it seems to me like Russia and United States are like the kids in the class that never liked one another and then vage proxy wars and Ukraine is one of thenm it got caught on fire and it hurts,all can say whern2 bears wrestle

the grass gets hurt

russia's being a real dick, here

Russia has got 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border; I would have thought Russia were more at fault in this situation.

How do you feel the blame for the situation should be proportioned out?

It's definitely Russia's fault here, since no one is quite sure what they want outside the non-negotiable. They have mobilized over a 100,000 Troops at the border of Ukraine, threatening to invade at any moment if the the West doesn't stop supporting Ukraine - which is no threat to Russia.

In part, President Putin, a former KGB agent, wants to revive the cold war to cement his un-democratic powers, and has dreams of reviving his country's glories past under the USSR.

Well, Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 so that's less proxy and more "little green men" which was made official as being Russians.

yeah in all seriousness i've actually been very disappointed with progressives on this topic

russia is clearly the aggressor, but progressives have been treating this as a both sides issue at best, and actually blaming america & nato for this situation, at worst

yes, america is generally pretty bad on international affairs, but christ y'all sometimes we're not the bad guys

ukraine requested to potentially be a part of nato, and they requested for nato support in the face of russian aggression, should we just tell them to fuck themselves because russia mad? ignore their sovereignty?

no nato boots on the ground in ukraine - a step too far in a non-nato country - but why is america seen as the bad guy at all, here?

It isn't that surprising to me. Progressives (at least online) can barely hold together a coherent argument for most things, so geopolitical topics are completely out of reach.

I watched some of HasanAbi's stream, the biggest leftist voice on twitch, to see what online lefties were saying about Ukraine and it is embarrassing. Somehow everything is America's fault because Russia is amassing troops on Ukraine's border. He blamed the American war machine for hyping up a war and also said that Russia will not invade Ukraine.

I have a feeling that this is going to be one of two invasions, with the other being China's invasion of Taiwan.

Russia's moves are leading to more U.S. troops in countries near Ukraine. With our resources directed there, it will mean fewer resources to protect Taiwan from the CCP.

If these invasions occur at the same time, I do believe there is a good chance Russia and China will both successfully take over their target countries.

I have seen some people say this, but it is extremely unlikely. The amount of preparation it would take for China to invade Taiwan would be massive and they would not be able to pull it off while Russia is taking pieces of Ukraine.

Taiwan is also far more important to American interests and is a major non-NATO ally, while Ukraine is not.

i've watched (and still watch) my share of left tube & progressives, there's plenty of "good ones" out there, but the largest ones (hasan, tyt, etc.) have demonstrated quite the baby brained opinion on this conflict

go into beau of the fifth column section and lefty debate sphere and they're much better informed on these matters, but it's a shame to see a lot of lefties have atrophied positions on geopolitics amid the relative peace we've had between superpowers for the last three decades

most of the folk old enough to actually remember the cold war seem to have better takes on this, in general

yeah, i like the guy and all but his russia position is incredibly dumb

Loading Ukraine with weapons is a hostile move, any country would react badly to a coalition of hostile foreign powers arming their hostile neighbours, take the Cuban missile crisis…

NATO is not a harmless, neutral organisation it is understandable how the prospect of Ukraine joining seems threatening to Russia.

oh shit, russia's got a team of psychics on their side, do they?

you tellin' me that they knew that nato was gonna load ukraine up with weapons for absolutely no reason beforehand and preemptively loaded ukraine's boarder with thousands of troops and mobile military equipment before nato could start giving those arms to ukraine? fuckin' brilliant move on russia's part - what amazing foresight on their part

too bad it wasn't enough to stop the dastardly nato from sending arms to ukraine, anyway

what a shame!

no shit

too bad it's not really russia's decision on who sovereign nations decide to ally themselves with

they didn't get the memo, it seems, and are now getting ready to invade ukraine for shit that just ain't their goddamn business

Gee, I wonder if there is any historical precedent to justify that

of what, nato invading russia, a nuclear superpower?

no, there is no historical precedent of this

The build up to this situation has been long drawn out and involves geopolitics that I do not believe either of us properly understand.

It is far more than a normal alliance.

Look honestly speaking as a Polish-American Slav who had immigrants who came from Poland directly on both sides I'm going to be honest and say that Russia is at fault on this one.

