456
What happened to the Crimea bridge and why is it important?
(www.aljazeera.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
456 points (100.0% liked)
World News
48917 readers
1572 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Crimea is 76% russian. It was almost 70% russian before 2014 and it is around 76% russian today. Almost all of these people lived there already.
Russian speaking != Russian. A majority in Crimea voted for independence from Russia in 1991 and that desire for independence from Russia did not lessen between 1991 and 2014 when Russia's imperial war of conquest against Ukraine began.
Certainly can, and will! Nothing justifies another country just annexing that territory. Nothing. No amount of you talking will justify it. No number of people there who speak Russian justify it. There is no justification.
You would've sided with the whiskey producers in the whiskey rebellion.
Then do it democratically through referendums. An illegal war is inexcusable. Claiming land is yours because there are people from your country there is textbook fascist strategy.
To offer an example, this was Hitler's basis for invading and annexing the Sudetenland, part of what was then Czechoslovakia.
I'm going to quote this next year when Xi annexes Sakalin.
Russia has been too large for too long, it should have been split into a dozen separate countries centuries ago.
And they just magically had Russian military uniforms and heavy equipment...
Sure. But that doesn't really change the census data much.
This applies to Donetsk and Luhansk too. All three of these regions were ethnic majority Russian, and the separatism kicked off when the Maidan government banned the Russian language in official government usage (schools, local institutions etc).
So you're saying that Italy ought to annex New Jersey?
As others have pointed out, Crimea is not 82% Russian. The majority of the populace speaks Russian, but a shared language does not indicate a shared culture. They don't want to be part of Russia, and were illegally invaded.
Crimea wasn't "invaded". Russia was already there as it leased the port and officially managed it for military use already. That's why there was no fighting. They already ran the checkpoints, they already were the entire military presence in the region. The changeover from "this is Ukraine" to "this is Russia now" was entirely the signing of papers and changed absolutely nothing about the presence in the region or the average day to day. They certainly took it over, but to say it was invaded is somewhat misleading, more of a "we've decided that this is ours now".
This is a gross and flagrant distortion of events in Crimea leading up to the illegal annexation. It leaves out the fact that the operation of the checkpoints was still subject to Ukrainian governmental oversight, the fact that prior to the take-over, Russia illegally brought soldiers in unmarked uniforms over the border (the "little green men"), and the fact that the "changeover" was far from violence-free, let alone just a "signing of papers."
The denial of reality going on here is absurd. Pre 2014 I know they operated the checkpoints because I went to Crimea for 2 weeks in 2009. I'm not saying that there wasn't also fuckery involved but denying the reality of events is nonsensical. There is even a vice documentary that shows just how casual the transition was. It's extremely painful discussing these topics with people online whose only understanding of these regions comes through the lens of this war.
I never said Russia didn't operate the checkpoints. But prior to 2014, Crimea was indisputably Ukrainian territory, and Russia operated security checkpoints inside Ukraine at Ukraine's discretion.
No one is claiming that the annexation of Crimea involved violence at the scale of the current war, but it was not non-violent, either. Characterizing it as just "signing of papers" is false.
What other lens should we look at the annexation through? It was clearly the early stages of this war.
I'm not saying it wasn't Ukrainian territory. I'm saying that the presence there was 100% russian military because it was functionally operated as their military port.
This is precisely why there was no battle over it, no deaths, no nothing. Just "this is russia now" and continued operation of it as they always had but with different flags.
I'd much prefer a non-war lens of the place and how cool it is. Most people in america hadn't even heard of it until the annexation, it's very unfortunate.
