Corrupt oppressive men who you say will use nuclear weapons to defend their rule.
You sure picked the moral side in this battle!
M.A.D. men.
Corrupt oppressive men who you say will use nuclear weapons to defend their rule.
You sure picked the moral side in this battle!
Many lives are at risk by appeasing Russia, and many more in the future.
The citizens of Western Ukraine seemed to feel it was well worth risking their lives to defend their morals and not once again be oppressed by the corruption coming out of Russia.
I don't know how one stops mad rulers. We haven't figured out how to deal with North Korea yet. But I know for sure the answer isn't to role over and play dead.
Looks like Crimea avoided a war by joining Russia when it did.
The fighting that's going on in eastern Ukraine is about to turn into full scale war. The only thing that will stop it is a security agreement that keeps Ukraine out of NATO permanently. Russia will accept nothing less, but we are no where near that. Unfortunately it looks like we'll have to see the tragic alternative actually happen before getting to the obvious solution
If Crimea stayed in Ukraine, they would be the first battleground in this unnecessary war. Instead they will watch it from the sidelines.
The obvious solution is for Russia to fuck off.
Should smaller countries just bend over when larger ones threathen them with war? This is what you're suggesting and it is absolutely disgusting.
Ukraine has every right to join whatever international alliance or union. Ukraine has every right to defend its borders. Ukraine has every right to decide on its own constitution. Ukraine has every right to these without Russia threathening it with war.
Really it is Russia that invaded Ukraine and started this war. Ukraine could've declared war on Russia for invading them. Ukraine didn't want to start a war they would lose so they didn't. Ukraine saved lives, Russia is risking for more people to die with their aggressive actions and meddling in Ukraine.
Just today Ukraine was defending its territorial integrity against separatists and possible Russian provocateurs. What does Russia do? Send more troops to the Ukrainian border, only some 15-20 kms (or 10+ miles) from the border. Russia says it's a "military exercise". Yah, right.
So what do Russian actions tell you about the likelihood of your "obvious solution" happening? It doesn't take a Nostradamus to see that it's nothing but wishful thinking.
Should smaller countries just bend over when larger ones threaten them with war?
Should smaller countries just bend over when larger ones threathen them with war? This is what you're suggesting and it is absolutely disgusting.
That's a fair point, although clearly it's not true with Russia who was behind the Vietnam War (with Red China) and the Korean War. It's arguably not true with China and Cuba, but it would depend on how one sets up the boundary conditions I suppose.Hasn't America started more wars in the last 50 years than China, Russia, S Korea and Cuba combined?
Putin has a healthy record of killing his own people as well. A reporter who begins criticizing Putin had best learn to fly or accept a life expectancy measured in months.Holy hell, Putin is such a fucker. My hypocrisometer pegged, red-lined, then overloaded and died a tiny electronic death at his latest announcement.
He defends and supplies Assad for years, so Assad can exterminate Syrian men women and children. 150k dead, something like that?
But Ukraine sends in the troops after Kiev's warning was ignored and takes back their own government buildings from armed separatists/Russians, a handful of those guys are shot dead, and now it's suddenly 'There will have to be consequences for government that kills it's own people.'
Did he say that with a straight face? Wow. Just wow.
NATO in Ukraine is certainly not anywhere near as dangerous to Russia as nukes in Cuba were to the US. For one thing, NATO is a polyglot organization not capable of quick, covertly planned action, much less quick, covertly planned action starting a major war. Takes NATO weeks of arguing to decide to intervene in largely powerless nations. For another, nukes are inherently capable of killing millions and severely damaging a nation's warfighting ability with but a few minutes' warning. NATO could have a dozen divisions stationed in Ukraine and would still have no ability to suddenly leap into Russia, much less straight into Russia's major cities and military bases.That is a fair position, but it's one that will inevitably lead to war, which makes it less good than an unfair position that avoids war.
Think back to the Cuban missile crisis.
Cuba had every right to allow Russian nukes to be placed on its sovereign territory. And it had every reason, after the Bay of Pigs invasion to want those nukes there for protection and deterrence against the US. Russia also had every right to place nukes there with Cuba's permission. It could have told the US that it's demand to remove the nukes was indefensible and illegitimate, and kept those nukes there, but it didn't. Why? Because they knew that the US would not back off and that could lead to a war that could turn nuclear very quickly.
