But we knew since more than 8 years ago that Russia's hand would be forced when it comes to Ukraine. You can't say the same about Poland or any other country in the EU for that matter.
It is Russia's, and only Russia's, fault that Russia has territorial ambitions on Ukraine. Russia has no viable claim to any Ukrainian territory [1]. The limits of Russia's territorial ambitions appear to either be the boundaries of the Russian Empire (which would include much of Poland) or the existence of large Russian-speaking minorities (which would exclude Poland, I believe).
[1] Even in Crimea, it is not clear that a majority of the population would have voted to become a part of Russia in a free & fair election. It's certainly clear that everywhere else in Ukraine, support for being a part of Russia extends no further than wherever Russian forces occupy.
> It is Russia's, and only Russia's, fault that Russia has territorial ambitions on Ukraine. Russia has no viable claim to any Ukrainian territory
I don't get the point of this. Are you looking for someone to place the blame on, or what? What is the point of throwing these arbitrary postulations in someone's face? Closing one's eyes and ears, and pretending that the cause-effect wasn't obvious serves what specifically?
> Even in Crimea, it is not clear that a majority of the population would have voted to become a part of Russia in a free & fair election.
It's wasn't clear in 1995 if they wanted to be dissolved into Ukraine[*]. And freshwater blockade for the most of the last decade clearly didn't bring any good sentiments.
> It's certainly clear that everywhere else in Ukraine, support for being a part of Russia extends no further than wherever Russian forces occupy.
Well, yeah, when you remove all the opposition, and then remove the voting rights from the people who didn't support your revolution, it certainly becomes "clear".
What do people even know of Georgia? From where I stand it seems like most people are completely out of the loop of the whole Georgian-Ossetian conflict. I think most are even unaware that the EU had blamed Saakashvili[1] who allegedly triggered early legal response by Russia.
But then Russia supposedly took it too far and for some reason now everyone thinks it was Russia invading Georgia when it was actually Georgia invading Ossetian Tskhinval, which happened to have a defence pact with Russia, triggering the 5-day war.
Sure you can, and they will, once they feel ready for the next war to expand their empire after you've given them Ukraine.
Appeasing expansionist fascists never works. Europeans had started to forget that lesson (Western Europe more so than Eastern Europe, whose memory was much fresher), but they're rapidly relearning it.
This is demonstrably wrong: Finland appeased Stalin in the Winter War, gave up small territories and preserved the rest of its territorial integrity until today.
Finland lost the Winter War, but did give the USSR a bloody nose doing so. It then attacked the USSR the next war when another big bully did (this is the Continuation War), and withdrew from that war only when said big bully was itself flailing. Then it was compelled to accept a degree of vassalage from the USSR that the country literally gives its name to--Finlandization.
Actually, in contemporary parlance it would be appeasement. Ukraine gave Russia a bloody nose, and giving up territories or even negotiating as suggested by Musk is called "appeasement":
"Musk appeasement of Putin and China stokes fears of new Twitter policies"
Since the beginning of the war, there are literally hundreds of similar examples. Not calling it appeasement would earn you the title of "Russian asset".
Look, while I am sure what Musk says is very important, what is also important it's that many millions of people live (used to live?) on territories Russia claims. Ukraine cannot just give up on its citizens. Certainly not because Musk says something on Twitter. If it does, and does it easily, how am I as a Ukrainian citizen to know that my region (a would-be border region) is not next to be given up on?
> Since the beginning of the war, there are literally hundreds of similar examples. Not calling it appeasement would earn you the title of "Russian asset".
Meh, guess HN needs additional rules against throwaway spam.
Finland gave Stalin a bloody nose in the Winter War, and then negotiated a peace treaty. That's not what appeasement is, that's warfare, that's why it's called the Winter War, not the Winter Appeasement.
Appeasement is the idea that you let the criminals take over your neighbors house and hope they won't want to take over your house next.
This is stupid. Clearly, someone decided to call it "appeasement" just to be snarky and it just sticked. What is the purpose of playing dumb and arguing semantics of a purposly snarky choice of words?
> Clearly, someone decided to call it "appeasement" just to be snarky and it just sticked.
What? Nobody, besides this sockpuppet, called the Winter War "appeasement" because it would be fundamentally wrong to do so.
If someone calls a fire a flood and demands you build better drainage solutions to stop the fire, you don't argue the merit of drainage solutions for water, you tell them that a fire isn't a flood.
What's with the "let's just make up random bullshit and pretend it makes sense" approach?
Why are you creating a new account every hour instead of using your main?
And please read the headline, it talks about Musk wanting to go for appeasement. Musk isn't Ukraine, he isn't even in Ukraine. That's exactly what appeasement is: Musk wants Ukraine to give up lands so Russia is satisfied. It's exactly what they thought when the Third Reich was invading its neighbors: "they haven't attacked us, so maybe we can stay out of the conflict if we just accept that they invade their neighbors". Russia 2022 and Germany in the 1930s even use the same language to argue for their claims.
That's something completely different than suggesting that negotiating with an invading army, and giving them what they want, is appeasement. Which is nonsense.
