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Yeah, you've only spent the thread absolving Putin and Russia for responsibility for this crisis and trying to pin it on the US. Pull the other one Sand. You lack credibility.
This thread would be far smoother for you if you conceded you're an apologist for Putin's invasions, further threats of force, and coercion of Ukraine.
The pretense that you're even-handed is a great big glowing conceit that nobody is buying.
Maybe, but the Crimean water issues are regional. The costs of conquering the NCC are national. I can't imagine a scenario where they even come close.
As for worsening conditions in Ukraine to influence the people - it seems counter productive. History has shown that civilians are willing to ensure suffering from external sources, up to and including nightly bombing raids, whilst still backing the leadership.
As it is, Russia doesn't have to destabilise Ukraine. Biden and the US are doing that instead despite the pleas from Ukraine to stop talking up a war.
Whataboutery and deflection there.
How would Finland joining NATO be a threat to "Russia's security"?
Why should Finland not have the right to be in NATO?
Finland is in the EU. Is that a "threat to Russia's security"?
Estonia is in NATO. Is that a "threat to Russia's security"?
Or is it a threat to Russia's idea that it should be able to invade other countries without consequence?
Do you think Estonia should view Russia as a threat to its security, given that the Soviet Union invaded and annexed Estonia and the other Baltic countries and Put them under their jackboot for the next 50 years?
Do you think Ukraine should view Russia as a threat to its security, given that, you know, Russia actually invaded Ukraine in 2014, still occupies the part it took, and has waged war against Ukraine for the last eight years?
You're projecting your own views onto me. I've not said Russia is good.
Luckily for you, we have the example of the Warsaw Pact, which ended up spending most of its time trying to crush internal social movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, as well as keeping the DDR firmly under its boot with a million troops. The Warsaw Pact was a product of Kremlin paranoia, ostensibly designed to protect against some sort of notional Western conventional military threat that never materialized and was never real in the first instance - and its actual function was to keep Europe east of the Elbe under the yoke of Moscow.
Outside of a fiction based argument, can you honestly see that ever happening??? The big problem with Russia ( under the present management ) is that adjacent countrys fear Russia,,, they want no hand act or part of it, and thats why they joined NATO in the first place. Why would they want to join a state where 1/3 of all pregnancies end in abortion??? Seems thats the only kind of meaning full vote the women have.
A former general has attacked President Putin over his military threats to Ukraine, in one of the strongest anti-war statements within Russia yet.
Leonid Ivashov, 78, called on Putin to resign over the “artificial” conflict he had manufactured as a “distraction tactic” from mounting domestic problems.
If another country, say in the Caribbean, or even in W Europe, should have wanted to join a defense alliance with Russia at any time after WWII right up to today, do you expect the US would have let it happen?
Who gives a sh*t? Where America is, they're overwhelmingly there by consent. Places like South Korea and Japan have got extremely wealthy under their security umbrella and wouldn't kick them out in a month of Sundays with China on their door.
American hegemony is well earned. It's a country with faults and has made mistakes, but it gets more right than it gets wrong. It's a technological, cultural, educational and economic global super power that's had that role for more than a century. Russia has none of those things. It wants them, but it hasn't earned them.
It enjoys diplomatic relationships that have been painstakingly built over centuries and had been consistent over those years.
It has backstopped the peace in both Europe and North East Asia since the end of WW2 and those places have thrived just as their economy has thrived. That they deserve enormous credit for (not that malcontents will give it to them). And, they do it by consent.
It's the global hegemon and it has made mistakes we're all capable of pointing at, but long may they isolate and piss off people like Putin who would tear down the security architecture of Europe we all benefit from.
With rapidly dropping population figures, everything else aside, Russian is in trouble ( and yes, I know that falling population figures are world wide ) But there is something seriously wrong in a society where for every 1'000 births, there are 495 abortions. Thats pretty bad, where women would prefer to abort their babies rather then bring them in contemporary Russian sociey. So there are many Russian Families who wont have sons fighting and dying in the Ukraine for Putin. And you can be damn sure, that is a factor in their decision not have Children.
Ask Ukrainians, they've already left the house with the kids.
Ukrainians are never going back. If this crisis should have thought Putin and cheerleaders anything, it's that Ukrainians in general and other Eastern European states want very little to do with Putin's notional sphere of influence.
Take a look at who's left in the camp? Belarus and some sh*box Central Asian countries ran by looney bin autocrats. And if you gave the people a choice in places like Belarus, they'd head for the door towards the west as well. Russia offers f*ckall to countries in its 'sphere'.
It's baffling how people in a western democracy can find common cause with the last vestiges of homo-sovieticus (for these are the dinosaurs running the Russian state), absolute museum pieces of humans who think that a Kremlin centric world can be achieved by force.
USA's sphere of influence extends across the globe.
Western Hemisphere:
And also E Europe:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK_AKMnaAAEew39?format=png&name=900x900
I hazard a guess that is actually the protectionsim of the EU and US that makes buying Russian lumber impossible.
