The poster you are responding to is American. This is a situation in which is it best for everyone if America does nothing, because America can only make the situation worse in one way or another because America has historically only made similar situations worse in the past. This time won't be different. I understand the frustration with realizing that situation, but admitting to the reality is the more morally courageous thing.
Sanctions targeted not just at high level Russian politicians, but parliamentarians and kleptocrats?
This, on the other hand, is absolute nonsense.
Do you think it will impact them enough to stop the invasion? Or to stop future ones?
It becomes impossible to pursue a diplomatic solution when you refuse to have diplomatic talks. If you are interested in preventing war then you pursue diplomacy. Putin has obviously escalated tensions by sending forces into these regions, though not to the level of full scale, open warfare (something even the Biden admin has noted, since these areas were largely held by separatists anyway). Wouldn’t the proper response, if trying to avoid this from turning into a full scale war, be to push harder for a diplomatic solution? One that could potentially see withdrawal of these forces, internationally backed elections in these regions to determine their future peacefully?
The most courageous thing to do is admitting when you are not capable of doing something. Especially when doing that directly leads to a worse outcome.
Please tell me how harming innocent people is going to impact that invasion one way or the other. It won't. You keep ignoring that fact, and it makes you look like a bloodthirsty xenophobic dickhead who just wants to lash out. How many times does it need to be repeated? These types of sanctions do not get the results we want, and they cause suffering on a scale that I truly cannot believe anybody would be ok with.
Excuse me, you said the hammer and sickle has nothing to do with socialism and that the Soviets weren’t responsible for defeating the Nazis, THAT is why people told you to go away.
You do realize there is more to diplomacy than just a binary choice between military response and sanctions, right?
You stop Russia by punishing them.
Of course, and so far the rest of the diplomatic efforts have amounted to sweet F.A because Russia/Putin is not interested in good faith diplomacy. Which is why sanctions are now being discussed as the next option.
This has not worked. Believing the US can solve this situation is like betting your 401k on the cowboys winning the superbowl.
This is your whole problem. Russia is not a monolith, and the "them" that are going to wind up punished are ~144 million people who are innocent. But all you want to do is "punish them." That's your whole thing here - not solving the problem, just doling out punishment to those evil russians.
Evil Russian politicians.
The US hasn’t made a serious attempt at diplomacy either, which this move illustrates. It’s just escalation after escalation using Ukraine as the field for a proxy battle
Why should Ukraine even have to negotiate its sovereignty?
Did I say it had to? No.
This discussion is about bullshit. Diplomacy has fully shut down by Putin and nothing else.
Could you expand on this? I really want to understand what you mean.
You don’t get to add a but.
The Russian foreign minister didn’t cancel diplomatic talks, the US did. If Russia was completely refusing diplomatic talks they would have canceled the talks.
not sure where this is coming from; not a single person in this thread would argue that Ukraine's (they dropped the "the" after gaining independence in '91) sovereignty should be negotiable? and the sexual assault comparison is inappropriate at best
You can fuck right off with this comparison. I’m a victim of sexual abuse you fucking asshole, this is a discussion about a tense geopolitical situation and avoiding war. Some of us want desperately to avoid war because the consequences of war would be devastating to Ukraine, to Russia, to the rest of Europe.
For your own good, log off and take some time to calm down. You're getting hysterical over posts on a niche video game forum. It's not healthy.
The discussion is about Putin, as he is the one authorising the invasion of another country. Putin and his cronies are who the sanctions are targeted against thus far.
Have you not been following the news?
See, this is factually incorrect: Russia is moving troops into Ukraine, and has started shelling. There are already Ukranian casualties.
What lie? Talks were scheduled, the US opted to cancel them in light of Russia sending forces into these two regions. I’m saying that they shouldn’t have been canceled by the US, because the conflict can still be prevented from escalating and possibly result in a withdrawal of forces.
There’s been war for years between Ukrainian paramilitary groups and Russian separatist groups. There is not yet full scale war between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, something that we are heading towards but which could be prevented.
The talks were set up on the proviso that Russia did not invade.
This isn’t about “good guys” and “bad guys” that’s such an overly simplistic and facile view of geopolitics. The US and Russia have both adopted aggressive postures, this is blatantly obvious to everyone including Ukrainian government officials who have criticized both the U.S. and Russia for their actions. Why would you cancel diplomatic talks? Russia sending forces into separatist regions of Ukraine isn’t a reason to cancel talks, it’s proof they are imminently necessary to avoid further escalation
To be clear-- you think that Putin is such a delusional megalomaniac that he will legitimately try to seize half of Europe (despite not having the resources to do so), but also that he can be stopped by going after his pocket book? I understand that it's a stressful situation but it's important to do something that makes sense and is effective, especially if it has a cost.
The misconception here is that sanctions are somehow targeted and would only hurt Putin and whatever other people around him you think will get hurt. There is no such thing as a smart or targeted sanction, the people who get hurt the most are in fact the general population. Putin and any other person of his class within his country are the least likely to be effected by any of this. You are presenting it as the safest and most reasonable option when that simply is not the truth.
He absolutely is a madmen. I not only doubt his sanity, im sure his mind is somehow damaged. Would not be the first one in this age. The question is just, to what level. And even if not, he's a killer that can't be trusted.
Your gonna need to expand on this more because nothing of what you wrote makes any sense and seems divorced from reality
What the hell are you talking about?
Yes he's funding right and leftwing partys, for example the german afd , die linke or the france national, etc... That is proofen many times ...
You listed two far-right parties.
you also said russia was planning on invading all of europe when they have a gdp the size of Itaty so im gonna need some receipts on that one
If there's one country I expect to have totally free and fair elections, it's definitely the Russian Federation.
This is kind of a weird way of putting this tbh, I don't think you can really justify deadly action against an entire country because they voted for this person. Even more so against the other 47%. Very cold and inhumane.
I really don't think the Russian public wants war.
