You make it sound so easy. Try criticizing Kim Jong-Un as a North Korean.
Oh god stop it please! I am not questioning how hard it is or easy it is to criticise them. My point is: if you don't speak up, nothing will change, never ever. Although it is very hard, deadly and such, that is unfortunately how change happens in such dictatorships.
Oh god stop it please! I am not questioning how hard it is or easy it is to criticise them. My point is: if you don't speak up, nothing will change, never ever. Although it is very hard, deadly and such, that is unfortunately how change happens in such dictatorships.
And my point is, don't be too hasty to judge people who can't speak against their governments. It's admirable to be brave but self-preservation is a natural human instinct.
And my point is, don't be too hasty to judge people who can't speak against their governments. It's admirable to be brave but self-preservation is a natural human instinct.
Absolutely. And instincts of self-preservation will kick in faster once you start to notice your country is being isolated and becoming a threat to your self-preservation. That is the only way a third party can help you and your people with, other than being directly involved which is a disaster.
Absolutely. And instincts of self-preservation will kick in faster once you start to notice your country is being isolated and becoming a threat to your self-preservation. That is the only way a third party can help you and your people with, other than being directly involved which is a disaster.
It's a tricky and delicate situation. Like I said, it would be great if the people would be brave if they can stand up but we can't just easily impose our beliefs on them and judge them specially when we're not on the receiving end of the consequences. If I encouraged them to speak up and one of their family members got killed for it, I would terribly feel responsible for that. That's what I'm trying to say.
I am terribly sorry for contributing to the offtopic conversation.
It's a tricky and delicate situation. Like I said, it would be great if the people would be brave if they can stand up but we can't just easily impose our beliefs on them and judge them specially when we're not on the receiving end of the consequences. If I encouraged them to speak up and one of their family members got killed for it, I would terribly feel responsible for that. That's what I'm trying to say.
I am terribly sorry for contributing to the offtopic conversation.
If you feel that the conversation is off topic, but you want to keep contributing to it, I would recommend to quote the post and go to the thread you think would the appropriate one... I moved some of them to "Politics and Social Issues". You can continue here
Display MoreWell if noone will speak up, how do you expect things to change? Should we remain in dictatorships? Should we have the tyranny forever? Do we expect a NATO intervention for things to change? Because the last option is absolutely not my favorite. I believe the change has to come from the society and this will only happen when someone brave enough opens their mouth because courage transmits and eventually you will notice thousands and then millions starting to speak up.
What I said earlier does not apply only to Russian volleyball players. This applies to every individual of a society and is a responsibility of them if they want to see a change. If they do the same for Turkey, I am completely fine with it. But already now, many popular volleyball players in Turkey criticise the government for example, openly, on twitter.
And in my world of justice, US and other countries you mentioned above should have the same punishment if they do/did a similar act. So this does not apply solely to Russia.
One thing you all need to question is: "how can we change the tyranny in any other way than people speaking up, raising awareness and making millions ask questions?". And these punishments and economic sanctions are there to start a fire, making the society to finally open up their mouth. If you want to shut up forever for the sake of your life, family and comfort, I completely respect that. But then you can't complain that you are led by an evil dictator and rest of the world wants to isolate you for that reason, until you start speaking up.
serdar - a personal correction here. Me living in abroad is not applicable here. I always criticised our government openly, went to vote in rurals of Turkey where people were waiting outside the voting place with guns, my entire family living in Turkey openly criticise the government. I guess people like that made sure that there is always a hope in Turkey and a strong opposition. I know my view of change is dramatic if not tragic but rationally speaking, you don't see change in such leaderships until people speak up and go out to streets. Look at Iran during the last 6 months as an example.
if they did? Let's take one (just one of the many instances) example. USA invaded Iraq over false reasons. They stayed there for many years. Afghanistan too. Millions died. Where is the sanction?
One thing I learned after USA pulled out of Afghanistan is how powerful the media is. And controlling the narrative of these media corporations do change stories, perceptions etc.
Again, you have a noble point. But lacks nuance.
if they did? Let's take one (just one of the many instances) example. USA invaded Iraq over false reasons. They stayed there for many years. Afghanistan too. Millions died. Where is the sanction?
One thing I learned after USA pulled out of Afghanistan is how powerful the media is. And controlling the narrative of these media corporations do change stories, perceptions etc.
Again, you have a noble point. But lacks nuance.
I am not here to discuss if USA is more evil or not. What I am saying is, we need to sanction when such things happen so societies react. If you believe USA did that, lets section them too, I am not against it. However there is not a nuance but gigantic difference between USA and Russia, called democracy where people still have the right to protest and votes to change their government.
