Wow, my comment got removed because it is “misinformation / propaganda”.
You surely guys are open to a civil discussion based on facts :)

Removed by mod

Reddit felt like a massive echo chamber

Lemmy is a way bigger echo chamber, it’s as “no matter who vote blue” as it gets tbh (with very few exceptions).

Where people aren’t pushed away for respectfully voicing their opinion. Is Lemmy the answer?

Nope, it’s the opposite if anything.
I’m constantly getting attacked with ad hominem (my favourite one - getting called a fascist) here despite voicing opinions as respectfully as it gets, as well as providing sources for my claims whenever people ask.
Gotta have really thick skin if you are not left-leaning, but if you are - you will feel right at home :)

What?

crimes against Ukrainians

Surely this also applies to current USA administration turning Ukraine into prison that is almost impossible to escape and where men are treated worse then dogs?

Ah, so justification is - they do something bad, so we will do something bad as well (not towards them tho).
Got it

WDYM?

You cannot tell the difference between Russia and the Free World? What is wrong with you man?

Is it Russia that kidnaps Ukrainians on the streets and sends them to die? The last time I checked it was Zelensky’s regime.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/us-intelligence-believes-putin-probably-didn-t-order-his-rival-navalny-s-killing-report-claims/ar-AA1nLp5U

There’s nothing I can say to arguing that “killing Ukrainians is okay because they are killed ‘for the greater good of stopping a miniHitler’” as well. I don’t find it morally correct to kill people that done nothing wrong.

And also,

“31,000 killed, 7,000–8,000 missing”

Is lower than even Ukrainian propaganda is saying, it’s twice that number for the first year of war (US estimate), so about 4 times that number as of now, by US estimate.

Doesn’t mind joining EU?

Why are you asking me? It’s a publicly available info, not my opinion.

Oh, because I assume 2014 was a coup and not people being mad at the president refusing to sign a trade agreement with the EU and choosing closer ties to russia despite promises right?

From wikipedia:
A sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover.

Seems to suit that definition.

Like those negotiations where russia promised not to attack Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, yeah.

Yeah, they did that. Now, would you please be so kind to tell me about a country that never broke any internation laws, agreements, etc.? Pro tip: you can’t.
Does it mean that nobody should negotiate with each anymore because we all did bad things in the past, and we should instead just kill each other?

And I find it hilarious that you’re rooting for the perpetrators of the Bucha massacre. I guess none of your friends were there so that was fine. Well, if that’s what your logic dictates, very well. Good luck with that.

Yes, thankfully none of my friends were there.
But this is again an unfair comparison!
According to the wikipedia - a few hundred people were murdered there. Let’s add to that a few thousand more civilians that were killed by Russian forces. Let’s say it is a ten thousand, give or take. This is a horrible number. Yet the number of people killed/wounded by Zelensky’s regime is an order of fucking magnitude greater than that! Estimated to be in hundreds of thousands!
If you were given an option where you could die with 1% chance or with 10% chance, which option would you choose? I think for most people the answer is clearly the former. My logic indeed dictates that, and I would choose it every time. Does your logic say otherwise?
So you’re damn right I’m rooting for the “perpetrators of the Bucha massacre” instead of “perpetrators of mass genocide of Ukrainians”. If there was a good side to root for, I would. But there isn’t. So I support the side that I consider the lesser evil, the side which gives Ukrainians a hope of survival.

But yeah, either you’re a very naïve ukranian or more likely what I’ve been saying from the start.

Could you please explain to me, how does “rooting for” the side that increases the chance of survival for my family and all the other Ukrainians mean that I am naïve?
Or if you think what you’ve “been saying from the start” (basically that Mr. Putin pays me to write comments on lemmy), why do you think so? Why isn’t it logical for a Ukrainian to hope that Russia will win? I argumented my position, that it’s as simple as increasing the chance of survival for oneself and their family. Isn’t that the most precious thing one has?

All the people in russian occupied territories weren’t given a choice. russia occupied and that’s that. Regardless of people’s wills.

That’s a fair argument.
But comparing that (simply living under a different government, which is actually extremely similar to the old one) with killing people is not fair.

So if the people are pro russia sure, those people won’t mind. But if they’re pro Ukraine? What happens to those people?

I don’t know, what happens?
They have a choice to do as they please - they can sell their real estate (if they have any, if they don’t then it is even less of a problem) and move to unoccupied Ukraine territories (although it would be a very weird choice, because there they would be trapped, and wouldn’t be able to go back, so this is a one way trip…), or they can continue living on the occupied territories like many have done.

What happens to those people? And what happens in a few years when russian forces will have regrouped and they’ll have enough ammo and weapons to attack again? Because history shows they’ll attack again…every few years they take more land. Should everyone from Ukraine just move somewhere else and leave the land for russia to avoid bloodshed? Then maybe Poland and Moldova should do the same, because russia will want that land too. Maybe we should all just become the russian federation

This is a speculation of what will happen, and unfortunately I’ve lost my crystal ball so it’s not possible for me to confirm whether you are right or wrong.
As for regrouping of the forces… I believe that neither of us is a military expert (let me know if I am wrong), so in my opinion it is Ukraine that needs regrouping (even the western media seems to be predicting their fall now, but of course I can be wrong there), in your opinion it might be the other way around, it’s hard to debate on that.

