European natural gas imports and storage reserves
bruegel.org
bruegel.org
I think what this has really demonstrated is the danger of always taking the easy solution on energy generation. Germany seems like the best example. They decided they wanted to phase out coal. Fair enough, it's by far the dirtiest hydrocarbon. Then they also decide they don't want to use nuclear power. And they don't want to frac for gas. And they don't want to invest much in LNG terminals because ultimately they don't want to burn gas either. But renewables aren't anywhere near big enough to close the circle right now, so basically by saying no to everything else, they by default grew their dependence on Russian gas.
There are no perfect sources of energy (at least not yet), so countries have to make tough choices. Hopefully that is clearer to decision makers in Germany and elsewhere now; making the easy, uncontroversial choice every time can lead you into a big jam.
The state has not started large campaigns in other areas compared to electricity to phase out other fuels.
I wouldn't overrate the amount of gas that is freed by nuclear power (also do keep in mind that there is also quite a lot of heat-electricity cogeneration with gas in Germany, which further complicates matters).
If Germany only didn't shut of any nuclear power plants prematurely, then emissions could be reduced significantly since coal would probably be directly replaced. But I doubt the expansion of renewables in Germany would have happened as it did without a parallel nuclear exit in the 2000s. Would it have changed much if the exit in the 2010s didn't happen in terms of renewables? I don't know. But I also think a non-exit would have been politically untenable after Fukushima, with pretty much every party simultaneously being suddenly gung-ho in shutting down nuclear.
I think the phase-out of nuclear, could everything else have stayed the same, was a missed chance. But at the same time western countries which held much more strongly onto nuclear, especially France, are very likely seeing a huge electricity generation issue in the next decades due to very low rates of building nuclear (with huge difficulties) or renewables (not much interest) and a large amount of nuclear power plants going of the grid (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernkraftwerke_in_Fr..., the list in the englisch wikipedia unfortunately doesn't include planned closure dates). These dates could (and will) be extended, but as we're seeing right now they're already getting unreliable and nearing the end-of-life.
Since it's not a drop in replacement, driving this change through might take decades and require changing building legislation etc. I'm unfamiliar what is the situation in the different European countries regarding this, but I know there are EU countries where practically nobody heats with gas.
Building a single house or building around a heating solution is a long term commitment. It might not be easy to change afterwards. This then implicitly makes assumptions about the availability and price of said heating solution.
Politics and national security concerns are inevitable around a large scale energy questions. These things don't "just happen" in a "free market". For example large scale electricity producers or gas suppliers are "too big to fail" and are actively managed by governments.
Coincidentally the first reduction came with a change of power from the SPD/Greens coalition to the CDU/FDP and the second slump when the energy and business ministry went from the SPD in the coalition to Peter Altmaier of the CDU.
In a recent debate on energy in parliament the current chancellor from the SPD (labor equivalent) responded to criticism from the CDU (conservatives), that the current government is fixing the huge mess left over by the previous governments (lead by the CDU). I'm not a big fan of Olaf Scholz (the current chancellor) in general, but rarely was there a truer statement.
Nuclear plant run times have been extended as well, by those mean green anti-nuclear environmentalists that are in the new government by the way.
After all the point of NATO was to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-agenda-idUSKBN0FB06B20...
It's been going on for far longer than that and pretty much since the late 1940's.
And while Brandt was eventually replaced by the more conservative (but still social democrat) Helmut Schmidt, the general strategy of mutual economic dependency was upheld, and contributed to the eventual reunion of both Germanies.
In general, back then this strategy worked so well, that even the chancelors from the conservative CDU didn't feel compelled to change it.
Even Merkel, while far more cool and restrained towards russia than her predecessor, did not really change much in that regard. Kinda expected from a conservative though...
The picture is only clear with storage + production + LNG import capacity + usage + population.
What else can be transported and used in LNG lines?
So if you want to ship gas to an arbitrary location, it's more likely to be LNG.
I published this, Shows the UK Gas reserves. It's not looking good for winter!
When the winter cold comes, storage will be depleted much faster than in the last years, and even if no gas shortages occur, storage will be very empty in spring - maybe too low to refill them till next winter.
2) in the long term, Europe is trying to get independent from Russian gas so that 1) will not happen again
Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.
If Europe does not do this, then they will absolutely deserve the impact of the future geopolitical shocks that will inevitably increase as climate change causes migrations, inflation, increasing natural disasters, and ensuing political instability in fossil fuel providing nations, which are not coincidentally among the most ripe for political revolt.
I think the truth of this statement increases with a slight modification.
The US is trying to get Europe away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.
Western European countries, and Germany especially have had to be pushed into supporting Ukraine.
Absolutely untrue of "western countries", only of Germany.
The american "push" was welcome as a sign of confidence that we could support Ukraine not merely on our own, but with the backing of the United States. But this is our continent that is under attack. The US wouldn't otherwise care, but taking down Russia is a huge get for them so they care.
Sanctions are long term. We are not long term yet.
- Russia has no elections since it's a near-totalitarian autocracy with usurpers firmly in charge by force.
- Ukraine hasn't been buying Russian gas for about 5 years now. Russian gas is transited via Ukraine, even during the war, since it's a rare situation that's in the best interest of all parties to the conflict, but 0 gas is purchased by Ukraine from Russia.
- Supply issues are due to a war of aggression and attempts to deprive the aggressor of a major revenue source (which no one claimed will stop the war immediately, it's a long-term/punitive move).
- EU has no choice but to diversify from Russia, since the only alternative is neutering of the EU and vassalage in all foreign policy matters that Putin chooses. (A significant percentage of the people expressing concern about supply issues and advocating a reversal are in fact concern-trolling and probably want this to happen. Are you one of those?)
Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.
Yeah, they buy hungarian gas that just happens to flow from Russia. This is called "virtual reverse"
>Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.
I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles
>I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles
I won't wish Russia good luck in this endeavour past 2023-2024, but I will note that it'll need all the luck it can get.
"Russia’s budget surplus evaporates as energy revenues shrink"
https://www.ft.com/content/d9cdc51f-5fe3-4f4a-b0e8-054ef21a2...
> Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn).
Russia is increasingly cutting itself now too:
> Revenues look set to worsen following Russia’s suspension of Nord Stream 1, one of its main gas pipelines to Europe, in early September.
> Russia’s economy shrunk 4.3 per cent in July 2022 compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the country’s economy ministry. Analysts at Aton, a Russian brokerage, expect the economy to contract by a further 5 per cent in 2023 because of falling energy output.
Russia is trending toward empty when it comes to their military inventory and they won't be able to replenish it as things stand. The only way they can is if China steps in and provides an epic scale infusion (which is not in China's interest).
Meanwhile the US can rev its military industrial complex to an extreme degree as it sees fit; and in tandem with Ukraine, obliterate Russia's military to the extent the Russians are dumb enough to continue occupying Ukrainian territory and sending more of their soldiers and hardware to the slaughter. The US hasn't even begun to seriously rev its production capabilities.
