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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

> roll over and let the Russians win?

Or negotiate for peace. It is known there was a solid negotiation process in place and the Ukrainians were interested in it. NATO was not and worked to destroy it.

> Wars are awful things.

...and _Forbes_ acting as a cheerleader of them is disgusting.

> But to paraphrase Trotsky

Trotsky was spreading propaganda. In the actual study of war, they rarely break out as described, and they often have months if not years of time where they could have been avoided entirely.

It usually turns out there is someone with vested financial interests in war and they always find themselves near the people who generate the conflict. Go figure.

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I can't tell if this is Russian propaganda or just terminal naïveté. This war is going on because Russia, without justifiable provocation, invaded another sovereign nation. There is nothing for the Ukrainians to "negotiate" about other than Russia leaving their land.

If I hypothetically put a gun to your head and told you to give me your wallet and the credentials to your bank accounts, no amount of "negotiation" would make your property legally mine or what I did any less than armed robbery. Same here.

I think the propagandist was trying to make an analogy with the distinguishable outcomes of "dead with no wallet" and "unharmed with no wallet".

In the case of Ukraine, Russian state media have often claimed their goal is to exterminate Ukrainians and their culture so that distinction would not exist.

The "the Ukrainians wanted to negotiate, but NATO wouldn't let them" line is definitely standard tankie propaganda.

And lo and behold, within literal seconds of putting forth this perfectly straightforward observation -- which granted might sound slightly, vaguely controversial, but really isn't to anyone following the basic event chronology of this conflict (and the various false narratives that people keep mindlessly repeating about it) -- someone had to flag it.

>There is nothing for the Ukrainians to "negotiate" about other than Russia leaving their land.

Are the Ukrainians aware of this? Because massive forced conscription and closed borders for leaving are strongly pointing out against it.

>no amount of "negotiation" would make your property legally mine

Negotiations are needed not for legality, but for example, to stop mass forced conscription of people who doesn't want to die for political ambitions of Zelensky, corrupt Ukranian government or for something else, that they think doesn't worth dying for.

The Ukrainians will decide for themselves if and when to negotiate, and on what terms.

They will also decide -- for themselves -- whether the losses they are taking are sustainable, or "worth" the just end to this war that they seek.

Your idea of what they "need", what is worth dying for or otherwise valuable to them, or your general view of their government -- just doesn't factor into it.

>The Ukrainians will decide for themselves

Does not seem like it. They are not asked. They are banned from leaving the country. They are captured right on the streets and forcefully, under threat of death, sent to fight in war.

> They will also decide -- for themselves -- whether the losses they are taking are sustainable, or "worth" the just end to this war that they seek.

No, it's already decided for them - and decided otherwise. That's the reason borders are closed and Ukrainians are sent to frontlines against their will

> Your idea of what they "need", what is worth dying for That's not my idea, that's their idea - otherwise there would be no need for closed borders and forced conscription.

You still don't get to tell them when they "need" to negotiate.

Let me rephrase that more accurately . . . the democratically-elected government of Ukraine is exercising its legitimate authority to draft people into its military during a severe war that it did not start.

Just like the Allies did in World War II.

So presumably their view would be that the Allied cause during WW 2 was wholly illegitimate, because after all, those nations had conscription policies as well.

They are captured right on the streets and forcefully, under threat of death,

The "under threat of death" part is pure BS of course.

All the data (status of human rights organizations in this area, statements of officials, law enforcement agencies, the reaction of "democratic" institutions to such cases when they leaked to public) shows, that after civilian are captured on the street - civillian will be tortured until he goes to the frontlines or until he dies. Just two option: go to war or die via torture.

What "data"?

You'll definitely need to provide reliable sources for the specific assertion you're making here.

You are doing a great job of simply parroting Russian propaganda points here.

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