34 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Seriously dude? I know you're a lowlife troll, but sharing propaganda and giving aid to the Putin regime seems low even for you.

 

What do you have against hearing from all sides? You really think that some of what you’ve been posting hasn’t been Ukrainian propaganda? I want Ukraine to win this as much as anyone else, but your militant fealty to one sided narratives does no one any good.

15 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

One if the tragic things about this is that in an individual level most Ukrainians and Russians feel some modicum of brotherhood. It's a bit mixed because a lot of Ukrainians harbor understandable ill will towards Russia even before this, but if the Russian guy acknowledges the sins of their govt most individuals come to an easy common ground of "our gov't is crap, but you are my cousin"

Russians that peddle the govt line are unsalvageable though.

In this case, the guy left Russia and immigrated to Sweden and probably a long time ago though I don't know his story.  My bet would be that is isn't pro Russian govt but I'm not planning to discuss it with him.

6 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Yeah, I was thinking about this yesterday. When you consider the history of their ethnic and cultural ties, this feels like a civil war.

My girlfriend is Ukrainian, and even years ago when I first met her, she was pretty hardline about drawing a distinction between Ukrainians and Russians. Growing up in Ukraine, speaking Ukrainian in metropolitan areas was seen as kinda goober-ish. Speaking Russian was "cool". Teachers would teach in Russian, etc. Then eventually the politics shifted and Ukrainians started to openly embrace their own culture and identity (and push out pro-Kremlin politicians). I don't think she blatantly hates Russian individuals, but as a political entity, there's no love lost for the people who sparked the Holodomor, starving out her grandparents' generation. She visited in 2019 and even in the western part of the country where she's from, you'd see graves marked with flags honoring young kids who died fighting on the eastern border. So people dying while fighting Russian interests isn't new...this is all just an escalation.  

Even to this day, she's pissed off that the US govt spelled her first name in the Russian way (using I's instead of Y's), and she's spent years trying to get all her documents and IDs correctly spelled.  

https://m.jpost.com/international/article-699098
 

everything is going according to plan 

7 minutes ago, The_Omega said:

What do you have against hearing from all sides? You really think that some of what you’ve been posting hasn’t been Ukrainian propaganda? I want Ukraine to win this as much as anyone else, but your militant fealty to one sided narratives does no one any good.

I've tried to be careful about what I'm sharing. It's challenging to parse given the situation, but I'm not sharing the bleeding edge stuff that is more likely to be crap and relying on those here to be somewhat discriminating about what I share.

That said, the guy Kz shared wouldn't have passed my smell test. The emotional claims made felt like a pretense for the political message. I may be wrong, but Kz is also a guy who frankly I don't give the benefit of the doubt to. His filtering is based not on "is this likely to be true" but rather "does this own the libs or challenge the message coming from my political opposition?"

 

 

6 minutes ago, Lloyd said:

My girlfriend is Ukrainian, and even years ago when I first met her, she was pretty hardline about drawing a distinction between Ukrainians and Russians. Growing up in Ukraine, speaking Ukrainian in metropolitan areas was seen as kinda goober-ish. Speaking Russian was "cool". Teachers would teach in Russian, etc. Then eventually the politics shifted and Ukrainians started to openly embrace their own culture and identity (and push out pro-Kremlin politicians). I don't think she blatantly hates Russian individuals, but as a political entity, there's no love lost for the people who sparked the Holodomor, starving out her grandparents' generation. She visited in 2019 and even in the western part of the country where she's from, you'd see graves marked with flags honoring young kids who died fighting on the eastern border. So people dying while fighting Russian interests isn't new...this is all just an escalation.  

Even to this day, she's pissed off that the US govt spelled her first name in the Russian way (using I's instead of Y's), and she's spent years trying to get all her documents and IDs correctly spelled.  

I've heard similar stories from my Ukrainian friends.

12 minutes ago, Lloyd said:

My girlfriend is Ukrainian, and even years ago when I first met her, she was pretty hardline about drawing a distinction between Ukrainians and Russians. Growing up in Ukraine, speaking Ukrainian in metropolitan areas was seen as kinda goober-ish. Speaking Russian was "cool". Teachers would teach in Russian, etc. Then eventually the politics shifted and Ukrainians started to openly embrace their own culture and identity (and push out pro-Kremlin politicians). I don't think she blatantly hates Russian individuals, but as a political entity, there's no love lost for the people who sparked the Holodomor, starving out her grandparents' generation. She visited in 2019 and even in the western part of the country where she's from, you'd see graves marked with flags honoring young kids who died fighting on the eastern border. So people dying while fighting Russian interests isn't new...this is all just an escalation.  

Even to this day, she's pissed off that the US govt spelled her first name in the Russian way (using I's instead of Y's), and she's spent years trying to get all her documents and IDs correctly spelled.  