The equation there is Russia is fucked. Their national strength derives from energy + military power / power perception - one of those is heavily destroyed (courtesy of Ukraine's military + NATO weapons + sanctions).
Russia is so incompetent and drained they're having to source drones from Iran and go begging to North Korea.
If it was, you'd probably get a similar reaction.
Ukraine is culturally, geographically and geopolitically a European nation.
But Russia is a gigantic country with a lot of population that isn't particularly European in any sense.
Ukraine on the other hand is basically 100% European any way you want to slice it beside Putin's revisionist history.
BTW, most Russians are European, living west of the Urals.
Moscow and, especially, St. Petersburg are pretty European historically and culturally. Western Russia accounts for 77% of Russia's population and is predominately influenced by the culture of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kyiv...
Europe isn't just Italy, Spain, & France...
Not every European country is Western European culturally...
The issue is that somehow the West has taken Iraq 2.0 and is turning it into the prelude for a WWIII. We shouldn't be encouraging Russia and China to ally, and we should be giving Russia as many diplomatic off-ramps to calm the situation down as is humanly possible. Demonising people doesn't help. All the face-slapping that has been taking place has been unproductive.
In France. Mostly idling.
- Reactors are seasonally idle and will ramp back up for winter - During this normally idle time, they do maintenance
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/minister-fren...
Perhaps this idea that "half of France's reactors are idle" is partly true, partly scare tactics from the "anti-nuke" group?
Nuclear reactors require vast amounts of cooling water so timing your "down time" to coincide with low water levels does make sense.
Here(Ontario) we build them on the shores of Lake Ontario and the intake pipe extends far into the lake to avoid any sort of water level fluctuations impacting power production.
It looks like this is NOT a new problem (from 2016) https://www.economist.com/business/2016/12/01/frances-nuclea...
So it would also happen to power plants that burn coal.
> In France. Mostly idling.
Isn't the problem natural gas and not electricity? If there was a reactor on every corner wouldn't Germany and the other countries still be in the same boat? They can't convert all that natural gas infrastructure over to electricity in a couple months..
It doesn't really matter though, there seems to be no way to have a reasonable discussion on this topic without being attacked as a Putin sympathizer in most places of the "free world".
I don't know who are the "they" that are trying to destroy any kind of agreement, but there hasn't been any type of close agreement as Ukraine made it very clear that they don't want anything else beside Russia leaving their territory. Any type of territory concession is a non-starter for any agreement on Ukraine side.
I'm just going to assume that you are American. If Russia invaded Alaska.. would you advocate for a "ceasefire" and tell people they should negotiate an agreement... that would keep Russia on the sovereign territory of the US? I'm assuming no. Then why are you advocating for this?
They did what they did, so the decisions that are being done now need to be done with the current state of reality in mind.
Russia is responsible for it's own action. It's not a weird state machine reacting to "western" actions and applying appropriate response.
Russia was given everything they possibly could be given to become part of "the west" - growing, democratic nation, like many of the nation they formerly occupied. Instead they choose kleptocracy, mafia state ruled by the guy who bombed apartment buildings in his own country to become president - and it only went downhill from there.
Or maybe that's not enough and return to 1997 NATO borders would be necessary?
Or perhaps that would not be enough and return to the 1988 geopolitical situation would be necessary to make Putin a friend of the West?
What if even that wouldn't make Putin a western ally? Wouldn't we be just be letting our geopolitical enemy get stronger?
And many challenges they do have: China made a huge progress on industrialization, put some checks on corruption and conquered widespread hunger, but it is still a mostly poor, agrarian country with a rapidly aging population. They, absolutely rationally, jump at the option of cheaper energy import, but I would not read that as a long-term support of the Russian view of the world (which, I heard from several folks, they often despise). They pursue their own agenda. My 2c.
Which turned out to be worst of possible policies.
Depends on your metric. US companies gained the ability to outsource to low-cost china and this has been fantastically profitable for them.
For the average US citizen, they did benefit from a massive influx of cheap goods and cheap debt at the expense of hollowing out the economy. As it says on the back of most Apple products - "designed in California made in China".
Could be made in the US as well, but too many rules, too inflexible, too high labour costs.
https://theweek.com/articles/478705/why-apple-builds-iphones...
I'm certainly not picking on Apple, most US companies outsource but the Obama/Jobs question really hammers the point.
Probably not a long-term sustainable strategy but i did work for many years.
Instead of having a Cold War with China and proxy wars, we intertwined our economies much like MAD except with mutually assured economy destruction.
[1] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2001/09/12/0...
You prop up hard authoritarian or totalitarian government with trade. They get strong, and instead of "democratizing" they take a hard line and endanger democracies.
Europe also had economic MAD with Russia, yet they did not care. Now they flare gas and destroy Ukrainian cities.
Are you suggesting the West should deliberately keep countries poorer, in the fear of them becoming (more) authoritarian? I think that would be wrong (and also counterproductive) thing to do.
Keep hard authoritarian and totalitarian countries poorer. That's done with multiple countries right now, like North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela.
Keep weak authoritarian (on a road to democracy) and democratic nations richer. EU and NATO expansion have been historic successes, with democracy extending farther than ever in the 90s and 00s. Moreover, US policy on India has been largest geopolitical tragedy of XX century. The largest democracy in the world is relatively hostile to "the west", despite being threatened by China.
Opposite policies - keep enemies close - drastically failed in case of Russia and China, with both countries being especially bloodthirsty right now.
I also think it's immoral to intentionally keep any country poor, whether authoritarian or not. I don't know where you live, but I would certainly not want Czechoslovakia to be intentionally kept poor during communist dictatorship just so that some Western politician could stroke his ego about how is he fighting against communism. I think that's very authoritarian and patronizing idea, to do so. It's just a double whammy for citizens of such countries.
He bombed his own people to come to power. If not then, then in 2008, when he invaded Georgia. Even if not then, then surely 2014 would be the final whistle, right? No. Nord stream 2 was started to be build 4 years later.
>I don't know where you live, but I would certainly not want Czechoslovakia to be intentionally kept poor during communist dictatorship just so that some Western politician could stroke his ego about how is he fighting against communism.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Pomnik_R...
This is Ronald Reagan monument in Warsaw. I, and many Polish people are thankful for his hardline stance he took against our occupiers, meaningfully contributing to crashing their economy, which ultimately made us free.
I think this is bordering on masochism. To me, hurting people (even economically) in order to make them "free" (which Reagan didn't, in fact) is just morally reprehensible, patronizing and authoritarian.
I also think that you don't know much about Reagan. He supported policies that were explicitly against education of the middle class (trying to made universities into a pay model) and pro-segregation (like hard stance on drug war). He almost started a 3rd world war. This is all on record.
That's the thing with authoritarians - they have many faces. They can be perceived very differently by different groups. That's why you cannot just to simplify it as you did.
