Posted on 09/02/2025 5:49:55 AM PDT by McGruff
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that his country has never objected to Ukraine's membership in the European Union.
"As for Ukraine's membership in the EU, we have never objected to it. As for NATO, that is a different matter. Here we are talking about ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, and not just today," Putin said during a meeting with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, and added that Ukraine's membership in NATO is "unacceptable."
The Russian president told Fico that he does not want to put him in a "difficult dual position" by criticizing the EU and NATO, despite condemning the NATO countries earlier for saying that Moscow intends to "attack Europe."
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingthenews.net ...
“See Putin’s not such a bad guy.”
I don’t agree. Putin knows that if Ukraine joins the EU, the EU will go TOTALLY BROKE trying to bring that country to EU standards.
This is PURE EVIL on Putin’s part. If Ukraine joins, there will likely be no more EU.
Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe you have a point.
Sounds like he wants to destroy the EU - or, rather, hasten the destruction - by having Ukraine join.
Sure, what's left of Ukraine.
And what’s left of the EU...
None of Putin's business whether Ukraine joins the EU or NATO.
This is the problem with Putin, he believes Russia has the right to a sphere of influence, where Russia has a right to veto the sovereign political decisions of its neighbors.
I agree, :-)))
However, the negotiations between Ukraine and the EU regarding an Association agreement, was not as simple as that, and Russia/Putin did have some input. Russia had heavy trade with Ukraine - especially the eastern oblasts - and Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan were negotiating a customs union at the same time as the negotiations with the EU took place.
To be short and to the point, the EU did not allow Ukraine to have an agreement with Russia and at the same time make a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU. (Yes, that's the name!!!) Ukraine wanted to have a three part negotiation bewteen Ukraine, EU and Russia, but the EU refused. In the end Russia gave Ukraine a better offer than the EU and the Ukrainian government chose Russia.
As you know the EU and the US(- Deep State) couldn't agree with that. The Maidan and the putsch followed.
If the EU (with chief negotiator Fuele - pronounced fool!)had been less stubborn the Ukraine war could have been avoided. At least that is my opinion!
“In the end Russia gave Ukraine a better offer than the EU and the Ukrainian government chose Russia. As you know the EU and the US(- Deep State) couldn’t agree with that. The Maidan and the putsch followed.”
Yep, matches my understanding PERFECTLY. And we see it today. Hungary is the ‘bad boy’ of the EU, so what happens, the Neocons BOMB their oil supply in Russia (the Druzhba Pipeline), even though the pipeline doesn’t even carry Russian oil!
The Left plays hard...and God willing, they’ll be defeated.
Putin knows that if Ukraine joins the EU, the EU will go TOTALLY BROKE trying to bring that country to EU standards.
——————-
Vlad has stated from day one he had no problems with Ukie EU entry. However, the EU is going broke fast ( England and France are in discussions for an IMF bailout) and it is highly UNLIKELY they will admit a financial basket case like Ukraine that has a credit rating of “ D-“, and loaded with billions in debt.
In any case, the EU can throw more money down the Ukie toilet for what is left of Ukraine….current “ rebuilding” estimates are $$$ 500-600 billion, and growing every day. With EU sovereign debt crises boiling over, there simply is no money left.
Vlad won the financial war.
See my post #7.
Russia did not veto the EU association, but there were heavy negotiations between on one hand Russia vs Ukraine and on the other side EU vs Ukraine. Ukraine wanted a three part negotiation, but the EU refused, since they were certain they had the upper hand. In the end Russia gave a better offer - at least concerning the eastern parts of Ukraine - and remember those were the oblasts that had elected Yanukovich.
The EU, despite pretending to be for peace, showed itself totally incapable of understanding Ukraine’s position. It was not only that they had a powerful neighbour in Russia, but a large part of the country was dependent on its trade with Russia. Historically, linguistically, and religiously Ukraine was (and still is a severly divided country). Even if the idiots in the EU did not know this, it would have been enough to look at a map of the electoral outcomes the last several elections. But no, the “peace-project” helped to start the largest conflict in Europe since WWII.
(No, Putin is not without guilt. In the end it was he who started the invasion, but a civil-war had been raging since 2014!)
Agree fully! And God willing they will be defeated!
Right, because joining the Russian trade bloc (CIS), Russia, Belarus, Armenia, etc with its $9.40 trillion GDP is better than joining the EU, Germany, France, Italy, etc, with its $19.99 trillion GDP and much higher standard of living. Okay
It only took three years of the war Putin started and the Russian economy approaching recession for Putin to decide to allow Ukraine to exercise a little sovereignty. How generous of him.
Ukrainian president Yanukovych was elected on a pro-EU platform but after meeting Putin, suddenly announce Ukraine was going to join the Russian economic bloc(CIS)
Funny how the "civil" war, only started after Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine.
Russia's Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern Ukraine
Russian national Igor Strelkov, a former commander of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, has claimed personal responsibility for unleashing the conflict in which 4,300 people have been killed since April.
"I was the one who pulled the trigger of this war," Strelkov said in an interview published Thursday with Russia's Zavtra newspaper, which espouses imperialist views.
"If our unit hadn't crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out — like in [the Ukrainian city of] Kharkiv, like in Odessa," Strelkov, who uses that nom-de-guerre meaning "Shooter" to replace his last name Girkin, was quoted as saying.
"There would have been several dozen killed, burned, detained. And that would have been the end of it. But the flywheel of the war, which is continuing to this day, was spun by our unit. We mixed up all the cards on the table," he said.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/11/21/russias-igor-strelkov-i-am-responsible-for-war-in-eastern-ukraine-a41598
Tsk, tsk, tsk. A very facile argument. Sounds almost like the arguments we hear from the EU-socialists.
You may remember that it was only a few years before the EU/Ukraine trade negotiations we had experienced the Greek insolvency crisis. Greece had been a full member of the EU since 1981, and a member of the Eurozone since 2001. But despite the almost $20 trillion in EU GDP it did not stop Greece from ending up very close to bankruptcy.
Not so simple, is it?
As I've written a number of times, Ukraine wanted a three-party trade negotiation between Russia, EU, Ukraine. That is not strange given that a third of Ukraine's foreign trade was with Russia and another third with the European Union.
EU refused, and Russia helped with a loan to ward off the IMF. It's called negotiations.
Now, you are quite right that the EU Agreement contained a lot more political factors that the Russian surely would not have liked.
“Vlad won the financial war.”
Yes. Vlad robbed the working Russians to fund his retirement!
His alleged wealth is estimated to be a staggering $200 billion, originating from claims made by Bill Browder, a major investor in Russia during the 1990s. Browder testified before the US Senate in 2017 and said that he believes Putin’s net worth would make him among the wealthiest people on the planet.
Ukraine's choice was joining the EU or the Russian CIS.
Every elected Ukrainian president since 1991 has declared their goal to be joining the EU.
Those insolvent Greeks have a much higher standard of living than Russians.
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