What is there to negotiate?
"Diplomacy" doesn't mean "I break into your house and agree to take only 10% of your stuff if you don't fight back." And when the cops show up, that's not a "proxy war."
Dragging it into the "both sides" empire-vs-empire context is exactly what Russia wants, as it justifies their naked imperialism while making it so their goal of Ukraine ceasing to exist could be some diplomatic middleground rather than the maximalist goal that it is.
In reality Ukraine wants to be part of the West, as it's a whole lot nicer than the Russian empire that seems to still be running on the playbook from the 1940's. So talking about this as if it's two empires divvying up a country is nonsensical - rather it's the cold truth that world powers exist, and to defend a war against one you have to align yourself with a different one.
And just so we're clear here, I say this as someone who wholeheartedly opposed invading Iraq.
Because calls for diplomacy benefit only Russia. Instead, issue calls for Russia to leave Ukraine.
> Meanwhile, 200,000 Ukrainians have been led to their deaths.
Leaving aside your dubious stat, here "Meanwhile, Russia killed x Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation." There. Fixed it for you.
Your passive voice there betrays your pro-Russian sympathies, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. In other words, pro-Putin statements gets you labeled pro-Putin apologist. Stop doing that, and the problem goes away.
> He literally started the war.
When do _you_ think the war started? Annexation of Crimea was ordered by Putin.
I don't know why you question the Putin apologist moniker, the alternatives are way worse. At least own it up
Wikipedia: A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities
Calling this a proxy war ignores the part of the defintion about motivation. The only instigator here is Russia, and Ukraine is mainly fighting for its own interest of not being liquidated by Russia. Supplying allies does not make a country a combatant, nor does it make the supplied party a "proxy".
Strange that it’s only in the interests of that side that people call for this.
Yes, by giving Ukraine to Russia.
We know how it works if you try to appease fascists, come on.
Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon. They can't bring themselves to admit that they are losing to Ukraine and hence emphasise how they are "acktshually fighting against the whole NATO". Allies have given a lot of support, but mainly in the form of obsolete military surplus equipment and equipment alone doesn't fight; see Afghanistan.
> No calls for diplomacy.
April 1945 was too late for peace offerings.
The point of calling it a proxy war by the Kremlin is not to make it seem larger than it, as the largest post-WW2 European war, is. It is to invert the responsibility for aggression. (Secondarily, it’s to deny Ukrainian agency and make its existence and sovereignty an irrelevancy in discussing a war where that is the entire issue.)
There is a sense in which calling it now a proxy war between NATO and some other affiliated states on one side and, say, Iran, China, and North Korea on the other, is not entirely inaccurate. (Russia prefers to look to external sponsors of the direct belligerents only on one side though.) But, even to the extent that’s accurate it doesn’t change that the war (which started in 2014) was initiated by Russian aggression, and the 2022 escalation was a major upswing in Russian aggression, and the outside assistance (whether or not it also has ulterior geopolitical motives) for the other side is in line with the right of collective self-defense enshrined in the UN Charter.
Yes, that's what I meant. The purpose of this talking point is to diminish Ukrainian achievements by leaving an impression that Russia is under attack and fighting the whole "collective West" (as they call it) and that the war is much larger in scope than it actually is: Russia vs Ukraine.
Foreign military aid to Ukraine has so far barely sustained defense and I wouldn't call aiding countries belligerents in this war.
I am not on Putin's side on this, but this is not 1945. Russia does have some vital national interests in the reason, since its right on their border and they have a long historical relationship with Crimea. The prime minister of Israel claims they had a deal worked out, but the Biden administration nixed it. This is a result of strategic planning within the State Dept. to have this fight.
No he doesn't. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-bennett-walks-back-cl...