I don't think calling it the early stages of this war is quite accurate but it's not really that important and kinda gets into unnecessary semantics. The war probably wouldn't be happening if the Minsk agreement had been kept. Russia were never going to let Crimea go because they needed it as a military port but they avoided Donetsk and Luhansk up until the Minsk agreement failed. If they had taken these regions in 2014 it would have been a breeze for them as Ukraine had no military to speak of, which is why the civil war was fought by the nazi volunteer batallions (azov, right sector, etc etc). Ukraine's military was ramped up between 2014 and 2021. They did not really have much of anything until the 2016 Stategic Defense Bulletin followed by the State Program for the Development of the Armed Forces (2017-2020). In 2014 the military was only 90k active personnel with over half being civilian staff.
We'd all prefer a non-war lens of Crimea. You're right, it was a cool and interesting place, and hopefully still will be when the war is over.
But Russia has no say over whether another country's territory will be used as Russia's military port. The fact is, Ukraine was amenable to hosting Russia's military there, so long as Russia didn't try to actually own the land, but they've forfeited their right to use it now.
Ultimately, Russia's military will be ousted from Crimea along with the rest of Ukraine, and that will be that. Had they never annexed it or escalated to open warfare, they would still be operating there freely today, with a much friendlier Ukraine happily hosting them.
I uhh. Don't share your optimism or actually care who runs it, I only really care that the people I know there remain safe. For them and for myself the flag be waved around is somewhat meaningless compared to the human impact of all this nonsense, particularly because some of my socialist friends are gone now. With that said I don't see Crimea changing hands again, nor does anyone I have spoken to currently in Crimea. I might change that assessment if the counteroffensive ever actually sees the first line of dragon's teeth but so far it's been completely underwhelming. Everyone also sees the deployment of clusterbombs as a "let's salt the earth so it's worthless to them" move rather than anything that will change the counteroffensive's prospects.
There is an easy way to end the war: Russian withdrawal. It really is as simple as that.
At any point in history Russian Federation had no right or business to occupy any part of Ukraine. It was up to Ukraine to decide what to do with those areas.
While we all want the war to stop, it cannot be done at any price. Ukraine must be allowed to return the areas stolen from it and Russia must return to pre 2014 borders. Either they do it willingly or with force. No one likes it, but it's Russia that chose to attack, not Ukraine.
I hope your friends are safe, but at the same time I hope they have the sense to leave Crimea until things settle.
And let's hope for peace, but recognize that it cannot be achieved by giving into the offender's demands.
Not physically possible under russian law.
Again, this is not possible under Russian law. The notion that it'll be done with force is similarly unrealistic, nukes would fly before these were taken by force. But before that happens you'd have to see the removal of the Russian warships off the coast which will be obliterating anything that comes near Crimea. It just isn't ever happening without a navy or an airforce.
They're fine for now. It's relatively quiet there because the defensive line is so far away, barring these bridge incidents.
We'd be there already if not for boris fucking johnson. I really don't know why you care about the "offender's demands" either. Are you a nationalist? People are what matter. I could not give a shit about what flag exists between the two, right now it's just a situation where two extremely shit sides throw thousands of lives into a meatgrinder and all I want to see is the meatgrinder stop.
You are awfully considerate of the Russian law. I suppose it was okay for them to start the war because the law permitted it (did it?)? Annexation of Ukrainian land became okay too, because they made a law that permitted it, right? No matter what the Ukrainian or international law says, right? Please elaborate on how it's the Russian law that we need to take into consideration and not the others.
This reminded me that, thank God Russia was able to use Wagner troops, because the Russian law recognizes independent military organis...wait a minute, it doesn't. My point: Russia can and will interpret and implement it's laws however the guy on the top wishes. Law there has nothing to do with regulated and supervised legislature most of the so called western countries have.
Trying to take Crimea by force is not optimal, but if it is the only way to do it, and the Ukraisinian's decide to try it, it's their decision because it is their territory. Might succeed, might fail, might escalate, might not...we don't get to decide that, however terrifying the outcome might be. That's the sad truth, but Ukraine has the right to decide.
