How could that be unclear, and how could that be considered a fully processed idea?
What are your assumptions, those that would enable a scenario in which the invader decided to retreat? It seems like a scenario that cannot just spawn from the current chessboard.
Putin could simply accept that he's made a mistake and order to stop fighting. I know it's unlikely because he's stupid or whatnot, but sane people reconsider what they do or have done and change based on that.
We come from very many years of analysis spent on the case, especially in the past three years. They do not draw the picture with that brush or detail.
I suggest you elect a few important commentators and check their writings.
You should make an idea of the motivations that brought to action, and read the future possibilities in view of the motivations (still playing actively in the game) and the current results on all sides, including the military, the political and the geopolitical.
Care to explain? You do not seem to have got the point of my post, which suggests you may have also have greatly misunderstood the content.
> called sunken cost fallacy
So you seem to believe that the "existential concerns" that were identified as the motives behind the action are now retracted. But your guess clashes with that of specialists, so (also since that) your assertions cannot suffice.
Edit: Incidentally, <curses>, in view of your «does not want to look extremely stupid», how do you read my «political [results and factors]»?
No, I call it sunken cost exactly because the "existential concerns", if they even made any sense before, now make none. Because the current situation is 10x if not 100x worse existential risk to Russia as a state vs whatever was before 2022. Because the war will eventually be lost, and with the loss of the occupied territories some internal territories might be lost as well, or the whole thing might fall apart even.
Might not happen right away, but with 100k+ killed and many more wounded + the brain drain of probably even larger number of highly educated people + all the secondary effects of these two will definitely do that. And the longer this stupidity lasts, and the more losses are accumulated, the higher grow the chances of the total collapse of the state. At this point, it already looks worse than USSR in late 198x.
UPD. looking into history, Russia basically fell flat on its face in what would be USSR's "Prague Spring" moment when Kiev kicked out their puppet, now you could say events rush toward the new 90s, except instead of being a superpower Russia looks pathetic, especially considering involvement of low-lifes, e.g. North Korea.
I have been to Russia recently. It is nowhere close to the collapse of the state. The brain drain was high, but its still 140-something millions of people there. Quality of food is so-so, but entrepreneurial energy and resilience is very high. There will be a post-war economic crisis due to a massive drop in government spending (which may be deferred due to the need of reconstruction of annexed territories), but businesses are preparing for it and gambling on the timing. Russia will certainly survive and this war is not the end of it, its fate will be sealed by the internal politics.
I left in 2012 and already back then it was a slowly collapsing state. Since 2012 its IT giants collapsed, and space industry was overtaken by SpaceX. The former you could already predict in 2012 as a techie seeing the initial grip on the Internet, the later was still unthinkable.
Now a decade of progress in non-carbohydrates development might destroy its only income source. In 10-15 years the education will falter because of the today's brain drain, and with the next generation it will turn into complete irrelevancy not unlike the North Korea.
Entrepreneurial energy and resilience are useless without brains. Stupid people can be very excited and determined to make an app where you can type in the parking lot number to remember where to find your car later.
You are talking about different Russia then. Yandex, VK, Sber, Wilderries have firm grip over Russian digital economy and apparently heavily investing in new technology, including AI. Thanks to sanctions they have to worry even less about competition (AliExpress and Chinese electronics are notable exceptions). Banks and telecoms are doing well too.
> In 10-15 years the education will falter because of the today's brain drain
I don’t see it. The education system on average is degrading quickly, but it’s the inequality rising, not loss of capabilities. Top tier schools remain very competitive globally — better than e.g. in most of Europe including Germany. Top tier universities remain very competitive in STEM. This is not path to irrelevance, but rather to a specialization.
It is essentially forced use, on the large scale they are getting farther and farther behind.
> investing in new technology, including AI
If it was still 2010 I could see Yandex having a model somewhere near the top of https://lmarena.ai/?leaderboard but today I'd be surprised if they can compete at all.
> Top tier universities remain very competitive in STEM. This is not path to irrelevance, but rather to a specialization.
I was talking about 10-15 years from now. When the old profs have to retire, who will teach if the majority of students are gone abroad? Of my MSU CS class basically everyone left, definitely the ones who could teach. And that was waaay before 2022 happened.
