Russia invades Ukraine

That all is hardly “China calling BS on Putin”. That’s more like “China barely maintains a neutral position and will likely continue to support Putin in his war with Europe.”

Your interpretation may vary. But I believe there is something significant to them at least acknowledging Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence. China wouldn’t do the same for Taiwan, for example. Doing so for Ukraine is a direct shot at Putin’s messaging.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means downplaying or minimizing how messed up the situation is in Ukraine. But just for my understanding, why is this invasion covered so vastly and intensely on every major news outlet, while the Syria civil war, for example, is not even being covered at all?

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To be fair, there was a time where Syria was all over the news, but like everything in news the story burns out and media outlets move to the next hot story. This Russia/Ukraine story is the hot story of the present.

I’m sure there is a level of unconscious bias as well.

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Apparently, Canada has the third largest Ukrainian population outside of the Ukraine and Russia. That does play into it, although I’m sure the skin colour does play into a bit of it

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I think this has way more to do with it than anybody is willing to admit.

And when you question the lack of outrage compared to his conflict over a ton of middle East, and African examples, it becomes clearer. Unfortunately.

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It’s always easy to criticize the media for focusing on the wrong things, politicizing facts and confusing news for speculation. But in this case it’s hard to argue that the level of coverage is excessive. This is the biggest news story in the world right now. It should be front page news of every newspaper in the world.

And while obviously the Syrian civil war is a nightmare and human rights catastrophe it never did have the impact that Russia invading Ukraine does. Because of Russias past reforms it has been heavily integrated into the worlds economy. The sanctions and restrictions being imposed will impact the economy and buying power of the currency of everyone reading this post. Let alone the possibility of leading to WW3. So nobody should be trying to downplay this story and it’s many repercussions.

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That is one interpretation of China’s comments but based on my understanding of China’s intents it’s not the correct one.

China does acknowledge Ukraines soverinty and even Ukraines right to exist. What your missing in relation to Taiwan is that China already considers Taiwan a part of China. So China thinks Taiwan should be left alone by any other foreign countries. It’s their view that if China rolled into Taiwan today with tanks it wouldn’t be an invasion. It would be the equivalent of moving tanks from a military base in California to Texas. But they know that politically they can’t quite do that yet (thankfully).

Whereas even if Russia occupies Ukraine it will still consider Ukraine another country. It should just be a country under their control.

I wish @Alex_Patel comment that we are on the brink of WW3 was hyperbole but it’s probably closer than anyone wants to admit.

In 2014 Putin said that removal from the SWIFT financial system would be an “act of war”. And the West just announced that certain banks would be removed from the program. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60521822

It’s not a total removal but that could be coming. At which point in Putins eyes Russia will be at war with the west. He’s obviously not the kind of man to make idle threats. And while WW3 would likely be mutually assured destruction for all Putin probably doesn’t see it that way. Dictators like Saddam Hussein and Hitler weren’t “suicidal” either. Although death eventually came to them after causing the deaths of millions.

Sorry for the three posts in a row everyone but they are on three different related topics. 1. Media and financial impact 2. China 3. Potential future scenario’s.

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Some people will admit it…

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So we are now on day 5 of the invasion and the devastation and impact continues to grow.

  • Russian bombing of civilian and residential areas has increased as even more military hardware comes into the country. Causing hundreds of deaths which are being described as war crimes by Ukraine’s government and most of the world watching.

  • Ukraine ground forces have repelled Russian forces at a rate much higher than anyone expected. But that’s not expected to be able to last much longer as reinforcements come to Belarus.

  • Europe and US have responded much more forcefully than expected with sanctions that have crippled the Russian economy and are also expected to significantly hurt the global economy. The rubble is now worth approximately one cent. While energy costs are also soaring. But on top of that some European nations have committed to aid Ukraine including with weapons which had previously been seen as getting too heavily involved. In part because of the personal appeals of Ukraine’s president Zelensky who it might not be an exaggeration to say is one of the most popular people in the world right now by his display of bravery and resiliency.

  • Russia has put their Nuclear forces on “high alert” although nobody’s really sure how serious to take that threat.

  • Ceasefire and peace talks seem to be taking place but nobody expects them to succeed even in the slightest.

  • Over half a million refugees have fled to eastern Europe which already has immigration issues that have limited their ability to assist in the past.

So my question to everyone is what would you like to see happen next? President Biden has his State of the Union address tonight where the response to the invasion will be covered. Are you expecting him to announce further sanctions? Additional aid to the Ukrainians? Weapons sales? Or boots-on-the ground?

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I mean, the obvious hope would be seeing a coup within Russia, and Putin being removed from power within. Then ideal scenario is somebody coming in who is a little more friendly with the west, and not after the dream of rebuilding the Iron Curtain.

The spectre of Nuclear war hangs over everything. That said, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that troops beneath Putin don’t believe in their cause, and I think for the majority, following orders to end the world, likely aren’t something they’d follow.

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I will meet the first Ukrainian student tomorrow in class who fled his country to Germany. Many more to come I guess. That child does not speak any German and has to worry about his father who had to stay to fight every day. The situation of the weakest in society makes this war even more criminal.

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We have more than a million Syrians living in Germany now. This is bullshit. If you go back to 2015 on youtube you can see Syrians ariving in German train stations with people waiting, cheering and handing out supplies.

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Deleted the post.

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Jesus. They bombed a nuclear power plant.

For fucks sake, this is just getting surreal.