Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that it was “inevitable” that “war” would come to Russia after authorities there were forced to temporarily close a busy Moscow airport following an overnight drone attack on the capital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that it was “inevitable” that “war” would come to Russia after authorities there were forced to temporarily close a busy Moscow airport following an overnight drone attack on the capital.
Why should Ukraine be Jesus? Always being hit and strictly hitting back only within their borders. Makes no sense. Russia destroyed airports, dams, energy plants, schools and hospitals for more than a year. A drone attack in an airport in Moscow is more than justified at this point.
Wake up Russians, don’t want war then stop it now while you can.
It is not an airport, it is a building “near” an airport. I said myself that I would understand attacks on infrastructure as this is used to support the war efforts.
Also, the reason I guess is because attacks on civilian targets give by definition no military advantages whatsoever in the war.
“Waking-up” the population seems to be a potential reason, but then again why not doing it while attacking actual military targets? And this whole argument is anyway debatable as I doubt you can own the spin of the news when all the information is anyway in the hands of the government, which means that what the actual effect on the population will be is not under your control.
From what I’ve seen so far, I’m willing to give Ukraine the benefit of the doubt here. They were so far very much focussed on military targets. Even in this case they seem to be attacking office buildings night time when they’re presumably empty. This looks like an effort was made to minimize civilian casualties. And if we trust russia, we don’t know what the targets were, because they claim they intercepted all of the drones.
Russia is attacking apartment blocks during night and shopping centres daytime for over a year now. They are aiming to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible it seems.
So much for facts. Now what military purpose could these drone attacks have? To me it seems like one expected outcome is to force russia to move some of its air defence back to Moscow. So far russia felt safe enough within its own borders to the point where they used their S300 systems in ground attack mode to terrorize Ukrainian cities. Due to the nature of these AA rockets, these were also hard to intercept. So the only defence from these might be to force russia to actually start using them for their intended purpose. It seems that in some way Ukraine already tried this approach when they attacked military bases deep in the russian territory, but in those cases russia just moved strategic bombers further away and continues to lob missiles from there. Also military base is much smaller than Moscow and likely already had some AA defence present there.
Yeah, I think the benefit of the doubt on the target is in order, but this still does not changes much in terms of what people find justifiable in the political discourse.
I also think that saying that attacking civilian targets has military value by forcing the relocation of defense is a slippery slope, to be honest. This seems to be automatically would justify any civilian attack during a war, don’t you think? Like if for a second you wear the shoes of a Russian military, attacking civilians in Lviv becomes reasonable, not a war crime, to spread the air defense of Ukraine thin. It seems tautological to me, at least.
I don’t think there’s much evidence that Ukraine targeted civilians. Previously they managed to hit office building where presumably the infamous unit 74455 (aka Sandworm unit that was behind many cyber attacks on Ukraine including the multiple power grid attacks) had its offices. So I wouldn’t assume they are hitting civilian targets. They are hitting goverment offices that are closely tied to military or are directly part of russian military. And even then the attacks are done at a time when personnel is not present.
So to me it looks like they might be hitting targets that are military in nature if maybe less important overall with the added bonus of forcing russia’s hand in terms if AA equipment use.
I agree that hitting civilian targets to force russia to relocate AA hardware would be very slippery slope and in my opinion unacceptable, but I don’t see Ukraine doing this. And honestly I don’t think it would be good strategy anyways, russia is perfectly fine with sacrificing their citizens, they would at best do some minimal effort if not outright just ignore it. So actually hitting military apparatus instead is much smarter choice for Ukraine.
No no, I was not claiming that this happened (many attacks on civilians), I was more discussion on the general principle of doing so and what the reaction is from people.
Even in this case, it seems that the building might not have been the target, which is fair enough, but I think it’s still interesting to observe the reaction of people commenting these facts. There are a few examples already in this thread, and the idea is “everything is a fair target because Ukraine has the moral high-ground”. This allows to move the conversation from the very few attacks that Ukraine did on Russian soil to the more abstract discussion of “what do we think it’s acceptable”.