"Essentially" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence. NATO _personnel_ (not necessarily soldiers, but officers and staff) have been active in Ukraine since 2014-15.
Well why don't you estimate the number and compare it to the total size of _personnel_ so people could judge if that number is indeed essentially zero? (spoiler alert, it is)
Trouble is, if he does that, his life expectancy is probably measured in hours. Dictatorship produces unfortunate incentives; declaring defeat becomes extremely personally dangerous for the dictator.
>What are your assumptions, those that would enable a scenario in which the invader decided to retreat? It seems like a scenario that cannot just spawn from the current chessboard.
You mean, the chessboard on which we gave up our nuclear weapons under the promise from the US, the UK, and Russia that our territorial integrity will be respected?[1]
The "chess move" that directly led to this invasion, according to the US president that pushed for it?[2]
Dare I suggest, the scenario in which Russia retreats is the US holding up to its own promises, for once. For nuclear-non-proliferation's sake, if anything.
Even setting that aside, the war is not sustainable for Russia.
Russia is begging Iran and North Korea for help, getting both ammo, weapons, and people to fight the war with from them. Russia relied on NK artillery for a year, Iranian drones for two years. 10K North Korean soldiers are already on the battlefield, 100K more to come.
Ask yourself what price Russia is paying for that.
Realize that Russia ran out of resources to get that ammo and cannon fodder (and cannons) in Russia.
So, one assumption that enables the scenario is actual, real, enforced SANCTIONS on Russia.
- Cut off Gazprom from SWIFT. The share of Russian gas in the EU dropped to as low as 8% last year, the EU doesn't need Russian gas specifically. That share has since doubled. Put a stop to it.
- Make anyone who's helping Russia pay more than what they can get from Russia in exchange for it.
Iran is sending rockets and drones? Iran gets its nuclear weapon research facilities destroyed. Israel is gladly doing that task already. Would be neat if the West got its head out of its collective ass and stopped dunking on Israel in the UN for its own survival's sake.
NK is sending soldiers? Oops they're all dead (getting within Tomahawk range was unwise). Also NK gets a blockade, and any entity that helps them break it gets sanctioned to hell and back. China can feed them at that price.
Speaking of China, any entity that deals with Russia or NK there should be eliminated from participating in global markets. Simple as.
The West has one leverage over that Dictators Anonymous club: ECONOMIC OUTPUT. They have more people, and they don't care about lives. They have more nukes, together, and they make more artillery shells, together.
But on their own, they don't have the resources to fight that war. All the resources went into sustaining autocracies.
The CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, NK) are waging a war because they got fat on beneficial relationships with the West, that they've been rewarded with on the expectation that they would appreciate access to the global economy and the benefits that come with it, and don't do anything to risk losing it -
- like invading a European nation, say.
The expectation didn't pay off. The solution is simple: take that access back.
Stop rewarding bad actors. The West paid them upfront, they didn't hold up their end of the deal.
Russia can go back to its Iron Curtain planned economy. The West was fine without Russia then, it will be fine now.
China can go back to its Cultural Revolution planned economy. The West was fine without China then, the West can manage now. Doesn't need to happen in a day either. Start with cutting off any individual entities in China that touch Russia or NK.
North Korea can go back to figuring out how to feed its own population, rather than making ammo and meat waves for Russia.
Iran can go back to pre-Trump-presidency days. They're the only ones in the club that were pre-emptively punished, which gave the Ayatollahs all the excuses. Bring Obama's deal back, on the condition that all ties with Russia and Arab proxies are cut. Should they reject it, more FO will be delivered as a consequence of the many instances of FA they committed in the past years (including their role in Oct 7th attack).
So, that's some thoughts, for a start.
That's before we get to getting Ukraine some real military assistance. Not even talking "boots on the ground".
Look at what Poland got since 2022. Now imagine what Ukraine could do if it was able to put orders for thousands of HIMARS launchers instead of a dozen it got in 2022. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of F-35 jets instead of a dozen of F-16. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of ATACMS rockets.
What Ukraine could do with the thousands of Abrams tanks, designed to fight the Russian tanks, that the US has rusting in storage and will, in all likelihood, never use, nor have a need for - instead of the dozen it eventually got.
