https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/08/the-hard-reality-ukraines-last-gasp-offensive-has-failed/
The cold, hard truth in the war between Russia and Ukraine today is that Ukraine’s last-gasp offensive has failed, and no amount of spin will change the outcome.
What a long strange trip it's been. I remember back in the weeks leading up to the invasion I was posting about it and asking a Russian comrade and some other folks in the Marx Madness discord about the plausibility of all the fear mongering being drummed up by the west and we were all so sure that it was just bullshit noise like most other scare pieces written by western journalists, and then watching it happen in real time while knowing full well that this would be the inevitable outcome, and in spite of that all, this massive campaign of manufacturing consent to support Ukraine and stifle any attempts at peace talks has been pretty surreal.
It's almost an even more blatant example of drumming up nationalist fervor in the imperial core than even what I witnessed during the aftermath of 9/11. Like at least back then there was an actual attack on the US to point to as flimsy justification for war.
Allow me to answer your question with a question: Do you believe in the right to self determination of people in the Donbas?
Through properly monitored and implemented referendums, yeah.
By a random dictatorship well known for destabilising and invading its neighbors, absolutely not.
Through properly monitored and implemented referendums
You say this shit like it isn't a euphemism.
By a random dictatorship
Democracy
Dictatorship
Come now I am trying to ask questions in an attempt to get them to question the shit they have been immersed in from birth. As excellent a use of that emoji as that is I think we have a miniscule chance to maybe reach this person if we can get the gears turning.
And what gives you the right to determine what "properly monitored and implemented referendums" are?
Also Russia is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie just the same as the US so that argument holds zero water here.
I am genuinely curious what your metrics for what constitutes a legitimate referendum are.
Nothing to do with me. I'm a programmer lol
Nothing to do with the US. I wouldn't support them invading a neighbor after a bogus vote they arranged. Whataboutism.
Independent monitors to make sure the vote is fair.
Independent monitors to make sure the vote is fair
And who are these independent monitors?
The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
--Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds
This is more of a comment on radlibs and baby anarchists, but it strikes me as appropriate here. It's very easy to idealistically criticize everything that isn't the way it should be. At some point, though, you have to address reality.
Is this supposed to be a gotcha? There are tons of international vote monitor groups. Everyone uses them all the time.
Not to mention that since 2022 this hasn't been about just the Donbas any more.
Indeed, last I checked Crimea wasn't part of the Donbas either. This has never been about "protecting the self determination" of regions that so conveniently want to be invaded by Russia (according to Russia).
How does "the US is also bad" change anything about the argument? The argument was that Russia invading and annexing territory is not an expression of self-determination for the people whose homes are being annexed. The US also doing bad shit doesn't change anything about that because "the US annexes Donbas instead of Russia" isn't the alternative being presented here
The thing that amuses me the most about whataboutism is that it's so self-defeating if you think about it for more than just a few seconds. It only makes "sense" from the perspective of someone who thinks that everybody must support their own home country's actions no matter what. Which is an authoritarian thing, not a democracy thing.
It also doesn't account for the fact that I'm not even American, so when I see those arguments my "so what" shrug is doubly intense.
By a random dictatorship well known for destabilising and invading its neighbors, absolutely not.
Definitely not talking about the USA. You are also not aware of the fact that the USA is sending troops to Peru to back a government that is currently supported by 6% of its people. But I’m sure this has no relevance at all to the situation in Ukraine. Despite its many honest mistakes (centuries of ongoing slavery and genocide), the USA has been overall a force for good in the world!
In an ideal world where there was a good-faith international actor or organization who could take the role of moderating a referendum, and the outcome be respected by all parties, that would be ideal. However, no such organization exists. The institutions of the so-called "rules based international order" serve the interests of western hegemony. That is why, for example, Catalonia is not able to have an effective referendum for independence from Spain, and that is a perfectly fine state of affairs; just the way things are. Maybe a diplomatic complaint gets filed somewhere, maybe someone calls out how awful it is that police were interfering with the referendum in 2017, and they're not wrong. But ultimately, nothing fundamentally changes, and that is the point.
