Last I checked I was, technically, born under British occupation, not American. Also the term we use over here is “liberated”. You’re comparing apples and oranges.

You ever heard that infamous quote by the founding general secretary of NATO? “keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out” ?

NATO was designed to be and still is a tool to subjugate Europe and expand American power. Everything the German politicians wrote in the aftermath of WW2 had to be approved by the Allied powers and the US by far had the strongest gravitational orbit. To this day, Germany is not allowed anything beyond a defensive military.

A country who cannot voluntarily build up a military is a country that is not fully independent.

But there’s actually a case: Germany. And it wasn’t protests, but brownshirt militias. Backed by among others US money, e.g. Henry Ford

Ok, so we acknowledge that far-right protests can lead to coups and that money helps finance these. We are getting somewhere. Right-wing tactics are nothing new. The same things they tried in the early 20th century, they are trying again today.

The right wing is not close to big enough to field those numbers. Them being at the protests doesn’t mean that they run it. You could just as well accuse pretty much any other party of paying protesters.

https://voxukraine.org/en/denial-of-the-obvious-far-right-in-maidan-protests-and-their-danger-today

the far right Svoboda party was the most active collective agent in conventional and confrontational Maidan protest events, while the Right Sector was the most active collective agent in violent protest events. The Maidan protest events where the far right groups were mentioned were also larger (more participants reported) than the Maidan protest events where the far were not mentioned indicating that the far right were not on the periphery of the Maidan protests but in the center of the events.

Far-right organizations were by far the most important players in these protests. They organized them, they funded them, they escalated tensions at the protests. This falls in line with far-right tactics, like we spoke about above. Violence begets more violence. Enough violence and the government can topple.

The party possessed a unique combination of resources among Maidan participants: ideologically committed activists, resources of a parliamentary party, and dominant positions in the local authorities in Western regions. First, unlike other major opposition parties in Ukraine (hardly more than electoral machines) Svoboda possessed thousands ideological activists organized in a nation-wide party cells network. Even if Svoboda activists were a minority among all Maidan supporters, there were still more of them than of any other single opposition party or NGO coalition. They were regularly and intensively participating in activities of Kiev Maidan camp, particularly, helping to maintain them in the periods of downturn mobilization (like in the end of December 2013 – the first half of January 2014).

These groups, Svoboda being the largest, had a large access to $$$. This $$$ came from somewhere.

The far right activists regularly trained in the boot camps (vyshkoly) and before Maidan had the largest experience in violent actions against the law-enforcement among other political or civic groups

Then we leave quasi-legitimacy of Svoboda and go directly to militancy.

The far right were usually the vanguard of the governmental buildings occupations in Kiev on December 1, 2013 and in 10 western and central regions in January 2014. Not surprisingly that in the last days of confrontations with the government on February 18-21, 2014 the Right Sector and Svoboda played a crucial role in taking power on the local level in Western regions even before Yanukovych escaped from Kiev. Figure 2 shows how active the Right Sector became at the last, most violent stage of Maidan (February 18-21, 2014), while the prominence of most other collective agents drastically declined

The Right Sector, other radical right and Maidan vigilantes helped to maintain the public order for several weeks during the power transition process. A Patriot of Ukraine activist in Ivano-Frankivs’k said that they have not even stopped patrolling the streets but only institutionalized the practice later as the Civic Corps “Azov” affiliated to the same name far right regiment of the National Guard

Analysis of the far right in Maidan protests turns attention to the importance of ideological extra-parliamentary politics and to the crucial role of radical minorities possessing unique activist, organizational, ideological, and violent resources that allow them to outcompete on the streets both oligarchic parties and any coalition of liberal NGOs.

If you look at the data, if you look at the protests, if you look at what happened- the far-right was instrumental in toppling the Ukrainian government. They were organized, ideologically heated, and had lots of resources backing them.

Figures people don’t like to be ruled by Moscow. Can you blame them? The most compelling argument for a “pro-western” direction is Moscow itself.

If I were a Ukrainian and I could snap my finger and choose whether to be part of the West or part of Russia’s orbit… I would immediately choose the West.

But look at the costs they paid for this independence war. They’ve lost a fifth of their land, nearly a quarter of their population, nearly a third of their economic output. Cities are ruined, families are scattered, their demographics are destroyed for the next century.

