Ukraine

[Silvanus]

Yes, I know Russia isn't the first country to bomb itself during a war, or even not during a war

It's also not the first time Russia has bombed its own territory accidentally during this war.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171244401/russia-bombed-own-city-belgorod-border-ukraine

So this happened.

Yes, I know Russia isn't the first country to bomb itself during a war, or even not during a war(I'm looking at the USAF accidently losing Nukes on the US SOIL VERY VERY ANGERILY RIGHT NOW). But it's still fucking embarrassing nonetheless and I can only point at laugh at the ineptitude on display here.

Seeing as how the Su-34 has external mounts, I wonder if the issue might be a combination of improper/damaged mounting and the use of dumb munitions like the FAB-500. Basically "bomb fall off and go boom".

 

[ralfy]

So what exactly do we have, here? One link that's just... moaning about a few US pols supporting protests, as if that's anything meaningful or unique. And another link speculating about Poroshenko's motivations in signing Minsk, based on some pretty specious interpretation of something he said. Even though A) he was voted out years ago, and its not the same government; and B) Russia broke Minsk anyway.

All in all, another load of nothing.

Just as I expected: your only reaction is "nothingburger." Zero counter to what Nuland and others were doing, as well as the other sources. Add to that the blinkered view that Ukraine appeared only recently, so nothing in the past counts.

 

[ralfy]

Dude, he said both things. Why are you acting as if they're mutually exclusive? He said the west should not interfere... and also said that Russia would seek to reclaim Ukraine by force regardless.

Your own source explicitly says this. Did you even read it?



Do you only speak in buzzwords? "The global south is answering back"! Grow up.

A global trend in trading preferences shifting away from the US has precisely fuck-all to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. You'll notice that the drivers of this change In trading attitudes are not Russia; that Russia is a country in the global North, and a successor to a pillaging European empire; and that the global south widely condemns the invasion.

Dollar use has been eroding... not in favour of the rouble. The rouble remains weak as hell, and the Russian economy remains dismally focused on fossil fuel, just as the World moves away from it. Russia has not diversified. The beneficiaries of this global trading shift have been countries that are far more dynamic and responsive-- China, India, Japan.



The Ukrainian legislature voted unanimously to remove Yanukovych when he went AWOL. That included his own party. If you want the president to overrule and suspend parliamentary sovereignty, then you're essentially openly calling for dictatorship.

And when you say "attacking its own people", you're presumably referring to the right-wing insurgency created by Russia in Donetsk and Luhansk. You know, the one that shot down a Malaysian passenger plane, killing hundreds; the one that was found out to be manufacturing false flags; the one that had disguised Russian troops among its numbers. Uhrm, no, Ukraine has the right to fight foreign insurgencies within its own borders.

You did not read the article correctly. Kennan argued that a strong Russian leader would go against a total separation of Ukraine from Russia. And that's exactly the purpose of NATO enlargement.

Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of the last 75 years, Kennan’s advice remains relevant today. A federation allowing for regional autonomy in eastern Ukraine and perhaps even in Crimea could help both sides coexist. Many analysts tend to portray the current conflict as “Putin’s war,” but Kennan believed that almost any strong Russian leader would eventually push back against the total separation of Ukraine. Finally, the realities of demography and geography dictate that Russia in the long run will remain the principal power in these often tragic “bloodlands.” For the sake of both regional stability and long-term U.S. security, Washington needs to sustain a hardheaded, clear-eyed empathy for the interests of the Russians as well as of the Ukrainians and other nationalities.

What Russia wants is independence for both but not separation. What Clinton wanted was to use Ukraine to attack Russia, and that's exactly what happened via NATO enlargement and regime change.

Your point about buzzwords is nonsense, especially given de-dollarization currently taking place:

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

Created? Significant portions of Ukraine have been populated by Russians for some time!

 

[ralfy]

I might suspect you're a robot if ChatGPT hadn't demonstrated that robots are way more genuinely interactive than this.

That's what happens when you can't counter someone's arguments: suspect that it's a 'bot.

But I think that says more about you than about me.

 

[ralfy]

So citizens of a country would only object to their president being a traitor selling them out to a brutal dictatorship if America tells them to? You don't think citizens of a country would have their own reason to object being chained to Putin's Russia?

