All Things Russia & Ukraine

[a fan]

..but Biden's still promising NATO membership for Ukraine, without consulting the American public or the rest of NATO.

That's great. But that doesn't change the fact that Putin invaded, AND Ukraine isn't in NATO.

Putin will never accept that. Another forever war.

Putin will be pushing up daisies soon enough. And when he does, the only question will be: is the next guy as stupid as Putin was?


Now much further behind are the people of Russia vs. where they were before Putin arrived?

It's sad. I pity them.

And you know my stance on forever wars, including Taiwan.

[youthathletics]

...forcing more economic integration with China, which can offer anything Russia needs at a lower price.
This hurts the EU.

If by "economic integration", you mean "China is buying energy from Russia at firesale prices, putting Russia even further behind?"

Okay.

The EU didn't ask for this invasion....Putin did.

Nah, gotta blame it on the Euros.

Not the Euors, the US?

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book ... ders-early

Even IF you believe this.

The promise has been kept. Putin invaded anyway. So....there goes that idea, don't you think.

It sounds like you just want to fight for the sake of fighting....without any consideration for the history of what has transpired. I appreciate you boiling it down to the simplest form....yes, Putin engaged first. But it did expand East --> https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topi ... tm#coldwar

NATO is damned near what we did in the US when we essentially stole it from everyone else.....Russia is and has been in that threatened position. When you look at the map there is only Ukraine and Belarus remaining for NATO to land lock Russia.IS that a bad thing? That may very well be the argument we should be having....

Asked differently....Can you blame Putin and the Russians for feeling like they are being blocked in and strong armed since the end of the cold war, and further accepting the olive branch from China. Remember, even our VP spoke back in 21 that the 20 year GWOT was over, and we are now entered in the GPC between Russia and China.....all these moves are intentional and calculated. Can we argue that the US and China are an alliance against Russia? Remember, you did not take any issue with China setting up camp next to our military bases when I mentioned it earlier (I believe it was you). At what point do you believe a country has to take a stand or do you believe it's always best to succumb to the larger entity and accept the loss?

And no, I am not defending Putin and yes, I am with you that I hate considering further wars with our men and woman.

[MDlaxfan76]

This may sound like a nit, but Russia has always had direct access to the North Sea. It also has access through the Black Sea. And of course, you're ignoring the Pacific. And Arctic.

Not landlocked.

None of this is a problem for commercial interests. None of it threatens commercial interests.

It does have implications for aggressive military action or international hegemony ambitions.
But not for actual homeland defense, given technology developments.

The problem is that, though the Soviet Union collapsed of its own evil weight, and no longer exists, Putin and those like him retained international hegemony ambitions and have used aggressive military actions to move in that direction on behalf of a new authoritarian "Russia". Empire ambitions, not mutual defense.

The EU is a commercial pact aggregation of nations with shared commercial interests and borders.

NATO is a larger mutual defense pact, designed to eliminate great power military conflicts in Europe (which had plagued them for centuries) and as a bulwark from aggressors, most notably at the time the Soviet Union. Why the Soviet Union? Because they'd rolled tanks to enforce their authoritarian will on their neighboring states, whether subsuming them into the "Union" or enforcing puppet regimes. They repeatedly rolled the tanks.

And Putin has done much the same.

NATO's expansion is, and has been, in reaction to the rising threat of military aggression from the east. Free peoples want to know that they have allies at their back.

As a fan keeps pointing out, the smart play for Russia had been and will be in the future to pursue commercial interests within a free, rules based world and not by aggression. Unfortunately that's not how their authoritarian rulers saw as their own personal best interest.

[runrussellrun]

This may sound like a nit, but Russia has always had direct access to the North Sea. It also has access through the Black Sea. And of course, you're ignoring the Pacific. And Arctic.

Not landlocked.

None of this is a problem for commercial interests. None of it threatens commercial interests.

It does have implications for aggressive military action or international hegemony ambitions.
But not for actual homeland defense, given technology developments.

The problem is that, though the Soviet Union collapsed of its own evil weight, and no longer exists, Putin and those like him retained international hegemony ambitions and have used aggressive military actions to move in that direction on behalf of a new authoritarian "Russia". Empire ambitions, not mutual defense.

The EU is a commercial pact aggregation of nations with shared commercial interests and borders.

NATO is a larger mutual defense pact, designed to eliminate great power military conflicts in Europe (which had plagued them for centuries) and as a bulwark from aggressors, most notably at the time the Soviet Union. Why the Soviet Union? Because they'd rolled tanks to enforce their authoritarian will on their neighboring states, whether subsuming them into the "Union" or enforcing puppet regimes. They repeatedly rolled the tanks.

