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What about that whole ‘Ukraine did Nordstream’ narrative? Guess Germany knows it’s a cover story.
I don’t think the majority in Germany care about nord stream, even if it was intact, we stopped importing gas from Russia more than a year ago and no one plans to resume it anytime soon. It’s like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.
The ones that care are relistic: Ukraine support against Russia right now makes sense geopolitical. Doesn’t mean they won’t remember that an ally was willing to conduct an active act of war against their infrastructure for their own stupid narratives - as if it wasn’t actually unused already anyway. The fact that it was basically already discarded only means it’s not of immidiate importance, but I’m quite sure Ukraine is aiming for more cooperation with Germany and the EU. And you can bet that there are poeple who will take that into account when evaluating how much Ukraine can be trusted.
It’s like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.
More like you plan to sell it for scrap anyway and then your neighbour smashes the wind shields on purpose. It’s not an actual loss concerning you, but the act itself will be remembered.
I heard Zelensky did himself while on vacation in the Baltic. No big deal, get a boat, get some snorkerls, boom!
All of this in NATO waters but he borrowed harry potters cloak, so it worked out.
I guess some things are more important to them. I’m sure the drivers making the deliveries will be ordered to put on their saddest faces
But there’s no additional money available for infrastructure and social services within Germany. Something something Bundeshaushalt excuse and EU federal debt limit.
Whew, watch out, I mentioned the same kind of sentiment on a post about the billions of dollars that America is sending for the war, and got lectured on “that’s not how government budgeting works and you know it blah blah blah”
It’s neat how it’s so easy for capitalist governments to authorize money for killing people, but when it comes to social spending there isn’t even a penny to spare.
The German finance minister has been gleeful up on his high horse preventing additional spending on important things Germans need, but approved a €100B special fund for the military in 2022 outside of the bounds of the federal budget.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that most of the US “aid” is actually loans. Even their food aid comes with real strong strings attached. The US owns Ukraine at this point. Although I’d don’t know how German aid spending or military spending in support of Israel in general is structured.
Investing in making people die over-seas, rather than the wellbeing of their own population that essentially pays their wage…
Yea, anyone would find that blatantly suspicious. Their goals are perfectly clear.But people have drank so much USA Koolaid that they cant possibly imagine a country running any differently.
It’s not just Koolaid.
The relative domestic prosperity of the US is built upon that very overseas death and exploitation.
The people of the imperial core have some material interest in keeping that system of oppression going, even if they don’t realize it or think about it in those terms.
And those people are the most dangerous kinds of sociopaths.
I don’t think I can agree with that.
Of course the capitalist class generally know what they’re doing, but that’s not who I was talking about.
I meant that everyday working people have a material interest in more or less keeping the status quo. I’m not sure that you can define this group as sociopaths.
If they’re unwilling to stop an aggressor at their doorstep for a fraction of their budget, having more infrastructure or social services won’t help them much
If it’s such a small fraction, why is it so impossible to use it for other means?
Name one country with a bigger military budget
Russia?
Famous for how well they treat their citizens
money doesn’t immediately create soldiers or weapons.
Thing is that people running the west are completely detached from material reality. If you look at their backgrounds, they all come from media, law, lobbying, and so on. They think they can just will things to happen if they want them hard enough. They don’t understand that you can’t just spin up factories and create an educated workforce to operate them out of thin air.
This leads to hilarious outcome like this one where EU leaders thought they could just dump money into shell production to increase it. Instead, the price for one artillery shell has gone up to 8,000 euros from 2,000 euros due to lack of supply and increased liquidity.
Germany continuing their longstanding tradition of funding Nazi collaborators to kill Russians.
I want whatever this clown is smoking lol
sure, it’s not like this was extensively documented in western media or anything
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
- https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2021-05-04/ty-article/.premium/ukrainian-official-changes-tune-on-unacceptable-march-honoring-ss-unit/0000017f-e0e2-d7b2-a77f-e3e7ee990000 (https://archive.ph/ckwv4)
- https://www.ft.com/content/7191ec30-9677-423d-873c-e72b64725c2d
- https://gordonhahn.com/2015/05/02/ukraines-neo-fascist-right-sector-claims-responsibility-again-for-2-may-2014-terrorist-pogrom/
- http://www.errc.org/news/anti-roma-pogroms-in-ukraine-on-c14-and-tolerating-terror
- https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/what-ive-seen-of-ukraines-war-crimes-against-civilians-in-the-donbass-over-the-years/
- https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
- https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152743054/human-rights-watch-ukraine-landmines
All of this justifies Russia attacking a sovereign country, alright. With most of the equipment and uniforms bearing Z, the modern swastika. In mission to provide living room and freedom to true russian people. By committing genocide.
