Version longue en français: https://www.bortzmeyer.org/coupure-russie.html
Several ISPs in France have started censoring rt.com via their DNS resolver.
Why are they doing this? I guess officially they'll say it's because of Russian propaganda about Ukraine, and that's partially correct.
But also worth pointing out is that despite very uncritical propaganda from the regime about what happens in Russia, RT is one of the only mass media (non-independent publication) where you can have decent news about social uproar in France (gilets jaunes, anti-police-abuse riots, etc).
We haven't reached the point where posts to RT are censored on social media (where it's most popular) so i can't exactly say we have "one side" to the news yet but it's getting closer.
This message is both a fuck you to french ISPs engaging in censorship (remember Sci-Hub? TPB?) and a reminder to all the Putin fanboys around here what "there's only one side to the news" really means: Russia is already there (there's a few independent publications but they've been struggling for years with State censorship and journalist assassinations) and France is getting closer (on the other side of the narrative). The rest of you who live in countries with more free speech can't even realize what information control means so please don't take these words lightly.
People who can't see what's wrong with this are brainwashed beyond repair.
Western anarchist and libertarian grifters are angry with your comment. Russia bad. China bad. NATO good. Atlantic Council good.
These are the same people silent on NATO's past 60 years of eastward expansions and breakage of Warsaw Pact and also 2014 Maidan coup.
Countries joining NATO want to join NATO. The majority of people in Ukraine want to join NATO. Russia is currently demonstrating to the world exactly why Ukraine wants to join NATO. Also Russia knows exactly NATO would never dare to attack Russia, just like NATO knows exactly Russia would never dare to attack them. Russia (Putin) is not scared about a NATO attack, he's scared he won't be able to insert a puppet government in Ukraine ever again. Let's not pretend it's about something else.
NATOs eastward expansion (in the past 30 years, not 60) is the product of those countries wanting to be in NATO. The Warsaw Pact was with the Soviet Union. Not sure if you noticed, but the Soviet Union does not exist anymore. Oops. I want to introduce my own whataboutism here: what about the Budapest Memorandum that Russia broke in 2014 by annexing Crimea?
Yes NATO did bad things and will do bad things in the future. This does not legitimize Russias invasion at all.
And sorry for being silent about things going on in the world years ago, I was too young to understand shit at the time. But anyway, when there's police fatally shooting hundreds of protesters, it's a sign the Maidan revolution was absolutely necessary.
Even Chinese state media (CGTN) is criticizing the invasion.
The 2014 Maidan coup and the leaked Nuland-Pyatt call tells us a different story. But go on.
How many times has USA/UK backtracked on its various pacts, doctrines, acts and international treaties? Russia's invasion is not a matter of choice, but a matter of protecting itself against NATO's eastward expansions since the 60s in an attempt to encircle Russia. You think that is a conspiracy theory? You can read this.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/thwarting-kremlin-aggression-today-for-constructive-relations-tomorrow/
Not convinced from the horse's mouth? Another one, this time from the architect of Iraq War himself. https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/01/dick-cheney-us-goal-break-up-russia/
NATO expansion 1960s-2010s
Oh so USA has the right to invade and intervene and install puppets, but Russia is doing "act of aggression" by protecting itself from NATO expansion, because USA told you so? You have already been taught to have double standards. You have been made to have a reptillian mind thanks to Cold War propaganda that never ended.
Where were you when NATO did those expansions for 60 years? Where were you when during the past 8 years, Donbas citizens were being suppressed and killed, 14,000 of combined Ukrainians and Russians? Suddenly you wake up during these particular 8 days after 1958 upto Feburary 2022 (64 years), and you think Russia is bad while cheering on US puppet state Ukraine with Nazis everywhere in it?
And where is the 0.2% Nazis nonsense coming from, when SS Waffen made up a mere 5% in Germany's army? Surely 5% could not have done anything, right? They did. And so will these, with all the NATO media cheering and ordinary people brainwashed into being cheerleaders for Nazis. And with that, everyone is standing on the wrong side of history.
USA bad != Russia good
I come from Germany, we hate both of them here.
Where have I been the last 60 years? Nonexistent, mostly. Probably just like you. Stop this whataboutism
Again, NATOs eastward "expansion" is going on for 30 years, and it doesn't happen by force but by those countries voluntarily joining it. And Russia is still doing great advertisements showing why someone should join NATO. They do this to themselves. The only thing forbidding this expansion is an old agreement with the Soviet Union, which still doesn't exist.
Good question, I don't know where it's coming from either. I don't see it anywhere in this entire thread, so it must be coming from you. I already explained in another comment what a straw man is, thanks for the great example. You even combined it with Godwin's law.
But since you bring it up, why doesn't Russia bother getting rid of their own Nazis first? The Wagner Group? Why do they not-so-covertly sponsor many far-right parties in European countries? Why does a presence of Nazis even warrant an invasion? If Russia just never bothered annexing their land and sponsoring seperatists, things like Azov (which I assume is what you're on about here) would have never even existed in the first place.
I didn't suddenly "wake up" to this war by the way. I have friends and relatives in Ukraine, I have actually been there and seen the country and the people. Did you? I talked to people who were fighting the separatists, and who are fighting in Kiev now. The parents of a friend are stuck in Sumi right now, a shop next to their home was bombed a few days ago. They sure love being "liberated" by Russian artillery.
