This is a weird comma, usage.
It’s a goose, man. Can’t you just be proud of him for spelling and stuff?
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it might make grammatical, errors.
It may also ask for some, grapes
Why, did they want me, Christopher Walken to caption, memes?
Ha! I got that reference!
The Goose is usually yelling motherfucker in this meme. The operation apparently had complications.
deleted by creator
While Russia is the belligerent actor and it is their fault, pre-2014 Ukraine was hardly “neutral”, having mulled both NATO and EU ascension discussions. The latter being the actual provocation rather than the former. (This isn’t at all to say any of this is Ukraine’s “fault”, only to point out they were not “neutral”)
In early 2013 the Ukrainian parliament agreed to make legal steps towards EU ascension (source 2014 pro Russia unrest in Ukraine)
Which is what Lord Robertson, the former Secretary General of Nato, has stated was the start of the crisis:
"One theory, propounded by realists such as the academic John Mearsheimer, is that Nato expansion in eastern Europe was the reason that Putin invaded Ukraine. Robertson dismissed the idea. “I met Putin nine times during my time at Nato. He never mentioned Nato enlargement once.” What Robertson said next was interesting: “He’s not bothered about Nato, or Nato enlargement. He’s bothered by the European Union. The whole Ukraine crisis started with the offer of an EU accession agreement to Ukraine in 2014.”
Putin fears countries on Russia’s border being “fundamentally and permanently” changed by EU accession. “Every aspect [of society is affected] – they woke up very late to it… I don’t think they ever fully understood the EU,” Robertson said, adding the caveat that the EU was not at fault because accession was what Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, wanted." [end quote]
Source: https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2024/05/george-robertson-nato-why-russia-fears-european-union
Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It is allowed to make treaties with other sovereign nations.
Or do you believe the US should invade Brazil because it is part of BRICS?
I feel you’ve not read my first paragraph (or last quoted sentence) closely enough…
Cuba is, like, right there. The prime example of what happens when countries in the western hemisphere try to enter into military alliances with non-us countries such as the soviet union
I guess its worth mentioning that Ukraine was never “neutral” to begin with. Since the fall of the union Ukraine had been in the Russian sphere of influence and they were neutral only to the extent where it wouldn’t undermine Russian control over Ukraine. That’s why the EU accession agreement started this, because it undermined Russian power and Russia was not okay with losing that power. Russia never wanted neutral buffer states, Russia wanted countries that they could control.
Yes good point
Literally leasing a very important port city (Sevastopol) to the Russian navy counts for nothing?
That’s so much more cooperation than talking with NATO or “aiming to get closer ties with the EU”. Not to say that Russia had tons of trade deals with the EU, so does Morocco and everyone who wants something in that region.
If I had to guess if say Putin saw NATO expansion as a problem but rather slow and so not urgent. Whereas EU expansion could actually be a worse because of how quickly it spreads. Not least because countries seeking deeper trade ties with the EU are basically committing themselves to anti-corruption reforms and thereby slipping from his grasp long long before any serious talk of NATO is happening (see: Georgia, or my long summary elsewhere in these threads)…
In early 2013 the Ukrainian parliament agreed to make legal steps towards EU ascension
EU, unlike NATO, is not a military alliance.
You’re not thinking forth dimensionally, Marty!
Putin feared the EU because it was expanding far faster than NATO. EU expansion offered valuable trade links to former soviet countries and in turn required they implement anti-corruption legislation, and in the words of NATO secretary general Robertson above “changed every aspect of society”. That’s what Putin was afraid of.
Look at what happened to Georgia.
Old soviet regime runs economy into the ground. In 2003 pro-democracy NGOs help organise a peaceful student protests that culminates in the Rose Revolution. Autocratic government out, democratic government elected for first time, immediately start plans to align with EU to recover the economy.
2006 signs joint statement with EU on economic cooperation. Also opens pipeline cutting out Iran and Russia and delivering Azerbaijan oil directly to EU friendly Turkey.
So in 2008 Russia invades Georgia’s Tskhinvali and Abkhazia regions in an attempt to destabilise the country. Fortunately this fails.
