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From the CBS article on this:
"If Putin decides not to support the push for a temporary ceasefire, it will dramatically alter the optics of the war and position Russia as the main obstacle to peace," Peter Dickinson from the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert service, said in analysis Tuesday.
Who out there thinks anyone but Russia is the 'main obstacle to peace'? I don't even think that Russian bots believe they're not the aggressor. What the fuck happened to rationality or even common sense?
Who out there thinks anyone but Russia is the βmain obstacle to peaceβ?
MAGA idiots.
Who out there thinks anyone but Russia is the βmain obstacle to peaceβ?
No one, I really hope. But either way this was a good move from Ukraine to throw the ball to the russians as now the orange guy is thrown in front of the bus with his "i'll end this war in a day" statement and global pressure is on Russia.
What the fuck happened to rationality or even common sense?
Very good question. Let me know too if you find the answer.
Tankies
I am sure there are true believers out there but I mean among the general population of other countries, especially reporters. I put about as much stock in interviews with average Russians as I do the North Korean equivalent. There's enough social pressure to conform that even those who disagree with the narrative are unlikely to say so on camera.
While hitchhiking to China, SEA and India in 2015, I spent 2 months in Ukraine. It became such a long time because I fell in love there and started a relationship with a girl living there. Then, I bought her plane tickets to India and continued my way by hitchhiking. So, I spent several weeks hitchhiking in the Russia after having been a considerable time in Ukraine.
More than every other driver who gave me a ride told me about how Ukraine is a "dangerous place", "full of bandits on all roads" and especially how "Russian-speakers are treated very badly". I kept telling them that my girlfriend was a Russian-speaker, that I lived a normal everyday life in a city where quite precisely half of the people were Ukrainian-speakers and my friends lived their life exclusively in Russian language, with zero problems ever. Even when I was visiting Zakarpattja, where less than 5% of people speak Russian as their mother tongue, there was no problem at all from my friends speaking Russian.
But the Russian drivers... When I told them that my experience contradicts what they were telling, not even one of them said anything along the lines of "oh, interesting to know!" Instead, they kept telling me that I was wrong. I was told numerous times that the Ukrainians had only shown me what they wanted me to see. When I told them that I had spent a lot of time doing things by myself, and travelled between cities by myself, they said: "They didn't let you see everything". It was very clear that they were defending their own sanity by refusing to see things in any other way than the official truth. It was not that they were afraid to speak their mind, it was very clearly that they were afraid to accept incorrect thinking creep in their minds!
Sounds a lot like the MAGA people I know. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Propaganda is such an unbelievably strong tool. Just look at the Western world with its seemingly unlimited access to information, knowledge and education and how easily people are convinced of some bullshit.
Russia was never a "free" country but stumbled from one autocracy into the next while the uneducated peasants stayed mostly uneducated peasants through the centuries.
In retrospect, the "information age" should be renamed to the "disinformation age."
I think it just was all too fast and we got overtaken by the amount we suddenly had access to. And while extremists have no issue walking over corpses to use this new stuff for their causes and can therefore act much quicker and more decisive than the more reasonable parts of society who still have/want to care about their weakest links and have to be much more careful.
Also, it has shown that at least my German goverment hates progress and everything that would actually needs them to be decisive and get out of their comfort zone in any way, shape or form.
I'm not sure speed was the issue, except possibly in terms of Free Software development struggling to keep parity with proprietary software development.
I think the major problem was lax antitrust and consumer protection laws, and/or failure to enforce them, especially by old and computer-illiterate legislators. Perhaps even worse, when they did try to get informed, the "experts" they decided to listen to tended to be exploitative tech bros instead of academics and others with more egalitarian/altruistic points of view.
Some of the policies we should have adopted, but didn't:
Your points do make sense for a layman like me but I have honestly never thought this much about it.
Don't forget that official Russian media (like any other) is heavily censored and influenced by the government's interests, so they won't show people who don't think that way on purpose. Plus those who disagree might just outright tell reporters to go fuck themselves, instead of telling them their honest opinion, which would obviously not go live.
As for those brainwashd, in my experience, - most of them actually think very low of Ukraine and think that attacking it was absolutely, positively a good thing.
But the problem of grouping people appears again...
What was even the point of putting pressure on Ukraine? They have always been cooperating. Russia's the one whose word is mud.
Putin had told Trump that he wants peace and Ukraine does not. Putin and Trump are friends, so Trump knew that what Putin is saying must be true.
And now he's shocked to find out that Putin actually is able to lie. (As he always does, but Trump's understanding is Trump's understanding...)
We'll see how Trump will explain this as Zelenskyj's fault anyway...
If you start out trusting Russia/Putin isn't lying you're going to have a bad time.
Optics
Maybe it was to help with the push going on in Kursk right now. With loss of intel, maybe that played a role in Ukraine becoming encircled and risk losing it?
I thought Trump was gonna end this war right away π€¨
24 hours. But he was talking about 24hours from the perspective of Pluto, our cherished 9th planet.
Zelensky didn't say thank you, didn't you hear?
Shhhhhh, the big pants boys are talking. Donnie can go sit at the kids table while big daddy putin makes his decisions for him.
Apparently they bothered to write a whole article even though "Duh" would have been sufficient.
Who would have thought?
putin hates peace.
Trump: Why would Ukraine do this?
Good thing they tried to make a fool of Zelenskyy, that really showed Russia /s
Trump finding out he has few cards on the table
I wonder if he's tried saying 'thank you' to Putin?
Oh those gamers with their games. Trump playing cards, Rubio plays with a ball, Putin is serious as a brick and Ukrainians are dying.
How fucking fun it all is.
And Vance on his soapbox, "We can solve this with diplomacy."
Zelensky somehow face palms with just a facial expression.
Well Trump did give all his major cards away before the negotiations even started with Putin. ππ»
The art of the deal
Trump has played one side of Kelogg's plan, cut off aid to Ukraine if they dont move toward peace. Now lets see if he follows though with the other side of it and dramatically ramp up aid to Ukraine if Russia dont move towards peace.
I hope he does but I'm not holding my breath.
Wasn't he supposed to sanction russia even more for refusing peace?
It is my understanding the US aid is restored after the Ukraine capitulation to the support blackmail.
Of course, he isn't likely - he loved it, when it was uncertainty and confusion for Ukraine, because what he wants out of a deal is a way to position Russia to eventually still eliminate an independent Ukraine altogether. Now that it's flip-flopping again, and the uncertainty produced by the administration in the US isn't completely in his favour any more, there's no reason for them to entertain it at all.
Ceasefire for Putin means rearranging troops to start the next attacks...
Fucking duh