Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

JuriM

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"haha excellent" is a perfectly normal reponse to a video of missiles being fired over a beach and tourists scattering. is that the line we're taking now? the next time hamas and ij fire on israel, will those who say "haha excellent" be considered normal? will it be considered pearl clutching or hand wringing to say otherwise because the israeli state has done terrible things?

is there any evidence in this thread of anyone celebrating russian strikes? i haven't seen any but maybe there were one or two people i missed.


hamas will say the same thing i guess and it'll be fine in the future too.

it's clearly insane and fair enough if you disagree but beyond the ukrainian armed forces and civilian population all i see is madness in people celebrating this kind of thing or being happy at it.
Russia is waiting for people as brainwashed as you. Go there and stop posting here.
 

goalscholes

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Always weird to see one of these Russiansplainers pop up.
As a wider point, outlining long-held academic explanations of Russia's motivations is important.

Explaining is not justifying. Russia is a dwindling force with terrible geography, and is only kept in it's current position in the world order because of its abundance of natural resources, nuclear weapons and shady international influence. With the move to carbon neutral and a terrible demography, already paranoid Russia, whose population still perceives itself as a major world power, will become more and more aggressive.

Russia has therefore invested billions in developing and leasing warm water ports. It invaded Crimea almost immediately after their lease on Sevastopol was threatened. It is well known that it had been moving Russian-friendly individuals into the area for years, due to its paranoia about losing its grip on Ukrainian government stooges and thus Sevastopol.

I didn't think it needed to be stated, but it does not excuse Russia's actions in the slightest. You obviously should not invade countries, kill and torture tens of thousands of people, and destroy their homes because geography doesn't favour you. It is inhumane and barbaric. Even from a purely Russio-utilitarian point of view, probably ultimately futile without a huge geopolitical shift

My specific response was that Russia has, and will go to extreme lengths to retain Sevastopol, due to its strategic geographic importance. I don't think that will result in the use of nuclear weapons, as that will lose Russia some of the few friends it has left, but it could result in conscription/ proliferation of the evils we have seen so far
 

NotThatSoph

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To be clear first, every death in a war is one too much. That said the sad truth is that there is a war ongoing. And too speak for myself I am not celebrating or laughing about the potential death of civilians, I am laughing about the stupidity of people going on vacation in a war zone and then acting all surprised about it.
Crimea hasn't been an active war zone, unless you want to say the whole of Ukraine is a war zone irrespective of any military action. Even during the annexation only three civilians died, it has been a surprisingly safe place to be as long as you go along with the powers that be. A lot of people on those beaches will also not be tourists. Laughing at the Russian from Moscow running for cover while having sympathy with the Russian from Crimea in the adjacent sunbed doesn't quite track for me, and if this turns into a serious attempt to regain control then we might be looking at thousands of civilian casualties like in Donbas.

I think the comparison offered earlier was actually quite good. I'm very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but I'm not going to laugh at Israelis hiding from rockets. I believe we have at least two active Cafites with bomb shelters in their apartments. And the Israelis have been living in a more dangerous zone than those who live in or visit Crimea, though that might change.
 

MoskvaRed

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Wonder what some of you here think about EU visa ban for Russian citizens (some countries already started implementing it on their own because some usual suspects like Scholz has a "hard time with this idea"). Some serious suffering and terrible conditions for "innocent" Russian people too I guess.
I’d say it would be a blunt instrument and counter-productive in that many of the Russians who want to travel to Europe are probably not the biggest fans of the regime anyway. Conversely, some factory worker in the Urals who gets all his news from state TV and believes that Putin is saving Russia from Nazis is unlikely to be planning a trip to Paris or Tuscany.
 

