The Ukraine war thread
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@xenon Thanks for the paywall-avoiding link. That's the first piece I think I've ever read that gave more words to a steel-manning of the opposing viewpoint than to the rebuttal.
I am unfamiliar in the public discourse with the version of the opposition that he is referring to. It's not coming from the white house, or the Daily Wire, or Megyn Kelly, or Fox News, or VDH. Well, Trump did call Zelensky a dictator once, which he later refused to acknowledge when asked about it.
Wittingly or otherwise, the MAGA online right started to absorb Russia’s narrative on Ukraine: that it isn’t a real country, that the Ukrainians aren’t a real people, that if they are a real people then they are uniquely corrupt. On and on it went: that Ukrainian soldiers are ‘literal’ Nazis, that Zelensky is constantly buying villas and yachts in the south of France, that the whole war is one big money-laundering operation, that Ukraine’s war to push the Russians back is unwinnable because of the great might of the Russian army – and that the whole thing is a giant waste of US taxpayers’ money.
Of course, almost all the allegations the MAGA right make against Ukraine are infinitely truer of Putin’s Russia. Interested in international corruption? Try looking at Putin and his friends. Interested in an anti-Christian government? How about looking to the cynical faith of Putin, who trumpets Christian values while firing rockets at great cathedrals like that in Odessa and recruiting jihadists to fight for him. Think Ukraine is cruel in forcing draft-dodgers into the army? Consider Putin’s army recruitment processes. Dislike Zelensky for not holding an election during a total war? Have you noticed Putin’s electoral habits?
By this stage Ukraine is not just a country that the MAGA right has never visited. It is a fantasy country that they imagine they know everything about – and all of it is bad.
Perhaps they will manage to wade their way out of the memes. Or perhaps they will find out the hard way that most of the American public may dislike woke, but they dislike dictators too – and that it is possible to keep both these dislikes inside one head, and movement, at the same time.
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Douglas Murray’s take
the maga movement is wrong on Ukraine.
I assume that was written last April.
Hats off to you, Sir, for finding and sharing it here.As usual, Douglas Murray nails it. Wish I had seen it last year. All the same though it is just as fresh today as was when it was published .
Bravo. Murray is an example of a real investigative journalist.
Elbows up!
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I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?@Jolly said in The Ukraine war thread:
I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?You really want to know?
A blowhard coffee and doughnut shop gossip and lout who figures he’s the just the cock-o’th’-walk on all and sundry.
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I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?@Jolly said in The Ukraine war thread:
I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?Yeah, I don't think the piece argued against any mainstream position on the right.
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@Jolly said in The Ukraine war thread:
I find it hilarious that people refer to MAGA this and MAGA that.
It shows that :
A. You don't know Trump voters very well.
B. His take on conservatives and Ukraine is pretty stupid. But, who am I to argue?Yeah, I don't think the piece argued against any mainstream position on the right.
Yeah, I don't think the piece argued against any mainstream position on the right.
I would have worded that as follows :
I don’t think the piece argued against any true liberal or true conservative position.
Rather Murray is arguing against the prevailing populist and extreme fringes of both traditions.Besides, it is not and has never been, a left vs right issue. It is an issue of whether or not wanton and unjustifiable military aggression to acquire your neighbour’s territory with an expressed political objective to wipe them off the map is acceptable in modern day Europe. It was not in 1939 and nor is it again beginning in 2014 through to now. That is the issue.
Only Americans and Russians talk in this nonsensical dialectic of permanent struggle dividing the world into the moral right vs immoral left. It’s every bit as ridiculous the Trotskyist Theory of Permanent Revolution in Marxist thought.
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Douglas Murray’s take
the maga movement is wrong on Ukraine.
I assume that was written last April.
Hats off to you, Sir, for finding and sharing it here.As usual, Douglas Murray nails it. Wish I had seen it last year. All the same though it is just as fresh today as was when it was published .
Bravo. Murray is an example of a real investigative journalist.
@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Douglas Murray’s take
the maga movement is wrong on Ukraine.
