I dont want Ukraine to be pro Russian but I dont want Kyiv to be shelled more. I dont want a nuclear war more.
It absolutely is a bullying tactic, but it's also the desperate act of a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).
You cant accept every argument someone makes. Because they’ll realize it in short order and then make stupid arguments to manipulate you.
“Russia needs to protect itself from Ukraine” is a dishonest, stupid argument.
NATO does want to threaten it. NATO does want Ukraine to join and Ukraine wants to join it.
NATO's ability to threaten Russia from Ukraine's border would jump considerably.
They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.
I'm frankly appalled at the number of times I have had people tell me that Ukraine "would never have joined NATO". It was well on its way to membership.
Im also terrified at the number of people willing to be dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO trying to secure a strategic advantage on Russia's border.
Why is NATO fucking with a nuclear power?? Russia isnt Libya. Russia can destroy us.
> They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.
Are you truly so stupid that you don't understand what you're replying to, or do you just think everyone else here is, so they'll buy your pro-Putin talking points?
The point was that if Ukraine joins NATO, that's not because of NATO actively trying to expand eastwards but because Ukraine themselves have been begging to be admitted. You know, almost as if they were an independent nation that decides for itself which alliances it will (try to) join, not someone else's "border", satellite, puppet, or general plaything... Oh well, I take back the "you know" bit, because this concept of sovereignty for any country near Russia seems as impossible to grasp for you as it is for Putin.
> ...dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO...
Keep trying to shift the blame. Only Putler's Russia is dragging the world down that path.
Seems to have already succeeded in dragging you down the garden path.
And what does Ukraine need? Ukraine needs to protect itself from Russia.
Can't you stop echoing Putler's lies, please? Thank you.
I'm failing to see the threat of NATO to Russia otherwise. NATO only ever goes against dictators and acts of ethnic or religious cleansing and such things as territorial conquest, etc.
But even given Putin, his regime having access to Nuclear Weapons, I still doubt NATO is a threat. Look at North Korea, even though US has military bases in South Korea, no one is touching North Korea.
So in my opinion, it's pretty clear to me the whole NATO thing is false pretense and justification hiding an ulterior motive, very similar to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Let me know if there's something I don't know otherwise.
NATO invaded Libya after promising to leave it alone after stopping their nuclear weapons program.
NATO supports Saudi Arabia's war of aggression against Yemen. I shouldnt have to remind you that Saudi Arabia is run by a brutal dictator.
NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.
It's has always threatened Russia. It will always threaten Russia. Putin is staking everything on this war in a desperate attempt to push back that threat with one hand on the nuclear button, making it abundantly clear that all we have to do is back off.
We're not the ones doing the invading.
> NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.
Only to the extent of defending against Russian aggression.
> It's has always threatened Russia.
How can it, when it provides a path for Russia to join them? A path which Russia never seriously pursued.
Russia demanding Ukraine to never join amounts to demanding that Ukraine must remain relatively defenseless against Russian attack.
Blood has been spilled earning freedom from tyrany ever since people have existed. Because it was worth it. Because it was cheaper than continuing to pay the price in blood of tolerating tyrany. Blood will continue to be spilled in the name of freedom for as long as people continue to tyranize each other, because it will continue to, at some point, be worth it.
It might be cheaper over the long run to keep freedom than to constantly abandon it - and then only later, when it is much more difficult to effect change, to attempt to reclaim it. But even that may not be an option, for many are too stubborn or ignorant to learn from the mistakes of history or others - no, they must make the mistake themselves, and leave it to their children to pay the price.
If it were about democracy NATO would respect the results of the crimean referendum (if pew research says thats what 90% of crimeans want and it does im inclined to believe them).
We are not the good guys bringing peace, freedom and democracy to the world. We are an empire threatening another empire along its most exposed border at the exact point where it was almost defeated by the Nazis.
Belief that our leaders are the bringers of peace, freedom and democracy is going to end very, very badly. Our leaders want power.
