And notice how these fatal errors are still occurring. The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist. No calls for diplomacy. Meanwhile, 200,000 Ukrainians have been led to their deaths.
The US is regularly engaged in diplomacy with Russia. Our secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs just met with their Russian counterparts.
Diplomacy is happening. That doesn't mean peace can be negotiated yet. Unless the commenter thinks Ukraine should surrender, it is unlikely peace is going to be realistic anytime soon.
They had the basis for peace talks to begin. Biden Administration decided to use it as a cheap way to damage Russia militarily with no American deaths. But massive Ukrainian deaths they find acceptable.
Yet you refuse to cite any sources at all, credible or otherwise. Interesting.
As for peace talks, here's Putin's take on that: "I'm going to rob your house tonight. I'd like to take 25% of your stuff, but if you'll agree to leave the door unlocked, we can probably get that figure down to 20%. If you agree not to call the police, I might even go as low as 15%. Sound fair?
"I mean, it's not like you have no culpability here. You're the one who threatened to join the neighborhood watch, after all. What am I supposed to do, mind my own business and stay on my side of the fence?"
Ok, I re-read it. It was just as violently stupid the second time around.
"Diplomacy" doesn't mean "I break into your house and agree to take only 10% of your stuff if you don't fight back." And when the cops show up, that's not a "proxy war."
It's not due to "questioning" what's going on in Ukraine, but rather repeating Kremlin talking points.
Dragging it into the "both sides" empire-vs-empire context is exactly what Russia wants, as it justifies their naked imperialism while making it so their goal of Ukraine ceasing to exist could be some diplomatic middleground rather than the maximalist goal that it is.
In reality Ukraine wants to be part of the West, as it's a whole lot nicer than the Russian empire that seems to still be running on the playbook from the 1940's. So talking about this as if it's two empires divvying up a country is nonsensical - rather it's the cold truth that world powers exist, and to defend a war against one you have to align yourself with a different one.
And just so we're clear here, I say this as someone who wholeheartedly opposed invading Iraq.
Because calls for diplomacy benefit only Russia. Instead, issue calls for Russia to leave Ukraine.
> Meanwhile, 200,000 Ukrainians have been led to their deaths.
Leaving aside your dubious stat, here "Meanwhile, Russia killed x Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation." There. Fixed it for you.
Your passive voice there betrays your pro-Russian sympathies, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. In other words, pro-Putin statements gets you labeled pro-Putin apologist. Stop doing that, and the problem goes away.
Wait what do you mean - the first fatal error was American soldiers murdering people - the second equivalent fatal error in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is?
He's going to launch into his rote "Euromaidan was a coup" BS talking point. Again (1). Sorry, some trolls are just boring and predictable.
1) The last (but not only) time was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34977835 While it is amusing to read the rhetorical beating that they took repeatedly in response, this does not stop them from trying it another time. If they're not well paid, then someone is getting value for money.
The revolution was not "on their border", it was in another independent country. Trying to deny Ukranian agency and sovereignty is usual Russian propaganda talking point. You are basically saying "Those pesky Ukrainians started a revolution without asking glorious Russian president Putin first while also being at Russian border! That was definitively an act of war!" which is laughable. And just for you to note - I have been living all my life in walking distance from Independence square, so I don't need smug Fox news fans to lecture me on internet about "coups" and Nuland "distributing billions, weapons and oranges infused with battle drugs to Ukrainian nazis on Maidan!!1".
I never said the "totally not a coup revolution" was an act of war, I said of course Russia would respond to it just like we would if the same thing happened in Mexico since it would go against our national interest. We almost went to war with the Soviets just for getting too close to us in Cuba and still sanction Cuba to this day because of it.
Large powers take great interest in their enemies being on their border - more news at 11.
Meanwhile, it is interesting that you don't support the Crimeans voting to be part of Russia in 2014, but fully support the overthrowing of the democratically elected government in 2014. Is that logically consistent in your mind?
> I never said the "totally not a coup revolution" was an act of war
So what did you imply by (snarky) question "When do you think the war started?" followed by "Do you remember what happened right before he annexed Crimea?"? It seems we are in agreement that first act of war was occupation and annexation of Crimea?
