The years before the russian attack on Ukraine

@Thalassokrator said in #65:
> While I don't agree with the law and think it should be repealed

While I generally agree with your post a I would still like to make a little remark. Why would not you agree that the state language of independent sovereign Ukraine is Ukrainian? Can you finish a school in Germany without learning German for example? Or in USA without learning English? Yet, there are many minorities there, but all the citizens are supposed to know the state language. There is nothing extreme about it. Same in Ukraine.
In Baltic countries people don't get citizenship without knowing a national language, and it is an excellent idea imo! In this way old russians who still live in soviet union but somehow stay in European countries despising their laws and traditions can not at least influence the political situation.
Knowing the language of the country you are the citizen of is very normal.

@Tenakel said in #53:
> You are a very good example of how people are controlled in Russia as they are constantly indoctrinated from morning to night by the state media and Putin's speeches.

> The Russian people are to be pitied because all free media channels have been closed, newspapers critical of the government have been banned, the free press has been banned, free journalists have been imprisoned, many internet channels have been blocked ...

Everything you've said can be applied to the Ukraine...

@weplaychess90 said in #68:
> Christ teaches about love and forgiveness, so murdering and killing gays is against Christianity. It is considered a sin, yes, but Christ tells us to conversate and wait peacefully, not to kill or be violent, which is anti-christian. Putin is a communist, and Marx preaches the abolition of Christianity.
>
> Now, silence.

Lol what?

@Alex_1987
First things first, I'd like to point out that "repealed" might have been too strong of a word. "Amended" might better reflect my personal views on the matter. But it is not up to me to decide this, it is up to the Ukrainian people.

You said in #71:
> While I generally agree with your post a I would still like to make a little remark. Why would not you agree that the state language of independent sovereign Ukraine is Ukrainian?

I would agree with that. Ukrainian can and should be the official language of Ukraine (given that the majority of people of Ukraine are in favour of Ukrainian). It's a beautiful language.

That's not what's deemed to be problematic about the law. What's deemed to be problematic – as I understand it – is the lacklustre protection of minority language rights. I don't see a good way to avoid the impression that I am on my high horse here, pontificating upon and moralising the Ukrainian society in times of extreme foreign aggression towards them.

I don't know what my political stance would be if I had to walk a mile in your shoes. And I can easily see how any of the following objections to the 2019 law can seem ridiculous to someone who's recently lost family to one of Putin's airstrikes or even someone who's enduring freezing conditions as a result of destroyed heat and electricity infrastructure.

But that being said, what is being criticised (by Human Rights Watch and the Venice commission: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Commission) is for instance that the law – as I understand it – disallows publications to appear solely in a minority language without the parallel use of Ukrainian. Minority newspapers for instance must feature an Ukrainian translation in equal size, content and format next to the minority language articles according to the 2019 law (although it has to be said that there are exceptions to this rule for several languages).

That somewhat limits the freedom of press in the country. You go on to compare the situation to Germany or the US. There are no similar "German only" or "English only" laws in these countries as far as I'm aware. You can find lots of Spanish language newspapers in the US (containing not even a single English word). The same applies to Germany I presume.

I'll give you an illustrative example base on the UK: There's a (comparatively small) Turkish community in the UK and in London in particular. They can publish their own (print) media, some bilingual (English and Turkish, some solely in Turkish) without breaking any laws:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_community_of_London#Media
londragazete.com
olaygazete.co.uk

Likewise there are Arabic language newspapers in London:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Quds_Al-Arabi

And that's despite the fact that Arabic (unlike Turkish) is not even among the recognised languages of the EU (and Turkish is not among the official languages of the EU). They are not forced to add an English translation.

> Can you finish a school in Germany without learning German for example? Or in USA without learning English? Yet, there are many minorities there, but all the citizens are supposed to know the state language. There is nothing extreme about it. Same in Ukraine.

Probably not very easily. I agree that everyone ideally should know and learn the official language. It's important to be able to partake in all spheres of public life.

> In Baltic countries people don't get citizenship without knowing a national language, and it is an excellent idea imo! In this way old russians who still live in soviet union but somehow stay in European countries despising their laws and traditions can not at least influence the political situation.

I'm not sure I agree with stripping people of their nationality (rendering them stateless?) and citizen rights (like voting rights) for not knowing a language, even if it is the official language of the country.

And while some people belonging to a minority group do in fact despise the society they live in, not all of them do. Usually the vast majority of them don't. Furthermore, there are some members of a majority (ethnic) group who still despise the society the live in and its values: Anti-democrats of all sorts for instance (and they are not expelled). A healthy democratic society needs to be able to tolerate the small number of people who despise it (without stripping them of their citizen rights). And needs to strive towards the perhaps unattainable goal of becoming a society that is more united, less exclusionary.

But I realise that I'm in the territory of hopeless utopian idealism now.

> Knowing the language of the country you are the citizen of is very normal.

Agreed. Ukrainian should be taught to every student in Ukraine. But that doesn't mean that minority language rights necessarily need to be infringed upon. Of course I understand that's hardly Ukraine's biggest concern right now and for good reason. Nobody expects Ukraine to focus on language laws while it's being invaded. And existing language laws do not in any way constitute an adequate justification for invasion.

