GivingEuropeASpook

bro why'd you retype the Quora post exactly word-for-word?

What's the rule though?

I live for this sort of dunking

Generally when you're fighting a civil war...

If this was still like 2018, I'd be out there supporting the various brokered deals that included Russia at the table. Framing the current conflict as a civil war is inaccurate, as it lost the characteristics of a civil conflict when Russia attacked the rest of Ukraine in February 2022. What was a protracted, simmering war between a fraction of the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed Separatists on the fringes of the nation's territory, with a dynamic akin to plenty of regions around the world throughout the latter half of the 20th century and the start of the 21st.

So if your position is supporting separatist movements except when they receive foreign backing, you're not going to find yourself supporting many separatist movements in practice, at least in cases where they have to fight.

I wouldn't say that's my position. I support separatism, but I also oppose war in most of its forms, since it means the destruction of people's livelihoods, and heritages, which of course cost many lives in the process too. People here often talk about ending the war in Ukraine as fast as possible because of the violence, so wouldn't the morally and ethically consistent viewpoint be to support what would prevent war too, not to argue for or justify foreign interventionism? No war but class war, you know?

Within the context of Ukraine, the DNR and LPR didn't have the relationship with Russia that, going back to the French and American Revolution example, the American colonists had with the French. American separatists didn't become subordinate to French military leadership or to French foreign policy goals. The newly-independent Americans didn't then ask to join the French Empire.

As an aside, France's support for the Americans failed them in their ambitions and led to the collapse of the Ancien Regime, which if we're to take it as indicative of the outcome and legacy of foreign-backed separatist conflicts, means that this isn't gonna be good for Russia long term.

Subbed to both lol

Edit: unsubbed from History Legends after noticing a pattern of "anti-woke" comments from him and his weird view of colonialism (inferring that African countries shouldn't ask for reparations unless Arab countries are willing to do the same for Spain)

You changed the goalposts for what "support" means to make it sound like only military equipment counts as support, which is foolish because it isn't what Russia needs.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned here or elsewhere that financial aid was being given to the Ukrainian government in order to keep their civil service paid. South Korea just approved some of that recently.

Whenever anyone in the West brings up "global support for Ukraine" that's what they're mostly talking about, I merely clarified that because people are operating on different definitions of what constitutes "support". When I consider "support for Ukraine" vs "support for Russia", I'm comparing money, arms, and diplomatic positions or comments made by a country's leadership. When I do so, I see:

• Countries supporting Ukraine with money and/or arms
• Countries that have condemned the war/invasion and nothing else, maintaining their existing relations with both Ukraine and Russia while also criticizing NATO in some cases
• Iran + the DPRK, plus maybe Belarus for allowing it's territory to be used

Russia still has plenty of support all over the world, mostly from countries who rightly recognize this as a struggle against the imperialism of the US and NATO which is beneficial to any anti-imperialists

Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line at reflexively supporting anything the United States opposes? Like, I get that the US successfully re-aligned Ukraine's foreign policy over the last decade or two, an unequivocal and blatant expansion of US influence and control, and so a successful Russian invasion would result in undoing that American victory, but I fail to see the benefit of Ukraine being in Russia's sphere of influence for socialists, beyond the fact that Russia isn't the dominant world power. Is that really it? And if so, how is it beneficial to replace one imperialist domination with another?

Doesn't it matter that Russia is arguably more of a neoliberal state in line with the domestic social, economic and political agendas of far-right parties in the US, UK, and EU, than many Western countries currently?

You should check out Telegram and Youtube, you have numerous videos and photos of destroyed Ukrainian armor, drone strikes on radars and artillery, while analysts count everything.

I used to in the first few months of the invasion, but I decided I'd only try to keep up with any significant developments (like if a city changes hands or something new happens, like a particularly brazen drone strike) for the sake of my own mental health.

The brigades were already at most 50% of capacity before the offensive,

Which YouTube sources were saying this?

I don't see how you can hold these two positions simultaneously.

They're about different things. One is an opinion about bottom-up, community activism and the principle of self-determination, and is a belief that exists independently of the material conditions and reality of global politics. France only supported the Americans in order to "get back" at England. They later regretted it when the Americans supported the French Revolution. When I say I support separatism, I am thinking specifically about how Lenin released all of the Russian Empire's colonial nations, regardless of how it might adversely impact the Soviet states' security prerogatives.

If part of a country wants to leave, and the government of that country says, "No, and we'll use force to stop you," and another country says, "Hey, seperatists, we'll support you," then where do you stand on all that?

Like I said with France and the 13 colonies – no country is actually saying that or has ever said that. France didn't go "yeah, we love what you're trying to do 13 colonies and support your beliefs wholeheartedly", they went "oh cool, this will help us regain New France one day and really piss off our archrivals." Likewise, Russia, having lost Ukraine (and the Eastern Bloc), is trying to regain its lost glory, and it just so happens that they can exploit Donbas separatism in order to do so.

My understanding of the Donbas is that it was largely populated by Russians from the Russian SFSR during the era of open borders within the Soviet States, which also makes things different than Catalans, Kurds, and Scots, for example.

The same federal government that let abortion become illegal across half the country?

NATO is a defensive pact to protect nations from russian aggression

NATO is a legacy of the Cold War that was aimless until the Russian invasion lol. The Soviet Union even tried to join NATO when it was first talked about and was rebuffed (and you can't say it's because "muh democracy," as Greece, Turkey, and Portugal - a literal fascist state until 1974 - have all been or are authoritarian states at various points in their NATO memberships).

Plenty of geopolitical experts have discussed how financial support of Ukraine is the best investment when it comes to weakening the Russian military.

Plenty also argued from the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO expansion into eastern Europe would antagonize Russia.

while losing majority of your combat capability

We're watching this conflict unfold from a million miles away, how could you possibly know that they've lost most of their combat capability? That wasn't mentioned in the article. If the article is paywalled for you, I was able to read it entirely with Firefx's easy-read button.

Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia

Of course. They just don't have a right to drag the rest of Ukraine into Russia at the same time. On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement on the grounds of "why should I care if a country's capitalist class loses some of its economic base?"

should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country?

No, but if that's what was happening we could all then be criticizing a peacetime government for acting injustice upon segments of its population, instead of advocating for an end to a war. The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere? (Since there's pretty much at least one oppressed group in every country worldwide at least one other country could claim a right to "protect" them based on shared heritage or language.)

Just because Russia (might) have the military capability to do so when all these other countries might not doesn't mean they should.