#apologists for putin

[tomorrowusa]

Here is Jordan Klepper's entire special on how the GOP became the Party of Putin.

Brace yourself in that vid for another display of MAGA ignorance and stupidity.

The Kremlin is still using unmoderated social media and fake news sites to push disinformation and propaganda into the conspiracy-loving minds of Trump supporters. GOP members of Congress are among them.

The MAGA love for Putin is not due only to media manipulation. Putin's domestic policies closely mirror how the far right would govern in our country: official homophobia, greater income inequality, special treatment for billionaire oligarchs, rigged elections, a de facto official religion, poor consumer protection, censorship, restrictions on abortion, assassination of political opponents, and a lot more. What's not to like in Russia for a US far right fundamentalist? The fringe right pines for the days when women were in the kitchen, Jesus was in the classroom, gays were in the closet, and blacks were completely out of sight.

To truly understand Russia, it's absolutely necessary to talk with its neighbors – not with Tucker Carlson. So Jordan visited Estonia and met with Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

IMHO, part of the Putin love by some Americans stems from an almost pathological ignorance of Eastern Europe. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, some idiots began proclaiming "the end of history" and whatever little learning about Eastern Europe which may have taken place in K-12 education then vanished totally.

Putin, a former officer in the Soviet secret police, wants to revive the Soviet Union in all but name. And imperialism is part of that plan.

People in the US who cheer Putin are like the Americans who applauded Hitler in the 1930s. As long as there is substantial support for Putin here we should worry about such people trying to make the US more like totalitarian Russia.

[odinsblog]

Message to all alleged “anti-war tankies”

If you were truly anti-war, at worst you’d at least try to pretend to be neutral, and not support either side. At best, you would not be on the side of Russia, the aggressor that, unprovoked, invaded a smaller sovereign nation that was peacefully minding its own business, was not in NATO, and wasn’t even applying for NATO membership. NATO was not the cause of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As always, I remind people that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, including but not limited to: erasing all mentions of Ukraine from schoolbooks, murdering entire civilian populations of Ukrainian cities, and kidnapping thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children (some as young as 4 months old) and placing them into “re-education” centers where they are forced to learn how to become good little Russians. Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilian targets like funerals, churches, schools and hospitals, and the Russian army is using mass rape as a weapon of war.

(Remember, Ukraine has demonstrated that they have the capability to reach Russian held territory, but unlike Russia, the Ukrainian military has only targeted military installations.)

If you can just hand wave all of the Russian war crimes and atrocities away because “America bad,” then please spare everyone your anti-war concern trolling, and your faux worries about Ukrainians dying. Just admit that as long as, lol, “communist” Russia isn’t the one being invaded, you are morally indifferent to human suffering and you actually do not care about ending wars.

Russia can end the war instantly just by going home.

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

[beta-lactam-allergic]

https://www.tumblr.com/whenmagicfilledtheair/740700427798069248/despite-modern-russia-being-run-by-a-right-wing?source=share

Looool the putin apologia

I'm not surprised by him being a Putin apologist. Opinion polling in Russia is untrustworthy as Putin controls the pollsters. Putin also controls the media inside Russia, so voters aren't exposed to alternative opinions or facts that may make Putin look bad.

Meanwhile "whenmagicfillstheair" claims about American media can be easily disproven by the fact many outlets criticise both candidates. The low opinion polls for both candidates means that voters can form views on both candidates from multiple sources.

"whenmagicfillstheair" complains about a democracy (however flawed FPP & the electoral college are) with a free press & praises Russia, where the election is rigged & you can't safely criticise Putin. If he's American he's taking advantage of the very free press he pretends isn't there to advocate for a place that has none & the leader who ended the free press in Russia. If he isn't than he's either relying on propaganda to inform his views or is a paid propaganda still himself. It's hard to know one way or the other.

[themistressofdolls]

If Humza was to ever cut a deal with that vatnik bastard Alex Salmond I would want to leave this country.

[odinsblog]

WTF is Taibbi talking about??

Trump broke the law! Multiple times! Flagrantly! He needs to be held accountable because no one is supposed to be above the law.

Matt Taibbi has absolutely lost his way.

He has been parroting pro-Russian propaganda, regurgitating anti-Ukrainian talking points, and his “exposé” on the #TwitterFiles was heavily one-sided in favor of Republicans, and strategically omitted pertinent facts that might explain both sides of the issue and, God forbid, make any Democratic Twitter moderators look like they were being even remotely fair. Imagine contorting yourself into a human pretzel because you thought that Twitter was somehow being unfair to Republicans and Donald fucking Trump!!