Also, why are people like you are so hung up on this "coup vs revolution" thing? What exactly are you trying to achieve by playing with words here?
BTW you might want to consider listening to observers and insiders who actually experienced events directly. Like, you have actual Ukranian who was living nearby to Independence square during both 2004 and 2014 events and yet instead of changing your opinions based on my input you double down on lecturing _me_ about events I have first hand experience with. This makes you look like either a shill or just a person with poorly developed critical thinking.
> why are people like you are so hung up on this "coup vs revolution" thing? What exactly are you trying to achieve by playing with words here?
The reason the "coup vs revolution thing" matters so much is precisely what determines when the war started. If the CIA/State Dept hadn't been involved then and wasn't now treating this as a proxy war, then you would be right to think it all started when Putin rolled tanks into Crimea with no provocation. But we know that isn't what happened and we know the US was involved back then and is funding and arming Ukraine now in a proxy fight against Russia, and since we know all this we can't just blithely claim the war started the day Putin rolled into Crimea.
Putin didn't just decide one day to invade, whether you call it a revolution or a coup, the fact is the democratically elected government of Ukraine had just been overthrown, destabilizing the region and putting millions of Russians in harms way.
Now if you want to make the case that was a shitty justification for an invasion, ok - but that is a different conversation. I would argue it was at least as justified as our invasion of Iraq, Syria etc.
> It seems we are in agreement that first act of war was occupation and annexation of Crimea?
Crimeans voted to become part of Russia after they saw their democratically elected government overthrown in 2014 though, you keep ignoring that part. You ask me why I don't just take your word for it since you were there, but what about the opinions of countless Crimeans who voted to break away from what they saw as a newly installed western-backed puppet government? Their position matters less than yours? And that's to say nothing about the people on Donetsk and Luhansk who also wanted nothing to do with what they saw as an illegitimate government that had just overthrown a democratically elected one, and they've had to deal with periodic shelling since then and the government trying to outlaw anything related to their heritage such as their language, their church their media outlets etc.
> If the CIA/State Dept hadn't been involved then and wasn't now treating this as a proxy war, then you would be right to think it all started when Putin rolled tanks into Crimea with no provocation. But we know that isn't what happened and we know the US was involved back then and is funding and arming Ukraine now in a proxy fight against Russia, and since we know all this we can't just blithely claim the war started the day Putin rolled into Crimea.
Who are "we"? Links, please! All I know that bunch of my well-off middle class friends, coworkers, acquaintances participated. They are still waiting for CIA to send them the paychecks BTW. So, to me it looked very much like a _revolution_, but obviously random Fox news fan from US knows better...
> Putin didn't just decide one day to invade, whether you call it a revolution or a coup, the fact is the democratically elected government of Ukraine had just been overthrown, destabilizing the region and putting millions of Russians in harms way.
Harms way? Oh, I was waiting for those bloodthirsty russian-killing Ukrainian nazis to come in! (I'm a _russian-speaking Ukrainian_ BTW)
> Now if you want to make the case that was a shitty justification for an invasion, ok - but that is a different conversation. I would argue it was at least as justified as our invasion of Iraq, Syria etc.
So not justified at all?!
> Crimeans voted to become part of Russia after they saw their democratically elected government overthrown in 2014 though, you keep ignoring that part. You ask me why I don't just take your word for it since you were there, but what about the opinions of countless Crimeans who voted to break away from what they saw as a newly installed western-backed puppet government?
What about them? Crimea was de facto part of Russia for almost 8 years before Russia (re)invaded and it didn't look like the situation was going to change any time soon.
> And that's to say nothing about the people on Donetsk and Luhansk who also wanted nothing to do with what they saw as an illegitimate government that had just overthrown a democratically elected one, and they've had to deal with periodic shelling since then and the government trying to outlaw anything related to their heritage such as their language, their church their media outlets etc.
Outlaw my heritage? Excuse me? Part of my family is from Donetsk and I spent a lot of time there during my childhood so please spare me your Russian propaganda bullshit about bloodthirsty Ukrainian nazis that were going to brutalize tHeM RuSsiAn sPeaKiNg PeOplez oF DonBaSS until glorious President Putin intervened, thank you very much!
