> You don’t seem to get my point though - it only has turned into a quagmire for Russia because other countries have feared the thing of which you are sceptical. It is like complaining the medicine is useless because you don’t have symptoms, when it is only because of the medicine that you don’t have them.
What did I write that made you think that I think that the West's backing of Ukraine has not been essential for Ukraine's defense/Russia's failure? My claim is that Ukraine is an example of why it is absurd to expect Russia to invade NATO countries. If Russia cannot even overtake NATO-backed non-NATO countries, no one should reasonably expect it to invade NATO-proper countries.
> For the record: Ukraine has no defense agreement with any of these western nations that are currently supporting them (...)
Why do you feel this is relevant?
> (...) and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
I'm also not sure what leads you to believe this is relevant at all.
Ukraine is surrounded by NATO members. If NATO is not enough to counter a threat, things would be far bleaker for Ukraine as well.
> NATO members ARE helping Ukraine. They are behaving a lot like they would if Ukraine was an OFFICIAL member of NATO.
They are behaving like Ukraine is a country that is friendly towards NATO but not a member.
> They only reason they dont send troops is because Russia is a NUCLEAR power. Simple as that.
You know that the entire reason for NATO was to stave of the USSR and now Russia right?, saying 'NATO won't intervene with a nuclear power' is useless when your alliance was literally formed to fight a nuclear power.
NATO isn't intervening because Ukraine isn't a member, is that simple.
> I'm not arguing whether the Invasion was good or bad or moral or immoral or justified or unjustified. I'm arguing that, over what the US has been doing in Ukraine for years was bound to provoke a Russian invasion.
no one did anything 'provoke' an invasion, that just removes all agency from Russia itself, and Ukraine. Russia is the sole entity that decided to invade, no one else made that decision for them.
Russia is the one solely to blame for all the war crimes that are being committed in Ukraine right.
> International Relations is ruled by power not morals.
Then clearly Russia is going to be knocked down a beg in international relations, because its quite clear that Russias army cannot even get to a city less then 300km from there border in 6 months, and not even against, but against a country using second rate NATO gear.
> Am I missing something, you are low-key justifying Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yes, you are missing something.
> Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place.
That is simply not true. Messing with Ukrainian democracy has started on April 3, 2008, after the Bucharest Summit, with the NATO's Declaration that it welcomes Ukraine's and Georgia's Europe Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. That was a direct threat to Russia and they made it perfectly clear, same as the Monroe's Doctrine makes it perfectly clear that nobody, not a single country, is allowed to move military forces to the western hemisphere (say in Cuba), because it becomes a threat to the US. The decision at the Bucharest Summit led to a war in Georgia and Maidan in Ukraine. Prior to that, there was zero threat from Russia whatsoever.
Since the west keeps pushing on the NATO's expansion (which is part of their strategy, along with promoting democracy and expanding the EU), Putin gives the US two choices: either Ukraine goes back to a pre-2014 state of being a neutral player OR Russia will wreck the country. So the root cause is not Putin being out of his mind, but the aggressive US's strategy to expand NATO. Once again, despite me being a Ukrainian, Putin's strategy is perfectly clear to me.
> It's a damn shame that western nations couldn't pony up sufficient air defense before it was needed rather than waiting until after it was too late.
For the record: Ukraine has no defense agreement with any of these western nations that are currently supporting them, and there is 0 chance that - if roles were reversed and another European nation had been attacked - that they'd have supported this theoretical victim.
The way you're phrasing that is honestly outrageous.
> he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO
NATO doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO (at least, not for the foreseeable future). That's why, even now, when Ukraine is more or less begging to join NATO, NATO has done diddly squat to do so.
A lot of the pressure to join NATO within Ukraine has increased since Russia invaded Georgia and then Crimea. Russia only has itself to blame for the fact that its neighbors are terrified of Russia violating their territorial integrity and want to run as fast as possible from its sphere of influence.
> it's clear that the Ukraine invasion was motivated, in part, by NATO expansion.
Unless you mean, the only way to have prevented the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have been to accept Ukraine into NATO, I strongly disagree with you here.
Russia invaded Ukraine not because Russia is fearful of NATO but because Russia wished to recreate the Soviet empire. It's just plain old imperialism.
> Ukraine is a nation, parts that might prefer not to be are no nation.
Might is pretty thin ice, here, they didn't and they don't.
> Everybody is pulling strings in Ukraine, the Maidan revolution was supported by the West, the separatists are supported by Russia, organized crime is supporting corruption. And now?
The separatists are a small fraction (best estimates around 23%) in the East and without Russian support they would have been overrun long ago.
> The problem is that NATO and the West lost so much credibility in the last decades that we stand on shaky ground when we oppose moves such as Putin's.
No, the problem is that NATO is a very blunt weapon that doesn't really work well against nuclear armed dictators.
