this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse
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The benefit is to harm Russia at any and all cost and if they can achieve that, they see it as well worth it. Ukraine was never in a winning position yet they have been the ones committing war crime upon war crime upon war crime literally from the very start of this conflict (and depending on when you define it "beginning," they have been doing it from before the start and this is largely what necessitated Russia's intervention in the first place). Meanwhile, Russia has been highly, even shockingly restrained when it comes to taking actions with high potential to cause civilian harm. When you honestly compare how Russia has waged this war in terms of risk to civilian life to what the west (including Ukraine) has done in military operations and wars in the past handful of decades, Russia comes out as almost kind, looking like the benevolent "peacekeepers" that NATO always tried to paint themselves to their own respective domestic populaces. (This isn't to say warcrimes haven't been committed by Russian forces, particularly before Wagner was dismantled, but they are not systemic and are not at the scale of, for example, wiping out civilian infrastructure).
This isn't just a "Russia good and Ukraine bad" thing (though we shouldn't forget that current Ukraine is literally a Nazi-led project) but there are very obvious material reasons why this is the case. Like TreadOnMe pointed out, Russia came to the aid of what were essentially militias formed from Ukrainian civilians who were fighting in resistance of their own ethnic cleansing by the Ukrainian government. Russia knows that the territories it has been fighting over will be its responsibility to maintain and rebuild so destroying the infrastructure there and making enemies of the people who live there are not at all in Russia's best interests. This is a major stumbling block for the libs who constantly want to believe Russia is just a bunch of orcs hellbent on domination and conquest: material reality does not fit the idealist narrative they need to believe in.
Just because Ukraine commits war crimes repeatedly (as they have) and even as a normal order of operation, that does not mean that Russia will then be compelled to do the same as a tit-for-tat. There are certain lines that when crossed, Russia does have to respond to, but that doesn't mean they have to respond with commensurate cruelty to civilians. And they haven't.
I didn't mean that they were necessarily going to commit retaliatory crimes. What I mean is they become "justified" if they do. Yes, Russia has shown tremendous restraint, especially compared to what NATO has been doing the last 50 years.
I'm pointing out that if Ukraine were to do something incredibly stupid like use biological weapons on Russians (such as anthrax), Russia would have a good reason to use WMDs of their own in order to accelerate the end of the war before Ukraine did it again.
This is the reason the Axis Powers didn't use chemical weapons against the British or Americans. They knew if they did, the Allies could retaliate with a much larger stockpile of more sophisticated weaponry. It's not like nazis were against chemical weapons (it's how they killed most of their victims in concentration camps).
So with Ukraine doing stuff like using civilians to carry out attacks, Russia has enough reason to escalate if they think it's strategically viable. There would be no consequences for Russia, only their own guilt and internal turmoil.
The ethnic cleansing argument is as tired for Ukrainians in Ukraine, as it is for Russians in Ukraine (and Russians in Georgia). It's a show put on for liberal international political discourse and nothing more. The "self-defense" forces in the DNR went on to ethnically cleanse Romani's in the same way that the Ukrainian Nazi gangs in Kyiv did.
This is such a tired trope and simply used by whoever wants to add moral weight to their POV. There aren't significant meaningful differences between perpetrators, their behaviors and frankly their ideology here.
Ok nerd, you're right. Those Russians were (allegedly) no angels. I guess they just need to accept the ethnic cleansing.
The lib russophobia here is off the charts.
Even if what you said is true, which it is not (see Formerlyfarman's comment), whether or not Ukraine was trying to ethnically cleanse the Donbas prior to the SMO (which it was), and regardless of the virtues or crimes of the people's militias, none of that matters as far as what I was saying. None of that has any bearing on the asymmetry of war crimes perpetrated by Ukraine vs the lack of them committed by Russia.
Then why did you say it?
None of what you said matters with respect to my initial comment. I said what I did because it is what happened and provides context. Your altering of that context (by making up falsehoods) still didn't change the point of my comment. And just a tip: it doesn't help your credibility to ask the people you're disagreeing with to walk you through the basics of how discussions work.
I'm just trying to figure out where the goal posts are.
They're nice and stationary where they've always been. You don't seem to know where the field is.
This is bullshit. The Ukrainians brought ISIS guys from Syria to help in the ethnic cleansing. And the Georgian government was ethnically cleansing the ossetians.
These are not equivalent.
A regime that has caníbal lunatics running around massacring villagers(Ukraine, Syria) is not equivalent to militias formed to defend themselves from being eaten alive.
holds up a bizzaro world mirror Putin importing ebil Norf Koreas attacking my hecking NAFO doggos.
Yeah the Russo-Georgian war was fought because Poland was trying ot get an accelerate NATO MAP for Georgia in April of 2008. The Russians claimed a genocide kill count of 2000 in August at the start of the hot war. The Ossetians claimed 500. The hot war lasted 1 month. In December of 2008 the MoJ came up with 162 bodies, and no actual physical or circumstantial evidence. Then they stopped talking about it forever. I dare you to find any actual evidence.
It's a pain in the ass to search anything in the internet. The ISIS connection was common knowledge a few years ago, it was all over the western press, they were heavily praising it, it went on for over a decade. But this is a more recent article. https://thecradle.co/articles/russia-warns-washington-sending-isis-fighters-to-ukraine
there was apparently Ukrainian support on the recent ISIS takeover of Syria.
And yes the Georgians were trying to invade ossetians and wipe them out. But Russia luckily intervened quickly.
Hello CIA? Yeah your guys are here.
Again there's one bajillion North Koreans sneaking into Kyiv right now, click here to donate.
Yeah if only they hired this guy, then they'd have the proof.
Damn I hope the fascist rhetoric you're referencing wasn't some kind of projection of their own crimes. That would only make entirely too much sense and be consistent with everything we know about them.