Traffic on the single bridge that links Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and serves as a key supply route for the Kremlin’s forces in the war with Ukraine came to a standstill on Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing a couple and wounding their daughter.
The RBC Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes.
RBC Ukraine and another Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda said the attack was planned jointly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian navy, and involved sea drones.
We’d all prefer a non-war lens of Crimea. You’re right, it was a cool and interesting place, and hopefully still will be when the war is over.
But Russia has no say over whether another country’s territory will be used as Russia’s military port. The fact is, Ukraine was amenable to hosting Russia’s military there, so long as Russia didn’t try to actually own the land, but they’ve forfeited their right to use it now.
Ultimately, Russia’s military will be ousted from Crimea along with the rest of Ukraine, and that will be that. Had they never annexed it or escalated to open warfare, they would still be operating there freely today, with a much friendlier Ukraine happily hosting them.
I uhh. Don’t share your optimism or actually care who runs it, I only really care that the people I know there remain safe. For them and for myself the flag be waved around is somewhat meaningless compared to the human impact of all this nonsense, particularly because some of my socialist friends are gone now. With that said I don’t see Crimea changing hands again, nor does anyone I have spoken to currently in Crimea. I might change that assessment if the counteroffensive ever actually sees the first line of dragon’s teeth but so far it’s been completely underwhelming. Everyone also sees the deployment of clusterbombs as a “let’s salt the earth so it’s worthless to them” move rather than anything that will change the counteroffensive’s prospects.
Russia chose all of this.
No one else. Russia.
And?
And so it is on Russia to leave. You bring up Russian laws like the Ukrainians are not sovereign. They gave their own laws. You know what else was legal? The Holocaust was legal under German law. That didn’t make it right. I hope you can understand that this is why people consider Russia a fascist state right now and yes, it does matter. Your arguments are textbook fascist and you should take that into serious consideration.
You’ve missed the point. They can’t, because the law prevents it.
Don’t mistake that for a value judgement about those laws because it’s not. I am just acknowledging the political reality, which is something you categorically have to do in order to reach a conclusion in these matters.
You can call me a fascist all you want but the only person between the two of us that is supporting more bloodshed is you and your nationalism. I’m not a nationalist.
You literally don’t know what fascism is and I challenge you to define it. Then we can determine if I’ve missed the point. Fascism is always legal. It is always backed by law. It must be by definition or it seeks to be. If your society cannot stop an ethically motivated war that you started because the law prevents it, that is fascism.
Fascism is a reaction to leftist power in any given country it arises in. That’s why we call them reactionaries.
Fascism occurs when leftist growth in a country grows to the point at which it threatens to overthrow the bourgeoisie’s ruling class power. When this threat arises the bourgeoisie fund ultranationalist elements within nations in order to build a force that can be used for ultra-violence in the pursuit of killing off the leftist threat.
Fascism differs depending on national character. Fascism in Germany was not the same as fascism in Italy or fascism in Spain, Chile, Japan or India. But it often has certain characteristics of ultranationalism and the supremacy of certain groups, but not always. Ultimate fascism is anything that it has to be in order to get power and use ultraviolence which is why describing it in absolute terms is difficult. This is why fascism is more aptly characterised by what it is in reaction to rather than anything else.
In short. Fascism is like the white blood cell of capitalism, it arises when the “infection” of socialists threatens to overthrow it.
When the “infection” is over, it then ends, morphing back into regular capitalism. We can see that this occurs by looking at the countries where fascism was not defeated, where fascism won. In both Spain and Chile fascism did not become something unique from capitalism, it is a part of capitalism, and when it had eradicated the threat of socialism it was then changed by its ruling class back into neoliberalism, which is a more efficient means of wealth extraction from the population.
So, your definition of fascism is state power to counter the left. My definition is how the fascists define it; how you are currently defining your society. Think on that. Do some actual research into historic fascist arguments. I’m not advocating for them, I’m saying you should see some parallels.
There is an easy way to end the war: Russian withdrawal. It really is as simple as that.
At any point in history Russian Federation had no right or business to occupy any part of Ukraine. It was up to Ukraine to decide what to do with those areas.
While we all want the war to stop, it cannot be done at any price. Ukraine must be allowed to return the areas stolen from it and Russia must return to pre 2014 borders. Either they do it willingly or with force. No one likes it, but it’s Russia that chose to attack, not Ukraine.
I hope your friends are safe, but at the same time I hope they have the sense to leave Crimea until things settle.
And let’s hope for peace, but recognize that it cannot be achieved by giving into the offender’s demands.