Of course it is a whole different story if you are claiming what Russia and Putin doing now is right and the media is convincing us that it is not. That's beyond my point and I won't try to prove why it is bad.
I am not here to discuss if USA is more evil or not. What I am saying is, we need to sanction when such things happen so societies react. If you believe USA did that, lets section them too, I am not against it. However there is not a nuance but gigantic difference between USA and Russia, called democracy where people still have the right to protest and votes to change their government.
Of course it is a whole different story if you are claiming what Russia and Putin doing now is right and the media is convincing us that it is not. That's beyond my point and I won't try to prove why it is bad.
Isn't it more reason to treat the Americans and their allies general silence regarding these invasions extra critically though? They have the chance to speak up freely and did not and don't use it.
Isn't it more reason to treat the Americans and their allies general silence regarding these invasions extra critically though? They have the chance to speak up freely and did not and don't use it.
Once again, this is beyond my point. But if you believe US is doing a similar crime, I repeat it a 10th time now, yes we should sanction them until their government changes and people speak up.
But a practical question here, don't people in US vote to change their governments, almost every 4-8 years and didnt we see a recent shift from Trump where they were speaking loudly and criticising him, for example during black lives matter protests?
Problem is, on the other side you have no longer the option to vote that government out, which makes is more crucial for people to speak up, if they want things to change of course. Otherwise our only hope is someone riding a unicorn showing up and clearing the entire world from such governments miraculously.
Once again, this is beyond my point. But if you believe US is doing a similar crime, I repeat it a 10th time now, yes we should sanction them until their government changes and people speak up.
But a practical question here, don't people in US vote to change their governments, almost every 4-8 years and didnt we see a recent shift from Trump where they were speaking loudly and criticising him, for example during black lives matter protests?
Problem is, on the other side you have no longer the option to vote that government out, which makes is more crucial for people to speak up, if they want things to change of course. Otherwise our only hope is someone riding a unicorn showing up and clearing the entire world from such governments miraculously.
The entire point is that yes they have and worse: so far the Ukraine war has resulted in 7000 civilian casualties. The Iraq war resulted in at least 300K civilian casualties, Afghanistan 100K. And the entire point is that: there were NO consequences so what has changed now? Why is the media so mad suddenly and talking about human rights? It's because it's the same media that killed the other half a million civilians and their enemy is the one invading a country this time around. Of course a bunch of us will not take any of these political games seriously. Yes, I agree everyone should be punished. The point is, this isn't happening and we are being brainwashed thinking one side is playing a hero arch while they are not and it's entirely political and hypocritical.
The US might be able to change governments but both the democrats and republicans (their two major parties) have been quite pro-invasion in their foreign policy so it's not like anything changed. The problem is that not many people spoke against these invasions over there, possibly less than in Russia despite their 'free' policies. Yes, Trump is ideologically far from me as well and a dick, but actually he was a rare case in that he didn't want to involve the US in other countries policies so yea, getting rid of him has nothing to do with being anti-invasion.
Thank you for clarifying the evil things US did user and I have nothing against those. My point is not who did that or doing what but more on the role of the sanctions, not just economically but also culturally.
When it comes to media and perception of the world, I wrote this earlier, I always wished Russia was a strong, democratic and a well respected country. In that way, we would have another country showing how terrible things US did in past and probably doing now. But with their current state, noone will take Russian claims seriously in that matter. When it comes to Iraq, I am not even sure if Russia tried to bring medias attention that it was a crime. I know Turkey at least tried to some point with lots of protests happening. Afghanistan is a completely different story, first Soviets, then USA, they simply were fighting against each other, feeding weapons to Taliban.
I guess what made the world calm when you USA was invading Iraq was that it was led by a dictator and they promised to bring "democracy" (lol) unlike in Ukraine, what Russia is trying to do is "you have too much democracy, lets bring back a dictatorship".
I guess what made the world calm when you USA was invading Iraq was that it was led by a dictator and they promised to bring "democracy" (lol) unlike in Ukraine, what Russia is trying to do is "you have too much democracy, lets bring back a dictatorship".
Do you really think Ukraine is a democracy? They banned a lot of parties, politics, traditions, languages, and even churches... CIA overthrew the democratically elected president Yanukovich (who was born in Donetsk) and installed a lot of Bandera followers (I guess you know who Bandera is, right?). Not just in the presidency, but in the armed forces and RADA parliament. That's when the civil war started. People from Crimea, Odessa, Kharkov, Kherson, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Nikolaev, Lugansk, etc voted for Yanukovich back then. They are normal, good people, unlike Bandera followers.
