They view Russia through a lens of unending cynicism (and I would argue that is reasonably appropriate), but fail to realise America functions in exactly the same way. — Tzeentch

Again with your piece of pro-Russian propaganda? — neomac


You're responding to a simple statement of fact.

So obviously the Kremlin believed it was their business, and whether you agree with that or not, if you do not take warnings like these seriously, you're a fool, or you're the United States preparing to sacrifice a pawn. — Tzeentch — boethius

For example, if you pull a gun on me and warn me you'll shoot me if I take another step, I'd be a fool to ignore that warning whether I feel you'd be justified in shooting me or not. At the end of the day I don't want to be shot and I need to navigate the real world and not the world as I wish it was. I may wish you wouldn't shoot me despite your warning or then wish that someone would jump in front of me to take the bullet and so I don't suffer the consequences of my own actions, but if that's not what reality is like then I'm a fool to make decisions based on delusional wishes. — boethius

That the US would drop Ukraine like a hot potato the moment the war no longer serves US interests was as obvious at the start of the war as it is now.
You can complain about "complacency" all you want, but unless it's a surprise betrayal, which is not in this case, then that's not a basis for decision making.
People should do A, B, and C and therefore I will do D based on the assumption they will do what they should, is only valid if there's reason to believe people will actually do that. — boethius

The Ukrainians see the US abandon their "close allies" and "deal friends" in Afghanistan, watch Afghanis literally fall off the last airplanes, and then tell themselves: hmmm, I want me some of that. — boethius

Making decisions based on reality and not wishes or assuming what other people "should do" when they have no track record of dong it, is a principle of decision making so basic it even appears in Disney movies:

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy? So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not? — Captain Jack Sparrow


Which I've quoted before but clearly the lesson remains lost, but your philosophical compass should definitely point directly at this paragraph to see you through these conceptually rough seas. — boethius

Putin will be forced to use tactic nuclear bombs, now. European populists and men-of-honor save Europe with your indisputable all-knowing wisdom! — neomac


You still don't get it.

As Ukraine loses the capacity to legitimately threaten Russia, NATO can therefore augment whatever doesn't change the outcome. — boethius

Why is Steadfast Defender, the largest NATO military exercise since WWII, happening now rather than last year ... or the year before that ... when it would have actually been a legitimate threat of intervention as well as legitimate threat of moving even more more equipment and weapons into Ukraine? A threat that would have genuinely applied a lot of pressure on the Russians.

Because Russia is no longer under pressure in Ukraine and so this additional NATO pressure is no longer all that meaningful. — boethius

The problem with these people is that they've fallen hook, line and sinker for a story of American exceptionalism.

They view Russia through a lens of unending cynicism (and I would argue that is reasonably appropriate), but fail to realise America functions in exactly the same way. — Tzeentch

(and I would argue that is reasonably appropriate) — Tzeentch

Looking at other Russian neighbors, who want to see Ukraine become like another Belarus? :down: Another Baltics? :up: (What about where to raise kids?) Pick your poison? — Apr 2, 2024

• Oct 4, 2023 map — Irredentism versus sovereignty
• Who/what honored / got behind what UA wanted, which was reasonable, more/less than others?
• Democracy versus authoritarianism (including proliferation)
• Trajectories: development (or trying) versus regress
• Comparisons

Is it then your assertion that the Kremlin had no (reason to) care about this (E+D) and implications — it was no concern of theirs? — Apr 4, 2024

Maybe I'll call failure to recognize such like ↑ "Kremlin-blindness". — jorndoe

regrettable — Tzeentch

Is it then your assertion that the Kremlin had no (reason to) care about this (E+D) and implications — it was no concern of theirs? — Apr 4, 2024

↪Tzeentch, so, using the thread to air other grievances? — jorndoe

No one here is arguing that Russia is right in what it does.

This is what you can't seem to understand: my argument is not that we ought to look more favorably on Russia's actions, but that we ought to look more critically at the United States' — Tzeentch

I do believe the matter of Ukraine becoming part of the American sphere of influence represented a legitimate security concern to the Russians. — Tzeentch

Is it then your assertion that the Kremlin had no (reason to) care about this (E+D) and implications — it was no concern of theirs? — Apr 4, 2024

Second, your complaint can be easily retorted: my argument is not that we ought to look more favorably on the US's actions, but that we ought to look more critically at Russia. And if that is what makes me pro-US, then the opposite argument, namely the exact argument you just made makes you pro-Russian. You take Russia to be a lesser evil than the US. I take the US to be a lesser evil than Russia. To call mine a bias and yours not a bias, you have give compelling arguments, so far you offered questionable arguments. — neomac

Ukraine didn't threaten Russia, [...] — ssu

What mistakes had been done by the West, it simply doesn't erase the fact that Putin decided to escalate a frozen conflict to a full scale conventional war with the objective of continuing the land grab it started over in 2014. — ssu

The real critique of the US could be the too little too late doctrine in supporting Ukraine, as the US didn't from the start think Ukraine would have a chance to defend itself so successfully. — ssu

Oh... How odd then that the Russians insisted for over fifteen years that it was an existential security threat and marked it as a red line.

