Ukrainians want the West OUT!

@Justice4All If the US was invaded, do you think the US government would allow people to spew anti-American propaganda? I'm talking about an invasion where the country's continued existence was in question.

And if you think Zelenskyy is a dictator, you should see Putin.

Obama's mistake was not reacting to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, but to be fair, nobody, not even Ukraine, thought it was a big deal.

@Lila15 Funny how all through the great wars elections were held in all the great democracies yet in Ukraine..... Then there is the small matter of banning opposition parties rather than inviting them in to form a coalition government like other democracies did in times of war. Oh and about shutting down the churches??????

@Lila15 Oh and one more point. Ukraine has no historic claim on Crimea. Crimea has been Russian for centuries. In 1954 when Ukraine was part of the USSR Kruschev drew a new line on the map and said that Crimea is part of Ukraine. That aside for a moment. Crimea is Russia's access to the Black Sea and is the base for Russia's warm water naval fleet. Did anyone think that Russia would not reclaim Crimea when Obama installed his puppet in Kiev?

@Lila15 [quote]If the US was invaded, do you think the US government would allow people to spew anti-American propaganda?[/quote]

It would be their constitutional right. What defines anti-American propaganda? The 1st amendment protects free speech without exception to speech during war times.

We would certainly be able to vote. As we did during Vietnam and by the way, there were plenty of American protesters during vietnam war. Ukraine is currently on the offensive. The only areas occupied by Russia are the controlled areas of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhanskn Kherson and Melitopol, which have voted to join Russia. How long is Zelenskyy supposed to be in power after his democratic term has expired?

@Justice4All The US wasn't invaded during the Vietnam War, so it's not comparable. However, the 1918 Sedition Act made it a crime to disparage the government during wartime. It was repealed in 1920, but there was very little resistance to it while it was in effect. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were even more repressive, and they were enacted while many of the Founding Fathers were still in power. The First Amendment right to free speech isn't unlimited, as our former president is about to find out if he tries that defense in court.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, everything Ukraine is doing is defensive. The parts of Ukraine you mentioned, with the exception of Crimea, are currently being occupied by Russia illegally, and the "vote" in those areas isn't recognized by any other country except Russia. If Ukraine invades Russia, that would be an offensive action.

I don't live in Ukraine, so I have no say in how long Zelenskyy stays in office. Maybe when the war ends he will call for new elections. How long does Putin get to stay in power? Shouldn't the same rules apply to him?

@Lila15 Russia did not invade Ukraine. Russia is acting in defense of the former parts of Ukraine that held a democratic referendum on becoming part of Russia. International law says that those parts are now part of Russia so in fact it is Ukraine that is doing the invading not Russia.

@hippyjoe1955 Actually, Putin has had Wagner troops in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The referendum you're referring to isn't recognized by any country other than Russia. It was held under Russian supervision without Ukrainian involvement, even though that area had been part of Ukraine. "International law" says Russia's invasion is illegal.

If the US invaded Canada and occupied the portion of the country south of the 49th parallel, and held a vote there under US supervision with Canadian authorities not allowed to participate, and the people voted to be part of the US, would you accept that as valid?

@Lila15 And your point is?????? Ukraine was in the midst of a coup in 2014. If Canada did that the US would have its people in Canada as well.

@hippyjoe1955 Putin sent the Wagner troops in right after he took over Crimea, which was right after the 2014 election, which replaced the pro-Russian Yanukovych with the pro-Ukrainian Poroshenko . Zelenskyy wasn't elected until 2019.

My point is that Putin's invasion is illegal and the election in Donbas isn't valid. If the people in Donbas had voted to join Russia before the invasion, you might have a point, but that's not what happened. Poroshenko started the process of attempting to eject Wagner troops from Donbas.

@Lila15 And long before the Wagner Group entered Ukraine, Ukraine was killing Ukrainians who wanted to take their region from Ukraine and make it Russian. This war is nowhere near as simple as it seems you want to make it. The US is the bad guy in this story and Ukraine is its puppet. Why the US wants to support a terrorist regime such is Ukraine is completely beyond me. My take is this. If the killing (all killing) had not started in Ukraine and NATO kept its word and not moved 1 inch eastward following the reunification of the two Germanies what would the Slavic nations look like. Would Russia and Ukraine have formed a mutually beneficial trade pact and respected its borders and its citizens? I tend to think so. There is no advantage to either Russia or Ukraine in this fight. The advantage was American who dreamed of destroying Russia so outfits like Blackrock could divvy up the spoils of a destroyed nation and its vast riches of natural resources.

