I actually think your points are valid. Albeit more softly. I can see why (and this is where I think people forget that he doesn’t agree with what Putin has done just why) Russia worries about the Ukraine joining nato as USA would have access to their back yard. He isn’t saying he justified Putins response. Murder. Task force. Whatever. I don’t know whatever now let’s not argue: this is beyond justification now Putin is responsible for 1000’s of deaths for no reason. He could have done things different. The world has to respond and we possibly have to protect Ukraine.
Well of course they are. Ukraine are not part of NATO. Russia struck early when Ukraine refused to agree to not join NATO, ahead of a time when they would be part of NATO and thus protected by the West. All the West can do is "arm" Ukraine. But Russia are one of the three superpowers, they would/will decimate Ukraine. Ukraine needs to hoist the white flag ASAP. There's no shame in it. They should have signed an agreement to stay independent but not sign in with NATO - now they've lost so much freedom, through piss poor leadership and cowardice from their parliament. Yes, cowardice. Because they were hoping for the comfort blanket of the USA, which is now gone, instead of being realistic and politically balanced.
The comfort blanket they were promised when they participated in nuclear disarmament when they were the 3rd strongest nuclear power in the world? The one where Us and the good old USA promised to protect them and come to the rescue if they were ever invaded as part of the Minsk agreement? Is that the comfort blanket your on about? Aye proper cowardly telling Russia to go **** themselves. As per usual the West gets itself involved in business it has no right to get involved with for the pure greed of the richest few, yet cries like a bitch when others do similar. What we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, and countless other countries is no different to what Russia is doing now. If anyone can tell me and inform me otherwise then please enlighten me.
I can't agree with any of that. It is no more our place to tell Ukraine what it must do than it is Russia's. They are an independent, free country and have every right to choose their own destiny. Why should they be forced to disarm, have no army and remain neutral. It wasn't just neutrality that Putin was insisting on but also full disarmament of the Ukranian army. They have already been invaded once by Russia. No way they could ever reasonably have been expected to disarm.
Devils advocate but they probably have more reason to do so than we did to invade Iraq or Afghanistan.
You gotta look both sides, mate. NATO has gone nearly 1k miles east since the 90's. NATO of course being the good ol' USA and chums. Owned, run, dictated (cool word) by the USA. Now has silos and outposts all across Poland, Romania. Now you're saying that it's ok for Ukraine to say "I'm mates with the US too" and allow US missiles to be sat on the Russian border? Put yourself in Russia's shoes - that seem ok with you? Just like Afghanistan, or Iraq, it's absurd to still view the world in the eyes of a yankee-doodle-dandee and think thats how everything should be. Was Putin being "fair"? Probably not. Are his actions justified? Absolutely not. But if he waited til Ukraine signed in with the yanks, where does that leave him? I'm not saying any of this **** is right - the whole world should just drop borders and arms - but in the context of US supremacy it's easy to forget there are countless millions on the other side thinking "that's not how I want to live".
There are lots of people and countries thinking that, and that is their right. However, Ukraine isn't one of them.
They have no more right or reason. I'm certainly not saying it was right of us to go into those countries, and absolutely not saying that the reasons given were genuine, but the reasons given by Russia to go into Ukraine are just as false and unjustified.
I don't think anyone is justified at any time. The only people who benefit are the wealthiest individuals from the countries involved, the ones who suffer the most being the poorest people in society and the military personnel and their families sent in for the ambitions of corrupt greedy bastards that are never satisfied with endless wealth. We have invaded countries in recent past so therefore have zero credibility in lecturing others on what they do or don't do. The hypocrisy that we (The West) spout is astonishing at times. Think back to Cuba - America sabre rattled and cried and cried and cried over that. Yet they now mock Putin and Russia for a similar concern. I don't see this as just a landgrab, a landgrab for Russia over Ukraine doesn't make too much sense other than the crazy thought of trying to re-instate old Mother Russia to its former glory () or the issue of NATO on it's borders has been a legitimate concern which the west have simply laughed off and not taken seriously. The EU won't do a damn thing about this, the USA won't do a damn thing about this and the UK will do even less. Only way they would have considered doing a damn thing would have been if Russia started taking massive massive massive losses and this went on for ages, then and only then would we probably get involved by attacking Russia direct. If they'd wanted to warn off Russia they had months to send Naval fleets to the North of the country and south of Crimea to give them something to think about as the bulk of their military went on a jolly in Belarus.
Agree with a fair bit of that, but not all. On the Cuba comparison, The States sabre rattled but didn't invade, and there was more rattle than sabre. If Russia had stuck to sabre rattling this would be a very different situation. They didn't - they have invaded twice. I'm no fan of the States. Far from it. But there is a big difference in that example.
Big difference in what it would take, one country would need and aerial and naval assault taking months of planning and the other simply needed to pull their tanks out the garage and take them for a spin like they were going for a pint of milk.
I think that's a weak point when you consider that there was proof of nuclear missile silos being built on Cuba and there is no such activity in Ukraine. Yes it was more difficult, thought not impossible, but the grounds for motivation was also much higher
They don't need built mate, there already there. Have been for decades. To be fair, my point was just the USA didn't want Russia having any form of military presence as close to its borders as what that was going to cause. Russia's feelings with NATO having bases in Ukraine was a threat it would never be happy with. I don't in anyway condone what they have done, but I don't condone the behaviour and responses from the UK, USA and EU either. Its like one massive dick swinging contest and the bad new for us is our contestant is Boris
I think one thing this whole situation can show us all is that we should be able to read history books through very different eyes. We always view history with hindsight and it is easy to condemn people who sought to deal with Hitler through diplomatic means as weak and almost as sympathisers. There is disagreement on this thread about what is going on, the motivations behind actions and the right responses to what is happening. We don't know how this will play out and what the ultimate consequences will be, just as they had no idea when it all started 80 years ago either. They didn't have our history books to know how it would all turn out. Despite arguing our cases, I think we can all agree that the opinions put forward on here are honestly held. We have far more information and coverage than they had 80 plus years ago. We also haven't just come out of a world war that saw almost every family suffer losses. Maybe it wasn't quite as black and white back then as we often portray.
I thought they had all been decommissioned and made unusable as part of the treaties back in the 90s?
Genuine question. Do you think it is wrong to be condemning it and imposing sanctions? If not, what other parts of the response do you think is wrong?
