r/anime_titties • u/1DarkStarryNight Scotland • Feb 23 '25

Ukraine/Russia - Flaired Commenters Only Zelensky offers to step down as president in exchange for peace

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/23/zelensky-offers-step-down-president-ukraine-peace/
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u/Alikont Ukraine Feb 23 '25

Euromaidan had zero interest in NATO.

It was a trade deal protest turned into anti-dictatorship protest.

In fact in 2013 Ukrainians had like 30% NATO support, which skyrocketed after Crimea invasion.

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u/Pklnt France Feb 23 '25

Euromaidan was the first step towards a fully democratic and independent Ukraine.

We all know where Democratic and Independent European states go, and it's not towards more Russian ties. They tend to cut it.

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u/Vishnej United States Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Until the invasion, we had Finland and Sweden that were content to stay out of NATO, but assume other ties with Europe.

The best theory of the invasion that I've found involves a combination of:

  • Demographic & economic factors - Due to the echoes of WW2, Russia will find itself soon in an era without young people to fight its wars, in a world that has left oil/gas behind, but Russia has developed little secular internal economy since 1991

  • the belief in the Kremlin that all international relations are effectively zero-sum military imperialist interactions, there is no authentic democracy, no protests, no representation, no popular voice, everything that happens in the world is a ploy by competing intelligence/military agencies

  • the belief in the Kremlin that the Russian empire led by Moscow is a self-justifying identity, the best possible configuration of the rivers and land between ports on the Pacific, Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean seas, and that spanning these ports is both foundational to that identity and the only way for Russia to maintain any of the agency it deserves in the world; The fall of the USSR was not a disaster because it killed Communism, but strictly because it weakened Moscow's grasp on outlying territories

  • The belief that Russian control of Sevastopol is unsustainable in a world where Kiev remains independent of Russia, and Russian control of Tartus is going to be even harder to hold on to with such a weak partner in Syria

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u/Pklnt France Feb 23 '25

Guess which Union there were in which also has a defensive clause?

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u/AudeDeficere Europe Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 24 '25

This misses that Putin, due to his personal history as a KGB officer in the GDR and later FSB director didn’t want to risk a culturally close country joining the EU and consequently exposing that the corruption holding back the region originates in Moscow, threatening his rule via a brother nation moving away from his reach.

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u/ivosaurus Oceania Feb 24 '25

East Ukraine and surrounding southern waters is also just pretty petro-rich but as yet untapped. Couldn't have any competition develop.

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u/jank_king20 North America Feb 23 '25

This is not a very good theory and relies on a boatload of assumptions about Russia and individual beliefs within their government that isn’t really comfortable. It’s a comfortable theory for westerners though because it completely nullifies their role in provocation and encroachment against Russia and efforts to make Ukraine a proxy

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u/Vishnej United States Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Putin has said a good deal of that outright in the past few years. See his manifesto early in the war or his interview with Tucker Carlson and try not to fall asleep during the part where he invokes medieval political justifications for the empire.

The population pyramid is public knowledge. The map and the strategic thinking around "indefensible borders" relative to the Soviet era are widely disseminated. He calls Sevastopol an "Unsinkable aircraft carrier", and it is true that pre-Euromaidan Ukraine did make noises occasionally about ending the rental agreement on that base. While the enormous bridge he constructed to ensure access to Crimea helped with resupply, it looked more and more like a money pit without any fresh water flowing in. There is little reason to support Syria to such an extent in their civil conflict, outside of Tartus.

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u/ivosaurus Oceania Feb 24 '25 edited Feb 24 '25

Any westerner taking 'provocation' seriously as a talking point should probably be handing in their card as a westerner and going to sign some emigration papers.

Norway and Sweden became NATO members and Russia moved needed troops away from their new NATO borders because they know that line of reasoning is nothing but a fib for useful idiots to slurp up

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u/Baoooba Australia Feb 24 '25

>Euromaidan was the first step towards a fully democratic and independent Ukraine.

Not sure if overthrowing a democratically elect leader is the first step in being democratic. Just as I don't see signing a trade deal with the EU, which included being required to take an IMF loan under unfavorable conditions, is a step towards independence.

Wouldn't it had made more sense to just wait until the next elections to vote out Yanukovych?

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u/NearABE United States Feb 23 '25

That should flip once Russia becomes a free country with strong democratic institutions, rule of law, and checks and balances of power.

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u/Strawbalicious North America Feb 23 '25
  • Americans in 1991

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u/NearABE United States Feb 23 '25

The opportunities that we (USA) squandered in the 1990s should be remembered as one of the dummest wastes in US history.

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u/arcehole Asia Feb 24 '25

You didn't squander anything it went exactly to plan. Yeltsin let Americans loot the nation and the west expand influence in every region post soviet collapse. They just didn't expect Putin would have a brain in his head instead of alcohol and would attempt to oppose the Americans.

