this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

If Operation Spiders' Web is more than just an isolated attack on Russia's air bases and is continuing to strike deep into Russian soil, then this has serious potential to finally bring Putin to the negotiating table.

Other than that, I think this will be a bloody war of attrition that Zelenskyy has no chance of winning.

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 3 points 28 minutes ago

The EU is bankrolling Ukraine, Russia has no friends and no money. Ukraine will easily outlast Russia. They just need to stay put and keep defending their positions while taking out Russia's capacity to attack.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 10 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] saimen@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

But he doesn't have the cards!

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

I know that's sarcasm, but your comment made me think. I strongly disagree with those kinds of remarks. :)

This war isn't like a game of Poker, where everyone is dealt from the same deck. It's more like MTG, where the real game is about who can make better strategic use of their card-buying budget.

[–] saimen@feddit.org 2 points 48 minutes ago

Yeah me too. That's why I make fun of Trump with my comment

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 hours ago

..but Ukraine already has steady domestic production of 155mm armored self propelled artillery now, so yes AND Ukraine has better cards.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)
[–] Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 117 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

Putin will never stop being a war criminal until the day he dies. If he takes over all of Ukraine, he will move to Moldova then Georgia then Latvia then Estonia and so on.

The moment this war ends, the Russian Federation will collapse. People forget but Russia has collapsed twice in the last century by doing the same things it's doing now.

It collapsed the first time when the out of touch tyrannical Tsarist government dragged the country into a needless war (WWI) while the country was going through a crises. The country collapsed and formed the Soviet Union.

It collapsed a second time when the out of touch tyrannical communist government dragged the country into a needless war (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) while the country was going through a crises. The country collapsed and formed the Russian Federation.

Now the same thing is happening. The country has an out touch tyrannical dictator that dragged the country into a needless war during a time of crises. Once the war is over the country will revolt and collapse once again.

[–] saimen@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

The second collapse was to a great part also due to chernobyl. It's economic consequences often get overlooked. They had to use a LOT of resources and military personnel to contain it and preventing half of eastern Europe becoming unliveable wastelands.

[–] BlessedDog@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

We won't budge, let them come!

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

technically you don't stop being anything when you die except for alive.

asshole when you're alive? asshole when you're dead.

you do lose the ability to be anything but that after you doe though.

at least until you're forgotten... which he did solidify his place in history as one of the weakest bitches in post cold war Russian history.

[–] xohshoo@lemmy.world 25 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Russia has treaties with Britain since like 1904 that obligated it to engage in WWI. Thats how the murder of a Serbian devolved into a world war

Outcome of leading to the downfall of the regime regardless, it was a little different than Afghanistan or Ukraine

[–] Fritee@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

They also were figthing and got defeated by Japan right before that - did contribute to the downfall a little

[–] wide_eyed_stupid@lemmy.world 21 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Not to be thát person, but Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not a Serb, he was Austrian. Even though Austria-Hungary did annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 19th century, Franz Ferdinand was not born there - in fact he was born before the annexation.

Unless you mean his killer, but then your wording is a little off and I would say "murder BY a Serbian." Even so, the ethnicity of the murderer wasn't really as important as his target. ;)

[–] sugarfoot00@lemmy.ca 11 points 11 hours ago

Thats how the murder of a Serbian devolved into a world war

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was Austrian.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 33 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, it seems authoritarianism is bad. Hopefully Russians will figure that out the next go around.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 4 points 7 hours ago

"and then it got worse"

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 54 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

As American example shows us in real time, it's not something you just "figure out" once. Democracy requires society to always win in eternal struggle against human nature.

[–] Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 30 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Ronald Reagan was a terrible politician, but he absolutely nailed this quote:

Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.

[–] WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

He was a great politician. He was a terrible human being.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 2 hours ago

No self-awareness in how he helped setup being one generation away from the extinction of freedom.

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 126 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Wonder what Trump will do to stop this

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 20 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Zelenskyy: US has sent 20,000 missiles bound for Ukraine to Middle East instead

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/06/8/7516207/

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Nothing makes a US President feel better after a bad day like bombing the middle east

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[–] GenesisClimber@lemmy.ca 65 points 1 day ago (8 children)

He'll try to stop/derail it if he can't claim ownership of the results.

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 day ago

Redirect 20,000 anti-drone missiles away from Ukraine, apparently

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 69 points 23 hours ago (11 children)

Zelensky is a bit like a CEO presenting his company's prospects. He was talking like this two years ago, too.

I personally think he's not wrong. Just - until Kremlin gang's members and their families are being caught and jailed\deported all over the globe, or at least in NATO countries, this is all bullshit. Well, maybe after failing in Ukraine they'll attack some smaller and weaker country, just to show themselves they can defeat someone. And maybe they'll try again.

