I wonder when Russia will stop pretending that EU does not exist and will start talking to it like to equal and start negotiating with EU, not with remote USA which are trying to retreat from conflict.
Maybe Russia should recognize that EU has its own sphere of influence and Russia should respect it - so when is Russia going to demilitarize Kaliningrad, because having a military base so deep in EU is unacceptable?
EU is irrelevant for Russia because, for it, the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war between Russia and NATO. That is why it only seriously engages with the western superpowers (USA, UK, France) and the emerging powers (Germany and Turkey) in NATO on Ukraine. It also helps that the European superpowers dictate their will on EU.
> so when is Russia going to demilitarize Kaliningrad, because having a military base so deep in EU is unacceptable?
Russia has been willing to demilitarise Kaliningrad, and only determined not to do so because of NATO's eastward expansion - "We want to demilitarize Kaliningrad, but (we) will have to deploy even more troops there once Poland becomes a member of NATO." - Aleksandr Shokhin (Russian Duma’s First-Deputy Chairman). (It also doesn't help when NATO members claim publicly that unless Kaliningrad is demilitarised, NATO cannot have dominance in that region ( https://www.sb.by/en/poland-demands-demilitarisation-of-kali... ) - that should really convince Putin to hurry up with the demilitarisation! In fact, after Sweden and Finland joined NATO too, Russia has expanded its military presence there greatly too ( https://news.err.ee/1609274853/lithuanian-intelligence-russi... ).
Russia and the EU are different kinds of systems. Russia has an army and a history of invading countries. The EU doesn't have an army and promotes free trade and democracy.
European part of NATO without USA does have this capability.
However my point is that EU is bankrolling Ukraine and keeping it in the fight see 90 Billion EUR loan to Ukraine few days ago. Pretending that Russia does not need to negotiate with EU because EU does not have military branch yet is just being arrogant and stupid.
Russia did all of that, the problem is that the EU (just like the US) has never respected Russian interests and expanded its own sphere of influence as far as it could. Until Russia thought that enough is enough.
I have suspected Putin is being played by Trump's "peace deal" on Ukraine - using it the US has already got Putin to back off from aiding and supporting Iran, which has hurt it. And now Russia (and China) has lost some influence in Venezuela too. Meanwhile Russia still has a war raging on (which it will of course win but not anytime soon) as American western allies in Europe continue to obstruct the peace process. Just hope there isn't any political missteps from either side that accidentally triggers World War 3.
> Meanwhile Russia still has a war raging on (which it will of course win but not anytime soon)
Russian goal is to control whole Ukraine like they control Belarus. This is not achievable. Not with the current state of Russian logistics or state of Russian economy.
One of the reasons why is Russia struggling is absurdly arrogant denial of reality. Why they are negotiating with USA, which has more and more marginal role in the whole conflict and not addressing the blue elephant in the room, European Union, which is bank rolling Ukraine and arming it?
Presumably, if they were successful, at some point we Europeans would also go in and start bombing, so it's not like they can actually hope for a true breakthrough or taking Kiev or anything like that.
No, you can't because that would trigger World War 3. Any attack on Russia, by NATO or any European state, would trigger a retaliation from Russia. It would also trigger Russia's military alliance with China and other countries, who would also join the war. This is the reason why NATO or any of the European nation is unwilling to join the war directly, and only helping Ukraine with money, armaments and equipments (which unfortunately isn't enough as Russian economy and military is stronger).
Depending of course, on what you mean by world war three.
Russia will certainly not respond with nuclear weapons, as the EU would similarly respond with nuclear weapons. I don't China and Russia have a defence pact where each has agreed to come to the aid of the other.
Consequently I don't agree at all, and I don't think it's a problem to have war with Russia.
I am an Indian, and unlike some of you westerners I don't perceive this through the value-based filters ("Russia evil, west good") that you view the war from. For us from the Global South, what is happening in Ukraine is just pure interest-based politics between the superpowers, where Ukraine is the victim (due to the fault of its own leaders) between Russian and western superpowers.