Should people just accept the way things are until an ideal situation allows them to improve their lives in a way everyone finds acceptable? What should people do if things are only getting worse, and there are no effective, good-faith actors to mediate the best possible solution?
until an ideal situation allows them to improve their lives in a way everyone finds acceptable?
Craziest part is that a lot of people that follow that line of thinking have also at least recognized the immediacy of police and prison abolition in the context of places like the US but can't seem to take the next step in applying the same logic to places outside the imperial core.
Large countries invading and annexing stuff is not a solution to any of those problems. It is a regression to an even worse system.
And zoom, wow those goalposts can move!
Russia invaded the Donbas in 2014. If they had simply sat there and kept just that, I suspect things would have stabilized in the long run. But Russia doesn't actually care about the "self-determination" of the people in the land it attempts to conquer, that's just a convenient excuse it used.
But they didn't? They invaded Crimea. If you've conflated the Donbas and Crimea on a map you will have a very skewed understanding of this conflict.
I'm not, Russia invaded both Crimea and the Donbas in 2014. Here's an article on the Donbas invasion. The guy I was responding to didn't mention Crimea and neither did I, we weren't talking about that.
Could you be more specific? This is a 7000 word article that doesn't appear to support your claim from a skim reading, other than possibly the August 25 entry. Though there the claim is also preceded by stating it's a fabricated lie.
The article starts with the sentence "This is a timeline of the war in Donbas for the year 2014." The first item on the timeline is from April 7.
I said above that Russia invaded the Donbas in 2014. This article describes the Russian invasion of the Donbas starting in 2014. The specific details of what happened after that are not particularly relevant.
Or are you still following Russia's narrative that it was all just troops "on vacation" who were "volunteering" to go to the Donbas and fight Ukraine? With borrowed and stolen tanks and whatnot? Nobody believed that.
Define: People in the Donbas
Are we talking about Ukrainians living there or about Russian military in plain clothing being supplied by military trucks that accidently lose then re-find their plates with every border crossing with military good out of Russian stocks? 🤡
You're bastarding the theory (mind you this word matters here) of SDT and trying to use it as some escapist argument for murdering other humans. Crimea was taken by force by Russians. No psychological theory changes that fact. Everything past this point is moot. Russia invaded and 2nd time and aren't being allowed free reign this time. It has nothing to do with jingoism or theoretical psychological beliefs.
So no answer then?
If people in a country want to secede then it is up to the country and its procedures to do so. They can have a vote (not the invaders variant as that does not count) but you will have no guarantee it will happen though.
Is this going to be a form of 4chan discussion where you will never answer but keep bouncing new questions as a form of discouragement?
So no answer then?
You still did not answer my question:
What constitutes - in your eyes- "properly monitored"?
Answered your question clearly. You might not like or understand it but answered it was.
And I see you have another question. So 4chan style it is for you. For being bad faith poster I will now stop discussing with you as it is painfully obvious what you want to do here.
You literally did not answer the question.
What do you consider to be "properly monitored"?
Also I have never once posted or even visited the Nazi shithole that is 4chan so nice ad hominem.
They literally asked for protection because they tried to do what you said they should and were met by siege warfare from their own government.
If people in a country want to secede then it is up to the country and its procedures to do so.
Say the occupied Navajo nation (or Hawaii, or Puerto Rico...) wants to formally secede from the U.S. The U.S. says no, and says they can't even vote on it. What then?
Without specifying a group or situation, they rules and procedures for seceding should be followed. If the process fails to deliver your wanted outcome then you have to abide to the rulings.
What is not ok is for a foreign body to interfere. Certainly not by invading said country and killing, torturing and whatnot. If secession is successful then that autonomous new country can join whatever other country at their hearts desire. But again, that other country is not to step in and force secession.
Now what if the plight is of such nature it is not sustainable? The last resort you have is revolution or civil war. Again, not the call of a foreign body to step in and start killing people.
Invading and starting a war which costs the live of innocent people is not the answer.
If the process fails to deliver your wanted outcome then you have to abide to the rulings.
So if all Puerto Ricans unanimously decide to declare independence and the U.S. says "nah," they're just supposed to live with that? How is that just? You even acknowledge that's the path to a revolution or civil war, which we can both agree is a terrible option. What right does any country have to impose its will (through violence, of course) on a unified region that doesn't wants to leave?