Do you really think Ukraine is a democracy? They banned a lot of parties, politics, traditions, languages, and even churches... CIA overthrew the democratically elected president Yanukovich (who was born in Donetsk) and installed a lot of Bandera followers (I guess you know who Bandera is, right?). Not just in the presidency, but in the armed forces and RADA parliament. That's when the civil war started. People from Crimea, Odessa, Kharkov, Kherson, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Nikolaev, Lugansk, etc voted for Yanukovich back then. They are normal, good people, unlike Bandera followers.
Leave this russian propaganda out pls.
Leave this russian propaganda out pls.
Ukraine is a democracy because people could go out and overthrow a government. If CIA achieved that in the backgarden of Russia, Husky123 better question his countries abilities which I don't think it true. And yes I know Bandera. But before Bandera, please check Wagner group and what kind of parties Putin is financing in europe, it is becoming tragic.
Leave this russian propaganda out pls.
Propaganda? So, wasn't Yanukovich overthrown? Didn't the Ukrainian government ban the traditional commemoration of Victory Day (Soviet victory over Nazi Germany) in all of Ukraine since they came into power? Didn't Ukraine ban the Russian and Hungarian languages in schools? Didn't they ban a lot of churches?
BTW, I know the Soviets did horrible things, not just to Ukrainians, but to Russians too. Although celebrating Victory Day shouldn't be banned since they beat Nazism unless they are angry cause what happened to Bandera and his believers.
Look at this. He's the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a Bandera follower 
and it's neither an edited photo nor propaganda, he even posted it on the official Twitter of the Ukrainian Armed Forces then deleted it because of the bad comments of his Polish followers 
Another example of those supporters:
and like them, are a lot of cases!
BTW, not all Ukrainians are Bandera-Nazi followers, just the West part. Look at this table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…n_Ukraine_towards_Bandera
People from Eastern (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Dnipro, Zaporozhie), Southern (Crimea, Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev), Central (Kiev, Chernigov, Poltava, Sumy, etc) didn't have a positive attitude towards Bandera faction, unlike people from Galicia, Volynia, etc.
The last years the Bandera-Ukrainian government was rewriting history and imposing its ideologies to schools in order to make people from those regions Bandera followers too.
In case you don't know, Bandera and his followers welcomed Nazis when they invaded the Soviet Union, they killed more than 150k Poles (AFAIK, more than 100k Poles were killed by Banderites), Jews, Russians, and even Ukrainians that didn't approve their actions. People who now praise Bandera and call him "Father" are Nazis. JFYI, the CIA helped Bandera until the Soviets killed them, and now they're helping his followers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…ra,_Ukraine_is_our_mother!
Maybe you wonder what tf Russia should care about if they are Nazis or not. Well, it's about history. Kiev is considered the mother of all Russian cities, and there are a lot of cities that were founded from the scratch by Russians. F.e.: Odessa, Kharkov, Sevastopol, Kherson, Dnipro (formerly known as Ekaterinoslav), Donetsk, Sumy, etc. Communists gave those cities to Ukraine! BTW, in these cities still are a lot of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people.
Russians will never allow Americans to put nuclear weapons in Kiev (mother of all Russian cities) nor create naval bases in Odessa and Sevastopol as was requested by Banderites. That's why Ukraine should be a neutral state!
Russia and Russians have nothing against non-Bandera-followers Ukranians. Indeed, Russia is the country that received the most Ukrainian refugees.
Ukrainians, Russians, and Belorrusians have a lot in common. They were from the same tribe and spoke the same language (Old Russian), then their languages evolved into what's now. Even Ukrainians were called Malorrusians (in English, Little Russians) a long time ago, like Belorrusiasn (White Russians) then their name was changed to Ukraine which means "Borderlands" or "Outskirts".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia#Modern_context
Of course, Putin is guilty and should be accountable for what's happening. He should've helped the Yanukovich government, but if he did that, he couldn't have had a reason to annex Crimea and then invade and annex the rest of Ukraine 
also, the Ukrainian government doesn't help either, they are seen as Banderites and Russians don't like Banderites. Polish and Jews allegedly don't like Banderites either.
With that being said, I wanna point out that war is bad and shouldn't happen in the first place. Many innocent people are dying cause of that. Both parts are responsible for what's happening. Now western media says Russia is amassing three more times military than at the beginning of the invasion and that in the upcoming weeks, they'll invade again in huge proportions. We should advocate for peace.
I am sure you will find more Nazis and supporters in Germany dear Husky, but that is not a reason to call Germany a Nazi supporter country, and it does not give the rights to Russia to invade them.
