https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf A long read this but it reveals a lot nonetheless.
I have read it quickly...and will reread later..... a good piece with some excellent thinking.,..sadly his conclusions were not followed...and we have this terrible mness
I think that you are arguing against yourself, colognehornet. I did not suggest that there were other parallels. I am merely pointing out that past history warns us not to trust these kind of statements.
1. Completely irrelevant, missiles are missiles. Russia have been firing missiles from ships/subs/Russian mainland, etc...Having missiles on Ukrainian soil made no difference. It also implies that Nato or Ukraine had plans to attack Russia, which is completely ridiculous. 2. Russia broke the Budapest memorandum first, but were too cowardly to do it openly. The Minsk agreements were signed under duress anyway, this has always been a land grab by Russia. 3. You trust an election organised by Russia? Crimea can have a fake vote if they want, central Government has to organise it. You can't just randomly organise referendums and consider them relevant. Crimea was Ukrainian, Russia stole it. There's no debate there. They'd been conducting a slow takeover for years, the Ukrainian government you claim was 'toppled' by a coup was a Russian puppet that Ukraine finally freed themselves from. The man was evil and corrupt. 4. USA gave them some cash, but as you've later admitted they haven't been 'arming them since 2000'. It was the right thing to do, as Russia has proven. All your 'ethnic Russian' excuses are vile. You know fully well that the USSR was very prone to move populations around. Territorial sovereignty means something, you can't just bully your neighbouring countries and steal their land. If Russia cared so much about these 'ethnic Russians' I doubt they'd have reduced all these cities to rubble. You keep on claiming that Putin's plan was just to annex the Donbass to save the poor oppressed Russians there, but he's been attacking all the South coast, Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, etc...And then forced the locals from Donbass to take arms against their fellow Ukrainians. You're literally spouting the excuses the Russian high command have been throwing around to make up for the fact they got battered and had to retreat. You talk of nazis and all their political parties, what % of the vote did they get? Why would Ukrainians vote in a jewish President if they're all nazis? Ukraine had the right to ask for NATO membership to protect themselves. They were proved right. Russia have been attacking their neighbours since Putin took over. There are also loads of lies and innaccuracies in the rest of the excuses you've been giving around the Russian murderers and rapists actions in Ukraine. I'm going to stop now as this subject is something that we'll never agree on. I'm just surprised you're defending Putin when there are thousands of innocent people being killed at his order.
I'll come back to this when I have the time and the inclination Toby - in the meantime I am not in the habit of putting lies on here !!! I am not defending Putin - you're falling into the black and white syndrom that Bush was so fond of ie. you're either with us or against us. There are two sides to every argument and if you had read through all my posts you would know I do not defend Russia's actions - but the West has a share of the guilt here - I have never said more than that. Read up a bit on the history preceding this mess
To be fair Toby - most East European states have a problem with either Neo Nazi groups, or with ultra nationalists, and the connection with football ultras is a well established one there. But this appears to be overall in the former Warsaw pact countries, whether we're talking about the ultras of Zenit St. Petersburg, the Moscow clubs, Dinamo Kiev, Legia Warsaw, Red Star Belgrade, Dinamo Zagreb the list goes on and on, with very little difference between them. Even in Germany the biggest far right problem is in the former East of the country. The main difference with the Ukraine is that it is the only country where Neo Nazi or ultra nationalist groups actually form parts of the armed forces and wear their allegiances in such an open fashion. They also appear to have some influence on Zelenskiy (although he himself is not one of them) in as much as his attempts to find a peacefull solution to the Dombass war (ie. a limited autonomy for the area) didn't work because of the influence of the Azov Regiment and their central role there. I am also not forgetting the role of the Wagner regiment in Russia. I have never been a fan of either Russia or Putin - but, and this is a big but, I recognize that there can never be a military solution to this conflict. Those who believe there can be one should think it out right through to the end. Such a solution as that the Russians are forced to admit defeat and return with their tails between their legs to Moscow, and that the Ukraine can move into the Nato fold as what would then be one of the most militarized countries on Earth is an illusion. There can be no lasting peace there until the Ukrainian and Russian populations there are separated from each other and that means partition of the country. Can you really expect that over 8 million ethnic Russians can live under a situation where the other half of their country has forced them into a Nato alliance where Russia is the principal enemy ? The Ukraine is not a David standing up against a Goliath, as one person, a champion of the free World - it is a deeply divided country - and those divisions will come back to haunt us. The Americans have been sending weapons to the Ukraine since 2000 - and that is fact - not continuously because Obama was worried that his weapons were ending up in the wrong hands and stopped the supply for a while. Even in time of peace the USA has not been able to monitor where these weapons finish up, and the Ukraine has, in the meantime, become the largest source of black market weapons Worldwide - and that is also fact. Now the situation has become even harder to monitor - they just hand over the weapons in Poland and what happens after that is largely unknown. The debate here is not for or against Putin, or anyone else, but rather whether you back a purely military solution or a diplomatic one - and the latter involves some crossing of red lines by all parties involved.
Revealing article. I recommend please log in to view this image for 500 + page analysis of how Putin became president and manipulated the Russian people and the west....
Why did Barack Obama stop all weapons supplies to the Ukraine as a result of them, and why do they still wear the 'Wolfsengel' ???
