The western values Ukraine is defending are becoming more apparent by the day.
The point I’m making is very simple and should be obvious. When the regime has to grab people off the street and force them to fight, then it has no legitimacy. This isn’t a case of people willingly defending their country, it’s fascist regime backed by the west that’s forcing people to die in a senseless war. If you can’t understand such basic things then what else is there to say to you.
Alright, let’s roll with that logic: A sovereign government that violates the sovereignty of it’s citizens is illegitimate. Since Ukraine is now violating the sovereignty of it’s citizens for wartime mobilization, it is an illegitimate government. That’s a sound premise, actually. In a vacuum this would be true.
However, that completely loses the nuance that Ukraine is not the aggressor in this “senseless war”. Ukraine did not violate it’s citizen’s sovereignty, RUSSIA DID by initiating the war of annexation against the sovereign government of Ukraine. By violating the sovereignty of the government, Russia thus violated the sovereignty of every citizen under that government. None of this would have been necessary had the initial aggression not been committed.
So, now extend your argument: Let’s go ahead and accuse Ukraine of violating human rights with this expansion of power. You must also do so for Russia, who backed Ukraine into this corner in the first place, and who is also committing infinitely worse violations against the civilian territory they have thus far annexed. Are you willing to do that? Because so far, you haven’t.
You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole, and not the independent nation being overrun by a expansionist dictatorship that it is. This argument is not in good faith.
However, that completely loses the nuance that Ukraine is not the aggressor in this “senseless war”.
Weird, last I checked Ukraine was involved in a war against Donbas since 2014 as even western media reported at the time.
Ukraine did not violate it’s citizen’s sovereignty, RUSSIA DID by initiating the war of annexation against the sovereign government of Ukraine.
And if people of Ukraine wanted to defend the state then they would be voluntarily fighting to do so.
By violating the sovereignty of the government, Russia thus violated the sovereignty of every citizen under that government. None of this would have been necessary had the initial aggression not been committed.
None of that has anything to do with the western sponsored regime in Ukraine forcing people to fight Russia for western interests.
So, now extend your argument: Let’s go ahead and accuse Ukraine of violating human rights with this expansion of power. You must also do so for Russia, who backed Ukraine into this corner in the first place, and who is also committing infinitely worse violations against the civilian territory they have thus far annexed. Are you willing to do that? Because so far, you haven’t.
The premise the west peddles is that Ukraine is defending western values against Russia which is already presumed to be bad. However, if it turns out that Ukraine is doing the same things you claim are bad when Russia is doing, then what values is Ukraine defending exactly?
Turns out this conflict isn’t about values it all, it’s about whose sphere of influence Ukraine is going to be under.
You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole, and not the independent nation being overrun by a expansionist dictatorship that it is. This argument is not in good faith.
Meanwhile, you’re making an incoherent argument that doesn’t make a lick of sense trying to defend literal fascism in Ukraine.
Weird, last I checked Ukraine was involved in a war against Donbas since 2014 as even western media reported at the time.
It’s almost like Russia has expressed its desire to annex Ukraine for over a decade now and has been sending disguised military units to create a “resistance” to fabricate a justification for “liberating” parts of Ukraine into Russian territory. Weird… It’s not like they explicitly gave that as one of the 20 conflicting reasons for this invasion or anything
It literally is a fascist shithole. It’s littered with monuments to Nazis and Nazi collaborators, it’s armed forces are filled with Nazis, its leadership pays homage to Nazi collaborators, and the entire reason we’re in this situation is the US-backed coup in 2014 of which Nazis were the prime domestic force, and which led to the proliferation of Nazi gangs. Ukraine is not an independent nation.
You talk about Russia violating sovereignty, what about the Ukrainian bombing of the Donbas (illegal cluster munitions used) and repeated violations of ceasefires? Russia didn’t invade Ukraine out of the blue, they had specific demands for the end of far-right nationalism, repression of Russian speakers, and NATO expansion (NATO itself being a Nazi collaborationist institution).
