they put some effort into faking those 65 POWs I guess;



/e also some footage on russian media from previous POW exchanges showing the same model/marking IL-76 being used, and a released ukrainian POW confirming he was transported on it, so eh, pretty safe to conclude

This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 24 2024 06:41am

aaand
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/01/24/7438666/

Did a Ukrainian shit in your cornflakes? Appeaser.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Jan 24 2024 07:56am

Can you honestly say that the results of Euromaidan, the civil war and Russian war is better for the Ukrainian people than if they had just stayed as a unified country within Russia's sphere of influence as was status quo ante?

Ukraine would 100% be better off, if Russia did not invade.

Ukraine did not invade itself, Russia destroyed the status quo.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Jan 24 2024 09:17am

The status quo was destroyed by the maidan, that's self-evident. And Russia had no reason to invade its own vassal state before they overthrew the pro-Russian democratically elected government in a coup d'etat
You can try to juggle who's to blame all you want. It won't change the results. Russia got its most populous and resource rich oblasts, where they're building massive infrastructure. Meanwhile western Ukraine is depopulated and bombed out, its most productive citizens either fled abroad or dead, its border cities razed to the ground, its critical farmlands either already annexed or at jeopardy as the front lines overlap them. Its best case scenario is retaining only half the country and being a hobbled welfare state under the EU, its worst case is western ukraine implodes before a ceasefire and Russia just overruns it.

How is any of this better for the average Ukrainian citizen than status quo ante?

You seem pretty knowing of this region/conflict. As an outsider and someone who doesn't know much about Russia/Ukraine when I look at a map of Ukraine especially the region around the Black Sea I could see it's strategic significance for both countries.

Are you implying that basically Ukraine concede 30-50% of it's country Kyiv south to Odesa west. Would that end this war persay because I listened to Putin's speech right after he invaded Ukraine and it sounded like he didn't want to "take all ok Ukraine" but just some western provinces that were already more Russian then Ukranian. He mentioned the West's/NATO's ambitions as well as the bioweapons labs right on their boarder(who wouldn't feel uneasy about the United States and Ukraine literally developing bio-weapons right on the boarder).

Not saying I support Russia but what's the real battle here? What does Russia actually want in Ukraine and why does it seem like this isn't going to spill into WW3? Sorry for all the questions it's much easier to get someone's opinion then read news articles from two propaganda outlets and try and have an informed opinion if ya know what I mean.

Who is arguing the war has been anything other than a disaster for Ukraine?

If Ukrainians wanted to be Belarus 2.0 that is what would have happened. As it stands there is a million active personal that are clearly motivated to oppose that scenario.

The irony is what you described as Ukraines position as part of the EU is exactly what the occupied territories position are as part of the Russian federation.
The only relevant example of a country more dependant on a stronger power is Belarus.

Where Ukraine can go right now, what options it has available- is a different discussion than what Ukraine has gained or lost from the events set in motion since the Maidan in 2014. We're talking the latter, not the former.
In the former, there's really no options for either side, the conflict has frozen and its clear enough what the outcome is- a divided Ukraine, with Russia seizing the ethnic Russian parts and western Ukraine joining the EU & NATO but only after being thoroughly devastated. Barring any unlikely implosion of the country, that seems to be the outcome. Then the latter part of the question is, how have Ukrainians fared with such an outcome? Western Ukraine has been depopulated, its infrastructure obliterated, its resources seized. Its in shambles right now and there's no indication it will get better in the next 20 years. It was already the poorest country in Europe, now its like post-famine Ireland. Things couldn't be going much worse.

The Maidan had plenty of genuine diehard nationalist Ukrainians who wanted to split from Russia and were willing to overthrow a democracy to do it, its not like a color revolution is carried out by a bunch of CIA plants. We even had those nationalists working with Biden before he became president, and in the Trump impeachment like Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella. These people thought it was in their country's interests to break with Russia and join the EU. Even if it meant provoking a war. And they got their revolution, got their war, and got blown the fuck out. The result has been a bit like the outcome of the khwarazmians refusing to pay tribute to the mongol horde.

Doesn't really impact me what fate Ukraine gets from all this. Its incidental to our national interests at best, but more irrelevant really. We don't care if Ukrainians get slaughtered and we sure aren't willing to fight a WW3 on their behalf. It does become our problem when Biden jeopardizes our geopolitical interests in pursuit of this dumb conflict

This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 24 2024 11:32am

What has happened before doesn't matter anymore. Russia doesn't trust any agreement with the "West' that's why they'd try to seize and demolish as much of Ukraine as possible. Ukraine needs to be supported to lose as little as possible until an agreement is reached/Russia won't want to continue the war (questionable). There is an arms race. Currently, Russia is outpacing Ukrainian support by 5x / 10x which is very bad for Ukraine long term (mostly ammunition and supplies). Ukraine is also de facto insolvent as a state. They can't function without western support anymore at this point. Abandoning Ukraine isn't an option for the EU/Nato either. Ukraine has got huge fields and gas reserves. Having Russian warheads that close to Europe is destabilizing causing even more tensions.
The conflict itself resulted from idiots in pentagon and in Ukraine who wanted to f*** around with Russia. Well, they're finding out at the moment.
The other relevant point for an everyday citizen is that the US and EU are printing money like crazy to finance the costs and a huge part of the inflation is due to that, devalued money.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Jan 24 2024 11:49am