Ukraine's founding document, the 'Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine', Article IX states:
“The Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) solemnly proclaims its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, one that does not participate in military alliances and adheres to the three non-nuclear principles: not to receive nuclear weapons, not to manufacture or acquire such weapons.”
Joining NATO clearly violates this.
Thus, the major Russian goal in Ukraine is to punish Ukraine for breaking its promise to be a neutral country that would never endanger Russian security (a commitment that was also guaranteed by the Ukrainian constitution till pro-western Ukrainian leaders captured power undemocratically). This has been done by invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine (to provide a land corridor to Crimea). (Crimea has Russia's only warm-water port and allows it to extend its influence to other neighbouring regions. NATO access to it would have crippled Russian Navy and Russian geopolitical strategies). Ofcourse, this war is illegal - but for superpowers, might has always been right. This goal of breaking up Ukraine to punish it has been nearly achieved as Russia has already captured 20% of their territory (Crimea + nearly all of Eastern Ukraine). Their secondary goal now is to prevent Ukraine from having a large army, joining NATO and ensuring Russia gets back its foreign reserves from the west (or capture more Ukranian territory, in lieu of it, if the west decides to keep their money).
Ukraine has neither the money, the manpower or the weaponry to prevent this unless NATO or EU joins the war (which it will not do so).
The major goals of the western superpowers (America, France and UK) was to ensure that Russia does not develop good political and economical relations with Europe as then Russia would compete in their Spheres of Influence in Europe. The Anglo-Americans especially needed Russia as a villain because without Russia as an enemy, NATO becomes irrelevant. Indeed, if European relations with Russia improved to the point of economic and military alliance, the possibility of a European army, with Russia in it, would have been a grave threat to the US. Already, American oil and gas industry were feeling the pinch of competing with Russia in Europe. Dangling NATO membership (which the west knew would never realistically happen because of Russian opposition) and engineering a civil war in Ukraine through the pro-western and pro-Russian Ukrainian leaders ensured Russia was sufficiently provoked to attack Ukraine. Russia can now be vilified and the current and next generation of Europeans will grow up hating Russia. This "generational hatred" thus sabotages any possibilities of the ties improving between Europe and Russia for the next few decades. Using the war, they have now been able to sway Sweden and Finland to give up neutrality and join NATO, which was another major goal of theirs - with Sweden and Finland in NATO, the Arctic Council is now fully NATO dominated, against Russia. This now makes it easier to curtail Russia's influence and vision for the Arctic region, where Russia is planning to build a new maritime route that would challenge the maritime powers of the west (mainly the US). Russia's Arctic vision (The Great Game in the Arctic: Why the region is the next flashpoint between superpowers - https://archive.md/sJ0fj ) is why Trump (and the US, in general) is so obsessed with Greenland. Other secondary goals including capturing Ukraine agricultural economy etc.
Russia and western superpowers have always known that the end result would always be a divided Ukraine.
If the Russians came to your part of Indian and started killing everyone to take their land justifying it with some BS about how you might have been thinking about NATO would you say there's no good and bad there and they are entitled to do that and NATO are equally to blame because the Russians claimed you'd thought about them?
And re. Russia will of course win - I wouldn't be to sure about that one. Go bankrupt and collapse is another likely outcome. See Russia after the Japan war, after WW1 and after Afghanistan.
The thing is Ukraine didn't join NATO. - That's just word play without context. Ukraine didn't join NATO because Russia attacked it. If Ukraine had joined NATO, Russia couldn't have attacked it because Russia would then be fighting NATO, all over Europe, and not just the Ukraine military. (This again highlights one of the stupidity of Ukranian leadership - if you want to join any military alliance why announce it publicly? Why not do it discreetly?).
> ... would you say there's no good and bad there ...
That is where we Indians got lucky. Our founding leaders were smart enough to realise that India joining NATO would lead to China and / or Russia becoming our enemy or India forming a military alliance with Russia would make the west our enemy. And thus, we told them both bluntly that we wouldn't join any alliance against both, because we understood that you all are superpowers. So leave us alone. That confounded them as while it was in the interest of all superpowers to gain India as an ally in Asia, it was also in their interest to make sure that India didn't ally with their opponent. Thus, when they realised we were sincere, they fought with each other to keep us neutral! We have willingly sacrificed our sovereignty many times to the superpowers, to show due deference to them because our leaders know that superpower politics is not about good or bad, but simply about might and self-interest.