Ukraine will never be a Poland. They are a sacrificial lamb. This is what really fucks me up about the whole thing. We participate in the destruction of Ukraine in the name of democracy, sovereignty, international law, bla bla bla. But in 10 years they will be no better off. They will not get a Marshall Plan

If Canada were to invade the US, would you mind the KKK volunteering to die on the front? Would you stop them from dying?

I’m not criticizing the morality of allowing the far-right to fight in a war. I’m using that as an example to show their outsized influence. Have you seen any left-wing militias that got officially incorporated into the Ukrainian military? No, you haven’t. Because the far-right is not only more common in numbers, but in influence.

The UK and some other nations who wanted to suck up to the US participated

Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, & the United Kingdom

But on the flipside you get to say it happened, against all evidence?

It’s not “against all evidence” There is a wealth of circumstantial evidence. You can track American money openly flowing into Ukrainian organizations that directly participated in the overthrow of the Kiev government and instituted a pro-US regime.

That new regime on the very first day already started cooperating with the CIA. There’s a nice Reuters or Washington Post article about it I can find if you’re interested.

There’s the diplomatic phone call leaked by Russia, I don’t know if you’ve heard it. Basically two US officials were debating which Ukrainian politician they wanted to win. Turns out, the guy they wanted to win did become PM. There’s more, if you’re willing to read leftist news.

Latin American countries aren’t known to have particularly strong civil societies which can act in unison. Maybe that’s what you’re missing,

Yeah, because Ukraine is a strong civil society. Where the government was toppled and one was unconstitutionally appointed.

Far-right organisations and parties have less influence in Ukraine right now than in pretty much any other European country.

Show me, please, another European country where the far-right was able to fund hundreds of protests which they purposely escalated to violence (following traditional right-wing patterns, ie Mein Kampf) and those protests were key in toppling the government.

They played kingmaker. In return they get incorporated and legitimized. Ie Azov which started as a neonazi militia becomes an official part of the government. Now they’re “tolerant and inclusive” but if you look at the leadership, it turns out they’re the same guys who joined when it was neonazis.

“Pro-western”, whatever that means, has been popular in Ukraine for quite some time

“pro-western” means messages that bring Ukraine closer to the Western block and away from the Russian block. US money has been openly flowing since independence in 1991, with covert money almost certainly going back much longer (remember, the US tried a coup in Ukraine after WW2. you can read a history book about it)

languages are almost mutually intelligible?

i’d imagine it’s like spanish to italian. close and if you have had exposure you’ll be able to pick up more than someone who hasn’t.

That changed with Crimea and by now it has completely shifted

invasion of Crimea happened because of Euromaidan. literally a few days after there was a coup that installed a pro-western government. Russia got desperate and decided it was now or never. at the time, less than half of people supported the protests. mostly split on west/east. it was not so universally supported even though history is slowly being rewritten.

right now, ukraine has lost almost a quarter of their population. and that included their most pro-russian citizens (crimea+donbas). so now they are more ideologically homogenous. it may seem like there was a major change but it’s deceptive

While I’m at it: Are you claiming that these elections were not fraudulent

i haven’t made a single claim about any election in ukraine being fraudulent or legitimate. in the west we don’t have to fake votes. elections are bought in other ways. you know what’s the greatest correlation for campaign success in the US? $$$

…the sum of that money is peanuts, btw. Every single Ukrainian oligarch can, and indeed has, outspent the NED. Fun thing about Ukrainian oligarchs is that plenty of them don’t like to be under Moscow’s thumb, either, they don’t want to pay dues to Russia’s mob.

billions of pure liquid cash in the right hands is not peanuts, especially in a poor country like Ukraine. $200M a year is enough to hire thousands of people full time.

You read too many geopolitical “realists”, as they call themselves. Small powers band up and beat large powers. Small powers fight wars of independence that ruin big powers.

it’s history. do you deny this? small powers get subjugated by big ones. big ones have a gravitational orbit and pull in small powers to advance their interests. it’s a tale that goes back to Athens and the Delian League. I’m not really sure what you’re arguing against here. it’s not a controversial take i’m making

Cuba, Vietnam. Did the US achieve what it wanted, there. What about Afghanistan

ok let’s back track.

