A large number of EU resolutions on Ukraine are being blocked by Hungary, said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

Hungary is digging in and refusing to wave through billions in military aid for Ukraine, prompting growing dismay among other EU countries.

"I have to calm myself [when] I talk about this issue, because it’s getting really ridiculous now,” a senior EU diplomat said of the standoff with Hungary, speaking before Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers. “What’s happening is outrageous.”

Diplomats had hoped to have a new €6.6 billion package ready ahead of this week’s meetings of foreign and defense ministers in Brussels. The deal included €860 million for arms procurement, reported by POLITICO last week.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -1236 months ago

    War is bad.

    Every day we extend this war, more and more people die, statistically mostly civilians. While we are spending billions on bombs, China spends billions on healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

    And for what? So that the part of Ukraine that was trying to secede during the civil war has to stay? Because Russia is going to start a war with NATO after spending a hundred thousand lives trying and failing to avoid having most of its population and industry a few hundred miles from a hostile NATO member?

    This is in nobody’s interest except the shareholders of weapons manufacturers.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      786 months ago

      Russia can end this war tomorrow. Any and all deaths are on them. Hell, if Russia would just stay out of their neighbours business, there would have been no civil war in the first place.

      If Russia would quit invading their neighbours, their neighbours wouldn’t have had the motivation to join NATO in the first place (see Sweden and Finland as the most current examples).

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -536 months ago

        their neighbours wouldn’t have had the motivation to join NATO

        Joining NATO is not a defensive move, every single war its fought has been offensive in nature, and to quote Anthony Blinken “You’re either at the table or you’re on the menu”

        • @Crashumbc
          link
          English
          246 months ago

          Go hit the bottle again. It absolutely is a defensive move. Them and other countries near Russia were happy not being in NATO until Putin started attacking neighbors… He’s made it clear he wants to restore the USSR and its power…

          Ukraine’s mistake was not moving faster/sooner to join NATO…

        • Natanael
          link
          fedilink
          English
          196 months ago

          If Russia has legitimate reasons, why are all the reasons they give for their actions always a bunch of lies?

          Why did they have to stage false flag terror attacks on their own soil to justify an attack? Why do they have to doctor footage, make up fake citizens, and twist history?

          If they have the truth on their side, why not tell the truth?

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -126 months ago

            If Russia has legitimate reasons, why are all the reasons they give for their actions always a bunch of lies?

            I’m not saying the invasion was legitimate or justified, those concepts don’t even factor into state actors. I’m explaining the things that motivated it.

            If they have the truth on their side, why not tell the truth?

            They’ve said over and over that it was over the failure to enforce the Minsk II agreement. But lies are convenient and animating so you get both. Same reason the US media pretended that Iraq had chemical weapons and was involved in 9/11. The populace probably would have been happy to go to war without those reasons, but it makes it easier and increases domestic support for the ruling party.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -86 months ago

                The alternative is what? Putin just hates the Russian and Ukrainian people so much he decided to create a humanitarian disaster? That he wanted the wealth and productivity of land that currently looks like a WWI battlefield?

                Lets be realistic. Putin is an agent of Russia’s national bourgeoisie, he wouldn’t have power if he didn’t offer anticommunism and stability for the oligarchs he depends on.

                • Natanael
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  66 months ago

                  Yeah this war made Russia sooo stable

                  Putin is a madman who wants more power and more land and more people under his control. They genuinely thought the Ukrainians would give up within days.

                  All the intel from that time shows they didn’t expect lasting resistance. They expected to be able to hunt and execute everybody who had been part of the old government without any hickups, then just take over. And this was supposed to happen after a false flag attack on Russian soil, blamed on the Ukranian government, most likely together with a PR flood trying to convince the population that they would be safer under Russian rule due to their own government “being too dangerous / erratic” or whatever else.

                  The balance between Putin’s and other oligarchs’ power is not very stable given how many of them he has had killed. He’s relying on fear to keep them all from ganging up in him way once, just like how he relies on fear with everything else.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          146 months ago

          “every single war it’s faught”

          So that would be Afghanistan.

          The Balkans were just generally on fire in the 90s and NATO enforced a no fly zone and sent peacekeeper forces after the fact.

          There’s a few more peacekeeping missions and no-fly zones (Lybia for example), then some training missions, some humanitarian missions (Pakistan for example), a few air campaigns against non-state entities (“terrorists” but realistically that’s often just a matter of perspective), and a bunch of anti-piracy actions.

