Comments by "seneca983" (@seneca983) on "How does the Ukraine war compare to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and 1941 Operation Barbarossa?" video.

"Hopefully Russia takes Ukrainian fuck nato" How are those things connected? Ukraine is not in the NATO.
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What about Mariupol and Kharkiv being bombarded?
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@jamesng7320 "Russia is going to get rid of them" But in your original comment you wrote: "Russia's goal is to demilitarize and denazify the country. It is not to [...] change their government. [emphasis mine]". You're contradicting yourself.
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@phoeric That doesn't really apply to the comments in this thread. They didn't attribute Russia's difficulties to malice.
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"The fact that the only city they have committed to full urban warfare in is Mariupol is consistent with their objective of "Denazifying" Ukraine as Mariupol is the base of the largest/strongest Far Right "AZOV" Battalions." It doesn't make sense that they would start a full scale invasion just to defeat such a small part of the Ukrainian armed forces. They have called the Ukrainian government Nazis so "denazification" quite likely referred to a goal of changing the government. Otherwise, why invade the north of the country at all?
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@andrewszigeti2174 It could conceivably happen but it probably wasn't the only goal initially because otherwise there wouldn't have a reason to invade the north.
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@andrewszigeti2174 The reason 1 would mean that at least initially the goal was to get the whole country or at least significantly more than the regions you mentioned. Of course, that might no longer be the goal.
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"Its almost like the West(led by the WEF) wanted this war" There is no indication of that.
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It's Luhansk in Ukrainian and Lugansk in Russian. Both are correct.
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@jamesng7320 "Russia's goal is to demilitarize and denazify the country. It is not to [...] change their government. [...] All they want to do is [...] ensure that extremists aren't part of the government anymore." So you're saying they don't want to change the government but they want to change the government? Isn't that a clear contradiction?
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@jamesng7320 "Think about it, if Russia really wanted to get rid of him do you think they can't?" Based on what has happened so far, no they couldn't have gotten rid of him, at least not yet. If the war goes on they might be able to if that's the goal. Who do you think are these "extremists" in the government that you mentioned? Why would removing them be worth a full scale invasion?
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@jamesng7320 "The extremists are the Azov battalion stationed in Mariupol." In your original comment you talked about extremists in the government and they are not government figures. "These people [...] tell Zelensky what he should be doing since they are the military after all." That doesn't sound plausible. The Azov Battalion makes up something like 1% of the Ukrainian military. "So the only choice is for Russia to invade and remove them so that Zelensky can operate his government free of extremist influence." That doesn't sound plausible. Russia definitely did also have the choice of maintaining the status quo. You've so far not even been able to name a single extremist individual that would need to be removed. The idea that Zelensky's policy is so dependent on some unnamed individuals stationed in Mariupol is not credible.
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@jamesng7320 "All you need is leverage over the government [...] the Azov Battalion makes up a small percentage of the military but they hold senior positions and influence in the government" Can you name any individuals having this kind of leverage or senior position? So far you've not been able to name anyone who you think Russia would want to remove (or why it would be worth it to start a full-scale invasion over these individuals). "If they did nothing then there would be lots of people dying in Donbass" That's hardly certain and the present war is going to kill far more. As a far smaller action Russia could have just moved troops into the already separatist held parts of Donbass without pushing any further. Why was there a need to invade the whole country? "and NATO and the US would be parking their missiles just outside Russia" That's not really credible. Ukraine would have been unlikely to have been able to join the NATO as long as the territorial dispute remained. If by missiles you mean nukes, that wouldn't likely make much difference since ICBMs are a thing. NATO already has members bordering Russia (and because of this invasion there might soon be one more).
