Russia is already on Nato's borders.
You mean deal with rampant corruption & a poor economy rather than fomenting war with a neighbouring country? Just doesn't have the same appeal apparently.
Yes. NATO probably over-expanded, and is now pulling in several different directions. They are just kibitzers, not players, in this Ukraine chess game. Important countries like Germany look closer to its own interests rather than adhering to any kind of NATO policy issued by Washington.
I think this demonstrates one of the best cases for Russia not invading. Using aggressive military action to take expand your borders right up to your opposition, in order to give yourself a layer of protection makes no sense. Gesturing, as they are at the moment, does...
www.dw.com
www.bbc.com
No one can forbid Russia from conducting military exercises on its own territory and taking part in joint drills with an ally (Belarus) on its territory. At least as long as NATO keeps expanding to the east and saying their troops and missiles in the Baltics aren't a threat to Russia.
No one said they have to be equal. There is a threat to Russia and it's real. Once NATO accepts Ukraine, they'll have a perfect territory to deploy troops and short-range missiles that would reach central Russia in few minutes. The terrain is convenient for deployment large groups of infantry and armor to start a land offensive on RF.
Zelensky isn't much of player, IMO he's more of a pawn on the black side that his player wouldn't mind to sacrifice if it takes to. The player for black figures would be a team of Biden, Stoltenberg and other big guys.
That's a weird question: you're asking about Ukrainian lives, but don't seem to care about lives of Russians who will be in danger if NATO invades Russia directly. Let's be honest: any self-respecting country cares about its own citizens more than about others.
Interestingly, this contradicts the Minsk agreements that Russia regularly blames Ukraine for non-compliance with. However, there may be a reason for it: if Ukraine doesn't want to comply with them, maybe it's time for Putin to wipe his ass with these agreements, too? Why to abide the agreements that don't work anyway?A new move is prepared in the chess game of Ukraine.
Russian Duma asks Putin to recognize Donetsk, Luhansk – DW – 02/15/2022
Russian lawmakers have voted to ask President Vladimir Putin to recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in Ukraine as independent nations.
"Like it or don't like it, it's your duty, my beauty" - how CNN translated this phrase into English - is a joke that most westerners probably would not correctly understand, but Zelensky, who is a native Russian speaker, surely got it right.
NATO states have never even contemplated invading Russia. Its a nonsensical concept as there's little to gain but so much to loose in attempting to do so. It's origins were set up as a defence force to repel a possible invasion of western Europe by the USSR* following the second world war, which at the time was perceived as quite possible.
Because no one in this thread is dumb enough to entertain the idea that NATO plans on invading Russia. Russia has already invaded the Ukraine once in the past decade. Shouldn't be that hard of a nut to to crack.
On what grounds would NATO invade Russia? The nations in NATO aren't full of dictators who want to commit war crimes because they feel inadequate about their shortcomings like Putin does.
Some really do because of the Russian propaganda machine and a fundamental ignorance of how NATO works. Couple that with Russia's continued interest to push disinformation and you have normal Russian people who fear something they shouldn't while ignoring the biggest threat to their wellbeing is running their country. I do feel bad for many of the Russian citizens in this because they're going to get massacred when war breaks out and even if they aren't killed, their homes and livelihood are going to be destroyed.
Prominent neocon calls for the US to summon the will for regime change in Russia.
link.springer.com
There are news that Putin declined that resolution as he wants to give the Minsk agreements another chance. And a lot of people are now criticizing him for this, saying that the Minsk agreements are dead and useless, because Ukraine ignores them anyway...A new move is prepared in the chess game of Ukraine.
Russian Duma asks Putin to recognize Donetsk, Luhansk – DW – 02/15/2022
Russian lawmakers have voted to ask President Vladimir Putin to recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in Ukraine as independent nations.
Come on. Who do you expect to buy into this? Let's take a little detour to the history.
Not like the invasion is about to happen tomorrow, not in the way like current hysteria around Ukraine, but sort of yes - most people here don't see the NATO tanks near Pskov and Kaliningrad (and possibly near Rostov and Voronezh in the future) as anything good. And not only those who vote for Putin. There is a number (and not a small number) of Russians who dislike Putin for not doing enough to deal with this threat.
It's not a "hundred mile", look at the map. Ukraine is the largest country located entirely in Europe, and its territory has a huge strategic importance. I'm not going to give a long lecture about it this time, but try to imagine the amount of troops that this land can accomodate in addition to those in the Baltic states that would allow to start an offensive on two fronts at the same time.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean about China. Do you mean China might help RF in a fight?
The grounds can be anything they want, it won't matter much. When was it a problem to US and its allies?
