Ukraine, a war or a money laundering event?

At this point I actually feel for the Russian people because they are being attacked on all sides for no reason.

I think the most insane part is that Russians really have no idea what is going on. They are being fed Russian propaganda every single day for their whole lives, and many of them live in areas with no access to internet or any way of finding news outside their televized propaganda. And that’s what Putin wants. He has no problem sending people from eastern Russian villages on the frontlines to die as they are nothing more than pawns.

The issue is that the collective west wants the war to end but without striking Russia with force as it can lead to escalation and in the worst case nuclear warfare (altho I doubt Russia is willing to go that far but I’m sure no one wants to test how far Putin is willing to go). So the only way is to freeze oligarch money and strike in what Putin considers valuable. The rich elite in Moscow and St. Petersburg. If the oligarchs, Putin’s closest allies and the people who fund Russia’s military are stripped from their money and ability to influence the people, maybe they will turn around and think it’s not a good idea when they start to suffer from the consequences in stead of just the throw away brainwashed villagers being mobilized to die for nothing. While I do feel it’s a shame Russians who are completely clueless about what is going on outside their country suffer from skyrocketing prices and lack of parts to build necessities, I feel a million times more bad for Ukrainian civilians being raped, tortured and having their homes and schooles being bombed.

Estonia offered Ukraine to use the money freezed from oligarchs to rebuild Ukraine after the war, which I think is awesome.

But people seem to be really tunnel sighted and believing it’s a war caused by money laundering and the USA, completely neglecting the long and extremely complicated tensions between Ukraine and Russia which have lasted for a long time, which ramped up in 2014 when the war started de facto and escalating to a full war last year.

– Does the collective West want the war to end?  Maybe, I am not certain.  I think several countries (US top of the list) has their own oligarchs making money hand over fist due to the war.

yes, they do. The US is not a representation of the whole west. And a few bad apples won’t change the fact. Also, no one has ever been able to explain how these mysterious people gain from the war, could you explain in detail? No one benefits from war, and every single civilized western leader want the war to end, as well as the absolute manority of civilians. Claiming otherwise is just ridiculous.

– Your description of the propaganda machine in Russia I think is accurate, unfortunately it’s also accurate for the US.  Yes we all have internet here but the BS coming from the media on all sides is total propaganda.  So the end result is the same.

If you think western media is as ass backwards as Russia’s then I don’t know what to say. They are literally lying about their country being in war and shifting the blame on the collective west for the war, murdering businessmen who oppose the war and explain it being an odd chain of events where businessmen who happens to be ”traitorous” are suddenly falling down from windows and accidentally shooting themselves and so on. After bombing the shit out of Chuhuiv at civilian neighbourhoods and pictures of it started surfacing even in Russia, they went full Alex Jones and claimed it was staged and the victims were actors covered in grape juice before switching the narrative to it being Ukraine bombing their own cities to frame Russia. That’s a far cry from ”CNN is posting left leaning articles”.

Russia is even pressuring Ukrainain teachers in the occupied areas to teach children according to the Russian curriculum, which is known for distorting history taught in favor of Russia. That’s literally some Hitler jugend shit.

Russia has always used dirty tactics and lies to justify their actions. The war has many similarities to the Winter War when the Soviet Union tried to occupy territories from Finland and insert a Soviet puppet government in Finland, exactly how they are doing in Ukraine today. They went as far as to shelling their own border with artillery to provide a casus belli and justify their attack on Finland, when in reality Finland didn’t even have an artillery unit anywhere near the location and when Finland offered a joint commission to investigate what caused it, they rejected it and started the invasion.

Zelensky is no angel and neither is Biden or most anyone else in this.  There are some serious geopolitical things going on here (as you eluded to) that have been going on for years.  And I by no means think that those things are only between Russia and Ukraine.  I can promise you the West is involved, especially the US.