> The West invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, especially the latter one was totally unjustified.
Agreed.
> We happily deal with Saudi Arabia and support their war in Yemen.
Again, agreed.
> Spain can crack down on their Catalonian independence movement as much as they want, including blocking voting access with police.
Agreed again.
> The EU lets, literally, drown poor people in the Mediterranean. I could go on.
And again. But: even if you could go on, you shouldn't because none of these have anything to do with Russia invading Ukraine.
> The question is, what is the world going to do about it?
Apparently, not a whole lot and it bothers me quite a bit.
> Well, yeah but they have nuclear weapons so that limits the amount the West can do to help.
It doesn't limit it, it makes it risky. How big of a risk is questionable and depends on wether you think Russia will risk MAD over Ukraine which personally I think is ridiculous. I don't think the Russian leadership have deluded themselves into thinking that they are int the right - they are doing this because they think they can.
If the west had the balls to send actual support from day one then Russia might have pulled out quite soon. Instead it seems NATO wants to use Ukraine to wear down Russia. Good for NATO perhaps but I'm not entirely convinced this drip feed of weapons is actually helping Ukrainians - their losses aren't publicised but they are definitely not small.
> Ukraine under western control is a national security issue for Russia
It is. But this is a straw man. It’s always been. Ukraine hasn’t been seriously considered for NATO membership since 2008. Even its path to the EU was muddled at best.
Some effects of the war, e.g. Ukraine being flooded with Western weapons where it wasn’t before or Germany pivoting away from Russia, were unpredictable. But some, like the response in Finland and Sweden, or the Baltics’ remilitarisation, were.
Ukraine was and is falling under the control of the Ukrainians, and that remains the problem for Putin—not Russia.
> I think Russia is not invading Ukraine as much as the US is slowly (expanding NATO over decades) "invading" Russia because it desperately needs it's high EROEI sources to pretend we have "business as usual".
This doesn't make any sense and is not in any way a mapping to reality. NATO membership is by request only and its numbers have swelled with ex-Soviet republics who want nothing to do with their former master. There is no NATO "invasion", which is a defensive force only. The only occasion I am aware of where they did not act in defense of a member state was to interdict in a genocide.
Ukraine is doing everything it can to stay out of conflict while remaining self-sovereign but it is literally surrounded by 170,000 Russian troops who are less than 40 kilometers on average from Ukraine's border. If any war breaks out in the coming weeks it will be entirely the fault of Russia.
> I can see that you hold a passionately held position on this. I do not.
I live within range of Russia's Iskander missiles and see reports from the war each day. Russia is the local bully that everyone's afraid of. Our military basically exists for one reason, to stop a Russian invasion.
> We went hard as hell after them and used all manner of financial sanctions and threats of sanctions on other countries to decimate their trade. So, we helped a little in its breakdown, right? And that was the real point of NATO.
Speaking of being all over the place, is this in any way relevant to the current war? Russia has been given lots of chances of integrating their economy with the rest of the world since the fall of Soviet, they're not acting out of economic necessity.
> From Ukraine's perspective, yes! From Russia's perspective, no!
Then what were their column on their way to Kiev doing? They can call it whatever they want, nobody makes it illegal to call it a war if they don't actually think it's a war.
> Were those not already in place?
No, only a small part of the current sanctions were in place before the full scale invasion, and plenty of western companies has since withdrawn from the Russian market. As for the security guarantees, I'm not aware of any except the Budapest memorandum, which didn't really work out that well.
> The US blew up entire fucking cities of people and we celebrate it! In your mind has the Ukraine only ever used precision strikes to take out military targets and people?
I've never seen anyone celebrate the destruction of entire cities in a modern war where precision weapons where available. I'm sure Ukraine has made all kinds of strikes, but I don't consider them the same since they're the ones defending themselves. They've made a few excursions into Russia with helicopters and drones, I don't think I've seen any reports of a single civilian casualty from those. Meanwhile there were bodies of executed civilians lying on the streets and buried in shallow mass graves after Russian troops left certain places.
> But I am curious if you can identify a war where this did not happen
That's just proving my point IMO. Wars are horrible, and Russia are the ones that started this one. Russia can end it whenever they want, but they don't want to, so they're responsible for all the misery happening in both their neighboring country and their own right now. And the rest of us don't want war to succeed. Russia understands one thing, and that is power. They look down on what they consider to be weakness, and consider themselves to be better than others. Russian propaganda calls this a culture war against western ideas, Putin actually mentioned trans people in one of his speeches about this war that supposedly is about NATO.
“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw” - Vladimir Ilich Lenin
> … so I am convinced the war could have been stopped, but the West made absolutely no effort to do so.
Conspiracy theories aside, avoiding war at all costs by capitulating to the aggressor's demands without a fight is not a sustainable approach.