          So it’s “every single war” with heavy emphasis on single.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -246 months ago

            Peacekeeping? Libya had the highest HDI of Africa before NATO’s “peace keeping”. But it’s hard to separate the blame of NATO and just America for arming the factions. Same with the balkins.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              176 months ago

              Libya had the highest HDI of Africa before NATO’s “peace keeping”

              Dude, at least visit Wikipedia before you argue. Lybia was an example of NATO enforcing a no-fly zone, not peacekeeping. And Lybia’s HDI was back to pre-civil war levels three years ago (ie the 2021 data matches the 2013 data).

              Are you going to pretend that Muammer Gaddafi was a benevolent and beloved dictator, and that there’s no way Lybians would want him to fuck off all of their own?

              it’s hard to separate the blame of NATO and just America

              No it fucking isn’t. NATO lists all actions they’ve taken part of on their website. If the action is there, it was NATO, if it isn’t, it was not a NATO action.

        • The Uncanny Observer
          link
          fedilink
          English
          116 months ago

          I’m assuming that your meaning is that every single offensive campaign NATO has taken part in was one it started without provocation. That’s a very interesting argument, so please provide specific evidence to back the claim you are making that every single NATO offense was an aggressive one. And don’t just give me some form of “do your own research”, you’re making a claim so back it up.

          Furthermore, reading between the lines, it seems you may possibly feel that these alleged aggressive moves by NATO justify Russian imperialism, in this specific case the invasion of Ukraine. If that’s the case, do you think Putin’s comments regarding the reestablishment of the Soviet Union have nothing to do with the war?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          16 months ago

          Strange, and which countries did NATO invade then?

          Because the only case NATO was called was after 9/11, but since it was about invading an other country all of it was voluntary. So the majority didn’t even participate.

    • @SMillerNL
      link
      English
      636 months ago

      War is bad.

      Nobody was trying to secede. Ukrainians would like to stay Ukrainian and it’s good to help people who want help.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -416 months ago

        What of the Russian-speaking population who was still in revolt before the invasion? You know the civil war and all that?

        • @DeLacue
          link
          English
          29
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          Oh the Russian speaking population that sprang up in rebellion from nowhere in pretty much a single day with a clear and organised command structure from day one, with matching gear, uniforms and weapons and a bizarrely poor understanding of the local geography despite supposedly being locals. You know they attacked a movie theatre because they thought it was a local government center? Those rebels? The ones the locals didn’t recognise? The ones whose casualty numbers had a weird correlation with Russian servicemen dying from unexplained causes? Those rebels?

          Now I normally don’t call ‘Russian bot/troll’ too often but Russian propaganda about this is so poor I have a hard time coming to any other conclusion.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -316 months ago

            Do you honestly not know that most of eastern Ukraine speaks Russian? Like this is an easily verifiable fact you can just google.

            • @Docus
              link
              English
              216 months ago

              Not everyone who speaks Russian wants to be Russian.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -216 months ago

                True, from the vitriol I’ve seen directed at Russians living in former Ukrainian territories, it’d genuinely be a toss-up whether they’d go with the guys who invaded and occupied them or the ones who passed anti-russian laws and have banderites talking about ethnically cleansing them in parliament.

                There’s really no good outcome for anyone involved, and a longer war makes all of them worse.

                  • @[email protected]
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    -11
                    edit-2
                    6 months ago

                    Both parties agreeing to peace as soon as possible would be ideal, but we only need one party to stop this war. I don’t speak Russian and my country is not enabling Russia to continue the war, it’s enabling Ukraine to continue the war.

                    But if I did have psychic powers and could tell Putin what to do, I’d tell him to sue for immediate peace, ideally with the occupied regions having internationally monitored referendums on whether to join Ukraine vs Russia, but ending this phase of the conflict and moving on to the decades of militia violence and terrorism ahead would be worth even giving up that.

            • @DeLacue
              link
              English
              136 months ago

              I should really proofread my comments before I post them but then again you don’t strike me as worth the effort. I am well aware eastern Ukraine speaks Russian and has for a long time, I was talking exclusively about the rebels coming from nowhere.

            • Natanael
              link
              fedilink
              English
              76 months ago

              That makes your argument worse because if it was locals they wouldn’t be so radically stupid

        • @Crashumbc
          link
          English
          206 months ago

          Stop listening to Russian propaganda? By and large it didn’t exist.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      366 months ago

      This is in nobody’s interest except the shareholders of weapons manufacturers.

      You forgot about a country called Ukraine there buddy.

