this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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me_irl
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Because memes aren't journalism: you got any sources?
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-brief-history-of-russian-broken-promises-ukraine-war-cease-fire-6a725544
Use archive.is to circumvent paywall.
Memes aren't journalism, but this is a meme community, not a news community. However, one could argue that this is not exactly a meme, so your point is fair.
I'd still like to get the sources. Otherwise, content like this is like disinformation spreads. Meme community or not.
Whats wrong here? It should always be ok to ask for sources!
In this case the research is significant and it is reasonable to assume that avid readers here know the sources and need less research to respond quickly.
Here a quick overview:
Minsk Protocol (Sept 5, 2014)
Early on both sides supported militant groups with arms (e.g. the far right right Azov group for Ukraine and DPR for Russia), the governments did agree to a ceasefire, the groups didn't care and both sides violated it numerous times. Ukrainian supported troops were shelling near Donetsk (Sept 20, 2014) and the DPR executed full scale attacks. https://web.archive.org/web/20141023221330/http://www.skynews.com.au/news/world/mideast/2014/10/23/ukraine-rebels-vow-to-take-back-cities.html
Minsk II (Feb 12, 2015)
Ukraine did Shelled Horlivka (March 10, 2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horlivka , killed civilians; claimed retaliation. The DPR tried to capture Debaltseve right before the ceasefire and failed to do so completely before it came into effect. As a result fighting within the city continued and the DPR even claimed the ceasefire did not include Debaltseve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Debaltseve so this was also violated by Ukraine too, but now we see a shift towards more Russian violations.
Later violations
The last violations where Ukraine can be assigned any noticeable role in the are around 2020. Now that the military is more organized the troops do follow ceasefire orders more strictly and violations for ceasefires after 2020 can be nearly unilaterally assigned to the Russian side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements (follow the links from there to more recent ceasefires)
So the image/meme is mostly true but also propaganda (as to be expected). I also do not know where the number of 20 agreements comes from. I do know/find details of about 8. Maybe somebody else can provide a list?
So in summary: The message is true. Russia and mainly the DPR troops they support can not be trusted to follow ceasefires as long as the conditions at the front do not significantly change.
I like sticking to the facts and do not agree with the presentation in the image, but at least its still way way closer to the truth than Russian propaganda. In this case sticking to the facts would even have sent the same message and not give the Russians any point where they can base their counterpoint on. On the other side differentiated and detailed analysis is not that well suited to steer up emotions and support for the cause.
Thank you, seriously. It's really exhausting how much resistance you face when you try to question Ukrainian propaganda.
With the time you took to comment you could have looked it up yourself, and then with a bit more time you could have posted the sources here. You're consciously choosing to not be informed, and to do nothing yourself and expect random people to do work for you.
We're talking about major recent history from 2014. Unless they're 12, they don't really have an excuse to be this ill informed for an entire decade. The time it took to comment is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of their time spent in willful ignorance.
Researching "20" is hard. Israel certainly likes to claim that other side breaks ceasefires. There is usually an opposing narrative.
It's OP's responsibility to give sources on the issue. Don't shoot the messenger.
Not in a meme community, that's not the point of the community
You're not a messenger, you're whining because you couldn't bother to Google something yourself
If you insist on the "meme" aspect, how is this post even a meme??
Learn what a meme is before commenting on the topic next time
Would you argue the same way if someone would post libs of Tiktok propaganda here?
No, I'd laugh at you for doing so
And you could have done the same and posted it for the rest of us instead of wagging your finger.
Number of ceasefires: https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-gave-trump-list-of-all-ceasefires-violated-by-russia/
Number of talks: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3784793-kuleba-ukraine-held-200-rounds-of-talks-with-russia-since-2014-but-that-did-not-stop-putin.html
The source for the meme appears to be a tweet from the Ukraine foreign minister. Zelensky has quoted similar numbers. These numbers are coming out of Ukrainian officials’ mouths and not 3rd party journalists and it’s not at all clear on how they’re counting since I can’t find easily any other sources.
Side note: with how bad Google is nowadays, people should never chide anyone else for being unable to locate a source themselves again.
"Russia violated all of the ceasefires and talks since 2014, but it is really important that the exact number is verified by 3rd parties."
You dismissing the overall point by focusing on the absolute least important detail. If the number of talks and ceasefires is greater then zero and Russia has violated all of them, then why does it matter if there were two dozen or two hundred?
Because details fucking matter, that’s why? It matters even if the side I’m on is the one potentially exaggerating. Don’t you care to know that? Or do the facts not matter to you anymore?
Because when someone starts arguing that there were 33 violations and not 35 or something along those lines I know they are just trying to derail the discussion away from the point that matters: Russia has consistently violated ceasefires and that is why security guarantees are needed.
That’s an assumption that it differs by only a few from the truth. What if it’s off by a factor of 2? 5? You and I do not know.
I want to believe the Ukrainians here because it would be confirmation bias. But it would be better to have reliable numbers from an unbiased sources.
