Russia will stop 'in a moment' if Ukraine meets terms – Kremlin
reuters.com
reuters.com
These conditions also include Ukraine recognizing large parts of their territory as Russian.
I'm curious what you mean by your use of the word "right" in the above context.
Whose job is it to enforce that right? Is that right enforced for all countries? Or only if mightier countries take an interest?
It seems that more powerful countries are constantly interfering with the internal politics of smaller countries by doing things like supporting dictators, interfering in elections, etc.
[1] Gorbachev: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all” https://web.archive.org/web/20150331084405/http://rbth.com/i...
[2] “The U.S.S.R. was never offered a formal guarantee on the limits of NATO expansion post-1990” https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-expansion-russia-mislead/312636...
Russia has no right whatsoever over sovereign nations. If you think otherwise, you can depart to the place the Russian warship was sent.
This never happened, if it did please provide a link to the treaty text which proves it did.
That is factually incorrect. There is no treaty, no memorandum, no statement about that, except for some hearsay from a meeting between Baker and Gorbachev. This is the treaty about east Germany https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/2plusfour8994e.htm and NATO, which the west has respected. Stop spreading misinformation.
What is correct is that Russia promised guarantees of Ukraine's borders in the Budapest memorandum.
I've yet to hear why Russia has a better complain to its national security, than say, Ukraine.
After all the same argument could be made backwards for the US. Why shouldn't, e.g., Cuba not be free to host Russian missiles? They're a free country. Surely if the US tried anything to prevent that, their security concerns don't trump those of Cuba.
What would we do if Russia had setup that coup in Canada? We’d have boots on the ground in weeks.
Russia didn't even participate in international diplomacy then.
If you mean the USSR, show me the signed, ratified treaty.
If you mean the then-current Soviet leadership was given private assurances by the then-current US Administration, well, why would you expect that to bind anyone beyond the terms of those leaders and one of the involved states?
Russia apparently proposed
1. Zelensky remains pro forma president but Russia appoints Boiko as PM
2. Ukraine recognizes L/DNR and Crimea
3. No NATO, Ukraine writing into its constitution to be a neutral state
Zelensky told them emphatically no.
Russia just don't understand that even point 2 alone would be a very tough call for Ukraine, not to mention the rest.
This proposal must be only for internal Russian propaganda.
Same reason Germany and Japan were both under allied control and occupation for a while after the war.
The situations are not comparable.
(2) has defacto already happened.
(3) Constitutions can be changed and there's no reason Ukraine can't abrogate the treaty in the future. They were never getting into NATO while in a shooting war with Russia any way.
If you're running from a bear you don't make big sudden movements. You slowly back away until the danger has passed and then do whatever you wanted.
Case in point, there was a humanitarian corridor and ceasefire agreed on two days. Not only was it not held, the road was mined and road was also bombed during by the russians.
There will be a treaty in the end. Hopefully sooner rather than latter.
If the west helps too much then in 50yr the next Russian despot will take another crack at it when they think the west won't help.
[1] Barring the plausibly deniable arms shipments and clandestine training that the underdog in any sort of conflict like this gets. Nobody ever starts a war without their enemies sending aid to whoever they started it with. Anyone who's read their history already knows this.
Nation states don't do "precedents" when it comes to helping each other out. They do "what is good for me here and now and maybe on a future timeline I happen to care about". For democracies this timeline is short. For dictatorships and monarchies this timeline tends to be a little longer because nobody wants to leave a giant mess for their kid.
Sending in green beret advisors or the FFL isn't a "precedent". And everybody knows it. It's a one off based on the political realities of the minute.
The kind of political realities that lead to those sort of interventions are short lived decades long things at best.
In contrast, "our country, fuck off" is a solution that will likely live as long as Ukraine maintains some sort of national identity. Nobody's invaded Afghanistan twice.
There's about 3 anglo-afghan wars and the more recent invasion and occupation involving Britain.
There's earlier examples but I'm not sure if the place even fully existed as a concept back then.
In any case they sure aren't interested in wasting returning to the region.
Pretty much all the other colonial powers have a similar "nope, not our problem any more" attitude toward meddling portions of their sphere or influence that they left because the locals made staying too expensive.
Algeria is across the pond and the French want nothing to do with it. Contrast with Russia which is constantly poking and occasionally invading its former sphere of influence.
>Algeria is across the pond and the French want nothing to do with it.
The French are currently robbing the citizens of ~1/3 of all African countries through their central banks and they have assassinated 22 African presidents since ~1970.
I don't think you are qualified to discuss this topic in any depth, most of your earlier claims are patently false. I only picked this one to tear apart due to time constaints.