      I gotta say, of all the conflicts going on in the world, Ukraine/Russia has got to be the one with the clearest “good” side and “bad” side. Pick another conflict to be edgy about.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -36
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        For the people in Ukraine, this protracted war is the absolute worst possible outcome. Ukraine will never be a safe country again in either of our lifetimes. The state has had to privatize and sell off public assets like the power grid and take out massive loans. Ukraine will never be a prosperous country again in either of our lifetimes.

        As far as black and white conflicts go, there’s a country currently dropping 2000 lb bombs on a tent-city of mostly starving children, that formed from refugees of it’s earlier bombing campaign, who are mostly refugees of even earlier ethnic cleansing campaigns.

        • @Crashumbc
          link
          English
          206 months ago

          While that is unfortunate, it’s still better than the alternative…

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -396 months ago

            It absolutely is not. Nothing Russia could possibly impose on the people is worse than an entire generation of men lost to the meat grinder and the poverty that follows this kind of economic damage. A quick loss would have a million more Ukrainians living in their homes today instead of displaced throughout the world, and a hundred thousand still alive.

            • DarkThoughts
              link
              fedilink
              236 months ago

              Nothing Russia could possibly impose on the people is worse than an entire generation of men lost to the meat grinder and the poverty that follows this kind of economic damage.

              Wrong. Ask Ukraine or all the other former SU countries. They already know how it is to “live” under Russian occupation. If you’re such a fan of that, go move over there for yourself, and join VK so you can at least spare us with your moronic propaganda.

              • Flying SquidM
                link
                English
                -46 months ago

                Please stop abusing the flagging system. “Misinformation” is not against the rules. You flagged them over a dozen times for that.

                • Unruffled [he/him]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  86 months ago

                  Hey @[email protected], I haven’t reported any misinformation myself, but just pointing out that your community rule 3 says, “Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.”

                  TBH I’ve noticed a lot of accommodation for the feelings of tankies in mod decisions here recently. I get that you probably want to be “balanced”, but could we maybe just agree that it’s a FACT that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not justified or legal, even if it hurts the feeling of those who like to defend the actions of the war criminal Vladimir Putin?

                  If you agree that this is indeed a fact, then perhaps you might also consider clamping down on all the tankie posts that amount to nothing more than apologia for authoritarian dictators? If not, I’d love to know your reasoning for allowing them to post their toxic propaganda here.

                  • Flying SquidM
                    link
                    English
                    66 months ago

                    Yes, articles. Not comments. Misinformation articles are against the rules.

                    If you want to say that Putin is an awesome dude who does no wrong, that’s allowed even though it’s a stupid thing to say.

                • DarkThoughts
                  link
                  fedilink
                  76 months ago

                  It’s disinformation, not misinformation. He’s willfully spreading propaganda that aims to sow discord within our societies. I guess you’re just as bad as the worldnews community on lemmy.ml. An accomplice. I guess you too will reap what you sow eventually.

                  • Flying SquidM
                    link
                    English
                    -16 months ago

                    You’re welcome to not like our rules, but neither disinformation nor misinformation (which is what you called it when you flagged it) are disallowed in comments.

            • @kaffiene
              link
              English
              126 months ago

              The reducro ad adsurdum of your position is that all states should immediately surrender to any sufficiently armed state which threatens them.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -136 months ago

                Correct, it would be absurd to apply that analysis to all states everywhere forever without any examination of the history or nuance.

                • @kaffiene
                  link
                  English
                  86 months ago

                  sigh this is the logical consequence of your position

            • Natanael
              link
              fedilink
              English
              56 months ago

              So the meat grinder of Russian mass murder every time they take over a city is better than fighting back?

        • Natanael
          link
          fedilink
          English
          176 months ago

          The situation for Ukrainians in cities Russia took control over is soo soo much worse than you can imagine. Torture, killing most adult males, horrific abuses - and you say that pushing Russia back and reclaiming cities is the worse choice???

        • @mojofrododojo
          link
          English
          106 months ago

          Ukraine will never be a prosperous country again in either of our lifetimes.

          and who’s fucking fault is that? you have absolutely no sense of decency.

            • @mojofrododojo
              link
              English
              116 months ago

              I doubt your motives.

              Decency would be supporting the victim, not justifying the aggressor.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -136 months ago

                The victims are the people. Every day this war goes on means more victims. The only reason I examine Russia’s reasoning is to predict future behavior, moral judgements on Russia or Putin’s character have nothing to do with this since the only moral action is what benefits the people.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  86 months ago

                  Then spend your energy on stopping Russia. It has the same effect as Ukraine surrendering.

                  Your arguments fall flat if you disagree to that.

                  • @[email protected]
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    -96 months ago

                    I don’t live in Russia, my country is not supporting Russia. From where I am, opposing Russia is equivalent to supporting escalation.

