Posted on 09/05/2025 4:17:18 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
Diplomatic efforts to end the largely deadlocked war in Ukraine have focused on Western guarantees of Ukraine’s future security. But the Kremlin says it must obtain its own “security guarantees” before laying down arms.
What President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says is protection, however, would drastically limit Ukraine’s sovereignty, leaving it vulnerable to a renewed Russian attack and, many of its supporters believe, effectively turning it into a client state of Moscow. That tension over “security guarantees” — and the different ways in which the term is interpreted by the Kremlin and by the West — underlines the fundamental challenge of forging any peace deal to end Russia’s invasion.
Under President Trump, Russia’s concerns are finally “being heard” in Washington, Mr. Putin says. “We can see now that some mutual understanding is taking shape,” Mr. Putin said at a summit in China this week, referring to his meeting with Mr. Trump in Alaska last month.
Russia’s most oft-cited demand for ending the war is a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. The alliance declared in 2008 that Ukraine would eventually become a member and has repeated the vow regularly since then.
The eastward expansion of the U.S.-led military alliance after the collapse of the Soviet Union has shaped Mr. Putin’s revanchist worldview more than any other trend, his statements suggest, contributing directly to his decision to invade Ukraine.
For years, Mr. Putin has repeatedly stated a common Russian belief that when NATO admitted former Soviet republics and satellites into the alliance in the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States broke promises it had given to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, that it would not do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Putin is a predator. I am watching “The Empress” on Netflix about the Hapsburg empire and Russia wanted to expand then. Russia was a dark evil then. And it has been ever thus. Since when was Russia ever light and clean? What good has Russia ever brought to civilization? From Ivan the terrible forward. Except for Matrushka dolls and piroshki that my Russian grandmother used to make, Russian contribution to civilization involves multiple nicknames, beautiful ballet and great capacity for suffering.
Maybe we could station US troops in Russia on the Ukraine border to protect them from invasion by the Ukrainians.
The biggest hazard to Russia is not from outside. It’s the toxic robber baron culture of their elites.
To recover Russia needs a Marshal Plan. But because some local potentate with a private army can just walk in and take your stuff, that will never happen. Even if the war ended today, Russia will sink ever lower only to sell their oil to the world’s other dregs. Nobody in the West, unless they bring back Angela Merkle, will be willing to take the risk of partnering with the Oligarchs.
Maybe we could station US troops in Russia on the Ukraine border to protect them from invasion by the Ukrainians.
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Never
Do you want WW3? Because this would start WW3.
One might study history and see that Russia has saved western civilization several times: stopping the Mongol Horde and establishing a west Euro/Asian bulwark for Christianity, and later, as an ally of western civilization, defeating the Aryan nazis on the eastern front at the cost of over 20 million lives.
Regarding the latter, perhaps their distrust and paranoia can be explained by the fact that many of the bellicose european political and military leaders today calling to literally break up and destroy Russia are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Aryan nazis and their collaborators.
Russia has had and still have, evil politicians but the Russian people aren’t evil, except those that knowingly support evil. As for what they given the world.. how about Tchaikovsky. Or Tolstoy.
Presently Russia is as russia always has been
A Czar rules the serfs with the aid of a nobility.
Putin is the Czar. The oligarchs are the nobility and the serfs are the serfs.
In this day and age, many of the serfs have automobiles
Good point
There is no “good guy” or “bad guy in this latest circle jerk of “The Great Game”. There never really is....just lesser and greater bad for free men.
The Euro ruling classes, whoever they were/are at the time, have been lying, cheating, stealing, assassinating, sanctimoniously posturing in defense of some “oppressed” minority or faith....conditioning their “peasant/working/middle” classes with nationalist propaganda to endure death, disease, rape and pillage for the ruling class’s benefit since....well since the fall of Rome in the West.
The West deposed by CIA/NATO spookery a lawful elected Russian leaning government in Ukraine to install an EU puppet.
That chicanery started the “Russian invasion dance” back in 2014...but the manipulation war reaches even further back to “the Orange Revolution” in 2004/5.
In a nutshell, it is always the EU Banksters trying to secure yet another noob to foist their debt dope slavery on and steal resources/markets.
In the early 90’s, Russia was promised with a wink and a nod that NATO would NOT advance East into the old Warsaw block countries....and obviously Ukraine.....but the West ignored that at a fast pace, and soon Russia’s greatest sin is having its borders next to NATO military bases.
Lots more to it including Russia’s 1,200 year old phobia of invasion (well justified) and border security.....but,
What do I know and I do not feel strongly about it.
“A wink and a nod” is not how foreign policy is done. On the other hand, when Russia signed off on protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, that’s an assurance that counterparties hold as binding.
As to “Russia’s 1,200 year old phobia of invasion,” Russia was doing plenty of invading itself in that time frame.
The form of government is a farce. The reality is as I have indicated
Russian form of government is a dictatorship. President elections feature potential candidates being jailed and killed for having even modest political following. Members of the Duma rubber-stamp even the craziest decisions of the dictator. Provinces’ governors are being appointed by the dictator and have unlimited powers. Judicial branches rubber-stamp every accusation against regime opposition with insane jail time. Look it up, Yasenevo troll!
nyt - seriously?
let them fight another year.
This time we should sell weapons to both sides...
maybe one will pay us?
True.
defeating the Aryan nazis on the eastern front at the cost of over 20 million lives.
Regarding the latter, perhaps their distrust and paranoia can be explained by the fact that many of the bellicose european political and military leaders today calling to literally break up and destroy Russia are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Aryan nazis and their collaborators.
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The Russians repelled the Nazi invasion, true, the Russians also repelled Napoleon’s invasion and would repel any other invasion. That is different than defeating the Nazis. Defeating the Nazis took a combination of the US, Britain, and the USSR. And yes, I am not blind to the existence of fascists in Europe. Europe is a lost cause if you ask me. Idiots all of them including Britain. With Hungary and Poland as notable exceptions.
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