news
Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
-
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
-
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
-
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
-
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
-
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
-
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
-
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
-
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
-
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
-
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
-
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
-
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
view the rest of the comments
Wars aren't won on 'fighting spirit'.
Sure does help if the other sides morale crumbles.
The entire upper echelon of the existing Ukrainian government is in the pocket of the U.S. grift, making millions of dollars off of their connection to it. Not only that, but in the event that they did say 'Nah' the Azov Nazis that control their military would immediatly execute them, as they did to civilian officials who negotiated with incoming Russian forces when they left.
Ukrainian morale is already incredibly low, with desertion rates being at an all time high. Zelensky won't even hold another election because there is a significant chance that he wouldn't just lose, but get blown out in a landslide. Zelensky is a television comedian, a fucking joke. His job is to go and beg Europe and the U.S for more money and weapons. If he dies, they'll send another bum to go do it.
I'm saying if Russia had succeeded in taking him out early on they could've had this thing in the bad way earlier. Zelensky has clearly been the person people rallied around and has been the face of their resistance, especially early on.
Seems kinda bad planning not to take him and the other leadership out at the beginning. Hindsight is 20-20 but still, why not even try?
War is not a video game where you just kill the leader and win. What are you 12?
I'm not suggesting it is. Just that taking out the leadership obviously helps. I don't know why you guys are acting so strange about it
If Putin killed Zelenski some Nazi Azov guy would step up and the US would escalate.
I don't think the US would've had a lot of time to do anything if the leadership was taken out or especially captured right at the beginning. Surprising that they didn't even try to go for such a fast conclusion imo
You are clearly not worth talking to because you cannot grasp that history does not revolve around individuals.
"Leadership" is more than a singular person...
Yeah so what the fuck is your point?
What are you confused by?
Zelenski is for one not at all a "leader" militarily or politically, he is a figurehead. If he were killed someone would step into his shoes immediately. You then seem to acknowledge this by saying that "leadership is more than a singular person". So at this point you have to come to grips with the entire actual leadership of the current Ukrainian govt being committed Nazis. They have had the full support of the US for over 10 years now. How do you think killing a single figurehead of this bunch disrupts anything?
Once again I ask: Are you 12?
Killing or especially capturing the top of civilian leader is obviously going to throw a wrench into the situation by confusing things and helping to worsen the morale of the people fighting. I'm not sure why you guys are acting like that's not the case. Seems a bit silly tbh.
Just because Russia didn't successfully pull it off doesn't mean it wouldn't have helped them. What next, the truck line towards Kyiv, that was some 4d chess too? lol
-You like an hour ago.
Do you not see how everything you are saying is meaningless contradictory word salad?
Zelenski is a fucking TV host and a comedian. He is not some mastermind military strategist. Killing him would do NOTHING to hamper Ukraine's military. You're a fucking idiot if you think that.
There is an overwhelmingly strong argument to be made that Zelensky is merely a useful figurehead that the Ukrainian Nazi-led military is willing to tolerate so long as he's useful. There are even videos of one of the commanders talking about how uncomfortable he was that a Jew was being put into the head of state role, but relaxed once he saw how successfully it whitewashed them in the eyes of the world. Zelensky is there to serve a purpose, neither the military command structure nor the poor grunts who are forced to fight in the trenches have any love for the former comedian doing vanity photo shoots and kowtowing to Trump's mockery on live TV.
And speaking of the low level soldiers and their low morale? On top of ordinary forced conscription (which is always popular /s) Ukraine has been pressganging innocent people off the street who are shoved into white vans and sent to the front lines to fight and die as cannon fodder. Do you think those soldier's morale is going to drop that much more because the leader presiding over the country when that happened to them also got kidnapped? Most of them would probably chuckle and correctly say he got a taste of his own medicine.
But we're talking about early in the war. Then people definitely rallied around Zelensky and avoided a collapse that so many people were expecting at the start of the war. For that taking about the most visible person of the resistance would have helped. Idk why they didn't try it at least, could've made the war shorter. Missed opportunity.
You're just reaching for anything to salvage your bad take, which has been explained to you by multiple people why it's a bad take. It wouldn't have shortened the war, not by any plausible mechanism. The point is that there are many people that could have filled Zelensky's embarrassing shoes, which was true then just as much (if not more) as now. The only thing it would have accomplished was massive escalation and proving all the "Putler is an unhinged lunatic Bond villain trying to start WWIII" propaganda true, and justifying direct NATO military action against Russia.
But sure, let's go with it, personally I wish Putin had kidnapped Biden! Talk about a missed opportunity. Guess he still could kidnap Trump. Just think of what that would do to US morale!
Don't bother with this person. They are completely detached from reality and have refused to engage with multiple people like yourself trying to explain this to them.
I mean the reality is that Russia tried because it is the obvious move to make. I've just had fun seeing what sort of stuff people come up to explain why they didn't manage to actually do it, unlike the US with Maduro.
The whole thing is silly, if they could've ended the war with taking out Zelensky and other top leaders and taken over Kyiv of course they would have. Didn't manage to though.