Because he (likely) doesn't live next to Russia. Its easy to have blind faith in Russia when you don't have to live next to that hellhole and suffer the consequence when Russia inevitably betrays that trust.
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
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Because he (likely) doesn't live next to Russia. Its easy to have blind faith in Russia when you don't have to live next to that hellhole and suffer the consequence when Russia inevitably betrays that trust.
I can sympathise, based on the premise that the US/west is evil (which, ok), it's not a huge jump to say that opposing the US/west is good, and that those countries/people/institutions that do so are good. Also, the US keeps saying that, say, North Korea is evil, while saying that the US isn't...and if they are lying about the latter, extending that to them lying about the former isn't a big jump either.
IIRC, I held similar beliefs during my angsty teens.
A lot of reasonable and well-informed and fairly moral people hold similar beliefs. And just won't listen to any sort of reason or logic on the issue, because their hatred of the US/west has moved beyond reason or logic.
IIRC, I held similar beliefs during my angsty teens.
A lot of reasonable and well-informed and fairly moral people hold similar beliefs. And just won't listen to any sort of reason or logic on the issue, because their hatred of the US/west has moved beyond reason or logic.
Absolutely, it is. Ukraine attempted to take several voluntary actions that Russia deemed unacceptable, as they threatened Russian hegemony over Ukraine. You will not get past the fact that Russian integration was dismally fucking unpopular in Ukraine; that European integration was vastly more popular; and that even Donbas voted strongly for independence from Russia.
It is following the popular wishes on this matter-- peacefully, and in accordance with the principle of self-determination-- that Russia (and yourself) find unacceptable. So the wishes of a hostile foreign state must be imposed at the barrel of a gun.
Their security was not threatened by anything Ukraine was doing. Or Georgia, or Moldova. Or even NATO. They were not attacked. There was no serious threat to their sovereignty or territory. Their alternative was simply that they don't invade their neighbours, in which scenario they'd still exist perfectly securely.
I'm glad you acknowledge that no state should have to sacrifice their own security in the current order, though-- by which token, Ukraine is fully justified in continuing to resist occupation and invasion.
Hmmm. They don't, though. Even those you've named above would find much of what you advocate to be either abhorrent or misdirected; Kennan was an cheerleader for containment who believed the Russian project to be inherently expansionist regardless of 'provocation'; and Chomsky supported allowing a self-determinant Ukraine to align with Western Europe so long as it didn't involve military bases (remember, the only military bases in Ukraine prior to this invasion were... Russian).
What you actually mean is that plenty of analysts have offered "realist" criticisms of US foreign policy. No shit. That does not, and did not, lead to the rank imperialist apologia you've tortuously stretched it to.
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Personally I don't recognize any difference between ''I fully support Russia's barbarity, their bloodthirsty and their desire to enforce fascism'' and ''I hate the US and THEREFORE I fully support Russia's barbarity, their bloodthirsty and their desire to enforce fascism''
Its a moral failing either way, and an active wish for the world to become worse with more wars, more extreme corruption and more fascists. After all everything they claim to hate about the US is present in much more extreme forms within Russia and they know this.
No, they operate on the premise that Russia is under threat by missile attack by NATO countries, and that the closer NATO missiles are placed to Moscow, the less time they will have to react to potential launches, which means the chances of a catastrophic mistake by either side are much greater and then the world as we know it may end. Which seems bad.
"Voluntary actions" like repeatedly reneging on treaties ratified by the UN Security Council after a Western-backed coup and maneuvering their military to attack the country's Russian ethnic minority.
No treaty ruled out NATO taking on new members. Whereas Russia has repeatedly broken actual legal commitments it has signed up to-- Budapest, Minsk.
And by "maneuvering their military to attack the country's Russian ethnic minority", you mean battling against a Russian-backed insurgency on their own territory, the precursor to invasion by a hostile state.
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Russian misdeeds against their neighbors predate NATO by centuries and its this history Putin openly draws justification from. Russia also has a very strong stance that they should control the internal affairs of their neighbors. This is not about NATO and never has been. That's why the trigger for this war was a trade deal with Europe rather than an open invitation to NATO.
Which has nothing to do with Ukraine because :
- No one wanted to position missiles in the Ukraine
- The issue Russia disapproved of was cooperation with the EU, not with NATO. There were a lot of EU and EU aligned countries without NATO which would have been the way forward for Ukraine
- Neither the Ukraine nor NATO wanted the Ukraine in the NATO.
- The distance between Moscow and actual NATO countries and between Ukraine and Moscow is roughly the same anyway
So that always was just an utter nonsense excuse. The only reason for the war is that Russia wants to conquer territory and population to claw back its lost superpower status.