I am very skeptical when somebody says, we need to sacrifice lives of X people today in order for Y people (Y>X) have better lives in the future. I don't know of an example where there isn't a solution (although possibly slower) without the sacrifice, and often you can have both. Human live is precious and therefore we should value human lives now more than some kind of vague improvement in the future. We can always change society, but we cannot resurrect a dead person.
>sacrifice
There is no sacrifice. People in Poland still had food and shelter. Even North Korea gets humanitarian help, if their tyrant allows it to. I'm not against that. I'm against making them more powerful. Food does not change that, but transfer of technologies or means of production - which happened with Russia and China, and even Poland [1] in the 70s strengthened the regime, making the fall longer and more painful.
US, and any other country, has no obligation to prop up failing dictatorships technologically or economically - which they and also famously Germany - did.
>I also think that you don't know much about Reagan. He supported policies that were explicitly against education of the middle class (trying to made universities into a pay model) and pro-segregation (like hard stance on drug war). He almost started a 3rd world war. This is all on record.
Internal policies of Reagan, and a lot of external ones were bad. Still, he was right on that one, compared to failed policies of Nixon and Brandt.
It's also not done in multiple other countries which don't happen to be US military allies, like Saudi Arabia. You're seeing a pattern that isn't there. Totalitarianism is just an excuse.
Also, I'm sorry, but claiming China - which hadn't invaded anyone for decades - is as bloodthirsty as Russia (or US for that matter) is just silly.
As much as I hate Kissinger, this is not what happened at all. This wasn't about "kicking Taiwan out", it was about acknowledging the fact that KMT no longer ruled China, Beijing did. Also, it was the seventies; at that time Taiwan was ruled by a fascist regime - those were the folks who had to flee continental China because they were even worse than Mao.
Western Europe just learned a painful lesson that you can't trust Russia. Eastern Europe tried to hammer that point into the brains of the other European politicians but it didn't work until now.
> Western Europe just learned a painful lesson that you can't trust Russia.
Do you recall what happened to people who trusted the British? A lot of them died. And they were almost the nice Europeans. Trusting the Americans is foolish, trusting the Chinese is insane. The Indians will turn out to be perfidious in time.
Everyone is untrustworthy. There should be more serious grappling with why the Russians did this (and Crimea in 2014) than "Putin bad". The last time a president started trying to calm the situation down he was hounded for it - the whole strategy here is mad and stupid. If the West can deal on good terms with China and the Middle East then we can be friends with Russia too.
We need serious attempts and ongoing discussion about how to stop military escalation.
There won’t be. We are being lied to.
Why don't you give us your explanation?
It's just very odd to advocate for an appeasement policy when the aggressor keeps wanting more (first Crimea, then tried to take the whole Ukraine by going straight for the capital). It wasn't just Eastern Ukraine with Russian-speaking population, they went straight to the capital.
I'd say the west is perfectly fine with ignoring a lot of their principles for the sake of peace and money, China and Middle East are very good examples of it as you just said. The west was even perfectly happy to roll over their principles just to get the gas they needed from Russia. It looks like it's Russia that self destroyed all those economical agreements for the sake of wanting to expand their borders.
History has shown us that appeasement is the worst possible policy.
If the US can invade the middle east and not be called an authoritarian regime, I don't think we need to draw a red line at the Ukraine border against the other nuclear superpower. And we should be negotiating.
What protects, for example, the Baltic countries is not the threat that the US might take initiative to drop a nuclear bomb on Russia, no it is the vast conventional capabilities of the US.
Just supplying a relatively small amount of weapons to Ukraine is enough to destroy most of the Russian army.
>NATO does not need nuclear deterrence again Russia's conventional weapons
NATO has more than enough capabilities to destroy Russia's conventional weaponry, but as Russia has nuclear weapons, NATO must also have them to keep parity.
Getting rid of nuclear weapons is impossible. Genie's out of the bottle.
I disagree. Progress is being made (see ICANW), despite setbacks, some unfortunately coming from "the West", which is supposed to be morally more advanced.
And NATO doesn't need to keep parity with Russia, what for?
I also consider nuclear retaliation strike to be morally dubious. What's the point?
Nuclear weapons are necessary as a deterrent. In this case from an adversary that has nuclear weapons - without those in stock NATO would be outmatched and vulnerable to being subject to the threat of using them.
At the end of the day, states with nuclear weapons get to push non-nuclear states around. Good luck getting Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan or North Korea to disarm.
Getting the West to abandon their nuclear weapons would be morally reprehensible as those states would become subjects to the states that did not.
It's a nice dream, but:
1. It won't happen.
2. Nuclear weapons I believe are the most important reason why we did not have a conventional war in Europe for 80 years. Russia would not attack an adversary that was nuclear armed or in a nuclear sharing program.
I think, if NATO countries (and the U.S.) wanted to, they could make lot more effort to denuclearize. I don't think NATO can institutionally do it, though (it wasn't designed for it). For example, they could propose more aggressive mutual disarmament treaties, that would decrease arsenal in certain proportions on a timeline, with inspections. They don't do that, so I conclude that they don't really want to.
As for the peace - plenty of countries in Europe that are not involved in nuclear weapons and yet enjoy peace. As you said - nuclear countries bully the non-nuclear ones around, therefore, effort should be made to get rid of them completely.
The point isn't that you win something with a second strike. The point is that second strike capability ensures no actor can make a first strike without risking consequence. It's about deterrent, not about winning.
The geographic situation largely explains why the Baltic States support the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland so strongly, and why Russia is opposed to it. With Sweden and Finland in NATO, the Baltic Sea will become NATO's internal sea. NATO would likely have naval and air superiority over it, which would keep supply lines open and give them a chance to defend the Baltic States with conventional weapons.
None of which NATO countries has offered to use in Ukraine.
I think logistics by railway would be problematic if NATO allies launched a few thousand cruise missiles.
Air power is of little use if your forces don't have access to the relevant area. The Baltic states are surrounded by Russian bases and air defenses, while NATO bases are far away. Right now, Kaliningrad is effectively a fortress that separates the Baltic states from the rest of NATO. Sweden and Finland give NATO air forces the option to bypass Kaliningrad and operate from bases that are closer to the Baltic states.
But yes, Sweden and Finland in NATO is nice. Also for the fact that NATO not intervening in aggression against Sweden or Finland is hard to imagine, so getting papers on the marriage is nice for all parties involved.
Also, as far as I understand, the combat radius fighter jets is quite short. It's something like 500 to 1200 km, depending on aircraft type and weapons load. Having bases 100 or 200 km closer is already a significant advantage.
First, I wouldn't call this authoritarian[1] but imperialistic[2].
But semantics aside, I don't really get that line of argument. Do you think the US invading parts of the middle east was justified? If you do not, how can this comparison be used to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
I do condemn both invasions!