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@jamesng7320 "Why does it matter so much what their name is? Suffice that they are the ones who are de-facto in government due to their influence." Their names matter because then it's possible to try to check if these individuals actually have any significant influence over the government. The fact that you haven't been able to name any suggests that such individuals don't exist. "According to the UN, 14000 people have been killed in the Donbass in the past 8 years including civilian and military on both sides. The present war has only killed around 3,000 people according to the same UN. If the current war succeeds in bringing sustainable peace then there will be no more dying." That 14,000 figure is from the Ukrainian government, not the UN. The UN gives a slightly lower figure of 13,100-13,300. Most of these deaths happened early in that 8 year period. Later the rate of deaths was lower so the present invasion is going to increase deaths, not reduce them. Also, even the lowest figure of deaths for the present invasion is about 4,400 and the true figure is likely much higher as this figure uses the casualties reported by the Ukrainian and Russian governments both of which are likely to understate their own casualties. "Russia did think about just invading the Donbass, but then Ukraine would have likely mobilized and assaulted Russian positions. This made the operation to demilitarize Ukraine necessary." That makes zero sense. Ukraine likely would not have dared to do so and even if it did just defending is much easier than attacking so it would have been an easier military task for Russia (and sanctions would likely have been lighter too). "It is simply a threat Moscow cannot live with and they have every right to respond to it." There's no such right for a pre-emptive invasion (or else you could say that invading Russia pre-emptively would have been OK too). Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO, at least any time soon and even if it did there's no reason to assume any such missiles would be placed there. "Did you see what the US did when Cuba stationed Soviet missiles in 1962?" Back then missiles in Cuba (and Turkey) were a much bigger deal because ICBMs were few, inaccurate, and unreliable. Today ICBMs render Cuba-like situations largely irrelevant. Also, it's not clear that the US's response was justified (even though it wasn't even a full-scale invasion).
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@jamesng7320 "Even if you had the name of someone like that how could you tell if they had influence or they don't have influence? This kind of thing is very hush, hush and no government wants to admit that it is being held hostage by its own military." I could at least try to check what info is available. If it's really so "hush, hush" then how are you able to know it? You're basically just making stuff up. "Russia says that have intelligence on Ukraine that suggests they would have mobilized if they had only gone into Donbass." Where does Russia say that? Do you have a source? In any case, it seems unlikely that Ukraine would invade Donbas in such a scenario. "I choose to take Russia's word." But that's not rational. Would you consider it rational if some person similarly just took the Ukrainian government's word without any evidence when it comes to this conflict? Just believing the Russian government without skepticism would be at least as irrational. "And they say that defending against this mobilization would be more difficult than conducting the special military operation." Where does Russia say that? Do you have a source? In any case, such claims would not be credible since defending is usually much easier than attacking. "According to your logic, Israel has no right to do such a thing" It might be. I don't know enough to make a definitive judgment. A full-scale invasion is a much more clear-cut case. "All I'm saying is that more powerful countries always act like this if they see a threat to themselves emerging in a neighbouring weaker country." All I was saying was that many such actions are not justifiable, the present invasion certainly so. Thus e.g. sanctions are in order. "Having missiles 5 minutes away from Moscow would make it impossible for Russia to have any chance of defending against them. That is a huge threat." Russia has nuclear ICBMs. Any missiles in Ukraine wouldn't take that deterrent away. In any case, Ukraine wouldn't have been able to join NATO for the foreseeable future. Pre-empting such remote possibilities with an invasion is not justifiable.
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@jamesng7320 "Ok, here are two names for you - Victoria Nuland [...] Barack Obama" If these are the so called extremists with influence over the Ukrainian government then I don't seen how it makes sense invade Ukraine over them, especially if the goal is not to remove Zelensky. This invasion wont' remove Nuland from her position and Obama isn't in a position of power anymore in any case. Also, I don't think either of them is a member of Azov. "Yes there's skepticism when I take Russia's word for it, but no one will prove that their intelligence is real given the nature of how intelligence is gathered." Well, to me what you have claimed seem just unsupported assertions and nothing more. I don't see why it would be rational for most people to change their minds about this conflict just because you make these claims. Also, remember that Russia (as well as Ukraine) has an incentive to just make whatever claims happen to be convenient for them even if they happen to be lies. "Justifiable or not, that is the reality of how geopolitics works. We might as well learn to live with it because every country does it." Maybe, but we also want to keep invasions to a minimum because they're destructive. One way to do that is to make invasions painful for the invader. That's one good reason for sanctions. "And, if you are smart leader of a country which is weak such as Ukraine, you would make decisions based on this geopolitical reality to avoid war with Russia in the first place." Maybe, but we cannot go back in time and have Ukraine make different choices so what remains is a decision what to do in the current situation. If and when peace is reached we wouldn't want the terms to be too harsh on Ukraine. Sanctions put pressure on Russia so they should be more willing to agree to less harsh terms. "As for sanctions, no one sanctioned the US and Israel when the conduct their special military operations. So in your world where everything is fair they should have sanctions too." Maybe they should have, I can't say. "If nukes are the be all and end all of deterence then why do nuclear powers keep their regular armies then?" For example to deal with non-existential threats (so something less than leveling Moscow in 5 min), to fight outside one's own borders, to fight potential separatists, etc. Nukes might not be a be all end all but they certainly make attacks onto a nuclear power's soil quite unlikely. Even if you don't believe that, it still remains that Ukraine would have been unlikely to join NATO for the foreseeable future.