And before you say "whAt AboUT tHe USa??!": yes they invade countries too and it's bad too. Finally something we can agree on
I won't feed this discussion any further
Wrong facts. NATO's eastward expansion has been going on since 1959, and we are not living in 1989. That 0.2% crap is spouted on Lemmy by people, so I wrote about that.
How much influence does Wagner Group have in government and military, can you tell me? Because Azov Battalion and Banderites are gods in Ukraine. You can also check the history of "slava ukraini" phrase.
You are not exactly arguing in good faith, so it is over from me too.
It's hilarious that the Azov Battalion was formed from a bunch of racist rednecks because Russia invaded Crimea. And now you use it as the justification to for another invasion? Russia needs to learn to stay in it's lane.
As for Wagner Group, it is directly operated as a thinly veiled proxy army. They are a Kremlin asset whose leaders flash Nazi insignia as much as those Azov yokels. I wonder how the Ukrainian denazifacation of Wagner is going in Kyiv? Three foiled assassination attempts so far...
NATO should have stayed in its lane since 1959 for 6 decades. Russia is correct in what it is doing, and Ukraine must no longer be tolerated with having a US puppet government installed since 2014 Maidan coup.
What the west should have done was Marshal Plan eastern Europe. Build them up with loans and investments rather let them wallow in corruption and poverty. Look at Japan and Germany today, compared to Russia. It was a cruel, conscious choice to use them as a cheap labor stock. And now we have to deal with the results: peace in our time? Or checking an aggressor before he starts World War III.
NATO was the aggressor. Also check what Hague Invasion Act is.
Ha ha, yep, NATO scared Putin so much he invaded an unaligned nation in response. Nobody cares to invade Russia. Russia would be a NATO member, if it wasn't trapped in the cold war mentality of Putin. What do you get in return? Finland 2.0? Afghanistan 2.0? And a new batch of EU and NATO members. Putin has outmaneuvered himself.
Actually no, Russia will just become strong this way, leaving US-EU English Fascism in despair in long term. Ukraine would have become Afghanistan 2.0 if NATO was allowed to take over.
As strong North Korea? They're totally dependent on China, too. Ukraine is Russia's next Afghanistan. Remember that fiasco? When American made Stingers cleared the sky of Spetsnaz helicopters? Does that sound familiar?
More like China. Also, North Korea was unironically a result of USA's bombing. Russia is not a genocidal state like USA or Western coloniser states have been, stop projecting. Who carpet bombed Serbia and Yugoslavia for 78 days? Does that ring any bells?
Who genocided the muslim populations of the USSR? Was it the USA and western colonizers too? Does that ring any bells? From the wikipedia page on Deportation of Chechens and Ingush:
Just because western empires are evil does not mean other empires have to be good.
Can we talk about French genocide of Algeria? Or USA's ongoing genocide of Yemen since many years? Just because hurrdurr blablabla. I am not morally corrupt to play this grifty game, even though I can play it better than you.
Please do. We've been talking about it for years, but more conversation/information is always welcome.
Then why did you downvote me? Because you talk something else and mean something else.
Are you saying that western powers were planning a military invasion of Ukraine? This makes no sense, as there was no major military deployment indicating it, nor was there any psyops in the west to mount a narrative justifying such invasion.
Western powers, specifically USA, had installed their own puppet in Ukraine in 2014 over a phone call, without any elections. And years of installation of military and warfare equipment, and the ongoing supply that has stopped only after Russia made it clear no US puppetry or NATO-isation will be allowed, Europe stopped sending equipment.
I have no reason to believe you are not lying at this point to defend NATO, so I will just try to avoid you in this matter. No use playing chess with pigeons.
Between 1959 and 1998 only Spain became a new NATO member (see your own graphic) which I would hardly call eastward expansion 🤨
You calling something "hardly" does not matter. After all, Ukraine is also just 1 country by your logic, just like Spain, right? I like your intent here, when I meant 1949 and not 1959 to demonstrate NATO expansion, you just went ahead with wordsmith weaseling.
Also, you are wrong. It looks to me more than just Spain.
My point was rather that Spain is in the far west of Europe and therefore I would hardly call it eastward expansion.
Makes more sense in that case, especially considering Greece and Turkey.
Also, I think, one can debate whether German reunification in 1990 counts as expansion since the 2+4 treaty states that no NATO troops may be placed permanently in eastern Germany and as far as I know this was not violated yet.
To the east of US and UK, the colonial masters of Anglosphere, is everything else on the east side of theirs. Hence it is eastwards expansion, but I can see why you are arguing semantically in bad faith.
EDIT: WAIT A FUCKING SECOND
Why is your username nachtigall?
See this comment from 2 month ago. Never heard of Stepan Bandera and the battalion before.
So you never heard of Bandera and the battalion, and claim to have a say on current matters? This must be a joke, right?
That's true. Sorry for not knowing how fucked up this world was back then.
It's because I was told that in times of pressure, freedom of information or civil liberties wouldn't be affected. But this was just dumb thinking.
I was told that this was better, and that this would lead us to an answer. That's why I believed that this wouldn't happen.
It is not merely war. The world you were living in was fucked up in the first place, controlled by US-EU imperialism. You were given a Plato's cave to live in, and you enjoyed the shadows "freedom" "human rights" "democracy", while in reality outside the cave, something else was always going on.
The "western liberal democracies" always lied to you. And this is a repeat of Afghanistan with worse than Iraq War level of lies.