Ukraine could have had all of that in 2022. And if it did, the war would've stopped then.
Ukraine was given none of that gear over the fears that it would push Russia to use nukes. The reality shows that bullies are emboldened by appeasement, and reconsider when met with strength. Military assistance to Ukraine, even in modest amounts, kept the Russian nuclear threat at bay.
So, plenty of scenarios.
The collective will to make them happen isn't plentiful though.
Sure, Romwell. But of course, the various proposals made in order to have some part retreat are not (what was in context) answer to the original (possible interpretation) "Oh well, they could just retreat". In the current chessboard, proposing the idea that some part "just retreated", defining «a scenario in which the invader [spontaneously] decided to retreat», requires quite some justification. It is not the framework in which you are, but it seems to be that of the original poster. (For clarity.)
Look at the root post I replied to...
Edit: again for clarity: consider if somebody came and said "Well, Beijing could just forget about Taiwan". It does not stand up alone, right? The poster should be requested what assumptions made such expression seem plausible.
You are correct, my interpretation of "they could just retreat" is overly generous.
Being: "they have a choice to stop the bulk of ongoing costs of the war to Russian Federation at any moment, a choice that Ukraine does not have" - with the implicit assumption that the costs of the war to Russia are understood by everyone, and that the cost of withdrawal is significantly smaller.
Of course this ignores the cost of withdrawal to Putin, whose citizens (80% of whom want the war to continue) will have a lot of questions in that case.
Like, what did all the people die for. And why did you withdraw when we were winning, when 4 out 5 of us wanted the fight to go on.
Putin, like any dictator, is beholden to the overall vibe of his populace, because that's the only mandate to power that he actually has.
Democratically elected leaders have the power to decree "do as I say, that's the will of the people; elect someone else next time if you disagree".
Putin can't say that, because there are no elections in the social contract.
Russian leaders only leave the throne by abdication, coup, or death.
The only exception in their 850-year history was Nikita Khruschev, who was officially removed from power after he, himself, dismantled Stalin's cult of personality and brought on reforms that made such removal possible.
Given that Ukraine has parts of Kursk, negotiations would be required, but I bet those would be pretty short if Russia offered a full return of the occupied territories. Which is very different from an unconditional surrender!
I think Ukraine would be open to talking about returning former Russian territory in case Russia accepts its defeat and returns all Ukrainian territory...
We need, first and foremost, a guarantee that if the war stops today, that Russia will not launch an invasion for the third time in a few years.
This war didn't start in 2022. They invaded in 2014, and "peace" was negotiated in Minsk. Worked out swimmingly.
There are several ways we can get this guarantee:
-A complete withdrawal and de-nuclearization of Russia, plus referendums held in Chechnya, Tatarstan, Syberia, Yakutia and other Moscow-controlled Republics in the Federation on whether the people there want to continue being a part on Moscow's imperial ambitions, or choose independence.
Side note: Tatarstan had such a referendum in 1992. It would be great if its results were, at last, honored.
Return of occupied territories is a means to an end. The end is peace. If Russia gets rewarded in any way for its invasion with acceptance of its territorial gains, they WILL do it again; the calculus is that simple.
-Alternatively, NATO and EU membership and/or any sort of multilateral security agreement (not a promise) that would guarantee us boots-on-the-ground assistance in case of another invasion, backed by something more than a piece of paper.
Say, NATO stations ammo depots, rockets, warplanes in Ukraine in sealed warehouses, and we promise not to take and use any of that stuff as long as NATO holds up to its own promises.
-Ukraine develops nuclear weapons
That's about all I can think of. Everything else has been tried before. The war started in 2014, and the invasion in 2022 took place after all the nuke-fearing pearl-clutchers suggested was already done.
Funny thing, the only thing that makes Russia use nuclear weapons more likely is impunity, which is exactly what that sort of people is asking for. They are bringing their own doom, and are pulling us along with it.
Trying to, in any case. We won't go. With or without them.
He doesn't have Ukraine's things. He's renting them out, and the price is the lives of Russian soldiers. Once he stops paying, things go back to the owner.