And what a genius plan to ignore such warnings!

How strange that Ukraine ended up in the position that it did.

How very odd, indeed. — Tzeentch

There's nothing odd with that. Russian imperialists see Ukraine as the existential part of the to make them a great Power. — ssu

And what a genius plan to ignore such warnings! — Tzeentch

European leaders themselves have admitted they treated the Minsk accords as a temporary armistice during which Ukraine could be armed and prepared for war. — Tzeentch

You're completely ignoring the West's provocative role in all of this. — Tzeentch

Ukraine was simply a mechanism by which the US could sow instability in Eastern Europe, which is clearly the reason it sought to change Ukraine's neutral status - the key to stability between Russia and Europe - because it's the only reason the US would pursue such a policy in a geopolitically sensitive region. — Tzeentch

In other words, you're saying the Russians lied to us for 15 years and their warnings should have been ignored, as they were? — Tzeentch

Another question; suppose Finland is next on the chopping block. Would you also favor this strongman attitude of no negotiations or diplomacy with the Russians? Fight on till the last Finn, as it were? — Tzeentch

They might be unhappy of NATO enlargement, but as you should notice that the enlargement of Sweden and Finland didn't actually get much if ANY response. The whole thing was a non-event. Why? Because it's a minor point, just like humanitarian issues and democracy is a minor issue to the US, but it still talks a lot about those issues in it's foreign policy discourse.

Hence to think that the reason to attack Ukraine was to avoid NATO enlargement is simply false. That (to deter Ukraine from becoming a NATO partner) was already done actually by the show of forces with large military exercises on the Ukrainian border. Besides, the whimsical idea here is to think that what countries the US Presidents says to become members would really become members de facto laughable. That it took two years for Sweden to get into NATO should tell that. No, the real reason to invade Ukraine was to gain territory, create that landbridge to Crimea, create that Novorossiya. This is not speculation, it's a fact: Russia has annexed more territories, some that it even doesn't have control. This, plus the russification efforts done in the occupied territories, should make this really clear.

What is now becoming very clear that Putin was lead to think that the invasion would be quick and similar to what happened with Crimea. And the West wouldn't be a problem... just as earlier in 2014 it hadn't been — ssu

If Russia makes territorial claims then yes, ... — ssu

In other words, when a former, nuclear-armed great power talks about existential security threats and red lines for fifteen years, ignore them and assume they are lying.

Genius. — Tzeentch

2010 Jan 17	·	Ukrainian presidential election
2010 Feb 7	·	election runoff (Yanukovych, Tymoshenko)

2013 Nov 21	·	Euromaidan starts

2014 Feb 18	·	Revolution of Dignity starts
2014 Feb 22	·	Euromaidan ends
2014 Feb 23	·	Revolution of Dignity ends; organized unrest in Donbas starts
2014 Feb 27	⚔	Russian troops ("little green men") start seizing Crimea
2014 Mar 18	·	Russia annexes Crimea
2014 Mar 31	·	Kharkiv Pact annulled by the Kremlin
2014 Apr 6	⚔	insurgents seize government buildings in Donbas
2014 Apr 12	⚔	Donbas war starts; platoon under Girkin (Surkov) seizes Sloviansk
2014 May 2	·	organized unrest in Donbas settles down
2014 May 25	·	Ukrainian presidential election (Poroshenko)

2019 Mar 31	·	Ukrainian presidential election
2019 Apr 21	·	election runoff (Zelenskyy, Poroshenko)

2021 Jan 1	⚔	ongoing scattered insurgent attacks in eastern Ukraine
2021 Nov 10	·	the US reports Russian military buildup near Ukrainian border

2022 Jan 17	·	increasing Russian troops in Belarus; increased separatist strife in eastern Ukraine
2022 Jan 25	·	Russian military exercises in Crimea and southern Russia near Ukraine
2022 Feb 10	·	Russo-Belarusian military exercises start
2022 Feb 20	·	Russo-Belarusian military exercises end
2022 Feb 22	⚔	Russian "peacekeeping" troops enter Ukraine
2022 Feb 24	⚔	Russia invades northern, eastern, southern Ukraine
2022 Sep 30	·	Russia annexes Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia

2024 Jan 1	·	Russia occupies roughly a fifth of Ukraine

• the Kremlin likely planned for a while, multipronged too
• democracies tend to act slowly/hesitantly, autocrats are less bound
• the Kremlin takes initiatives (attacks), others react (less proactive measures)
• divide and rule strategies have worked, and can work, well for the Kremlin
• international peacekeepers in Ukraine didn't seem appropriate/feasible
• early unrest had appearance of mere/internal domestic conflict
• tiptoeing around Russia
• Kremlin-anxiety (not the Moldovan kind here, but) nuclear in particular
• an effective (internationally implemented) Ukrainian no-fly zone would risk direct confrontation with Russia
• China has likely been supplying the Kremlin with intelligence including satellite, reliable intelligence matters all around
• western countries have already been accused of neo-colonialism/imperialism, meddling, war-mongering, you-name-it
• Russia has occasionally been promoted as all-but "invincible", though Russia was never itself threatened with invasion here
• can all defense be narrated as offense, can all defensive measures be cast as threats?

Besides, please give us the reference where Putin has said himself before 2022 that Ukraine itself poses a threat to Russia. — ssu

And then just strawman about ignoring them and assume they are lying. — ssu

This is what you're proposing: that we assume Russia is lying about the security concerns it voiced for over 15 years, and that they can therefore safely be ignored and antagonized. — Tzeentch

Lessons learned? Not learned? — jorndoe

That's how crazy your argumentation is. — ssu

Except that none of this is actually part of my argument.


I'm not making any arguments about whether Russia's security concerns are justified, which is what you are doing. — Tzeentch

I'm making the argument that when Russia speaks about existential security concerns and red lines for a decade-and-a-half, one should take it seriously. — Tzeentch

Well, we have seen what comes of that: the destruction of Ukraine.

That's why I have asked you whether you would be similarly careless if it were Finland paying the price of war. You have yet to answer that question. — Tzeentch

It's not about the justification, it's about what the real objectives here are. — ssu

Hence the motive for the invasion lies somewhere else. — ssu

Wrong. I've answered it. My grandfathers fought the Russians and so would I, even if I'm quite old. Their generation lost a lot more killed than the this Ukrainian generation has seen. Finland lost in WW2 2,5% of the total population. 96 000 soldiers died from 3,8 million people. Civilian losses were surprisingly small.

Now ask yourself: has yet 2,5% from the Ukrainian people (or basically 5% of the men) yet been killed?

And I think you don't understand Finnish mentality on the subject. They have made consistently polls about the attitudes towards the defense of the country by asking the same question again and again for decades: "Would you defend your country in war, even if the outcome would be questionable". Hence would you defend your country, even if there's a real possibility of losing the war. The vast majority of Finns have said yes, they would. I would also.

And if Russia nukes all the cities in Finland and ethnically cleanses out the rest surviving Finns, then take as many of them out with you and good luck with that barren nuclear wasteland then. And when likely it wouldn't come to that, defend your country to get then a better deal... like staying independent. — ssu

The Ukrainians see the US abandon their "close allies" and "deal friends" in Afghanistan, watch Afghanis literally fall off the last airplanes, and then tell themselves: hmmm, I want me some of that. — boethius

Exactly. You believe the Russians were lying about their security concerns. That's precisely my point. — Tzeentch

I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.

The nonchalance with which you speak about turning your own country into a nuclear wasteland to deny it to the Russians, one would think you were a Ukrainian rather than a Finn. It's downright uncanny how eager you already appear to be for war. — Tzeentch

You understand this is exactly the type of sentiment an actor like the US will use to put you infront of its wagon? — Tzeentch

The nonchalance with which you speak of accepting Russian demands as a solution to get "peace" shows how naive your thinking is. — ssu

When have I ever mentioned accepting Russian demands? — Tzeentch

Proposal 2: These international security guarantees for Ukraine would not extend to Crimea, Sevastopol, or certain areas in the Donbas. The parties to the treaty would have to define the boundaries of these areas or agree that each party understands these boundaries differently.

In your eyes, proposing to negotiate for a diplomatic solution is "accepting Russian demands", "appeasement", etc. — Tzeentch

It's the typical idea that Russia would have (somehow) accepted a negotiated peace... but it was the West that fumbled it by "standing firm". — ssu

What's your grounds for simply ignoring these accounts? — Tzeentch