Not physically possible under russian law.
Again, this is not possible under Russian law. The notion that it’ll be done with force is similarly unrealistic, nukes would fly before these were taken by force. But before that happens you’d have to see the removal of the Russian warships off the coast which will be obliterating anything that comes near Crimea. It just isn’t ever happening without a navy or an airforce.
They’re fine for now. It’s relatively quiet there because the defensive line is so far away, barring these bridge incidents.
We’d be there already if not for boris fucking johnson. I really don’t know why you care about the “offender’s demands” either. Are you a nationalist? People are what matter. I could not give a shit about what flag exists between the two, right now it’s just a situation where two extremely shit sides throw thousands of lives into a meatgrinder and all I want to see is the meatgrinder stop.
Even at the cost of Ukrainian territorial integrity? That’s for the Ukrainians to decide, and so far they’re picking the meat grinder. More power to them.
Yes. I could not give a shit about “territorial integrity”. This is nationalism. I’m not a nationalist, I don’t like states especially bourgeoise states.
You are putting nationalism ahead of people’s lives.
No it isn’t. It’s for the Ukrainian rulers to decide. The people don’t get any choice in it, that’s the problem. And everyone that opposed this war was rounded up and arrested, every left wing party in the country was shut down, and the left wing tv channels were also shut down, all under the “they’re pro russia” excuse simply for being against the war. There is no “let the ukrainians decide” under that environment.
You really seem to enjoy crafting strawman arguments.
Ukraine is fighting an existential war. Boosting nationalism is a way to cope with that and survive. I hate that nationalistic shit myself, but in their situation Ukrainians are both allowed to express themselves in a nationalistic way as well as fight back. And from the viewpoint of opposing nationalism: the fact that Ukrainians are more nationalistic, was mostly caused by drum roll Russia.
Ukrainian rulers appointed by the Ukrainians in free and increasingly transparent elections. In representative democracy, it’s the representatives job to decide on behalf of the pople. Also, Zelensky is hugely popular president with support from the opposition too. Most of Ukraine support their leaders and they have a mandate from the people (especially the president).
You seem to confuse being leftist and a pro russian. The way I see it, they closed pro-Russian stations, some of which claimed themselves to be leftist. During a war, anti-war channels usually tend to go silent too (wonder why).
As a person many would call a left leaning socialist myself, I find it astonishing how some self-proclaimed leftists are hell bent on claiming that Russian Federation was somehow a champion of socialist values. In fact, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of those and has nothing to do with leftist or socialist values.
Also, if you identify as a leftist and support Russia to oppose the US or “the West”, you really need to:
What strawman did i craft?
No it isn’t. As you will see when this ends with both a Ukraine and a Russia existing afterwards. This nonsense is just devoid of any realistic understanding of the circumstances that created this war or any general understanding of how wars end.
God I do hate the way americans speak “free and transparent” christ. It’s like talking to a robot. The current state was created in a US backed far right revolution. Under no circumstances can you call its elections “free”. The left in particular was not allowed to participate in the 2019 election, candidacy being refused. You can not call an election “free” while banning the left from participation and only putting up a bunch of utterly shit candidates that nobody wants, the man had a 31% approval rating and every single poll since the war began excludes the regions that matter most - Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
There is nothing I can ever say to get you to stop using this as an excuse. For you, calling anything “pro Russia” enables you to close your brain down and ignore reality.
Absolutely nobody here has said that. You are now literally making shit up. Russia is a capitalist shithole and I want to see its end just as much as America.
Once again you are saying things I have not said. LISTEN to the words I say instead of making up your own shit.
I have read more than you my “left leaning” (lmao “hello fellow socialists!”) friend.
Once again, you’re being a tit. You have invented a cartoon character in your head to imagine me as instead of actually listening to any of the words I say. I think this conversation is no longer worth wasting my time with.
See your own post above😀
For Ukraine it is first and foremost a defensive war to survive as a sovereign state. It is not a matter of an opinion. Second aim is to cement their country as part of “the West” via EU and Nato. If you wish, I’d be to happy to hear what you think Ukraine is fighting for.
Yeah, I don’t like the way most Americans speak either. That however, has nothing to do with our discussion here (another straw man, yay!).
The rest of your argument is just parroting what Russia has been saying at least since the beginning of their invasion. I suppose you are Ukrainian, since you know so much about how people there feel about Zelensky and the leadership? Because the stuff the rest of see from reliable, many times first hand sources, paints a very different picture from yours.
Using what as an excuse? Calling a Russian supporter pro Russian? Blimey!
