8 ms·

I still dont understand why Russia started all of this, why drag Europe into another world war scenario for a few villages? They could have played as kingmaker

• f6v 3y ago
  I could explain their line of thinking, but the post would be downvoted and labeled as propaganda. It’s not that I agree or approve what’s going on. On the contrary, it has a detrimental impact on me. But even trying to explain the Russian rationale isn’t welcomed. It’s ought to be illogical from the Western perspective, because then you can easily explain why the population has to rally behind Ukraine, e.g. fighting pure evil.
  • Etherlord87 3y ago
    misja111 does something similar above and isn't downvoted. So no, as long as you don't rationalize russians as the good guys, and as long as your arguments aren't (even if neutrally) ridiculous, I don't think you will be downvoted.
  • bamboozled 3y ago
    [flagged]
• playingalong 3y ago
  Their loss of Nordstream2 was likely unplanned. But the lives on either side? I don't think it was important to Putin in any sense. Maybe as human resources mgmt for army recruitment.
• cm2187 3y ago
  I don’t think Putin would have gone ahead if he expected this fierce resistance from Ukraine and the strong reaction of the west. Most wars start by one or multiple parties miscalculating the cost of the war. Starting with the two WW.
  • rainworld 3y ago
    As he said recently [0], they would have done it earlier. And they wouldn’t have bothered with attempting coercion. [0]: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/15/7441937/ https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/15/7441937/
    • cm2187 3y ago
      You are not going to get any leader to declare publicly they regret having started a war, even in the fuming rubbles of their own cities.
      • rainworld 3y ago
        Probably not, no.[0][1] Thus the war shall continue. [0]: http://archive.today/2024.02.01-224034/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraines-birth-rates-are-plummeting-the-next-generation-needs-a-plan-jhf3lf0km http://archive.today/2024.02.01-224034/https://www.thetimes.... [1]: https://reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-likely-recession-bundesbank-says-2024-02-19/ https://reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-likely-recession-...
• DarkNova6 3y ago
  The ruling Elite are former KGB members who were socialized during the Soviet era. They only know territory and power as currency and now that they own all of the country they don't need to put a mask on (just watch some of the Tucker Carlson interview, where Putin goes back 700 years trying to justify his war in Ukraine). It's pretty well established by now that Putin (and his closest allies): 1: Fully believed bad-faith reporting from their security services about Ukraine. 2: Underestimated the extend by which the west was willing to help. 3: The sheer resistance of the Ukraine military. Especially #1 can't be easily disregarded, as the leading security office tasked with subduing UA had its upper leadership entirely purged after the first assault had failed. Before the war, Russia had two possibilities: Align further with the west or become a vassal of China. Edit: I would appreciate to know why I'm being downvoted. I'm all open to hear more substantial information on this topic.
  • Etherlord87 3y ago
    > Before the war, Russia had two possibilities: Align further with the west or become a vassal of China. And now it has just one :)
• andyjohnson0 3y ago
  Its not really about money - Putin and his friends are already extremely rich. It's about the acquisition of power by recreating the historical Russian empire.
• michaelt 3y ago
  > I still dont understand why Russia started all of this, why drag Europe into another world war scenario for a few villages? Russia's capture of the Crimea ~10 years ago went exceptionally well for them. Russian special forces struck an essentially unprepared country, got control of a number of cities and key chokepoints, and forced the parliament at gunpoint to vote in favour of annexation, and ran a sketchy referendum with 97% support for annexation - all essentially before organisations like the EU even realised what was going on. Then, presented with a fait accompli, other european nations could either start a war with Russia or not, and they chose not to. Presumably Putin thought capturing the rest of Ukraine would go just as easily.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• konschubert 3y ago
  Everybody has a story why he cannot be happy right now. Putins story is that he cannot be happy unless Russia controls the world. In other words: If your nation is your identity, then the meaning of life becomes to expand your nation.
• justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > for a few villages sigh This is a perfect example of "I support Ukraine! (don't even bother to learn what it is and never knew)" Do yourself a favour, go to Wikipedia and learn about Donetsk, at least. >> Donetsk [...] The population was estimated at 901,645 (2022 estimate)[4] in the city core, with over 2 million in the metropolitan area (2011). According to the 2001 census, Donetsk was the fifth-largest city in Ukraine.[5]
  • Moldoteck 3y ago
    yes but why again? It's not like they needed all of this. They have literally tons of all types of fuel & tons of other resources in demand and their population isn't exactly small
  • questinthrow 3y ago
    So they started a war for a city they already controlled prior to the war? Thats very interesting
    • Etherlord87 3y ago
      There is some ambiguity here that doesn't help in a fruitful conversation: many people say the war started in 2022. I disagree, I think it started in 2014.
• 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  According to Putin in his latest interview and a few US geopolitical analyst among others, it was because of NATO expansion. Also see [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations
  • questinthrow 3y ago
    If this is the reason, why didnt they invade Finland before it got into NATO?
