I’m going to need a lot more credible information before I waste my time on it.
Putin/Flight attendant video could be fake.
https://twitter.com/KotikObsolete/status/1500165188737245189?s=20&t=c58Zrx3ewvUc9OJR64qCew
Except we can’t control what Russia does and aren’t responsible for what Russia does. We are responsible for what we do. And if we had not armed Ukrainians with over a billion dollars worth of weapons in the past year (that we know about) and sent CIA operatives and special forces over there to train Ukrainian solders, and generally tried to get Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence, I think this war wouldn’t have happened. You want to say Russia’s 80% responsible, fine, I don’t care. As I’ve said what they’re doing is a monstrous crime. But the 20% that the US is responsible for, if we had minded our own fucking business and let Ukraine be, we probably could have prevented this war.
But maybe this is the one time that Lindsey Graham and Dick Cheney and Vicky Nuland and Rick Wilson and David Frum are all right on foreign policy. Who knows, they’re due I guess.
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1500215093409325061
This to me is the far more persuasive argument to no-fly zone or whatever than that NATO doesn’t want to provoke war with Putin. If Ukraine loses this, I think NATO is going to get war with Putin down the line, but on Putin’s terms.
But right now turning Ukraine into a battlefield, and giving Russian troops someone they really do want to shoot at, and giving Russian generals and the Russian people a hated enemy to rally behind, all seem like bad, counter-productive ideas.
These are mutually exclusive ideas.
Maybe you missed this, but Russia had already invaded Ukraine by that point. You also seem to neglect the fact that no one in NATO or the EU was dragging Ukraine into alliance. They wanted it. They were begging for it, because they wanted to be out from under Russia’s thumb. Zelenskyy was willing to do Trump’s favor for this.
Is it true though? Russia can’t really think they want that smoke from NATO right? NATO won’t be stupid enough to push into Russia.
The problem with your argument is you make statements that are unverifiable and claim them to be true.
You say if USA did not arm ukraine with billions of dollars of weapons in last 3 years there would be no war today.
This is a unfalsifiable statement and there is no way we can know for sure. And in all likelihood based off Putin’s past actions, a false statement.
In your mind, what exactly happens to Ukraine if the West/NATO/EU minded their own fucking business?
https://twitter.com/AviationTracker/status/1500221278204178434
This is likely either very high level US gov officials or very elite special ops heading to Moldova.
They peacefully roll over and allow themselves to become Belarus.
It’s unfalsifiable in the same way that everyone else is arguing that Russia was going to invade Ukraine no matter what, or that Russia wants to reform the old Soviet empire.
Everyone in this thread has declared themselves an expert on what Putin/Russia wants and would do in alternative scenarios, so really we’re just going to go round in circles with the same arguments being repeated as no one’s position can ever be disproven.
Right, and whether or not the war would have happened in this immediate future isn’t the sole consideration, otherwise the gto play is always appeasement. The Ukrainian economy and quality of life were severely hampered by associating with Russia over the EU. Their sovereignty is not something to be sacrificed, and again, not a standard or expectation that’s ever used in any other foreign policy context.
How in the world are those ideas mutually exclusive? Russia finds the US arming and training Ukrainian soldiers provocative. Russia finds the US trying to get Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence provocative. Doing provocative things makes war more likely. Not doing provocative things makes war less likely.
I’m well aware that Russia seized Crimea in 2014. I haven’t neglected the fact that many in Ukraine wanted closer alignment with the West. I agree with Bernie:
Countries should be free to make their own foreign policy choices, but making those choices wisely requires a serious consideration of the costs and benefits. The fact is that the U.S. and Ukraine entering into a deeper security relationship is likely to have some very serious costs—for both countries.
Serious costs, indeed. I’m saying that Ukraine trying to solidify ties to the west was deeply unwise.
Seems kind of fun to try to troll Putin by claiming he is such a pussy that he’s afraid to be in the same room as a bunch of women.
I suppose you can try to say this is unfalsifiable, but the head of state for russia is saying this as a goal. That makes it very different.
Putin has said for decades to anyone who would listen that Belarus and Ukraine are part of Russia, and that he thinks 1991 was a catastrophe and he wants to reform the USSR. His actions speak exactly to doing that. This counts for something.
This is the point I keep trying to make. Posters itt want to say “Well we know Putin lies, so we can discount anything he says and believe whatever we want.”
Not all statements are equal. Look at consistency over time. Look at actions that back up those statements. He made everyone in the Russian military read his manifesto about getting the USSR back together. That is not some multi-decade long psyop to trick the West.
Putin also says that he fears NATO and that he wants to de-nazify Ukraine. You can’t just pick and choose which of his statements you believe and which you don’t.
edit: to address Suzzer - Putin has also consistently said he fears NATO expansion and that is a red line. So again, I don’t see how we can say the NATO fear is bluster but the re-forming the Russian empire isn’t.
YES YOU CAN. It takes work. But you can determine which things are much more likely to mean something to him and which excuses he just made up a few years ago to justify his war against Ukraine.
Saying you can’t listen to anything he says, ever, is a copout.