2013 Georgia signs deeper level of EU cooperation. Ukraine parliament makes legal guarantees it’ll start to align with EU.
Putin was out of time, his Caucasus route to the middle East was closing forever, economic influence via the black sea was closing off, so he grabbed Crimea. It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
And that’s what the NATO secretary general said.
It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
Yeah like with rapists, I don’t really care for their reasoning. NATO is a military alliance, EU isn’t, so even if we assume that worrying about nearby military alliances is a “justified” reason to, idk, invade your neighbouring country, it still isn’t a justification, as EU is not a military alliance.
In terms of Moscow’s loss of control, the EU was proving far more effective than NATO. Like the NATO secretary general said, the EU spread represented the start of the crisis, but the invasion was Russia’s fault. Because they’re belligerent assholes…
The EU treaties actually do have a military component much like NATO, and the “ever closer union” is actually making it a reality, with Western and Northern European militaries actually merging into blocks.
Actually the EU is a closer alliance, as NATO intervention allows for both the attacked party to not ask for aid, and the countries aiding to give as much aid as they deem necessary. The EU mutual defence clause gets triggered immediately on aggression, and requires assistance by member states with all the means in their power.
The US could technically drip-feed aid like with Ukraine, while Germany would have to send in the Bundeswehr immediately if Poland got attacked.
The have a mutual defence clause, yeah.
But EU is not specifically a military alliance, unlike NATO.
and requires assistance by member states with all the means in their power.
That clause doesn’t specify military assistance. It does mean it, but it’s not exclusive to it and leaves it up to the country to decide what is in their power.
The point is that EU is first and foremost an economical alliance, and Putin has no excuses for his crimes.
The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets.
This is how the clause starts.
It is explicitly a military alliance. That said, Ukraine is a sovereign state, and they are the sole authorities on what military alliance they want to join, Russia has no seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Of course, Putin has no excuses.
I’m just being a dick about this because it’s actually an Eurosceptic Russia-friendly narrative that the EU is nothing but a trade deal, and has no bearing on common foreign policy, common defence policy, or the creation of a common geopolitical proxy. It is. The end goal explicitly is that - while inside the EU, member states may have their own politics - from the outside of the EU, it is one country, one partner.
So when Trump or Xi or Putin come over to talk, their counterpart is representing 420 million people and an economic capacity rivalling that of the US, and member states can’t be played against each other. I know realistically we are not quite there, but Trump really hated to talk to the EU instead of individual member states. There was a reason for that.
It is explicitly a military alliance
No it isn’t.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
##The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union
That’s a very interesting take I haven’t heard of before. My understanding was that a primary reason Russia invaded Crimea was due to the oil reserves there that Russia wanted. I guess it extends beyond that.
Russia doesn’t need the Crimean oil reserves, it’s more than they wanted Ukraine to not have it. Even then, energy security wasn’t as much a motivator as was securing access to Sevastopol, a critical warm water port and the only place capable of housing the black sea fleet. Although control of that port, in turn, is largely to do with projecting energy control over a wider region.
Russia was leasing Sevastopol from Ukraine (til 2042). It had become increasingly important to Russia’s other objectives being a staging location for supporting the incursion into Georgia, and also Russia’s involvement in Syria. Both of which are key to Russia’s broader goal of region control and energy security (not Ukraine per se).
It may be that Russia was far more sensitive to EU membership than NATO because EU membership travelled much faster and was already outflanking them (see map at bottom)
In the early 2000’s, increasing ineffectiveness of the old Soviet style leadership in Georgia was bankrupting the country and making corruption rife. This was increasingly apparent to international businesses there and a student population that enjoyed (somewhat miraculously) the relatively free press in the form of TV stations critical of the regime and its corruption.
Subsequently, foreign NGO presence helped organise and contribute to the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution which saw the older soviet influence brushed away in favour of new democratic parties. (Put your favourite conspiracy / neocon / deepstate analysis hat on, a major financier of the NGOs was George Soros)
The new leadership sought to put Georgia on better economic footing and in 2006 together with the EU issued a statement on the 5 year Georgia-European Union Action Plan within the European Neighbourhood Policy which was a major snub to Russia.
