This response suggests knowledge that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent.
sleepyguy · 1d ago
It's something watching Americans and many others, oblivious to the fact that we are on the precipice of another World War. Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking. The West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for.
JumpCrisscross · 1d ago
> Not much we can do, it's coming and it's all there for anyone to see if they are looking
Whether it’s a direct confrontation of superpowers is absolutely still in the air. This can be constrained to proxies. (And from there, avoiding a proxy contest going nuclear. Non-proxy conflicts like Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan are out of our control on the nuclear front.)
> West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for
Yes. Unfortunately it seems that the temptation of appeasement isn’t a lesson learned long.
jemmyw · 1d ago
I don't see it. Russia is spent on their war with Ukraine. Whatever ambitions they had beyond that, those are fantastical now. I'm sure plenty of nations are studying the war there and seeing that it is expensive and difficult. And what do you even gain, a war torn country and a population willing to cause you a lot of trouble forever more? If Russia had instead invested their war spending into the economy they would be up far more than they're down.
I agree though, that the west should have done far more to help Ukraine.
tharmas · 19h ago
The plan certainly was to create another Soviet-Afghanistan war in hopes to cut Russia "down to size". Geopolitics.
Whether that works time will tell.
What is certain however, is the number of the dead and the destruction of Ukraine.
jemmyw · 15h ago
I don't think that was the plan at any point. That's just what happened. The politicians in the west wanted things to go back to how they were before the war and never wanted to give enough aid to jeopardize that. Though that has long been impossible they still don't appear to have a coherent idea of what they want after the war. Even if it was unrealistic, it would at least form the basis of a plan, how best to aid Ukraine and what to negotiate.
disambiguation · 1d ago
Its always the new accounts pushing the weirdest narratives.
throw310822 · 1d ago
The meaning I get from your comment is:
"We're unwillingly and blindly stepping into a war, we should have done more war!"
Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think? Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
kergonath · 1d ago
> Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think?
Who is “we”?
> Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
You realise that there were talks with Russia, including on “clear and safe and agreed boundaries”, right? Russia was a guarantor in the Minsk and Budapest memoranda. As for your point in the middle, it really is strange that smaller countries want to escape Russia’s sphere of influence, considering what they do to their neighbours in Moldova and Georgia, to name but two examples. Never mind Chechnya and now, of course, Ukraine. Russia’s behaviour is the main driving force towards NATO and the EU in Eastern Europe.
What is there to explain? The US are obviously self-serving but that’s besides the point. They did not force Russia to invade their many neighbours, and nothing had happened has Yanukovych not been a massive corrupt puppet. Also, you don’t need to leak Russian openly discussing interfering with other countries, they broadcast their Great Russia fever dream openly.
European countries have agency and their own security interests. We are perfectly able to understand that the US are going to take advantage of the situation as much as they can get away with. It’s still better than a new iron curtain. It is really not difficult to understand why our interests are more aligned with the US than with Russia.
yetihehe · 1d ago
> The clear purpose in leaking this conversation is to embarrass Washington and for audiences susceptible to Moscow's message to portray the US as interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs.
THE whole argument of this one and similar "leaks" is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs". Ukrainians see it a little differently: "helping Ukraine escape Russia". But Russia sees it as "helping Ukraine escape Russia, thus interfering in Russia's domestic affairs". When Russians say that someone is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs" they mean that Ukraine is Russian and should not be touched by anyone other than Russia.
throw310822 · 1d ago
Yes, interesting introduction since the entire article is about the proof of US meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.
Also the article:
> The US says that it is working with all sides in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be and is striving to achieve these goals
> Various officials attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition [...] US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate moment.
> the US expresses frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow.
The year is 2014
yetihehe · 1d ago
You present every quote to look like Ukrainians didn't want to ally with west and that was ONLY because US manipulated them. I'm a Pole. I know EXACTLY why Ukrainians wanted to escape Russia's side. US wanted that too, so they made steps to make Ukrainian wishes true.
How to spot Russian propaganda: They treat Ukrainians as Russians that didn't want to go to big bad west, but USA meddled and made them stray from one true Russian way, Ukrainians were only a tool with no agency whatsoever used against Russian peaceful ways.
throw310822 · 1d ago
I'm presenting the quotes exactly as they are in the leaked call and reported and commented by the BBC article. The US did scheme behind the curtains to get their favourites elected. This is meddling. It also suggests that meddling was indeed necessary, or at least helpful, to get what the US wanted- i.e. it's not simply "what the people wanted".
