• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    16 days ago

    The Russian Federation is not trying to colonize Ukraine. Their goal is NATO neutrality, and annexation of the four oblasts, which are largely pro-Russian. This is a response to the ethnic repressions against Russians in the Donbass following the coup of Yanukovych in 2014, and the ensuing secession of Donetsk and Luhansk and the civil war that followed.

    The war was never supposed to be over in days. This was circulated as a means to humiliate Russia, but all talks of an attack lasting days either came from many years before 2022, or from the west.

    As for Putin rigging elections, this might be true, but we also know that he is legitimately popular in Russia. The nationalists are most popular, followed by the communists. The pro-western liberals like Navalny was are in the minority and have no real support base.

    • ComradePenguin@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      16 days ago

      This goes against my current view of the situation. The NATO expansion is somewhat understandable, not enough for a war perhaps, but unsure.

      Care to point me in the direction to read more about this?

        • ComradePenguin@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          16 days ago

          Thanks, exactly what I was looking for! 😄 As a Norwegian pretty much everyone sides with Ukraine, and I have not really challenged that view for myself. I have just accepted the narrative “Russia = imperialistic & bad. Ukraine = democracy & good”. So it’s probably a good idea to try to understand it

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            16 days ago

            Understandable! It’s one of the more difficult topics for westerners like us to grasp, and it took me some time to come around to the ML consensus on the Russian Federation (ie, it isn’t imperialist if we accept Lenin’s analysis, and actually is anti imperialist even if run by bourgeois oligarchs).

          • Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            16 days ago

            Good on you for being open to non-western propaganda sources. Curiosity seems to be mostly dead in the lemmy liberal scene.

    • gdtf@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      17
      ·
      16 days ago

      Wow, it’s like I’m on reddit all over again. Propaganda hits hard.

        • gdtf@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          11
          ·
          16 days ago

          I said the absolute contrary. There’s nothing communist about Russia nowadays. It’s as capitalist as it gets.