Russia’s desire to maintain a foothold within Georgia subsequently provoked the 2008 Russia Georgian War over Georgia’s northern ‘South Ossetia’ region. Not only because Georgia is the gateway to projecting power into the Middle East, but more immediately because in 2006 Georgia opened the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline which cut Iran and Russia out of the picture and connected Azerbaijan oil fields up directly with EU friendly Turkey.
Russia failed to make anyway headway with their support of South Ossetia. Then in 2013, Georgia and the EU took the next step in closer alignment, an Association Agreement. With Russia’s efforts to expand influence into the Caucasus region curtailed and weakening in power to project strength over energy producing regions, Putin saw the need to permanently secure Sevastopol as becoming critical.
The Ukrainian parliament had begun legal alignment with the EU the same year.
Hence in 2014, Russia took Crimea.
(If you look at the map of EU plus Georgia, you can see how close EU alignment could be seen to have ‘provoked’ Russia to act. Though very much only in the sense that they are anti democratic and imperialist)
Unlikely. If oil was a question Russia would’ve probably invaded Azerbaijan instead. The things I’ve heard is that because black sea fleet is stationed there and it couldn’t have been a thing in a NATO/EU country. And Putin loves his boats, like, the whole Assad regime is basically a Putin’s little gas station.
Another is that Crimea is populated by majority of ethnic Russians who want to be in Russia. How it came to be is a bit different topic, and it was a referendum at gunpoint with falsifications, just as usual for Russia, but there is no doubt that even without those, it would’ve still passed.
The whole Ukraine crisis started with the offer of an EU accession agreement to Ukraine in 2014
I think the crisis technically started with a military invasion. If not that, then we could go back and forth on this to the founding of NATO and before.
Them saying that is like someone who beat their wife to death saying “it all began with her having glanced at a man who walked past.”
I think on this occasion I’ll defer to how a secretary general of NATO chooses to phrase it
While this may be correct, it is worth pointing out that NATO member states (especially those on front lines) host soldiers from other NATO states. That means Americans would be in Ukraine (as they are currently in e.g. Estonia). The EU does not have a similar military component.
Putin has modeled his rule after the Csarist monarchy of the Russian Empire. He notably despises communism and blames it for the collapse of the USSR. He calls himself “president” but many within the state Duma believe the title to be an embarrassing western descriptor and would prefer to bestow on him the title of “pravitel” or “ruler”.
But Putin ran into a bit of a problem. Just as to be called Caesar you need to rule Rome, to be called czar you need to rule over all of Rus. For him, the cultural, historical, and religious significance of Kievan Rus was just too large to be ignored.
When it existed, the Russian Empire tried to erase the other eastern Slavic languages from their shared cultural memory. They acted as if there was no Ukraine and never had been, just as with Belarus. According to the Tsarists, Ukrainians had always been Russians and had no history of their own. The Ukrainian and Belorussian languages were banned. Ukrainian nationalism was a threat to the underlying myths of Russia and threatened the czars’ attempts at creating an “All-Russian People.”
Putin is emulating their rule and presents himself as a tsar-like figure. He’s built a massive, opulent palace for himself, with gold-plated double-headed eagles, a clear Imperial Russian symbol, everywhere—even in his personal strip club. Similarly, the Russian Orthodox Church helps him pacify the population and supports whatever myths Kremlin wants to glorify. He wanted to go down in the history books as a grand unifier of Russian lands—if not under the same government, then definitely as the hegemon of the Russian world.
Putin wants it both ways, to take credit for the Soviet legacy and, at the same time, be viewed in the same light as the emperors and czars of old. Therefore, he’s had to bring back and reaffirm the old, imperial myths and values—and to do that, he has to get Kyiv under his thumb. After all, it was the restored Kievan Rus that became Russia, the “Third Rome.” Ukraine going its own way, claiming Kievan Rus as its legacy, moving away from Moscow, getting autocephaly for its own orthodox church—all of this runs contrary to Russian state mythology.
These imperial myths are what define Russia, what it even means to be a Russian. Without them, Russia just stops being Russia in the eyes of many. Putin is convinced that if this social glue is disrupted, then Russia will just split up in pieces again—and if he allows that to happen, then his legacy is ruined. For him, there can be no separate Ukrainian language, culture, or history.