I make it no secret that I dislike the Russian Federation but that stems more with problems between my country of heritage and them way before the time of the USSR that lasted decades before and the Cold War era didn't help that. But that's besides the point to why I would be concerned about this because if Russia does end up invading Ukraine that will put Poland in a shitty situation for a few reasons.

The Polish Prime Minister has already called for unity for the Rest of the EU. This is mainly because he knows damn well that it's going to cause problems when Russia pulls the trigger and when it comes down to it chances are the Ukrainian people are very likely to migrate to Poland, putting them in a position where the country itself is has little experience with. Sure, military forces from the US being stationed there, hopefully that and support from the rest of the EU will help but even then they're already aware there's a good fucking chance that Russia will likely start a war over this.

And that's just it. I'm concerned mainly because my people are in the crossfire of this situation. And this isn't just the country of my people who are worried about this it comes down to the fact that this puts Europe at a whole at risk if Russia decides to go acting da mickey and invades other countries because of Putin's cocky ass.

In the larger picture of things it wouldn't surprise me if this whole situation becomes a factor for a hypothetical World War III if you add into all the other problems going on elsewhere, but that goes into a whole other discussion if it gets to that point which I'm seriously hoping it doesn't get to and I don't think this would be the appropriate thread to dive too deeply into that.

basically started about a year ago when biden said he would be open to ukraine joining nato, if they so chose to join it

and further escalated when the leader of ukraine offered the citizens a referendum on whether ukraine should join nato or not

that last action triggered russia to threaten invasion of ukraine, and threaten nuclear retaliation to anyone who'd provide support for ukraine (or in putin's words, he would treat support of ukraine as an act of war against russia, which he kindly reminded us is a nuclear superpower)

i've followed this for quite a while, actually

still ain't russia's business to attack a sovereign nation over it

nato is also a representation of an american-europe trading bloc (which affects ukraine-russia trade relations), and specifically designed with a sort of hair trigger response to attack that treats an attack on one country as an attack on all of nato

so if another country attacks a nato nation it is treated as an attack on every nato country, including a nuclear superpowers and multiple other nuclear armed countries

russia historically has not liked the homogeneity of the pact and has rejected it in the past, preferring it's own totalitarian bloc of states and the way they economically function

effectively nato has become a direct threat to russian expansion, since it neuters their ability to commit to what is called "salami tactics", or piecemeal actions that alone are not enough to trigger a nuclear response from a superpower (since no one wants nuclear war)

russian annexation of crimea is an example of salami tactics (and is a big reason why ukraine wants to join nato, btw)

nato has been involved in some fucked up shit in the past - their involvement in iraq, for example - but overall their ability to protect smaller states from invasive powers (even nuclear superpowers) is worth the costs of nato

Russia has always been the biggest bully in Eastern Europe going back to the days of Imperial Era, so trying to nab up their neighbors territory is not a new thing, and doubly so in the USSR days. You can ask Germany how bloodthirsty the Russians can be when they are put in a corner, real or perceived.

Maybe it’s either just force of habit from progressives to blame America, or they simply don’t realize when it comes to wanton colonialism and violence, Russia would make America look completely amateurish by comparison.

As much as the States have been at fault for colonialism as much as the Russians are, it's not like America hasn't learned from it's own mistakes and the people who are with the Democratic Party, whether progressive or liberal haven't exactly helped much by holding on to what happened in the past.

The U.S. is not the problem this time so I'm baffled on the mindset here behind progressives and liberals alike on this one. I'm not saying that we should be ignorant to the past mistakes that the government has made but in this case it's almost like they're caught in a fantasy land of sorts.

I don't think getting involved is worth a single American life or dollar. Not my backyard, and as always the US isn't innocent in this conflict to begin with.

good thing we're not sending american soldiers into ukraine; this will cost precisely zero american lives

as for dollars, parting with a fraction of a percent of our military budget isn't a big deal

how is the usa at all guilty in this conflict?

At 2/11/22 09:25 PM, Gario wrote:

: as for dollars, parting with a fraction of a percent of our military budget isn't a big deal

Every dollar wasted on military nonsense that could have gone into improving the quality of domestic medicine, education, production, environmental management, etc. is a massive deal, actually.

And to answer your other question, the quest for NATO expansionism all the way to Russias borders. If you don't see why that is a provocation, or will be seen as such, it doesn't really matter which, I dunno what to tell you.

