• Durotar@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    303
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    His plane has crashed and he’s on the passenger list, but it’s not proven yet that he was on the plane. He’s the person, who faked his death in the past.

  • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    129
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Hexbear and default lemmy libs coming together to laugh at prigozhin getting merced is so goddamn funny lmao.

    Literally the no more brother wars meme

  • h3doublehockeysticks [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    118
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Never get on board a helicopter, and never go on board a plane if you just pissed off a guy famous for offing his political enemies. Come on guy, that’s politics 101.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      151
      arrow-down
      24
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s as if leftists do not actually like Putin or any of the other ghouls on the Russian side, but are instead critical of NATO and willing to consider NATO opponents as rational actors instead of cartoon villains.

      • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        28
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Russia is a country run by cartoon villains. Can you not picture Shoigu sneaking up behind someone with a large round bomb that says ACME on it, only to discover that the fuse has been accidentally lit by a soldiers cigarette?

      • arc@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think most people of the left or right can see the situation for what it is. However Russia is obviously crafting messages to appeal to those on the extremes. When you see people on the hard left screeching about Ukrainian Nazis or advancing absurd peace deals then they’ve been gotten at. When you see people from the hard right screeching about Ukrainian immigrants or the cost of the war vs America / Europe first then you know they’ve been gotten at.

        As for Prigozhin, I think most people, even Russians are glad that he is dead but for different reasons. Seems clear that Putin murdered him for his disloyalty but nobody in Ukraine is going to mourn his loss for the spent force that is Wagner.

        • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          92
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          People think Ukraine has a Nazi problem because western media was shouting about it from the rooftops for a decade before the invasion. Then they only whispered it if they mentioned it at all but they kept on posting pictures of Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi insignia plastered on their faces or their equipment. Or photos of politicians with a portrait of Bandera on the wall above their desk. The gullible liberal journalists didn’t even know what they had to censor out at the start of the war.

          Unlike libs, the ‘hard’ left didn’t start looking at Ukraine on the date of the invasion and they didn’t wipe their memories clean of the historical context. A conspiracy involving Russian propagandists isn’t needed to explain this.

          Neither are Russian propagandists needed to explain that racist westerners are going to be racist against immigrants and refugees, wherever they’re from.

          • arc@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Ukraine has had a far right problem but lots of countries do. Doesn’t mean it’s more than the fringe as it is in other countries and it’s CERTAINLY not a credible talking point or justification for war to invade a sovereign democracy. And the stupid part is that this shit still goes onto today, even to this comment where you attempt to justify it.

            • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              80
              arrow-down
              12
              ·
              1 year ago

              The collective west does have a Nazi problem, it’s acute in Ukraine.

              Ukraine has been getting shelled for over 8 years now, it’s been the Ukrainian government doing it, and that specifically has been what provoked the invasion.

              It’s just observable reality, idk what’s so hard about remembering events from a few years ago for liberals

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Svoboda having one seat in the Rada kind of acute?

                As far as general patriotism is concerned sure that’s on an all-time high in Ukraine but guess what, that kind of stuff happens if you get invaded. Which started in 2014, don’t forget that, and Ukraine has been under hybrid attack from Russia since at least 2000, the 90s being only a brief respite from centuries of colonialism and that only because Russia didn’t know WTF it was doing.

                The important part is the type of nationalism you see. And that’s much closer to the likes of the SNP than to Nazis.

                • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  28
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  “general patriotism” I see swastikas, things that sub in for swastikas, iron crosses, and totenkopfs.

                  You can fuck right off with the “centuries of colonialism” that’s literlly the west repackaging its own history to accuse others of.

                  I thought you guys were the ones who said that portions of a country can unilaterally vote to leave and its okay. That was what you lot pulled with Serbia, why does it suddenly no longer apply here?

              • Project_Straylight@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                7
                ·
                1 year ago

                You mean they’ve been fighting Russian backed separatists that were trying to join their regions with Russia

                If they want to live under a totalitarian regime they were always free to move to Russia themselves

                • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  43
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Ah yes the ever popular “they should have self deported instead of getting ethnically cleansed”

                  How come you guys were okay with kosovo ‘voting’ to leave Serbia, but suddenly this is a bridge too far?