Also, land mines. Ukraine accused of using land mines. Projections give us 700 years to remove mines in Ukraine. 700. Years. Placed by a country that did not sign the Ottawa Treaty.
Now. Tell me about them projections. Cannot wait.
Then call me names.
And then a troll.
Or do we do whataboutism again (see the links comment, adding for clarity) and then change subjects?
Which part of the script are we rehearsing?
First of all, Ukraine lost its sovereignty back in 2014 in a western sponsored right wing coup that overthrew the legitimate and democratically elected government of the country.
I also love how you just keep pushing this false narrative about the war when Stoltenberg already let the cat out of the bag. The war happened because of NATO expansion plain and simple. This is something the west continued to deny for over a year, but now it’s right there in black and white:
Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.
Also, if you want to see what an actual genocide looks like, then look no further than to what Israel is doing with Biden’s blessing. That’s a real genocide where Israel massacred more civilians in three weeks than died in war in Ukraine in nearly two years.
Maybe get yourself a better script.
What is Russia business in Ukraine’s overthrowing their government?
How is talking Israel not changing subjects?
Try asking more intelligent questions so you don’t make a clown of yourself in public next time.
I see this Stoltenberg quote confidently thrown out so often in defence of Russia’s invasion. Do you think Russia has some kind of actual right to invade countries if NATO doesn’t do what it says? Would you be defending Germany if it sent a similar letter to the CSTO and then invaded Serbia?
Of course it does. It’s a superpower with a right to protect its citizens from the threats of the world’s most aggressive military alliance, making threats to install nukes etc. Do you think the US would behave differently?
Hot take but if the USA invaded Mexico because the CSTO refused to stop accepting members then I would, in fact, think that that was bad actually
No world power will tolerate an aggressive military alliance on its borders. If you don’t understand this basic fact, then what else is there to say to you. NATO has been invading and destroyed countries for decades since USSR fell. The principle of invading countries because might makes right is already established by NATO.
It’s pretty funny that you bring up Serbia, given that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is directly modelled on what NATO did to Yugoslavia. NATO recognized independence of the separatist regions and then had them invite NATO to assist. This is precisely the formula Russia followed with DPR and LPR. Russia is just following the rules based world order here buddy.
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If it’s a free for all, Germany and its friends can do what they want and send Ukraine as many weapons as they like, can’t they? Why have you got a problem with it? Under your logic they’re just doing what world powers do
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it’s pretty clear you’ll ignore whatever doesn’t fit with the fantasies you live in though
Can you please explain to the people in the back what these fantasies are?
your original comment that I replied to already explains them perfectly well
And the bravado is gone…
Sad
Great timing, I’m sure everybody is forgetting how it cost a small fortune to heat their home last winter right about now.
This doesn’t appear to be anything official, right? not certain how much a coalition publicly agreeing to this translates to actual funding for Ukraine. Would also be nice to see how this funding stacks vs the US, and vs other EU country contributions.
It’s officially agreed upon by all coalition members, but the finalizing of 2024’s budget where they officially introduce that change is only scheduled for next week.
Also just the original 4 billion € for next year is more than all other countries with the exception of US and UK have spend this whole war…
That’s just military aid though. In all, the EU has almost spent €85 billion to support Ukrainians.
For comparison, Russia is expected to have tripled their national military budget by 80 to €120 billion per year, or an increase of around 4% GDP. If the EU spends €60 billion /year on aid, that would mean around 0,4% of their GDP.
Aka Russia has a GDP comparable to Italy
Bad ass for Germany and Ukraine. hope things go well.thanks for the context
Is this just a kind of inflation/recession write off for the EU and USA at this point? oh, our economy is not doing so great, we are short by X% of development from project, let’s just write that off as ‘aids’ to Ukraine/Israel
This is the best summary I could come up with:
If approved by parliament, where Scholz’s parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany’s defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added.
Lawmakers from Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said.
A spokesperson for Germany’s Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further.
Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine.
“It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch,” he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year.
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper had also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros.
The original article contains 340 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
ITT: plenty of vatniks sowing doubt with further supporting Ukraine.
I do wish there was some honest reporting from at least one of the sides though.
Trolls and vatniks have been telling to the people it’s “getting cold” since last year to dissuade more support for Ukraine. Well, a lot more will lose than just heating for homes by tolerating Putin.
yuppie
proudly standing tall on the bridge and saluting as the ship goes down…
As if there wasn’t enough support for fascism in the world already. Digging your own grave Germany.
germany just loves nazis
Supporting a country’s right to sovereignty is fascist?
No.
“Suddenly the Fuhrer is fascist just because he supports the Vichy government’s right to sovereignty over France?”
Ahh yes I definitely remember when Germany created modern Ukraine by invading Russia in 2021.
