As a Ukrainian immigrant living in the US the current situation in Ukraine is infuriating. I left Ukraine when I was a teenager nearly a quarter of a century ago and it was obvious to me then that sooner or later Russia would want its breadbasket back and an invasion would happen. How was this not clear to those in power? Zelinsky started the process of trying to get the country’s ducks in a row to be able to join NATO and I was happy about that, but it was obviously a little too obvious and a little too late. Russia in the early 2000s was in no shape to invade and that was the time to make this move. But corruption and every level of the government prevented it and gave Russia multiple openings to fuck with Ukraine, from installing pro-Russian presidents, to squeezing Ukraine with gas prices, to eventually annexing Crimea with little to no consequences.
How many lives would have not been completely destroyed had the powers that be 15-20 years ago gotten their act together?
I should say that IMO Zelinsky is doing as excellent a job as he possibly can with the situation now. The main issue is not joining NATO when it wouldn’t have resulted in war before the process can be completed. And maybe NATO needs a provisional membership process that allows a country to be temporarily considered an ally via a much quicker path so that while it gains full membership it cannot be invaded.
I life in a european country, and to be honest, im shocked how many of the "old guard" politicians and diplomats consider the whole crisis just a temporary upheaval in the russia relations, that can be waited out before everything is normal again. Waiting to resume the careers as if nothing happened.
A quarter million people dead, because these corrupt non-show of a generation failed to act decisevly, hypnotized itself and after wakeup they do not have the decency to fade into the shadow, step back from all posts and make way for a new guard, ready to take decisive action.
So many dissapointments, especially among the pacifists and anti-imperialists.. intellectual & moral bankruptcy wherever you look.
Might aswell trash the last 50 years of nice words and nothing to show for it. The idea, for all these creatures of comfort to return after the conflict, from the dark and moist places they hid, and try to carry on playacting civilized makes me vomit. "Never again" they yell, while being usefull idiots for those who are at it again.
A majority of cowards, who think that power of believe alone will make them good at the end of history after all this. Im so sorry i wasted all those years listening to them, reading there books and actually believing them to have value beyond the "heating" of the pulped wood.
No, thats what there politics so far have accomplished. And the first step to improvement would be to admit to that. The magic sentence : "I screwed up. Here is what lead to that, and here is were my thinking was flawed. Here is what i will do better from now on to avoid the flaws i obviously have.."
If the OP is talking about specific politicians like Merkel, Schroeder, even Schulz...
First, they should say loud and clear they made a terrible mistake (I believe Merkel said something like this quietly and not clearly). Second, they should do everything to help Ukraine and Ukrainians. Yes, a lot has been done. Not enough and not fast enough.
BTW I still feel amazed how quickly and efficiently they dealt with power plant/stations repairs when Putin decided to freeze the whole population to death in the middle of the winter. All my respect to these brave folks.
I see no indication OP is indeed talking about Germany. Could be, although Austrian politicians were most recently speaking of waiting out the war.
Anyways I find it very funny they are talking such a combative stance from the comfort of their home in western EU.
I is one thing to say our military should be involved it is another for a privet person to do so. If i alone as a private citizen go over there I I would have no logistical support to supply me with weapons, ammunition, food, equipment, medicen or direction. Hell I dont speak or read the local language, as a privet citizen going over there I would be a hindrance rather than a aid. if drafted and sent as part of a organized funded military all of those things are taken care of. for every one infantrymen the army fields on the front line they have about 3-5 soldiers working is various support roles. expecting random people to go alone is not helpful
> Russia would want its breadbasket back and an invasion would happen.
In 2019, Russia produced almost 3 times as much wheat as Ukraine. The invasion was launched by a deranged psychopath, let's not pretend Russia in anyways benefited from this.
Russia is 28 times larger than Ukraine. They certainly want to benefit from the resources in Ukraine that they're trying to annex (although I'll admit it certainly doesn't look like they are ever going to achieve their goals and benefit from actually conquering the country as they planned, if that's what you meant.)
Russia lost something like 27 million dead in WWII. The most recent figure I can find for this war (from November) is 100,000 dead. Russia has plenty of people remaining they can throw into the meat grinder.
I believe Ukraine did apply, or at least indicate they wanted to. The real reason Ukraine did not get invited to join NATO is that, even after the 2014 invasion of Crimea, lots of people in Europe wanted to believe that it was still possible to do business with Russia, and that they would come around eventually. There are a lot of people who still believe that doing business with someone makes them come around to democracy eventually; this was also a reason given by President Clinton for normalizing trade with China (where it has also not worked).
