No such coalition exists except in the paranoid fantasies of Putin and his cronies.
“Either choose neutrality or we’ll invade you and commit war crimes against your population” sounds like a good argument against neutrality to me.
Ukraine didn’t choose war and you’re painting Russia as a “Now look what you made me do, stop hitting yourself” passive actor that simply had no choice but to commit war crimes.
Actually Ukraine wanted to join a military coalition that for decades has a mutual defence pact. There has never been any sign of NATO invading Russia,
You are repeating Russian propaganda. - do you think Ukraine is dominated by Nazis?
I leave this thread to it’s self contained reality.
He doesn’t. Yes, they’ve had 15 or 20 thousand deaths in the Russian army, but no one in Russia knows that. Or at least most don’t. All Rusisian media is controlled by the government; any independent media has been suppressed. And that government lies to its people up, down, left, right, and sideways. That includes how many soldiers have died in the war. Any contrary information from the rest of the world is the Russian equivalent of fake news.
I rather admire the brass-neck of accusing this thread of having a “self-contained reality” whilst suppporting the actions of, and parroting the dogma of, the Russian state.
It baffles me that people can assume NATO would want to invade and conquer Russia. Why would they want to waste hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, as well as risk the near-certainty or nuclear war, and for what - some oil? Some wheat? Russia simply isn’t that great a prize.
This is all about Russian ego. They need to be hated, otherwise they’ll be forced to face their own inconsequence.
Putin thought that, too, back in February. It didn’t work.
The side with the greater resources, of course. Which is Ukraine.
Some Ukrainians, and although that included some currently in power, in part in response to Russian aid for separatist movements and the annexation of a major part of Ukrainian territory, Ukraine is a democracy and the next government might have been a Russia friendly one. And despite this there was absolutely no chance Ukraine would be admitted to NATO any time soon, in part because of a concern it would provoke Russia.
Furthermore “NATO” has never wanted Russia destroyed, it’s a defensive pact. Prominent American hawks, generally on the right, have wanted Russia destroyed, but guess what, they are all about that White, Red and Blue now.
Your “facts” are nothing but. They perfectly mirror the selective half-truth propaganda coming out of Kremlin. And you should read up on “passive voice”. Putin made a deliberate choice to start an invasion, and when it failed to go as smoothly as he hoped he made the deliberate choice to keep it going, full well knowing it would cost civilian lives. You echoing his talking points in the face of the simple fact that his choices have cost the lives of survivors of the actual Nazi occupation of Ukraine while he’s telling his people he’s “denazifying” Ukraine is as abhorrent as @Novelty_Bobble stated.
That wasn’t “everything they got”. If they wanted total devastation they could add in a WWII style bombing campaign.
That’s one of the reasons Ukraine has been desperate to obtain more aircraft, which NATO has been unwilling to permit, and which is not something that can be fixed in a hurry.
So is he pacing himself?
Just because Russia has a big army on paper doesn’t mean it is able to mobilize and coordinate those forces to overwhelm Ukraine.
And their bomber force would have been decimated.
Those were, at best, verbal “agreements” and not treaties. On top of that, Russia does not get to dictate to other sovereign nations. Whether Russia liked it or not, all those former soviet republics became independent sovereign nations. Nations that decided the West was a better deal for them than Russia. If Russia had had more to offer (and did less ordering about) perhaps they would have stayed with Russia but they didn’t. As sovereign nations that is their choice and their prerogative.
That’s a difference between NATO/EU and the Russo-sphere - nations in NATO really do get to exercise their own choices, that’s why the members of NATO always seem to have spats and squabbles amongst each other outside of a perceived crisis. It actually is an alliance and not an empire or hegemony.
Roughly analogous with Cuba throwing in with the USSR after Castro came to power, and why Cuba never seems to be mentioned in that analogy I have no idea. Yes, there were some military operations attempted against Cuba but they were small scale (more assassination attempts) and not the sort of invasion we seen Russia currently engaged in. The only time it got truly nail-biting was during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the US objected to nuclear weapons being deployed in Cuba but even that was resolved without invasion or open warfare between superpowers. So no, your example does not hold. The US come to tolerate the existence of USSR/Russia allied Cuba for decades.
Your analogy ignores that the US and Russia do, in fact, share a direct border. OK, the border goes between the Diomede Islands so adjacent land is 3.8 km apart. Everyone seems to forget this. Their respective mainlands are about 88 km across, closer than Cuba is to the US. If the proximity of the US was really such a red line for Russia they’d be invading Alaska, not Ukraine, except of course invading Alaska would have much worse consequences for Russia than Ukraine. Immediate consequences.
So, sorry that argument simply doesn’t hold up.
Yes, yes it is. This has been stated by the Russian government. The stated goal is to take over all of Ukraine and abolish “Ukraine” as a concept, changing the name, banning the language, even changing history (although this has been delayed due to a fire of unknown origin at one of the larger Russian textbook publishers).
That’s nice.
Russia can want all it wants - Russia does not get to dictate to another sovereign state. The US sure as hell would have preferred a democratic Cuba for the past 63 years but the US didn’t get that. Russia might want to either absorb Ukraine or have a neutral Ukraine but they have no right to demand that because Ukraine is a separate nation. No matter how much Putin’s Russia claims it is not.
