I've always wondered how this could work in practice. It's hard enough to convince your average American fox news fan that putin might not be a great guy, how exactly are you going to convince a Russian?
Also, there's nothing Ukraine could have done that would have made Russia's actions justified.
Finally, when you follow the Russian statements for a while, you notice that they are self-contradictory. This lets you disregard their arguments as pure lies - the truth is not self-contradictory.
I thought this was an insightful podcast: [0]
> The United States is responsible for the war in Ukraine, and that's not Putin's propaganda; it's just history
Which is obviously incorrect on its face, Putin claimed to invade Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to be liberated and is part of the Russian Empire, wrongly let go of by prior rulers of Russia. It is disgusting propaganda to lie and say the US or the west caused this war - Putin caused it, fullstop, that's it.
Sure, Putin started the war, and that was the whole point, poke and prod until they start a war. Lend money until they can't repay. Keep a country rubbelized so they won't unite against resource extraction. Replace democratically elected leaders with religious nutcases so you can have your way. It's the way of the empire. Ask Iranians, ask Panamanians, ask the people of East Timor.
"The US and its allies “simulated supporting the UN Security Council resolution” which endorsed the roadmap to peace while pumping weapons into Ukraine and “ignored all crimes committed by the Kiev regime … for the sake of a decisive strike against Russia,” she explained in a social media post on Thursday [1].
Also John Mearsheimer, an American, laid out the case for Ukraine as a massive NATO threat in a public talk many years ago. Available on youtube.
Would the United States welcome Chinese and Russian nuclear capable installations in Mexico or Cuba?
How are you attempting to balance your point of view against the intense western government propaganda that you're exposed to?
[1]: https://www.globalresearch.ca/merkel-acknowledges-that-2014-...
Here the article debating the interpretation of what she said. https://web.archive.org/web/20230103062022/https://www.zeit....
> Merkel sagte der ZEIT: "Das Minsker Abkommen 2014 war der Versuch, der Ukraine Zeit zu geben. Sie hat diese Zeit auch genutzt, um stärker zu werden, wie man heute sieht."
Russia is the aggressor here. It is quite simple.
All the eastern European countries wanted to join NATO because they are afraid of Russian invasion. Turns out they were right.
After that the oligarchs started arming extremists (Azov et. al.) to put the brakes on the inevitable retaliation by Russia.
Contrary to what your genocide supporting sources say, Ukrainians are actually able to protest with that being engineered by CIA.
A full-fledged war with Russia will begin in a couple of years - Alexei Arestovich (Mar 18, 2019)
Russia may feel aggrieved that their goal of re-subsuming the independent former Soviet republics has been somewhat thwarted, but clearly that has been and still is their policy.
There are already NATO counties extremely close to Russia, Poland shares a border
And there are no nuclear weapons installations in Ukraine.
Russia has also been vocal about this for decades. The CIA director summarized it rather well during his time as Ambassador in his "Nyet means Nyet" cable.
Personally, it's none of my business what Mexico or Cuba do on their territory, but are you saying the US has nuclear installations in Ukraine?
No she didn't. That is Russian propaganda. Show me the Zeit article. All your sources are astroturfed Russian propaganda.
Your globalresearch.ca link gives you away. Anyone doubting it can go to the globalresearch front page and draw their own conclusions. Its a conspiracy theory site.
I list a few articles to give a flavor of globalresearch's conspiracy bent:
The “Great Zero Carbon” Conspiracy and the WEF’s “Great Reset”
Towards a Failed State under Kiev Nazi Regime
The Asinine Insanity of the ‘Climate Change’/C02 Hoax:
Here - https://archive.is/c4ZVK
You would have more creditability if you took 2 mins to have found it.
> globalresearch.ca
Is certainly not a good source, linking people the original quotes to read for themselves would show some evidence you are not a conspiracy theory also, I hear there are a few going around.
Still, you dug up the relevant article so, vouched.
Puin was flying nuclear bombers down the California coast in 2014, 50 miles offshore.... nobody overreacted.
If you are referring to the Romanian ABM site, Putin could have just put an ABM site in Cuba, or in international waters off the coast of the USA...
The Romanian site doesn't have nuclear weapons....
Heh, to protect South America?
NATO is not a threat to Russia by any objective measure. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO countries in Europe were unilaterally diarming themselves. Just compare the size and composition of UK, French or (West-)German military in 1980s and 2010s - reduction in everything by a factor of 5-10x with a continuing downward trend. This is why NATO is struggling to support Ukraine, former powerhouses like Germany have very little left to share. Over the past two years, Russia has lost 20 TIMES more (visually confirmed) tanks than the whole German army fields. And yet we're somehow supposed to believe that such tiny force could pose a credible threat against Russia.
A person with "cognitive empathy" might actually feel that the truth is exactly the opposite: NATO became so weak over time that Russia stopped fearing it, and became increasingly brazen in pursuing its imperialist goals.
We have by far the most destructive war in Europe since the WWII, whole cities wiped from the earth, civilians executed in mass graves, daily terror attacks on cities where millions live - and to this day NATO's response is what exactly? Sending obsolete tanks and wasting months discussing whether Ukraine deserves modern air defense systems to stop terror raids against civilians? Is this the power you consider an existential threat to Russia? Who's the victim of propaganda here, really?
You are, evidentially. Since your solution to this problem is WWIII.
You're simultaneously claiming that Russia has last 20x the tank inventory of Germany, and also that Russia is somehow also capable of "pursuing its imperialist goals", which I guess still include capturing Berlin.
Which is it?
There is a reason why the relation today is much worse than it was 30 years ago.
Imho high probability its who ever is reacting to your post. Cognitive warfare today means its highly advantageous to exploit propaganda blind spots by dialing them up to 11 to create dysfunction and make your opponent look bad. Your post has all the hallmarks of being a caricature aimed at creating a reaction.
I am sorry if its your actual opinion, in that case you should consider that giving up on a functioning reality model in favor of narratives is a deeply counterproductive idea. Distortions and pollution of the information environment are ambivalent to the intention of its creation. Its just creating blindspots that get exploited by hostile entities.
The attitude is largely that, "our government may suck, but it is ours", and when foreign countries are perceived as strangling their development, you'll turn even the most raging regime critic into a reluctant supporter. And of course they don't view NATO or the rules based order or what have you as some benevolent thing, but tools of power.
For a recent emigre from a regime like Russia or Cuba, the mindset often is "things are real bad in the homeland in matters that I can see with my own eyes, but on what I can not see, I tend to believe the official narrative, because it's the only one I had access to." It can take years for a person to do all the necessary reading and research to adjust their worldview.
That is flaming you for not rotating fast enough.
To be clear this is commentary on your average counter strike player, not necessarily Russian cs players.
The younger generation understands. But I don't buy that Russians, esp the older, simply know the level of control and propaganda that they've been subjected to over the years. Otherwise they would have done something about it by now.
They could start with, I dunno, maybe not voting disproportionately for more of the same?
How is this hard if, as you suggested, they are aware of the propaganda lol?
I don't buy it.