this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2023
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On April 17, 2023, the Moscow City Court convicted Vladimir Kara-Murza on combined charges of treason, dissemination of “false information” about the conduct of the Russian Armed Forces, and involvement with an “undesirable organization”, and sentenced him to 25 years in maximum security prison with an additional fine of 400,000 rubles (approximately USD 5,000), restriction of freedom for 1.5 years, and a ban on journalistic activities for 7 years.

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[–] pancake@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What does that mean?

NATO will act according to their interests. If they can defeat an enemy, they will do so. If your point is that the US will simply point all its weapons towards Russia and China and then simply smile and let them peacefully develop to overtake the US in every aspect as they are doing, you're wrong.

Who started the aggression in Ukraine?

Russia did. But I don't think they should just sit back and watch as the US prepares to deal a lethal blow to them. The US has set up bases all around Russia, formed military alliances with countries near its border. The US has also promoted coups in many post-Soviet states to make their governments US-affine. Even after the 2014 pro-US coup in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens voted for the seemingly pro-Russian Zelensky, who had promised to normalize relations with Russia and embrace the Russian culture and language in the Donbas region, and were fooled by what turned out to be a new US puppet regime and continued war against the Donbas. Even US officials admit they were planning for the war, just that they didn't think Russia would strike first. At this point, who even launched the first missile in this particular development of the 2014 war is just a small technicality in a complex hybrid war that's been developing for years.

Let’s hope for democracy everywhere.

If two authoritarian behemoths are fighting to death as they are, randomly biting and scolding both in hopes that they'll magically become democratic is a stupid strategy. At best, you will achieve nothing. At worst, one of them will weaponize your innocence against the other, which is quite the case.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Russia did

Ukraine coup government did. They attacked Donbass in 2014, starting civil war. Donbass called Russia for help to which they answered, but 8 years later.

It was naturally escalation, but hardly starting the aggression in Ukraine. I won't even mention USA having significant role in the coup in the first place and then NATO arming Ukraine during the entire civil war.

[–] pancake@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I know. But the word "aggression" is (intentionally, hats off to US propaganda) vague; the user I was responding to interpreted it as "launching an attack into a territory generally recognized as foreign", so I'm going with that definition. I generally do not argue on terminology, since it's not practical to do so. But thanks for the heads up!

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

“launching an attack into a territory generally recognized as foreign”

That definition is pretty vague too, it just move the weight from "agression" to "attack" which is also not very defined, but if it is exluding internal conflict for some weird reason, in that case it would be USA taking big part in couping the democratically (or at least the most democratically in the history of independent Ukraine) elected president.

[–] pancake@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, you're really damn right. But lately I've found it easier to just sidestep the whole "aggression" thing altogether than argue on that, where I would have most certainly hit a wall. So, "yeah, sure, scary Russkie man did the bad, now let's move on to the important stuff". I've come to like doing it like this more.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

It definitely ease up discussion with those types, but by aquitting the origin of events, you just end up on their position. The guy you discuss know this extremely well, he will go to extreme lenghts to not admit there was even a US-sponsored coup in 2014 because if he admit it his entire narration will crumble into dust.