NATO is a nation state alliance built on mutual defense and strengthened by precedent. The precedent of defending allies is built into the NATO agreement.
> For democracies this timeline is short. For dictatorships and monarchies this timeline tends to be a little longer because nobody wants to leave a giant mess for their kid.
Great point on the different timelines, I have to disagree on the reason. Dictators/monarchies have a longer timeline because they tend to rule for much longer than leaders in democracies. By definition, democracies involve turning over the ideals and ideas of leadership every few years. Do you believe Putin is worried about leaving things to the daughters that he never mentions?
The quote is from an essay [1] by the future leader of Communist Russia - Lenin, describing the Czarist Russian empire on April, 1914.
[1] Original in Russian: http://libelli.ru/works/25-5.htm
[2] Google translated: https://libelli-ru.translate.goog/works/25-5.htm?_x_tr_sch=h...
For example, Chechnya tried to escape the prison, so Russian used thousands of tons of explosives, FAE's (which is comparable to low yield nuclear weapons) to destroy independent Chechnya state, which was able to escape after first war. Russian FSB bombed their own citizens to provoke war with Chechnya.
My comment was specific to your quote.
This kind of worked, somewhat, and not for reasons they were anticipating. Turns out that forcibly resettling people doesn't make them like you but it does make them tolerate each other a little bit better because they all now have one thing in common: shared adversity under the USSR. However, in the places where it didn't work it created bigger problems. Places (Chechnya) that could have been clean breakaway republics didn't do so because they had a ethnic Russian minority holding them in and in cases where those nations did break you have the Russian group trying to lean politically into Russia and the non-Russian group leaning away and that causes its own problems (Georgia, Ukrainian breakaway provinces, etc)
Russia is far more unified across ethnic lines than people give it credit for. It's not going to pull a Yugoslavia and erupt into genocide as soon as Putin croaks. That said, it's nowhere near as unified as the US (where you can basically count on any immigrant group becoming functionally "American" in 2 generations).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity
and Ukraine has been forming deep military ties to the NATO states since then.
This move to alignment with the West is popularly supported in Ukraine mind you, but the reaction it would elicit has been anticipated and warned about for years.
I think Russia has a point to be worried and concerned about a Ukraine in NATO or the EU, however they went about it in a terrible fashion. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Not to mention, they moved to annex Crimea and supported civil war in other parts of the country. What did Russia expect?
Does that also apply if the "populous forceful overthrow" is being directed by foreign powers?[0][1][2]
[0] It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia...
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-...
[2] How William Hague Deceived the House of Commons on Ukraine https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-morrison/ukraine-will...
I pointed out that this was false / not as your comment implies a few hours ago when you posted something similarly incorrect:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30588114
tl;dr: Putin (with the help of Paul Manafort) got a Russian puppet elected in Ukraine, once he did a 180 on campaign promises and the populous recognized him from the puppet he was he was deposed and fled to Russia.
We hold elections to put every one on an equal playing field, where each person has the same amount of say.
Theoretically
Can you explain me what neutrality is?
As a fellow Swiss citizen i believe it is a lie propagated so our banks can fill their pockets with the dirtiest money available.
Russians certainly do not want to annex Ukraine either. They want to destroy it.
Hiding a few soldiers in an evacuation group, attacking russians from a group of civilians, and then blaming russians for shooting at those civilians is just one of many nasty war tactics.
What really happened, we will probably never know.
We both have just mainstream media reporting what they want us to believe, which might or might not be true. Soldiers hiding in refugee groups is a thing that has happened before, and whatever they do, it makes the other side look bad, when they shoot back.
Your claim makes no sense. Why would Ukraine want to hide soldiers in refugees leaving the country? Even if they did, then being unarmed and leaving means they’re not legitimate targets.
We shouldn't forget that there are a lot of places across the world where people could say exactly that about the west.
Heck, there are a growing number of people[0] in the west who say that about their own leaders/governments.
[0] Public Trust in Government: 1958-2021 https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/05/17/public-trust...
Are you really sure? There are things people in the West don't talk about.
If there were no peaceful people in Mariupol, we'll just turn it into ashes with all the Azov nazis.
Don't you think it is kinda logical for Azov to just not let peaceful citizens go, because now they're like a shield for them?
