I am particularly interested in the things he said about the USSR, the arguably "wrong" steps it took in regards to the management of the Kazakh lands.

(Moved from c/genzedong after I realized this would be the better place to post this.)

I disagree with this. The west is clearly capable of continuous arms production, thanks to its large and stable imperialist supply chain. It is Russia's economical potential which seems smaller in comparison.

I have a couple of questions.

How much weaponry was there in Ukraine prior to the war, NATO-supplied or from elsewhere, that could directly threaten Russia?

Next, going to war over the protection of Russian-speaking diasporas is a nice ideal, but it does not immediately translate to practical terms. I am willing to accept the idea that Russia risked losing everything by trying to protect Donbas Russians from Ukraine, but so far, the only signs of any Ukraine aggression in the region that I recall is the banning of Russian language and the shelling of separatists, who themselves shelled the Ukrainians. I also find the effectiveness of the takeovers questionable. Are Russians truly better stewards than the Ukrainians, all documented events considered? I truly do not know enough about this to make the right judgement call. Also not to mention the inversion of the idea - what about the Ukrainians in the Russia-occupied territories? Are they doing well too?

I am somewhat doubtful of the other things you have said, but I am unsure how to properly address them, so I suppose I will do some more research into the situation instead.

Yes, war is expensive, everyone knows that. But is it really worth it for Russia if they are impacted by it too? Surely they had to know that, going in. Though as the article states, they supposedly misjudged the costs and the duration of the whole operation, not expecting it to turn into a full on war. And now, I dunno, maybe continuing to fight is their bet at preserving... something, but everyone can see that the working class suffers on both sides because of it.

In my opinion? Yes.

It's not for you or me, it's for novices, people who will turn away the second you discredit any of the famous anti-government protests or deny the Uyghur genocide. They need to take small steps, or else they will be overwhelmed by disbelief. I speak from experience, as I went through the exact same thing, having been raised on a liberal diet my entire life.

And of course, all those points you've raised are valid. It is mainly the social credit system facts which were presented here surprisingly honestly and in a well-informed manner.

Still better than the usual fearmongering. I've shared this video mainly since it seems like an acceptable learning material for normies.

I don't think I've used any third party apps like this one, so I'm wondering what is it that I've actually done back then.

mentions oppressive communist regimes

gives examples of backwards and genocidal third world regimes that are even further away from communism than the US regime itself

Liberals really just have only two braincells, do they? One for memorizing all the "good" stuff and places and one for all the "bad" stuff and places.

At the cost of sounding like an anarkiddie, I would call this a conservative current in communism. Many communists are deeply patriotic, so my question was aimed mainly at them. From an idealist perspective however, my personal opinion is pretty clear. I would betray whoever tried to draft me, regardless of which side they were on. I don't know if that's an anti-communist thing to say. I just want to believe in something that would produce the most happiness for everyone.

I'm not taking it into consideration. On the contrary, I'm looking for sources to debunk it. Ever since genzhou got banned, I've lost access to a lot of good resources.

The laptop story was obviously real, the QAnon part was just randos making wild conjectures and blowing it up into completely unrelated territories like population mind control, new lizard world order, child blood drinking, and similar nonsense. I suppose, when I look at it from the other side, when the emphasis is placed on the easily discreditable parts of it, then that makes it look like the entire story is fake. Perhaps the biolabs really are producing WMDs, it just so happens that this one guy presented the story without evidence it and it turned into this entire thing before actual evidence of anything was discovered.

Did Nuland or someone else testify that the DoD funded them? Even then, did DoD send more than just money and/or did it promote large-scale bioculture manufacturing, way above the publicly disclosed scope? The US has its fingers in everything, but evidence is still required to present such claims, especially when they implicate a foreign nation. At lest, I would consider that common sense. I've heard stories of various US departments funding the weirdest of shit, so the story could turn out to be a dead end.

Bro seriously? How does their bias affect the facts that they've reported on? Or do you have actual evidence showing that the biolabs story did not in fact originate from a QAnon dumpster? And there's no need to cite Nuland, I've heard about it, the existence of those labs is public knowledge. Whether they actually contain biological weapons is unknown as of yet.

But that just sounds like shifting the blame now. Both sides can be guilty of the same thing, and just because that one side is heavily biased doesn't mean that their own sources that they present are bunk too. By all means, we can investigate these claims ourselves, there's no need for Vice to spoon-feed us a prepared narrative.