So does many Americans politicians. Indeed a vocal minority opposed the US invasion at the time (they weren't prosecuted).
IMO, the way the US negotiates and works with allies makes these wars incomparable.
> But semantics aside, I don't really get that line of argument. Do you think the US invading parts of the middle east was justified? If you do not, how can this comparison be used to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
Both invasions were horrific. But the response to the US invasion of central Asia by other Asian powers was "eh, what can you do?". I don't see why the Russian invasion of Ukraine needs to be treated so differently, pouring in weapons, levelling sanctions, triggering various crisises, increasingly aggressive rhetoric and so forth. If Asia can get invaded and we all take it in stride, Europe can get invaded and we can admit the idea that we could again take it in stride. These people aren't so different from each other.
The response should be a lot more thoughtful. More people need to acknowledge that in all likelihood that Russia is acting deliberately in response to long-term pressure and not because Putin is a special evil.
The problem is you think they "own" them.
>If the US can invade the middle east
One nation they invaded was Iraq, and while catastrophic, they've created a democracy that later told US to fuck off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93Iraq_Status_of_Fo...
You can very much argue against that, and I'd agree, but it's not comparable to colonial war of aggression to literally enslave and genocide free nation.
>I don't think we need to draw a red line at the Ukraine border against the other nuclear superpower.
They are far from anything super, as we've seen in Kharkiv Oblast last week.
I assume thought, that you favor some sort of negotiated settlement. How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia in exchange for peace? And what would prevent Russia from coming back and taking another slice in a few years? Remember they already did this once before in 2014.
What credibility is left?
And arguably in the case of Ukraine the appeasement already happened after 2014 Donetsk war.
I also heard that appeasement was backreaction to WW1, where everybody was eager to go to war and it ended in bloodshed.
That's actually very uncertain. If the war broke out, Hitler might get overthrown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oster_conspiracy
Hitler's position was shaky at the time, but his success in Czechoslovakia made any opposition impossible and increased hunger for more.
>https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/first-strike-how-the-po...
Additionally, after remilitarization, there were more opportunities to Strike. Rhineland, Anschluss of Austria... the longer you wait it's worse.
>I also heard that appeasement was backreaction to WW1, where everybody was eager to go to war and it ended in bloodshed.
Wehrmacht was not close to being combat ready yet, and would get crushed by combined Polish-Czechoslovakian-Western Allies troops. Without Czechoslovakia opposing them, and Czech industry fully contributing to Hitler's war machine odds were drastically better for Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_38(t)
>However, objectively, I don't think Czechs defending (like the Ukraine chose to) would save more human lives.
And Ukraine is winning the war, saving 40 million Ukrainians from genocide.
Ukraine 2014. The West should have stopped Russia back then and there.
Well, you can't have one without the other, there's clear evidence of that going back decades.
In general, I am in favor of nonviolent resistance (which might include economic sanctions, sabotages etc.) rather than military action. In fact, it is often easier to gain moral support that way.
However, I understand that many humans naturally choose the latter, for tribal reasons, despite it being overall a worse choice.
Russia is ok invading another country and killing it's populace. But the west shouldn't fight back incase it kills someone?
Why aren't you holding Russia to the same standard as everyone else. Why don't you require them to talk and 'appease' the west rather than invading?
But I think everybody here agrees with that, so what's the point of stressing it? You think Putin listens to my opinion?
Yes, and the West should be careful with military intervention, and consider whether it won't lead to more escalation and more death.
In fact, I think the EU could do more with economic sanctions. AFAIK we still buy oil from Russia.
I really don't get your POV Putin has repeatedly shown they he will invade other countries. If we don't stop him at Ukraine then next it may well be a nato member and then how much blood shed will there be?
Your suggested course just rewards aggression. Sometimes you need to stand up to bullies. Putin is a bully.
Chomsky made a nice comparison with Palestine. Do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against Israeli apartheid by shooting rockets at them from Gaza strip?
Regarding my POV - I don't want NATO to get involved as long as it doesn't have to, because I worry about nuclear escalation. That should tell us, try to get serious about complete ban on nuclear weapons in the future, because they prevent exactly the type of action that you propose.
If my country wasn't a NATO member, then military aid against Russian invasion to Ukraine would be more acceptable to me. It is NATO that is making us helpless - we are bound by risk of escalation into a nuclear war. Simply, NATO was designed to handle a different type of threat. (Not to mention, we IMHO have somewhat less efficient military because we partly outsourced it to USA.)
I don't think what I suggest as an alternative (sanctions, resistance) rewards aggression. Occupying Ukraine is a big liability for Russia.
How does that defend Palestine in any way? It's a stupid revenge targeting civilians. If you're so helpless you can't act against military or targeted collaborators then don't do anything at all.
I would be the first to suggest to drop support to Ukraine, and even support acting against it, if they started to deliberately target Russian civilians - Belgorod is very close. Even more, they could produce large amount of chemical and even nuclear weapons if they chose, yet they don't do it.
Punishes the oppressors, in an attempt to make them stop oppressing. Same reasons why Ukrainians fight back against Russians.
And yes, he makes the same case, that Palestinians should instead attempt for a peaceful resolution and negotiation, despite it being extremely difficult (against a much stronger adversary, who doesn't respect them).
No, Ukrainians are fighting to defeat the aggressors. The main difference is that if they succeed, the occupier will not have anything to say. Palestinian tactics can only succeed by the mercy of the IDF.
In contrast to this, it is symmetric conflict, in which Russia targets citizens by desperation, but those losses are nothing compared to what would happen if they've succeeded.
This parable works multiple ways.
Bit late in the day, isn't it? The EU leaders were trying to talk to Putin till their eyes glassed over and Biden was willing to talk to Russia about legit security concerns.
Yet, what did that get us? Military escalation. Looking back, maybe the West should have put a couple of tank divisions around Kyiv and Charkiv and tell Putin to better not mess with them.
Jeffrey Sachs claimed on Democracy Now that USA refused the diplomatic talks with Russia in November 2021. France, Germany and NATO tried, but apparently Putin felt that US is a key player. Whether true or not, it was wrong for the US to act as if it's just Ukraine's (and Europe's) problem, because it isn't - US has been providing Ukraine with some military support.
which of course is the greater crime. Property rights for the ultra rich above everything else!
Russia learnt that it cannot trust West when NATO started expanding into Eastern Europe and ex-USSR not too long after Warsaw pact and the USSR dissolved.
Quite strange to say that West 'trusted' Russia after it betrayed Russia.
It's like saying that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is justified by the Ukrainian drones and rockets attacking Russian cities [0] and villages near Ukrainian border.
Joining NATO is not only about the conflict today, it's due to pretty much all generations in the area suffering due to their aggressive neighbor further to the east.
Joining NATO is not at all only up to the countries which apply. The US is more or less the game maker, with big countries like Germany, France, the UK etc. also having an important voice.
