I think in this case making the most obvious and clear case doesn't matter to some members here.Nah.
NATO's a threat to Putin's ambitions, a threat to free Kremlin movements/actions, to Putin's Russia bulging. Should be clear to anyone. NATO isn't an existential threat to Russia, cultural or otherwise. Well, except (ironically perhaps) Putin's moves have put Russians in danger. (Nov 6, 2014; May 19, 2021; Feb 14, 2022; Feb 22, 2022.)
Russia's a direct and present, tangible threat to Ukraine (and perhaps some neighbors). Including cultural: Jul 12, 2021; Mar 17, 2022; Mar 18, 2022; Mar 22, 2022; Mar 25, 2022; Apr 5, 2022; Apr 12, 2022; May 6, 2022; Sep 6, 2022; Sep 9, 2022; Sep 13, 2022; Sep 14, 2022; Oct 17, 2022. No wonder the Ukrainians sought NATO protection.
Keep up. (Long thread.)
But, granted, NATO might a factor somewhere. — jorndoe
How do you actually talk to a criminal like Putin who over and over breaks deals, lie and does whatever he wants. There is no peace talk that works with such people so thinking the war can end by giving a criminal what he wants thinking that's the end of it is naive to the extreme.
The resistance, the sanctions and opposition towards Putin seems by all measurements to actually work, regardless of what many have said in this thread. If this leads to getting rid of Putin, then it was all worth it. — Christoffer
How would you reduce the number of Ukrainians being killed when they seek to defend themselves against those killings? We should, by your argument, give Putin some land where Ukrainians grew up and lives on after they conducted genocide. And what happens when he makes a move again? Give more land? Give up the whole of Ukraine? What about the respect for the Ukrainian people and what they want? Do you think they fight in this war just for the sake of it? You think they don't know they're dying on the battlefield? — Christoffer
The expansion of Nato has been because of nations fearing what Putin might do and seeking security in an alliance that blocks such aggressions. I know, I live in a nation who wants this security. Any notion that Nato is an existential threat to Russia is a delusional idea promoted by Russian propaganda in order to give justification for Russias actions. And at the end of the day, Putin is responsible for all of this and any delusional idea that Nato forced him to do so is just buying into his narrative. — Christoffer
And yet I have to say it yet again, that Putin is a criminal. Again. Ok, fine. — Manuel
Let's set aside what caused Putin to invade, it matters less now, because the war is going on. The important question now, is what are the next steps that could be taken to end this war as quickly as possible. — Manuel
"It's not just the (special military) operation that started on Feb. 24, but the entire evolution of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the past years that was really, really a big blow to him. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically," Palazhchenko told Reuters in an interview.
"It was very obvious to us in our conversations with him that he was shocked and bewildered by what was happening (after Russian troops entered Ukraine in February) for all kinds of reasons. He believed not just in the closeness of the Russian and Ukrainian people, he believed that those two nations were intermingled."
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/gorbachev-died-shocked-bewildered-by-ukraine-conflict-interpreter-2022-09-01/
He has been stating as have Russian leaders, that Ukraine is a "red line" for them for over twenty years, why is this not taken seriously? — Manuel
However, regarding this and thousands of other crimes committed by Russian terrorists, we do not see clear and timely reports from certain international organizations. We saw today a completely different report from Amnesty International, which unfortunately tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.
[...] Anyone who amnesties Russia and who artificially creates such an informational context that some attacks by terrorists are supposedly justified or supposedly understandable, cannot fail to realize that this is helping the terrorists. — Zelensky
The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks. All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions, including in choice of weapons, to minimize civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians or damage civilian objects are war crimes. — Amnesty International
According to @amnesty and @AgnesCallamard this is not happening.
It's OK, @AgnesCallamard says it's all fine.
First of all, International Humanitarian Law does not impose a blanket prohibition on establishing military bases in proximity to civilian infrastructure. Instead, the military should, to the maximum extent possible, avoid locating military objectives near populated areas and should seek to protect civilians from the dangers resulting from military operations. This warrants an assessment of each situation on a case-by-case basis, not just from a legal perspective, but also in terms of the military realities on the ground. — Oksana Pokalchuk
Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.
