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Comment by user3939382 | Hacker News Reader

The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality. Had we done that in the first place this war likely wouldn't be happening. Ukraine would have lost nothing by agreeing to that. Zelenskyy already said he was told in private Ukraine wouldn't be admitted to NATO anyway, making this entire war senseless.

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>The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality.

Russia's version of "neutrality" is a joke.

Russia's demand for "neutrality" means letting Russia decide Ukraine's foreign and military policies. Russia want to enforce specific limits on the size and capabilities of Ukraine's military. That will never be accepted by Ukraine.

It's interesting that we have no popular qualms about the Monroe Doctrine, which we've abused to interfere with and overthrow legitimate governments in South America for decades, but when Russia takes a Monroe-Doctrine-esque position with a country on their border it's out of the question.

I see basically 3 possibilities. Ukraine agrees to neutrality, Ukraine resists neutrality and has its country destroyed and is eventually forced to agree to it anyway (what is happening now), or the western powers start a hot war with Russia and risk WW3/nuclear holocaust. Given those options I'd go with the first.

Typical Russian whataboutism. Who, other than American right-wingers and Russian trolls, are defending the Monroe Doctrine?

- 1 is a joke which cannot be accepted.

- 3 is a bluff.

- 2 is the only option. Ukraine has already beaten you in the north. How long till it defeats you in the east and south?

Ukraine will suffer many dead civilians and hundreds of billion in damages, but Russia is losing thousands of soldiers and the economic impact will last for decades while Ukraine will be rebuilt.

Whataboutism is good. It's not a Russian thing.

It takes a special kind of dumb to criticize the mistakes of others ferociously then make the exact same mistakes yourself, with the only difference being even greater incompetence.

All of the Russian criticism was plainly self serving anyway. You can clearly tell by this war that they had no qualms with anything the US did in Iraq, excluding maybe their own geopolitical interests in the area.

Is this a common law thing?

Whatever was done in the past, is something you have to allow everyone else to do?

Surely you see how that is morally untenable?

Errors of the past do not need to be repeated or allowed. (Even though they likely will be as human life is complex and fallible).

It’s not even the past. Look at what the US is doing right this moment in Somalia Yemen Palestine. No one here actually believes Joe Biden cares about the Ukrainian people right?

>Ukraine resists neutrality and has its country destroyed and is eventually forced to agree to it anyway (what is happening now)

What is happening now is the Russian economy collapsing and thousands of Russian soldiers returning home in body bags in just the past few weeks. The same things that caused the fall of the Soviet Union.

The rubble is back at the level it was before the sanctions. How is their economy collapsing?

They are keeping it by burning through their foreign reserves.

It isn’t really. Even Russia itself does not believe that the current rate is “real”. If it was Russia would have used its rubles to buy euros/dollars to pay its debt instead of defaulting by trying to pay with the rubble. Basically it is currently up artificially due to Russia buying rubbles with dollars/euros/gold/etc (and 20% interest rate) and them themselves pushing it the other way by trying to buy dollars/euros with rubbles would be counterproductive.

Spheres of influence are a geopolitical reality despite any disbelief people might entertain.

But as we all know, it was just a pretext; the idea behind the invasion was to make Ukraine part of Russia, which is evidenced by all these talks about Ukrainians being Russian people.

That's correct if you're talking about Donbas.

Sorry, which country are you from? You're English, right? You must be since you're communicating in English. This would be consistent with the idea that every person in the world who communicates in English is actually English.

This is pure speculation. Nobody knows what would have happened, had Ukraine agreed to Russia's demands. Maybe the invasion would not have happened, or maybe Russia would have come up with more demands.

> The US needs to push Ukraine to agree to neutrality.

Why would the US willfully feed countries to Russia?

Ukraine is being attacked exactly because it's not allied with major powers.

> Zelenskyy already said he was told in private Ukraine wouldn't be admitted to NATO anyway, making this entire war senseless.

You're living in a parallel reality. Ukraine is fighting for its right to exist. The war is senseless, but that's something you need to tell Putin.

Well that's completely wrong. Please read this[0] so that you have some real context on this matter.

[0]: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/into-the-heart-of-darkness-what-russi...

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