You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole
- History of Fascism in Ukraine Part I: The Origins of the OUN 1917-1941
- History of Fascism in Ukraine Part II: The OUN during World War 2, 1941-1945
- History of Fascism in Ukraine Part III: 1944-1963 UPA War, Ratlines, and the Assassination of Stepan Bandera
- History of Fascism in Ukraine Part IV: The Global OUN Network in Exile, 1962-1992
- The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- Reuters, 2014: Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- Truthout, 2015: The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
Edit to add: Usually someone responds with, yeah well Russia has fascists, too, to which I usually respond:
There are Russian fascists. Take Navalny, for example, who the US tried to use in its regime change efforts so that it could resume its neoliberal shock therapy plundering that started under Yeltsin and ended under Putin.
Quoting Internationalist 360° as a reliable source isn’t going to win anyone over. And the ‘The Hill’ article you listed concludes something that is the opposite of what you are claiming:
The odious Russian media tried to paint Ukraine as a land of Nazis, though that is patently wrong. Ukraine has a thriving Jewish community, and its far-right is still on the fringe.
We all understand your point of view, everyone’s a Nazi if they are against Russian/Chinese imperialism.
So if enough people won’t fight the government should shut down and let the invaders take over? Is that your alternative? Civilisations sometimes need to force people to work for a common good. See also vaccines.
common good
what is good for the commons about shoveling more unwilling ukrainian bodies at a fight they want to be over
awesome yes, they should let putin take everything over so he can then shovel Ukrainian and Russian bodies into his next annexation project!
Lmao. They’ve got an army from another country tearing through their land. I reckon they’ve got larger problems than “this isn’t the best form of democracy in the world”. Again, no solution from you apart from lying on their backs.
The “common good” in bourgeois democracies is the good of the capitalist class at the expense of the working class.
Wikipedia: Bourgeois revolution
Bourgeois revolution is a term used in Marxist theory to refer to a social revolution that aims to destroy a feudal system or its vestiges, establish the rule of the bourgeoisie, and create a bourgeois (capitalist) state. In colonised or subjugated countries, bourgeois revolutions often take the form of a war of national independence. The Dutch, English, American, and French revolutions are considered the archetypal bourgeois revolutions, in that they attempted to clear away the remnants of the medieval feudal system, so as to pave the way for the rise of capitalism. The term is usually used in contrast to “proletarian revolution”, and is also sometimes called a “bourgeois-democratic revolution”
BBC: [Princeton] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
I don’t mean to imply that Russia isn’t a bourgeoise democracy—it is as well, but at least it’s not under the boot of the imperial core like Ukraine is. Russia emancipated itself from the US neocolonial shock therapy plundering that began with Yeltsin and ended with Putin.
So basically, a country that is invaded has the option to either roll over and be destroyed or fight back and become “illegitimate” and should be destroyed anyway? Basically an invader has free rein to do destroy any country they feel like? That’s some nice victim blaming there. Incredibly abusive thinking.
Who was Ukraine invaded by? Russia only? Or does it count when the USA foments a coup and even sends its regime change agents to oversee the coup, hand picks the successor, and deliberately hand picks someone that will invite the undemocratic nuclear-armed nazi-led transnational NATO to take it’s land for military installations? Because as Russia sees it, a nuclear armed military has been marching across Europe to it’s Ukrainian border across which Europe has invaded Russia twice. Is NATO allowed to move in as long as the USA coups the leaders who are against it?
Ukraine’s legitimacy in the West is founded on the narrative that it’s a white Christian democratic freedom loving bastion. When it suspends human rights, bans unions, bans communist parties, shells civilians, attacks civilians bridges with civilians on it, enlists Nazis, celebrates Nazis, honors Nazis, and then just starts grabbing men off the street and sending them to die with no training, it loses that legitimacy. Ukraine must surrender and negotiate a peace deal. The only other option is mass murder of its civilian population through forced consignment in a war of attrition that it is badly losing, has always been losing, and has never had a chance of winning.