Why do you think Nuland and others were talking about Ukrainian pol choices? Do you actually think they were simply playacting, even mentioning Biden and the UN Secretary-General?

 

[Silvanus]

Just as I expected: your only reaction is "nothingburger." Zero counter to what Nuland and others were doing, as well as the other sources. Add to that the blinkered view that Ukraine appeared only recently, so nothing in the past counts.

That would be because you didn't provide anything of any particular meaning or substance. The well-known leaked Nuland-Pyatt call, which is disparaging and should've ended Nuland's career, but doesn't have anything particularly damning or noteworthy regarding Ukraine's present government. Then some borderline-irrelevant other guff about American pols supporting protests, and the Poroshenko speculation, which has already been addressed.

Oh, and everything in the past counts! Such as how Ukraine was subject to a grotesquely unequal partnership under the Soviets; the Holodomor; the fact it has been an independent state with the right to make its own decisions since 1991, which Russia has never accepted; the fact it voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal for a legal commitment from Russia that Russia would not infringe its 1991 borders.... you know, all that stuff, the relevant history.

You did not read the article correctly. Kennan argued that a strong Russian leader would go against a total separation of Ukraine from Russia. And that's exactly the purpose of NATO enlargement.

Directly from your own source: "It was nearly inevitable, however, that an independent Ukraine would be challenged eventually from the Russian side.”

What Russia wants is independence for both but not separation.

Fucking lol.

Is that why Russia sent an invasion force in, under orders to take Kyiv and depose the government? Is that why they've annexed Crimea and attempted to annex four more areas? They keep attempting to seize huge swathes of territory and add it to their own because they want them to be independent! What complete clownery.

Your point about buzzwords is nonsense, especially given de-dollarization currently taking place:

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

^ yet again: fuck-all to do with Russia (a country in the global north, successor to European empire) invading Ukraine. De-dollarisation is not driven by Russia. Global south denounces invasion.

Created? Significant portions of Ukraine have been populated by Russians for some time!

Yes, which has fuck-all to do with the far-right insurgency that Russia created. Stop conflating ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and/or Russian-speaking Ukrainians with a specific far-right organisation sponsored by Russia.

 

[Silvanus]

Huh, I missed this before, from late March.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-23-2023

Yevgeny Prigozhin openly states that they're not fighting NATO in Ukraine, and that he doubts there are Nazis there.

 

[ralfy]

So you just confirm, after having eluded direct references to it, your brand of hypocrisy. No only you try to establish an equivalence between the western democracies and the straightforward dictatorial regimes of Putin and his supporters, but when anyone points out their characteristics (the jailing and murder political opponents, the homophobic crackdown, the control of media and criminalization of dissenting voices, etc), you just sweep all of it under the carpet and present it as "racist prejudice". Any criticism of the dictatorship is, as the dictatorship itself presents it, an insult to The Race.

I don't know if your anti-american and anti-UE tirades are aimed at governments, administrations, cultural climates, or if you are yourself in this full racialist, essentialist perspective you conveniently assume others to be. If you are, you lose the right to reproach it to others. If you aren't, you are stupid for randomly assuming it from other, with no other reason than your usual "i found a good sounding video about it maybe i could use that".

In all cases, it's a grotesque excuse that has been the defense line of all totalitarianisms (including poor hitler's, which regime and societal model was only ever criticized by a global antigermanic conspiracy, or even american conservatives who love branding as "antiamerican" any national contestation - in that specific case without shotting down jailing, murdering every dissenting voice, mind you). But it shows what matters to you. Pure rhetoric, pure victimizing deflection. If you and tstorm aren't the same person, you should really get married.

You'll never address the human right issues of the regimes you side with. You'll keep denying them, minimizing them, normalizing thm through false equivalencies, or trying to pass their accounting for fabrications or irrelevantly dismiss them as racialist discourses - anything goes. It's pure trollfarm playbook.

Honest humans weight political shortcomings and come to conclusions in lucid assesment of all of them. The people who truly criticize the geopolitical and political history of the West (and, in this forum, the three most active threads are dedicated to that) are also those who criticize all the more the States that act in even more caricatural fashion abroad and within their borders. You do not do that. You do not care for values, society, people. You care for flags and sides, the ones you support blindly versus the rest. You're the opposite of a honest person. You're a blood-oiled propaganda cog.

