Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "Ukrainian President Zelensky appeals to US President Biden in historic Congress address - BBC News" video.

Aside from being a simple battle for national self-determination in the face of an autocratic aggressor (notwithstanding the very real intra-Ukrainian tensions), this whole war has been a very real question to every single one of us. It’s directly asking us to make a choice about whether we uphold basic non-negotiable liberal values such as individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), pluralistic liberal democracy, secularism, the rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion or, alternatively, we uphold illiberal values such as violation of individual rights (including violation of civil and human rights), illiberal autocracy, abuse of the law, economic and political servitude beholden to dictatorship, little to no freedom of speech, censorship of the press and media more widely, and lack of freedom to worship the Gods of your choice or no God at all. Given this choice I, for one, know which side I’m backing.
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Or a round of beers.
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Jade Chan 🇺🇦 I’m genuinely neutral here in terms of Ukraine versus Russia. I’m trying to apply universal values here. Zelensky is no saint, I’m aware, but to focus on him to the exclusion of the majority will of Ukrainians is to get tangled in personality crap.
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@ashleysmith1290 Go and live in Russia if you prefer their current system. I’ll stick with the west, ty, for all its faults.
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@ashleysmith1290 I’m neutral. If you read it closely, you’ll see they are all universal values.
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@UCHTeY-g-Gp_a6F216wrH5Kw Self-determination. That’s key here. Whether you like it or not a majority of Ukrainians look west, not east. That’s just a fact.
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@gustavo5989 This is fuck all to do with ‘economic liberalism’ primarily; it’s a simple question of national self-determination.
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@helenhollywood915 That’s fine. But at least you aren’t being forced against your will to cuddle up to a dictator. I’m willing to bet, for all Trudeau’s faults, that Canada is a slightly freer place to live in than Putin’s Russia. And if it’s not, then why not move to Russia?
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@ashleysmith1290 Oh. You’re a man! Lol. I genuinely thought you were a girl with that name.
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@rosadacaro None of it is ‘right’. The issue is some justify this or that and others justify this or that as they have invested their very being, it seems, in doing so.
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@serjbondarev4959 I don’t give a flying fuck whether Ukraine joins NATO or not. Quite frankly, before all this shit hit the fan I was happily minding my own business. Ukraine and Russia should be able to sort this out amongst themselves and not draw the rest of us in with the threat of thermonuclear annihilation. ☢️
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@ashleysmith1290 Oh, you are a bitter one, aren’t you.
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@ashleysmith1290 I’m just coming from the value-position here. Frankly, I personally in my everyday life before this all started, couldn’t have given a flying fuck about Ukraine or Russia; all I know, having stood on the sidelines for 3 weeks, is that Russia is the more the wronger here than the wronged. I say this fully acknowledging that, yes, Zelensky is far from sainthood. But I return to the key point here, leaving aside the personality crap: Russia invaded a sovereign, self-governing nation, the majority of whom want nothing to do with Putin’s Russia. This much, for me, is clear.
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@purplespeckledappleeater8738 Ok, I’ll make this easier for you: Russia or USA? Russia or virtually any other European country? Russia or Canada? Every time, I’m not picking Russia in its current incarnation.
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@purplespeckledappleeater8738 I call Putin ‘illiberal’ if that means restricting freedom of thought and behaviour.
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@helenhollywood915 Get real. Trudeau/Putin? Really? Yes, Justin is a mighty sinister figure from where I’m sitting but Putin trumps him on this score. Oh, and the last time I checked Canada wasn’t invading sovereign, self-governing nations.
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@julianpetkov8320 The double standards of the west are horrendous, I’ve never dodged this, and freely admit America and her partners have more blood on their hands in terms of actual invasion and/or overturning of democratically-elected governments from within than anyone else. I accept this and don’t defend it. However, this only emphasises that Putin is in the wrong here. Two of these don’t make a right. And as someone else correctly pointed out to me recently, there is no nation on this planet that doesn’t have blood on its hands in one way or another if you peer close enough. On that basis, the game is off and we all go home to count the buckets of blood. All the more need then, to call out the likes of Putin when he throws his weight around.
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@analoguesoul4594 There is the irrefutable invasion of another country against majority will. I’m not sure what’s complicated about that.
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@julianpetkov8320 It’s pretty clear a majority of Ukrainians look west and want nothing to do with Putin. If that weren’t the case, Putin wouldn’t be meeting with so much resistance.
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@julianpetkov8320 Just for the record Canada contributed 100 troops to the Iraqi invasion. Doesn’t make it right. Afghanistan was a different matter. The legality was murkier. Iraq was clearly an illegal invasion. Like Putin’s. You appear to be condemning one and condoning the other. Odd.
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@serjbondarev4959 Yes, yes, yes, I’m aware of the long and sordid history. None of that answers whether Putin is justified in invading a sovereign, self-governing territory. I say ‘no’. You appear, at the very least, ambiguous about this. Incidentally, you appear to be wrong about those in favour of looking to the west and NATO/EU: Some 69% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to a June 2017 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, compared to 28% support in 2012 when Yanukovych was in power.
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@helenhollywood915 I’ve been here all along. Where have you been?
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@helenhollywood915 You came at me you hypocrite!
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@serjbondarev4959 Agreed. Yet not one jot of that justifies Putin’s moves.
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@janschkeuditz6065 Yes, but leaving aside the crook ask yourself what do the Ukrainians want? I’m guessing the majority are not looking to Russia.
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@rosadacaro Oh, I fully uphold the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves. What I find a bit of a mystery, given the eight-year Civil War is why there isn’t a free and fair referendum taken on partition.
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@rosadacaro Putin overestimated greatly the amount of support he would have in Ukraine. Bizarrely, he appeared to think most Ukrainians would just capitulate without a fight. For me, this clearly shows that a possible majority in Ukraine want nothing to do with Russia, notwithstanding the pro-Russian Ukrainians in the east of the country.
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@serjbondarev4959 What business is it of Putin’s if Ukraine wants to join NATO? I suppose you are happy to justify Putin’s actions then, are you?
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@serjbondarev4959 👍
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@robertraimona1686 NATO has no real intention of actually aggressively invading Russia. If you think otherwise, fine. I’m far more afraid of a Putin-led Russia, than I am of NATO, for all the latter’s faults.
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