It’s not unexpected that the former Warsaw Pact countries would want to join. It is surprising to see the US being so short-sighted to allow these expansions considering that several of its own diplomats and foreign policy experts were warning against it.
Russia has consistently been a bad neighbor that keeps on threatening or playing weird tricks against other countries. They have invaded multiple neighbors in the last 100 years, where the rest of Europe has become more peaceful.
There is a clear danger to peace in Europe, and that's why countries want to join NATO.
Why do you think that letting Eastern European countries join NATO is misguided? So far, it has been the number one reason that Russia hasn't invaded any other countries in the region.
I assume you’ve led with Germany to address the very obvious WW2, when Germany turned the entire continent into a bloodbath. Ok, let’s skip that one :-)
There were the Cod Wars, which were mostly boat ramming affairs, if it weren’t for the fact that Iceland threatened to leave NATO, expel US forces and broke diplomatic relations with the UK at some point.
There was the Turkish Cypriot conflict, which continues to smolder until the present day.
Quite a few civil wars and uprisings.
Then the big Yugoslav war, where a defensive alliance oddly decided to go on the offensive.
The next big war was the current one in Ukraine.
Rather quiet given Europe’s bloody past. But if we look outside Europe, we see that the warfare just moved to other places. Falklands, Iraq twice, Syria, Libya. Not to mention the French and British colonial empires.
Core NATO are no slouches at invading and making war. So what’s the point in trying to make Russia seem irredeemable? We measure with very different standards what we do vs. what they do. Makes it easier to justify militarization, spending enormous amounts on weapons, reducing civil liberties, etc if you have an evil enemy.
Edit: forgot to answer your question about expansion. Because the likely outcome of not expanding would have been Belarus, Georgia or Ukraine in the 00’s, not invasions and war. This is not some far-fetched theory, Russian and ex-USSR leaders were repeatedly advocating for it and US and German/French politicians were obviously aware of it and in agreement. Post Bush the 1st the US changed its policy and went on a NATO expansion quest.
We don't need to go into that long history. Most of these CEE countries have been invaded by Russia in the last 100 years.
> It’s not unexpected that the former Warsaw Pact countries would want to join. It is surprising to see the US being so short-sighted to allow these expansions considering that several of its own diplomats and foreign policy experts were warning against it.
It actually worked out well. Not letting e.g. Baltics into NATO/EU would almost certainly mean they have been already absorbed back into Russia. The rest of CEE would be vassalized.
Why?
I remind you that I asked 'Why?' in response to your bold statement "Not letting e.g. Baltics into NATO/EU would almost certainly mean they have been already absorbed back into Russia. The rest of CEE would be vassalized."
The only other recent aggressor was by that point completely pacified Germany.
Czechoslovaks, United Kingdom, France, Greece, Estonia, Serbia, Italy, Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus...
Germany, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia, Finland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
It was an invasion in support of one of the sides in Russian civil war. Russia made peace with Germany 1917 [0], the intervention started in 1918.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_between_Russia_and_t...
Which was horrendously destructive, and the two World Wars fought using more modern weaponry were particularly awful. In fact, avoiding similar wars in Europe was part of the original justification for creating the EU, Europe has benefited tremenously from the almost a century of near-peace it's experienced, and this makes Russia's recent actions basically an existential threat to the rest of Europe.
It seems to me that the EU and US didn’t know when to stop and only looked at the potential economical and respectively geopolitical gains, while not giving enough weight to the risk of conflict when it was known what Russia’s red lines were.
This was a policy blunder. Looking at it from a moral or international law perspective is a dead end when the primary driver of the chain of events leading to today was geopolitics.
Realpolitik vs ideal-oriented policy. It wasn’t the buffer states driving the decision, it was the US and NATO. They had to choose between buffer states and expanding NATO. The developments in Ukraine were predictable and likely avoidable had they chosen differently - see the fate of Belarus or Georgia or Ukraine before 2004 and before 2014.
That sounds reasonable to me, just like the neighboring countries doing likewise - joining a pact to defend against Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Org...
There’s a reason Belarus is the only real ally in the region.
The war crimes committed during the NATO Libyan intervention - with a deliberate emphasis on regime change and creating a failed state - sparked the same fear in Russia that the Ukraine invasion sparked in Finland.
Russia already went through a period of internal collapse and being ruled by an American puppet, too, so the feeling that "they could make it happen again" is pretty visceral.
For the obvious reason that NATO countries are largely rich, peaceful, and doing pretty ok and are not gonna waste their time and energy attacking a nation with f'ing nuclear weapons.
You're right that NATO definitely isnt interested in committing to a full scale ground invasion of Russia.
Similarly the British were never interested in committing to a full scale invasion of India. Therefore they were... never a threat?
It takes two to tango. Those countries didn't promise anything to Russia, but the West did.
"Should a finger be pointed"
Yes, please. But be sure to read the memorandum to the end, where you will find the Annex describing West's and Russia's commitment to the common inclusive security system for all Europe. The NATO expansion that followed is nothing like that.
Pointing out that it was a verbal agreement is correct, but is missing the bigger point. This is not just a technical gotcha, the future of humanity is at stake.
Those countries which wanted to join have agency, but they don’t decide if they are accepted or not. The US does, with a few other big players. The rest rubber stamp what was decided by the big boys.
Finally, both the US and Russia had an interest in those nukes not staying in Ukraine. In fact the Ukrainians changed their mind at the last moment, but they were more or less forced/bribed to take the agreement.
Oddly, the US didn't think 'there is nothing we can do' and was about to start WW3 over it.
In contrast, Russia thought that could take over a country while Europe and the US would sit still. Then when that didn't happen, Russia didn't figure out that something was going wrong. So they got a complete economic boycott and they are letting Ukraine destroy most of the Russian army.
Soon Russia will be a country with no economy to speak of and no army.
That's just whataboutism.
Here is NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talking about moving American nukes to Eastern Europe. [0]
"The alternative to NATO nuclear sharing is different kinds of bilateral arrangements and also the risk of having, you know, nuclear weapons also . . . so, of course, Germany can, of course, decide whether there will be nuclear weapons in your country, but the alternative is that we easily end up with nuclear weapons in other countries in Europe, also to the east of Germany."
And please don't use the word 'whataboutism' unless you want to say "I have double standards."
Thankfully for the world saner minds prevailed and a settlement was reached. The soviets turned their ships around and the US removed their missiles from Turkey.
Such a settlement unfortunately is no longer possible with the current situation.
NATO never deployed nukes in any of the ex-USSR countries, did not build extensive permanent bases, signed the Russia/NATO founding act and in general tried to accommodate Moscow.
There's a world of difference between deploying offensive nukes in a neighboring country and allowing countries to join a defensive alliance. That's not to say I am a huge fan of US politics of the 1960's, but the comparison is simply lopsided.
No, but they were willing to go to war to prevent the missiles from getting there. Waiting until after would have been too late.
