Corruption, treason in Ukraine won't be tolerated, Zelenskiy says
Corruption, treason in Ukraine won't be tolerated, Zelenskiy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders.
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This guy is equally trash than Putin
Idk about that - one has tried to get into EU and fight corruption, the other voted to devour his neighbouring country for increasingly petty reasons.
It's not petty to respond to threats of nuclear annihilation by a fascist Nazi regime next door. Come on now.
What nuclear capability does Ukraine have currently?
None at all. The threat was that they would join NATO and install nukes.
There was no threat made. Even if Ukraine had entered into NATO, NATO had made no noise about stationing nukes in Ukraine. It could well have kept the status of the Baltic states where they don't have nukes stationed there. There's really no strategic value to NATO to do so. That was an excuse made up by the Kremlin.
Here you go. There's also a video of him demanding pre-emptive nukes be used against Russia.
Zelensky did not ask for pre-emptive nukes against Russia. That was an erroneous English translation. And I said NATO had made no noise about stationing nuclear weapons. For that matter, it's a bit of a reach to say that Ukraine is requesting that nuclear weapons be stationed on its territory, but rather that it gave up nuclear weapons in return for an agreement that Russia has now breached.
"But Zelenskyy’s response to a question from Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove, who moderated the discussion, did not specifically mention nuclear weapons."
While talking about nuclear weapons, what else does preemptive strikes mean? This is new levels of cope.
Look back at the quote in that article. He's not talking about wanting nuclear weapons. He's talking about entering into NATO with its Article 5 protections because the Budapest Memorandum has failed.
Beginning:
I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum.
End:
If they [Budapest Memorandum consultations] do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.
Putin and the Kremlin then twisted those words into nukes, when Zelensky explicitly only wants to replace the failed Budapest Memorandum protections with Article 5 protections. Despite all of Putin's bluster, he knows damn well the US isn't going to help Ukraine obtain nukes. The US, the Soviet Union, and other nuclear powers have gone to considerable lengths to avoid nuclear proliferation.
Refuting a poor translation is not "copium". The original Ukrainian did not have the English connotations of nuclear weapons, but was more along the lines of general preemptive actions.
Putin and the Kremlin then twisted
Does it not give you pause when you hear yourself say weird shit like this? You think Vladimir Putin himself is involved in creating propaganda? The Kremlin is a tourist museum. Listen to yourself, you're just a parrot repeating gibberish that you don't understand.
The rest of your comment is just a poor effort to ignore the website I linked you to.
"Putin and the Kremlin then twisted"... jfc
I'd encourage you to expound on this in your original comment, rather than start off with something inflammatory. It doesn't promote an interesting discussion.
You want me to edit my original comment? I'm not following. Is there something in my comment you take issue with factually?
And how might that one be?
Because from an outsider perspective he seems to be doing alright and anecdotally a Ukrainian man I know says the people around him like Zelenskyy
Plenty of russian likes putin too, they are victim of propaganda. I'm sure these Ukrainians between 18 and 60 who want to leave the country but they can't don't like their government much.
I've worked with some of them, and as far as I can tell whilst they don't like the situation they're in, they want to kick the shit out if Russians (putting it softly) more than they want to escape.
Turns out invading a country can instill some pretty heavy anger in the populace... Who knew?
I'm not going to take a hard stance here cause I don't think a side by side comparison with Putin is a useful conversation to have, but I want to point out a couple things that may add some nuance to what you've heard before.
- Since 1991, Ukraine has been in an increasingly precarious geopolitical position, with many differences among it's population and political leadership about how to proceed. One could argue that Zelensky ended up stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at the end of the day his fumbling around and repeated motions towards joining NATO were bad political moves that nearly forced (kinda, maybe not forced idk) Russia's hand into a military action. Even if going to NATO was definitively the correct choice (weird thing to think, tbh), he managed doing so incredibly poorly.