Ofcourse, we weren't fools to fully capitulate to them completely. That is why we allied with other like-minded people and formed the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) because even superpowers dare not fight the majority of the world. That's a weakness of being a superpower - (1) they had to portray themselves as moral and superior, and (2) once a superpower starts calling another superpower an enemy, the superpowers can rarely politically unite as one against you. And that gives a non-aligned state political breathing space. We used that breathing space to strengthen the political unity of our country, to re-build our economy and our military. And so today, the superpowers interfere less and less in our affairs.
Ukrainian politicians, on the other hand, invited the superpowers to meddle in their country's political affairs and thus broke the political unity of their country - one leader turned to Russia to protect his political power, another turned to the UK, and now the current one vacillates between the US and European superpowers to remain in power.
I am sorry to sound so callous and apathetic - but do you see how Ukraine's problem is of their own making? No country can help Ukraine unless Ukraine politically unites as one, rather than fight amongst themselves calling their own countrymen as agents for the Russian or British or American - that is why there is a civil war there.
Yes, Russia will win. Unless NATO or EU joins the war to help Ukraine, Russian defeat is impossible. Ukraine's military has no manpower today to launch any kind of meaningful counter-offensive against the Russians. That is why they can only defend, and they are unable to do that properly because they are ill-equipped. And so they are forced to retreat, ever so slowly, however bravely they fight. The Russians have already captured 20% of their territory, which Ukraine has no realistic hope of ever winning back. The new hope that Ukraine has, that Russia will stop fighting once its economy collapses, is just a fantasy. Neither is its economy going to collapse nor will it stop fighting even if it does. Ukraine isn't Japan or Afghanistan - a defeat against Ukraine, and Ukraine in NATO is an existential threat to Russia. And they will never allow it. (And it is precisely because of their experience with WW1 and WW2 that they are unwilling to let go of Ukraine or let NATO expand).
India too was once enslaved by a superpower, because of weak political leadership. It's a lesson hard learnt. My advise to the Ukrainians would be stop fighting a war they cannot win, surrender and get the best deal you can from Russia to have peace. And then rebuild your country. Territory does not matter, people do - how many more Ukrainians need to die before Ukraine accepts it cannot win? I don't say this lightly - India too has lost territory to war against both China and Pakistan. We still stopped fighting when it was necessary to do so, while accepting these losses. As a civilization we have learnt that it is not the boundaries that matter but the people that make up the nation. (Sorry to be preachy ... ).
>Ukraine didn't join NATO because Russia attacked it.
It also didn't join for centuries before. It's mistake really was to give up its nukes which would have made the Russians think twice about their murderfest.
I guess we disagree on most points but it's interesting to see an alternative view of it all.
"Centuries" before, it was part of the Soviet Union, which gave it its current territories from parts of Poland, Hungary, Romania and Crimea.
> It's mistake really was to give up its nukes
I partly agree. Note though that the nukes were never theirs in the first place. The Russians always had the triggers without which they couldn't be made operational. The nukes were also under full control of the Russian armed forces, in Ukraine. And, as I wrote earlier, it was a condition of the Soviet Union (now Russia), that independent Ukraine can never be a nuclear power and that is why the 'Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine' explicitly says so. In fact, at one point Ukraine was refusing to give it up and Russia was thinking about attacking Ukraine. But this was the period when the west and Russia were on talking terms to each other, and so the other western superpowers, who also didn't want another nuclear weapon state in Europe worked with Russia to pressure Ukraine to honour its terms of independence and transfer the nuclear weapons to Russia.
> That is where we Indians got lucky. Our founding leaders were smart enough to realise that India joining NATO would lead to China and / or Russia becoming our enemy or India forming a military alliance with Russia would make the west our enemy. And thus, we told them both bluntly that we wouldn't join any alliance against both, because we understood that you all are superpowers. So leave us alone.
