• humanspiral
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Current likelihood is that there’s only a mineral deal if US pays Zelensky/Ukraine to fight more. Security guarantees don’t actually cost anything until you have to do something, and its pretty likely that any weapons would be used to provoke aggression during ceasefire instead of protecting Ukraine’s neutrality.

    It’s Europe that wants war more than US, and so it’s far more likely they get the mineral deal to keep going to the last Ukrainian.

  • dick_fineman@discuss.online
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    So I’ve been repeatedly permabanned from Reddit for saying what is sometimes pretty innocuous shit. I’m reluctant to share my true opinion here beyond: Trump should be impeached again, and “snuggled” for treason. Or maybe lined up in front of a brick wall and “comedy-roasted”. Let’s see what happens here…

    Though I do also want to establish that any time I say some folks should be lined up in front of a wall…it’s because they should be roasted like a comedy special. And also, you know, when I refer to the punishment for treason…it’s snuggles.

    EDIT: please don’t permaban me, that shit is annoying.

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    8 hours ago

    Who would’ve thought the government that installed a far right government in a coup wouldn’t have the best intentions?!

  • androidul@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 hours ago

    based man, I’m so sad about this… hope EU+UA will forge an even more powerful alliance!

    • shawn1122@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      edit-2
      11 hours ago

      US is in a state of slow implosion. Rest of the world needs to look at collaborating while excluding the US.

      My guess is China will fill the void left by the disintegration of USAID in order to boost its global standing.

      I strongly encourage all nations to begin violating US intellectual property rights. Nations like India already do so with pharmaceuticals.

      Eventually other nations will need to take on the mantle of tech and pharmaceutical research and development and we don’t want to live in a world where all this progress is lost.

      Americans have chosen to nuke their own democracy and we need to minimize the damage done to the rest of the world as much as possible.

      • menemen@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        10 hours ago

        My guess is China will fill the void left by the disintegration of USAID in order to boost its global standing.

        China will take large chunks. But I think we will also see a decentralization as china won’t be able to take it all. Countries like Turkey, Malaysia, Brazil and so on will probably increase their regional soft powers a lot.

        This process also already started years ago, but will be catalyzed by this.

        • humanspiral
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 hours ago

          Russophobia has been the big disease, really created by US/USAID/NED/CIA. Europe seems to need a moment to let go, but if US isn’t forcing them into it, the rest of the world has already been open to Russia and China. Trump is literally forcing the world to liberate itself from US. The US is still a nice market, but China is much larger to sell into, and tariff wars are not likely to bring investments into the US.

          A multipolar world makes as much obvious sense as democracy. But it is pretty remarkable that US is pushing for it now.

          • eluvinar@szmer.info
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 minutes ago

            Europe seems to need a moment to let go, but if US isn’t forcing them into it, the rest of the world has already been open to Russia and China

            I mean, what would Europe need from russia? We’re currently more of a “global power” then they are. Only countries seriously aligning themselves with Russia those days are either extremely weak and near russia and so have 0 choice in the matter or try to play both sides for fun and profit LARPing as Tito.

    • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      42
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      19 hours ago

      This image is almost 3 years old already lmao.

      If any libs want to learn how tankies see the future you might want to read about the past for once. Pop history doesn’t count.

    • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      16 hours ago

      How was Libya, a member of the non-aligned movement, a US ally? They literally were part of a group that took neither side in the Cold War.

      OBL was never an ally. The US gave money to the Pakistani ISI who gave money to fixers who gave money to OBL. There was no direct channel. He was never an ally and it is a weird assertion to make given the history.

      The other two were US allies. Noriega was even friendly with Bush 41. This is just bad history.

        • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          7 hours ago

          Again the CIA gave money to the ISI who gave money to fixers who decided who got money. The US soldiers training them doesn’t make them an ally of the USA.

            • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              5 hours ago

              From your link I have added emphasis to the part you seemed to have missed:

              “ The distribution of the weaponry relied heavily on the Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who had a personal relationship with Congressman Wilson. His Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was an intermediary for funds distribution, passing of weapons, military training and financial support to Afghan resistance groups.[40] Along with funding from Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China,[41] the ISI developed a complex infrastructure that was directly training 16,000 to 18,000 mujahideen fighters annually by early 1986 (and indirectly facilitating training for thousands of others by Afghans that had previously been recipients of ISI instruction).[42] They encouraged the volunteers from the Arab states to join the Afghan resistance in its struggle against the Soviet troops based in Afghanistan.[40] Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq also directed the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish contact with Israel’s Mossad.[43] Intelligence offices were set up at both countries’ embassies in Washington, where the ISI, MI6, CIA and Mossad jointly ran the operation.[44] During this operation, Israel supplied Soviet-made weaponry (seized from Palestinian militants) to the Afghan mujahideen. Pakistan and Israel cooperated very closely during the entirety of the conflict and the Pakistani military which was engaging Soviet aircraft and providing the mujahideen with funds and weapons—received a generous amount of Israeli armaments and aid as a result.[44]___

              So how didn’t it work like that? It really seems the ISI, who would best know the parties involved, did the heavy lifting.

              • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 hours ago

                The CIA using the ISI to transport some weapons and train soldiers isn’t “this ISI did everything therefore the Mujahedin weren’t supported by the US”, it’s “the ISI were a tool of the CIA”, the operation was run out of Washington. It had US media providing glowing coverage of the Mujahedin as they committed war crimes.

                • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  4 hours ago

                  The ISI being the go between for almost everything does mean those groups the ISI paid are not allies of the USA. If anyone in the Mujahideen needed help we would not have provided it because we are not allies. If the ISI needed help we likely would help depending on the circumstances (we wont fight India for example).

            • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              5 hours ago

              Yes and the ISI were the intermediary for almost everything. The wiki link they provided even explains this.

              What did you think I was missing or am I supposed to think a handful of CIA guys made all the decisions vs taking input from the ISI would would know all of the players involved.

              I know you are a communist and not a huge fan of the USA, but are you one of the people that actually believes America’s intelligence agencies were good at spy-craft? We weren’t.

  • rocket_dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    225
    arrow-down
    25
    ·
    1 day ago

    Funny wojak faces but to clear up an apparent misconception here, Ukrainian weren’t fighting for abstract concepts like “freedom” and Democracy", they were fighting to stop Russian soldiers from killing their families, raping their children, and burning their homes to the ground.

    I hope this helps!

    • johny@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Ukrainians were/are still fighting to defend themselves from an illegal invasion. But America sees and has always seen Ukraine as a proxy to weaken a geo-strategic rival. NATO was not realistically on the table as long as the conflict in the Donbas was ongoing (it would have immediately triggered art.5) to keep promising NATO instead of working on a more realistic path to peace has probably caused the death of 100000s of Ukrainians. And just as with many other imperial proxies in history, the proxy is left to deal with the fallout while the empire retreats to the metropol and prepares for the next conflict.

    • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      112
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      I think you’ll find they were fighting other Ukrainians (if you can call the carpet bombing of civilians “fighting”) to maintain the US financed Poroshenko in power long before Russia went in, about eight years in fact.

        • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          13
          ·
          edit-2
          21 hours ago

          It actually started on February 2014 and then abruptly stopped around May for 8 years

      • Skua@kbin.earth
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        76
        arrow-down
        13
        ·
        1 day ago

        long before Russia went in

        There’s a problem with this, because Russia has had troops in Ukraine since early 2014, before Poroshenko’s government

        • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          59
          ·
          edit-2
          7 hours ago

          The Sbovoda interim was also financed by the USA, with Victoria Nuland discussing on a leaked call who to name after they deposed Yanukovich.

          Russia had troops in Crimea as requested by the Crimean government, which also seceded via referendum after said coup, as is its right under Ukrainian law. That proved to be the right move given that they didn’t have the astronomical number of casualties that Donbas had, with over 14 thousand dead before 2022, most of them civilians, and a huge number of injured civilians and destroyed infrastructure as per the Donbas documentary.

          • Skua@kbin.earth
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            50
            arrow-down
            11
            ·
            1 day ago

            If America’s goal was to put Svoboda in power, they didn’t do a very good job of keeping them there, did they?

            I have read the Nuland transcript. She’s talking about the existing leader of the opposition. Of course she said Yatsenyuk was the guy, he was the goddamn leader of the opposition. He was the one guy avalable with the best democratic mandate at the last election. Yanukovych even offered to make him prime minister at one point.

            Russia put troops into Crimea before the referendum, and the referendum was run by the occupying army. Do you normally trust occupying armies to run referendums about whether or not they should get to keep the land they’re occupying?

            Perhaps if Russia was so concerned about casualties in the Donbas, it should not have invaded and caused hundreds of thousands more casualties.

            • humanspiral
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 hour ago

              Russia put troops into Crimea before the referendum, and the referendum was run by the occupying army. Do you normally trust occupying armies to run referendums about whether or not they should get to keep the land they’re occupying?

              97% in favour of Crimea joining Russia. Western polling was a solid 70%+. The new 2014 regime was legitimately divisive to the point that the majority ethnic Russian populations in Ukraine did not want to submit to them.

            • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              21
              arrow-down
              42
              ·
              edit-2
              21 hours ago

              Lmao so the US did finance them, did appoint their best liked interim, did have congresspeople on the ground supporting the coup, did send in the money to arm the Nazis but just… quietly let democracy take its course once they spent all that time and money? America doesn’t give a fuck if Sbovoda remains as long as the shock therapy has happened already, by then they’ll take anyone who’ll toe the line.

              I want to give y’all the benefit of the doubt and conclude that you think we’re stupid but sometimes I think there’s a more obvious answer.

              • Skua@kbin.earth
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                41
                arrow-down
                12
                ·
                1 day ago

                Ukrainians already wanted to align with the EU. The US didn’t need to do a damn thing to influence that, a long history of Russian imperialism did it all for them

                America spent fuck all on Ukraine in the entire history of its independence up until Euromaidan (pg 167). They simply did not spend “all that money”, because a single digit millions of dollars a year is a rounding error in the US budget. American spending on Ukraine in 2013 was 0.00024% of the federal budget.

                • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  18
                  arrow-down
                  10
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  19 hours ago

                  America spent fuck all on Ukraine in the entire history of its independence up until Euromaidan

                  Oh fr? Let’s ask as-US-backed-as-US-backed-gets Kyiv Independent then: https://kyivindependent.com/how-us-foreign-aid-transformed-ukraine-through-the-years/

                  With the signing of a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and USAID in 1992, the agency started working alongside the Ukrainian government to build a competitive market economy, implement crucial social reforms […] In over 30 years of working in Ukraine, USAID has played a key role in transforming numerous sectors […] Dmytro Boyarchuk, the executive director of the Centre for Social and Economic Research (CASE Ukraine), said that Ukraine would not have been able to implement vital reforms without the support of international donors like USAID.

                  Obfuscate it as much as you want, pro-western Ukrainians themselves are telling everyone how maintaining a pro-western system depends on US funds.

                  The US didn’t need to do a damn thing

                  Nice deflection but the fact is that it did, often and extensively. If the US didn’t need to spend that money, then you shouldn’t worry, pretty soon they might not be. Let’s see how friendly that world is to the US and their chickenshit vassals in the UK et al, I yearn to see it. Most of all I yearn that y’all see it.

                • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  19
                  arrow-down
                  9
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 day ago

                  If Ukrainians already wanted to align with the EU, then why did they democratically elect Yanukovych, which the US subsequently couped in coordination with the Banderites?

                • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  11
                  arrow-down
                  15
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  21 hours ago

                  American spending on Ukraine in 2013

                  Good thing we’re talking about the money it spent on the coup and the aftermath, then.

                  So the fact that America funded through USAID 9 out of every 10 media outlets means they didn’t spend “anything” in Ukraine because… It spends way more fucking money than that everywhere else too?

                  Also, implying the US only spends the money in a country via direct government cash injection lmao. Most of the money the US spends is channelled through NGOs for propaganda and covert action. Why the fuck would they ever just give money away to a government before it’s thoroughly vassalized. What’s more: there’s ample evidence that US and UK propaganda specialists were employed by Subversive elements within Ukraine as well as extensive funding of NGOs and collaboration with psyop specialists.

                  In future resumes, they cited the Ukraine coup as well as the selling of the civil war as a “war against russian separatists” as an example of a successful psychological operation.

              • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                8
                ·
                16 hours ago

                You are backing the Russian invasion of Ukraine which they did to steal minerals and you are criticizing the US doing the same now that POTUS is a Russian asset?

        • AlmightyTritan@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          12 hours ago

          Imma be honest with you chief the amount of times I come here for funny leftist memes and then see a bunch of pro imperialistic takes or starting school yard “nuh uh your crimes are worse then my crimes” is so draining.

          I get that when you gather a bunch of people under one banner of a nuanced concept you are gonna get a range of people from mild mannered to fanatical about it.

          Like this must be why people throw around “othering” loaded terms like tankie and liberal in here.

          This is why I wish it was just high level concept lefty memes, cause you’ll never get satisfying low level discussion online, just high level screeching and slap fights. So now I just try to not engage, just look for memes to talk to people IRL about instead.

  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    85
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 day ago

    If it was simple mob extortion it would be reasonable. Zelensky originally agreed when he thought the deal would be to pay for American protection.

    But Trump wants the money AND wants Ukraine to surrender. Trump is a stupid mob boss who doesn’t understand why “Pay me and I’ll let the rival gang burn your business.” isn’t going to be accepted.

    • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Trump works for the rival gang though. He’s just demanding the minerals so the dipshits will blame the USA instead of Russia. Putin gets what he wants to steal and he looks good in the eyes of the pro-authoritarian class traitors in this thread.

    • veroxii@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      24 hours ago

      It’s confusing to him because he is a street level member of the rival gang.

    • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      22 hours ago

      To me, we are back to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, except this time it’s Ukraine instead of Poland and the US replace Nazi Germany…

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 hour ago

        its like the memoradum, where ukraine wasnt invited and like the sudentlands with ww2 nazi germany, the countries in question wasnt allowed at the table. and in recent history , israel was unilaterally given without hte palestines in attendance.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        17 hours ago

        I am once again begging liberals to learn any history other than WW2. (And ideally actually learn about WW2 as well)

        • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 hours ago

          Fair point… Don’t know much about history…

          But I know that I love you

          And I know that if you love me too

          What a wonderful world it would be

      • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        Español
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        18 hours ago

        In my humble opinion, this is nothing like the Molotov-Ribbentrop. Molotov-Ribbentrop gets a lot of bad advertising due to cold war propaganda, but even western leaders in the west at the time like Churchill admitted that the Soviets had no other option (if you want evidence I have plenty of reference, feel free to ask :)

        The Soviets spent the entire 30s warning of fascism and trying to build mutual defense agreements with France, England and Poland and they refused systematically, even when in 1939 the Soviets offered to send 1 million troops together with artillery, tanks and planes, to the Polish and French borders on exchange for a mutual defense agreement, but the French and English ambassadors received orders not to engage in actual negotiations and just to postpone the agreement, since they wanted the Nazis to invade the Soviet Union.

        Either way even if you fundamentally disagree with what I’m saying, what was the alternative? Poland was going to get steamrolled by the Nazis with or without the soviets controlling the eastern part of it (as proven by the fact that soviets started invading some weeks after the Nazis). What’s more desirable, half of Poland having concentration camps, or the entirety of Poland having concentration camps?

        All of this could have been prevented in my opinion if western countries agreed to engage the Nazis together with the Soviet union, as the soviets suggested as an alternative to the Munich agreements. So the lesson in my view is: to fight fascism, listen to socialists (who are the ones who actually defeated most Nazis in the eastern front)

        • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 hours ago

          Fait point. Let’s put it that way: Trump is trying to share Ukraine’s resources with Russia the way laymen understand Nazi Germany and USSR agreed to devide Poland’s territory in 1939.

        • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          14 hours ago

          Not to defend the flawed comparison with Trump’s treason, but that’s a very useless take on the M-R pact…

          Stalin could have

          • not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear
          • not attacked the Poles from the rear
          • not murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles after high-fiving the nazis after having succesfully attacked the Poles from the rear

          I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable than, well, actively teaming up with the nazis

          edit: list layout

          • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            Español
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            16 hours ago

            Stalin could have not promised the nazis to attack the Poles from the rear not attacked the Poles from the rear

            Again, please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets.

            murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles

            I don’t think those numbers are honest, can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don’t go that high

            I think all of these alternatives would have been more desirable

            Again, how is tens of thousands of deaths in occupied Poland (many of which were Nazi collaborators and bourgeois Polish nationalists) preferable to Nazi occupation? Or can you think of an alternative to either of these two options?

            • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              14 hours ago

              please tell me what was the alternative to Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland, once Poland rejected a mutual defense agreement against Nazis with the Soviets

              There were several alternatives, actually. But most of them would start with Russia not attacking them in the rear after they moved their troops west to fight off the nazis

              can you provide a source for that? I know about the Katyn massacre and about other events in which Nazi collaborators/Bourgeois Polish nationalists were killed (as well as some innocent civilians), but AFAIK the numbers don’t go that high

              Yeah sure, here’s one that estimates between 250k and 1.5m (but which I believe also includes post-war)

              But I presume that if you’re the type that already convinced themselves that all these murdered Poles “must have deserved it” in one way or another, then that number probably couldn’t be high enough anyway

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Everyone, please report racist comments like these. There’s no need to respond to them.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          8 hours ago

          Standard blue maga comment, blaming all the US’s problems on foreigners, and claiming that trump is a “russian dog”, and not a standard white supremacist / imperialist in the tradition of all US presidents.

          • kaosof@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            7 hours ago

            But… How is that racist?

            It might be stupid, but racist? That’s a stretch.

    • Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 hours ago

      If Dems didn’t think it was debt then maybe they should have sent weapons gifts instead of weapons loans.

      Gringos might fall for the good cop bad cop shit but the rest of the world has a working memory longer than last month and we know that Dems build the bulldozer and wail when Republicans wreck shit with it.

      • eldavi@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 hours ago

        … the rest of the world has a working memory longer than last month …

        i’ve always wondered if this is because of the suffering it’s causes; you remember injuries that others have visited upon you, but you forget them easily if you’re the one causing the injury.