Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Ken]

A bigger question is if what Ukraine is doing is going to isolate itself in this war; nobody is really going to want to be closely associated with Ukraine's recent actions, since nobody really wants to be responsible for getting into a hot war with Russia.

What are you talking about?

Ukraine isn't doing a single thing that Russia isn't already doing 10-times over.

And no country in Europe that is watching this war play out is going to say "Hmmm, maybe we should be siding with Russia, not Ukraine. Russia looks like the kind of partner we can trust."

This is the same Russia that is using its ships to try and destroy submarine data cables in the Baltic and meddle in European elections.

Trying to destroy part of a nuclear power’s nuclear capabilities is a rather serious escalation. Can’t you see that?

The escalation was when Russia decided to use them to bomb civilian targets in Ukrainian cities. Which it has been doing for 3 years. And is a prima facie war crime. Ukraine was entirely justified to defend themselves by taking them out.

[Soloist]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

[Neto]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

I don't think you are implying that there actually IS any 'moral war', but if there was one, then destroying an invader's 'war matériel' without killing anyone, not even soldiers (according to the initial reports I saw), qualifies. That, instead of targeting civilians, including women and children.

[Ken]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

The calculation in this war is very simple.

If Ukraine stops fighting there is no more Ukraine. Russia has made that clear. Russia's war aims amount to genocide.

If Russia stops fighting there is peace across Europe.

It is that simple.

[Soloist]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

I don't think you are implying that there actually IS any 'moral war', but if there was one, then destroying an invader's 'war matériel' without killing anyone, not even soldiers (according to the initial reports I saw), qualifies. That, instead of targeting civilians, including women and children.

No there isn't a moral war. I think you and I agree. As for what would be one, I agree.
The problem is that there was outrage over Russia fighting near a nuclear power plant and how they were going to cause another disaster and here is the moral relativism with Ukraine bombing one.

I'm not calling out either country, I'm calling out the propaganda, and the supporters here. I'm not taking sides in this war or any of the other 5 odd major wars going on in our world.

You cannot claim moral superiority and then do what you decry.

Tactically, destroying a power plant is considered a very good goal for war. The problem is the "nuclear" aspect of it. Its never actually had any consideration for civilians and just ask, why is destroying a powerplant a good target? the impact to the civilians making the burden of war on their backs.
Military targets exclusively would ignore factories that civilians work at and just bomb warplanes, bases and strategic ammo supplies. You won't win the war doing that though. You need to impact the actual support infrastructure ie civilians. Every single war is won by impacting civilians.

[JohnH]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

The calculation in this war is very simple.

If Ukraine stops fighting there is no more Ukraine. Russia has made that clear. Russia's war aims amount to genocide.

If Russia stops fighting there is peace across Europe.

It is that simple.

And it’s still the right thing to stop fighting. And no, it’s not a “genocide”.

[Neto]

All sorts of evil are justified by “they’re doing it”, half truths and lies.
Morality is dictated by the biggest stick.

If you decry an enemy claiming how they are threatening a nuclear power plant and then attack the enemy’s power plant, you have lost that point of moral superiority.

Supporters on both sides now say justification for equal retaliation, and/or more.

I don't think you are implying that there actually IS any 'moral war', but if there was one, then destroying an invader's 'war matériel' without killing anyone, not even soldiers (according to the initial reports I saw), qualifies. That, instead of targeting civilians, including women and children.

No there isn't a moral war. I think you and I agree. As for what would be one, I agree.
The problem is that there was outrage over Russia fighting near a nuclear power plant and how they were going to cause another disaster and here is the moral relativism with Ukraine bombing one.

I'm not calling out either country, I'm calling out the propaganda, and the supporters here. I'm not taking sides in this war or any of the other 5 odd major wars going on in our world.

You cannot claim moral superiority and then do what you decry.

Tactically, destroying a power plant is considered a very good goal for war. The problem is the "nuclear" aspect of it. Its never actually had any consideration for civilians and just ask, why is destroying a powerplant a good target? the impact to the civilians making the burden of war on their backs.
Military targets exclusively would ignore factories that civilians work at and just bomb warplanes, bases and strategic ammo supplies. You won't win the war doing that though. You need to impact the actual support infrastructure ie civilians. Every single war is won by impacting civilians.

I was/am unaware of any of the targets being a nuclear plant. I thought the bombing of the war planes was being referred to. (I guess I do not adequately follow the news to understand what the reference was.)

[Soloist]

I was/am unaware of any of the targets being a nuclear plant. I thought the bombing of the war planes was being referred to. (I guess I do not adequately follow the news to understand what the reference was.)

You are not mistaken. I apparently am following the news even less than you are.

Trying to destroy part of a nuclear power’s nuclear capabilities is a rather serious escalation. Can’t you see that?

John had said that and I assumed Ukraine did so, but after digging into it, I can’t find anything supporting that outside of a power outage in “occupied” territory. The Russians very easily could have shut off the power to reduce visibility and there is no actual proof Ukraine attacked a power plant nuclear or not on June 1.
And apparently I need new glasses as he only was referring to their nuclear arsenal not power plants. Sigh… point still stands but not overly relevant right now.

[JohnH]

Trying to destroy part of a nuclear power’s nuclear capabilities is a rather serious escalation. Can’t you see that?

John had said that and I assumed Ukraine did so, but after digging into it, I can’t find anything supporting that outside of a power outage in “occupied” territory. The Russians very easily could have shut off the power to reduce visibility and there is no actual proof Ukraine attacked a power plant nuclear or not on June 1.
And apparently I need new glasses as he only was referring to their nuclear arsenal not power plants. Sigh… point still stands but not overly relevant right now.

Nuclear capabilities in terms of strategic bombers, not nuclear power plants or nuclear research facilities or facilities that prepare nuclear material for nuclear weapons.

Surprisingly, neither side decided to conduct attacks against each other's nuclear power plants, and in fact both sides took measures to avert a disaster.

[Ken]

The calculation in this war is very simple.

If Ukraine stops fighting there is no more Ukraine. Russia has made that clear. Russia's war aims amount to genocide.

If Russia stops fighting there is peace across Europe.

It is that simple.

And it’s still the right thing to stop fighting. And no, it’s not a “genocide”.

From the very beginning, as Putin made clear in a June 2021 essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Russia’s full-scale invasion was intended as a genocidal war. Genocide is defined as the annihilation of the identity and existence of a specific group—in this case, Ukrainians. The crucial aspect of identifying genocide is the intent behind these actions, which distinguishes it from other forms of violence. https://www.un.org/en/genocidepreventio ... et-ENG.pdf Evidence of the Kremlin’s genocidal intent is overwhelming given how they have justified this war and have behaved in the territories that they have occupied.

That they have yet to achieve their genocidal objectives in Ukraine is a testament to the resistance of the Ukrainians, not the objectives of Russia.