 

Thanks for the perspective. There is definitely a history of strife between Ukraine and the motherland, and I'm sure that there has always been a kind of cultural dichotomy between the regions in a cultural sense, perhaps something distantly similar to the Northerner vs. Southerner dynamic we have here, but I always thought of the modern Russia vs. Ukraine rivalry to be more political than cultural/ethnic and that there were longstanding ties of brotherhood between them, if for no reason of other than centuries of population movement between the two areas. More specifically, I thought of this as more of a Ukrainian vs. Soviet rivalry. Of course, anything Soviet is inherently tied to concepts of a distinctively Russian state. Ironically, though, while Stalin hated the Ukrainians and committed the most unspeakable kinds of atrocities (literally starving 3 million Ukrainians to death in the Holodomor), Stalin himself was a Georgian.

49 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

 

 

 

Interesting but to be fair it isn't new.  It happens every so often.

 

 

8 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Thanks for the perspective. There is definitely a history of strife between Ukraine and the motherland, and I'm sure that there has always been a kind of cultural dichotomy between the regions in a cultural sense, perhaps something distantly similar to the Northerner vs. Southerner dynamic we have here, but I always thought of the modern Russia vs. Ukraine rivalry to be more political than cultural/ethnic and that there were longstanding ties of brotherhood between them, if for no reason of other than centuries of population movement between the two areas. More specifically, I thought of this as more of a Ukrainian vs. Soviet rivalry. Of course, anything Soviet is inherently tied to concepts of a distinctively Russian state. Ironically, though, while Stalin hated the Ukrainians and committed the most unspeakable kinds of atrocities (literally starving 3 million Ukrainians to death in the Holodomor), Stalin himself was a Georgian.

Oh yeah, I don't think you're totally wrong. They share lots of cultural similarities. Like eating the same foods...even though they debate where things like borscht came from. Your "civil war" comment just reminded me of all the times I got in trouble for calling something Russian even though it was Ukrainian or Polish or whatever. So I guess I just gave the same speech she gives me.   

36 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

 

 

Sweden will send up a plane in response. They will wave hi to each other. Then both sides return home.

17 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I've tried to be careful about what I'm sharing. It's challenging to parse given the situation, but I'm not sharing the bleeding edge stuff that is more likely to be crap and relying on those here to be somewhat discriminating about what I share.

That said, the guy Kz shared wouldn't have passed my smell test. The emotional claims made felt like a pretense for the political message. I may be wrong, but Kz is also a guy who frankly I don't give the benefit of the doubt to. His filtering is based not on "is this likely to be true" but rather "does this own the libs or challenge the message coming from my political opposition?"

Fair enough.  The old saying that the first casualty of war is the truth is as relevant as ever, and there's no doubt that we're mainly getting only one side of the story, Ukraine's.  Yeah, I'm team Ukraine, but it's impossible to tell what is actually going on with only the one side.

22 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

https://m.jpost.com/international/article-699098
 

everything is going according to plan 

The Oligarch's turning on Putin would be a big problem for him, but a bigger problem for them if the military and intelligence apparatus stays loyal to him.

1 minute ago, The_Omega said:

Fair enough.  The old saying that the first casualty of war is the truth is as relevant as ever, and there's no doubt that we're mainly getting only one side of the story, Ukraine's.  Yeah, I'm team Ukraine, but it's impossible to tell what is actually going on with only the one side.

If you really want to know what is going on in Ukraine, I recommend getting your news elsewhere besides CVON. 

Just now, toolg said:

If you really want to know what is going on in Ukraine, I recommend getting your news elsewhere besides CVON. 

Yeah, that's what I said.   

 

 

For the record, I don't think anyone in here is rooting for Russia, but I am interested in learning more about the conflict than mindlessly repeating anti-Russian talking points.

6 minutes ago, toolg said:

If you really want to know what is going on in Ukraine, I recommend getting your news elsewhere besides CVON. 

I went to rt.com a few times but I think they are being quite careful what they put on there.  Frankly, it wasn't all that interesting.

 

2 minutes ago, Kz! said:

For the record, I don't think anyone in here is rooting for Russia, but I am interested in learning more about the conflict than mindlessly repeating anti-Russian talking points.

Oh come on. 

3 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

I was curious how places like China, Cuba, Venezuela, and former Soviet Republics would vote.  It seems they abstained. 

5 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

I went to rt.com a few times but I think they are being quite careful what they put on there.  Frankly, it wasn't all that interesting.

Thanks for looking up rt.com, so I don't have to! 

11 minutes ago, The_Omega said:

The Oligarch's turning on Putin would be a big problem for him, but a bigger problem for them if the military and intelligence apparatus stays loyal to him.

Most of them would just leave the country. Putin and his pathetic military don’t scare billionaires. 

1 minute ago, Thrive said:

Oh come on. 

We live in a unique time period in which we can actually explore sources of information that previous generations could have only dreamed of. Why limit yourself to only sources of information that have been filtered through the lens of western media?