I was looking at one of the links offered on this thread, and eventually came upon the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFze-U5Euqk
This link and site is apparently run by a young woman from a place in Russia called Bashkortostan with 5 million people. It was one of several areas in Russia that in 1991 wanted to be an independent country. The woman explained that some of these areas are as big as Argentina, but they were all forced into the new Russian state and now are forced to send troops to fight and die in Ukraine. She tells how one man fought against Russia mining gold in their area and stealing their resources, but now, like herself, is forced to live in exile while helping make people aware of their own struggle, and that of other areas like their own. The efforts for these areas wishing independence to protest is made much more difficult when Putin turns off the internet for their area. Can you imagine how you would feel if our government turned off YOUR internet?
The Ruzzian empire must be destroyed! Free Bashkortostan!
Well of course we’d be hopping mad. The US government has other ways of dealing with dissenters, though.
These independent movements, or balkanizations, is always rejected by those in power. Look at Texas and the border dispute as just one example. Or Clinton’s war in the Balkans against Miolosovic’s suppression. Or the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Central power always exercises central power for its own reasons and rarely bothers to explain why; rarely do they come to accommodation peacefully. And a little province on the edge of Russia, despite their gold, couldn’t gather international support.
And in those rare moments in world events when people do try to organize and rise up for their own even modicum of sovereignty, they more often then not end up shut down or simply not supported by the powers, and those who profess principles of freedom but don’t want to actually see it spread, or fear that it is too distruptive to the status quo - to wit, the Arab Spring. Obama basically supported the rulers in Egypt, Iran even Syria while letting Libya descend into chaos for purposes that are inexplicable to everyone except Hillary and her acolytes.
I have no doubt Russia launched a brutal war of aggression. I think I understand parts of the reasons why. If there really were “ethnically Russian” provinces in Ukraine that wanted to secede or form their own country, they should have been heard. Russia did not need to rush in and launch attacks all over Ukraine. So I don’t trust Putin’s motives one bit.
That said, unfortunately, I cannot separate key facts that I think undermine what should be an honest attempt to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. I am speaking specifically of the Trump phone call asking for evidence of corruption, the leaking of that phone call, the impeachment of Trump for making that phone call (which IMO he had every right to do and ask for information), the burisma dealings with Hunter, the blackmail the POTUS Biden brazenly admitted to before he was even a candidate for the job. Then of course, this is not the first time Russia took bits of Ukraine. Nobody out here seemed to care when he took Crimea in 2014. What changed? Sadly, these are impurities in the mix. It sucks. These impurities form the basis for the skepticism of our involvement in Ukraine. I don’t think that it is based on some sort of “pro-Russia” motive, rather, I think it is based on the apparent self-dealings and corruptions by those who want to fund Ukraine the most. Then, though not directly relevant, I think about the rumors that somehow US diplomats and agents “convinced” Saddam that he should invade Kuwait. If true it was like a set-up. So I wonder whether our lack of response in 2014 and/or our own internal political squabbling over Ukraine opened a door to Putin’s latest aggression. He may have had reason to believe that 1) a Democrat in power would not respond just as they did nothing in 2014 and 2) that the POTUS was weak on the world stage, or worse compromised and even possibly that 3) it would exploit fissures and expose various corruptions which would be helpful to his cause and possibly even 4) that he was somehow tricked into thinking he could get away with it in order to create an armed conflict by the west.
The US media hasn’t turned off our internet, but they have done a marvelous job of minimizing most of the dissent. They now want to crucify Tucker Carlson for interviewing Putin. Think what you want about it. I sure don’t want to see justifications or rationalizations for Russia’s unwarranted and seeming unprovoked military aggression but I have no problem with talking and interviewing. As they said during the Oslo accord days - you don’t need to make peace with your friends, you have to make peace with your enemies. If Russia is an enemy and we need to seek peace the first start is dialogue.