According to Carter, the U.S. western democracy is the most warlike in modern history:

Jimmy Carter: US ‘Most Warlike Nation in History of the World’

The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has called the United States “the most warlike nation in the history

www.counterpunch.org

It has been engaged in decades of coercing, manipulating, destabilizing, and attacking numerous countries:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

And that includes supporting numerous dictatorships, terror groups, and even organizations used to train military officials in the art of torture, like the School of the Americas.

It has more than 800 military installations worldwide and a military budget that eclipses those of other countries:

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military?

Over there.

www.politico.com

and is even the No. 1 arms dealer:

We’re #1: The U.S. Government is the World’s Largest Arms Dealer

The U.S. government is the world's largest arms dealer, and all too often it doesn't give adequate attention to who it is arming and how they use U.S. weapons.

www.forbes.com

Compared to the U.S., not only Russia but even China are rank amateurs.

And yet you conveniently sweep all of that under the group, assuming that this "Western democracy" has no other intention but to help those who are oppressed. Give me a break. Why do you think even its own allies are arguing that it intends to profit from this war?

Europe accuses US of profiting from war

EU officials attack Joe Biden over sky-high gas prices, weapons sales and trade as Vladimir Putin’s war threatens to destroy Western unity.

www.politico.eu

The war in Ukraine continues to rage on, but there's already one clear winner

Ukraine continues to need American weapons to hold out against Russia, and now a global military spending boom is set to further benefit the US arms industry. There are accusations of "profiteering", but is there any alternative?

www.abc.net.au

They're so estatic they are even pleased that they can use Ukrainians and Russians to "beta test" their new weapons!

For Western Weapons, the Ukraine War Is a Beta Test (Published 2022)

Though the battle for Ukraine remains largely a grinding artillery war, new advances in technology and training there are being closely monitored for the ways they are starting to shape combat.

www.nytimes.com

And what does the "democratic" Zelensky imagine? Create a big Israel?

Zelenskyy says wants Ukraine to become a ‘big Israel’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the main issue for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion ends will be security.

www.aljazeera.com

Sell off his own country to the same who are financing the war?

Zelenskyy, BlackRock CEO Fink agree to coordinate Ukraine investment

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have agreed to coordinate investment in rebuilding Ukraine, Kyiv announced Wednesday

www.cnbc.com

Don't kid yourself? Putin's atrocities are more than obvious, but those of the U.S. and even that of Ukraine?


Crickets!

Finally, since you mentioned The Guardian,

Ian Traynor: US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev

Analysis: Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by young democracy activists and will never be the same again.

www.theguardian.com

In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia | John Pilger

John Pilger: Washington's role in Ukraine, and its backing for the regime's neo-Nazis, has huge implications for the rest of the world

www.theguardian.com

I present that to show you how trolls work: they have such a blinkered view of the world they assume that Putin is bad, the U.S. and Ukraine is good, and that there is no reason for the invasion except that Russia wants to form an empire, and that's the end of the story. Anything before that is "history" or simply the "past," if not understandable.

That's propaganda.

 

[ralfy]

That would be because you didn't provide anything of any particular meaning or substance. The well-known leaked Nuland-Pyatt call, which is disparaging and should've ended Nuland's career, but doesn't have anything particularly damning or noteworthy regarding Ukraine's present government. Then some borderline-irrelevant other guff about American pols supporting protests, and the Poroshenko speculation, which has already been addressed.

Oh, and everything in the past counts! Such as how Ukraine was subject to a grotesquely unequal partnership under the Soviets; the Holodomor; the fact it has been an independent state with the right to make its own decisions since 1991, which Russia has never accepted; the fact it voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal for a legal commitment from Russia that Russia would not infringe its 1991 borders.... you know, all that stuff, the relevant history.



Directly from your own source: "It was nearly inevitable, however, that an independent Ukraine would be challenged eventually from the Russian side.”



Fucking lol.

Is that why Russia sent an invasion force in, under orders to take Kyiv and depose the government? Is that why they've annexed Crimea and attempted to annex four more areas? They keep attempting to seize huge swathes of territory and add it to their own because they want them to be independent! What complete clownery.



^ yet again: fuck-all to do with Russia (a country in the global north, successor to European empire) invading Ukraine. De-dollarisation is not driven by Russia. Global south denounces invasion.



