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> For Russia, it is the utter cutting off of FRESH DRINKING WATER to Crimea from Ukraine, something that Ukraine had cut off before and Russia worked hard to re

by _kbh_ 3y ago

> For Russia, it is the utter cutting off of FRESH DRINKING WATER to Crimea from Ukraine, something that Ukraine had cut off before and Russia worked hard to restore and did so as soon as they got control of the dam and reservoir. Russia considers Crimea its own terreitory and citizens, and wouldn’t undo all that effort by blowing up the dam. Not the higher-ups anyway. I never said they were smart just they blew up the dam and admitted to it. We have pictures of a car full of explosives on the dam with a wire leading to the Russian controlled side as well. > Speaking of other dams on the Dnieper, the one upstream of this one, controlled by Ukrainians, was opened to maximum capacity flow, almost as if to exacerbate the flow downstream, right around the same time as the explosion. The amount it was opened to (all 3 valves) was unprecedented in decades. Who did that and why? Whoever did, it wasn’t the Russians. The Ukrainians don't control how much rain hits the dam. Do you know who does?. The Russians, they had control of the spill gates and decided to keep them closed they purposely closed the gates and let it fill up as much as possible. This isn't surprising given the videos we have where they admit that they want to blow up the dam and then admit that they do blew up the dam.

EGreg 3y ago
Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. At the very least it shows it wasn’t ordered at the highest levels of either army or government. Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. Same with “I don’t know why Assad would use chemical weapons after he was winning with conventional ones, just so he can do the one thing that would force USA to attack him, he’s just a dumb evil man” I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. The guy says he WARNED about it going to be blown up after Russians retreated from Kherson (thus presumably he means by Ukrainians). He says he won’t speculate on who did it (hardly a proof that he admits Russians did it). He goes on to say that now that it’s done what matters is how well the evac their guys. And then goes on to say bravado things like “we should do this stuff to more dams.” (as in — well, the Ukrainians did it to this one, they dont give a shit about civilians, so let’s do it to other dama too). That last part is what’s monstrous about war. Soldiers may just be exasperated and just say “fuck it” and start destroying civilian infrastructure, raping, and causing a lot of suffering. And all for what? My position isn’t that Russians are somehow good, or “whataboutism” to excuse war crimes. My position is that we could have had averted the war in 20 different ways (putting Russia on a path into NATO, agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, also the CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine) some of which are well accepted (Minsk II agreements, or the deal brokered by Naftali Bennett to stop the war 2 weeks in —- tell me, why was it blocked by USA?) Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. Is this wise foreign policy, or reckless? We disregard Ukrainians, Afghans, Kurds etc. sacrificing them as the tip of the spear to achieve adversarial geopolitical goals: https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...
- _kbh_ 3y ago
  > Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. The plan was to try and stop part of the Ukrainian counter offensive, and the secondary goal was to cause an ecological disaster in Ukraine. Thats likely the reason that they blew up the second dam as well. > Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. This is a typical Russian tactic which attempts to blame the enemy for an atrocity that they are about to commit. It's part of Russias extensive disinformation and misinformation campaigns. You see it in action right now, where the Russian propaganda network has been mobilised to claim that Ukraine is about to blow up its own Nuclear power plant and irradiate its own country for now reason extensibly. > I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". > (putting Russia on a path into NATO) We tried that, the Russians flat out rejected the fact that they would have to join NATO like everyone else. > agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO The Russians already had this assurance from countries before the war even started its clearly not about that. > CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine The CIA has every right to train troops in whatever country it wants to be if it's invited, Russia has no right to dictate what Ukraine does. Ukraine already had a deal that was meant to stop this war. It's called the Budapest Memorandum, in it, in exchange for its nuclear weapons Ukraine got assurances from the UK, US and Russia that they would respect its borders and never threaten its sovereignty. If Russia never bothered respecting the Budapest Memorandum why should we believe they would respect any other agreement?. > Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. NATO expansion stops Russian imperialism, I have no doubt in my mind that if NATO did not exist today that Russia would be causing its own brand of misery in more countries then it is right now.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". Being born somewhere does of course affect some of your worldview, though not always predictably. Ayn Rand was born in Russia, ran away from communist Russia, and she spent her life being as anti-communist as she could be, developing a philosophy (objectivism) that even argued against altruism. Refugees born in Cuba sometimes have family there, but they don’t exactly endorse the Castro regime. Republicans love to welcome those refugees, but not the ones who come thru Mexico, because they can’t use them to show how socialism fails everywhere. I’m Jewish and my family left as refugees from USSR. I have practically no family there. (As opposed to, say 11 million Ukrainians who have family in Russia and vice versa.) Personally, I think that today’s refugees from Honduras are fleeing much worse conditions (and Trump sending them back is like FDR sending ships full of Jews back). I think many people who could leave USSR did so for economic opportunities and not true “refugee” status, but that’s a separate issue. I also think that if the USSR hadn’t fallen apart, it could have become a lot MORE liberal than the US. Gorbachev started liberal reforms in the 80s, imagine if that continued for another 30-40 years. But instead, the USSR fell apart and he Russia got a president (Boris Yeltsin) who for the first few years did everything USA wanted. “Shock therapy”, privatizing all national resources to oligarchs, all the Chicago School reforms — same as in was tried in Chile, Iraq etc. And same as in those countries, the people rebelled and their representatives voted no confidence to oust him. In 1993, he fired on the parliament, arrested them, and took control with US support. (The president of Peru tried that this year but utterly failed due to having no US support). In 1996 we openly helped meddle in Russia elections to get Yeltsin re-elected while he had an abysmal 6% (not a typo) approval rating. I hope you see that my analysis — while it may be unorthodox - is evenhanded. I condemn Russia for its funding and arming of terrorists in Donbas (Strelkov, Motorola, etc.) Russia also deserves blame for causing this war in Ukraine. I condemn Russia for carpet bombing civilians in Chechnya, Aleppo, Homs. Does that sound like a standard-issue follower of Russian propaganda? But at the same time, I compare apples to apples. Everything Russia does, USA did 10x (including funding paramilitary groups in Ukraine, Syri, etc. for proxy wars). I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. USA has 30x as many bases as the rest of the world combined. I am just for dialogue and peace. Same as Bernie was during the cold war when he visited Russia to make sister cities with Burlington. Same as Tulsi. Same as Trump, indeed. And there are billions of people outside the NATO bubble who think like me. I travel… unless you believe as the Pope, multiple heads of state, multiple populations, are all on Putin’s payroll, the answer is that we have to stop the one dimensional cartoonish justifications for the wars, like “they hate us for our freedoms”. I love USA with its freedom of speech, I have gotten Noam Chomsky to admit on video that USA has the greatest protections for speech of any country. But when you love your family, and jow they treat their own members, you can also criticize them for harming others, and want them to do better. Am I biased? To the extent anyone is, sure. But if you asked me about India, or China, or Palestinians, I’d have an opinion too. To me, peace and fairness are the main factors. I’d like to think that I can look past propaganda on multiple sides, not just “the other side”.