In any case - yes, that leadership keeps Russia weak, inefficient, dependent, but as everyone can see, it's also capable of destruction on scale too big to allow. So maybe some optimism should be applied and the goal be for Russia's regime to change and for it to have a democracy that may make its potential useful for everyone around. The "keeping it weak" approach, after all, has already led to Putin.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 13 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I think that's more up to the Russian people than anyone in the west. Russians like strong men, it's a weakness in their society. Everyone outside Russia wanted it to continue to be a democracy, Russia even had a brief association with NATO while it was. But Yeltsin drank too much (alcoholism being another weakness in Russian society) and that allowed a guy like Putin to make himself a Czar.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

This is some of the dumbest shit ive read on here. Shocked you aren't from .world

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Russians like strong men, it’s a weakness in their society.

No, it's not any more a Russian weakness than an American one, even less than a Japanese or a Chinese one.

Especially unwise to judge Russians by American stereotypes of Russians.

Everyone outside Russia wanted it to continue to be a democracy

How's that compatible with supporting Yeltsin in his 1993 coup and in stealing 1996 elections?

Russia even had a brief association with NATO while it was.

No it didn't. Yeltsin wanted that, yes, and Putin wanted that too. Both wanted to be a big, scary country accepted to NATO and with NATO weaponry. Like Turkey, but with nukes. What both didn't want is dropping the bullshit about spheres of influence and being an equal of the USA, apparently got told by NATO that beggars are not choosers. Also wanting an association with NATO has plainly nothing to do with being a democracy or not.

But Yeltsin drank too much (alcoholism being another weakness in Russian society) and that allowed a guy like Putin to make himself a Czar.

I think you skipped the part where I was educating you that Yeltsin made himself Czar in 1993 and just passed it on to Putin.

I don't really care that it breaks your narrative. Putin is a natural continuation of the western-supported and consulted regime in Russia installed in 1993. That Yeltsin presented himself as some liberator and Putin presented himself as ex Soviet intelligence are campaign pictures that mean nothing. All the trusted people around Putin are the same that Yeltsin had even before 1991. Including Putin himself.

Alcoholism is not a bigger weakness in the Russian society than in British ones or in Sweden or in Finland.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 0 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

No, it’s not any more a Russian weakness than an American one, even less than a Japanese or a Chinese one.

Russians don't have the "fuck the feds" grassroots rebelliousness of Americans, they don't have a honour/respectability culture like the Japanese not to mention that Russians have basically no civil society while Japan (as a stem family culture) has a very strong one, and unlike the Chinese Russians are fatalist AF, don't really have expectations about things becoming better for them. If the CCP had started this shit they would've lost the mandate of heaven quite a while ago.

But I agree, it's not so much a strong man fetish. It's an acceptance of might makes right combined with social acceptance of tyrannical behaviour on the individual level and, consequently, high distrust among individuals stopping the formation of a civil society.

Russian society hasn't fundamentally changed since the days of the Tsars, they've gone through various paint-coats while sticking to the same overarching organisational structure: Central power delegates exploitation of people, the environment etc to viceroys in exchange for loyalty, meanwhile acquisition of new colonial subjects is ongoing as, being built on terror, the imperial core can never feel safe and needs to bash something to distract itself from its vulnerability.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Russians don’t have the “fuck the feds” grassroots rebelliousness of Americans, they don’t have a honour/respectability culture like the Japanese not to mention that Russians have basically no civil society while Japan (as a stem family culture) has a very strong one, and unlike the Chinese Russians are fatalist AF, don’t really have expectations about things becoming better for them. If the CCP had started this shit they would’ve lost the mandate of heaven quite a while ago.

All wrong.

There's just one thing that Russians really lack - understanding of the importance of truth. It would seem the Orwellian amorphousness of mind is a legacy Russians have carried from the USSR, except one can see signs of it all over the Russian literature school course. Russians really love "grey morality", ambiguity and nihilism.

For an American or a German it takes belief in a propaganda device to follow it. For a Russian - just acceptance that it's likelier to be better in some way.

It’s an acceptance of might makes right combined with social acceptance of tyrannical behaviour on the individual level and, consequently, high distrust among individuals stopping the formation of a civil society.

No. Just the belief that there's some deeper grey wisdom, a secret, and you'd be an idiot to just give yourself to some specific idea.

A whole country of cynics thinking they know better. Thus extremely skeptical about any initiative.

But that might not be wrong course of action too, Westerners don't seem to comprehend that today's Russia is not USSR, and that solving the problem of making Russians, say, rebel en masse is not going to achieve much. That rebellion will be predicted, easily disrupted and the people involved will regret they were born. It's probably perpetually happening - new and new people who'd eventually have done something finding yet another FSB trap and going to a secret jail silently before they would do anything.

Russian society hasn’t fundamentally changed since the days of the Tsars

It has and to the worse. Except, of course, back then the majority consisted of illiterate peasants.

Central power delegates exploitation of people, the environment etc to viceroys in exchange for loyalty, meanwhile acquisition of new colonial subjects is ongoing as, being built on terror, the imperial core can never feel safe and needs to bash something to distract itself from its vulnerability.

No. That's not how central power functioned back then, and what happens now is a mafia group gratuitously using its vast human resources to just have fun. Their fun in this case is conquering Ukraine to feel themselves more powerful. Only it doesn't quite work out, but I think the feeling of being able to mobilize people and send them to the grinder is good enough.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

There’s just one thing that Russians really lack - understanding of the importance of truth.