Shutting down parties is not extra ordinary but I agree that in a mature democracy, it should not be allowed. However, if Ukraine and especially Zelensky aiming to join EU which they confirmed in many ways, that means they will have stricter controls on themselves and their democratic development which I think is the right way to mature their democracy, not letting a few oligarches to control the country as well as its economy.
I will stop here because I did not come here to argue if Russia or Ukraine is right, there are a million things to discuss on that matter. For me Russia is wrong and Ukraine is right but I respect if someone comes up with 10 other arguments (such as Bandera supporters) to claim that Ukraine is wrong. Once again, that goes beyond my initial point.
Since I personally think that what Russia does now is a crime, I sincerely hope Russia to be isolated and Russians to be banned from all sports/cultural events until they change their government. You can rightfully hope the same for Ukrainians.
Ukraine is a democracy because people could go out and overthrow a government. If CIA achieved that in the backgarden of Russia, Husky123 better question his countries abilities which I don't think it true. And yes I know Bandera. But before Bandera, please check Wagner group and what kind of parties Putin is financing in europe, it is becoming tragic.
So, now democracy means to overthrow a government you don't like and then bombed the hell out of the regions that don't accept the coup 
You're really funny. You better follow your country's policy towards Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Syria, and even the Kurds that the CIA and USA consider as Freedom fighters.
BTW, Ukraine was a democracy back then. There were pro-Russian presidents and pro-EU presidents before Maidan 2014. Now it's not a democracy.
Yeah, Putin should've helped the Ukrainian government back then as he did with the current Belarussian and Kazakh governments 
, but not, he wanted to annex Crimea. He's guilty too, as I said.
I know the Wagner group... they are like the Azov group. The difference is the Azov group is part of the Ukrainian army (indeed Wagner group dislikes the Russian Armed Forces). Unlike Bandera followers, Wagner followers aren't part of the parliament or other institutions. Bandera followers control the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That's a fact. What is their slogan? Our father is Bandera, and Ukraine is our mother! Do you really support that ?
I sincerely hope Russia to be isolated and Russians to be banned from all sports/cultural events until they change their government.
I agree with that. Any country that invades another country should be banned (or play neutral) until it's over. If tomorrow Turkey decides to invade Syria once again (in order to "stop terrorism"), I think your country should be banned. If tomorrow the USA decides to invade Iran because they found massive destruction weapons (as they did with Irak), I think we should ban them too.
Display MoreSo, now democracy means to overthrow a government you don't like and then bombed the hell out of the regions that don't accept the coup
BTW, Ukraine was a democracy back then. There were pro-Russian presidents and pro-EU presidents before Maidan 2014. Now it's not a democracy.
Yeah, Putin should've helped the Ukrainian government back then as he did with the current Belarussian and Kazakh governments
I know the Wagner group... they are like the Azov group. The difference is the Azov group is part of the Ukrainian army (indeed Wagner group dislikes the Russian Armed Forces). Unlike Bandera followers, Wagner followers aren't part of the parliament or other institutions. Bandera followers control the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That's a fact. What is their slogan? Our father is Bandera, and Ukraine is our mother! Do you really support that ?
In a democracy, it is perfectly normal for people to protest and overthrow a government, yes that's how a democracy works.
I also don't understand how my country's politics are related to this lol. But I am glad you started writing, so others in the forum can see your views and consider what they are in favour of.
For the rest, I will not argue since we move beyond my point. We won't be able to come up with a conclusion who is right/wrong in this war until we discuss it for days and maybe 100 pages here.
In a democracy, it is perfectly normal for people to protest and overthrow a government, yes that's how a democracy works.
I also don't understand how my country's politics are related to this lol. But I am glad you started writing, so others in the forum can see your views and consider what they are in favour of.
For the rest, I will not argue since we move beyond my point. We won't be able to come up with a conclusion who is right/wrong in this war until we discuss it for days and maybe 100 pages here.
Not if you oppress the other big part of your population, bomb them, ban their language, their tradition (as celebrating the victory over Nazism), their religion. Or do you really think that people in Odessa or Kharkov wanted to speak Ukrainian before the invasion? Nope, but the Ukrainian government banned their mother language in schools and universities.
and yeah, I hope many users read it in order to understand the other "side" of the story and stop calling it "propaganda". Of course, there is propaganda on both sides, but we should read the independent, historical facts in order to make a conclusion. The current Ukr government is pro-Banderite, followers of a Nazi collaborator who killed more than 150k Poles, Jews, and Russians.
As I said, we should support peace and not war. Both sides are wrong and I hope this ends soon.