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Apart from everything else: Last time Russia invaded Ukraine they shot down a civilian air plane that was travelling from the Netherlands to Malaysia (MH17). A war between Russia and Ukraine would not just affect those two countries.

I don’t think the U.S. gives a honest fuck about Ukraine per se. If Russia has a free ticket to invade Ukraine that establishes casus belli to invade pretty much all other former soviet states. Plus, Russia itself is drumming it up to get US attention. They want NATO to scale down. They want US assets to be outside its “sphere of influence”. They know pretty well that the west doesn’t have any appetite for a war with Russia at the moment. The threat of invasion is a mere bargaining chip to get its demands.

> If Russia has a free ticket to invade Ukraine that establishes casus belli to invade pretty much all other former soviet states.

What casus belli would that establish?

I cannot find a casus belli in that regard, either. While the Ukraine is supported by the West and has some multilateral agreements and contracts with it, it's not part of NATO or the EU, while a lot of the former soviet states are. Russia declaring open war against NATO or EU is not something Putin is stupid/narcissistic enough to do.

A lot of the former soviet states outside of the NATO and EU sphere are furthermore already defacto under Russia's thumb, so there is little incentive for Russia to invade, and NATO/EU/US who could invade wouldn't either because they lack the ground to justify this internationally and/or to their own populations and really would have very little gain from it. Aside from recent (partially) failed campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the West in general considering China the bigger threat anyway, all of which would make any politicians think trice about invading former soviet states.

If Russia invaded the main Ukraine, things would still get pretty "interesting". It might push the Baltic states and even Poland over the edge, in turn resulting in a NATO and EU casus foederis, and open war against Russia at worst. An invasion of the Ukraine by Russia thus could become a casus belli, just in the other direction.

> What's the US's business?

Collective self-defense in the presence of indications of aggressive action by Russia which appears to be rapidly approaching imminence; the US (and other partners of Ukraine) are communicating how Russia can do to show that that appearance is in error if, in fact, it is.

> The US is on the other side of the globe. Why do they have an opinion?

The US and Ukraine are security partners short of formal allies via the OSCE, NATO’s special bilateral partnership with Ukraine, direct US-Ukraine bilateral partnership, etc.

> Collective self-defense in the presence of indications of aggressive action by Russia

Sure, but that's only true from the US's perspective. From the Russia's perspective, NATO is trying to expand, which would also expand the US's military bases. And THAT can also be treated as aggression. Unless I'm missing something, but despite me being a Ukrainian, I kinda understand why Russia is doing what they do.

> Sure, but that's only true from the US's perspective

You asked what the US interest was, that is a question about the US perspective.

> From the Russia's perspective, NATO is trying to expand, which would also expand the US's military bases.

So?

Even assuming that's true, trying to expand a defensive alliance isn't an aggressive act under international law.

> And THAT can also be treated as aggression.

That's true in the trivial sense that any nation can treat anything as anything else, ultimately constrained only by the willingness of other parties to use force to constrain that behavior and the willingness of its own subject population to obey the leadership, but there's not even the beginning of an argument from international law that that is valid.

(The usual argument that it is even a cognizable wrong—and which still wouldn't make it actual or imminent aggression—is that it both violates a commitment the US made at the time of German unification not to expand NATO further East and that it would put Russia in an indefensible position and later be used to enable aggression against Russia. The first part of that, though, is just simply false: no such promise was ever made. The second part is speculative and distant.

> Unless I'm missing something, but despite me being a Ukrainian

Am I missing something, you are low-key justifying Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Its funny how you twisted the whole thing to 'show' this from russian point of view.

Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place, but maybe you heard about Donbass region and all of those poor lost russian soldiers coerced into up helping Russian separatists for almost TEN YEARS!

I wonder why would Ukraine want to join Nato... hmmm it makes no sense. It must be to spite Kremlin.

> Am I missing something, you are low-key justifying Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yes, you are missing something.

> Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place.

That is simply not true. Messing with Ukrainian democracy has started on April 3, 2008, after the Bucharest Summit, with the NATO's Declaration that it welcomes Ukraine's and Georgia's Europe Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. That was a direct threat to Russia and they made it perfectly clear, same as the Monroe's Doctrine makes it perfectly clear that nobody, not a single country, is allowed to move military forces to the western hemisphere (say in Cuba), because it becomes a threat to the US. The decision at the Bucharest Summit led to a war in Georgia and Maidan in Ukraine. Prior to that, there was zero threat from Russia whatsoever.

Since the west keeps pushing on the NATO's expansion (which is part of their strategy, along with promoting democracy and expanding the EU), Putin gives the US two choices: either Ukraine goes back to a pre-2014 state of being a neutral player OR Russia will wreck the country. So the root cause is not Putin being out of his mind, but the aggressive US's strategy to expand NATO. Once again, despite me being a Ukrainian, Putin's strategy is perfectly clear to me.

> Messing with Ukrainian democracy has started on April 3, 2008,

Aha, checks out. Welcome to HN Internet Research Agency employee

I left Ukraine in 2013, but putting that aside, how else are you going to learn something without doing a research?

Didn't Russians themselves say that they want to negotiate with nobody else but the US? I think initially they specifically said they want to avoid talking with the EU...

Ukraine shares a border with four NATO countries, so US military interests are very close indeed.

Russia also shares a water border with the US (Alaska). The Bering Strait is "only" 83km (51mi) across; e.g. there are currently 5 bridges longer than that (all in China).

Largely that Europe is relatively small and can be traversed quickly by mechanized armor, as Nazi Germany showed in WW2. The U.S. is worried that an aggressive Russia could quickly roll over Poland, Germany, and France, conquering all of Europe in short order. Having Ukraine be NATO-aligned means that any such war preparations would have to start from Russia itself instead of Ukraine, which adds an additional 500 miles. Crucially, this is just about the combat radius of a modern airplane, which means that if Ukraine is NATO-aligned, a war in Europe could not get Russian air support until they rebuild airfields in conquered territory, while if it is part of Russia, Germany/Italy/Austria/Czechia/Croatia/etc are all within range of Russian airstrikes.

Basically it comes down to mistrust. I suspect that thinking on the Russian side is symmetric, and they don't actually have any plans to attack Western Europe but are worried that a NATO-aligned Ukraine could be a base for Western aggression against Moscow.

...And then that relates to another issue. For the average citizen, rules are rules, borders are borders, and why would you want to attack another country that's minding its own business? For rulers of these countries, rules are just guidelines, and the only thing that matters is power, because how do you think they got to be rulers of those countries in the first place? They're the ones that make the rules, after all, so of course the rules are mutable. And that's why military & political leaders worry about things like balance of power, because at that level power is what determines what does and doesn't happen.

Off topic, but you just reminded me of the classic game Balance of Power, by Chris Crawford. He has some very interesting thoughts on global political power plays that definitely influenced me as a 20-something.

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-...

There are probably various (good or bad) economic reasons for the interest, but the fact that NATO borders both Ukraine and Russia is probably a big part of it.

Because of an organization named NATO.

Military Complex thing. Afghan and Iraq winding down with huge loses to American taxpayers (meaning you) but windfall for those in weapon industries. It was suppose to be Libya and Ukraine but Barry got outmanuevre by Putin back then. Now they got their wish to do war (probably 2 simultabeously as rumor that China seems to be coordinating with Russia).