Once a region declares independence, why does it have to fight with one arm behind its back? Isn't it free to seek out allies, as all warring countries have done throughout history?
Should the American Colonies have declared independence? Should they have sought the help of France to even the odds against their much stronger opponent?
Like I said, voting for or wanting a separation does not guarantee you get what you desire.
It’s up to a country to determine how and if secession is possible. If the people of the complete country disagree with this separation the it will not happen and should not happen. Are the rest of a country any less of a factor? It is their country after all.
Discussing other situations specifically is tricky here. The formation of the US for example is incredibly difficult. Where did it start? The French, British or the colonist who formed the current country?
In the case we are discussing we have to deal with country as-is, the Ukraine as a whole. If secession is wanted then this region has to follow the rules and possibilities of Ukraine. iI’m not privy to these tbh.
What is not acceptable is invading that country and start killing people. Masquerading an election as valid while invading that country is not an option to consider as fair or legitimate.
Liberals always try to force leftists to 'pledge allegiance' to hyperfocused truisms that they take in isolation and try to make determinative of the entire subject. 
I'll bite. Yes. Russia invaded. No. Russia did not start a war with Ukraine. They joined an existing war with Ukraine in progress.
You folks are wild. You act as though history somehow emerged from a stagnant singularity in 2014.
This is what no historical materialism does to a mfer.
Crimea also voted on a referendum.
If you somehow uphold US/imperialist approved votes over any other countries' idk what to tell you.
Yeah they didn't start the war. They started the war. Ha.
So you just have no idea what I'm talking about, then?
I bet you watched Trump's impeachment with baited breath. Do you even remember what it was about?
Apologists always want to go back to who really threw the first stone, as if Russia has been a great world citizen this whole time and as if imperialist invasion was a great way to reduce sanctions or increase economic cooperation
You talk about Russia being a “good world citizen” as though western powers have universally dealt with Russia in good faith. You posit that Russia should turn to means like diplomacy in order to alleviate the sanctions that have been placed upon them and to increase economic cooperation with countries with are subject to NATO influences like Ukraine, but this ignores the fact that western powers have attempted to undermine Russia’s economy for their own benefit since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as the fact that measures such as the aforementioned sanctions placed upon Putin’s Russia have been put in place because of his refusal to completely open the country’s markets to predatory foreign interests.
If you’re interested, I suggest you read this article (which appears to be more sympathetic to NATO than myself and most other leftists on Lemmy), since it describes the economic devastation which occurred in Russia in the 1990s, the way in which Putin’s government has kept a complete catastrophe from happening again (although I wouldn’t say that Russia’s current right-wing, hyper nationalistic model for trade is ideal or that it’s anything to strive for, since inequality is still rampant in the country), and the way in which the United States and its allies pressure other countries into opening their markets to free trade only to exploit them once they do. If you don’t have the time to read it, just know that the west’s antagonizing of Russia is the cause of the latter’s lack of diplomatic cooperation with the former, and not the Russian government’s political or economic ambitions.
I do not and would never pretend like other governments act in good faith: two things can be bad at the same time without whataboutism. Have a great weekend, comrade!
Bro I’ll craft apologisms for the USSR occasionally but the idea that they were a non-interventionist polity is fucking ridiculous. The USSR tried to overthrow like half of the governments in the world.
Apologists always want to go back to who really threw the first stone
Are you saying who started the war isn't relevant? Why would you not want to determine this to have a full picture of the situation?
I'm saying if you go all the way back to who looked at who wrong in the lunch line in 1963, you can try to justify anyone invading anyone else's homes with tanks and missiles, but that doesn't make it an actual valid justification. Generally the party that "starts a war" is the one that rolls their tanks first.
Am I a liberal? News to me. I seek no pledge from you. Stop chasing shadows.
What war was Ukraine involved in with russia?
Yeah it's wild because back then I was called a terrorist sympathizer for being against literally turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a sea of glass, and now I get called a Putin apologist for holding a consistent and principled stance on the right of self determination for people in eastern Ukraine.