by _kbh_ 3y ago

EGreg 3y ago

Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. At the very least it shows it wasn’t ordered at the highest levels of either army or government. Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. Same with “I don’t know why Assad would use chemical weapons after he was winning with conventional ones, just so he can do the one thing that would force USA to attack him, he’s just a dumb evil man” I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. The guy says he WARNED about it going to be blown up after Russians retreated from Kherson (thus presumably he means by Ukrainians). He says he won’t speculate on who did it (hardly a proof that he admits Russians did it). He goes on to say that now that it’s done what matters is how well the evac their guys. And then goes on to say bravado things like “we should do this stuff to more dams.” (as in — well, the Ukrainians did it to this one, they dont give a shit about civilians, so let’s do it to other dama too). That last part is what’s monstrous about war. Soldiers may just be exasperated and just say “fuck it” and start destroying civilian infrastructure, raping, and causing a lot of suffering. And all for what? My position isn’t that Russians are somehow good, or “whataboutism” to excuse war crimes. My position is that we could have had averted the war in 20 different ways (putting Russia on a path into NATO, agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, also the CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine) some of which are well accepted (Minsk II agreements, or the deal brokered by Naftali Bennett to stop the war 2 weeks in —- tell me, why was it blocked by USA?) Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. Is this wise foreign policy, or reckless? We disregard Ukrainians, Afghans, Kurds etc. sacrificing them as the tip of the spear to achieve adversarial geopolitical goals: https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...

