sycasey said:
Aunburdened said:
So, why are we helping this corrupt undemocratic country again?
Ukraine has corruption problems. Russia attacks and invades (and also has rampant corruption).
I know which one I'd pick.
Russia has had its **** together since the 2000s. Before that, Ukraine was the richest, most industrialized state in the USSR, and Russia was completely devastated by the neoliberal reforms and shock therapy that gave way to the most extreme oligarchy in modern European history, with nearly half of its population living in extreme poverty.
But through the past decades Russia recovered, Putin jailed and exiled most of the oligarchs and forced the remaining ones to stay out of the political system. He renationalized a lot of the assets that were carved out by the oligarchs, paid off the national debt, invested in infrastructure, and the country recovered. Its poverty rate today is better than those of France or the UK.
Ukraine on the other hand never recovered or changed from the wild east 1990s. Before the war started, Russia was nearly 3x as wealthy per capita. Zelensky is a pure product of that oligarchy, he was launched by one of the worst Ukrainian oligarchs, Kolomoysky, who also funded several neonazi militias including Azov.
Bottom line, the two countries aren't alike in terms of corruption. This is an important aspect, because war, and the unvetted stream of tens of billions of funds from the US and EU into the coffers of the ruling clique in Kiev, down to the local police stations, these billions coming in have been one of the main reason Kiev, like Lindsay Graham and the other neocon freaks in DC, want to conduct this war to the last Ukrainian.
The current count is over 2 million casualties in Ukraine.