And until Elon Musk double crossed him (LOL, surprise!) by hitting him in the wallet and banning his Substack cash flow, Matt was riding Elon Musk’s tip too.

Matt Tiabbi has gone full tankie, along with Jimmy Dore, Glenn Greenwald and a few other Putin apologists who were formerly (allegedly) on the left.

Now, far too many of these tankies are twisting themselves into rhetorical pretzels to equivocate away the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine (not the other way around, as they seem to believe), and their talking points are nearly indistinguishable from Rudy Giuliani and Fox News hosts.

You would think that at the very least, with all of the journalists Putin has had jailed, murdered, poisoned or assassinated, that Taibbi—as a fellow journalist—wouldn’t be defending Putin so vociferously. And yet, here we are.

Matt Taibbi has lost his way.

'Why would a criminal leave his qualified immunity' sounds like corrupt police, BTW.

Trump is not a regular President. He was a conman who never put his business in a trust.

Trump worked for Putin to end US sanctions against Russia.

Trump pled the 5th every time. Trump obstructed every investigation.

No one is above the law.

This is a victory for justice.

[tomorrowusa]

Another day, another Russian war crime. This time Putin killed a two-month old baby and injured his mother.

The baby's body was pulled out of the rubble of the three-storey building in the village of Zolochiv, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Two other women were hurt when Russia fired two S-300 missiles, he said, hitting the hotel and nearby buildings. Attacks on the Kharkiv region have intensified since the end of 2023. Zolochiv is only 20km (12 miles) from the Russian border and too close for Ukraine's air defences to offer sufficient cover. The S-300s that hit the hotel in the early hours of Tuesday were originally produced as surface-to-air missiles for Russia's air defences, but they have been adapted to hit Ukrainian targets on the ground. They are seen as cheaper than more accurate cruise missiles.

So Russia is running low on cruise missiles and is forced to substitute S-300s which were originally meant to his targets in the air.

Putin may be low on cruise missiles but one of his top US cheerleaders is in Moscow to pay homage to him.

Tucker Carlson reminds me of those US pro-Hitler commentators who would use their radio shows in the 1930s to extol the virtues of fascism.

Tucker is supposed to interview Putin but he isn't waiting for the interview to spread lies about the US news media. CNN's Abby Phillip does an effortless debunking of Tucker Carlson's Kremlin bullshit and then speaks with Russia specialist Julia Ioffe.

There's an entire ecosystem of far right mendacity which includes Putin, sex offender Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson, and various Congressional toadies like Marjorie Traitor Greene. They are united in their hatred of democracy and will tell any lie to damage it.

[odinsblog]

For someone who supposedly wants to “denazify”Ukraine, Putin sure does a lot of Hitler apologia.

This isn't the first time Vladimir Putin has been repeating this Nazi propaganda that Poland somehow forced Hitler to invade other countries. Putin has been regurgitating this same old Nazi rhetoric for years, but thanks to one of history's biggest useful idiots, Tucker Carlson, an untold number of tankies + other assorted ignoramuses will believe Putin’s revisionist Hitler apologia.

SN: Strangely enough, Benjamin Netanyahu also engages in the same Holocaust revisionism and Nazi apologia

Anyway, if you’re still dumb + gullible enough to believe that Putin invaded Ukraine to denazify it, or because of NATO, then please send me your full name, phone number, email address, home address, birthdate, ssn, credit card numbers and all of your bank details and social media passwords. I just want to help you out with something. Believe me. The same way you believe Putin :)

👉🏿 https://www.dispropaganda.com/single-post/2020/06/20/putin-blames-poland-for-the-invasion-of-poland

[penguinlover27]

Of course he would be. He is a de facto Russian asset and a Putin apologist. He is an admirer of authoritarians the world over. 

Honestly, I think that all of MAGA should be buying one-way tickets to Moscow. That country is much better suited to their preferences than the USA is. There they will enjoy many of the things that they are desperate to impose upon us here. So, why not take the easier road?

It is time for folks like Tucker Carlson to put their money where their mouth is. If Putin’s vision for Europe is preferable for him, then by all means let him go and give all of his support to the dear leader. Maybe Putin will send him to the front lines in Ukraine where he can inspire the troops!