I agree with you (including the fact that Russia seems perfectly content of having its population die), and I would add that potential attacks on civilian targets could even backfire by making Ukraine lose some of the support from the West which in turns means less weapons.
Yeah, it would be unwise thing to do for sure. (on top of being immoral) I believe there’s some serious effort by Ukrainian government to actually prevent this.
When you think about it, it’s not like Ukraine is some uniform body, there is a lot of groups with lot of interests. Quite frankly also a lot of broken people that just saw one too many of their relatives dying under russian rocket barrage…
So it’s almost a miracle that there isn’t some sort of nasty bomb attack IRA style somewhere in russia on weekly basis. And if something like that eventually happens, it would hardly be surprising. For me that’s one of the contexts for Zelensky’s quote in the article. You just can’t shell civilians on daily basis for a year and expect to not reap some revenge. It might not be government doing this, just a bunch of people that had enough. And as much as you’d like to stay on the moral high ground, I wouldn’t blame these people one bit.
I really hope it does not happen for Ukraine’s sake, but at the same time I would understand if it did.
And I would definitely not expect them to make balanced judgement calls with morale and humanity in mind, of course.
Yeah, I think those are two very distinct concepts in fact. I have this kind of conversations on a weekly basis, where I end up usually disagreeing at some point with my fiancee (who is Ukrainian) about certain topics. I do understand of course that the hatred is real and justified. These analysis are of course a privilege for people who can do them with a certain level of detachment.
That’s a very good way to put it.
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The other side committing war crimes does not make it ok to commit them themselves. The day Ukraine starts targetting civillians is the day we should stop all support. But I dont think it will come to that. An airport has military value so I believe that is the reason. It would be different if they start targettint air planes or residential buildings
I’ll never put invader and invaded on the same plate, ever. I find dangerous to even suggest it. A war is not fair and it’s not pretty by definition, Russia started it and can stop it at any moment. Enough said.
Russia can stop it. Not the russian people. No side, ever, should be allowed to target civillians. It is not a random bakers fault a russian nazi bombs a building. The moment Ukraine targets civillian buildings they should lose all international support.
With that mentality the Second World War would be a very different story.
That type of “same-as” fallaciousness does not work among a generation that knows better and you’ll find no quarter here with it. Russia is NEVER going to be the victim in this and nothing Ukraine does will EVER be morally equivalent simply because Russia is the aggressor slinging around nuclear threats to try to commit genocide. Drones attacking some buildings will never be that.
Ukraine could (and probably should) flat-out invade Russia and they still will always hold the moral high ground simply because of the circumstances.
That’s a very childish stance, it’s the same logic as “but he hit me first”. Because by that logic undivided Jammu and Kashmir is wholly Indian as it was invaded twice(several times but mostly ended in stalemates) and land was seized through military conquest. Theoretically it would justify Indian attrocities on civilians but the western community never sees it that way ( nor should it)
No one here is trying to write a treatise on how nations should interact. India is it’s own story, don’t muddle waters by slinging random and unrelated “but-what-abouts” into the discussion.
“But he hit me first” is considered childish because children are supposed to go to adults with problems like that rather attempt to resolve conflicts themselves through violence. In this situation there it’s no analog to adults who can step in and resolve the situation, so your analogy is a bad one. People have a right to defend themselves using measures proportional to what’s used against them, and thanks to Russian’s actions do far, there’s basically no response at Ukraine’s disposal that would be disproportionate.
I don’t care if it’s childish or not, it’s true, and your consistency and integrity matter whether you like it or not. “He hit me first” is the most important factor in these calculations because circumstances are what makes us human, and callously dismissing them in the name of a perverse way of thinking that only leads to disaster to victims and enables abusers like Russia is, to put it mildly, what some dumbass Karen would do when she’s tired of dealing with her kid fighting at school every day and doesn’t actually give a shit about her own kid’s well-being.