The price may also be paid in the form of a handful of nukes. The deep state is desperately trying to provoke something before a deal can be negotiated. Stop cheering on the use of Ukrainians as pawns in some chess match between psychos.
I think some of the commentators in this thread need to reread the melian dialogue and remember which side here is the melians. This is the sort of magical thinking that lost Ukraine four territories already.
the AFU holds a comparatively small part of Kursk.
if it's a choice between all of Crimea or an hours drive worth of greater Kursk it's no contest; the Russians aren't going to give up the jewel of the Black Sea for a small chunk of Kursk.
Russia will not be returning all the occupied territories, nor Crimea. If Ukraine keeps pushing, they are likely to be nuked. There are some who argue that the whole war could have been avoided if Ukraine had been neutral and promised to stay out of NATO, and I agree with that analysis. Now they will still have to do that, and lose most or all of the occupied territory. Not that they cared about those territories anyway. Ukraine was shelling the people who live there in recent years. It's no wonder that they voted to join Russia.
Sounds like this is the main victory plan of the West.
But wait: what if Russia doesn't do that? Are there plans for that (highly unlikely) course of events?
"the West" has just lifted restrictions on (at this point American) weapon systems in reaction to continued aggression, and involvement of further countries, from Russia. I think even more could and will be done if Russia doesn't get the memo.
And seeing that a "special military operation" takes 300 times as long as expected would for sane people be a hint to reevaluate what they're doing.
There's speculation that they're still restricting them to a certain area. And even if they're not, Russia had ample time to move their assets out of reach. It's not like back when the US blocked strikes on dozens of military jets because it was escalatory.
And anyway, Germany still doesn't want to provide their long-distance missiles. The US is still blocking other countries from supplying planes (like the Swedish AWACS). The West is barely doing the minimum.
More could be done, of course, just give it another year maybe. And in the meantime insist that the weapons aren't going to make a difference anyway. It will come true if you say it for long enough.
Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done. NATO simply doesn’t have production capacity or speed to get things done.
> Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done.
People keep saying that, and more keeps being done without direct involvement of NATO military. Among the things that Ukraine has asked for that have not yet occurred that do not involve direct involvement of NATO military is transfer of Tomahawk missiles, with about 5 times the range of ATACMS. There’s a whole lot of reasons that hasn’t happened, and its probably not going to, but it is certainly illustrative that there are unused options that do not involve direct NATO involvement.
If an option cannot be used it is not an option. Neither ATACMS nor Tomahawks aren‘t going to change anything if it is not a strike with full NATO arsenal.
Hm. But what if Russia doesn't give up even now? Do you have a plan for that?
The "3 day" meme actually originates from the USA. Russia didn't say anything about the terms (ever).
How long did your war in Afghanistan take, by the way?
20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
to put a finer point on it, 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
It's really interesting: what are your estimations of Ukrainian losses?
Of course, Afghanistan wasn't being armed and funded by 50 countries - and yet you failed there..
There is no "you failed there" in this, I'm not in the US. I can read statistics though. The ad hominim + terrible karma and post history suggests that sedan_baklazhan is a shill. But I'll bite.
Afghanistan was absolutely being funded and armed by Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan -- the Russians basically pushed as many angry Chechens to head there, both to hammer the US, but also to get them out of RUS and killed or captured. There was the infamous shipment of .50 cal sniper rifles from China to the AFG that only got stopped because Dutch intelligence decided to doublecheck a few trivial details. 20 years of such incidents.
On the subject of being able to read OSINT tier speculations and statistics, credible-ish sources suggest that Ukraine has been taking 50% or less casualties -- at one point even as low as 1:6 as they were getting pushed out of Bakhmut. Still, I'd be willing to guess as high as 400k, maybe even 500k casualties. WIA to KIA ratio is probably better than the Russians, too, but nowhere near US numbers of 10%.
Say Russia wins decisively tomorrow. Ukrainians are tired of this, they all just give up. Russia annexes all of it. Then what?
From the perspective of "Europe", what actually changed, compared to 2015? Sure, Russia gained some territory, ressources, potential conscripts.
Their army gained valuable combat experience. But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations? I'd argue: Absolutely not.