Don’t worry about poor Tucker. He may be out of a job, but he will soon land at another right-wing propaganda outlet and continue his job of demoralizing Americans and promoting the un-American ideas of authoritarianism and white supremacy.

Anyone who does hire him, however, should be honest with themselves about what the consequences will be when he starts running is mouth again. Faux News had to hand over almost $800 million because of his lies. I don’t think that other networks who would be interested in him have that sort of cash to lose.

[odinsblog]

Tucker Carlson, Russian propagandist and unregistered foreign agent

They call it 'journalism' but we all know what this is.

[mariacallous]

Imagine that the day has come for your brain surgery. You are lying, immobilized and vulnerable, on the operating table. Something is wrong, but you hope that it can be repaired. As the anesthesia sets in, you reflect. To be sure, your brain hasn't always performed the way you wished it had. You have made some mistakes, and done some stupid things, regrettable things, wrong things. But still, it is the brain that allows for a reconsideration of all that, to adjust, to have some hope and some possibility of doing better next time. Your brain keeps you going, keeps you in touch with the world. Hopefully, yours can be repaired, and you can get back to thinking, being, becoming. You could get better. As darkness descends, you catch a glimpse of a person dressed as a surgeon, approaching your head with a knife and a smile. It's Tulsi Gabbard. Hope gives way to horror.

This dark fantasy suggests, on a very small scale, the national trauma that lies before us. Gabbard is Donald Trump's choice to operate American intelligence. In the intelligence system, a kind of national brain, the Director of National Intelligence oversees and coordinates the work of agencies charged with knowing the world, protecting the integrity of digital systems, anticipating and preventing terrorism, and evaluating national security threats. Gabbard is the opposite of qualified for such a role: she is a disinformer and as an apologist for the war crimes of dictatorships.

Gabbard appears on the world stage as a defender of a million violent deaths.

She is an apologist for two of the great atrocities of the century: the Russian-Syrian suppression of the Syrian opposition to the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, which has taken about half a million lives, most of them civilians, some of them by chemical weapons; and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has also taken about half a million lives, and has brought the destruction of whole cities, the kidnapping of children, mass torture, and the large-scale execution of civilians.

That is it. That is her profile. Disinformer and apologist. Beyond the United States, in the larger world that US intelligence agencies are tasked to understand, she is associated with her pro-Assad and pro-Putin positions. (In third place, I suppose, would be her propensity to provide the Chinese state media with useful sound bites).

Until 2014, Gabbard said nothing remarkable about foreign affairs. In 2015, just before Putin intervened to save Assad, she began her extraordinary journey of apology for atrocity. In September of that year, Putin sent Russian mercenaries, soldiers, and airmen to Syria to defend Assad. The great advantage Putin could bring to Assad was to multiply the regime's air strikes, which were turned against hospitals and other civilian targets. Hospitals were and remain a Russian specialty.

In June 2015, as a congresswoman from Hawai'i, Gabbard visited Syria. During her stay, she was introduced to girls who had been burned from head to toe by a regime air strike. Her reaction to the situation, according to her translator, was to try to persuade the girls that they had been injured not by Syrian forces, but by the resistance. But this was impossible. Only Syria (at the time of her visit) and Russia (beginning weeks later) were flying planes and dropping bombs.

Either Gabbard was catastrophically uninformed about the most basic elements of the theater of war she was visiting, or she was consciously spreading disinformation. Those are the two possibilities. The first is disqualifying; the second is worse.

And if she was spreading disinformation consciously, she was also doing so with a pathological ruthlessness. Anyone who would lie to the child victims of an air strike to their burned faces would lie to anyone about anything. In January 2017, she visited Syria again, this time to speak to Assad. She began thereafter to deny that his regime had used chemical weapons on its own people. That was a very big lie.

In Washington, in speeches in Congress, Gabbard showed an uncanny ability to turn almost any issue into a justification for defending the Assad regime. In 2016, concern for Christians in Syria was a pretext to defend the Assad regime. In 2017, she presented worries about terrorism as a reason to defend of the Assad regime. In 2018, the anniversary of 9/11 was her prompt for defending the Assad regime. In 2019, she found her way from the genocide of Armenians a century earlier to the need to defend the Assad regime. She even worked hard to segue from the lack of affordable housing in Hawai'i to the need to defend the Assad regime. Gabbard's support of Assad was so well known that her colleagues, Republican and Democratic alike, were worried that she would reveal the identity of a Syrian photographer brought to Congress to testify about Assad's atrocities.

