Yes, I think I do. I know, for example, that this war did not begin on February 24th 2022. I know that if you go to Victoria "F*ck the EU" Nuland's Wikipedia page (I don't know how to post images here), you will see that the 2nd picture on the right was taken on February 1st 2014...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland
It shows her (the architect of Euromaidan) and John Kerry sitting opposite Petro Poroshenko, Arseniy Yatesenyuk and Vitaliy Klitschko (notice how the 3 Ukrainians have their heads dutifully bowed, not even any pens and paper in front of them, while their American handlers are giving them their orders). And then, almost 4 months later, by an absolutely startling coincidence, 'the Ukrainian people' "democratically elected" Petro Poroshenko to be their president, Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be their Prime Minister, and Vitali Klitschko to be the mayor of Kiev (amazing how often America perfectly predicts who is going to win 'free and fair elections' months in advance isn't it?).
I know that Poroshenko's successor (the West's new Winston Churchill) is a project of Ihor Kolomoiskiy (the founder and main sponsor of Azov Battalion). Someone asked me earlier in the thread why I always put the name 'Zelenskiy' in quotes when referring to policy. It's because he is nobody in this situation. He makes no decisions and has no input on anything that matters. His only 2 orders from his handlers in Washington and London are: 1) never, under any circumstances, and no matter how much pressure you find yourself under, remove your little green military T-shirt. And 2) never, we repeat NEVER, shave off your little beard. You are a warrior. You are a fighter. You are our new Action Man figure.
Oh yeah, and I know that the new paragon of Western values is as corrupt as they come:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...dent-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy
So yeah, I know that this is not a fight between autocracy and democracy, it is an incredibly complex situation that gets reduced to "good v evil and that's all there is to it!" for a dumb mass audience whose reading ability extends no further than a tweet thread.
Further, I know that most of the people in this thread who are salivating at the thought of all these new lovely weapons coming to Ukraine are doing so not because they care about Ukraine but because this war is a video game to them. It's entertainment (on more than one occasion I've wanted to post the link to donate to Ukraine to see who puts their money where their mouth is). Their support of America's and the UK's strategy of "let the Ukrainians die as slowly as possible so as to weaken Russia as much as possible" is not out of concern for Ukrainians, it's out of concern for having more and more war to watch.
I know that the EU did not prepare for the possibility of this war dragging on the way that it has, and this is going to cost them a catastrophic amount. The EU was extremely bold and aggressive in their sanctions against Russia, believing (they directly stated this) that it would cripple the Russian economy and therefore the Russian war machine within 3 months. A minor timing issue with disastrous consequences. Now they are in a position where they cannot admit the sanctions are not working and so are just going to keep on driving over the cliff, with unelected morons (von der Leyen, Borrell, Michel et al) doing the driving. They'll be fine, they'll parachute out of it all in a couple of years and retire to their Swiss lakes, hell they may even hook up with Kolomoiyskiy and Zelenskiy while they're there. Russia never said this war would be over in days, weeks or months. They gave no timeline. It was THE WEST that gave timelines, based on famously and repeatedly bad analysis (remember when the same people predicted the Afghan army would hold off the Taliban for more than 6 days?). It is not Russia who miscalculated the timeline of this war, it is the West, which is why they are now crippling themselves economically. Their massive sanctions were based on the premise that it would be over by now. They did not foresee Ukraine needing 10 billion dollars a month (and rising) only to stay afloat.
Finally, I know that for every post you can find from Ukrainians who are not actually fighting the war saying that they have all the people and 'will' needed to fight if only they get WEAPONS WEAPONS WEAPONS!, you can find a hundred more from Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 who are desperate for 'Zelenskiy' to lift the ban on their fleeing the country (if Ukrainians are so ready and willing to die for the West's freedom, why have all Ukrainian men been forbidden from leaving the country since February 25th?). Last week 'Zelenskiy' told Poland to send back any men aged 18 to 60 who fled as refugees by June 27th. His plan is to put guns in their hands and send them to "die for the world's freedom".
Those are the things I know. What I believe (but naturally don't know) is that Ukraine can't win this war. Everyone (Johnson mainly) who says they can refuses to define 'win' in this context. Pushing Russia out of Donbas and/or Crimea? It will never happen, and they know it. "Destroying the Russian army" as Kasparov said in that tweet posted yesterday? Idiotic. Ukraine's fully mobilised army is being decimated by Russia's peacetime army. I also believe that Putin has no intention of invading any other country. He explicitly stated his aims in his speech before the invasion. "If we cede territory to Putin now, he will come for Poland next!" is absolutely divorced from any kind of understanding of WHY Putin invaded Ukraine in the first place ("Because he hates democracy!" - idiotic understanding of this war).
Zelenskiy''s handlers in DC and London need to send him to the negotiating table now. Otherwise, all that will happen from here on is more dead Ukrainians, more dead 'orcs', more of an economically crippled EU, more Boris Johnson pretending to care about Ukrainians (he doesn't, he needs a geopolitical friend because he has none), and more of the West stupidly pushing one stated rival (Russia) further and further into the arms of their other stated rival (China).
I've said my piece. Back to the tweets of what weapons are being sent alongside salivating emojis. But before I go, here is the link to donate to Ukrainians:
https://donate.unhcr.org/int/en/ukraine-emergency
Frankly I don't know how anyone can spend a week sunning themselves on a Greek island when Ukrainians are dying for your freedom. That money could have helped so many Ukrainians.
so you found no problem at all with dt12's post and this was what needed to be addressed.