I keep getting called a tankie on twitter by people that have no fucking idea what anarchism is (and no shade on tankies yall are my comrades and I am actually helping an indigenous friend build an org centered around indigenous struggle in the imperial core centered on scientific socialism/decolonial Marxism)
Tfw you're one of te only principled anarchists online and trying to carry weight for an ideology consistently misunderstood by a b unch of teenagers.0
This claim about “right of self determination” is completely absurd. If that was truly the issue, it wouldn’t be achieved by destroying apartment buildings with missiles, tanks and bombs in an entirely different area.
In both cases that Russia annexed, it was after 'referendums'. Both places were filled with populations that identified as Russian. In the donbas case, there was reports of Ukrainian shelling before the wider Russian invasion, but that kind of doesn't matter as there was a civil war going on.
I get really annoyed with the discourse here.
Should Ukrainians have the right to self-determination? Yes. Do I believe anything that comes out of any government's mouthpiece? Not without careful consideration. Does that mean I sometimes fall for propaganda from either side? Yes. Does it mean that I see through a lot? I hope so. Is it frustrating seeing people cheer for dead Russians even though those same people know that these kids will be shot if they don't fight? Very
I feel very skeptical of this article coming completely out of left field compared to...literally everything else.
If you have been paying attention to the fronts. There's maps that if accurate paint a not great picture for Ukraine. Every spot where they gain ground is matched with another spot where they lose.
The first casualty of war is the truth, and I know I've had a very hard time trying to see through the B.S.
The biggest indicator I've read is that US generals have been upset with the speed of the Ukrainian forces. Meaning they're taking too long to take territory back. Just one example though.
That's....a whole lotta nothing that someone could argue from either side of the argument.
You really just sound like a propaganda worker than an actual person.
Now you're being paranoid and rude. They said they have a hard time seeing thru fog of war.
They're describing statements from the pentagon & maps from ISW. Quite well. So they clearly are just assuming the negatives both sides admit for themselves are true. That's a good rational process for a casual observer, no?
The US top brass is not as rosy on this as Reddit & the Ukrainian MOD &; their twitter OSINTers
They didn't describe anything what are you talking about?
Some general they don't know said they were upset with the speed of taking territory back, territory they don't know. It's the most vague example possible.
Also you shifted in 2 minutes from "better butter yourself up" to "you're being rude". Sorry I'm going to need a second source.
I mean obviously you don't know what they were alluding to because you don't check any source that would even repeat negative stuff Milley says
Lol you're almost starting to try to get it, huh. You're so fucked I'm ahead by two years. Two years you drank the koolaid.
No shit they would rather be fighting a war they're not actively losing. Go look at the House Select Committee on China Chairman Gallagher's beliefs.
Exactly.
For Russia to win, they have to annex a large portion of Ukraine.
For Ukraine to win, they have to gain lost territory back.
For the US to win, the war has to go on as long as possible.
It's also important to remember that US aid is often a loan.
I don't think this should really be controversial. Whatever your thought on US aid is, or the war in general, it's incredibly obvious that the counteroffensive was a complete failure. Ukraine gained basically nothing, lost massive amounts of materiel, and countless soldiers were killed. Russia's defensive lines were not breached.
Being the advancing force has almost always been really hard and risky compared to being on the defensive and entrenched. There is a real risk that this war continues for many years to come with a battleline that moves back and forth a few kilometers with a few key points of interest trading hands back and forth. I think this won't really end because of what happens on the battlefield but because of what happens politically. How long can Putin sustain the war? How far are the Ukrainian people willing to go reclaim Donbas and Crimea? How many lives are they willing to sacrifice to reclaim what was lost?
This comments thread is nuts. I haven’t read anything so obviously propaganda in a while. I wonder whether these comments get quickly buried on Reddit and I’m only seeing them now because Lemmy is so empty
Have you considered the possibility that reddit is utter fucking dogshit and does in no way provide you a picture of what actually goes on in the world?
You came to lemmy for a reason, right?
Pro-Russia propaganda then. Funny how America's right has embraced the west's greatest enemy. When I was a kid I was told the reason communism was bad was because it was tyrannical to those living under it, Russia is still tyrannical but capitalist and now they're totally on board. In hindsight, it was never about the tyranny. It was about profit.
Well, that was a waste of my time to read. What a worthless "news" source, if you can even call it that.
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