But the difference is Zelensky is not starting wars for territorial gains or pushing Ukrainian imperialism. Ukraine have their own problems but are not causing harm or deaths to people in other countries. Trying to paint Zelensky as a devil on the same level as Putin who is in many ways a modern Hitler is just absurd.

Especially when the very horrible evil deeds Zelensky has done that certain users on this forum are going crazy about are limited to speculations without evidence or any connection to something that hurts people on a larger scale, as well as fake and edited pictures of Zelensky supporting swastikas and the very disgusting crimes of dressing like a gay person and doing weird comedy. And somehow people are losing their shit and put him on the same line as Putin. It’s like people are doing their hardest to find any dirt on Zelensky so they throw anything they can on the wall to see what sticks and the results are fake pics and cross dressing Zelensky.

Here is a girl I have watched for a few years FROM Russia explaining some stuff from a point of view we don’t often see.

I cannot speak for other countries but I assume it works in a similar fashion. Big defense corps lobby certain US politicians.  Those politicians vote for things that start conflict or keep them going.  Those defense corps make BILLIONS on weapons, services and contracts while the war/conflict continues.

But the actions the west is taking is in order to stop the war but without escalating the conflict through force. Sanctions and supplying Ukraine is what gives them a huge boost in fighting off Russia. Without the aid, the outcome could be pretty ugly, so even though certain individuals are making money, it is also the quickest way to end the war.

I have no idea who does more of it.

Russia, without a doubt. The never ending tug of war and biased media coverage from both sides in the US is nothing compared with the absolute madness Russian propaganda is handing out. For example, even tho the US media is propagandized it still ranks at 42/180 in World Press Freedom Index while Russia is 155/180. I myself consume media in different languages and from both spectrums to avoid falling down echo chambers, so although the US ranks pretty bad in terms of reliable news I also consume Norwegian (1/180), Swedish (3/180) and Finnish (5/180) to gain the most out of it before making conclusions. I think it’s pretty fair to say Russians are pretty damn brainwashed.

He did not cause a war but I am not sure he is doing a whole lot to end one either.   I suspect he is under the thumb of the US (and some parts of the west)

He is the one who said he will not talk about any sort of agreement with Russia.

That’s just false. First of all, Ukraine ranks in the top 3 in terms of willingness to defend their country in Europe. Around 70% of the population is fully willing to fight even until death to push Russia away, it’s not just an order from Zelensky. They rolled over in 2014 and gave territory with the criteria of Russia staying away from Ukraine, which only lasted 8 years until Russia came back for more. Ukraine isn’t having any of Russia’s bullshit anymore.

Zelensky proposed peace negotiations under the criterias of Russia restoring safety around nuclear power plants which Russia occupied, food and resource security, Russia releasing war prisoners and abducted children and most importantly Russia’s withdrawal while restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Putin’s criterias for peace negotiations are Ukraine handing over the territories of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to Russia, installing a Russia minded puppet government, a promise from Ukraine to never join NATO or the EU, securing the Russian language’s position in Ukraine and banning foreign military powers in Ukraine. Basically Russia wants to keep having their hands on Ukraine’s throat, demanding another country what the can and can not do while stealing territories from Ukraine.

Thus, negotiations are off the table. Zelensky’s criterias are basically just letting Ukraine be left alone while Putin demands de facto contor over Ukraine and their policies which is just absurd. No sane leader of a country would do that, especially considering the fact that Russia has twice already wiped their ass with negotiations and screwed over Ukraine. The options are 1)surrendering portions of the land and giving political control of Ukraine to Russia

2) fighting Russia off which Ukrainian citizens have showed to be more favorable.

I DID NOT try to paint Zelensky as either Putin or Hitler.

Not you specifically, but there are people on this forum with weird obsessions to ridicule Zelensky and saying glory to Russia while it’s crickets about Putin. The same people who cry when their favorite Star Wars actors ”get deplatformed for different opinions” are cheering on a country invading, raping and murdering another country having a different opinion. And it pisses me off anecdotally as at my work place we have 200 Ukrainian refugees who lost their families, got raped, tortured, limbs cut off by a country invading and some brainwashed jackasses here are cheering for them.

