Comment by whitemale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whitemale | Hacker News Reader

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> So claiming all of this was about propaganda really makes no sense given the facts on the ground.

Where are those facts? please show hard evidence. So far I haven't seen any hard evidence that proves it was the state of Russia who orchestrated the hacks.

> And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) and allowed soldiers and weapons to flood into Ukraine which then resulted in Flight 117 being shot down.

If you believe that Russia is absolutely bad and the US and Ukraine are infinitely good and righteous, then you might want to look at what the other side says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHCNk9BYy4

The fact that the majority of the Crimean population is Russian, should give you a hint that maybe there is more to this story than what the Western media says.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea#Demographics

I have yet to see Putin making an aggressive announcement, however US officials continuously keep making threats and sanctions.

> Nobody is looking for a fight with Russia but capitulating and doing nothing is not an answer either. Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.

Destroying diplomatic relations and throwing sanctions sound like looking for a fight to me. I fail to see anything good coming out of this.

"You don't understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us." Said by Putin in 2008, Boekarest -> 2014, Crimea annexation and Ukraine in war.

Polish president in 2008 was saying "Today Gorgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after Baltic States and then maybe even Poland". He died in Russia in airplane accident in 2010 when going for anniversary of the Katyn massacre, a mass murder of Polish intellectuals, politicians, and military officers by the Soviets during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible. Last Russian tanks left Poland in 1993 and I don't want to see them back. Not in my life time nor after I'm gone. I'm happy to go with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush or whoever will be elected by the American nation, just to stay as far as possible from Russians. And it's not that we are that big fans of Americans, we just know the history way too well - we are affected by it till this day.

If you want to see what happens when a person like Putin starts to say that the last peace agreements are bad and borders need to be changed then look at the second world war and the Polish history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement

> If you want to see what happens when a person like Putin starts to say that the last peace agreements are bad and borders need to be changed then look at the second world war and the Polish history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement

So is that a fear in Poland? That peace with russia would involve handing over parts of your country to Russia?

More likely that a war with or annexation by Russia would begin by handing over parts of your country to Russia.

Which is largely how World War II started in Europe: Stalin and Hitler agreed on a partition of the lands in between, and together started a war to implement that agreement, so that their armies could shake hands in the middle of Poland.

Your understanding of WW2 is lacking. It wasn't 2 bad guys who wanted to split Europe. Britain and France were totally on board with Hitler at first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

"The agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 (but dated 29 September) after being negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, excluding the Soviet Union."

The German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in August 1939, almost a year later.

I'm very well aware of that history, thank you. But the two guys with mustache were the ones actually going ahead with big time conquest in Europe.

Sure, Chamberlain was wrong with that peace in our time and handing Bohemia to Hitler. But obviously he had difficulty in going to war over it, as well.

And Arthur Harris would have hung as a war criminal if Britain had been on the losing side against Germany. But that's a different story. The two dictators and systems in their countries were the ones most responsible for bloodshed.

> Boekarest

That would be "Bucharest" and the whole quote is actually a rumour published by Kommersant who cited a NATO delegation source. Not exactly reliable.

> I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible.

Don't you realize that the US is looking for a conflict and a future proxy war may be waged in your country exactly because of those bases?

> If you believe that Russia is absolutely bad and the US and Ukraine are infinitely good and righteous, then you might want to look at what the other side says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHCNk9BYy4

No one is absolutely bad or good but Putin and the Russian government is responsible for the situation in Ukraine.

Ukraine was doing badly enough on its own, it didn't need Russia fucking it over. And its such a stupid panic it's not like Ukraine would have been admitted into EU or Nato, next election or 2 (with a mildly less corrupt/nasty candidate) things would have swung back to Russia friendly candidates.

I suspect you are Russian. Can I ask a dumb question?

Russian language started to be used by civilians in 16 century. Before that, it used in churches only. (See Wikipedia for details).

What language your grand....grand parents are used before 16 century?

I'm not a time traveler or the poster you are asking but I suggest you watch this, history of the evolvement of Russian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4cXIyyc-L0

Video is incorrect. Russian is South Slavic language. It's much closer to language used in Montenegro (which is South Slavic) than to Ukrainian or Belorusian languages. Russians have troubles with understanding of something written or spoken in East or West Slavic languages, while they have much less trouble with South Slavic languages. It's because Russian language is based on Church Slavonic language[1][2], which was develop by Saints Cyril and Methodius[3] using South Slavonic dialect spoken in (now) North Greece.

Also, samples of history are incorrect, causing multiple LOL's.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic

You obviously know a lot more about this than I do. I don't think we are arguing about anything. The Langfocus video mentions the 2 saints and Church Slavonic.

There are many debates on youtube about how much of 1 slavic language a speaker of a different slavic language can understand.

I was recently listening to an episode of Sean's Russia blog that briefly discussed how much Russian is spoken in Ukraine. http://seansrussiablog.org/2015/04/09/post-maidan-ukraine-an...

I was listening to an episode of This American Life recently, the interview subject, who sounded Greek to me, was repeating the Old Slavonic liturgies he sang in his youth during Byzantine Orthodox services.

I'll have to read and find out if Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic are different or the same thing.

Please note, that video supports my point: between 500BC and 1600BC, Russian language was non-existing. It's why video jumps from 500BC (proto-Slavic language) to 1400BC straight, skipping 1K years, 2/3 of history of Slavs.

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