It has been a bit of a political earthquake for Germany to find itself arming others, perhaps more even for the political elite than for the general population. I don't think it would have been possible to convince them that Ukraine should be admitted prior to 2022. Now, of course, attitudes are very different (thankfully), but prior to 2022 the plan for most of Europe (and honestly most of North America as well) was to be nice to Russia and they would come around, because otherwise they would lost to much money. It turns out that is a bad strategy.
> There are a lot of people who still believe that doing business with someone makes them come around to democracy eventually; this was also a reason given by President Clinton for normalizing trade with China (where it has also not worked).
Well I suppose it's impossible to determine real motivations of politicians, but I always assumed this was simply BS that nobody in power ever really believed.
I mean, when you're addicted to cheap oil/labor/whatever but the regime with the cheap oil/labor/whatever has some pesky anti-democratic tendencies, what better way to sell it to a skeptical population than to tell them that by merely consuming the cheap goods the transaction itself will somehow change the problematic regime's ideology?
> even after the 2014 invasion of Crimea, lots of people in Europe wanted to believe that it was still possible to do business with Russia
Frankly this is true in the US too. It's true everywhere in the west, where there are inexplicable enclaves of Russophilic sentiment that flies in the face of all reason and evidence. Tech bros think they're a great new market. Finance wonks think they're a regulatory backdoor into European money. Old guard tankies still think they're anti-imperialist heroes. Reactionary right wingers think they're ethnic paragons fighting the culture war the west is too afraid of. Name a demographic, and you'll find a pack of sincere Russian apologists hiding in it somewhere.
When the history books finally get written once all the partisans are dead, the ability of this tiny, shrinking Russian state to effect this kind of information war is going to be the subject of book after book.
> United States, Canada, Poland, Romania, the Czechs and the Baltic States, strongly supported Ukraine and Georgia becoming NATO action plan members; however, they were strongly opposed by Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Nobody is demanding anything of NATO. I am retroactively demanding that the Ukrainian leadership should have rooted out corruption and got Ukraine’s ducks in a row so that it could join NATO. And the whole point of NATO is that most smaller countries do not benefit NATO as much as the alliance benefits them. Yet the cumulative effect is more world peace.
Besides, did you not notice the effect the war in Ukraine had on things like gas prices in the US?
Ukraine's inability to root out corruption so that it could join the EU/NATO wasn't some national failing as much as a very active Russian FSB/SVR presence inside Ukraine that prevented any significant reforms. The invasion was an admittance that their underhanded techniques were failing and a more active method of intervention into Ukrainian politics was necessary.
Absolutely correct. Reading my post, I realize my conclusion was unclear: each successive elimination of corruption within Ukraine, starting in the 2010's, was more and more threatening to Putin and his oligarch cronies until pressure on their theft of oil revenues become unbearable.
Obviously "requesting" is a much better word.
However, the gist of my comment was they are trying really hard to sell the idea that their membership is beneficial to NATO (which I believe it most definitely is not).
Well, they believe it is, and so do many people in NATO (and many disagree also). I still don't understand what the gist of calling requesting demanding is meant to convey.
Ukraine’s defense is a formidable army which has stopped the advance of what most experts thought was the second most powerful army in the world, and the fact that Ukraine is supplied weapons, training and ammunition from NATO countries doesn’t change that. It only adds to the point that NATO itself recognizes that Ukraine belongs in the alliance.
If Ukraine loses the war it will cease to be a buffer and become part of Russia.
Then one could also argue that no NATO country has ever fought off Russia.
Ukraine barely stopped the Russians, even with the massive help of NATO (both before and after the 2021 invasion). It doesn't follow at all that NATO thinks Ukr is a member. Ukr is just that - a buffer country that should not be taken by Russia. This is not meant in an offensive way, think of it as a neutral country like Switzerland or Austria.
> Ukraine is the only country to have fought off Russia, except Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Germany.
It (presuming it succeeds) will be the only country to have fought off the Russian Federation, or anything referred to (even if only somewhat loosely) as “Russia” in the third millenium.
Fought (and in some of the cases you cited got steamrolled by) the USSR in WWII is... not particularly relevant.
> Ukraine is already a buffer state by virtue of its geographical position
Indeed Ukr has always been in a tough spot. Align with NATO or Russia and become a target for the other - that was the only choice I guess, but it was never explained why actual neutrality was never sought (like Switzerland). The only explanation I have is that both the US and Russia run covert ops to put puppet regimes in place.
> it was never explained why actual neutrality was never sought (like Switzerland).
Have you looked at a map? (Moreover, it was sought, and it didn’t work, so they choose another option to avoid the outcome.whuch had happened that they didn’t like.)
