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Comment by itake | Hacker News Reader

> probably because they believed that Russia would easily walk over Ukraine

Sorry to be brass, but why would NATO support Ukraine? Its not a strategy ally. There aren't any special resources there. I don't know why the US was tempting Ukraine to join NATO in the first place.

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I didn't say NATO, I said "the west", but you're right, I probably should have said "the world" or something else.

A major superpower decided to invade a sovereign country with absolutely no provocation with the goal of extending their borders. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. It shouldn't be allowed.

Let's be clear here as well. Russia is not the only country to have done this. Western countries have been just as guilty in the past.

You are not correct when you say “without provocation”. The UKR government had been assaulting its own ethnically-Russian citizens in Donbass four 8 years. Russia went in to stop that. There are many journalistic documents that prove those societies.

Link to the documents? I appreciate we are getting differing stories depending on what media you see.

I'm not sure what to believe anymore, honestly. Certainly there has been military action between Kyiv and the separatists. But there's been so much anti-Ukraine propaganda coming out of Russia in the past 8 years, plus what seems to be questionable or incomplete reporting from Western outlets, that it's hard to know where the truth is.

Did the separatist movements start because of Russian agitation, or because of actions the government of Ukraine took? Is Ukraine targeting ethnic Russians in the Donbass region, or are they just attacking separatists, who maybe(?) happen to mostly be ethnic Russians? I'm having a hard time understanding the true history here.

> with absolutely no provocation

This is false. NATO in 2008 invited Ukraine to join. This is the equivalent of Cuba inviting Russia to setup a military base on US borders. The US's reaction was to economically nuke Cuba.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

The US did not invade Cuba...

Ok, there was the Bay of Pigs, but the US pulled out support at the last minute. Had they invaded Cuba we'd be using that as an example of where the US did the wrong thing by invading a sovereign country (there are other examples...FYI, I'm not American).

As I commented elsewhere, this is a 14 year old invitation.

> The resultant lack of food and medicine to Cuba contributed to the worst epidemic of neurological disease this century.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8942780/

We didn't take up arms, we just starved Cuba to death and didn't give them access to modern medicine.

Though I am aware of the blockade (I'm not American), I was not aware of the humanitarian crisis it caused.

The document you linked clearly states that the US now recognizes this was a mistake.

"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States has informed the US Government that such activities violate international law and has requested that the US take immediate steps to exempt food and medicine from the embargo."

But your initial comment was if Ukraine provoked Russia, so you're going down a rabbit hole of history that has no bearing on this.

You think an embargo is a blockade is US policy?

The US agreed not to invade again and also remove missiles in Europe in return for the missiles being removed from Cuba.

That's conspicuously not what happened with Ukraine. It could not be more not what happened with Ukraine.

Cuba makes no sense as an argument about current events, and if it did, one could have a conversation without random whatabouts.

russia wanted to deploy forces in the USA's borders. USA wants to deploy forces on Russia's borders.

I don't see the difference.

Yes, I was working with your premise! The parallelism as you see/state it.

You don't see a difference in what caused the crisis, right, sure.

THEN what happened?

In both cases, there was precedent for violating sovereignty. Bay of Pigs with the US, and Crimea with Russia, among other things.

But the US agreed to not invade again, and Russia on the other hand...invaded.

No, NATO didn't invite Ukraine to join. Ukraine wanted to join but NATO didn't reach unanimous decision to allow Ukraine to join. Back then Germany voted against Ukraine joining, out of consideration for Russias interests. Since then, there was no new movement for a NATO membership. And again, during the last minute diplomatic efforts, the German chancellor very clearly offered to Putin, that the question of an Ukrainian NATO membership would be decided quite far into the future. So there was no actual thread of a NATO membership - any claims of that were just a made-up reason by Putin. Also, while a lot of former Warshaw Pact countries did join the NATO, the NATO didn't install a permanent military presence in those countries.

> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

This is on NATO's website from 2008 meeting. How is "welcomes" not be interpreted as an invitation?

Well, yes, it is an invitation. But NATO didn't let the Ukraine join, that was blocked by at least Germany. And on during his visit in Moscow, Chanceller Scholz basically offered Putin that Ukraine joining into NATO could be very far in an undetermined future.

> Also, while a lot of former Warshaw Pact countries did join the NATO, the NATO didn't install a permanent military presence in those countries.

Well, after those countries became NATO countries their own militaries were NATO militaries, so of course NATO has a permanent military presence in those countries. Unless they totally demilitarised.

Comparing the Cuban missile crisis to now is mindblowing...why do people think it makes sense as a defense of Russia?

The USSR put missiles in Cuba, and got the US to agree not to invade and to withdraw missiles from eastern Europe.

We need to know about the parallel universe where the "NATO aggression" results in Russia agreeing not to invade Ukraine.

With neighbors like Ukraine has article 5 is the obvious temptation, USA didn't have to do anything. Believe it or not Ukrainians can have their own opinions and not everything they do is because of they are pawns

There are several guilty parties. US/NATO are not fully responsible.

I can't help but read that as you acknowledging Ukraine deserves some of the guilt of wanting to join NATO instead of just the USA's fault, which is definitely not what I meant. Russia is the lone guilty party in this invasion, or more specifically Putin, I feel pretty awful for the poor soldiers who are getting killed in foreign land or forced to play role of occupier to hostile locals. People who understand his concerns about NATO are people who have bought his lies.

Question: Whose fault was the Cuban Missile crisis and post-crisis economic sanctions of Cuba?

Mostly the fault of the USA. But lets not forget the ridiculous scale and number of military interventions Cubas worldwide. They were hardly an innocent bystander during the cold war but a very active opponent.

In what ways was the US tempting Ukraine to join NATO? Because NATO expansionism is the core of Russia's propaganda, along with other non-sense like clearing the country of Jewish Nazism.

Bucharest Summit Declaration 2008

> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

It's 2022. You're pointing to a declaration that is 14 years old. Do you have anything more current? Why the invasion now?

I have been wondering the same thing; what was the trigger? Maybe new ties to Turkey:

> Over the past two years, NATO member Turkey and Ukraine have bolstered defense industry ties, including an agreement by Turkish drone-maker Baykar to build a production facility near Kyiv for its popular Bayraktar TB2 drone. The Ukrainian government has also dubbed Turkey "one of its key economic partners."

https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-intelligence-agency-abducts-ar...

Russia Annex Crimea in response to that in 2012. Russia's power and economy is weakening. They needed time to prepare their forces and complete their Crimea annexation. We also had COVID in 2019-2022.

So Ukraine says "hey, we think we probably want to join NATO". And NATO responds "cool, that sounds good", and... so what? Ukraine is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally itself with whatever country or group it wants to. Perhaps Russia should take a hard look at why Ukraine didn't feel that allying with Russia would be in their best interests?

So, Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

The USA would be understanding of Mexico’s sovereignty and stand by while North Korea sends military aid to Mexico, installs their elite sons and daughters as board members of Mexico’s largest corporations, and blatantly strategizes who will become the “elected” leader of Mexico.

Perhaps you should take a hard look at the reality of what all powerful nations do when they feel threatened by their foes close to their borders. Ignoring it is at everyone’s peril.

To add: "Cuba is a sovereign nation. They should be allowed to store Russia's nuclear missiles." /s

> So, Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

AFAIK they are allowed to do that. And if they did, the USA should take a long hard look at itself and think why Mexico wanted to do it.

There, do you have any more strawmen for us to burn?

> Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

Yes.

Or, more realistically, China.

Is this supposed to be trap of some kind?

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