                • StalinwasaGryffindor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  37
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Do you realize how sociopathic this sounds? Are all separatists deserving of being bombed by the country they live under? Would you say the same to the people of Yemen, or Palestine or Ethiopia? “You’re being bombed, so just leave”?

                • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  12
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  If they want to live under a totalitarian regime they were always free to move to Russia themselves

                  This is literally just “if you hate america ukraine so much, go back to your own country!” repainted as a liberal viewpoint

                  Should the Bosnian Muslims just have gone back to their own country to avoid being murdered by right wing paramilitaries too?

            • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              47
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Doesn’t mean it’s more than the fringe

              I guess you didn’t pay attention. Whenever they post pictures of Ukrainian soldiers there’s a good chance that you will see a Totenkopf or a Black Sun badge. When western news interviews lesser known Ukrainian politicians, there’s a good chance that you will see a Bandera portrait in the background.

              The rise of the ukrainian far right has been well documented in western media before the invasion. Hell, google “Western media before February of 2022”

              a sovereign democracy[Citation needed]

              In fact it’s neither sovereign, since the US couped Ukraine in 2014, nor it is a democracy, but an extremely corrupt oligarchic capitalist country. The contrast with Russia lies in the absence of a single pivotal leader like Putin, and they fully adhere to Western interests.

              This doesn’t make the invasion “good” as in “Aragorn is a good guy”. The NATO encroaching makes it understandable. Which is completely different from “good”. Understandable means that there is some kind of rationality at play. Which means it was probably preventable. Which means that some kind of solution is to be had. Hopefully…

              spoiler

              "Then came Russia’s invasion. Within months, many of these same institutions had plunged into an Orwellian stampede to persuade the West that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi regiment was suddenly not a problem.

              It wasn’t pretty. In 2018, The Guardian had published an article titled “Neo-Nazi Groups Recruit Britons to Fight in Ukraine,” in which the Azov Regiment was called “a notorious Ukrainian fascist militia.” Indeed, as late as November 2020, The Guardian was calling Azov a “neo-Nazi extremist movement.”

              But by February 2023, The Guardian was assuring readers that Azov’s fighters “are now leading the defence of Mariupol, insisting they have shed their previous dubious politics and rapidly becoming Ukrainian heroes.” The campaign believed to have recruited British far-right activists was now a thing of the past.

              The BBC had been among the first to warn of Azov, criticizing Kyiv in 2014 for ignoring a group that “sports three Nazi symbols on its insignia.” A 2018 report noted Azov’s “well-established links to the far right.”

              Shortly after Putin’s invasion, though, the BBC began to assert that although “to Russia, they are neo-Nazis and their origins lie in a neo-Nazi group,” the Azov Regiment was being “falsely portrayed as Nazi” by Moscow." link

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              32
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              I don’t know what you think I’m trying to justify. You said:

              When you see people on the hard left screeching about Ukrainian Nazis or advancing absurd peace deals then they’ve been gotten at.

              I explained that the ‘hard left’ has been concerned about Nazis in Ukraine for a long time. You can understand that communists are going to keep a close eye on countries that ban communist parties. Yes other places have a far right problem too. Communists keep an eye on reactionaries elsewhere as well but it’s hardly germane to a conversation about the circumstances of a war in Ukraine, is it?

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          54
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          most people of the left or right can see the situation for what it is

          I couldn’t disagree more. In this thread I have someone telling me Ukraine is currently pushing Russia back despite the front not moving appreciably for nearly a year now. It’s also common to hear Putin described as a mustache-twirling villain who just woke up one day and said “I will conquer the whole of Ukraine in three days,” a take similarly detached from reality.

        • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          46
          arrow-down
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          advancing absurd peace deals then they’ve been gotten at.

          You do realize that in order to minimize (working class) casualties some kind of peace deal needs to be signed? And in order to sign a peace deal first there needs to be a ceasefire? The sooner the ceasefire starts, the better.

