World war 3....

can not believe you are still trying to blame Ukraine for wanting to join NATO. Surely the attacks over the years including Crimea etc are the reason Ukraine want to join NATO

 

That’s just what our media want to tell us.

The same way the Russians tell their people what they want them to hear.

Our media is utterly terrible in censoring, yet most of us don’t even know it.

 

what it must be to be the enlightened one amongst all the sheep.

 

Hi Bronco, I will try to reply later was busy these days.

 

so why do Ukraine want to join NATO if it isn’t to defend against Russia?

 

A very good article/interview in the New Yorker, in which -- amongst other things -- the interviewee argues very well why this whole grumble about expanding NATO is a red herring. Modern Russia is old Russia; it has always been this way: from the long era of the Tsars, through the Soviet period, to the dictatorship of today. That is something that all of us with personal experience of it have always known, but much of the rest of the world has refused to believe.

"I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.

I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in NATO stiffened NATO’s spine. Unlike some of the other NATO countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are."

Another interesting point concerns the "West" -- just what *is* the "West"?

"The biggest surprise for Putin, of course, was the West. All the nonsense about how the West is decadent, the West is over, the West is in decline, how it’s a multipolar world and the rise of China, et cetera: all of that turned out to be bunk. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the bravery and smarts of the Ukrainian government, and its President, Zelensky, galvanized the West to remember who it was. And that shocked Putin! That’s the miscalculation.

[Interviewer] How do you define “the West”?

The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected."

Much more in the article; it is well worth reading.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin

RCB

 

Excellent article.
This is a much less in-depth piece but interesting, nonetheless:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/13/is-there-any-justification-for-putins-war?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

 

Not sure if this is true but an expert on air warfare was saying that the Ukraine military was putting its anti air missiles in the apartment blocks for better radar sighting but what he said is that the USSR warplanes as the US have anti radar missiles that as soon as the anti aircraft radar is switched on to track and target an aircraft and fire the plane immediately picks it up and fires a high speed missile or a precision guided bomb which explains the attacks on apartment blocks,

 

Agreed, that is a useful summation. I like some of the other pieces currently showing there as well -- the admiration of the US far-right for Putin, and the one about the squatters: "You occupy Ukraine, we occupy you!" For what must be the first time in my life, my sympathies lie with the squatters and not the property owner.Their proposal to use the mansion as a refuge for fleeing Ukrainians is just, as indeed are the suggestions made by some that all the wealth and goods confiscated from the sanctioned people should be used to support Ukraine and the Ukrainians.

Still, those are dangerous activities to be indulging in. Who gets to decide when such actions are justified? How can you limit them to justifiable situations? In the greater context here right and wrong are clear, but that might not always be the case.

RCB

 

What makes you think Ukrainians want to join NATO?

A very large proportion of the population don’t want that. Many are pro-Russia. Many areas are majority Russian, and many of the people in those areas have been persecuted by Ukrainian nationalists over the years.

This is not one way traffic as we are led to believe.

 

I couldn't find the original article on this, but a better one came out today:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/14/europe/patriarch-kirill-putin-spiritual-battle-intl-cmd/index.html

We do need to separate out the Patriarch and his pro-Putin stance from the rest of the church; even in Russia, as the article states, his position is not universally popular, and many of his colleagues have spoken out against the war.

RCB

 

"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common:

They don't alter their views to fit the facts

They alter the facts to fit their views"

(Dr Who 1977)

 

That's no reason for Russia to invade the Ukraine but I get what your saying, I keep repeating Zelenskyy was telling the west right up to the start of the actual invasion Russia would not invade a sovereign country you have to ask how he could have got that so horribly wrong.
I wonder if Marina Ovsyannikova will see the light of day again with her protest on Russian TV News, that took some balls to openly defy Putin with the comments "No war, stop the war don't believe the propaganda.

 

Unfortunately Ovysannikova hasn't been seen or heard from whatsoever since her arrest. Shows why what she did was as brave as it was.

The bits of ukraine that are majority ethnically/culturally/linguistically Russian were largely parts that had already been annexed or attempted to secede in the years prior to the invasion (Crimea, Donbass etc).

 

Ovysannikova fined 30,000 roubles ( $200 dollars ) for TV outburst

There is movement on the Ukrainian side regards never applying for NATO and giving up all weapons,
The other part of any settlement will be that the west cancel sanctions for peace to be agreed

 

I do think there's a compromise to be had in them just agreeing to join the EU instead, however for that I think Russia should give back crimea and/or the donbass regions.

 

Interview with Zelenskyy on AlJazeera where he said he now realised Nato not an option for Ukraine now or in the future,

 

Good article from former BBC Russia Correspondent:

BBC News - Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60767454

 

The Crimea is largely populated by Russians, They were given a vote by Russia and decided to be part of Russia, How accurate the vote was is anyones guess but they have not protested.
The Donbass is part of the Ukraine but has again a large Russian population due to historic reasons, Ukraine outlawed the use of the Russian language and has tried to get the Russian speaking people out by shelling the Donbass villages where the Russian people live with the intent they should move back to Russia, Thousands of villagers and children have been killed by both sides and still live in fear of the Ukrainians . It is far from one sided as Russian separatists who want the Donbass back in Russia also fight the Ukrainians funded by Russia while the ordinary people of Donbass suffer deaths and injuries and live in fear