Video from Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian journalist and politician currently living in Spain where he sought and was granted asylum after being persecuted by Ukrainian authorities for his reporting. Ukraine says he is a Russian asset of course. It is in Russian* but there are English subs, you might have to click the CC button in player.





He talks about how the corruption regarding feeding the soldiers in Ukraine is still happening, and gives some good evidence of it IMO.

There is a part where he shows a video clip of a Ukrainian soldier speaking but there was no subs for that part, I asked Norlander to translate.

"Soldier one: They don’t refuse (to fight), they don’t have the strength to reach it, it’s easy, strength, strength, they got frostbite, just here they are.
Soldier two: And they didn't eat shit."

This post was edited by DizzyBusiness on Mar 2 2023 10:12am

The country on which the fighting is taking place always suffers the most in any war. And of course the war is taking a huge toll on Ukraine in terms of demographics. The key difference is that Ukraine is fighting for its survival as a sovereign nation and a free people. Making sacrifices for such a goal is an entirely different story than casually sacrificing a million men for an unnecessary war which is mostly fought to satiate one man's delusions about restoring a long-lost empire.



I was in favor of targeted sanctions on key technology, particularly ones necessary for Russia's arms industry. I was very lukewarm on the broader economic sanctions. And since the very beginning, I was always very vocally against the energy sanctions because I correctly predicted that they, first, wouldn't work and, second, cause economic damage on ourselves that I considered unnecessary and unjustified.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 2 2023 10:10am

Is this a valid comparison though? Of course there will be civilian collateral damage in any large-scale war. But did we intentionally target civilians in Iraq in an attempt at breaking their spirits and resistance?
Because that's exactly what Russia is doing in Ukraine: intentionally targetting civilians in a terror campaign which seeks to break the resolve of the Ukrainian people and punish them for their defiance.

Also, how exactly do missile strikes against apartment blocks advance Russia's security interests? Imho, it cannot be denied that these strikes against civilian targets completely contradict and undermine Russia's propaganda claims about "being the misunderstood victim of Western geopolitical aggression which had to strike preemptively in an act of self-defense", that Russia "just wants to protect the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine" or "liberate the Ukrainian people from its nazi regime" and all the usual drivel.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 2 2023 10:33am

point well made here.

Is there evidence Russia is intentionally targeting civilians? I know many civilians have died, but how is it you know they are targeting them specifically and not accidentally due to poor logistics/equipment?

It is complicated, because there are legitimate questions re: sovereignty and national determination that exist and have existed since the collapse of the USSR.

Borders are not sacred, immutable entities, independence movements have regularly received widespread international recognition (e.g. South Sudan, Kosovo) in line with international principles of self-determination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Russian_annexation_of_Transnistria

It's relatively clear, for instance, that only a very small minority (~13% in 2010) of the population of Transnistria wishes to rejoin Moldova, whereas the sizeable plurality/majority wishes to join the Russian Federation, which the government of Transnistria has requested from Russia (and been denied) multiple times.

Crimea falls into a similar bucket. Whatever the history of Crimea joining the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s, or its independence vote in 1990, it's clear that by 2014 the majority of the (ethnically and linguistically Russian) population supported secession from Ukraine.



https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-crimea-russian-military-annexed-ukraine-retake-putin-rcna72606

That appears to still be the case today, at least insofar as what NBC News found when they took a trip inside Crimea a few days ago. So by what logic should Crimea return to Ukraine? I suppose to punish Russia, but aside from that, why would Ukraine want to possess lands inhabited by Russians, who speak Russian, and who identify with Russia?

We certainly intentionally destroy large tracts of Iraqi infrastructure. Observers quoted the impact as having reduced Iraq to a "pre-industrial" state.

The strength of a country's military economy is a function of their civilian economy, population, and infrastructure. The United States is very powerful because it has a large population and very wealthy economy. Attacking the economy (as we're doing with Russia) is a means of attacking the military potential of the opposing state.

Stop drinking the cool aid. They don’t target apartment buildings with civilians. The vast majority of those hits are either a) errand dumb bombs landing on civilian residential targets or b ) malfunctioning air defense system placed too close to civilian buildings hits.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Mar 2 2023 10:59am

The large volume of Russian missiles which ended up in apartment blocks makes it implausible for this to be unintentional... Russian targeting would have to abysmal beyond belief.

Furthermore, we know that Russia was and still is targeting power plants and heating infrastructure in Ukraine - attacks which only began with winter looming. And these attacks also cannot be explained or excused as preparation for an imminent Russian invasion since they take place all over the country, including regions like Lviv which are many months removed from being reached by any Russian boots on the ground. There is no other explanation than Russia wanting Ukrainian civilians to suffer.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 2 2023 11:04am

Did we destroy Iraqi civilian infrastructure for the sake of it, or did we mostly destroy infrastructure like power plants and radio stations which served a role in the defense of the country? And did we attack this infrastructure months before our troops arrived, or did we do it a mere days beforehand in a clear prepration of our invasion?

Contrast this to Russian attacks against heating infrastructure in the middle of winter, all across Ukraine, even in places like Lviv in which no fighting will take place anytime soon. Even the argument about diminishing the enemy's industrial production isn't really a good excuse for these attacks against heating stations and pipelines.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 2 2023 11:10am