Sure. For some carefully chosen definition of "Crimeans".
Was that poll held before (which I doubt) or after (like the infamous "referendum") Russia had invaded, transported out hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tartars, and shipped in as many Russian national(ist)s to replace them?
Listen, man: I suppose it's possible that you somehow are neither intentionally peddling Putin's propaganda, nor a dimwitted dupe who has hook-line-and-sinker fallen for it. But as you must have noticed by now, quite a lot of us here think you come off very much as if you belong to at least one of those categories. Maybe you ought to have a good long think about why that is, and whether perhaps it's you who should open your eyes and rethink your values?
No it’s not. Not if being at peace means being subjugated by a despot.
You’re a fool.
I have friends and family who are suffering because of this. I dont use my words lightly.
Hearing westerners cheerlead for this war is painful, most especially when it could have been prevented just by saying NATO ends at the western Ukrainian border.
What is it about Putin's lie about being willing to stop an invasion if NATO ruled out Ukraine ever joining that makes it any more convincing than the others?
Attitudes like yours are far, far more responsible for the suffering of your friends and family than anything NATO ever did, and not because NATO members haven't done a lot wrong in other theatres of war.
* The sheer overwhelming strategic significance of the Ukrainian border. It is where Russia almost lost to the Nazis.
* His willingness for Russia to endure such an extreme cost. Russia will pay dearly for this invasion and we have watched him for 20 years enough to know that minimizing cost and acting in a rational, measured and brutal manner is the norm.
* The fact that if this goes badly he could very well have his head on a stake. Russia paying dearly very much puts his personal safety at stake.
I wouldnt believe a deadbeat liar telling me that he'll have my money by Friday, but if he's telling me to back off or he'll punch me I will.
The extreme stakes make it far more likely that he wants the expansion he made the declaration of war speech about (and even more to crushing the idea of a potential successful large democracy full of Russian speakers), not an empty promise concerning something that wasn't likely to happen anyway and is of little interest except in ensuring ease of invading Ukraine. The Ukraine border is of zero strategic value to NATO since they're not remotely interested in or capable of mounting a ground invasion against a nuclear power whose terrain is where world conquerors go to die (and pretty much the only conceivable circumstance where they might have done it is in response to Russia invading Ukraine... the thing he actually did). They don't exactly have happy memories of fighting in Finland either, which is where their border with a newly galvanised NATO will end up instead.
It's even more transparently bullshit version of the preemptive defence doctrine than WMDs in Iraq, to the extent he had to manufacture a secondary excuse for domestic consumption because even a public that buys the idea he's shelling Kiev to defending the Donbas from atrocities won't believe he had to do it to save the country from NATO invasion.
It does though. Latest Putin demands involve complete demilitarization of Ukraine. For what purpose? Invading it better afterwards?
Sweden and Finland do not pose such a threat. Finland is on the border too but a much less exposed portion.
The costs of this invasion were clear from the outset. Russia isnt going into this thinking it will come out stronger and ready to conquer the world. It's a fairly desperate and high stakes ploy to shield their jugular.
This is more a nationalist Russkiy Mir/Russkaya Zemlya kind of mental jerk, as evidenced by that article that RIA Novosti published (and then pulled)[0]: if they don't take now what they consider theirs(Ukraine), then they never will if they join NATO. To have one people split in two (though Ukrainians largely disagree) is unacceptable to them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...
Ah, good to hear you know more about how Russia sees these things than they do themselves.
Because Stalin sure didn't seem to see it your way in the winter of 1939.
Aren't you beginning to sound ludicrous even to yourself by now?
No, not necessarily.
It depends on the alternative.
> a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).
A) Ukraine is its own country, not Russia's border.
B) Only one actor in this drama is being explicitly hostile: Putler's Russia.
Based on the Paradox of Tolerance it would be “Peace is the highest priority amongst the peaceful, except against a non-peaceful entity.”