For Russia, Syria was a testing ground for Ukraine. The atrocities perpetrated by Russians in Syria were repeated in Ukraine. In 2021, the largest donor to Gabbard’s PAC was an apologist for Putin. When the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February of the following year, Gabbard, a consumer of Russian propaganda, was immediately ready as a channel for the Russian line, including obvious Russian disinformation. Again and again, over and over, her public statements were strikingly similar to Putin’s,

Amidst the farrago of lies that Russia used to justify its full-scale invasion invasion was the completely bogus claim that Ukraine was site of American biolabs that were testing which infections would be most harmful to Slavs (and thus Russians). This lie originates in Russia and was spread by Russian media, along with some Chinese and Syrian echo chambers, and with a set of western helpers -- one of whom was Tulsi Gabbard. She also urged, "in the spirit of Aloha," that Ukraine react to the invasion by surrendering its sovereignty to Russia. She later justified Russia's invasion of Ukraine by the notion, common in Moscow, that Russia was the victim of American attempts to overthrow Putin. She was specifically thanked by Russian state media for defending Russian war propaganda.

To be sure, the wars and the regions are complex. Even if Assad falls, as now looks increasingly likely, Syria will be a mess, with unsavory and dangerous people in power. There is, of course, room for disagreement about American foreign policy, including with respect to Assad and Putin and their twinned atrocities. That can all be taken for granted, and provides no excuse whatever for Gabbard's very unusual behavior. It is strange, to say the least, that Gabbard says nothing about these regimes that they have not first said about themselves, and that she uses her platform to spread their own very specific disinformation.

One feature of disinformation is that it is factually incorrect: and so the very least (or most?) that can be said about Gabbard is that she consistently wrong on matters of the greatest moral and political significance. But the other element of disinformation is that it is consciously and maliciously designed to confuse. These memes (biolabs!) are tested and perfected before they are released. Disinformation is the opposite of an innocent mistake: it is concocted to make rational reflection and sensible policy difficult. Disinformation, in other words, is a weapon that one regime tries to spread within another society or -- in the dream of a hostile spy chief -- within another society's intelligence service. That is part of what Gabbard offers America’s enemies, and it is bad enough, because it means that systems meant to protect Americans instead put them in danger. It goes without saying that American allies would be unable to cooperate with the United States, and that patriotic intelligence officers would resign in droves. Informers around the world would cease their work. The US government would be cut off from the world.

As Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would do enormous harm, unwillingly or willingly. She is not just completely unqualified for this role -- she is anti-qualified. She is just the sort of person enemies of the American republic would want in this job. This is not a hypothetical -- Gabbard is the specific person that actual enemies of the United States do want in the job. The Russian media refers to Tulsi Gabbard as a "Russian agent" and as "girlfriend," with good reason.

Gabbard is worse than unfit. Her public record is as a disinformer and apologist for mass murderers. And there is nothing on the other side of the ledger. There are no positive qualifications. (Yes, she wrote a bestselling book. It became a bestseller because she scammed her followers into donating to a PAC which bought the book in bulk.)

Gabbard is just as qualified to operate on your brain as she is to operate the national intelligence services. Would you let her? She clearly wants to take up the knife. Whose idea, one wonders, was that?

Imagine, because it is true, that the day will soon come when we name the person who will operate the national intelligence services. To be sure, like our own minds, the intelligence services of the United States haven't always performed well. There have been mistakes, and manipulation, and downright evil. But there has also been learning, and some recent, impressive showings, as in the precise and public prediction of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Intelligence services are a central part of government. Just as a brain might need surgery, American intelligence needs reform. But it does not need to be butchered for the pleasure of enemies.

PS: Further sources: In Sketches from a Secret War I write about intelligence, counter-intelligence, disinformation, and active measures. In The Road to Unfreedom I write about the Russian intervention in Syria and the associated atrocities. On the early Russian bombings of hospitals in particular I cited these sources: Amnesty International: “Syria: Russia’s shameful failure to acknowledge civilian killings,” Amnesty International, 23 December 2015; Physicians for Human Rights: “Russian Warplanes Strike Medical Facilities in Syria,” Physicians for Human Rights, 7 October 2015. Russian hackers punished those who wrote about the bombings: "Pawn Storm APT Group Returns," SC Magazine, 23 October 2015.

[woman-respecter]

why am i seeing jill stein support on my dash? not only did she spoil the election in 2016 (and is ok with doing it again in 2024) she’s also a putin apologist. truly irredeemable woman.

