If this won't convenience people that there is no more room for diplomacy with Putin in 2022 than for diplomacy with Hitler in 1941, I don't know what will
Yeah, I really hope people will very soon realize that Putin and his lackeys have to be taken down. We can't sacrifice Ukrainians to a school-yard bully who doesn't want to stop.
Indeed. The only peace deal should be "Russia abandons DNR and LNR and withdraws from Crimea". This will also likely end Putin's reign (or life) in short order TBH.
I would like to say that I am sick of hearing about how the Russian people are all apparently innocent victims and how we shouldn't hurt them with sanctions boo hoo .
There was a recording of a Russian soldier calling home to his wife, saying how he looted a bunch of gold and perfume from a civilian's flat. What I'm concerned most about is not this obvious asswipe's statements. It's how his wife responded to it. She didn't ask him why he would do something like that, what's wrong with him. She immediately started gleefully asking what kind of perfume it was, whether it was men's or women's. Can you imagine if an American soldier had this conversation with his wife?
"It's just Putin(R)(C)" my ass. Putin didn't vote in a KGB fuck. Putin didn't support and cheer on a fascist as he brutally suppressed opposition. I am done being so super sensitive and tolerant to their feelings after watching outrage after outrage. How many Russians have relatives in Ukraine who can show them directly what is happening? Imperialism and fascism are in their culture. The Russian people are culpable. The sanctions are their just desserts. I've seen people (probably Russian trolls) acting like Russians are going to starve because of the sanctions, as if Russia isn't a net grain exporter. Russians seem so concerned with them being victims of a lack of iPhones and Big Macs while their army flattens cities. They have a collective massive victim complex and a collective desire for subjugation of others. They're so afraid of their police with rubber batons and their two-day jail stays. 100 people died in Ukraine protesting a corrupt government. There are crowds of people in Ukraine who are willing to protest and rebuff and resist armed soldiers with tanks and military vehicles. Major protests in Armenia, in Belarus against their corrupt governments. What about Russia? Couple weak sauce thousand-people protests in millions-of-people cities? Where a police officer occasionally pulls a guy away and releases him the next day? I've been to bigger protests about the war in SAN FRANCISCO, AN 800,000 PEOPLE CITY THAT IS TEN THOUSAND KILOMETERS AWAY. Russia is not pulling its weight in this matter. Russia is an embarassment of a country.
The punishment for criticizing the government is 15 years of jail. It's a huge pile of bullshit that Russians don't protest because they are all fascists. The truth is, if I'm going to get arrested and go to jail for a large chunk of my life for it,
I'm not going out. And that is a mentality most Russians share, and I suspect all other nations do. It's basic self-preservation. You are also underselling how hard they're cracking down on the protests, after seeing a picture of someone beaten up by police, all my remaining desire to protest vanished.
I'd protest if everyone else was, but alas, it's a feedback loop. Besides, in San Francisco you won't get arrested for criticizing the Russian government. Also I support the sanctions.
I'll just leave when needed.