The reason I care for "offenders demands" is that if you give into them, they start demanding more and more and more. Putin's Russia is on a path of escalation and it has shown that it cannot be trusted to participate in the international community. The more they get out of Ukraine, the more they emboldened to makes demands and take aggressive steps towards their neighbors. This has been the trajectory since Russo-Georgian war in 2008 and it is not going to stop until they hit a brick wall. And currently the wall they are hitting is Ukraine. Also note that this is a historical phenomenon and the way Russia has operated at least since Soviet Union and a case could be made for even earlier than that.
If you must know, I'd probably be what most people call a socialist and a pacifist. I hate war and want nothing to do with weapons or the army. I don't care for flags or national symbols and I despise imperialism ND colonialism. However, I do care for the letter of law and a rules based international system. Currently Russia is wiping it's arse on these and that must be stopped, otherwise it'll just continue and get worse.
Even at the cost of Ukrainian territorial integrity? That’s for the Ukrainians to decide, and so far they’re picking the meat grinder. More power to them.
Yes. I could not give a shit about "territorial integrity". This is nationalism. I'm not a nationalist, I don't like states especially bourgeoise states.
You are putting nationalism ahead of people's lives.
No it isn't. It's for the Ukrainian rulers to decide. The people don't get any choice in it, that's the problem. And everyone that opposed this war was rounded up and arrested, every left wing party in the country was shut down, and the left wing tv channels were also shut down, all under the "they're pro russia" excuse simply for being against the war. There is no "let the ukrainians decide" under that environment.
You really seem to enjoy crafting strawman arguments.
Ukraine is fighting an existential war. Boosting nationalism is a way to cope with that and survive. I hate that nationalistic shit myself, but in their situation Ukrainians are both allowed to express themselves in a nationalistic way as well as fight back. And from the viewpoint of opposing nationalism: the fact that Ukrainians are more nationalistic, was mostly caused by drum roll Russia.
Ukrainian rulers appointed by the Ukrainians in free and increasingly transparent elections. In representative democracy, it's the representatives job to decide on behalf of the pople. Also, Zelensky is hugely popular president with support from the opposition too. Most of Ukraine support their leaders and they have a mandate from the people (especially the president).
You seem to confuse being leftist and a pro russian. The way I see it, they closed pro-Russian stations, some of which claimed themselves to be leftist. During a war, anti-war channels usually tend to go silent too (wonder why).
As a person many would call a left leaning socialist myself, I find it astonishing how some self-proclaimed leftists are hell bent on claiming that Russian Federation was somehow a champion of socialist values. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite of those and has nothing to do with leftist or socialist values.
Also, if you identify as a leftist and support Russia to oppose the US or "the West", you really need to:
What strawman did i craft?
No it isn't. As you will see when this ends with both a Ukraine and a Russia existing afterwards. This nonsense is just devoid of any realistic understanding of the circumstances that created this war or any general understanding of how wars end.
God I do hate the way americans speak "free and transparent" christ. It's like talking to a robot. The current state was created in a US backed far right revolution. Under no circumstances can you call its elections "free". The left in particular was not allowed to participate in the 2019 election, candidacy being refused. You can not call an election "free" while banning the left from participation and only putting up a bunch of utterly shit candidates that nobody wants, the man had a 31% approval rating and every single poll since the war began excludes the regions that matter most - Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
There is nothing I can ever say to get you to stop using this as an excuse. For you, calling anything "pro Russia" enables you to close your brain down and ignore reality.
Absolutely nobody here has said that. You are now literally making shit up. Russia is a capitalist shithole and I want to see its end just as much as America.
Once again you are saying things I have not said. LISTEN to the words I say instead of making up your own shit.
I have read more than you my "left leaning" (lmao "hello fellow socialists!") friend.
Once again, you're being a tit. You have invented a cartoon character in your head to imagine me as instead of actually listening to any of the words I say. I think this conversation is no longer worth wasting my time with.