Believe it or not, history didn’t actually start in 2021, and Nazi collaborators didn’t all suddenly disappear in 1945 after enthusiastically carrying out the holocaust. Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects. The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.
Of course, you either already know this and don’t care, or you’re going to choose to ignore it to substitute with some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.
Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects.
Fun fact, they went to the Soviet Union too. Paperclip was very much mirrored by Osoaviakhim. So whatever point you’re trying to make by bringing this up, I’m afraid it’s very much a both sides thing. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make though. None of what you said makes the comparison I was responding to any less ridiculous. Hitler and his party, funnily enough, were not defined as fascists by protecting the sovereignty of Vichy France, not least because they didn’t actually do it.
some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.
Thanks for at least confirming you’re not operating in good faith. No, I think Putin has a variety of goals here that include securing a more defensible land route to the peninsula that Russia previously stole in 2014 and attempting to place a puppet (or at least friendly) regime in charge. That you’re uncritically buying the justifications of a warmongering dictator is proof positive to me that you based your entire opinion here on “whatever the opposite of America is” as if it’s a playground football game. I don’t need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.
you based your entire opinion here on “whatever the opposite of America is”
Pure projection. I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives rather than a cartoon villain with an army of mindless robots. My refusal to treat them as fundamentally evil, irrational, or inhuman doesn’t suggest that I think they’re “good”, selfless, or beyond criticism. It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.
I don’t need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.
If you’re an American as I am, then your taxes funded the 2014 coup of Ukraine, the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk, sabotaging the Minsk agreements, and prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict. You’re not some unbiased neutral observer if you’re pretending to claim “both sides bad” while actively funding and voting to maintain the war and block every local attempt at peace. Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.
I don’t care where Russia and Ukraine decide to put lines on a map between them. That’s exclusively up to the people that actually live there, and Euro-Americans like me aren’t entitled to an opinion about it. I care that my government stop using money generated by my community’s labor to murder the people that live there.
I only agree that we shouldn’t view Russia or Russians as fundamentally evil of dehumanize them with language like “orcs”. But really… do you view Russia as a liberal democratic state? I’m sorry but are you out of your mind? And surely they are not led by ordinary people but by a class of oligarchs under the lead of the godfather of this mafia state.
Also you say you don’t care about border disputes between countries. You’re wrong that this is up to the people sharing this border. Legally that’s a very ignorant statement as there are very good reasons that the UN member countries are extremely reluctant to accept any changing of borders, especially not by force. International law puts emphasis on stability of borders. Also it makes border conflicts every countries’ business. So yes: Even as a Euro-American you’re very much entitled to have an opinion about it and legally it’s your countries’ duty to have a stance on it. No one is on the sidelines here.
I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives
It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.
Do you? So let’s say the UK decided to funnel weapons in to Ireland to restart the Troubles and then sent tanks in to annex Donegal. Would you be similarly opposed to arming Ireland against a much larger and better-armed neighbour? After all it’d hugely expand the UK’s exclusive economic zone at sea and significantly reduce the length of the border to defend against Ireland, it seems beneficial for Britain. I don’t know about you, but I’d hope someone would back Ireland up in that situation.
If you’re an American as I am
I’m not
the 2014 coup of Ukraine
Good job Ukraine has had two elections since then huh
the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk
It is interesting how so many of Russia’s neighbours have pro-Russian separatist movements that always seem to have Russian backing
prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict
What leverage do you think Ukraine’s supporters actually have to prevent a peace? They’d stop supplying it weapons? Well you apparently want them to do that anyway. Presumably that’s because you think Ukraine can negotiate peace without being armed enough to fight Russia. In which case these peace-blocking supporters have no leverage with which to block peace.
Of course they have even less leverage over Russia, which could end this war tomorrow by literally just fucking going home
You’re not some unbiased neutral observer
I didn’t claim to be unbiased in the slightest. I am openly pro-Ukraine here. Because I’m generally against countries invading their neighbours and killing hundreds of thousands in order to annex territory, no matter how beneficial it might be to the invader.
Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.
This is literally just American exceptionalism for people that don’t like America. Other countries also do things. Russia has a track record of exactly this kind of thing.
The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.
Does writing fiction pays well nowadays?
Incredible how readily people like this will accept open holocaust denial. Bandera and the OUN weren’t quiet about their politics, their participation in pogroms, or their collaboration with Nazi Germany. We don’t need to speculate about their motives, they came out and said them quite freely:
Russian propaganda.
Anti-semitism inspired by thinkers like Dugin and Prokhanov is popular in Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
TLDR: Russian ethnic nationalists, don’t see Jews as the primary victims of the holocaust, they think of Russian Christians as its true victims, and even go so far to argue that Jews orchestrated the holocaust and/or the war. That’s why they don’t see a contradiction in a country led by a Jew being nazi. IRC they also recently blamed Ukraine for instigating an anti-semitic riot in Dagestan. Not that it would matter, because propaganda allows people to engage in double-think.