The article even suggests that the EU simply doesn't have enough cash at hand to attract the Ukrainians, and would rather play it more on the long term- but that the US was too impatient for that. Yet more evidence of active meddling of US in Ukraine' political choices, with the purpose of attracting a country in their sphere of influence, surely not motivated by the will of the people.
Now, this is not to say that in abstract Ukrainians wouldn't have preferred the West to Russia. But they have been at least in part the victim of a power play between the USA and Russia.
mopsi · 1d ago
Russian trolls have blown that single call out of proportion. We, too, can have a phone call and discuss who we'd prefer the next Chinese leader to be; it doesn't mean we actually have much influence over that. We can even discuss right here on HN who we'd like to see as the next American president, and it would not be factually wrong to characterize the discussion as "people on the most popular Silicon Valley forum frequented by tech billionaires picking the next president." But it wouldn't be entirely truthful either, would it?
selivanovp · 1d ago
That’s not true. Russia was perfectly fine with a sovereign Ukraine, as long as it respected their own constitution and terms of separations from USSR: to be a military non aligned country.
It’s not so hard to notice, that all the problems started when the other side of Budapest memorandum decided to not respect it anymore. Since 2004 Ukraine became less and less sovereign, resulting in a puppet government installed in 2014 and starting the hot phase. It’s also not hard to notice, that at every step Ukraine could chose negotiations, but was pushed towards more confrontation by Western bakers.
tharmas · 19h ago
What about the Russian speaking Ukrainians? How do u think they felt when they tried to ban Russian?
West good, Russia evil? Cmon its way more nuanced than that. And the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainian elites are no better than the Russian elites. Or the Western elites for that matter.
Ukraine is a pawn in the Geopolitical power game. The people have been sacrificed on both sides.
Its the morally bankrupt and corrupt Elites who should be in the firing line.
anelson · 19h ago
This bullshit Russian propaganda talking point needs to die. “Russian-speaking Ukrainians” are Ukrainians.
I was at a birthday party in Kyiv about a month ago, the only non-Ukrainian guest. Most of the day most the guests were speaking Russian, even when cursing the Russian invaders and toasting to their deaths. These were “elites” economically speaking.
The idea that there are Russian speaking Ukrainians being oppressed like Jews in Nazi Germany is idiotic and not at all based in reality.
Source: I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, my wife is a Ukrainian whose native language is Russian. Every time we wake up in the night to Russian bombardment we curse the Russian invaders—in Russian!
tharmas · 17h ago
I never said anything about jews or even implied it. U assumed? And ran with it.
And ur comment addressed nothing about how the elites in the west are using ukraine as a pawn to take down russia like Afghanistan with the soviets.
Both sides have their propaganda and bullshit.
anelson · 16h ago
You regurgitated Russian propaganda about Russian-speaking people in Ukraine which is clearly not based on your own experience and I provided a counterpoint based on actually living in Ukraine. If you think I have misrepresented the actual experience of actual Russian-speaking Ukrainians in actual Ukraine then by all means educate me.
Ukraine has a long history of resisting Russian subjugation, long before supposed CIA plots and conversations with Victoria Nuland. I wish there were some sinister plot to vanquish Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine; maybe then the Western powers would finally jock up and put an end to Russian imperialism once and for all. Sadly I’m afraid this narrative of Ukraine as pawn to destroy Russia is only a Russian propagandist’s fever dream.
PeterHolzwarth · 1d ago
Practical.
gopheryourshelf · 1d ago
How much of this is related to the fact that a lot of the countries now have right wing government?
spwa4 · 1d ago
Not much. It's related to a steady deterioration of economic conditions for poor people due to (mostly) east asian ... well, cheating, really. Extreme government support of companies (and one might point out that they signed international treaties stating they wouldn't do it, including but not limited to at the WHO, and didn't respect the agreements they made, they just directly and immediately violated them to make a few people very wealthy, with deplorable conditions for 99% of their population)
You do bad economically for too many people and you end up with a right wing government. You do well ... well, you get it.
Whether it’s a direct confrontation of superpowers is absolutely still in the air. This can be constrained to proxies. (And from there, avoiding a proxy contest going nuclear. Non-proxy conflicts like Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan are out of our control on the nuclear front.)