And, she told The Associated Press, even the most conservative model suggests 50,000 men dead in Ukraine. — Associated Press
The concept “anti-American” is an interesting one. The counterpart is used only in totalitarian states or military dictatorships, something I wrote about many years ago (see my book Letters from Lexington). Thus, in the old Soviet Union, dissidents were condemned as “anti-Soviet.” That’s a natural usage among people with deeply rooted totalitarian instincts, which identify state policy with the society, the people, the culture. In contrast, people with even the slightest concept of democracy treat such notions with ridicule and contempt. Suppose someone in Italy who criticizes Italian state policy were condemned as “anti-Italian.” It would be regarded as too ridiculous even to merit laughter. Maybe under Mussolini, but surely not otherwise.
Because if you do not believe or cannot say clearly that Putin is a criminal, then there's a possibility that you may be an accomplice of his crimes, or a supporter. — Olivier5
It’s like me saying: I can enjoy pizza and still recognise the awful amount of calories it contains. — neomac
In other words, there might be a strong link between a regime of human rights under a certain government and the awful foreign policy of that government which is undeniably hard to swallow once you realise it. — neomac
Now I imagine somebody like you at that time saying: “I condemn the Confederates for this war, and I also condemn my federal government for its actions leading up to it. This idea of ‘picking a side’ is strange”. — neomac
This is simply trolling. — ssu
To the extent that purveyors of the conventional wisdom provide evidence, it has little if any bearing on Putin’s motives for invading Ukraine. For example, some emphasize that he said that Ukraine is an “artificial state“ or not a “real state.” Such opaque comments, however, say nothing about his reason for going to war. The same is true of Putin’s statement that he views Russians and Ukrainians as “one people“ with a common history. Others point out that he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Of course, Putin also said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” Still, others point to a speech in which he declared that “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.” But as he went on to say in that very same speech, in reference to Ukraine’s independence today: “Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly.”
To make the case that Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine and incorporating it into Russia, it is necessary to provide evidence that first, he thought it was a desirable goal, that second, he thought it was a feasible goal, and third, he intended to pursue that goal. There is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.
Perhaps the best indicator that Putin is not bent on conquering and absorbing Ukraine is the military strategy Moscow has employed from the start of the campaign. The Russian military did not attempt to conquer all of Ukraine. That would have required a classic blitzkrieg strategy that aimed at quickly overrunning all of Ukraine with armored forces supported by tactical airpower. That strategy was not feasible, however, because there were only 190,000 soldiers in Russia’s invading army, which is far too small a force to vanquish and occupy Ukraine, which is not only the largest country between the Atlantic Ocean and Russia, but also has a population over 40 million. Unsurprisingly, the Russians pursued a limited aims strategy, which focused on either capturing or threatening Kiev and conquering a large swath of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine. In short, Russia did not have the capability to subdue all of Ukraine, much less conquer other countries in eastern Europe.
All this amounts to believing some of Putin's account about some of his motivations. It's not going anywhere close to overwhelming. In fact it's very weak, akin to believing a criminal's excuses for his crimes. — Olivier5
Putin made numerous public statements during this period that left no doubt that he viewed NATO expansion into Ukraine as an existential threat. Speaking to the Defense Ministry Board on December 21, 2021, he stated: “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometers away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge?” Two months later at a press conference on February 22, 2022, just days before the war started, Putin said: “We are categorically opposed to Ukraine joining NATO because this poses a threat to us, and we have arguments to support this. I have repeatedly spoken about it in this hall.” He then made it clear that he recognized that Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO. The United States and its allies, he said, “continue to pump the current Kiev authorities full of modern types of weapons.” He went on to say that if this was not stopped, Moscow “would be left with an ‘anti-Russia’ armed to the teeth. This is totally unacceptable.”
Putin’s logic should make perfect sense to Americans, who have long been committed to the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulates that no distant great power is allowed to place any of its military forces in the Western Hemisphere.
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