And Putin has done much the same.

NATO's expansion is, and has been, in reaction to the rising threat of military aggression from the east. Free peoples want to know that they have allies at their back.

As a fan keeps pointing out, the smart play for Russia had been and will be in the future to pursue commercial interests within a free, rules based world and not by aggression. Unfortunately that's not how their authoritarian rulers saw as their own personal best interest.

ummmm.....why isn't Russia a member of NATO?

since....you know, they have access to the North Atlantic

[a fan]

It sounds like you just want to fight for the sake of fighting....without any consideration for the history of what has transpired. I appreciate you boiling it down to the simplest form....yes, Putin engaged first. But it did expand East --> https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topi ... tm#coldwar

NATO is damned near what we did in the US when we essentially stole it from everyone else.....Russia is and has been in that threatened position. When you look at the map there is only Ukraine and Belarus remaining for NATO to land lock Russia.IS that a bad thing? That may very well be the argument we should be having....

Asked differently....Can you blame Putin and the Russians for feeling like they are being blocked in and strong armed since the end of the cold war, and further accepting the olive branch from China.

Yes. I can blame them for this stupid ideology.

When folks say " you have to think like a Russian to understand Putin"....what they mean is to abandon all logic, and lower your IQ.

You know anyone in the UK dumb enough to think that they can "get their empire back"? Yeah, me neither. So...why? Why are the British realistic and worried about the 21st century instead of the 18th like Putin is?


Hillary and Obama offered Putin the keys to the economic kingdom, he said no. That's not backing anyone into a corner....that's offering them the door to a better life.

Ever think about those Russian hackers? Screwing around with social media and elections? Haven't you ever thought to yourself: "hey, what if these same computer guys.... instead of piddling their time around doing things that do NOTHING for the Russian people..... started a business like Uber. Or Facebook. Or Amazon. Or Tesla? You know: contribute to the world.

Putin is a moron. I wouldn't put him in charge of a Howard Johnson's, let alone an entire county with ABSURD resources at his disposal. He's piddled it all away. And what does he have to show for it? An utterly useless stretch of land with close to zero economic value.....and blowing BILLIONS for the land, not to mention all the death and destruction.

Putin will go down as one of the dumbest leaders the world has ever seen. The idea that he feels threatened by NATO is just.....dumb.

Who the F is going to invade Russia? And if so...for what? If you're going to "think like a Russian", you have to think like a reasonable, somewhat smart Russian, or the excercise is pointless. Putin is dimwitted fascist who only cares for himself. That's it. That's his "plan" for the Russian people.

[old salt]

Putin the moron is negotiating an end to the the war with Trump through the media. Putin's offer of a truce, with the current line of control as the new border & no NATO membership, is the best deal Ukraine can hope for. Ukraine doesn't have to accept it. It will come about naturally. Neither side will try to take new territory. Putin will say he will stop cross border attacks except in response to Ukrainian attacks. The war will settle into a frozen conflict a la Korea (as some of us predicted from the start), while both sides continue to bolster threir defenses.

[MDlaxfan76]

Putin the moron is negotiating an end to the the war with Trump through the media. Putin's offer of a truce, with the current line of control as the new border & no NATO membership, is the best deal Ukraine can hope for. Ukraine doesn't have to accept it. It will come about naturally. Neither side will try to take new territory. Putin will say he will stop cross border attacks except in response to Ukrainian attacks. The war will settle into a frozen conflict a la Korea (as some of us predicted from the start), while both sides continue to bolster threir defenses.

So...a moron.

"Negotiating" "with Trump", another moron.
And Putin is the smarter, meaner moron.
Both fascists with immense, yet fragile, egos.

[Kismet]

Putin the moron is negotiating an end to the the war with Trump through the media. Putin's offer of a truce, with the current line of control as the new border & no NATO membership, is the best deal Ukraine can hope for. Ukraine doesn't have to accept it. It will come about naturally. Neither side will try to take new territory. Putin will say he will stop cross border attacks except in response to Ukrainian attacks. The war will settle into a frozen conflict a la Korea (as some of us predicted from the start), while both sides continue to bolster threir defenses.

for someone who claims to not be an Orange Fatso supporter you seem to like just about everything the moron does.

Perhaps you could stop jerking everyone around just to get a rise out of people.