_kbh_ 3y ago
> Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. The plan was to try and stop part of the Ukrainian counter offensive, and the secondary goal was to cause an ecological disaster in Ukraine. Thats likely the reason that they blew up the second dam as well. > Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. This is a typical Russian tactic which attempts to blame the enemy for an atrocity that they are about to commit. It's part of Russias extensive disinformation and misinformation campaigns. You see it in action right now, where the Russian propaganda network has been mobilised to claim that Ukraine is about to blow up its own Nuclear power plant and irradiate its own country for now reason extensibly. > I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". > (putting Russia on a path into NATO) We tried that, the Russians flat out rejected the fact that they would have to join NATO like everyone else. > agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO The Russians already had this assurance from countries before the war even started its clearly not about that. > CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine The CIA has every right to train troops in whatever country it wants to be if it's invited, Russia has no right to dictate what Ukraine does. Ukraine already had a deal that was meant to stop this war. It's called the Budapest Memorandum, in it, in exchange for its nuclear weapons Ukraine got assurances from the UK, US and Russia that they would respect its borders and never threaten its sovereignty. If Russia never bothered respecting the Budapest Memorandum why should we believe they would respect any other agreement?. > Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. NATO expansion stops Russian imperialism, I have no doubt in my mind that if NATO did not exist today that Russia would be causing its own brand of misery in more countries then it is right now.
- EGreg 3y ago
  You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". Being born somewhere does of course affect some of your worldview, though not always predictably. Ayn Rand was born in Russia, ran away from communist Russia, and she spent her life being as anti-communist as she could be, developing a philosophy (objectivism) that even argued against altruism. Refugees born in Cuba sometimes have family there, but they don’t exactly endorse the Castro regime. Republicans love to welcome those refugees, but not the ones who come thru Mexico, because they can’t use them to show how socialism fails everywhere. I’m Jewish and my family left as refugees from USSR. I have practically no family there. (As opposed to, say 11 million Ukrainians who have family in Russia and vice versa.) Personally, I think that today’s refugees from Honduras are fleeing much worse conditions (and Trump sending them back is like FDR sending ships full of Jews back). I think many people who could leave USSR did so for economic opportunities and not true “refugee” status, but that’s a separate issue. I also think that if the USSR hadn’t fallen apart, it could have become a lot MORE liberal than the US. Gorbachev started liberal reforms in the 80s, imagine if that continued for another 30-40 years. But instead, the USSR fell apart and he Russia got a president (Boris Yeltsin) who for the first few years did everything USA wanted. “Shock therapy”, privatizing all national resources to oligarchs, all the Chicago School reforms — same as in was tried in Chile, Iraq etc. And same as in those countries, the people rebelled and their representatives voted no confidence to oust him. In 1993, he fired on the parliament, arrested them, and took control with US support. (The president of Peru tried that this year but utterly failed due to having no US support). In 1996 we openly helped meddle in Russia elections to get Yeltsin re-elected while he had an abysmal 6% (not a typo) approval rating. I hope you see that my analysis — while it may be unorthodox - is evenhanded. I condemn Russia for its funding and arming of terrorists in Donbas (Strelkov, Motorola, etc.) Russia also deserves blame for causing this war in Ukraine. I condemn Russia for carpet bombing civilians in Chechnya, Aleppo, Homs. Does that sound like a standard-issue follower of Russian propaganda? But at the same time, I compare apples to apples. Everything Russia does, USA did 10x (including funding paramilitary groups in Ukraine, Syri, etc. for proxy wars). I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. USA has 30x as many bases as the rest of the world combined. I am just for dialogue and peace. Same as Bernie was during the cold war when he visited Russia to make sister cities with Burlington. Same as Tulsi. Same as Trump, indeed. And there are billions of people outside the NATO bubble who think like me. I travel… unless you believe as the Pope, multiple heads of state, multiple populations, are all on Putin’s payroll, the answer is that we have to stop the one dimensional cartoonish justifications for the wars, like “they hate us for our freedoms”. I love USA with its freedom of speech, I have gotten Noam Chomsky to admit on video that USA has the greatest protections for speech of any country. But when you love your family, and jow they treat their own members, you can also criticize them for harming others, and want them to do better. Am I biased? To the extent anyone is, sure. But if you asked me about India, or China, or Palestinians, I’d have an opinion too. To me, peace and fairness are the main factors. I’d like to think that I can look past propaganda on multiple sides, not just “the other side”.