          Are you saying that western politicians torpedoing any kind of truce and/or peace deal is “Russian misinfo”?

          spoiler

          Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April [2022], according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

          “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

          The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end.

          The apparent revelation raises some key questions: Why did Western leaders want to stop Kyiv from signing a seemingly good deal with Moscow? Do they consider the conflict a proxy war with Russia? And, most importantly, what would it take to get back to a deal?

          JACQUES BAUD: * In fact, in my book I mention only Ukrainian sources, and Ukrainian sources said explicitly that Boris Johnson and the West basically prevented a peace agreement. So that’s not an invention from some Putin partisan here the West; that’s also what the Ukrainians felt. And you had a third occasion when that happened, that was in August, when you had this meeting between [Turkish president] Erdoğan and Zelenskyy in Lviv. And here again, Erdoğan offered his services to mediate some negotiation with the Russians, and just a few days after that Boris Johnson came unexpectedly in Kiev, and again, in a very famous press conference he said explicitly, ‘No negotiations with the Russians. We have to fight. There is no room for negotiation with the Russians.’

          the cost of the war

          Should we ignore the significant human and economic costs of the ongoing war and the support for the military-industrial complex? Why? Is this some kind of noble war against Sauron or what?

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Ghouls can be rational actors without not being ghouls.

        If a ghoul’s fundamental values involve control, domination and power, doing everything they can in a bid to control a strip of land recently found to have plenty of energy natural resources would be a rational action from their point of view, even if it involves provoking immense suffering upon millions of people. You don’t get to say that US presidents’ actions can only be explained by the hubris of people and systems that want endless growth and control, but Putin’s actions cannot.

        If NATO has historically sucked, but countries surrounding the country led by that ghoul rationally feel the need to protect themselves, it’s logical they’ll want to join NATO.

        The question here is why you’re far more willing to accept the rationality of Putin than the rationality of his victims when they legitimately ask for NATO’s support to defend themselves, and instead attribute them the category of sheep easily manipulated by NATO rather than accepting their autonomy and sovereignity to make their own decisions.

        • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          You don’t get to say that US presidents’ actions can only be explained by the hubris of people and systems that want endless growth and control, but Putin’s actions cannot.

          This is the start of a cogent argument but it needs to be followed through.

          The flip side of the coin is that you don’t get to accept that “US presidents’ actions can … be explained by … want[ing] endless growth and control” and reject any notion that it would use Ukraine to secure endless growth for itself. This may not be you. But it follows logically for those who understand that the US/NATO is the greatest threat to world peace.

          If profit drives Putin, why Ukraine and not another neighbour who hasn’t been courting NATO and accepting western money, weapons, training, etc since at least circa 2014? The answer is because the US chose Ukraine to provoke Russia.

          • HorriblePerson@feddit.nl
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            If profit drives Putin, why Ukraine and not another neighbour who hasn’t been courting NATO and accepting western money, weapons, training, etc since at least circa 2014? The answer is because the US chose Ukraine to provoke Russia.

            Well, there’s really no reason to use hard power on any country that hasn’t been courting NATO. You can just use soft power (Belarus, Kazakhstan) in that case. Precisely when this ceases to work and a country does starts approaching Russia’s rivals, Russia appears to employ their military power (Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine).

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Good points. Soft power seems to have been starting to work in Ukraine, too, until Maidan in 2014. For me, the key thing is ‘approaching Russia’s rivals’.

              On the one hand, Russia’s not going to like that. On the other hand, if we accept that Russia exercising soft power in e.g. Belarus and Kazakhstan means hard power isn’t necessary – they’re already within its orbit/under it’s wing – then when e.g. Ukraine approaches the US and turns away from Russia, the US has already effectively taken control of Ukraine before Russia invades. Albeit through soft power.

              And that throws a different light on the civil war in which Ukrainian militias are shelling ethnic Russian Ukrainians for being ‘separatists’. Because it means it’s being supported by Russia’s arch-rival, the US, a country well known for such destabilising and provocative antics, as the recent history of West Asia attests.