You're very emotionally attached to your positions and it's therefore pretty clear you are not open to discussion. Considering how strongly you feel, have you considered going back and fighting the good fight?
Or notice how those that are pissed off when they are called Putinists call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “proxy war” and blame the death of all those Ukrainian people on anybody except the culprit, I.e. Putin
Not what I said. You can blame Putin AND recognize this thing could have been avoided. The prime minister of Israel said they had a deal but the US said no.
I think its pretty obvious this is a proxy war. Many legislators (both republican and democrat) are openly admitting it. See Dan Crenshaw-TX openly claim the benefits to the Ukraine war being able to fight a major geopolitical rival (Russia) with no American casualties by supplying weapons to Ukraine. That is a proxy war by definition. Looks at comments from Victoria Nuland (state dept officials from both parties) being glad the Nordstream pipeline being blown up.
I had thought there was some merit to the term "proxy war" here. But actually no, it's just another bit of specious nonsense. Thank you for making me look it up!
Wikipedia: A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities
Calling this a proxy war ignores the part of the defintion about motivation. The only instigator here is Russia, and Ukraine is mainly fighting for its own interest of not being liquidated by Russia. Supplying allies does not make a country a combatant, nor does it make the supplied party a "proxy".
Its a proxy war because US is using Ukraine as an convenient excuse to take Russia down a few pegs militarily. US Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX admitted it, saying that its a way to fight Russia on the cheap with no American casualties. Of course, that compeletely minimizes the Ukrainian casualties that it would take. Its not being done in the interest of Ukraine so much as the interest of fighting Russia. Ukraine is being used here, and they are likely to lose anyway. And even if they do win, and Russia is defeated, they will be so ravaged it, it will be little better than a pyrrhic victory. But BlackRock will have a great place to invest. Too bad for those who died.
The motivations of the US are independent of the motivations of Ukraine. Ukraine is not fighting to benefit the US by taking down Russia, but rather to preserve their own independence. This is why it is not a "proxy war" - the US acting to help its own interests does not make it into one. Otherwise every single war would be a "proxy war", making the term useless.
You continue to conflate the actions of Ukraine with the actions of its allies, by using the passive voice to remove Ukraine's agency. This is directly in line with the Russian imperial propaganda narrative that wants to brush aside the idea that Ukraine is an independent country.
Also, appealing to the tyrannical nature of the US-led financial system is fallacious here, as being economically oppressed is much nicer than being militarily oppressed. You keep throwing out these "deaths" as if they've only occurred due to Ukraine not surrendering, while Russia's liquidations in the occupied areas demonstrate that Ukrainians are actually fighting for their own lives.
Strange how you automatically feel the need to support one side and can't see the horrible outcome this has been for all parties. This could have been resolved through diplomacy. You never see the term even mentioned anymore.
that's not how the world works. Peace deals can happen, but everyone has to put everything on the table. When people dig in and are stubborn, that's when we get hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Such as when you decide to announce a rushed annexation of your enemy's lands after your army suffers the biggest rout of the 21st century? While claiming that this war isn't about trying to annex your enemy's lands, after all...
Quite a few. I try to listen to what everyone is saying. It always makes me nervous when the media seem to march in lockstep.
Looks into what David Sacks has been saying. He got into it on the ALL-in podcast a couple of weeks ago, but you can find him on Twitter. He says the corruption in Ukraine right now is off the charts. Higher than anything in any corrupt Latin American country. Its difficult to decipher what is going on in Ukraine right now, because there's so much propaganda from all sides.
Is that your top 3, your "listen to everyone" ? One guy. That does not even answer the "top 3" question meaningfully.
One guy: David Sacks; a Paypal and Thiel aligned guy, who unironically calls Russia's invasion "Woke War III" ? Not a geopolitics guy, just a a rich "culture war" guy? This has less than zero credibility to me.
While I am sorry that your information diet is so poor, both in quality and in variety; but I have no interest in you recommending the same to me. Sort yourself out first.
> No idea what a random forwards is.
Do you follow the youtube algorithm then? That would explain this amateur hour.
This is a more complex than that. I don't like the invasion, but its not like Russia has no vital interests in the area that is right on their border. And they have occupied Crimea in the past going back to 1776. I'm just saying they have as much national interest as the West does. Israel Prime Minister claims they had a deal that was agreed to but Biden administration turned it down.