1. whether or not US was successful does not change the fact that the US had a long track record of coup attempts

2. only Cuba had a US-supported coup attempt. and they succeeded. about a decade later there was a communist revolution, but for that decade American companies owned a majority of the arable land in Cuba.

similar story in Guatemala. Chiquita owned the majority of farmland there. It’s why the CIA overthrew the government. for $$$. The fact that there happened to be a military dictatorship that perpetuated genocide did not matter

similar story in Iran (your Europe was involved in this one too, by the way) except with oil

because you’re being a conspiracy theorist

it’s a cheap way to shut down a conversation. if the US has done something like 20+ times in the last century and it’s actually done that thing in Ukraine before, you cannot pretend like it’s such a wild thing.

Europeans had a much clearer picture

Europeans were involved in Iraq too, buddy. Propaganda was just as strong over there. People were just as misinformed. Same thing in Libya. Same thing right now in Israel. When US says “let’s go” the Europeans go

Americans are notoriously self-absorbed, the upper echelons might be less uninformed but y’all are still just as jingoistic. Case in point: Your assertion, against all evidence, about domination

Just an FYI I was born in Latin America. In a country where the CIA toppled a democratically elected government which resulted in a military dictatorship.

I’m not sure if I’m willing to defend here with you basic geopolitics and history. for example Germany and Japan were subjugated by the US after WW2. Small power bends to big one. This is basic stuff. I have a feeling you are young and have not yet had time to read and absorb information yet.

Do you have any data to back up that insinuation

Note that your quote is in reference to the Iranian 1953 coup.

Like, at least a believable hypothesis of how the CIAFBIATF managed to falsify an election in a way that OSCE observers aren’t even suspicious

I explained it. US support of both civil organizations that promote pro-western policies and far-right organizations. The money trail is there. NED used to share their recipients on their website up until a couple years ago, but you can still find it on the internet wayback archive. Whatever was sent openly through NED you can count on another amount of money being sent covertly to uglier groups

Here’s the thing- I’m not trying to take away agency from Ukrainians. The US did not create Euromaidan. They promoted it and they tried to support the material conditions that allowed Euromaidan to happen. But the outrage was real. The protests were real. It’s not so much the US created it as the US took advantage of it. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Also can you stop treating a whole fucking nation as nothing more but puppets of foreign influence, with no agency of its own.

Small powers get subjugated by big powers. Are you claiming somehow Ukrainians are unique in this? That they are racially or culturally superior to every other small country that the US supported and instigated coups in? Are you taking away the agency of Guatemalans, Cubans, Iranians, etc? Why is Ukraine special?

They have every right to decide their own fate

That’s great, I 100% agree. But I’m not sure if you’re ever been in a liberal democracy. It’s not the people that actually get to decide what happens. It’s the powerful private interest groups that happen to control the levers to power.

saying “no they cannot be acting on their own accord, they cannot do anything on their own, it must be foreign influence because CIA evil”.

Again, the same argument could be made for every single other US-supported coup. Do you deny these have ever happened? Have you read about any of them?

Talk. To. Ukrainians. I know it’s a bit harder in the US than it is over here because you don’t have refugees living literally next door but there’s plenty of them online, plenty who speak English. Talk to them. Ordinary people.

Two things here. a) I have a couple Ukrainian friends and their views are more nuanced than yours. b) just because somebody comes from a country that does not make their opinion magically correct. Exhibit A talk to some Trump voters and determine whether or not they have an accurate representation of reality. Exhibit B look back at the invasion of Iraq. Do you believe the average American had an accurate understanding of what was happening at the time? War = massive amounts of propaganda being pumped into our media systems. It obfuscates the truth and most people do not care so they just take the official narrative and run with it. As it turns out, however, official narrative is the last thing you should trust in a war

A coup would not have resulted in elections

Really?

Iran 1953, US-supported coup that led to an election that coincidentally resulted in a pro-US government coming to power Chile 1973, US-supported coup that led to elections which resulted in top 3 tier list Latin American dictator Pinochet Guatemala 1954, US-supported coup that led to elections which resulted in a military junta that perpetuated the worst genocide in Latin America Cuba 1952, Batista, supported by US, led a coup and then immediately held elections. Resulting in a brutal violent government that terrorized people so deeply they went full commie

Brazil 1945 Brazil 1964 Iraq 1963 Egypt 2013 Thailand 2006 Sudan 1985

All led to elections immediately or shortly after the coup

Do I really need to go on? In a country that is ostensibly a democracy, it’d be more surprising if there aren’t elections after a coup.