That is where his mind is at, stuck in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Valuable insight thanks
My pleasure.
TIL that Tzar derives from the roman Ceasar!
And Budapest memorandum means… Nothing?
It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on from the start:
“Another key point was that U.S. State Department lawyers made a distinction between “security guarantee” and “security assurance”, referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. “Security guarantee” would have implied the use of military force in assisting any non nuclear party (Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan) being attacked by an aggressor (similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for NATO members) while “security assurance” would simply specify a promise of non-violation of these parties’ territorial integrity. In the end, a statement was read into the negotiation record that the (according to the U.S. lawyers) lesser sense of the English word “assurance” would be the sole implied translation for all appearances of both terms in all three language versions of the statement.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
It has always read “I promise pinky promise swear I won’t use military action against you but if anyone does I’m not obligated to come to your aid”.
Ukraine signed it not because they misunderstood this, but because it wasn’t their priority. They saw the nuclear weapons as a liability in themselves. They didn’t have the skill or access to maintain or control them (Moscow had always retained operational control and the launch codes) and so they just wanted rid of them. They gave them up in exchange for massive energy deals, not a defence pact.
None of this negates the initial point. Regardless of Putins feelings of insecurity, the treaty as signed. You’re right, the obbligation to adhere can be waved but the right exists nevertheless.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation. I don’t understand the need for this incessant apologia for Russia’s actions? Oh Ukraine wants to join the EU zone? We’ll gosh darn it best not offend the big ol Russia. I suppose we should force all of Russia’s neighboring countries to surrender all their free will in exchange for some measure of security from the Kremlin because surely we can trust the Russians not to breach any treaties, right? Right?
This is straight up Kremlin talking points.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation. I don’t understand the need for this incessant apologia for Russia’s actions?
You have either been on twitter too long or some other bubble if you think anything I said was “apologia for Russia’s actions”
It is their fault. Russia are belligerent assholes is what I’ve said elsewhere in this thread.
One can state facts about the historical buildup, that’s not the same thing as ascribing blame.
How else do you discuss events of history? If one misinterprets the simple examination of facts as “apologia” and “Kremlin talking points” then how do you even critically examine anything? Or do you just let your view of the world descend into cartoonish 2d generalisations?
That’s fine, and I could be mistaken, but your comments seem to select for particular facts of history and seem to omit others. You started the whole thread by repeating the talking point about Ukraine’s ascension to Europe as a threat to Putin. Cool. Was it the same case with Georgia and Tranznitztria? This is a Kremlin talking point that gets thrown around non-stop. You know what this talking point successfully leaves out of the conversation? Ukraine’s agency and the people of Ukraine. It seems the choice is appease Putin endlessly or allow sovereign nations to direct their own destiny. I cannot stress how much of social media is perpetuating this talking point that because Ukraine has made decisions that don’t align with whatever hell hole is left of the USSR, they now deserve to be the victims of a military invasion. It’s exhausting.
You started the whole thread by repeating the talking point about Ukraine’s ascension to Europe as a threat to Putin
It is a threat to Putin!
Was it the same case with Georgia and Tranznitztria?
Yes! I went into Georgia at length here: https://lemmy.world/comment/13494524
This is a Kremlin talking point that gets thrown around non-stop…It seems the choice is appease Putin… I cannot stress how much of social media is perpetuating this talking point that… Ukraine…now deserve to be the victims of a military invasion
I don’t mean at all to patronise you, I assume you are an intelligent person. But have you actually read the thread of posts I’ve made from the top down to here? How did you get through university making the kind of assumptions you have and be so seemingly unaware of how objective facts can be dispassionately stated? Is the habit of reserving judgement and holding things in tension unfamiliar to you? What subject did you study?
I opened my top comment on this thread saying Russia is the belligerent actor and it is their fault. and it is incredible how (i assume smart) people like you seem to breeze past it and then fear the worst about any comment that doesn’t say exactly what they want it to say in the exact manner they expect it, rather than taking the time to ask ‘ok, but is this unfamiliar statement actually objectively true?’