Home to people who might ethnically Russia, who might speak Russia as their first language, but who may or may not consider themselves Russian citizens. It’s like arguably that because my native language is English I am ethnically English (I’m not - ironically for this discussion I’m actually of Russian descent, even if my grands were forced out of Russia 130 years ago), or that I’m actually a English citizen. No, I’m not. I’m not of English descent and my citizenship is to a nation other than England.
The truth is that many of the people fighting the Russian military in the Eastern region of Ukraine are those same Russian-speaking, Russian-descended people on whose behalf Putin claims to have started this butchery. They might have Russian ancestry and speak Russian but their actions are demonstrating they consider themselves Ukrainian. I don’t deny that there do exist pro-Russian people in the Donbas, but I question if they are the majority the Kremlin claims they are.
Again - the current President of Ukraine was born in eastern Ukraine, speaks Russian as his first language (though obviously he is multi-lingual), actually spent part of his life living in Russia, but clearly considers himself Ukrainian.
Probably because people in those regions have been attacking Ukraine for most of those years. Agreements only hold when both sides behave themselves.
You are welcome to make use of Google Translate to investigate media sources from all sides in this mess. There are also ample resources on line about historical events from multiple viewpoints. This is really not as difficult as you make it out to be and I need not rely on you for information.
EVERY nation has corruption and “Nazi” problems EVERY SINGLE ONE. The far-right/nationalist/fascist/Nazi-wannabes in Ukraine actually have fewer political wins and less influence than many other European nations. You want to see corruption? Come visit Chicago here in the US. None of that is sufficient justification for Russia to invade its neighbor.
Thank you for stating your opinion. I do defend your right to freedom and thought and speech and to have your own opinion.
I also happen to think you are absolutely wrong and that Russia’s behavior is beyond disgusting. Dare I say it? Evil. Putin’s Russia is evil. In my opinion.
And the ethnicity of your surname is irrelevant. My grandparents and great-grandparents were Russian. So what? It’s irrelevant to the conflict.
So long as Russia illegally occupied Crimea and there was unrest in Donetsk and Luhansk there was zero chance Ukraine was going to be allowed into NATO. More bombast by Russia.
I’ll also point out that NATO was formed in response to the USSR, not to Russia. Also, it’s not like the USSR didn’t harbor hostility towards the US, I remind you of the famous incident where Krushchev declared to Western ambassadors visiting Russia that “we will bury you”.
In reality - that is, real reality, where most of us try to exist - neither NATO nor the USSR really wanted to “destroy” the other. Hence why the Cold War stayed cold (proxy conflicts aside - but the fact they were proxy and not direct just additionally proves the point).
Yeah, I mean, the West has its own wheat and oil…
There’s really nothing that Russia owns that the West “needs” or can’t get from somewhere else. Which is why sanctions are going to hurt Russia more than they hurt the rest of the world.
Ukraine, of course. Russia is in the position of the US in Vietnam. The only real difference is that the US had a more capable military, and was an ocean away from the people it was fighting. Sure, the more powerful country could attempt to annihilate the smaller one, but the practical barriers in place are great if they want to occupy and control the smaller one. Ho Chi Minh told the French this before the US got involved, but it remained true after we left:
Because the fact is, this is the Russian military up against the entire country of Ukraine. They’ve already begun recruiting everyone of fighting age and anyone else who is willing. Russia does have a huge standing army, but the vast majority is a bunch of poorly trained conscripts. Even if Russia did declare war and end up with a military that’s anywhere near the size it is on paper, in the end Ukraine is able to drum up a military that’s 10X its size. That army also has the advantage of already being in the country they want to defend. No matter how many soldiers Russia has, they still need to transport them to the fighting.
So, if Putin does decide to declare war and a general mobilization, I pity the average Russian soldier. Lots more will be sent to Ukraine for little to no gain.
Russia has thrown their best, and they pretty much got their asses handed to them. Sending more poorly trained and equipped soldiers just gets you more graves if you send them against well equipped, well supplied and motivated soldiers in a modern war. Six guys with kalashnikovs and a Lada can be killed by two guys with a drone in minutes. Conversely, it’s unlikely that the guys in the Lada are going to threaten the guys with the drone.
Don’t get me wrong, Ukraine’s future would be much darker if Putin does start a general mobilization. But without a large change in training, strategy and tactics the most likely outcome is an independent Ukraine filled with the graves of Russian soldiers.
Yeah, and that’s something I think they’d likely want to keep intact. Russia hasn’t achieved air superiority, and it doesn’t appear likely to in the near future.
Also, if we want something, our first instinct is to just buy the thing. Everyone ends up less dead and with more of the stuff they want.
Yep. I think that’s why we see more attempts to become economically dominant these days than to actually try to conquer and hold territory. China doesn’t have to invade small/weak nations in Africa to extract their resources, for example, they can just purchase what they want, or pay for some sort of license to extract minerals, or whatever.
This is my concern, is Putin going to do mass conscription? But even if he does, he doesn’t seem to have any more heavy military weaponry or the ability to make/repair more due to the sanctions.
However if he conscripts and sends several million soldiers to Ukraine, it’ll make things worse. I still don’t think Putin would win, but a lot of Russian soldiers are going to die.
And I invite the now absent poster to consider the following if they truly want to grasp the difference between NATO and the Russian proto-empire.
what would happen if…
a) a NATO country withdrew from NATO
b) a nation under Russian control withdrew from Russian control
compare and contrast.