Do you seriously think only dictators invade foreign countries and commit war crimes? You don't refer to your country as to a dictatorship for invading Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and more, do you?
You make it sound like you want Putin to invade no matter what (pretty much like CNN, Bloomberg and other 'predictors' of a Russian invasion), just to have something to charge him with.
Wow.
You seem to be ignoring one key factor in why NATO would almost certainly never invade Russia (aside from a myriad of smaller reasons that you have hand-waved away), nuclear deterrents.So, the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the US scheduled for 16th of February didn't happen. Crap, this is getting worse than Cyberpunk 2077. It gets delayed again, again and again. Pathetic.
There are news that Putin declined that resolution as he wants to give the Minsk agreements another chance. And a lot of people are now criticizing him for this, saying that the Minsk agreements are dead and useless, because Ukraine ignores them anyway...
Come on. Who do you expect to buy into this? Let's take a little detour to the history.
In the end of the Cold War, the last Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachov agreed to get rid of the Berlin Wall and give up the East Germany - in exchange for guarantees for NATO's non-expansion to the east. Spoken guarantees.
The reiunion of Germany, where people were divided and families were torn apart for 40 years, was a good thing to do, no doubt. But Gorbachov should have been better at trading. The guarantees of NATO's non-expansion weren't written anywhere, so, when the alliance continued accepting new members later on, their answers to Russia's question were like "No, we didn't promise you anything" or "Yes we promised, but we're not obliged to keep our word, get lost". Mr. Gorby was scammed like a schoolboy. But that doesn't matter much to him anymore. The Soviet Union is long gone. But NATO is still there, and only keeps growing like the Cold War never ended.
In 2007 - before the Georgia, Ukraine and Syria stories or anything else you could qualify as "Russia's agressive actions" - Putin spoke about this problem in Munich. But no one gave a ****.
Of course, this was happening partially thanks to our loser presidents Gorbachov and Yeltsin. Putin, if he doesn't want to become another one of these, naturally has to do something about this.
And after the bombings of Yugoslavia (without the UN mandate) and Libya, not so many people in Russia believe that NATO gets closer and closer to them with purely peaceful intentions.
Not like the invasion is about to happen tomorrow, not in the way like current hysteria around Ukraine, but sort of yes - most people here don't see the NATO tanks near Pskov and Kaliningrad (and possibly near Rostov and Voronezh in the future) as anything good. And not only those who vote for Putin. There is a number (and not a small number) of Russians who dislike Putin for not doing enough to deal with this threat.
No one says NATO is about to invade soon, but they're definetly proceeding to make this scenario possible in the future, by tightening the loop around Russia's neck slowly, but surely. After Ukraine, the next might be Kazakhstan, whose territory would also allow to threaten China as a bonus.
It's not a "hundred mile", look at the map. Ukraine is the largest country located entirely in Europe, and its territory has a huge strategic importance. I'm not going to give a long lecture about it this time, but try to imagine the amount of troops that this land can accomodate in addition to those in the Baltic states that would allow to start an offensive on two fronts at the same time.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean about China. Do you mean China might help RF in a fight?
I wouldn't think it's likely. The PRC isn't Russia's military ally, it's not a member of CSTO or any other organization that would oblige China to defend Russia. Yes, China is RF's big economic partner and the Chinese armed forces take part in joint drills with Russia, but they're not bound with any security treaty (like the one between Japan and US for example, that obliges the US to defend Japan). Moreover, I'd go as far as saying there's no guarantee that if Russia is at defensive war with little chances of winning it, China wouldn't also decide to grab a piece of the cake...
As for the Russia's size, it didn't stop Hitler from invading the USSR when he seeked Lebensraum (living space) for his nation. Don't forget that the abilities of transportation, logistics and communication in 21st century are far better than they were in the early 1940's. After all, the Nazis didn't plan to occupy the whole Russian territory, and neither NATO necessarily has to do so.
The grounds can be anything they want, it won't matter much. When was it a problem to US and its allies?
Another cyberattack, another 'election meddling' (who would need a proof that Russia did it? They told so about the 2016 elections and people still believe them on bare words), another ex-officer highly likely poisoned by Russia - you name it. Once the invasion of RF becomes possible with an acceptable price and they decide to grab that chance - it won't be a problem to find a proper justification.
Remember "Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons"? Were they found when Iraq was defeated? No. Who gave a **** about it? No one.
But you know who gained control over Iraqi oil resources. Russia has a lot of oil, too. And not only oil, but gas and other natural resources, too.
Not so long time ago, the US were literally stealing Syrian oil on their controlled territory they were claiming to be fighting ISIS on.
Do you seriously think only dictators invade foreign countries and commit war crimes? You don't refer to your country as to a dictatorship for invading Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and more, do you?
