7 ms·

I think this situation is sad for all involved, but I do feel a big part of the blame lies with the USA who have been expanding NATO closer and closer to Russia

• amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  Why are Russia wishes regarding who Ukraine allies with more important than Ukraine’s wishes?
  • wsc981 3y ago
    > Why are Russia wishes regarding who Ukraine allies with more important than Ukraine’s wishes? In this regard I think so yes. For stability in the world it's a better situation.
    • objektif 3y ago
      What are the wishes of Ukraine? Are you talking about Zelensky or People of Ukraine? Not very long ago US orchestrated a coup in the country so it is all meddled.
      • wsc981 3y ago
        Yes, it is all meddled. Victoria Nuland was one of the main orchestrators regarding the Ukraine coup, quite clear when hearing the leaked phone call in which see also stated "fuck the EU" (might help people find the audio when Googling).
        • objektif 3y ago
          [flagged]
          • lisasays 3y ago
            A spy, no. Just unfortunately living in the bubble of whatever blogs and other ideologically warped news sources you're reading. No one in (mainstream) Ukrainian society believes in the "coup" or attaches any special significance to that allegedly pivotal and far-reaching Nuland exchange.
            • objektif 3y ago
              Blogs? I am listening to experts instead of watching CNN and cheering for yet another war the US have pushed forward for. Here is an example for your education: https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t... When you say No one again who are you speaking on behalf of? People of Donbas?
              • lisasays 3y ago
                You know that just because some professor somewhere says something (in a way that makes it sound high-minded and respectable) -- that doesn't make it so, right?
                • objektif 3y ago
                  Correct and same applies to you me and everyone else. The bottom line is you are an idiot if you flat out deny the perspective of people who are more knowledgeable than you are on this topic.
  • runsWphotons 3y ago
    Imagine Mexico joined an alliance with China, complete with funding and transfer of weapons, that said any attack on any other Chinese aligned territory (or say taiwan) obligated Mexico to strike the US. This would never be tolerated in a million years. This doesn't make Russia in the right, but get real here---there are degrees of actual sovereignty, and few nations have class A shares.
    • lisasays 3y ago
      Except that -- given Ukraine's history vis-a-vis Russia since the 19th century -- that's nowhere near an appropriate analogy.
      • runsWphotons 3y ago
        Do you know about Texas?
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • lisasays 3y ago
          Enough, please. None of these ridiculous comparisons have anything to do with the current situation.
        • mrguyorama 3y ago
          Actually that's a great analogy. It would be like if the US tried to invade and conquer parts of Mexico and turn it into a new state in the year 2023. You know, that thing that will never fucking happen. We also invaded Canada a couple times back when we were dumber, but notice how Canada and Mexico are actually pretty pleased to be our allies, despite our faults, and they aren't seeking protection from foreign alliances to prevent us invading them again, because they largely believe we would never do that again, because the world is very different and we are very intertwined and wish to be cooperating countries.
          • 3y ago
• justrealist 3y ago
  NATO has been on Russia's borders via the Baltics for years. Ukraine adds nothing.
  • dragonwriter 3y ago
    NATO has been on the USSR's borders via Norway and (if you count air/sea borders without land borders) the United States since the day NATO was founded.
• imbusy111 3y ago
  Do you see Ukraine as a sovereign country, that can define its own future, or is it just a puppet state of Russia, like Belarus? Should we still allow redefining borders in Europe in the 21st century?
  • objektif 3y ago
    Did the US see it as a sovereign country when we orchestrated a coup? Obviously Russia is in the wrong about all this but you have to be able to understand the context here.
    • imbusy111 3y ago
      who is this "we"? what coup?
      • objektif 3y ago
        https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...
        • padjo 3y ago
          He seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that Putin would tolerate a prosperous de-Russified Ukraine. He must never have read any of Putin’s speeches about the glory of the USSR and how it was a mistake to allow Ukraine to be separated from Russia. A vassal state like Belarus is what they wanted but their decapitation attack failed. Now they’re stuck in a quagmire with no clear end in sight. So much for a master strategist
  • wsc981 3y ago
    > Do you see Ukraine as a sovereign country ... To be honest, I am not sure what sovereign means at this point. For example it seems most European countries are just lapdogs of US interests. Which was especially clear when US bombed to German pipeline and Germany acts like nothing has happened.
• lawn 3y ago
  > All of this could have been avoided if USA respected Russia's wishes regarding NATO expansion [0]. Nah, it would play out exactly as it did with Hitler before WW2. They would just keep taking countries until they were stopped. Russia has done more for NATO's expansion the last year than all other countries have done the last decade.
• kurthr 3y ago
  Wait, so it prevented the annexation of Crimea? The annexation of Georgia? Wouldn't this be more like the US annexing Cuba, or really Venezuela, because of Russian/Chinese influence? I mean they are "Violent Socialist pedophiles invading our boarders and poisoning our children", and it's really American Oil put there by God anyway? Again, propaganda doesn't need to make sense when is serves a political and economic purpose. My personal opinion is that dictatorships and democracies have a very hard time figuring each other out, which leads to great miscalculations. The dictator sees peoples elected representatives and decisions as great calculated moves, and seeks to threaten "the real power behind them". While democracies fail to plan (other than institutionally), but are driven by the beliefs of their populations, and need to be elected to make moves that are not "real politik".