You sound like some tired and angry soccer mom who never wanted to have kids in the first place and is only thinking about their cats and wine.
Ok, then let me ask you a bit more philosophical question. Is it okay to execute a murderer? Do you truly belive in the concept of " an eye for an eye"? Similarly do you think being wronged justifies you abandoning your morality?
Is that murderer actively trying to kill you when you defend yourself and they wind up dead? Then yes, absolutely.
Or are they handcuffed and sitting in jail no longer a threat to anyone? Now you can start asking if it’s justified.
I don’t think this is about an eye for an eye and I think you are erroneously framing it as such.
Dude, it’s war.
It’s not philosophical. It’s survival.
We’re talking about self defense. Executing someone who is no longer a threat is not analogous. Do you have any arguments that aren’t false analogies?
Who the fuck are you to dictate to me what my morality is?
Do you not get that other people think differently than you and that we don’t view moraity as purity? That we understand that morality is entirely different from and means more than what you think it does?
Here, let me fix that for you:
Because that is what morality is for you: nothing but pride, whereas people like me care about reducing suffering in the world and a better outcome for everyone.
Calm down, I’m a random no one on the internet. It’s nessasary to play the devil’s advocate in order to spark conversation
Thanks for telling us you’re just meaninglessly concern trolling and for proving debate is fucking pointless
This is exactly the kind of moral stance I personally disagree with. Following it you end up justifying 9/11 and with it you justify all the civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and with that the terrorist attacks all over the west and so on and so on.
In my personal opinion, the moment you subordinate the principle to contingencies, you end up in a very dark place. That’s why it is important to stick to the principle, period. No comparisons, no balance, no measuring.
But again, this is my opinion.
And look at what the U.S. did in Iraq, including slinging around nuclear threats, and you find they were indeed justified in trying to take down who were in their eyes the western beast that did nothing but use and abuse them for politics and oil. Because they kind of were justified, and we did bring it upon ourselves.
Central and South America could fucking invade and they’d be justified over what the CIA did to them.
Hell, Muslim countries could invade China to save the Uyghers from actual genocide by that logic and I’d agree to it.
I do not pretend the U.S. is any better or beyond reproach or any other country. I just accept that being a nuclear bully has consequences.
Principles are based on real world circumstances and to argue we must ignore them just to make you happy is to completely oppose morality and fundamentally misses the point of what morality is all about. You don’t believe in principle, you believe in forcing innocent people to suffer for your feelings and sensibilities, which is all deontological thinking ever really accomplishes. This is why we embrace consequentialism, which founds principles in real world circumstances and considerations, and properly defines morality as an institution meant to benefit such, not your fantasies.
Come on back to the real world now
And I disagree, in the sense that I don’t think killing civilians is an acceptable retaliation, even though I perfectly understand that retaliation itself might be justified.
The matter is straightforward for me: certain things are banned (Geneva convention), and that’s the end of it. This kind of retaliation doesn’t even guarantee any military advantage, so it’s not like fighting respecting those basic principles means having to fight with hands tied. If one (Russia, US, anybody) violates these principles, should be held accountable.
The moment you start measuring who is right in doing a war crime and who is wrong, is the moment you cancel the concept of war crime, which instead I think is a hard lesson history thought us.
You’re drawing a dangerous false equivalency between the invaders and the invaded and because of it, you’re not getting your message across. You may not care, but the rest of the world does, and the others in the thread clearly do feel that people like you complaining about the drone attacks unfairly burdens Ukraine because it limits their options in the face of genocide. They view the drone attacks as necessary, possibly as part of a larger plan to invade Russia, and you’re not adequately explaining why it’s unnecessary and unhelpful.
In principle, you are asking Ukraine to accept genocide rather than do things that, in these circumstances, are normal acts of war – drone attacks on civilians has been a thing for over a decade now and is simply never going to go away no matter how much you want it to – because ultimately, the situation boils down to a choice between launching drone attacks and accepting genocide, and if we accept your way of thinking, we’d have to accept the genocide. Is that really what you want?