Yes, which has fuck-all to do with the far-right insurgency that Russia created. Stop conflating ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and/or Russian-speaking Ukrainians with a specific far-right organisation sponsored by Russia.

End her career? You must be talking about the U.S. in some parallel universe! In this one, nothing stops the war machine.

Bill Clinton’s Role in the Crisis Over Ukraine

The militarization of American foreign policy has evolved over the past thirty years. Ironically, this took place in the wake of the dissolution of the

www.counterpunch.org

Syria Will Stain Obama's Legacy Forever

The arc of history is long, but it won't ever judge the president's Syria policy kindly.

foreignpolicy.com

In Case You Forgot: George W. Bush Is a Horrific War Criminal

Liberals today are trying to rehabilitate the image of George W. Bush. Don’t let them — his monstrous invasion of Iraq, based on lies, led to mass death in Iraq and untold damage to democracy in the US.

jacobin.com

About the past, now we're talking! How'd you like to add to what Mearsheimer said?

If in that conflict “an undesirable deadlock was developing,” the United States should push for “a composing of the differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism.”

Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of the last 75 years, Kennan’s advice remains relevant today. A federation allowing for regional autonomy in eastern Ukraine and perhaps even in Crimea could help both sides coexist. Many analysts tend to portray the current conflict as “Putin’s war,” but Kennan believed that almost any strong Russian leader would eventually push back against the total separation of Ukraine. Finally, the realities of demography and geography dictate that Russia in the long run will remain the principal power in these often tragic “bloodlands.” For the sake of both regional stability and long-term U.S. security, Washington needs to sustain a hardheaded, clear-eyed empathy for the interests of the Russians as well as of the Ukrainians and other nationalities.

And don't forget the conclusion:

Since the Cold War, however, the United States’ military frontier has advanced much farther eastward. Regardless of how Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine ends, the United States has committed itself to sustaining a robust military presence on Russia’s doorstep. If alive today, Kennan would note the danger of cornering the Russians to the point where they might lash out. He would also gesture toward the United States’ multiple problems at home and wonder how this exposed presence in Eastern Europe accorded with the long-term foreign and domestic interests of the American people.

which mirrors my argument.

See also

Opinion | A Fateful Error (Published 1997)

George F Kennan Op-Ed article contends that expanding NATO would be 'most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era;' maintains that such decision would inflame nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion and have adverse effect on...

www.nytimes.com

But something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.

Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And, last but not least, it might make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma's ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry.

See what happens when you have a blinkered, neocon, simpleton view of the world?

 

[ralfy]

From

Why the US and Nato have long wanted Russia to attack Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has come at a substantial cost for Russia, with the country so far failing to achieve its military objectives and the Russian economy suffering under unp…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Having summarised the ambition of Putin and the Russian state, we return to the US and Nato strategy for Ukraine and Russia. I draw on an eye-opening essay by Joe Lauria, which fleshes out the US and Nato’s ulterior motives in the Ukraine crisis: to end the Putin regime and replace it with one friendly to and subordinate to the US.

The US strategy for regime change in Moscow has been long in preparation. In 2013 (before Ukraine’s President Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014) , Carl Gershman, Director of National Endowment for Democracy (NED), wrote: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” He explained that if it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-putin-admit-it#

Yet U.S. and European officials blew through one red light after another. George W. Bush began to treat Georgia and Ukraine as valued U.S. political and military allies, and in 2008, he pressed NATO to admit Ukraine and Georgia as members. French and German wariness delayed that endeavor, but the NATO summit communique affirmed that both countries would eventually achieve that status.

In his 2014 memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense in both Bush’s administration and Barack Obama’s, conceded that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.” That initiative, he concluded, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”

Finally,

Ukraine is changing the math for countries caught between the U.S. and China

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is finally forcing the EU to get real about reliance on authoritarian states.

www.politico.com

 

[Thaluikhain]

According to Carter, the U.S. western democracy is the most warlike in modern history:

Jimmy Carter: US ‘Most Warlike Nation in History of the World’

The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has called the United States “the most warlike nation in the history

www.counterpunch.org

It has been engaged in decades of coercing, manipulating, destabilizing, and attacking numerous countries:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

And that includes supporting numerous dictatorships, terror groups, and even organizations used to train military officials in the art of torture, like the School of the Americas.