@hippyjoe1955 The NATO expansion you're referring to happened in the 1990s. There was also a promise made that if Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons on its soil after the fall of the USSR, they could expect assistance if they ever faced Russian aggression as they're facing now. This war would look very different if Ukraine had kept those weapons.

Ukraine is a sovereign country and residents of an area who want to join another country can't expect to do that without resistance. I don't know what part of Canada you live in, but if other Canadians there wanted to join the U.S. and become the 51st state, I have a feeling that wouldn't be to your liking and you might appreciate it if the Canadian government stepped in. Not every Ukrainian living in Donbas wants to be part of Russia.

If there was no advantage to Russia, Putin wouldn't have invaded. Even if a resistance was happening as a purely organic, home-grown movement without Russian interference, the place Russia should have addressed that is at the U.N. in their capacity as a member of the security council. If Ukraine was truly oppressing its citizens in Donbas, I would have supported an international effort to stop them. Instead, Russia acted unilaterally by first sending mercenaries, then invading. Any case Putin may have had for conducting a humanitarian intervention is void now.

@Lila15 Russia did not invade. It is protecting the region of Russia that voted to become part of Russia in 2014. It is Ukraine that is doing the invading and has been since 2014. I met a young woman from Donetsk in 2015 long before I knew anything about the conflict over there. She was dating my son and came over for a meal. We began to talk about life in Ukraine. She kind of laughed and said that in her home they spoke Russian. She went on to say that her mother's home was shelled by Ukraine a few nights before we had supper. She was very relieved that her mother was not home at the time as the house was completely destroyed.

@Lila15 [quote]Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons on its soil after the fall of the USSR, they could expect assistance if they ever faced Russian aggression as they're facing now.[/quote]

The Budapest agreement doesn’t stipulate the US would provide security guarantees for Ukraine. It only states that the US, Russia and Uk will not use military forces against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."

Russia invaded Ukraine for violation of the Minsk agreement. Germany and France were guarantors to the agreement. Donetsk and Luhansk had been under constant shelling for years by Ukrainians forces. Children and citizens were living in constant fear. Donetsk and Luhansk do not want to rejoin Ukraine, neither does Crimea.

@Justice4All Ukraine didn't violate the Minsk agreement or anything else. Putin has wanted to take over Ukraine for at least a decade, if not longer. His generals had been lying to him about the state of the Russian military, misleading him into thinking he could have tanks in Kyiv in three days. I heard a theory that he originally wanted to invade in 2020 while Trump was still in office, but postponed it due to COVID.

Even if Ukraine was responding to Russian-backed mercenaries in Donetsk and Luhansk, that didn't give Putin the right to invade. Putin should have gone to the UN first. Of course, he couldn't, because his actions were the reason for the shelling you're complaining about.

I do agree with you about Crimea. When Zelenskyy says he wants it back, that's just a bargaining chip. If he has to give it up to gain some concession, I'm sure he won't hesitate to do that. The opportunity to get Crimea back is long gone.

@Lila15 Nice American propaganda you spew. Too bad you have it exactly backwards. NATO and it s puppet did indeed violate the Minsk Accords as noted by the Chancellor of Germany and the President of France. Russia had no goals of taking over Ukraine and still doesn't. It would much prefer a trade security relationship similar to the one enjoyed by the US and Canada. Sadly the US/UK/NATO want to destroy Russia. They have been encroaching on the Russian state ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Funnily enough Russia asked to join NATO twice. It was rebuffed since the US war machine needed an enemy to justify its wildly inflated military expenditures.

@hippyjoe1955 It's not "American propaganda," it's the truth. If Russian-speaking Ukrainians were being attacked by Ukraine's government, Putin should have gone to the UN first.

Russia isn't our friend. It's strange how conservatives who screamed about the threat from the USSR for decades are suddenly Russia boosters now that the dictator Putin is in charge of the country. The only reason I can think of is that conservatives admire authoritarians (which is why they like Trump) and also because Putin is extremely anti-LGBT and hatred of LGBT is a central tenet of conservatism around the world.