Self-defense is a human right and a moral principle that the others stand for that you’re clearly not respecting, yet you speak of principle. Why should your principles prevail over it? Why should innocent people have to die to satisfy you?
I don’t really think you’ve thought this through
I am not drawing any equivalency. There is an enormous, incommensurable quantitative difference between Russia and Ukraine when it comes to civilian attacks. This does not mean that taking a single episode we need to deny the qualitative similarity. This does not make things equal, but I think I could still disapprove Ukraine kidnapping 1 child from Russia even if Russia kidnapped thousands of them from Ukraine. This wouldn’t be making any equivalence.
Regarding the next part, I am not asking Ukraine anything, let alone to accept genocide. Really there is nothing in between “complete surrender” and “attacks on civilians” in your own perspective?
I also don’t think it is necessary to explain why attacking civilians does not help winning a war. This topic was discussed and settled already more than 50 years ago. In case, it would be responsibility of those who feel this kind of attack is necessary to understand how they can help winning the war. My argument is that 1. Civilians are not part of the conflict by definition, therefore there is no military strategical advantage in killing them, and 2. Killing civilians is forbidden by the Geneva convention, which also means that can backfire by making Ukraine lose some of the support from western countries, which possibly means less weapons.
I am also not against drone attacks, nor against attacks on Russian soil, I am against targeting civilians with those. I don’t think the choice is simply between drone attack on civilians and accepting genocide, if you think otherwise I am keen to know why.
The concept of self-defense in this context only applies if you identify the aggressor (Russia) with the whole population, which I don’t. I believe that civilians are not a reasonable military target, and I am honestly flabbergasted that there is a need to discuss something like this is 2023.
I’m sorry but yes, you are drawing a false equivalency between Russia and Ukraine by holding them to the same standards and insisting there is a “qualitative similarity”, and they are not the same. War is inherently unfair and so is life. People and countries, and the situations they are in, are inherently different and to disregard that is to be unjust, and you might not want to hear it, but you really are being unjust by doing that.
Ukraine launching a drone attack on a Moscow airport simply is not the same as Russia invading and committing genocidal acts against a sovereign nation, but you are holding Ukraine to those same standards which you should not be. That’s why the others are upset at you, I think. Ukraine gets the benefit of the doubt and they get leeway because they are trying to save their own people from genocide while Russia does not because it is actively committing genocide against that country.
I think this is what the others were trying to tell you. If we are to judge the situation on principle, and human rights, then we have to judge it on the founding principle of all human rights: self-defense, and you are violating Ukraine’s right of self-defense by insisting it limit its military options, which Russia has proven it can and will exploit and take advantage of to harm Ukraine even more.
Yes you are, because the result of what you are asking for, ultimately, boils down to them either committing Act A or accepting death, and in this war among many others, yes, that is exactly what’s happening. You might not have been watching the news, but the rest of us have, and Russia is actively trying to commit genocide against Ukraine. It is obviously a choice between doing everything possible to ensure one’s own survival or accepting imminent death.
That’s probably why you’re inciting anger amongst others as well. You really don’t have the right or the moral authority to unilaterally demand that of other people, and your position requires it. Indeed, it directly implies it, because of how it reduces and oversimplifies very complex and human situations down to such choices.
The others think Ukraine’s existence as a people and a nation supercedes those kinds of considerations anyway, and I quite frankly don’t blame them. I don’t think you’d be willing to tell your family to accept imminent rape and murder from burglars because of your extremist views on gun control, for instance.
Well, in this case, you have to, not only because it is a tactic that has been very effective throughout all of human history, but because it’s what your opponent believes and you’re not adequately addressing their concerns. By refusing to, you refuse to emphasize with the other side, consider things from their perspective and be willing to find connection, and through it find truth. If you’re not even willing to show that basic human courtesy, why wouldn’t they think of you as some morally bankrupt Putin apologist, as you’ve been labeled in this thread… I see at least twice? How is dismissing others’ basic concerns and beliefs going to convince them to accept your opinion? Is that how we should talk to others?