>NATO never deployed nukes in any of the ex-USSR countries, did not build extensive permanent bases, signed the Russia/NATO founding act and in general tried to accommodate Moscow.
There are NATO missile bases in ex-Warsaw Pact countries though (Poland and Romania). Yes they are ostensibly to defend against an Iranian missile attack but the US has a poor record for honesty in its international dealings so I can understand that a potential missile base in Ukraine would cross a lot of red lines for the Russians.
>There's a world of difference between deploying offensive nukes in a neighboring country and allowing countries to join a defensive alliance. That's not to say I am a huge fan of US politics of the 1960's, but the comparison is simply lopsided.
It's easy to argue that the potential nukes in Cuba were defensive to deter any further US invasion attempts. At any rate balance of power I think is a better lens through which to examine these things rather than the ethics of offence and defense because that's actually what drives the decision making.
Likewise calling NATO a defensive alliance is a bit tenuous I think (at least from the American perspective). NATO is controlled by the US and the US is quite aggressive about pursuing its perceived interests.
Over the last 20 years there has been lots of chatter regarding US long term ambitions towards Russia and those ambitions are now being discussed more openly even in mainstream press. For example this article is from yesterday.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/nato-versus-russia-in-u...
>A much more truly ambitious apparent long-term US ambition seems to have been to instigate the breakup of Russia into smaller manageable countries, paralleling the emergence of nations in eastern Europe after 1989. It could then deal with a reconstructed historical Russia of smaller emerging statelets run by competitive elites at odds with each other. These new polities, anxious for revenues, will then, presumably, be eager to sign lucrative commercial deals with US corporations since the entire region is extraordinarily wealthy in raw material resources.
So while I agree that Russia has acted in a paranoid manner vis-à-vis Ukraine/NATO I also think that the paranoia is understandable. Russia has after all been invaded by Western European countries three times in the previous 180 years (I'm not suggesting a military invasion of Russia is on the cards but certainly an economic and cultural one).
From an American perspective I think the US has played their hand very well. By manufacturing this conflict they created a situation where Russia had to choose between allowing further NATO expansion or starting a war which 30 years ago would have been considered a civil war. This results in all sorts of benefits for the US.
- Potential collapse of the Russian Federation and the economic benefits this would bring (for the West)
- Solidifying EU support of NATO
- Increased energy sales to Europe at higher prices
- Increased military sales to NATO countries due to new threat
- Increased budget for "the military industrial complex"
- Further the long term goal of preventing a peer competitor from appearing by both weakening Russia and making the EU more dependant on the US both economically and militarily.
- Mutually beneficial German/Russian cooperation is pretty much dead now so no threat of such an alliance appearing in the future.
Russia it seems only had two bad choices to pick from strategically speaking; a "Kobayashi Maru". We'll never know what would have happened if they had made a different choice but its fascinating to watch all this play out. History is happening in real time!
edit: I'm not the one downvoting you.
That's how negotiations work. Everything the west proposes at any point of negotiations must be honored irrespective of whether it was actually an agreed upon outcome of that negotiation or not. And if Russia blatantly breaks the agreed upon, written, formally accepted points of the negotiation that doesn't count.
Could you provide any proof of this? I don't see any evidence of this, are you referring to a verbal agreement?
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm#c203
Claim: NATO promised Russia it would not expand after the Cold War
Fact: Such an agreement was never made. NATO’s door has been open to new members since it was founded in 1949 – and that has never changed. This “Open Door Policy” is enshrined in Article 10 of NATO’s founding treaty, which says “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic” can apply for membership. Decisions on membership are taken by consensus among all Allies. No treaty signed by the United States, Europe and Russia included provisions on NATO membership.
The idea of NATO expansion beyond a united Germany was not on the agenda in 1989, particularly as the Warsaw Pact still existed. This was confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev in an interview in 2014: "The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn't bring it up, either."
Declassified White House transcripts also reveal that, in 1997, Bill Clinton consistently refused Boris Yeltsin's offer of a 'gentlemen's agreement' that no former Soviet Republics would enter NATO: "I can't make commitments on behalf of NATO, and I'm not going to be in the position myself of vetoing NATO expansion with respect to any country, much less letting you or anyone else do so…NATO operates by consensus."
I fell for it too, at the start of the war, and then I tried to combat it each time I came across it.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...
>the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
More regarding Mearsheimer in case anyone is interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
https://political-science.uchicago.edu/directory/john-mearsh...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-...
RealPolitik, the realist school of thought, evolutionary psychology, etc. only ever provide explanations. And often they may be good explanations. They are useful when trying to understand events or people or groups of people and when trying to predict behavior or create models.
But to derive justification from those explanations means that you ascribe to the belief that determinism (lack of free will) absolves you of responsibility. It does not. Whether you have free will or not you still have to make choices and still bear the responsibility of those choices. If you believe you have free will you are directly responsible and must assume responsibility for any consequence coming your way. If you believe you do not have free will, than any consequence is simply the system correcting itself. There is no escape from making choices.
But what do I known? So since you are claiming he has more authority I will counter with someone of equal or greater authority, Alexander Stubb, past Prime Minister, Minister Of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland and Director and Professor of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute:
[0] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
The sanctions are also here to stay, so claiming that “getting out of Ukraine now” would make any sense or bring them any benefits is wishful thinking.
As far as lessons go, Europe didn’t really learn anything or drew the wrong conclusions based on their approach to China. Instead of staying on its own continent and minding its own business, the EU is playing wannabe-US.
Finally, we have Eastern Europe. Which have hammered the point so hard into the brains of Western Europe that they must have forgotten themselves what the point was. Or at least that would be the case given the dependency they have on Russia, sometimes carefully disguised by moralwashing the gas through another country.
Georgia was complicated but from any zoomed out perspective it was clearly a Russian aggression.
One that saves face, to at least some degree.
> There is a simple first step towards redemption and that is get out of Ukraine right now. Better yesterday.
Simple for you, because you're not the one losing face For example, here's another "simple first step" for Europe "towards redemption" (in the eyes of the Russians): withdraw all military and financial support for Ukraine, and refuse to allow transit for weapons sent to it. How does that one make you feel? Do you think Europe will take it? It's probably only a little less likely than Russia taking your option.
Russia is fighting a war of aggression in Ukraine. Do they have interests there? Sure, but that doesn’t give them the right to invade and topple the government.
Before you ask, yes the US is extremely guilty of this exact same behavior, it is also wrong.
This war started because Putin won’t accept anything less then complete fealty from the leaders of Ukraine/Belarus, and the 2014 revolution that threw out Yanikovich meant that they didn’t have a leader that was 100% on their side in Ukraine.
No, it's rooted in the notion that Russia has it's own POV, and it's that POV that will determine its actions. The GGP's "simple first step" is nonsense, because it didn't recognize that POV.
> but an analysis of the war needs to be rooted in what’s right and what’s wrong.
