The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[vikingatespam]

I would say that having many military bases straddle your boarder when you are quite vocal about the perceived threat and it continues to grow,, is a far cry from attacking someone for owning a goldfish.

I think we can agree I am being somewhat sarcastic here.

One must remember context here now there is the argument for why NATO continued to expand its potential capabilities vs Russia but the fact they do when Russia has made attempts at de-escalation is important.

I have been around and around this issue with rsemmes:

1) Ukraine was not going to join NATO. It couldnt, according to the by-laws of NATO.
2) NATO was never a threat to Russia. As of late 2021, NATO was withering on the vine. Its still rather toothless, even after almost 4 years of this war.
3) The entire "NATO expansion" concern is bogus. Putin couldnt care less about NATO. After all, he worked real hard to get SWE and FIN to join.

The entire issue revolves around keeping UKR a vassal state, a puppet state, like Belarus. If UKR was firmly under the control of a Ukrainian Lukashenko, then NATO wouldnt involvement wouldnt be an issue at all.

If you want a metaphor this is more like building a fence on your neighbors lawn after he told you that if you did that he would tear it down. Both the building of the fence and the tearing of it down in that case are highly aggressive actions

Yet, building a fence is entirely rational and ethical. Does UKR have the right to not be Russian ? I would think so.

 

[vikingatespam]

My "beliefs"?

Like... The Tooth Fairy?

Once again, you provide zero context. No where in my post did I talk about your beliefs, but rather how you express yourself. For example, how does the "tooth fairy" factor into this conversation ?

I could take it to mean that you think that I believe in something fantastical. Unfortunately, I have no context for what you think this might be.

Do you see your issue now ?

Putin made (past tense) clear to Bush that NATO is a threat to Russia; maybe Bush needed that to be explained to him. Ukraine (or Georgia) joining NATO makes that threat bigger and closer. NATO's opinion on the definition of "threat", "fear" or "irrational" (or "evidence", for that matter) is irrelevant to Russia, as Russia's opinion on the definition of "threat", "fear" or "irrational" is irrelevant to NATO. No need for analogies, NATO is a threat to Russia.

At what point do the irrational fears of Putin weigh more heavily than the independence of other nations ?

If anyone is going to mention Sweden and Finland again, when was the last time that there was a coup d'état in those two, not that densely populated, countries in the far north? Too late now anyway, Russia is already at war.

Putin worked _very hard_ to push SWE and FIN into NATO. Clearly, Putin does.not.care. NATO expansion is nothing more than a smokescreen.

This is all about establishing a puppet state in UKR. No more, no less. No NATO, no biolabs, no nazis, etc etc.