• padjo 3y ago
  I love when people say the USA or UK pushed this war. Russia tried to perform a decapitation attack on Ukraine and failed. There was no reasonable cause for this, they just thought they could get away with it and keep Ukraine as a vassal state rather than let it turn west like the Baltics etc. Curious, do you think Russia is to blame at all for violating the terms of the Budapest Memorandum?
  • wsc981 3y ago
    I’d think you’d be naive to think Ukraine would not become a vassal state to the US if Ukraine can somehow manage to win this war. Because as far as I know US made huge loans to the Ukraine. Billions and billions of dollars. If Ukraine could manage to win the war, US will want payback for the loans. And I think payback will be in the form of resources. Perhaps US based multinationals like Monsanto taking over farmland or other companies exploiting resources. As I understand Ukraine is a very resource rich country and US pretty much only bothers to fight in countries with plenty resources. At this point US is still exporting oil from Syria. And I should note, the Syrian government doesn’t approve of US invasion in Syria, much like the Ukraine government doesn’t approve the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
    • padjo 3y ago
      When did the US invade Syria? How much of it did they annex?
      • wsc981 3y ago
        They control quite a large part of North-East Syria. US has been active in Syria now for many years. I think the numbers of US presence is wrong though, I read there’s about 900 soldiers present right now. https://i.redd.it/f1fa35f2es461.jpg https://i.redd.it/f1fa35f2es461.jpg
  • ghostwriter 3y ago
    > Curious, do you think Russia is to blame at all for violating the terms of the Budapest Memorandum? The Budapest Memorandum was predicated on adherence to all prior agreements Ukraine would never see sovereignty without in the first place [1]. Nobody would just let it go in peace without those prior agreements signed in 1990: >> The Ukrainian SSR ceremoniously proclaims its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, which will be out of military blocks and will be committed to three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, not to produce and not to acquire the nuclear weapon. (1990) << [1] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/en/55-12#Text https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/en/55-12#Text
• golergka 3y ago
  > USA who have been expanding NATO closer and closer to Russia's borders It's not NATO that have been expanding. It's sovereign countries that wanted to join. Why? Because they were afraid of exactly what happened to Ukraine. This war proves them right.
• sajforbes 3y ago
  I disagree for three reasons: 1. While Russia warned against NATO expansion, it wasn't (and still isn't) in their power to do anything to stop it. Its actions have resulted in the expansion of NATO, a reasonably forseeable result. 2. NATO is a defensive only alliance, and can't be invoked for an invasion of Russia. If their concern is the ability of the US to store missiles and other military gear on its border, too late - the Baltics are already members. It would be an odd choice to invade purely based on the likely future expansion of an alliance that is designed to prevent you from invading its members. 3. NATO expansion or no, an independent, westward-leaning Ukraine is not an acceptable outcome. This would make NATO expansion irrelevant or at best an ancillary cause. It's also worth noting it's not like this is the first time Russia has invaded and occupied one of its neighbours. AFAIK Georgia wasn't about to join NATO. We can't see counterfactual universes, but in my view an equally valid possibility is that NATO has stopped what is happening in Ukraine from happening in the Baltic states. Overall the facts don't line up well with the theory that this is a response to NATO expansion, and therefore the US is to blame - it might be a factor, but more serves as a rhetorical justification Russia can use that it knows people in the US and UK can use domestically. If you're a realist about international relations it's pretty easy to see why the UK and US might see it as in their geostrategic interest to prolong the war, and that might have been a factor. It's also worth noting there was a huge amount of public pressure for both to react. Either way, in their view, a longer war is worth it for a pro-western Ukraine, and Ukraine seems to agree. As for acting to prevent an agreement, that's largely speculation, but either way, the final choice was still Ukraine's.
  • jcranmer 3y ago
    > 2. NATO is a defensive only alliance, and can't be invoked for an invasion of Russia. If their concern is the ability of the US to store missiles and other military gear on its border, too late - the Baltics are already members. It would be an odd choice to invade purely based on the likely future expansion of an alliance that is designed to prevent you from invading its members. It's worth noting that the Soviet equivalent to NATO was the Warsaw Pact, whose largest military operation was invading a member because they wanted to leave. While ostensibly a collective defensive alliance, like NATO, the Soviets treated it as a tool of binding its sphere of influence together, and it would not surprise me if the current Russian leadership sees NATO the same way, a tool by which the US government coerces its sphere of influence to do its bidding. (Needless to say, this is not an accurate view of NATO, but I suspect it is the view that Russia has of it.)
• dragonwriter 3y ago
  > All of this could have been avoided if USA respected Russia's wishes regarding NATO expansion No, the Russo-Ukrainian war that has been active since 2014 could not have been, and the reason I know this to 100% certainty is because the US and NATO did accede to Russia’s request to not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans to set the path for NATO membership in 2008, which was followed immediately (less than two months, IIRC) by Russia invading Georgia, and in 2014—with a Ukrainian government that had disclaimed interest in NATO largely because of the 2008 action—Russia following up with an invasion of large parts of Ukraine, starting the war. If anything, NATO showing it was willing to abandon Ukraine and Georgia is what greenlit both wars.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]