You make it sound like you want Putin to invade no matter what (pretty much like CNN, Bloomberg and other 'predictors' of a Russian invasion), just to have something to charge him with.
But, honestly, if punished Putin will be sharing the cell with Bill Clinton, Bush, Obama, Blair and other politicians who also match your definition of a war criminal - I wouldn't mind. We deserve a more competent government that would be better at both economy AND deterrence of NATO.
Wow.
First, you're questioning the possiblity of an invasion of Russia ('because we're the good guys, we wouldn't commit any war crimes, ha ha ha'), then you're talking about its consequences, including killing civilians in their homes, like it's not a war crime. Brilliant.
Ahem. Allegedly Putin-tainted.I think someone needs to stop drinking the Putin tainted Kool-Aid
Russian people need to accept that they don't get to use other nations as a buffer zone anymore, and that anybody standing up for that, isn't threatening Russia's borders. I've nothing against the Russian people at all, but I certainly wouldn't put it past Putin to stoke the paranoia as justification for expanding Russian influence to the point of invading neighbouring states.
I was referencing your comment about being able to launch short range missiles. NATO could already deal significant damage to Moscow and most of the major Russian cities without the need of Ukrainian territory, and the distance between the Baltic NATO members and Moscow isn't that different to Ukraine-Moscow. Yes, a second front in western Russia would be an advantage for troop deployment, but such action could only come after a sustained softening of all military infrastructure by air and long range missiles. At that point, i.e. the brink of the end of the world... I'm not sure Ukraine's membership, or not, of NATO would be relevant.
I doubt China would stand by while Western powers and Europe extended their influence to Chinese borders whilst significantly reducing Chinese global influence, and if Russia alone wasn't enough to dissuade an attack, Russia and China together certainly would be.
Barbarossa failed and pretty much lost Hitler the war, and that was with Stalin believing that Hitler wouldn't attack (FWIW I think it's very sad that many people in Europe and the US forget about the massive, massive death toll on the Eastern front). But, the Nazi's didn't occupy Russia, they didn't even get to Moscow. And yeah, the technology of war has changed, which is why it makes it far less relevant to need Ukraine, and why any European NATO allies are less likely sign up for an attack in the first place... even ignoring the nuclear deterrent, it's within Russia's capability to strike most European capitals with ALCM's, Russia keeps flying Bears capable of carrying such weapons up to UK airspace to remind us of this - why would we risk our own cities when we don't even want to invade?
The grounds can't be anything they want. A country needs a casus belli for war. Regardless though, NATO isn't in the business of invading countries for no reason. That's not the point of the alliance.
I mean Iraq did have a chemical weapons program. Saddam very publically launched those chemical weapons against the Kuwaitis and was uncooperative with UN inspectors in the late 90s/early 00s. The UN seemed to agree that Iraq was in violation of the resolution it had passed too. Did Iraq have WMD in 2003? I don't know, but given how uncooperative Hussein was and how good US intelligence is, I'm guessing there's way more to the story than any of us know.
Putin has already launched one unjustified war to annex land that isn't his nor Russia's. That's a pretty good indication that he will do it again since it worked the first time. He might not order an invasion of Ukraine today, but it's foolish to rule out the likelihood he won't do it in the future.
In this situation, NATO are the good guys. They aren't the ones who want to invade a sovereign nation to annex land that isn't part of their de jure holdings and they aren't the ones who've already invaded a sovereign nation to annex land that isn't part of their de jure holdings. If Russia had a rightful claim to the land, it would be a different story, but they don't.
A reason I can think of is Ukraine serves as an interest because it allows for better access to the Black Sea and allows naval transport to Africa much more effectively. That however falls because there is still a choke point with Turkey at the other end of the Black Sea and I doubt Russia wants to provoke a war with them. Russia is already bordered by FOUR NATO countries so the argument that they don't want Ukraine to join NATO doesn't really make sense if they already have other countries on their border in NATO. It looks like Putin really wants to reform the USSR and the first step to that would be to cement rule on a country that looks to him as vulnerable. Aside from the reason above, this is the only other reason why Putin wants to invade Ukraine and basically make it a puppet state. Heck, Belarus could also be invaded by that logic but right now it seems like it is already a Russian puppet country.
I don't doubt that and access to the Black Sea seems like the most logical explanation as to why Russia wants Ukraine. Putin's desire to create the USSR 2.0 also seems logical as well. Russia desires to be a world player, but it just embarrasses itself whenever it tries, which I assume makes Putin salty. Hell, Russia even stoops as low as to dope up a 15-year-old girl so they can win an Olympic medal in its quest to be relevant.
I forgot the Norwegian-Russian border and I didn't consider the US border one as it's close, but not a land border.
