No. of Recommendations: 4
Thank you onepoorguy for not resorting to the ridiculous argument that anyone not cheerleading the sending of weapons to Ukraine, and not taking war reports by Ukraine at face value, is automatically assumed to be employed by the Russian government.
^^The "narrative" is verified by numerous independent sources.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189655846/a-russia...^^
There is no investigative journalism in the war regions of Ukraine at all so we will only transmit what the official Ukraine PR reports. The Ukraine PR was virtually taken over since 2014 after our Washington sponsored violent Azov coup to remove Yanukovych for not following our direct orders and actually putting the Ukrainian public first rather than Washinton's interests. From Russian reports about the cathedral bombing -
https://www.rt.com/russia/580146-ukraine-strike-od... it reads:
In a statement on Sunday, the ministry said that 'the information disseminated by the Kiev regime about the Transfiguration Cathedral in the city of Odessa being hit by [Russian] high-precision weapons does not correspond to reality.' It added that all Russian strikes successfully hit military facilities in the region that were located 'at a safe distance from the temple complex.'
Officials also stressed that 'the planning of high-precision strikes against the military and terrorist infrastructure of the Kiev regime is carried out based on carefully vetted and confirmed information' in a bid to avoid hitting the civilian population as well as cultural sites.
The ministry added that the footage from the scene suggests that 'the most likely cause for the destruction of [the cathedral] was the fall of a Ukrainian anti-aircraft guided missile.' The incident could have been caused by the 'incompetent actions' of personnel managing Ukrainian air defense systems which Kiev deliberately deploys in civilian-populated areas, it added.
According to the ministry, the Russian strikes overnight successfully hit Ukrainian naval facilities near Odessa that were 'used to prepare terrorist acts against Russia' involving sea drones. Officials also claimed that the attack landed on compounds accommodating foreign mercenaries fighting for Kiev.Do not take their report at face value, but without any real journalism, quoting what Ukraine puts out, as you have done, as meaningless as quoting what Russia puts out. Thus far, the record has been more reliable from the Russian media than the Ukraine media, but the point is to look at both sources rather than just being in a bubble with the Ukraine sources:
^^There is no evidence it was a "missile defense error". Those things can happen, but just declaring that it is so doesn't make it so.^^
I do agree. There is no evidence that it was a Russian missile, but also no evidence that it was a Ukrainian missile. And if there is evidence, such as our bombing of the Nordstream II gas pipeline, the story is banned from discussion.
^^As for the larger war, Putin himself has made several speeches about de-Nazification and such. I don't speak Russian, but I suspect if the translations were inaccurate someone would have called the media on it. He has made his intentions and goals clear. He almost made it to Kiev, but that was thwarted. Otherwise there likely wouldn't be a Ukraine anymore.^^
Their visit to Kiev was to a low-probability high-outcome chance to avert the longer war by knocking out NATO command at the centre. It failed but you can understand the strategy. Russia cannot allow NATO to be in Ukraine, period. That is the reason for their military involvement and the only reason. If was want to avoid a war, we should not place our NATO equipment there.
^^As for "moving NATO" around Russia's borders, those nations joined voluntarily (and in fear of Russia). Putin has only himself to blame for that.^^
If they voluntarily joined, which is simplistic iterpretation, then we should not permit then to join. We should recognise that moving NATO close to the Russian borders is interpreted by Russia as a red line, and will provoke a war, and so we should not do it. Even if a border region such as Romania wants to join NATO, we should not permit it. We literally have nuclear submarines in the Black Sea. Imagine a similar hostile military alliance between North Korea, Iran, Russia and China called "NKIRC" placing nuclear subs in the Gulf of Mexico. You can understand Russia treats this as deplorable, but they have been tolerating it for a decade without it hardly being reported in our press. Moving NATO in to Ukraine was the last line as way over the top. Ukraine was the traditional entry route for the devastating attacks that nearly ended the Russia in World War I and nearly ended the Soviet Union in World War II.
^^About the only thing you got right (verifiably) is that this is becoming a proxy war. ^^
I'm glad we agree on that. But you need to watch out of the idea of relying reports that claim to verify when they are not involving journalism. This is a very central point when trying to determine what is true and what are just lies. The overwhelming majority of our media, the public alike, are sincere and mean well but they all falling for the same narrative. Journalist are not even permitted in the war zones, whilst even in Vietnam they were allowed to report independently. If you report anything that contradicts Kiev now, your career is over. At home, you can say what you want, but if you are on a camera held by someone speaking English, no-one in Ukraine will report what is actually happening there out of fear.
Start by expanding your research to include sources in Russia - I don' mean to believe every word, but to start by at least including their side as part of your fact verifying. Also try to put your perspective of yourself leading Russia since 1992. You try to cooperate with the West, you dismantle the Wars Pact and expect a long period of peace, but are brutally sanctioned, a hostile military alliance is pushed to all of your borders, and then terrorism is provoked right on your border in Donetsk for years.
My instinct is that Russia should have just stayed in their own territory, but it would have been horrendous to see their own brothers being killed year after year by this Washington sponsored terrorism whilst standing there doing nothing. They tried to support the Mink I and Minsk II implementations of peace but we continued to block that, and even more recently when there were 'threats' of Ukraine negotiating peace with Russia, B. Johnson immediately flew in to block it. Russia waited 8 years from 2014 to 2022 watching all this awful terrorism that Washington sponsored - the Ukrainian military firing at Ukrainians in Luhansk and Donetsk - and they warned us relatedly that NATO joining Ukraine was a red line. We just ignored their official warnings and had plenty of opportunity to remove NATO arms and NATO cooperation from Ukraine, and there would have been not reason for Russia to enter Ukraine.