And of course all of this is on Zelensky because he’s the one that attacked. It’s all because of him.

Please point me to the message where I said that?
The causes for the war is a whole another dimension to discuss, that would include a “war” against Russian language in Ukraine (when it is the language spoken by half of the population, give or take, and that was considered being set as second official language), the glorification of Bandera (you can look up his deeds during WW2, Poles love that guy), and lots of other stuff, but as I said it’s a different topic to discuss.
Russia indeed is the one that attacked Ukraine and I’ve never said otherwise.

That fucking Zelensky… Fuck him for standing up to russia

Indeed fucking Zelensky. Not for standing up to Russia though, but for murdering other people to achieve his political / ideological goals. If he wouldn’t kidnap people and treat them worse then dogs, I would support him (at least to some extent - as I said previously I believe that in case of Crimea and Donbas it was the will of the people to join Russia, but I don’t think it was the case with the other annexed territories), and possibly even donate. But in the current situation - supporting him is equivalent to supporting killing of my friends, family and every other Ukrainian still trapped there. How can I do that? Other people would support him as well. But for now, don’t you think that it is absolutely logical for Ukrainians who dare to want to live - to actually support Russia? It is in our interest for Russia to win, because this is the scenario where we get to live, and in the other scenario we die. This is why I (and many other people, it’s just that you won’t hear that in western media, because that is not the current narration. Surprisingly, you might actually start hearing more about that, because now even some of my very pro-Zelensky friends started to wake up as well. Unsurprisingly this happened because now it started to affect them as well, it was okay for them when it was other people’s problem) hate Zelensky - he makes it impossible for us to support our own fucking country, supporting the invader is the only logical choice if you throw emotions out of it.

and trying to steer the country towards the EU and NATO, right?

In the last negotiations before Zelensky had forbidden negotiations with Russia, it was agreed that Russia doesn’t mind Ukraine joining EU.

Russia took Crimea and that was fine because it was theirs to begin with or whatever right? Georgia Ossetia and Abkhazia ? Chechnya? Transnistria? All of these democratically elected to be “independent” or to be russian right? Definitely nothing going on there.

I am not saying either of those things are okay or not okay (as well as other countries annexing other countries’ territories btw), because it depends on whether the people there wanted to part of Russia or not (and we cannot know this for sure, as different sides will claim differently).
As for the Crimea in particular though, I was there a few times while it still belonged to Ukraine, and the people I’ve met there were mostly extremely pro-Russian and some were openly saying they would like to be a part of Russia. But of course this is a hearsay, and you may have heard different things (which wouldn’t mean that either one of us is wrong!), but as I said before I do not assert that this is okay or not okay, I am only saying that I find it quite possible that in case of Crimea it was indeed will of the people (which would make it okay).
The same applies to Donbas - while I have never been there, I’ve met people from there and some of them were pro-Ukrainian some of them were pro-Russian, I met more pro-Russian ones (but again, I agree that this is a hearsay).
As for the other annexed Ukrainian territories and the countries/regions you’ve mentioned - I have never spoken with people from those territories, so again I do not assert it was fine or not fine, as it depends on what people of those territories think - and I do now know that.

And well, I personally know plenty of Ukrainians that aren’t hiding and they haven’t been drafted yet

Everybody I know who hasn’t managed to escape and is of the draft age and isn’t a college student is trying to hide.

So I don’t see why they’d need to resort to kidnappings to get people on the frontlines.

And yet they do.
https://uadraftmuseum.ch
Because Zelensky’s propaganda repeated by western media is saying that everybody wants to fight Russia and everybody volunteers, while the reality is completely different, and who could have thought - people want to live instead of dying for their politicians (which is what Zelensky with support from the west is doing). And speaking out this fact, that people want to live, and that it is not okay to kill them, makes people call me fascist here. To clarify - I am not saying there are no volunteers, I even have some distant relatives who have volunteered, but they are a minority, the regime needs to kidnap people from the streets in order to survive.

Go on twitch and other streaming services and you can talk to them yourself.

I have no need for that, it’s only logical that not everybody has been kidnapped yet, they do it when they need more people for the meat grinder.
And as I said - for now not everybody needs to fear being kidnapped at any time, as they are not touching some groups of people currently. But they already lowered the age of acceptable kidnapping from 27 to 25, and some even say that kidnapping 18 year olds is only a matter of time (I’ve read stories about how they have already kidnapped a few kids, and even girls, it’s just that for now they let them go when they discover their age/gender, but for how long? let me know if you want me to try to find those stories :) ). Some say that women should get the same treatment.

running away from draft = they had a choice. No, if they had been given a choice they would’ve stayed home.