              • Project_Straylight@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                The Donbas separatists were already well supplied, and the Crimea was already well invaded, by RU, well before the West really started pouring support. I hope this sheds a different light on things for you

                • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I have no idea what timeline you’re working with. The US was meddling in Ukraine since at least 1994. This ramped up in 2005. It supported a coup in 2014. Then the civil war started. The US was involved from before and throughout.

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              I’m glad you’ve brought that up. Because it, too, suggests that Russia invaded Georgia for the same reason: yank meddling and provocation:

              Though Georgia is located in a region well within Russia’s historic sphere of influence and is more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Bush nevertheless launched an ambitious campaign to bring Georgia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Russians, who had already seen previous U.S. assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not extend eastward ignored, found the prospects of NATO expansion to the strategically important and volatile Caucasus region particularly provocative. This inflamed Russian nationalists and Russian military leaders and no doubt strengthened their resolve to maintain their military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. …

              Amid accusations of widespread corruption and not adequately addressing the country’s growing poverty, Saakashvili himself faced widespread protests in November 2007, to which he responded with severe repression, shutting down independent media, detaining opposition leaders, and sending his security forces to assault largely nonviolent demonstrators with tear gas, truncheons, rubber bullets, water cannons, and sonic equipment. Human Rights Watch criticized the government for using “excessive” force against protesters and the International Crisis Group warned of growing authoritarianism in the country. Despite this, Saakashvili continued to receive strong support from Washington and still appeared to have majority support within Georgia, winning a snap election in January by a solid majority which – despite some irregularities – was generally thought to be free and fair.

              Now where have we seen that kind of thing before—I mean since?

              Bush was also involved in provoking Russia in Ukraine, btw, before his eventual successor went ahead and pulled the same stunt again, knowing what the result was in Georgia:

              In remarks likely to infuriate the Kremlin, Bush said Ukraine should be invited during this week’s Nato summit in Bucharest to join Nato’s membership action programme, a prelude to full membership.

              He also said that there could be no deal with Moscow over the US administration’s contentious plans to locate elements of its controversial missile defence system in eastern Europe.…

              Bush said after talks … in Kiev[:] “I strongly believe that Ukraine and Georgia should be given MAP [Membership Action Plans], and there are no tradeoffs - period.”…

              Germany and France are leading opposition from within the EU to such a move, arguing that it would needlessly antagonise Russia and provoke a new crisis between Russia and the west. …

              In central Kiev, several hundred protesters defied a court ban and shouted anti-Nato slogans in Independence Square, the focal point of the 2004 pro-western “orange revolution” protests, which swept Yushchenko to power. A few thousand protesters were massed in the square today ahead of Bush’s arrival. For many Ukrainians, joining Nato is not a priority. Only 30% of respondents in the former Soviet state support the move.

              Who knows why Germany and France changed their tune by the time it came to Ukraine a few years later? We know why Ukrainians wanted the yanks to gtfo; they saw the writing on the wall and didn’t want to be sacrificed for US goals. Unfortunately, corrupt officials sold the people out.

              Turns out it’s hard to point to a war that doesn’t have grubby US fingerprints all over it.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        It seems they also have a tendency to consider NATO as cartoons villains. Also, tankies are not the average lefties, they are at the extreme of the left.

        • h3doublehockeysticks [she/her]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          67
          arrow-down
          13
          ·
          1 year ago

          It seems they also have a tendency to consider NATO as cartoons villains

          If NATO did not want to be considered cartoon villains, they shouldn’t be so cartoonishly evil.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          54
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          “Cartoon villain” here means “a villain who is just intrinsically evil and does evil things as a result.” Contrast this with real people, who generally have material or ideological motivational for the actions they take.

          The left views NATO as evil not because it’s full of cartoon villains, but because it is an organization that consciously, due to material and ideological motivations, chooses to immiserate the global south for the benefit of its constituent countries’ ruling classes.