And over the past 70 years, things changed completely. Now we have advanced technology like drones, and cluster munitions, and F-16s, and nuclear weapons. And Ukraine has drones, which countries have been using pretty casually for over a decade without much complaint, proving the old rules about such things anachronistic. And you are proving those old rules are anachronistic by speaking out in defense of a country actively threatening the rest of the world with nuclear annihilation if they try to actively intervene to save Ukraine, and you’re doing it indirectly by condemning Ukraine by using means it was given by the same countries that made the Geneva Conventions and other treaties in the first place, with their blessing to use against Russia to save itself.
You using those conventions to condemn Ukraine is hollow and disingenuous in that light. No one thinks Ukraine using a drone on an airport is a human rights violation. Your claim that it is is really weak.
Humans are the ones who decide what morality is. Morality is not intrinsic to the fabric of spacetime or the universe, it is entirely made up by people, for people’s benefit, and it is in no way beneficial or a meaningful defense of human life to exploit it to finger-wag at an innocent country trying to save itself from genocide and annihilation. And the rest of the world has decided that it is moral for Ukraine to use those drones to do such a thing. The gavel has been swung and not in your favor, I fear.
Then you clearly haven’t been paying attention, because that is what has been happening. We know it is a hard choice because Russia has threatened the rest of the planet with nuclear annihilation if they do not allow Russia to actively take over a sovereign nation and commit genocide against its people. That’s how we know. Russia lost any benefit of the doubt or meaningful consideration it would have otherwise had because of its actions, and if we are to make a fair and just world, you and people like you must accept that. We judge and dictate such things based on people’s actions, and that might not be fair to you, but it’s just how life is. And quite honestly, how it ought to be. Not all people are the same nor should they be treated as they are.
Well, the others here do, and they’re quite correct to do so, as all of the protesters are already jailed or fled. The only ones left are the supporters of the war, and quite frankly, the Russian people themselves have brought it upon themselves by not accepting their moral responsibility to unite and overthrowing an obvious tyrannical government regardless of the odds. The Russian people are not and never will be innocent in this case.
Arguing whether they have moral culpability in this is meaningless anyway because you would just as quickly condemn the Russian people for trying to violently overthrow their own government to stop a nuclear war, and you’d come at us with the same tired, meaningless, anachronistic and quite frankly superflous arguments.
You can use “I don’t care about the circumstances, it’s still wrong” to stop anyone from doing anything and thus enable aggressors who don’t care to do whatever it is they want. In fact, the result of your stance in all cases is that innocent people get trampled upon by their oppressors because of the act of you criticizing their approach.
You’re really being immoral here and I can’t decide if that’s intentional or not.
Well, by taking that kind of stance you’re enabling Russia to do whatever it wants including outright genocide against civilians, so opposing the drone attacks on those grounds is nonsensical and ill-thought-out. And irrelevant, anyway, because civilians are going to die regardless of our stances and there are bigger, more serious issues at stake. Like, you know, nuclear war and billions of citizens dying if Ukraine isn’t allowed to take Putin out like they’re apparently hankering for.
“Certain things are banned and that’s the end of it” doesn’t work on me. There’s never an end. There’s always gonna be a debate. And if you truly felt that way, you’d support everything possible to stop Russia because they are the ones threatening the world with nuclear annihilation, and by your stance, so are you.
You don’t actually give a shit about human life with that reductive way of thinking you want us to adopt. You’re hurting it far worse than some piddling drone attack on some airport.
Nowhere in the history of ever is anyone doing this by unilaterally supporting Ukraine. Morality does not work like that and morality means more than that. This is exactly why we judge the morality of a situation based on its real-world circumstances, and why we reject deontology as the immoral, corrupt insanity that it is, because of how it reduces and strips any real meaning from any real situation it’s applied to. This is about other people and life on this planet, not your feelings.