The EU expanding to Georgia is catastrophic for Putin’s plans to manipulate the middle east. as was Yanukovych stepping down, as was Ukraine planning EU alignement. you can see that right? any no point did i ever say anything of the sort that that justified the violence they then suffered. i went out of my way to state the opposite. the former general secretary of NATO said that EU progress was the “start of the crisis”. but then he also said, and I quoted him, that that does not make it Ukraine’s fault in any way. both these things can be true at the same time! at least to anyone who hasn’t succumbed to twitter-style brainrot
Yes. But you’re not adding anything new to the discourse or that we haven’t heard before. The issue is, I can’t know if you’re being intentional about it, is that sophists will take your statement about Putin feeling threatened and run with it until the night turns blue and discount everything else (especially the agency of sovereign nations). It seems to be the sole focus of your thesis here anyway. So Putin feels threatened about economic alliances on his border nations. We get it, don’t worry. Wow, how insightful.
The EU deal agreed by Yanukovich was sabotaged by US dominated IMF. It is a categorically false narrative that peace in Ukraine requires rejection of EU trade or membership. It is fair to say it is not Russia’s preference that EU expand to CIS/USSR states. Though a clear problem with EU governance is US appointing all of its representatives based on NATOism.
Do you have a link to further reading on how it was sabotaged?
That commenter is a full-on revisionist tankie. Yanukovich was a Russian puppet who sabotaged the EU deals which sparked the Euromaidan protests.
And by “neutral buffer state” they mean a Russian territory, that can’t elect its own leaders, has no control over its resources and lives under a permanent Russian occupation.
Vlad yearns for the days of the Russian Empire. Apparently he doesn’t know how things ultimately panned out for the tsar.
Sure he does. But like all strongmen, he believes he’ll be the one that ends up different.
I still remember a short period of time in the first half of 2022 where even the most tankiest of people clearly felt unease from the war Russia started. The sheer evil of it broke through the propaganda they had integested, and for like 3 months they weren’t sure if they should support it or not.
But eventually they got around to supporting it somehow. The mind can explain black to be white or perhaps some of them got actual instructions how to communicate. 1968 Czechoslovakia all over again.
The pro-Russian propoganda on social media clawed them right back. The climate went from “How can we help stop the atrocities in Ukraine?” to “Why are we sending so much to Ukraine when our own country/veterans need help at home?” and other such bullshit they’ve never truly cared about or contributed toward.
Oh this isn’t on lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml? I’m so surprised! /MEGA-S
This meme seems to undercut its own argument. No one can honestly argue that post-Euromaidan Ukraine was intent on remaining a buffer between Russia and NATO. In 2014 Ukraine made it clear that it was resolved to go to the Western camp and was sick of Russian influence. So what exactly is the argument here?
I’m not going to entertain the thought of what “neutrality” would mean, because the entire “neutral buffer” argument is just Russian propaganda. Ukraine wasn’t neutral before 2014, it was squarely within the Russian sphere of influence since the collapse of the union. Let’s reverse the situation. Let’s say Russia wins, dismantles the current Ukrainian government and sets up the “legitimate” Ukrainian government, would Ukraine become a “neutral buffer”? No. It would become a vassal state of Russia because Russia can’t give Ukraine the autonomy to make their own decisions, otherwise they might decide to turn westward again.
Maybe that’s the hypocrisy the meme is pointing to, that the neutrality argument in its entirety is bullshit because Ukraine was never neutral to begin with.
The argument you make ignores a few - well, many - ENORMOUS caveats. The key question is security neutrality. Ukraine may have been considered in Russia’s “sphere of influence” economically, culturally and to some degree politically, but on the matter of security that is absolutely not the case.
Since independence it has straddled the line, with several attempts to push closer to the West due to structural security disputes with Russia left over from independence. Just for one example, a nation that was in the Russia sphere of influence would not have sent troops to aid the US occupation of Iraq, an invasion Russia opposed, in order to win favor with the Bush administration.
I really dislike the attempt to frame very commonly use concept of neutrality, which is a term that even NATO scholarship on the issue uses to refer to Ukrainian non-alignment, as “prooaganda”.
