Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Awol]

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

On the first bold bit, do you think the USA/NATO/UK etc don't do and haven't done this throughout the course of history?

The only difference is that they are more sophisticated and strategic about it. Hell, you could argue that this is exactly what they are doing right now.

On the second bolded bit, I can't agree, you don't have to " Agree with Putin's view of the world or don't " to add nuance here. No excuse for what is happening, but it's the old saying, you can't slap someone in the face, and then tell them how to react, you're better off just not slapping them in the first place.

There are sensitivities and deep rooted history with geopolitics all over the world among different nations.

If the argument is that Putin was hell bent on invading Ukraine no matterer what, let's just say, USA/NATO gave him the " excuses " to do so ( In his mind at least ).

Of course we don't agree with how MANY leaders around the world operate or their " view of the world ", but there are better ways to deal with them - which could avoid war.

Let's not pretend as if the USA/NATO have nothing to gain from Ukraine here.

Again, one of the easiest examples is the Cuban missile, did the Cubans deserve a war?

Wasn't the notion that they " Had to do this for their own security "?

I'm pretty dissillusioned with all of it, there are no " good guys " in my view, in the end of this.

This is an obvious proxy war. IMO

I’m not trying to make an argument about what any state has done to any other state historically. Balance of power and spheres of influence were absolutely the way the world was ordered historically, and it led to two world wars and then a Cold War.

Since 1991 Europe has pursued a different model. No state is forced into NATO or the EU. The former offers security from a potentially irredentist Russia and the latter an economic community that helps to embed democratic norms in countries that had little or no institutional resilience. Countries clamour to come in.

That’s the fundamental, category difference. Our side offers hope and inspiration, the Putin’s of the world operate by compulsion. Obey, or else.

The Ukrainians made their choice and chased away the corrupt leader who looted their country. KGB man in Moscow didn’t like it and wants to bring looter man back. Now Putin calls Ukrainians  Nazis and shells their homes. You think they are proxies? People fooled into wanting freedom and democracy? 

No nuance required here mate, only principles.  

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

15 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Maybe, maybe not but by God there is 100%, without any question some bad guys here committing completely unnecessarily hundreds of thousands of deaths. You can play the blame game and argue the politics as much as you like but Putin is a warmongering butcher and there can be absolutely zero doubt about that. 

Agreed.

In my view, Putin doesn't even think he's at war, with Ukraine, if that makes any sense.

In his view, he's at war with the West.

Anyway, let me head back over to the Football forum.

I know this is an extremely sensitive subject, and what everyone can agree on is that what is happening to the people of Ukraine is horrific.

The fact that we are still dropping bombs and going to " war " in 2022, makes us no better than evolved monkeys who got technology too early.

 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

35 minutes ago, bickster said:

They didn't get one please do some more "research"

Mate I'm Caribbean, I'm not ignorant to historical events within the region. Lol. I probaly should have put war in quotation marks.

They were THREATENED with war, because of what the USA saw as a threat to their security,.is what I meant. 

No?

Similarly, Ukriame were threatened with war, becuase of what Putin claims he saw/sees as a threat to his security with the endless expansion of NATO which has been dishonoring the quid pro quo agreed on the splitting up of the Soviet Union ,( I'm sure other people in the thread have probably already brought that up ) " Not an inch ".

In my view, they saw Ukraine as a step too far, and probably saw/see it as the end of the dream for a renuinted Russia/Soviet Union.

Again, the repeated question never answered is, how would the USA react today, if Mexico | Canada as " sovereign " nations decided to host a Chinese | Russian military and weapons presence along the length of their border? No one ever answers this.

This could have been negotiated in a respectful manner between all parties, and a mutually beneficial agreement reached.

Or would you say the tactics used were successful? The current situation says no.

Whether we like it or not, it's a deeply complex issue, and what Politicians are actually meant to be good at, is finding peaceful solutions, which keep everybody relatively happy and prevent bloodshed.

I also feel like I have to end every single post, by saying what is happening to the people of Ukraine is wrong, as I find most people are so worked up about it, they are unwilling to try and see any other viewpoint aside from their own.

As in the Football threads.

Anyway, I'm off to the Footie threads! I'm not trying to wind anyone up.