The correct response to this is for NATO to designate Ukraine a special development partner (double time). Once Russia is defeated, after the occupation and insurgency ends and Russia is forced to withdrawal its military - then NATO and the EU should proceed with fully implementing that special development partnership until it can meet all the qualifications for full membership. In the meantime give the nation a lot more extra attention (to its defense needs and economy) to speed up their recovery and development. NATO and the EU can telegraph that move right now to let the people of Ukraine know their intentions going forward as partners, so everything is clear (the people of Ukraine deserve transparency so they can shape their expectations, makes decisions about where they want to go as a nation). Ukraine will have to go through a lot of rebuilding, which the EU can help with, and NATO can keep them armed in a way that will dissuade Russia from trying again. That should include getting their air force F16s and getting them more advanced proper air defenses. One of NATO's primary tank builders (Germany or UK) should also get them a large batch of modern tanks (the US won't sell the Abrams to Ukraine yet). Part of the point of the new designation would be to let Russia know that in fact NATO will be doubling down and has no intention of abandoning Ukraine. In terms of cost and supplies, NATO can stay in the conflict (as things presently are) a lot longer than Russia can.
When Russia is forced back out of Ukraine, Ukraine should invite a rotation of ~25,000 NATO soldiers (each NATO member would contribute) to take up a permanent position in the country for defensive purposes until Ukraine is rebuilt.
Especially since support from west has been indirect and at a distance. West seems not to want "skin in the game" in Ukraine.
Perhaps if terms are accepted it will make Ukraine another Belarus. That might be better than becoming like Syria or Afghanistan.
I am not saying this is what Ukraine should do, just that Putin knows this is what they can do.
It would be an extremely bad deal for Ukraine.
Putin might very well level Ukraine before he let's it just slide into EU/NATO without a fight. He could then fall back to Crimea/LNR/DNR, state that they are Russian territory, and that any violations of Russian territory may result in a nuclear response (in accordance with Russia's existing policy regarding "First Use"). That might be enough for him to save face at home with his "Special Military Operation achieving sufficient objectives".
Will NATO do a mini-Marshall Plan to get Ukraine back on its feet, or will the Ukrainians end up forgotten, like the ~20 million food-insecure Afghanis who are invisible less than 6 months after we retreated?
As for a Marshall plan for Ukraine. If they are able to force Russia to retreat, they'd be in NATO and EU in no time given the current circumstances and there surely would be something like a Marshall plan to build up the country. Personally, I don't think there will be such a win, though. This war is a classical lose-lose scenario and sadly the end result will likely be some kind of eternal cease fire agreement under a never-ending occupation, similar to what was in place since 2014. I think we agree on that.
My hope is that there will be change in Russia, though, maybe in a way that allows Putin to exit in a (from his perspective) reasonable way. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think Putin has planned to and has to stay in complete power of everything until his death.
It feels like they'll stop when we stop them, at this point.
Most posts on HN about nuclear war are so comically exaggerated as to merit no serious treatment what-so-ever.
During the post WW2 era a persistent effort has been made to intentionally artificially increase the scare factor of nuclear weapons in hopes that they'll never be used, by exaggerating the end of the world potential.
You could hit Texas with all of Russia's nukes simultaneously and you'd still fail to kill everyone in that state. If you perfectly deployed all of Russia's nukes against population centers in the US, you'd struggle to kill half the population in that one country. The US and Russia set off ~1750 nuclear weapons in less than 50 years and the world barely blinked. If there were an exchange of several thousand nuclear weapons between the US and Russia (highly unlikely even in a nuclear war), the world would keep marching on, despite the vast destruction in several nations. There would be no nuclear winter at all, not even remotely close.
I don't disagree with the use of exaggeration tactics to keep nations from utilizing nuclear weapons. Maybe it's an effective tool. There's no sense in being scientifically ignorant on a forum like this one however, nobody here is deciding nuclear policy for Russia and the US, this forum isn't going to shape world opinion on nuclear weapons. There is zero potential for global nuclear winter from the world's present number of nuclear weapons.
If you live in a tornado-prone area then you already know how to prepare for an aerial burst deployment. Go to where you would go for a tornado and shelter in place for 48 hours after the burst. If you survived the burst (note that folks who properly prepare for tornadoes die too) and you've sheltered in place for a couple of days afterward then you're likely to be fine. Sure, there's a greater chance you'll be dying at a younger age than you otherwise would have due to cancer, but those are probabilities. If you survive the burst then you'll likely be fine.
> You could hit Texas with all of Russia's nukes simultaneously and you'd still fail to kill everyone in that state.
It's not hard to imagine pockets of holdouts who happened to be deep underground or whatever, but could you share the facts and analysis you're basing this assertion on?
> If you perfectly deployed all of Russia's nukes against population centers in the US, you'd struggle to kill half the population in that one country.
Half the US population lives in 146 counties, shaded here: https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/bnh1ib/half_of_the...
More info: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/unequal-counties
The best estimates I can find say that Russia has just under 6000 nuclear warheads, e.g., https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-...