[runrussellrun]

Putin the moron is negotiating an end to the the war with Trump through the media. Putin's offer of a truce, with the current line of control as the new border & no NATO membership, is the best deal Ukraine can hope for. Ukraine doesn't have to accept it. It will come about naturally. Neither side will try to take new territory. Putin will say he will stop cross border attacks except in response to Ukrainian attacks. The war will settle into a frozen conflict a la Korea (as some of us predicted from the start), while both sides continue to bolster threir defenses.

So...a moron.

"Negotiating" "with Trump", another moron.
And Putin is the smarter, meaner moron.
Both fascists with immense, yet fragile, egos.

What would YOU do, mdlaxfan75, to END the killing of humans in Ukraine ?

Why does NATO exist, at all, in 2024.

[MDlaxfan76]

Read the thread.

[runrussellrun]

It sounds like you just want to fight for the sake of fighting....without any consideration for the history of what has transpired. I appreciate you boiling it down to the simplest form....yes, Putin engaged first. But it did expand East --> https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topi ... tm#coldwar

NATO is damned near what we did in the US when we essentially stole it from everyone else.....Russia is and has been in that threatened position. When you look at the map there is only Ukraine and Belarus remaining for NATO to land lock Russia.IS that a bad thing? That may very well be the argument we should be having....

Asked differently....Can you blame Putin and the Russians for feeling like they are being blocked in and strong armed since the end of the cold war, and further accepting the olive branch from China.

Yes. I can blame them for this stupid ideology.

When folks say " you have to think like a Russian to understand Putin"....what they mean is to abandon all logic, and lower your IQ.

You know anyone in the UK dumb enough to think that they can "get their empire back"? Yeah, me neither. So...why? Why are the British realistic and worried about the 21st century instead of the 18th like Putin is? you think the Brits don't still control much of what they controlled ? Epstein Island types......and the POS "royal family" sure do seem to have lots and lots of money. Where from ?


Hillary and Obama offered Putin the keys to the economic kingdom, he said no. Be specific, what "key" to what economic kingdom ? That's not backing anyone into a corner....that's offering them the door to a better life.

Ever think about those Russian hackers? Screwing around with social media and elections? Haven't you ever thought to yourself: "hey, what if these same computer guys.... instead of piddling their time around doing things that do NOTHING for the Russian people..... started a business like Uber. Or Facebook. Or Amazon. Or Tesla? You know: contribute to the world. oh my........Fecesbook IS a contribution to the world.

Putin is a moron. I wouldn't put him in charge of a Howard Johnson's, let alone an entire county with ABSURD resources at his disposal. He's piddled it all away. And what does he have to show for it? An utterly useless stretch of land with close to zero economic value.....and blowing BILLIONS for the land, not to mention all the death and destruction. Nice put down of hospitality employees......your economic target market. Talk about morons, insulting your client base.

Putin will go down as one of the dumbest leaders the world has ever seen. The idea that he feels threatened by NATO is just.....dumb.
Isn't the IDEA of nato, in 2024, dumb? What bogey man are the NATO countries afraid of ? Oh, right.....NATO is a trade organization

Who the F is going to invade Russia? And if so...for what? If you're going to "think like a Russian", you have to think like a reasonable, somewhat smart Russian, or the excercise is pointless. Putin is dimwitted fascist who only cares for himself. That's it. That's his "plan" for the Russian people.

Besides giving the killing machine industry more funding, what has Biden done to end this conflict ?

exactly

Don't forget your pinky promise with the others.........DO NOT REPLY.........mdlaxfan's PM, as in private messaging......so easy to hack. so lame.

[runrussellrun]

Read the thread.

Did.......and ?

You have offered no solutions, that can be read, in the threads.


be specific.........with your answer.

Why does NATO exist, in 2024 ?

[old salt]

Putin the moron is negotiating an end to the the war with Trump through the media. Putin's offer of a truce, with the current line of control as the new border & no NATO membership, is the best deal Ukraine can hope for. Ukraine doesn't have to accept it. It will come about naturally. Neither side will try to take new territory. Putin will say he will stop cross border attacks except in response to Ukrainian attacks. The war will settle into a frozen conflict a la Korea (as some of us predicted from the start), while both sides continue to bolster theiir defenses.

for someone who claims to not be an Orange Fatso supporter you seem to like just about everything the moron does.

Perhaps you could stop jerking everyone around just to get a rise out of people.

This has nothing to do with Trump. I don't like getting dragged into stupid wars, no matter who is the President.

Face reality. The future of this war may well soon be in the hands of Putin & Trump. You don't have to like it.