Now we found a common ground of sorts. Although I am sure our view on how that can be achieved differ quite alot. Sorry that I assumed too much, but this is a common phenomenon that I see a lot on internet.
To be honest, that comment was not directly aimed at you, but to anyone identifying as a leftist and siding with Russia and repeating their talking points. I honestly believe there is a huge contradiction in there. I could’ve been clearer, but I still stand by those words.
And just to make it clear, I did not wish to cause you any frustration or even win an argument. I just wanted to point out things in your arguments that I find peculiar or simply misreprestative of the situation with Ukraine and Russia. I am also genuinely interested in understanding where such opinions stem from. So no, I don’t see you as a cartoon character, just a fellow lemming 😘
Support for the war is high in Ukraine. Where did you get your sources for freedom of speech being suspended in Ukraine and people with anti war sentiments getting arrested?
It’s ironic, you claim to care about the people, but you don’t care about what the people of Ukraine actually want.
Unreliable after everyone that opposed the war was arrested, or taped to lampposts and beaten in the state’s terror campaign carried out early on. My friends won’t openly say anything to government sources or ““media””.
Every single left wing party in the country was literally banned. If you don’t support the war you labelled “pro russia”. It’s not difficult to find examples of these arrests, and it’s not difficult to find the videos of the terror campaign that was waged. If you want some of those videos I can go find them for you but it’s pretty distressing watching hundreds of very deliberately public beatings to put fear into people, I really don’t recommend.
Such freedom!
I see, thank you for letting me know! I see this is indeed more nuanced than I had thought.
Can you provide any proof of the “tied to lampposts” claim? I’m fine with seeing video proof if you have it
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You are awfully considerate of the Russian law. I suppose it was okay for them to start the war because the law permitted it (did it?)? Annexation of Ukrainian land became okay too, because they made a law that permitted it, right? No matter what the Ukrainian or international law says, right? Please elaborate on how it’s the Russian law that we need to take into consideration and not the others.
This reminded me that, thank God Russia was able to use Wagner troops, because the Russian law recognizes independent military organis…wait a minute, it doesn’t. My point: Russia can and will interpret and implement it’s laws however the guy on the top wishes. Law there has nothing to do with regulated and supervised legislature most of the so called western countries have.
Trying to take Crimea by force is not optimal, but if it is the only way to do it, and the Ukraisinian’s decide to try it, it’s their decision because it is their territory. Might succeed, might fail, might escalate, might not…we don’t get to decide that, however terrifying the outcome might be. That’s the sad truth, but Ukraine has the right to decide.
The reason I care for “offenders demands” is that if you give into them, they start demanding more and more and more. Putin’s Russia is on a path of escalation and it has shown that it cannot be trusted to participate in the international community. The more they get out of Ukraine, the more they emboldened to makes demands and take aggressive steps towards their neighbors. This has been the trajectory since Russo-Georgian war in 2008 and it is not going to stop until they hit a brick wall. And currently the wall they are hitting is Ukraine. Also note that this is a historical phenomenon and the way Russia has operated at least since Soviet Union and a case could be made for even earlier than that.
If you must know, I’d probably be what most people call a socialist and a pacifist. I hate war and want nothing to do with weapons or the army. I don’t care for flags or national symbols and I despise imperialism ND colonialism. However, I do care for the letter of law and a rules based international system. Currently Russia is wiping it’s arse on these and that must be stopped, otherwise it’ll just continue and get worse.
It’s not about being “considerate” of the Russian law it’s about recognising what is and is not possible for the Russians to do, under their law. If the law disallows it they literally can’t do it.
Put it another way, you could say that america should allow states to secede because that’s morally right if the people want to. But, it’s literally not possible within american law. You need to change the law to do it, and I have no idea whether you can get that to happen in congress. I am certain that you can not get this change to happen in Russian law. And herein lies the problem. Even if the negotiating teams WANTED to give up the region they can not.
You are mistaking my observance of the reality of the situation for a value judgement.
The “international community” is just code that the anglo american empire uses to refer to the west and its interests. Africa, the Middle East and Asia are not included in it.
This is just the soft wording that the west uses for their own international hegemony.
I personally don’t give a shit that it doesn’t observe western hegemony or the “international community” (the west), but I agree that it needs to be stopped. What this entails is sitting around a negotiating table though and both sides giving something up to come away with narratives to look like winners to their people. This results in the political stability of both states afterwards. And is the only realistic way that you get both sides to agree to something. Otherwise this war will go on forever until either Ukraine runs out of men or nukes fly.