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Comment by 9999px | Hacker News Reader

Well, they've bothered to false flag a bit.

With their insidious plan to put an anti-Russian military alliance on their borders. You obviously understand the depths of Putin's genius. He's playing the long game.

NATO has been on the Russian Federation’s borders as long as the RF has existed.

And it was on the borders of both the USSR and the RSFSR as long as NATO has existed, which is considerably longer.

This argument is dumb because Estonia and Latvia are already on their border.

There's nothing NATO can do with Ukraine they couldn't already do with the Baltics.

It's more than dumb. Russia's current actions are actually only now making NATO presence in the region tangibly stronger (see: Sweden, Finland). This wouldn't happen without Putin invading Ukraine.

The difference is whether or not you're on the open plains leading to Moscow. The eastern edge of the Carpathian Mountains has always been a hard line for Russia, going back to the middle ages, because once the plain to Moscow opens up, it's nearly indefensible. That edge is in eastern Ukraine.

It's a very 19th/20th century view on 21st century geopolitics, but hey, that's modern Russia for you.

And Lithuania, bordering Kaliningrad which is a - highly militarised - Russian enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania.

That is the overwhelming global intelligence consensus, yes. Even Russian allies aren't fully behind the conflict - if Russia were provoked, allies would be offering materiel or training, no?

If there's one thing I really want out of an afterlife it would be access to an objective history book. It would be so fun to compare to our history

I have this conversation often with my Russian friends. Usually it goes like this:

- Ukrainians provoked this war because they were shelling Donbas for 8 years killing many people!

- You realize they wouldn't shell anyone if Putin hadn't started the war in 2014, right?

Sometimes they also argue that after the Euromaidan the Russian population felt "threatened" (which is not true BTW). To which I reply that most of these people are either refugees or dead now.

Sometimes they even use the official argument made by Putin that he had to start the war otherwise Ukraine would join NATO. Which is one of the most absurd arguments as Ukraine was repeatedly refused NATO membership and even joining the EU was considered a very delicate affair. Even now, when the cards are on the table, nobody is treating Ukarine's membership in NATO seriously - Zelenski realizes the future of his nation will be Israel-like, focused on external and internal security backed up by Western allies.

I guess none of this is Putin’s fault. Let’s blame Apple instead.

Oh no you're one of them. How do those boots taste Mr Fascist?

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