After four tumultuous and challenging years, Dame Melinda Simmons’ term as the British ambassador to Ukraine is coming to an end. Her successor Martin Harris will be arriving in September.
Since Simmons, a career diplomat, arrived in Kyiv in September 2019, she has worked through the coronavirus ou...
The Kyiv Independent: How has the perception of Ukraine in the eyes of British citizens changed after the start of the full-scale invasion?
Dame Melinda Simmons: I think the Brits know so much more now about Ukrainians, frankly how utterly cool the country is, and even down to what kind of food you eat. Because, of course, so many people have taken in Ukrainians, and they're learning to make syrnyky and it's all fantastic.
But they aren't the only people who are waking up to this understanding of Ukraine's history, this sense of what Russia really is, this colonial fascist-leaning country. There is a dawning realization not just for the West, but for other countries who tended to see that as a geographically different part of history. This sense of Ukraine having been colonized under Soviet occupation – that is a narrative that is being understood by many other countries who have not been conventional partners of Ukraine but are now very interested in the nature of this invasion.
ITT supposed communists suck on Russia's dick for.... some reason?
Someone still has to explain this to me, why Russian capitalism is apparently ok, while any other capitalism is not. Suck on the billionaire Russians' dicks, with their yachts in Porto Fino, while half the country doesn't have access to basic necessities.
They're not even trying to mask it as communism like China ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Someone still has to explain this to me, why Russian capitalism is apparently ok, while any other capitalism is not.
You really just need to stop with the wilfull ignorance to answer your question. Capitalism is not OK, no matter who does it. We all want capitalism to go away. But Capitalism cannot go away while the North Atlantic capitalist bloc (the source of European fascism, racism, underdevelopment of the global South, apartheid, the most advanced forms of genocide and eugenics, globe spanning colonialism, indigenous devastation, environmental devastation, nuclear devastation, and oppression of 80% of the world) continues to dominate the globe. As long as Russia opposes the interests of the North Atlantic and advances the interests of the global South, we will support Russia over the West.
It's really that simple. We are prioritizing changes based on their logic dependencies. We cannot deal with pretty much anything while the North Atlantic maintains its global dominance on all dimensions (military, economic, political, propaganda, logistical, cyber, intelligence, etc). While the North Atlantic power dominates, capitalism will dominate. So, the first domino that must fall, by necessity, is the West's grip on the world. Russia and China are critical to this process. Russia almost became our sworn enemy when it applied for membership into NATO in order to secure its place in the shared security model and in the global parceling of imperial spoils. But the US decided that they would rather keep Russia as an enemy and now Russia has no possibility of joining the imperialist bloc. So, Russia is doing what it can to diminish Western power. And therefore, we offer critical support.
This has been explained so many times in so many ways that it's hard to believe you are both curious in good faith and also ignorant of the position you rail so hard against.
Simultaneously while we work together diminish the power of the West we also work to heal the wounds of racialized capitalism, imperialism, colonization, and neocolonization. But we cannot fully complete those projects without the fall of the Western powers and their vassals. As the West falls, alternatives will rise, and in those conditions it becomes possible to advance the communist movement more thoroughly, more effectively, and more widely.
In short, Russian capitalism is not good, but Russian opposition to the dominance of the West is good.
Eh, I don't buy it. To me it seems just an excuse. Both Russia and China at one point were full state run centrally planned economies. Communist countries made up half the world (leaving aside third world countries), half of Europe, lots of population and plenty of natural resources. There was no reason why they couldn't succeed if they banded together with the superior economic theory.
But now you are telling me that they couldn't help the global south, and therefore Russia and China had to abandon communism and switch to full blown capitalism? To beat the US at capitalism? And then go back to communism?
Hot take: they are both just as bad and imperialistic as the US, selfish to the core, only trying to become the top dog on the world stage, by any means possible. Not that hot actually, it's been the same shit since forever
Brits are perennial hilarious awkward muppet memers. When their footballers leave for better conditions abroad their news is filled with how that country did bad things to foreigners and they all pile on ranting about how that country did bad things. It's amazing how they have no self awareness.
It's always funny but sometimes it's just sad funny.
So until an actual hostile invasion by a foreign power, the ambassador had a cushy job at a US puppet state. But now she is sharing sage wisdom with all of us because her end-of-history vision has been shattered.