It has more than 800 military installations worldwide and a military budget that eclipses those of other countries:

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military?

Over there.

www.politico.com

and is even the No. 1 arms dealer:

We’re #1: The U.S. Government is the World’s Largest Arms Dealer

The U.S. government is the world's largest arms dealer, and all too often it doesn't give adequate attention to who it is arming and how they use U.S. weapons.

www.forbes.com

Compared to the U.S., not only Russia but even China are rank amateurs.

And yet you conveniently sweep all of that under the group, assuming that this "Western democracy" has no other intention but to help those who are oppressed. Give me a break. Why do you think even its own allies are arguing that it intends to profit from this war?

Europe accuses US of profiting from war

EU officials attack Joe Biden over sky-high gas prices, weapons sales and trade as Vladimir Putin’s war threatens to destroy Western unity.

www.politico.eu

The war in Ukraine continues to rage on, but there's already one clear winner

Ukraine continues to need American weapons to hold out against Russia, and now a global military spending boom is set to further benefit the US arms industry. There are accusations of "profiteering", but is there any alternative?

www.abc.net.au

They're so estatic they are even pleased that they can use Ukrainians and Russians to "beta test" their new weapons!

For Western Weapons, the Ukraine War Is a Beta Test (Published 2022)

Though the battle for Ukraine remains largely a grinding artillery war, new advances in technology and training there are being closely monitored for the ways they are starting to shape combat.

www.nytimes.com

And what does the "democratic" Zelensky imagine? Create a big Israel?

Zelenskyy says wants Ukraine to become a ‘big Israel’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the main issue for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion ends will be security.

www.aljazeera.com

Sell off his own country to the same who are financing the war?

Zelenskyy, BlackRock CEO Fink agree to coordinate Ukraine investment

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have agreed to coordinate investment in rebuilding Ukraine, Kyiv announced Wednesday

www.cnbc.com

Don't kid yourself? Putin's atrocities are more than obvious, but those of the U.S. and even that of Ukraine?


Crickets!

Finally, since you mentioned The Guardian,

Ian Traynor: US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev

Analysis: Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by young democracy activists and will never be the same again.

www.theguardian.com

In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia | John Pilger

John Pilger: Washington's role in Ukraine, and its backing for the regime's neo-Nazis, has huge implications for the rest of the world

www.theguardian.com

I present that to show you how trolls work: they have such a blinkered view of the world they assume that Putin is bad, the U.S. and Ukraine is good, and that there is no reason for the invasion except that Russia wants to form an empire, and that's the end of the story. Anything before that is "history" or simply the "past," if not understandable.

That's propaganda.

As has been pointed out many times previously, the US's many, many misdeeds do not justify Russia killing Ukranians. It's possible to be against both the US's and Russia's warlike ambitions at the same time.

 

[Silvanus]

SNIP

So another vomitarium of links making general arguments about the US being shitty, as if that has any relevance (beyond whataboutism) to Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine. Quelle surprise.

Russia's actions did not challenge US dominance. Because in the case of Ukraine, Russian meddling always dwarfed US meddling, and Russia's invasion has simply driven more countries to seek safety from invasion with NATO.

 

[Ag3ma]

What Russia wants is independence for both but not separation.

I'm sorry, but this is both wrong and gibberish.

The rhetoric that's been coming out of Putin's cabal for 20 years makes any claim that the Russian regime believes Ukraine should be independent at best extraordinarily dubious. The aggressive Russification policies imposed on the occupied oblasts of Ukraine also give us some idea of Russia's vision for Ukraine: "Little Russia".

Secondly, "independence but not separation" is paradoxical. If Ukraine can be independent but only inasmuch as Russia thinks acceptable, then Ukraine is not truly independent, is it? And I very specifically put it that way, because they are not and never have been equal partners where Russia is interested in checking its policies for Ukrainian approval.

 

[Hades]

What Russia wants is independence for both but not separation. What Clinton wanted was to use Ukraine to attack Russia, and that's exactly what happened via NATO enlargement and regime change.

Russia has actually been on record that they think an independent Ukraine is completely unacceptable, and that any Ukraine that wishes for independence is practicing Nazism. They said that in the same article where they admitted that they wanted to ethnically cleanse the region once they conquered it.

