Posted on 02/05/2023 11:41:05 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
DNIPRO, Ukraine—Russia is regrouping its forces in eastern Ukraine and launching offensives along five lines of attack, Ukraine’s armed forces said on Saturday as officials in Kyiv and Western capitals continue to warn of a major Russian push to gain territory.
The main focus of Russia’s offensive remains the besieged city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, which it is seeking to surround and capture. The Ukrainian military said it had repelled multiple attacks, inflicting significant losses for the Russians.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Sure, if they fight for it. That's the way it works, like Tom Petty put it, "Everybody's had to fight to be free."
This “centuries of Ukraine as a state” is nonsense.
How long have Alaska and Hawaii been states? They became states after many FReepers were born and you know it. So spare us the condescending lecture on a Ukrainian identity and state that far predates our own.
Ukrainians are more than willing to fight because from their history they know that only misery and death await them in the Russian World. That’s why Putin fan club furiously spins attempting to get us to withdraw support under whatever pretext is plausible. The aid question would be moot if Ukrainians wouldn’t fight or their neighbors didn’t support them.
This question of how long Ukraine has been a “state” is a misdirection by Russian propagandists.
The relevant question is how long has Ukraine been a “nation”, i.e., a community of people with a shared identity. The concepts of a “state” and a “nation” are not the same, but they often get confused in the modern era when most countries are “nation-states.”
Ukraine as a nation has existed since the late middle ages, despite it being under the political yoke of various empires.
The term "state" in my post did not, of course, refer to Ukraine being one of the 50 United States.
Is the whole thing worth the nearly half a million deaths all around?
I hope Russia’s offensive is extremely expensive to them. Even if they make it to the River, they won’t be able to occupy it for long. The ants will keep stinging the elephant.
Simple as that.
And the occupied will never stop sniping.
As long as they can kill anyone who disagrees, sure.
Boy, the blood-soaked 100 years since the end of empires, and the deprecation of spheres of influence, make your statement questionable at best.
Spheres of influence keep the peace. Ukraine:Russia=Mexico:USA, and if Mexico did 10% of what Ukraine has done, we would conquer and occupy it (and we've done it before), without thinking twice about it.
Your counterfactual about Mexico is unprovable. Also, Mexico is not a client state of the US. It has defied US many times.
“while blaming the current collapse in bilateral ties on foreign plots and anti-Russian conspiracies.”
Thanks, but since we now know that was the case and NOT an ‘anti-Russian conspiracy’, with the former leaders of France, Germany, and the US CONFIRMING that they consistently lied to Putin (particularly regarding Minsk 2), there is no need to read beyond this statement, as this piece is obviously lies.
Agree. Identity is more correct. Ukraine faces the exactly the same issue we do with the gaslighting 1619 Project, etc. Our enemies delegitimize any opposition to their fascism. That is why all genuine conservatives support Ukraine in it’s war against the Russian flavor Nazism.
I’m just not interested in playing gotcha word games with disingenuous armchair hobbyists. This issue all just leisure time fun and games for the Putinists and their fellow travelers. It’s not their cities being destroyed and generations lost.
The lies about Minsk came from Moscow. The Russians continue to lie about the weapons and foreign fighters they sent to the Donbas.
“The lies about Minsk came from Moscow.”
That’s a new one! Didn’t know Merkel, Hollande, and Bush worked for Putin, but if you say so...
Caww “Idiot...Kiev was once the capital of Russia. You really need to catch up on History.”
Caww, you are being the idiotic one.
Kyiv was never the capital of “Russia”, not the Russia that has existed since 1990, nor the Kyivan Rus pre Mongol loose federation.
Tsar Nicholas’s title was “Tsar of the Russias” only since 1991 have we had a state called Russia, unless you consider Soviet Russia as a separate entity since 1930 ut the you need to consider Soviet Ukraine as a separate entity especially considering that Soviet Ukraine had a separate UN seat from 1945.
The Kyivan Rus were loose city states bound only by the ruling families being Rurikids.
Kyiv was the premier state but quite often did not have large power over the others.
This was apparent during the 12th a d 13th centuries when Moscowm an offshoot or Vladimir-Suzdal fought on the side of the Mongols against their Kyivan Rus brothers.
trebb - to your questions:
1. “What makes the Ukraine so important we need to waste our own to save it?” —>
Two points
A. The USA signed the 1994 Budapest Agreement (as did Russia) guaranteeing a respect for Ukraine’s borders. If we don’t act against a violation of this, we appear useless.
B. this is prevention, preventing a wider war. No American troops should die for Ukraine. Think of it as Munich 1938 where the UK and France decided instead to arm Czechoslovakia to fight off Nazi Germany. That would have prevented million of Allied lives lost and also billions of dollars/pounds/francs saved.
Note also “the bio labs part” —> Putin no longer mentions that, even though the Russians in March conquered 30% of Ukraine and could have provided any proof of “bio weapons labs” - but they did not.
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