[odinsblog]

Violated agreements:

1991, Russia cosigns Ukraine's independence and agrees to its territorial sovereignty and integrity as a successor of the Soviet Union.

1994, Budapest Memorandum: Russia pledges to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, it had at the time.

1997, The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty: Russia once again reiterates its commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

1999, Istanbul OSCE Summit: Russia promises to withdraw troops from Moldova and Georgia.

2008, Ceasefire Agreement: Russia promises to withdraw troops from Georgia.

2014, The Ilovaisk Green Corridor Agreement: Russia guarantees that it'll provide safe passage for Ukrainian soldiers that are surrendering and instead fires upon them and kills upwards of 360 people.

2014-2015, Minsk Agreements: Russia commits to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine after invading it.

2022, The Black Sea Grain Initiative: Russia promises safe passage to grain shipments, instead hinders the initiative and then withdraws completely.

I would also give a special mention to the 2006 speech of Vladimir Putin, where he says that there is no issue that Russia has with Ukraine:

“Actually, Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been resolved and has been pre agreed upon. And areas like Crimea really don't concern Russia because there is no ethnic conflict and Russia doesn't want to have anything to do with them. They're Ukrainian anyways.”

What is this list?

This list is all of the promises and agreements that Russia violated, off the top of one's head.

Yeah.

Let's pressure Ukraine into a ceasefire agreement. Let's pressure Ukraine into concessions. Let's give Russia more time to violate all other promises and re-attack once they can.

Great idea.

Great idea.

[tomorrowusa]

It's difficult to say which of Trump's nominees is the absolute worst. They each have their own unique combinations of woeful incompetence, hyper-partisanship, and personal failings. But it's certain that Tulsi Gabbard would do the most harm to US national security.

According to ABC’s report, the aides said that the failed presidential candidate regularly read and shared stories from RT—a state-run media outlet formerly known as Russia Today—even after being told that it wasn’t a credible news source. Gabbard’s former staffers suggested that they didn’t buy some claims from Democrats that their former boss is a “Russian asset.” But they do believe she’s become a staunch advocate for one of the United States’ chief adversaries thanks to her routine consumption of pro-Russia propaganda. It’s unclear just how much consuming news from these outlets shaped Gabbard’s worldview. In fact, her former aides said that Gabbard read news from a plethora of outlets, ranging from stories peddled by far left factions to articles from extreme-right sources. But Gabbard’s views on Russian aggression in Europe, specifically, have become increasingly eyebrow-raising since her days as a Democratic House member representing Hawaii. The aides provided ABC News with an internal memo that Gabbard sent to staff in 2017, for instance, which showed her extending unwarranted sympathy to the Kremlin. Among many other damning things, the former Bernie Sanders loyalist-turned-MAGA apologist complained about the United States’ “hostility toward Putin” and bemoaned the fact that “there isn’t any guarantee to Put that we won’t try to overthrow Russia’s government.” “In fact, I’m pretty sure there are American politicians who would love to do that,” she added. These fresh allegations against Gabbard have heightened some Democrats’ fears about her securing a spot in Trump’s Cabinet. Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration, told ABC News that the thoughts outlined in Gabbard’s 2017 memo were “basically the Russian playbook.” He also expressed anxiety that she could soon be charged with overseeing America’s most sensitive intelligence assets. 

It's difficult to find anybody currently on the US political scene who Putin would want more than Gabbard to be in charge of US intelligence.

The aides provided ABC News with an internal memo that Gabbard sent to staff in 2017, for instance, which showed her extending unwarranted sympathy to the Kremlin. Among many other damning things, the former Bernie Sanders loyalist-turned-MAGA apologist complained about the United States’ “hostility toward Putin” and bemoaned the fact that “there isn’t any guarantee to Put that we won’t try to overthrow Russia’s government.” “In fact, I’m pretty sure there are American politicians who would love to do that,” she added. These fresh allegations against Gabbard have heightened some Democrats’ fears about her securing a spot in Trump’s Cabinet. Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration, told ABC News that the thoughts outlined in Gabbard’s 2017 memo were “basically the Russian playbook.” He also expressed anxiety that she could soon be charged with overseeing America’s most sensitive intelligence assets. 

Even some staffers associated with the incoming GOP Senate majority think Gabbard is compromised.

“Behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it’s not hyperbole,” one Republican Senate aide told The Hill. “There are members of our conference who think she’s a [Russian] asset.”