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[blandy]

16 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

It was reproduced in the notes from the meetings at the time, a formally undocumented promise

It’s a side issue and maybe pedantic, but it can’t have been both reproduced in notes and also not documented. One or the other. The story we were told is that primarily the US, but speaking “as/for NATO” did not intend to expand from reunified Germany toward Russia. My suspicion is that this is probably true, but only -ish. As in there genuinely was no intention, but equally there wasn’t a “no never, that’s cast in stone”.  Regardless, to stay on topic it’s at best a very minor excuse to obliterate cities next door with a war machine.

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Similarly, Ukriame were threatened with war, becuase of what Putin claims he saw/sees as a threat to his security with the endless expansion of NATO which has been dishonoring the quid pro quo agreed on the splitting up of the Soviet Union ,( I'm sure othe people in the thread have probably already brought that up ) " Not an inch "

This is bollocks as explained for the umpteenth time ob the last page or the one before

Russia is not the Soviet Union. There was no treaty that this was part of either

Your arguments are absolutely full of false equivalents

[KentVillan]

36 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Let's not pretend as if the USA/NATO have nothing to gain from Ukraine here.

Again, one of the easiest examples is the Cuban missile, did the Cubans deserve a war?

Wasn't the notion that they " Had to do this for their own security "?

I'm pretty dissillusioned with all of it, there are no " good guys " in my view, in the end of this.

This is an obvious proxy war. IMO

Nato really had very little to gain from Ukraine tbh, which is why so many western diplomats recommended against extending the Nato / EU olive branch in the first place.

However, Ukraine had LOADS to gain from Nato membership, and like Estonia, Latvia, Poland, etc., they were the ones driving the process forwards, because of their historic relationship with Russia / Soviet Union.

As for the Cuba comparison... there's no doubt the USA did some horrendous things to Cuba, that Castro's revolution overthrew a corrupt US puppet president, and you have stuff like Bay of Pigs, and so on and so forth. But the US never once did anything approaching what Putin has just done to Ukraine.

I completely get why a lot of people's instinctive reaction is to say, "but western countries have done loads of bad stuff", and of course colonialism and (more recently) Iraq are unforgivable, but in this specific case there is very clearly a "bad guy" and his name is Vladimir Putin... and the good guys are people like Zelensky and anyone in the west working towards a peaceful solution that guarantees Ukrainian self-rule. To say there are "no good guys" is to just let Putin off the hook.

[avfc1982am]

53 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

On the first bold bit, do you think the USA/NATO/UK etc don't do and haven't done this throughout the course of history?

The only difference is that they are more sophisticated and strategic about it. Hell, you could argue that this is exactly what they are doing right now.

On the second bolded bit, I can't agree, you don't have to " Agree with Putin's view of the world or don't " to add nuance here. No excuse for what is happening, but it's the old saying, you can't slap someone in the face, and then tell them how to react, you're better off just not slapping them in the first place.

There are sensitivities and deep rooted history with geopolitics all over the world among different nations.

If the argument is that Putin was hell bent on invading Ukraine no matterer what, let's just say, USA/NATO gave him the " excuses " to do so ( In his mind at least ).

Of course we don't agree with how MANY leaders around the world operate or their " view of the world ", but there are better ways to deal with them - which could avoid war.

Let's not pretend as if the USA/NATO have nothing to gain from Ukraine here.

Again, one of the easiest examples is the Cuban missile, did the Cubans deserve a war?

Wasn't the notion that they " Had to do this for their own security "?

I'm pretty dissillusioned with all of it, there are no " good guys " in my view, in the end of this.

This is an obvious proxy war. IMO

The Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and lives are the good in this. That's all that matters right now.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

11 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

However, Ukraine had LOADS to gain from Nato membership, and like Estonia, Latvia, Poland, etc., they were the ones driving the process forwards, because of their historic relationship with Russia / Soviet Union.

 

Good Post.

I've also been wondering why he hasn't ever seemed to consider attacking the likes of these other former Soviet nations you mentioned,  recently.

With alot of things, I sometimes feel like if we ( The West ) just never interfered with alot of other regions in the first place, they'd eventually sort them selves out.

We tend to leave places much worse off than we found them, whether that be through war, or political war/sanctions.

Obviously, I know that then leaves the door open for evil running riot freely as well.

I just feel like there is probably alot more to Ukraine, that we don't necessarily know.

Wouldn't surprise me if this ends up with Putin dead anyway, regardless of outcome.

Just seeing reports that Russia have actually stepped up the attacks a noth

Edited March 4, 2022 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[OutByEaster?]