“US support” narrative is complete BS, the type of work the US did in Ukraine is above board, also, the EU is way more involved.

Billions of USD flowed into Ukraine. There’s history of US involvement in Ukraine. It’s even in the public record they tried a coup shortly after WW2. We don’t have to speculate on that one, you can look it up.

I don’t understand why this is so hard for people to believe. Here let me ask a few basic questions

1. Do you believe the US acts in its own interests?

2. Do you believe that the US is willing and capable of acting covertly in order to advance its own interests?

3. Do you have even a shallow understanding of 20th century history? If so, have you read about or heard about any of the myriad of different coup and coup attempts that the US has attempted all across Latin America and the Middle East?

4. If you answered yes to all of these things, why the hell do you think it’s so outrageous that the US was involved in Euromaidan?

There’s plenty of evidence. You say Europe was more involved but that isn’t true. US has not only given more than all of Europe for this war, but it had pumped more money into Ukraine since Ukrainian independence than all of Europe. It’s not hard to understand why. It’s the expansion of western power eastwards.

What I find interesting is people like you when you’re talking about domestic policy, you’re perfectly rational.

“The government is run by an oligarchic elite who look out for their own interests and don’t care about the working people or the ideology they claim to represent.” I have a feeling you agree with that statement.

But all of a sudden we talk about foreign policy and you turn into a patriot jingoist.

But you know what’s interesting? That jingoism has a short half life. The same thing happened with the invasion of Iraq. During the invasion of Iraq, everybody believed it was for freedom and democracy. Nation building and WMDs.

Today though, you won’t find a soul defending the American aggressive invasion of Iraq. Why? Because everybody understands, both implicitly and explicitly, that the US acted in a pragmatic and amoral way to advance its own interests. The propaganda that created justifications was just that, propaganda.

Today, it’s obvious. Yesterday, it wasn’t. Tomorrow, this Ukraine proxy war will be obvious. Today, there’s too much active manipulation for people to see straight.

Euromaidan was a confluence of a lot of different factors. It’s virtually impossible to quantify and categorize it under one umbrella term. Some call it a coup, some call it a revolution.

I think it’s complicated. For example, there was a a genuine discontent among the population- with a lot of emphasis on the item you mentioned, the decision to not move closer to the EU. But there was more at play. Far-right organizations orchestrated and escalated the protests and intentionally provoked more violence. They understood, as many on the far-right do, that violence begets more violence. And violence is a great way to start a chain-reaction that topples the establishment.

It’s something that’s been increasing in frequency, some successful and some failing. Ie Jan 6th in the US and Jan 8th in Brazil. both right-wing storming of the capital in an attempt to disrupt the democratic process. In the US and Brazil, where there are stronger and more stable Democratic institutions… the establishment remained intact.

In Ukraine, it toppled like a house of cards.

Here’s some leftist reading material

https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

https://voxukraine.org/en/denial-of-the-obvious-far-right-in-maidan-protests-and-their-danger-today

and here’s a research article looking at the violence that led to the eventual dismantling of the government

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26532701

It appears that the far right Svoboda party was the most active collective agent in conventional and confrontational Maidan protest events, while the Right Sector was the most active collective agent in violent protest events. The Maidan protest events where the far right groups were mentioned were also larger (more participants reported) than the Maidan protest events where the far were not mentioned indicating that the far right were not on the periphery of the Maidan protests but in the center of the events.

Lots of this was funded by opposition parties

According to Ihor Kryvetskyi, the main Svoboda sponsor, who bought the main stage of Kiev Maidan camp, three major opposition parties spent approximately $6,000,000 to support the Kiev camp with Svoboda’s share of roughly 30%.

Which likewise received a lot of funding by the US - through organizations like NED. With billions spent in Ukraine since their independence in 91, roughly $200M annually, a lot of this money ultimately trickled down to the correct sources.

So here’s the rub-

You talk about your anarchist comrades, so I’m guessing you’re a leftist. But what Euromaidan was, if we’re going try boil down a complex multifaceted event into a single sentence: a far-right coup supported by the US that toppled a democratically elected government and allowed a new government to be appointed unconstitutionally. That same government immediately started cooperating with the CIA after which Russia invaded literally only a couple days later.