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@jamesng7320 "They are the ones who arrange for the extremists to be put in positions of power in the Ukranian army." I expressed skepticism over the existence of extremists in the Ukrainian government or one's with influence over it that Russia would try to remove (without necessarily removing Zelensky). Just mentioning Nuland or Obama does not really allay my skepticism. I'm still skeptical on whether these extremists with influence over the government exist. "Russia is simply trying to undo that by destroying the Ukranian army." That makes no sense. Destroying the entire army entails huge amounts of deaths (on both sides). Also, if someone in the army has influence over the government it's likely to be generals or other high officers. Usually they would not be there dying on the frontlines so such a plan likely wouldn't work anyway (if the plan is to still not try to remove Zelensky). "I guess we will both keep on believing as we did before." Maybe, but I would like to note that I don't take Ukrainian claims at face value either. The way I see it is that Russia is the invader and invasions require a very high bar to be justified. Just taking an anti-invasion stance by default is the right choice barring very compelling evidence for the opposite. "Why must you resort to sanctions or military action if there's a better way to resolve the crisis?" I'm in favor of sanctions in the present situation where the invasion has happened and as long as it's going on. I'm not saying that before invasion one shouldn't try to avoid it (depending on what it would take). I'm not sure what would have been the best course of action before the invasion but now sanctions are in order until the invasion is over. "So if you say that invaders should always get sanctions then how will you enforce this on the US?" I don't know how to enforce it but it's better to discourage invasions at least some of the time. (As a sidenote, I'm not saying that invasions couldn't sometimes be justified. Few would claim that it was wrong for Allies to invade Germany in WWII. However, the justification has to be very strong.) "If nukes are so good then Russia should have just threatened Ukraine with nukes." No one wants a nuclear war so there's a lot of compunction over using nukes or even threatening their use. Countries might plausibly threaten using nukes over attacks that threaten their existence (such as leveling Moscow in 5 min). They don't threaten using them willy-nilly. That's why I mentioned fighting outside one's borders as one motivation for having a conventional military besides nukes. Russia's nukes still make invasions into Russia a very remote possibility. "you can't have missiles 5 minutes from your capital" As I've said many times, this was unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future anyway (and your logic would also mean that Belarus wouldn't have the right to be a CSTO member).