                    If I did live in Russia, I’d be focusing my energy on Russia. If I was in Russia, opposing Ukraine would be equivalent to supporting escalation.

    • katy ✨
      link
      fedilink
      English
      356 months ago

      putin could end the war at any time by ceasing to try and take ukrainian land…

      • @mojofrododojo
        link
        English
        16 months ago

        would have saved the lives of half a million russians lost in ditches. but putin doesn’t care about them.

    • Natanael
      link
      fedilink
      English
      27
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Replace “we” with “Russia” and you get it

      Giving Russia what they want is in nobody’s interest except Putin and a select few of his politicians. They’ll then use the land in Ukraine to try to grab more land in Europe, notably Poland, Finland, and Moldova, through more war

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -286 months ago

        History didn’t start in 2022.

        There’s been a civil war since shortly after the 2014.

        Zelensky was elected as the peace candidate, but was unable to get the right-wing militias that had been inducted into the reformed state’s army to stop shelling eastern Ukraine, which Putin used as part of his justification to invade. There were also some nasty laws passed, such as banning Russian from being used in schools.

        I don’t believe Putin genuinely thinks an invasion is helping the Russian-speaking people of eastern Ukraine, rather I think that’s a pretense to address an existential security concern, having NATO-backed right-wing militias within reach of most of Russia’s population and industry.

        • Natanael
          link
          fedilink
          English
          12
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          There has been Russian agents pretending to be locals since then. That doesn’t make it civil war, it makes it an invasion

          Remember when Russia was planning false flag attacks on their own territory so they could blame it on Ukraine before invading, but then they got called out and no such attacks happened because Russia knew the world knew and the Russians would know too who did it if Putin had his own population slaughtered again (like he did to first get elected), and then they invaded anyway without literally any justification at all?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      176 months ago

      You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our Country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.

      a little known commander, general Sherman

      “secede” and what else, that was most brazen imperialist land grab since ww2

      how is that war with NATO going? zero NATO casualties, half million russian killed and wounded by now with no end in sight, after running through decades worth of soviet hoard of weapons. and what for? all for a distraction, psychopatic entertainment for russian nationalists, everything to keep putin’s approval ratings high. he tried to pull it out for the 4th time, and this time he met prepared resistance. end of war will be end of putin, but he doesn’t want to step down, so until someone pops him there won’t be peace

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -266 months ago

        general Sherman

        I’m not gonna look towards the guy who spent most of his career massacring indigenous people to figure out who deserves what.

        zero NATO casualties, half million Russian killed

        As thrilled as you are to fight Putin to the very last drop of Ukrainian blood, you have to understand this is sociopathic right?

        so until someone pops him there won’t be peace

        It’s unlikely that would affect the Russian war effort. I’m no expert in Russian politics, but I do cursory research and I’m not aware of any person or party waiting in the wings to take power that would support unilateral withdrawal from the lands its held for like 2 years.

        • Natanael
          link
          fedilink
          English
          116 months ago

          Why is it sociopathic to want Ukrainians to be free instead of being tortured and abused daily for the next several decades?

          I don’t think you actually believe Ukrainians will be safe if they stop resisting. You should know, because if the majority of Ukrainians actually would prefer Russian rule they’d just stop fighting and no amount of weapons sent to them would keep the war going.

          And yet, they chose to resist.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -9
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            When you do the math of “Half a million dead Russians, and it didn’t cost us a single life”, you betray that Ukrainian lives literally do not matter to you and that you consider dead Russians a good thing.

            if the majority of Ukrainians actually would prefer Russian rule they’d just stop fighting

            That would require the Ukrainian government represents the interests of the majority of people in Ukraine. There’s only a handful of governments whose actions are consistently in the interest of and supported by its people. None of them are in eastern Europe.

    • @kaffiene
      link
      English
      146 months ago

      You cannot allow aggressive states to just take other people’s lands.

    • @gmtom
      link
      English
      96 months ago

      .ml detected, opinion rejected.

      Go back to your shithole tankie.

        • @gmtom
          link
          English
          66 months ago

          Not really. Being open minded doesn’t mean you give equal credence to nut jobs, conspiracy theorists, racists, etc.

          I wouldn’t listen to a Nazis opinions on Jews.

          I wouldn’t listen to a zionists opinion on Palestine.

          And I don’t listen to a tankies opinion on Ukraine.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            06 months ago

            That’s not at all what I meant.

            I’m an ml user - just because it seemed okay to me when I first started with Lemmy - and now I learn it’s got a rep for being for tankies etc

            If you look through my comment history you’ll see I’m probably just some lefty twit from Europe.