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              45
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Lmao who tf is

              endors[ing], defend[ing], or deny[ing] the crimes committed by [notable] communist leaders such as … Pol Pot[?]

            • JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              45
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              The last paragraph quotes fucking Ross Douthat, come on now

              Lots of terms need defining. “Illiberal” just means not capitalistic, which yeah that’s all leftists. What is authoritarian? Usually a definition that gets thrown around applies more to capitalist countries vs those listed.

              So it’s just a western communist that supports non Western communist projects? 🤔

              • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                41
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                I love it when liberals use ‘illiberal’ as a criticism. Begging the question much? Of course we’re illiberal we’re anti-capitalists!

                Don’t whisper it in hushed tones as if we’re being shy about it and might be embarrassed. Liberalism is the cause of so much misery in the world I’d be more embarrassed to be called a liberal.

                The best of it is that even liberals accept that liberal society is atrocious; they just throw up their hands, claim that it’s the only option, and benefit decadently from the system while the world burns as if nothing could or should be done about it. The nerve.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              33
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              It’s essentially cope for them not just supporting “nominally” socialist countries because their stance is one of anti-imperialism. Iran should have nukes.

              • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                1 year ago

                Isn’t Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the Russo-Georgian war imperialism? I still don’t get them, except being blinded by their hate of USA’s war crimes, which I can understand, but it still seems like an irrational conclusion to become a tankie. They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

                • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  33
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  the Russo-Georgian war imperialism

                  Wait, are you saying Saakashvili has done an imperialism? Because even western/EU reports have confirmed that Georgia started that war, not Russia.

                  They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

                  “From 24 February 2022, which marked the start of the large-scale armed attack by the Russian Federation, to 30 July 2023, OHCHR recorded 26,015 civilian casualties in the country: 9,369 killed and 16,646 injured”

                  Almost 10 thousand civilians killed is horrible. But compare this to Iraq: it’s less than the first month of the war in Iraq, and no US politicians was tried for war crimes. Maybe you should ponder this factoid.

                  If you live in a NATO country maybe you should demand Blair and Bush to be tried for their war crimes. If you live in the west you should spend more energy of criticizing the ruling class above you.

                  “supporting or refusing to criticize” This is a made up leftist. Per definition there is no leftist that uncritically supports a right wing capitalist country.

                • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  31
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Marxists, following Lenin, define imperialism as the monopoly of finance capital. Not as a synonym for ‘conquest’, ‘annexation’, ‘empire’ (not that I’m saying all three necessarily apply to Russia in Ukraine—a conclusion on that isn’t relevant, here).

                  When US (Anglo-European) finance capital dominates the world through the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and petrodollar, supported by a network of however many hundreds of military bases, all paid for by it’s vassals and enemies due to said dominance, there’s little to no room for anyone else to even consider being imperialist.

                  We can discuss that if you like. I’ll likely need others to chip in. I’m not proposing that I have all the answers. It’s not something with a clear answer. But we can’t have the debate at all unless we agree on common definitions and frames of reference. Otherwise it feels as though liberals simply do not understand what’s being said. It’s just talking past one another, where one side has a coherent definition and framework and the other side… doesn’t.

                  I’ll let you decide whether you can honestly say you have a theoretically sound concept of imperialism depending on how much dedicated literature on imperialism you’ve read.

                • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  29
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  There’s a concept called “critical support”, which most “tankies” are practicing. You have criticism of a side but its the lesser evil so you support it despite your criticism. You won’t hear much of that criticism publicly though because that’s counterproductive.

                  Like if I want the US to recognize the DPRK as a sovereign state so we can at least begin discussing Korean reunification, why would I bother mentioning my criticism of Juche?

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  24
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  You’re in a thread with half a dozen comments like “wow libs and tankies are celebrating this?”, followed by a bunch of “tankies” explaining (again) that they do not actually like modern Russia.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  26
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  The general “tankie” position is that the people of Donbas, who mostly do not want to remain part of Ukraine, will not stop suffering attacks without Russia fighting Ukraine off. Russia does not seem interested in siphoning resources from or subjugating the people of Donbas, as they did not the people of Crimea, who merely became Russian citizens. This is very different from US carpetbombing for oil.

        • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Nobody even knows what people who say that mean. By context it seems to imply moderate right wingers or some “enlightened centrists” which ironically will also join the choir of calling people that. Just trumpist lingo “woke/lib/commie/feminist bad”

      • demlet@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I dunno, this seems good for Putin to me. But I’m not an expert in geopolitics and war…

        • orclev@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Eh, it’s debatable. He had already shipped Wagner off to Belarus and folded the Wagner troops into the Belarus military, so Wagner was pretty effectively de-fanged at that point. The only thing Putin gained by this was sending a message to anyone else that decided to stand up to him, although if anyone still didn’t understand that Putin tends to assassinate people who displease him they haven’t been paying attention since like 1980 when Putin was still actually KGB. This is very on brand for Putin, although it is a bit novel to apparently go with airplane “crash” rather than his usual standbys of poisoning, “falling” out of windows, or tripping down flights of stairs/elevator shafts and landing on bullets.

          On the other hand, it does make Putin look scared and weak that he felt the need to assassinate someone who he had already effectively defeated, without needing to fire a shot at that. I still wonder how he pulled that off. He must have either had some seriously damning dirt on Prigozhin, or else made him one hell of a deal to get him to about face and march right out of Russia. Maybe Putin just straight up threatened to nuke him if he got any closer to Moscow and he decided not to try to call Putin’s bluff.

  • eatmyass [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    106
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later

    should’ve remembered this simple rule

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    100
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Wait, am I reading this right that the plane was shot down by russian air defence? If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source, then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened (both are true but I thought the kremlin would at least try to say/show otherwise).

    How does russia keep messing up this bad? I am constantly shocked and awed.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        34
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, a pointless one that makes them look like predictable idiots. Most will not be unhappy at his death and those that would be are on russia’s side of this conflict. This (if it is what it looks like now) is like making a martyr just for assholes.

          • Elroy_Berdahl@feddit.uk
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            14
            ·
            1 year ago

            Putin is killing people and the purpose of the window assassinations is meant to be clearly not an accident. The whole point is to send a message, not to try and fool people.

    • JohnBrownsBussy2 [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      61
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t understand the logic here. When the putsch occured and then ignomously fizzled out, I saw Putin as weak for letting Pringles walk out with a (relative) slap on the wrist. Taking Prigo out of the picture was overdue. Obviously, anyone would feel threatened by an semi-autonomous mercenary army, so removing its leadership and breaking it up is just a rational course of action that probably should have been done sooner from that POV

      • ahornsirup@artemis.camp
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        Putin absolutely couldn’t let Prigozhin walk, nobody could have. It’s not just about the semi-autonomous mercenary army, if a government lets someone get away with an attempted coup d’état they’d effectively encourage others to give it their best shot as well because there was no effective punishment. Assassination is, well, a very Russian approach to the issue, but every government on this planet would have taken some form of action.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          You are absolutely right. The US would have an armed coup leader strung up so fast. Maybe not assassination style, but there would most definitely be a quick trial and execution. If the US government couldn’t catch the person, I imagine that assassination would be on the table.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          It is the method used that has me baffled, if this happened as reported then they did not even try for any sort of plausible deniability.

          • ahornsirup@artemis.camp
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’m not really surprised. They got more and more open about their assassination attempts for years. They’re not meant to covertly get rid of enemies, they’re very public warnings to other dissidents. It’s rule by fear.

            • Yondoza@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              Russian assassination are pretty clear. Anyone with half a brain can put the pieces together, but there is just enough plausible deniability that there cannot be direct retaliation legally or politically. It is a clear threat but just barely veiled enough to avoid legitimate retaliatory action via legal or international responses.

              • Do you think if Putin goes on the record during his next q&a saying “little Ehrmantrotsky here just got what he deserved lol” that there’s any chance the RU ‘legal’ system is coming after him?? Shit I don’t know how to post pics here yet but really

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        If they took him out before the deal was made sure, this soon after just shows weakness and a lack of credibility. They did the equivalent to getting into a bar fight, talking it out instead and then in front of every one sucker punching the other guy.