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@jamesng7320 "there would have to be a material benefit to me if I were to prove things for you" That's understandable but the fact remains that for me and many others there is no rational reason to give the Russian claims much weight. "The West's intelligence for invading Iraq in 2003 was phony." At least my skepticism is not that much based on counter claims by Western intelligence agencies so this doesn't really matter all that much. Distrusting Western intelligence agencies doesn't make it rational to trust the Russian ones. Also, one could argue that one intelligence agency failing or deliberately lying means others could do it too or alternatively Western intelligence did correctly predict that this war would begin (or at least the US one did, not so much the French) which again should boost their credibility (if it matters). "I also believe that Russia must destroy the whole Ukrainian army because it is just too infested by Nazis" If you mean rank-and-file soldiers, that's ridiculous. The Ukrainian army is a conscript army largely made of ordinary people. There's no reason to believe it's significantly more "Nazi infested" than the general (male) population of Ukraine. It also has more than 200,000 people. Are you saying that massacring that many people is justified. On the other, if you just means generals etc. they're not likely to die on the frontlines. "it would have mobilized to attack Donbass if it were left operational" If the Russian army were in Donbas (but didn't push further) I don't think that would have happened. It's hard to imagine Ukraine attacking in that situation. Even if it did, that would be much more difficult for the Ukrainians since attacking is pretty much always more difficult than defending. This is basic logic and you don't have to consider anyone's intelligence info to come to this conclusion. "This pre-emptive self-defence justification is very strong justification in my view." I say the opposite, it's very weak. We need to have norms that discourage attacks. Otherwise, you could similarly say that a pre-emptive attack on Russia would have been even more justified (in hindsight). "Western sanctions are going to unravel when the West starts paying in Rubles for their gas" No, that's hardly going to make any difference. Firstly, the plan seems to be that European buyers of gas wouldn't have to get their hands on Rubles but rather they would remit Euros (or some other currency) to Gazprom Bank which would convert them to Rubles and give to the Russian exporter. Since the exporters were already required to convert 80% of their foreign currency to Rubles the difference is small. None of the sanctions unravel because of this. "Either that or Europe will shut down and go into recession." Even if gas keeps flowing other sanctions will still stay in place. If the gas trade is halted by one side or the other Europe would indeed go into recession but Russia too would likely go bankrupt fairly soon. Something like half of Russia's federal budget comes from the export of oil and gas. "So your sanctions aren't going to work anymore." Well, I disagree but in any case they should be kept in place at least as long as they still do work. There's still hope that peace might be achieved before that and meanwhile it's good to keep some pressure on Russia.
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@jamesng7320 "The best that can be achieved is to exchange views and at least suggest to you that there might be more to it" Fair enough. It's just that many of these claims sound rather improbably so they don't shift my position much. "China in particular has echoed Russia's narratives quite consistently." China has stated that Russia has legitimate security concerns but it hasn't said that these would justify invasion. It also hasn't repeated any Russian claims about extremists in the Ukrainian government AFAIK. "What I mean by destroy is to destroy military facilities and disband the human component of the army either through surrender or them just leaving and going home, similar to how Iraq's army disbanded when the US invaded in 2003." That involves going in an toppling the government, not leaving Zelensky in power. "Russia is considered strong and not subject to this preemptive attack" Do you mean then that attacking Russia pre-emptively would have been morally justified (even if in practice it wouldn't happen)? "who is going to sanction US and NATO when they preemptively attack? How are you going to enforce your "norms to discourage attacks"?" I don't know but it's better if these norms are enforced at least part of the time. "Russia says that the money they get from the gas trade in Euros and dollars is immediately frozen upon receipt." You are mistaken. Russia does not say that and that is not the case. E.g. Russia's central bank's forex reserves were frozen. However, energy transactions are so far not subject to sanctions and receipts from those are not frozen. If they were frozen Russia's situation would already be much more dire than it is now (and Europe would have already stopped receiving gas). "Russia says that oil and gas export revenues to Europe account for 15-20% of it's budget." Total energy exports to Europe have been about $100 billion per year and the total budget about $300 billion so the share is more like 1/3rd. "If the gas trade is halted because Europe fails to pay in rubles according to this scheme then Russia would have lost nothing. Their funds from the trade are frozen and useless." No, these funds have not been frozen. Paying in Rubles doesn't have much effect (and the plan isn't for the gas buyers to remit the money in Rubles anyway). If the trade is halted both Russia and Europe will suffer massively.
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@jamesng7320 "China has largely blamed NATO's expansion as being the root cause of this conflict." I don't think they have used the word "blame" in such a way even though they have said that Russia has legitimate security concerns. China has also stated that the sovereignty of every country, including Ukraine, should be respect. "by increasing trade with Russia since this war started it is implicitly saying that they think it is ok" I'd rather say that any trade with Russia is just an indication that they don't want to take an economic hit if it can be avoided, not a real statement on the issue. "When the US entered Baghdad I remember that Saddam Hussein was still in power but his army refused to fight and dissolved. I think that this had largely been achieved in Ukraine" I don't see any indication of that. "I do think that if NATO preemptively attacked because it is using the same pre-emptive self defense argument that Russia is using. It is defending Ukraine by pre-emptively attacking the would-be attacker" I don't understand what these sentences are saying. Would a hypothetical pre-emptive attack on Russia have been morally justified? In any case, my position is that a pre-emptive strike is not justified, not on Russia nor on Ukraine. "Both sides are justified in their use of force and to conflict is the only way to resolve who is "right"." I disagree. Norms should be such that they discourage destructive violence. "Your claim about the funds from the current gas trade NOT being frozen I have not heard of." There's e.g. article titled "SWIFT sanctions against Russia exempt energy payments" by ICIS (and I would give you a direct link if YouTube didn't tend to delete comments with links but you should be able to find it by googling). I've also not seen any mentions of gas money being frozen, only other assets. Have you seen any mention of gas money being frozen. Additionally it's just basic logic. If the gas money was being frozen why wouldn't have Russia already halted gas deliveries? Why would have the US banned the import of Russian oil, gas, & coal if it couldn't access the money from those anyway.