This is exactly the pursuit of neutrality that Ukraine chose, except that Russia degenerated into a totalitarian dictatorship that became expansionist as it radcalized and began violating Ukraine's sovereign territory. The first notable incident occurred in 2003 over Tuzla island. The "leave us alone" part didn't work out.
The unprovoked nature of Russia's invasion of Ukraine discredited neutrality to such an extent that even Sweden, which had been neutral for over 200 years, abandoned it and made a sharp pivot toward regional cooperation. With an increasingly hostile Russia, neutrality serves only to divide European countries and undermine their cooperation in collective security.
> My advise to the Ukrainians would be stop fighting a war they cannot win, surrender and get the best deal you can from Russia to have peace. And then rebuild your country.
Russia is not offering any deals other than the wholesale destruction of the Ukrainian state and ethnicity. The choice is between taking a chance on the battlefield or voluntarily exposing oneself to genocide. Thus, support for continuing the war remains high.
> This is exactly the pursuit of neutrality that Ukraine chose
... in the beginning. Ukraine's earlier leaders were indeed pragmatic. They even kept the country united. It is only when Ukrainian leaders started inviting foreign interference in their political affairs, and even taking sides with them, that Ukraine's polity became divided. And all the superpowers took advantage of that, to protect their own interest. Including Russia.
This is what Ukraine still fails to understand even now - when you have a dispute with another superpower, you settle the matter with them directly, even if the terms are unfavourable to you (this is also what the then Ukranian government did with Tuzla Island incident). You absolutely don't invite their enemies and threaten them (unless your country is facing an existential threat from them, like India was, when the US threatened to launch a nuclear attack on us during the Bangladesh Liberation wars).
Anyone who says Ukraine should not be a neutral country does not have their welfare in mind. Ukraine, in the near future, has no other choice but to be neutral. Its existence depends on it.
We have seen time and time again how this approach does not work and only invites further aggression. Zelenskyy himself campaigned on, got elected and began pursuing the same things that you suggest: economic development, anti-corruption, and conciliatory approach to the war in Eastern Ukraine. All he got in response was a renewed invasion.
Neutrality is not a serious option anymore. Not for Ukraine, not for anyone else. Sweden and Finland's pivot away from their long-standing neutrality highlights this reality and marks the end of neutrality as a credible security posture in Europe. They were the last holdouts among Russia's European neighbors.
> Zelenskyy himself campaigned on, got elected and began pursuing the same things that you suggest ... All he got in response was a renewed invasion.
He got invaded because of his own political naivety.
Zelensky's first official trip abroad as president was to Brussels in June 2019, where he met with EU and NATO officials. After that, despite his campaign promises to fix relationship with Russia, he never personally met Putin officially. (The only time he met Putin, in an official capacity, was in 2019, with French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel). As Ukraine's President Poroshenko confirmed publicly, on the advise of the western leaders, he had decided to not implement the Minsk treaties they signed with Russia. Instead, they began to train their military with NATO forces ( https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/77161 ). It is clear that Zelensky too was convinced by NATO and EU officials to do the same as he began to look for a military solution to repressing and dominating the East Ukrainians. In the end, EU and NATO got what they wanted - a proxy war with Russia, using Ukraine.*
Wild to say from Indian who has a decades old slapfest over Kashmir with Pakistan. I think that you should leave Kashmir because nobody can win nuclear war.
You are being too literal with that statement and ignoring the political context of it. It does not imply that when someone wants your territory, you roll over and give it to them. You do fight, and make it as difficult as possible. But you do so pragmatically, being aware of your country's weakness and strength, and not let your leader's ego trap you into a war you cannot win or where the long-term cost of victory is too high. India has indeed fought many wars post-independence. But even when we have mobilised our full military for our defence, we have never fought any war in the front-line for 3+ years, like Ukraine. (Even the Pakistanis, who keeps attacking us and losing, are smart enough to know when to stop fighting and surrender).