Also yeah, its not imperialism per se, but it still has a strategic / economical motive, ie. a motive beneficial to Russia. Why would Russia launch a war, if it had nothing to gain? And for the record, I don't buy the idea that they're just trying to level the odds. No one is automatically this nice and polite, especially not bourgeois nation-states. When Russia becomes a communist state again, then perhaps it will become more believable.

For now, I don't think the evidence for biological warfare research in Ukraine amounts to anything. Though if a secret facility does exist somewhere that no one has discovered yet, then that would be quite the coincidence.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxda7y/ukraine-biolabs-war-clandestine-tucker-carlson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or9kGzemcps

I haven't actively researched this story, but these two did cross my path over the past few days. The first explains that the claim originated from a bogus conspiracy theory, and the second debunks some supposed evidence that has been presented towards the claim. (The second one has a strong "anti-tankie" vibe, but if you can stomach that, it's a pretty well-researched video overall.)

As of right now, I don't have any "good" sources that would be in favor of the theory. If there are any, they would need to debunk the above two links in their entirety.

Anywhere I can read more about this? The news are moving very fast now, so it's difficult to search for stuff like that.

I was going off of the supposed news that Putin was dismayed by how slowly the war is going, as well as the reports that the Russian army is lacking in equipment. Personally, I think that a lack of intelligence did play a role too. As for the sanctions, this seems to be implying that they indeed were effective at stalling Russia's advance. Would you say that this is the case? I know it's a big lib talking point, that sanctions work, so I am hesitant to draw conclusions.

And yes, it is rather interesting to speculate just how much could Russia be hiding. Then again, for me, such speculations always seemed bordering with hidden tech fantasies and conspiracy theories, so I prefer relying on confirmed info. It could be that the news that Putin is unhappy with the development of the war is itself propaganda, meant to convince us that the Russian war machine is running out of juice, but the opposite would imply that Ukraine is not important enough for Russia to be worth investing much into war resources, so it's difficult to say. Put simply, is it a blunder, or a strategic loss? I don't know, and I hope I can learn more about this somewhere.

And yes, I meant that Putin seems like a conservative bigot from the american point of view, so it's understandable why some might say these things and draw these Hitler comparisons.

Very well, thank you for explaining it. That said, we do see that the progress of Russian troops is beginning to stagnate. It seems that Putin or his generals miscalculated. Why do you think it is, that the war didn't go for them as expected?

See, the reason for all these questions is, that aside from this place, my other major source for info about the war is the many liberal, usually apolitical subreddits, that I'm subscribed to on Reddit. That's how they get me, they act apolitical, but then the mods pin some atrocity that I simply must take a look at. And, well... there were many stories covered by them that the communists around here and on Reddit haven't really talked about that much, such as for example the material impact of the war on the ground, coverage of the civilian victims, i.e. things that illicit the greatest emotional response in liberals. (They also debunked some stories that I've seen around here, such as the claim that the dead bodies in Bucha were moving. Apparently they weren't after all.)

And the times that this topic came up in my family's circles, the discussion always circled back to this topic, and I didn't really have anything to say, so I simply agreed to pretty much every single talking point they were having, because obviously, the loss of innocent life is terrible no matter what, and I also didn't want to resort to whataboutisms regarding America's wars, as that doesn't seem very appropriate. (If anything, it looks dismissive or ignorant.)

Lastly, I originally mentioned Hitler, as he was exactly one of those types that believed in superstitious war strategies. He provided the general plans, and his generals fleshed them out to the best of their abilities. At least that's how I've heard it be told. For example, his decision to invade the USSR apparently came to him after a solitary deliberation in the Alps. I.e., he picked the time of the invasion based on a nonsense reason. I initially thought that maybe Putin could have also been motivated by some superstition to greenlight such an operation, all else being left to his skilled generals as far as logistics go (so pretty much every single important decision, aside from the initial idea for the invasion itself).

I suppose that in the end, it doesn't really matter what Putin thinks, right? The reason could have been anything and it wouldn't change the fact that Putin decided to invade Ukraine in late February of 2022, superstitious or not. So I guess I really am arguing about nonsense. But he obviously is a conservative bigot, no denying that, so it's understandable where the video that I shared was coming from.