See your own post above😀
For Ukraine it is first and foremost a defensive war to survive as a sovereign state. It is not a matter of an opinion. Second aim is to cement their country as part of "the West" via EU and Nato. If you wish, I'd be to happy to hear what you think Ukraine is fighting for.
Yeah, I don't like the way most Americans speak either. That however, has nothing to do with our discussion here (another straw man, yay!).
The rest of your argument is just parroting what Russia has been saying at least since the beginning of their invasion. I suppose you are Ukrainian, since you know so much about how people there feel about Zelensky and the leadership? Because the stuff the rest of see from reliable, many times first hand sources, paints a very different picture from yours.
Using what as an excuse? Calling a Russian supporter pro Russian? Blimey!
Now we found a common ground of sorts. Although I am sure our view on how that can be achieved differ quite alot. Sorry that I assumed too much, but this is a common phenomenon that I see a lot on internet.
To be honest, that comment was not directly aimed at you, but to anyone identifying as a leftist and siding with Russia and repeating their talking points. I honestly believe there is a huge contradiction in there. I could've been clearer, but I still stand by those words.
And just to make it clear, I did not wish to cause you any frustration or even win an argument. I just wanted to point out things in your arguments that I find peculiar or simply misreprestative of the situation with Ukraine and Russia. I am also genuinely interested in understanding where such opinions stem from. So no, I don't see you as a cartoon character, just a fellow lemming 😘
This is just not good faith and seeing this behaviour at the start of a post just makes me not bother reading the rest.
I am sorry. That was not my intention.
Yet my points remain the same 🙂
Support for the war is high in Ukraine. Where did you get your sources for freedom of speech being suspended in Ukraine and people with anti war sentiments getting arrested?
It’s ironic, you claim to care about the people, but you don’t care about what the people of Ukraine actually want.
Unreliable after everyone that opposed the war was arrested, or taped to lampposts and beaten in the state's terror campaign carried out early on. My friends won't openly say anything to government sources or ""media"".
Every single left wing party in the country was literally banned. If you don't support the war you labelled "pro russia". It's not difficult to find examples of these arrests, and it's not difficult to find the videos of the terror campaign that was waged. If you want some of those videos I can go find them for you but it's pretty distressing watching hundreds of very deliberately public beatings to put fear into people, I really don't recommend.
Such freedom!
I see, thank you for letting me know! I see this is indeed more nuanced than I had thought.
Can you provide any proof of the “tied to lampposts” claim? I’m fine with seeing video proof if you have it
Sure, March 2022. This was a light terror-campaign waged by Ukraine to bring citizenry that were anti-war inline. Do some very public punishments and shaming in order to inflict fear into people about the consequences of talking or opposing the regime. This was all on Twitter but as with most things in this war Telegram is the only place to get it from.
Here are some examples:, CONTENT WARNING: Beatings, nudity and some racial violence.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/3
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/13
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/33
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/48
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/58
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/64
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/89
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/91
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/111
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/117
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/118
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/119
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/120
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/121
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/122
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/123
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/168
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/169
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/170
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/171
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/182
I'm not going to be a moralist about terror campaigns, they get waged quite often in countries at war because they work very well. The first thing socialists would do in a post-revolutionary country is wage a terror campaign to reduce the opposition. The only reason I raise these is because libs arguing that the people are "free" at the moment in this country are deluded about the reality of the situation.
I recommend caution and critical thinking with that Telegram account too. It's not just anti-war it's pro-russia. The campaign that was waged shortly after the start of the war can't really be denied though, there's a lot more than this but I think it effectively paints the picture.
Wow, I see. Thank you for letting me see the evidence with my own eyes, and for your patience in this discussion. I’m sorry I was too quick to accuse you of bias.
Honestly, this should be made more accessible than a Telegram post. But I guess it is hard to do alternative hosting.
We're all biased. I think you're right to assume anyone is. I just don't stop pursuing more information on account of wanting to doggedly hold a single position.
