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I understand the Taiwan argument, I don't understand Ukraine, how does everyone joining NATO help Russia/China in any capacity? By that logic, they should attack Switzerland or the Cayman Islands and piss off most of the billionaires in the world who hide their assets there...
The purpose behind attacking Ukraine was to prevent them from joining NATO, and that kind of relied on a quick resolution to the war before other countries have a chance to join. The goal was to get in and get out with a treaty that formally recognizes Russia's control over Crimea and promises to not join NATO.
The purpose behind attacking Ukraine was to prevent them from joining NATO
NO, that's Kremlin propaganda.
If the Kremlin was worried about NATO, they wouldn't put everything they have against Ukraine and leave themselves so exposed like they are right now where Ukraine alone has been easily holding part of their territory for a month.
The reason for this barbaric war was to take industrial infrastructure in Donbas, secure a land bridge to Crimea, take recently uncovered fossil fuel resources, give Russians a common enemy to make them more nationalistic, and prevent Ukraine from flourishing as a democracy because then Russians might want the sameas their neighbors.
I thought they're devoting so much to this war largely because Putin needs it to stay in power. As in, they started it because they thought they could secure a peace deal really quickly (i.e. no NATO and official handover of Crimea), but things didn't go as planned and Putin has to see it through to maintain his power. The nationalism and crushing of Democracy was plan B, not the primary goal.
I don't think they need more fuel reserves, and they already have a bridge to Crimea, so they don't really need any of the land in E. Ukraine. I think Russia attacked with the excuse of assisting Russian separatists in the east, but I really don't think they care about them, they just want Ukraine to stay within their sphere of influence, and failing that, not join the west. Before 2014, the government of Ukraine was pretty pro-Russia, and then they switched to a pro-west government (some say through western influence, but not sure how much of that is propaganda).
Yes agreed, at this point Putin will look weak if he doesn't get something out of all this. Which could give someone an opportunity to take him down.
They don't really need more fuel reserves, but they want to prevent Ukraine from undercutting them on the market.
Putin's bridge to Crimea has almost been destroyed already, and they've stopped even using it for a lot of military logistics. A land bridge isn't vulnerable like that.
Attacking Ukraine to prevent them joining NATO would have worked had Ukrainians been as weak as Putin thought. But nope, what does Putin expect from a group of people, whom his country had subjected to Holodomor before? Somehow happily rejoin Russia for another round of persecution? That's like UK invading Ireland again, and expecting Ireland to give up and happily rejoin the UK despite the previous 800 years of atrocities.
Putin had also thought the Ukrainian military are still the same Ukrainian forces who were doing badly in 2015. But the fact that Ukraine was on the verge of defeating separatists in Luhansk and Donbas, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, would have hinted to him that the UFA have matured. Former Ukrainian defense chief, Valerii Zaluzhny, attributed the eight years of fighting in Eastern Ukraine for allowing UFA to gain valuable combat experience that has been indispensable in the current war. In hindsight, the Russian meddling in Eastern Ukraine only helped Ukraine to gain more experience! Thank you Putin!
That Putin, he's a teacher at heart, he failed to teach Tucker Carlson history, but he helped Ukraine Defense Forces to become the strongest military in one hundred settlements and what, 300 square km of Russian territory?
That's not what Putin said in the first week of March 2022, he said they were sending a special operation to protect ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and to de-nazify Ukraine. Those were his words. Not Putin's fault the FSB couldn't find any Nazis for the livestreams, right? Must be tough to be him, when his own words were streamed around the world and can't be erased. Is bombing maternity hospitals part of his strategy to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO? Strangely, crushing women and children to death using glide bomb attacks on apartment buildings has not been persuasive.
I don't really believe anything Putin says, I believe what he does. I think "protecting ethnic Russians" was an excuse to achieve his main goal, which was to keep Ukraine from joining NATO, and to resolve the dispute around Crimea.
I think he wanted a quick war, but Ukraine didn't play ball and now he needs to save face to stay in power. So he desperately needs a win here, so he's pivoting to Russian nationalism to stay in power because it's becoming pretty clear that this war is going to drag on.
I'm saying that what Putin DOES is send resources to eradicate Ukraine as a nation. You're right that the excuses keep changing. It was never really about preventing NATO membership for him. It's about seizing and destroying.
Idk, if he completely absorbs Ukraine, that puts him right next door to a very angry NATO. I really don't think he wants that, he wants a buffer, and he wants Europe to get over what he's done in Ukraine. I think he now sees that ship has sailed, and he can't really back down due to local political pressure, so he has to keep going.
You're saying two different things. Him attacking Ukraine is him doing something but the only way you could read the motivation as something done to stop Ukraine joining NATO is either basing it off of what someone in the regime said (hypocritical) or projecting what you want onto the situation to square a pre-conceived narrative in your head.
There seems to have been a set of informal assurances between the US/NATO and the USSR that NATO wouldn't expand eastward past Germany, though there were no legally binding agreements. Russia objected when NATO expanded in the 90s, and it continued objecting as more and more countries joined NATO. This isn't new, it's a clearly established pattern.
So when we get to Putin, I think his argument that NATO is being too aggressive has merit, at least from the Russian perspective. If he allows NATO to continue expanding, the Russian people would justifiably be pretty upset, so he essentially is forced to take some kind of action to show that Russia has certain lines in the sand. If he lets Ukraine, their next-door neighbor, join NATO, who would trust that he actually has any kind of power to protect Russian interests? So it makes complete sense that Putin decided to invade Ukraine for the primary purpose of preserving a line of buffer states, as well as legally justify the taking of Crimea. That sends a message to other border states that Russia will not stand by while it's regional influence is further eroded.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he was justified in attacking Ukraine, I'm merely saying he was obligated to demonstrate a show of force to retain his position of power. If he was able to get a peace agreement from Ukraine to not join NATO and to formally recognize Russian control of Crimea, I think he would've withdrawn. That didn't happen, so now he's between a rock and a hard place and needs to get significant concessions from Ukraine to retain his power in Russia.
I don't really believe anything Putin says, I believe what he does...
So when we get to Putin, I think his argument that NATO is being too aggressive has merit...
I think you're picking when to listen to Putin to support your preconceived notion that NATO started it.
I'm looking at the history between Russia/USSR and USA/NATO and trying to see things from their perspective. I'm not saying their perspective is correct (NATO is only obligated to actual, legal contracts), just explaining how Russians see things to understand why they think they were justified in instigating a conflict.
Once you understand why your enemy is doing certain things, you can more carefully craft a peace deal that's mutually beneficial.
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Nacho brother, pal. ;) I prefer "fren" or "buddy".
You mean the war that is not a war, and the attack that Putin said he wasn't going to perform until he did, leaving even Putindrones running confused for an excuse because Putin's cancer was acting up making him panic and rush so even they didn't know? How's Prighozin, by the way?