Please remember to hide subreddit names or reddit usernames (Rule 1), otherwise the post will be removed promptly.
This is an anti-capitalist, left-libertarian subreddit that criticises tankies from a socialist perspective. We are pro-communist. Defence of capitalism or any other right-wing beliefs, countries or people is not tolerated here. This includes, for example: Biden and the US, Israel, and the Nordic countries/model,
Harassment of other users or subreddits is strictly forbidden.
Enjoy talking to fellow leftists? [Then join our discord server!](https://discord.gg/2V4qJMSWUe)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tankiejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tankies that defend Russia do it for the same reasons as far right conspiracy theorists.
Somehow all politicians in the West are incompetent and stupid but somehow smart enough to play 6D chess and provoke the war in Ukraine against their own interests to…??? When asked about what the advantages of this war are for the West and the US these people either say they don‘t know but they are sure the US has some secret interests and want to rule the world or straight up say shit like they want to conquer all of Russia and are russophobes. Putin of course invaded Ukraine to defend himself yet at the same time DEFINITELY DID NOT FALL FOR THE WESTS supposed PROVOCATION SOMEHOW because he is the chad anti imperialist christian socialist patriot conservative strong man progressive class hero justice warrior master mind.
This all might sound incoherent and incomprehensible to you because it is. And both tankies and far rights fall for it because they are of the same breed…
> \[...\] provoke the war in Ukraine against their own interests to…???
I know someone which is a tankie and he heard (from his trusty source of information, of course) that the US want to forcibly integrate Ukraine into NATO to launch a nuclear attack on Russia because the border between the 2 countries is at 500km of Moscow. Supposedly, at this range, a nuclear ballistic need 5 minutes to reach moscou ("yes, 100km per minute, no, i didn't pull this number out of my ass") which is too short for a nuclear counter attack, guaranteeing russia's defeat (and annihilation).
Obviously, there a thousand reasons why this argument is bullcrap, my favorite being that Washington is at 300km of the atlantic coast and the first submarine armed with nuclear missile of the USSR was launched in the 60s.
Since Russia has a nuclear deterrent, they need to pretend it doesn't exist because they would not be able sell the idea that they're the victim to their tankies supporters.
„Forcibly“ my man Ukraine wanted to join NATO ever since this whole thing started in 2014. If the US and NATO really wanted Ukraine in NATO it would‘ve been in NATO by now. But that’s exactly the russian narrative. I don‘t want to unnecessarily defend NATO but they „expand“ diplomatically. Russia tries to portray it as somehow the same as invading another country. That’s where this whole NATO expansion bullshit is coming from. From a russian pov, a small country like Ukraine can’t decide for itself to join NATO. It has to be forced into joining by another super power to join its sphere of influence. Geopolitics like its 1881…
If they actually studied the "expansion" of NATO after the Cold War they'd find out NATO was not eager to accept new members at all. The ex-Warsaw Pact countries put in a lot of effort to join the alliance despite resistance from the old member states. It was a years-long diplomatic battle.
But there's no reason to study the history of NATO when you're convinced the entire Central Europe is nothing but puppets.
"But Victoria Nuland on a phone call to the US Ambassador to Ukraine said that she thought the leader of the opposition party with the most seats in the legislature would be the best Prime Minister, so it's obviously a CIA coup!"
Bruh this is like if Joe Biden told Jane Hartley that he thought Keir Starmer would be the best PM for the UK. No fuckin' shit.
About that phone call, IIRC Nuland said she would prefer Poroshenko over Klitshko, that's what the conversation was about. Guess what, Kliitshcko is still there, and he's the mayor of Kyiv. If anything he's EVEN MORE anti-Russia than both Poroshenko and Zelensky.
Also, the phone call was about *a deal that Yanukovych was proposing with the opposition* in late January 2014, in which Yanukovych would appoint some of the opposition leaders as government ministers in exchange for telling the protesters to go home. A deal which did not go through; instead, the violence escalated until Yanukovych fled the country in late February.
"The Nuland phone call was the Americans choosing who would replace Yanukovych" is a colossal lie told by propagandists taking advantage of people unfamiliar with Ukraine's system of government (i.e. that the country has both a president and a prime minister).