I am not enabling anything by condemning the general idea of attacking civilians. If you think this is not the case, you should at least explaining what this enablement looks like in practice. It’s not sufficient to say “you enable” to have an argument.
There is nothing that attacking civilians will achieve in terms of winning the war, so I find your argument completely invalid. That is, unless anything can be justified for an abstract “greater good”.
There is literally no debate on what is banned by the Geneva convention, what debate you want to have? You need to discuss whether killing innocent civilians, or torturing war prisoners is justified or not? Please, make your argument, but you are at least half a century late.
You keep using this sneaky argument according to which anything can help win the war, therefore everything is justified. I am sorry, I find it invalid. Attacking babushka in Taganrog while she goes buying groceries I don’t think helps winning the war. Dissecting alive war prisoners (totally made-up example) wouldn’t help that either. If you think a certain attack on civilians is functional to win the war and “avoid nuclear annihilation” you should at least explain why is so. You instead are using this as axiom to create a base for your argument.
I expect anyway your explanation of how, according to your morality and the specific conditions, killing innocent civilians is acceptable. I won’t even bother mentioning the fact that moral evaluations change based on millions of factors and that this can lead to the exact consequences that conventions such as the Geneva convention aimed to leave in history.
Actually yes you are, because you are
Motte-and-baileying yourself by pretending this is about a general idea and not a very real war and a very real, extremely necessary attempt on Ukraine’s part to stop the genocide of their own people and to stop Putin’s regime from starting a nuclear war.
Only talking about Ukraine and doing nothing to condemn Russia’s actions, explicitly defending its people even, who have shown plainly that they can and will do anything to destroy Ukraine and bring NATO, and the rest of the world, to its knees.
Displaying a black-and-white way of thinking and a complete lack of empathy, which people like you accuse anyone who challenges you of doing non-fucking-stop, demanding we ignore basic facts, demanding we ignore the very real and ugly consequences of what you want and remove reality from morality in general, fundamentally stripping morality of its meaning and purpose
You’re the kind of person who would look at the quiet kid who snapped and beat the shit out of the bully who had been abusing them for years, non-stop, while ignored and sometimes even blessed by the adults, and you would scream at this kid “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT HE DID TO YOU, YOU ARE WRONG BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS ALWAYS WRONG, YOU’RE EXPELLED!”
And the bully would look at you and laugh, because you are his perfect useful idiot, and he purposefully exploits adults like you who think that way to get away with harming innocent people for kicks.
And I am the neighbor at the PTA meeting who has been watching this from their security cameras on their front lawn, sick and tired of your enabling shit, telling you “No, YOU are wrong; that quiet kid is 100% justified in using violence because he is being abused and you refused to directly intervene to stop it yourself, and you are therefore being a piece of shit.”
And you are that Karen who is not listening because morality for you isn’t about the real world and how real people are suffering, it’s about your ego, your feelings, and controlling other people by claiming and fighting over the moral high ground.
And you care NOT for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children who were kidnapped and are being held in Russia somewhere, for which an invasion is the only hope of getting them back.
And you care NOT for the fact that Russia already rigged the Zaphorzhiza plant to blow, which will cause the largest radiation disaster in world history if Putin is not removed before giving the order to blow it up.
And you give Not One Single Fuck for life on this Earth, because you arbitrarily decided any action on Russian soil is wrong regardless of what they do to Ukraine, which is you siding with Russia whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll lie and you’ll scream that you are not siding with Russia when your actions say otherwise.
Because like all deontologists, you are a liar, enabler and scammer, who only cares about you and your feelings.
This is why we reject deontology, and why we embrace consequentialism, and why we side with the quiet kid and ignore the morally bankrupt adults who refused to save him when they complain about his violence, because they were always on the side of the bully by virtue of doing nothing about him and everything about his victim when his victim acts.
Deontology is fucking vile.