Ah yes, just like the Americans thought that Al Qaeda was an "existential threat" to the US. Sure, it makes sense, and it's their motive. But a motive doesn't justify a crime.
Yes. However, the difference being that there was a 2014 revolution in Ukraine, and Ukraine did subsequently become aligned with the US, and the US is extremely aggressive toward its enemies and has been inciting anti-Russia hatred for many years. That border along Ukraine/Russia is a major existential risk. Russia will be at a severe military disadvantage if they lose that buffer. Ukraine should have remained a neutral buffer state.
I believe the US agencies have provoked Russia to invade, and this outcome was intended or at least expected.
> However, the difference being that there was a 2014 revolution in Ukraine, and Ukraine did subsequently become aligned with the US, and the US is extremely aggressive toward its enemies and has been inciting anti-Russia hatred for many years.
The reason for the rise of anti-Russian hatred since 2014 is the invasion Russia launched, and the murdering, looting and raping that Russians brought with them.
The US hasn't been inciting shit; it has been a major moderating power hoping to calm down the situation to maintain stability. This is particularly clear after the full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukraine started getting significant military aid only after news channels across the world began showing uncovered mass graves all day long and withholding ai became untenable. And to this day, the military aid remains modest compared to actual needs, out of fear that Russia could break apart if the war escalated. Ukraine is still not allowed to use foreign weapons against targets in Russia, while Russia performs daily drone and missile attacks all over Ukraine.
The US has always preferred Russia as a normal, developed and stable country that they could do business with, often at the expense of the freedom and security of millions of Europeans. For example, I am old enough to remember how Bush senior[1] told us not to rock the boat when we were weeks away from declaring independence during the fall of the USSR, because the US preferred to work with the singular USSR as they always had instead of having to deal with a patchwork of newly independent countries.
> However, the difference being that there was a 2014 revolution in Ukraine, and Ukraine did subsequently become aligned with the US,
Ukraine didn't do anything between the 2014 revolution and the Russian invasion. (Like, literally, the revolution was still shaking out internally when the Russians launched a massive invasion from their bases in Ukraine as well as from Russia proper, which is how they took Crimea and also started the long war in Eastern Ukraine.)
Ukraine did have a pro-US alignment, stronger than it had even ca. 2008 when NATO stalled them and Georgia from getting Membership Action Plan's at Russia's request (which Russia exploited by immediately invading Georgia, and one expects Ukraine would have followed sooner had it not had a period with a Russian-aligned administration that started before Russia was ready to move beyond Georgia) after the 2014 Russian invasion, but, its kind of hard to use that to justify the invasion.
Again, I am not talking about justification. That's a moral subjective thing and I'm not interested in that conversation.
Regarding motivation, you are making a claim that contradicts the evidence. There were ongoing provocations post 2014. Also I'm not talking about the alignment of individual Ukrainian peasants. This is about power at the highest levels of authority. The Ukrainian authorities willingly provoked conflict with Russia. It has become a proxy state of the west. War would most likely have been prevented if Ukraine remained neutral.
> Regarding motivation, you are making a claim that contradicts the evidence.
No, I'm not.
> There were ongoing provocations post 2014.
There was an ongoing war post-2014, because of the Russian invasion.
> The Ukrainian authorities willingly provoked conflict with Russia.
No, Russia provoked conflict with Ukraine, by invading the country, annexing part of it, and, with a mix of proxy forces, Russian-paid mercenaries, and Russian state forces continuing fighting Ukrainian forces in other parts of the country, for the entire period from 2014 on.
> It has become a proxy state of the west.
Yes, it has become dependent on the West in a way it never was before as a direct consequence of the war initiated by Russia in 2014.
> War would most likely have been prevented if Ukraine remained neutral.
No, it wasn't, and this is demonstrable because Ukraine had not stopped being neutral at the time the war started.
Then have the balls to define how Ukraine stop to be neutral? Or we should believe the Kremlin paranoia? Was that EU deal? Russia is afraid if Ukraine enters in EU and grows like Poland then it could be danger and Russia needs to keep Ukraine down?
I mean yeah, let's assume Russia believed really hard in globalism. The problem is if that's the case, Russia suddenly has many many more problems.
They justified the invasion by claiming it will better the security situation of Russia. Now that the invasion has started, is the security situation of Russia any better?
Ok, maybe the invasion didn't improve the security situation, but it would have if the West didn't meddle. They seem to have forgotten however, that the West has always been meddling in Ukraine, they literally had troops there previously. And also since Ukraine was US-aligned, wouldn't it make sense that the US would help them?
But let's even assume the invasion went 100% to plan and Ukraine got completely annexed! Would the security situation of Russia be improved? NO, it would not!