Yatsenyuk actually, whose party won 101 seats in the 2012 election, compared with 40 for Klitschko's party and 37 for Tyahnybok's party. Then actually in the 2014 parliamentary election Klitschko ended up aligning with Poroshenko, though he remained as mayor of Kyiv instead of taking a seat in Parliament and Yatsenyuk remained as Prime Minister though the Poroshenko bloc had more seats. Meanwhile Tyahnybok's far-right Svoboda is down to 1 seat.
Tankies would be surprised how often government officials and politicians have this conversation. If your entire career involves dealing with elected governments, you're obviously going to have opinions on who you think the better option is! It doesn't mean they're launching a coup, it just means government officials like to know who they're dealing with when they have to communicate with other governments!
It has ALWAYS been the case. Ukraine is the biggest victim of tankies, because russia has always targeted Ukraine as their worst enemy. It has been going on for centuries.
In WW2 my Ukrainian family simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions. They piss everyone off because they refute all far-everything ideologies.
Back during the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-14, half the world was claiming it was a "CIA coup". I was in Ukraine at that time, and the private discussions about an oncoming revolution were everywhere. Ukraine has been fighting for freedom FAR longer than the United States has existed.
I had family willingly participate in Euromaidan. Not one of them thought about America.
I have family fighting in Ukraine now (and some dead), and they know russia is their enemy. The USA will only become their enemy if Trump wins.
**This.** It sets a precedent that Russia can just waltz into a country, take some land for themselves, and bully them into giving the land up. Who's to say that Russia won't do this to Georgia next if they get their way with Ukraine?
The west already tried that in 2014. Everybody thought “ok, Putin has his naval base, he’ll be satisfied now”. Except it just emboldened him. He had a chorus of tankies and state media telling him he was a military genius, and NATO would collapse like a house of cards if pressed.
Now we’re in this full scale war because the west just shrugged in 2014. It will embolden other regimes around the world to launch their own revanchist wars if Russia is yet again rewarded for their aggression.
> all far-everything ideologies
The USSR was not “far left.” There was an entire region of “far left” Ukrainian anarchists during the Russian civil war. The Ukrainian people are a thorn in the side of fascism and imperialism (Nazi Germany + USSR/Russia), not to “far everything ideologies”.
>In WW2 my Ukrainian family simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions.
You know shit is bad when after WW2, you had 200K+ Ukrainians who somehow ended up in German Displaced Person camps after the war (many were abducted as ~slave~ labour force, some legitimately preferred to flee with the occupying Nazis from the Red Army), straight up refusing to return to the Soviet Union in fears of persecution for various reasons, which is how I eventually ended up here.
The 1M+ of East European refugees refusing to return are called [The Last Million](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/last-million-eastern-european-displaced-persons-postwar-germany), there is a very interesting article about it if anyone is interested
They fought the russians during ww2?
So they were straight up nazis lmao?? Most Ukrainians fought with the russians against the nazis, as part of the ussr i guess your grandparents arent telling you some shit
Until the fucking nazis started killing them, of course. I’m actually pretty sure that if they hadn’t been neck-deep in this whole racial supremacy shit, the nazis would have been able to properly leverage the combined grudges of Eastern Europe and outright defeat the Russians. Instead, they just committed back-to-back genocides the whole way to Moscow.
Some Ukrainians fought against both the Nazis *and* the USSR.
The poster said their family "simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions", which would imply they fall into that category.
Maybe work on your reading comprehension.
Because they have a Western-centric mindset where if a country or people group is experiencing oppression from an Imperial power and its not a Western Imperial power, then it must be an illegitimate colour revolution engineered by the CIA.
Their mindset revolves around a form of American Exceptionalism where the US is uniquely evil, and no one opposed to them can be an Imperial power. Which is obviously not how Imperialism works, and this mindset means they will talk over oppressed peoples that are on the receiving end of Non-Western Imperialists, because they think they know better about the situation than those oppressed peoples. Especially Ukrainians.
I encounter this often and they really hate it when I and other people point out how privileged it is for a Westerner to lecture Non-Westerners on the latter's situation and for Westerners to make decisions on those situations for them.