It was more accessible than a telegram post. But Twitter went on a very significant banning spree near the start of the war against anyone that was posting significant content that made ukraine look bad.
My position on the war can be summed up as:
Ukraine had a significant nazi problem before the war. It has worsened significantly since, contrary to the media presenting it as non-existent.
The war was avoidable. But both nato and Russia could not come to terms.
Nato, Ukraine and Russia all fucking suck and hundreds of thousands of families are being thrown into a meat grinder over global power shit that does not help anyone. I couldn't give a shit who is in charge of what, I can't stand any of them, the lives are more valuable to me than states or borders.
This has nothing to do with genocide. But as with all wars there are war crimes being committed. The genocide angle is a convenient way to avoid the more complicated topic of the reason this war is happening, and it gives people a simple way to defend the continuation of the war by claiming that ending the war would result in a mass genocide (if that were the case they could just take up arms again when peace doesn't work).
Anyone claiming this is what people want is full of shit there is no freedom. Don't get me started on the conscription gangs that go around beating and kidnapping any able-bodied men they see on the streets. There's as many videos of that lately as there were of the terror campaign waged near the start.
Only the US and Russia sitting down will end the war. The Ukrainian state has zero say in it. And neither do the people. Which as I keep pointing out are 2 separate entities that should be seen as such in every capitalist nation. Americans have zero say in what forever wars their rulers constantly get them into either. The sooner this happens the sooner lives stop being wasted and destroyed.
Russia chose all of this.
No one else. Russia.
And?
And so it is on Russia to leave. You bring up Russian laws like the Ukrainians are not sovereign. They gave their own laws. You know what else was legal? The Holocaust was legal under German law. That didn't make it right. I hope you can understand that this is why people consider Russia a fascist state right now and yes, it does matter. Your arguments are textbook fascist and you should take that into serious consideration.
You've missed the point. They can't, because the law prevents it.
Don't mistake that for a value judgement about those laws because it's not. I am just acknowledging the political reality, which is something you categorically have to do in order to reach a conclusion in these matters.
You can call me a fascist all you want but the only person between the two of us that is supporting more bloodshed is you and your nationalism. I'm not a nationalist.
You literally don't know what fascism is and I challenge you to define it. Then we can determine if I've missed the point. Fascism is always legal. It is always backed by law. It must be by definition or it seeks to be. If your society cannot stop an ethically motivated war that you started because the law prevents it, that is fascism.
Fascism is a reaction to leftist power in any given country it arises in. That's why we call them reactionaries.
Fascism occurs when leftist growth in a country grows to the point at which it threatens to overthrow the bourgeoisie's ruling class power. When this threat arises the bourgeoisie fund ultranationalist elements within nations in order to build a force that can be used for ultra-violence in the pursuit of killing off the leftist threat.
Fascism differs depending on national character. Fascism in Germany was not the same as fascism in Italy or fascism in Spain, Chile, Japan or India. But it often has certain characteristics of ultranationalism and the supremacy of certain groups, but not always. Ultimate fascism is anything that it has to be in order to get power and use ultraviolence which is why describing it in absolute terms is difficult. This is why fascism is more aptly characterised by what it is in reaction to rather than anything else.
In short. Fascism is like the white blood cell of capitalism, it arises when the "infection" of socialists threatens to overthrow it.
When the "infection" is over, it then ends, morphing back into regular capitalism. We can see that this occurs by looking at the countries where fascism was not defeated, where fascism won. In both Spain and Chile fascism did not become something unique from capitalism, it is a part of capitalism, and when it had eradicated the threat of socialism it was then changed by its ruling class back into neoliberalism, which is a more efficient means of wealth extraction from the population.
So, your definition of fascism is state power to counter the left. My definition is how the fascists define it; how you are currently defining your society. Think on that. Do some actual research into historic fascist arguments. I'm not advocating for them, I'm saying you should see some parallels.
This is an ethnic argument, further pointing to the idea that you are making distinctly fascist points in this thread.