this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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[โ€“] john89@lemmy.ca -5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I think it's more fruitful to look at who benefits from the Ukrainian war.

Life for the average Ukrainian will not be radically different under Russian rule. Most of them will get up, go to work the same job they always have and funnel as much money as possible to those who already have it.

It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers. The people actually fighting the wars never benefit and the ones who benefit never fight.

[โ€“] Munrock@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers.

I think we're missing a couple of nuances here, no? Although it's a stretch to call them nuance. The way Ukrainian rulers have been making money has been through privatization. And because there's so much privatization we need to look at who owns Ukraine's economy. It's only escalated since Russia invaded, with national assets being sold off to foreign private sectors so cheaply that one has to wonder why they did it when the gains are a drop in the bucket compared to the direct aid they've been getting from Western public sectors.

If Ukraine emerges from this conflict with its own sovereignty, it'll be sovereignty over a flag, a presidential palace and a state framework that protects foreign companies' investments from hungry Ukrainians.

[โ€“] coolusername@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The country is dead. They sold their infrastructure to blackrock and other investment firms. They are now taking out loans to buy weapons which won't do shit against Russia. The country is gutted by capital. Zelensky himself has at least two mansions in other countries including one in Miami. He will either get killed Diem-style (backstabbed by the US/CIA) or flee. It's also possible Azov nazis kill him.

[โ€“] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee -1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's only because Russia has already privatized and sold off all of its national assets to oligarchs after the fall of the USSR.

[โ€“] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 months ago

that doesn't make sense in the context of the post you replied to

[โ€“] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The reason the US has a special hate-on for Putin is precisely because he kicked the Western shock therapists out of the country. He stanched the tide of privatization.

[โ€“] yogthos@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It's pretty obvious that the only country that benefits from the war is the US. Don't take my word for it though, RAND wrote a whole study explaining how in detail https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

It's also absolutely phenomenal that people think Russia needs Ukraine to make profit when it's already the largest country in the world with plenty of undeveloped resources. If you think countries benefit from having to fight a war, then you might wan to learn a bit of history.

[โ€“] coolusername@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

I actually showed that article about a year ago to a co-worker of mine. LMAO

[โ€“] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Then why would Russia attack Ukraine? Especially since they had already agreed to let go of their nukes and not join NATO. Just let them be then.

[โ€“] yogthos@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If you bother reading the paper I linked, it explains it in great detail. But if you don't believe RAND, then here's the head of NATO explaining it in black and white

The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.

The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm

The sheer intellectual dishonesty of pretending that this was about anything other than NATO expanding to Russia's border even when top NATO officials openly admit this to be the case is truly astonishing.

[โ€“] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

Haha sorry I'll save your link to read later

[โ€“] vintageballs@feddit.org -5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You seem to misunderstand your own sources. What you cited only proves how utterly insane Russia's conditions were / are. Of course NATO won't let Pootin blackmail them into giving up their stations etc.

Russia and brainwashed tankies like yourself always seem to reject the notion that former Soviet nations are actually sovereign and might have an interest in increasing their defensive strength in light of, wait for it, HISTORY.

[โ€“] yogthos@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

Nah I understand my own sources just fine. Meanwhile, anybody with a functioning brain can understand that countries overrun but US propaganda and reliant on US military protection are in no way sovereign. Figures that radlib like you wouldn't even understand what sovereignty means.

[โ€“] Fizz@lemmy.nz -4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Its irrelevant whether or not life would be different under Russian rule. Russia choose to invade a sovereign nation. The fact that ukrainians are still fighting to this day shows they want to be independent.

[โ€“] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 months ago

The fact that ukrainians are still fighting to this day shows they want to be independent.

This is a post about conscription, where people who do not want to fight are forced to