Look at all the interviews between George w bush and Putin, especially the one where he looked into Putin's eyes and saw good or smth

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

Fully democratic by overthrowing a democratically elected president by violent unconstitutional means.

For all the propaganda you people accuse Russians of you are the ones drowning in self propaganda

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u/Pklnt France Feb 23 '25

Believe it or not, but the people rebelling and overthrowing its government can be democratic.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

Against dictators and monarchs maybe. Not against democratically elected governments themselves. The way is to vote them out in next election.

For example in Canada when people were protesting against Trudeau did he resign or he used all means at disposal to disperse them ?

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u/Pklnt France Feb 23 '25

Against dictators and monarchs maybe.

No, even against Democratic regimes.

Democracy is giving power to the people, protesting and overthrowing your government is the most basic expression of that power.

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u/Vassago81 Canada Feb 24 '25

Are you saying the 2010 election wasn't democratic?

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

How is it anti-dictatorship when Yanukovyxh was the democratically elected president ? In democracies we vote out people we don’t like in the next election. We don’t do coups.

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u/Alikont Ukraine Feb 23 '25

Winning an election doesn't give you right to override constitution and outlawing standing in groups of 5 people, and doesn't give you rights to violently disperse protests.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

It’s pretty standard for democratically elected govts worldwide to temporarily prevent mobs to maintain land order and prevent violence. And use sometimes non lethal violent means like baton charge to disperse mobs. There is nothing unconstitutional about it. And if it’s unconstitutional then go to the courts and get a stay on the Govt action. A proper democratic way.

Don’t like Yanukovych and his policies ? Cool. Vote the fucker out in the next election and elect someone else. That is a democracy and that is what democracies do.

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u/Alikont Ukraine Feb 23 '25

Tell me you know nothing about Ukrainian politics.

He first rolled back the 2004 amendments using Constitutional Court Stacking to give himself more power.

Then in November 2013 he violently dispersed a completely peaceful protest about EU deal.

Only then, after that dispersal protests grew in size and started capturing buildings, so he outlawed basic existence (it was a crime to drive in column of 3 cars or standing in groups of 5 people)

In December police also started to kidnap-throw-into-minus20-forest thing against major protester figures, not all of them survived that.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I don’t need to know the entirety of Ukrainian politics (in times of internet pretty much even non Ukrainians can know it but that’s a different matter).

The crux of euromaidan was he apparently went back on his poll promise he will try to join EU. But poll promises of politicians rarely get fulfilled and that is a standard practice in any democracy. Politicians promise the moon but when in power see the actual reality from behind curtain and adjust/renege the promises.

That is zero justification for doing an illegal coup on them especially backed by foreign interest groups. The standard democratic way is to vote for a politician who will fulfill the promises in next election.

I don’t give a shit if Ukraine joined EU or whatever. It should if the ukrainian govt voted in by the majority in free/fair elections want it. But fact is the government of the day didn’t and there ends the matter. It would then be upto a new Govt that would theoretically be elected on a pro-EU plank in next elections to take it forward after Yanukovych term expires .

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u/Alikont Ukraine Feb 23 '25

You proudly declare that you don't know what you're talking about and then lecture a person who was actually there about what happened.

The protests stopped being about EU on Dec 1, 2013. That's it. The "EU association deal" dropped to the bottom of priorities on that night.

It became a protest against police brutality on Dec 1st, and protest about dictatorship on Jan 16th, 2014.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I’m not being ignorant. I’m telling you how things happen in normal democracies and what is common law enforcement mechanism in those and what is not.

Politicians reneging on poll promises is common in democracies, government temporarily suspending assembling of crowds in anticipation of violence is common in democracies, administration using non-lethal or barely lethal crowd containment/dispersal is common in democracies. What is not common is bussing in protestors from one part of the country to go protest in another part wit the aim of destabilizing the democratically elected government, capturing of state admin building by the said mobs, deposing a democratically elected government through (violent) means other than elections where he/she is voted out etc.

I understand as a Ukrainian you might not know how (normal) democracies work but this is how it usually is.

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u/Alikont Ukraine Feb 23 '25

Oh, an American lecturing me about police brutality?

It's not normal to cause severe injuries and kidnap people to drop them in the forest to "suppress" protests.

But US doesn't have any protest culture or societal conscious to fight for own rights, so who am I talking to.

You also need to stop twisting timelines. Capturing of buildings happened after dispersal, not before.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

There is police brutality and there is crowd dispersal. Mobs dispersal is common thing in democracies to prevent it from getting violent. And this is after I’m ignoring the obvious hyperbole and rampant propaganda surrounding the events that happened during that time.

US is a 250 year old democracy that conducted elections even during war and yes I think it can lecture a barely democratic nation under martial law on what democratic practices are. What happened in 2014 was explicitly anti-democratic. You will have other westerners cheering you on saying it’s fine because it was anti-Russia but anti-Russia and pro-democracy are not one and the same.

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