[myzmak]

Originally Posted by myzmak

My thoughts are probably too profane, even for this thread.

Frankly, it's sadness, really. I mean, I'm a Canadian, never even managed to make it back to the homeland BUT for the first 17 or so years of my life the Ukrainian background was central to defining me. As I got older, of course, it was just one part of me (job, wife, kids all become more dominant in a 4th gen canadian), but it is still important and a part of my core/identity that is always there.

For 15 of those years, Ukraine was not even independent. It had only had snippets of independence in its history, but that doesn't mean (contrary to what the little fuck in Moscow said yesterday) Ukrainians aren't a nation. My great grandparents came to Canada well before the Russian revolution and THEY knew they were Ukrainian (and emphatically NOT Russian even back then) and it was always this distant dream that the homeland would one day be free. Didn't seem likely, but it was the dram. But then - BLAM - Ukraine became an independent country. Suddenly, there was a real place my folks were FROM. Not just an idea, not just some 'region' but an actual country of people with names like mine and with some common history. Sure, it struggled with many growing pains - corruption etc, - but after 400 years of Russian dominance, how could that not be expected? The people had never before got to steer their own ship. AND, as I'm sure I said on the original SSOTT thread, democracy is HARD WORK. We all take it for granted, but democracy isn't just about having a vote and choice and power, it is about the responsibility that comes with power. In the west, right now, we are having a tough time with that. But Ukraine has learned that lesson well in the last decade. It was growing past those early pains…..

And to think of all the foreign misadventures of the west in countries that don't want us and resent our 'help' - and here is a country begging for our help to keep those hard won lessons and gains.

….and I can't help but think we will fail it, fail them. Today's rounds of sanctions were nice (fucking HELLO Germany, you THINK NS2 was a bad idea???) but I think Putin's chauvinism,his imperialism and his ignorance run too deep for anything to stop him. He is going to start a war - a real fucking war, the likes of which relatively few people alive right now in the west have ever seen - and literally thousands of Ukrainians will die. And the country will be blown to shit. And the place that i was so happy that became a country on its own 30 years ago won't be anymore.

I wish the west had real balls. I wished in 2014 that we would put a few of our soldiers in Donbas and Crimea and tell putin "no, stop". That would have stopped him then. Putting some of our soldiers there now would stop him. He will take war with a weaker country, but he wont directly go to war with NATO. Our soldiers can be the shield that protects Ukraine from the hell that is coming.

But we won't. And a country I was pretty happy existed just won't anymore, not really, not until that little c*nt is dead and all those who enable him are gone.

Lups I hope Finland learns the lesson and joins NATO. Its clear being friendly with the west is not enough to stop this madman. You need the actual power of the alliance.

Its funny; his rant yesterday (just before he formally started the invasion with the 'recognition' of his two stooge republics) seemed to shock many in the west with his angry, hateful attack on Ukraine or any part of the old Russian empire that dared say "we aren't Russian". I don't think a single fucking Ukrainian was surprised in the least. We have always known that part of Russia. I'll bet Finland knows it just as well. Maybe you weren't subject to Russian imperialism as long (and fuck knows your language is harder to just erase with a policy of Russification, unlike Ukrainian which has too many commonalities) but you know how they think, how they take….colonialism has died in many of its traditional homes (fuck, UK can barely rule itself, let alone 1/2 the world) but it is still alive and well in the Russian psyche.

Anyway, I'm really gonna start ranting now so I'll stop. As I said, most of what I think is incoherent, expletive-laden rage, but also sadness.

(And thanks everyone for not asking me about the fucking truckers. Fuck, amazing how a few hundred idiots have managed to paint a picture of this country…like jesus fucking christ…..)

So going back on this post from a few months ago with a few thoughts/observations with the passage of time.

Lets go with a list of things that have not surprised me.

(1) The Russian Military: Surprised me.

While I hate starting by talking about the Russians….well, fuck. How do you not? I mean, I don't know I ever bought all the pointy foreheads in the west who thought Ukraine would fold in a day (and anyone who thought the Ruscists would be welcomed as 'heroes' or 'liberators' didn't know sweet doodley shit about Ukraine) BUT I *did* assume the second largest army in the world knew something about how to fight.