Do you watch or pay attention to US media/news?  They have all but crowned him the second coming of Christ so I have no idea what you are talking about there.  And I don’t think you need any fake pics of Zelensky to make him look silly.  Dude was a comedian prior to office he did all sorts of crazy stuff.

I do yes. And I acknowledge the flaws of Ukraine and Zelensky, but at this moment his country is in a senseless war fighting for their lives to keep Ukraine independent from Russia as a much smaller country with less firepower and deserve credit, respect and help for doing that. If someone who has gotten a speeding ticket got his house burned down by a gang of pedophiles targeting his children, I would support him fighting them off instead of turning around and saying he deserves what’s coming because ”he is not an angel himself”.

This situation is going on with EU and Ukraine. The EU is providing all their help they can at the moment even tho they are not letting Ukraine join before Ukraine has gotten their internal problems sorted out.

And about the fake edited pictures I was referring to the user comicsgate who is posting edited pictures of Zelensky holding a swastika sign when in reality it was the Ukrainian football shirt he was presenting.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/davos2023/card/kissinger-backs-ukraine-s-nato-bid-TEbEBq5ulGr0dBS9sPTZ

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger advocated for Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO, because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we are seeing now,” Mr. Kissinger said remotely at a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful. I believe Ukrainian membership in NATO would be a[n] appropriate outcome.”

Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September.

Mr. Kissinger’s comments echoed points he made in an article in The Spectator magazine last month, in which he argued for establishing a ceasefire in the Russo-Ukraine war along the pre-invasion lines of contact.

Describing a plan by which the war could conclude, Mr. Kissinger Tuesday said that such a suspension in fighting “is the reasonable outcome of the military actions but not necessarily the outcome of a later peace negotiation.”

Neither Russia nor Ukraine has displayed particular zeal for opening negotiations. While Moscow has preconditioned talks on Ukraine’s recognition of Russian territorial gains, Kyiv has demanded that Russian troops abandon the Crimean Peninsula and all other Ukrainian lands before meaningful talks may begin.

Near-term negotiations would “keep the war from becoming a war against Russia itself,” Mr. Kissinger said, cautioning against provoking instability within Russia, given the country’s large nuclear-weapons arsenal. Talks would give Moscow “an opportunity to rejoin an international system.”

Mr. Kissinger, 99 years old, was instrumental in establishing Cold War détente with the Soviet Union as secretary of state in the 1970s.

“I believe in dialogue with Russia while the war continues, an end of fighting when the prewar line is reached,” he said Tuesday. “I believe this is the way to prevent the war from escalating by raising issues beyond those that existed at the beginning of the war and making them subject to a continuation of military conflict.”

and

Zelensky’s Sr. Adviser Forced Out of Top Advisor Role After Admitting Ukraine Did Missile Deaths
A high-profile adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky has tendered his resignation, having admitted live on air that Ukrainian forces had shot down a Russian missile over the city of Dnepr before it reportedly landed on an apartment block, killing dozens.
Aleksey Arestovich
Yes, it’s already well-established that every single mass death event that the Ukrainians blame on Russia they did themselves. Sometimes they kill people on purpose just to blame Russia, and sometimes they accidentally kill people and blame Russia.

@DragonLady True. Ukraine put their bases within and very close to residential areas to harm their own people as much as possible in order to blame Russia for it. This is much like the former case, where Zelesnky pointed missiles at Poland and tried to blame Russia for the incompetence. If you have Sean Penn consulting your military, there are bound to be mistakes.

Legatus spoke truth before when he said that this has been going on for longer than the puppet front-man marionette Zelensky. What bothers me the most is probably ten years ago, I was more of a neocon who marched around saying to bomb everyone, which is the typical stereotype tough guy act, but it was in ignorance.