24 minutes ago, blandy said:

It’s a side issue and maybe pedantic, but it can’t have been both reproduced in notes and also not documented. One or the other. The story we were told is that 

primarily the US, but speaking “as/for NATO” did not intend to expand from reunified Germany toward Russia. My suspicion is that this is probably true, but only -ish. As in there genuinely was no intention, but equally there wasn’t a “no never, that’s cast in stone”.  Regardless, to stay on topic it’s at best a very minor excuse to obliterate cities next door with a war machine.

It's not in the formal notes of the meeting but was mentioned in the notes that were made afterward by one of the participants and filed somewhere in Washington. 

i was reading about it recently in a Chomsky book, I could probably find it tomorrow, but its means reading through the book again and it'll only make me worse 

 

[OutByEaster?]

7 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

The Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and lives are the good in this. That's all that matters right now.

Indeed, it is all that matters right now, it's an important narrative whether it's happening in the way it's being reported or not.

 

 

[sidcow]

28 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

This could have been negotiated in a respectful manner between all parties, and a mutually beneficial agreement reached.

The only thing you can absolutely guarantee is this is not the case. 

The world and his dog has tried to negotiate. Macron has made himself look like a modern day Chamberlain twice now. 

Putin repeated over and over to the world that he wasn't going go invade. 

He cannot be trusted in anything and he decided on this over a year ago and literally nothing was going to change it. 

[Adman]

One of the worlds biggest nuclear power stations on fire.  

There will be an unintended escalation in this war that will lead to a direct confrontation. 

Im actually depressed.  This is so sad

[KentVillan]

15 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

It's not in the formal notes of the meeting but was mentioned in the notes that were made afterward by one of the participants and filed somewhere in Washington. 

i was reading about it recently in a Chomsky book, I could probably find it tomorrow, but its means reading through the book again and it'll only make me worse 

 

The general consensus among academic historians is that the "betrayal" idea doesn't stack up with what actually happened.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/exposing-the-myth-of-western-betrayal-of-russia/

Quote

To be clear, then, the talks in February 1990 were never about NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. They were confined to the specific issue of NATO’s defence in the wake of German unification – and the two issues should not be conflated. It is also important to remember that the Warsaw Pact was still in existence during these talks, so NATO enlargement was a moot point.

...

As soon as the new Russian Federation sank into political chaos in 1993 (giving rise to ultranationalist voices), the governments of Zwischeneuropa embarked on an active search for security, which inevitably meant ever closer ties with the ‘institutional West’. Many US politicians, believing in the inexorable ‘universalisation of Western liberal democracy’, greeted this search with glee. It is crucial to remember, however, that the push for NATO’s opening eastward above all came from the Eastern Europeans and Balts. Contrary to the claims of current Russian propagandists, NATO had no institutionally driven expansion plans aimed at ‘encircling’ Russia.

...

Beset by chaos at home, an increasingly beleaguered Yeltsin turned to historical revisionism. He began to interpret the Two Plus Four Treaty as a ban on NATO expansion east of Germany, on the basis that it only permitted alliance activities on East German territory. He (and later Putin) claimed that the failure to mention Eastern Europe, together with the stipulated restrictions in relation to former GDR terrain, meant an implicit Western rejection of eastward enlargement. The ‘spirit of the treaty’, Yeltsin wrote to the new US President Bill Clinton in September 1993, ruled out ‘the option of expanding NATO territory eastward’.

The whole piece is worth reading, but picked out some key paragraphs.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Russian concerns (however ill-founded) shouldn't have influenced our decision making, but it definitely wasn't a deliberate trap laid by Nato diplomats.

[Adman]

Perhaps if dimple dick had have been nicer, his neighbouring brother nations would have formed a security alliance with him instead. I will never excuse this word removed

[Mister_a]

Unsure who source is, but blue tick (not that that’s worth a damn of late).

 

[Adman]

5 hours ago, Mister_a said:

Unsure who source is, but blue tick (not that that’s worth a damn of late).

 

It's now widely reported, on sky news now

[Mister_a]

On sky now too

 

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, a m ole said:

Why are newsreaders having a competition about who can pronounce ‘Kyiv’ the most ridiculously?

Wait until they ask Gabby to pronounce it on TalkSPORT 

[Sam-AVFC]

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Wait until they ask Gabby to pronounce it on TalkSPORT 

He'll manage. As far as professional sportsmen go I reckon his chicken kiev intake would have been on the high end.

[Zatman]

8 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

On sky now too

 

Apparently it was shut down yesterday. I am no expert but maybe it wont be so damaging from the plant