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Comment by thow16161 | Hacker News Reader

It works out to approximately the same thing in terms of the outcome of the invasion.

Ukraine would be in substantially worse straits if NATO hadn't been helping with training the last few years, and providing thousands upon thousands of modern antitank and antiair missiles.

I don't think Ukraine would benefit from Russia and NATO coming to blows.

Are we now admitting that NATO was in Ukraine? I thought that was verboten.

NATO is not "in" Ukraine with troops, they are supplying weapons to Ukraine. This is not exactly a secret, it's all over the news.

NATO soldiers have been conducting training operations in Ukraine since the Crimea takeover.

I recall these soldiers were evacuated just before the war.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/12/uk-troops-se...

Russian soldiers have been helping rebels and openly fighting in east Ukraine for years as well. Let's not act like Russia didn't start the need for this.

NATO has been training Ukrainian troops openly for years. Seems to be paying off, too. https://www.mil.gov.ua/en/news/2019/09/30/new-ukrainian-brig...

They are not in Ukraine participating in combat in the current conflict.

I suggest reading back your own past comments for a quick reality check:

> There is basically no escalation from Russia. [...]. It is just convenient (Biden's domestic issues/Nordstream 2/other unknown reasons) to claim imminent invasion and the media is incentivised to fuel that narrative since it seems to have captured the attention of the populace at large (perhaps based on the Russophobia that is prevalent in mainstream media).

Maybe it's time to be extra aware of your own biases against Russia, NATO, mainstream media...

I was wrong. I admit that. I spoke from a position of superficial knowledge at the time as I ignored the wider context of the situation and was commenting from a position of received wisdom as I was unaware of what a parent post mentioned regarding a widely known fact that NATO was in Ukraine providing thousands of weapons, I was not aware of that and was only commenting on the basis of "received wisdom" on a particular situation.

I have examined my bias against mainstream media and still find them completely warranted, thank you.

So you're implying that NATO providing defensive weapons to Ukraine is the reason Putin invaded? That seems a stretch.

No, I am saying that I had not taken Russia's threat model into account. Given that threat model, Ukraine is an existential issue for them and the resolution of the uncertainty that has been in place since 2004 was just a matter of time.

It’s safe to say Ukraine is an existential threat to Putin. Russia as a nation shouldn’t care that Ukraine is democratic and integrating with Europe, except to ask why they couldn’t also.

I don't see how Ukraine being democratic is an existential threat to Putin in any meaningful way. This situation has been almost 14 years in the reckoning since April 2008.

The NATO-US acting from Ukraine possibly attempting to foment "color" revolutions in Russia, NATO missiles on Ukraine soil, an increasingly belligerent leader in Ukraine renewing the push to join NATO and NATO-US arming and training Ukraine troops. These seem to be more likely factors in the invasion.

Given that the "West" has been frothing around the mouth for his ouster (he did once ask to join NATO btw), one could conclude that "He who goes first wins" was a viable strategy for him.

Ukraine would be in substantially better straits if NATO told upfront everyone (including Ukraine and Russia) the Ukraine will not be part of NATO. The biggest country in NATO does not want to enforce no-fly zone and does not want to give planes to Ukraine. When will Ukraine wise up that they will never be part of NATO? US is bleeding Russia as much as possible, Ukrainian suffering be damned. (Putin fell head-first into the biggest geo-political trap in the last 30 years. Similar in size with Vietnam and Afganistan traps).

> The biggest country in NATO does not want to enforce no-fly zone and does not want to give planes to Ukraine.

You can replace "enforce a no-fly zone" with "declare actual war on Russia". A no-fly zone either involves striking targets in Russia and Belarus, or hands the initiative to Russia if/when an air war starts. It is a very bad idea, to put it mildly.

I guess my point was not clear. I meant to say this: 1. Ukraine will never join NATO, and NATO knew this 2. NATO encouraged Ukraine to ask for NATO integration knowing (since Dec 2021) Russia will not stand for it, 3. Russia invades Ukraine and US supports Ukraine with weapons, 4. Russia will spend money, lives, international standing, etc...; 5. US will profit (your enemy's loss is your profit); 6. Ukraine will be burned to the ground.

If NATO told Ukraine from the onset they will never join NATO steps 2 and 3 would not have happened. Which means step 6 would not have happened. [edit - a typo in the numbers in events sequence. Sorry about that]

> If NATO told Ukraine from the onset they will never join NATO steps 2 and 3 would not have happened.

Look, if I murder my neighbor because they’re friends with the other neighbor I hate, I’m the bad guy.

Russia does not get to tell other countries they aren’t permitted to ally with each other.

> Russia does not get to tell other countries they aren’t permitted to ally with each other.

Logically, no - they don’t. In the real world, it does not work that way. Hence, the US has the Monroe Doctrine. It’s also the reason why US has invaded Latin American countries and many other ones. “Might is right” is an unfair unfortunate realty in international military situations.

Americans have superpower bias. They think that every country can ally and antagonize any other country they want. When you're a buffer state, you don't have that privilege. If Mexico started talking about a military alliance with Russia, they would have some American freedom missiles delivered very shortly. Ukraine is Russia's Mexico.

> since Dec 2021

It goes back way earlier than that. Russia has repeatedly expressed in no uncertain terms that Ukraine is the single one red line that they will never accept joining NATO. A very insightful article on FP on the topic:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-cri...

It's totally nonsensical and does not map to Putin's writings on the essential unity of Ukraine and Russia or myriad other geographic, demographic, and resource-based practicalities of why Putin wants this war.

Please see my earlier comments for why this but-NATO! argument is the opium toked by demagogues and their acolytes.

The entire Ukraine joining NATO thing is such Russian garbage. Ukraine would not have been allowed NATO membership precisely because they have a "unresolved external territorial disputes", which is exactly why Putin invaded both Georgia and Ukraine (e.g. Crimea) in the first place. Putin wants to make another Belarus plain and simple.

Putin was going to invade in either case. He didn't invade because Ukraine was courting NATO, he invaded because things were looking up for Ukraine and Russia has been languishing for a couple decades now and he didn't want an up and coming democracy beside him, he wanted a Soviet style puppet state than he could dominate. It also gives him an excuse to push foreign countries out of Russia so he can tighten his fist around the throats of Russians even tighter and blame it on the West

I wish NATO countries would send so many antitank and antiaircraft military equipment that the Ukrainians would push back and say "hold up we have enough for now" . Why are we being so slow to send them military equipment? It's a lot cheaper now than when Russia invades a NATO country and the gloves come off.

Not pushing the world really close to a nuclear war also counts, in the eyes of those who think that a direct involvement of NATO would trigger the MAD scenario.

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