The cold, hard truth in the war between Russia and Ukraine today is that Ukraine’s last-gasp offensive has failed, and no amount of spin will change the outcome.
What a long strange trip it's been. I remember back in the weeks leading up to the invasion I was posting about it and asking a Russian comrade and some other folks in the Marx Madness discord about the plausibility of all the fear mongering being drummed up by the west and we were all so sure that it was just bullshit noise like most other scare pieces written by western journalists, and then watching it happen in real time while knowing full well that this would be the inevitable outcome, and in spite of that all, this massive campaign of manufacturing consent to support Ukraine and stifle any attempts at peace talks has been pretty surreal.
It's almost an even more blatant example of drumming up nationalist fervor in the imperial core than even what I witnessed during the aftermath of 9/11. Like at least back then there was an actual attack on the US to point to as flimsy justification for war.
Liberals always try to force leftists to 'pledge allegiance' to hyperfocused truisms that they take in isolation and try to make determinative of the entire subject.
I'll bite. Yes. Russia invaded. No. Russia did not start a war with Ukraine. They joined an existing war with Ukraine in progress.
Yeah it's wild because back then I was called a terrorist sympathizer for being against literally turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a sea of glass, and now I get called a Putin apologist for holding a consistent and principled stance on the right of self determination for people in eastern Ukraine.
I keep getting called a tankie on twitter by people that have no fucking idea what anarchism is (and no shade on tankies yall are my comrades and I am actually helping an indigenous friend build an org centered around indigenous struggle in the imperial core centered on scientific socialism/decolonial Marxism)
If you have been paying attention to the fronts. There's maps that if accurate paint a not great picture for Ukraine. Every spot where they gain ground is matched with another spot where they lose.
The first casualty of war is the truth, and I know I've had a very hard time trying to see through the B.S.
The biggest indicator I've read is that US generals have been upset with the speed of the Ukrainian forces. Meaning they're taking too long to take territory back. Just one example though.
I don't think this should really be controversial. Whatever your thought on US aid is, or the war in general, it's incredibly obvious that the counteroffensive was a complete failure. Ukraine gained basically nothing, lost massive amounts of materiel, and countless soldiers were killed. Russia's defensive lines were not breached.
Being the advancing force has almost always been really hard and risky compared to being on the defensive and entrenched. There is a real risk that this war continues for many years to come with a battleline that moves back and forth a few kilometers with a few key points of interest trading hands back and forth. I think this won't really end because of what happens on the battlefield but because of what happens politically. How long can Putin sustain the war? How far are the Ukrainian people willing to go reclaim Donbas and Crimea? How many lives are they willing to sacrifice to reclaim what was lost?
This comments thread is nuts. I haven’t read anything so obviously propaganda in a while. I wonder whether these comments get quickly buried on Reddit and I’m only seeing them now because Lemmy is so empty
Have you considered the possibility that reddit is utter fucking dogshit and does in no way provide you a picture of what actually goes on in the world?
Pro-Russia propaganda then. Funny how America's right has embraced the west's greatest enemy. When I was a kid I was told the reason communism was bad was because it was tyrannical to those living under it, Russia is still tyrannical but capitalist and now they're totally on board. In hindsight, it was never about the tyranny. It was about profit.