There is a significant difference between Russian soldiers killing civilian population, and Ukrainian soldiers destroying enemy tanks that are invading their country. One is a despicable war crime, and the other one is a heroic act of defence.
Ukraine has not taken credit for the bridge attack. We still don’t fully know who did it. It could have been Russia for all we know. They have shown a much greater willingness to indiscriminately kill civilians throughout this conflict, which they started .
Tell me of a single major conflict that didn’t involve civilian casualties. I will wait. It is terrible, but unavoidable, especially given the circumstances that Russia has created in Ukraine, unprovoked.
There are major differences between the participants with regards to intent. Intent of their actions. Russian soldiers have raped, tortured and executed civilians. There have been mass graves found in the liberated territories.
I don’t see how you can equate these with the destruction of a bridge that is vitally important to Russia’s control and supply of Crimea and southern Ukraine. The intent would be to deprive Russia of re-supply and access. The intention of mass killings, torture and rape, is to kill and torture people. There is no legitimate strategic objective for these actions.
Intentionally targeting civilian areas with those bombs is a war crime. Ukraine avoids committing war crimes, Russia has committed many of them. There will be charges against Russia. There is even some evidence that Russia commits genocide: forced kidnapping of children, forced reeducation, some ethnic cleansing with deportations (though not very systematic), mass killings of civilians, and public speeches by government officials who deny Ukraine a right to exist and therefore can serve as proof of intent.
The only cop out is you pretending that every civilian who had died was at the hands of the US, when the civilian casualties of the GWT was overwhelmingly caused by sectarian violence and mass casualty terror attacks on civilians.
> separate the US from the actions of its soldiers is asinine, because you dont extend the same separation to the russians. Which only makes sense because you are defending "your" side.
I make the distinction because as your own source had stated the soldiers responsible were prosecuted and punished. Show me the Russian Federation prosecuting and punishing Russian soldiers for the thousands of cases of rape, torture, and executions that had happened in occupied Ukraine. If that were to occur then it would make sense to make such a distinction. The reason why it doesn't is the overwhelming scale over a very short period of time, with no signs of any sort of punishments to those carrying out the crimes.
Maybe you could have a point if there were a good alternative theory as to why Russia is using their limited supplies of expensive precision guided munitions on clearly civilian targets deep in Ukraine which are far from front lines and uninvolved in military industry. There have been none because it is overwhelmingly clear Russia's inability to win militarily has shifted their tactics to that of terror bombing in hopes of destroying the will of the Ukrainian people.
I don't quite see your point here.
Russians were killing Ukrainian civilians in territory they attacked and occupied, and presumably this is still happening on the territory they still hold. I definitely count that as genocide, I don't see how this situation can be more nuanced.
Eh, Ukraine is defending it's land from invaders that are actively genociding their population and aiming to exterminate their culture. I'm sorry but we must have war crimes confused.
The Putin war of aggression violates all of Ukrainian's human rights. Just saying.
Putin forcing russian teens to die while bombing and destroying Ukraine and Ukrainian civil infrastructure violates Ukrainian human rights.
Conscription sucks and there's been some other problems on the Ukrainian side but they absolutely pales in comparison to what Putin's servile russians have done. It's not even comparable because the violations Russia are committing are so so off the scale horrific.
I think that your problem is that using the word “murder” implies “unjust.”
Funny enough, you actually accept “state-sanctioned murder” right now, like it or not. Any soldier who attempts to invade Ukraine may be shot without a trial or a hearing. If “state-sanctioned murder” is always immoral, Ukraine should let them in peacefully, and appeal to higher authorities to diplomatically come to a solution to the “illegal immigration of young Russian men with guns” problem. I don’t think that’s a good idea and I don’t believe you do either.
That’s fine. Invading a country is enough to be threatened with death. Attacking someone’s daughter for the fourth time isn’t.
Russia is raping and slaughtering its way through a country that did not invade it, was not threatening its neighbors, whose primary crime was being too friendly with the West.
Why does it matter whether all Ukrainian citizens are angels or devils?
Sorry, how many died? Where are you getting your figures?
The implied defence of russia is particularly inappropriate, given the russians have raped, tortured, and massacred tens of thousands of Ukrainians just in the past couple of years. If you're taking ethnic cleansing to simply mean displaced, then russia is guilty of ethnic cleansing to the tune of millions of civilians.
Your comment has the implication (intended or unintended) that there are situations where civilian casualties are perfectly acceptable.
My only real point was that who the Good Guys and who the Bad Guys are in Ukraine are predetermined by the set of assumptions you start with. Everybody who was paying attention isn't that surprised by the invasion. It's not even a puzzle as to why Russia would do it. They spelled it out quite clearly, and have been saying it for years.
Which is why I find the media narrative annoying. It's an almost perfect example of gaslighting. The only response to Russia's complaints about NATO meddling in Ukraine being provocative is to make some kind of counter-offer to offset the provocation. To suggest that there wasn't any meddling, or that Russia just invaded out of the blue for no good reason other than sheer evilness, is either staggeringly wrong, or a deliberate lie.
That's funny, after the west confiscated Russian money abroad, what were they expecting?
Private property should be defended always, not only when you're the recipient, otherwise you wreck your reputation.
All wars are terrible but this Ukrainian invasion is no worse than any other wars the west pursued in the middle east in the name of freedom.
I understand it's now virtuous to shit on Russian people (which is ridiculous: you're blaming random people for the action of their government on which they have little control) but these sanctions were uncalled for and are just harming people of Russian origin.
I would understand more sending the army to fight along Ukraine, then sanctioning Russia.
So an hypothetical sad event where Ukrainian pawns burned 42 people in Ukraine, and few Ukrainian neo-Nazis resisted Ukraine police is comparable or justifies multi-year military agression by RUSSIA that killed hundreds of thousands of people and devastated east/south of Ukraine? Do you think this is a civilized argument?
By your logic, Ukrainian individuals aren't being harmed because Russia is invading a country, not the individuals.
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