        • Zrc [she/her]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          57
          arrow-down
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          you know you don’t have to forcibly try to interpret every event as a sign of Russian weakness

          • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            1 year ago

            They were losing a war to a bunch of tractors and their flagship was sunk by a country without a navy.

            It’s not Russian weakness, it’s Russian stupidity.

            • Zrc [she/her]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              29
              arrow-down
              13
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              were? so you admit that Russia is winning?

              besides, this is not what this thread is about, go cope to someone who cares

              • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                13
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                No, they were losing to tractors, and Moskva was sunk without a navy.

                Now they’re getting real gear and training to play.

                The only thing Russia ever wins are Darwin awards. Fucking being proud of almost hurting a country a fraction of your size right next door, like the US being proud of conquering Ottawa.

                Say hi to those F-16s for me.

                • Zrc [she/her]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  32
                  arrow-down
                  10
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Say hi to those F-16s for me

                  I’m sure they’ll be just as effective as the Leopards, the ghost of kieyiev will destroy the entire Russian army

                • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  28
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Say hi to those F-16s for me

                  We’re literally dumping decades old hardware on them just so we can keep justify buying more F-35s.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  17
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Fucking being proud of almost hurting a country a fraction of your size right next door, like the US being proud of conquering Ottawa.

                  Look up the US attack on Grenada

          • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Losing multiple cities to a tiny domestic invading force of mercenaries after completely losing control of said force due to lack of command discipline, and finally only being able to force them to disband by threatening the families of the mercenaries involved isn’t exactly a sign of strength, though, is it? It’s not exactly what we’d expect of a professional modern military.

            It would be like if Erik Prince took his Blackwater army and started marching on Washington, capturing towns along the way, and the US army was helpless to stop them until the American government threatened to hunt down and kill the family members of Blackwater mercenaries.

            That would be considered unusual, and not really a sign of political or military strength.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              34
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              If Erik Prince marched Blackwater through some American cities and – instead of sending the U.S. military to start a hot war on its own soil – American leadership pressured Prince and Blackwater to go home, would you be calling the president weak for not turning Virginia into a battlefield?

              • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                I would think American leadership completely dysfunctional if they allowed that situation to occur. If they did not have enough command authority to trust that the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force when ordered, the US would be a laughingstock. The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.

                Don’t get me wrong. I love Russia. I was originally trained as a Sovietologist, when that was still a thing you could be an -ologist of. I could talk for hours about strategic weapons systems and Russian prep for NBC warfare and what the politics in the Kremlin were like under the troika approach and why the fascistic tendencies of Putin in rejecting Russian political history in favor of personal enrichment and plundering the nation have irrevocably broken Russian politics.

                But that’s for another day. Putin responded the way dictators in developing nations do, not like someone who actually has command and control over their modern military forces. I mean, it’s a Russian tradition to threaten the families of people who publicly disagree with leadership. In the US, the forces brought to bear against Blackwater’s attempted putsch would have been so overwhelming that his own men would have arrested him. But as much as I hate Blackwater and think Prince should probably be in prison for war crimes, their cadre was recruited from a different class of people than Wagner.

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force

                  You realize that’s the worst-case scenario of the incident we’re talking about, right? A sane leader would want to avoid starting a pitched battle in their backyard at all costs, and that’s entirely independent of speculation about control over the military.

                  The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.

                  We had a half-assed putsch of our own not even three years ago.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      54
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened

      If they let him live, they’re weak. If they kill him, they’re weak.

      During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

      parenti-hands

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        The USSR is not the russian federation and the later is an oligarchy. Why do you think such cold war arguments (that over simplify) have some sort of play in this conflict?

        I also noticed you skated right on by the “can not be trusted” part of my quoted text.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          50
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          Do you think I’m talking about the USSR, or about how American propaganda cultivates the mentality of “they are wrong no matter what they do”?

