• 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   ( @johny@feddit.org ) 
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      311 month 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   ( @Grapho@lemmy.ml ) OP
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      1 month 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   ( @Grapho@lemmy.ml ) OP
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          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.

          • 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.

            •  Grapho   ( @Grapho@lemmy.ml ) OP
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              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.

              • 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   ( @Grapho@lemmy.ml ) OP
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                  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.

                •  Grapho   ( @Grapho@lemmy.ml ) OP
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                  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.

            • 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.

        • 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.

    •  shawn1122   ( @shawn1122@lemm.ee ) 
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      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.

      • 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.

        • 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.

          • 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.

              • Russia also still holds a lot of their traditional soft power in many countries, including several EU countries. They also greatly increased their softpower by helping to get far right parties into power or at least signinificant influence in several EU countries (like Orban or Germany just 2 days ago).

                On the other hand Russia manouvered itself into a very weak geostrategical position lately (Ukraine and Syria). Everyone noticed that and this will likely lead to some restructuring in several regions, unlikely to be in Russias favour.

                I currently find it really hard to make assumptions about Russias role in the mid-term future. That is also, why I didn’t mention Russia in my post.

                • I don’t see any country being able to engineer coups by supporting terrorists as effectively as the US, so I don’t see Russia or other local powers replacing the US’s influence in countries where the left presents a meaningful alternative to neoliberalism.

            • what would Europe need from russia?

              Resources is big one, including infrastructure already in place for energy. Most of the world sides with Russia through this conflict. Even some US colonies have done well playing both sides. Russia is also an export market. World needs Russia to limit global warming. Futile attempts to destroy it, won’t work.

              • yes, sure, but resources, labour and a market isn’t enough to elevate you to a global superpower. I’m not proposing EU going full Juche, just why would anyone agree to anything better for russia than being equal trade partners. All those things are great and useful, sure, but you’re able to get them elsewhere. If you want special treatment you need to bring something unique to the table. Like the US used to be able to bring.

                Futile attempts to destroy it, won’t work

                I don’t think anybody except maybe putin is trying to do that. At this point everyone would love russia just fucking off and being normal.

    • This was always Ukraine’s fate.

      The OG coup happened under the Obama admin, the far-right were forced into government under Trump pt I, Ukraine was forced to sell off state assets and take billions in loans by the Biden admin, and now the US is preparing to pick the bones clean over the next decades.

      It’s nice that yall are recognizing that the US isn’t there to help the Ukrainian people now, but we’re all gonna repeat this next war.

    • Not even just changes in administration. The U.S. will often suddenly move on or just decide you will work better as a villain for internal politics. The US basically told Saddam Hussein that we wouldn’t care if he invaded Kuwait only to then use that invasion as justification to make him a boogeyman for the next decade.

  • 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.