Sure, Russia was strongly and publicly opposed to Ukraine joining NATO, to the point of threatening war over it… but that isn't their decision to make. Russia is still the unjustified invader here and the only one at fault—not Ukraine for seeking NATO membership or the other NATO members for considering the application.
> It seems as if you don't even know the Russian side.
Most people know this. But Ukraine was not even able to join NATO because of disputed territories. So in case of Ukraine argument about NATO threat is pretty naive.
What does that any of this have to do with innocent civilians, including children, who are being slaughtered by Russia?
European intervention is predicated on the following concepts, none of which are addressed by your comment:
- This is an unprovoked invasion of a country that unilaterally disarmed under the promise that Russia wouldn't invade them.
- Russia is testing NATO's tolerance for invasion and conquest, which is also something China will be closely watching as they consider annexation of Taiwan and likely many other countries.
- Many civilians who have nothing to do with global politics are being killed, again for absolutely no reason. Russia's entire pretext for this invasion was the warming relationship between Ukraine and NATO.
> Russia, on the other hand, while being massively corrupt always delivered what they promised.
Russia has been waging a cyber war on NATO countries, especially the US, for years. They are openly hostile to NATO countries. They will "deliver what they promised" until it doesn't suit them anymore. If they are able to rebuild an empire, they may not need Germany for their economic engine as badly as they do now.
> I have deep compassion for individual Ukrainians during this war.
None of the rest of your comment suggests this at all. If you have compassion for them and so do most European voters, why shouldn't Europe act on that compassion?
> At some point, the support for Ukraine creates a greater security threat to NATO than no support
Again, this is based on assumption that Russia will stop after Ukraine. Given their rhetoric and actions in the last two decades, I see no reasons to believe that.
They've been consistently instilling hatred towards the West in their citizens. Not towards Ukraine.
Read the recent Putin's annexation speech, Ukraine was barely mentioned. It was mostly about USA, colonization, collective West, anglo-saxons, cancel culture, double standards, gay-propaganda, satanism (!).
Do you really believe this will all go away once Russia is done with Ukraine?
> I don't understand the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine.
I think I do.
It seems to be the same as the reason for invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Ukraine also started a transformation, slipping away from Russia's influence and opening to West. Russia's rulers (whether that is Putin or whomever) understandably got pissed by this loss of influence "in their backyard" and they decided they have to do something.
It was clear to Russians for a long time now that NATO was fractured on Ukraine and that even the hawkish Western powers won't go into direct war with Russians because of Ukraine. It's not that important to anybody in the West.
Considering the fact West won't fight in Ukraine, and it did not provide any real concessions to Russia's demands, it is not surprising that Russia has taken initiative. It makes perfect sense, for Russians it is the only way to make sure NATO/EU won't happen and also win control and resources in Ukraine at the same time (which may be a substantial reason as well, despite the fact Putin does not talk about it).
Considering the disproportion in military powers, I think now it would be best for Ukrainians to capitulate, admit defeat and avoid unnecessary deaths. Also, the West bears some responsibility for this misery in Ukraine. Even from western point of view, West should have never started this overture process with false promises and predictable bad results. Unless the Russian invasion was actually a desired result in some secret mastermind plan made in the West... which does not seem likely.
> Apart from NATO expansion contrary to the unwritten undestandings of the 90-s
A war being violated over an “unwritten understanding”? Thats one of the saddest excuses for an argument I’ve ever seen, not even a defunct treaty to wave around as defense, just an “unwritten understanding”. That wouldn’t fly in a contract negotiation, let alone as a casus belli.
Nevermind how Putin’s own words put lies to your post a fucking month ago. Shame on you for repeating such obvious nonsense. Putin made it very clear that this was about him seeing Ukraine as a fake state; I have no idea why you would keep repeating the line that Putin himself cast away before starting an illegal war.
Also, it drives me absolutely nuts that everyone keeps acting like it’s NATO that is expanding into Ukraine. Are we just pretending that Ukraine is a puppet without its agency and agenda? Hint: there is a pretty obvious reason why Ukraine wanted in NATO. It’s pure chauvinism to ignore this.
> Unless I'm missing something, but despite me being a Ukrainian
Am I missing something, you are low-key justifying Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Its funny how you twisted the whole thing to 'show' this from russian point of view.
Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place, but maybe you heard about Donbass region and all of those poor lost russian soldiers coerced into up helping Russian separatists for almost TEN YEARS!
I wonder why would Ukraine want to join Nato... hmmm it makes no sense. It must be to spite Kremlin.
What did I write that made you think that I think that the West's backing of Ukraine has not been essential for Ukraine's defense/Russia's failure? My claim is that Ukraine is an example of why it is absurd to expect Russia to invade NATO countries. If Russia cannot even overtake NATO-backed non-NATO countries, no one should reasonably expect it to invade NATO-proper countries.
reply