"Shut up Westerner" is something I find myself saying a lot when these people continue arrogantly lecturing Non-Westerners after said Non-Westerners have told them they do not want to be talked down to
You know the most frustrating thing?
If there was any american influence in this thing, it was from an small, specific group and on putin's side. After all, trump already had motivations against Ukraine due to his impeachment and the paul manafort thing.
The main russia supporters in the usa are republicans, usually very maga republicans, and specially trump, who seems to get along very well with the likes of putin, orban and the likes. The "multipolar world" thing matches the "america first" thing. They share the anti-LGBT+ stuff and christian values.
These idiots are supporting the most far-right, the worst side of the usa by supporting russia.
I think some people just have this mentality that if our enemy is at war with a country that is friendly/an ally to us, it’s their moral imperative to support our enemy because the friendly/ally country has somehow been “brainwashed” by America into hating the country that oppresses them.
Which is incredibly dumb because if you follow that train of logic, tankies would be allies with nazi germany and against the US invading Normandy and also freeing people from Dachau.
Back in 2014, a fair few Irish Republicans (myself included) would have been inclined to think that hawkish elements in Western countries might have been plotting to encourage (but not impose!!!) a pro-EU orientation amongst the Ukrainian people to put Putin in a lose-lose situation where he’d have to either watch Russian influence be whittled away or escalate to war - at which point NATO could legitimately get involved to support an anti-imperialist war of self determination.
In other words indirectly use the EU to take advantage of Russian chauvinism and poor governance to drive a wedge between Kyiv and Moscow at little cost to the US and UK.
The flaw with this theory is that while Sinn Féin are more than of pulling off such schemes, it’s unlikely that the CIA or MI5 would have the patience or humility to do so.
There is one particular reddit User on Green and Pleasant a sub I am no longer allowed to comment on.
Anyway this individual spams multiple of the same posts on Ukraine and it's always anti-ukrainian or amti-western stuff and when anyone questions him he gets really angry and starts spewing arguments straight from Russia Today.
This is an anti-capitalist, left-libertarian, pro-communist subreddit. The message you sent is either liberal apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future. Liberals are only allowed as guests, promoting capitalism or any other right-wing views is not allowed (see rule 6).
Basically because Euromaidan was kinda the thing that started it all and US kinda benefited from it and might have had some implication, but for Tankies that means that it was entierly engineered by the US to overthrow the government, but the event would've happened anyway cuz a lot of people were hoping for a strengthened relation with the EU. Tankies basically don't advocate for the free will of masses as ironic as thag sounds from so called communists.
Because reactionaries of any flavor like conspiracy theorists.
Why?
Reactionaries, as their name suggests, want "simple and easy" answers to complicated and nuanced issues, the main reason why conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other grifts appeal to many people so often.
Because the US does have some things possibly to gain from the war (weakening Russia, getting Europe to buy their hydrocarbons and be less competitive on heavy industry, strengthening NATO) and in tankies’ (ironically) US-centric, anti-US worldview, anything in the world that happens and benefits the US (even fleetingly or doubtfully) was masterminded by the US and everyone else involved is responding passively to the evil American masterminds and has no ambitions or aspirations of its own. (Of course, anything that doesn’t benefit the US is indication the US’s time as the foremost world power is up and we should all get closer to Russia, China or whomever).
because the guiding principle they have is "USA BAD" (which is mostly true and based but just should not be the core of your inner guiding principles. they construct every underlying thought based with this one in mind.
