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Comment by chillingeffect | Hacker News Reader

It virtually has but NATO doesn't universally want Ukraine. It's better strategy to have buffer states adjacent to major powers.

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Legitimate question— why does everyone kind of not mention Estonia and Latvia when talking about NATO-Russia border states?

Because it shows how ridiculous "buffer zone" argument is.

The buffer states argument is dead. Russia killed it. Europe now has to logistically support Ukraine, pivot it's energy market and disrupt its economy because Russia just showed the world it views buffer states as consumable components for future Russia.

Buffer states are now a liability with Russia.

>It's better strategy to have buffer states adjacent to major powers

I am not a strategist so why is this? And why for example wouldn't Russia tried to sign an alliance with this countries where they promise to respect each other territories and not participate in aggressive actions against each other. Isn't this a good enough buffer? it won't work if you don't want to renounce at teritory claims though

They already did sign such a treaty with Ukraine.

So I am biased since I am from Romania, but IMo is clear Russia wants the natural resources and the strategical position from the Black Sea not to defend itself from the small easter European countries but just from pure greed, like in a cmputer game you rush to grab the natural resources to prevent the others to use them and grow, after you grow you invade and destroy their shit until they surrender. Defensive alliances would make sense if you want to protect yourself and this is what the eastern european countries want from NATO.

30% of Ukraine is Russians. The border conflict is deeply rooted and unavoidable, just like with India and Pakistan.

Russian speaking Ukrainians are not the same as Russians.

Neither are Bangla speaking Indians or Muslim Indians, but nonetheless this sort of thing is an extremely common basis for regional conflict that has nothing to do with anyone else.

Be cautious not to fall for propaganda. From both sides.

I've read conflicting statements about how Russian speaking Ukrainians are treated in Ukraine but it's also not obvious to me why it should be so much worse in Donbass versus the rest of Ukraine.

Just because there is a different language doesn't mean that there is automatically a cultural divide.

As one of them, I 100% agree.

There are many countries that have similar conditions, minorities outside theyr borders, historical claims but when we entered EU and NATO we all had to make peace with our neighbors and give up or old grudges, I hope the young Russian generation would prefer to enter EU then reviewing some old empire.

The notion that entering the EU is some magic thing that will make those go away is incredibly naive. I think more likely is the EU ceasing to existing within the next 50 years as the US continues its withdrawal from the world.

There are many factors that make it so the new generations are more connected and emphasize better. EU membership makes it possible for students to study in different places and learn more, from my experience younger generations are less racist/xenophobic/nationalistic. It will take time to fix the issue but it things improve and with less Russian propaganda and dirty money in our politics it will improve even faster.

Does that go for the the Baltic states as well where 25% are Russian speakers.

By your reasoning 95% of America is English. This conflict was totally avoidable.

If some great of English people think they’re different enough from some other group of English people to want to be a separate country, that’s a regional conflict that doesn’t warrant the involvement of anyone else. Same as Ireland separating from Britain or Bangladesh separating from Pakistan or India/Pakistan border disputes.

By his reasoning, 18% of the US is hispanic and we should expect to be at war with Mexico.

We did go to war with Mexico and took a bunch of their land. And if our military power wasn’t so overwhelmingly superior we absolutely would have border conflicts with Mexico.

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