instead of banning Russian oil, I would first start with banning sending weapons to Ukraine and demand 240 hours non-stop negotiations to stop the war sooner. 10 days of not leaving anywhere unless consensus has been reached
It's like being robbed at gunpoint and negotiating a deal with the robber about how much you might keep.
Can you name the party?
if you say Russia, put yourself on their shoes and answer the question, if you see NATO expanding to your borders together with the country ruled by people like Geroge Bush, Hillary Clinton (see how she is happy for destroying whole nation and their government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI), Joe Biden (I was suggesting we bomb Belgrade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vei_18YcC6E) and Colin Powell who blatantly lied about bio weapons and illegally invaded another country, would you believe their word and allow them to expand to Ukraine? Country fighting for free speech who put Julian Assange on jail because he exposed US crime?
I wouldn't believe, I don't agree with Putin on starting war, but I also believe, he didn't wake up with migraine and decided to start a war, no he was pushed to this war
Second, even if there were no nuclear weapons in play, NATO ain't the USA and UK alone. Most NATO states had more or less castrated their military to the point that even successful conventional defense depends cooperation with all other members. That's over since 2014 and even more so since 2022. Putin woke the sleeping giant. Germany alone will more than match Russia's conventional military in the future. Putin created his own opponent. Before that, NATO was structurally incapable of attacking Russia conventionally without a year long buildup of forces.
And finally, if it comes to the thread of a color revolution: Putin has had all the chances to both develop close and lasting ties to the EU and make his own people happy. He had the money and the tools. All he would have needed to do was to stop running the country like a mafia clan. He could have gone down in history as the great Russian reformer but now he will go down as its grave digger.
If you do, then you're a fool.
If you don't, then you're a liar.
"Regardless, the United States publicly maintains that "the Memorandum is not legally binding", calling it a "political commitment"."[0]
"not legally binding", below.
"Media Statement by the U.S. Embassy in Minsk April 12, 2013 Repeated assertions by the government of Belarus that U.S. sanctions violate the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances are unfounded. Although the Memorandum is not legally binding, we take these political commitments seriously and do not believe any U.S. sanctions, whether imposed because of human rights or non-proliferation concerns, are inconsistent with our commitments to Belarus under the Memorandum or undermine them. Rather, sanctions are aimed at securing the human rights of Belarusians and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other illicit activities, not at gaining any advantage for the United States."[1]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20140419030507/http://minsk.usem...
seems that guarantees weren't worth the paper written on, in the first place, but everyone keeps on talking about them as if they were ironclad somehow.
The sad truth is there was no real guarantees at all, just an empty promise to make it politically feasible for the Ukrainian politicians to sign.