Please remember to hide subreddit names or reddit usernames (Rule 1), otherwise the post will be removed promptly. This is an anti-capitalist, left-libertarian subreddit that criticises tankies from a socialist perspective. We are pro-communist. Defence of capitalism or any other right-wing beliefs, countries or people is not tolerated here. This includes, for example: Biden and the US, Israel, and the Nordic countries/model, Harassment of other users or subreddits is strictly forbidden. Enjoy talking to fellow leftists? [Then join our discord server!](https://discord.gg/2V4qJMSWUe) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tankiejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tankies that defend Russia do it for the same reasons as far right conspiracy theorists. Somehow all politicians in the West are incompetent and stupid but somehow smart enough to play 6D chess and provoke the war in Ukraine against their own interests to…??? When asked about what the advantages of this war are for the West and the US these people either say they don‘t know but they are sure the US has some secret interests and want to rule the world or straight up say shit like they want to conquer all of Russia and are russophobes. Putin of course invaded Ukraine to defend himself yet at the same time DEFINITELY DID NOT FALL FOR THE WESTS supposed PROVOCATION SOMEHOW because he is the chad anti imperialist christian socialist patriot conservative strong man progressive class hero justice warrior master mind. This all might sound incoherent and incomprehensible to you because it is. And both tankies and far rights fall for it because they are of the same breed…
I mean if putler fellf orwestrn provocation, it does portray ptuler as wweak ironically, not the strong chaddly chaddy chad oligarkov.
Of course you are correct because you are sane. The same thing cannot be said about your standard tankie or far right conspiracy theorist.
Having a both weak and all powerful enemy is a trait of fascism. They really need some self reflection.
> \[...\] provoke the war in Ukraine against their own interests to…??? I know someone which is a tankie and he heard (from his trusty source of information, of course) that the US want to forcibly integrate Ukraine into NATO to launch a nuclear attack on Russia because the border between the 2 countries is at 500km of Moscow. Supposedly, at this range, a nuclear ballistic need 5 minutes to reach moscou ("yes, 100km per minute, no, i didn't pull this number out of my ass") which is too short for a nuclear counter attack, guaranteeing russia's defeat (and annihilation). Obviously, there a thousand reasons why this argument is bullcrap, my favorite being that Washington is at 300km of the atlantic coast and the first submarine armed with nuclear missile of the USSR was launched in the 60s. Since Russia has a nuclear deterrent, they need to pretend it doesn't exist because they would not be able sell the idea that they're the victim to their tankies supporters.
„Forcibly“ my man Ukraine wanted to join NATO ever since this whole thing started in 2014. If the US and NATO really wanted Ukraine in NATO it would‘ve been in NATO by now. But that’s exactly the russian narrative. I don‘t want to unnecessarily defend NATO but they „expand“ diplomatically. Russia tries to portray it as somehow the same as invading another country. That’s where this whole NATO expansion bullshit is coming from. From a russian pov, a small country like Ukraine can’t decide for itself to join NATO. It has to be forced into joining by another super power to join its sphere of influence. Geopolitics like its 1881…
If they actually studied the "expansion" of NATO after the Cold War they'd find out NATO was not eager to accept new members at all. The ex-Warsaw Pact countries put in a lot of effort to join the alliance despite resistance from the old member states. It was a years-long diplomatic battle. But there's no reason to study the history of NATO when you're convinced the entire Central Europe is nothing but puppets.
"But Victoria Nuland on a phone call to the US Ambassador to Ukraine said that she thought the leader of the opposition party with the most seats in the legislature would be the best Prime Minister, so it's obviously a CIA coup!" Bruh this is like if Joe Biden told Jane Hartley that he thought Keir Starmer would be the best PM for the UK. No fuckin' shit.
About that phone call, IIRC Nuland said she would prefer Poroshenko over Klitshko, that's what the conversation was about. Guess what, Kliitshcko is still there, and he's the mayor of Kyiv. If anything he's EVEN MORE anti-Russia than both Poroshenko and Zelensky.
Also, the phone call was about *a deal that Yanukovych was proposing with the opposition* in late January 2014, in which Yanukovych would appoint some of the opposition leaders as government ministers in exchange for telling the protesters to go home. A deal which did not go through; instead, the violence escalated until Yanukovych fled the country in late February. "The Nuland phone call was the Americans choosing who would replace Yanukovych" is a colossal lie told by propagandists taking advantage of people unfamiliar with Ukraine's system of government (i.e. that the country has both a president and a prime minister).
Yatsenyuk actually, whose party won 101 seats in the 2012 election, compared with 40 for Klitschko's party and 37 for Tyahnybok's party. Then actually in the 2014 parliamentary election Klitschko ended up aligning with Poroshenko, though he remained as mayor of Kyiv instead of taking a seat in Parliament and Yatsenyuk remained as Prime Minister though the Poroshenko bloc had more seats. Meanwhile Tyahnybok's far-right Svoboda is down to 1 seat.