- Literally everybody in Europe would suddenly hate Russia
- Neutral countries would no longer be neutral to Russia (as demonstrated recently)
- The region is destabilized. No one was previously thinking of starting wars in Europe, now war is top of mind.
- What does the "land buffer" even get them? No one would dare perform a ground invasion of Russia cause they have nukes!
- If the nukes were gone, the "land buffer" would be inconsequential to the US army. The Russians somehow don't have air superiority even when Ukraine doesn't have an air force. They would be bombed out of key positions immediately with air and artillery power should the west invade.
The "neutral buffer state" is a pipe-dream. One that is not actually a terrible idea (it's not a good idea mind you), but entirely unachievable.
Your reply is well thought out. The fact is that Ukraine was being turned against Russia. This was unacceptable to them and considered an existential risk, whether by direct or indirect force, by military or political/cultural subversion. This is evidenced by the huge risk and sacrifices that Russia has accepted with this course of action. They warned that this would happen as a consequence, for many years.
This was a major point in your other comment that I forgot to address actually, my bad.
Let me repeat your point just to make sure I am understanding it correctly: "The US should have known that meddling in Ukraine would start a war. Therefore, they shouldn't have meddled in Ukraine."
This could be true. But then I would argue: The US has long used the "bastion of freedom" approach because they believe it works - they believe that if they meddle in everybody's affairs to keep them aligned with the US, that this will help world peace. Therefore Russia would have already known that the US would meddle in Ukraine. And Russia would have known that would cause them to start a war. Therefore, Russia would have known that the US was on track to start a war with them in a neighboring country and did nothing about it for nearly a decade (other than warning the US). Does this seem reasonable?
And I also argue against your original point: "The US should have known that meddling in Ukraine would start a war." I don't believe this is reasonable because even if they knew, they were wrong. The invasion didn't start until 8 years after the 2014 revolution. So when did the meddling occur? Before the revolution? After?
Let's assume that the meddling happened before 2014. Are the intelligence agencies stupid? Their meddling caused a large portion of Ukraine to be annexed with little resistance. Do you think the intelligence agencies would have been happy with that outcome?
Let's assume that the meddling happened after 2014. Why would the intelligence agencies cause another war when the previous one was so easily lost?
I guess the big question is: Why would the US want war so bad? Why would they blindly turn Ukraine against Russia KNOWING that a war was coming that could turn Ukraine against the US (if it was annexed)?
> Let me repeat your point just to make sure I am understanding it correctly: "The US should have known that meddling in Ukraine would start a war. Therefore, they shouldn't have meddled in Ukraine."
No. I am saying that I believe US/NATO by proxy intentionally provoked war with Russia.
No should haves or shouldn't haves on either side. Not interested in subjective moral debates.
You know what? I think it is reasonable to believe that. I think it is reasonable to believe the expansion of NATO "provoked" war with Russia. That article is from 2022 but Putin was saying this all the way back in 2014: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603
> On the contrary, they have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They kept telling us the same thing: “Well, this does not concern you.” That’s easy to say.
So I can believe that Putin thought he needed to invade Ukraine due to NATO's expansionism. I do not understand how he could be so stupid :(.
Interesting link. He is very convincing and persuasive in his speeches. Whatever you may believe about Putin, he is certainly not stupid. Not even his worst enemies would honestly think he is stupid. He has an extremely sharp mind and is a cunning adversary, and so is his opposition in the west.
"Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
>"Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
And explain why Ukraine a country that was their "brothers" felt attracted by EU and Western values? I hope the explanation does not involve Satan or CIA mind control.
> The fact is that Ukraine was being turned against Russia.
Funny. I thought it was the invasion in 2014 and the crimes against humanity committed by invading Russians that soured relations between Ukraine and Russia.
Are Americans at fault for rising anti-German tensions in Poland back in 1939 too?
That's not how the events unfolded. Russians pressured Ukrainian president to block a very favorable trade deal with the EU that had already received overwhelming support and passed the parliament. The general public responded with massive protests, Ukrainian president mishandled the situation and gave order to shoot at protesters, protests grew even larger in response, and the president eventually fled to Russia.
Russians used the time of internal turmoil as an opportunity to invade Crimea and Eastern Ukraine to further their interest of expanding Russia to the extent of the Soviet Union.
You don't need to construct elaborate conspiracy theories about CIA involvement, when Ukrainians were mad as hell over losing the opportunity to see their income sharply rise from open trade with the EU, like everyone else in Eastern Europe before them had seen.
The US agencies involvement in such events is a mundane obvious fact at this point. It would be a conspiracy theory for there NOT to be any involvement by the US in such a critical sequence of events against one of their major adversaries. That is a very naive perspective.
Yes we all know about the USSR and its vast expansion post WW2. The USSR no longer exists. Russia is involved in regime change in Ukraine right now, today. But it's obviously not a covert operation.