I dislike even more when discussions about the history of th issue are met with counterfactuals and hypotheticals. Then it becomes a counterproductive polemical debate where one can claim that Putin and Ukraine would be lovey-dovey besties forever if not for NATO expansion or that Putin would absorb Ukraine in a neo-Soviet Anschluss and march on Riga and Warsaw if not for NATO. It’s not useful framing at all.
If the key question is security neutrality how exactly was the EU-Ukraine association agreement a security issue for Russia? Because Euromaidan wasn’t about joining NATO, it was about wanting the possibility of joining the EU.
The EU-Ukraine agreement wasn’t the single issue in 2014, though it the catalyst. Economic integration with the EU was seen by both the West and Russia as a vital step in reforming Ukraine so that it could become part of the Western alliance - this was said explicitly over and over in Western capitals and NATO papers. Inside Ukraine it wasn’t seen that way, as most Ukrainians wanted to enjoy good relations with both sides but to elevate themselves to Western standards - until 2014. For Russia however, it meant the end of economic influence which was its chief way of exerting political influence to keep Ukraine neutral or friendly, and for an important subset of Ukrainian security and political actors who would win out during 2014, it was in fact a path to NATO.
You’re forgetting that Euromaidan was first and foremost a nationalist and anti-Russian movement, and that the ethnic issue is really what led to the civil war and Russian hostility to Kiev. People for some reason tend to overlook this when talking about EU, NATO etc. The real litmus test for Russia as to whether Ukraine would become a “hostile” (ime pro-West) state was Kiev’s relationship with ethnically Russian regions of Ukraine.
The EU-Ukraine agreement wasn’t the single issue in 2014, though it the catalyst. Economic integration with the EU was seen by both the West and Russia as a vital step in reforming Ukraine so that it could become part of the Western alliance - this was said explicitly over and over in Western capitals and NATO papers. Inside Ukraine it wasn’t seen that way, as most Ukrainians wanted to enjoy good relations with both sides but to elevate themselves to Western standards - until 2014.
Exactly. Ukraine didn’t want to join NATO. It doesn’t matter what NATO or westerns think or Russia thinks, it was up to Ukraine. They had no intentions of joining NATO, until Russia annexed Crimea.
For Russia however, it meant the end of economic influence which was its chief way of exerting political influence to keep Ukraine neutral or friendly, and for an important subset of Ukrainian security and political actors who would win out during 2014, it was in fact a path to NATO.
Except Russia annexed Crimea before the election. If Russia was worried about a pro-NATO government why would they do something that guarantees a pro-NATO government? I think it’s pretty obvious neutral Ukraine was not the goal for Russia.
Exactly. Ukraine didn’t want to join NATO.
If you make a claim this outrageous, you need to back it up. Ukraine officially entered into negotiations to join NATO and entered a membership action program to do so. It does in fact matter what the two forces with most impact on Ukraine’s economy, politics and security environment believe and aim for.
Except Russia annexed Crimea before the election. If Russia was worried about a pro-NATO government why would they do something that guarantees a pro-NATO government?
Let’s say that it was up to Ukraine whether or not to join NATO (which it was.) Russia had absolutely no guarantee that Ukrainian leadership would remain anti-NATO. Time wasn’t on Russia’s side - the lure of the EU and greater association with the West would be a death knell for the style of politics Russia relied upon to forestall pro-NATO reforms in Ukraine. Euromaidan changed the rules of the game. It was a Ukrainian sovereignty movement, with explicitly anti-Putin and some ultranationalist anti-Russian characteristics. The second Yanukovych fled, the game was over for Russia, and the second that he left, Western diplomats became heavily involved in helping craft a new government for Ukraine.
Exactly. Ukraine didn’t want to join NATO. If you make a claim this outrageous, you need to back it up
Ukraine officially entered into negotiations to join NATO and entered a membership action program to do so.
So why didn’t Russia do anything about it back in 2010 when the plan of action was approved? Seems kinda odd to wait 4 years and then suddenly make an issue out of it.