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@jamesng7320 "Increasing trade with someone who has been severely sanctioned by the west sends a strong statement. Actions speak louder than words. India too has increased its oil imports." To me the statement just seems that they look after their own interest. "most of Ukraine's military infrastructure has been destroyed" The Ukrainian military hasn't disbanded nor stopped fighting like the Iraqi military did. "Sorry what I meant to say was that in a hypothetical non-nuclear world, NATO would be morally justified in pre-emptively attacking Russia to defend Ukraine." OK, my position is the opposite. "In academic circles, your arguments would be classed as "positive". This is the way the world SHOULD work. [...] My arguments are based on the reality on the ground and are called "normative"." You got the terminology the wrong way around here. Claims about how things are are "positive" claims whereas claims about how they should be are "normative" claims. "I agree with you - in a utopian world, everyone would renounce violence and we would all co-exist harmoniously. It is a very nice concept, but it is just a fantasy and you even concede that some of your concepts are unenforceable." Even reducing violence has a lot of value. International norms and responses can discourage and reduce invasions. Just because they might not reduce them to zero doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Similarly we don't say that there's no point in funding a police for even though they can't reduce crime to zero. Strong response to this invasion makes future invasions less likely. "In my view, everyone has the right to challenge the status quo before the ultimate authority - force." If you say they have the right to do it it's a claim about how things should be, not how they are, just like my claims you mentioned. "Military force is the ultimate authority whether you like it or not and we must learn to work with it. [...] You can say that this is really unfair and I'd agree with you but this is the reality of the world." A good way to live with that reality is to discourage that kind of behaviour with sanctions (and air-strikes if Russia didn't have nukes). "not freezing Russia's oil and gas money in dollars and Euros doesn't make sense. The EU would essentially be financing Russia's war if they didn't sanction the payments." The EU essentially is financing Russia's war. While various sanctions have been applied they have not touched energy, at least so far, because that would impose hardship on some EU members, chiefly Germany and Italy. The US has banned the import of Russian oil, gas, & coal. Recently also Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have announced that they would block gas imports from Russia. There would be no reason to do any of that if Russia couldn't access its gas payments. "Russian news also says the money is being frozen - see sputnik and RT." I actually don't believe they have said that. I tried to check but couldn't access their websites. If they have made such a claim then the person saying or writing that probably didn't know their stuff. However, I think it's more likely that you just misunderstood or misremember. More likely they have talked about some other assets being frozen or the possibility of the gas payment money being frozen at some point in the future (hence the demand for payment in Rubles). "it says that payments for energy are sanctions exempt. I interpret that to mean that the EU will still pay for the gas imports by putting Euros into a bank account. However, what is not mentioned is that the bank account where the money is held is frozen and no funds can be transferred out of it." That would directly contradict the statement of energy transactions being exempt.