Unfortunately don't have sons ..
Buy Russian trees it will solve everything 🌲🌲🌲🌲
US's sphere of influence is much greater than the western hemisphere.
Anyway, it's not just economy that drives such things, it's cultural, military power etc.
With a large Russian speaking population in Ukraine, it will be a long time in Russia's sphere.
The US enjoys it's sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere because it's more than a military power, it's also an economic giant around which the economy of the continent turns. It has trade arrangements like NAFTA that are give and take and ultimately enhance the economy of the region as a whole.
Russia has a midget economy smaller than South Korea with three times the population of Korea. The countries it's trying to coerce are next to the world's largest and most prosperous trade bloc that is rules bound and democratic. There is no choice and question why a country like Ukraine would and should gravitate west and away from its creepy ex that points tanks at it.
THAT'S Realpolitik. Putin thinks he can chain ex Soviet states to his poor-house economy with the threat of poison, tanks and dismemberment when the option of western institutions is on the table.
European countries (bar Russia apparently) have left their expansionist tendencies well behind them. Why you'd condemn expansionism on one side of your mouth, and absolve Putin of it on the other side is a mystery. I'm not going to try to solve it, all I know is it's more malcontent b*llshit.
Have you considered sending your sons to help them?
Ukraine is Ukraine .
Not Russia little or otherwise
Sounds like you you're the one that needs to do some growing up.
It's called realpolitik.
Sphere's of influence were the invention of the European colonial powers, then uptaken and pursued with gusto by the USA.
It's Finland's choice and Finland's choice exclusively if they wish to pursue NATO membership. Russia needs to reconcile themselves with that as well.
It speaks volumes that a steadfast militarily neutral country throughout the Cold War now may find their border and security arrangements untenable in a neutral stance and have begun debating NATO membership.
Basically, you're asking Europe to join Putin's pity party, to rub his belly, and indulge his paranoia while he's parking tanks and war materiel next to countries he's already partially dismembered.
If Putin doesn't like NATO, he should really ask himself why he's turned into a walking billboard for NATO membership.
Where is this sphere of influence written down and when did Ukraine consent to it?
You say it as if it's a matter of natural law that Russia has a sphere of influence that all must kowtow to.
Ukraine and other former Soviet states in Europe have been drifting towards western institutions because the Russian economy is garbage and to be tied to Russia is to accept autocracy and interference for less opportunity than the west offers.
That's not 'influence' that's holding your ex wife hostage with a gun to her temple.
If Russia wants a sphere of influence it's going to have to come up with a better package than coercion, tanks and poison to bring to Kyiv and other post Eastern bloc capitals.
Basically Russia needs to grow the f*ck up
I really have no idea, but considering the past, the results of the Winter War, Finland joining the Axis in WWII and the resultant "Finlandizaton", Russia could only view it as a threat to their security.
But Ukraine is little russia and part of Russia's sphere of influence. It most certainly is not within USA's sphere.
Infact, if Russia meddled in Canada similar to USA meddles in Ukraine i'm sure Washington would have a big problem with it.
If Finland joined NATO tomorrow, would Russia go to war with Finland?
No real comment, as Russia, and the EU would have been doing similar. Had the EU taken charge, the process of an interim leader would have taken longer. Had Russia had their way, you would have Yanukovych still in power. It's just this conversation was taped and used as propaganda.
The above also feeds into the alluding that the subsequent elections were rigged, is that something you buy into too?
Yanukovych ignored his government numerous times, so of course he's going to cry about it when they eventually had the means to go against him.
He was happy to do a runner to Russia, until Russia put him back up to wanting to be President again (you may have forgotten he signed off early elections and also his resignation).
If you feel that way mate, head off down to the Russian Embassy and let them know, maybe then, at an early stage, you will find out what difficult people they are to deal with, bribe after bribe after bribe, country wants to live off it's assets such as oil, gas, minerals and timber, Putin and his oligarchs together with local mafias control everything, land and more land is everything, eventually they find a use for it.
Your grasping at straws ,
You seem to be very limited in your knowledge on ukraine /Russia over the last near decade
I'm not going to defend Yanukovych but his ousting was constitutionally dubious.
https://www.rferl.org/a/was-yanukovychs-ouster-constitutional/25274346.html
No comment on the leaked Nuland call where the US basically hand picks the new leaders to replace him?
For Russia it appears to be. They don't have a Lukashenko in Ukraine (i.e. Yukashenko/Yanukovych).
US interference? You do remember what happened 2013/2014 when Yanukovych got found out, didn't sign the EU statement of intent for trade on the back of pressure from Putin, even though it was voted in by the Ukrainian Government, lost a vote of confidence, then cried wolf and did a legger to Russia?
Gazprom and Nord Stream are just profit to Russia, and thanks to Germany's lack of foresight, it's now leverage.
Another thing that is untapped, is Russian lumber.
Russia is large country that is heavily forested, something like 49.4% forested. That's huge. We could sure use that lumber here in Ireland.
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