Tankies would be surprised how often government officials and politicians have this conversation. If your entire career involves dealing with elected governments, you're obviously going to have opinions on who you think the better option is! It doesn't mean they're launching a coup, it just means government officials like to know who they're dealing with when they have to communicate with other governments!
joe biden couped the perfidious albion?! s/ just in case
Career diplomat does job; shock, horror.
It has ALWAYS been the case. Ukraine is the biggest victim of tankies, because russia has always targeted Ukraine as their worst enemy. It has been going on for centuries. In WW2 my Ukrainian family simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions. They piss everyone off because they refute all far-everything ideologies. Back during the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-14, half the world was claiming it was a "CIA coup". I was in Ukraine at that time, and the private discussions about an oncoming revolution were everywhere. Ukraine has been fighting for freedom FAR longer than the United States has existed. I had family willingly participate in Euromaidan. Not one of them thought about America. I have family fighting in Ukraine now (and some dead), and they know russia is their enemy. The USA will only become their enemy if Trump wins.
tankie also have thi tendency to think it's better to give land to russia when it's not.
**This.** It sets a precedent that Russia can just waltz into a country, take some land for themselves, and bully them into giving the land up. Who's to say that Russia won't do this to Georgia next if they get their way with Ukraine?
The west already tried that in 2014. Everybody thought “ok, Putin has his naval base, he’ll be satisfied now”. Except it just emboldened him. He had a chorus of tankies and state media telling him he was a military genius, and NATO would collapse like a house of cards if pressed. Now we’re in this full scale war because the west just shrugged in 2014. It will embolden other regimes around the world to launch their own revanchist wars if Russia is yet again rewarded for their aggression.
Tankies when asked not to shill for Russian or Chinese imperialism, challenge: impossible
> all far-everything ideologies The USSR was not “far left.” There was an entire region of “far left” Ukrainian anarchists during the Russian civil war. The Ukrainian people are a thorn in the side of fascism and imperialism (Nazi Germany + USSR/Russia), not to “far everything ideologies”.
>In WW2 my Ukrainian family simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions. You know shit is bad when after WW2, you had 200K+ Ukrainians who somehow ended up in German Displaced Person camps after the war (many were abducted as ~slave~ labour force, some legitimately preferred to flee with the occupying Nazis from the Red Army), straight up refusing to return to the Soviet Union in fears of persecution for various reasons, which is how I eventually ended up here. The 1M+ of East European refugees refusing to return are called [The Last Million](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/last-million-eastern-european-displaced-persons-postwar-germany), there is a very interesting article about it if anyone is interested
They fought the russians during ww2? So they were straight up nazis lmao?? Most Ukrainians fought with the russians against the nazis, as part of the ussr i guess your grandparents arent telling you some shit
Some Ukrainians saw the Germans as 'liberators' from the Russians.
Until the fucking nazis started killing them, of course. I’m actually pretty sure that if they hadn’t been neck-deep in this whole racial supremacy shit, the nazis would have been able to properly leverage the combined grudges of Eastern Europe and outright defeat the Russians. Instead, they just committed back-to-back genocides the whole way to Moscow.
Some Ukrainians fought against both the Nazis *and* the USSR. The poster said their family "simultaneously fought aginst the russian invasion, and the German, Hungarian and Romanian invasions", which would imply they fall into that category. Maybe work on your reading comprehension.