Do you see why I think Ukraine is not some beacon of democracy? Of course Russia is a hellhole. But Ukraine is a banana republic. It’s like Guatemala in the 50s or Cuba before the revolution. It’s a government propped up for a purpose and it will be disposed of when it’s no longer useful. And that moment is coming soon.

So if I put myself in the shoes of some joe schmoe, why should I risk my life and my family’s life for this? It’s a joke. The bigger the lie, the more people believe.

We’re seeing such a large right-wing resurgence all over the globe that even self-identified leftists are supported right-wing causes. We’re starting to see this in the US, for example, with the left becoming progressively more and more anti-immigrant. I don’t know. I think we’re doomed, if I’m being honest

i appreciate the detailed write up and the effort in the comment. i’ll try to address some specific points, although I feel like we agree on a lot

In Ukraine, the president changes, in Russia,… [dictatorship]

Russia is of course a dictatorship or very close. that much we are in agreement on. but Ukraine isn’t a beacon of democracy either. look at Euromaidan. a series of violent protests led to the democratically elected president being forced into fleeing the country, afterwards a government was appointed into power unconstitutionally and without an election

this is not the peaceful transition of power you see in stable democracies

In Ukraine, you can campaign and demonstrate against the government

In Russia simply standing around with a blank white sign will get you thrown into jail. but also, Ukraine banned a political party that over 10% of population supported early on in the war. they just recently banned the ukrainian orthodox church

I guess what this ultimately boils down to is that I don’t think the difference is worth dying for. I think even in stable democratic countries like the US or France or England or what have you- the people have relatively little control over the political process. yeah, they have some protests every once in a while and things change marginally

but generally speaking, the power is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and they ultimately decide what policies get passed and which get passed over

so if I’m a regular joe schmoe. why should I risk traumatizing my children and wife when the material conditions for my life ultimately remain identical? i don’t care about protesting as much as I care about putting food in the mouths of my kids

i understand your perspective and i don’t mean to demean it, I just think that the idealism is a trap and it’s propagated largely by old white guys who stand to gain from young men going off to die. lockheed martin stock jumped over 30% after feb 2022. the shareholders were ecstatic. and right now, over 100,000 men have been annihilated from existence.

i find no beauty in this. no valor, no nice feeling. just brutal cynical death and greed.

that’s ok. you think lofty ideals is something to die for. i support you. go sign up for the fight, they will accept you

Russia’s casualties are probably in the 3x range as is typical for attacking armies.

But the point isn’t the total number of casualties but the possibility of being thrown in situations where leadership essentially throws your life away. There are plenty of examples on both sides of this happening.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/19/europe/ukrainian-avdiivka-soldiers-messages-intl/index.html

example, the withdrawal from Adviivka. They knew they were going to be overrun and there was plenty of time to get away. But the political apparatus wants to maintain a strong image, they want to hold land as long as possible instead of retreating and saving manpower.

So instead of just losing it now, you lose it a week later and you throw away 300 lives for virtually no tactical benefit.

politics > strategy > real breathing human beings

I will never be willing to die for a politician. I don’t care how nice their cause sounds. I’m not a nationalist, I’m not a patriot. They can find some other koolaid drinker who wants to sacrifice themselves for the greater good

What difference does it make to me and my family? I am ruled by one oligarchic society versus another?

Is it worth me dying and my family violently and traumatically losing their main breadwinner? Wife having to struggle to make ends meet, kids growing up without a father?

What if Ukraine loses anyway? I valiantly risk my death, permanently damage my family, and there is absolutely zero benefit.

Seriously, there is no scenario where this is a good decision. I would have gotten out the moment it looked like a war was potentially gonna happen. If you wait too long, now you can’t leave the country and they’re kidnapping people off the street and throwing them in vans to force them into serving.

That’s how they try to sell you a violent death. Some sort of altruistic idealism. Defend your country. Valor and honor. Bla bla bla

Reality is much more brutal and cynical. There are no winners in war.

From the perspective of the foot soldier, the ethical or moral difference hardly makes any difference. Whether you’re defending hopelessly lost positions as a Ukrainian or a Russian being recklessly thrown into a meat grinder - you’re dead either way.

I’d have gone AWOL a long time ago. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians have repeatedly had moments where they showed very little regard for human life.