    • 4gotunameagain 3y ago
      Because Russia was already fighting the war in Ukraine, which is why Finland joined NATO ? I presume the Mutual defence clause of the European Union played a role as well.
      • lostmsu 3y ago
        So the answer appears to be not due to NATO, but because they thought they could win.
        • 4gotunameagain 3y ago
          Haha really ? If someone came and slapped you in the face but: a) he is 90 kilos full of muscle b) he is a lanky 55 kilos would your reaction be the same ? it is not a perfect analogy of course, but I want to point out the flaw in your reasoning.
          • mopsi 3y ago
            No, this is perfect analogy. Russia attacks those who are weak. Hence why everyone from the polar circle down to the Mediterranean have joined NATO.
            • 3y ago
• misja111 3y ago
  I'm playing the devil's advocate now, but: - economically Russia has been doing surprisingly well since the war started. The EU sanctions drove the gas price through the roof last year so Russia could make billions selling it to countries like India and China - the earlier invasion of the Crimea went pretty smoothly and there were hardly any repercussions - one of Putin's arguments for starting the war, was that it was to stop the Nato from expanding towards its borders. This argument is not new, Russia also brought it up in 2008 when there was talk about Georgia joining Nato. At that time Russia was able to succesfully overthrow the Georgian government and invade it for a 'peace mission'. So why not do the same thing again? (This one backfired badly to Putin of course, with Finland and probably also Sweden joining Nato)
  • Etherlord87 3y ago
    > - economically Russia has been doing surprisingly well since the war started. The EU sanctions drove the gas price through the roof last year so Russia could make billions selling it to countries like India and China The counter argument to that seems so obvious I'm surprised I have to write it down: If you're a government official and pass a law that in a month a cinema will be demolished - the cinema is going to increase its revenue a lot in that month. There are multiple reasons why, for example: 1) People who planned to go to a cinema two months later have to go there sooner. russian resources are cheap, and so people rushed to buy them BEFORE the sanctions will in effect. 2) The cinema might be selling popcorn cheaper in order to sell all its stock. Plus it's not buying new resources for the following months, so operation costs lower. In case of russia, they were incentivized to sell the resources cheaply; this doesn't necessarily mean cheaper than before, but normally at a surge of demand you increase prizes and that didn't happen here. Understanding this is just a temporary surge, and moreover, the trade might fall down considerably below the before-surge times, russia likely scaled its resource industry down, not up. So it was good for russia in the short term, but everyone, even in russia that is full of propaganda, recognized hard times are coming. > - the earlier invasion of the Crimea went pretty smoothly and there were hardly any repercussions Look at the history of USD to RUB exchange. > - one of Putin's arguments for starting the war, was that it was to stop the Nato from expanding towards its borders. This argument is not new, Russia also brought it up in 2008 when there was talk about Georgia joining Nato. Georgia has an order of magnitude smaller population than Ukraine. I think what's even more important is size and logistical problems. Was it really so hard to see that before the war?
• jemmyw 3y ago
  I agree that they were in a stronger political position before the war. Even if they win they probably lose, just by having exposed so much about their military strength, way of operating, internal politics etc. I would say they've ceded global influence to China. I don't see any of the comments discussing the reason I think they felt the need to do this, even though my opinion is not unique it does seem minority. It was only partially about NATO expansion into Ukraine, and not the defence side of that, it was more about EU membership, and it was even more about Ukrainian politics and society. Ukraine has slowly been moving from a corrupt Russian like state to more resemble an eastern European EU member. Long way to go but the direction was clear from 2014 when Russia first rumbled, and it has accelerated since. With that in mind, Ukraine presents a clear threat to Putin's regime. The potential of Russians seeing the country next door, of similar people with shared heritage and lots of social cross over, transition to a less corrupt, more democratic, western influenced nation. And if Ukraine had managed to join the EU there would have been a flood of investment, which while bringing its own problems I'm sure, would have improved the lives of Ukrainians. A demonstration of "throw out your corrupt leaders and see what you can have". So the war is to nullify that, and even if it did not pan out in the way Putin had hoped, it's still succeeded in pushing away that particular threat. Even if the west now gives proper support to Ukraine defence, and follows it up with a rebuild, the war has split Ukrainian and Russian social linkage.
  • rainworld 3y ago
    https://youtu.be/eQ4e1A-LZEA https://youtu.be/eQ4e1A-LZEA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Directorate_of_Intelligence_(Ukraine)#/media/File:Emblem_of_the_Defence_Intelligence_of_Ukraine.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Directorate_of_Intelligen... A bloody eighty-year+ history of using Ukrainian nationalism against the Soviet Union/Russia and yet people waffle about “freedom”, “democracy”—the works. I still dont understand Step 1: Don’t get high on your own supply. Anyone’s supply.
    • dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
      You say that, but then you have the posting history that bears more than a little resemblance to a standard Russian troll.
• KevinMS 3y ago
  Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 spoiler: issues around Ukraine neutrality
  • dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    Ukraine's neutrality is irrelevant.