Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.
“When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
I’m not saying they’re not committing war crimes. I’m saying the goal of the war is not extermination, since an extermination war would look very different. The war crimes are very similar to what the US did in their recent wars, like Iraq. So unless you think those were extermination campaigns, then that’s not good evidence. You’d have to compare it to e.g. the Nazi’s eastern campaign, which, again, looked very different. Where are the extermination camps? Where are the ghettos? Where are the death squads? Did the Nazis try to make every Pole get a regular German passport? The rhetoric of liberating their quasi-Russian brothers and sisters from Banderite ideology and Western vassaldom is also very different from the Nazi “Untermenschen” crap.
Whether or not “anxiety” justifies the war isn’t important. We were talking about why they invaded, and they did this in the sincere belief that this was necessary to protect against a hostile military encirclement. This is not an unreasonable belief. The US would react similarly to such an encirclement, even if the other side repeatedly insists they don’t have hostile intent. Even if there is actually no hostile intent (I doubt it), that’s still not great, since plan and intent are subject to change. Who’s going to guarantee that some future administration doesn’t want to leverage the strategic advantage gained by parking an army and/or nukes near Moscow?
So this is what’s called a provocation, and it suggests that the Russians aren’t “mad” or irrational. They’re behaving as expected by the theory of realpolitik. This would mean that this war could be deescalated by backing off and agreeing to a neutral Ukraine.
Edit: Russia invading Ukraine has therefore two main goals:
Prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member. So long as Ukraine is in a war (or just a territorial dispute) with Russia, most NATO members will not want to admit Ukraine into NATO, since that could drag them into war with a nuclear power.
Drive back the anti-Russian NATO-equipped Ukrainian army (quite a large force actually) from their core territories. This would give Russia a buffer to better absorb an attack from the territory of Ukraine (which is btw the direction both Hitler and Napoleon used to attack Russia). This also suggest that Russia is probably going to try to expand the buffer zone unless Ukraine gets demilitarized and neutralized (as in become neutral), if they can.
The goal is not to murder Ukrainians. And the primary goal is not to take territory, that just follows from the primary goal of creating a security buffer.
I actually definitely believe the US was looking to do some light ethnic cleansing in Iraq. But even so, there’s many documented instances of Russia doing it; so no need to compare them to the US. Their war aim seems to include some amount of ethnic cleansing.
Look up the articles I linked you. Children are being shipped to ghettos; adults are being moved to death camps. While not as endemic as Nazi Germany it is still clear what Russia is trying to do. That the machinery is not as advanced as the actual Holocaust doesn’t mean it isn’t a genocide.
It doesn’t matter if their belief is sincere or how real their anxiety is. There is no justification for a war of territorial aggression on territory a dictator has clearly coveted in the past and the genocide of its native population. Literally this is the same level as excusing Hitler’s aggression against Poland. It doesn’t matter how encircled a country feels; it does not justify a war of territorial aggression and the murder of the country’s native inhabitants.
If their goal is not to murder Ukrainians and take their territory, why is that exactly what they’re doing and what they’re claiming? Literally today a Russian general said Ukraine is simply the first stop to an invasion of Europe. How much more proof do you need that this has nothing to do with NATO or the west, and is only Putin’s mad ambitions for expanding the Russian empire?
Can you point out exactly where it says that? This is the first time I’m hearing of death camps.
I just debunked this in another thread, let me quote myself:
This btw, is totally consistent with what I said before. Russia thinks they are being provoked and that the next step after NATO encirclement is them getting attacked.
Yes, here you go: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2023/05/30/from-a-war-zone-to-a-remote-camp-an-illustrated-explanation-of-russias-deportation-of-ukrainians/11477766002/
The quote says literally exactly what the article is saying: that Ukraine is a stepping stone to the rest of Europe (Poland probably being next).
Russia has been reversing victim and offender for this entire war. It is clear the general means this in exactly the sense that Ukraine deserved being invaded in a war of territorial aggression and its people deported. Their ambition does not stop in Ukraine, but they will blame the innocent countries of Eastern Europe for forcing Russia to invade them.
It’s literally Hitler’s playbook, just done by Putin.
This does not describe an extermination camp at all. I guess you’re referring to this (I have to guess since you failed to point out exactly what you’re referring to):
This isn’t even part of that eyewitness account. This is just an NGO alleging this, without pointing to the exact source document. An NGO that doesn’t disclose its funding on its website as far as I can see. This isn’t even describing a death camp, which is what you were confidently stating is a thing. What am I supposed to do with this?
No it doesn’t. He alleges that instigators of the war (meaning not Russia, since he doesn’t believe Russia instigated the war), will not stop in Ukraine. He’s not referring to Russia, clearly. Given how he answers the “stepping stone” question like that, he obviously thinks that Ukraine is a stepping stone for those western instigators to attack Russia.
I’ll paraphrase: Is Ukraine a stepping stone? – Yes, the western warmongers won’t stop at Ukraine.
This is obviously what he means.
This is two examples of you misrepresenting sources in one comment. How am I supposed to take you seriously?
It’s sad that you’re so committed to this you’re willing to literally believe anything but the truth. You have literally no reason to doubt any of these accounts but you’ve elected to do so anyway; I don’t know why anyone would want to simp for a murderous madman and his genocidal regime and their war of territorial aggression. Like you haven’t even linked any sources that disagree with me, you’re simply asserting the sources are wrong and that the generals mean exactly the opposite of what they’re saying.
Why? What have they ever done to you to earn your trust? Why do you believe that literally every source reporting these things is wrong, when you have no proof?
I hope you recover from whatever has led you to apologize for the most brutal regimes and worst people on the planet. But that journey will occur without me because I’m not interested in trying to help you realize the truth any more.
I implore you to read this again, seriously. Nobody can be this bad at reading comprehension. Do you actually think he’s referring to Russia when he says “I think all kinds of ideologists and instigators of this war will not stop here.”. He does not think Russia instigated the war! Are you just utterly incapable of assuming someone else’s perspective? Because that would explain a lot.