They have SOME choice. Ukrainians have none.

Unlike all the Ukrainians that were forced to flee from the invaders.

They CANNOT (at least legally) flee from the invaders. They are locked in a west-sponsored prison called “Ukraine”.

russians in Europe= they have a choice. Ukrainians in Europe = what?

Russians in Europe = they bought a ticket, boarded a plane and landed in Europe. As simple as that.
Ukrainians in Europe = they either

• gave a HUGE bribe to get out (it’s reported that right now it’s about 25k dollars btw, this is the price of a life of a Ukrainians in case somebody was wondering), and got lucky that it actually worked, because often even giving a bribe doesn’t get you out of this prison
• managed to cross a border through a wild territory and did not get caught by “heroes” guarding it from either side (I’ve heard that thousands of people have died trying to do so, but I do not have a source for that)
• happened to be on occupied territories (either because they stayed, or managed to convince authorities that they live there / have a family there / need to go there for some other reason), and simply went to Russia (you know, that monster machine that wants to kill and enslave all Ukrainians, as opposed to west that tries to save them) and then simply went wherever they wanted (some of my family successfully did that).
• simply were already there before the war started (that’s me)
• belong to a category that is not (yet! there are more and more talks that everybody should be imprisoned, and just according to Russian propaganda they should “fight till that last Ukrainian”) imprisoned, e.g. women, men under 18, those having 3 children or more, etc.

So - yes exactly, just like I said, people on the territories controlled by Russia have a choice, on territories controlled by Ukraine - they are imprisoned.

I only bring up lies

That is quite funny, because I’m constantly being accused of that, yet nobody even pointed out what exactly I lie about let alone disproving those lies… Weird, don’t you think?..

Also nice dodging of everything else I’ve said

What exactly would you like me to respond to? It’s mostly Ad Hominem about me being stupid, or the usual western “you have different opinion than me so you must be a Russian bot / paid by Russia”, I don’t think it makes sense to respond to that.

Everything Russia does is fine

I’ve never said that, if that’s what you want me to respond to.

And let’s not pretend that all the Russians that have suddenly showed up in western countries aren’t running away from getting drafted

Thank you for proving my point! Yes, you are right, they are running away from getting draft.
Because they can! They have a choice! Ukrainians don’t. Ukrainians are trapped in Ukraine and slowly getting butchered thanks to the support from your government.

If I come into your house and claim the kitchen as my own because it used to be mine 50 years ago

Do you really not see the irony? Not even the smallest bit? Holy shit…

You can’t claim my kitchen because it was your 50 years ago, but Ukraine can claim Crimea because it used to be theirs 10 years ago?
So the period where you can claim something as your because it belonged to you some time ago is greater than 10 years but smaller than 50 years, is that right?
Okay I actually know the answer to that question - it’s “whatever USA says it is” (rephrased to something like international agreements or UN stuff), sure.

Anyway, this is offtopic. Calling each other terrorists (yeah Russia does that as well) is as counter-productive as it gets, but let’s discuss it anyway.
Definition (from wikipedia, not mine!):

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it.

Regime of zelensky uses violence (in the form of kidnapping people on the streets and sending them to the meat grinder) and fear (people fear to go outside because they can be kidnapped at any time, fear for themselves and for their family) to achieve political aims of conquering territories (you can read it as “reclaiming”, does not matter).
So isn’t it the west that shouldn’t be negotiating with zelensky and instead sending military aid to Russia to deal with terrorists as soon as possible?

Answered another one of your comment, but I’ll reiterate it here as well - the ones that are killing Ukrainians are Zelensky and his regime supported by the west, by “sending against their will into war”.
If not for that, those people would live, so their blood is on your hands.

The only ones conducting a genocide on Ukrainians are the Russians.

Nope, it’s Zelensky thanks to the support from the west. The only ones that can be considered killed by Russians are killed civilians and volunteers (those two groups together are barely a meaningful number). People who are kidnapped on the streets and sent to army are dead thanks to Zelensky and your (rather your government) support of him. If it were not for that, they would be alive (or at least they would have a much higher chance to be alive). If you are going to deny that, please take an effort to argument your position, as it is quite tiring to speak to a wall :/

You’re right, you could actually be a fascist and do it for free

What a wonderful time we live in, expressing an opinion that murdering people is not OK is now considered fascist :)

Or you actually believe their propaganda

Again, you did not even specify what propaganda do I believe? Seriously, why is everybody here so incapable of having a discussion?
Ok I’ll bite and play a guessing game with you.
Do you consider that “Zelenskyy is the one not negotiating while Russia has repeatedly said it is willing to negotiate” a propaganda?
If so, just let me know and I will give you sources for that, I just though that it is widely known?

Yes why do you support these guys?

I support neither Russia nor Ukraine.

And why do you hate the Free World?

Because the Free World is currently conducting a genocide on Ukrainians