you are perpetuating a line put forth by russian propaganda, which i need to follow to be able to spot who is supporting putin this week.
yeah, i jump on it instinctively (rather than passive-aggresively) but it’s not personal because of you. i jumped on this thread because there’s clear misinformation peddling going on by the OP, and a few others.
that putin has a legitimate claim over a promise that never happened and couldn’t have been made several presidential terms ago. and by extension legitimizing the unlawful way putin’s administration annexed crimea and precipitated conflict in donbass.
putin’s strategy to legitimize annexation of parts of ukraine is to claim that ukraine cannot seek membership into nato. that’s their propaganda line. try to keep up.
The Gist is back after a year off, thanks to some friction between Mike Pesca and Slate. Today’s episode has the former president of Estonia who gives his thoughts about Putin’s mental state and his occasional diatribes about how Ukranians are not a “real people” (and thus ought to welcome the warm embrace of Mother Russia).
Fine, real talk, if there’s any daylight between what you write on Ukraine and what Dmitry Peskov pays Igor from St. Petersburg John McPatriot Smith to write in Breitbart comments, I struggle to see it. Russia is a ~bad country that feels it is owed things because it used to be a big deal, but aside from weapons and gas it doesn’t offer much, least of all to its Europe facing neighbors. Even if Ukraine were seeking NATO membership (which was never really a thing), Russia does not want that not because it is some grave military threat to the motherland, it is because it will lose the ability to dictate affairs in a vassal state in its own ‘sphere of influence’ – at least this was the case in 2014, now they’ve just settled for perpetually destabilizing the country.
FWIW, besides the tough talk I don’t think US does much, and it’s really not even clear that omg imminent invasion is imminent is accurate; the Russians move/concentrate troops on that border all the time, continues to feel like optics for now but we’ll see.
the ICC is going to rule MH17 downing falls on russia. it’s a war crime. using chemical weapons on foreign soil. attempted coups and assasinations in the balkans. half of russia will hand him over to the tribunal with joy. posthumously if necessary.