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Comment by barbacoa | Hacker News Reader

I think Ukraine is an excellent example. Contrast the media coverage of the USA/EU vs Russia proxywar in Ukraine vs the USA/Saudi vs Iran proxywar in Yemen. Both are horrible wars with untold civilian suffering. For obvious reasons one has daily coverage the other literally zero mentions.

Another part of the Ukraine conflict that is strangely absent is that Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014 when a CIA backed coup toppled their government. It is always presented as if one day for no reason Putin invaded a peaceful Ukraine.

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> the USA/EU vs Russia proxywar

No, its a China/North Korea/Iran vs. Ukraine proxy war.

I'm not convinced that China has much of a stake in the outcome. Maybe the war itself serves their purposes because they want Russia to be weaker and have fewer trading partners to choose from, but whether Russia wins or loses in Ukraine, Russia will (short of a major internal political collapse) continue to sell gas to China. The risk that Ukraine or anyone would invade Russia and force a regime change is low.

Same with Iran and North Korea. They might supply weapons because Russia is paying them for it, but they don't have much to gain if Russia were to win.

It's possible that Putin's decision to invade was made under duress, but if so I think it's more likely that it was some faction inside Russia that was twisting his arm rather than an outside faction. (Xi /may/ have set up Russia for failure by requesting that the invasion not happen until the Olympics were finished and the rainy season had begun, but I think that's just idle speculation. I don't know if there's any real evidence of that.)

China and Russia want a world where big countries bully small countries, and the small countries dont find safety in numbers. If russia gets away with ukraine, so can china with taiwan. Thats their stake.

How's that different from the current world?

>Another part of the Ukraine conflict that is strangely absent is that Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014 when a CIA backed coup toppled their government. It is always presented as if one day for no reason Putin invaded a peaceful Ukraine.

This is one of the most annoying tankie talking points. Maidan? Duh, obviously it was a CIA coup. There's no need to prove it, everyone knows that only anti-western uprisings can be genuine.

OTOH, when Russia sent their soldiers to Crimea and Donbas, it clearly was a show of the local people's will. Also, it's better not to mention that the separatist movement didn't exist before 2014 and then they suddenly were organized enough to wage a full-scale war.

The USA government absolutely had a hand in the Maidan revolution. There was even a leaked phone call where state department officials discuss who to pick for the new government.

All that leaked phone call between Nuland and Pyatt shows is that the US most likely participated in the (failed) negotiations for a new government with Yanukovych as the president and a opposition candidate as the prime minister.

It isn't, however, a proof that the US somehow caused the protests to happen. How would that even work?

On the other hand, there's a mountain of evidence for Russian military involvement in 2014, including Putin himself admitting that.

> It is always presented as if one day for no reason Putin invaded a peaceful Ukraine.

Yes! American geopolitics like to gloss over that Russia has been saying for at least a decade that Ukraine acceptance to NATO would incite a military response.

Well Russia was welcome to put up a candidate to run for office in Ukraine to make that argument to the Ukrainian people.

In fact, they did! He lost in a landslide which the loser himself acknowledged as fair.

Russia declaring that Ukraine is a vassal state doesn’t make it so.

When did Ukraine join NATO?

> American geopolitics like to gloss over that Russia has been saying for at least a decade that Ukraine acceptance to NATO would incite a military response.

No, American geopolitics actually cites those threats which disrespect Ukraine’s sovereignty as part of the pattern of Russian aggression, though less significant than its actually launching various aggressive wars.

Also, Ukraine was not, at any point, accepted into NATO, so even if such a threat was somehow not a threat to engage in unwarranted aggression and deserved respect…it really wouldn’t be relevant.

Saying that a democratic country shouldn't do something or else you'll invade is about as bad as invading for no reason.

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