> West is going to wish it had done more to help Ukraine, there was a window of opportunity that may have prevented what we're going to be in for
Yes. Unfortunately it seems that the temptation of appeasement isn’t a lesson learned long.
I agree though, that the west should have done far more to help Ukraine.
Whether that works time will tell.
What is certain however, is the number of the dead and the destruction of Ukraine.
"We're unwillingly and blindly stepping into a war, we should have done more war!"
Maybe we should have done less war and less talking about war, don't you think? Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
Who is “we”?
> Talked more with Russia (let alone not provoke it into a confrontation for an entire decade- ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland), built up clear and safe and agreed boundaries, etc.
You realise that there were talks with Russia, including on “clear and safe and agreed boundaries”, right? Russia was a guarantor in the Minsk and Budapest memoranda. As for your point in the middle, it really is strange that smaller countries want to escape Russia’s sphere of influence, considering what they do to their neighbours in Moldova and Georgia, to name but two examples. Never mind Chechnya and now, of course, Ukraine. Russia’s behaviour is the main driving force towards NATO and the EU in Eastern Europe.
You are repeating bullshit propaganda.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
European countries have agency and their own security interests. We are perfectly able to understand that the US are going to take advantage of the situation as much as they can get away with. It’s still better than a new iron curtain. It is really not difficult to understand why our interests are more aligned with the US than with Russia.
THE whole argument of this one and similar "leaks" is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs". Ukrainians see it a little differently: "helping Ukraine escape Russia". But Russia sees it as "helping Ukraine escape Russia, thus interfering in Russia's domestic affairs". When Russians say that someone is "interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs" they mean that Ukraine is Russian and should not be touched by anyone other than Russia.
Also the article:
> The US says that it is working with all sides in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be and is striving to achieve these goals
> Various officials attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition [...] US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate moment.
> the US expresses frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow.
The year is 2014
How to spot Russian propaganda: They treat Ukrainians as Russians that didn't want to go to big bad west, but USA meddled and made them stray from one true Russian way, Ukrainians were only a tool with no agency whatsoever used against Russian peaceful ways.
The article even suggests that the EU simply doesn't have enough cash at hand to attract the Ukrainians, and would rather play it more on the long term- but that the US was too impatient for that. Yet more evidence of active meddling of US in Ukraine' political choices, with the purpose of attracting a country in their sphere of influence, surely not motivated by the will of the people.
Now, this is not to say that in abstract Ukrainians wouldn't have preferred the West to Russia. But they have been at least in part the victim of a power play between the USA and Russia.
It’s not so hard to notice, that all the problems started when the other side of Budapest memorandum decided to not respect it anymore. Since 2004 Ukraine became less and less sovereign, resulting in a puppet government installed in 2014 and starting the hot phase. It’s also not hard to notice, that at every step Ukraine could chose negotiations, but was pushed towards more confrontation by Western bakers.
West good, Russia evil? Cmon its way more nuanced than that. And the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainian elites are no better than the Russian elites. Or the Western elites for that matter.
Ukraine is a pawn in the Geopolitical power game. The people have been sacrificed on both sides.
Its the morally bankrupt and corrupt Elites who should be in the firing line.
I was at a birthday party in Kyiv about a month ago, the only non-Ukrainian guest. Most of the day most the guests were speaking Russian, even when cursing the Russian invaders and toasting to their deaths. These were “elites” economically speaking.
The idea that there are Russian speaking Ukrainians being oppressed like Jews in Nazi Germany is idiotic and not at all based in reality.
Source: I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, my wife is a Ukrainian whose native language is Russian. Every time we wake up in the night to Russian bombardment we curse the Russian invaders—in Russian!
And ur comment addressed nothing about how the elites in the west are using ukraine as a pawn to take down russia like Afghanistan with the soviets.
Both sides have their propaganda and bullshit.
Ukraine has a long history of resisting Russian subjugation, long before supposed CIA plots and conversations with Victoria Nuland. I wish there were some sinister plot to vanquish Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine; maybe then the Western powers would finally jock up and put an end to Russian imperialism once and for all. Sadly I’m afraid this narrative of Ukraine as pawn to destroy Russia is only a Russian propagandist’s fever dream.
You do bad economically for too many people and you end up with a right wing government. You do well ... well, you get it.