“None of those countries listed were actual Russian territories”
You miss the point!
Putin argued he felt threatened by having a NATO nation on his border: Putin created a ‘counterfeit’ red-line.
The people in Donetsk identifying as Russian voted for an INDEPENDENT Ukraine. Putin manufactured propaganda to facilitate his pattern of “Transnistrian” policy ofcontrols ‘zones’ of frozen conflicts in Moldova (Transnistria region), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and NOW in the Ukraine annexed Crimean peninsula and the Donbas.
*** IMPORTANT NOTE
Russia uses this wider pattern of created separatist conflicts to create corruption and criminality as ‘Trojan horses’ to block progress in reform-minded periphery countries. This is the Russian tactics part of their geopolitical strategy creating conflict zones to prevent countries from entering NATO and integrating into the European Union.
CONFLICTS created by Russia is part of Russia imperialistic plan to regain strategic points of its LOST EMPIRE.
LAW
1. NATURAL LAW (Latin: lex naturalis) has A law is set by nature and therefore has validity everywhere [refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior.]
2. POSITIVE LAW has nothing to do with justice &
actually may represent STRONG INJUSTICE in dictatorships, i.e.dictatorships [Russia]
*** MOST IMPORTANTLY, positive law is “law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by statutes, codes, and regulations that have been enacted by a legislature for that government. MEANING, only applicable to Russia & not legal law for another nation or the world for that matter.
You state “This is not an emotional argument. It doesn’t care about the morality of the means by which the end is achieved.”
***You absolutely ignorE the fact that Russia will OCCUPY Ukraine codified only by Russian law. Again, RUSSIAN LAW IS ONLY CODIFIED FOR RUSSIA!!!
IN BOLDER WORDS, PUTIN DOES NOT RULE THE WORLD!
Why are you getting emotional about this? There is no emotion involved to understand what Russia is doing.
We don’t determine what Russias red lines are. Russians determine what they are. And I already told you Ukraine has a special significance if it went NATO: control of commodities and maritime lines of communication. It’s different than other countries strategically. Why are you having a problem with that?
I could give two shits what the Donetsk people want, or what propaganda was manufactured. I am looking (let me say this one last time) through a Russian viewpoint. I don’t argue the morality, I argue the reality of what is happening.
Russia doesn’t care about anything other than their laws. Positive? Natural? Really? Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. Four provinces will be annexed and they will be a part of the Russian Federation. In rapid fashion. Once the results are sent to Putin for signature, it’s done. From a Russian viewpoint, it will be enforced as if those provinces are a part of Russia. If that means nukes, then that is what that means. His newly minted 300K conscripts will be trained and deployed in about 2 months.
When winter hits, Europe will be in no condition to do anything about it because their countries will be starving and freezing to death. Not that they would anyway.