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@jamesng7320 "Zelensky is making concessions in talks with Russia so that indicates to me that the Nazis have lost their hold over his government due to them being destroyed in Mariupol and all" There's no reason to expect that Zelensky's stance would so much depend on whether some person with influence over him would die in Mariupol. It's not like that kind of influential person would be on the frontlines (and if they were that alone would make it difficult for them to influence the president). This is not a credible extrapolation. "If Ukraine was winning the war then why is Zelensky making concessions?" I haven't made any claims about which side is winning or losing. "The problem with having international norms and responses to discourage invasion is that they can't be applied to a perpetrator who is very powerful and armed with nukes - say the US or Russia right now. If you can't apply your norms to the powerful and only apply them to the weak then it makes your whole system extremely unfair to those who are weak and people will see it as glaring hypocrisy when you don't apply your norms to the strong. Once again I point to your concession that you can't apply sanctions to the US when it invades. If you can't do that then you might as well say that you don't do it at all so that everyone gets treated fairly." Quite the opposite. Let's not have the best be the enemy of good. It's better that norms are enforced at least sometimes. We don't say that because we can't catch every criminal we shouldn't have any law or police at all catching some criminals would be unfair to them. "Everyone and every nation does have the right to go before the ultimate authority - military force whenever they want to and for whatever reason they want to. This is not a statement of how the world should be it is a statement of how things are." No, saying that is a claim about how things should be (and one that I disagree with), i.e. normative. Saying that nations do or don't have the ability to do so or saying how likely they are to do so would be a claim about how things are, i.e. positive. Also, claims about enforcing international norms part of the time being unfair is a normative claim too. "That censorship should give you an idea that your government is trying to bias your views and perceptions of the world so that you agree with them." I don't necessarily agree with censoring them but I don't see that as a reason to shift my position much. Similarly Russia has banned various Western media there. Should one take a stance against Russia in this conflict because of that? "There is no contradiction - the payments are occurring because they are exempt from sanctions but the bank accounts which the payments are going to are frozen." To me that would be a contradiction. That would be a sanction on energy payments. Gazprombank, which handles at least some of those transactions, has specifically been excluded from sanctions, at least partially, so that energy payments could be facilitated. I've also not heard any mention anywhere (except YouTube comments) that money from energy transactions would have been frozen so far (though it could plausibly happen at some point). "And did you know that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania get the majority of their oil and gas imports from Germany?" I don't know how much their ban has an effect. I just pointed it out because there would be no reason for them to do so (nor for the US to ban Russian oil/coal/gas) if the money from those transactions were frozen and unavailable for Russia.
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@jamesng7320 "Azov (nazi) battalion was incorporated into Ukraine's army after 2014" Technically it was incorporated into the National Guard, not Army. "But an army always has influence even over its own government because it is strong." The Azov battalion is something like 1% of Ukraine's military. There's no reason to believe it has influence over the government. "If you selectively enforce norms against certain countries when they violate international rules then that is blatantly injustice." It's better than letting the worse injustice like Russia's present invasion go unpunished. To end this so called "injustice" of sanctions Russia just needs to end the injustice it is committing and retreat from Ukraine (or alternatively agree to a peace with Ukraine). Sanctions are a much gentler measure than an invasion anyway and if you prefer a world without international norms (rather than norms without perfectly even enforcement) then sanctions aren't anymore against international norms than invasions are. "The criminal analogy is not valid because not being able to catch a criminal and not knowing who to prosecute is different than knowing who the criminal is and not wanting to prosecute them because they are more powerful than you are." I doesn't have to be that it's not known who to prosecute. Sometimes the criminal is known but powerful enough to evade capture. Even if that's the case I wouldn't want the police to stop catching regular thieves and murderers. "I don't understand your argument about nations being unable to go to war at any time and for any reason." I never said they're unable to go to war. I responded to a section where you said they have a right to go to war which is different from ability.