Russia is not only weakened by their losses of soldiers and materiel, but their non-military options are also greatly degraded-- instead of freely shopping for South Korean battle tanks (=> Poland), they have to make do with North Korean conscripts...
They basically played their whole hand to gain control of another country, but that control comes at a price; Even when the armed conflict is completely stopped, the price for the Ukraine is not yet paid-- switching out from a war-economy will hurt Russia, keeping the Ukraine under control is gonna be another constant drain and their may be significant obligations toward the allies that probably did not help solely out of their belief in the cause (North Korea, Iran).
Meanwhile, European powers got to observe everything as it played out, even got their own weapon systems battle tested "for free". They are forewarned, and arming up accordingly.
I'm honestly fairly confident that if Russia picked an actual battle with Poland alone (no help from any other European nation) in the next decade, that they would walk away with a bloody nose...
So, cynically talking-- "the Wests" plans are affected very little, no matter how this whole disaster plays out...
> Sure, Russia gained some territory, resources, potential conscripts.
You just "hand wave away" gaining territory the size of the 2nd biggest country in Europe after Russia, Trillions in resources and 40 million people (a 30% increase in "Russian" population). I think you may be slightly undervaluing these things lol.
And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
- Russia will have gained a huge amount of combat experience.
- Russia will also have learned from fighting against a force using NATO equipment.
- Russia will have gained the immense wealth of Ukraine's natural resources.
- Russia will have increased their population by about 30% (+/- based on refugee point below)
- Russia will have basically doubled the size of their border with Poland (counting Belarus as part of Russia because why not)
- Russia will have added borders with 4 more European countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova)
- Russia has likely rooted out some of the corruption that plagued the military before/during this invasion as it would have become more apparent.
- Russia will have built up domestic production of weapons as much as they can (taking sanctions into account)
- Russia will have been emboldened by its "success" in conquering Ukraine.
- Russia will have seen how slow/scared the West was to respond to their invasion and encourage more "asymmetric" warfare in preparation for the next country (aka "the price of eggs are too high, we can't afford to save <insert country with Russian border here>)
- Russia will VERY likely have increased the amount of Ukrainian refugees to the rest of Europe by 100s of 1000s, possibly even millions. Further stretching the resources of those countries and feeding into the previous point in regards to the cost of intervening "next time".
All this, combined with a US President openly making disparaging remarks about NATO, but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
> And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
No. What I believe is that engaging the Ukraine cost them much more than they would gain even by a convincing victory tomorrow, leaving them less of a threat to Europe than 10 years ago. Could they overcome this and become a bigger threat in a decade or so, thanks to Ukrainian ressources? Certainly! But the whole thing could also just crumble on Putins death in that same timeframe, could only guess about outcomes so distant.
But even having conquered the Ukraine would not really give them military strength immediately, the opposite, really, because Russia would need to commit military just to keep order there (consider Chechnya for reference: that might have become a net-gain for Russia like 15 years after the first war, and it was like 20 times smaller i.e. easier to "digest").
Furthermore, a lot of "soft power" that Russia had was basically spent on the Ukraine (i.e. price of sanctions, gas-dependence etc.), and is getting less relevant and valuable with ever year.
> but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
This is not what I said. I said Russia is less of a threat, not that Europe should be less worried about it. It has become a bigger and bigger threat since 2000. European concern was basically zero (even after the Crimea affair) and is still arguably too low. European nations were basically treating Russia like an improving, slightly flawed democracy.
But it is an imperialistic kleptocracy instead, but that is now obvious which is also unhelpful for Russia.
But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations?
Russia's regime has already made statements threatening or questioning the borders of Poland and the Baltic states, in addition to numerous other threatening moves it has made in recent years -- including Medvedev's recent threat to turn Kyiv into a "lump of lead", which would no doubt have direct consequences for Europe.
While of course many of the utterings that came from some side are stirrers of concern,
one should also remember they have a piece of doctrine called "escalate to de-escalate" - which also involves a strange framework for the interpretation of statements. This also makes the trolling confusing to the decrypter.
In my view, talking shit and murdering a few hundred civilians is not "threathening a nation", the same way Ukraine is not threatening Russia (as a nation) right now.
