What about you read the rest of the same Wikipedia paragraph instead of isolating the sentence that seems to make you right?
Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014. The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country’s non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO.
(I stop here as the rest concerns what happens after Russian invasion)
So OK, I didn’t write it in the best possible way (as it couod be read as “Ukraine had never made any plan to join NATO ever”, which was not my intention) but my point is still correct : just before the invasion, Ukraine had no such plans.
Maybe you consider that having had a plan to join NATO 4 years before justifies annexing a part of the country?
The Maidan revolution happened because of aborted economics ties with EU, and the Maidan government wanted to strengthen economic relations with EU. There was no clear intention to integrate NATO.
That’s completely ahistorical. The maidan coup was a color revolution that was instigated by US and one of the goals was to integrate Ukraine militarily into NATO. This is undeniably a fact based on the fact that it’s precisely what’s been happening over the past 8 years.
It seems to me that you are once again using what happened after Crimea’s annexation as an a posteriori justification for it. You are basically saying that Ukraine collaborating with NATO after being invaded by Russia shows that it was previously being aggressive towards Russia. Is there any fact predating Russia’s annexion of Crimea that shows Maidan government’s ambition to join NATO?
Note also that my original point is not contradicting anyithing you said. If Russia invaded Ukraine because of mere signs that it might want to join NATO, what prevents it from doing the same with Finland?
Finland is a EU country that shares a border with Russia and collaborates with NATO, so it is (qualitatively) as much a threat to Russia’s existence as Ukraine was, so it may be invaded by Russia someday for the same reason, so it has a motivation to join NATO to protect itself against that possibility.
Crimea annexation happened as a direct response to A US sponsored coup. The goal of the coup was to install a nationalist government, that Nuland is on the record handpicking, that would collaborate with US agenda to expand NATO into Ukraine.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, they made clear demands that Ukraine declare neutrality, abandon pursuit of NATO membership, and respect Minsk agreements. Ukraine chose to risk conflict instead. Of course, it’s possible to argue that Russia would’ve invaded anyways, but the fact remains that Ukraine did not attempt to avoid this conflict.
Note also that my original point is not contradicting anyithing you said. If Russia invaded Ukraine because of mere signs that it might want to join NATO, what prevents it from doing the same with Finland?
Russia invaded Ukraine because they saw NATO expansion into Ukraine as a threat to their national security. They made a calculation that a war on their own terms would put them in a stronger position in the long term. Whether Russia would invade Finland or any other country would depend on this sort of calculus.
If you read article 5, then you’ll see that there is no obligation of NATO members to engage militarily. In fact, the level of support Ukraine currently receives from NATO is above and beyond what article 5 stipulates. So, it’s not even clear that NATO membership changes anything in practice.
Ultimately, if both sides continue to escalate then there will be a war between Russia and NATO. This will benefit nobody, and it will certainly be an incredible tragedy for both Europe and Russia. This is where we are headed at the moment.
US sponsored coup. The goal of the coup was to install a nationalist government, that Nuland is on the record handpicking, that would collaborate with US agenda to expand NATO into Ukraine.
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Ambitions to join NATO was literally the reason Russia invaded Ukraine.
wow so original
Ukraine had no official ambition to join NATO before the Crimea annexation.
“Ukraine applied to integrate with a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008.”
Learn your history before you talk about such things
What about you read the rest of the same Wikipedia paragraph instead of isolating the sentence that seems to make you right?
(I stop here as the rest concerns what happens after Russian invasion)
So OK, I didn’t write it in the best possible way (as it couod be read as “Ukraine had never made any plan to join NATO ever”, which was not my intention) but my point is still correct : just before the invasion, Ukraine had no such plans.
Maybe you consider that having had a plan to join NATO 4 years before justifies annexing a part of the country?
I’m just disputing a very simple claim you made. 2008 is very simply before the Crimea annexation. So you are very simply wrong.
I indeed poorly choose my words, sorry about that.
What I said :
can be understood in two ways :
I meant the second one, but I recognize that I should have stated that more clearly.
Crimea annexation happened as a direct response to the government in Ukraine being couped by the US.
The Maidan revolution happened because of aborted economics ties with EU, and the Maidan government wanted to strengthen economic relations with EU. There was no clear intention to integrate NATO.
That’s completely ahistorical. The maidan coup was a color revolution that was instigated by US and one of the goals was to integrate Ukraine militarily into NATO. This is undeniably a fact based on the fact that it’s precisely what’s been happening over the past 8 years.
It seems to me that you are once again using what happened after Crimea’s annexation as an a posteriori justification for it. You are basically saying that Ukraine collaborating with NATO after being invaded by Russia shows that it was previously being aggressive towards Russia. Is there any fact predating Russia’s annexion of Crimea that shows Maidan government’s ambition to join NATO?
Note also that my original point is not contradicting anyithing you said. If Russia invaded Ukraine because of mere signs that it might want to join NATO, what prevents it from doing the same with Finland?
Finland is a EU country that shares a border with Russia and collaborates with NATO, so it is (qualitatively) as much a threat to Russia’s existence as Ukraine was, so it may be invaded by Russia someday for the same reason, so it has a motivation to join NATO to protect itself against that possibility.
Crimea annexation happened as a direct response to A US sponsored coup. The goal of the coup was to install a nationalist government, that Nuland is on the record handpicking, that would collaborate with US agenda to expand NATO into Ukraine.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, they made clear demands that Ukraine declare neutrality, abandon pursuit of NATO membership, and respect Minsk agreements. Ukraine chose to risk conflict instead. Of course, it’s possible to argue that Russia would’ve invaded anyways, but the fact remains that Ukraine did not attempt to avoid this conflict.
Russia invaded Ukraine because they saw NATO expansion into Ukraine as a threat to their national security. They made a calculation that a war on their own terms would put them in a stronger position in the long term. Whether Russia would invade Finland or any other country would depend on this sort of calculus.
If you read article 5, then you’ll see that there is no obligation of NATO members to engage militarily. In fact, the level of support Ukraine currently receives from NATO is above and beyond what article 5 stipulates. So, it’s not even clear that NATO membership changes anything in practice.
Ultimately, if both sides continue to escalate then there will be a war between Russia and NATO. This will benefit nobody, and it will certainly be an incredible tragedy for both Europe and Russia. This is where we are headed at the moment.
Source?
Here are a few sources with the background of the coup and the civil war that followed:
here’s what the researchers and experts have been saying:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Academics, such as John Mearsheimer, gave talks explaining why NATO actions would ultimately lead to conflict this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
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