Both the ''regime change'' and Ukraine's wish to join NATO originate solely from Putin's actions. If he hadn't paraded the Ukrainian president around as an anti Ukrainian puppet then he'd not have been ousted, and if Putin hadn't responded to this with extreme violence they wouldn't have needed NATO protection.

 

[Dalisclock]

Huh, I missed this before, from late March.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-23-2023

Yevgeny Prigozhin openly states that they're not fighting NATO in Ukraine, and that he doubts there are Nazis there.

Prigozhin is enjoying flicking Putin's nose for sure. Presumably he lives in an underground bunker with no windows.

 

[Silvanus]

From

Why the US and Nato have long wanted Russia to attack Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has come at a substantial cost for Russia, with the country so far failing to achieve its military objectives and the Russian economy suffering under unp…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-putin-admit-it#

Finally,

Ukraine is changing the math for countries caught between the U.S. and China

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is finally forcing the EU to get real about reliance on authoritarian states.

www.politico.com

Ooh, there are some other good quotes in there too;

"Since the 1990s, plans to reunite Ukraine and other post-Soviet states into a trans-continental superpower have been brewing in Russia. A revitalized theory of Eurasian empire informs Mr Putin’s every move".

"Russia’s Eurasia project [...] required, as an “absolute imperative”, total control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea. Ukraine had to become “a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state”. This is the ideology which motives Putin, which led him to declare Ukraine as “a colony with a puppet regime” on the eve of the invasion. This is the ideology which inspires and justifies his brutal war in his eyes."

"Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full‐scale invasion of Ukraine is a monstrous act of aggression that has plunged the world into a perilous situation. By any reasonable standard, his move was an over‐the‐top response to any Ukrainian or NATO provocations."



Truth is, most people here are already well aware that US foreign policy is shitty and meddling, and that NATO was playing with fire by offering membership after previously saying it wouldn't. You are bringing absolutely nothing new to anyone's attention by repeating those same tired talking points, ad-nauseum. Everyone has long acknowledged them.

Yet... at every single step of the way, Russia's aggression and coercion absolutely dwarf the transgressions of the US with regards to Ukraine. What you're doing is the equivalent of stepping into a discussion about the US-sponsored coup and subversion in Chile, and whining that the US was 'provoked' because some other countries meddled a bit as well, or pointing at relatively minor transgressions by the Chilean government as insinuated justifications. What-the-fuck-ever; the most coercive, controlling, imperial party was overwhelmingly the US. And here, it's Russia.

---

For instance: you keep reiterating the notion of Ukraine joining NATO as a betrayal of international confidence, since they had earlier agreed not to offer membership. Right? And yet.... no Ukrainian government actually did consider it a priority until after Russia annexed Crimea. Russia broke the legal agreement it had given Ukraine in 1994, for Ukraine to denuclearise in exchange for protection of its existing borders, including Crimea. Ukraine had never broken confidence on NATO in the 20 years from Budapest until Crimean annexation-- the only thing you've posted from pre-2014 was... Bush pushing it, and other members of NATO rebuffing his suggestion. Then Russia broke its international commitment from Budapest. Then, and only then, did the Ukrainian government add joining NATO as a priority.

 

[tstorm823]

That's what happens when you can't counter someone's arguments: suspect that it's a 'bot.

The rest of the people have countered your arguments repeatedly. You continue to post the same links and references repeatedly as though ignoring their responses is a counterargument. It's borderline spam.

 

[Hades]

The argument the US wanted Ukraine in NATO sounds....thoroughly irrelevant.

I mean if America wants Ukraine in Nato, and Ukraine wants to be in NATO then what's the problem with Ukraine getting in NATO? Since Russia is neither a member of NATO nor someone who has any right deciding for Ukraine their opinion on the matter just isn't relevant, only artificially made so because Russia responds with extreme violence when not getting what it wants.

 

[Ag3ma]

The argument the US wanted Ukraine in NATO sounds....thoroughly irrelevant.

The USA, Europe and NATO have stated that in principle Ukraine should be allowed to join NATO at some point, but in practice have been distinctly chilly about it happening any time soon. Europe has warmed to Ukraine's admission somewhat in the last year, but the USA is still very unenthusiastic.

I certainly don't think Ukraine can be admitted to NATO when it's in the middle of an ongoing conflict with Russia.