It's also the responsible thing to do to look at the prospects of forcing a war though, when the Urkainians are so heavily outgunned. 200,000 Ukrainians have died in this fight. Maybe 50,000 Russians have died (its hard to find out specifics). The US wants to fight this war on the cheap with the Ukrainians taking all the casualties so that Americans won't have to. That is pretty deplorable to me.
The sources are all over the place, but they all seem to be horrific. There are estimates that Ukrainian deaths so far could be anywhere from 100K to 200K.
Russians have lost a lot too. But the only thing we know is that they are depressingly high.
Of course Russia has vital interests all around it: everyone does. But it doesn't follow that "therefore Russia should be allowed to annex everything around it".
Again, we know that playbook, it has played out before in Europe. Today it's Ukraine, tomorrow it's Poland, and your arguments will still be exactly the same: Russia has vital interests in Poland, Russia has occupied Poland before, Poland is outgunned, and why would we care about Poland, really?
And then it's Germany, at which point, again, nothing has changed. Britain and France might use their nuclear deterrence when it's their turn, but if they listened to you, they'd probably say "do we want to end humanity just because we don't like Russia to rule over us? Surely not, humanity is too important to be destroyed over Russia's vital interest to annex whatever is next to Russia" and roll over.
It would end only when Russia invades the US or China, because neither will allow it if their nuclear weapons are still available by then.
You've posted dozens of flamewar comments to this thread and broke the site guidelines egregiously. That's abusive, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are or how right you are or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this. I'm not going to ban you because everyone goes on tilt sometimes, but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd appreciate it.
That hasn't been true since HIMARS arrived last summer. Now there's parity, and Russian war correspondents report that in some sectors Ukraine even exceeds Russian capabilities. In coming months, we'll see how the "hopelessly outgunned" army will do with more modern weapons in the upcoming spring counteroffensive. All we know right now is that the Russian winter offensive was a spectacular failure: worst casuality figures since the war began and nothing to show for it. Let's hope that Ukraine makes good progress and ends the war soon.
Please don't talk anything like this in future on HN, thanks, regardless of what the other person says. You wrote similar things several other times on this page.
You're making assumptions about me based on your projections. They're wrong.
I don't profit from any weapon sales, and it's the Ukrainians who want to fight. I'm certain especially Western Europe would've been much happier if Ukraine hadn't resisted and Russia could've swallowed them (your preferred option), because it would've meant no annoying break with your main provider of gas and oil.
But here we are, and some people are still claiming that Russia has the right to terrorize its neighbors because hurr durr Red Army strong.
> The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist.
Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon. They can't bring themselves to admit that they are losing to Ukraine and hence emphasise how they are "acktshually fighting against the whole NATO". Allies have given a lot of support, but mainly in the form of obsolete military surplus equipment and equipment alone doesn't fight; see Afghanistan.
> Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon.
The point of calling it a proxy war by the Kremlin is not to make it seem larger than it, as the largest post-WW2 European war, is. It is to invert the responsibility for aggression. (Secondarily, it’s to deny Ukrainian agency and make its existence and sovereignty an irrelevancy in discussing a war where that is the entire issue.)
There is a sense in which calling it now a proxy war between NATO and some other affiliated states on one side and, say, Iran, China, and North Korea on the other, is not entirely inaccurate. (Russia prefers to look to external sponsors of the direct belligerents only on one side though.) But, even to the extent that’s accurate it doesn’t change that the war (which started in 2014) was initiated by Russian aggression, and the 2022 escalation was a major upswing in Russian aggression, and the outside assistance (whether or not it also has ulterior geopolitical motives) for the other side is in line with the right of collective self-defense enshrined in the UN Charter.
> The point of calling it a proxy war by the Kremlin is not to make it seem larger than it, as the largest post-WW2 European war, is. It is to invert the responsibility fot aggression. (Secondarily, it’s to deny Ukrainian agency and make the existence and sovereignty an irrelevancy in discussing a war where that is the entire issue.)
Yes, that's what I meant. The purpose of this talking point is to diminish Ukrainian achievements by leaving an impression that Russia is under attack and fighting the whole "collective West" (as they call it) and that the war is much larger in scope than it actually is: Russia vs Ukraine.