And to just add to this, there is nothing that galls me more then the idea of sending some young southern conservative kids to die for the empire when they have made it all but illegal to be themselves in public life or in any other institution. Like, how dare you, you absolute rats lmao

if you want to decrease the military budget, great, but in the meantime that's not money that could go into domestically beneficial shit, but rather money going from one branch of the military to ukraine support

it's already been dictated in the budget, so this is not increasing military spending but rather redirecting money already going into the military toward supplying arms to ukraine

which is better than circulating it in the military here

countries wanting to join nato isn't "expansionism", countries ask to join the alliance for economic benefit and protection

what's your alternative, reject countries asking to join because russia's a bitch baby and wants to effectively recreate satellite buffer states from the old ussr days?

As much as I understand what you are saying, it still comes down to the fact that the US is still a part of NATO and has to play it's part in that alliance. It's not as simple as the US saying "nope, we don't want part in this" as much as it is the fact that they still have to aid European countries on this.

I also get what you're saying about Putin's concerns, at the same time the Ukrainian people do in fact want to be a part of NATO, But NATO hasn't offered it to them for a few reasons and official corruption in their government is one of them. and the only thing that's really going on at this time is simply an alliance that got strengthened only because of the 2014 Crimean Peninsula incident and Russia's annexation it. Because of that incident most countries in Eastern Europe have good reason to distrust Putin's word that he won't invade Ukraine because of his actions.

That was kind of OP’s point.

Joe, can you elaborate on your points better? I assume you’re wishing to counter Gario’s claims but you’re not really saying much,

I recall you made a post to me about communication breaking down. It’s almost a certainty when you respond to a post with a single sentence that not only is not clear what you mean, but what you have interpreted from both Gario’s and the OP’s post.

The relationship between Russia and NATO and Russia, Ukraine and the west goes back much further.

Russia is placed in a very difficult geographical position.

Their are no natural barriers between Eastern Europe and European Russia.

This has meant for all of history there have been waves of invaders coming from the west, most recently during World War Two

where Russia lost 20 million people and saw complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, and 31,850 industrial establishments.

Consequently it’s not surprising that it is important to Russia that it’s Eastern European neighbours remain neutral.

So it’s not without cause that Putin objects to the prospect of them joining a hostile, interventionalist alliance cum suicide pact dominated by America, that was specifically set up to combat Russia.

Even America that only has two land neighbours neither of which pose any threat whatsoever still intervenes in what it regards as It’s Latin American “backyard”.

Furthermore if Russia should lose the port of Sevastopol it would be economically devastated it being the only port it has access to that is operable in the winter, which naturally increases their sensitivity in the region.

Along with the ongoing dispute over Crimea their is the Donbas war, which is not only in Russia’s “backyard”, but right up against their back door.

American lead NATO intervention in either of those conflicts or any others is not what the region needs, especially noting the trail of chaos and destruction that proceeds them and Russia could not intervene without war with NATO even though it’s right on their border.

Using brinkmanship to encourage de-escalation is an effective technique, if you were in Putins shoes what else could you sensibly do, while maintaining Russia’s security and keeping face?

That would be a valid argument if they were allying themselves with say Norway or Switzerland.

However NATO and NATO’s key players have never respected national sovereignty, so by the rules of engagement that NATO themselves have set, then it is fair.

The people of Crimea overwhelmingly want to be part of Russia and as I said Sevastopol is vital to Russia, so I don’t think that invasion is indicative of Russian ambitions elsewhere.

It doesn't help that Germany are being complete cowards about it too they are blocking all external support for Ukraine from going through their borders, of course we all know its because Germany heavily relies on Russian natural gas while simultaneously closing all of their nuclear plants which is just shitty domestic and foreign policy but what can you expect from Merkel and her dumbshit administration maybe 50 years of having Russian cock in Eastern Germany just became an acquired taste through the generations or its just Daddy Putty gives it good and they don't want the natural gas tap turned off in the middle of winter.

I don't know why they're in NATO when they haven't paid their fair share in funding for years as well as their UN funding, while blocking Turkey from joining the EU which would strengthen the EU-NATO bloc when Georgia and Azerbaijan being candidates for both the EU and NATO which would give the power bloc economic and military access to the northern Middle East and access to the Caspian Sea which would completely offsets Russian and CTSO influence.