neverdie

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I think the comparison offered earlier was actually quite good. I'm very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but I'm not going to laugh at Israelis hiding from rockets. I believe we have at least two active Cafites with bomb shelters in their apartments. And the Israelis have been living in a more dangerous zone than those who live in or visit Crimea, though that might change.
avoiding personal arguments, i think this is the point. i don't think i'd find myself laughing at rockets hitting an idf position either. in each case, you have two people, ukrainian and palestinian, whose lands have been invaded and colonized. but it's almost unthinkable to consider a situation where people laugh as israel is hit with rockets, even defensive positions in occupied territories, yet somehow that is deemed ok in this case. and that was the broader point about memes. normalizing things which aren't normal and shouldn't be. you can understand that it isn't normal and shouldn't be normalized by comparing it to cases that we are also familiar with. the internal propaganda value is a legitimate point, but it's the external normalization or hypernormalization that people have been taking issue with, not the value it has for the ukrainian defense or the ukrainian population. also, when people say "why mention the us or israel" or anywhere else, it's because we are also familiar with those cases and uphold and apply different standards. by seeing the difference between reactions you see how unnatural it is to respond with laughter. i could bring up the congo and how after independence there was a wave of reprisals that were also treated with a similar response but which were also not in any way normal or justifiable. but i'm guessing people are less familiar with that conflict being that it happened 60 years ago.

anyway that's the argument i and others were making and i think it's clear it has nothing to do with an anti-us agenda or anti-west agenda if you take time to read through the past two pages.
 
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dove

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I’d say it would be a blunt instrument and counter-productive in that many of the Russians who want to travel to Europe are probably not the biggest fans of the regime anyway. Conversely, some factory worker in the Urals who gets all his news from state TV and believes that Putin is saving Russia from Nazis is unlikely to be planning a trip to Paris or Tuscany.
Maybe you are right, I don't know. But wouldn't it make those people who are travelling to Europe (and supposedly not being the biggest fans of the regime) more vocal? I think the idea of that ban is so that it would mostly affect the upper class people who are likely to have a louder voice and would maybe put some pressure on the regime. Or maybe it's just a wishful thinking.
 

MoskvaRed

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Maybe you are right, I don't know. But wouldn't it make those people who are travelling to Europe (and supposedly not being the biggest fans of the regime) more vocal? I think the idea of that ban is so that it would mostly affect the upper class people who are likely to have a louder voice and would maybe put some pressure on the regime. Or maybe it's just a wishful thinking.
I don’t know for sure but I suspect that they are too few in number to influence real change, even if they became emboldened to risk prison. In the absence of a mass uprising (which I find highly unlikely), it will all depend on who controls the security apparatus, which means it would have to be a palace coup.
 

4bars

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Being happy of Ukrainian strikes to a Russian military base is normal if we think:

- Russia is invading Ukraine destroying civilian infrastructure indiscriminately. Killing innocents, displace millions and kidnap millions to Ukraine
- Therefore, Many people believe that Russians are in the wrong, so they want them to lose the war
- To lose the war, they need to be beaten in the battlefield. To b beaten in the battlefield they need to destroy their military equipment, military bases and kill their army till they surrender
- Ukraine, to win the war have to avoid to be striked by the Russian military advances (bombs, missiles, etc) .
- Ukraine bombed an important military base, therefore for the reasons above, people that support Ukraine cause are very happy. The same people are not happy then the other way around happens to Ukraine. So is normal to be happy for one side and not the other
- Killing directly Ukrainian civilians striking their homes in a Ukrainian territory, is different than indirectly killing civilians because they are close to a military base in a Ukrainian occupied territory. False equivalency
- Killing directly Ukrainian civilians striking their homes in a Ukrainian territory, is different than civilians fleeing from vacations in a occupied territory subjected to be attacked. False equivalency part 2

Till here Sesame street false equivalency and why people support certain actions from one side and the other
 

The Firestarter

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As I wrote above, sabotage seems the most logical to me, although not directly by SOF , it is very deep behind enemy lines. Some agents that have been activated for this seems more likely . But if it turns out its by SOF ingress by helis or sea that's even more impressive, movies are made for less...
 

maniak

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It's a bit distasteful having videos of people fleeing, including children, while shit is blowing up in the background, to the sound of silly tunes.

Reporting stuff is one thing, making silly videos with silly music and reading tons of comments (not here, on social media) about how soon the russians will suffer like the ukranians are suffering, is something quite different.

Loads of people sharing and celebrating this will also be cheering with we start registering russian civilian casualties? It will happen, it's a matter of time.

Will it be ok because the dead are orcs?
 

4bars

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It's a bit distasteful having videos of people fleeing, including children, while shit is blowing up in the background, to the sound of silly tunes.

Reporting stuff is one thing, making silly videos with silly music and reading tons of comments (not here, on social media) about how soon the russians will suffer like the ukranians are suffering, is something quite different.

