Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcranmer | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine is an independent country, and that gives it the right to manage its own foreign policy. Russia is upset that Ukraine, like almost every other post-Soviet country, would rather be in the US/EU sphere of influence than the Russian sphere of influence, but that is Russia's problem, not Ukraine's problem.

View on HN

To add to this, this is entirely Russia’s fault. Before the invasion of crimea eastern, former soviet countries, were more pro-russia and against the “west”. Obviously nobody likes to interact with someone annexing parts of countries, and displacing many civilians, or even worse. So to nobodies surprise the tides turned and the majority in Ukraine and other countries are now pro joining the Nato.

Being in someones sphere of influence is not independence. And no one is going to give away something they need for free.

Ukraine does not manage its membership in NATO or in EU. It is the sovereign right of NATO members to decide on expansion policy and they have no intention currently to offer membership to Ukraine. For some weird reason they are at the same time not ready to commit to that, just because this will look like it's happening due to pressure from Russia. Childish.

Commit to what? Never letting Ukraine in? That's an unreasonable ask. Meanwhile, they don't have to say anything about letting Ukraine in now: they're demonstrably not.

Why on Earth is that unreasonable? Any political arrangement that will serve the needs of the existing members should stay on the table. If from defense perspective non-expansion agreement complemented by arms control treaties is better, then we should take it. Ukraine may still end in a better position in such case.

You said it yourself: arrangements shouldn't be taken off the table. They're not going to be in NATO any time soon. A commitment never to allow them in, though, makes no sense other than to placate Russia.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com