It does in fact matter what the two forces with most impact on Ukraine’s economy, politics and security environment believe and aim for.
I don’t even know what you mean by this sentence.
Except Russia annexed Crimea before the election. If Russia was worried about a pro-NATO government why would they do something that guarantees a pro-NATO government? I already answered this. Euromaidan was a Ukrainian nationalist movement.
Euromaidan was a nationalist movement because the catalyst for the movement was, surprise surprise, Russian meddling. Or did you forget that Putin specifically made a deal with Yanukovych to throw the EU deal under the bus and choose closer ties with Russia. You can’t expect to have a non-nationalistic and not anti-russian protest when the reason for the protest is the desires of the population getting undermined by Russia wanting to maintain their sphere of influence.
What do you mean about the election lol? By March 1 no one on earth was waiting to see if Ukraine would vote in another pro-Russia candidate lol.
I thought it was about being neutral and not about being pro-russia? Pro-russia isn’t the same as being neutral. Ukraine could’ve gone down the path of not wanting to be a part of NATO but wanting to be a part of the EU. Those two things are not the same as evident from Finland and Sweden who for decades were members of the EU and had no desire to be a part of NATO (until Russia threatened them). But we never got to see a potentially neutral outcome because Russia made sure the newly elected government will be pro-NATO.
Why do the Russians think they need a buffer between themselves and NATO anyway? Are they planning on doing things that would make them seem like a threat to NATO, and don’t believe NATO have supersonic planes or something?
Check out libya sometime.
Russia is the bad guy in this conflict. 110%. But there’s no reason to start making up reasons why. Ukraine was not a neutral non-NATO buffer state after the euromaidan coup, and it doesn’t need to be for the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing invasion to be wrong, which they are. All made up reasons do is give your opponents ammunition.
Indeed and Putin’s Sock Puppet will green light the next Russian invasion of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Removed by mod
So when do we regime change Russia?
They just regime changed us, so that’ll be tough.
How often does that technique actually improve things in the long run?
Right now. But, to have any chance of people following you, you’d have to be either be in Russia, or be an ethnic Russian. If you don’t have either, PM me and I’ll issue you a formal invitation which would allow you to stay in for the whole 90 days. Good luck!
What did Obama and Clinton do in Ukraine to prevent it from staying as a buffer state?
I think you need to open a history book and see who was running Ukraine when Obama was in office and who he was politically aligned with. As far as when Clinton was in office, that’s when Russia gave Ukraine their assurance that they wouldn’t invade in exchange for Ukraine’s nuclear weapons.
I don’t understand this meme. Ukraine was more or less a neutral state before 2014 and then there was a pro-Western coup that removed the democratically elected gov and set off the violence that is still going on. That’s what drew Russia into the conflict.
Good satire, I almost fell for it. 9/10.
What did I get wrong? What do you disagree with?
The past leader of Ukraine was in Putin’s pocket. Zelensky actually changed this and obviously being annexed kinda makes it hard to be neutral, so I’m not sure where you got that from.
So was Ukraine neutral before 2014 or not? The meme seems to be saying it was neutral and I’m also saying it was more or less neutral.
Are you disagreeing with the meme?
The past leader of Ukraine was in Putin’s pocket. Zelensky actually changed this
Huh, that is interesting. Can you tell us any more about his predecessor?
Sure. He tortured people who opposed him in horrific ways.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/31/ukrainian-protester-kidnapped-tortured-kiev-bulatov
But that’s okay, they were probably evil Western imperialists or whatever, am I right?
whoosh
(hint: check who Zelensky’s predecessor was)
That’s literally about his predecessor.
That’s literally about his predecessor.
The link you posted is from January 2014, which is the time period of his predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor.
Zelensky’s presidency started in 2019. As late as 2018, he was still releasing comedy films which were being banned in Ukraine under his predecessor’s anti-Russian cultural laws.
If you want to brush up on recent history, this video Ukraine: The Avoidable War is not bad.
Oh for fuck’s sake, this has all been about you being Captain Literal? Yes, I know Poroshenko directly preceded Zelensky. That’s not what anyone is talking about here.
Holy Russian apologia Batman!
Which details do you the think I got wrong