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            Your entire argument was about the soviet union and its cold war relationship with the US. I have had it up to my nipples here on how fixated you all are on the US, I am not from the US, I don’t like the US, I am sick of somehow having to explain to people who apparently think the US is evil but simultaneously think the world revolves around it.

            WE GET IT YOU ARE AMERICAN AND YOU ARE DIFFERENT BUT LIKE MOST AMERICANS CAN NOT STAND WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT ABOUT YOU.

            • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              38
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              The quote is from “inventing reality by michael parenti”. the cold war is an EXAMPLE, the authors POINT is that media will interpret literally ANY EVENT in a bad way to make enemies look morally inferior and bad.

              • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                But I am not media, the post I made is my honest take, and in this case the media stating this news is wagner and the russian state. How does this wall of text help me understand the apparent flaw in my statement?

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source

      The Guardian is reporting this:

      The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give ample motive to the Russian state for revenge. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly suggested that a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/aug/23/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-drones-downed-moscow#top-of-blog

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, I am hoping we get more info from anyone else then Wagner group soon.

    • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      The capitol riot was a threat to our precious democracy! / prigozhin’s coup attempt shows how weak putler is!

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        No but the agreement being broken that was created though Belarus does.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sorry I do want to talk about the other broken treaties but I think you replied to the wrong comment.

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              21
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              I think the implied argument is that if Putin is untrustworthy and if you’re implying that means that he can’t be trusted to comply with agreements made with Ukraine, then we need to look at historic agreements between Russia and Ukraine. Two recent agreements between them include Minsk I and II. Ukraine, not Russia, violated both.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Oh I am sure he is just fine with it, but it does not really give any confidence to anyone entering into any agreement with russia with a 3rd nation brokering (say a ceasefire).

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I am lost and this is a reply to my own statement. May I ask you to expand on what a “lib” is, how I erred to be labelled as one, and finally how it is you think I care about aesthetics?

        • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          28
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          Can’t speak for anyone else but I may be able to answer this.

          A lib is a liberal, someone who is pro-capital, not an anti-capitalist (very little overlap with how liberal tends to be defined in ordinary language in the US). Optics, relating to how people see the event, is idealism not materialism. Liberalism is idealist, unlike Marxism, which is materialist.

          The dig at liberalism and aesthetics is likely a critique of the implication that what this looks like has much to do with the material reality. That’s an aesthetic argument. It doesn’t matter what this looks like because the optics don’t affect the material relations. Someone who elevates the optics at the expense of the material relations is making an idealist, likely a liberal argument.

          Hence the comment embodying an aesthetic argument of the kind that liberals often make.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            Ok, thank you, but what in my comment was at the expense of the material relations?

            • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              16
              arrow-down
              9
              ·
              1 year ago

              You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re taking this in the spirit in which it’s intended. When Marxists criticise idealism, the target is the liberal world outlook, not the individual.

              By implication, really. Focusing on what people think of Russia’s/Putin’s trustworthiness rather than on it’s record or the factors that would keep it honest, so to speak. It’s Ukraine that violated Minsk, apparently prompted by France, Germany, and ‘NATO’. Looking at the optics, that seems a little more duplicitous than assassinating someone who attempted a coup (if this was an assassination and if what happened before can be called a coup).

              Would I trust a single person, e.g. Putin to uphold an international agreement? It doesn’t matter. It’s not a one-man show. War is expensive and the longer it goes on for the more expensive it becomes, in support as well as the cost of arms, soldiers, etc.

              Nobody has to trust Putin. An agreement would be maintained because material factors require it to be maintained. What westerners think it’s by-the-by. (I’m assuming you’re not Russian as you were asking about Russian sources—I’m not asking you to confirm or deny as I don’t want you to dox yourself; I’m just trying to give an answer that makes sense from the available evidence.)

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Please guide me on this, other wise these are just vague statements that make us both look silly.

            • khannie@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              14
              arrow-down
              8
              ·
              1 year ago

              You’re pissing in the wind trying to get anything from a Tankie unfortunately.

              Jumps in, stirs shit, refuses to elaborate, leaves.