"Perfectly deployed," that averages 41 warheads for each of the above 146 counties. I can't find reliable assessments of the average size/yield of Russia's warheads, but directionally, I struggle to understand your claim that even perfect deployment of this nuclear arsenal would have a hard time killing half the US population. (As an aside, killing even 10% of the US population, so ~33 million people, in a nuclear strike would obviously be utterly unprecedented in the history of our species.)
> If there were an exchange of several thousand nuclear weapons between the US and Russia (highly unlikely even in a nuclear war), the world would keep marching on, despite the vast destruction in several nations. There would be no nuclear winter at all, not even remotely close.
Could you provide supporting materials to help me understand the confidence behind these claims?
This is what Putin wants now. Defenseless Central and Eastern Europe. If he wants this agreement he needs to sacrifice something as well, so we have guarantees. He needs to get rid of nukes.
We knew locking ukraine out of nato was always the goal. No reason to think this isn't genuine. War is expensive and messy, we know it's not going well for Russia. They want to achieve their goals fast and get out.
I'm sure Ukraine will reject at first, and Russia will respond with more destruction. "We'll keep wrecking you until you submit". We may see the 40 mile long convoy start moving again.
Honestly I'm not sure what's the best option here. Should Ukrainians keep resisting and dying in hopes they can outlast putin? Or should they submit, saving lives in the short term but validating the invasion?
Edit: I think the west is going to pressure Ukraine into zero tolerance resistance. It's very bad for "world order" if putin gets away with this, lest other nations start getting funny ideas..
In which case Ukraine may become perpetually war torn. Russia sits and holds eastern regions and just keeps bombarding the rest of Ukraine in a game of chicken with western intervention.
No he has not.
From Wikipedia:
> On 12 November 2021, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "Russia doesn't threaten anyone", and on 12 December, he said that attempts were being made to "demonise Russia and cast it as a potential aggressor". On 19 January 2022, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia does "not want and will not take any action of aggressive character. We will not attack, strike, invade, quote unquote, whatever Ukraine." On 12 February, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov described warnings of an invasion as "hysteria". On 20 February, Russia's ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said that Russian forces "don't threaten anyone. ... There is no invasion. There is [sic] no such plans."
Putin himself also said "Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood", and that it was a mistake for the soviet union to spin it out as its own country. Those have nothing to do with NATO.
W.R.T. NATO and Ukraine, Putin has been broadcasting his geopolitical goals for a long time now.
> I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee”. Where are these guarantees?
2007 https://aldeilis.net/english/putins-historical-speech-munich...
> The president said he would be forced to target Russian rockets at Ukraine in response to a possible deployment of a US missile shield in the eastern European country.
2008 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/12/russia.ukraine
> Putin's words are seen as the latest in an ongoing volley of pointed warnings to the West not to meddle in Ukraine, which has such close historical and cultural ties to Russia that the Kremlin considers the country firmly within its sphere of interests.
> "The Russian leadership is very apprehensive about what it sees as Western moves designed to tear Ukraine away from Russia," says Dmitry Trenin
2009 http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900838,00...
> Russia is making a last-minute push to derail the integration agreement, which is due to be signed in late November. Instead, Moscow wants to lure its neighbour into its own alliance, a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan that critics have referred to as a reincarnation of the Soviet Union. Russia has made it clear that Ukraine has to choose between the two options and cannot sign both agreements.
2013 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/ukraine-europe...
> President Viktor Yanukovych's flight from Ukraine in the face of the Maidan uprising, which took place on the eve of the closing day of those Winter Games, astonished and enraged Putin. In his pique, as Putin proudly recalled in a March 2015 Russian government television film, he responded by ordering the takeover of Crimea after an all-night meeting.
2015 https://www.newsweek.com/why-putin-afraid-ukraine-332276
> The Russian president accused Kiev of playing a dangerous game and said he saw no point in holding a new round of talks about the troubled peace process in eastern Ukraine on the sidelines of a G20 summit in China next month.
> Putin’s comments stirred fears that Russia, which has been steadily reinforcing Crimea militarily, may be considering new military action.
2016 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-crimea-att...
> Russian President Vladimir Putin says he believes Russians and Ukrainians constitute one nation and that the countries should find a way to integrate.
2019 https://news.yahoo.com/putin-russians-ukrainians-one-people-...
> Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments about the legitimacy of Russia’s borders in a documentary broadcast on Russian television have rattled some U.S. allies, fearful that he might be laying the groundwork for a further military incursion into Ukraine.
2020 https://time.com/5858231/putin-ukraine/
You're kidding yourself if you think this doesn't have anything to do with NATO.