Being able to install a puppet government would be a big threat. Economical control (=> like gas) would be a smaller one.
Complete military conquest would be the biggest one.
All of the above look now actually less likely than 10 years ago to me (judging with hindsight).
In my view, "talking shit" about invading additional countries, while actually engaged in a large-scale invasion of a neighboring country (on top of a centuries-long history of actually invading and occupying those countries) cannot be interpreted as anything other than directly threatening those nations.
Yes absolutely, but threatening more often does not make them a bigger threat.
I'm not saying that they are harmless (being a nuclear power, obviously!), but I strongly believe that they are less of a threat to EU-nations than they were 10 years ago-- they basically played their whole hand in the Ukraine, collected some experience, lost some equipment, threw away and ruined countless lifes, and now, pretty much regardless of what happens in the next years, they are in a weaker position and less of a threat to any european country than 10 years ago.
Disagree, based on the increased frequency/belligerence of the regime's threats, and its increasingly delusional and irrational tone and behavior generally over this time period.
Concretely, with the West maintaining its existing approach, given the current material trajectory on both sides, and not assuming radical changes in political orientation in any major Western country? No, not likely.
Concretely, given the actual recent US election results and the likely impact on US and NATO-qua-NATO policy, assuming no other changes? Yes, again.
Concretely, given that outher regional states have agency and their likely response to NATO faltering at US direction, when they were already displeased with NATO not being more supportive given their perceived individual risk from Russian expansionism… Well, that’s really the key thing and, frankly, I think that the there are lots of directions things could go that could be very surprising to people whose view off the situation has been that the only entities with agency in this situation are the US, Russia, and maybe Ukraine.
They won’t, because their interest in the Russian operation in Ukraine is primarily that it keeps the West distracted in Europe away from China’s actual interests.
There is a short sequence of events to china being shut omit of the European market entirely. That sequence runs through troop and weapons deployments to Europe on Russia’s behest.
If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Once the war becomes a direct war between multi-party alliances, controlling the scope of the conflict would be impossible.
> If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Yeah, I think it is underappreciated how much of the present NATO approach (including US policy, but not exclusively that) has been about doing enough to reassure NATO’s eastern flank members who see this conflict as nearly as existential as it is for Ukraine, even if the threat to them is slightly more temporally distant, rather than the kind of relatively remote geopolitical influence game that some American (and probably even Western European) observers see it as. If – given the election results, we probably have to admit this has become a “when” – the US commitment falters, they will have a new calculus in trying to assure that Russia lacks either the means or the inclination to turn on them next…
Even then, it's highly important to give a cost to any action. Being too mellow will (and probably already did) create a bad precedent and give them confidence to pursue their behavior.
In fact it has given up, surrendered and gone home with its tail between its legs in countless wars which, like the current one, were not in the least existential to it and were in fact completely optional.
I never said anything like that. I said there are plans for many scenarios. Not sure what you are trying to achieve here with your low quality rhetorics.
This is an absurd question. For them to not give up and walk away, it would mean that their cultural values are different, even that Putin himself does not value human life or liberty. In such a case as that, he might do anything, like constantly steal a few tens of meters of a sovereign state like Georgia/Sakartvelo every week for years on end, knowing that they are far too small to defend and take that back, especially after losing a war to Russia in 2009. What if he were to start using hundreds of active espionage agents and saboteurs against Europe who hide within the tens of thousands of Russian emigrants that everyone welcomed into their countries?
Such things are unthinkable. None of that will happen.
There was that masterpiece from Nolan, in which the main strategist and enforcer during a major assembly says "It's easy: we kill the Batman". The proposal was met with some noise, because the public expected more "how" to such "what".
Ah yes, if we don't give the oppressed, attacked country which is fighting for its right to exist any weapons, the problem will go away faster. Evil NATO imperialists not allowing for russian brotherhood to be force fed to citizens of Ukraine!
Ukraine is not part of NATO. Should they wish to do so, they are a sovereign state and should be free to apply, entirely irrespective of the feelings of anyone in Moscow.
Until the day of their full admission to NATO, they cannot be held liable, punished or even criticized for any of the actions of NATO. Specifically, starting a full illegal invasion against them has nothing to do with NATO.