In addition to Putin, she's a great fan of Putin's pal Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad. By coincidence, HTS insurgents in Syria have made astonishing gains – having take two of Syria's largest cities and are now at the outskirts of a third.

Syrian insurgents close in on Homs as they seek path to Damascus – forcing thousands to flee

The al-Assad régime is being propped up by Russia. But the Russians are losing confidence in their client. Russia has advised its citizens in Syria to flee the country.

Russian embassy advises its citizens to leave Syria as rebels advance on strategic city of Homs

If Tulsi Gabbard had unfettered access to US intelligence, she would be funneling it to Putin and al-Assad.

[odinsblog]

The Baltic Way, or Baltic Chain (also "Chain of Freedom") was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on 23 August 1989.

Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 690 kilometres (430 mi) across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which at the time were occupied and annexed by the USSR. The central government in Moscow considered the three Baltic countries constituent republics of the Soviet Union.

The 1989 event was organised by the Baltic pro-independence movements: Rahvarinne of Estonia, the Tautas fronte of Latvia, and Sąjūdis of Lithuania, to draw global attention by demonstrating a popular desire for independence and showcasing solidarity among the three nations. It has been described as an effective publicity campaign, and an emotionally captivating and visually stunning scene.

The event presented an opportunity for the Baltic activists to publicise the Soviet rule and position the question of Baltic independence not only as a political matter, but also as a moral issue. The Soviet authorities responded to the event with intense rhetoric, but failed to take any constructive actions that could bridge the widening gap between the Baltic republics and the rest of the Soviet Union. Seven months after the protest Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence.

After the Revolutions of 1989, 23 August has become an official remembrance day both in the Baltic countries, in the European Union and in other countries, known as the Black Ribbon Day or as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

👉🏿 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way

[txttletale]

yo i really like your content and agree with you on most things but i don't really know what you mean with that last one. my friends from ukraine both oppose the war's existence but would rather not be violently annexed by an imperial power so of course they, with little other options, support resistance efforts.

it's really hard for me to understand what you're going for because if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia. maybe i just have bad brainfog, but it's hard to understand what you're asking us to do and believe. should we try and take out both the russian and american imperialist powers at once? but that's unrealistic and unlikely to happen in the near future, no matter how much i personally support it, which i do.

i guess my question is, what's an actual realistic thing we should support in the meantime? we can't just pretend that somehow revolution will take out both american and russian imperialist interests immediately, so. it's like, well yes we should have a better world playing by better rules, but how do we do the right thing when we are bound by the rules now.

i have friends who have family who died in the war, and sometimes it feels like bloggers i otherwise trust say things that sound suspiciously close to "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up." which i am aware isn't your intention, and i want to be an effective anti imperialist and have the correct and informed opinions on stuff like this, but i am having a very hard time understanding what you are trying to say.

i really promise i am not a concern troll or nato apologist or anything, i just also have personally been struggling with what to support and how to save innocent lives. i hate war and i wish we could magically create a situation in which ukraine didn't have to rely on horrible things for self defense. i just don't know what to do or believe because my friends would rightfully hate me if i said ukraine should stop defending itself.

i mean, first off: don't worry, you obviously don't sound like a concern troll or a nato apologist. this is an eminently reasonable question -- healed's law strikes again. & i certainly don't blame you for worrying that marxist-leninists are apologists for russian imperialism, because unfortunately many self-proclaimed marxist-leninists have been deceived by the frankly paper-thin figleaf of 'denazificaiton'--even as putin, puppet of the russian bourgeoisie denounces lenin & the bolsheviks & the soviet union with every speech he makes. it sucks!

first of all, i think the important thing here and the central point of disagreement is on what constitutes 'ukraine'. liberals and nationalists alike consider nations to be fundamentally one whole: that all the people of ukraine together constitute 'ukraine', and so 'ukraine as a whole' has consistent interests, and acts as a one--the ukrainian government represents this unitary ukraine armed forces of ukraine fight for this ukraine.

but the marxist analysis of the nation is completely different. from the marxist perspective, the nation is split across class lines. ukraine is not 'ukrainians', but in fact 'the ukrainian working class' and 'the ukrainian bourgeoisie'. now, of course, there are further contradictions even within these classes--there is a faction of pro-Russian bourgeoisie, and a faction of pro-Western bourgeoisie. but remember, we must apply the same analysis to these countries too: the 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian bourgeoisie do not wish to submit to Russia's working class, but to their oligarchs. the 'pro-Western' Ukrainian bourgeoisie are not opening the nation's economy to the European and USAmerican working class, but to their bourgeoisie. so the bourgeoisie are, in every case--even when split among themselves--only ever in league with other sectors of the bourgeoisie.

so, through this lens, how do we see the war in ukraine? well, i think that the union of communists in ukraine must have a far better handle on this than i, because they're living through it: so i will quote their analysis and then elucidate on it in relation to your question.

