Ciralinde

Here are some links I was able to recover from archives relevant to recent "Maidan was funded by USAID" narrative:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20230112043500/https://pandodaily.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20180115175340/https://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/us-backing-neo-nazis-ukraine

Good job! I don't often participate in political discussions and having my head filled with this for two days is a bit too much.

he wished he could live in Russia

I would only ever travel out of there once and never come back. I'm just envy that they can leave freely if they don't like anything. We don't have such option.

paid thugs coming in rough up anyone who opposed it

I never said that.

Ukraine’s military was corrupt and mismanaging the war

Our government admit this and talk about it every day, yet they only fight each other and don't do anything to fix it.

Eventually, what I told him was that as long as he sent me comment replies filled with bullshit, I was planning on making posts that contradicted his narrative, so the sum total of influence each of his comments would have on the narrative would be against his favored position.

If you're going to miss my posts as inspiration for this, I recommend watching ukrainian youtube. You can turn on subtitles with english autotranslate - it's decent.

Tell me more about these far-right NGOs. Which NGOs, and about how many of their “muscles” were in the protests in 2013?

I took that straight from the Reddit thread I linked, you can find more there (there are some links to other sources as well). There were dozens of far-right NGOs, some of the biggest ones are listed in Wikipedia article you posted (Right Sector, Svoboda, UDAR, Spilna Sprava, Misanthropic Division). By the evening of today dozens of our popular videobloggers made videos about USAID and Maidan. I'm getting kinda sick of digging through this stuff.

Here is Reddit thread I posted before: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/tg9zwp/what_evidence_exists_for_or_against_the_assertion/

They didn’t create all those people in the streets.

Apparently a lot of those far-right NGOs who were "the muscles" of Maidan were funded by west. I guess most of those have found their way to Valhalla by now. Certainly there were some civilian activists as well. I hope they don't have to participate in undersupplied meat assaults.

If you're interested what ukrainians are talking about today, it's how USAID funded Maidan in 2014 and how it explains why we don't have Maidan now even though we have 100x reasons for it. In the meanwhile, Verkhovna Rada fighting each other while admitting terrible mismanagement of the frontlines. I'm personally researching some threads on extents of foreign influence in 2014 Maidan and some general things about colour revolutions.

Casual adhominem comment

Thanks for your valuable contribution to the discussion.

They can't efficiently extend frontline "into the depth" (km) because it leads to "cauldrons", so they extend it along all the border.

My point is that that’s an incredibly poor showing for Russia fighting against a massively outnumbered enemy that’s mismanaging a war fought by people who don’t want to fight.

It took 2 absurd failing counteroffensives to wipe all willing soldiers and forced conscription started just half of year ago, and everything was on rapid decline since then. It doesn't all happen overnight.

Why would they need soldiers “when the time comes” / “when the day comes”? I thought Ukraine was a lot more evil dictatorship than Russia. Aren’t you looking forward to peace? Wouldn’t it be nicer to have Russia on their borders, with open borders and free media, and finally put an end to the corruption of Ukraine? You said you were looking forward to the Russian military rolling over Kyiv, and then you could leave under the auspices of Russia’s more friendly government. Right?

I don't understand where do you see any paradox in that. Yes I'm looking forward to peace for Ukraine. Yes, I think it will be possible to leave the country in case of peace deal or if Ukraine falls. Yes, I consider it possible for Russia to continue and attack EU states eventually. Do you think I'm telling NATO to come fight for Ukraine or something? That would be neat, but that's obviously not going to happen.

and then you could leave under the auspices of Russia’s more friendly government

It's not that they are kind, they just less absurd and at least don't sabotage their own economy and morale as hard as ukrainian government does.

Also, it's 68196-65871=2325 km since September 3.

I like the one with "are you sure how this evening will end?" It gives some funny spy vibes.

Idk where you get that from, you can check the map that is updated every day here: https://deepstatemap.live I just checked total occupied territory month ago and today and it's 68196-67889=307 km in a month.

That’s not how Ukraine does it, is it?

It is how Ukraine does it, too. Currently I don't think you can go for contract when you already have to be mobilized according to databases (on "Wanted" list in apps like "Reserve+" or "Dija"). And payment is laughable anyway. It would be really easy to boost morale if government decided to end forced conscription and paid to volunteers more than russia does. And it also could probably help to stabilize the frontlines. Given how much they steal I'm pretty sure they have more than enough money to pay more than russians 22k$ to volunteers as a single-time payment.

why he thinks NATO uses the “contract soldier” vs “conscripts” distinction

Too bad if they doesn't. What they gonna do when the time comes. In EU conscious objection is supposed to work, so people can decline en masse (did you know that includes personal beliefs, not necessarily religion?). They'd better start using that distinction asap and consider soldier as a full-time work even in peace time. So that enough people will be paid to be soldiers like a job but in case of war they and only they will go fight and no one else.