And if someone (like an adversary) doesn't share your views about what’s right and what’s wrong, they'll reject your analysis and any recommendations based on it.
What are you talking about? I never said anything about a “simple first step”
> appeals to right and wrong are only persuasive for people who are aligned with you one that
Look, I’m all for understanding the other side, but don’t take empathy so far that morality has no meaning.
I corrected that. I didn't notice at first that you were a different account than the one I originally responded to.
Exactly, so no one should suggest to the Russians that they just go home because what they're doing is wrong. It's not realistic. If you want them to just go home, you have to do better than that to engineer the situation. Otherwise, the options are fight or surrender to them.
Has US ever suffered sanctions for that? I don't remember any.
> This war started because Putin won’t accept anything less then complete fealty from the leaders of Ukraine/Belarus
How do you know this? Did Putin said this personally to you? Announced this in the media?
You attribute to him something that western propaganda fakes like it's some irrefutable absolute and complete truth.
BTW, do you remember that before it all started, Russia explicitly asked for guarantees that NATO won't expand further towards Russian borders and that request blatantly refused by the West.
Also, your media probably do not say that Ukrainian politicians repeatedly announced plans to exterminate Russian population of Ukraine. Physically kill all the Russians just as Hitler (he's considered a hero in Ukraine) wanted. You'd probably never find this in English or any other language spoken on the West, but there is plenty of evidence in Russian/Ukrainian even though a lot of it being scrubbed in the last 200 days. Still you can find a lot of those on YouTube for example, if you can understand Russian/Ukrainian.
You'll never be able to get a complete picture of what was and what is happening here because you can read and understand only what is fed to you by your media and this information is heavily biased to put it politely.
> the 2014 revolution that threw out Yanikovich
It wasn't a revolution - it was a coup funded and organized by the EU and USA.
I don’t doubt that there was western involvement, just as there was certainly Russian involvement supporting prior administrations. While it can be difficult to discern the true desires of Ukrainians given outside involvement, its very easy to say that the current government in Ukraine is much more democratic than plenty of US Allies in other parts of the world, eg the Middle East.
> Also, your media probably do not say that Ukrainian politicians repeatedly announced plans to exterminate Russian population of Ukraine. Physically kill all the Russians just as Hitler (he's considered a hero in Ukraine) wanted. You'd probably never find this in English or any other language spoken on the West, but there is plenty of evidence in Russian/Ukrainian even though a lot of it being scrubbed in the last 200 days. Still you can find a lot of those on YouTube for example, if you can understand Russian/Ukrainian.
If this is so easy to find, why not provide actual sources?
Edit: the irony here is the extremely close parallels between this war and hitter’s annexation of the sudentenland.
> How do you know this? Did Putin said this personally to you? Announced this in the media?
I can tell from his actions. Russia has been invading its neighbors the entire time he’s been in power.
Did I go a bit overboard when I said “complete fealty”? Sure. But it’s quite obvious that Putin won’t accept those states as anything less than Russian client states within its sphere of influence.
> Has US ever suffered sanctions for that? I don't remember any.
US does bad things so other countries should do bad things too.
What makes you think so? What was/is democratic about Ukraine? How Zelensky, for example, crushed all the opposition parties and media, and even arrested some of his opponents after he came to power? Do you know about that?
BTW, here's the video of him before he became president: https://youtu.be/cAfXNbnXwxg Hilarious, if you understand Russian. It's about so-called Ukrainian democracy. I'm pretty sure it won't exist for long on YouTube, and it won't be ever translated to English.
> If this is so easy to find, why not provide actual sources?
Would you be able to understand without translation? Who would translate it to you?
Can you understand this, for example: https://youtu.be/ofEF5l72sjQ
> Edit: the irony here is the extremely close parallels between this war and hitter’s annexation of the sudentenland.
There are no parallels. Except that Ukraine was pumped with nazi propaganda to the top. They named streets and stadiums after Nazi collaborators that helped Germany exterminate tens of thousands of Jews in Ukraine during WWII. If you look at almost any photo/video of Ukainian army personnel, they openly wear Nazi uniform, Nazi tattoos, SS insignia. They even use Nazi salute.
It was especially easy to find before 24.02, they've become more careful since then, but still they fail many times to blur swastika or Hitler tattoo when filming their new propaganda videos.
There're tons of videos like this: https://youtu.be/_eDjtPwC2wY
> US does bad things so other countries should do bad things too.
More like, US does bad things and always gets away with it.
This has been covered in Western press:
https://m.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/former-ukraine-presiden...
However, I haven’t seen any thing that says _all_ opposition has been banned, do you have proof of this?
> Would you be able to understand without translation? Who would translate it to you?
I’d rather you post something than just make blanket statements with no basis. Unfortunately I can’t understand Russian/Ukrainian, but then again anything translated into English would be from western sources anyways.
> I'm pretty sure it won't exist for long on YouTube, and it won't be ever translated to English
Everything you posted has been up for years.
You have no means of access to objective or balanced information. You can't read anything about Russia or Ukraine in the original uncensored form. You can't watch any video from Ukraine or Russia without it being carefully selected by somebody and then translated for you.
E.g. you wouldn't be able to ponder when you see videos of Ukrainian soldiers being killed during combat, why seconds before dying they always speak in Russian, how that resonates with Joseph Brodsky poem last lines: https://russianuniverse.org/2017/02/27/joseph-brodsky-on-ukr...
And usually it's you, Western audience that makes blanket statements with no basis, uttering it so arrogantly as you know it all, where you actually know nothing.
Does anyone? I never was under any belief that I did.
Excuse my understanding, but is it your assertion that there is unfettered access to uncensored information within Russia??
Well, there is. Why do you think I have less possibilities to access information than you? Yes, some websites are blocked. A tiny minority of USA/EU funded propaganda horns like Meduza, that for years translate pretty obvious rusophobic messages. But I can read even them through VPN or through numerous other ways that CIA and NSA provide for free for such propaganda factories.
A huge difference is that I can speak and read three languages. I can (and do) read US and European news in their native languages. I can read and do read from time to time social media like Reddit. I have friends and relatives in various countries of the world.
People in US and EU have less possibilities. Does any significant proportion of population can read Russian? No. You are forced to read only tiny amount of information that is selected by somebody else and translated for you.
Regarding Russia/Ukraine conflict there's even more. There's no separate Ukrainian nation. It's not genes, it's not anything else. Republic of Ukraine was created by Lenin and later was supported by Stalin who promoted "ukrainization" of eastern regions of Russia. We do not yet fully understand why they did it. We only see documents signed by Stalin, for example, "to intensify teaching of Ukranian in schools in universities" in this region. It's an irony, that they vilify and destroy monuments devoted to people that created their state. Also, I'm sure you never read about this and saw these documents translated anywhere in your media, because it would be pretty inconvenient truth.