The puppet regime in Ukraine participates in this war in the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs, who have made themselves completely dependent on big capital of the West and NATO, who have turned the Ukrainian army into an advanced military unit of the Western bourgeoisie. The war is not about "the Ukrainian nation," not about "the Ukrainian language and culture," not even about "European values". It is a war for the united interests of the Ukrainian and international bourgeoisie, which coincide in their desire to destroy the economic and political power of the Russian bourgeoisie. No interests or rights of Ukrainian workers are protected by this war. Both Ukrainian and Russian workers in this war have only the right and obligation to go to the front and die so that one group of the world bourgeoisie defeats the other and gains more monopoly rights to oppress the workers, both in their own country and in the defeated countries. […] For the working class of Ukraine, this imperialist war has the most tragic consequences. It lies on the shoulders of the workers the role of "cannon fodder" and the inevitable deaths in the fighting, mass impoverishment, unemployment, complete restrictions of rights and freedoms for the sake of protecting the interests of the Ukrainian big bourgeoisie, the oligarchs and the interests of the Western bourgeoisie in destroying and robbing Russia and seizing its natural resources. This will inevitably be accompanied by the destruction and seizure of Ukrainian industrial and natural resources, including in the case of Russia's success. The same fate awaits the vast majority of the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie. The big bourgeoisie has already bought its children out of the war and taken them abroad, just as it took its capitals out. But that is not the main point: the big bourgeoisie is profiting from the war under Zelensky, just as it profited under Poroshenko: stealing finances, making money from reselling weapons, supplying the army with uniforms, food, repair work, humanitarian aid, etc. In war the bourgeoisie makes billions of dollars, while the mobilized people have to be equipped and fed by relatives, friends and volunteers – which is clearly not enough. As in peacetime, but even more brazenly, the bourgeoisie is getting rich off the bones of the working class!

—Union of Communists of Ukraine, On the War and the tasks of the working class

that is to say--the russian army, which is funded by the russian bourgeoisie, is fighting to establish the exclusive right of that russian bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. meanwhile, the ukrainian army, funded by the ukrainian and western bourgeoisie more broadly, are fighting to maintain the exclusive right of the ukrainian and western to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. already, ukrainian public assets are being put up in a fire sale for western buyers--(and of course, should russia's offensive have been as succesful as they'd hoped and this war already over, they'd be doing much the same thing for the benefit of buyers among the russian bourgeoisie).

this is what is meant by 'inter-imperialist' war. it's easy to say 'well, the ukrainian army isn't imperialist--it's fighting for the nation's independence!' but in terms of real economic interests there is no 'the nation'. the ukrainian army isn't fighting for the ukrainian working class (which of course includes themselves!)--the government that pays them and the states that equip them wouldn't do so out of any sense of interest in the well-being of the working class. we can see this clearly as the western imperialist powers now start to equip the ukrainian army with depleted uranium shells, which will poison swathes of ukrainian land and cause sickness and death among the people this army purports to be fighting for. the goal of the ukrainian state and army isn't to protect any working class people--only to protect its total right to the economic exploitation of those people.

it's this that the ukrainian state is afraid of when it fights not to cede territory, not the (surely real, to be clear!) brutality from the russian state that would face the inhabitants of any such ceded territory. in fact, funding nazi groups that operated in those areas before the war and will surely continue to operate afterwards, the ukrainian govenrment makes it clear that brutality against the inhabitants of its eastern provinces alone does not phase it, so long as the ukrainian bourgeoisie (& their western bourgeoisie patrons) continue to be the ones profiting off the region's people and resources.

elsewhere in the article the UCU observe the same thing that can be observed by those outside of ukraine by listening to the words of zelenskyy and the ukrainian government's allies--that even the goal of 'protecting its people' [read: protecting exclusive economic/extractive access to those people] has been sidelined by the dream of a total or partial obliteration of the russian bourgeoisie entirely--not for any moral or anti-imperialist reason, but simply so that the ukrainian/western bourgeoisie no longer have competition.