Loads of people sharing and celebrating this will also be cheering with we start registering russian civilian casualties? It will happen, it's a matter of time.

Will it be ok because the dead are orcs?
I have lots of shadenfreude for people fleeing their vacation place in an ocuppied territory during a war. I enjoy this videos so much. Get the feck out

Another thing would be if the videos would be of killing them

They are just losing losing their vacations because of their government decided to invade another country
 

Simbo

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As I wrote above, sabotage seems the most logical to me, although not directly by SOF , it is very deep behind enemy lines. Some agents that have been activated for this seems more likely . But if it turns out its by SOF ingress by helis or sea that's even more impressive, movies are made for less...
The two instantaneous detonations point to it, but the similar crater and explosion sizes point to missiles, unless the base had its ammo stacked in equal measure.

I don't think we know yet what caused the fire prior to the three explosions...
 

maniak

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I have lots of shadenfreude for people fleeing their vacation place in an ocuppied territory during a war. I enjoy this videos so much. Get the feck out

Another thing would be if the videos would be of killing them

They are just losing losing their vacations because of their government decided to invade another country
Good for you. I don't like watching civilians in distress, regardless of the circumstances, much less when someone adds a silly music and uses it as social media entertainment. As I said, it's distasteful. War should never be entertainment and this one has clearly turned into one a long time ago.
 

calodo2003

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Good for you. I don't like watching civilians in distress, regardless of the circumstances, much less when someone adds a silly music and uses it as social media entertainment. As I said, it's distasteful. War should never be entertainment and this one has clearly turned into one a long time ago.
Wars have been visceral entertainment since 1991. This one has the unfortunate aspect of being social media’s first true war.
 

Rajma

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It’s telling that not a single sanction has caused so much backlash from Kremlin affiliated parties as suggested blanket visa ban. What’s the point all that cash in the ruling circles and elites if their families can’t spend it in Europe. That alone tells this is a right initiative and the door should be left open for asylum seekers that are legitimately running away from the being prosecuted by the regime. I don’t like it because there will be a small minority that shouldn’t be impacted by it given but think it’s a necessary measure at this point to change the mood in the largest cities. Basically, while the whole army is in the Ukraine there might not be a better time for protests to begin. Let them know it’s a temporary measure until Putin is removed and soldiers have left the Ukraine.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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If that's true, that would enter in the annals of History among the most daring and yet successful raids by special forces ever. You could put it up there with SAS raids during the WW2 North African campaign, the American raid at Cabanatuan in 1945, or the 1976 rescue mission at Entebbe.
 

Gehrman

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Yeah, I guess all the fighting and dying they’re doing doesn’t give them leeway to celebrate what’s either a very good precision strike or a very very good special forces mission.
Also at the end of the day it was a military target that was struck. It wasn't a bomb dropped on a crowd of civilians.
 

Carolina Red

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If that's true, that would enter in the annals of History among the most daring and yet successful raids by special forces ever. You could put it up there with SAS raids during the WW2 North African campaign, the American raid at Cabanatuan in 1945, or the 1976 rescue mission at Entebbe.
To be fair… the Ukrainian Army is in the running for conducting the longest armored raid in military history, and that was back in 2014 before they were as well trained as they are now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Raid_of_2014
 

maniak

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Yeah, I guess all the fighting and dying they’re doing doesn’t give them leeway to celebrate what’s either a very good precision strike or a very very good special forces mission.
I would be embarrassed if my government turned a military operation into a funny tweet, but as I said, I don't see war as entertainment.
 

dove

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Also at the end of the day it was a military target that was struck. It wasn't a bomb dropped on a crowd of civilians.
That might be true but at the same time some innocent people proudly wearing their Z merch who thought having a holiday basically on the frontlines of the biggest war in decades, is a good idea, had to suffer and cut their holiday short. Would nobody think about the extreme suffering they endured?
 

Carolina Red

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I would be embarrassed if my government turned a military operation into a funny tweet, but as I said, I don't see war as entertainment.
I’m sure Ukraine will take your criticism into consideration the next time they embarrass the Russian military.

I see them as having earned the right to celebrate their victories.
 

maniak

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I’m sure Ukraine will take your criticism into consideration the next time they embarrass the Russian military.
Wait, is everyone in this thread in contact with the ukrainian milirary except me? I thought everyone was just giving their opinion.