I mean, we've all seen the levelling of Mariupol and the indiscriminate attacks on civilians - so the Rascists clearly know how to do that (see Chechnya, Chechnya again, Syria, etc) but I probably naively assumed they knew how to run logistics, supply lines, etc.

The shambolic nature of their fighting is truly breathtaking.

(2) The Ukrainian Resistance In no way shape or form surprised me.

While 'Muricans and the Surrender Monkeys in Paris celebrate their historical struggles for Liberty/Liberté the general struggle for self-determination and 'fuck the invaders' has loooooong been part of the Ukrainian identity. As @lups noted in her original post asking me about this, the name Ukraine probably comes from a word meaning borderland. The country (and its peeps) have literally been fought over for centuries. Poles, Turks, Tatars, Muscovites, etc. Throughout that history, though, there has been a real identity that has long disliked rule by elites/outsiders and sought self determination. Most famously the Kozaks (or 'Cossacks' as most in the west will know them). Dudes were literally frontiersmen/women who said 'fuck that' to being polish serfs and went to a dangerous/undefended area (the Steppe near modern day Zaporozhia, where much current fighting is happening) to govern themselves. Even defeated the (very strong) Polish crown and briefly had some autonomous rule in the 17th century.

Like, the number of ordinary folk songs I would have learned even as a little ukie-canadian in the diaspora that are really about war, killing invaders, etc, is quite something. The song you may/may not have heard or seen videos of ukrainians singing all over the place (Ой у лузі червона калина / Oy u luzi Chervona Kalyna) you'd think from its title is just a rando song about nature (title means: in the meadow is a red vibranium). (Many, many, many ukie songs have titles like that. I.e. 'in the field is a well'. Or 'in the field are three wells'. Or 'in a grove by the river' etc) BUT this particular song (written during another period of ukrainian independence 100 ish years ago when the ukrainians were fighting off the now-communist russians) is actually about killing invaders. The red vibranium is just a metaphor for the calamity of invasion (the tree is bending low) which the song says we'll just fix right up and then celebrate. Other verses are more explicit.

Or the national anthem (" Ще не вмерла Україна"). The opening words literally mean "Ukraine's glory is not dead nor her freedom". The third line is "we will vanquish our enemies like dew in the morning sun". This isn't a song about past glory ("Oh Say Can you See") or rando/generic pride in country/nature ("Oh Canada") but "if you come here we will fuck you the fuck up" type stuff.

So, yeah, the country has had few periods of self rule since the 13th century, but…there is a very, very ingrained, inherent streak of 'fuck off and die'. And while the russians and soviets had repressed that, 30 years of independence and two major uprisings (2004 Orange Revolution / 2014 Revolution of Dignity) have rekindled that flame big time.

(3) The Western Response Mixed bag. Probably need to break down by country/region.

(a) The American Response Wow. Nearly note perfect.

Look, as those of you who remember my rantings even pre-trump on the original SSOTT thread will know, I've had a lot of concerns about what is happening down south for a long time. (And the SCOTUS/Roe v Wade clusterfuck issue just being the latest example). BUT: fuck man. Full round of applause. While I know Biden is inexplicably detested by many (spoiler: he didnt cause inflation) he has been nearly perfect in his response. Yes, he's had to fight some nervous nancies in the pentagon ('dont give them heavy weapons!') and he still hasnt given fighters ('it will take too long to train pilots - like 2-3 months!' for a war now in its 3rd month) but the loud, clear, blunt support for Ukraine has been fantastic.

It is so great it is bittersweet to me. THIS kind of leadership/policy making shows the absolute best of what America is capable of - bittersweet because of how it contrasts with the ongoing fuckery of the trumpist GOP and the effort/risk/fear that they will succeed and America's day in the sun will be done. But full credit for getting it right on this. Full. Fucking. Credit.

(b) The British Response Surprisingly great.

Perhaps the only country that might exceed America in getting the tone right. Can't compete in terms of what support it can give (being 1/5 the size of America) AND, at least in part, much of that support is likely a diversion from BoJo's other problems (hello lockdown parties!) but, still, great.

(c) The western continentals infuriating.

Yes, germany pulling the plug on NS2 was great. But then months of foot dragging on weapons before relenting. And then another step back with the ongoing effort to find 'middle ground' while Putin is on the downswing.

