The newly annexed regions of Ukraine that are now Russias were being attacked by Ukraine Azov Nazis since 2014 after Ukraines democratically elected president was forcefully removed from power because he had no desires to join NATO and wanted friendly relations with Russia. Majority of the people living in those areas saw themselves as Russians since they spoke Russian and culturally they were Russian.
A Special Military Operation was declared with a goal of protecting Russian citizens and eliminating the Nazi threat. Now that those independent Ukraine regions are officially part of Russia any attacks towards them are seen as attacks on Russia itself. Ukraine military are now seen as terrorists and everyone involved with helping them all the way up to Zelensky are officially fair game. Zelensky was warned several times during the Special Military Operation to stop the bullshyt. They will no longer be warning him and will start unleashing their real war time arsenal. Russia using older weapons and a small military compared to what they actually have has managed to destroy majority of Ukraines military weapons and annex the territory they set out to from the start.
What is happening is actually historic. Russia is not fighting Ukraine they are fighting western nations that have been holding the rest of the world hostage through its global economic system and military (NATO). Countries that defy them get sanctioned until economies collapse or they get invaded. NATO wanted Ukraine as a member so they could park nukes at Russias borders. Russia has been trying to be diplomatic about the situation but US has ignored them and Russia had no choice but to strike first. They have been planning this for years which is why economic sanctions have failed miserably against Russia and have actually backfired and harmed EU nations even worse. This war has caused China and Russia to use alternative ways to transact business outside the US SWIFT banking system. If your country is shut out of this system then your countries economy will never be able to grow. Countries that try to do business with blacklisted nations in other ways can also be targeted. America and Western European nations have no real relationships with developing nations outside of keeping them undeveloped. You can point to actual developments in Africa and other nations from Chinese development deals. You can't do the same for the US and Europe. Only thing you can find is IMF/World Bank loans that entrap developing nations in a never ending debt cycle,
Coups and exploitation of countries natural resources. The old way of the world is dying at the borders of Russia and Ukraine and a new one is being born. The US and its allies can't bully Russia nor China like they could do to Iraq or Libya.
@Booksnrain carefully consider these points when you dap this one-sided bullshyt.
- Yes, there are Nazi's in Ukraine. They are mainly members of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector. Both are paramilitary organizations enlisted to help Ukraine's existing standing army. Of Ukraine's 200k+ man army pre-Russian special military operation, these groups only made up 4,000 members. What @Problematic Pat doesn't tell you or he simply doesn't know is Russia's very own paramilitary organization known as the Wagner Group which has been heavily deployed into this conflict and in many countries in Africa is headed by a man named Dimitri Outkine, a literal Nazi with SS tattoos on his chest. President Zelensky himself is Jewish, so you would have to question the cognitive dissonance going through someone's head of anyone offering this as a motivation without any context to the argument.
- Putin's claims for this invasion are because he is seeking denazification of eastern Ukraine. While I'm not doubting that there is some level of harassment and/or terrorism of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the aforementioned groups, this would be akin to Mexico invading California because Nazi's in Newport Beach were terrorizing Chicanos in formerly disputed territory. This is Vladimir Putin's playbook for what he did in Chechnya and Georgia in the last 20 years...and many other authoritarian nations have done in the past.
- "NATO wants Ukraine to join so they can put Nuke's at Russia's borders" means absolutely nothing. NATO is organization of 30 members, all of whom have to unanimously agree and many of whom prior to this special military operation DID NOT WANT Ukraine as a part of NATO because they were wildly corrupt as I'll explain further below.
- Its true that Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president was democratically elected in 2010 and pro-Russian. What he's not telling you or doesn't know is he won in 2010 with the help of Paul Manafort; Donald Trump's campaign manager. Moreover this wasn't the first time he ran for president of Ukraine and he failed miserably because it was determined that he rigged the 2004 election and most likely attempted to assassinate his rival Viktor Yuschenko, who was left horribly facially disfigured from the attempt. He only won when Manafort was able to bring millions in political financing into his campaign in 2010. You have to wonder why Manafort as Trump's campaign manager and Trump's favoritism of Russia and his withholding of defense funding to Ukraine which ultimately led to his impeachment seem to have a common thread. And you have to question how all of this would play out if Trump was still the US president.
- Russia is not using older weapons and a smaller force because of restraint...their military is wildly corrupt and funds that were allotted to the military ended up diverted in the hands of military leaders. Their weapons, maintenance, and training as a result were subpar and ill-equipped to handle this operation. However, in more democratically run nations, this news wouldn't have been a surprise or hidden, but because everyone of leadersip significance in Russia is either afraid of Putin or corrupt themselves, they thought all signs pointed to an easy win. No country in the world who would attempt an invasion of this scale and significance would send their B Team in, because the ramifications for failure or delayed victory are too great. It makes no sense for Putin to get into a protracted war with Ukraine to decimate his economy and excommunicate themselves from the western world. A significant portion of Russia's finances are in US dollars, he shot himself in the foot because he's getting bad information. His closest circles are CI's for the West. That's why Biden was screaming at the top his lungs for a month that they were going to invade and everyone thought he was senile. The fact of the matter is their B Team is really their A Team, and now because the military is in such disarray he can't even repair the equipment he has, because much of it was built with western country's components. He has to get equipment from North Korea at this point because no one else, not even China, who has been a frenemy this entire time to them will give them any components or equipment.
I mentioned in another thread earlier this week, I support Ukraine against Russia in this conflict because Putin's rationale for this invasion is not sincere. I myself was in the ROTC and dropped out after 2 years when the US invaded Iraq. I saw that as a bullshyt war. I recognize Ukraine joining NATO would be escalatory and I fear them applying and now more NATO countries actually supporting their admission might actually push us to WW3. It won't actually be a war, rather a quick couple of hours as somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 nuclear warheads get launched at, US, NATO and Russian military bases, food supplies, and civilian centers in an attempt to completely neutralize each other from any further attacks.
So when considering a problematic post like Pat's, please give consideration to the entire story. The US is a fukked up country when it comes to intermingling in other country's affairs. They have a lot to atone for and one day might get theirs...but Russia at present, is far worse. When you read posts like Pat's, ask yourself why is their no nuance in his rhetoric. He's not making his argument from a point of authenticity and he's either a thinly veiled shill for Donald Trump or he's so anti-American himself that he would cape for a country that has a dictator at the helm that many in the US far right and MAGA movement's would love to emulate.