Foreign military aid to Ukraine has so far barely sustained defense and I wouldn't call aiding countries belligerents in this war.
Many us legislators are openly admitting it is a proxy war. See Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX comments on Ukrain support. He calls it a good deal that we get to fight a major geo-political adversary without any American deaths by just supplying Ukraine with weapons. He is not the only one. That is by definition a proxy war. Fighting a war on the cheap that isn't designed to ultimately win anything, meanwhile sending 200,000 of those Ukrainians to their deaths is despicable in my opinion.
I am not on Putin's side on this, but this is not 1945. Russia does have some vital national interests in the reason, since its right on their border and they have a long historical relationship with Crimea. The prime minister of Israel claims they had a deal worked out, but the Biden administration nixed it. This is a result of strategic planning within the State Dept. to have this fight.
Yeah, noticed "walks back". He just said he is now "unsure". Why did he say it in the first place? Sounds like the US put the squeeze on him, so he "walked it back". Nevertheless, there was SOMETHING on the table that could have been the basis for talks. They ruled it out of hand.
His words were initially taken out of context; he meant that allies stopped pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal after mass graves were uncovered in Bucha. That's the only source for this conspiracy theory.
It goes against your whole narrative of how the US is forcing Ukraine into a war.
There was still a basis on which talks could have been opened up. The fact they were entirely nixed shows they are not interested.
200,000 Ukrainian deaths when they can't even define what victory looks like beyond slogans. They are trying to fight a war on the cheap so long as no American casualties happen, but they are perfectly fine so long as they are Ukrainian casualties. At least, they could at least define what victory looks like and provide the means to do so.
> There was still a basis on which talks could have been opened up. The fact they were entirely nixed shows they are not interested.
It is important to note that the party least interested in a workable peace deal at this point is Russia. After all, they annexed last October a large swath of Ukrainian territory in such a rushed manner they couldn't even properly explain what they annexed. Given that Russia seems uninterested in any peace deal which does not include Russian annexation of at least some portions of Ukraine, any argument that what Russia really cared about was NATO enlargement is laughably incorrect.
There's nothing to negotiate at this point. Either Russia moves its guns and tanks and soldiers out of the whole Ukraine like they retreated from around Kharkiv, or Russia gets defeated on the battlefield. Anything else would leave Ukrainians in occupied territories to be wiped out by Russians. Russian hopes of a favorable peace deal is nothing but a coping mechanism, just like top Nazis hoped to reach a peace deal in 1945. Better prepare your cyanide pill.
And that completely ignores how the world really works. You are perfectly content to risk WWIII. It is not 1945 anymore. You are risking a nuclear conflict that would be absolutely horrific.
What difference would a nuclear strike make anymore, several Ukranian cities have already been hit with more TNT equivalent than Hiroshima and Nagasaki and wiped from the earth: https://twitter.com/OstapYarysh/status/1632282407578611712
Britain has historical roots to the US territory, going back to centuries ago. According to your logic, a British invasion and occupation of US would be justified.
> And their have been hostilities between the two since 2014 when the US formented a revolution there.
This is just another conspiracy theory. In 2014, a pro-Russian president of Ukraine backed down from a very favourable trade deal with the EU at the last minute due to Russian pressure, people came to streets to protest, he ordered snipers to shoot unarmed protestors, after which the unrest only grew, he fled the country in panic and Russia used the unrest as a cover to invade Ukraine.
The Association Agreement also included sections on political and security cooperation. More importantly, Ukraine was pretty evenly split on Maidan and the signing of the Association Agreement. [0] This split, also seen in elections was largely geographic. [1] Unsurprisingly, toppling the (democratically elected) president tore the country apart, and independent on which government you personally prefer, I think it is really hard to argue that Ukraine wasn't the victim of Big Power politics in this case.
The manipulations within the state dept. by Victoria Nuland are well known. She was literally caught on the phone planning who was going to be pushed as the next leader. By labelling it a conspiracy, you are simply trying to disparage a very valid possibility. Conspiracies are nothing more than multiple people collaborating to make something happen. It does happen, and they should not be dismissed out of hand.