Same with france. It has said nice things and thank god the fascist LePen didnt win, but if recent stories of Macron *still* trying to convince the Ukrainians to give the russians some 'face saving' compromise on sovereignty are true…they still dont' get it.

Same with this 'hey, lets made an EU kid's table that we let ukraine sit at' instead of just fucking admitting the people who are fighting and dying for euro ideals in a way france hasnt had to face in almost 80 years.

The problem is neither country *really* respects, gets or cares about ukraine as a place of its own. One still suspects/must believe that they think there is some short term 'back to normal' with russia. There isnt.

(d) the eastern contintentals With one exception (fuck you hungary) its been great.

Poland is a historic oppressor of ukraine. My peeps came from formerly polish/Austro-Hungarian ruled parts of Ukraine so had as many slurs for poles as russians back in the day.

BUT Poland seems to have let that part of its psyche go and its much more recent experience of knowing what life is like under the russian thumb has made it an absolutely fantastic ally.

Same for the Baltic states.

But fuck you Orban and Hungary. In the пизда

(4) The Catastrophic Misplay by Putin Not surprising.

This invasion will go down in history as one of the greatest geopolitical blunders of any empire-craving state of all time.

Like, 3 months in, what has the хуйло accomplished? Lets see. He has:

- united Ukrainian people in a fierce, national pride against him and Russians. Not only are the invaders not greeted with open arms, he has destroyed centuries of 'brotherly nation' bullshit propaganda. Even ukrainians who would have been shy or ambivalent on nationalism have had their patriotism and national pride increased a thousand fold.

- demonstrated to the world how useless and corrupt the russian military is.

- decoupled the russian economy from the world in ways that will be felt for generations. Ukraine is bearing the brunt of this war, but it will get a Marshall plan. Russia won't. Fucking backwards hillbillies outside of the big cities are only going to have it worse and those in the cities are going to join them

- created generations of shame that will follow russians. Not unlike Germans post WWII, the russian people will eventually have to come to grips with the fact their culture is one of raping, looting and murdering. They are going to have to have some hard conversations with themselves about imperialism. As, no, this isn't just putin. Even russian liberals (like Navalny) are russian imperialists not very deep down. They are going to learn that the rest of the world (not just ukrainians, finns, poles and others who have lived under their thumb - but the whole fucking world) now sees them for who they are. And doesnt like that shit.

- united the west. The bloc that trump tried so hard to fracture for putin has been rebuilt - stronger than ever and united against vlad.

- expanded NATO. Hello Finland, Hello Sweden. Welcome aboard.

And on it goes.

All the morons who thought he was a strategic genius, many steps ahead, etc: y'all were wrong. He was never any of that - just a fucking petty thug with tactic after tactic but zero strategy and ruling over a corrupt state. Putin is not that smart, not that great, never was.


So what now? Where / how does this end?

3 months ago, I figured this would only end when Putin is dead. Now, at that time, I worried about what would be left of ukraine by the time that happened. But given the shit-assed-as-fuck invasion and the (belated, but now present) support with heavy weaponry, i'm increasingly optimistic that ukraine will not only defend itself (its already done that - did that in the first few weeks) but will actually beat the russians and push them out, maybe of the whole country (Donbas? Yes. Crimea? Tougher. Geography makes it a tough place to fight).

Ok, so we do that, but then what?

I have no interest in letting putin save face (I'd like it if someone shot him in the face) BUT…what is the solution? We can't do what the surrender monkey wants us to do and give up some sovereignty, give putin a win - that would just mean we are back here in 7 years when the russian army rebuilds itself and they find some more cannon fodder.

Ideally russia needs the Germany post WWII treatment: full denazification. Maybe demilitarization. But the americans are right: we need to make sure when this is done that the russians won't be doing this again to anyone else anytime soon.

I still doubt that happens while Putin is in power.

There are clearly ongoing internal power struggles. There is some (legitimate) information that he really is sick (quite possibly with a blood cancer). Him dying would be fucking fantastic news. But i don't know how there is a long term solution short of that.

So….what? Ukraine pushes the рашисти out and then….stalemate until he dies? Maybe.

I dont know.

Anyway, that's where I'm at now, 3 months in.

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