The difference between Ukraine and Russia is that Ukraine was and is trying to leave the corruption and moral decay of the Soviet years behind them. It’s akin to an alcoholic quitting booze and it’s not an instantaneous event where suddenly an entire nation embraces Western values.
Communism and other centrally controlled socialist economic systems naturally devolve into a state of endemic corruption. Once a bureaucracy takes control of an economy scarcity becomes a normal situation and government officials quickly discover that they can enrich themselves by handing out scarce resources in return for favors and bribes. The people are not fooled and they see the hypocrisy of government officials preaching equity all while living in fancy homes, driving nice cars, eating well, and rolling in money.
When the communist system finally collapses the corruption doesn’t collapse with it. As we saw across Eastern Europe government officials saw their nascent capitalist economies as an opportunity for plunder.
This is where I applaud the European Union because as a condition of membership the new members had to implement market and justice reforms to remove the culture of corruption left over from the Soviet era.
Poland is a fine example of a success story. They implemented reforms over the protests of their mostly Soviet-era judiciary and the country started to prosper. Then they managed to irk the EU by going a step further and purging the remaining communists from all levels of government. The leftists in the EU whined about this but now Poland is prospering and starting to move ahead of some of her Western European counterparts. The logic of purging the communists is writ large in terms of jobs and savings accounts.
Ukraine looked to Poland and said, “We want that too.”
That (censored) prick Putin couldn’t stand the idea of a free and prosperous Ukraine that didn’t see the Almighty State as God and here we are. Putin doesn’t want Ukraine to build a free and wealthy state built on laws because that’s a threat to the Russian traditions of corruption, bribes, and oppression.
Is Ukraine perfect? No, but they’re working on it.
And that makes them worthy of my support.
Really that’s simply a wishful thinking analysis
Ignoring too many realities to list
But feel free
Ukraine is extremely corrupt and has every unstable electoral system
Zelensky opponent sits in jail
They’ve commited atrocities against ethnic Russians in Donbas etc
Are they morally superior to Russia
Does that actually matter to you
Are you willing to fight a ground war with Russia and risk nuclear war because you think Ukraine is as a nation morally superior to Russia
I’m sure as hell not and as I’ve said here I have personal skin in this stupid effkng game that’s inflamed all our John Waynes here all of a sudden loving them some Ukes and drinking up every word of the same damn media that fed us
Russia gate and Covid ....and all the lies past 20 years
Aligning with Soros and CNN and So on
The truth is somewhere between your zealotry to refight the Cold War and Ukes are angels
It’s admittedly hard to find
Putins reasoning is not hard to decipher
Why is anyone surprised .....this has been coming since 2014
Egged on by naive progressives in the west many here have chosen to go all in
Let me be clear ....over simply Ukraine I’m not willing to go all in
And I think we’re being lied to on a scale I’ve never witnessed
And all have the same talking points
What we think is right or wrong is secondary....it’s about what resolves this baring a continental or world cataclysm
Rainbows and Unicorns emanate from the Ukraine’s buttocks?
Burisma, Vindman, The Manaford papers... etc.
As with the Rooskies, a despicable den of thieves and liars.