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@jamesng7320 "Those 1% are in senior positions in the Ukraine army which makes them a real threat due to their influence." No, they aren't, or certainly not most of them at least. Who exactly is in a senior position? "To end the "injustice" of sanctions, Russia needs to turn off the gas and then Europe will realize that they can't put sanctions on Russia without going into recession." Maybe they'll do that but it's not going to be easy for Russia either because they're gonna lose a lot of revenue. "What about Israel?" Maybe they should be sanctioned. They have at least face Arab sanctions in the past (though most of these have lapsed now) and e.g. in 2014 Spain froze military exports there (due to the events in Gaza). I don't know what is the best approach wrt. Israel. "NATO alleged that there was genocide being committed in that country and bombed it - without UNSC approval." OK, so you're talking about the Kosovo War (and not the Bosnian War some time earlier). "After that, the area where the genocide was alleged to have been committed was given independence. Russia also alleges that genocide is being committed in Donbass and has carried out a military operation similar to NATO. After that, they are going to give independence to Donbass." That campaign (Operation Allied Force / Noble Anvil) was certainly very controversial. I'm not arguing it was the best course of action but Russia's present actions are a lot worse for a couple of reasons. -Russia had prior to the present invasion basically already achieved a Kosovo-like situation by gaining control of Crimea and de facto independence (from Ukraine) for a part of Donbas. -Kosovo Albanians were experiencing mass expulsion. Nothing like that was going on in Ukraine. -There was no land invasion of Serbia. -Kosovo wasn't really given independence but rather they declared it unilaterally in 2008 and recognition remains split. -Operation Allied Force / Noble Anvil resulted in around 500 civilian deaths. Russia's present invasion is much worse in that regard. -Many Russian speakers in Ukraine don't want their region to be split from Ukraine by Russia. There was certainly a majority wanting that in Crimea and maybe also in at least parts of the east but not in many of the regions Russia is pushing on into now. I think these make it so that Russia's invasion is at least more clearly condemnable. I'm not saying NATO should have done what it did in the Kosovo War. At least targeting infrastructure in addition to military targets might have been the wrong thing to do. "If a criminal is powerful enough to evade capture, the authorities still need to show to the public that everything is being done to apprehend them." Even if they didn't try to apprehend that criminal I wouldn't want the police to stop arresting ordinary thieves and murderers (even if they might think it's unfair).
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@jamesng7320 "I found another video from a French journalist in 2016..." Thanks, I'll watch the whole video at some point but right now I don't have the time. "Russia wouldn't lose any money because all the money they are getting from the gas right now is frozen" I don't believe that. I haven't seen any mention of money from energy transactions being frozen (aside from a couple of YouTube comments). "if it weren't for the US veto on the security council, there would be UN sanctions on Israel right now" Sanctions don't require permission from the Security Council. "The defacto independence for Donbass was not good enough. Despite Minsk 2, as the video shows there were still crimes committed against Donbass and this resulted in 14,000 deaths according to the UN." Quoting that 14,000 after saying "there were still crimes committed" is highly misleading. Firstly, the UN figure is slightly lower at 13,100-13,300 (though this is a minor point). Secondly, this figure includes both military casualties on both sides and civilian casualties killed by both so you can't blame all of it on Ukraine. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, the clear majority of those deaths happened in the earliest phases so "there were still crimes committed" and that figure aren't really connected. It doesn't justify a full invasion. "there has been very little land invasion of Ukraine too" That's just false. Even invading just the east and the south is a major invasion. For much of the conflict so far there was also invading force in the north as well. "you must take into account that Serbia is a much smaller country than Ukraine" Fair enough, though it still doesn't look that good in comparison. Human Rights Watch gives an estimate at around 500 civilian casualties for Operation Allied Force / Noble Anvil. Ukraine in 2020 had about 5.85 times the population of Serbia in 1999. Scaling up the civilian casualties by that is around 3,000. The recorded civilian casualties for the present invasion recorded by the UN as of April 7th is a bit over 1,600 and the true figure is likely higher. The 3,000 might have been already exceeded even though the current invasion has so far gone on for less than half of the time so it's almost certain to be deadlier, at least eventually, relative to population. Also, this invasion entails many military deaths too. "Donbass held a referendum on breaking away from Ukraine in 2014 just like Crimea and both populations voted for it." They were already de facto independent. I don't see how that would justify an invasion into the regions under Ukrainian control. "To apply justice selectively and only to those who you can enforce it upon is a big injustice in itself." I still consider it the lesser evil relative to no norms at all. "everyone has a right to defend themselves by any means necessary - just like Russia is doing" By that logic, everyone has the right to place sanctions too.
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@nodzeratul Grozny was bombarded for several months. Kharkiv and Mariupol haven't been bombarded for as long. Maybe the bombardment is less intense than in the case of Grozny but clearly Russia isn't avoiding civilian casualties super hard, at least not in these places.
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@nodzeratul You can easily find drone footage of many damaged and destroyed buildings in Mariupol. It's not realistic to expect that the Russian forces could somehow pinpoint only the Ukrainian forces.
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@Jay-om8gr "And the US economy was being attacked by dozens of nations." The hit on the economy would make Americans poorer on average but the effects wouldn't be quick or big enough to affect the course of the war.
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