3 ms·
> the war truly could have been avoided (multiple times, even in the first week after Russia invaded) but Ukrainian "leadership" succumbed to foreign (US/UK) pr
by talldayo 2y ago
> the war truly could have been avoided (multiple times, even in the first week after Russia invaded) but Ukrainian "leadership" succumbed to foreign (US/UK) pressure.
If we want to play "woulda coulda shoulda", Ukraine arguably could have avoided this by not letting Russia repatriate Soviet weapons that could be used as deterrence. Ukraine used to have ICBMs that could strike deep into Russia, an obvious deterrent had they not been forced to give them up.
- somenameforme 2y agoUkraine never had control of those nukes. The USSR centralized control of all nuclear weapons and everything related to them (launch sequences, codes, etc). And that centralization remained within Russia. They could have tried to override the lockouts and somehow manage to get them working but it probably would have been met with global sanctions on top of an invasion from multiple countries. Their other choice is go the route they went - exchange the nukes for a bunch of money and some mostly meaningless pledges of good will. The reality of life is that in many situations you don't have a good option and a bad one, but rather a bad one and a terrible one. So demonstrating one choice is bad does not make the other inherently better. And when you're a small power stuck between two giants, this is the name of the game. See: Switzerland managing to remain neutral throughout both WW1 and WW2. A tiny little power pissing off both the Allied and Axis powers, leaving them standing completely alone? Clearly a bad decision, but also clearly the best decision. Same here.