- Be aware that Ukraine has had a lot of division among the populaton about whether the country should be Western/EU aligned or Russian aligned. There are many historical and cultural reasons for different regions, communities and individuals to have their particular views (like any political stance). Consider that if you spoke with a Ukrainian person somewhere outside of Eastern Europe, and used the English language, they are probably going to have a pro-western, pro-zelensky viewpoint. You probably won't hear much from Russian speaking Ukrainians who wouldn't prefer to emigrate to "the West", and support Ukrainian alignment with Russia.
Having spent SIGNIFICANT time in all parts of ukraine I can safely say they are a varied people. Russian speaking Ukrainians and non Russian speaking I heard numerous pro ussr and pro west ideas. Non of what you said points to zelensky being as bad as or worse than put in. Pretty much everyone likes him regardless of personal political feelings.
Sure, like I said I don't think it's really important who is "worse", it's not a useful topic of discussion.
I did want to make a couple of counterpoints though
- just cause Zelensky is popular, doesn't necessarily make him a better leader. If we were to do a comparison (which we shouldn't!) Putin is also widely popular along Russians. In both cases support for a wartime leader is going to rally, especially in Ukraine.
- you certainly have infinitely more experience in the country than I do (dividing by zero ofc haha), but wouldn't you have run into some of the same biases coming in as a foreigner (or foreign-born)? I don't know your itinerary, and I'm not asking you to share, but the who, when and where is gonna make a difference.
- as an example, I was interested in the interviews of the first two people in this video that I saw recently [watch starting at 3:15 till about 20 mins in]: https://youtu.be/drhgjxSJG6M located in the warzone in eastern Ukraine. Both are supportive of the Russian forces and appear to claim that such support in their local area is widespread.
Careful with that YouTube channel. Patrick Lancaster may be American, but everything he's produced recently is essentially pro-Russian propaganda. Many (most?) of his videos are either misleading or staged.
Can you substantiate that? I'm only tangentially familiar with his work. He's certainly softer on Russia than other sources, but is he doing more than bringing "balance" to the conversation?
Watching the clip I showed, I could suspect that he may be leaving out other interviews he did where people were more pro-ukrainian, but at the same time, the woman in the video claims that about 80% of the town supports Russia, which would line up with what I previously understood about the politics of their region.
I don't particularly care that much about the guys personal politics, and I haven't had that much exposure to them, since my only interest so far has been these two interviews which I personally interpret as primary sources. I would in now way claim that these two people speak for anyone besides themselves, but what they both say is loosely backed up by the data I've seen.
Fair question. First, I would not characterize what he does as being softer on Russia to bring balance. Some of his videos have been exposed as just being lies. That casts doubt on the rest, since ultimately you kind of just have to trust him. And before someone pops up to complain about Ukraine, yes Ukraine engages in propaganda as well. I am only cautioning against considering this source as being trustworthy.
I could try to give a rundown of him, but it would look a lot like his Wikipedia article so I will just point you there.
Fair, I'd be interested in examples, since I mostly know of him from seeing people talk about him on Lemmygrad or wherever (who have their own issues, of course). I can go find them myself though, I appreciate you giving me a general idea about what's up wtih the guy.
I do appreciate him bringing these interviews on the ground, but I always want to do my best to account for bias and spin, even for things like that that appear straightforward. I haven't even watched the second half of the video cause I figured it would feature him more (maybe that assumption was incorrect idk).
Definitely sounds like a crackpot who shouldn't be taken too seriously from Wikipedia though. I just think calling something "propaganda" is a shallow criticism on its own.
I watched through one of his videos. If memory serves, it was him wandering around Mariupol right after the Russians finished turning it into rubble. He happened upon a man who told him how wonderful the Russians were. All this in what were supposedly the ashes of his hometown. It was the most transparently staged bullshit I've ever seen. Probably a Russian soldier with a few scripted lines.
I think a lot of the folks on Lemmygrad consume a lot of Russian state media and media that draws from Russian state media. Lancaster is regularly featured on Russian state media, so it makes sense that they would be passing around his content.
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