            I by no means meant you should tolerate the scum that promote Putin or Pooh Bear’s agenda.

            Just don’t assume everyone on .ml is a cunt. Be more open minded and less label driven.

            • @gmtom
              link
              English
              06 months ago

              If you don’t want people to lump you in with the tankies, you can simply not associate yourself with said tankies.

              Just like I’m going to assume anyone on truth social is a right wing chritsofascist. There might be a dide on there that’s sane and alright, but I don’t care.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      86 months ago

      You are wrong.

      This war is also in the interests of Putin.

      Putin decided to start the war of aggression.

      Putin invaded Ukraine.

      Ukraine gave up its nuclear arms on the guarantee of security from Russia. Russia has violated that guarantee by invading them.

      Putin can end the war today.

      US can not end the war today. Even if it left Ukraine alone, Ukraine would still fight to the end.

      EU can not end the war today. See above.

      The fastest and easiest way to end the bloodshed is for Russia to withdraw today.

      Leaving Ukraine to defend itself wouldn’t even end the bloodshed. After Russia has completed its revised objectives it would invade the entirety of Ukraine under newer revised objectives. Then it would invade other neighbours under other revised objectives. The bloodshed would continue until the USSR is reformed and a new cold war begins.

      Those suggesting the only way to end the bloodshed is through capitulation to the aggressor need to study their history better to see that capitulation to the aggressor never stopped an aggressor, it just lead to them going further until stopped.

      Imagine if the USA invaded Mexico - no one would be saying Mexico should end the bloodshed. And the USA’s adversaries sure as hell would be doing everything they can to help Mexico.

      For those in the back: Putin withdrawing from his war of aggression is the only known way to end the bloodshed today. All other solutions would result in further bloodshed.

        • @nyctre
          link
          English
          46 months ago

          Except if you’d read the article you’d see that’s bullshit and doesn’t support your claim at all.

          Quotes from the text: “And the Russians knew these provisions would make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to accept the rest of the treaty. They might, therefore, be seen as poison pills.”

          “Still, the claim that the West forced Ukraine to back out of the talks with Russia is baseless.”

          And calls it “putin’s manipulative spin”

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -4
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            It’s Foreign Affairs, literally a state-department mouthpiece, you have to read between the lines and understand the way they use emphasis and conjecture to manipulate the narrative.

            The atomic unit of propaganda isn’t lies, it’s emphasis.

            • @nyctre
              link
              English
              36 months ago

              First of all, that’s your source, not mine. Also, if they wanted to keep their warmongering interests hidden why even publish that article? You make no sense

              Secondly, really? Your argument is “you’re supposed to believe putin, not the ones that conducted interviews, did research and wrote the article”? That’s biblethumping-level of weak, c’mon… “Nooooo, you’re interpreting the holy texts wrong”

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                -26 months ago

                I didn’t say anything about believing Putin, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. My point is that you have to read any media critically and understand how they are trying to twist the facts. I chose a state department-aligned source so you wouldn’t disregard it out of hand.

                The fact is that Russia offered a peace deal that would have ended the war with Russia even giving back much of the territory it had taken 2 years ago, Zelensky pulled out of the peace talks when he had guarantees of unlimited support. The writer’s bias of course, makes them suggest that actually Russia didn’t really want Ukraine to accept the peace deal.

                • @nyctre
                  link
                  English
                  36 months ago

                  The only thing the article shows is that putin is a lying sack of shit and that they’ve been negotiating a peace since february 2022. The fact that they couldn’t agree on terms and you blaming it on western support is purely your interpretation, has nothing to do with facts. It literally said in the article that russia’s first first peace proposal was capitulation. And negotiations brought it down to “neutral” russian puppet, at which point negotiations crumbled. There’s no bias there, that’s what happened. Even the last version of the draft was something that was unacceptable to Ukraine. Anyway, I’m done. You’ll keep blaming Zelensky, because that’s all you’re capable of doing, I’ll keep blaming putin, because he’s the one that started this and the one that can stop it. There’s no point in arguing further.

                  • @[email protected]
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    -26 months ago

                    Sadly the people enabling Putin doesn’t care what either of us think. The people enabling Zelensky might. Opposing only the other side in a war is the same as supporting the war.

                    I’m not making moral judgements, if justice were served, both Putin and Zelensky and every other representative of capital would be devoured by the workers who choose between rent, medicine, and food. I’m looking for the closest avenue for ending the war that anyone who pretends to represent me can effect.

                    For me, an American, that means not sending weapons so they have to agree to peace.