there is simply no meaningful response to this

no matter whether you think russia is justified in invading ukraine or not, if russians get banned from the kernel bc russia invaded ukraine, yankees have to get the boot as well

The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with.

Absolutely fair point. I agree with you on this portion of your comment.

I think the general idea is to create as much drain on Russia as possible. Limit there ability to import and export good while creating brain drain and terrible moral.

How many Russians have defected at this point? Spoiler is a decent amount.

@lily33 @theunknownmuncher The best way we can help Ukraine is by removing outside influences from both sides. What is being portrayed as a war in Ukraine is really a proxy war between Russia and the US that was egged on by the US. This is most unwise given that both nations are armed to the teeth with nukes. We really should be looking at ways to de-escalate not escalate this war.

The biggest help the west could’ve done for Ukraine was to fuck off when the Istanbul negotiations were happening two months into the war.

100% agree with you! Like I said, I don’t think we can hold all Russian people directly responsible for the actions of their government.

I wish for an ideal world where politics could stay out of Linux, but this is extremely tricky and cannot be treated black and white. Labeling things as “political” and then crying to keep “politics” out of things is often used as a weapon for exclusion, for example by sexuality or race, and I think exclusion should be anathema for Linux and open source projects.

Russia literally invaded everyone around them. Look at all the former USSR counties.

The US has been involved in a lot of places but that’s not a justification for Russia attacking its neighborhood.

@yogthos @theunknownmuncher I am in the US and I realize this. There was a funny meme a while back about look how aggressive Russia is, they put their country all around our military bases. Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in that. What other country has military bases throughout the world?

It’s a little unclear what you mean, like because more than half a million Russian soldiers have already been killed so far and yet the war keeps going, that the people must be responsible for supporting?

Russia is conscripting, so most are not there by choice but required by law. If you draft dodge and get caught, you go to prison, and still just end up on the frontline anyway, since they are emptying their prisons to use as soldiers, too. And these people will be shot and killed by their own side if they attempt a retreat, while fed propaganda and misinformation about their treatment if they surrender. There has been significant human trafficking to support their war effort. They’ve also depended heavily on mercenary forces outside of their military in order to have skilled soldiers, and are now even receiving soldiers from North Korea in order to continue fighting.

Besides that, there are so many factors that go into why a person would decide to join the military and in reality, they are usually economic ones or from extensive propaganda.

🥱

Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: blatant russian nazi acct

You see the Russians are the real Nazis, not the Banderites who attacked Eastern Ukrainians for the decade before this war started.

Putin is a despot trying to make his mark on history. No amount of appeasement from the global West would have stopped him from ordering the invasion.

I’m all for sanctioning them too. Economic sanctions are the bare minimum we should be doing to genocidal authoritarians.

1. NATO Expansion: The argument that NATO’s eastward expansion “provoked” Russia is often linked to Gorbachev’s 1990 talks with Western leaders. However, this promise was tied to Germany’s unification, not a blanket prohibition on expansion. And importantly eastern european countries sought NATO membership because of their historical (and justified) fears of Russian imperialism (a dynamic Marxists should understand as nations seeking sovereignty free from external dominance.)

2. Western Involvement in Ukraine: The U.S. supporting a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is thought to be imperialism. But ignores the agency of Ukrainians, who led the Maidan protests because of already existing deep dissatisfaction with Yanukovych’s corrupt, oligarchic regime and his pivot to Russia. Supporting popular uprisings against oligarchs should align with Marxist values even if “the West” has its own interests

3. The Role of Fascism in Ukraine: Yes, Ukraine has issues with far-right groups like so many countries but exaggerating their influence as a justification for invasion serves to divert attention from Russia’s own reactionary politics. Far-right elements in Ukraine do not define the country’s political landscape, nor do they justify imperial aggression from another state. Russia has its own history of fostering right-wing authoritarianism.

4. Minsk Agreements: While the West" and Ukraine could be criticized for their handling of the Minsk agreements, Russia also violated these accords by continuing support for the separatists. Both sides share blame for the failure of Minsk, but it doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified. Ukrainians didn’t provoke a full-scale invasion; they were defending their sovereignty.

5. NATO as a “Defensive” Alliance: Criticism of NATO’s imperialistic behavior is fair its actions in places like Libya show it isn’t 100% defensive. But in this case, NATO’s expansion was driven by countries seeking security from a historically imperialist power. Ukraine wasn’t “provoking” Russia by wanting self-determination; it was trying to secure its future.

You’re trying to push this “Actuall, but Ukraine DID provoke” narrative by mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate, but isolated incidents. Like linking far-right activity to justify the war conveniently ignores Russia’s (I should probably say everyone’s) own far-right issues. Marxists should reject imperialism in all its forms, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Question: do you believe in the self-determination of Ukrainians?

Never ask a dronie how gullible they are, they’ll tell you.

And never ask why the US has over 800 external military bases, while all other countries combined have less than 20.

If I recall correctly Russia is not allowed to participate because of their state doping program not because of their politics. So unless there was an Israel state doping program discovered that’s not double standard.

@princessnorah @secret300 A shame people can’t be more civilized. Really I don’t think we’ve evolved all that much in spite of our technology.

@JWBananas @secret300 Yea you know the funny thing about that, CFC’s are heavy and tend to sink to the ground if not propelled into the stratosphere by rockets, say like the old Space Shuttle with it’s solid chlorine oxidizer boosters, or the various military missiles which mostly have been converted to liquid hydrogen and oxygen engines. But nah we got to spend $3k to replace our A/C because it contains CFC’s that never would have made it up into the atmosphere anyway because of you know, physics, little things like gravity, so the military can avoid blame.