Look at Ukraine today - its economy is completely devastated (without foreign assistance it cannot be revived), most of its infrastructure devastated by war, it has lost 10+ million people (mostly its youth) to migration, 100's of thousands of its soldiers have died defending their country (total casualties - including injury, death and desertion are estimated to be more than a million, again young adults) and they have lost 20% of their territory. And are still losing both territory and men in the frontline.
Yet, they keep fighting, instead of surrendering. That's just stupidity. I don't think the average Ukrainians even comprehends what they are actually fighting for, any more! How many Ukrainians need to die, and how much territory does Ukraine need to lose, before its leaders accept they are losing and cannot win this war?
Does the Budapest Memorandum say that Russia will not attack Ukraine, even if Ukraine threatens Russian security? No, it doesn't. Ukranian leaders were stupid - they allowed West Ukraine and East Ukraine to drift apart, and didn't give importance to politically unite their country. Then they invited foreigners to meddle in their internal political affairs. The result is what we see now - a civil war and the breakup of the country, as the superpowers fight for the pieces of Ukraine.
So what? What binding force do you think this Declaration has, and on what basis do you ascribe it that force? (Also, factually, Ukrainian never joined NATO, and was not pursuing NATO membership when the Russo-Ukrainian war began with the Russian invasion in 2014.)
> What binding force do you think this Declaration has ...
The same as every other international treaty - all such treaties are made on the basis that if violated the other country will become their enemy. And if they are militarily stronger, will attack them in some form or even destroy them. (Also remember that, historically, no country has ever allowed part of its territory to become independent willingly - why do you think a country that has allowed so, will then accept when the newly independent territory makes an alliance with its enemies that seek to destroy it?)
> and was not pursuing NATO membership when the Russo-Ukrainian war began with the Russian invasion in 2014.
That's ignorance speaking. In 1994, Ukraine joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program, and in 1997, the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership was signed. In 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership established the NATO-Ukraine Commission. In 2009 NATO Leaders reaffirmed the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. ( https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperat... ).
In 2003, through Law #39 the Ukraine Legislature gave up its powers to make national security strategies and military doctrines and transferred that power to the President. In July 2004, he officially proclaimed that plans for Ukraine’s preparation for accession into NATO was being removed from Ukraine's military doctrine and policies. After the Orange revolution, President Viktor Yushchenko amended the doctrine stating that the country’s final security goal is accession into NATO. Later, President Viktor Yanukovich again rejected the idea of Ukraine joining NATO. During his administration the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said if Ukraine was unwilling to join CSTO, Russia is not opposed to Ukraine choosing a path of neutrality. President Viktor Yanukovich was ofcourse, again, overthrown by pro-western forces. Petro Poroshonko, who took charge, and was propped up by the British, signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union.
Russia by then had enough of this drama and annexed Crimea in 2014.
Zelensky than campaigned on repairing ties with Russia and got elected. However, Zelensky's first official trip abroad as president was to Brussels in June 2019, where he met with EU and NATO officials. Russia knew where this was politically heading, and when Zelensky did not respond to Russians overtures, they invaded Ukraine before it could officially join NATO.
(And from a purely superpower political perspective, in some ways they were smart to do so - even if Ukraine is not a member of NATO, Russia is today fighting a NATO trained Ukrainian military, equipped with NATO arms.)
That's a nice counter-narrative to pretty much everything I've seen - one of my favourite examples [0]:
> She tells the story of Putin “trolling” Mr Trump by saying that he was such a great supporter of Israel that “maybe they should just name the country after you” – to which the US president, oblivious to the sarcasm, said, “Oh no, that would be a bit too much.”
A simple way to wade through political propaganda is to just observe what is actually happening and who politically benefits in the end. In other words, judge politicians by what they do (and achieve from it), rather than what they say. I am not a fan of Trump's politics, but to me he is doing nothing different, politically (end results), to what previous Democrat administration tried to do with their foreign policy.
Note that while Trump may not be a political genius, the US administration has some of the finest and experienced bureaucrats to work on his policies.
Maybe Russia should recognize that EU has its own sphere of influence and Russia should respect it - so when is Russia going to demilitarize Kaliningrad, because having a military base so deep in EU is unacceptable?
reply