As someone who’s pretty left wing, it’s very unfortunate because these fossils (and a younger generation who confuse contrarianism with critical thinking) have often infected left wing parties, ensuring they’ll never have any influence on government and can be easily discredited for even their most sensible solutions. Communists supporting far right ultra-capitalists and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR.
and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR
You mean America and NATO? You know, the guys who actually did that…
No. I mean the robber baron oligarchs who got rich from corruption, stole national industries from ordinary Russians, ensured the USSR bled to death, parked vast sums of ill gotten gains in foreign accounts, and sold their country and countrymen to the highest bidder.
The ‘elite’ who now run Russia, claiming the fall of the USSR was a great tragedy and pretending to be its last defenders, while minimizing their role in its downfall from the safety of palaces, foreign residences and mansions which would make the Tsars blush at their vulgarity.
People like Putin, who goes on about how tragic it was that the Soviet Union fell, while wearing a million dollar watch and conveniently forgetting his ties to the oligarchs and Yeltsin.
Fascism is not an anti-Jewish construct lol
Correct. I meant to say nazi, as was mentioned in the comment above and the article. I have corrected my comment.
Frankly, Nazism is also not an exclusively anti-Jewish construct. They were also strongly opposed to the racial identities of the Roma, Poles, and Russians (and killed millions of them during the Holocaust as well), as well as the political ideology of communists.
Nazism was anticommunist by ideology and antisemitic by policy. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Jews were responsible for the Russian communist revolution and that Jewish communists would come to spread communism. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Slavs (Russians, Poles, …) were communists by nature and would come to spread communism. There was also (misguided) belief at the time that the Roma would benefit from communism at the detriment of everyone else. The first concentration camps were used to imprison and execute communists.
Ukraine lost its sovereignty back in 2014 when a western backed right wing coup overthrew the legitimate democratically elected government. Now, a western sponsored regime is sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths in a proxy war US is using to try and weaken Russia. US politicians openly admit this fact now.
If you don’t like it, go join the storm z unit and fight for freedom
he doesn’t really need to do that. throwing money at a problem limited by real resources doesn’t solve shit. Russia has the advantage right now, even western media is admitting it.
Capitalism is funny. When something is limited by the lack of money (say high speed rail), they say there is no money because fiscal deficit limit etc etc even though there is labor and resources available to build the same. When something is limited by lack of resources (say soldiers), they pump unnecessary amounts of money which is bound to leak out.
I’m sure the parents of the hundreds of thousands of children that were abducted don’t want them back.
I mean the Ukrainians from the occupied areas are enjoying their stay in Putin’s Filtration camps where they are systematically tortured and raped. If they’re lucky they don’t just “disappear” into a mass grave, they’ll get to enjoy their resettlement to a poor russian oblast. Reeducation camps are great! You’ll get an “education” and don’t even have to take on a student loan.
Ukrainians just don’t appreciate all the things Putin has done for them. Systematically attacking their energy grid gave them a chance to experience christmas by candlelight. So romantic.
Why don’t they just surrender? I guess Zelensky must be a Nazi.GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!
So how close to losing and being forced into an unconditional surrender does Ukraine need to be before Europe stops sending aid at their own huge expense?
Huge expense? Not one life lost, all infrastructure intact and got rid of mostly 80’s military hardware while getting budget for new stuff and a whole lot of free field testing and marketing for export.
We are not sending gold bars or euro bills, we’re paying local companies to produce ammo or sending surplus hardware “for the value of $$$” that would otherwise sit in a hangar somewhere.
This is the cheapest war “Europe” has ever fought, can’t say the same about Ukraine or Russia.
The reason they’re trying to fast track EU membership for Ukraine, a country that in normal times would stand zero chance of membership, is so that its debts to the US will become all of the EU’s. This won’t be cheap.
That’s the stupidest take I’ve read in a long time. This is just not how any of it works.
Why do you think the EU would want a shithole like Ukraine (even before the Nazi’s ran the place) as a member? Open to your genius take.
I think the plan is to not let it get to that point? Ukraine is the front line against Russia. If the front line falls, the front line then becomes Poland, which is just one step away from Germany.
The US is treating the EU like a doner kebab to feed Ukraine
Double it and give it to the next person.
EDIT: It was a joke about the famous stupid YouTube videos… Not saying they shouldn’t give it to Ukraïne…
Next person?
Ignore the other reply. I was just making a stupid joke with the title about doubling it.
As that is the famous phrase from dumb YouTube videos were they donate money to people (if is even real) or after doing something and they offer then to keep it or double it and give it to the next person.
