn't want to make the obvious comparison but lets get it over with. Remember what happened last time a dictator decided they should own a neighbouring country and the world went "let him have this one, it will be enough and we should avoid a war at all costs"? Europe was so determined to avoid another war after WW1 they ended up creating WW2 instead of smothering Hitler's Germany in its crib. The world was already way to lax when Russia blatantly annexed the Crimea, and shock, horror, here they are ready to take some more. You think Putin is going to stop with Ukraine? Will this one be enough? How about Poland? Maybe give him half of Germany? No one wants a war with Russia, but when Russia thinks it can reform the USSR by force then the only option is to prepare for war. Wanting to avoid a conflict is entirely why we are in this situation because we let Putin get away with Crimea, so why shouldn't he try again? And sure Russia can complain about the advancing NATO but that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Russia wants to expand its sphere of influence and (most of) the former USSR has absolutely no desire to go back, NATO 'advances' on Russia because the only way countries near Russia can defend themselves is by having an alliance like NATO at their back. I found a decent article on the region in question, it's in German though, 'sanctioned' information if you will since it's from the centre for political education so I assume it's not one-sided. https://m.bpb.de/207590/kommentar-der-donbass-albtraumSo now that I'm a little wiser, I think you're grossly exaggerating in your reply (Hitler?reforming the USSR?What?). We're talking about two regions. Donbass and Donetzk. Historically they have had ethnical tensions for a few decades already and the Russians seem to use an approach where they offer their citizenship to people born there and likely even arms them to further their influence over the region, while the west counters it by supporting Ukrainian nationalists who fire artillery at settlements in there if the Russian news are to be believed. It's a cultural conflict that's being escalated. Great so you agree that Russia is invading and annexing neighbouring countries.
Strange you still think that holds the moral highground, but baby steps....
If Russia wants to give the people in Donetzk Russia citizenship and aid in them relocating to Russia then sure, go for it so long as people do so purely off their own accord. But they are not doing that are they? Instead Russia is waging a proxy war against Ukraine.
Sure helpful of Russia to turn those poor people who just want to live in Russia into a military target by arming them for a civil war...
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EPT
