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Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

Dunno. See "Russia's Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern Ukraine" https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/11/21/russias-igor-strel...

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See

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

2008 Classified Cable describing potential future

Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

Ah OK, that settles it - Putin is innocent.

Ok, we won't confuse you with the facts, as your mind is already made up.

You've a victim of Western propaganda. Can't you see that?

Compared to the Russian propaganda you are consuming and spouting?

I don't pay that much attention to media actually. But I work with actual victims: refugees from Ukraine whose homes were bombed by Putin's army. We can talk about who is bad for hours on end, but in the end there is an aggressor and there are victims. You can try to blur the image as much as you want but it will not change reality.

Bye the way, so you don't get offended, I used to think just like you. In 2014 I was all anti Putin viz-a-viz Ukraine, Crimea etc. That was because I consumed a lot of Western main stream news media. It's all propaganda.

> That was because I consumed a lot of Western main stream news media. It's all propaganda.

Now you consume Russian propaganda and all is well.

I don't consume Russian propaganda. The information i get is from US Military personnel. And also written records by US and Western Officials over the last 20 years.

How do u know u haven't been duped by Western propoganda.

The information i get is from US Military personnel.

Tell us more about what you've been hearing, please.

Especially as regards this topic.

"You have to understand how hard this makes it to engage honestly with your post. All useful conversation requires a minimal foundation of trust/honesty/charity - i.e. that both parties honestly want the best overall outcome for everybody, and the disagreement is only about what that compromise looks like and how to get it. When you write like this, it makes you sound like you just want confrontation."

I was actually genuinely interested in what you might have to say.

> Russia would have to decide whether to intervene;

Why would they have the right to intervene? Ukraine is an independent country.

> a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

I'm sure that Russia conquered Crimea against their hearts wish lol.

Your source says the Americans were aware the Russians would be upset by Ukraine joining NATO. Partly as a result I guess Ukraine did not join NATO and was not invited to.

The Girkin article basically says he started the war in eastern Ukraine as an imperialist who thought eastern Ukraine should be part of Russia. I see no mention western warmongers in that. If you can fault the west it seems to me that they caused the war more by forcing Ukraine to give up its nukes in return for promises to defend it from Russian invasion and then not bothering to do so.

So what did the West promise to Ukraine and when, in this regard?

It was kind of vague to be honest:

>The Budapest Memorandum consists of a series of political assurances whereby the signatory states commit to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. But the meaning of the security assurances was deliberately left ambiguous. According to a former US diplomat who participated in the talks, Steven Pifer, it was understood that if there was a violation, there would be a response incumbent on the US and the UK. And while that response was not explicitly defined, Pifer notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance”.

Exactly - "an obligation that flows from [it]" is quite vague, and in any case wasn't the language of the Memorandum itself.

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