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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

You may well be right about all of that. And then you will have to consider that if Russia had not invaded Ukraine this would not have happened regardless of which party fired the rocket. You can take it as read that Ukrainians would not willfully take out their own apartment buildings.

So whatever the direct cause the responsibility for all this lies with the Russians.

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Not all of it. If there isn't some responsibility on proper operations of munitions then you're saying it's okay for them to keep blowing up apt buildings on accident because Ruskies are there.

This should be remembered, those responsible in its operation should be reprimanded, and those civilians and their families should be compensated by the Ukrainian government. It should not be used as propaganda, it should be admitted as a mistake.

Munitions can and do fail, rockets can and do go off territory.

Taking into account how the Russians handled MH17, as a Dutch person I may be a bit biased but I think this is wholly on them.

Russia is responsible, no matter how you want to dress it up. RCA. Or do you actually believe that reparations payments take into account which party did the damage?

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

Anti-aircraft weapons are inherently dangerous to the cities they protect. Shells are fired upward and many follow a ballistic path back down to earth, missiles are fired and quite often miss. Successfully deployed weapons cause airplanes, and all their fuel and ordnance, to fall out of the sky onto the landscape below. All of this is understood by the militaries who rely on these weapons.

These are just the basic facts. No special expertise needed, of the sort the "I can tell what kind of missile this was by observing the smoke it makes" guy must possess. Shifting moral responsibility for collateral damage from the aggressor to the defender based on the limitations of the defender's arsenal does not seem right.

If you zoom out far enough, you could also blame Nato for this whole shitshow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Only if you believe another pile of Russian propaganda.

Ah yes, the “NATO will deploy nukes in direct vicinity of Moscow”, completely demolished by the fact that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are already NATO members on border with Russia and just as close to Moscow.

Now the only question remains: are you spreading this propaganda intentionally?

Edit: following guidelines

You, of course, is educated enough to remember that whole Caribbean crisis was in response to US placing nukes in Turkey.

gosh, it's so hard to be respectful here...

your argument is:

1. US deployed nukes to Turkey, 2. to which USSR responded symmetrically by attempting to deploy nukes in Cuba, 3. to which US responded with blockade 4. and therefore Russian invasion to Ukraine is justified 5. because NATO may deploy nukes in Ukraine

4. simply doesn't follow from previous 3 points because the assumption in 5. is incorrect in three ways:

1. Ukraine is not in NATO so NATO doesn't have the capability to deploy nukes there 2. If NATO needed nukes close to Moscow - they ALREADY HAVE where to do that - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland 3. US was responding with blockade to ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT PROCESS of nukes, which isn't happening in Ukraine

No, I never said it’s justified. More over, this war is highly unpopular in Russia itself (dictatorship countries can be engaged in unpopular wars). But to understand it you need to look at it from Putin’s perspective: “NATO is explicitly was anti-Soviet, and now is anti-Russian organization. It continues to rapidly expand right next to Russia’s borders. It is a security threat. It deployed nukes in close proximity in the past.” The point is that something unjustified from your perspective is justified from Putin’s perspective.

What Putin's perspective is doesn't really matter though, he will do whatever he wants to do for whatever misguided/crazy reasoning is going on in his head. In the end the only thing that matters is how the rest of the world reacts.

Letting a megalomaniacal dictator that has clearly lost command of his senses run amok, especially when in control of a large nuclear arsenal is a risk we can not really afford, and appeasing such a person will only feed into the cycle of demands.

> In the end the only thing that matters is how the rest of the world reacts.

But what exactly do you propose?

> It continues to rapidly expand right next to Russia’s borders

this is bullshit. NATO is not expanding, NATO is not the actor that is able to perform that action, rather it's emergent property of sovereign countries choosing to join NATO.

So who is Putin to tell what sovereign countries can or cannot do? If he's so unhappy with a choice that sovereign country is making with regard to joining a defensive alliance, maybe he should offer something better instead and not behave like a crazy lunatic dictator?

There is nothing valuable in "look at it from Putin's perspective" argument when his perspective is tyrannical.

That last sentence does not improve your comment.

Yes it does. These people need to be ostracized.

Indeed, but it does break the guidelines and that can be weaponized against the poster.

the last question is the most critical part of my comment. it's war and everybody who is malicious - is my enemy that has to be eliminated by any means necessary.

I totally sympathize, but I'd rather have you here than banned for breaking the guidelines of the site.

Believe me I know where you are coming from.

ok, is this better?

Much better! Thank you.

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