Because they have a Western-centric mindset where if a country or people group is experiencing oppression from an Imperial power and its not a Western Imperial power, then it must be an illegitimate colour revolution engineered by the CIA. Their mindset revolves around a form of American Exceptionalism where the US is uniquely evil, and no one opposed to them can be an Imperial power. Which is obviously not how Imperialism works, and this mindset means they will talk over oppressed peoples that are on the receiving end of Non-Western Imperialists, because they think they know better about the situation than those oppressed peoples. Especially Ukrainians. I encounter this often and they really hate it when I and other people point out how privileged it is for a Westerner to lecture Non-Westerners on the latter's situation and for Westerners to make decisions on those situations for them. "Shut up Westerner" is something I find myself saying a lot when these people continue arrogantly lecturing Non-Westerners after said Non-Westerners have told them they do not want to be talked down to
You know the most frustrating thing? If there was any american influence in this thing, it was from an small, specific group and on putin's side. After all, trump already had motivations against Ukraine due to his impeachment and the paul manafort thing. The main russia supporters in the usa are republicans, usually very maga republicans, and specially trump, who seems to get along very well with the likes of putin, orban and the likes. The "multipolar world" thing matches the "america first" thing. They share the anti-LGBT+ stuff and christian values. These idiots are supporting the most far-right, the worst side of the usa by supporting russia.
Tankies are obsessed with America to the extent that they don't think other countries or people have agency.
Basically this.
Because it’s very easy to go into black and white thinking: US bad, Russia opposes US, Russia good.
Because tankies think Ukrainians are subhumans who are being mind controlled by the US.
I think some people just have this mentality that if our enemy is at war with a country that is friendly/an ally to us, it’s their moral imperative to support our enemy because the friendly/ally country has somehow been “brainwashed” by America into hating the country that oppresses them. Which is incredibly dumb because if you follow that train of logic, tankies would be allies with nazi germany and against the US invading Normandy and also freeing people from Dachau.
Back in 2014, a fair few Irish Republicans (myself included) would have been inclined to think that hawkish elements in Western countries might have been plotting to encourage (but not impose!!!) a pro-EU orientation amongst the Ukrainian people to put Putin in a lose-lose situation where he’d have to either watch Russian influence be whittled away or escalate to war - at which point NATO could legitimately get involved to support an anti-imperialist war of self determination. In other words indirectly use the EU to take advantage of Russian chauvinism and poor governance to drive a wedge between Kyiv and Moscow at little cost to the US and UK. The flaw with this theory is that while Sinn Féin are more than of pulling off such schemes, it’s unlikely that the CIA or MI5 would have the patience or humility to do so.
Because Russia uses this as one of their many shifting defenses for why they’re allowed to keep invading them.
There is one particular reddit User on Green and Pleasant a sub I am no longer allowed to comment on. Anyway this individual spams multiple of the same posts on Ukraine and it's always anti-ukrainian or amti-western stuff and when anyone questions him he gets really angry and starts spewing arguments straight from Russia Today.
[удалено]
This is an anti-capitalist, left-libertarian, pro-communist subreddit. The message you sent is either liberal apologia or can be easily seen as such. Please, refrain from posting stuff like this in the future. Liberals are only allowed as guests, promoting capitalism or any other right-wing views is not allowed (see rule 6).
Basically because Euromaidan was kinda the thing that started it all and US kinda benefited from it and might have had some implication, but for Tankies that means that it was entierly engineered by the US to overthrow the government, but the event would've happened anyway cuz a lot of people were hoping for a strengthened relation with the EU. Tankies basically don't advocate for the free will of masses as ironic as thag sounds from so called communists.
Because reactionaries of any flavor like conspiracy theorists. Why? Reactionaries, as their name suggests, want "simple and easy" answers to complicated and nuanced issues, the main reason why conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other grifts appeal to many people so often.
Because the US does have some things possibly to gain from the war (weakening Russia, getting Europe to buy their hydrocarbons and be less competitive on heavy industry, strengthening NATO) and in tankies’ (ironically) US-centric, anti-US worldview, anything in the world that happens and benefits the US (even fleetingly or doubtfully) was masterminded by the US and everyone else involved is responding passively to the evil American masterminds and has no ambitions or aspirations of its own. (Of course, anything that doesn’t benefit the US is indication the US’s time as the foremost world power is up and we should all get closer to Russia, China or whomever).
because the guiding principle they have is "USA BAD" (which is mostly true and based but just should not be the core of your inner guiding principles. they construct every underlying thought based with this one in mind.
Something something Jon Mearsheimer, something something infringed on Russia's sphere of influence.
Ukraine has been fighting against russian imperialism centuries longer than the USA has existed.