Hiroshi Mikitani, founder of Rakuten gave $8.7 million to Ukraine. Maybe he thought his government is not doing enough. So, even ordinary citizens might feel the same.
Not only has Germany not supplied weapons until yesterday, it has even prevented other NATO countries from sending them weapons that they received from Germany in the 1990s. Thankfully our government finally caved in yesterday.
I guess Germany was under pressure from Putin regarding their gas dependency from Russia. The decision to deliver weapons after all was also a decision to accept Gas prices rising 10x fold next winter. Germans will pay quite dearly, since most of them use gas for heating.
My brainwashed Russian relatives think that their army is there to "protect" the population from the "modern Nazi", all the while not being able to see that their self-appointed czar is the actual Nazi (which I don't think is an exaggeration anymore).
What many Germans don’t seem to realise yet is the massive changes they are in for. Some consequences are evident already now, e.g. gas rationing next winter. Many other, still hidden consequences will emerge in the next four weeks as the sanctions kick in. German and Russian economic ties went deep, their rupture will not come easy.
The price might be worth paying but I hope all those Germans who were angry at their government for not delivering weapons sooner will accept those consequences with the same enthusiasm.
Not delivering weapons to any war zone has been a holy principle for German politics since 1945. Never war again war has had a strong foothold. Even now I grown up in this tradition would ask, is it better to lose the war or more lives. Putin might invade the country now, but he will not stay there forever. Most of Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries show that. Even Eastern Germany.
Germany's dependency on Russian gas is a different problem. They don't dare to do much. Now delivering weapons might prolong and intensify the fights. If the pipeline (it passes through Ukraine!) gets destroyed they don't need to dare to stop financing Putin's war. They will need to solve the problem how to heat their homes.
(German living abroad.)
Today it’s Russia, but they will have to follow through with China, too, plus a few other countries (gulf states e.g.).
Germany along with other countries of NATO will be forced to militarize which will cost way more than abandoning Russian exports.
Ukraine is fighting now for less militarized and endangered Europe.
I agree that sometimes it's better to loose a war. Just not this one.
I hope somebody else can appreciate the irony of this sentence like I do, given that the cause of the conflict is military NATO expansion towards east.
You can look up articles from 2008 and see that even Germany (Angela Merkel) was adamantly opposed to Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO, because there was no credible threat from Russia and she knew this would create instability in Europe. The fact that there was no credible Russian threat is easily confirmed if you do a Google search for "ukraine russia" before 2008: you hardly find anything noteworthy. The whole narrative only changed around 2014.
Now we're at the situation where the Ukrainian people, and also Russians and the entire Europe (at least economically), are paying huge costs because we couldn't avoid seconding foolish US foreign policy choices.
All this bullshit about "NATO expansion eastward" that "Putin warned against" - LOL, this is no "NATO expansion", this is "free sovereign states joining NATO by their own volition to get protection from aggressors", and Putin's opinion doesn't matter at all and his "warnings" only reveal him as the bully aggressor he is.
His place is to sit home and accept what Ukraine's elections decide. He should've thought out his actions and shouldn't have done things that made Ukrainians want to join NATO and EU if he is afraid (more like paranoid) of NATO being too close.
> You can look up articles from 2008 and see that even Germany (Angela Merkel) was adamantly opposed to Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO, because there was no credible threat from Russia
This shortsightness is exactly what got us into this mess. It was crystal clear in 2008 that this is what Russia will do if the pro-Russian government withers away, but business was more important to Germany.
> The whole narrative only changed around 2014.
No, you're very out of touch. Ukrainians wanted freedom, democracy and end of corruption since forever - but they were silenced by the old government.
It seems that many in Europe hoped to turn a blind eye in return for economic success. I hope much can be recovered and ties restored, but probably not while Putin is at the helm.
Stop swallowing Putin propaganda wholesale.
You can watch this to familiarize yourself with historical context of Russia-Ukraine relationships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK-yJD_fAtk
That's just not true.
> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.
This is from the 2008 Bucharest NATO meeting official declaration. [1]
[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
Whay I fail to still see is how it in any shape or form justifies what Putin is doing.
It explains way better why he decided wage war that will be devastating to Rusian economy that wasn't doing so well already.
This and access to Ukraine resources because resources is what Russia earns their money from.
That's why he believes sanctions won't be such a big deal in the long run. He thinks Ukraine resources will balance out costs of war.
Talking about NATO agression on Russia is pure and simple propaganda. NATO is a defensive alliance and there's no way USA or anyone could convince other members to invade Russia in peace time.
To large parts of Eastern/Northern Europe, it is either be part of a pretty good (but admittedly imperfect) NATO defence alliance - or have your sovereignty threatened by Russia.
You seriously think the Baltic states would be independent today, if they had not gained NATO membership?
If Ukraine can stand up (which I'd hope, but don't really believe) and Putin thinks the same way you think he will use nuclear weapons. And he has said clearly that he thinks the current Ukraine is a threat to the survial of Russia. Which is of course nonsense, but that doesn't matter.
The better support Ukraine gets the closer we are moving to a nuclear war. I'm not sure to say don't support them. But don't underestimate the danger of Putin.
As said in many places, Putin will go to history the worst aggressor in Europe since Hitler already. He might have committed economic suicide for Russia already. So don't be so sure he doesn't extend the suicide any further.
But if Putin would be seen as a brutal murderer by many russians, then chance are that there are some who could try to assassinate him, like there were many assassination attempts to Hitler.