YOURSAY | Indefensible support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

 

YOURSAY | ‘Instead of criticising the aggressor, Ramasamy took the side of the aggressor.’

ADUN SPEAKS | Unbridled US expansion, reason for Russia's aggression

Quigonbond: Seriously? Blame it on the West?

If Russia wanted to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence, it should have been a good friend of Ukraine. If its people want to gravitate to the West, it's their choice. If the West is more appealing, Russia should offer a better package.

Saying the West is wrong with its liberal expansion is like saying Russian President Vladimir Putin is right with his authoritarian leadership and Russia’s role as an international bad-faith actor, especially in cyberspace.

In suggesting we should maintain the balance of power, we are saying let's prop up Putin's authoritarian regime even though he's wreaking havoc around the world.

Putin can't win the game (economic prosperity and openness), so he is changing the rules (might is right).

Even assuming the so-called "DAP Chinese" are extremely supportive of China, which I doubt. Do you see China planning to invade Japan or India because it feels threatened by the encirclement? No.

It strengthens itself internally and tries to take a more leading position on the global stage, such as launching its Belt and Road initiative, etc.

DAP central leadership should consider harmonising its leadership views on this topic because what Perai assemblyperson P Ramasamy just said is nonsense.

Aegis: Instead of criticising the aggressor, Ramasamy took the side of the aggressor.

Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine eight years ago when its Russian-backed president was overthrown by the people. The narrative then was to protect the Russian-speaking minority (about 20 percent) in Ukraine.

They were also fighting in eastern Ukraine (where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukraine’s army since 2014) and our MH17 was shot down by the separatists with a Russian missile!

Ukraine is an independent country with its own history. They have the right to make friends and join other alliances if that is what their people want. Was the Soviet Union some kind of secret society - once you join, you cannot get out?

It is due to Putin's jealousy, pettiness and nationalism that he invades Ukraine (and also Georgia in 2008). He wants to restore Russia back to the former glory of the Soviet Union and had said its collapse was the greatest catastrophe of the century.

PurpleTrout9000: This is similar to the 1962 Cuban crisis. Then, the US threatened war on Cuba and Russia if missiles and nuclear weapons were to be installed in Cuba. Russia took US security concerns seriously, backed down and averted a war.

Now, Nato is not taking Russia's security concern seriously but instead have egged Ukraine on by promising support. War has now broken out.

The escalation continues, and it is scary. Nuclear forces are now on alert. If Nato continues to dismiss this as rhetoric as they have dismissed earlier security concerns, you can imagine what could happen next.

The Wakandan: @PurpleTrout9000, you’re wrong with your comparison. The US did not install nuclear missiles in Ukraine, unlike what the Soviets did in Cuba, with their ships heading there. Read your history again.

The invasion is more than meets the eye, as its proponents want it to look like. It is more about the obsession to return to the former glory of the USSR after its breakup.

The ominous thing here that people should be really afraid of, is where will this end? If Russia wants buffer countries for their security, then what about the smaller states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, traditionally USSR's satellites bordering Nato countries?

Are they safe from the bigger Russia's plan? These countries and their people, including Ukraine, of course, have just experienced freedom and democracy. It will be short-lived freedom if they are to be conquered again by a superpower on the pretext of protecting its security.

ToonyFunnyDude: Latvia and Estonia are members of Nato. They both have borders with Russia. In fact, their borders are closer to Moscow than the border of Ukraine.

If Nato were to deploy any nuclear-capable ballistic missile batteries, they would have done it already.

The majority of the Ukrainians have chosen their political and economic ideology of the free world. They gave up their nuclear arsenal to embrace democracy.

Nato did nothing when Russia annexed Crimea. It owes Ukraine that much.

Dr Suresh Kumar: Telling the facts and truth does not mean one supports Russia. We must understand Russia’s history and that of Ukraine.

There were many Ukrainians who were top military and civil servants serving in the former USSR. Therefore, the Russians consider the Ukrainians as part of them, much closer to them than the people of other breakaway former Soviet states.

After their independence, Russia did not meddle in their affairs. The problem is when the US started rearing its ugly head again.

The US wants to be the big bully, that is the problem, and the poor people of Ukraine are paying a heavy price now. Putin is not going to back down.

Malaysian.1548239364942: @Dr Suresh Kumar, you are sadly misinformed.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has been constantly and continuously meddling in the affairs of its neighbours, such as breaking up Moldova and Georgia, and encouraging "Russian-speaking minorities" in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

They keep a dictatorship propped up in Belarus so that it remains a client state. They have shown exceptional brutality and disregard for civilian life in their Chechnya campaigns.

This revanchism and a suspicion that Moscow wants to restore the dominion it lost in 1991 feeds the anxiety of the former Soviet republics and drives them closer to the West on their own accord, not because the West has some grand agenda.

Ramasamy, so if Malaysia and Indonesia think that Singapore "historically and culturally" belongs to the Malay world, they would be justified to tell Singapore what alliances it can and cannot join?

Newday: Ramasamy, it reads as if you are confused between capitalism and liberalism. It reads as if you are now a member of PAS, rejecting anything that is Western in origin. It reads as if you have only availed yourself of the history of Ukraine since the Russian revolution.

Regardless of what you state, there is still no justification for Russia to declare an all-out war, pouring heaps of misery on the citizens of Ukraine and bringing back body bags of its own soldiers.

Putin's ego is the biggest driver of this death and destruction. For you not to acknowledge this is a serious omission. War is plain ugly, something that we appear incapable of changing. Yet, here you are justifying it.

KSD: I suppose, Ramasamy, that on this same note, you are supportive of China asserting its legitimate right to counter the US in Southeast Asia by encroaching into territories that belong to other countries.

And one day, when the modern-day Admiral Cheng Ho arrives in Kuala Lumpur, you will happily wave China's flag and welcome them to reclaim their “historical right” to our land. - Mkini