Not only have I looked at a map, I have the misfortune of living quite close to Ukr. You probably don't even need to bc you live far enough to be safe and lecture others on the internet.
>Ukraine is the only country to have fought off Russia, except Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Germany.
Finland sure but the Winter War ended due as much to the valor of the Fins as to Stalin getting ready to fight Nazi Germany. Also Russia won the rest of your list taking took over Poland, Lithuania, and half of Germany. that was the whole WWII easterrn front/cold war warsaw pact thing.
How much has been spent on the Ukraine Russia conflict that could’ve been avoided if Russia had feared a NATO response (assuming existing Ukraine membership)? Avoided spending that now must be spent to defang Russia. The numbers I’ve seen thrown around are $100B+ in conflict cost. Cheaper to have done the paperwork and meetings imho, not to mention the exceptional loss of life in aggregate.
It probably would have deterred Russia from invading and saved most NATO countries a ton of money. Basically the entire point of NATO is to stop Russia going to war with its neighbiors.
And now Ukraine is going to be quite a week equipped and experienced ally. Certainly a country NATO should be happy to have on its side.
But NATO literally (and I also mean geographically) NATO has Ukr on its side. So what more would a country like say Portugal gain from Ukraine's NATO membership, except perhaps having to contribute to their defense even more?
Portugal has barely hit the 2% goal for defense spending that NATO members are supposed to be targeting. So it's not like they'd be spending more to protect Ukraine.
the whole point is by having this big block of countries agreeing to cooperatively fight Russia is if any of them are attacked, is that we don't actually have to fallow through because its to big of a risk for Russia to act up. If they had been part of NATO to begin with none of us would actually had to of sent any aid like we are now. NATO membership is as much about mutual coordination and defense as is is about deterring Russia from starting war in Europe.
Portugal was only an example. They could however find themselves pressured to send soldiers, and not only supplies, should NATO decide to openly declare war on Russia.
Getting hung up on the transactional piece of this is tragic. Ukraine constitutes a society that has embraced (evidenced by their revolution, stiff resistance so far, etc.) enlightenment values - the worth of an individual, a rules based society, meritocracy, etc. Before we run to all the counterfactuals, these values are generally instilled in the culture (particularly the younger demographics). NATO essentially exists to protect this common, values-based order.
Not granting membership earlier was those countries (mentioned in other comments) over-rotating on transactional-based benefits, over value-based ones. That's why there's such frustration now over getting Ukraine into NATO now. Will it happen? No, diplomatically impossible while they're engaged in hot war. But the moral outrage is reasonable given the bloody price they've paid in defense of the values NATO exists to protect. To clearly connect the dots...considering Ukraine as part of NATO benefits NATO in that it allows them to uphold those values it exists to serve, giving it purpose and strength from the unity of its member countries (and moral investment of the individuals who serve its armies).
> And maybe NATO needs a provisional membership process that allows a country to be temporarily considered an ally via a much quicker path so that while it gains full membership it cannot be invaded.
As a Ukrainian immigrant, how do you feel about the claims that ehtno-Russians in eastern Ukraine were being harassed and killed and having their culture made illegal by the Ukrainian government or its actors? There's so much propaganda on both sides. How do you feel about western involvement in 2014?
It's as much a case of whataboutism as your statement is of ignoratio elenchi.
That's not to say that I don't agree with your second statement. However, global geopolitics is far more complicated than how it tends to be presented to the general population, especially at times of war, and I don't think the OP asked the question in a malicious or dismissive way. We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss arguments as fallacies just because they don't line up with our point of view.
> I don't think the OP asked the question in a malicious or dismissive way
You're right I didn't ask in a malicious or dismissive way. And I don't see why my question was flagged. I'm not making an argument, I'm just asking a question of someone who has more involvement than I have and may have something interesting to say on the matter.
I guess I can't even ask a question if it mentions detail that goes against the accepted western narrative. Not here anyway.
> your comment...is not related to Finland joining NATO.
Neither was the post I was responding to. It was about the situation in Ukraine, Zelenskyy, Putin, Russia, Crimea, and their historical context. Someone submitted their opinion on all of that, and I asked them about their opinion on some further detail related to all of that.
How many lives would have not been completely destroyed had the powers that be 15-20 years ago gotten their act together?
I should say that IMO Zelinsky is doing as excellent a job as he possibly can with the situation now. The main issue is not joining NATO when it wouldn’t have resulted in war before the process can be completed. And maybe NATO needs a provisional membership process that allows a country to be temporarily considered an ally via a much quicker path so that while it gains full membership it cannot be invaded.