No, Russia and Russian sources can't be trusted.
Neither can Ukraine.
Wrong, because we can cross-check and cross-examine what happens with Ukraine; we have no such ability with Russia, or at least not to the same degree.
I know Ukraine will use disinfo op's against the Russians, and maintain OPSEC to protect troops; however that is not the same as treating Ukraine as being as untrustworthy as Russia.
It was wrong of Russia to invade Ukraine, but Zelensky is a western puppet, put into power by US meddling, and Ukraine is a corrupt money laundering operation foe the world's elite.
The corruption pre-dates Zelensky, he's hardly a western puppet anymore than someone like Macron or Abe was, and you seem to forget that I saw what happened in 2014 an sense.
Zelensky was elected by his own people partly to root out corruption, and the idea Ukraine's people have any freedom of chioce or will of their own in domestic issues seems lost on you.
And no, Ukraine is not a 'money-laundering operation' for the elite; being fed up with the previous corruption in Ukraine is part of why the people tossed out Russia's puppet in 2014, and resisted Russia's little green men for 8 years.
The Burisma stuff with Biden pre-dates Zelensky's election as well, so you cannot blame him for that.
Yes they are, even if the country had previous corruption issues.
That doesn't mean Russia was right to invade, or that I am rooting for Russia. You want to know my honest opinion? I truly don't give a fuck about Ukraine and you can find me from the very beginning of this conflict saying that i don't think this is any of our business.
If you don't give a fuck, why are you so certain that Tucker is giving you the truth of the matter on Ukraine?
So no, I'm not rooting for Russia, but I'm not rooting for Ukraine either, and additionally, I don't trust them or their propaganda any more than I trust Russia and theirs.
You seem to trust Tucker, and he trusts Russia's claims at face value; can you really say that you aren't buying Russian propaganda over what Ukraine says, in that case?
I'm not trying to insult you, and I am trying to walk you through how you have been misled by trusting Tucker on Ukraine.
I think free-starter has brought me a bit more in touch with reality and at most we can say we don't know who did it. You've provided some reasons why Russia might, there's plenty of reasons why Ukraine might have. And I still stand by us not really being able to trust propaganda from either side.
So it's just going to be 'both sides' from you, isn't it?
Let me ask, why do you trust Tucker, his known blind spots on foreign issues, and his financial incentive to keep the same audience he had at FOX, over someone like me who has nothing to gain by doing what I am doing to support Ukraine and yet still calls out the Dems abuses where I see them in domestic politics?
You want to know my big problem with this conflict? One of these countries has a nuclear arsenal. I'm watching an endless path of escalations from both sides, and the escalation path ends with nukes. And no one seems to fucking care.
Ukraine would have had nukes too, if it had not sent them back to Russia in the agreement that was supposed to guarantee it's security.
Also, people do care, they just don't take Russian nuke threats at face value anymore, because Russia keeps threatening nukes over every piece of hardware that goes to Ukraine.
Tucker is one of the very few who take Russian nuke threats seriously anymore; I mean Russia threatened nukes under Trump when he sold Ukraine Javelin missiles for the first time.
Russia also has the CCP and India to worry about, and if Putin uses a nuke, he loses the CCP and India as even slight allies. The CCP do not wants Putin to use a nuke, because that would cause Taiwan, Japan, and SK to go nuclear very fast.
The real problem here is you seem to keep taking repeated Russian nuclear bluffs, about almost everything done to aid Ukraine, at face value.
I want this war to end. If that means Putin doesnt get everything he wants but Zelensky also loses a little bit? So be it. That's the only outcome that I see happening aside from nuclear war. In the meantime hundreds of thousands of humans are being sent into the grinder and dying.
That's because you don't follow things on the ground very well, and do not pay attention to the war to the same degree I and others do.
I mean, you've straight up admitted to not paying very good attention to this conflict, so what make you think you ave a good grasp on all the possible outcomes?
Nukes would cost Russia far more than they'd gain, even with their few remaining 'allies'.
I want this war to end, I dont give a fuck if Ukraine loses a little strip of land as an outcome of negotiations.
It's not a 'little strip of land' that Russia wants, they want to push all the way to the Carpathians and into Poland; Ukraine was just the first step and if they keep any of what they have taken, Russia will just try again in the future.
This war will not end this year, or likely next year, and the Ukrainian people have decided they are not going to live under Moscow's boot any longer.
You keep acting like the Ukrainian people have no agency of their own, and like the western public are able to dictate terms to Ukraine.
Edit: Look, even Ziehan is saying this is clearly the Russians.
Edit 2: And never forget that at the end of the day, the dying could end, or at least abate (UXOs are a thing), tomorrow, and all it would take is Putin or his successor to order their troops to cease fire and withdraw behind the 1991 borders.