To be honest we can go round and round in circles here Toby - you can go on the search for material on the net which strengthens your claim that Ukraine doesn't have a Neo Nazi problem and i can do the reverse, but it all proves nothing. Both of us will find the relevant material and we will both be partly right. That's not really the issue here. We can say there are unsavoury elements on both sides. I have no doubt here that 'Putin is in the wrong' and that the invasion was unjustified - just as I have no doubt that Ukraine has the right to defend itself. But do they have the right to demand that the rest of the World arms them for this ? If they do then other countries which have been invaded such as Iraq also had this right. Some people on here will claim that this is all relativism - but I cannot help but compare this to the Iraq scenario. In the Ukraine around 4,000 civilians have died (4,000 too many) the comparative figure for Iraq was estimated by Lancet (medical source and therefore neutral) was between 90,000 and 100,000 civilian dead as a direct result of the American invasion - the American public still,for the most part, have no idea of what the US did to that country. There were Worldwide protests - the unions in the port of Antwerp refused to handle American war material and (to their credit) P&O Nedlloyd refused to transport war materials (Maersk filled in the gap) - but that was it. No calls for boycotts of American products, and no arming of Iraq against the aggressor. So what is the difference between the two ? The difference is in the media coverage and that it is closer to home. The media coverage of what actually happens there is more or less totally dominated by what Zelenskiy wants us to consume - and he is an expert at use of the media. The central question has nothing to do with humanitarian help - that is not controversial, are with efforts to find diplomatic solutions, but with the supply of heavy weaponry into what is, essentually, a powderkeg on the one hand, and the other question being that of what are exactly the West's war aims in doing this ?
So you give away your position..which is you do not favor arming the legitimate country and govt of Ukraine against invasion. The reality is,that without arms from the west, that the country would be overrun now and a Russian govt appointed and legitimately democratically elected representatives, arrested,executed or in exile. There is little, and i am being generous indeed, good about Putin's regime... and nothing to support this invasion. The means to justify it were fabricated. Putin has tried to manipulate every election there, and had people poisoned as he has coveted Ukraine from day one. There are probably nearer 100,000 casualties in country which is am massive price to pay on all sides. The Russian PR machine has moved into the occupied areas, rewriting history and demonizing Ukrainian residents etc I am myself philosophically a pacifist but can never justify injustice...and when ordinary people are murdered, ravaged,raped and executed by the so called liberating army it beggars belief...and makes the so called excesses of the so called far right Ukranian militia appear minimal in comparison.
An interesting poll here Yorkie. Support for joining Nato in the Ukraine was in the West Ukraine 59%, in the centre 50% in the south 28% and in the East Ukraine 16%. This does not sound to me like a very unified country. It's also the case that the Russian population in the ukraine has no real political voice or representation - so your claim that the ukrainian government is a legitimate government for the whole country is on flimsy ground. Even if the Russian army were driven from the Ukraine this problem would remain. You appear to forget that this war didn't just start 2 months ago - the Dombass War has been going since 2014 and would continue even if the Russian army left, with the only difference being that it would then be in one of the most weaponized countries on this planet. There is no solution other than a partition of the Ukraine after this. Do you imagine that the Ukraine can continue after this with Nato missiles on its territory pointing at Russia whilst also containing the largest Russian diaspora outside of Russia ? If so that is the height of naivete.
Russia has fuelled this... and the situation in the East.... .so it is by arms not democracy they fight. I do not forget the history.....and In fact Putin's men poisoned Yushenko in 2004,,,and Putin is reported as being furious when his man then lost the election. Viktor Yanukovych who fled when the elected parliament refused to support his move closer to Moscow and Ukraine chose a European facing future has apparently been waiting in Belarus and was going to be sworn in if the had managed to take Kyiv. You mentioned naivety and have suggested posters on here are using black/white thinking...and seem to take little count of the terrible destruction being wrought on a sovereign nation by an invader. Following your partition solution... Russia wins... not the people who live in Ukraine ,,millions of whom will be displaced..... Where next? The Russian speakers of Finland????
I have attacked posters for using black/white thinking because the fact that I am doubtfull about the course which the west has taken has been interpreted as if I were a supporter of Putin. As if by opposing the war in Iraq made me a friend of Saddam. This is what I meant by black/white thinking. I maintained that the West was partially responsible for this war and I still think that - but this does not mean I take all responsibility away from Putin. It is not a case of 'Russia wins' - winning or losing is not the issue here but in finding a viable soluion. Yes the Ukrainian people can choose a European direction but that is a different thing to choosing a military alliance with the avowed enemies of the second largest ethnic group of your country over their heads. I take great count of the terrible destruction being wrought in that country which is why I am involved in the settlement of Ukrainian refugees here - but that destruction will only get worse and be prolonged through our involvement in supplying heavy weapons. There are over 8 million Russian speakers (ethnic Russians) in the Ukraine the majority of whom were born there - the comparison to Finland is nonsense.
I suggest that telling people their comments are nonsense does not help your argument. The comparison with Finland is clear I quote: "!More than three-quarters of people in Finland now support joining NATO, a new poll showed Monday, after opinion on the military alliance flipped following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Support for NATO membership used to be steady at 20-30 percent but has soared in Finland, as well as neighboring Sweden — both historically militarily non-aligned — in recent months. Around 76 percent of Finns now want the country to join NATO, up from 60 percent in March, according to the poll commissioned by broadcaster YLE and conducted by research firm Taloustutkimus. The survey also showed a majority in favor no matter the party alignment. A separate poll last week showed most lawmakers in favor of joining, with 121 of the 200 MPs in favor and only 10 opposed." and for Sweden: Clearly many Finns and Swedes don't see a Russian threat to their lands as nonsense
Russia created this situation by interference , misinformation, arming locals and finding a pretext , or should I say creating one, for Crimea etc etc