[...] the goals of warfare are changing. If at the first stage of the civil conflict the Ukrainian regime aimed to restore state control over the Ukrainian territories, where this control was lost, then at the second stage it aimed to destroy Russia as a condition for the existence of Ukraine.

—ibid.

so--now that i've really dug into the precise nature of this war and why it's being waged on both sides, i'll answer some of your points directly:

if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up."

both of these positions, both the one you hold yourself and the one you worry about others expressing, assume that what the ukrainian armed forces with NATO backing and full-throated embrace of fascist paramilitaries is doing constitutes 'ukraine' 'fighting back' against 'russia'. but it doesn't--it represents the ukrainian bourgeoisie fighting back against the russian bourgeoisie.

so, the big question--do i think that the ukrainian proletariat should abandon armed resistance against the russian invasion? absolutely not!

genuine popular resistance against the russian invasion is heroic and commendable--i am under no belief whatsoever that in the face of imperialist war the ukrainian people should not arm themselves and fight against the imperialists. i just reject the framing of the actual war as prosecuted as constituting this, because, to go back to what i've already established, there is not in fact one 'ukraine' but two--only one of which constitutes in a mieaningful sense the ukrainian people. i don't believe (and neither do the UCU, whose analysis i base mine on somewhat) that 'the war' as you ponder 'supporting' constitutes the ukrainian proletariat arming themselves or fighting against imperialism on their own behalf, but rather being armed by the bourgeoisie and fighting on their behalf.

and obviously i'm not an idiot who's blind to the actual numerial and material realities. the communist, anti-imperialist movement in ukraine, just like in most of the world, is completely dwarfed by imperialism and its footsoldiers. 'the ukrainian proletariat as self-armed acting organization rising up and challenging both imperialisms and freeing itself from both sets of bourgeoisie' is not something that's gonna happen tomorrow, and it's not an immediately actionable plan--no ukrainian communist can wake up tomorrow and say 'well, today i shall hit the big proletarian revolution button'.

the realities are that as the meeting ground between two imperialisms, ukrainian communists have to make decisions about which one they can most ably fight, might need to temporarily align themselves with or allow themselves to benefit from the ukrainian bourgeoise state--but never support it. like any bourgeoise state, a communist should know the ukrainian state is an enemy of the proletariat. yes, the pressing material realities on the ground might well make cooperation with that bourgeoise state the best temporary option--but 'cooperation' should never mean 'support' or 'loyalty', and should be done only tactically with ultimately loyalties remaining above all else with the working class.

in fact, refusing to offer the government and army a show of support and valorization is a key element of creating the conditions--radicalization, agitation--that would allow the proletariat to effectively rise up and truly combat imperialism, rather than choose under which imperialist heel they would rather be ground into dust. don't support an end to the war on either imperialist bloc's terms, but rather on proletarian terms--understand that the state of ukraine is not on the side of the ukrainian people, except tangentially, in individual moments of necessary alliance. raise awareness of the true war, the class war, and resist the ukrainian state's claims to stand with the people when it pursues the interests of the bourgeoisie.

tldr: the anti-imperialist position is not that the ukrainian proletariat should not be fighting, or that their fight is not worth supporting. the anti-imperialist action, therefore, is to draw the most awareness possible to this division within 'ukraine' among the working class themselves, make them aware of the realities of the economic condition. this is of course the foremost anti-imperialist and communist task across the entire world, because it is only through creating organizations of the working class that will fight for the working class can international imperialism be dfeated.

i'll leave this answer off by adding what the UCU said about this very topic in the same statement i've been quoting:

We understand the complexity and danger of these tasks, which inevitably cause repression on the part of the bourgeois political regimes. That is why workers' and communist organizations will need to develop illegal forms of class struggle along with legal ones in order to set and implement such tasks. The UCU has been forced to conduct its work in illegal forms since 2014. Many workers' and communist organizations may consider these antiwar tasks impossible because of their organizational weakness and lack of influence on the working class. However, historical experience shows that a correct and honest formulation of the tasks of the working class in conditions of war – real, not momentary tasks – may not yield success immediately, but will yield gains as the revolutionary situation intensifies. Since the task of destroying capitalist social relations is an international task, the international coordination of workers' and communist parties' actions, including the joint elaboration of tasks for the struggle against the imperialist war of the twenty-first century for the sake of uniting the international struggle against this war, for a communist reorganization of society and world peace, is becoming increasingly important. Proletarians of all countries, unite!