Now that is a universal human trait.

For an American or a German it takes belief in a propaganda device to follow it. For a Russian - just acceptance that it’s likelier to be better in some way.

Americans don't believe in, whatnot, manifest destiny, their exceptionalism, they live it. Germans certainly don't believe in classism, yet we're living it. Generally speaking: The stuff that people are actually following is not found on the propaganda level, but on a level below that, on a cultural carrier wave so to speak. Why propagandise something that people are doing, anyway? Doesn't make sense.

No. Just the belief that there’s some deeper grey wisdom, a secret, and you’d be an idiot to just give yourself to some specific idea.

That's just bug-standard metamodernism collapsed into fascism, that is, regressed into modernism. Just to explains terms: Modernism is the age of grand ideas, "one true path to absolve humankind", while postmodernism is the "yo all that stuff is BS anyway we don't know shit". You see those forces oscillating throughout history, metamodernism means their co-existence.

That belief might very well what people are telling themselves, but it's a shallow analysis. The "deeper grey wisdom" (interesting that you used "grey" btw, "it must be ancient" -- why?) is Snokhachestvo, and not the practice itself but the cultural attitudes that enable(d) it. Russia made some progress overcoming that shit, e.g. normalising nuclear families instead of communal ones (the one crucial achievement of the USSR), but the underlying cultural beliefs stay uninterrogated, able to perpetuate themselves. Thus men do to their sons what their fathers did to them, think that's what being a man is all about, and if you don't use whatever power and might you have to be cruel, you're obviously gay. Like Europe.

That is what I meant with "a belief in might makes right".

A whole country of cynics thinking they know better.

Germany has 80 million national football team trainers. There seems to be a pattern here: Declaring universal human traits as specifically Russian. Those traits are true, no doubt, but they're not unique.

That’s not how central power functioned back then, and what happens now is a mafia group gratuitously using its vast human resources to just have fun.

It didn't? The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life. The General Secretariat or even Secretary and the Nomenklatura, plundering the country and living the good life. "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others". In either case, highly authoritarian societies, with varying levels of totalitarianism. Such a setup requires cruelty and ruthlessness, and there's no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son's wife. Metaphorically speaking, at least: The "sons" might be subordinate soldiers, and the "wife" their pay checks and materiel. In the position of son, you're just expected to take it, otherwise you're weak, and the "father" will make sure that's an even worse fate. The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians -- so they bomb cities. Free them from their "European gayness", that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.

Or, differently put: You sure you're looking at the water you're swimming in? I'm not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Snokhachestvo and the cultural approaches similar to it are prevalent in those people who are Russia's elite now, but generally seem very rare as far as I can see.

And that stuff about Europe and homosexuality seems for me a kind of "the hungry doesn't understand the full", more of jokes and separation than of really thinking that's true. It's just that there are people outside the prison and inside it, and those inside can't afford to behave freely. It's almost envy, except without even negative feelings. More like alienation - "they live so much easier that for them homosexuality is a real concern".

Also there's the criminal culture homosexuality, as a marker of status in the criminal hierarchy, which is demonstrably non-consensual, and one can see a psychological parallel between living freely in general inside a prison and being gay in a place where people get raped. A nonsensically careless behavior, something like that. And being nonsensically careless is weak.

The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life.

They followed their own laws. If a law was too cumbersome to make, they didn't. It was an absolute monarchy, but if you compare today's Russia's judicial system to the imperial one - the latter seems very humane. By stats, by procedures, by stories of people who witnessed it.

and there’s no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son’s wife

The kind of peasant communes and huge families where such things happened wasn't actually natural. It was becoming the more common, the more people were becoming personal serfs. That is, there was that transition during Catherine where state serfs (which in practice meant almost a free man) were given to nobles en masse, she considered that a better arrangement. Sort of a privatization.

In the position of son, you’re just expected to take it, otherwise you’re weak, and the “father” will make sure that’s an even worse fate.

Nah, not that. If we make this comparison, for them it's the father's right, and you are subordinate. It's not about fear of punishment, it's about enduring for endurance's sake. Almost morality.

The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians – so they bomb cities.

No, they don't. They want to kill and loot and subjugate.

People who you are maybe looking for here are not those who try to somehow explain the state's justifications for this war. It's those who think that this has to be finished anyway regardless of whether the war should have been started.

Free them from their “European gayness”, that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.

I haven't met such real people. OK, to be honest, probably I didn't realize but I have.

The point is - almost nobody really thinks that about gayness and what not, but everybody thinks it's smarter to play along, that's what I meant by the amorphousness of mind of Russians.

Or, differently put: You sure you’re looking at the water you’re swimming in? I’m not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.

It does, but it's more of a culture of virtuous suffering, like doing your work the hard way instead of loosening up a bit and doing it better, but with less "honest labor" or something. And lies. The virtuous suffering thing is often stupid, but sometimes a strength. The lies however are usually stupid, yet Russians somehow always start with lies and then maybe work it up to saying the truth.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 0 points 6 hours ago

Gorbachev was the only rational guy they had during that period. He could have had a chance to do something if the West had supported him.

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