This is where we are with Ukraine. Russia will not back off. NATO in Ukraine is at least as dangerous to Russia as nukes in Cuba were to the US. It will invade Ukraine if NATO in Ukraine is not taken off the table.
Then NATO will have to decide if it wants to start a war with Russia over Ukraine, or not.
In any case, this is not a choice between Ukraine staying out of NATO and Ukraine getting into NATO. It's a choice between Ukraine staying out of NATO and a regional war that could turn into WWIII, up to and including nuclear conflict.
That's a fair point, although clearly it's not true with Russia who was behind the Vietnam War (with Red China) and the Korean War. It's arguably not true with China and Cuba, but it would depend on how one sets up the boundary conditions I suppose.
But a better statement would be "True democratic republics seldom start wars of aggression, preferring wars of defense, economics, and human rights."
Putin has a healthy record of killing his own people as well. A reporter who begins criticizing Putin had best learn to fly or accept a life expectancy measured in months.
NATO in Ukraine is certainly not anywhere near as dangerous to Russia as nukes in Cuba were to the US. For one thing, NATO is a polyglot organization not capable of quick, covertly planned action, much less quick, covertly planned action starting a major war. Takes NATO weeks of arguing to decide to intervene in largely powerless nations. For another, nukes are inherently capable of killing millions and severely damaging a nation's warfighting ability with but a few minutes' warning. NATO could have a dozen divisions stationed in Ukraine and would still have no ability to suddenly leap into Russia, much less straight into Russia's major cities and military bases.
If we accept that Russia must de facto control Ukraine to avoid war, why would Russia not similarly have to control the Baltics, Poland, etc? Peace in our time is merely allowing an enemy to reach critical strength before taking action and hoping they won't. With a reformed Russian Empire that would be a very bad bet.
For Russia too, it's been a bad bet to allow foreign military alliances to come to its doorstep, and in Ukraine even more so. Russian security has always relied on maintaining a buffer zone between itself and potential enemies. You can argue that it's being paranoid, but it's pretty clear that it's not going to allow NATO in Ukraine, no matter what, and it has already demonstrated how far it's willing to go in that goal.
So the peace in our time talk is nice, but talk is cheap. Time is coming when NATO will have to put up and fight a hot, potentially nuclear, war with Russia, or shut up. It's just the reality of where this situation is going. It's unfair to Ukraine to tell it which alliances it can and can't join, but the alternatives are going to be far worse.
I for one feel like the freedom of Ukraine to join NATO is worth fighting a nuclear war over.
So what do Russian actions tell you about the likelihood of your "obvious solution" happening? It doesn't take a Nostradamus to see that it's nothing but wishful thinking.
You are the fucking fascist you accuse Kiev of being. Fuck you.
I've noticed this with a few of my old friends.
You get old school, hard left, former communist supporters that just can't get their head round the fact that the world has changed.
They either don't want to admit that Russia is now well on its way to being a fascist state or that they are so embittered that the socialist experiment didn't work that they want everything else to fail as well.
Really its time to move on, realise that Russia now is pretty much the opposite of what it wanted to be during the dreams of the USSR and look for other solutions.
Yup. There's a reason why the far-right and neo-fascist parties of Europe love Russia. Putin and Russia resemble quite a bit the kind of state they want.
Yesterday Russian troops were 15 kms from the border. Today Ukraine claims the Russian troops have moved to 1 km from the border. Nato says Russia moved about 40 000 troops to the border. This really is an act of war. It's like it's 1939 again.
I find it amazing that in this day and age we still have this kind of bullshit going on in Europe.
So what do Russian actions tell you about the likelihood of your "obvious solution" happening? It doesn't take a Nostradamus to see that it's nothing but wishful thinking.
to be fair...it's Russia. Europe has never wanted to claim them.
The solution is for Ukraine to be a neutral federal state that stays out of military alliances, and in return, for Russia to back off.
Then Ukraine can focus on their economic problems instead of playing geopolitical games one way or another.