And honestly, if that was the issue, Russia could have made peace all the time with a treaty that didn't allow NATO-troops in the Ukraine or didn't allow missiles there. It could still do it. Ukraine would always take such a peace instead of ceding territory to a conquerer.
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Prior to Russia's first invasion in 2014, that is. Poroshenko said in December 2014 they would work towards NATO membership, but this was in direct response to Russian invasion first.
Minsk I and Minsk II both collapsed because Ukraine did not fulfill their terms. The US and Germany both falsely guaranteed the treaties and Angela Merkel later admitted they were ruses meant to 'buy time'. Why would anyone trust the West at this point?
Peoples are allowed to no longer recognize a government, especially when it is overthrown and replaced at the direction of foreign powers, even when it is overthrown by "nationalists" at the behest of Europeans and the United States. That is self-determination. Sometimes that value comes into conflict with the stability of borders, especially when governments are overthrown by fascist street violence and legislators crack down on television stations, talk about banning languages, and repurpose organizations that venerate Nazis collaborators variously to police or deploy artillery against civilian populations.
Russia engaged diplomatically during and before 2022 on the issue of the undermining of its security (and consequently world security) with various proposals and was met with silence rather than any counterproposal such as that idea; Ukraine, with the approval of the West, had also just shamelessly broken its treaty requirements, so there is the issue of credibility and betrayal of trust. The Western reaction to the talks in Istanbul that ended around April of 2022 make it clear that the West wanted the war to continue no matter the ultimate outcome.
They say. And at the point that they did want to do that, if Ukraine were in NATO it would trigger nuclear armageddon if Russia sent more than strongly worded letters to prevent that happening. Russia would be utterly foolish to let that possibility flourish, and frankly no one else around the world should want that either. I would prefer not to rely on the honesty and good intentions of the United States and friends for the continued survival of the human race, thank you very much.
None of those proposels involved fucking off and compensating Ukraine, nor did any proposal involved Ukraine being granted any sort of sovereignty. All Russian proposals were designed about weakening and isolating Ukraine so the next invasion would be easier. Why would Ukraine accept dismanteling their army, isolating itself from allies and legalizing the idea their lands can be stolen if Russia will just invade again anyway?
Not even a token attempt to buy Crimea after the fact rather than keeping it stolen was made. Russia gave Ukraine and the wider world no proposal that could be worked with. In the meantime they also shot down a European plane and poisoned European citizens. Russia has not done anything to make normalizing relations possible yet.
Then perhaps Russia should just accept it has no inherent right to own their former victims, and that them insisting that they do still have that right is only going to escalate things. Russia doesn't even have the right to send strongly worded letters when their former victims seek protection from them, especially because Russia makes it clear that they have not changed and never will. Its still the same backwards, expansionist and violent regime it was under the Tsars and Soviets.
Rank revisionism. It was Russia that sent its military over the border while Minsk was supposedly in effect. It was Russia that unilaterally declared Minsk was over.
Indeed it would be, if expressed democratically. Yet that's not what happened: rather, a hostile foreign state sponsored an insurgency and eventually a full military occupation.
I love it when you sink to this, because it only ever highlights how abysmally worse Russia is in every one of these regards. Russia that operates the world's largest neo-fascist paramilitary; Russia that allows no independent reporting whatsoever, and whose state media calls for genocide every week.
You seem to believe media manipulation or fascist connections invalidate a government's legitimacy. Yet you flag-wave for the world's foremost perpetrator of both.
But of course, you don't actually believe such things delegitimise a government at all; these are just the same recycled talking points that imperialists use to justify occupation. Much like how Bush and Blair pointed to how evil the Islamists are, as excuse to seize their resources.
Ok, and which treaty does this contravene?
Ukraine-- the country that is actually being invaded, supposedly because of the danger of it joining NATO-- only expressed such an interest >6 years later, after already being invaded.
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A country starved by the USSR in the past wants to join an organization that protects it from being attacked is rational. I bet you wouldn't attack Ireland for wanting to be in BRICs, given its history with the UK.
Trump to offer Putin minerals for peace
US president will propose money-making opportunities to encourage Russia to end Ukraine war
Russia and the US are reportedly considering an ongoing occupation of Eastern Ukraine modelled on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank after 1967.
www.independent.co.uk
Under the West Bank model, Russia would not officially add Eastern Ukraine to its territory, but would continue its military occupation indefinitely and have economic control of the region. Ukrainians living there would have no ability to participate in either Russian or Ukrainian elections.
US and Russia suggest ‘West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine’
Russia would have both economic and military control of the occupied parts of Ukraine under the proposal
www.independent.co.uk
Under the West Bank model, Russia would not officially add Eastern Ukraine to its territory, but would continue its military occupation indefinitely and have economic control of the region. Ukrainians living there would have no ability to participate in either Russian or Ukrainian elections.