Russia never asked to join NATO. The Soviet Union asked to join in 1954. That would have made as much sense as the U.S. joining the Warsaw Pact. The offer was rejected as it would have required the U.S. to remove all bases from Western Europe.

I know you're an authoritarian, but I never expected you to be a communist. And for the record, I think the U.S. should significantly reduce military spending and direct it toward infrastructure and social welfare programs. And the people opposed to that are your friends, the Republicans.

@Lila15 [quote]If Russian-speaking Ukrainians were being attacked by Ukraine's government, Putin should have gone to the UN first[/quote]

Where did you get this idea? The US and NATO didn't get UN approval before invading Iraq. The Iraq war was illegal and breached a UN charter. If we are to criticize Russia, We must first set an example.

[quote]Ukraine didn't violate the Minsk agreement or anything else.[/quote]

"The Ukrainian military declare in a deliberate and even demonstrative fashion that they are violating the Minsk Agreements," said Rodion Miroshnik, who represents the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic in the Contact Group’s political subgroup. "In September 2014, Kiev signed a memorandum envisaging a straightforward ban on flights of combat aviation and foreign unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). But [Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Valery] Zaluzhny is reporting flights and even combat use of UAVs along the line of contact. Therefore, he just does not give a damn about Kiev’s obligations under the Minsk Agreements."

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military had used the Turkish-made Bayraktar UAV. According to the press service, the drone did not cross the linke of contact and was used "to enforce ceasefire compliance by the enemy." According to the report, the drone fired a guided missile to destroy an enemy weapon.

In accordance with additional ceasefire control measures, in effect since July 27, 2020, the sides are prohibited from using unmanned aerial vehicles in the vicinity of the line of contact. Only the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Ukraine (OSCE) is allowed to use drones for its monitoring activities.

In 2019, Ukraine purchased and tested Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, planning to equip them with the MAM-L laser-guided smart munitions, produced by Turkish defense industry manufacturer Roketsan.

On September 29, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and Turkey’s Bayraktar Savunma signed a memorandum on the construction of the training and testing facility outside the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. The facility is intended to provide a technical maintenance of Bayraktar UAVs and training courses on how to operate the Turkish combat striking drones.

@Justice4All The problem is that Putin continued to send Wagner troops into Donbas after 2014, so Ukraine was forced to violate the agreement to defend itself.

I was pretty young when the Iraq War started, but I would have opposed it. My parents told me that they marched in protests before the war started. Many Americans were disgusted by Bush's war and did what they could to prevent it. So your whataboutism in support of Russia's illegal invasion doesn't hold water with me. There were other ways to deal with Saddam (who, from what I can tell, didn't have WMD and was effectively contained), and there were other ways to deal with the situation in Donbas besides an illegal invasion.

@Lila15 So how many wars has the US started and compare that to the number of wars started by Russia. Lets put a time limit of since 1930. Here is a hint. The yanks started Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Libya, Iraq (twice) Afghanistan Kosovo, and many more in Africa oh and I almost forgot it started the war in Ukraine.
Russia didn't exist until 1993 and it started no wars.

@hippyjoe1955 It's a matter of opinion whether the U.S. started those wars. China was already involved in Korea, and France was in Vietnam. And while Russia didn't exist between 1920 and 1993, it's considered the successor state to the USSR, which was just as imperialistic as the U.S. Anyway, it's not a competition, and when did I say I support the wars the U.S. has been in? And Russia started the war in Ukraine, not the U.S. We're not even a combatant.

You're just a tankie.

@Lila15 It is established fact that the US started those wars I have no idea why you support the US military industrial complex and all of its corruption we see in the US.

@hippyjoe1955 No, it's your opinion that the U.S. started those wars, tankie.

I've already said that the U.S. should have stayed out of Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I want U.S. military spending to be redirected to infrastructure and social welfare programs. You wanted the U.S. to stay out of the Civil War and World War Two.

@Lila15 as opposed to your opinion.

@Lila15 the military industrial complex owns the US government. It does so to make money.

@Lila15 Give this a listen.

[media=https://youtu.be/MKMxMUG4cKA]