Posted on 07/08/2023 3:09:04 PM PDT by delta7
"The air is getting fresher and fresher ‘round here!"
Ukraine threads draw out pro-Ukros like flies.
Since I educated myself about Ukraine since before the Maidan color revoltion in 2014, I am know the reality. Why don’t others? Because they don’t want to know the truth. Maybe if I have time today I’ll amuse myself by posting on this thread....
"Good keeper"
It’s kabuki theater. Putin and Xi Jinping are allies. Xi Jinping and Klaus Schwab are buddies. Biden does the bidding to both Schwab and China. Schwab is a communist. China is communist. Democrats are communist. Start to see the picture?
This war is to drain America and it’s allies of money and weapons so when China takes over, there’s little in it’s way.
I have no direct knowledge to verify it, but I would not be surprised if NATO recruits to meet it's plans.
LOL
NATO doesn’t need to recruit new members when Russia is driving their neighbors to join up.
Sweden was staying out until Russia flew nuclear armed aircraft into Swedish airspace to threaten them. Finland was staying out until Putin started talking about invading them.
Putin is NATO’s #1 recruiter if you want to look at it that way.
He has impact, I agree there.
Whether nato recruits is unknowable from the outside.
A parliament that had over a hundred members absent, and that could not register an actual impeachment of Yanukovich because they lacked the necessary number of votes to do so.
I mean, I'm sure a unanimous vote to remove Yanukovich had *nothing* to do with the fact that Euromaidan protestors in Kiev numbered in the tens of thousands, had gained de facto control of numerous administrative buildings, and had already signalled their dissatisfaction with the February 21 compromise deal (via vocal boos and official communications from Right Sector). The threat of getting swarmed by an unhappy mob had no impact on the Rada's decision (much less those who decided to skip town entirely), surely. /s
They could have freely participated in the following two elections if it were not for the Russian military occupation.
When the political entities that previously represented the majority of your interests get undemocratically ousted, I'm sure the prospect of voting becomes less appealing.
Canonically speaking, the newer Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has less support from the various Orthodox churches globally than the Ukranian Orthodox Church (UOC), which you so uncharitably describe as merely the Russian Orthodox Church. The UOC, as I'm sure you know, severed communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in protest of the Russian invasion.
However, as far as Zelensky is concerned, that apparently wasn't enough. And now churches and religious sites held by the UOC for centuries are being suppressed by the Ukrainian government, and given control over to the OCU in spite of vocal clerical and lay opposition.
But it's all okay "because Russia", right?
After all, Roosevelt forcibly put Japanese Americans into internment camps in WW II and there was no Jap army ravishing a large part of the US like the Russians are doing to Ukraine.
And our government's official position was that the forced re-interment of American citizens of Japanese descent (regardless of loyalty) was wrong, as per a bill signed in 1988 by Ronald Reagan.
Of course Russia's military invasion in 2014 precluded any attempt at a political resolution. But I guess that is OK because they are Russians.
Crimea was annexed after entities openly hostile to Russian interests claimed political power in Ukraine.
Notwithstanding whether or not the people of Crimea were okay with said annexation (because some sources say yes, others no, and the remainder are more ambiguous): given that Crimea holds Russia's only year-wound warm-water port (historically speaking), it is no surprise that Russia would seek to guarantee access to Sevastopol in the brief power vacuum that resulted after the Maidan Revolution.
Any other country in an analogous situation (America included) with an interest in power projection and being a Great Power would have done the same.
Brief addendum: it should go without saying that the Donbass was not annexed in 2014.
What a complete rationalization. Friendly and hostile governments come and go in all countries. Ukraine is not a vassal state of Russia in which Russia has the right to a friendly government. Nor was Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol threatened by the new government. Rather, Putin coveted Crimea and used the events in 2014 as an excuse to grab it. Overall, as he has indicated in multiple addresses, Putin does not accept Ukrainian independence and wishes to correct Lenin’s big mistake and reabsorb it back into Russia, regardless of the Ukrainians’ desire for independence. Everything else is just an excuse for this ambition.
Not officially, but it was militarily occupied by Russia under the guise of indigenous separatist militias. By its actions Russia precluded any chance of a political solution for any legitimate grievances.
Of course it's a rationalization; sometimes we ourselves oust hostile governments in favor of (hopefully, but not always successfully) more friendly ones, depending on the circumstances. It does not render the underlying geopolitical reality any less true.
Ukraine is not a vassal state of Russia in which Russia has the right to a friendly government.
Countries which lie between more powerful nations can either play the game of neutrality wisely, or decide to poke at one Great Power in the hopes that another Great Power(s) will come to their aid (even if it's not in the interests of the other Great Power(s)). This is the historical reality, whether we like it or not.
Nor was Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol threatened by the new government. Rather, Putin coveted Crimea and used the events in 2014 as an excuse to grab it.
Strange, then, that Putin decided in 2010 to extend the lease of Crimea's naval facilities from 2017 to 2042; said lease had been in existence since 1997. One might think that the Maidan Revolution (and the West's involvement in same) in 2014 changed Russia's political calculus with regards to Crimea (especially given that the infamous 'little green men' didn't show up in Crimea until days after Yanukovych was ousted), but you might consider that too obvious an observation.
Overall, as he has indicated in multiple addresses, Putin does not accept Ukrainian independence and wishes to correct Lenin’s big mistake and reabsorb it back into Russia, regardless of the Ukrainians’ desire for independence. Everything else is just an excuse for this ambition.
Until the pro-Russian government was ousted during the Maidan Revolution in 2014, Putin seemed content at letting Ukraine be an independent nation. However, when a historically antagonistic military alliance (that being NATO) continues to send signals via overtures to Ukraine's government that its continued eastward extension to Russia's borders (which has long been declared a red line across the Russian political spectrum since the '90s) is of high probability, that only increases the likelihood of Russia using political, economic, and military force to secure its interests in Ukraine (much like America has with the Monroe Doctrine).
But I digress: this whole mess is just another continuation of a longstanding ethnic feud amongst the Slavs. I maintain that America had no reasonable geopolitical interest motivating involvement with one side or the other; if bleeding out Russia was truly so important to our national security, then Congress should have drafted a declaration of war against Russia. (But we know why that would never happen.)
Instead, we seem content at depopulating our military's equipment stores so that Ukraine can fight to the last Ukrainian.
Well said
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