@Thalassokrator

Here is a useful synopsis of the history by a guy who was there
www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/jeffrey-sachss-great-power-politics

He talks about the buildup of this war, and blames NATO expansion to a large extent. He also quotes George Kennan, who I referred to in one of my replies to you--architect of the US cold war strategy of containment.

@Thalassokrator

I see you focusing for some reason on the language issue, which is far from the most important issue in exploring the causes of this war. Had the Ukrainian government's oppression of people in eastern Ukraine been restricted to the way the US government treated the children of indigenous people, I doubt there would have been a war. I still think this happened in Ukraine, but it is a side issue. the main concern that caused Russia to launch the long predicted war is that Ukraine is being used as a proxy army to destabilize Russia. That is what you need to focus on, and the Jeffery Sachs interview I linked to will provide you with some necessary background knowledge.

The story the US and Ukrainian governments like to push that that was an unprovoked and unjustified attack by a Putin eager to reestablish the old USSR is as false as the portrayal of Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to attack the US. It's a Big Lie, Goebbel's style, but it is not playing well among countries that have been targeted by the US, and that includes a lot of the global South, a hefty percentage of the world's population.

War propaganda from the US, NATO and Ukraine has as little credibility as that of fossil fuel companies on the causes and effects of global warming.

I also notice a reference to "Putin's attacks on... infrastructure". for one thing, that is like referring to Biden's attack on German infrastructure when the Nordstream Pipeline was badly damage. Get the terminology right--this is a proxy war between the US/various NATO allies and Russia. But the US attack on the pipeline was a direct attack on a NATO ally. If you want an example of how compromised the increasingly concentrated media in the west has become, the thundering near silence with which Hersh's bombshell story has been greeted is an excellent example. Contrast it to the way his equally significant stories about the My Lai massacre, the torture at Abu Ghraib, the secret US bombing of Cambodia, the US biological weapons program which he helped get partially shut down, the War on Terror--the list of major stories this man has broken is stunning, but he has become increasingly marginalised as the government becomes more influential on the media.

@pretzelattack1
Firstly, I notice you have not addressed a single point I made in my previous post #63. I can only guess that's because you cannot argue with any of the facts I provided. Or perhaps because you don't work with facts, you only work with unfounded assertions?

Instead you come up with something new again:
You said in #69:
> this is the statement you replied to. you will note that it does not specify the language no longer being taught in eastern parts of the country. [...] I don't know why you focus on language as the first problem.

You will note it does not specify the alleged murder and torture of the Russian minority in Ukraine either. Who are you to say what chessprimus meant by the vague term "problems"?

Both assertions are part of Kremlin propaganda about "problems in Ukraine concerning the Russian minorities" and part of Putin's attempt to paint his illegal war of aggression as even remotely justified. An attempt to construct a casus belli where there is none.
There is absolutely no evidence supporting the alleged scale of these events purported by the Kremlin's propaganda which speaks of "genocide" but cannot supply any evidence to support that accusation. It can therefore easily be recognised that the Kremlin is utilising the "Big lie" propaganda technique here. You choose instead to uncritically repeat Putin's propaganda.

I focussed on Kremlin propaganda claims alleging that the Russian language was being outlawed in Ukraine instead. Why not? No specific claim had been brought up, so I picked one. It's an apt thing to talk about in this context. You just seem to be mad that you cannot disprove my point at all. Too bad.

> it talks about a new security structure, so that Russia does not have a nuclear armed NATO country on its border, [...]

No, that's the first part of the sentence. I responded to the second part, about the "problems". Remember?

> The US instigated a coup in Ukraine in 2014, with the result that a government hostile to Russia took over, and this crossed a red line Putin had warned against many times before. Experts including Henry Kissinger, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen and George Kennan had warned against the likely result of NATO expansion since the late 1990's. nevertheless it happened.

Even if I were to grant you every single point (which I am not, you don't provide any evidence whatsoever, as usual), that wouldn't change a single thing. It still doesn't justify this atrocious war in the slightest.

> thousands of people have been killed in the eastern republics 2014-2022, and Russia finally responded.

It's as if I was talking to Putin himself. Russia waged a small war in Donbas from 2014-2022. Wars tend to kill thousands of people. And there have been casualties on both sides. You cannot respond to something you started yourself and are continuously and actively involved in. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has backed Donbas "separatists" since then (and sent Russian troops in unmarked uniforms to fight there).

The rest of your post is not even worth citing. You uncritically recite the Kremlin's propaganda about an alleged genocide word for word. In the same breath as telling me not to fall for propaganda about WMDs in Iraq (constant attempts to derail the conversation and talk about illegal US actions instead; you are desperately grasping at straws, trying to somehow construct a tu quoque). Ironic.

an interview with Hersh.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8QRWPxWP0o

@pretzelattack1 said in #76:
> War propaganda from the US, NATO and Ukraine has as little credibility as that of fossil fuel companies on the causes and effects of global warming.

Whereas (based on your post #69) Kremlin propaganda is entirely trustworthy of course and worthy to be recited word for word!

I must have just hallucinated every instance of the Kremlin saying it won't annex a region only to immediately annex it (in violation of international law) then. And every instance of Putin claiming his 200,000 troops were just going on a happy little works outing that just so happened to accidentally be adjacent to Ukraine's borders on three sides. "But no, Russia has no intention to invade Ukraine, no, no, no! No intention to annex Ukraine." Only to immediately invade Ukraine and annex some more regions.