> Ukraine is right on the russia's border. Their economies and cultures are intertwined
So, according to your logic, a British invasion and occupation of USA would not be justified, but a British invasion and occupation of The Republic of Ireland would be?
The Bulwark is a neocon publication by Bill Kristol. He still refuses to apologize for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is part of the war machine that is perfectly happy to see perpetual war.
He was a solid republican, but he was all too happy to ditch everything he said he believed in to embrace the cultural issues of the left. The only thing he kept the same was his hawkish views on foreign policy. That shows a lot about him right there. He is an untrustworthy source for anything.
I already know who Bill Kristol is, and the people (plural) behind The Bulwark are, thanks. It's not hidden, it's here https://www.thebulwark.com/about-us/
I'm not a fan of their political project, my point is that even they don't buy this "coup" nonsense.
I do not think either that he "ditched everything he said he believed in" when their political party changed and they did not, that's rather a specific framing from an extremist faction of that party.
Huh? Dan Crenshaw has been all in on this war in Ukraine. He even openly admitted that it was a golden opportunity because we could fight a major geopolitical adversary on the cheap by just sending weapons with no American casualties - completely minimizing any Ukrainian casualties.
That's the point. The people behind The Bulwark don't believe "this coup nonsense" because they are pushing for war there. All the writers there are always pushing for military solutions to everything.
> The Bulwark don't believe "this coup nonsense" because they are pushing for war there.
It could be that. Or maybe, they don't believe it because the facts don't support it, and they believe in truth as a thing that is worthwhile regardless of if it personally benefits them or not.
You have a very transactional view of truth. And frankly that says more about you than anything else.
As a Ukrainian I find your comments in this thread insulting. You should educate yourself a little about history of Ukraine before you start spewing such nonsense. I would suggest you to start with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&list=PLh9mgdi4rN...
Now, I will assume you are just a misguided westerner who watches too much Fox news and indulge you:
> Ukraine is right on the russia's border.
So? How about US invading Mexico, occupying and annexing its lands, killing bunch of civilians while simultaneously demanding Mexico to "respect" US "sphere of influence", speak English, stop "threatening" it by committing to neutrality, etc.
> Their economies and cultures are intertwined.
Let them rape and indiscriminately kill bunch of civilians in some Bucha or other towns because of similar languages and economical ties? How does that make any sense to you? Also, claiming that Ukraine doesn't have its own historical roots and cultural identity is one of the Russian propaganda talking points.
> And their have been hostilities between the two
"Hostilities"? Excuse me? Russia occupied and annexed parts of Ukraine repeatedly but you dubbing it "hostilities" make it sound like some kind of a border skirmish where both parties are culpable which couldn't be further from the truth.
> since 2014 when the US formented a revolution there
Another Russian propaganda talking point. People were fed up with Yanukovich and decided to remove him from power. Support from US was inconsequential.
> I am not shilling for Russia
Yes you are! Openly and brazenly.
> peace agreement requires all parties to put everything on the table and deal openly
Well, yes, Russia would love Ukraine to put its lands "on the table", commit to neutrality, make Russian language the second national language and a lot more. And what exactly are the offering in return? To maybe stop attacking Ukraine for some time? Am I missing something?
> This could have happened.
It still can. Ukraine has been offering to solve the conflict through diplomacy as soon as Russia withdraw its forces. It is not like Ukraine is going to push into Russian territory to occupy Moscow and kill Putin. You understand that, do you?
Look, if you just prefer US to stop spending money on Ukraine you could just say so. Yes, this will lead to bunch of Ukrainians killed, raped or tortured in concentration (excuse me, "filtration"!) camps and you will feel somewhat bad for saying that, but at least it would be truthful. No need to play Tucker Carlson here with "border skirmishes" and "hostilities".
Thank you so much for this comment. Until I read it, I was regretting having submitted this story, after seeing it marred by starkd's sickening 27-comment barrage of Russian propaganda and insults.
> How about US invading Mexico, occupying and annexing its lands
I know. It seems US and Mexico have been having hostilities and border disputes for some time now, so annexing some more of Mexico's lands would seem like reasonable and expected course of action.
I will also note that the cash burn rate for this war in Ukraine is now exceeding that of Afghanistan in the early years. It is more money after nothing, because they won't even define what victory means. Just more war slogans.
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