Anyway, because it was always Russia, there're millions of families split between Russia and Ukraine. We understand each other. Even Ukranian language is easy for us to understand - it's Russian grammar but some words are replaced with Polish equivalents. There was and is perpetual movement of people between Ukraine and Russia. My ancestors were living on Ukraine when there was no such state but it was a part of Russia.
You cannot understand the history and relationship of Ukraine and Russia to the same extent as we do. You can't understand the Nazi propaganda in Russian and Ukranian that is all over the Internet, especially Russian/Ukranian parts.
You're being told a very simple story: "Putin hates democracy and that's why it want to destroy the great democratic state of Ukraine and it's great democratic people!" and you have no other choice but to believe it. There's simply no other source of information for you. Nor would you ever be able to understand what people here feel and think about it, when US based agencies come to Ukraine, for example, and publish books like "Paladins of Hitler" and other rusophobic propaganda, that is either Nazi or entirely confabulated.
You seem to think that because Ukrainians and Russians have some shared heritage (cultural, linguistic and biological), they cannot be separate nations. But many other pairs of nations also share a significant degree of these things – Germany and Austria (and German-speaking Switzerland too), France and Belgium (Wallonia), Belgium and the Netherlands (Flanders), the US and Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Do you apply the same standards to any of them?
> Republic of Ukraine was created by Lenin and later was supported by Stalin who promoted "ukrainization" of eastern regions of Russia.
Neither Lenin nor Stalin invented the Ukrainian nationalist movement. There were already people within Ukraine who viewed themselves as belonging to a distinct nation from Russia; Lenin and Stalin just decided to ally themselves with some of these people and grant them some of their policy wishes.
> We do not yet fully understand why they did it
Marxism was originally an anti-nationalist movement–hence, it was very natural for the Bolsheviks to oppose Russian nationalism and support the demands of ethnic minorities for autonomy. Then, in the 1930s, Stalin gradually changed his mind about the topic – he began to see ethnic autonomy movements as a potential threat to his rule, and started promoting Russian nationalism and Russification in response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s
I don't think such an analysis is 100% useful because because that's not the main criteria that countries use to make their decisions. The main criteria are strategic and economical considerations. Ethical considerations are nice to have but they are more often used to justify a decision based on furthering strategic/economic goals. The US has played a blinder on this one.
The EU clearly believes they can win this fight so why should it withdraw support to Ukraine?
America forced the EU into a proxy war with Russia... by having Russia invade Ukraine? Sounds like somebody has been huffing Russian propaganda.
- That the US has a long term goal of preventing a "peer competitor" from arising.
- That the US has a financial and strategic interest in causing the collapse of the Russian Federation.
- The US leadership is capable of intelligent long term thinking (so we have to ignore Trump/Biden).
https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1346.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-rise-and-conflict-with-us/a-550...
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/nato-versus-russia-in-u...
A quick quote from the last link sounds like classic US policy to me:
"A much more truly ambitious apparent long-term US ambition seems to have been to instigate the breakup of Russia into smaller manageable countries, paralleling the emergence of nations in eastern Europe after 1989. It could then deal with a reconstructed historical Russia of smaller emerging statelets run by competitive elites at odds with each other. These new polities, anxious for revenues, will then, presumably, be eager to sign lucrative commercial deals with US corporations since the entire region is extraordinarily wealthy in raw material resources."
And if we look at the result of the current crisis (I'll quote myself from a post above):
"- Potential collapse of the Russian Federation and the economic benefits this would bring (for the West)
- Solidifying EU support of NATO
- Increased energy sales to Europe at higher prices
- Increased military sales to NATO countries due to new threat
- Increased budget for "the military industrial complex"
- Further the long term goal of preventing a peer competitor from appearing by both weakening Russia and making the EU more dependant on the US both economically and militarily.
- Mutually beneficial German/Russian cooperation is pretty much dead now so no threat of such an alliance appearing in the future."
I think its pretty well played on the part of the US; nothing to be ashamed about. I'm interested to see what happens next.
Still, what matters is who invaded. Russia did. And of course what _really_ matters is who ends up being the loser, and again, it's quite obvious it's going to be Russia.
It’s easy to imagine Ukraine coming out just as big a loser as Russia even if they “win”. The EU is in for a tough time too.
I do wonder where we’ll be in 12 months time.
Unfortunately it also means Armenia is screwed. That's what you get for putting trust in Russia.
>> Simple for you, because you're not the one losing face For example, here's another "simple first step" for Europe "towards redemption" (in the eyes of the Russians): withdraw all military and financial support for Ukraine, and refuse to allow transit for weapons sent to it. How does that one make you feel? Do you think Europe will take it? It's probably only a little less likely than Russia taking your option.
> It works both ways you know. Europe cannot afford to lose face either. Imagine EU can be blackmailed by Russia! Wouldn't stand a chance against the US or China.
Exactly my point.
> The EU clearly believes they can win this fight so why should it withdraw support to Ukraine?
I never said they should. I said that a proposal that Russia unilaterally withdraw is not actually an "easy" one because it would feel to the Russian leadership like the EU withdrawing would feel to your typical Westerner.
I would imagine there is a similar point of view in many Russians regarding the West (and they can make arguments about abuses and how intrinsically evil the other party is and patriotic jingles and all that too).
So how, on that road, does this end?
I think we know the answer and it really and truly is awful and the end of the world we have previously known.
FYI, they're "dealing with Russia through force" right now. It's just through proxies, and it's going pretty well.
Although there might soon be some "proxies" soon, like Azerbaijan (unfortunately) and (hopefully soon) Georgia.
The road ends the same way it ended last time, 30 years ago - in adjustment of Russian borders.
Unless you claim that a state that can't even manufacture tanks or ordinary cars (or phones; Russia is wholly dependent on technology imports from Europe) is still capable of remanufacturing nuclear warheads, and is willing to sacrifice itself as a state to use them to... not even prove the point, because it would still be a defeat.
Some back and forth, increasing desperate Neocons with no reverse gear pushing the thing. Western society is over indebted and teetering. Eventually the world explodes in fire, billions die, and some version of MAGA presides over a much reduced United States when it ends. (I'd rather believe your prediction but do not).
There might be a way to avoid the scenario (unlikely at this juncture but possible). It isn't with wishful (Russia has lost half it's armed forces) and hostile thinking though.
Just my opinion.
To Ukraine, this is about pretty much everything - Russians are quite open with their intention to erase Ukraine as a nation, and hundred thousand civilians killed in Mariupol alone proves they are serious.
And then there's Russia, USSR's retarded offspring. They will likely get a lifeline, but it's unlikely they will be allowed to keep the army.
We will see.
Only cowards need to save face.
Same place as usual. Decades behind schedule, 3x over budget, often cancelled, and then sitting idle in spite of near unlimited public subsidy. All while tying up enough money in cleanup costs for a single disaster to double worldwide wind capacity.
Letting a country get away with genocide with a slap off the wrist will only encourage them to do it again.