You are holding a victim of violent aggression to a high standard instead of just acknowledging that their point is right whether or not they described everything in minute detail perfectly accurately.
I agree with you about sources, but instead of asking and waiting you can search for them as well. I did a quick search for some of the information in the image and I got some results about 200 rounds of talks since 2014. Not ones I recognize so I can’t say if they’re legit or not but it only took a few seconds to get that at least that far.
I'm not OP, though. Not everyone will do the googling themselves and if you're posting stuff like that, I think it's a responsibility of the OP to supply the sources.
Otherwise, that's the exact same strategy misinformation peddlers like LibsofTiktok use.
LibsOfTiktok, on the right, was effective. They are, apparently, much better at motivating people than you are.
Also, let's not pretend you don't just disagree with what is being said. Nobody asks for sources until it's an issue somebody might pick up a sign over.
I don't get why you're comparing me to libs of tiktok. Do I look like I'm trying to be an influencer to you? O.o
I think it's naive to take anything someone as biased as Selensky is saying at face value.
Lol, first day on the internet, I assume? xD /j
You're arguing with one. What do you think OP is doing?
Ah, so you're not impartial. Funny how easy it was to figure that out.
How is stating that Selensky has a horse in this race a sign of not being impartial, exactly? O.o
Because you would care about the validity of the statements, you wouldn't be suggesting that Zelensky is a liar.
I can smell it on you, dude, like the breath of an alcoholic. Why are you pretending you don't know what this whole Ukraine thing is about? It's been world news for 3 years.
Are you serious? 🙄
Are you this dense that you don't get that politicians conducting a bloody war have a vested interest in maintaining a specific narrative?
Why the fuck do you start with this playground comic book logic bullshit? This is the real world, buddy.
No, certainly! Selensky senpai is definetly one of the good guys who would never lie to me uwu! The only liar is eeevil Mr Putin who is eeeevil, because he attacked poor Ukraine because he's eeevil! /s
And before you start: no I am not sympathetic to Putin, just because I don't buy the narrative of the evil russians. Trying to undertand the objective reasons why states act the way they do apparently means that you're a paid russian troll or whatever.
This isn't disinformation unless you don't believe Zelensky. Besides that, we're talking about large scale violations.
If you go digging you'll find literally 10s of thousands of violations, shit just look at this from 2017 https://osce.usmission.gov/on-russias-ongoing-violations-in-ukraine-12/
I suggest using a search engine.
yeah, not exactly the most unbiased source, I recon. If something is disinformation or not shouldn't really hinge on whether you believe someone, btw.
So? Even easier to get sources, right?And even more suspicious that it doesn't ring any bells.
The sources you supplied are literally participants in the NATO/Russia conflict.
Pardon my French, but: Screw you.
Well the source is one of a number that document violations of the Minsk agreement. You don't just need to read that one and it's from 8 years ago I just grabbed it to show how long Russia has been ignoring their related ceasefire agreements. I think the source is relatively neutral but you are right it may have some bias, it's about as neutral as English language sources come though.
I think this post may be off in interpreting or wording because Russia has had major violations of a number of treaties, notably recently the Minsk agreement but I think Zelensky is talking about 25 major violations not 25 separate agreements.
Regardless of all of that, Russia has a very long history of not honoring their truces and ceasefires and using them as a reprieve to beef up their military forces before continuing to fight.
Your French has been pardoned but fuck you too pal.
The source still is the US government, i.e. NATO. It can hardly be interpreted as impartial.
You're touching on why "just google it" is a horrible advice: sources in english language will emphasize the western consensus who have a vested interest in weakening Russia and are in an active economical war with Russia. it's really hard to find english speaking, impartial sources.
From what I found online, while the claims of "genocide" are blown out of proportion, Ukraine has still also violated the Minsk treaty by attacking Donbas.
I think it's important to note that I don't want to condone neither Russia, nor Ukraine. Even if everything is true about Russian minorities in the Donbas: I don't think that being conscripted is too much better. But I also think that the Ukrainian state is using its' own population as cannon-fodder to fight a proxy war for the west (if it weren't a proxy war, the changing stance of the US wouldn't be as big of a problem).
Fuck states. All of them. No war but class war.
What do you want me to say, that it's clear Russia continually violates ceasefire for the past 20 years of various nation states?
Like idk you can go find plenty of sources that say that I'm sure some won't be in English but you're not going to ever find something from Russia themselves that says "yeah we violated this shit"
What do you want me to say? I already said that I don't want to excuse Russia or its' imperialism.
But I also don't think that just because Russia is an imperialist nation that you should in turn start hero-worshipping Selensky. As the interests of the Ukrainian state diverged from the interests of the Ukrainian people that it uses as cannonfodder for its national interest.
The enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend. Two parties can be inexcusable (compare: Israel and Hamas). No war but class war.
I absolutely agree on your point about misinformation. I was trying to hint that maybe none of this belongs here, despite me personally resonating with the "meme". I guess I am just rambling, don't mind me.