As President, DeSantis would do the same thing.

[Seacoaster(1)]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... e-matters/

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/16/ ... s-to-know/

[youthathletics]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... e-matters/

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/16/ ... s-to-know/

What are you implying?

[runrussellrun]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... e-matters/

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/16/ ... s-to-know/

all three read like shills, shilling for their killing machine industry.

After all, NATO members get weapons to kill, or rather "deter", as all three mentioned, the big bad Russians.

Weird, that Russia was our "allie" during WW2..........

Could have sworn POTUSA Oboma (literally ) scoffed at Romney, mentioning bugy whips and 80's foreign policy.....when he mentioned Russia as the biggest threat.

SO, if POTUSA Obama , literally still smokes the weed.....and good for him........thinks that Russia wasn't a threat, why the need for "detering" anything ?

NATO is a means to sell killing machine stuff.

War is bad for the environment.......and yet......

[old salt]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

WOULD UKRAINE BE A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR NATO?
Allowing Ukraine to join NATO carries enormous risk, but Ukraine is unlikely to negotiate peace with Russia without a third-party commitment to enforce it.
Stone: Ukrainian membership in NATO carries enormous risks, but it may turn out to be the only way to end the war with Russia. Ukraine will be reluctant to settle with Russia on any terms other than Russian unilateral withdrawal from Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory. Yet, Russia has formally incorporated some of that territory, including Crimea and four other Ukrainian provinces, into the Russian Federation. If a future peace treaty represented a compromise between those positions, both sides would be concerned that the other would renege and return to hostilities if one perceived a tactical advantage.

A return to hostilities by the other side is a particularly grave concern for Ukraine, which is much smaller than Russia, has already been invaded, and has suffered enormous civilian casualties that were deliberately inflicted. Additionally, Ukraine would worry that its tactical situation would rapidly deteriorate if it demobilized its army in order to rebuild its economy, and that it might not be able to rebuild the international coalition that sustained its warfighting capability once the current conflict ended.

As a result, Ukraine might be unwilling to settle the conflict without a third-party commitment, such as NATO, to enforce any peace settlement.

Even if Trump is not elected, gaining unanimous approval from EU/NATO members for Ukraine's entry into NATO is inconceivable. Europe is moving farther to the right. Look what a heavy lift it was to get Sweden & Finland in. NATO "peacekeepers" on the ground in Ukraine to enforce a peace settlement is an invitation to disaster. Thus, I think a Korea style frozen conflict is the best we can hope for & the most likely outcome.

[runrussellrun]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... e-matters/

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/16/ ... s-to-know/

What are you implying?

He is implying the Obama is a......umm, what are the usuals calling others.....????

oh....right. MORONS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg


If the "cold war is over", why do we need NATO?

exactly

[Seacoaster(1)]

We are in no-brainer land here, but only if you use your brain:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wh ... ve-605022/

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... e-matters/

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/02/16/ ... s-to-know/

What are you implying?

Really?

[MDlaxfan76]

This may sound like a nit, but Russia has always had direct access to the North Sea. It also has access through the Black Sea. And of course, you're ignoring the Pacific. And Arctic.

Not landlocked.

None of this is a problem for commercial interests. None of it threatens commercial interests.

It does have implications for aggressive military action or international hegemony ambitions.
But not for actual homeland defense, given technology developments.

The problem is that, though the Soviet Union collapsed of its own evil weight, and no longer exists, Putin and those like him retained international hegemony ambitions and have used aggressive military actions to move in that direction on behalf of a new authoritarian "Russia". Empire ambitions, not mutual defense.

The EU is a commercial pact aggregation of nations with shared commercial interests and borders.

NATO is a larger mutual defense pact, designed to eliminate great power military conflicts in Europe (which had plagued them for centuries) and as a bulwark from aggressors, most notably at the time the Soviet Union. Why the Soviet Union? Because they'd rolled tanks to enforce their authoritarian will on their neighboring states, whether subsuming them into the "Union" or enforcing puppet regimes. They repeatedly rolled the tanks.

And Putin has done much the same.

NATO's expansion is, and has been, in reaction to the rising threat of military aggression from the east. Free peoples want to know that they have allies at their back.

As a fan keeps pointing out, the smart play for Russia had been and will be in the future to pursue commercial interests within a free, rules based world and not by aggression. Unfortunately that's not how their authoritarian rulers saw as their own personal best interest.

Repeated for RRR.

One of many, many discussions of this topic going back numerous years.

This one just happened to be yesterday.