I assume that was written last April.
Hats off to you, Sir, for finding and sharing it here.As usual, Douglas Murray nails it. Wish I had seen it last year. All the same though it is just as fresh today as was when it was published .
Bravo. Murray is an example of a real investigative journalist.
It was actually written a few days ago.
Thank you, @xenon , I had let my subscription for the FP go last month. I had seen Murray tweet the article but couldn’t access it. Excellent piece..
@Horace , if you go to X, you will find plenty of these anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin right wingers. And unfortunately, many of them are close to Vance’s circle.
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
Douglas Murray’s take
the maga movement is wrong on Ukraine.
I assume that was written last April.
Hats off to you, Sir, for finding and sharing it here.As usual, Douglas Murray nails it. Wish I had seen it last year. All the same though it is just as fresh today as was when it was published .
Bravo. Murray is an example of a real investigative journalist.
It was actually written a few days ago.
Thank you, @xenon , I had let my subscription for the FP go last month. I had seen Murray tweet the article but couldn’t access it. Excellent piece..
@Horace , if you go to X, you will find plenty of these anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin right wingers. And unfortunately, many of them are close to Vance’s circle.
It was actually written a few days ago.
Thanks. That makes the piece even more relevant to the present.
Being that was archived and there was a notice at the end referencing something or another on 14 April I just assumed it from last year.
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It could only happen in Russia….
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line.
The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photos on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia.
The post included a message thanking the “dear mums” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It said the gifts were the initiative of the women’s wing of the party…..
Russia is often accused of throwing its frontline soldiers into a “meat grinder” with scant regard for their lives.
The Russian word for meat grinder, myasorubka, has the same double meaning as in English.
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The US has rejected a Canadian proposal to establish a task force that would tackle Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers, as the Trump administration re-evaluates its positions across multilateral organizations, according to people familiar with the matter.
and
The “shadow fleet” refers to ageing oil tankers, the identities of which are hidden to help circumvent western economic sanctions imposed on Moscow since it launched its full-scale military invasion of Ukraine at the start of 2022.
As well as vetoing Canada’s proposal to establish a task force to monitor sanctions breaches, the draft G7 statement seen by Bloomberg News shows the US pushed to remove the word “sanctions” as well as wording citing Russia’s “ability to maintain its war” in Ukraine by replacing it with “earn revenue”.
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Ukraine agrees to 30 days ceasefire
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@jon-nyc said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The Ukraine war thread:
Shameful
Wouldn’t shock me if Canada or Europe took them in. They’ve even learned English by now.
Plus, Ukrainian chicks are pretty
@89th said in The Ukraine war thread:
@jon-nyc said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The Ukraine war thread:
Shameful
Wouldn’t shock me if Canada or Europe took them in. They’ve even learned English by now.
Plus, Ukrainian chicks are pretty
"Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the West behind"
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If Russia agrees to ceasefire proposal:
Ideally, Moscow would prefer to delay the meeting for as long as possible to maximize potential concessions from Washington in exchange for Russia halting military actions in Ukraine.
"Time is on the Kremlin’s side," sources told The Moscow Times. However, officials also recognize the need to "seize the moment” and balance Trump’s push for a swift ceasefire with broader geopolitical and domestic considerations.
“One scenario under discussion is a meeting around Easter [Orthodox Easter falls on April 20],” a Russian diplomat told The Moscow Times. Another senior Russian official confirmed this possibility.
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A good piece on Ukraine's mineral wealth.
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An interesting take on the peace process and European politics.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/peace-not-surrender-for-ukraine/ar-AA1B91vM
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Anyone with more knowledge know how to make heads/tails of the latest ceasefire?
I’m seeing that it’s a partial ceasefire, only on energy infrastructure, Russia recently (after the convo?) attacked energy infrastructure, Zelensky says he’s open to a partial ceasefire, I’m sure I’m missing a few other facts.
I don’t know what it all amounts to. Is it normal for all of this to be done in the open like this?
